Word: sajak
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Vanna White's daily chores on Wheel of Fortune could most charitably be described as minimal. At the beginning of each show, the blond ex-model poses with the "fabulous prizes" on display and greets Host Pat Sajak with a cheery hello. Then she takes up her station at the puzzle board, briskly turning over lettered tiles and scooting out of the way like the ball boy at a tennis match. Yet White has become TV's most improbable cult heroine. "I've gotten tons of fan mail," she marvels. "Love letters, marriage proposals, children being named after me, which...
What accounts for its amazing popularity? Partly it is the elementary but engaging word game (many puzzles are devised personally by Creator Merv Griffin, who also wrote the show's theme music), partly the hypnotic allure of the wheel itself. It may also be a function of Host Sajak, whose low-key, faintly ironic style is a welcome break from most game-show gush. "As a game- show host, there's always the temptation to do a parody of one, to do a rapid- fire delivery and smile a little more," says Sajak, 39, who was a weatherman for KNBC...
Then there is White, "part of the mystery of the show," as Sajak sees it. A native of North Myrtle Beach, S.C., she drove to Hollywood in a U-Haul in 1980, landed a couple of movie bit roles, and was hired as Wheel's tile- turning hostess in 1982. "Turning letters isn't a hard job," admits White, 29. "But you do have to use your peripheral vision and listen to everything." White is quite proud of her performance: "I've never turned over a wrong tile." Indeed, her only major gaffe was the time she tripped and fell...
Lampy staffers agree with Sajak. "We're interested in Pat," said editor Edward B. Hodgman '86, "We'd like to get him to be the Elmer next year...
...Wheel of Fortune has recently acquired something of a cult following, but no one really knows why, according to last week's airing of 20/20. The show's Lost, Pat Sajak, who was most recently employed as a TV weatherman in Los Angeles, attributed the show's popularity to himself. Other sources, however, said that it is the hostess of the show, Vanna White, who draws the viewers...