Garry Moore (born Thomas Garrison Morfit; January 31, 1915 – November 28, 1993) was an American entertainer, comedic personality, game show host, and humorist best known for his work in television.
He spent the last years of his life in Hilton Head, South Carolina and at his summer home in Northeast Harbor in Maine.
Morfit / Moore's alma mater was with a notable reputation (still in the 2020s) and the third oldest public secondary school in America, founded 1839).
During his City College years he was very active in the extensive theater and drama / comedy / musical program's and was often written about in the school's publications.
[4][5] Decades later in 1971 he returned to his hometown for a nostalgic tour and reminiscing interviews in the other local daily paper 'The Sun' for a Sunday magazine photo-spread and the City College student newspaper 'The Collegian' plus being photoed in front of the landmark hilltop "Castle on the Hill" stone cathedral-like structure of Collegiate Gothic architecture with 150-foot tall bells / clock tower, the prominent structure visible around for miles at the center of the B.C.C.
's large park-like campus on "Collegian Hill" He was elected to the alumni / faculty BCC Hall of Fame and still wore his gift Castle gold ring in his elder years.
Beginning in 1937, Morfit worked for the then decade-old Baltimore radio station WBAL, owned by the Hearst Corporation and affiliated with NBC's Red Network, as an announcer, writer and actor/comedian.
The show's host, Ransom Sherman, held a contest to find a more easily pronounceable name for the young Baltimore announcer.
[11] Impressed with his ability to interact with audiences, the competing and older Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) offered him his own show on the new visual medium.
[12] Between 1947 and 1950, Moore began to make tentative steps into the new medium as a panelist and guest host on quiz and musical shows.
[6] The Garry Moore Show featured regular supporting cast members Durward Kirby,[13] Marion Lorne, Denise Lor, and Ken Carson, as well as a mixture of song-and-dance routines and comedy skits.
Michel de la Vega then stood on top of Moore's body showing how rigid it had become in a matter of minutes.
On an episode of the show that September, guests Viola and Stephen Armstrong appeared with the secret that their son Neil had been selected as an astronaut by NASA that day.
Speaking with the Armstrongs after the panel guessed their secret, Moore asked them "How would you feel if it turns out, because nobody knows, that your son is the first man to land on the moon?
[13] The successful Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour replaced The Garry Moore Show in the CBS time slot.
[21] Moore then made sporadic television guest appearances such as cameos on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, reunions with Carol Burnett on her program, and serving as a panelist on various game shows, before Mark Goodson asked him to host another series.
[1] When To Tell the Truth was planned to be revived for syndication, producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman originally wanted Bud Collyer to host the show once again.
[23] In 1944, Moore recorded six of his radio monologues for Decca, including his classic “Hugh, the Blue Gnu”, his triple-time speed reading of “Little Red Riding Hood”, and a calamity-filled version of “In the Good Old Summertime”.
[26] In 1965, he also narrated two children's classics for orchestra back-to-back on a single Westminster LP, Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals and Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.
[23] After his showbiz retirement, Moore kept getting various offers for more work that he continued to turn down, including frequent phone calls from the producers of The Love Boat.
[17] Moore retired to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where he spent his time sailing, and also at his summer home in Northeast Harbor, Maine.