Longtime “Inside the Actors Studio” host James Lipton is dead, ABC News has confirmed.
Lipton’s widow, Kedakai Mercedes Lipton, told The Hollywood Reporter that her husband died Monday at his New York City home from bladder cancer.
He was 93 years old.
“James Lipton was a titan of the film and entertainment industry and had a profound influence on so many,” said Frances Berwick, president of NBCU Lifestyle Networks in a statement obtained by ABC News.
“I had the pleasure of working with Jim for 20 years on Bravo’s first original series, his pride and joy ‘Inside the Actors Studio,'” Berwick continued. “We all enjoyed and respected his fierce passion, contributions to the craft, comprehensive research and his ability to bring the most intimate interviews ever conducted with A-list actors across generations.”
Lipton started “Inside the Actors Studio” in 1994 and remained host until 2018, after 22 seasons. The show, filmed in front of a live audience of student actors, featured Lipton interviewing some of the biggest actors of the time. He was also famously parodied by Will Ferrell on “Saturday Night Live.”
One of his most famous questions, which he’d ask at the end of every interview, was: “If Heaven exists, what would you like God to say when you arrive at the pearly gates?”
Throughout his illustrious career, Lipton had a wide variety of roles in the entertainment business, including stints as an actor, scriptwriter, producer, author and more. His 1968 book “An Exaltation of Larks,” a humorous examination of odd and endearing names for collective nouns, is considered a minor classic and has never gone out of print.
His acting credits included roles on “Arrested Development,” “Bewitched,” “Guiding Light,” “The Goldbergs,” “Cold Squad” and “You Are There.” Lipton also wrote for shows including “Capitol,” “Return to Peyton Place,” “The Doctors,” “The Best of Everything,” and “Another World.”
