NEW YORK – Regis Philbin wades into the studio audience to chat during a commercial break.
“Thanks, everybody, for coming,” he says sincerely, then, with a dash of comic bluster, cracks: “Anybody want to pay me a tribute?”
“Don’t leave!” a woman cries out from the back row.
She might as well save her breath.
After ruling morning television for 28 years as New York’s Everyman-about-town, the co-host who made performance art of TV gab, and the broadcast veteran who likens being on TV to “washing my face or having lunch — as normal as can be,” the 80-year-old Philbin is exiting what for a decade has been known as “Live! With Regis and Kelly,” where, never at a loss for words, he has presided alongside co-host Kelly Ripa. But his last day is Nov. 18. There’s no turning back now.
As everyone remembers, Philbin made his announcement on the show last January: “I don’t want to alarm anybody,” he began before dropping the bomb.
This fall, during the long goodbye, “Live!” has been full of valedictories and retrospectives befitting Philbin’s marathon run. His final week will be given over to special guests on the order of David Letterman, Donald Trump, Don Rickles and former co-host
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