NEW YORK (AP) — Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of “Wheel of Fortune,” “Love Connection” and “Scrabble” who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19, has died. He was 83.
Mark Young, Woolery's podcast co-host and friend, said in an email early Sunday that Woolery died at his home in Texas with his wife, Kristen, present. “Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him,” Young wrote.
Woolery, with his matinee idol looks, coiffed hair and ease with witty banter, was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in 2007 and earned a daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.
In 1983, Woolery began an 11-year run as host of TV’s “Love Connection,” for which he coined the phrase, “We’ll be back in two minutes and two seconds,” a two-fingered signature dubbed the “2 and 2.” In 1984, he hosted TV’s “Scrabble,” simultaneously hosting two game shows on TV until 1990.
“Love Connection,” which aired long before the dawn of dating apps, had a premise that featured either a single man or single woman who would watch audition tapes of three potential mates and then pick one for a date.
A couple of weeks after the date, the guest would sit with Woolery in front of a studio audience and tell everybody about the date. The audience would vote on the three contestants, and if the audience agreed with the guest’s choice, “Love Connection” would offer to pay for a second date.
Woolery told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2003 that his favorite set of lovebirds was a man aged 91 and a woman aged 87. "She had so much eye makeup on, she looked like a stolen Corvette. He was so old he said, ‘I remember wagon trains.’ The poor guy. She took him on a balloon ride.”
Other career highlights included hosting the shows “Lingo," “Greed” and “The Chuck Woolery Show,” as well as hosting the short-lived syndicated revival of “The Dating Game” from 1998 to 2000 and an ill-fated 1991 talk show. In 1992, he played himself in two episodes of TV’s “Melrose Place.”
Woolery became the subject of the Game Show Network’s first attempt at a reality show, “Chuck Woolery: Naturally Stoned,” which premiered in 2003. It shared the title of the pop song in 1968 by Woolery and his rock group, the Avant-Garde. It lasted six episode and was panned by critics.
Woolery began his TV career at a show that has become a mainstay. 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, then 33, was trying to make it in Nashville as a singer.
“Wheel of Fortune” started life as “Shopper’s Bazaar,” incorporating Hangman-style puzzles and a roulette wheel. After Woolery appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show” singing “Delta Dawn,” Merv Griffin asked him to host the new show with Susan Stafford.
“I had an interview that stretched to 15, 20 minutes,” 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 doesn’t care what you have to say — that’s the guy I want to be.’”
NBC initially passed, but they retooled it as “Wheel of Fortune” and got the green light. After a few years, Woolery demanded a raise to $500,000 a year, or what host Peter Marshall was making on “Hollywood Squares.” Griffin balked and replaced Woolery with weather reporter Pat Sajak.
“Both Chuck and Susie did a fine job, and ‘Wheel’ did well enough on NBC, although it never approached the kind of ratings success that ‘Jeopardy!’ achieved in its heyday,” Griffin said in “Merv: Making the Good Life Last,” an autobiography from the 2000s co-written by David Bender. Woolery earned an Emmy nod as host.
Born in Ashland, Kentucky, Woolery served in the U.S. Navy before attending college. He played double bass in a folk trio, then formed the psychedelic rock duo The Avant-Garde in 1967 while working as a truck driver to support himself as a musician.
The Avant-Garde, which tourbed in a refitted Cadillac hearse, had the Top 40 hit “Naturally Stoned,” with Woolery singing, “When I put my mind on you alone/I can get a good sensation/Feel like I’m naturally stoned.”
After The Avant-Garde broke up, Woolery released his debut solo single “I’ve Been Wrong” in 1969 and several more singles with Columbia before transitioning to country music by the 1970s. He released two solo singles, “Forgive My Heart” and “Love Me, Love Me.”
Woolery wrote or co-wrote songs for himself and everyone from Pat Boone to Tammy Wynette. On Wynette’s 1971 album “We Sure Can Love Each Other,” Woolery wrote “The Joys of Being a Woman” with lyrics including “See our baby on the swing/Hear her laugh, hear her scream.”
After his TV career ended, Woolery went into podcasting. In an interview with The New York Times, he called himself a gun-rights activist and described himself as a conservative libertarian and constitutionalist. He said he hadn’t revealed his politics in liberal Hollywood for fear of retribution.
