Johnny Gilbert
John L. Gilbert III is an American show business personality who has worked mainly on television game shows. Originally a nightclub singer and entertainer, he has hosted and announced a number of game shows from various eras, dating as far back as the 1950s. He is known primarily for his work as the announcer and audience host for the syndicated version of the quiz show Jeopardy!.
Early life
Gilbert was born in Newport News, Virginia. He began performing by singing as a boy in his hometown Lutheran Church choir. Although his parents had never worked in the theatrical profession themselves, his grandmother had been a church singer.While he was still in high school, Gilbert decided to take up a professional singing career and learned from an opera teacher. Although he never sang any opera independently, he was the regular vocalist with Shelly Harmon and His Orchestra, a group which toured the Virginia area.
Career
Stage and early television career
A few years after graduating from high school, Gilbert heard about an audition as regular vocalist for the Dean Hudson Orchestra which was being conducted in Jacksonville, Florida. Unfortunately, Gilbert was confused about the dates and upon his arrival, he learned that the position had already been filled.However, a local agent in Jacksonville needed a master of ceremonies for the Sky Way club there. Gilbert was asked if he was an emcee, but was unaware of what an emcee was, as in Virginia there were no clubs at the time, and he had never lived outside that state. While he was trying to figure everything out, the agent told him that he had received his job as emcee. Gilbert resided in Florida for three months, during which time he received on-the-job training, and learned to walk on stage, speak in front of a public crowd, and tell jokes and stories.
The Dead End Kids, a group which comprised such young actors as Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and Gabriel Dell, were organizing a revue. Gilbert joined the group and played throughout the southwestern portion of the United States for sixteen weeks. When they played in Norfolk, Virginia, Gilbert himself even got special billing.
In the 1950s, Gilbert joined the United States Army's Seventh Army Special Services in Germany, and was cast as the lead in , an original musical comedy inspired in part by the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem Kubla Khan, which chronicled Marco Polo's trip to China. The company toured throughout Western Europe, performing for an audience of servicemen and civilians alike.
After resigning from the service and returning to the United States, Gilbert continued singing and hosting in clubs throughout the nation. However, one day, when a manager of a well-known group in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania asked Gilbert if he was interested in auditioning for television, he accepted that offer, and came to receive his first television assignment as a singer and emcee on WDSU in New Orleans.
Hosting
Gilbert went to New York City, where he was quickly signed with the William Morris Agency and shortly thereafter, in 1958, received his first job on national television—as the host of a newly created game show titled Music Bingo. The show ran for three years, airing first on NBC and then on ABC. His popularity on that show led him to record an album and several singles. From there, Gilbert went on to emcee the local game show Words and Music on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles.Gilbert was later contacted by Avco Broadcasting to host his own local talk/variety show, The Johnny Gilbert Show, which aired on WLWD-TV in Dayton, Ohio and three other Avco stations in Ohio and Indiana. The show was a 90-minute, live telecast running 5 days a week. It included celebrity guests and a 60-person studio audience. He continued with that show for two years, until he left Dayton on short notice to move to New York, where he became the host of the Metromedia-produced game show Fast Draw. His slot was then given to Phil Donahue, who at that time was working as a reporter in WLWD-TV's news department.
Following his year-long run on Fast Draw, Gilbert was contacted by Bing Crosby Productions to host the game show Beat the Odds, produced in Los Angeles by Bill Carruthers. Afterward, he went on to host a local, weekday version of Dialing for Dollars on Los Angeles's KCOP-TV.
Announcing
In 1963, Gilbert was selected by Mark Goodson to replace Don Pardo as the announcer and audience host for the original Bill Cullen-hosted version of The Price Is Right when it moved from NBC to ABC. He hosted the show for the absent Bill Cullen on June 19, 1964. Gilbert also served as the announcer and audience host for Dinah Shore's syndicated daily talk show, which ran from 1974 until 1980.When Merv Griffin's quiz show Jeopardy! was re-introduced to television in 1984 as a daily syndicated program hosted by Alex Trebek, Gilbert was selected as the show's new announcer, a role he has held ever since, although in recent years Gilbert has reduced his schedule and is replaced by the show's Clue Crew member Sarah Whitcomb Foss for selected sessions. However, when Foss is announcing for the live audience, Gilbert's voice is added in post-production. He has become well known for opening each of the show's nightly episodes with the announcement, "This is Jeopardy!" In 2017 Gilbert was honored by the Guinness World Records for having the longest career as a game show announcer for a single show, after 32 years with Jeopardy! This was commemorated in a unique on-screen appearance by Gilbert just before the Final Jeopardy segment of the episode aired September 28, 2017. He has also been the main voice announcer for most of the Jeopardy video games dating back to 1992, including a few game versions where he voiced all of the clues and effectively hosted the entire game off-screen in lieu of Trebek.
Currently, he is second only behind Pardo as the oldest working television personality with a regular role at age 95 as of January 2020.
In addition to announcing for Jeopardy!, Gilbert has also worked as a guest announcer on that program's sister show, Wheel of Fortune. He announced on the episode that aired on April Fools' Day in 1997, as well as a few weeks of episodes in 2010 following the death of the show's longtime announcer, Charlie O'Donnell. Gilbert also guest announced on Wheel in late 1995, when O'Donnell was ill. He also guest announced on the daytime show in 1988 prior to the death of then-regular announcer Jack Clark.
Other game shows for which Gilbert has announced over the decades include The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime; The $25,000 Pyramid; The $100,000 Pyramid; Anything for Money; Blackout; Camouflage; Chain Reaction; Dream House; Every Second Counts; Fantasy; Go; Headline Chasers ; Jackpot; Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time; The Joker's Wild; Make Me Laugh; Perfect Match; Quiz Kids Challenge; Sports Challenge; Supermarket Sweep; Tic-Tac-Dough; Win, Lose or Draw; and Yours for a Song.
He substituted for Gene Wood on several Goodson-Todman game shows, including Family Feud, the CBS version of Card Sharks, and Child's Play. He succeeded Rich Jeffries as permanent announcer of Chuck Woolery's game show Love Connection during the 1988–89 season.
Other roles
Gilbert's voice was heard on the CBS television special Circus of the Stars, in People's Choice Awards and Emmy Awards ceremonies, and on episodes of the animated series The Angry Beavers and Johnny Bravo. He announced a fictional episode of Jeopardy! in the "Ellen's Energy Adventure" show at EPCOT Center's Universe of Energy attraction, and appeared in a subplot of the 1992 movie White Men Can't Jump in which a character played by Rosie Perez attempted to pass the Jeopardy! auditions. Gilbert also lent his voice to an announcer in a 1989 episode of the TV series 227.He also announced in The Golden Girls episode “Questions and Answers” and in the Cheers episode “What Is... Cliff Clavin?”.