TopFive   Index   About Us   Previous Lists   Greatest Hits   Hall of Fame   You Really Like Us!   Store    Privacy   Links!   Contact What' s this? Members Only   ClubTop5 Subscribe   Top5/ClubTop5   Little Fivers Sponsored Links Natural remedies for people & pets Long Lost Friends: Used/Rare Books The Bible Online

TopFive.com's Third Annual Celebrity Week Ed Begley, Jr.  |  Pat Sajak  |  Mark Cuban  |  Joey Molland  |  Scott Adams Pat Sajak www.patsajak.com Pat Sajak, best known to the world as host of Wheel of Fortune and his own all-too-brief late night talk show, first appeared on the air in 1965 when he entered a drawing on WLS Radio's Dick Biondi Show to be a guest teen deejay and actually won. He was instantly hooked on showbiz. He worked as a newsman at small local radio station WEDC in Columbia, Illinois, reading the news in English on a Spanish music show with a Spanish-speaking DJ and Spanish commercials. Pat did a stint in the Army, serving in Vietnam, and he eventually became the host of an Armed Forces Radio show called The Dawnbuster. Afterward, he became the nighttime DJ at a small radio station in Murray, Kentucky. He pestered his way into a staff announcer job at WSM-TV in Nashville, doing a bit of everything in 5 years, eventually becoming the weeknight weather person. In 1977, Los Angeles station KNBC-TV hired Pat as their regular, weeknight, full-time weather guy. He also hosted a local Sunday talk show, where he caught the eye of Merv Griffin, who asked Pat in 1981 whether he'd like to take over for Chuck Woolery, who was leaving Wheel of Fortune (nice career move, Chuck). Pat almost turned him down, not really wanting to be a game show host, but agreed to do a test. He was offered (and took) the job, thinking that it would only last a couple of years at most. Twenty years later, Wheel continues to be the number one-rated syndicated show on TV, and shows no sign of slowing down. In 1989, Pat hosted his own late-night talk show on CBS, The Pat Sajak Show. As late-night talk shows go, it was far more to the Johnny Carson side of the spectrum than the Chevy Chase side, but it was nevertheless canceled by CBS a short time later. Pat has hosted five Tournament of Roses Parades, four Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades, network special editions of College Bowl and This is Your Life, and has guest-hosted for Regis Philbin, Larry King and others. He's won three Emmys and a People's Choice Award. Pat is married (his wife, Lesly, is a photographer) and has two children. Here's Pat's list: "The Top 11 Signs I've Been Hosting Wheel of Fortune Too Long" © Copyright 1994-2008.  All rights reserved. TopFive.com and The Top 5 List are owned by Chris White. Absolutely no publishing or reprinting without prior consent.