Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Rod Roddy dies at 66

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Posted by Kyle Watkins (Member # 986) on 10-28-2003, 12:20 AM:

Another sad day.Rod roddy form the price is right.died today. Sufferad from colon and brest cancer. Going to miss his jackets he always wore.

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 10-28-2003, 02:15 AM:

Indeed, a very sad day.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 10-28-2003, 07:15 AM:

Indeed a sad day. Rod was also the announcer for the old TV series "SOAP." I got to meet him in Atlanta when SOAP was finally sold to TV syndication.

He will be missed in this house. The Price Is Right has been a TV staple here for 30+ years.

Rod Roddy, you will be missed. Thanks for the entertainment.

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 10-28-2003, 08:17 AM:

Oh wow. My brother called and gave me the news this morning. It was if a family member has died. I remember watching The Price Is Right ever since I can remember, and to this day I catch it in the mornings or tape it. My friend and I had a class together last semester that let out at 10:50 and we would race home to watch Price and have breakfast.

It was around that time when Rod's health began to fail. They no longer showed him on-camera with his flashy jackets, and his voice sometimes sounded like he was trying really hard. When they got Burton and Randy to sub for him, I got worried, but then Rod announced for the Million Dollar Spectacular shows. The past few months, they were rotating between the three announcers, still giving Rod a few shows a week. The man's spirit just wouldn't die and he yelled "COME ON DOWN" with all he had. Truly sad, and an inspiration to us all. [Frown]

I still must go and see the show in person before it's all over. That is my dream.

Here is an article, and a link:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031028/ap_on_en_tv/obit_roddy_9

'Price Is Right' Announcer Rod Roddy Dies
By RYAN PEARSON, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - Rod Roddy, the flamboyantly dressed announcer on "The Price is Right" whose booming, jovial voice invited lucky audience members to "Come on down!" for nearly 20 years, has died. He was 66.

Roddy, who suffered from colon and breast cancer (news - web sites), died Monday at Century City Hospital, according to his longtime agent, Don Pitts. He had been hospitalized for two months.

"He had such a strong spirit. He just wouldn't give up," Pitts said Monday.

Roddy had been ill for more than two years but tried to work as long as he could, said Bob Barker, host of "The Price is Right." Roddy had been with the game show for 17 years.

"The courage he showed during those difficult times was an inspiration to us all," Barker said in a statement Monday.

Barker recounted a recent visit to his friend: "I went to the hospital and sat on the edge of his bed and we laughed the whole time we were talking. He was still having fun."

Roddy's announcing stints included "Love Connection" (1981-85) and "Press Your Luck" (1983-86), but "The Price is Right" earned him his greatest fame. "The Price is Right" remains one of television's most popular game shows, and Roddy, with his flashy sport coats and booming voice, was a big part of the success.

"He started wearing those jackets when he joined the show," Barker said. "He was quite a character. He was important to the success of the show. He had the spirit of `The Price Is Right.' It's a fun show. We did it with the hope people will forget their problems for awhile."

Roddy, whose real name was Robert Ray Roddy, was born Sept. 18, 1937, in Fort Worth, Texas, Pitts said.

He was a graduate of Texas Christian University and a popular disc jockey in Texas when he decided to expand his career in Hollywood, his agent recalled.

Roddy's versatility made him a popular voice-over artist for commercials in Los Angeles, Pitts said. He got his big break in television with the 1977-81 satire "Soap."

Disc jockey Casey Kasem, who was the first announcer on the risque series, decided he did not want to stay with it and asked Pitts if he knew someone who could take over.

"I said, 'I've got a guy who's terrific,'" Pitts said. "Rod started with 'Soap' and then his career took off."

Roddy, who taped his last show about two months ago, had colon cancer surgery on Sept. 11, 2001, and his left breast removed last March.

The diseases appeared under control following chemotherapy but flared up again, Pitts said. The two cancers, which Roddy had said were unconnected, prompted him to become a spokesman for early detection.

"I could have prevented all this with a colonoscopy and, of course, that's the campaign I've been on since I had the first surgery," he said in a recent interview on a CBS Web site.

Breast cancer, although typically associated with women, is diagnosed in about 1,500 American men a year, Roddy said in the CBS interview: "To everybody out there, 'Get a mammogram!' It can happen to men, too."

Roddy was single. The only family member he talked about was his mother, who died several years ago, Pitts said.

Private funeral services will be held in Texas, with a memorial service planned in Los Angeles in several weeks, CBS said.

