Bobby Rivers Biography
Bobby Rivers is a television, radio, and film actor from the United States. Rivers hosted the now-defunct Top 5 show on the Food Network, as well as Watch Bobby Rivers, a VH1 prime-time celebrity discussion show.
Bobby Rivers Age
Rivers was born in the United States of America.
Bobby Rivers Education
He attended Film Journalism and Communications at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Bobby Rivers Career
In the early 1980s, he made his professional television debut as a movie reviewer on that city’s ABC affiliate. One of his most recent important VH1 jobs was a one-hour exclusive interview with Paul McCartney in London.
He did this as a contributor to the Milwaukee edition of “PM Magazine,” a syndicated show hosted by Matt Lauer, Mary Hart, and Leeza Gibbons. During that time, he was asked to audition for a prospective replacement for Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert when they left Chicago PBS for Disney syndication. He’d advanced to co-host and associate producer of a live daily show on WISN in 1984.
Rivers was given a job as an entertainment reporter for WPIX-TV in New York City when that show was discontinued in 1985. The American cable television station VH1 then hired him as a VJ in 1987. Executives at the network used his comedy and interview talents, which led to him having his own show called Watch Bobby Rivers the next year. The New York Times’ Stephen Holden described him as “…a master interviewer with a gift for banter.” He interviewed, among others, Paul McCartney, Kirk Douglas, Meryl Streep, Mel Gibson, Carlos Santana, Ral Juliá, Michael Caine, Mel Blanc, Jodie Foster, Liza Minnelli, Marlo Thomas, and Norman Mailer for VH1. Until 1990, he hosted veejay segments alongside the network’s new addition, Rosie O’Donnell.
Rivers hosted two short-lived syndicated game shows, one of which was titled “Bedroom Buddies”. He was approached in 1992 to work as a lifestyles and entertainment reporter on WNBC TV’s “Weekend Today in New York” and WNYW-TV’s “Good Day New York.” He was hired for the latter as a substitute for Australian personality Gordon Elliott, who had left. Rivers has been featured onstage and on the television drama The Sopranos. He was the Entertainment Editor for “Lifetime Live,” an ABC News/Lifetime TV weekday magazine hour, in 2000. He also appeared on-screen alongside the show’s hostesses, Deborah Roberts and the late Dana Reeve. After “Lifetime Live” was canceled, he hosted Food Network’s “Top 5” in 2002. Although production finished in 2004, the show continued to air in weekly repeats until 2008.
Rivers’ VH1 chat show guest Whoopi Goldberg chose him to be the weekly film critic/entertainment reporter for her national weekday morning show for Premiere Radio, “Wake Up with Whoopi.” The series aired from 2006 to 2008. In his documentary about the late monologist/actor, director Steven Soderbergh uses footage from Rivers’ VH1 interview with Spalding Grey. “And Everything Is Going Fine” was the title of the 2010 release. Rivers transitioned into comedy acting as “Professor Robert Haige” in The Onion News Network video podcast”‘In The Know,” a satirical round-table news feature. Since 2011, he has maintained a television and cinema blog called “Bobby Rivers TV.”
Bobby Rivers’s Net Worth
Bobby has an estimated net worth of 1 million dollars.
