Bobby Rivers, a television host, entertainment reporter, and film critic, died on Tuesday, December 26, 2023, in Minneapolis. He was 70. His sister, Betsy Rivers, confirmed his death on Facebook Wednesday, writing, “Bobby passed away last night and is no longer in any pain.”
The cause of death was complications of cancer.
Bobby Rivers got his start on television on “Good Morning Milwaukee” in 1979 at WISN 12 in Milwaukee, where Rivers became the city’s first Black film critic on television. He was a contributor to “PM Magazine,” a localized version of “Entertainment Tonight,” and then hosted “More” — both on Channel 12.
He moved to national TV in the early days of the VH1 cable music channel, a VJ on VH1 in 1985 alongside Rosie O’Donnell, and hosted his own celebrity talk show on the network, “Watch Bobby Rivers,” starting in 1988. He also hosted Food Network’s short-lived “Top 5” series in the early 2000s.
Whoopi Goldberg, a one-time guest on Rivers’ VH1 talk show, picked him to be the weekly film critic/entertainment reporter on her national weekday morning show for Premiere Radio, “Wake Up with Whoopi“. The show lasted from 2006 to 2008. Director Steven Soderbergh used footage of Rivers’ VH1 interview of Spalding Gray in his documentary on the late monologist/actor. The 2010 release was entitled “And Everything Is Going Fine“. Rivers moved into comedic acting playing “Professor Robert Haige” in “‘In The Know‘”, a satirical round-table news segment in The Onion News Network video podcast.
As an actor, Rivers played a news reporter on Seasons 1 and 3 of “The Sopranos” and as Chris Perley in Season 1 of “The Equalizer” TV series. He also played an emcee in the 1989 comedy “Identity Crisis.”
His most recent acting credit was in 2008 and 2009, in two episodes of the satirical sketch comedy series “The Onion.”
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