-----

=TMP=

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-28-2003, 11:13 AM:

A tragic loss. [Frown]

Male breast cancer, though rare, can occur, so self-examination of your breasts is recommended, as it is for women. If you feel a lump, see a doctor immediately. If your family has a significant history of breast cancer, ask your doctor about getting a mammogram.

http://www.cancerindex.org/clinks3m.htm

quote:
Male breast cancer is uncommon, men account for approximately 1% of all breast cancer cases. Incidence in Western populations is under 1 case per 100,000 men, though rates reported in some African countries are much higher. The majority of male breast cancers are of the infiltrating ductal type, this is where the cancer has spread beyond the cells lining ducts in the breast. In many respects male breast cancer is similar to that found in women, though in general men tend to be older than women at diagnosis. Treatment tends to be the same as that for women with breast cancer of the same type and stage.

My dentist is currently undergoing chemotherapy to treat his advanced breast cancer. [Frown]

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 10-28-2003, 12:32 PM:

The screws are being turned... I have to hurry and watch Price is Right being taped... before the unspeakable occurs.

Posted by Jeff Joseph (Member # 511) on 10-29-2003, 01:30 AM:

We have the only existing print of "Posse From Heaven" in our archive.

This is from Rod Roddy's bio...
============

Soon, he was doing voice-overs full time, but along the way, he appeared in what he calls one of the worst movies ever made. Trying to capitalize on a sex scandal involving then-Rep. Wilbur Mills and an Argentine stripper named Fanne Fox, the producers cast her (and Mr. Roddy) in Posse From Heaven in 1974. Mr. Roddy played "the Deity," whose primary function was to wear a Roman toga and shower shoes and dance with Ms. Fox.

Posse From Heaven was unveiled at a press screening in Alexandria, Va., "and by the end of the third reel, critics were pouring out of the exits by the screen, shouting obscenities back at us," Mr. Roddy says. "Fanne was so traumatized, she locked herself in her manager's office and wouldn't come out for a day. Needless to say, that was the last we've heard of Fanne Fox."

Mr. Roddy recovered from Posse From Heaven by landing the part of the announcer in a prime-time series called Soap.

======================

Jeff Joseph
SabuCat Productions
E-mail: jeff@sabucat.com
http://www.sabucat.com

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 10-31-2003, 11:44 AM:

Oh, gee-whiz! He was a young man still. Sad to hear this... [Frown]

Wasn't he on KOMA in Oklahoma City years ago?

Posted by Mitchell Cope (Member # 32) on 11-03-2003, 12:29 PM:

I remember Rod Roddy from the late 60s when he was a talk show host on a Dallas radio station. The following excerpt is from this story from WFAA.com.

'The Price Is Right is light years removed from doing a talk show in the nude, as he once did for a week on KLIF-AM when it was owned by maverick entrepreneur Gordon McLlendon, Mr. Roddy's hero and mentor.

Back in those days, Mr. Roddy was a left-wing gadfly on Dallas' highest-rated station, which means almost everyone hated his guts. In case you weren't around back then, the Dallas of Mr. Roddy's era - 1968 to 1971 - didn't exactly rival Berkeley, Calif., as a Mecca of liberal thought.

And whose idea was it to have him be so controversial? The late Mr. McClendon, of course, who was slightly to the right of Charlemagne.

"Gordon knew the show would be popular if everyone hated me," Mr. Roddy says. "And if they hated me, they would all call in. Well, they hated me with a passion, and they all called in. It got to be rough."

So rough, in fact, that at one point, Mr. Roddy was placed under surveillance by the FBI - "They kept trying to nail me with a drug charge, but I have never done drugs in my life" - and years later, he learned why.

An outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, he had earned the distinction of being placed on President Richard Nixon's "enemies list."

"Believe it or not," he says, "I'm the kind of guy who likes people to like me."

And today, they do. As Mr. Roddy strolls through the hallways of CBS, he's greeted warmly by the likes of talk-show host Craig Kilborn, who can't stop smirking and staring at the sequins on that eye-popping jacket.

Merely having the chance to wear such a jacket means his life has undergone a radical transformation. The Price Is Right has put him several million dollars away from having to declare bankruptcy, which he did in 1962.

To top it all off, he "drank like a fish" but is now a recovering alcoholic whose sobriety began 17 years ago. The FBI finally gave up, he says, when "the only thing they could pin on me was my drinking, which left them bored and frustrated.'