R.I.P.: Radio/TV Personality, Game Host Geoff Edwards

Geoff Edwards

Geoff Edwards, a Los Angeles radio personality and TV game show host who for years flew weekly to Sacramento to emcee the California Lottery's "Big Spin," died Wednesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica.

He was 83.

Edwards began his career while in college, working for a radio station in Albany, New York. By the late 1950s, though, he'd relocated to Southern California, landing his first job at KFMB-AM in San Diego, hosting an evening show and co-hosting the "Don Ross/Geoff Edwards Show".

As a news reporter, Edwards was present in the basement of the Dallas Police Department when Jack Ruby shot suspected John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963. Edwards was one of the witnesses interviewed by NBC television correspondent Tom Pettit on the scene.

After a few short stints at other stations, Edwards was hired at KMPC in Los Angeles, occupying the 9 a.m.-noon slot for several years beginning in 1968. He later worked at KFI, from which he ultimately resigned, as a protest against fellow KFI personality Tom Leykis, destroying Cat Stevens' (Yusuf Islam) records following Stevens' call for a fatwa on Salman Rushdie.

Most recently, Edwards was a morning DJ with KSUR (now KKGO) in Los Angeles. One of the features of his radio show was "Radio's Answer Lady," in which listeners could call in with questions — some serious, some not so serious—and he would answer on the air, sometimes with serious answers, sometimes with quips.

During that time, Edwards tried his hand at acting, appearing on I Dream of Jeannie, That Girl and Petticoat Junction. On the latter show, he met — and maintained a very close friendship with — Meredith MacRae.

He also guest starred on Diff'rent Strokes and Small Wonder.