NOW, REGIS IS QUITTING, TOO

In a surprise announcement, Regis Philbin said on this morning’s (Tuesday) Live with Regis and Kelly that he will be retiring from the show around the end of summer. “I don’t want to alarm anybody,” he remarked, then stated, “This will be my last year on the show.” His co-host, Kelly Ripa is expected to remain, with a new co-host replacing Philbin. “It’s been a long time, it’s been 28 years,” Philbin said of the syndicated show he currently hosts with Ripa and, prior to 2000, with Kathie Lee Gifford. “It was the biggest thrill of my life to come back to New York, where I grew up as a kid watching TV in the early days, you know, never even dreaming that I would one day have the ability, or whatever it takes, to get in front of the camera and talk to it. … There is a time that everything must come to an end for certain people on camera — especially certain old people!” Philbin is 79. In recent months Oprah Winfrey has announced that she’s quitting her daily talk show, and Larry King has already left his talk show on CNN.