Chuck Woolery, host of "Love Connection" and other game shows, dies at 83

[ad_1] Chuck Woolery, the “Love Connection” host and longtime fixture on tv recreation exhibits, died Saturday on the age of 83.

His loss of life was introduced on the platform X by Mark Younger, Woolery’s buddy and co-host of their podcast Blunt Drive Fact.

“Life won't be the identical with out him,” Younger wrote. “RIP brother.”

Woolery died at his residence in Texas, Younger advised the Related Press in an electronic mail.

Woolery was born in Ashland, Ky., and served within the U.S. Navy earlier than attending school. He acquired his begin in present enterprise within the Nineteen Sixties as a member of pop band The Avant -Garde, whose best-known hit, “Naturally Stoned,” reached Quantity 40 on the Billboard charts.

In 1975 he was chosen to host the debut season of a brand new recreation present known as “Wheel of Fortune,” after a rival actor vying for the job appeared visibly intoxicated throughout early tapings. Woolery was nominated for a daytime Emmy in 1978 however left the present after a contract dispute in 1981, permitting Pat Sajak to take over and start his 43-year run as host.

From 1983 to 1994, Woolery hosted greater than 2,000 episodes of the sport present “Love Connection.” A contestant in search of romance would choose a match from amongst three videotaped contestants, go on a date, after which describe the expertise in entrance of a stay viewers. (Viewers members additionally acquired to vote on which of the three potential companions the contestant ought to have picked.)

He additionally hosted “Lingo,” “Scrabble” and “The Chuck Woolery Present,” which ran for 65 episodes in 1991.

Woolery was inducted into the American TV Sport Present Corridor of Fame in 2007.

Later in life, Woolery turned a frequent presence on right-wing media. He was a prolific tweeter and later a podcaster.

In 2014 he and Younger launched Blunt Drive Fact, a present supposed to “sort out the hardest problems with the day, with out the same old indignant white man banter,” in accordance with its official description.

Woolery is survived by his spouse Kim, sons Michael and Sean and daughter Melissa. His 19-year-old son Charles Daniel Woolery died in a bike accident in Los Angeles in 1986.