A TOUCH OF MERV SPELLS TV SUCCESS; WHETHER COZY CHAT, BRAIN-TEASING TRIVIA OR LETTER-TURNING BLONDES, SINGER-TURNED-MOGUL GRIFFIN KNOWS WHAT THE AMERICA, PUBLIC WANTS - AND IT HAS MADE HIM ONE OF THE RICHEST MEN IN THE WORLD.

Byline: Janet Weeks Daily News Staff Writer

The black-and-white photos that line the hallway leading to Merv Griffin's office almost tell the story:

There's Griffin laughing with Clint Eastwood at some seaside location. And there's Griffin engrossed in conversation with Orson Welles. And there he is with John Wayne. And Katharine Hepburn. And Ronald Reagan. And Jane Fonda. And Princess Grace.

For 23 years, Griffin hosted the world's rich and famous, powerful and infamous on his Emmy-winning talk show. Gracious and quick to laugh, he was Rosie O'Donnell when Rosie was still a school kid.

But Griffin's talk-show career is just part of his story. The rest can be found in the walls themselves on which the gallery of photos hang: The hallway is part of the posh Beverly Hilton Hotel, one of several million-dollar properties owned by Griffin.

Indeed, since retiring from talk shows in 1986, Griffin has created a hugely successful second career as a sharp-eyed empire builder, a man who has made millions mostly off the public's willingness to gamble - in casinos, at horse-racing tracks and on game shows.

``I'm lucky,'' Griffin, 72, says, shrugging with a gambler's nonchalance. ``And I am able to spot things. I look at the marketplace. I've never been one to clone things, which is what everybody does. You get one hit, one `Seinfeld,' and then there are nine `Seinfelds.' ''

Destined to `Click'

Griffin recently saw a need for educational kids' programming, which has led to ``Click,'' a children's quiz show that Griffin hopes will become the new ``Jeopardy!''

Griffin says he created ``Click'' (12:30 p.m. Saturdays, KCAL Channel 9) in response to the federal mandate for shows that appeal to kids' brains as well as their parents' pocketbooks.

``This was an answer to the Federal Communications Commission request that we do something for young people beyond `Scooby Doo' and `Beavis and Butt-head,' '' says Griffin. ``And I said, `Hey, I want to answer that call.' I want to do a fast-moving, question-and-answer show. I wanted to do one with high speed, because kids react to questions faster than adults do.''

When it comes to game shows, there is no better expert than Griffin. He created the two most lucrative game shows in history, ``Jeopardy!'' and ``Wheel of Fortune,'' for which he has won seven Emmys. When he sold his production company to Coca-Cola (which then owned Columbia studios) in 1986, the two shows fetched a whopping $250 million. They have ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in syndicated ratings for 15 years.

How savvy is Griffin? Consider this: The theme song for ``Jeopardy!'' - which Griffin wrote in 15 minutes on a piano - has netted him ``millions and millions'' in royalties in the 33 years since ``Jeopardy!'' first debuted.

He gets a check each time it is played, and it's played twice in 22 minutes during each ``Jeopardy!'' episode alone.

``I think anybody on television who has lasted as long as he has - and there haven't been that many, you can count them on two hands - is a certain type of personality who understands what it takes to succeed,'' says Steven Stark, TV analyst and author of ``Glued to the Set: The 60 Most Influential Shows on Television.''

Hands-on visionary

Ryan Seacrest, host of ``Click,'' says Griffin is a ``perfectionist'' who personally oversaw the production of the show's first 22 segments.

``He's very `on,' very quick-witted,'' Seacrest says. ``He's very hands-on. He has a vision. He knows exactly what he wants.''

Griffin is so involved in ``Click'' that he wrote many of the questions himself, surfing the Internet for the kind of sites and information that appeal to kids. (Griffin also creates all the ``Wheel'' puzzles).

``All the information in the world is on the Internet,'' says Griffin, who spends about two hours a day on the Net.

In 1987, Griffin parlayed his windfall from the Coca-Cola sale into a new enterprise - hotels. He bought the Beverly Hilton for $100 million. His high-profile dealings caught the attention of Forbes magazine, which named Griffin to its list of the 400 richest Americans in 1989, estimating his fortune at $300 million.

Griffin says he loathed the public discussion of his finances.

``Forbes put me in as one of the richest Americans, and my life got terrible with people constantly coming at me with proposals.''

Of course, not everything Griffin has touched has turned to gold.

In 1988, he outbid Donald Trump for Resorts International and ended up splitting the company with the New York developer. Trump kept Resorts' then-unfinished Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J. Griffin got the rest of the company, which included other casinos in Atlantic City and the Bahamas.

But two years later, Resorts filed for bankruptcy protection. Then in 1996, Griffin sold Griffin Gaming & Entertainment Inc., which included Resorts, to casino developer Sol Kerzner for $210 million.