He teamed up with Mark Young in 2014 for the podcast “Blunt Force Truth” and soon became a full supporter of Donald Trump while arguing minorities don’t need civil rights and causing a firestorm by tweeting an antisemitic comment linking Soviet Communists to Judaism.
“President Obama’s popularity is a fantasy only held by him and his dwindling legion of juice-box-drinking, anxiety-dog-hugging, safe-space-hiding snowflakes,” he said.
Woolery also was active online, retweeting articles from Conservative Brief, insisting Democrats were trying to install a system of Marxism and spreading headlines such as “Impeach him! Devastating photo of Joe Biden leaks.”
During the early stages of the pandemic, Woolery initially accused medical professionals and Democrats of lying about the virus in an effort to hurt the economy and Trump’s chances for reelection to the presidency.
“The most outrageous lies are the ones about COVID-19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, media, Democrats, our doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it,” Woolery wrote in July 2020.
Trump retweeted that post to his 83 million followers. By the end of the month, nearly 4.5 million Americans had been infected with COVID-19 and more than 150,000 had died.
Just days later, Woolery changed his stance, announcing his son had contracted COVID-19. “To further clarify and add perspective, COVID-19 is real and it is here. My son tested positive for the virus, and I feel for of those suffering and especially for those who have lost loved ones,” Woolery posted before his account was deleted.
Woolery later explained on his podcast that he never called COVID-19 “a hoax” or said “it’s not real,” just that “we’ve been lied to.” Woolery also said it was “an honor to have your president retweet what your thoughts are and think it’s important enough to do that.”
In addition to his wife, Woolery is survived by his sons Michael and Sean and his daughter Melissa, Young said.
Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits.
FILE - Chuck Woolery hosts a special premiere of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007, in Las Vegas. (Ronda Churchill/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)
FILE - Chuck Woolery hosts a special premiere of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007, in Las Vegas. (Ronda Churchill/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Matvei Michkov scored a power-play goal in overtime as the Flyers overcame a two-goal deficit in the third period to beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 on Saturday.
Michkov scored on a set play, taking a pass from Travis Konecny on the back door and slamming it home at 1:06 of overtime.
Trailing 2-0 in the third period, Sean Couturier and Noah Cates scored goals 2:38 apart to tie the score.
Couturier scored for the first time in 14 games and Cates scored for the first time this season.
Aleksei Kolosov made 19 saves to earn his first career win in the NHL.
Lukas Reichel and Patrick Maroon scored for the Blackhawks, who lost for the fourth time in five games.
Petr Mrazek made 34 saves for Chicago.
FLAMES 4, WILD 3, SO
CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Rasmus Andersson scored the shootout winner and Calgary held off Minnesota after blowing a two-goal lead late in the third period.
Kevin Rooney, Martin Pospisil and Yegor Sharangovich scored in regulation for Calgary, which has won four games in a row.
Marcus Johansson, Brock Faber and Marco Rossi scored for Minnesota. The NHL’s top road team, the Wild have lost only once in regulation in 13 away games.
Frederick Gaudreau scored for Minnesota before Justin Kirkland replied for the Flames to tie the shootout at 1 until Andersson fired a shot past Filip Gustavsson in the fifth round. Calgary goalie Dan Vladar then clinched the win by denying Ryan Hartman.
Vladar made 20 saves in his first action in 11 days after rookie goalie Dustin Wolf started the past three games. Gustavsson turned aside 28 shots.
KINGS 2, KRAKEN 1
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Adrian Kempe and Quinton Byfield scored in the second period, and Los Angeles beat Seattle.
David Rittich made 19 saves for the Kings, who improved to 6-2-1 at home.
Kempe and Byfield scored 1:44 apart in the second period. Byfield buried a sharp-angle slap shot on a power play while dropping to a knee. It was his 98th career point in 200 games.
Brandon Montour got the Kraken on the board with 1:26 left in the game. He converted a long shot with Joey Daccord off for another skater, but Los Angeles held on.
Daccord finished with 19 stops for Seattle.
AVALANCHE 7, PANTHERS 4
SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Jonathan Drouin got his first two goals of the season, Mikko Rantanen had a goal and three assists and Colorado beat slumping Florida.
