Jim Perry (November 9, 1933 – November 20, 2015) was an American-Canadian television game show host, singer, announcer, and performer in the 1970s and 1980s.
Perry enjoyed success on both Canadian and American television. He was the host of the American game shows ''
Card Sharks
''Card Sharks'' is an American television game show. It was created by Chester Feldman for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. Contestants attempt to predict the outcome of survey questions to gain control of a row of oversized playing cards ...
'' and ''
$ale of the Century'', as well as the Canadian game shows ''
Definition
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definitio ...
'' and ''
Headline Hunters''. Perry was also the host of the
Miss Canada pageant in the 1970s and 1980s.
Early career
Perry was born James Edward Dooley
in
Camden, New Jersey
Camden is a City (New Jersey), city in Camden County, New Jersey, Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan region. The city was incorporated on February 13, 1828.Snyder, John P''The Story of ...
. His mother, Genevieve Perry, was a record-holding swimmer, as well as a known
marathon dancer. His father, Edward Dooley, was a musician. While briefly attending
Amador Valley High School in
Pleasanton, California, Perry was an outstanding
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...
player thanks in part to his height (at 6'4" or 193 cm); he graduated in 1952. He was often nicknamed "Big Jim" because of his height.
Perry started out as a singer in
Special Services after college at
Penn, working on
Armed Forces Radio during the
Korean War
The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
. After the service, he worked for a short time at
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston.
Over the year ...
and then replaced
Eddie Fisher as the staff vocalist at
Grossingers in the
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined a ...
and later did comedy working with
Sid Caesar as his
straight man for several years (which included a four-year stint with Caesar in Las Vegas). Perry appeared in three syndicated specials with Caesar titled "As Caesar Sees It" which aired during the 1962–63 season. These were under his birth name of Jim Dooley. Due to a name conflict with AFTRA, he adopted his mother's maiden name of Perry shortly after beginning his television work.
His first appearance as a TV host came in Canada with the popular game show ''
Fractured Phrases'' (1965). Afterwards he presided over several other game shows, including ''
Eye Bet'' and
''The Money Makers'' (also called ''Bingo at Home''), the latter also airing on syndicated television in some US markets for 13 weeks in 1969. Although Perry was American by birth, he and his family emigrated to Canada in the early 1970s and moved back to the U.S. in the late 1970s when he was hired to host ''
Card Sharks
''Card Sharks'' is an American television game show. It was created by Chester Feldman for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. Contestants attempt to predict the outcome of survey questions to gain control of a row of oversized playing cards ...
''.
Perry also served as an announcer for ''That Show'' starring
Joan Rivers
Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedienne, actress, producer, writer and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona that w ...
, a short-lived two-month series that aired in 1969 on syndicated television. He also appeared in a few television commercials, including one for
Morton Salt. From 1969 to 1972, he was a weekend overnight DJ at
WABC radio in New York City. In 1974, Perry became the announcer of the
CTV game show ''
Definition
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definitio ...
'', a
Hangman-based, pre–''
Wheel of Fortune'' series which would become the longest-running game show in Canadian television history. After a few weeks of announcing the show, Perry moved from the announcer position to hosting (replacing original host Bob McLean), and remained there until the show ended its run in 1989. Perry hosted another long-running weekly nighttime game show, ''
Headline Hunters'', which lasted from 1972 until 1983.
Perry presided as emcee of the annual
Miss Canada Pageant, a job he held from 1967 until 1990, about the same length of time his U.S. counterpart
Bob Barker presided over the
Miss USA Pageant on
CBS. Like
Bert Parks in the United States, Perry, a talented singer, would sing the pageant's closing song, "The Fairest Girl in Canada", soon after the new Miss Canada was crowned. This practice, however, ended in the 1980s. Again,
Dave Devall worked alongside Perry as the pageant's off-screen announcer. While hosting the 1975 Miss Canada pageant, during a commercial break, a female protester hit Perry with a packet of flour while on camera, claiming that the pageant was sexist. Perry, though shaken from the incident, regained his composure and continued on with the broadcast.
Perry's first major American network hosting tenure came in 1967, with a short-lived
charades-type game called ''
It's Your Move''. The series was produced in Canada for
syndication in the United States. Another game show also produced in Canada for syndicated TV in the U.S., ''
The Moneymakers'' (a game based on
Bingo), aired in 1969, originally titled ''Bingo at Home'', in which contestants and home viewers had a chance to win money (albeit less than $100 at a time) and in some years his co-host was Dominique Dufour, Miss Canada 1981.
Stardom as an emcee
His biggest break in the United States came in 1978 when
NBC and
Mark Goodson–
Bill Todman Productions cast him for their new show ''
Card Sharks
''Card Sharks'' is an American television game show. It was created by Chester Feldman for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. Contestants attempt to predict the outcome of survey questions to gain control of a row of oversized playing cards ...
