A regular presence on television game shows throughout the 1970s, Jaye P. Morgan has passed away.
Her family announced that she had passed in Castle Rock, Washington on Monday, August 23. She was 94 years old.
A ‘Gong Show’ Favorite
Morgan is best remembered as one of the celebrity judges on 1970s TV hit “The Gong Show.”
She appeared on “The Gong Show” several times during the show’s run, from 1976 until 1978 on NBC, and then in syndication until 1980.
Known for her naughty, bawdy sense of humor, Morgan became a fan favorite on the show, in which ordinary people performed bizarre acts that were often halted by one (or all) of the judges slamming a large gong with a mallet.
She Started as a Singer
As The Hollywood Reporter recalled, Morgan began her career as a vocalist. Her 1955 single “That’s All I Want From You” hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. She enjoyed further chart success with “The Longest Walk” (which made it to No. 6), “Danger! Heartbreak Ahead,” “If You Don’t Want My Love” and “Pepper-Hot Baby.”
Singing led her to TV game shows, performing on ABC‘s musical quiz show “Stop the Music” in the mid-1950s. She starred in her own variety show in 1956, and became a popular talk show guest.
In fact, she appeared on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” more than 150 times, where she gained a reputation for making ribald remarks that were often bleeped.
“TV is so out of touch with real life,” Morgan told The New York Times in a 1981 interview, insisting what she’d actually said was never as bad as what viewers imagined.
”There’s no provocative language,” she explained. “They wanted me to come on TV talk shows so I would say something that would be bleeped out. When home audiences can use their imaginations, they think you said something much worse than you actually did. On ‘The Gong Show,’ the bleeps get the laughs, but I don’t really say anything bad. The bleeps create the fantasies.”
Her popularity on “The Tonight Show” led her to TV game shows, where she became a frequent presence during the 1970s. Her many credits included “Match Game,” “Break the Bank” and “The Hollywood Collection” before becoming a regular on “The Gong Show.”
‘Gong Show’ Scandal
It was on “The Gong Show” that Morgan’s gift for edgy one-liners really shined. That was the case with one act, which consisted of two fetching young women suggestively licking popsicles. While her fellow judges gave the act low scores, Morgan gave the women the highest score of 10. “Don’t you know that’s the way I started?” she said.
However, she pushed things too far in a now-infamous episode during a performance from “Gong Show” regular Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. Removing her jacket and tie, she then flashed her breasts to the audience — a stunt that got her fired by NBC and permanently barred from the show. That also led NBC president Fred Silverman to cancel “The Gong Show,” which producer/host Chuck Barris then revived in syndication.
However, Barris continued to hire Morgan. She appeared on his subsequent series, “The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show” and “The $1.98 Beauty Pageant.”
She also appeared in Barris’ 1980 “The Gong Show Movie,” and in the George Clooney-directed Barris biopic “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” in 2002.
