Wink Martindale

Millions of Americans recognize Winston Conrad solely as the game-show emcee Wink Martindale, yet the same individual once released the spoken-word single “Deck of Cards,” which ascended to number seven on Billboard’s Top 100 pop chart in November 1959. Born December 4, 1934, in Belle, Tennessee, Martindale first noticed his own verbal fluency as a teenager, a trait that led classmates to assign him the nickname Wink. Before entering television, he logged time as a radio announcer and then introduced Teenage Dance Party on Los Angeles station KHJ-TV in 1959. Dot Records chief Randy Wood identified Martindale’s latent potential, scheduled studio time, and produced “Deck of Cards,” a remake of T. Texas Tyler’s 1948 release that had peaked at number twenty-one on the pop charts. Martindale had already made his first recordings four years earlier for OJ Records. Subsequent Dot singles failed to replicate the breakthrough; the closest any came was his version of Frankie Miller’s “Black Land Farmer,” which stalled at number eighty-five. Although his recording career quickly faded, Martindale became a daytime-television regular, hosting Tic Tac Dough, Last Word, and Debt, among other programs, from 1978 forward.