Bobby Rivers, Witty VH1 Host, Dies at 70

Bobby Rivers, an affable and playful television host, entertainment reporter and film critic, died on Tuesday in Minneapolis. He was 70.

The cause was complications of cancer, said his brother, Tony. He died in a hospital.

Bobby Rivers got his start on television on “Good Morning Milwaukee” in 1979. “That was huge,” his brother said in an interview. “It was a wonderful springboard for him. People got to see his talent, his wit, his humor, his ability to turn a phrase, and I think that blew people away.”

He moved to national TV in the early days of the VH1 cable music channel, where he had his own talk show, “Watch Bobby Rivers.”

That show was hailed by the critic Stephen Holden in The New York Times. “Mr. Rivers is a disarmingly sweet, quirky personality who exudes a benign sense of mischief as he joshes with stars,” Mr. Holden wrote in 1988. “A nerdy, post-collegiate Eddie Murphy with no axes to grind, he is a master interviewer with a gift for light, impromptu banter.”

Mr. Rivers’s interview style was friendly, and he always seemed to be joking with his guests. But that didn’t prevent him from bringing up tough subjects, and his amiability could draw out revealing responses. In the late 1980s, for instance, he called Norman Mailer to account for sexism with such a big smile that Mailer almost didn’t notice.

In the 1990s he became an entertainment reporter for local stations in New York, appearing on “Weekend Today in New York” on WNBC and “Good Day New York” on WNYW.