Pat Sajak
| Pat Sajak | |
|---|---|
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Sajak in 2011
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| Born |
Patrick Leonard Sajdak October 26, 1946 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Columbia College Chicago |
| Occupation | Television personality Game show Host Former DJ & TV Weatherman |
| Years active | 1975–present |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) |
Sherrill Sajak (m. 1979; div. 1986) Lesly Brown (m. 1989) |
| Children | 2 |
Pat Sajak (/ˈseɪdʒæk/ SAY-jak, born Patrick Leonard Sajdak; October 26, 1946) is an American television personality, former weatherman, actor and talk show host, best known as the host of the American television game show Wheel of Fortune.
Sajak, the son of a Polish-American factory worker, was born and raised in Chicago. His mother, Joyce, remarried Walter Backal. He graduated from Farragut High School in 1964, then went to Columbia College Chicago while working as a desk clerk at the Palmer House hotel. He served in uniform as a disc jockey in Vietnam for Armed Forces Radio.
Sajak won a contest on WLS radio's Dick Biondi Show to be a guest teen deejay. While at Columbia College Chicago, his broadcasting instructor Al Parker told him that a local radio station (WEDC) was looking for a newsman. Sajak applied for the job and was hired to work from midnight to 6:00 AM. In 1968, Sajak joined the U.S. Army, and was sent to Vietnam, where he served as a disk jockey on Armed Forces Radio. On The Military Channel's program, An Officer and a Movie, Sajak admitted to botching President Nixon's 1969 Christmas broadcast to the troops; he accidentally cut the feed off prematurely. Upon realizing the error, he decided it would be best not to resume the feed. In the early 1970s, Sajak DJed for a Murray, Kentucky, radio station for a year. Also in the early 1970s, Sajak began DJ'ing at 50,000-watt WSM in Nashville; at the time WSM was playing pop music during the day, and he was the 3:00–5:00pm afternoon personality. The radio station's television sister, WSM-TV (now WSMV), brought Sajak on screen, first as a voiceover artist doing station identifications and anchoring the five-minute newscasts during NBC's Today Show, then as a weekend and substitute weatherman, where he became acquainted with anchor Dan Miller. In 1977 KNBC-TV in Los Angeles was looking for a weatherman, and spotted Sajak working in Nashville. Sajak accepted KNBC's request for him to be a full-time weatherman for the station.
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