Robin Douglas Leach was the son of a vacuum cleaner sales manager in London, England but had a knack for journalism early on — he was just 15 when he began his first newspaper job — and quickly rose through the world of U.K. tabloids, according to Forbes. In 1963, he moved to New York City and by the early 1970s had become a millionaire after selling Go Magazine, a music publication he’d started in the 1960s. After making the jump to television he found global fame as the host of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” which he also executive produced, per the Associated Press. The show opened the doors to the mansions of celebrities and the ultra-rich, ending each show with his tagline “Champagne wishes and caviar dreams.”
Among his many ventures, Leach was one of the founders of the Food Network, which earned him a tidy sum after he sold his share of the business. He moved to Las Vegas in 1999 and continued to work on various projects until he suffered a stroke while vacationing in Mexico in November 2017. Steven Leach, a San Diego-based realtor, moved to Las Vegas to care for his father and deal with the journalist’s finances, per a GoFundMe campaign.
