Wink Martindale dead: Legendary game show presenter who hosted Gambit dies after cancer journey

Wink Martindale - a legendary TV host in the US - has aged 91 following a career spanning more than seven decades.

The presenter, who did one of the first recorded television interviews with a young , fronted popular shows, including Gambit, Tic-Tac-Dough, High Rollers, which millions watched across the US. His work across radio and TV started in 1951 when Wink was just 19 and continued until this year.

That was despite a journey with lymphoma, and it is thought the killed Wink, who is survived by Sandy, his second wife of 49 years, and his four grown-up children. Wink, 91, died on Tuesday at Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage, California, according to his publicist Brian Mayes.

Gambit, Tic-Tac-Dough and High Rollers attracted millions of viewers across the US at the height of their success. Wink, known for his friendly and cheerful manner, presented these across several decades, and later hosted Debt, a game show produced by Buena Vista Television, a part of The Walt Disney Company.

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Writing in his 2000 memoir, Wink said: "From the day it hit the air, Gambit spelled winner, and it taught me a basic tenant of any truly successful game show: KISS! Keep It Simple Stupid." Gambit beat its competition on NBC and ABC for more than two years in the 1970s, and Wink soon became a sought-after TV personality.

Tic-Tac-Dough, the classic X’s and O’s game, ran on CBS for seven years from 1978 to 1985. Wink, born in Jackson, Tennessee, wrote: "Overnight, I had gone from the outhouse to the penthouse."

Wink presided over the 88-game winning streak of Navy Lt. Thom McKee, who earned more than $300,000 (£226,000 today) in cash and prizes which included eight cars, three sailboats and 16 vacation trips. At the time, Lt McKee’s winnings were a record for a game show contestant.

"I love working with contestants, interacting with the audience and to a degree, watching lives change. Winning a lot of cash can cause that to happen," Wink added in his 2000 book. In the seven years he hosted Tic-Tac-Dough, the presenter gave away more than $7 million (£5.3 million today) in cash and prizes, quite the sum for a game show of its time.

These programmes pioneered the genre and, as a result, popular shows like Who Wants to be a Millionaire? were developed and aired in the UK.

Born Winston Conrad Martindale on December 4, 1933, in Jackson, Tennessee, Wink got his nickname from a childhood friend. He loved radio since childhood and at age of six would read aloud the contents of advertisements in Life magazine. He began his career as a disc jockey at age 17 at WPLI in his hometown, earning $25 (£19 today) 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 1957.

Wink 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 8, 1954. Wink approached fellow DJ Dewey Phillips, who had given Mr Presley an early break by playing his song, to ask him and Mr Presley to do a joint interview on Wink’s TV show Top Ten Dance Party in 1956. By then, Mr Presley had become a major star and agreed to the appearance.

The pair stayed in touch on occasion through the years, and in 1959, he did a trans-Atlantic telephone interview with Mr Presley, who was in the Army in Germany. Wink’s second wife, Sandy, briefly dated Mr Presley after meeting him on the set of G.I. Blues in 1960.

Since then, Wink has made and released songs, including four which reached the UK Singles Chart. His rendition of the spoken-word song Deck of Cards reached fifth here in 1963, years before Wink embarked on his presenting work.

And the charismatic presenter returned to his radio roots in 2012 as host of the nationally syndicated The 100 Greatest Hits of All Time. In 2017, he starred in a KFC advert with actor Rob Lowe.

Wink's children; Lisa, Madelyn, Laura and Wink Jr are from his first marriage to Madelyn Leech, which ended in divorce in 1972. He married Sandy on August 2, 1975.