Drouin was playing for only the fifth time this season. He missed 16 games with an upper-body injury.
Valeri Nichushkin had a goal and two assists for Colorado, which got a four-goal second period — with scores from Drouin, Rantanen, Logan O’Connor and Samuel Girard. Oliver Kylington also scored for the Avalanche, who improved to 3-0-0 on their four-game road trip.
Cale Makar and Devon Toews had two assists apiece for Colorado.
Sam Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov, Carter Verhaeghe and Anton Lundell scored for Florida, which has dropped five of its last six games. Matthew Tkachuk and Mackie Samoskevich each had two assists for the Panthers.
GOLDEN KNIGHTS 6, CANADIENS 2
MONTREAL (AP) — The Vegas Golden Knights exploded for five unanswered goals in the second period to roll over Montreal.
Tomas Hertl, Callahan Burke, Ivan Barbashev, Tanner Pearson and Keegan Kolesar each scored.
Montreal’s Emil Heineman and Jayden Struble scored in the third before Golden Knights’ Jack Eichel collected his seventh of the season.
Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill stopped 15 of 17 shots. Montreal’s Sam Montembeault gave up five goals on 25 shots before he was replaced in the third period by Cayden Primeau, who turned away two of three shots.
CANUCKS 4, SENATORS 3
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Jake DeBrusk had two goals and an assist, and Vancouver beat Ottawa.
Kiefer Sherwood had a goal and an assist for Vancouver in the opener of a six-game trip. Teddy Blueger also scored, and Elias Pettersson had two assists.
Canucks goaltender Kevin Lankinen stopped 26 shots.
Ottawa lost its fifth consecutive game. Claude Giroux had a goal and an assist. Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle also scored.
Sherwood’s sixth goal of the season lifted Vancouver to a 4-1 lead 8:41 into the third period.
BRUINS 2, RED WINGS 1
DETROIT (AP) — Brad Marchand’s goal midway through the third period proved to be the winner and Boston won their second straight game under interim coach Joe Sacco, beating Detroit.
Marchand scored with 8:30 left as the Bruins followed a 1-0 victory over Utah on Thursday in Sacco’s debut after he replaced Jim Montgomery, who was dismissed on Tuesday. Marchand’s goal was his sixth this season and the 18th of his career against Detroit.
Justin Brazeau scored a power-play goal for Boston and Jeremy Swayman made 19 saves.
Lucas Raymond scored for the Red Wings, who have lost four of their last five games. Cam Talbot stopped 27 shots.
Boston killed off a Red Wings power play in the final 1:22. Detroit defenseman Moritz Seider hit the crossbar with 30 seconds left, and Swayman was able to cover the puck.
STARS 4, LIGHTNING 2
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Matt Duchene and Roope Hintz scored in the third period, and Dallas beat Tampa Bay.
Jake Oettinger stopped 27 shots while improving to 11-3 on the season.
Anthony Cirelli scored twice for Tampa Bay, which had a five-game point streak. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves.
The Lightning had leads of 1-0 and 2-1 in the first period but Dallas answered both times on goals from Evgenii Dadonov and Miro Heiskanen.
It was 2-2 before Duchene and Hintz scored 58 seconds apart in the third.
UTAH 6, PENGUINS 1
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Sidney Crosby scored his 600th NHL goal for Pittsburgh on Saturday night but the Penguins lost to Utah.
Dylan Guenther scored twice, while Nick Bjugstad, Jack McBain, Mikhail Sergachev and Alexander Kerfoot also scored for Utah.
Karel Vejmelka stopped 27 shots for Utah.
Crosby is the 21st player in NHL history to score 600 goals. He reached the milestone with 10 seconds left on a five-on-three power play and now has seven goals in his last 12 games. Crosby finished a one-timer from the right side of the net, set up on a pass from Erik Karlsson at 3:11 of the second period.
Karlsson surpassed Borje Salming for 15th place on the NHL’s career assists list among defensemen.
Alex Nedeljkovic made 24 saves for Pittsburgh.
DEVILS 3, CAPITALS 2
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tomas Tatar had a goal and an assist and New Jersey beat Washington.
