Who would have thought that a modestly talented afternoon television talk show host would eventually become not only a media mogul, but one of the top players in the hotel/casino business? Probably no one. But it happened and the legacy of Merv Griffin, both on television and in the casino business, lives on 18 years after his passing in 2007.
Griffin’s first brush with fame came by way of his stint with the popular, “sweet” band of Freddy Martin, which began in 1948. Though the big band era was winding down by 1948, sweet, danceable, commercial outfits like Martin, Guy Lombardo and Sammy Kaye continued to be successful. A year after Griffin joined Martin, he recorded the novelty, “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts,” which ultimately sold around 3 million copies.
From there, he became a contract player at Warner Bros. film studios and he landed a few minor roles. Griffin, always a visionary, saw that he had no future in feature films and set his sights on television. His warm, engaging and non-threatening presence was perfect for the small screen and by 1954, he was co-hosting a CBS variety program, “Summer Holiday.”
His visibility as a television personality was cemented via his tenure as host of the game show, “Play Your Hunch,” which ran from 1958 through 1962. It was during that period that he became interested in coming up with various game show concepts and producing them. He created and produced “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune,” among others.
His entrée into talk shows began in 1965 with a talk fest syndicated by Westinghouse. Four years later, he moved to CBS and was pegged to go up against Johnny Carson in the late-night talk show wars. That lasted until 1972 – in those days, no one could beat Carson – and then he returned to a syndicated afternoon format, which was very successful and lasted until 1986.
Flush with cash from the success of his game shows and his talk shows, Griffin first ventured into real estate in 1987 when he bought The Beverly Hilton Hotel. He then set his sights on Atlantic City’s Resorts International Hotel and Casino as well as Resorts property on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, then both owned by Donald Trump. The rather complicated Atlantic City transaction, which turned into a “battle of the real estate moguls,” with the moguls being Griffin and Trump, played out in the media for weeks.
It’s difficult to simplify the terms of the deal, but as a part of the agreement, Trump bought back Resorts’ $273 million investment in his still-being-built Taj Mahal. There was talk at the time that Trump wanted to take Resorts private, but in the end, he sold it to Griffin in 1988 for $365 million (plus Resorts’ $925 million in assumed debt). Note that the year before, Trump bought Resorts for $101 million. Talk about the art of the deal.
Griffin’s first two orders of business upon completion of the deal with Trump were to invest about $90 million in upgrading the Resorts property and to sell the Paradise Island hotel/casino to an outfit called Sun International Hotels.
Despite his financial and show business savvy, Resorts lost $46 million in the first year of operation and declared bankruptcy in December of 1989. But Griffin made it work. His name value – the venue was called Merv Griffin’s Resorts – was substantial and what eventually made it somewhat successful after a rocky beginning. It was, said casino analysts at the time, because Griffin “ran it as a show business venture.”
And what a show business venture it was.
He appeared in television commercials hyping Resorts and booked an incredible number of performers who were new to Atlantic City or appeared on the Boardwalk rarely, including Barry Manilow, The Beach Boys, Dionne Warwick, Davy Jones, Robert Goulet, Aretha Franklin, Rosemary Clooney, Whitney Houston and members of his swinging house band headed by trumpeter/comic foil Jack Sheldon. The tourists showed up in droves, if only to hopefully catch a glimpse of their beloved Mervyn.
Atlantic City musicians who worked there while Griffin was at the helm had nothing but good things to say about him, and they enjoyed the amount and diversity of work Griffin’s ownership provided. As a veteran of the big bands as a singer, as well as a passable jazz pianist, Merv Griffin loved the music, and loved musicians. He treated them with nothing but respect.
Veteran television broadcaster John Kosich spent some time covering Griffin during Griffin’s Resorts years. He gave a few examples of how Griffin worked in those days.
“Merv Griffin’s ties to Atlantic City ran deep beginning back with his days playing the Steel Pier as a singer with the Freddy Martin Band,” Kosich wrote in his blog. “He was always looking to recreate a little of that magic at Resorts starting with his Coconut Ballroom 4th of July shows. Each year he and Jack Sheldon would headline a week of shows with additional guests like Rosemary Clooney. This wasn’t a show where you watched but participated, dancing at the foot of the stage.
“The success of that led Merv to lament that there was no real successor to Guy Lombardo’s New Year’s Eve shows. What he was seeing on TV each New Year’s Eve were specials geared more for the Top 40 crowd who, in his mind, were probably out at the clubs anyway. So he decided to begin putting on his own nationally televised New Year’s Eve show from Resorts.
“He struck a partnership with the other casinos to borrow their headliners for an hour to have them perform, and in turn, he gave his competing casinos, and the city itself, national exposure.”
But by the late 1990s he was ready to move on. He sold Griffin Gaming and Entertainment, which included Resorts, in 1998 to Sun International Hotels for $350 million. He wasn’t out of the business entirely, however, as he continued to acquire hotels. His estimated net worth, circa 2003, was said to be $1.2 billion.
That’s a lovely bunch of coconuts, for sure.
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and performs both as a drummer and vocalist.
