Frank Gifford

Francis Newton Gifford was born on Aug. 16, 1930, in Santa Monica, Calif., one of three children of an oil-field worker hard pressed to find a steady job amid the Depression. By the time Gifford was in high school, his father, Weldon, had moved the family 47 times, traveling through California and West Texas. Gifford became a single-wing tailback at Bakersfield High School in California and then displayed his versatility at the University of Southern California, where he was an all-American, running and passing out of the single wing, playing in the defensive backfield and place-kicking. He was in his prime when the New York Giants defeated the Bears to win the 1956 championship. Two years later, in a thrilling championship game often cited for turning the fortunes of the N.F.L. because it was televised nationally, Gifford ran for 60 yards on 12 carries and caught a go-ahead touchdown pass in the fourth quarter, although the Giants lost in overtime, 23-17, to the Baltimore Colts. In 1959, the Colts rubbed salt in the wound, beating the Giants for the championship again. Gifford’s luster remained undimmed after he retired as a player. He joined “Monday Night Football” in 1971, its second season, and the program — conceived by Roone Arledge, ABC’s director of sports, as a prime-time spectacle — became a TV phenomenon. As the game broadcaster and later as an analyst and briefly as a pregame host, Gifford remained with the show through the 1998 season, an evenhanded presence amid the theatrics provided by Howard Cosell and Don Meredith and a host of others. Gifford was also in the public eye long after his playing days as the husband of Kathie Lee Gifford, a longtime co-host, with Regis Philbin, of the morning program “Live With Regis & Kathie Lee.” Frank Gifford occasionally filled in as a host. Gifford’s marriage to Astrid Lindley ended in divorce, as had his marriage to his first wife, the former Maxine Ewart. He married Kathie Lee Epstein in 1986. In addition to her, his survivors include their son, Cody, and their daughter, Cassidy, as well as two sons, Jeff and Kyle, and a daughter, Victoria, from his first marriage.