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Robin Leach of ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ dies

LAS VEGAS — Robin Leach, whose voice crystallized the opulent 1980s on TV’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” died Friday. He was 76.

Leach’s family said through a public relations firm that he died in Las Vegas, where he made his home.

“Champagne wishes and caviar dreams” was Leach’s sign-off at the end of every episode of his syndicated show’s decade-long run that began in 1984.

Leach covered the excesses and sometimes gaudy style of the 1980s, a time before oil billionaires, titans of industry and Wall Street traders gave way to sneaker-wearing tech execs as the world’s richest people.

Leach appeared occasionally on the show, but he and his unmistakable English-accent narrated throughout, taking wishful viewers on tours of mansions with diamond-crusted chandeliers, yachts with Jacuzzis, and champagne that ran to four figures. It was much like rap videos would do in future decades.

Leach and producer Al Masini coined the catchphrase and conceived the show.

“He asked me if I could get magnates T. Boone Pickens or Sam Walton to do the show,” Leach told The Huffington Post in 2016. “In my naivete, I said, ‘Of course.’ And thus, ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.'”

Leach said in later years that someone still shouted “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” at him almost daily. He was constantly parodied and, like other distinctive voices of the age, everyone had a Leach impression.

“Saturday Night Live” consistently satirized him through the years, with Harry Shearer as a subdued Leach hosting “Lifestyles of the Relatives of the Rich and Famous” in the 1980s and Dana Carvey as a brash, shouting Leach on “Week­end Update” in the 1990s.

“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” was the core of Leach’s career that spanned six decades and included stints with CNN, Entertain­ment Tonight and the Daily Mail, where he began as a writer in Britain at age 18.

Then, in 1984, he landed “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” and gained his own fame. The gaudy show be­came wildly popular, but never with critics. Leach was also an executive producer and occasional writer on the show.

In 1999, Leach went to Las Vegas to work with celebrity chefs at the Venetian casino-resort and made the move permanent, becoming a fixture in the city as he covered the destination’s entertainment and lifestyles for America Online and his own website. He also wrote for the Las Vegas Sun and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

He made frequent appearances on the celebrity reality TV circuit, and he was among the founders of the Food Network, selling his equity for a big payday when the channel took off.

Married once and divorced, Leach spent much of his later years in the company of his three sons: Steven, Rick and Greg; and several grandchildren.

“There is this image of a guy in a hot tub, drinking champagne with two buxom blondes,” Leach told the Las Vegas Sun in 2011. “But that is not the real me. I am a father, and I am a grandfather, too.”

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