Game show host, song, artist, and liberal commentator Chuck Woolery passed away over the weekend. He was 83 years older. Woolery’s audio partner Mark Young announced his departure on Saturday.
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My dear nephew @chuckwoolery has just passed away, and I tell you with a broken spirit. Without him, RIP brother picture, life wo n’t be the same. twitter.com/OVPgG195RX— Dr. Mark Young ( @MarkYoungTruth ) November 24, 2024
Boomers and Gen Xers will remember Woolery best from two ‘ 80s shows: the dating show” Love Connection” and the game show” Scrabble”. Both were entertaining social touchstones, especially for a match show-obsessed’ 70s and ‘ 80s child like me. For the uninitiated,” Scrabble” was a riff on the classic board game, while” Love Connection” had a person pick a date from audition tapes and tell Woolery how the date went. A winning partners may receive a second date in the audience’s favor.
Here’s a example:
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Wordery claimed to be in love with his favourite pair of partners, a man aged 91 and a person aged 87, in a 2003 interview with the Associated Press. She looked like a stolen Coupe because she had so little attention beauty on. He was thus ancient he said”, I remember wagon trains. ” The poor man. She took him on a bubble drive.'”
However, Woolery’s profession turned out to be even more fascinating. After a stint in the Navy, he tried to make it as a songwriter, forming the duo The Avant-Garde, which had a slight struck in 1968 called” Obviously Intoxicated”. AllMusic’s Jason Ankeny calls it a “minor classic”, feel free to judge for yourself from the picture below:
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RIP Chuck Woolery, the Love Connection number from my youth ( up in 2 and 2 ). Before activity show popularity, he was in The Avant-Garde, whose 1968 one’ Obviously Stoned ‘ strike# 40 on Billboard. Hugh Hefner’s 1969 film After Dark features him performing it around. Trippy music. Interesting career. photograph. twitter.com/glzqaRqXAo— Adam Waller ( @adamdigital ) November 25, 2024
Woolery continued to write at least one tune for Tammy Wynette, and he even performed some acting in some of the country’s top tunes in the 1970s. But in 1974, he met the famed Merv Griffin, and they had a big bust.
The AP information:
Woolery began his television job with a popular television program. Although most associated with Pat Sajak and Vanna White,” Wheel of Fortune” debuted Jan. 6, 1975, on NBC with Woolery welcoming contestants and the audience. Woolery, next 33, was trying to make it in Nashville as a performer.
” Wheel of Fortune” started life as” Shopper’s Bazaar”, incorporating Hangman-style puzzles and a roulette wheel. After Woolery sang” Delta Dawn” on” The Merv Griffin Show,” Merv Griffin asked him to sponsor the novel program with Susan Stafford.
” I had an appointment that stretched to 15, 20 days”, Woolery told The New York Times in 2003. ” After the show, when Merv asked if I wanted to do a game show, I thought,’ Great, a guy with a bad jacket and an equally bad mustache who does n’t care what you have to say — that’s the guy I want to be.'”
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The first six times of” Wheel of Fortune “‘s work were hosted by Woolery, earning an Emmy nomination in 1978. In 1981, Griffin replaced Pat Sajak with Woolery. After” Love Connection” and” Scrabble” ended, Woolery hosted a handful of short-lived game shows as well as a reality show that had a brief run.
Woolery was a lifelong liberal, and he maintained a reputation for years on X. He began the radio” Blunt Force Truth” with Fresh in 2014. He said a few questionable items on that radio, and, of training, that’s what the AP went out of its way to point out. Reporter Mark Kennedy slammed Woolery as a “right-wing podcaster” who claimed that “minorities do n’t need civil rights” and that “belongs to right-wing podcasters who accuse the government of lying about COVID-19.”
He survives with his second wife and his five babies. Rest in peace, Chuck. We’ll see you in” 2 and 2″.
