LOS ANGELES — Wink Martindale, the genial host of such hit game shows as “Gambit” and “Tic-Tac-Dough” who also did one of the first recorded television interviews with a young Elvis Presley, has died. He was 91.

Martindale died Tuesday at Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage, California, according to his publicist Brian Mayes. Martindale had been battling lymphoma for a year.

“He was doing pretty well up until a couple weeks ago,” Mayes said by phone from Nashville.

“Gambit” debuted on the same day in September 1972 as “The Price is Right” with Bob Barker and “The Joker’s Wild” with Jack Barry.

“From the day it hit the air, ‘Gambit’ spelled winner, and it taught me a basic tenant of any truly successful game show: KISS! Keep It Simple Stupid,” Martindale wrote in his 2000 memoir “Winking at Life.” “Like playing Old Maids as a kid, everybody knows how to play 21, i.e. blackjack.”

“Gambit” had been beating its competition on NBC and ABC for over two years. But a new show debuted in 1975 on NBC called “Wheel of Fortune.” By December 1976, “Gambit” was off the air and “Wheel of Fortune” became an institution that is still going strong today.

Martindale bounced back in 1978 with “Tic-Tac-Dough,” the classic X’s and O’s game on CBS that ran until 1985.

“Overnight I had gone from the outhouse to the penthouse,” he wrote.

He presided over the 88-game winning streak of Navy Lt. Thom McKee, who earned over $300,000 in cash and prizes that included eight cars, three sailboats and 16 vacation trips. At the time, McKee’s winnings were a record for a game show contestant.

“I love working with contestants, interacting with the audience and to a degree, watching lives change,” Martindale wrote. “Winning a lot of cash can cause that to happen.”

Martindale wrote that producer Dan Enright once told him that in the seven years he hosted “Tic-Tac-Dough” he gave away over $7 million in cash and prizes.

Martindale said his many years as a radio DJ were helpful to him as a game show host because radio calls for constant ad-libs and he learned to handle almost any situation in the spur of the moment. He estimated that he hosted nearly two dozen game shows during his career.

Martindale wrote in his memoir that the question he got asked most often was “Is Wink your real name?” The second was “How did you get into game shows?”

He got his nickname from a childhood friend. Martindale is no relation to University of Michigan defensive coordinator Don Martindale, whose college teammates nicknamed him Wink because of their shared last name.

Born Winston Conrad Martindale on Dec. 4, 1933, in Jackson, Tennessee, he loved radio since childhood and at age 6 would read aloud the contents of advertisements in Life magazine.

He began his career as a disc jockey at age 17 at WPLI in his hometown, earning $25 a week.

After moving to WTJS, he was hired away for double the salary by Jackson’s only other station, WDXI. He next hosted mornings at WHBQ in Memphis while attending Memphis State. He was married and the father of two girls when he graduated in 1957.

Martindale was in the studio, although not working on-air that night, when the first Presley record “That’s All Right” was played on WHBQ on July 8, 1954.

Martindale approached fellow DJ Dewey Phillips, who had given Presley an early break by playing his song, to ask him and Presley to do a joint interview on Martindale’s TV show “Top Ten Dance Party” in 1956. By then, Presley had become a major star and agreed to the appearance.

Martindale and Presley stayed in touch on occasion through the years, and in 1959 he did a trans-Atlantic telephone interview with Presley, who was in the Army in Germany. Martindale’s second wife, Sandy, briefly dated Presley after meeting him on the set of “G.I. Blues” in 1960.

In 1959, Martindale moved to Los Angeles to host a morning show on KHJ. That same year he reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with a cover version of “Deck of Cards,” which sold over 1 million copies. He performed the spoken word wartime story with religious overtones on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“I could easily have thought, ’Wow, this is easy! I come out here, go on radio and TV, make a record and everybody wants to buy it!” he wrote. “Even if I entertained such thoughts, they soon dissipated. I learned in due time that what had happened to me was far from the ordinary.”

A year later he moved to the morning show at KRLA and to KFWB in 1962. Among his many other radio gigs were two separate stints at KMPC, owned by actor Gene Autry.

His first network hosting job was on NBC’s “What’s This Song?” where he was credited as Win Martindale from 1964-65.

He later hosted two Chuck Barris-produced shows on ABC: “Dream Girl ’67” and “How’s Your Mother-in-Law?” The latter lasted just 13 weeks before being canceled.

