Merv Griffin is pictured during the taping of his final show in Los Angeles in this Aug. 20, 1986, file photo. Griffin died Sunday at age 82, a spokesman for the entertainer said.

This former big-band singer and longtime TV talk show host created the iconic game shows “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” – leveraging their success into a sprawling business empire that made him a billionaire at his death Sunday at age 82. In the format made famous in “Jeopardy!” – the answer is: Who was Merv Griffin?

Griffin died of prostate cancer, his company’s spokeswoman said Sunday. Less than a month ago, Griffin Group/ Merv Griffin Entertainment acknowledged he was being treated at Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for a recurrence of the condition, which was discovered during a routine checkup.

“I’d rather play ‘Jeopardy!’ than live it,” that July 19 statement quoted Griffin as saying. “I was ready for a vacation; however, this wasn’t the destination I had in mind.”

Among Griffin’s many business ventures were film and TV production, including the game show “Crosswords,” which is set to have its debut in syndication next month; luxury real estate brokerage and home development; thoroughbred horses and a closed-circuit horse racing network.

But the two smash game shows he created and produced made it all possible.

“Jeopardy!,” first introduced on NBC in 1964, was based on the suggestion of his wife at the time that, in response to the game-show scandals of the 1950s (in which contestants were illicitly given the answers), it would be fun to have players presented with solutions and try to divine the correct question. “Wheel of Fortune,” which began on NBC in 1975, was a reworking of Hangman, a children’s game Griffin and his sister used to play.

The two programs were included in the $250 million sale of Merv Griffin Enterprises in 1986, but the shows (for which he wrote signature music) continued to send him many millions more in royalties. Hits in syndication for 24 years and 23 years, respectively, they are among the two most successful game shows in U.S. history.

Despite the fortune Griffin’s business dealings created and the Emmy-winning talk shows on NBC, CBS and mostly in syndication from 1962 to 1986 that made him a household name, the game shows are his lasting legacy.

In many respects, Griffin was a better, earlier version of Larry King, tossing softballs that sometimes led to guests batting back answers into unexpected territory, such as when Richard Burton unexpectedly took a swipe at the space program in the 1970s.

“The least important thing we’ve done … in the last 100 years is to get a man on the moon,” Burton said. “The idiots who went up there had no knowledge or no idea or no purpose. They were just simply automatons.”

Griffin married Julann Wright in 1958, with whom he had a son, Tony. The couple divorced in 1976. Griffin also was a close friend of Eva Gabor, who died a dozen years ago, and former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

Griffin took a trip down memory lane in a 2006 interview with the Miami Herald, reflecting on other people and places no longer around

“Everything I ever touched is gone. Except ‘Wheel’ and ‘Jeopardy!”‘ he said without bitterness.