Rich Fields

Rich Fields
Born	Richard Wayne Fields November 30, 1960 (1960-11-30) Bay Village, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Game show announcer, host, actor, voice-over artist, meteorologist, radio personality.
Years active	1979–present
Website
http://www.richfields.tv

Richard Wayne "Rich" Fields (born November 30, 1960) is an American broadcaster, spokesman, announcer and meteorologist, best known for being the announcer of the American version of The Price Is Right from 2004–2010.

Fields is currently a part-time meteorologist for the CBS owned and operated television stations KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV in Los Angeles, California. Fields can also be heard on the radio on K-EARTH 101 KRTH in Los Angeles.

Early life and career

Fields was born in Bay Village, Ohio and raised in Avon, Ohio, before moving to Clearwater, Florida in 1976. He graduated from the University of Florida in 1983 with a degree in broadcasting and has enjoyed a 32-year career as a radio personality, including a ten year stint at KCBS-FM in Los Angeles, and can still be heard at times on K-EARTH 101 KRTH in Los Angeles. In his early career, Fields worked as a show host and announcer at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Fields is a well-known voice-over personality and has done hundreds of television and radio commercials. In 1995, Fields became the announcer for the Florida Lottery's Flamingo Fortune television game show (a Goodson Production) and held that position for three seasons.

In early 2000, Fields returned to college at Mississippi State University to study meteorology and later became a television meteorologist. After an internship at WFLA-TV in Tampa Florida, Fields was offered the morning weather position at KPSP-LP in Palm Springs, California. Fields was later promoted to Chief Meteorologist for KPSP and worked for the station until May 2004.

The Price Is Right

During a question-and-answer segment with then-announcer Johnny Olson at a taping of Price Is Right in 1978, Fields asked how he could get Olson's job. Olson brought Fields onstage and asked him to give an example of how he would call a contestant to "Come on down!"

In March 2004, while still working for KPSP, Fields auditioned for the announcing role on The Price Is Right that was vacated by the death of Rod Roddy. Occasionally, Fields delivered his weather forecasts for KPSP from the Price Is Right stage (Studio 33) at CBS Television City. On April 4, 2004, CBS announced that Fields would become the show's new announcer. Legendary show host Bob Barker introduced Fields to viewers nationwide on the episode that aired April 27 of that year.

In 2008, and nearly a year after Drew Carey took over the host position on The Price Is Right, Fields began to regularly appear on camera, interacting with Carey during the show. In that time, Fields appeared on camera more often than either of his predecessors during their tenures as announcer. On July 16, 2010, Fields announced on his website that he would not be returning to The Price Is Right, as the show's current executive producer Mike Richards was looking to change certain aspects of the show. In the web post, Fields stated producers plan to add performances by live bands and include an announcer with a background in improvisational comedy. Since Fields' departure, a rotating group of guest announcers have appeared in his place, until George Gray succeeded him on April 18, 2011.

Other work

In 2006, Fields appeared in the FOX sitcom The War at Home as an energetic game show host opposite Michael Rappaport. Also in 2006, Fields was called to do voice-over on the ABC comedy According to Jim. In 2007 Fields appeared as himself on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother with host Bob Barker in the episode titled "Showdown".

In addition to appearing on both the daytime and prime-time versions of The Price Is Right, Fields has also made appearances on other television shows including Gameshow Marathon, Inside Edition, The Late Late Show and many others. In 2006, Fields co-hosted the Orlando Christmas Parade on Superstation WGN. In 2007, Fields was the host of the first-ever Game Show Hall of Fame Awards in Las Vegas. At that show, Fields accepted Merv Griffin's induction into the Hall of Fame, at the request of the Griffin family.

On May 1, 2008, Fields appeared on GSN Live on Game Show Network. On June 10, 2008, Fields guest starred on NBC's Last Comic Standing as the announcer for the event "Last Comic Smackdown". Prior to this, Fields provided narration for GSN's Top 10 Countdown of the greatest game show hosts during the segment on Bob Barker, with Bob being in the #1 position. Fields has also appeared onstage many times with Drew Carey and his "Comedy Allstars" shows at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV. Fields also announced Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza, a GSN series hosted by Carey and featuring most of the cast of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, which aired in 2011, he also performed in an episode.

Fields served as a guest announcer on Wheel of Fortune following the death of Charlie O'Donnell, and provided post-production voice-over work for over nine weeks of episodes.

References

Media offices
Preceded by Rod Roddy	Announcer of The Price Is Right 2004-2010	Succeeded by George Gray

External links

• Rich Fields' Official Website
• Rich Fields' iPhone & iPodTouch App "iRichFields"
• Rich Fields' iPhone & iPodTouch App "Television Trivia Test"
• Rich Fields at the Internet Movie Database