Winston Conrad "Wink" Martindale was born on December 4,1933 and is an American disc jockey, radio personality, game show host, and television producer.
29 Facts About Wink Martindale
2.
Wink Martindale next hosted mornings at WHBQ in Memphis while a college student at Memphis State University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1957.
3.
DJ Dewey Phillips wanted to interview Elvis during his program, so Wink Martindale endeavored to contact Elvis, but his mother Gladys answered the phone and said Elvis was so nervous that he had gone to a movie theater.
4.
In 1967, Wink Martindale acted in a short futuristic documentary film about home life in the year 1999 produced by the Philco-Ford Corporation which predicted, among other things, Internet commerce.
5.
At his tenure with WHBQ, Wink Martindale became the host of the TV show Teenage Dance Party, where his friend Elvis Presley made an appearance on 16 June 1956.
6.
The emcee role for which Wink Martindale is most widely known is on Tic-Tac-Dough.
7.
Two years after that program went off the air, Wink Martindale teamed up with Bill Hillier and The Family Channel to produce a series of "interactive" game shows that put an emphasis on home viewers being able to play along from home and win prizes.
8.
Four series were commissioned and Wink Martindale served as host for all four.
9.
In June 1996, Wink Martindale became host of Lifetime's highest-rated quiz show, Debt, which had debt-ridden contestants compete to try to eliminate their debts.
10.
Wink Martindale did not host another game show for over a decade.
11.
On June 2,2006, Wink Martindale received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
12.
On October 13,2007, Wink Martindale was one of the first inductees into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.
13.
Wink Martindale was one of the hosts featured in the 2002 NBC special Most Outrageous Game Show Moments, alongside Bob Eubanks, Jim Lange, Ben Stein, and Peter Marshall, but was not featured in any of the subsequent episodes ordered by the network.
14.
Wink Martindale has appeared in various TV commercials, including a stint as a pitchman for the travel website Orbitz.
15.
Until 2007, Wink Martindale had a daily three-hour show on the syndicated Music of Your Life format, which is heard on around 200 radio stations.
16.
On June 2,2009, Wink Martindale signed with the syndicated Hit Parade Radio format.
17.
In 2008, Wink Martindale appeared on GSN Live, an interstitial program during the afternoon block of classic game show reruns.
18.
Several times during 2008, Wink Martindale filled in for Fred Roggin on GSN Live while Roggin was on vacation.
19.
Instant Recall was the first show Wink Martindale has hosted since Debt aired on Lifetime from 1996 to 1998.
20.
In 2012, Wink Martindale returned to radio, as host of The 100 Greatest Christmas Hits of All Time.
21.
In 2014, Wink Martindale started his own YouTube channel featuring episodes of game shows, game show pilots, rare clips from various game shows, and more.
22.
Wink Martindale made a special guest appearance on the December 2,2014, episode of the GSN show The Chase hosted by Brooke Burns and featuring Mark Labbett.
23.
In October 2016, Wink Martindale appeared on the daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, as a minister.
24.
On January 28,2021, Wink Martindale claimed on his Facebook that he had one of the pilots for the ABC version of Deal or No Deal and would upload it when his YouTube channel hit 18,000 subscribers.
25.
On June 6,2021, Wink Martindale began hosting the nationally and internationally syndicated The History of Rock 'n' Roll, a two-hour weekend look back at music from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
26.
Wink Martindale married Madelyn Leech in 1954 and they had four children.
27.
Wink Martindale married his second wife, Sandy, on August 2,1975.
28.
Wink Martindale has a few dogs named after the various game shows he hosted.
29.
Wink Martindale is a born-again Christian and was once a guest on the TBN flagship program Praise the Lord.