LOS ANGELES — Wink Martindale, the genial host of such hit sport reveals as “Gambit” and “Tic-Tac-Dough” who additionally did one of many first recorded tv interviews with a younger Elvis Presley, has died. He was 91.
Martindale died Tuesday at Eisenhower Well being in Rancho Mirage, California, in line with his publicist Brian Mayes. Martindale had been battling lymphoma for a yr.
“He was doing fairly properly up till a pair weeks in the past,” Mayes stated by telephone from Nashville.
“Gambit” debuted on the identical day in September 1972 as “The Value is Proper” with Bob Barker and “The Joker’s Wild” with Jack Barry.
“From the day it hit the air, ‘Gambit’ spelled winner, and it taught me a fundamental tenant of any actually profitable sport present: KISS! Hold It Easy Silly,” Martindale wrote in his 2000 memoir “Winking at Life.” “Like enjoying Outdated Maids as a child, everyone is aware of tips on how to play 21, i.e. blackjack.”
“Gambit” had been beating its competitors on NBC and ABC for over two years. However a brand new present debuted in 1975 on NBC known as “Wheel of Fortune.” By December 1976, “Gambit” was off the air and “Wheel of Fortune” grew to become an establishment that’s nonetheless going sturdy at this time.
Martindale bounced again in 1978 with “Tic-Tac-Dough,” the basic X’s and O’s sport on CBS that ran till 1985.
“In a single day I had gone from the outhouse to the penthouse,” he wrote.
He presided over the 88-game successful streak of Navy Lt. Thom McKee, who earned over $300,000 in money and prizes that included eight automobiles, three sailboats and 16 trip journeys. On the time, McKee’s winnings had been a report for a sport present contestant.
“I like working with contestants, interacting with the viewers and to a level, watching lives change,” Martindale wrote. “Successful a variety of money could cause that to occur.”
Martindale wrote that producer Dan Enright as soon as informed him that within the seven years he hosted “Tic-Tac-Dough” he gave away over $7 million in money and prizes.
Martindale stated his a few years as a radio DJ had been useful to him as a sport present host as a result of radio requires fixed ad-libs and he realized to deal with nearly any scenario within the spur of the second. He estimated that he hosted almost two dozen sport reveals throughout his profession.
Martindale wrote in his memoir that the query he bought requested most frequently was “Is Wink your actual identify?” The second was “How did you get into sport reveals?”
He bought his nickname from a childhood buddy. (Martindale isn’t any relation to College of Michigan defensive coordinator Don Martindale, whose faculty teammates nicknamed him Wink due to their shared final identify.)
Born Winston Conrad Martindale on Dec. 4, 1933, in Jackson, Tennessee, he beloved radio since childhood and at age 6 would learn aloud the contents of commercials in Life journal.
He started his profession as a disc jockey at age 17 at WPLI in his hometown, incomes $25 every week.
After shifting to WTJS, he was employed away for double the wage by Jackson’s solely different station, WDXI. He subsequent hosted mornings at WHBQ in Memphis whereas attending Memphis State. He was married and the daddy of two ladies when he graduated in 1957.
Martindale was within the studio, though not working on-air that night time, when the primary Presley report “That’s All Proper” was performed on WHBQ on July 8, 1954.
Martindale approached fellow DJ Dewey Phillips, who had given Presley an early break by enjoying his track, to ask him and Presley to do a joint interview on Martindale’s TV present “High Ten Dance Celebration” in 1956. By then, Presley had turn out to be a serious star and agreed to the looks.
Martindale and Presley stayed in contact now and again by the years, and in 1959 he did a trans-Atlantic phone interview with Presley, who was within the Military in Germany. Martindale’s second spouse, Sandy, briefly dated Presley after assembly him on the set of “G.I. Blues” in 1960.
In 1959, Martindale moved to Los Angeles to host a morning present on KHJ. That very same yr he reached No. 7 on the Billboard Sizzling 100 chart with a canopy model of “Deck of Playing cards,” which bought over 1 million copies. He carried out the spoken-word wartime story with spiritual overtones on “The Ed Sullivan Present.”
“I may simply have thought, ’Wow, that is straightforward! I come out right here, go on radio and TV, make a report and everyone needs to purchase it!” he wrote. “Even when I entertained such ideas, they quickly dissipated. I realized in due time that what had occurred to me was removed from the atypical.”
A yr later he moved to the morning present at KRLA and to KFWB in 1962. Amongst his many different radio gigs had been two separate stints at KMPC, owned by actor Gene Autry.
His first community internet hosting job was on NBC’s “What’s This Music?” the place he was credited as Win Martindale from 1964-65. He later hosted two Chuck Barris-produced reveals on ABC: “Dream Woman ’67” and “How’s Your Mom-in-Regulation?” The latter lasted simply 13 weeks earlier than being canceled.
“I’ve jokingly stated it got here and went so quick, it appeared extra like 13 minutes!” Martindale wrote, explaining that it was the worst present of his profession.
Martindale later hosted a Las Vegas-based revival of “Gambit” from 1980-81.
He fashioned his personal manufacturing firm, Wink Martindale Enterprises, to develop and produce his personal sport reveals. His first enterprise was “Headline Chasers,” a co-production with Merv Griffin that debuted in 1985 and was canceled after one season. His subsequent present, “Bumper Stumpers,” ran on U.S. and Canadian tv from 1987-1990. He hosted “Debt” from 1996-98 on Lifetime cable and “Instantaneous Recall” on GSN in 2010.
Martindale returned to his radio roots in 2012 as host of the nationally syndicated “The 100 Biggest Christmas Hits of All Time.” In 2021, he hosted syndicated program “The Historical past of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
In 2017, Martindale appeared in a KFC advert marketing campaign with actor Rob Lowe.
He’s survived by Sandy, his second spouse of 49 years, and kids Lisa, Madelyn, Laura and Wink Jr. They’re from his first marriage which resulted in divorce in 1972.
