Michael Gelman calls Regis Philbin "the son I never had and a bonus father all in one"

Entertainment Weekly

The longtime Live executive producer, who the daytime talk show in the 1980s as a 24-year-old, writes of his relationship with the late Philbin: "Regis used to say that he and I had a great father/son relationship, but that I was the father. I couldn't agree more. Even in my early 20s when I first started working with him, he was the mischievous pot-stirrer and I was the one trying to keep him out of trouble. Regis embodied the old adage 'what you see is what you get.' The genuinely warm/grumpy uncle you saw every morning is the same man I spent the day with even after the cameras stopped rolling. And boy, could he tell a story. There were nights on the town with him when literally nothing out of the ordinary happened, and yet the next morning he would weave a tale that was so hilarious I often wondered how we could have been at the same event." Gelman also acknowledged all of his co-hosts: "Sarah Purcell, Mary Hart, Cindy Garvey, Ann Abernathy, Kathie Lee Gifford and of course Kelly Ripa. His favorite fill-in co-host was always his wife Joy. He adored her. Their spicy husband-and-wife banter could be considered the first reality show on television. Talking about their children and then grandchildren gave the audience yet another peek into his life behind the cameras. Regis used to say 'I'm only one man.' Indeed he was. And they broke the mold when they made him. He was the son I never had and a bonus father all in one. I will miss him as a friend and I can only hope he and Dean Martin are together now singing 'Pennies From Heaven' while Don Rickles heckles from the bleachers."