Love Pat Sajak? Don’t Forget These 17 Other Game Show Hosts (PHOTOS)
After nearly 40 years of spinning that wheel, Pat Sajak has taken his final bow on Wheel of Fortune. The host retired following his final episode of Friday, June 7, leaving behind decades of TV history. In fact, he retires holding the record for longest-serving TV game show host in history.
Sajak is far from alone in the genre. Survey says… these other beloved game show hosts and emcees are also some of our all-time favorites.
—Emily Aslanian, Kate Hahn, Damian Holbrook, Matt Roush, Ileane Rudolph, Colleen Secaur, and Caroline Serpico
This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s Wheel of Fortune: Farewell, Pat Sajak issue. For more inside scoop on the long-running game show and Pat’s final episode, pick up a copy of the issue available on newsstands and for order online at WheelofFortuneMag.com.
Jack Barry
You would be hard-pressed to find a host that had more ups and downs in his career than the late Jack Barry. With producer Dan Enright, Barry got his start co-creating and hosting numerous successful game shows such as Juvenile Jury, Tic Tac Dough and Concentration. But Barry’s reputation took a massive hit when his Twenty-One was discovered to be on the list of programs that cheated during the 1950s quiz show scandals, and was caught providing contestants with answers before going on the air. The controversy temporarily forced Barry out of Hollywood. In 1984, Barry reflected on that dark time: “For five years, I was virtually unable to conduct my life. I could not focus. I was drinking a lot. I almost lost my life.… Finally I couldn’t take it any longer. I mean, how long does a guy have to suffer? I knew they needed me.”
He applied for an FCC license and worked his way off the blacklist by purchasing an FM radio station. Finally, after taking on many fill-in hosting gigs, Barry made his triumphant comeback at the helm of The Joker’s Wild in 1972.
But 12 years later, and three and a half months after bragging to TV Guide Magazine that he was the “oldest living game show host in television history,” Barry, then 66, died of a heart attack while jogging in New York City’s Central Park. (The distinction of oldest living game show host would later belong to The Price Is Right’s Bob Barker and, eventually, Pat Sajak for Wheel of Fortune.)
But Barry left us with parting advice for anyone who wanted to make it doing what he excelled at: “It’s the ability to handle the situation, to say the right thing, to make the right quip. You can’t be redundant. You’ve got to say what you mean in one sentence or the game suffers.”
Anne Robinson
“You are the weakest link. Goodbye!” British host Anne Robinson curtly dismissed contestants with that catchphrase on the 2001–02 quiz show Weakest Link, adapted from her U.K. program, where teams voted off their worst player after each round. Robinson, a former journalist, knew a thing or two about brutal editing—and tough interviews. In her chitchat with contestants, she didn’t shy away from being insulting. You had to be thick-skinned and quick-thinking to survive. The show didn’t: After initial success on NBC, it was put into syndication (though later revived with actress Jane Lynch). But the icy style of Robinson, now 79, left a mark.
Bob Eubanks
A true Renaissance man, Bob Eubanks has lived many lives: as a disc jockey, a concert promoter, a rodeo cowboy and, perhaps most importantly, a top-tier game show host. First making his mark in Hollywood as a promoter (he brought the Beatles to the West Coast!), Eubanks soon proved his own on-air talent. And while he hosted many delightful series, including The Diamond Head Game (1975) and Card Sharks (1986–89), it’s his first one—The Newlywed Game, beginning in 1966—that cemented the now 86-year-old in TV history. Quick, humorous and good-natured, Eubanks embodied everything a good host should be. He brought a youthful spirit and mischief to what could have quickly become stale on the bawdy game: asking personal questions of married couples. And, of course, who could forget his often expressed euphemism, “Makin’ whoopee”?
