Pat Sajak

Pat Sajak born Patrick Leonard Sajdak is an American television personality former weatherman and talk show host best known as the host of the American television game show Wheel of Fortune Sajak won a contest on WLS radios 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 Sajak applied for the job and was hired to work from midnight to 600 am In 1968 Sajak joined the US Army and was sent to Vietnam where he served as a disc jockey on Armed Forces Radio On The Military Channels program An Officer and a Movie Sajak admitted to botching President Richard Nixons 1969 Christmas broadcast to the troops he accidentally cut the feed off prematurely Upon realizing the error he decided it would be best not to resume the feed In the early 1970s Sajak DJed for a Murray Kentucky radio station for a year Also in the early 1970s Sajak began DJing at 50000watt WSM in Nashville at the time WSM was playing pop music during the day and he was the 300500pm afternoon personality The radio stations television sister WSMTV now WSMV brought Sajak on screen first as a voiceover artist doing station identifications and anchoring the fiveminute newscasts during NBCs Today Show then as a weekend and substitute weatherman where he became acquainted with anchor Dan Miller In 1977 KNBCTV in Los Angeles was looking for a weatherman and spotted Sajak working in Nashville Sajak accepted KNBCs request for him to be a fulltime weatherman for the station In 1981 Merv Griffin asked Sajak if he would be interested in taking over the duties as host on Wheel of Fortune from Chuck Woolery However Fred Silverman then president and CEO of NBC rejected his hiring claiming he was too local and Griffin responded by imposing a moratorium on new tapings until Sajak was hired The issue became moot when Silverman was dismissed due to repeated programming failures and replaced by Brandon Tartikoff Sajak who had already hosted two game show pilots in 1980 Press Your Luck for Ralph Edwards no relation to the 1983 CBS game show of the same name and Puzzlers for Mark Goodson accepted the position He hosted both the daytime NBC and syndicated evening versions of Wheel from 1983 to 1989 and continues to host the latter version With Sajak returning for his 36th season in 201819 he became the longestrunning host of any game show surpassing Bob Barker who hosted Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007 Sajak was officially honored as such by the Guinness World Records with the episode taped March 22 2019 and aired May 8 2019 two days before the primetime versions 7000th episode Sajak had a small role as a Buffalo New York newscaster in the 1982 comedy film Airplane II The Sequel When his latenight talk show on CBS premiered in January 1989 he left the daytime version of Wheel and was replaced by former San Diego Chargers placekicker Rolf Benirschke Sajak appeared on Super Password several times from 1984 to 1989 as well as Password Plus in 1981 shortly before taking on hosting duties on Wheel Other game shows on which Sajak guested were Dream House and Just Men