Famous 'Live with Regis & Kathy Lee' Announcer Tony Pigg Died at Age 85

If you were a fan of the show Live with Kelly & Ryan (now Live with Kelly & Mark), you’re probably pretty familiar with the regular cast of characters who appear on the show. Obviously, there was Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. Michael Gelman (known as just “Gelman” to most of us) also popped up every now and again — and has since the show’s inception.

But there was one other regular cast member whom you may not know by name, Tony Pigg (real name: Richard Quinn).

Before every episode, Tony would announce the day’s guests and introduce Kelly and Ryan before they walked onstage. At commercial breaks, you would hear Tony’s voice announcing which guests are still ahead. Tony became an on-air personality in the early '70s and even served as a longtime announcer for Live with Regis & Kathie Lee.

Sadly, in April 2024, Tony passed away at the age of 85, his wife confirmed via Instagram. Here's everything we know about his passing.

Tony passed away at the age of 85 on April 26, 2024, although his cause of death is unknown. His wife paid tribute to her "soul mate" and "love of [her] life for 40 years" via Instagram on April 27, 2024. While it's believed Tony stepped away from the show in 2019 due to an illness, he was presumed to have been doing much better since then.

Tony had been a staple on the show for years — his IMDb page lists him as the announcer for 595 episodes between 2014 and 2019, but he had the job since the days of Regis Philbin. In fact, Tony’s broadcasting career goes way back.

Anyone who grew up listening to the radio station WPLJ back in the ‘70s will undoubtedly recognize him (or recognize his voice, anyway). If you need a refresher, check out this recording of one of his airchecks from back in the day.

WPLJ was a leading rock radio station ever since its inception in 1971 (which Tony was present for, by the way). However, in 2019, fans of WPLJ got some shocking news — the station had been sold. As of May 31, 2019, WPLJ had transitioned to being a non-commercial Contemporary Christian music radio station.

After becoming the announcer for Live, Tony continued enjoying his status as a household name. However, he disappeared from the Live with Kelly & Ryan broadcasts in 2019. What happened?

Initially, Ryan took over Tony’s announcing duties, explaining that Tony had been under the weather. However, more than a month later, Ryan continued announcing and fans were left without an explanation for Tony's absence. That prompted fans to take their concerns to social media in hopes of getting some answers.

There were also several posts on the show’s Facebook page asking about Tony. Fans were eager to know whether Tony had retired or if he was still sick.

A glimpse through Lucinda Scala Quinn's Instagram feed showed that the two celebrated 33 years of marriage on June 21, 2019, but didn't reveal much else about Tony’s condition.

While we can't say for sure what led Tony to eventually retiring, one thing's for sure: his work as an announcer will forever be remembered.