Wink Martindale
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| Wink Martindale | |
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| Born | Winston Conrad Martindale December 4, 1934 Jackson, Tennessee |
| Occupation | TV presenter, Game show presenter (1964-1998) |
| Spouse(s) | Madelyn, Sandy Ferra |
| Official website | |
Wink Martindale (born Winston Conrad Martindale, December 4, 1934, Jackson, Tennessee) 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, California, 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, as the host of Mars Patrol, a science-fiction themed children's television program. It was at his tenure with WHBQ that Martindale became the host of the tv show Dance Party where his close friend Elvis Presley stopped in to make a public appearance. Following Presley's sudden death in 1977, Martindale aired a nationwide tribute radio special in his honor.
Martindale has hosted numerous game shows, including What's This Song?, Debt, Gambit, High Rollers, The Last Word, Tic Tac Dough and Trivial Pursuit. In addition, he was the creator of Bumper Stumpers and he created and hosted Headline Chasers. As of 2008, he is the second television personality to have hosted 15 game shows, behind fellow veteran game show host, Bill Cullen, who had hosted 24 to date.
His rendition of the spoken-word song, "Deck Of Cards", went to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and sold over a million copies in 1959. It was followed by "Black Land Farmer."
He divorced his first wife, Madelyn, 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, until 2007, had a daily three-hour show on the syndicated Music Of Your Life format, which is heard on around 200 radio 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 2 June 2006, Martindale received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2007 Wink Martindale became a member of the nominating committee of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
In 2008, Wink appeared on GSN Live, an interstitial program during the afternoon block of classic game show reruns. As of March 24th, Wink is filling in for Fred Roggin on GSN Live while Fred is on vacation.
The May 25, 2008 "Sag Harbor Study" (a poll taken on New York State's Long Island) compared the social relevance of game show hosts in the 21st century to what many consider the "golden years" of game shows – 1973 through the early 1980s. Precisely 25% of all respondents given zero category-specific context were unable to identify "Wink Martindale" as a person of any significance.
| Preceded by Bill Wendell |
Host of Tic Tac Dough 1978–1985 |
Succeeded by Jim Caldwell |
