Monty Hall OC OM (born Monte Halparin; August 25, 1921 – September 30, 2017) was a Canadian-American[1][2] radio and television show host who moved to the United States in 1955 to pursue a career in broadcasting.

He briefly worked for the Canadian Wheat Board after graduating before deciding to pursue a full-time career in broadcasting.

[11] Hall moved to New York City in 1955, attempting to break into American broadcasting, but commuted to Toronto several times a month to record episode blocks of Who Am I?

[11] On September 15, 1956, Hall began a seven-month stint hosting the Saturday afternoon series Cowboy Theater, broadcast nationally on the NBC network.

Hall's segments were performed live from NBC's New York studio, and the films were Columbia Pictures' 1935-42 westerns starring Charles Starrett.

[16] He succeeded Jack Narz as host of a game show called Video Village, which ran from 1960 to 1962 on CBS.

[11] After moving to Southern California, Hall became the host of the game show Let's Make a Deal, which he developed and produced with partner Stefan Hatos.

During the show's initial run, Hall appeared alongside model Carol Merrill and announcer Jay Stewart.

Other game shows from Hatos' and Hall's production company included Chain Letter in 1966; a revival of the venerable 1950s-era panel quiz Masquerade Party in 1974; Three for the Money in 1975; It's Anybody's Guess in 1977, which reunited Let's Make a Deal announcer Jay Stewart with Hall, who also hosted the show; and the Canadian-based The Joke's on Us in 1983.

[13] Hall filled in as guest host on several daytime game shows while Let's Make a Deal was on NBC, most notably What's This Song?

[18] In 1979, Hall hosted the only game show since Video Village which he did not produce, Goodson-Todman's All-New Beat the Clock.

[20] Hall, who said that charitable work was the driving force in his life, even went so far as to conceive a television series where he would assist people who were having troubles through various connections he had made through his philanthropic efforts.

He was the recipient of the 2005 Ralph Edwards Service Award from the Game Show Congress, in recognition of all the work the emcee-producer has done for charity through the years.

[24] On September 28, 1947, Hall married Marilyn Doreen Plottel (May 17, 1927 – June 5, 2017); the two had been introduced by a mutual cousin, Norman Shnier, the previous year.

[2][1] They had three children: Tony Award–winning actress Joanna Gleason; Sharon Hall Kessler, a former producer and now an executive at Marcus/Glass Entertainment, which acquired Hatos-Hall Productions in 2021, including Let's Make a Deal, allowing the show to return to family control; and Richard Hall,[26] an Emmy Award–winning television producer.

The name was conceived by statistician Steve Selvin who used the title in describing a probability problem to Scientific American in 1975 based on one of the games on Let's Make a Deal,[29][30] and more popularized when it was presented in a weekly national newspaper column by Marilyn vos Savant in 1990.

[32] In the article, Hall pointed out that because he had control over the way the game progressed, playing on the psychology of the contestant, the theoretical solution did not apply to the show's actual gameplay.

Hall clarified that as a game show host, he was not required to follow the rules of the puzzle as Marilyn vos Savant often explains in her weekly column in Parade, and did not always allow a person the opportunity to switch.