50 Fun Facts About Kathie Lee Gifford

Kathie Lee Gifford was born in which European capital, where her American Navy father was stationed?

Paris was her birthplace only because her father, a Navy chief petty officer, was posted to France with his family in 1953. She grew up in Maryland.

On Name That Tune's Sing-a-Tune round, what did vocalist Kathie Lee put in place of each song's title?

La-las stood in for the title words, so contestants heard the rest of the song and wrote down its name. The game lasted one season, 1977–78, and was dropped when she left.

Which future astronaut teamed with child actor Eddie Hodges on Name That Tune in 1957?

John Glenn, then a Marine major newly famous for a record cross-country flight, partnered the young actor. The pairing was later dramatised in the 1983 film The Right Stuff.

Which Seinfeld character spits coffee on Kathie Lee while promoting a coffee table book on her talk show?

Kramer was showing off a coffee table book about coffee tables, complete with fold-out legs, in the 1994 episode The Opposite. Kathie Lee Gifford played herself.

Which animated series made Kathie Lee Gifford its first celebrity spoof, in the 1997 episode Weight Gain 4000?

South Park had teacher Mr. Garrison plot revenge on her for beating him in a childhood talent show. It aired in August 1997, in the show's first month on air.

The Kathie Lee clothing line at the centre of a sweatshop labour controversy was sold by which retail chain?

Walmart sold the line, and licensing her name to it was earning Gifford $9 million a year when a labour rights group reported on its factories.

Which former Dateline correspondent shared the fourth hour of Today with Kathie Lee Gifford for 11 years?

Hoda Kotb was, by Gifford's own account, the main reason she returned to a daily talk show after first turning NBC down. The pair hosted together from April 2008 to April 2019.

Which All My Children actress took Kathie Lee Gifford's seat beside Regis Philbin in February 2001?

Kelly Ripa auditioned four months into a search that tried out guest co-hosts including Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg. Her first week in the permanent job began on February 12.

What did Kathie Lee Gifford share with her husband Frank, the Hall of Fame NFL star she married in 1986?

The same birthday, August 16, belonged to both of them, though Frank was born more than two decades before her. They married on October 18, 1986.

Which drink was a regular on-air prop for Kathie Lee Gifford and her co-host on the fourth hour of Today?

Wine sat on the desk most mornings, though Gifford said it was mainly a prop that usually went untouched. The habit began in 2008, when cocktails were served to a guest as a joke.

Which game show host had Kathie Lee as his singing sidekick on Name That Tune in the 1977–78 season?

Tom Kennedy fronted the syndicated show from 1974 to 1981 and went on to host Password Plus. Kathie Lee sang beside him for a single season.

Kathie Lee Gifford sang in television commercials as the face of which cruise line from the late 1980s?

Carnival kept her as its face into the early 1990s, and in 1991 she christened its new Fantasy-class ship, Ecstasy.

Kathie Lee Gifford's 1978 sitcom, set at a truck stop restaurant, spun off from which country variety show?

Hee Haw launched the syndicated spin-off Hee Haw Honeys, where guest country stars performed on the restaurant's bandstand. The sitcom was short-lived, made for the 1978–79 season only.

Which daughter of a former president took over Kathie Lee Gifford's seat on Today in April 2019?

Jenna Bush Hager was announced as the successor in February 2019 and began on April 8, three days after Gifford's final show. She was already a contributor to the programme.

Which Name That Tune bonus round asks the day's winner to identify seven tunes in just 30 seconds?

Golden Medley has featured in every era of the show since the 1950s, and a player may pass on a tune and return to it if time allows.

Frank Gifford, Kathie Lee's husband, spent his entire 12-year NFL playing career with which team?

New York Giants fans saw him named the league's Most Valuable Player in 1956, the season the team won the NFL title. He was inducted into the sport's Hall of Fame in 1977.

Which 30 Rock actress was named host when Fox revived Name That Tune as a primetime series in 2021?

Jane Krakowski said one reason she wanted the job was to perform in front of a live audience again. The first season was filmed in Sydney with American contestants.

Kathie Lee Gifford plays herself in the third film of which made-for-television shark disaster series?

Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! was the 2015 instalment, with Ian Ziering and Tara Reid back in the lead roles.

Kathie Lee Gifford appeared at the White House with which president to support action against sweatshop abuses?

Bill Clinton stood with her after she moved from defending her clothing line on air to asking federal authorities to investigate and backing laws to protect child workers.

Name That Tune's co-creator was a daughter of which evangelist, the subject of Kathie Lee Gifford's musical?

Aimee McPherson's daughter Roberta married bandleader Harry Salter, and the couple developed the game together. Decades later Gifford wrote the book and lyrics for a musical about the preacher.

Kathie Lee Gifford's husband Frank spent 27 years as a voice of which prime-time sports broadcast?

Monday Night Football wanted him for its 1970 launch, but he still had a year left on his CBS contract, so he joined in the second season as play-by-play announcer.

Kathie Lee Gifford played Miss Hannigan in a 2006 Madison Square Garden concert staging of which musical?

Annie came several years after she began working in musical theatre in the late 1990s, writing shows as well as performing in them.

In 2019, Kathie Lee Gifford and her Today co-host won which award for Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host?

Daytime Emmy success came late: she and Regis Philbin were nominated as hosts eight years in a row, and her first win arrived in 2010 as part of the Today team.

Which former American Idol judge led the band on Fox's Name That Tune revival for its first five seasons?

Randy Jackson also handled the announcing at the start of each episode. A session bassist before his judging days, he was succeeded as bandleader by Robin Thicke.

Before joining Regis Philbin, Kathie Lee was a correspondent and substitute anchor on which breakfast show?

