Pat Sajak

Game Show Host • Personality

Birth Name: Patrick Leonard Sajdak

Birth Date: October 26, 1946

Age: 77 years old

Birth Place: Chicago, Illinois

Pat Sajak, the widely recognized and beloved host of the popular game show "Wheel of Fortune," began his career in entertainment when he won a contest as a teenager to be a guest teen deejay on a radio show in 1965. Sajak then became a newscaster for a small local radio station while he was attending Columbia College in Chicago. He joined the army in 1968 after dropping out of college and was stationed in Vietnam, where he was a morning show host for Armed Forces Radio. Upon returning to the United States, Sajak began working as a desk clerk at a hotel in Washington, but left to join a small radio station in Murray, Ky.

Unhappy with this position, he left after a year for Nashville, Tennessee, where he began working for WSM-TV in a variety of roles. In 1977, after gaining the attention of a talent scout, Sajak joined KNBC-TV in Los Angeles as a weather forecaster and the host of a weekend talk show. Producer Merv Griffin took notice of Sajak's charisma, and in 1981, asked him to host "Wheel of Fortune," then a daytime television game show that moved to its regular nighttime slot in 1983. Not content to rest on his laurels, Sajak has also made many guest appearances on other shows, including "Days of Our Lives" and "The Larry Sanders Show."