5 days Ago By Mike Barnes
Wink Martindale, a rock ‘n’ roll disc jockey and good friend of Elvis Presley who gained fame as the host of such TV game shows as Tic-Tac-Dough , Gambit and High Rollers , died Tuesday in Rancho Mirage, California, a publicist announced. He was 91. The friendly Martindale, who had a 74-year career, was known for his resonate voice, vivid sport coats and, especially, his curious first name.
“When I was a kid in Jackson, Tennessee, one of my playmates, Jimmy McCord, couldn’t say ‘Winston,’ which is my given name. He had a speech impediment, and it came out sounding like ‘Winky,’ ” Martindale explained to ABC News in 2014. “So Winston turned into Winky, and then I got into the business and Wink it was! It served me well.
” Martindale recorded for Dot Records — Pat Boone was another artist on that label — and his Deck of Cards , a narrative release from 1959, sold more than 1 million copies. He also sang “All Love Broke Loose” during the 1958 film Let’s Rock . His second wife, Sandy, whom he married in 1975, dated Presley on and off until shortly before the singer wed Priscilla Wagner in 1967, and she appeared as a dancer in Viva Las Vegas (1964) and other Elvis movies.
“Elvis is responsible for me marrying Wink,” she said in a 2015 interview. “When [Martindale] said he was from Tennessee, I said, ‘He must be a nice guy,’ because I loved the state, I loved all the guys, I loved everything in the state of Tennessee because Elvis was such a wonderful part of my life.” Winston Conrad Martindale was born on Dec.
4, 1933, in Jackson. His former Sunday school teacher managed WPLI, a 250-watt radio station, and gave him his first job in radio at $25 a week in 1951. He was 17 and a senior in high school.
A few years later, he made the big move to WHBQ in Memphis, about 90 miles away from home, where he hosted a radio show in the morning and a popular kids TV show, Wink Martindale of Mars Patrol , in the afternoon. “All of a sudden I became a radio personality that everyone knew and respected to a television ‘star,’ and the kids loved me!” he said in a 2010 interview. Martindale happened to be back at WHBQ on one evening in July 1954 when he helped arrange to get Presley to the station for his first-ever radio interview, shortly after the debut of his song “That’s All Right.
” Martindale hosted the American Bandstand -like show Top Ten Dance Party in Memphis — Elvis was a big get for him on that show — then asked for and was granted a transfer to Los Angeles’ KHJ (radio and television) in 1959. He hosted another local Dance Party program, this one from Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica, and later had a 12-year run as the midday personality on the Gene Autry-owned station KMPC beginning in 1971. Martindale said he became interested in hosting a TV game show in 1965 when he learned that Password ‘s Allen Ludden would “go in two days a week and tape five shows one day and five shows the next and the other five days play golf.
I went to my agent and said, ‘How about sending me on a game-show hosting interview?’ “ He eventually landed at NBC’s What’s That Song? (billed as Win Martindale) and worked for a year on that, the first of the 20 game shows that he hosted (only Bill Cullen did more). He was on Tic-Tac-Dough for a decade, did two shows for producer Chuck Barris ( How’s Your Mother-in-Law? and Dream Girl of ’67 ) and produced game shows as well. Martindale co-hosted and helped produce a cerebral palsy telethon in his hometown for more than a decade and published an autobiography, Winking at Life , in 2000.
He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame six years later. In addition to his wife, survivors include his daughters, Lisa, Lyn and Laura; his sister, Geraldine; and his “honorary son,” Eric..
