Pat Sajak
Pat Sajak ( , born Patrick Leonard ; October 26, 1946) is an American television personality and game show host. He is best known as the host of the American television game show "Wheel of Fortune", a position he has held since 1981. For his work on "Wheel", Sajak has received 19 nominations for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host, winning three times. Early life. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 26, 1946, Sajak graduated from Farragut High School in 1964, then went to Columbia College Chicago while working as a desk clerk at the Palmer House hotel . He served in the U.S. Army as a disc jockey during the Vietnam War for American Forces Vietnam Network. Sajak hosted the same "Dawn Buster" radio show that Adrian Cronauer had, and for 14 months followed Cronauer's tradition of signing on with "Good Morning Vietnam!" Career. Sajak won a contest on WLS radio's "Dick Biondi Show" to be a guest teen deejay. While at Columbia College Chicago, his broadcasting instructor Al Parker told him that a local radio station (WEDC) was looking for a newsman. Sajak applied for the job and was hired to work from midnight to  6:00 am. In 1968, Sajak joined the U.S. Army and was sent to Vietnam, where he served as a disc jockey on Armed Forces Radio. On the Military Channel's program, "An Officer and a Movie", Sajak admitted to botching President Richard Nixon's 1969 Christmas broadcast to the troops; he accidentally cut the feed off prematurely. Upon realizing the error, he decided it would be best not to resume the feed. In the early 1970s, Sajak DJed for a Murray, Kentucky, radio station for a year. Also in the early 1970s, Sajak began DJing at 50,000-watt WSM in  Nashville; at the time, WSM was playing pop music during the day, and he was the 3:00–5:00 pm afternoon personality. The radio station's television sister, WSM-TV (now WSMV), brought Sajak on screen, first as a voiceover artist doing station identifications and anchoring the five-minute newscasts during NBC's "Today Show", then as a weekend and substitute weatherman, where he became acquainted with anchor Dan Miller. In 1977, KNBC-TV in Los Angeles was looking for a weatherman, and spotted Sajak working in Nashville. Sajak accepted KNBC's request for him to be a full-time weatherman for  the station. In 1981, Merv Griffin asked Sajak if he would be interested in taking over the duties as host on "Wheel of Fortune" from Chuck Woolery. However, Fred Silverman, the president and CEO of NBC, rejected his hiring, claiming he was too local, and Griffin responded by imposing a moratorium on new tapings until Sajak was hired. The issue became moot when Silverman was dismissed due to repeated programming failures and replaced by Brandon Tartikoff. Sajak, who had already hosted two game show pilots in 1980, "Press Your Luck" for Ralph Edwards (no relation to the 1983 CBS game  show of the same name) and "Puzzlers" for Mark Goodson, accepted the position. He hosted both the daytime (NBC) and syndicated evening versions of "Wheel" from 1983 to 1989, and continues to host the latter version. With Sajak returning for his 36th season in 2018–19, he became the longest-running host of any game show, surpassing Bob Barker, who hosted "The Price Is Right" from 1972 to 2007. Sajak was officially honored as such by the Guinness World Records with the episode taped on March 28, 2019, and aired May 8, 2019 (two days before the primetime version's 7,000th  episode). Sajak had a small role as a Buffalo, New York newscaster in the 1982 comedy film "." When his late-night talk show on CBS premiered in January 1989, he left the daytime version of "Wheel," and was replaced by former San Diego Chargers place-kicker Rolf Benirschke (who was later replaced by Bob Goen when the daytime show moved to CBS in July of that year). Sajak appeared on "Super Password" several times from 1984 to 1989, as well as "Password Plus" in 1981, shortly before taking on hosting duties on "Wheel". Other game shows on which Sajak appeared  as a celebrity guest were "Dream House", "Just Men!", and "Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour". Sajak hosted a short-lived late-night talk show on CBS from January 9, 1989, to April 13, 1990. Dan Miller, Sajak's old friend and former anchor at WSM-TV in Nashville, joined Sajak as his sidekick. Sajak later became a frequent guest host for CNN's "Larry King Live" when King was unable to do the show. He also became a regular substitute host for Regis Philbin on the syndicated "Live with Regis and Kelly". Sajak also hosted a program, "Pat Sajak Weekend ," on the Fox News Channel in 2003. From at least 2002, he hosted "The Pat Sajak Baseball Hour", a syndicated weekly radio sports talk show that ended in 2006 due to scheduling conflicts. Sajak is an external director of conservative publishing house Eagle Publishing and is on the board of trustees at Hillsdale College in southern Michigan, currently as vice chairman. He has written for "Human Events" and served on the board of directors for the Claremont Institute. In 1983, Sajak portrayed Kevin Hathaway in the NBC daytime soap opera "Days of Our Lives." In 1993, Sajak appeared as himself  on the popular children's cartoon show "Rugrats." In 1997, Sajak pulled an April Fool's Day prank on fans when Vanna White and he were contestants on an episode of "Wheel" hosted by Alex Trebek. The winnings of both Sajak and White were donated to charity (in this case, the American Cancer Society and the Boy Scouts of America). In return, Sajak hosted a regular episode of "Jeopardy!" in place of Trebek. He also appeared at the beginning of a 2010 April Fool's episode, along with Jeff Probst and Neil Patrick Harris. In 2001, he appeared as himself  in the episode "Inner Tube" on the sitcom "The King of Queens". Sajak began writing for the "National Review Online" in 2010. In his first post, he questioned whether public employees should be allowed to vote on issues that would benefit them directly. He also has contributed to the center-right sociopolitical / social networking website, Ricochet.com. Sajak also is the author of several puzzle games, the first and best-known of them being "Lucky Letters", which debuted in 2007. The games, which Sajak developed with puzzle developer David L. Hoyt, are syndicated through Universal Uclick. Sajak has also appeared on  episodes of ESPN Radio's "The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz", as well as Le Batard's other show, "Highly Questionable". On May 8, 2019, Sajak broke the world record for having the longest career as game-show host for the same show, hosting "Wheel of Fortune" for 35 years and 198 days. Since 2020, Sajak has been credited as a Consulting Producer (since the start of Season 39) of "Wheel of Fortune". Since 2021, Sajak and White have hosted Prime Time "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune" on ABC. In September 2021, it was announced that both Sajak and White  had signed on to continue as hosts of "Wheel of Fortune" through the 2023–24 season. In 2021, Sajak voiced a singing bust in a "Muppets Haunted Mansion" television special. In popular culture. Pat Sajak was parodied in a 1980s "Sesame Street" sketch, with a Muppet named Pat Playjacks hosting "Squeal of Fortune". The goal was for the contestants (Prairie Dawn and The Count) to guess how many times a pig in the center of the wheel would squeal before the wheel stopped. During the 1980s, comedian Martin Short frequently portrayed a fictional character he called Ed Grimley, a hyperactive manchild  who is obsessed with banal popular culture – Sajak in particular – on the sketch comedy television shows "SCTV" and "Saturday Night Live". In 1986, Sajak and his "Wheel of Fortune" co-star Vanna White portrayed themselves on an episode of the NBC sitcom "227". In the fourth episode of season three of Comedy Central's "Brickleberry", "That Brother's My Father", Pat Sajak gets kidnapped and becomes a hostage to the wheel of fortune. In the 1994 "Rugrats" episode "Chuckie is Rich", Pat Sajak awards Chaz with $10 million. His son, Pat Sajak Jr., also appeared in the episode as  one of the children in the wealthy daycare. Pat Sajak also voices himself in the episode. In the fourth-season episode of "The A-Team" called "Wheel of Fortune", Pat Sajak makes a cameo along with co-star Vanna White. In the episode, Murdock wins big at "Wheel of Fortune" due to Face's system of guessing the letters correctly. In 1992, Sajak was a special guest star in the TV show "The Commish". The episode first aired on November 7, 1992, and was called "The Two Faces Of Ed". He played psychologist Brian Brandon. Personal life. Sajak is married  to Lesly Brown-Sajak, a photographer, with whom he has a son, Patrick Michael James Sajak (born September 22, 1990), and a daughter, Maggie Marie Sajak (born January 5, 1995). The couple lives in Severna Park, Maryland, with a second home in Los Angeles, California. In 2005, Sajak became an investor in the Golden Baseball League, an independent professional baseball league with teams in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Alberta, British Columbia, and Baja California. During a guest appearance in the broadcast booth at a March 2012 Baltimore Orioles – Boston Red Sox spring-training game, Sajak acknowledged that he had called  some baseball games in the past. Sajak is featured in a brief film shown at the visitor's center at Mount Vernon, the residence of George Washington, where he explains to tourists the attractions of the site. Sajak owns Maryland-based AM radio station WNAV in Annapolis (since 1998). Sajak has written a number of columns for the conservative magazine "Human Events". Sajak is also a regular poster and podcast participant on the conservative blog Ricochet.com. He has long acknowledged being a climate change skeptic. He is also a financial supporter of the Young America's Foundation, which sponsors conservative  speakers on college campuses. In 2019, Pat Sajak began serving as the chairman of the board of trustees for Hillsdale College after having been vice-chairman for 15 years. Sajak is an avid fan of the Washington Capitals NHL team. He is a longtime season-ticket holder and made an on-ice appearance before game three of the 2018 Stanley Cup Finals. Health. Sajak underwent emergency intestinal surgery to remove a blockage on November 8, 2019. While Sajak recovered, co-host Vanna White hosted in his place. The first taping day in which Sajak was incapacitated was a Disney-themed  Christmas episode week, and Disney characters took over White's role at the puzzle board for that week. Sajak's daughter Maggie also helped White for a week. Sajak returned to work on December 5, 2019.