A biography for Regis Philbinhasn’t been written yet.
“When you're a co-host, you've got to consider what the other person is saying and take the next step and get the laugh or get to the end of the story. You've got to make it happen and then move on to the next story.”
“I never knew if I had any talent when I started in this business.”
“Three coaches at Notre Dame made a big difference in my life, not that I played any football when I attended Notre Dame. But Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, and Lou Holtz - they all made a difference to me, and I respected them for their attitudes about life and how they handled loss.”
“A great listener - that was my talent!”
“I would do the morning show and then just walk over to the network side of the building here at ABC in New York and sit down and start it up again and introduce the 10 contestants, and then introduce the 10 - the fastest finger question, and pick one of them, put them in the seat before you finally got to asking them the questions.”
“My first job was being a page at 'The Tonight Show.' I saw Jack Paar come out one night and sit on the edge of his desk and talk about what he'd done the night before. I thought, 'I can do that!' I used to do that on a street corner in the Bronx with all my buddies.”
“You know, I never knew if I had any talent when I started in this business. My first job was being a page at The Tonight Show. I saw Jack Paar come out one night and sit on the edge of his desk and talk about what he'd done the night before. I thought, 'I can do that!' I used to do that on a street corner in the Bronx with all my buddies.”
“Is that your final answer? Here in New York garbage men, bus drivers, taxi cab drivers, bus drivers, whoever, you know, people just yell it out to me. So that was a lot of fun.”
“Kathie Lee and I were working together on our 'Live' morning show when she started dating Frank. I always loved trying to get her to tell me about her new romance, and it wasn't long before we were watching them take their vows in front of close friends in Southhampton.”
“Is that your final answer?”
“The shock I had, from moving from L.A. to New York, you know, whether you live in an apartment, whether you like to or not, it's cramped, it's crowded and it needs - guess what - a renovation.”
“I missed so many opportunities along the way to do what I wanted to do because I didn't have the confidence to tell myself, much less anybody else, 'Yes, this is the business I wanted to be a part of, and not feeling that I had the talent... and letting it go all the way through Notre Dame and then through two years of Navy service.”
“Spontaneity is everything to me, working without a net.”
“I majored in sociology and never took a single music-related course, much less any kind of class in public speaking - no confidence for it, none - yet I still had a passion for it that burned inside me.”