Games - Pat Sajak

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Patrick Sajak (born October 26, 1946) is the current host of the Wheel of Fortune
game show. He also hosts The Pat Sajak Baseball Hour, a syndicated radio show. He is married to the former Lesly Brown, a photographer, and has two children.

Early life

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

Career

Sajak won a random contest on WLS radio's Dick Biondi Show to be a guest "teen deejay". While at Columbia College, his broadcasting instructor 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, met with Pat. Pat was asked by Merv if he would be interested in taking over the duties as host of Wheel of Fortune from Chuck Woolery. Pat accepted the postion. From 1983 to 1989, Sajak hosted both the daytime (NBC) and nighttime (syndicated) versions of the Wheel of Fortune show.

Because of contractual restrictions, Sajak left the daytime version in January 1989, but still hosts the nighttime version of the show which is still in syndication today. (Also in April 1989, the show taping moved from NBC Studios to CBS Television City.)

In 1997, as part of an April Fool's joke, Sajak hosted an episode of Jeopardy! and became a contestant along with cohost Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune, which was being hosted by Jeopardy!'s Alex Trebek on that day.

Sajak hosted a late-night talk show on CBS in 1989 that failed miserably (a typical fate for talk shows up against Johnny Carson). He has, however, 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 is an External Director of conservative publishing house Regnery, and is on the Board of Trustees at Hillsdale College. 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. He has also donated $100,000 for Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.

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, for example, in which Chaz, Chuckie Finster's father, had won ten billion dollars, 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 the Kevin Smith film Mallrats, Jason Lee's character calls the host of a local dating show "Pat Sajak" as an insult.

Sajak was also the idol of "Ed Grimley, Jr.", an eccentric character played by Martin Short on such programs as SCTV and Saturday Night Live. A framed black-and-white photo of Sajak hung in the character's apartment.

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, Conan 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

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Pat Sajak ]

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Games - Pat Sajak

Early life

Career

References in popular culture

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