Actors - Geoff Edwards

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	Actors - Geoff Edwards

Geoff Edwards is an Emmy Award-winning American television actor, game show host and radio personality born on February 13, 1931 in Westfield, New Jersey.

Edwards began his career while in college, working for a radio station in Albany, New York. By the late 1950s, Edwards headed west to Southern California, landing his first true job at station KFMB. As a news reporter, Edwards was present in the basement of the Dallas Police Department when Jack Ruby shot suspected John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963. He was one of the witnesses interviewed by NBC Television Correspondent Tom Pettit after the murder.

After a few short stints at other stations, Edwards was hired at KMPC in Los Angeles, occupying the 9 AM-noon slot for several years beginning in 1968.

During that time, Edwards tried his hand at acting, appearing on I Dream of Jeannie and Petticoat Junction; the latter of which he met and maintained a very close friendship with Meredith MacRae for more than three decades.

In the early-1970s, Edwards appeared on The Bobby Darin Show as the straight man to singer Bobby Darin. After that series ended, Edwards decided to go into game shows.

His first game show effort was in 1973 on Jack Barry's Hollywood's Talking, which is a remake of an earlier game show, Everyone's Talking and the Canadian hit Eye Bet, in which contestants watched a clip of a celebrity talking about a subject, and the contestants' job was to guess what the celebrity was talking about. That series did not fare well and was discontinued by CBS. Six months later, Edwards was hired by NBC to host the New York-based Jackpot. That series proved to be a modest success for Edwards, lasting nearly two years, and eventually Chuck Barris hired Edwards to host the weekly game show Treasure Hunt, which he did for four years (1973-77) and again for one year (1981-82) on a five-days-a-week basis. On Treasure Hunt, Edwards was required to memorize 29 skits (65 in the 1981-82 revival) due to security reasons, which was a natural for Edwards who had prior acting experience.

Other game shows Edwards hosted over the years included the New York-based Shoot For The Stars in 1977, Chain Reaction (as a sub host in 1980 and a regular host from 1986-91), Starcade, Play the Percentages (which was produced by Barry/Enright), and a revival of Jackpot from 1989-90.

Geoff is famous for his familiar catch phrase, "Right you are!"

Edwards holds the distinction of being one of the very few emcees to host a game show in Los Angeles and a game show in New York at the same time; he accomplished this feat in 1974 as the host of Jackpot! in New York and Treasure Hunt in Los Angeles. He is also one of three game shows hosts to have hosted a game show in the United States and a game show in Canada concurrently (the other two were Alex Trebek and Jim Perry). Edwards, like Perry, commuted back and forth between Southern California and Toronto between 1989 and 1990, hosting Chain Reaction in Toronto and the syndicated revival of Jackpot! in Glendale.

Edwards was also co-host of the popular Los Angeles news program Mid Morning L.A., replacing Bob Hilton in the early-1980s and paired with co-host Meredith MacRae. Edwards and MacRae won an Emmy Award for best host and best hostess respectively for a news magazine series.

In 1986, Geoff became host of Big Spin, a California Lottery series (replacing original host Chuck Woolery, who left to concentrate solely on his other game show projects). Edwards remained host until his retirement from television around 1994.

In later years, Edwards traveled extensively, hosting traveling programs on both radio and television. He is now semi-retired and living in California, and continues to write extensively about travel. Edwards is also an avid fan of video arcade games.

Geoff Edwards can also refer to a Canadian voice actor of the same name who is the voice of animator James Farr's Xombie character named Dirge. He was a music journalist and CBC Radio host for nearly ten years. He lives in the community of Chilliwack near Vancouver, Canada.

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