Alex Trebek
Let’s start with the answer: the host who will forever be associated with the greatest quiz show of all, Jeopardy! The obvious question: Who is Alex Trebek? Stage 10 at Sony Pictures Studios was christened the Alex Trebek Stage in honor of the Canadian, who won eight Daytime Emmys and a Lifetime Achievement Award during his 37 seasons of Jeopardy!, starting with its 1984 relaunch into syndication. With the air of a gentleman scholar, always ceding the spotlight to the contestants, the self-effacing host cut his teeth on game shows including The Wizard of Odds, High Rollers and Battlestars. In 1991, he became his own trivia answer as the first to host three game shows simultaneously: Jeopardy!, Classic Concentration and To Tell the Truth. Trebek, who died in November 2020 at 80, fought a public battle with pancreatic cancer for more than 18 months, enduring pain and fatigue off camera during a five-shows-a-day, two-days-a week taping schedule. This peerless answer man lived his life as if to say, “Let’s make it a true Daily Double.”
Regis Philbin
Regis Philbin may be best known for his long-running morning talk show with Kathie Lee Gifford and Kelly Ripa. But among his many hosting duties was his memorable stint as the original face of one particular ABC trivia-show megahit, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. On Millionaire, Philbin’s “Is that your final answer?” query became a popular catchphrase, and he earned a 2001 Daytime Emmy. Ever comfortable on camera, the ubiquitous TV personality, who passed away in July 2020, easily disarmed players sweating in the Hot Seat simply by being his cool, charming self.
Steve Harvey
Funnyman Steve Harvey has been bringing his inimitable style to game shows since 2010. The 67-year-old mustached mogul most famously oversees the syndicated Family Feud and Celebrity Family Feud for ABC, and he’s given the franchise some of its best ratings ever, even while hosting his own talk show. The seasoned come-dian and author — who is now the longest-running Feud host — always gets us giggling with his irreverent approach to playing the buzzer-slapping game. A simple Google search will net you a plethora of clips of Harvey asking slightly sassy survey questions to contestants who either fall apart at the suggestive implications or offer answers that send Steve on a riff worthy of one of his stand-up performances…only a little more Family-friendly.
Jim Lange
With his broad grin, genial style and smooth voice honed as a radio disc jockey, Jim Lange charmed audiences on The Dating Game from 1965 to 1980. He could even have been one of the handsome bachelors on the game show, where a young person questioned three members of the opposite sex, hidden from view, to choose the best date. The banter often drifted into double entendre territory, eliciting chuckles from Lange, whose trademark sign-off was throwing a kiss to the camera with the contestants. Lange, who died in 2014, also fronted Hollywood Connection, $100,000 Name That Tune and The New Newlywed Game.
Monty Hall
Starting out as a radio DJ, Canadian Monte Halparin gave himself a snappy new name and moved to New York City to pursue showbiz. His charisma got him far, as did a weekly newsletter he’d send out to industry titans called “A Memo From Monty.” He became a radio analyst for the New York Rangers hockey team and guest host for shows like Strike It Rich and Twenty-One before he struck gold in 1963 with Let’s Make a Deal. (He co-created and hosted.)
In a 1984 TV Guide Magazine cover story, while being interviewed in his two-story stucco home packed with ornate artwork, Hall, a successful producer and family man, admitted that he was in “inner turmoil” due to a lack of industry respect. “I know what I am as a performer, and yet no one takes me seriously,” he said. “I know what I am capable of, and yet I am stereotyped. I became so closely identified with Let’s Make a Deal that people started putting me in the same category as the contestants. If they had referred to me as the man who handles the idiots jumping up and down, that would have been OK. No network woos me like they woo a nighttime star, even though on the profit side of the ledger, there is no comparison. I made them so much more money,” he claimed. He later added, “I’m tired of being identified for all these years as just another mindless game show host.”
He was certainly more than that to exuberant audience members for nearly 30 years, opening doors, dealing out prizes and “zonking” players (one infamous zonk resulted in an elephant fleeing the studio). Hall died in 2017, just after his 96th birthday.
Bob Barker
You can’t put a price on personality. And Bob Barker’s was beyond compare, a display of unflappable charm, graciousness and good humor. The longtime host of CBS’s The Price Is Right, who died just short of his 100th birthday in August 2023, was famous for never losing his cool, even when frenzied contestants lost their minds. And Barker always knew how to make the players look their best. “What I do, the essence of it, is to make my living making other people funny,” he told TV Guide Magazine in 1984. “They tell me I am the best at what I do. [Producer] Ralph Edwards told me that I do game shows like Jack Benny did comedy, I have that kind of timing.”