''. Perry hosted the entire NBC version and the two pilots that preceded the series, airing from April 24, 1978, until October 23, 1981. This series helped Perry begin a long association with NBC, lasting more than a decade. Perry was twice considered as host for the daytime and the nighttime revival of ''Card Sharks'' in 1986, but due to his commitments with NBC and CTV, the daytime version aired on
CBS and was given to
Bob Eubanks, and the nighttime version was hosted by
Bill Rafferty.
In 1982,
NBC named Perry host of ''
$ale of the Century,'' a revived version of the 1969–1973 series, airing from January 3, 1983, until March 24, 1989. For more than six seasons, he presided over the fast-paced Q&A game. Starting in January 1985, he added a third hosting gig to his resume, taking the reins of a nightly syndicated ''$ale of the Century'' that ran until September 1986.
His style and sensational salesmanship helped to make the show a big hit for the network in the last golden era of game shows, and it made Perry one of the top game show personalities of the 1980s in the United States. Not forgetting the time he spent with
Sid Caesar, Perry would often tell jokes related to some of the questions asked on ''$ale''. During his tenure at NBC, Perry appeared in the made-for-TV movie ''The Great American Traffic Jam'' (1980) along with fellow game show hosts
Wink Martindale,
Jack Clark, and
Art James.
Perry hosted approximately ten different game shows (including unsold pilots) in a career that spanned about 25 years. He was also involved in charitable causes, both in Southern California and Canada, and was a regular host of the annual ''
Telemiracle''
telethon
A telethon (a portmanteau of "television" and "marathon") is a televised fundraising event that lasts many hours or days, the purpose of which is to raise money for a charitable, political or other cause.
Most telethons feature heavy solicitatio ...
in Saskatchewan for many years in support of the
Kinsmen Clubs in that province. His daughter Erin also appeared on several of these telethons, and on one occasion they performed a song together.
Retirement
Perry retired in 1990. In later years he authored two
self-awareness
In philosophy of self, philosophy, self-awareness is the awareness and reflection of one's own personality or individuality, including traits, feelings, and behaviors. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While ...
books, titled ''The Sleeper Awakes, A Journey to Self-Awareness'' (1991) and ''There's Gotta Be a Pony: Considerations on a Journey of Mastery'' (2012), and appeared in a few
infomercials
An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of di ...
(mostly produced by his daughter Erin and
Pat Finn). In 1991, he made a walk-on appearance on the game show ''Studs'' (host
Mark DeCarlo was a contestant on ''$ale of the Century'' in 1985).
In 1994, Perry hosted a pilot for a lottery game show titled ''Cash Tornado'' for
Mark Goodson Productions. Taped at CBS Television City's Studio 33 on the same set as ''
The New Price Is Right'', the pilot was not tied to a specific lottery but would have featured three different qualifier tickets for any lottery that chose to buy the show. Three players, one representing each game (one of whom was
Roger Dobkowitz), played a series of games culminating with the game Avalanche, where the winner could win up to $100,000 on top of what they won earlier. The format did not sell (though it was used as the basis for other lottery game shows, most notably ''
Illinois Instant Riches''), but a highlight reel used to pitch the show was later discovered and posted on
Wink Martindale's YouTube page as part of his ongoing "Wink's Vault" series on August 1, 2015.
Personal life
Perry met his wife June during his time at Grossingers. She later became a
top model with the
Eileen Ford agency and later, during their time in Canada, ran her own gallery business as well. She operated her own pottery and gallery, Shambhala Pottery in
Bakersville, North Carolina.
The couple celebrated their 50th
wedding anniversary
A wedding anniversary is the anniversary of the date that a wedding took place. Couples often mark the occasion by celebrating their relationship, either privately or with a larger party. Special celebrations and gifts are often given for partic ...
on June 29, 2009.
Their son, Sean Perry, is a television producer and was a partner in Endeavor, a
Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...
–based talent agency. Their daughter, Erin Perry, worked with Bob Stewart Productions as an associate producer to ''
The $25,000 Pyramid'', and also served with
Pat Finn's production company, In-Finn-ity Productions, as its vice-president.
Following retirement, Jim and June Perry made Oregon and North Carolina their homes, with
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 in Oregon, Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population w ...
, being their final residence.
Death
In 2010, Perry was diagnosed with cancer. He died from the disease on November 20, 2015, 11 days after his 82nd birthday.
References
External links
*
IMDB entry for Erin Perry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perry, Jim
1933 births
2015 deaths
Deaths from cancer in Oregon
American game show hosts
American emigrants to Canada
Musicians from Camden, New Jersey
People from Pleasanton, California
Beauty pageant hosts
CTV Television Network people
Canadian game show hosts
NBCUniversal people
Sale of the Century
University of Pennsylvania alumni
People from Ashland, Oregon