By The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Art Linkletter, whose ''People Are Funny'' and ''House Party'' shows entertained millions of TV viewers in the 1950s and '60s with the funny side of ordinary folks and who remained active as a writer and speaker through his ninth decade, died Wednesday. He was 97.
Linkletter died at his home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles, said his son-in-law, Art Hershey, the husband of Sharon Linkletter.
''He lived a long, full, pure life, and the Lord had need for him,'' Hershey said.
Linkletter had been ill ''in the last few weeks time, but bear in mind he was 97 years old. He wasn't eating well, and the aging process took him,'' Hershey said.
Linkletter hadn't been diagnosed with any life-threatening disease, he said.
Linkletter was known on TV for his funny interviews with children and ordinary folks. He also collected their comments in a number of best-selling books.
''Art Linkletter's House Party,'' one of television's longest-running variety shows, debuted on radio in 1944 and was seen on CBS-TV from 1952 to 1969.
Though it had many features, the best known was the daily interviews with schoolchildren.
