Bill Cullen; Fixture as Game Show Host

Bill Cullen, genial game show host and panelist who was a popular fixture on “I’ve Got a Secret” and “The Price is Right,” died Saturday at his Bel-Air home from complications resulting from cancer. He was 70.

Cullen died at 5:25 p.m. of heart failure brought on by a months-long battle with lung cancer, said George Spota, Cullen’s manager. Cullen’s wife, Ann, was at his bedside when he died.

“He set the standard for how audience participation game shows are done during his 42-year career,” Spota said. “He never took his career too seriously as a star, but he took it very seriously as a professional with responsibility.

“Bill did about 25,000 radio and television shows between 1939 and 1988, which is when he retired,” added Spota, who said a memorial service would be held in Los Angeles in about a month. “He retired a champion.”

The collegiate looking Cullen, with horn-rimmed glasses and an elfish grin, appeared on more than 35 network radio and television programs, beginning as an announcer but quickly becoming popular as a master of ceremonies or host.

“I never considered myself a top-flight announcer,” he once said. “I’m not an actor. . . . But this I can do.”

He said he relished the hosting role because “they want me to be myself.”

William Lawrence Cullen was born Feb. 18, 1920, in Pittsburgh. When he was 18 months old, he was stricken with infantile paralysis, which gave him a permanent limp and focused his career options.

“Polio moved me out of physical effort,” Cullen said, “and forced me into a mental manner of living.”

Working in his father’s garage as a mechanic and tow truck driver, he entertained co-workers by imitating local radio announcers. The mimicry eventually led to an audition for a job--as unpaid announcer for tiny radio station WWSW in Pittsburgh.

He moved to New York in 1944 and quickly profited from the shortage of network personnel caused by the war.

Within a week, Cullen was hired by CBS as a staff radio announcer.

Cullen shied away from television as it emerged, fearing his physical handicap would mar his success.

But in 1952, he agreed to appear as a panelist on “I’ve Got a Secret,” where the panel remained seated. He remained on the show as panelist or host for its entire 15 years.

Leaving CBS to free lance, by 1954 Cullen was on three national television programs and two network radio shows.

Cullen was named host of “The Price is Right,” in which panelists chosen from the studio audience tried to guess the price of luxury prizes. The show survived charges of corruption which ended many giveaway programs in 1958, and ran successfully from 1956 to 1965.

Maintaining an exhausting pace, Cullen in the late 1950s was on the air 25 hours and 30 minutes each week--more time than the storied Arthur Godfrey at the peak of his career.

Among the game shows hosted by Cullen other than his best-known “The Price is Right” and “I’ve Got a Secret,” were: “The Joker’s Wild,” “The Love Experts,” “Name that Tune,” “Pass the Buck,” “Place the Face,” “Quick as a Flash,” “Three on a Match,” “The $25,000 Pyramid,” “Winner Take All,” and “Winning Streak.”

He was a regular panelist on “To Tell the Truth,” “Where Was I?” and “You’re Putting Me On.”