A Wink and a smile

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- When Wink Martindale gets in front of a microphone,

something happens to his voice.

His rich baritone becomes flawlessly neutral, the pitch a perfect sound

of middle America that was heard for decades on radio and decades more on

television game shows like “Tic-Tac-Dough.”

But catch him in person, and Martindale sounds a little different. A bit

of a drawl here and a slight lilt there betray the 66-year-old’s

upbringing in Jackson, Tenn.

“When I’m ad-libbing, that just happens,” said the well-tanned Calabasas

resident. “When I go to Tennessee, I’m there 15 minutes and I’m back

saying ‘How y’all doin’?’ ”

Martindale is swinging through Newport Beach today to promote his

recently released, self-published autobiography “Winking At Life,” a book

that touches both on his Southern roots and on his years as a game show

phenomenon.

The book, he said, attempts to capture part of his upbeat vision of life.

“The idea is, we all take everything we do in life so seriously, when we

think something is coming up that we can’t get over, we ought to just

wink it away,” he said.

In his own case, he points out, not even tremendous success in the

television industry quite measured up to his aspirations.

“Even though I’ve done 19 shows, I didn’t get all I wanted,” he said.But

Martindale noted that he isn’t even considering hanging up his game show

hat.

If anything, he said, times are looking better for the game show genre

than they have for years. The success of Regis Philbin’s “Who Wants to Be

a Millionaire?” has opened up some industry doors that were closed until

recently.

“A year ago, you couldn’t give a game show away,” he said. “Nobody wanted

to talk about them, because sitcoms were all the rage.”

“Millionaire” has changed all that. And Martindale said he’s got several

projects simmering that studios are likely to find appetizing.

His most promising venture? A show called “Kiss Your Mortgage Goodbye!”

“If you win the game, you get your mortgage paid off,” Martindale said.

Y’all ready for that?

FYI

Wink Martindale speaks at noon today at the Round Table West luncheon at

the Balboa Bay Club. For information, call (949) 645-5000, Ext. 377.