Ralph Edwards - Other Work

Other Work

Edwards produced dozens of game shows, including About Faces, Knockout, Place the Face, It Could Be You, Name That Tune (1970s version) and The Cross-Wits. In 1981, with Stu Billett, he executive produced The People's Court, the first program of its type. In 1996, along with Stu Billett, they also did Bzzz!.

Edwards is probably best known for creating and hosting This Is Your Life. Each week Edwards would surprise some unsuspecting person (usually a celebrity, sometimes an ordinary citizen) and review the subject's personal and professional life. The show drew great interest from viewers, because the identity of the subject wasn't revealed until the show went live. Throughout the half-hour Edwards would guide the narrative of the show, ushering visitors on and off stage, and eventually prompting the honoree to recall a personal turning point. Edwards was showman enough to draw upon his Truth or Consequences experience: he emphasized the sentimental elements that appealed to viewers and listeners at home. His on-air tributes would often recount some heroic sacrifice or tragic event, bringing the audience (and sometimes the subject) to the point of tears.

Edwards burnished the career of another game show host—his protégé, Bob Barker. The TV version of Truth or Consequences had featured Edwards, Jack Bailey and Steve Dunne in the 1940s and 1950s. When the show returned for another NBC run in late 1956, Edwards enlisted Barker, a popular West Coast radio and TV personality. During the 2001 Daytime Emmy Awards, Barker told backstage reporters that Edwards told him to be no one else but himself.

Barker would host Truth on NBC until 1965, and later in daily syndication until 1975, by which time he had also taken over a revival of The Price Is Right on CBS from 1972 onward. As a result, thanks to Edwards's "be yourself" admonition, Barker became as familiar with a generation of Truth and Price viewers, as earlier fans had with Edwards and original Price host Bill Cullen during the original versions of the shows in the 1950s and 1960s.

Until his death, Edwards had lunch with Bob Barker every December 21 at exactly 12:05 PM, according to Bob Barker, for Barker's December birthday, and the anniversary of Edwards hiring Barker as host of Truth or Consequences, which according to Barker, started a long and enduring friendship between the two men.