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    “Inside the Actors Studio” host James Lipton dies at 93

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments1330 Views
    This June 14, 2007 file photo shows James Lipton with the Lifetime Achievement Awards from The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' 34th Annual Daytime Creative Arts & Entertainment Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Lipton died Monday, March 2, 2020, of bladder cancer at his New York home. He was 93. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)
    NEW YORK (AP) --

    James Lipton, longtime host of "Inside the Actors Studio," died Monday, his wife said. 

    Lipton died of bladder cancer at his New York home, his wife, Kedakai Lipton, told the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter. He was 93. 

    Lipton interviewed hundreds of master actors and Hollywood luminaries for nearly 25 years on Bravo's "Inside the Actors Studio." 

    The Detroit-born Lipton was an actor-turned-academic who became an unlikely talk show host and celebrity when he began the show in 1994 that also served as a class for his students at the Actors Studio, where he was dean. 

    His first guest was Paul Newman, and future guests would include Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Glenn Close, Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand. 

    Lipton said his favorite guest on the show was Bradley Cooper, because he was a former student. 

    "The night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair would be the night that I have waited for since we started this thing," Lipton told Larry King in 2016. "It turned out to be Bradley Cooper." 

    Lipton and Cooper, who can be seen asking Sean Penn a question in a 1999 episode of the show, both teared up when he returned as a guest in 2011. 

    Tags:BravoInside the Actors StudioJames Lipton



    Chuck Woolery, host of “Love Connection” and “Scrabble,” dies at 83

    Sunday, November 24, 2024
    Chuck Woolery hosts a special premiere of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007, in Las Vegas. (Ronda Churchill/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

    Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of "Wheel of Fortune," "Love Connection" and "Scrabble" who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19, has died. He was 83.

    Mark Young, Woolery's podcast co-host and friend, said in an email early Sunday that Woolery died at his home in Texas with his wife, Kristen, present. "Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him," Young wrote.

    Woolery, with his matinee idol looks, coiffed hair and ease with witty banter, was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in 2007 and earned a daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.

    In 1983, Woolery began an 11-year run as host of TV's "Love Connection," for which he coined the phrase, "We'll be back in two minutes and two seconds," a two-fingered signature dubbed the "2 and 2." In 1984, he hosted TV's "Scrabble," simultaneously hosting two game shows on TV until 1990.

    "Love Connection," which aired long before the dawn of dating apps, had a premise that featured either a single man or single woman who would watch audition tapes of three potential mates and then pick one for a date.

    A couple of weeks after the date, the guest would sit with Woolery in front of a studio audience and tell everybody about the date. The audience would vote on the three contestants, and if the audience agreed with the guest's choice, "Love Connection" would offer to pay for a second date.

    Woolery told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2003 that his favorite set of lovebirds was a man aged 91 and a woman aged 87. "She had so much eye makeup on, she looked like a stolen Corvette. He was so old he said, 'I remember wagon trains.' The... Read More

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