#OneHitHistory “Deck of Cards” by Tennessee pop culture icon & US #OneHitWonder honoree Wink Martindale peaked at #7 on the #Billboard #Top40 the week ending November 2, 1959. His rendition of the spoken-word “Deck of Cards” spent 7 weeks on the chart. #WinkMartindale #OneHitWondered

#Interestingly While Wink Martindale was working LA radio gigs, TV came calling… and game shows made him a pop cultural icon: Gambit, Tic-Tac-Dough, High Rollers, Trivial Pursuit, & more. The guy understood pacing, and how to make everyday folks look good on TV. #WinkMartindale #OneHitWondered

A young Wink Martindale at WHBQ radio in Memphis, Tennessee

#Interestingly Wink Martindale grew up on Tennessee radio, landing at Memphis’ WHBQ as a teen… after moving to LA, Wink would become one of the best-known DJs in the country. #WinkMartindale #OneHitWondered

#OneHitHistory The week ending September 28, 1959, Tennessee pop culture icon Wink Martindale earned US #OneHitWonder honors when his rendition of the spoken-word “Deck of Cards” entered the US #Billboard #Top40 at #40. It spent 12 weeks on the chart, peaking at #7. #WinkMartindale #OneHitWondered

Wink Martindale, Popular and Durable Game Show Host #obitpix #winkmartindale #radiopersonality #gameshowhost #artofinstagram #penandink #drawing #illustration #portraitdrawing

“Black Land Farmer” by Wink Martindale was a US #85 hit in 1961. #EveryHitSongEver #winkmartindale ⭐️⭐️1/2

RIP #WinkMartindale cause I apologize for being late with saying anything but he was an incredible guy hosting game shows for decades as his humor was always top tier to the fun as he will be missed as he was 91 years old & I will still occasionally watch his work going forward😞

RIP the late, great #WinkMartindale. Hear him talk about Elvis, the guy who won 8 Buicks on “Tic Tac Dough”, a 96 year old guests’ dating life and his “Rice a Roni” pitch on our “Talking About Cars with Randy….” Youtube channel! click below to watch, then please like and subscribe!!

Remembering ever smiling game show host #WinkMartindale 1933-2025 brioux.tv/blog/2025/04...

#EternalSpotlight #CelebrateLife #RIP #WinkMartindale #GameShowLegend #BroadcastPioneer

1.2K views · 82 reactions | A young Wink Martindale’s appearance in LETS ROCK released in 1958. Just when you think Wink did it all! | By Vintage Los Angeles | Facebook A young Wink Martindale’s appearance in LETS ROCK released in 1958. Just when you think Wink did it all!

You don’t forget a name like #WinkMartindale. Rest in Peace. www.facebook.com/VintageLosAn...

Pioneer of Television Game Show, Wink Martindale, Dies at 91: Saluting His Incredible Legacy - Total Apex Entertainment Wink Martindale was the pinnacle of Game Show programming, and leaves behind a legacy that is historically incredible.

totalapexentertainment.com/pioneer-game...

Game show legend Wink Martindale died at 91, and leaves behind a historic legacy.

#wink #winkmartindale #winmartindale #gameshow #gameshows #gameshowhost #legacy #iconic #history #gameshowhalloffame #icon

@totalapexmedia.bsky.social

Heartbreaking news to share as I just saw that Wink Martindale has passed away at 91 😔 He's a legendary radio DJ and game show host with a career that lasted over 70 years being best known for his time on shows like Gambit, Tic-Tac-Dough, and Debt.

#RIP #WinkMartindale #gameshow #60s #70s #80s #90s

Wink Martindale, game show host and Elvis Presley interviewer, dies at 91 Wink Martindale, the genial host of such hit game 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 91.

WHNT 19Alabama News Beacon #WinkMartindale #GameShowHost #ElvisPresley

Game show legend Wink Martindale (1933-2025) arriving in the afterlife. #WinkMartindale

An #Otwituary for One-Hit Wonder #WinkMartindale

I have a deck of my own; when
I see the Deuce I think of this life
and the next; the Trey for yesterday,
today and no tomorrow; the Seven
for the seven letters of ‘mawkish’.
And I know, because
I was that Otwituarist.

Wink Martindale, the genial game show host and an early TV interviewer of Elvis Presley, dies at 91 Wink Martindale, the genial host of such hit game shows as “Gambit” and “Tic-Tac-Dough,” has died. He was 91.

He was a game show legend and a part of many of the days off from school

#WinkMartindale #TVSky #GameShowSky

Wink Martindale, Beloved TV Host and Elvis Interviewer, Passes Away Game Show Icon Wink Martindale, Early Elvis Interviewer, Dies at 91 Wink Martindale — the charismatic host who brought charm

Wink Martindale, Game Show Pioneer and Radio Star, Has Died
#WinkMartindale #GameShowLegend #TVIcon #ClassicGameShows #ElvisPresley #Gambit #TicTacDough #RadioLegend #HollywoodHistory #TelevisionHost #TVPersonality #EntertainmentNews #CelebrityTribute #MediaLegacy #BroadcastLegend #RetroTV

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His wife on The Newlywed Game informed us that "Wink" was Winston Conrad Martindale's nickname.

Winston is a moderately popular name for boys; it currently ranks #398 in the U.S.A., therefore the nickname "Wink" is not currently endangered.

#RiP #WinkMartindale

www.thebump.com/b/winston-ba...

