Wink Martindale, the genial game-show host and an early TV interviewer of Elvis Presley, dies at 91

By BETH HARRIS LOS ANGELES AP Wink Martindale the genial host of such hit battle shows as Gambit and Tic-Tac-Dough who also did one of the first recorded television interviews with a young Elvis Presley has died He was Related Articles Trump threatens Harvard s tax exempt status after pausing B in grant funding Millions in merchandise taken by burglars who tunneled through concrete into LA jewelry store Man who says he was held captive in Connecticut home for years makes his first population comments Man arrested outside UnitedHealthcare is now charged with firearms counts and threatening violence A strong solar storm heads to Earth Here s what to know about northern lights Martindale died Tuesday at Eisenhower Wellbeing in Rancho Mirage California according to his publicist Brian Mayes Martindale had been battling lymphoma for a year He was doing pretty well up until a couple weeks ago Mayes noted by phone from Nashville Gambit debuted on the same day in September as The Price is Right with Bob Barker and The Joker s Wild with Jack Barry From the day it hit the air Gambit spelled winner and it taught me a basic tenant of any truly fruitful championship show KISS Keep It Simple Stupid Martindale wrote in his memoir Winking at Life Like playing Old Maids as a kid everybody knows how to play i e blackjack Gambit had been beating its competition on NBC and ABC for over two years But a new show debuted in on NBC called Wheel of Fortune By December Gambit was off the air and Wheel of Fortune became an institution that is still going strong in the current era Martindale bounced back in with Tic-Tac-Dough the classic X s and O s contest on CBS that ran until Overnight I had gone from the outhouse to the penthouse he wrote He presided over the -game winning streak of Navy Lt Thom McKee who earned over in cash and prizes that included eight cars three sailboats and vacation trips At the time McKee s winnings were a record for a event show contestant I love working with contestants interacting with the audience and to a degree watching lives change Martindale wrote Winning a lot of cash can cause that to happen Martindale wrote that producer Dan Enright once communicated him that in the seven years he hosted Tic-Tac-Dough he gave away over million in cash and prizes Martindale announced his a great number of years as a radio DJ were helpful to him as a event show host because radio calls for constant ad-libs and he learned to handle almost any situation in the spur of the moment He estimated that he hosted nearly two dozen encounter shows during his career Martindale wrote in his memoir that the question he got sought the greater part often was Is Wink your real name The second was How did you get into meeting shows He got his nickname from a childhood friend Martindale is no relation to University of Michigan defensive coordinator Don Martindale whose college teammates nicknamed him Wink because of their shared last name Born Winston Conrad Martindale on Dec in Jackson Tennessee he loved radio since childhood and at age would read aloud the contents of advertisements in Life magazine He began his career as a disc jockey at age at WPLI in his hometown earning a week After moving to WTJS he was hired away for double the salary by Jackson s only other station WDXI He next hosted mornings at WHBQ in Memphis while attending Memphis State He was married and the father of two girls when he graduated in Martindale was in the studio although not working on-air that night when the first Presley record That s All Right was played on WHBQ on July Martindale approached fellow DJ Dewey Phillips who had given Presley an early break by playing his song to ask him and Presley to do a joint interview on Martindale s TV show Top Ten Dance Party in By then Presley had become a major star and agreed to the appearance Martindale and Presley stayed in touch on occasion through the years and in he did a trans-Atlantic telephone interview with Presley who was in the Army in Germany Martindale s second wife Sandy briefly dated Presley after meeting him on the set of G I Blues in In Martindale moved to Los Angeles to host a morning show on KHJ That same year he reached No on the Billboard Hot chart with a cover version of Deck of Cards which sold over million copies He performed the spoken word wartime story with religious overtones on The Ed Sullivan Show I could easily have thought Wow this is easy I come out here go on radio and TV make a record and everybody wants to buy it he wrote Even if I entertained such thoughts they soon dissipated I learned in due time that what had happened to me was far from the ordinary A year later he moved to the morning show at KRLA and to KFWB in Among his various other radio gigs were two separate stints at KMPC owned by actor Gene Autry His first framework hosting job was on NBC s What s This Song where he was credited as Win Martindale from - He later hosted two Chuck Barris-produced shows on ABC Dream Girl and How s Your Mother-in-Law The latter lasted just weeks before being canceled I ve jokingly reported it came and went so fast it seemed more like minutes Martindale wrote explaining that it was the worst show of his career Martindale later hosted a Las Vegas-based revival of Gambit from - He formed his own production company Wink Martindale Enterprises to develop and produce his own contest shows His first venture was Headline Chasers a coproduction with Merv Griffin that debuted in and was canceled after one season His next show Bumper Stumpers ran on U S and Canadian television from - He hosted Debt from - on Lifetime cable and Instant Recall on GSN in Martindale returned to his radio roots in as host of the nationally syndicated The Greatest Christmas Hits of All Time In he hosted syndicated scheme The History of Rock n Roll In Martindale appeared in a KFC ad campaign with actor Rob Lowe He is survived by Sandy his second wife of years and children Lisa Madelyn ad Laura and numerous grandchildren He was preceded in death by his son Wink Jr Martindale s children are from his first marriage which ended in divorce in