Legendary game show host and radio personality Wink Martindale passed away on Tuesday, April 15, at the age of 91. He died at Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage, California, after a year-long battle with lymphoma, per the Associated Press.
Born Winston Conrad Martindale on December 4, 1933, in Jackson, Tennessee, he began his broadcasting career at 17 as a radio DJ. Wink said he received his nickname from a childhood friend.
“When I was a kid in Jackson, Tennessee, one of my playmates, Jimmy McCord, couldn’t say ‘Winston,’ which is my given name. He had a speech impediment, and it came out sounding like ‘Winky.’ So Winston turned into Winky, and then I got into the business and Wink it was! It served me well,” he told ABC in 2014.
His early career included a television interview in 1956 with a young Elvis Presley. This was a defining moment as the two celebrities became…
