In 1982, the blonde beauty was selected to join Sajak on Wheel of Fortune. She attended the Atlanta School of Fashion Design and worked as a model before heading to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Born Vanna Marie Rosich on February 18, 1957, White was raised in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. White stands next to the puzzleboard and reveals the individual letters when players have guessed them correctly. Players spin the big wheel to determine prize money and each player can buy vowels to help solve the puzzle. It has remained on the air continuously since that time, with Sajak and White as co-hosts.ĭuring each episode of Wheel of Fortune, contestants compete to solve word puzzles. In 1983, Wheel of Fortune became a syndicated evening program. In 1981, Wheel of Fortune’s creator, Merv Griffin (who also developed the long-running game show Jeopardy!, which debuted in 1964) tapped Sajak to take over hosting duties from Chuck Woolery for a network daytime version of Wheel.

After his discharge from the military, he worked in radio and TV and in 1977 became a weatherman for a Los Angeles TV station. Wheel of Fortune, which debuted in 1975, became the longest-running syndicated game show on American television, turning Sajak and his co-host, Vanna White, into pop-culture icons.Īfter attending Chicago’s Columbia College, Sajak joined the Army in 1968 and went to Vietnam, where he was a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio in Saigon. On October 26, 1946, Patrick Leonard Sajdak, who will one day be known to millions of game-show fans as the Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak, is born in Chicago.

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