“I’ve jokingly said it came and went so fast, it seemed more like 13 minutes!” Martindale wrote, explaining that it was the worst show of his career.

Martindale later hosted a Las Vegas-based revival of “Gambit” from 1980-81.

He formed his own production company, Wink Martindale Enterprises, to develop and produce his own game shows. His first venture was “Headline Chasers,” a coproduction with Merv Griffin that debuted in 1985 and was canceled after one season. His next show, “Bumper Stumpers,” ran on U.S. and Canadian television from 1987-1990.

He hosted “Debt” from 1996-98 on Lifetime cable and “Instant Recall” on GSN in 2010.

Martindale returned to his radio roots in 2012 as host of the nationally syndicated “The 100 Greatest Christmas Hits of All Time.” In 2021, he hosted syndicated program “The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

In 2017, Martindale appeared in a KFC ad campaign with actor Rob Lowe.

He is survived by Sandy, his second wife of 49 years, and children Lisa, Madelyn ad Laura and numerous grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his son, Wink Jr. Martindale’s children are from his first marriage which ended in divorce in 1972.

LOS ANGELES — Actor Steve Carell is sending Southern California high school students affected by the devasting wildfires in Los Angeles to the prom for free.

The “Office” actor and comedian said Tuesday in an Instagram video that he was working with the Alice’s Kids charity to pay for prom for seniors at six high schools in Pasadena.

“If you have already paid for your prom tickets, they will reimburse you for your prom tickets. It’s a pretty good deal,” Carell said.

The Los Angeles area fires destroyed more than 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures and killed at least 29 people in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and Altadena area north of Pasadena. It also scorched school campuses, upending the lives of thousands of students and parents who were left scrambling looking for classrooms for their kids to go to.

Alice’s Kids will donate about $175,000 for more than 800 students to attend the annual right-of-passage dance for graduating students. Tickets typically range from $100 to $150 each.

“Going to prom should be a celebration, and we wanted to help make the big night just a little easier for seniors whose lives have been turned upside down by the wildfires,” Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of Alice’s Kids, said in a statement. “Hopefully this allows the students to unwind and have some fun after a devasting year.”

An Instagram video posted by John Muir High School, one of the recipient schools, show students clapping and cheering as they were surprised with Carell’s announcement during a school assembly.

Another recipient includes Aveson Charter School, whose campus for kindergarten through 5th grade students burned down in the fires and building for sixth through 12th graders is damaged and unusable.

Carell also participated in the star-studded “Skate for LA Strong” hockey tournament last week to raise money for fire relief.

In closing, the actor said: “Have fun, enjoy the prom. And remember, this is Steve Carell.”

NEW ORLEANS — A performer in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show was detained on the field and could face charges after unfurling a combination Sudan-Palestine flag with “Sudan” and “Gaza” written on it.

The NFL confirmed the person was part of the 400-member field cast. The New Orleans Police Department said in a statement that “law enforcement is working to determine applicable charges in this incident.”

“The individual will (be) banned for life from all NFL stadiums and events,” NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said in an emailed statement.

The performer stood on a car used as a prop for Lamar’s performance and held up the flag. The NFL said “the individual hid the item on his person and unveiled it late in the show” and that “no one involved with the production was aware of the individual’s intent.”

Roc Nation, the entertainment company which produced the show, said that the act “was neither planned nor part of the production and was never in any rehearsal.”

The show continued without interruption, and it did not seem as though the person was shown on the broadcast of Lamar’s performance.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/nfl

VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. — Teenage actor Hudson Meek has died after he fell out of a moving vehicle in Alabama, authorities said.

Meek, 16, was hurt on Dec. 19 while on a street in Vestavia Hills, a suburb of Birmingham. He died two days later, according to the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office.

The Vestavia Hills Police Department, which is investigating Meek’s death, has not issued any public statements.

Meek made his on-screen debut in 2014’s “The Santa Con,” and had roles in various TV series, including “MacGyver.” He was perhaps best known for his role in the 2017 film “Baby Driver,” in which he played a younger version of Ansel Elgort’s titular character.

“His 16 years on this earth were far too short, but he accomplished so much and significantly impacted everyone he met,” a post on Meek’s Instagram page read.

Meek played football at Vestavia Hills High School, enjoyed Bible study with his teammates and had traveled to all 50 states. He loved snow skiing, making music playlists for his friends and singing in the school choir, according to his obituary,

His family plans a funeral and memorial service on Saturday that will be livestreamed on Meek’s Instagram account.