Jim Perry was a game show host best known as the face of NBC’s Card Sharks and Sale of the Century.
In 1978, he began hosting Card Sharks, a game show where contestants were asked questions about how people responded to a survey (much like Family Feud), and then played a card game where they tried to guess if the next card drawn from a deck would be higher or lower. He stayed with the show until 1981.
The following year, he hosted a revamped version of the game show Sale of the Century, which had contestants answering trivia questions and earning cash, which they could then spend on discounted prizes, or choose to keep, and return for future episodes. The show aired for six years, and spun off into a nightly syndicated version, which Perry also hosted.
He got his start in entertainment while serving in the Korean War, working on Armed Forces Radio. After the war he teamed up with renowned comedian Sid Caesar, and they toured together for several years, including a three-year stint in Las Vegas.
Jim Perry was a game show host best known as the face of NBC’s Card Sharks and Sale of the Century.
In 1978, he began hosting Card Sharks, a game show where contestants were asked questions about how people responded to a survey (much like Family Feud), and then played a card game where they tried to guess if the next card drawn from a deck would be higher or lower. He stayed with the show until 1981.
The following year, he hosted a revamped version of the game show Sale of the Century, which had contestants answering trivia questions and earning cash, which they could then spend on discounted prizes, or choose to keep, and return for future episodes. The show aired for six years, and spun off into a nightly syndicated version, which Perry also hosted.
He got his start in entertainment while serving in the Korean War, working on Armed Forces Radio. After the war he teamed up with renowned comedian Sid Caesar, and they toured together for several years, including a three-year stint in Las Vegas.
In 1966, Perry scored his first hosting job, the Canadian daytime game show Words and Music. He followed that up with It’s Your Move, a charades-style game show produced in Canada for American television.
He went on to serve as the announcer for The Joan Rivers Show, and then hosted Eye Bet and Headline Hunters, which aired from 1972 to 1983. While working on Hunters he began hosting Definition, which ran from 1974 to 1989, and was the longest-running game show in Canadian TV history.
Additionally, Perry hosted the Miss Canada Pageant from 1967 to 1990, and DJ'd for WABC Radio in New York from 1969 to 1972.
He died November 20, 2015, in Oregon. He was 82.
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