His secret? “I try to find what a person has to offer,” Barker said. “Aunt Agnes may bevery funny at home, but that doesn’t mean she is going to be funny at Studio 33 at CBS on Monday. Once, I got a letter from a gray-haired lady who said she had been a contestant on the show. ‘I’m so glad you picked me,’ she wrote. ‘I have never been funnier than I was that day.’ To me, that says it all.”
Winner of 19 Daytime Emmys, Barker began his 35-year run on Price in 1972 while still hosting the syndicated Truth or Consequences, an audience-participation show where contestants were victims of harmless if messy games and stunts. And it was actually veteran emcee Edwards who got Barker his first non-radio gig. In 1956, Edwards was driving his daughters to a Los Angeles ice-skating rink when he heard Barker’s local radio show at the time. Edwards was looking for someone to host his show Truth or Consequences, and he liked what he heard from Barker on the air. Edwards gave him a call and even helped arrange his audition. “NBC didn’t want me,” recalled Barker. “But Ralph made them give me a chance.”
Later in life, Barker became a pop culture icon, even spoofing his wholesome image while sparring with Adam Sandler in the 1996 golfing film Happy Gilmore. He also played himself on episodes of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and lent his voice for animated comedies Family Guy and Futurama (the latter as his own preserved head). Little wonder a “W.G.M.C.” (World’s Greatest Master of Ceremonies) sign hung on his dressing room door for years.
Dick Clark
By the time Dick Clark became the first host of The $10,000 Pyramid in 1973, he was already a household name, having been dubbed “America’s oldest teenager” for helming the popular music and dance program American Bandstand. The calm, commanding, cordial Clark, who died in 2012, won three Daytime Emmys for presenting the clue-answer game that paired celebrities with everyday folks. His signature move was upstaging famous guests by dropping in with the perfect clue after they’d lost. The series ping-ponged between CBS, ABC and syndication and changed titles to bigger dollar amounts, reaching The $100,000 Pyramid when Clark signed off in 1988.
Gene Rayburn
Between rambunctious celebrity guests and a cocktail party atmosphere, Gene Rayburn had his hands full keeping Match Game on track. Maybe there was magic in that wandlike microphone of his, or maybe it was his years of experience: Before running the original Match from 1962 to 1969, the Broadway star hosted a slew of titles, including 1950s gems Make the Connection and Tic Tac Dough. But it was Match’s 1973 revival that saw Rayburn’s career soar, thanks to his skills at engaging with the everyday contestants and corralling the famous panelists — such as Richard Dawson, Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly — who would toss out racy answers to fill in the blanks. Still, even the veteran Rayburn (who died in 1999) would lose his composure, and there is no match for a host who is having as much fun as the viewers.
Wink Martindale
All you need to know about Winston Conrad “Wink” Martindale, 90, can be told from looking back on an anecdote that ran in a 1984 TV Guide Magazine cover story: While filming an episode of Tic Tac Dough, Martindale showed a contestant a picture of Roger Moore surrounded by a group of beautiful women. “Name this James Bond movie released in the summer of 1983,” Martindale said.
“In the summer of ’83?” the contestant asked, making sure he heard Martindale correctly. “Wrong,” shouted Martindale. “The name of the picture is Octopussy.”
Chuck Woolery
Call him the originator. Over the course of his industrious career, Chuck Woolery, now 83, was the inaugural host of Scrabble, Love Connection and, yes, Wheel of Fortune. Wheel creator Merv Griffin actually handpicked Woolery to be the daytime show’s first host due to the singer’s incredible vocal skills. And though Sajak eventually took over for Woolery after his six-year tenure on Wheel from 1975 to 1981, we can still hear the old-school host’s trademark go-to-commercial catchphrase, “Back in two and two.” Woolery also had a robust career playing in folk and psychedelic pop bands—even snagging himself a Top 40 hit along the way!—but he always kept his hosting chops sharp. He most recently led Wordle predecessor Lingo from 2002 to 2007 on Game Show Network.
