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Chuck Woolery, the ebullient game show host who began Wheel of Fortune’s lengthy run and then spent 11 years on Love Connection as a matchmaker, has away. He was eighty-three.
Mark Young, Woolery’s buddy and podcast co-host, informed The Hollywood Reporter that Woolery passed away on Saturday at his Texas home outside of Austin. Young wrote about it on X as well.
As a vocalist with the symphonic pop group The Avant-Garde, whose most well-known song, “Naturally Stoned,” peaked at No. 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1968,
Woolery began her career in entertainment. Later, in 2003, the song was used as the title song for his (very brief) Game Show Network reality show.
Following his performance of “Delta Dawn” on The Merv Griffin Show, the Kentucky native was given the opportunity to try out for the role of host of Shopper’s Bazaar,
A brand-new game show he had just created. The revamped Wheel of Fortune made its NBC debut on January 6, 1975,
When Woolery defeated longtime 77 Sunset Strip star Edd “Kookie” Byrnes for the position. As he remembered in 2007, Woolery asked for a raise from $65,000 year to around $500,000,
Which was what other top game show presenters were earning at the time, after the program earned a 44 share in 1981.
NBC promised to pay the remaining balance when Griffin paid him $400,000, but this upset Griffin, who threatened to move Wheel of Fortune to CBS, according to Woolery.
Griffin fired Woolery and hired Pat Sajak when NBC retracted their offer so they wouldn’t lose the game show. Susan Stafford, the original letter-turner, was also let go; Vanna White took her place.
Griffin “wanted to get the best of me,” according to Woolery, and the two never communicated again until Griffin passed away in 2007 from prostate cancer.
However, Woolery made a strong comeback with the syndicated Love Connection, which she oversaw for nearly 2,000 episodes between 1983 and 1994.
According to a 1986 People magazine, he was earning $1 million year presenting it and NBC’s Scrabble.
(The magazine said that Love Connection was bringing in $25 million annually and attracting 4.5 million viewers every day at that time.)
In addition, Woolery co-hosted the Family Channel’s Home and Family, had his own CBS daytime morning show that was short-lived due to competition from Kathie Lee and Live With Regis,
And served as the face of several game shows, including Greed on Fox, Lingo on the Game Show Network, and a syndication reboot of The Dating Game.
On March 16, 1941, Charles Herbert Woolery was born in Ashland, Kentucky. His mother, Katherine, was a stay-at-home mom, while his father,
Dan, had a business selling fountain supplies. Before leaving to spend a few years in the U.S. Navy, he briefly attended the University of Kentucky.
He then worked as a salesman at Pillsbury and attended Morehead State University to study economics. In 1967, he and singer-guitarist Elkin “Bubba” Fowler formed.
The Avant-Garde and signed with Columbia Records after he dropped out of school once again to pursue a career in music in Nashville.
Woolery persevered as a solo performer when The Avant-Garde failed, and in 1972, he had an appearance on The Tonight Show with help from comedian Jonathan Winters.
He also appeared as a guest star on Love, American Style and as Mr. Dingle, an old postman and shopkeeper, on the syndicated children’s program New Zoo Revue.
He starred as a featured singer on a new version of Your Hit Parade in 1974, and he costarred with then-wife Jo Ann Pflug in the short film Sonic Boom.
He also costarred with Cheryl Ladd and Rosey Grier in the feature picture The Treasure of Jamaica Reef. His efforts on Wheel of Fortune won him a Daytime Emmy in 1978.
A man or woman would choose one for a blind date after seeing the audition recordings of three possible partners on Love Connection. When the program initially started airing, they would pay $75 for their night out.
The pair was unable to discuss their date until a few weeks later, when Woolery interviewed them for the program to find out how it went. There was sometimes a second date after.
The studio audience voted on which of the three candidates they believed would be the greatest fit during the audition round. At other times, these two would never again go out.
In the People piece, Woolery said, “This is really the one show I do that I’ll watch at home.” “I love how unpredictable it is.” Woolery used his distinctive Love Connection to inform viewers.
That the show will resume after the commercials in “two and two” — two minutes and two seconds, which was the duration of the break in those days — and he had a hand signal just for it.
Woolery was questioned by Entertainment Weekly in 1993 whether he “would ever have gay couples” on the program.
“No,” he said. If a man sat down and I asked him, “Well, so where did you meet and so and so?,” do you think that would work? Then I ask, “Did you kiss?” at the conclusion of the date.
Let me rest. Do you believe that the majority of Americans will identify with that? That doesn’t seem to function at all.
Woolery, who loves fishing, co-hosted the right-wing podcast Blunt Force Truth with Young more recently.
He has eight children or stepchildren from his four marriages, which included Pflug from 1972 to 1980, Teri Nelson Carpenter, a music executive and granddaughter of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson,
From 1985 to 2004, and Kristen Barnes, whom he married in 2006. His wife is one of the survivors, along with his daughter Melissa and sons Michael and Sean.