Talk show host, singer Mike Douglas dead at 81
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mike Douglas, the affable big band singer who for two decades hosted a parade of America's biggest stars and newsmakers on his top-rated daytime talk show, died on Friday on his 81st birthday, friends said.
Douglas, an Irish tenor on the verge of quitting show business before landing the TV show that made him a household name, died at a hospital in North Palm Beach, Florida, according to business associate Bob Patterson.
Patterson said he had no details about the circumstances of the entertainer's death.
Born Michael Dowd in Chicago in 1925, he began singing professionally as a teenager, and after serving in the Navy during World War Two joined bandleader Kay Kayser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge as a featured vocalist.
It was Kayser who gave him his stage name, unexpectedly introducing the young singer as Mike Douglas during a performance.
During his stint with Kayser's band, Douglas recorded such hits as "Ole Buttermilk Sky" and "The Old Lamplighter," and he later supplied the singing voice for Prince Charming in the Disney animated fairy-tale classic "Cinderella."
Subsequently hired as a "staff singer" by NBC, Douglas went on to land his own TV show at a Cleveland TV station just as he was considering getting out of show business. "The Mike Douglas Show" debuted in 1961 as a local program and was soon syndicated nationally, moving first to Philadelphia and later to Burbank, California.
Airing weekdays until 1982, the series was the top-rated daytime talk show for most of its run and attracted the biggest names in entertainment, pop culture and politics, all welcomed in the easy-going, warm style that was Douglas' trademark as a host. Continued...
Say hello to Jack, Steve, Johnny, Dinah and all your old big band friends. May you rest in peace with great music playing all the time.
Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, who once was executive producer of Douglas' show, remembered him as "one of the great television performers of the 20th century whose versatility is unmatched in today's entertainment world."
"Everyone who came into contact with Mike learned something from his immense talent. He loved show business and the audience loved him," Ailes said in a statement Friday.
Tim Brooks, television historian and executive vice president of research for Lifetime Television Network, said Douglas was "an outgrowth on the 1950s mentality of politeness."
"Even when America was getting kind of angry in the 1960s and 1970s, his show was sort of an oasis of politeness," Brooks said. "It got you away from some of the turmoil in life."
"He was a genuine nice guy," longtime friend Larry King said Friday on CNN. "It was easy to be around him. He had a relaxed measure about him, and he also had an incredible ability to get great guests." ... More
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