Richard Bey

Richard Bey
Bey at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
Born	Richard Wayne Bey (1951-07-22) July 22, 1951 (age 65) Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Talk show host, TV and radio personality
Years active	? - present
Website	http://richardbey.org/

Richard Wayne Bey (born July 22, 1951) is an American talk show host. He was popular in the 1990s as host of The Richard Bey Show, a daytime talk show containing ordinary people's personal stories incorporated into entertaining competitive games.

Bey was born in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother and attended Far Rockaway High School. Prior to The Richard Bey Show, Bey hosted People Are Talking (telecast in New York City and Philadelphia) and 2 On the Town for WCBS-TV. People Are Talking was a one-hour live broadcast covering topical news issues and one on one interviews with guests like Frank Zappa, Steven Spielberg, President Jimmy Carter, Sammy Davis Jr., Patricia Neal, Alexander Haig, Jerry Brown, Ross Perot and Martin and Charlie Sheen. He is an alumnus of the University of California, Santa Barbara and the Yale School of Drama. The show was called 9 Broadcast Plaza in its early years before changing its name to The Richard Bey Show. Among his roles on stage are Hamlet (title role) As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida as well as the world premieres of new plays by Richard Nelson, Chris Durang and Jim Lapine. He was a company member of the Yale Repertory Theater and understudied the National Theatre of Great Britain on Broadway and at the Kennedy Center. His film roles include Sasha Baron Cohen's Bruno, Evocateur, Meet Wally Sparks and George Washington (the mini series).

The Richard Bey Show (1987–1996) was produced from WWOR-TV in Secaucus, New Jersey and later syndicated across the country by All American Television (known today as FreemantleMedia). It featured such competitive events as the "Miss Big Butt" contest, the "Mr. Puniverse" contest, "Dysfunctional Family Feud" and "Blacks who think O.J. is guilty vs. Whites who think he is innocent." Young women who were guests on the show were sometimes placed in a spoof of The Dating Game in which the guest interviewed three hidden "bachelors", all of whom were an obvious mismatch for the "bachelorette" (e.g., a drag queen or a dwarf). Bey's show made frequent use of sound effects like "uh-duh" for an insane response, "I've been framed" for a guest proclaiming innocence and "You're busted!" for one accused of wrongdoing. Bey would often exclaim "Where do they find these people?!" in the presence of unbelievable guests or audience members. During some shows, there would be a secret word, and if an audience member used it in a comment, he would receive $100 (an homage to a prior talk and game show, You Bet Your Life). A joking suggestion was then made on how to spend it: "Lobster dinner tonight!"