Good Morning America used her in the early 1980s, and it was while guest-hosting the same programme that Frank Gifford met his future wife.

Kathie Lee Gifford studied drama and music after high school at which Oklahoma university?

Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, is named after the televangelist who founded it and had opened to students only in 1965, six years before she finished high school.

From 1976, the syndicated Name That Tune added which top prize to its title?

$100,000 went to a champion who could name a mystery tune played on piano while shut in an isolation booth, and it was paid out at $10,000 a year for ten years.

Where was Kathie Lee Gifford honoured in 2021 with a star placed five spots from Regis Philbin's?

Hollywood Walk of Fame organisers recognised her contributions to television on April 28, 2021, setting her star at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard.

Which Kathie Lee Gifford musical about a 1920s evangelist closed on Broadway after only 29 regular performances?

Scandalous opened at the Neil Simon Theatre in November 2012 and was gone within a month, despite Gifford promoting it constantly on Today. She wrote its book and lyrics.

In the original 1950s Name That Tune, contestants raced across the stage to do what before naming a song?

Ring a bell was the rule: two large ship's bells stood across the stage from the players. A round on the 1974 NBC version recreated the dash.

In 1978, Name That Tune restyled its set and theme music around which musical genre?

Disco arrived along with a new season-long tournament format that dropped the mystery tune, and a rock ensemble called The Sound System joined the orchestra.

The singer now known as Kathie Lee Gifford was credited under which married surname on Name That Tune?

Johnson was the name of her first husband, a composer and publisher of Christian music whom she married in 1976. Her 1978 album Finders Keepers carried the same surname.

Kathie Lee Gifford filmed the 2018 holiday movie A Godwink Christmas for which cable television brand?

Hallmark showed it on its Movies & Mysteries channel, and Gifford shot it in the same year as Then Came You, a film she wrote herself.

Kathie Lee Gifford filled in for which comedy legend in the Broadway Sondheim revue Putting It Together?

Carol Burnett was making her return to the Broadway stage in the 1999 revue, and standing in for her inspired Gifford to look for more challenging work than daily television.

Kathie Lee Gifford told Regis she was leaving Live! the day after guest-hosting which star's talk show in 2000?

David Letterman was recovering from quintuple bypass surgery, so guest hosts took turns at his desk. Gifford told Regis her decision the next day and left that July.

Which Scottish star plays the innkeeper opposite Kathie Lee Gifford in Then Came You, the 2020 film she wrote?

Craig Ferguson plays Howard, whose inn near Loch Fyne is the first stop for Gifford's character, a widow travelling the world with her husband's ashes.

Kathie Lee Gifford voiced Echidna in a 1998 television series spun off from which Disney animated film?

Hercules reunited her with Regis Philbin, who voiced Echidna's mate, the mythical monster Typhon. The series follows the hero as a teenager in training.

What name did Live! give the unscripted opening conversation that Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee made famous?

Host Chat grew from the producer's idea that the pair were, symbolically, a husband and wife chatting over their coffee mugs. A trivia call to a home viewer follows it.

Regis Philbin, Kathie Lee Gifford's on-air partner for 15 years, holds a Guinness World Record for what?

Most hours on US television became his record in August 2004, when he passed Hugh Downs with more than 15,000 hours on camera.

Which future Roots star became known to television viewers as a teenager on Name That Tune in 1958?

Leslie Uggams impressed a record executive sitting in the studio audience, who signed her to a contract. She went on to play Kizzy in the 1977 miniseries.

Which longtime Dating Game host fronted the daily 1984 revival of Name That Tune?

Jim Lange's version opened with a tournament for fourteen past champions of the 1970s show, but it was cancelled after a single season.

As a student, Kathie Lee Gifford spent a summer as live-in secretary and babysitter to which Miami-based singer?

Anita Bryant was then the national face of Florida orange juice, a role she held from 1969 to 1980. Gifford lived at her home during a summer in the early 1970s.

A film produced by which evangelist led 12-year-old Kathie Lee Gifford to become a born-again Christian?

Billy Graham produced The Restless Ones, the film she saw at 12. Gifford, whose paternal grandfather was Jewish, has said she was also raised with many Jewish traditions.

Name That Tune grew out of which earlier radio contest, which telephoned listeners at home to identify melodies?

Stop the Music was co-created by bandleader Harry Salter, who then reworked the idea as a contest between two players on stage.

Kathie Lee's replacement on Name That Tune sang with Lady Flash, the backing trio for which pop star?

Barry Manilow wrote and arranged the trio's own 1976 hit, Street Singin'. Monica Pege, who took over the vocalist's spot in 1978, appeared on the game show as Monica Burruss.

A worker in which Central American country smuggled out a garment bearing the Kathie Lee label?

Honduras was where the garment came from, and campaigner Charles Kernaghan told Congress that girls as young as 15 were making the line for 31 cents an hour.

Kathie Lee Gifford's daughter Cassidy starred in which 2015 found-footage horror film from producer Jason Blum?

The Gallows follows students who restage a school play twenty years after a horrific accident. Cassidy Gifford joined the cast at the last minute, playing a character who shares her first name.

Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford named their son Cody after lineman Cody Risien of which NFL team?

Cleveland Browns tackle Cody Risien spent 11 seasons with the club and made two Pro Bowls. The Giffords' son arrived on March 22, 1990, the very day Risien turned 33.

The show tune If My Friends Could See Me Now, sung by Kathie Lee Gifford in cruise adverts, comes from which musical?

Sweet Charity gives the number to its heroine, who sings it in a film star's apartment while marvelling at her good fortune.

Frank Gifford died in 2015 at the home he shared with Kathie Lee in which Connecticut town?

Greenwich was still the couple's home in August 2015, when Frank Gifford died there of natural causes, aged 84.