Wink Martindale, who became a TV mainstay as a serial host of game shows, most notably during a seven-year run overseeing the X’s and O’s board on “Tic-Tac-Dough,” died April 15 at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 91.
His publicist, Brian Mayes, said the cause was lymphoma.
After an early career as a disc jockey and TV host in Memphis, Mr. Martindale moved to Los Angeles in 1959 and reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that year with a cover version of “Deck of Cards,” which sold more than 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 in his memoir, “Winking at Life.” “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.”
His first network hosting job was on NBC’s 1964-65 game show “What’s This Song?” where he was credited as Win Martindale. 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.
From 1972 to 1976, he hosted the CBS game show “Gambit,” which was based on the card game blackjack. He presided over the network’s trivia game “Tic-Tac-Dough” from 1978 to 1985.
Mr. Martindale said his many years as a radio DJ were helpful to his work 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 formed his own production company, Wink Martindale Enterprises, to develop and produce his own game shows. His first venture was “Headline Chasers,” a co-production 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 to 1990.
He hosted “Debt” from 1996 to 1998 on Lifetime cable and “Instant Recall” on GSN in 2010. He estimated that he hosted nearly two dozen game shows during his career.
Winston Conrad Martindale was born in Jackson, Tennessee, on Dec. 4, 1933. He began his career as a disc jockey on a radio station in his hometown and later hosted on radio station WHBQ in Memphis while attending Memphis State College (now the University of Memphis). He was a married father by the time he graduated in 1957.
Mr. Martindale developed a friendship with Elvis Presley before the rock star’s breakthrough, and the two remained in touch periodically. Presley, by then famous, agreed to appear on Mr. Martindale’s TV show “Top Ten Dance Party” in 1956.
Mr. 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 the syndicated program “The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
His first marriage, to Madelyn Leech, ended in divorce. In 1975, he married Sandra Ferra. In addition to his wife, survivors include three daughters from his first marriage. A son from his first marriage died.
Mr. Martindale told ABC News in 2014 that he developed his playful first name when a childhood friend could not pronounce Winston. “Winston turned into Winky,” he said, and subsequently Wink.
Mr. Martindale was no relation to University of Michigan defensive coordinator Don Martindale, whose college teammates nicknamed him Wink because of their shared last name.
Staff writer Niha Masih contributed to this report.
