Who Wants to be a Millionaire boss: Regis Philbin knew the game show would be a huge success that would "save" ABC

The Hollywood Reporter

Michael Davies, who developed the American version of Millionaire, tells The Hollywood Reporter: "A lot of people know Regis Philbin asked to be the host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. What they don't know is that he was always the first choice. Regis and I had already talked about him hosting a reboot of The $64,000 Question I'd been developing, but it was clear from the early run-throughs that the show couldn't work. No one would ever take any risks! So when I saw a tape of Millionaire in the U.K., it solved all of my problems. I was in one those old ABC Entertainment Center offices — the one on Avenue of the Stars that's since been consumed by the CAA Death Star — when Regis called. Not many people saw Millionaire the way we did, certainly not ABC. But Regis knew it was the modern making of one of those great game shows of the 1950s. Over that call, he sold me on something I'd already been evangelizing. If he was my first choice before that conversation, he was my only choice by the end of it. Regis had way more faith in the show than I did. He said from day one, 'We are going to save the network.'" Executives thought he was joking. He wasn't. Regis knew from his vast experience how special what we had was. But what he didn't realize is how much of what we had came from him — especially when people deliberated over their answers. Regis' lack of patience added to the tension of Millionaire."