Brenden Dillon and Dougie Hamilton also scored for New Jersey, which began the day tied for first with Carolina in the Metropolitan Division. Jake Allen made 23 saves, including a game-saving glove stop on Connor McMichael late in the third, and has now won three of his last four starts to improve to 5-2-1 on the season.
Matt Roy and McMichael scored for the Capitals, who have lost back-to-back games for the first time this season as they continue to adapt to a new reality without captain Alex Ovechkin. Charlie Lindgren stopped 30 shots in the loss to fall to 5-5-0.
BLUE JACKETS 5, HURRICANES 4, SO
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Kirill Marchenko tied it late in the third period with his second goal of the game, Sean Monahan had the only score in a shootout, and Columbus beat Carolina for their third straight win.
Dmitri Voronkov had a power-play goal and Dante Fabbro also scored for Columbus. Elvis Merzlikins made 32 saves, including stopping all three shots he faced in the shootout to help the Blue Jackets get their third straight win for the first time since March 11-16, 2022.
Sebastian Aho had a power-play goal and an assist, and Jack Roslovic, Jalen Chatfield, and Jackson Blake also scored for Carolina, which dropped a point behind first-place New Jersey in the Metropolitan Division. Pyotr Kochetkov made 27 saves before leaving the game with two minutes left in overtime after colliding with Zach Werenski. Spencer Martin made one save in relief.
PREDATORS 4, JETS 1
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Roman Josi scored twice and Jonathan Marchessault scored a goal and assisted on another to lead Nashville to a victory over Winnipeg.
Steven Stamkos also scored and Juuse Saros made 22 saves for the Predators, winners of two of three.
Adam Lowry scored and Eric Comrie made 32 saves for Winnipeg, which had a two-game winning streak snapped.
Nashville played their first home game after returning from a two-week, five-game road trip where it went 1-2-2.
Stamkos’ third period goal came on a Nashville power play. Six of his seven goals on the season have come with the man-advantage, and he has three power-play goals over the last three games.
ISLANDERS 3, BLUES 1
NEW YORK (AP) — Kyle Palmieri scored twice, Brock Nelson had a goal and two assists and New York beat St. Louis to end a three-game skid.
Ilya Sorokin stopped 24 shots and got his 100th career victory for the Islanders.
Jake Neighbours scored for St. Louis and Jordan Binnington made 28 saves in the Blues’ third loss in four games.
Nelson extended the Islanders lead to 2-0 with a power-play goal with 4:05 left in the second period. He buried a one-timer from his knees when Max Tsyplakov set him up in the slot.
Palmieri opened the scoring with 1:09 left in the first period.
Neighbours scored a power-play goal 45 seconds into the third to pull the Blues within a goal, but Palmieri sealed the Islanders’ win with an empty-netter in the final minute.
SABRES 4, SHARKS 2
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Alex Tuch scored a short-handed goal early in the third period to give Buffalo its first lead and the Sabres beat San Jose.
Tuch intercepted a pass in his defensive zone and beat Mackenzie Blackwood on a breakaway for his third short-handed goal of the season. That gave Buffalo a come-from-behind win and spoiled the night for the sellout crowd that turned out to watch Joe Thornton get his No. 19 jersey retired.
Dylan Cozens scored earlier in the third to tie the game and Peyton Krebs also scored for Buffalo. Rasmus Dahlin iced it with an empty-netter.
James Reimer made 31 saves in his first game in San Jose since leaving the Sharks following the 2022-23 season.
Fabian Zetterlund and Luke Kunin scored for the Sharks, who have only one win in their last seven games.
Blackwood made 27 saves for San Jose.
OILERS 6, RANGERS 2
Edmonton, Alberta (AP) — Connor McDavid had two goals and an assist as Edmonton beat New York.
Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard each had a goal and an assist, and Vasily Podkolzin and Darnell Nurse also scored to help the Oilers win for the second time in five games (2-2-1) after a three-game win streak. Mattias Janmark and Connor Brown each had two assists and Stuart Skinner had 33 saves.
Artemi Panarin had two goals for the Rangers, who have lost two straight after opening a four-game road trip with two wins. Jonathan Quick had 34 saves.
Chicago Blackhawks' TJ Brodie, left, and Philadelphia Flyers' Travis Konecny battle for the puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