Bill Cullen
When Bill Cullen hosted, the audience, whether in the studio or watching from home, could expect a party. With his self-deprecating, slightly naughty wit, Cullen, nicknamed “Dean of Game Show Hosts,” fronted over 20 shows throughout five decades before his death in 1990 from lung cancer. That included a six-month stint on 1954’s Name That Tune, nine years on The Price Is Right and five on The $25,000 Pyramid. He was a hard worker. In 1953, he commuted from New York to Los Angeles for over a year and a half to host Place the Face. It eventually paid off: Three on a Match earned him a Primetime Emmy in 1973. The indefatigable entertainer also had lengthy runs as a panelist on I’ve Got a Secret and To Tell the Truth.
Like many others in this line of work, Cullen got his start in radio, and received his big break on CBS as a senior staff announcer during World War II. “When all the able-bodied men were being drafted, I was 4-F,” he told TV Guide Magazine in the mid-1980s. With his physical limitations — including poor eyesight and a visible limp left over from childhood polio — Cullen never saw himself as destined for television stardom.
“I often ask myself, ‘How am I working?’” he once said. “I’m certainly not the guy who appeals to women between the ages of 18 and 35.”
And yet, Cullen’s sweet, comforting demeanor and ease in which he built a rapport with players helped him to develop a prosperous career onscreen. He truly made an effort to understand the contestants that he crossed paths with and was rooting for everyone he watched play the many games he hosted. “I’m happy if they win, and I’m upset if they lose,” he once said. He also once explained what he enjoyed most about the job of host: getting to “show off for a half hour. I am the timing. I am the pace. I speed it up. I play it down. I make it flow. It’s a challenge.” One he certainly succeeded at.
Richard Dawson
As much comedian as host, the notorious “Kissing Bandit” from the original Family Feud was born Colin Lionel Emm in England, adopting the stage name Dickie Dawson (later changed to Richard) as a stand-up comic before launching a television acting career in Los Angeles in the 1960s. His most notable role was as Cpl. Peter Newkirk, one of the POWs on CBS comedy Hogan’s Heroes, and he later joined the ensemble of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In before finding even greater fame on game shows.
Initially, Dawson was known as a panelist, but he quickly picked up what he needed to learn in order to propel himself to stardom. A favorite of contestants on Match Game in the early 1970s, Dawson graduated to host status when Family Feud debuted in 1976. (Shortly after booking Feud, Dawson took on guest starring roles in some of TV’s most popular shows of the late 70s — Fantasy Island and The Love Boat.)
But it’s hard to call Dawson, who passed away in 2012 from esophageal cancer at 79, well-liked. “He certainly is not from the old school of the polite emcee,” Family Feud creator Mark Goodson told TV Guide Magazine in 1984. “[Dawson] does not tolerate stupidity. If he thinks a contestant is being dumb, he will call him on it. He says exactly what comes to mind.”
Dawson wasn’t a delight to work with behind the scenes either. “He throws tantrums, sometimes over things as ridiculous as a broken microphone or a burned-out light bulb,” said one executive. “He just stops tape and starts yelling at somebody in the crew.”
The host was also criticized for being patronizing toward female contestants, and his signature move of kissing players of the opposite sex, often touching them or holding their hands, is behavior that would never fly today. Even then it rankled his bosses. However, when Dawson surveyed the audience at home, most of the 15,000 responses he received urged him to keep on kissing.
Drew Carey
Talk about the Right stuff. Ever since 2007, the 66-year-old sitcom star has proven the perfect Price Is Right successor to the great Bob Barker. Part of that is Drew Carey’s genial way of working a crowd and cracking wise about prizes, and another is his genuine appreciation for the viewers at home rooting for audience members who have been called to come on down. “People watching are regular people,” he told TV Guide Magazine during Price’s 50th anniversary in 2021. “They get to see people they relate to having a fun day and winning prizes [they] wish they could win.”
For six decades, Betty White was the go-to gal for guaranteed laughs on quiz show panels. Starting in 1955 with What’s My Line?, she appeared on favorites like I’ve Got a Secret, Match Game and Password (then hosted by husband Allen Ludden). Though she went back to sitcoms with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls, White had a yen to host her own show. After being rejected in the 1960s and ’70s (she was told the public wouldn’t accept a female host), she won her timeslot — and an Emmy — for NBC’s short-lived 1983 series Just Men!
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