Meet red-carpet Regis

Regis Philbin is the host of “Live With Regis and Kelly.” He spent the past week broadcasting the show from Glendale, and tonight he hosts the official Oscars pre-show on ABC.

At “Live,” what do you do after the guests have left?

Well, we do some promos maybe, then a segment or two that we gotta tape. But generally it’s over when it’s over at 10. Then it’s just a matter of a little fan mail, some calls -- I could walk away by 10:30. It’s a nice time in life when you -- well, we never had any rehearsal here, there’s no script, no writers, you go out and do it. When it’s over, it’s over!

How do you prepare for interviews -- or do you?

What they do is, they’ll send home the movie that the person is in, some areas they’d like to discuss, and that’s how it’s set up. It’s very brief, but it’s enough to have an engaging interview with them.

Does it go horribly wrong sometimes?

Well, the opening is strictly all ad lib, which goes about 20 minutes. It’s only 44 minutes in an hour these days. Then we bring on the guests. It’s limited time, there’s a clip, a picture, there’s this, there’s that -- generally it goes pretty smoothly. Who knows what’s going on in their minds?

You rarely see people panic.

There isn’t much live TV anymore. I think Oprah goes live once in a while. Dave, Leno: Everyone’s on tape these days.

You’ve been on television more hours than anyone in the world.

Yeah, and every day I add another hour to my total. I dunno if they’re gonna catch me. Every day, another hour on that record.

You will never be caught perhaps.

Well, it just worked out that way -- for a three-year run in Los Angeles at KHJ on a show called “Tempo,” which lasted three hours a day.

How did you do a three-hour show?!

Oh, it used to drive me crazy. . . . We had a lot of time. Here on this show, I feel sometimes the guests are rushed, it’s just so condensed now.

What’s the future of morning TV? Where’s this ship sailing to?

It looks like the networks have relinquished all morning talk shows to the syndicated people. They don’t want to get involved. ABC has “The View,” that’s going well. By and large, Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, Oprah, myself, Ellen -- they’re all syndicated. I think that’s the way it’ll stay for a long time. It takes the burden off the networks to develop and sweat it out. They don’t like something, they tell the guys forget about it next year. They got enough problems with their nighttime stuff.

Back at KABC, you guys pioneered red-carpet arrivals at the Academy Awards.

We did it years ago, in the late ‘70s and into the early ‘80s. We were all by ourselves out there. Sure enough there were movie stars, from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. or whenever it started -- it turned out to be a tremendous success. Howard Rosenberg, who wrote the TV section for The Times, do you remember that name? He was a terrific writer. He had a ball with what we were doing -- he thought it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen. I had a morning show, “AM Los Angeles,” and I’d read him on my show. You had to have a stiff upper lip to get through it. Howard, if he was covering today, wouldn’t believe what’s going on. It’s a circus.

Back then people probably told you anything.

Yeah, it was really live TV. You never knew who was going down the carpet. Fans were sitting there all day. Army Archerd used to go and announce to the fans. At the end of the red carpet, there I was.

The people are walking up from behind me, I’m facing the camera, so I never knew who was there. But we really had some great movie stars. Maybe in the last fading years of their careers; you felt like you knew them.

One of your guests in Los Angeles is going to be a young lady named Kim Kardashian. What is she famous for again?

Some kind of porn, I think! Is that right? I’m not too sure who she is! It’s one of those: Did I miss that movie? Does she have a TV show too on cable?

The kids today. I have no idea.

They come and go so quick, you can hardly get involved with them.

Are you up on who’s going to win for the Oscars? . . . Who has time to see all these movies?

I was impressed with some performances, which are simply outstanding. But you never know how that committee out there is gonna see things. . . . And it’s all pretty mediocre till you get to late November. . . . I’m back for the first time in nearly 30 years, since I’ve done the red carpet. I finally said yes this year, I’ll do it one more time. I took the time to see all those movies, because those will be the people I’m talking to. I presume. I hope anyway.