Peter Marshall, affable host of NBC’s original ‘Hollywood Squares,’ dies at 98

Peter Marshall, who long led NBC’s beloved “Hollywood Squares” game show with his talk show host-style candor, has died. He was 98.

Marshall died Thursday morning of kidney failure surrounded by loved ones at his home in Encino, his family said in a statement to The Times provided by his publicist, Harlan Boll.

“Although as Peter remarked, his cause of death should officially be of boredom,” the family said in the statement.

Peter Marshall, center, hosts a country music week episode of “Hollywood Squares” in 1980.

(NBC / NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

The TV star, who was an actor and singer before becoming a game-show fixture at age 40, hosted more than 5,000 episodes of NBC’s human tic-tac-toe game from 1966 to 1981. On the Daytime Emmy-winning show, Marshall would deliver silly questions that segued into entertaining chitchat and inside jokes with comics such as Joan Rivers, Rose Marie and Paul Lynde — the longtime, snarky center square on the set. The hit show also attracted Hollywood elite, including Aretha Franklin, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Ed Asner and Janet Leigh.

“It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done in show business,” Marshall said in a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television. “I walked in, said, ‘Hello stars,’ I read questions and laughed. And it paid very well.”

When “Hollywood Squares” was canceled and his other television projects had short runs, Marshall turned to other types of live performance, particularly musical theater, and became a regular in touring productions of “La Cage aux Folles” and “42nd Street.”

“Hollywood Squares” later relaunched in syndication, but Marshall was not invited back to helm it.

“Frankly, I was ready for some changes and was prepared for it,” Marshall told The Times in 1987. “I really didn’t, and don’t, miss that ‘TV star’ thing; it really wasn’t that important to me.

“What I do miss are the wonderful people I got to work with. There was Lynde, Vincent Price, Tony Randall, Betty White ... just a great group. They made the show special because they all had style, the type of thing that separates the entities from the nonentities in this business.”

Marshall, a self-described “Depression kid,” said he worked a lot because he had a hard time saying no. He was born Ralph Pierre LaCock in Clarksburg, W. Va., and moved around frequently as a child before relocating to New York. His father, who died when Marshall was 10, occasionally sang in a minstrel act and Marshall’s sister, actor Joanne Dru, worked as a showgirl at the Copa Club.

Money was hard-won, so he and his family members took jobs wherever and whenever they could, he said. Marshall came up singing with big bands, appearing in Las Vegas revues and doing comedy work. He toured as a singer with the Bob Chester Orchestra when he was 15 and worked as an NBC Radio page and an usher at the Paramount Theater, according to the Associated Press. He was drafted during World War II and stationed in Italy, where he spent time as a DJ for Armed Forces Radio.

In 1949, Marshall and Tommy Noonan teamed up and appeared as a comedy duo in nightclubs and theaters, eventually hitting the small screen on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” As a movie contract player at 20th Century Fox, Marshall appeared in 1959’s “The Rookie” and 1961’s “Swingin’ Along.” He also starred opposite Chita Rivera in a 1962 West End production of “Bye Bye Birdie” in London and first starred on Broadway in the 1965 production of “Skyscraper” with Julie Harris. His other Broadway credits include “High Button Shoes,” “The Music Man” and “42nd Street.”

Marshall is survived by his wife, Laurie, and three children: son Pete LaCock, a professional baseball player for the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals, and daughters Suzanne and Jaime; as well as 12 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. His son David died from complications of COVID-19 in 2021.