Deep background

So much for the well-publicized deals. Less known are Griffin's other interests. He also owns Teleview Racing Patrol Inc. and Video Racing Patrol, closed-circuit TV systems installed at 80 horse-racing tracks around the country. He owns radio stations - 17 at the last count - including WPOP in Hartford, Conn. He owns a prop rental business at the Santa Monica Airport. He owns an event-planning company that stages movie premieres and post-awards-show parties.

This summer, he bought a castle in Galway, Ireland, built in 1206 and once owned by John Huston. The castle is part of another of Griffin's new ventures - corporate retreats. During the interview at his Beverly Hilton office, Griffin flipped through a brochure for a French chateau an hour outside Paris that he is also considering buying.

``Corporate retreats are the hottest things in the hotel business,'' he says.

He also sold some real estate this summer. In June, he sold a 157-acre Beverly Hills-area mountaintop to Mark Hughes, the founder of Herbalife, for $8.5 million. It was reportedly the highest price ever paid for a home site - without a house on it - in Southern California.

Griffin himself has homes in Carmel and La Quinta (near Palm Springs). When he's Los Angeles, he stays in the Hilton's penthouse. He also spends a lot of time aboard his luxury yacht.

But money and material things were never the point of the investments, Griffin says. The thrill is in the risk-taking. In fact, risks have always been part of Griffin's success.

The early days

He started in entertainment at 19, as a college student in San Mateo, a suburb of San Francisco. His friend in those days was a then-unknown jazz musician named Cal Tjader.

``We started out at radio station KFRC in San Francisco in 1945,'' Griffin recalls. ``Cal Tjader was with me when I went to audition as a piano player. The guy said, `We don't need a piano player.' So Cal said ``What do you need?' We were just fresh kids in college. And he said, `We need a singer.' And Cal said, `Merv sings.' So I sang and got hired.''

After a stint at the radio station, Griffin joined the Freddy Martin band and toured the country. He also had a No. 1 hit with ``I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.''

In the mid-'50s, he was hired on as a contract player at Warner Bros. and made several movies, including ``So This Is Love'' with Kathryn Grayson and ``Phantom of the Rue Morgue.'' In 1955, he left the film industry to appear in ``Finian's Rainbow'' on Broadway.

``I hated movies,'' he says. ``It was the most boring job. God, just sitting around! I hated it.''

Eventually, he found his true calling: TV.

After hosting several game shows, he created ``Jeopardy!'' in 1964. It was an unusual move, considering the anti-quiz show climate fomented by the notorious quiz-show scandal of the '50s.

``When `Jeopardy!' started, people were going to jail for cheating,'' Griffin says. ``So we said, `Let's go back and try doing a legitimate quiz show. And I sold it right off the conference room wall to Grant Tinker.''

The talking cure

The talk show came along in 1962, at first as a nighttime venture aimed at challenging Johnny Carson's ``The Tonight Show.'' Failing at that, it was moved to daytime - where it flourished.

Although O'Donnell now credits Griffin and Mike Douglas as the inspiration for her hit show, Griffin says the talk shows of the 1970s were significantly different.

``There was no such thing as a remote control in those days,'' he says, ``so the attention span of America was 12 minutes. You could do an interview and really get into some heavyweight stuff without the commercials. Then came remotes.''

The invention reduced serious discussion to fast, MTV-style soundbites, he contends.

``If someone is not saying something you want to hear, bang bang bang ... you just can't sit there and wallow in a good conversation anymore.''

Author and TV expert Stark says Griffin's low-key approach to guests helped keep his show on the air for 23 years. And keeps him at the top of his game as a producer.

``TV is something that comes into your homes, and it's not watched the way you would watch `Rashomon.' You are tired at the end of the day and stressed out, and you tend to watch with one eye open. You're cooking dinner or talking to the kids. So it requires a certain form of simplicity, a low-key quality. I think he understands that in various forms - talk shows and game shows. It could be intuitive, but not many people understand it as well as he does.''

Merv to the manners born

Merv Griffin has done something it's unlikely many others have done - sent Prince Charles a condolence note. Merv feels the members of Britain's royal family have been made the heavies in the tragedy of Princess Diana's death and, he says, ``It's foolish.'' He met Charles long before his wedding - in fact, Merv conducted the Prince of Wales' first American TV interview - and in the '80s hosted a party for the prince and his princess in Palm Beach. In what became an ongoing relationship with the royal couple, Merv came to adore her - as most people did. But, unlike many people, he came to accept Charles as ``a marvelous guy, funny and charming.'' He adds, ``His boys adore him, and he's wonderful with them.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) AHEAD of the GAME

Merv Griffin wheels in kids' quiz show

Bradford Mar/Daily News

(2) ``Click,'' featuring host Ryan Seacrest, is Merv Griffin's new quiz show for kids. Griffin surfs the Internet to come up with questions for the show.

(3) A griffin, left, and Merv, whose career has gone from music and movies to a 23-year talk-show run, mega-successful game-show producing and hotel and casino ownership.

Box: Merv to the manners born (See Text)