While this post is a departure from our usual medicine-focused content, we at D&D wanted to acknowledge the recent passing of Regis Philbin. A few members of our staff were fortunate enough to meet Regis during his 88 years on earth — their reminiscences are below.
From Greg Dennis, retired co-founder of Dowling & Dennis:
“Regis Philbin had a son who was confined to a wheelchair and relied upon a small piece of technology made by a large medical company. As it happened, Dowling & Dennis did some PR consulting work for that company.
Back in about 2007, the company contacted me to say that Regis wanted to make a deal with the medical company so that when he died, his son would have a lifetime of free access to the technology — and what could we do with Regis? Did Liz and I have any ideas?
We came up with the idea of trading for a day of Regis’s time in Washington, D.C, to emcee the medtech industry’s annual event on Capitol Hill. I suggested we also add a tour for Regis through Walter Reed, where he could meet with wounded warriors hospitalized after being injured in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Regis and his representation agreed to our proposal, at which point we spent a frantic month pulling it all together. Which is how I got to spend the day with Regis Philbin in Washington, D.C.
He was as much fun and as much of a gentle man as this WSJ piece by Jason Gay makes him out to be. It was truly an honor to spend time with him.”
From Dr. Warren Farrell, strategic consultant at Dowling & Dennis:
“During my years on the Board of N.O.W. in NYC and later, I enjoyed three interviews by Regis Philbin — two in St. Louis and one in NYC.
Regis was neither constrained by the handcuffs of political correctness nor those of tradition. He was playful, challenging and indignant.
If humor, ‘telling it like it is’ and playful sparring leads to less stress and a longer, healthy, happy life, then it is little wonder that Regis exceeded the life expectancy of his generation by more than a decade.”