A Wink and a Player
Marc Berman
WITH 21 DIFFERENT SHOWS TO HIS CREDIT, Wink Martindale ranks as TV’s second-most prolific game show host. (His mentor, Bill Cullen, had 22.) Although Winston Conrad Martindale began his career in radio, the man with the golden smile was destined for a life on the small screen.
Watch!: Is it true that your mother wanted you to be a preacher?
Wink Martindale: Sure is. She felt that God gave me a voice to be heard. But I don’t think she realized you needed professional training to be a preacher, and my passion in those early years was to work in radio. WPLI in Jackson, Tenn., paid me $25 per week to be a jack-of-all- trades. I played records, read the news, reported on sports … even swept the floor! Once I got to Memphis, I snagged a spot on Dewey Phillips’ Red, Hot and Blue Show, which aired from 9 p.m. to midnight. He was the first DJ to book a then very young Elvis Presley.
Watch!: What was Elvis like?
Wink: Very shy and quiet; he did not exactly exude confidence. But he had a certain look that you just never saw before. After he was a guest on my show Teenage Dance Party, we formed a friendship. He was a good person with a big heart, and he did not necessarily love stardom.
Watch!: You, too, had a hit record. Did you have any aspirations to be a singer?
Wink: No! My rendition of “The Deck of Cards,” which was not really singing, was packaged in an album that rose to No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was like an out-of-body experience when I performed it on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Watch!: How did you go from radio to game shows?
Wink: When I was doing radio I became a fan of Password and realized a host like Allen Ludden had to work only one or two days per week. I had young children at the time and wanted to be home more, so I asked my agent to get me a game show gig. The first show I hosted, What’s This Song?, aired in 1964, and the format fit me like a glove. Three years later I landed Dream Girl 67 for Chuck Barris, which was like a daily Miss USA pageant, followed by other short-lived fare like How’s Your Mother-in-Law?, Can You Top This? and Words and Music.
Watch!: What was your first hit show?
Wink: My first success was Gambit on CBS, which I did from 1972 to 1976, and then came Tic Tac Dough. As successful as Tic Tac Dough became, it was an uphill battle because CBS initially canceled it in daytime after just nine weeks. We were afraid it would fail when it went into first-run syndication, but it was paired with The Joker’s Wild and it worked.
Watch!: Is there a game show you would have liked to host, but didn’t?
Wink: Tattletales, which Bert Convy was exceptional at. My wife and I were actually on the show, which featured three celebrity couples having a grand old time.
Watch!: Anything you did that you regretted?
Wink: How’s Your Mother-in-Law?, which put women down, and I was very uncomfortable doing it. I never should have left Dream Girl 67 for it.
Watch!: After almost 50 years of hosting game shows, do you have a favorite?
Wink: Three, actually, and they are, in order: Tic Tac Dough, because it was instrumental in my career, Gambit and High Rollers. The beauty of this format is the durability. Good game shows never fully disappear.
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