LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Art Linkletter, whose “People Are Funny” and “House Party” shows entertained TV viewers in the 1950s and

’60s, has died at the age of 97.

His son-in-law, Art Hershey, says Linkletter “lived a long, full, pure life, and the Lord had need for him.” He says his father-in-law had been ill in recent weeks “and the aging process took him.”

Linkletter once recalled that his preacher-father had forced him to take odd jobs to help the family, so he left home and became a hobo, hopping trains across the West. Linkletter said he later recognized that the religious faith instilled by his father had been a great gift.

Linkletter collected quotes from children into his best-selling book “Kids Say The Darndest Things.” Among his other books, were “Old Age is Not for Sissies” and “Hobo on the Way to Heaven.”