This Is Your Life is an American television documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 series broadcast on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards

Ralph Edwards

Ralph Livingstone Edwards was an American radio and television host and television producer.-Early career:Born in Merino, Colorado , Edwards worked for KROW-AM in Oakland, California while he was still in high school...

 from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.

Edwards revived the show in 1971-72, while Joseph Campanella

Joseph Campanella

Joseph Campanella in Lewistown, Pennsylvania is an American character actor who has appeared in over 200 TV and film roles since 1955, including such shows as The Eleventh Hour, The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, Gunsmoke, The Road West, The Golden Girls and Mama's Family. He also had a role in...

 hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the late 1980s, before his death in 2005.