Maurice, Dick

Talk show host and columnist Dick Maurice was born on November 5, 1946 in Connecticut where he spent his formative years. In 1965, he enrolled at Northeast Broadcasting School in Boston, Massachusetts. After graduation he moved to New York City, New York where he stayed until the fall of 1975 when an agreement was reached with Red Gilson, general manager of KSHO-TV, an ABC affiliate, to give Maurice his own morning TV talk show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Within a few months, Maurice was also writing two newspaper columns for the Las Vegas SUN. On September 10, 1976, en route to Chicago from New York, the Trans World Airlines (TWA) jet that Maurice and his business partner Gary Greco were on was hijacked by Croatian dissidents. Maurice interviewed the hijackers and took many pictures. Although the flight was diverted, no passengers were seriously harmed. In 1977, his TV show moved to Channel 5, becoming a one-hour weekly Sunday night program. In November, 1978, “Dick Maurice’s Las Vegas” debuted at the Frontier Hotel. This live national radio show with open phone lines eventually moved to the lobby of the Dunes Hotel and then to the Riviera in late 1979. In 1980, Maurice and his business partner Gary Greco started an entertainment/television weekly magazine that they called ShowBiz. By the fall of 1982, it began appearing every Sunday in the Las Vegas SUN as well as in hotel rooms throughout the city and is still in print today. Dick Maurice passed away on November 9, 1989, in Las Vegas, Nevada.