Mike Roy was an American celebrity chef, radio personality, TV personality, culinary expert, and author of several best-selling cookbooks.

Date, time and place of birth: July 18, 1913, at 4 a.m., Hannaford, North Dakota, U.S.A. *

Date, place and cause of death: June 26, 1976, Torrance, California, U.S.A. (Heart attack)

Marriage: Allison Belyea (m. February 4, 1948)

Children: Robin and Dana

Parents: Louis J. (a barber) and Marie (Bostrum) Brant

Mike Roy began his career as a writer, and also a news and sports editor for Minneapolis radio station WCCO. After a move to Chicago, he served as a radio announcer and master of ceremonies for WMAQ (1937-44). Audiences nationwide became familiar with Mike as M.C. on popular radio programs such as The Abbott and Costello Show, Duffy's Tavern, and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

Mike hosted one of the earliest TV cooking shows, Secrets of a Gourmet, beginning in 1944, on Los Angeles TV station W6XAO. It proved popular with those few individuals who actually owned television sets in the area and ran until 1950. W6XAO was an experimental TV station in Los Angeles, that went on the air back in December of 1931. It was the first television station on the West Coast and one of the first broadcast television stations in the United States. W6XAO later became KTSL, then KNXT.

For the next quarter of a century, Mike Roy's cooking shows could be heard on radio stations KNX in Los Angeles, and CBS-Radio. Mike Roy's Kitchen aired from 1950 until 1962, and At Your Service ran from 1962 till 1972.


Selected cookbooks by Mike Roy:
The Mike Roy Cookbook Number One: Gourmet Recipes (1966)
The Mike Roy Cookbook Number Two: Everyday Recipes (1968)
Cooking with Astrology (co-authored with Sydney Omarr) (1969)
Discovering Italian Wines (1971)
The Mike Roy Cookbook Number Three: About Food and Friends (1972)
Mike Roy's Cookbook Number Four: From the Master Chef (1973)
Mike Roy's Cookbook Number Five: More Food and Friends (1974)
Mike Roy's American Kitchen (1974)
Mike Roy's Crock Cookery (1975)
The Best of Mike Roy (1978).

* 4 a.m. is the time of birth Mike Roy personally reports as his birth time in his cookbook, Cooking with Astrology, co-authored by famed astrologer Sydney Omarr.

NOTE: A couple of sources misspell his birthplace "Hanaford" instead of the proper spelling of Hannaford, North Dakota.

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