The cancellation was not the worst downer in the career—which included 19 previous series—of the Winnipeg-born son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. In 1958 he had just taken over the rigged (unbeknownst to him, he claimed) quiz show Twenty-One when the lid blew. For a while, he had to survive as a sportscaster covering wrestling matches. With Let's Make a Deal, Monty turned around the whole daytime ratings and profit picture at ABC (when that network lured the show away from NBC in 1968) and unquestionably became a millionaire himself. But Hall, a college-educated liberal, was always defensive about the critical pasting he took. Yale, he was forever saying, based motivational research on the show. His philanthropic appearances (85 last year) approached the Bob Hope level. Curiously, his wife of 29 years, Marilyn Plottel, once scripted a Love, American Style episode about a wife who has to arrange her own charity benefit in order to see her husband. Monty played the lead.
They have one daughter, Sharon, 11, at home. Joanna, 26, is an actress; Richard, 24, is a TV newswriter. Hall's other concerns include mid-80s golf and a sitcom in the works starring McLean Stevenson, and he speculates that a daily Let's Make a Deal will be resuscitated within a year—but with a different host. As for now, the frantic 52-year-old dealmaker says he's looking forward to "the first time in 15 years that I can take off three months and enjoy myself." "You'll have to excuse Monty," observes wife Marilyn. "He isn't feeling well and his back hurts. The moment he stops working he falls to pieces."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
