Wink Martindale Biography
Wink Martindale (Winston Conrad Martindale) served as a Radio Personality, Disc Jockey, Television Producer and Game Show Host known for Tic Tac Dough and lesser known board game adaptations such as Shuffle and Boggle.
Age
Martindale was born on 4 December 1933 in Jackson, Tennessee, United States. He is 88 years old as at 2022. Wink is still alive and lives in Calabasas, California, near Malibu Canyon.
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Wink Martindale Family
Conrad was born to Frances Geraldine Martindale (mother) and James Martindale (father)
Wink Martindale Wife
He was married to Madelyn Leech in 1954, and was divorced in 1972. He later married his second wife, Sandy (née Ferra), on August 2, 1975.
Wink Martindale Children | Wink Martindale Jr
Martindale has four children, all from his first marriage: Lisa Martindale, Lynn Martindale, Laura Martindale, and Wink Martindale Jr.
Wink Martindale Career
At age 17, he started his career as a disc jockey at WPLI in Jackson, earning $1.02 a week. After moving to WTJS, Jackson’s only other station, WDXI, hired him away for double the salary.
He then hosted mornings at WHBQ in Memphis as a college student at Memphis State University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1957.
In 1967, he 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.
Wink received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 2, 2006. Later he became a member of the nominating committee of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2007. In addition, he was one of the first inductees in the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in Las Vegas on October 13, 2007.
Martindale appeared as a minister on the daytime soap opera The Bold and The Beautiful in October 2016.
On April 21, 2017, Martindale appeared in a KFC advertising campaign featuring Rob Lowe as an astronaut Colonel Sanders giving a spoof / homage JFK speech about launching the Zinger chicken sandwich into space.
On April 4, 2018, Martindale served as a “surprise co-host” (via telephone) for the “Three Questions” segment of Sirius XM NHL Network Radio where a celebrity co-host creates the questions and then quizzes the broadcast crew of the show.
Wink Martindale Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $20 million.
Deck Of Cards
“The Deck of Cards” is a recitation song that was popularized in both country and popular music fields, first in the late 1940s.
This song, which relates the tale of a young American soldier arrested and charged with playing cards during a church service, first became a hit by country musician T in the U.S. in 1948. Tyler from Texas.
Tic Tac Dough
Tic-Tac-Dough is an American television game show based on the paper-and-pencil game of tic-tac-toe. He hosted it in 1978-1985.
Wink Martindale Interview
Source: emmys.com
Q: How did you get the name Wink?
A: When I was growing up in Jackson, Tennessee, my buddy, Jimmy McCord, called me Winkie. When he said “Winston,” it came out sounding like “Winkie.” So in the neighborhood as a kid I was Winkie Martindale, and when I got into the business we shortened it to Wink. It has served me well.
Q: Tell us about your start in radio.
A: I always wanted to be in the forefront in show business, and when I was young, show business meant radio. From the time I was seven or eight, I began listening to the radio.
My Sunday school teacher, Chick Wingate, also happened to run the little 250-watt station, WPLI. I remember saying to him at Sunday school, “Chick, when are you going to give me a job? I want to work at the station.” And he would put me off — until one night when I was 17, right out of high school.
I was sitting with two of my football buddies and up pulls Chick, in his Henry J automobile. I said, “Chick, when are you going to give me a…” He said, “Come on upstairs.”
He sat me in front of a microphone, ripped off some Associated Press wire copy and a couple of commercials, and said, “Let me hear you do these.” Little did he know that I’d been practicing for this moment for years.
So I knocked out those two commercials for Chick like Grant going through Richmond. He couldn’t believe it. I read the news perfectly for him. He said, “Come down here tomorrow — George Smith will be here.” He was the mayor of Jackson and he owned the station. Chick said, “Do this for him, and if he likes what he hears, we’ll hire you.” He came, I conquered. Twenty-five bucks a week for my first job at WPLI.
Q: Let’s talk about your start in television.
A: My mentors came to me when they went on the air with Channel 13, WHBQ-TV, and they said, “Wink, would you like to do a television show?” I said, “Are you serious?” I wanted to be on the radio — it had never occurred to me to be on television. But I said, “Well, of course.”
They had come up with an idea for a half-hour daily show for kids called Wink Martindale and the Mars Patrol. So I became sort of the Flash Gordon of Memphis. Every afternoon from 5:30 to 6, my six little Mars guards and I would drink our Bosco and milk and blast off into outer space. We would segue into the old Flash GordonSaturday afternoon movies, but the rest of the time I spent talking to the kids. It was a great learning experience for me because I learned how to ad lib and do interviews.
Q: What do you like about hosting?
A: I like people, and you get to meet so many different people in the world of game shows. I enjoy finding out what makes people tick. As you play a game, you see why one person is more successful than another. But I just love working with people, and I love talking. I could sit here and talk all day.