About Me
I was born Patrick Sajdak on October 26, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois. I am the current host of the Wheel of Fortune game show and I host The Pat Sajak Baseball Hour, a syndicated radio show.I was born and raised in Chicago, son of a Polish-American trucking foreman. During my elementary years, I attended Goethe Elementary School and Gary Elementary School. As I matured, I graduated from elementary school and went on to Farragut High School and Columbia College of Chicago.I won a random contest on WLS radio's Dick Biondi Show to be a guest "teen deejay". While at Columbia College, my broadcasting instructor told me that a local radio station (WEDC) was looking for a newsman. I was hired to work from midnight to 6:00 AM. In 1968, I joined the U.S. Army, and was sent to Vietnam, where I deejayed on Armed Forces Radio. Later in 1977, KNBC-TV in Los Angeles was looking for a weatherman, and spotted me working for NBC affiliate WSM-TV in Nashville. I accepted KNBC's request for me to be a full-time weatherman for the station.Finally, in 1981, Merv Griffin, the designer of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, called in and asked if I would be interested in taking over as host of Wheel of Fortune from Chuck Woolery. I accepted, and still host the show to date. In 1997, as part of an April Fool's joke, I hosted an episode of Jeopardy! and became a contestant (along with my co-host Vanna White) on Wheel of Fortune, which was being hosted by Jeopardy!'s Alex Trebek on that day.I hosted a late-night talk show on CBS in 1989 that failed miserably (a typical fate for talk shows up against Johnny Carson). I have, however, been a frequent guest host for CNN's Larry King Live when King is unable to attend. I have also hosted a program, Pat Sajak Weekend, on the Fox News Channel.I am an External Director of conservative publishing house Regnery, and am on the Board of Trustees at Hillsdale College, and I also have written for Human Events and served on the Board of Directors for the Claremont Institute. I was a major donor to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and I sometimes post political commentary on my official website.One of my philanthropies is an expansion of the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland. It is named the Sajak Pavilion in honor of my donations. I am also part-owner of Annapolis radio station WNAV 1430, which broadcasts Naval Academy events and other local items of interest. I have also donated $100,000 for the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.I have been referenced and parodized in many TV shows, movies, and animated television series. In one episode of Rugrats, for example, in which Chaz, Chuckie Finster's father, had won ten billion dollars, I was outside his house holding up a check for that amount of money. Chaz asked, "Where's Vanna?" after I exclaimed who I was.
