In Memoriam : Bobby Rivers, actor, tv personality and film critic, dies at 70

Bobby Rivers, an actor, television host, film critic, and radio personality, has died. He was 70.

How Bobby Rivers passed away

His sister, Betsy Rivers, confirmed his death on Facebook.

“Bobby passed away last night and is no longer in any pain,” she wrote on Wednesday.

She later told The Hollywood Reporter, he had suffered a series of mini-strokes and had a recurrence of lung cancer.

Entertainment career

Rivers was heralded as a respected entertainment professional.

He worked as a VJ on VH1 in 1985 alongside Rosie O’Donnell. In 1988, he hosted his own celebrity talk show on the cable music channel, “Watch Bobby Rivers.” He later hosted the late-night dating show “Bedroom Buddies.” He also hosted Food Network’s “Top 5” series in the early 2000s.

Rivers became Milwaukee’s first Black film critic on television when he worked for WISN 12 in Milwaukee in 1979.

Acting

As an actor, Rivers played a news reporter on Seasons 1 and 3 of “The Sopranos” and as Chris Perley in Season 1 of “The Equalizer” TV series. He also played an emcee in the 1989 comedy “Identity Crisis.”

In 2008 and 2009, he appeared in two episodes of the satirical sketch comedy series “The Onion.”

Bobby Rivers was highly respected

Rivers was born and raised in Los Angeles. He attended Marquette University where he studied journalism and contributed to the nationally syndicated PM Magazine.

He was regarded as “Milwaukee’s Black, queer media pioneer” by Wisconsin LGBTQ news outlet Our Lives Wisconsin.

While respected, Rivers often faced homophobic attacks.

“Nobody really knew this, but I did receive a lot of hate mail,” Rivers said in a July 2023 interview with Our Lives Wisconsin. “Letters with no return address. Letters with swastikas on them. I didn’t get letters when I was on TV, but I did get voicemails.”

“After all these years of working hard, and taking care of my family, and making the Black and gay communities proud of me, and being worn down romantically by this solo act, I also had to deal with homophobic comments,” he added. “I had a great friend who came out with me, and while we were seeing Bruce Springsteen at Alpine Valley, someone yelled ‘Bobby Rivers, what are you doing with a woman.’ It was relentless.”

He survived by his sister and two brothers.