Wink Martindale

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Wink Martindale entering on Tic Tac Dough

Wink Martindale (born Winston Conrad Martindale on December 4, 1934 in Jackson, Tennessee, USA) is a disc jockey and television game show host.

Martindale started his career as a disc jockey at age 17 at WPLI in Jackson, earning $25 a week. He was hired away by WTJS for double the salary. Jackson's only other station, WDXI, hired him away from WTJS. He next hosted mornings at WHBQ in Memphis. In 1959, he became morning man at KHJ in Los Angeles, moving a year later to the morning show at KRLA and finally to KFWB in 1962. He also had lengthy stays at KKGO/KJQI and Gene Autry's KMPC.

Martindale's first break into television was at WHBQ-TV in Memphis, Tennessee, as the host of Mars Patrol, a science-fiction themed children's television program. It was at his tenure with WHBQ that Martindale became a close friend of Elvis Presley, and following Presley's sudden death in 1977, Martindale aired a nationwide tribute radio special in his honor. Martindale has hosted many game shows, including "What's This Song?" "Debt", "Gambit", "High Rollers", "The Last Word", "Tic Tac Dough" and "Trivial Pursuit."

His rendition of the spoken-word song "Deck Of Cards" went to #7 on the Billboard charts and sold over a million copies in 1959. It was followed by "Black Land Farmer."

He divorced his first wife in 1971, married his second wife, Sandy Ferra, in 1975, and has four children and seven grandchildren.

He has appeared in various TV commercials and has a daily three-hour show on the syndicated Music Of Your Life format, which is heard on around 200 stations.

Martindale made an appearance (in two separate roles) in the Quiet Riot video for "The Wild and the Young" in 1986. As of 2005, Martindale has capitalized on his camp appeal by doing television commercials promoting Internet travel agency Orbitz.

On June 2, 2006, Martindale received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.