From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Thu Dec 4, 2003  6:28 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Wink Martindale

WINK MARTINDALE (By Shaun Mather)

Born Winston Conrad, 4 December 1934, Bells, Tennessee

Silky smooth Wink (spelling mistake?) Martindale was really Dick (correct
spelling!) Clark. You never see them on the same show together. He has
worked several stints as a disc-jockey but made his name/fortune firstly
with his version of Deck Of Cards, then as a host on numerous US tv shows.

He was born Winston Conrad in Bells, Tennessee, on December 4, 1934. He
started working for the legendary WHBQ radio station in Memphis in 1952
and recorded unsuccessfully for OJ Records two years later. He was around
Memphis during the boom period and clips from his tv show remain of him
interviewing Elvis. He looks so square next to the King but he seemed to
enjoy the occasion. Whilst he was blowing out 22 candles on his birthday
cake, Elvis was across town with Jerry Lee, Carl and Johnny Cash.

In 1959 he cut a cover of T. Texas Tyler's 1948 hit Deck Of Cards for Randy
Wood at Dot Records and saw the single climb to number seven in the charts.
He was unable to repeat the feat though with only a cover of Frankie Miller's
Black Land Farmer (1961) scraping into the Hot 100 at 85. Dot released an
album of spoken tracks by him, called Deck Of Cards in 1960.

He began hosting Teenage Dance Party in Los Angeles on KHJ-TV in 1959. It
was in the City of Angels that Wink became a popular daytime show host, with
successes including What's That Song, Those Were The Days, Gambit, Tic Tac
Dough, Last Word and Debt. Most have these have been for his own Wink
Martindale Enterprises company.