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Hi Everyone! I hope you are enjoying The Jim Perry Game Show Site! My name is David Baber, and I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Perry by telephone on March 10, 2005. This interview was one of many I conducted for my book Television Game Show Hosts: Biographies of 32 Stars that was published by McFarland & Co. Publishers in October 2007. The Jim Perry Game Show Site was born out of the interview material used for this book.
The idea for this book came back in 1993 when I looked for books on game shows and game show hosts. Unfortunately, there were hardly any books on the subject at that time, and the internet was still a few years away from becoming a valuable source on game shows.
I was always interested in the game show hosts. Watching them on TV when I was a kid in the 1970s and 1980s, I was fascinated by how cool and in control the hosts appeared on camera. It looked like they were having the time of their life running those game shows. Several years later, I finally interviewed my first host on the telephone on March 3, 1999. It was Art James, and at the time, Art was running his own production company doing game shows for corporate America. I looked up Art James Productions on the internet and found a 1-800 number on the website. After dialing the number, the phone rang twice and Art himself answered the call. For a moment, I could not gather my voice to speak, but Art put me at ease and graciously granted me an interview on the spot. Needless to say, Art was a super classy guy!
In the same manner, Jim Perry put me at ease when I talked to him on the telephone in 2005. Jim was a bit harder to locate than the other hosts I interviewed. The internet had virtually nothing about Jim, so gathering information was tricky. He had been retired since 1989 when Sale of the Century went off the air and rarely appeared on TV in the ensuing years. I so badly wanted to include a chapter on Jim in my book, but without any information, the chances of putting together a full chapter looked pretty slim. One day in February 2005, I was reading an issue of Broadcasting and Cable magazine. I chanced to see a small item in the issue mentioning Sean Perry, the son of game show host Jim Perry, working as an agent for the Endeavor Talent Agency in Los Angeles. I looked up the telephone number for Endeavor and called asking to speak to Sean Perry. I was directed to his voicemail, so I left a message explaining who I was and briefly filled him in on the book project. I left Sean my contact information and prayed!
For the next 2-3 weeks, I heard nothing. One afternoon after coming home from work, I walked into my apartment and no sooner had I taken off my hat and coat, the telephone rang. When I picked it up, a voice on the other end of the line said, "David, this is Jim Perry." I about screamed into the phone when he said that, and Jim just laughed and laughed at my excitement. Sounding every bit like he did on TV, Jim said, "My son said that you wanted to talk to me." Sean Perry had more than delivered! Patience really is a virtue, and I am so glad that I waited patiently for things to come together. Jim and I spent 90 minutes talking on the phone. I learned so much about him in that hour and a half conversation. Not only did we talk about his life and career but we also just talked about life in general. Jim was super nice and every bit as kind as he came across on TV. I sent Jim a copy of my book when it was published in 2007 and I received a hand-written thank you note from him. A hand-written note and NOT simply an email! That is something you rarely see these days!
To read about Jim's life and find out more about your favorite game show host, you can buy my book, Television Game Show Hosts: Biographies of 32 Stars by clicking here. You can also purchase the book directly from McFarland & Co. Publishers by clicking here.