…to two of the greatest entertainers and entertainment packages ever.

Merv Griffin was a genius strategic dealmaker who also happened to be a genial talk-show host and made-it-seem-easy raconteur.

I’ve already told my favorite Merv Griffin Show story, about the long Richard Pryor monologue that slowly built up to one big punchline that was completely bleeped. For every moment like that, there were hundreds of smarmy lovefest chats with the likes of Angie Dickinson, Telly Savalas, Helen Gurley Brown, Eva Gabor, Jackie Mason, and Jonathan Winters. As dull as these segments often got, there was at least the promise of some opening repartee with his trumpet player Jack Sheldon (who was also Schoolhouse Rock’s favorite male vocalist).

But Griffin’s real talent was on the business end of the business. A brief outline:

• After stints as a big-band singer and radio personality, the Goodson-Todman game show empire signed him up to host Play Your Hunch, a blatant ripoff of G-T’s own To Tell the Truth.
• After four years of that, NBC signed Griffin in 1962 to host an afternoon talk show. It premiered on the same day (and from the same studio) as Johnny Carson’s first Tonight Show. Some observers believe the network was grooming Griffin as a potential relief pitcher, should Carson’s show flop.
• Carson, obviously, didn’t flop. NBC dropped Griffin’s show. But as part of the contract, Griffin got to place two daytime games on the network. The second of these, premiering in 1964, was Jeopardy!.
• By 1975, NBC’s daytime boss was one Lin Bolen. She believed in modern innovations, such as expanding soap opera episodes from 30 to 60 minutes. She hated legacy game shows with old-man hosts, such as Jeopardy!‘s original host Art Fleming. Bolen moved J! to worse and worse time slots, and finally axed it. But as part of Griffin’s contract, he got to place another daytime game on the network. That was Wheel of Fortune.
• Meanwhile, Griffin had revived his own show in syndication, then moved to CBS late night, then back to syndication, demanding and getting more cash each time.
• By the 1980s he’d successfully placed Wheel in syndication and revived J! as a sister show.
• He sold the whole thang to Columbia Picutres for $250 million and a share of future profits. He built that stake into a “luxury” leisure empire of hotels, casinos, resorts, and race horses.
• But he remained involved in TV production. He produced a kids’ game show, Click, shooting the second of its two seasons in Seattle. (He lived on a yacht moored at south Lake Union during the tapings.) And in his last days he was selling a new show, Let’s Play Crosswords.

His private life was as delightfully kitschy as his talk show. After one failed marriage, he appeared in public with the likes of Gabor and even the widowed Nancy Reagan; while rumors spread of his affections toward poolboys and valets. If true, that meant he had a real self he felt he had to hide from the world, even after he was financially set for life.

ACROSS THE POND, meanwhile, we must say goodbye to Tony Wilson, best known here as the subject of the film 24 Hour Party People. But Wilson’s achievements were too big for one movie (let alone one blog entry):

• He began by hosting a local music TV show in Manchester, welcoming acts the London-based network shows wouldn’t touch.
• He went from there into narrating serious network documentaries, and from there into anchoring Manchester’s only commercial TV newscast.
• On the side, he continued to support new music by cofounding Factory Records, home to Joy Division, New Order, the Happy Mondays, and many more.
• He opened The Hacienda nightclub, where top acts played (and “house” electronic music was partly developed) for 15 years.
• More recently, he became a political activist. His chief cause: “Devolution.” No, not de-evolution, but a crusade to bring more political power to England’s regions, away from London’s central bureaucracies.

Wilson was an honorable man in three often dishonorable professions (music, TV, politics).

And everything he did was informed by his lifelong devotion to his hometown.

He’s someone we could all admire and emulate.