Chuck Woolery, original host of Wheel Of Fortune, dies

Chuck Woolery, the first host of Wheel Of Fortune, is dead. His podcasting co-host, Mark Young, confirmed his death to TMZ. Woolery was 83.

"It is with a broken heart that I tell you that my dear brother @chuckwoolery has just passed away," Young posted. "Life will not be the same without him, RIP brother."

Woolery was born on March 16, 1941, in Ashland, Kentucky. After serving two years in the U.S. Navy, Woolery moved to L.A. and "hadn't a clue" what he would do there. In a 2020 interview, Woolery recalled meeting John Wayne on his third day in town. Wayne was of no help. Instead, the future host turned to children's television, landing his first credit on the New Zoo Revue, playing an 85-year-old mailman.

Before he became one of America's preeminent vowel salesmen, Woolery plucked the double bass. Throughout the '60s, Woolery was a musician, playing bass in the folk group The Borderman and, later, the psych-pop duo The Avant-Garde. Avant-Garde's sole hit, "Naturally Stoned," a lush bit of orchestral psychedelia, peaked at 40 on Billboard. A parody remix of the song would later be the theme to GSN's short-lived reality series Chuck Woolery: Naturally Stoned.

After Avant-Garde disbanded, Woolery continued to perform music, releasing several albums on Columbia. Though his tunes didn't move mountains, Woolery made connections on the talk show circuit, performing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Merv Griffin Show. One day on set, Griffin asked him, "Did you ever think about being a game show host?" After considering his own impression of a game show host ("the guy with a bad mustache and a bad jacket who cares nothing about what you have to say"), Woolery responded, "No, but I'd like to think about it." Woolery agreed to host the pilot for Shopper's Bazaar, which Griffin retooled into America's Game.

Woolery first spun onto American television sets on January 6, 1975, as the host of Wheel Of Fortune. The show was an immediate hit, but Woolery's time on the series would be shortlived. After six years with Wheel, he demanded his salary be raised from $65,000 to $500,000, matching Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall. Griffin refused and hired Pat Sajak to replace him. "Merv was so upset with me, they started taping over all the old Wheel of Fortune [masters]," Woolery told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021.

In 1983, Woolery jumped from Wheel to Love Connection, a dating game show for over a decade and 2,100 episodes. It is also where Woolery launched his catchphrase, "We'll be back in two and two," which he delivered by raising two fingers and flicking his wrist, cluing the viewing audience into the two-minute-and-two-second ad-break ahead. Woolery would also host the game shows Greed, Scrabble, and Lingo, as well as his daytime talk show, The Chuck Woolery Show.

In the 2010s, Woolery began focusing on politics, launching SaveUsChuckWoolery.com as part of his numerous online efforts to brand himself a Republican humorist. He published videos mocking Occupy Wall Street and wealth inequality on his YouTube channel, leveraging his political leanings and online audience into appearances on Fox News and his right-wing podcast Blunt Force Truth. This would, unsurprisingly, lead to numerous controversies, including his being accused of anti-Semitism and criticized for COVID denial, which he later walked back.

Woolery is survived by his fourth wife, Kim Barnes, and three children, Michael, Melissa, and Sean. His two children from his first marriage, Chad and Katherine, died.