THE SECRET LIVES OF
GAME SHOW HOSTS

Game show hosts always seem so sunny and excited that it can be tough to imagine they’re real people who have lives apart from the brightly lit sets. Boy, do they ever. Here’s some behind-the-scenes trivia about those who ask questions and award fabulous prizes.

GENE RAYBURN In the 1970s, Rayburn presided over the intoxicated zaniness that passed for an episode of Match Game. One of the show’s most frequent celebrity panelists (who had to answer fill-in-the-blank questions and try to match the contestants’ answers) was former Broadway star Charles Nelson Reilly. Rayburn, who began his career as a radio announcer, was also a stage actor. In 1961 he replaced Dick Van Dyke as Albert in the original Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie. His understudy: Charles Nelson Reilly.

BOB EUBANKS When he was a teenager in the 1950s, the future host of The Newlywed Game was one of best roller skaters in the world. He won several national competitions, and when it was rumored the International Olympic Committee would add roller skating to the 1958 summer games, he was a contender to join the U.S. Olympic team. The IOC didn’t do it, and so Eubanks went into entertainment, first as a radio disc jockey, then as a concert producer (he produced the Beatles’ 1964 and 1965 concerts at the Hollywood Bowl), and then as a game show host.

PAT SAJAK The longtime Wheel of Fortune host enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1968, during the Vietnam War. While stationed in Saigon, he was assigned a job as a disc jockey on Armed Services Radio. In December 1969, he was in a studio, making sure the feed of President Nixon’s Christmas address broadcast smoothly. Then Nixon wrapped up, and went quiet. Thinking the address was over, Sajak played a record (“1,2,3 Red Light” by the 1910 Fruitgum Company). It wasn’t over. Sajak heard Nixon start speaking again, to deliver an address specifically for military personnel in Vietnam…but by the time he could get Nixon’s remarks on the air again, the president’s speech was over.

CHUCK WOOLERY Long before he hosted Wheel of Fortune and Love Connection, Woolery formed and fronted a psychedelic pop band in the late 1960s called the Avant-Garde. Woolery never recorded an album with the band, only two singles. One of them, “Naturally Stoned,” hit #40 on the pop chart in the summer of 1968.

BERT CONVY Convy was a Broadway actor (he was in the original productions of Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret) who wound up hosting game shows in the 1970s and ’80s, such as Super Password, Tattletales, and Win, Lose or Draw, but he had a wild path to television. He was a baseball player before he was an entertainer. At age 18, he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies and played in their farm system for two years. When that career fizzled out, he joined a singing group called the Cheers. They hit the top 10 in 1955 with the song “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots.”

Wide load: A blue whale can eat 500,000 calories in a single bite.

GEOFF EDWARDS Edwards was a “have mic, will travel” kind of host, helming numerous game shows like The New Treasure Hunt, Jackpot, and Play the Percentages. In 1983 he hosted Starcade, a game show in which kids competed to see who could get the highest scores at various video games, a novelty at the time. Edwards took over for previous host Mark Richards, and didn’t want to lose the gig, so he studied up on video games…and became a fan. He reportedly kept up with all the latest systems and games until his death in 2014. Another fact about Edwards: as a news reporter for a Los Angeles radio station, he was in the basement of the Dallas Police headquarters on November 24, 1963, and witnessed Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.

MONTY HALL The host (and co-creator) of Let’s Make a Deal studied chemistry and zoology at the University of Manitoba in the 1930s. The son of a Jewish butcher from Winnipeg, Hall (real name: Monte Halparin) decided to continue his studies by going to medical school so he could become a doctor. It was a surprise to him when he wasn’t admitted. The reason: it was later revealed that some Canadian medical schools had secret quota systems in place to limit the number of Jewish students.

PETER MARSHALL Miss America pageant host Bert Parks hosted the pilot episode of The Hollywood Squares in 1965, but when NBC picked up the show, they couldn’t afford to keep Parks on, so they actively sought out new talent. Peter Marshall, a character actor and comedian, auditioned because he needed the money—he didn’t really want the gig and only took it because he heard that if he passed, the job would go to comic Dan Rowan (of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In)…who happened to be Marshall’s nemesis. Marshall ended up hosting the show for 15 years.

RICHARD DAWSON The most popular game show of the late 1970s and early ’80s was Family Feud, hosted by gregarious, female-contestant-kissing Richard Dawson. In May 1981, a family called the Johnsons appeared on Family Feud, and during their episodes, Dawson heavily flirted with their grown daughter, Gretchen. After the Johnsons were eliminated, Dawson asked Gretchen if he could see her outside the show. She said sure, and gave him her phone number. For three days, Dawson called her repeatedly and got no response. He figured her phone number was a fake…but she’d actually just unplugged her phone while recovering from dental surgery. When they finally reconnected, Dawson invited her to his Los Angeles home, where he made her beef Wellington. They wed in 1991, and remained married until Dawson’s death in 2012.

Only about 25 percent of the Sahara Desert is sandy; the rest is mostly gravel.