Game show host and radio personality Wink Martindale has passed away, he was 91. #80s #80sTV #WinkMartindale

Telehell: SPECIAL COMMENT: Remembering Wink Martindale A few words about The Last of the Great Emcees... Keep his legacy alive by visiting his Youtube Page at

A few words about The Last of the Great Emcees...

#winkmartindale
#RIP

telehell.libsyn.com/special-comm...

Wink Martindale, beloved game show host of classics like Tic-Tac-Dough, Gambit, and High Rollers, died Tuesday in Rancho Mirage at age 91. #WinkMartindale

Wink Martindale, Game Show Host for 'Tic-Tac-Dough' and 'Gambit', Dies at 91 Iconic television host Wink Martindale, best known for hosting 'Tic-Tac-Dough' and 'Gambit', died at age 91 "surrounded by family and his beloved wife of 49 years, Sandra Martindale" at his home in Ra...

Put him in the National Garden of American Heroes, Mr. President #Trump, sir. Please. I'm asking with tears in my eyes. And I'm a big, strapping guy. #WinkMartindale
people.com/wink-martind...

😞

There are plenty of broken hearts here at ANGS today.

We lost one of the last of the golden age of game show hosts.

Hosting
#TicTacDough
#DEBT
#HeadlineChasers
#TheLastWord 🇨🇦
#HighRollers

He created #BumperStumpers 🇨🇦

Rest well, #WinkMartindale

Say hi to the rest of crew for us.

One of the greatest gameshow emcees in the history of television has left us. Wink was part of my childhood, and I more than once rushed home from important meetings and playing with my cousins and friends to watch Tic-Tac-Dough.

Rest in Peace, Wink. You were always top prize. ❤️

#WinkMartindale

Top 5 game show theme. Easily. RIP #WinkMartindale

Wink Martindale, the genial game-show host and an early TV interviewer of Elvis Presley, dies at 91 Los Angeles — Wink Martindale, the genial host of such hit game 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 91. Martindale died Tuesday at Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage, 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 said by phone from Nashville. “Gambit” debuted on the same day in September 1972 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 successful game show: KISS! Keep It Simple Stupid,” Martindale wrote in his 2000 memoir “Winking at Life.” “Like playing Old Maids as a kid, everybody knows how to play 21, i.e. blackjack.” “Gambit” had been beating its competition on NBC and ABC for over two years. But a new show debuted in 1975 on NBC called “Wheel of Fortune.” By December 1976, “Gambit” was off the air and “Wheel of Fortune” became an institution that is still going strong today. Martindale bounced back in 1978 with “Tic-Tac-Dough,” the classic X’s and O’s game on CBS that ran until 1985. “Overnight I had gone from the outhouse to the penthouse,” he wrote. He presided over the 88-game winning streak of Navy Lt. Thom McKee, who earned over $300,000 in cash and prizes that included eight cars, three sailboats and 16 vacation trips. At the time, 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,” Martindale wrote. “Winning a lot of cash can cause that to happen.” Martindale wrote that producer Dan Enright once told him that in the seven years he hosted “Tic-Tac-Dough” he gave away over $7 million in cash and prizes. Martindale said his many years as a radio DJ were helpful to him as a game 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 game shows during his career. Martindale wrote in his memoir that the question he got asked most often was “Is Wink your real name?” The second was “How did you get into game 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. 4, 1933, in Jackson, Tennessee, he loved radio since childhood and at age 6 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 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. 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 8, 1954. 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 1956. 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 1959 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 1960. In 1959, Martindale moved to Los Angeles to host a morning show on KHJ. That same year he reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with a cover version of “Deck of Cards,” which sold over 1 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 1962. Among his many other radio gigs were two separate stints at KMPC, owned by actor Gene Autry. His first network hosting job was on NBC’s “What’s This Song?” where he was credited as Win Martindale from 1964-65. He later hosted two Chuck Barris-produced shows on ABC: “Dream Girl ’67” and “How’s Your Mother-in-Law?” The latter lasted just 13 weeks before being canceled. “I’ve jokingly said it came and went so fast, it seemed more like 13 minutes!” Martindale wrote, explaining that it was the worst show of his career. Martindale later hosted a Las Vegas-based revival of “Gambit” from 1980-81. He formed his own production company, Wink Martindale Enterprises, to develop and produce his own game shows. His first venture was “Headline Chasers,” a coproduction with Merv Griffin that debuted in 1985 and was canceled after one season. His next show, “Bumper Stumpers,” ran on U.S. and Canadian television from 1987-1990. He hosted “Debt” from 1996-98 on Lifetime cable and “Instant Recall” on GSN in 2010. Martindale returned to his radio roots in 2012 as host of the nationally syndicated “The 100 Greatest Christmas Hits of All Time.” In 2021, he hosted syndicated program “The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” In 2017, Martindale appeared in a KFC ad campaign with actor Rob Lowe. He is survived by Sandy, his second wife of 49 years, and children Lisa, Madelyn, Laura and Wink Jr. They are from his first marriage which ended in divorce in 1972. This article originally appeared on Associated Press: Wink Martindale, the genial game-show host and an early TV interviewer of Elvis Presley, dies at 91

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

Wink Martindale, beloved host of game shows including ‘Tic-Tac-Dough,’ dead at 91 | CNN Wink Martindale, a radio and television entertainer known to audiences as host of classic game shows including “Tic-Tac-Dough” and “Gambit,” has died. He was 91.

Wink Martindale, beloved host of game shows including ‘Tic-Tac-Dough,’ dead at 91 #television #gameshow #WinkMartindale #NEWS
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