“Hollywood Squares” Host And Veteran Entertainer Of Stage And Screen, Peter Marshall Has Died At The Age Of 98

Peter Marshall, the multiple Emmy Award-winning (5 wins and 19 nominations) host of the original HOLLYWOOD SQUARES celebrity game show, passed earlier today of kidney failure ( … although as Peter remarked, his cause of death should officially be of boredom). According to his wife of 35 years, Laurie, Peter passed at his Encino home, surrounded by loved ones.

Peter Marshall was born Ralph Pierre LaCock in Huntington, West Virginia on March 30, 1926. Best known for hosting more than 5,000 episodes of the Emmy Award-winning original version of the classic game show The Hollywood Squares, Marshall has enjoyed a multi-faceted, eight-decade career as an actor, singer, and emcee.

Peter made his entrance into show business while still in his teens, moving to New York City where his sister, actress Joanne Dru, was modeling, and landing a job as an NBC Radio page and an usher at Paramount Theater. After graduation from high school, Peter was drafted into the Army in 1944 and stationed in Italy, where he developed hosting skills as a disc jockey for the Armed Forces Radio. 

By 1949, he joined forces with Tommy Noonan. The comedy duo appeared in major nightclubs, films, and theatres throughout the country in addition to television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and other programs. Peter’s movie career expanded in the late 1950s as a contract player at Twentieth Century Fox, appearing in Ensign Pulver, The Rookie, Swingin’ Along/Double Trouble Rookie, The Cavern and portrayed radio crooner Bert Healy in Annie.

In 1961, Peter starred opposite Chita Rivera in Bye Bye Birdie on stage in London’s West End. His first starring role on Broadway was in Skyscraper with Julie Harris in 1965. His other musical theater credits include High Button Shoes, Anything Goes, The Music Man, and 42nd Street. In the 1980s, Peter performed the lead role of Georges in over 800 performances of La Cage Aux Folles on the national tour and Broadway. On the non-musical stage, he starred for two years as Lenny Ganz in the national tour of Neil Simon’s farce Rumors.

After appearing in commercials for Kellogg’s cereals, Peter was enlisted in 1966 to host The Hollywood Squares, a humorous game show take on tic-tac-toe featuring nine celebrity guests and two contestants. With regulars such as Paul Lynde, Joan Rivers, Rich Little, Rose Marie, George Gobel, Wally Cox, Ruta Lee, Charlie Weaver,  and hundreds of other stars, The Hollywood Squares became a wildly popular television institution for the next fifteen years, winning Marshall multiple Emmy Awards. He subsequently hosted The Peter Marshall Variety Show, Big Bands From Disneyland, the audience participation series Fantasy with Leslie Uggams and game shows All-Star Blitz and Yahtzee.

Peter’s television credits also include appearances on The Love Boat, Hotel, WKRP In Cincinnati, Burke’s Law, Love American Style, The Lucy Show, 77 Sunset Strip, Lou Grant, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the mini-series Harold Robbins’ 79 Park Avenue and a British production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore with the London Symphony Orchestra.  

Marshall’s love for music goes back to his days as a 15-year-old vocalist with the Bob Chester Orchestra through his years as a Las Vegas headliner. He has produced and toured big band shows and released numerous albums including Boy Singer, No Happy Endings, and Let’s Be Frank. For over two decades, Peter hosted his show on the national Music of Your Life radio network and he has hosted nostalgic music specials for PBS including The Big Band Years, Starlight Ballroom, and Perry Como Classics.  

A lifelong animal lover, Peter had most recently participated in a 50th-anniversary tribute for Betty White’s Pet Set and hosted the Doris Day 90th Celebration, in addition to narrating “Wait For Your Laugh,” a documentary devoted to his late friend and Hollywood Squares colleague Rose Marie. In 2002, he penned the acclaimed memoir Backstage with the Original Hollywood Square.

Peter is survived by his wife, Laurie, of 35 years, daughters Suzanne Browning (Husband David) and Jaime Dimarco (Husband Steve), son Pete LaCock (Wife Janna) and predeceased by son David LaCock in 2021 from complications due to Covid, the grandfather of 12 and the great-grandfather of nine as well as numerous dogs and cats, as well as his caregiver, Louis Soto.

Services have not been announced. However, instead of flowers, donations can be made to either Actors & Others for Animals (https://actorsandothers.com/), the Lange Foundation (langefoundation.org), or the Mercy Kids Therapy and Development Center (https://www.mercy.net/practice/mercy-kids-therapy-and-development-center/)

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