TV host Art Linkletter dies at 97

May 27, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

Art Linkletter, who as the gently mischievous host of TV’s “People Are Funny” and “House Party” in the 1950s and ’60s delighted viewers with his ability to get kids — and grown-ups — to say the darnedest things on national television, died Wednesday. He was 97.

Linkletter died at his home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles, said his son-in-law, Art Hershey, the husband of Sharon Linkletter.

“He lived a long, full, pure life, and the Lord had need for him,” Hershey said.

Linkletter hadn’t been diagnosed with any life-threatening disease, he said.

Linkletter was known on TV for his funny interviews with children and ordinary folks. He also collected their comments in a number of best-selling books.

“Because of Art Linkletter, adults found themselves enjoying children,” said Bill Cosby, whose style interviewing kids on his own show in the late ’90s was often compared to Linkletter’s.

“An amazing fellow, a terrific broadcast talent, a brilliant businessman. An all-around good guy,” CNN’s Larry King added about his longtime friend and frequent guest.

“Art Linkletter’s House Party,” one of television’s longest-running variety shows, debuted on radio in 1944 and was seen on CBS-TV from 1952 to 1969.

Linkletter’s programs — like many of today’s reality TV shows — often relied on ordinary people sharing too much information on national television.

But his shows were far gentler than today’s often mean-spirited productions. His guests experienced, at most, mild embarrassment instead of utter humiliation. When Linkletter elicited an all-too-revealing remark from a guest, he did it with devilish charm, not malice.

Though “House Party” had many features, the best known was the daily interviews with schoolchildren.

Linkletter collected quotes from children into “Kids Say The Darndest Things,” and it sold in the millions. The book “70 Years of Best Sellers 1895-1965” ranked “Kids Say the Darndest Things” as the 15th top seller among nonfiction books in that period.

The down-to-earth charm of Linkletter’s broadcast persona seemed to be mirrored by his private life with his wife of more than a half-century, Lois. They had five children, whom he wrote about in his books and called the “Links.”

But in 1969, his 20-year-old daughter, Diane, jumped to her death from her sixth-floor Hollywood apartment. He blamed her death on LSD use, but toxicology tests found no LSD in her body.

Still, the tragedy prompted Linkletter to become a crusader against drugs.

A son, Robert, died in a car accident in 1980. Another son, Jack Linkletter, was 70 when he died of lymphoma in 2007.