Entertainer.
Born at Winnipeg on 25 August 1921, one of two sons of Maurice Harvey Halparin (1899-1982) and Rose Rusen (1900-1970), he was educated at Lord Selkirk School, St. John’s High School (1934-1936), and the University of Manitoba (President of the Students’ Union, 1944). He began a life-long career in broadcasting at a Winnipeg radio station, moving to Toronto in 1946.
During the 1950s, after moving to the United States and adopting the stage name “Monty Hall,” he began hosting game shows. He later moved to California where he developed the wildly popular show Let’s Make a Deal that aired from 1963 to 1991. Throughout this period, he was active as a fundraiser for the children’s charity Variety Clubs International.
On 28 September 1947, he married Marilyn Doreen Plottel (1927-2017) of Toronto, at the Marlborough Hotel in Winnipeg. In recognition of his community service, he was inducted into the Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt (1985), Order of Canada (1988), Canada’s Walk of Fame (2002), and Order of Manitoba (2003), and he received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal (2002) and Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012).
He died at Hollywood, California on 30 September 2017 and was buried in the Hillside Memorial Park at Culver City, California.
Birth registration [Monty Hall], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Social and personal,” Winnipeg Free Press, 21 October 1947, page 12.
Obituary [Rose Halparin], Winnipeg Free Press, 30 July 1970, page 35.
Obituary [Maurice H. Halparin], Winnipeg Free Press, 31 July 1982, page 44.
“Monty Hall, co-creator and host of ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ dies at 96,” The New York Times, 30 September 2017.
Rose Rusen Halparin, FindAGrave.
We thank Sue Gibb for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 4 June 2025
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