Pat Sajak

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Pat Sajak
Birth name Patrick Leonard Sajdak [1] Born October 26, 1946 (age 60) in Chicago, Illinois, USA
Statistics Occupation TV presenter, Game show presenter Gender Male Marital status married Spouse Lesly Sajak Children Patrick Sajak, Maggie Sajak Ethnicity Polish Religious belief(s) Protestant Notable credit(s) Wheel of Fortune (NBC, Syndicated)

Pat Sajak (born Patrick Leonard Sajdak [2] on October 26, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois), is best known as the host of the popular and long-running American television game show, Wheel of Fortune.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 References in popular culture 4 External links

[edit] Early life

Sajak, son of a Polish-American trucking foreman, was born and raised in Chicago. During his elementary years, he attended Goethe Elementary School, as well as Gary Elementary School. He graduated Farragut High School in 1964 and then went on to Columbia College Chicago.

[edit] 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. Pat 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 deejayed on Armed Forces Radio. Later in 1977, KNBC-TV in Los Angeles was looking for a weatherman, and spotted Sajak working for NBC affiliate WSM-TV in Nashville. Sajak accepted KNBC's request for him to be a full-time weatherman for the station. He also had a small role as a Buffalo, New York newscaster in the 1982 spoof film Airplane II: The Sequel.

In 1981, Merv Griffin, the designer of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, asked Pat if he would be interested in taking over the duties as host of Wheel of Fortune from Chuck Woolery. Pat, who already had hosted a few game show pilots, accepted the position. From 1983 to 1989, Sajak hosted both the daytime (NBC) and nighttime (syndicated) versions of Wheel of Fortune. He still hosts the syndicated nighttime version of the show. 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.

In July 1989, the daytime version moved from NBC to CBS, and production of both versions of the show moved from NBC Studios in Burbank, California to CBS Television City in Hollywood. Bob Goen replaced Benirschke as host of the daytime show at that time. The daytime show moved back to NBC in 1991 and ended several months later. Since 1995, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! have been produced at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.

In 1997, as part of an April Fool's joke, Sajak and Alex Trebek switched jobs. Sajak hosted Jeopardy! and became a contestant along with the hostess Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune, which Trebek hosted. Both Sajak and White played for charity, he for the Boy Scouts of America and she for the American Cancer Society. On an episode which aired in 2000, Sajak's children Patrick and Maggie delivered the show's closing comments in place of their father and White.

Sajak hosted a late-night talk show on CBS from January 9, 1989 - April 13, 1990 that failed to make ratings headway against Johnny Carson. He has since been a frequent guest host for CNN's Larry King Live when King himself was unable to attend. Sajak is also a regular substitute host for Regis Philbin on the syndicated Live With Regis and Kelly. Sajak has also hosted a program, Pat Sajak Weekend, on the Fox News Channel. Sajak also currently hosts The Pat Sajak Baseball Hour, a syndicated radio sports talk show.

Sajak also is an External Director of conservative publishing house Regnery and is on the Board of Trustees at Hillsdale College in southern Michigan. He also has written for Human Events and served on the Board of Directors for the Claremont Institute. Pat was a major donor to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and sometimes posts political commentary on his official website.

One of Sajak's philanthropies is an expansion of the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland; it is named the Sajak Pavilion in honor of his donations. He is also part-owner of Annapolis radio station WNAV 1430, which broadcasts Naval Academy events and other local items of interest, and Westminster, Maryland Radio station WTTR, which plays Oldies. He has also donated $100,000 for Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.

Though a conservative Republican, he tends to keep his political views on the low key, only occasionally dropping hints on Wheel (i.e. not commenting on a liberal charity for which someone might be playing, or occasionally mentioning Fox News Channel in a quip.)

Pat is married to his second wife Lesly Brown, and has a son named Patrick and a daughter named Maggie. The couple lives in Severna Park, Maryland.

Sajak once commented on Wheel of Fortune that his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has the wrong emblem. His emblem is a movie camera when it should be a TV set. He quipped on the show that "someone should pry it off and sell it on eBay - it's a collectible!".

[edit] References in popular culture

Pat Sajak has been referenced and parodied in many TV shows, movies, and animated television series.

• In one episode of Rugrats, in which Chaz, Chuckie Finster's father, won $10 million, he (Sajak voiced the character as well) was outside his house holding up a check for that amount of money. Chaz asked, "Where's Vanna?" after he exclaimed who he was.

• In episode 2 of The Weird Al Show, Al suggested making lima bean cookies in various shapes, one of which is Pat Sajak's head.

• In the Kevin Smith film Mallrats, Jason Lee's character calls the host of a local dating show "Pat Sajak".

• Sajak was the idol of "Ed Grimley, Jr.," an eccentric character played by Martin Short on SCTV and Saturday Night Live. Short's character famously had a large framed black-and-white photo of Sajak hanging in his apartment.

• At the beginning of the Family Guy episode, I Take Thee Quagmire, Peter Griffin was on Wheel of Fortune and when Pat congratulated Peter for making it to the finals, Peter said, "Thanks, Regis." mistaking Pat for Regis Philbin.

• On an episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Pat Sajak was referenced as a part of the feature "Conan's Celebrity Survey." In this segment, O'Brien pretended that he had sent out surveys for celebrities to fill in, and that a part of this was to fill in the blanks of some phrases. It was said that John Edwards completed the phrase "Most people don't know that I'm actually..." with the name "Pat Sajak", toying with Pat Sajak's physical similarities with John Edwards.

• Some people have noticed Pat Sajak resembles former Vice President Dan Quayle. Sajak joked about this in song on his short lived talk show.

• A muppet by the name of Pat Playjacks was created on the children's show Sesame Street. The muppet, which looks very much like Pat Sajak, is a television game show host.

• Tom Hanks played Pat Sajak in a skit on SNL on May 6, 2006. In it, Sajak quits the show after the contestants exhibit immense stupidity.

• Pat Sajak is mentioned in a lyric of "The Kill," a currently unreleased song by The Dresden Dolls. "Put Pat Sajak back in office!"

• In Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, Pat Sajak stars in The Frank Gorshin Story on the Eight o'Clock Movie.

Preceded by Chuck Woolery

Host of Wheel of Fortune (daytime) 1981–1989

Succeeded by Rolf Benirschke (1989)

[edit] External links

• Pat Sajak at the Internet Movie Database
• Pat Sajak's website
• Pat Sajak's Games website