Eric Lieber, 71; TV producer created 'Love Connection'
LOS ANGELES - Eric Lieber, a veteran television producer who created and was the executive producer of TV's long-running dating show "Love Connection," has died. He was 71.
Mr. Lieber died of leukemia Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said his wife, Peggy, who worked as coproducer with her husband for many years.
After launching his career on a TV game show in New York in the late 1950s, Mr. Lieber went on to be a producer of the Mike Douglas, Dick Cavett, and Sammy Davis Jr. talk shows, as well as three Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Associton telethons.
He also produced specials such as "Grammy Salutes Oscar" in 1974 and "The American Film Institute Salute to Henry Fonda" in 1978, for which he shared an Emmy nomination. Mr. Lieber's "Love Connection" was a successful syndicated show hosted by Chuck Woolery from 1983 to 1995. Mr. Lieber was also executive producer of the 1998-99 version hosted by Pat Bullard.
The show featured participants who watched videos of three prospective blind dates and, after picking one, appeared on the show afterward to talk about their date. Before the date was described, the studio audience watched excerpts from the original videos and voted on the person they thought was the best date.
The show had a closely guarded video library that, according to a 1992 Chicago Sun-Times story, housed "some 30,000 tapes of people spilling their guts in five-minute snippets."
Mr. Lieber said he enjoyed "the couples who rag on each other, but also the people who get along are fun. The show succeeds because we believe in honest emotions. And, admit it: We're all a little voyeuristic and enjoy peeking into someone else's life."
Born in Vienna on April 7, 1937, Mr. Lieber came to the United States as an infant and grew up in New Jersey. He studied art at the High School of Music & Art in New York and served a stint in the Army shortly after launching his TV career in the late '50s.
Besides his wife of 43 years, Mr. Lieber leaves his daughter, Christine; and a granddaughter.
