TV Icon Peter Marshall Returns to His Showbiz Roots at Met Room

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                                     Peter Marshall, the five-time Emmy Award-winning host of "The Hollywood Squares," who interrupted a career on Broadway to heed the call of Hollywood, returns to his showbusiness roots in a six-show major engagement at Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, in January. The January 11 to 14 run marks the entertainer's first club dates in New York since he appeared with his comedy-variety partner Tommy Noonan, in the late 1950's.

"I am before anything else a singer and have been for many years," says Marshall, who is 86. "This is why it is so exciting to me to be coming back to New York to perform in a nightclub setting after all these years!"

Marshall, who broke into show business as an NBC page in 1941 and soon found work as a big band singer, traces his show biz lineage to the last era of American vaudeville at the dawn of the Golden Age of television. Like many well-known television entertainers of the era – Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, George Burns – Marshall cut his teeth performing in nightclubs in New York and throughout the country. Marshall and Noonan made this same transition, adding television variety shows and even films to their joint resume. The two made many appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Marshall, who was born in 1926 to a show business family (his mother was a costume designer and his older sister, Joanne Dru, was an actress), was a seasoned Broadway star by the 1960's. Before making his move to "Hollywood Squares" in 1966 (he was the host for 16 seasons until it went into syndication in 1981), Marshall also starred on the West End in a long run of Bye Bye Birdie with co-star Chita Rivera.

In the '80s, Marshall starred in the National Company of La Cage aux Folles. His long stint with that production (over 800 performances) culminated on Broadway at the Palace Theater.

2013 will mark Marshall's 72nd year in show business. For his Metropolitan Room debut, Marshall presents And then She Wrote, a show he premiered in June in Los Angeles. The show features important contributions to the Great American Songbook by women songwriters spanning ten decades.

In And then She Wrote, Peter Marshall is supported by piano and bass and joined by the vocalists, Carol Welsman (a Juno Award nominee) and the Grammy nominee, Denise Donatelli. Six shows only: Friday January 11 at 7pm & 9:30pm; Saturday January 12 at 7pm & 9:30pm; Sunday January 13 at 4pm, and Monday January 14 at 7pm. There is a $35 music charge and a two-drink minimum. For reservations call Metropolitan Room at (212)206-0440 or to order online visit www.metropolitanroom.com