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Larry Blyden was born as Ivan Lawrence Blieden in Houston, Texas on June 23rd, 1925. He died in Morocco after a car accident on June 6th, 1975, just shy of his 50th birthday.
Career
Larry Blyden's career had 3 distinct phases. For most of his career, Larry Blyden was known as a good, solid character actor for TV and also as a highly in demand Broadway actor. As for as television is concerned, he starred in one show, called "Harry's Girls", which ran from 1963 to 1964. In it, he starred as Harry, who was a vaudeville style performer constantly getting into trouble and falling in love. Other than his one starring role, Blyden did many, many guest performances on dramatic anthology series such as "Playhouse 90", "Omnibus", the "Loretta Young Show" and many, many others along with "The Twilight Zone" and other non-anthology dramatic programs
At the same time that he was doing guest shots on tv, Blyden was an in-demand Broadway and off-Broadway actor, starring in shows such as "Mister Roberts" (where he played the role later played by Jack Lemmon in the film version), "Harold", "Foxy" and "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum", for which he won the Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
Late in his career, once he had reached the age where actors typically get less work, he became a game show presenter and MC, starting with "Personality" in 1966. He also hosted "You're Putting Me On", "The Movie Game" and finally and most successfully, "What's My Line?". When he died, he was about to host the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman produced show, "Showoffs", which was eventually hosted by Bobby Van.
In all of these endeavors, Larry was warm, friendly and gregarious. Of all of the "What's My Line" hosts, he was the only one who seemed to completely become involved in the occupations of the contestants. As the Game Shows of '75 site mentioned, Larry brightened things up considerably when he took over as host. His most common expressions were "That's Terrific!" or "I Can Do That!" when presented with a new challenge. According to Gil Fates' "What's My Line" book from 1978, Larry's house was full of all sorts of nicknacks that he had gotten from the show and elsewhere. In fact, he was so big into collectibles that the producers of the show had to dissuade him from taking home certain large items.
Personal Life
Larry was married to actress and dancer Carol Haney from 1965 to 1972. The couple had 2 children, Joshua (1957 to 2000) and Ellen (1960-present).