Peter Marshall, the actor and singer who became a game show host and played the serious conversation partner of the stars on “The Hollywood Squares” for 16 years, has died. He was 98 years old.

Marshall died of kidney failure at his home in Los Angeles on Thursday morning, his family said in a statement released to CBS News through his press agent.

In over 5,000 episodes of the series, which ran on NBC from 1966 to 1981, Marshall shaped the character of the casual, professional, but never too serious modern game show host.

But he was often more like a talk show host, and the contestants’ game of tic-tac-toe, while real, was just an excuse to have fun. The questions Marshall asked regulars like Paul Lynde, George Gobel and Joan Rivers were intended as templates for joke answers before the real answers followed.

“It was the easiest thing I ever did in show business,” Marshall said in a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television. “I went in, said ‘Hello, stars,’ read questions and laughed. And it paid very well.”

“The Hollywood Squares” became an American cultural institution and made Marshall a household name. The show won four Daytime Emmys for most outstanding game show during its run and spawned dozens of international versions and several U.S. revivals. In addition to being a forum for character actors such as Charlie Weaver (the stage name of Cliff Arquette) and Wally Cox, it attracted a number of top stars as occasional guests, including Aretha Franklin, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Ed Asner and Janet Leigh.

Marshall had a warm relationship with Weaver, Lynde and others, but said Gobel, the wry comedian, actor and variety show host, held a special place, tweeting in 2021 that it was “no secret that he was my closest friend at the Hollywood Squares and my absolute favorite Square of all time!”

Marshall had spent almost his entire life in show business before he stepped onto the podium of “Squares” at the age of 40.

He had toured with big bands since his teens, been part of two comedy teams that performed in nightclubs and on television, had appeared in films as a contract actor for Twentieth Century Fox, and had sung in several Broadway musicals when the opportunity arose after Bert Parks, the host of the pilot episode, dropped out.

“I’m a singer first, not a game show host,” Marshall told his hometown newspaper, the Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, West Virginia, in 2013. “It was just a crazy opportunity. I had been on Broadway with Julie Harris and was about to return to Broadway when I did the audition. I thought it would be a few weeks, but it turned into 16 years.”

The Hollywood Squares started out as a rather stuffy series, but early in the series a producer suggested writing jokes for Lynde, the always snarky comedian who occupied the middle square and was meant to be as identified with the series as Marshall.

Marshall was born Ralph Pierre LaCock in Clarksburg, West Virginia and moved around the state as a child, living in Wheeling and Huntington.

His father died when Marshall was 10, and he lived with his grandparents while his mother and sister, actress Joanne Dru, moved to New York to pursue careers in show business. Marshall soon followed.

At the age of 15, he toured as a singer with the Bob Chester Orchestra. He also worked as a page at NBC Radio and as an usher at the Paramount Theater. During World War II, he was drafted and stationed in Italy, where he took his first steps in radio as a DJ for Armed Forces Radio. In 1949, he formed a comedy duo with Tommy Noonan, which performed in nightclubs, theaters, and on the “Ed Sullivan Show.”

In the 1950s, he got a contract as a film actor with Twentieth Century Fox and appeared in films such as “The Rookie” (1959) and “Swingin’ Along” (1961).

He was denied major leading roles in Hollywood, but he found them in musical theater.

He appeared opposite Chita Rivera in Bye Bye Birdie in London’s West End in 1962 – Lynde had played a leading role in the Broadway version, which he would reprise in the film – and in 1965 he played his first leading role on Broadway in Skyscraper with Julie Harris.

He also appeared in Broadway versions of “High Button Shoes,” “The Music Man,” and “42nd Street.”

After “The Hollywood Squares,” Marshall hosted a few more short-lived game shows, but mostly returned to his singing acting career. He starred in over 800 performances of “La Cage aux Folles” on Broadway and on tour and sang in the 1983 film version of “Annie.”

He was married three times, most recently to Laurie Stewart in 1989.

The couple survived COVID-19 in early 2021. He was hospitalized for several weeks.

His four children include son Pete LaCock, a professional baseball player for the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals. Marshall is also survived by his wife Laurie, daughters Suzanne and Jaime, son David, 12 grandchildren and nine great-great grandchildren.