NEW YORK (AP) A pioneering New York City radio and TV host who gave breaks to Al Pacino and Bill Cosby long before they became famous and boasted he never missed a broadcast in decades has died. Joe Franklin was 88.
Longtime producer Steven Garrin says Franklin died Saturday of cancer.
Franklin often is credited with developing the standard TV talk show format, sitting behind a desk interviewing wanna-be celebrities, minor celebrities and the occasional bona fide celebrity.
The host of "The Joe Franklin Show'' started in TV in 1950. By the 1990s he said he had chatted with 300,000 guests, including Marilyn Monroe and Madonna. But the notables often had to share air time with a tap-dancing dentist or a man who whistled through his nose.
Garrin says Tuesday was the first scheduled broadcast Franklin missed in more than 60 years.
