Bobby Rivers, an American television and radio personality and actor died peacefully at age 70, Media Take Out has learned.
BBobby Rivers was the host of the Top 5 show on the Food Network, and Watch Bobby Rivers, a prime-time celebrity talk show on VH1. Bobby was one of the first Black entertainment reporters on television, and he was openly and proudly gay.
Embed from Getty ImagesBobby Rivers’ first television appearance was on a 1970 syndicated classic film trivia game show. He was a high school student. During those times on “The Movie Game”, shot in Hollywood, he was the program’s first African-American contestant and its youngest winner.
After working in Milwaukee radio, he made his professional television debut in 1979 on Milwaukee’s ABC affiliate, WISN-TV, as the city’s first African-American film critic on TV.
Embed from Getty ImagesDuring that time, he was tapped to audition as a possible movie critic replacement when Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert left Chicago PBS for Disney syndication. In 1984, he’d moved up to co-host and associate producer of a live weekday show on WISN.
n 1992, he was approached to be a lifestyles and entertainment reporter on local WNBC TV’s “Weekend Today in New York” and WNYW-TV’s “Good Day New York.” For the latter, he was hired as a replacement for Australian personality Gordon Elliott who had left. Rivers has performed onstage, and appeared on the television show The Sopranos.
In 2000, he was the Entertainment Editor on “Lifetime Live”, an ABC News/Lifetime TV weekday magazine hour. He also worked on camera with its hosts, Deborah Roberts and the late Dana Reeve. After the cancellation of “Lifetime Live” he hosted Food Network’s “Top 5” in 2002.