#RIP Winston Conrad Martindale aka show biz personality #WinkMartindale, whose career spanned decades before he passed at age 90 in #RanchoMirage California this week
His career started as a teenaged 50's radio DJ in #Memphis , who became an early #Elvis supporter where some of The King's very first on air appearances began in 1954. Elvis guested on Wink Martindale's "Teenage Dance Party" TV Show on June 16th, 1956 and clips are available on YouTube. Martindale himself made his own spoken word records, including "Deck of Cards" which hit No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and sold over a million copies in 1959.
Hollywood was soon calling after his hit single, and Wink moved west to take DJ slots on a series of multiple LA stations including KHJ, KRLA, KFWB , KABC and had locally aired Southern California shows on air until an early 1990s stint on KJQI ended. He also was a syndicated radio host who was the voice on many programs, including a daily 3 hr show called the "Music of Your Life" that ran on some 200 stations until 2007.
His national TV #GameShow hosting era started in 1964 on the NBC show "What's This Song?", and over decades included stints on "Gambit" , #HighRollers and the most popular being #TicTacDough which ran from late 70s until 1985.
Martindale also co-created , produced and hosted an interactive 1990's version of #TrivialPursuit that ran on #FamilyChannel and made TV interpretations of other board games including #Boggle. Other cable ventures included game shows for #TravelChannel , USA Network and even #Lifetime who canceled his show about contestants digging out of #Debt after learning the viewers were more men than women. Much of the game show content highlights would end up on his popular YouTube channel "Wink's Vault".
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