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'Who Wants To Be Me?' by Regis Philbin with Bill Zehme

Almost live with Regis

Sunday, October 08, 2000

By Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	Who Wants To Be Me? By Regis Philbin with Bill Zehme Hyperion $22.95

How embarrassing is this?

The night Regis Philbin lost the Emmy as best game-show host -- to Bob Barker and Tom Bergeron, who tied for the honor -- he returned home to find a congratulatory telegram from West Coast friends, plus a watch from a Beverly Hills jeweler. They were not lovely consolation gifts; these people had simply anticipated that Emmy voters would reward Philbin’s success on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

He had saved the network, after all. But Emmy didn’t come his way, as Philbin recounts in his new book, “Who Wants to Be Me?”

Who doesn’t? With the help of Bill Zehme, whose name does not appear on the cover, he takes feather-light riffs and ramblings and spins them into a $22.95 book. Wife Joy and daughters J.J. and Joanna weigh in, too.

No heavy lifting or deep insights here, though. Just lots of typographical tricks -- capital letters, boldface, italic type, boldface caps -- that make it appear Philbin is raising his voice in print. Sometimes, as when he recalls a particularly hellish plane trip from Detroit to New York, he uses them all.

Reading Philbin’s book is like listening to him chat with his “Live With Regis” co-host of the day or Michael Gelman, executive producer of the morning show. He writes about lobbying for “Millionaire,” The Regis Collection of dark-hued shirts and ties, why he’ll never ski again, the broken tail light on his Jaguar (can you believe it cost $134?), how coyote urine is supposed to keep deer away from your flower beds, his loyalty to the Notre Dame football team, how much he loves “Seinfeld” reruns, and how he really had to go to the bathroom one time and he was stuck in a car because the president was in town.

I am not making up that last part.

It’s all bright, breezy, forgettable, and I would never pay $22.95 plus tax for it. He doesn’t even dish about Kathie Lee Gifford.

“You want the truth about her? Here it is, plain and simple: Kathie Lee Gifford is an irrepressible, indefatigable, unsinkable, ambitious whirlwind. I’m only one man, but she’s definitely more than one woman, and she would have made it big-time wherever she worked.”

The book’s only revelation is that two months after David Letterman returned from his much-publicized heart surgery, Philbin quietly had another angioplasty. “Not a big deal. Just one night in New York Hospital, in and out.”

He ended up in the same room and even the same bed that Letterman had used. When he called Letterman to tell him, an unfamiliar voice (perhaps an intern) answered. When he identified himself, she cracked, “Yeah -- and I’m Kathie Lee!”

“Who Wants” reads as if Zehme stuck a tape recorder under Philbin’s nose and he talked until he ran out of stories or, more likely, his collaborator ran out of tape.