'Live with Kelly and Ryan' producer gives sneak peek of LI episode

When the morning show "Live with Kelly and Ryan" launches season 34 from executive producer Michael Gelman's Southampton-area backyard on Labor Day, the episode will be all about being home, the showrunner says.

"Wikipedia is incorrect," Gelman notes of the crowdsourced online encyclopedia's assertion that he was born and raised in Highland Park, Illinois. "I was actually born at Mount Sinai hospital in Manhattan. Then we lived in Forest Hills, [Queens], and in New Jersey, but when I was in first grade we moved to Dix Hills. We lived there till I was in sixth grade, then we moved to Highland Park, and at the end of my high school career moved back to Long Island, to Melville. So, really, Long Island was my home," he says, adding, "My grandparents had a summer house in Northport that we used to move into every summer."

Hosted by Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, the syndicated show — which premiered as "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" on Sept. 5, 1988, and has continued through various iterations since — opens the season with "Live's Labor Day Backyard Party," recorded "a couple of weeks ago," says Daytime Emmy Award winner and perennial nominee Gelman, 60.

The season-premiere guests are food-and-drink entrepreneur and former "The Real Housewives of New York City" ensemble star Bethenny Frankel and Food Network chef Michael Symon, both of whom also have Long Island homes, plus actor Dove Cameron ("Schmigadoon!") and fitness trainer Isaac Boots. The locally headquartered Hampton Coffee Company provided craft service.

Gelman and his family — novelist Laurie Gelman, his Canada-born wife of 21 years, whom he wed in East Moriches, and their daughters Jamie, 20, and Misha, 17 — live in Manhattan's Upper West Side. But, Gelman recalls, "Thirty years ago, before I owned anything in Manhattan, I was able to buy a place out here. You know, I was a suburban kid — I never really was used to the huge amount of money a one-bedroom apartment [in Manhattan] costs. So I went out to the Hamptons and it was a very low time for real estate. I was able to buy a place and we've been coming out here ever since."

He chose the Hamptons for the Labor Day premiere since during the height of the pandemic "we were doing the show virtually, all in different locations — I was out here, Kelly was at her place out here, Ryan was in California and we're all going through a control room in Manhattan. And we did some really fun holiday shows where we would be grilling and playing games in each of our backyards. And I thought, wouldn't it be fun to do a full show together in a backyard? And so I volunteered my lawn and everyone came at it and we had a great time."

Aside from co-host Seacrest, he says, "The only person who really didn't have a Long Island connection was Dove Cameron, and she was thrilled to take the car out here and enjoy the sunshine!"