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May 8-14, 2006
VANNA:
THE STAR
IS HERS
By Steve Beverly
Webmaster, TVgameshows.net
Three years ago, when Wheel of Fortune visited Nashville for a winter weekend of taping 15 shows, TVgameshows.net first visited with Vanna White.
The Myrtle Beach, S.C., native was patiently sifting through more than two dozen Southeast print and broadcast journalists needing a bit of her time.
The interviewfest extended well beyond two hours backstage in the Roy Acuff Theatre next door to the Grand Ole Opry auditorium at the former Opryland. A Nashville entertainment reporter was nudging White about a rumored relationship with a game opera contestant. She graciously and humorously diffused the hot item.
In between the maze of inquisitors, White negotiated a cell phone conversation with her children. The first episode of the day was to tape at 3:30 p.m. At 3:17, publicist Suzy Rosenberg said, "Your turn, Steve....but remember, she has a show to do in a few minutes." When Suzy speaks, people listen.
Amazingly, Vanna found time for us despite the tight squeeze. Somehow, one instantly had the idea she had worked her way through this dozens of times before on the road.
Six minutes later, still dressed in jeans, a jean jacket and sweatshirt and looking 20 years younger than her actual age, White gave no pause to the time. "Why don't you walk with me over to the stage and we'll finish up your last questions," she suggested. We squeezed in three more questions about her early life in South Carolina and what she thought she might have done had her life not drifted toward turning letters. She said her goodbye at 3:27 and I made my way to my seat in the audience.
The show started promptly at 3:30 and 30 seconds later, less than four minutes after I had parted company with White, she burst through the Opry stage doors to a wildly cheering crowd in a distinctively Tennessee orange gown. No quick change artist had a line on Vanna.
Now 49 and content in her nightly role as an icon on television's most successful syndicated series in history, White earned a legacy symbol when she was saluted with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last month.
 In the midst of the annual Wheel Mom and Me Week, White told TVgameshows.net the star was a pinnacle for her. "It is by far the greatest career achievement for me," she said. "It's history and will be there forever."
White, now engaged, travels the convoluted path most female performers engage in trying to combine the role of television star and mother. The taping schedule in Los Angeles is flexible, usually requiring only a weekend of work every three weeks or so to keep Pat Sajak from having to commute too frequently from the East Coast. The road, such as the current set of shows from Denver, poses a different set of dynamics for White and her children.
"It's hard," she said. "Fortunately when we travel, I'm usually away for three to six days, which is better than being on location with a movie or something."
When she emerged into a pop culture icon in the 1980s and began to appear on television talk shows, White frequently told interviewers "what you see is what you get" as a self-description. Now, 24 years after she turned her first letter, White maintains a grounded perspective.
"I still feel like that same girl from North Myrtle Beach, S.C.," she said. "I have the same morals and I am raising my kids the way I was raised."
During a late-'80s interview with Phil Donahue, her father, Herbert White was asked how he dealt with the residual recognition from his daughter's success. "I'm just the same ol' Herb White," he told Donahue. Aside from her family, White centers on two people who have been influential in her career.
"Merv Griffin gave me this job 23 years ago. I think he is a wonderful role model," White said. "He's funny, successful and a delight to be around. I also admire Dolly Parton. Her sweetness shines."
White has told a number of interviewers she recognizes the fortune of the right place-at-the-right time her career took in 1982. Wheel was a steady performer in daytime for NBC but was never a monster hit. When she succeeded Susan Stafford as the show's co-host shortly after Sajak took over for Chuck Woolery, the new twosome had no guarantees of success. Further, they faced the head-on challenge of CBS's The Price Is Right---at the time daytime's number one show.
The unexpected explosion of Wheel in nighttime syndication in 1983-84 transformed the lives of both Sajak and White in a way the network edition likely never would have. The former high school cheerleader has pondered periodically what she might have done had Wheel not taken its unprecedented turn.
"Probably something in real estate, although I've always wanted to be involved with this career from the time I was 10 years old," said White.
Once Wheel soared to the top of the syndicated ratings in the 1984-85 season, a spot it has never surrendered, White became a conglomerate. Her autobiography, "Vanna Speaks," was a best-seller. An NBC TV-movie, "The Goddess of Love," was not her strong suit and White was shrewd enough not to pursue areas which did not enhance her talents. She stayed with daytime Wheel when Sajak left to do an unsuccessful CBS late-night talk show challenge to Johnny Carson, followed the game to CBS in 1989 and back to NBC for its short-flight final network run in 1991.
White has done everything possible to not compromise her ability to be a traditional mother, despite her celebrity. She turns up at school functions and PTA meetings. "I do everything with my kids," she said. "Carpool, bake cookies, help at the school fair, go out to eat. Most people think of me as their next door neighbor and not a (TV) star. Yes, I get asked for autographs all the time but that's okay."
 Last August in New Orleans, the entire Wheel staff rediscovered the perspective of a television game show in the course of daily human events. With the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina crossing the Gulf of Mexico on the way to the Louisiana coast, a crucial decision was made. After taping 10 shows featuring contestants from the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast region, the final day's five-day taping had to be scuttled.
Buses were chartered for the entire cast and crew for what turned out to be an interminable 20-hour ride to Houston, from where they would eventually connect on flights back to California. The crowded escape route saw the Wheel contingent navigate only seven miles in the first two hours. Left behind was arguably the most devastating natural disaster in modern U.S. history. The downtown convention center where the shows were taped would become the scene of periodic violence in the aftermath of the storm.
"It made me realize how lucky we all are," White said, reflecting on the almost surreal experience of New Orleans. "I felt a strong bond to those people as I was there walking on those streets two days before it hit. It still remains fresh in my mind. It's very sad."
A week of shows featuring NBA stars, past and present, was rushed into production and a substantial amount of cash was raised for the Katrina relief efforts.
The bloodlines extend through the decades for models who made significant names on game shows. Delores Rosedale set the tone in the 1950s when she flanked Bud Collyer on Beat the Clock in television's pioneer era. Former Miss America Bess Myerson was likely the first female to be tabbed a co-host when she shared the stage with Bert Parks, Randy Merriman, Bob Paige and Mort Lawrence on The Big Payoff. While Myerson was not used as a traditional model, her primary job was to wear the mink coats won by the wives of winning couples for successfully negotiating the show's quiz.
By the 1960s, the silent women of game shows continued to be a significant cog in the genre's success. Toni Wallace and June Ferguson were mainstays of Bill Cullen's version of The Price Is Right.
However, no woman emerged any taller than Our Lovely Carol Merrill, as Monty Hall daily dubbed his onstage model on Let's Make a Deal. Four years ago, Merrill told TVgameshows.net a few incidents in her career charted a parallel path to White's.
"When Vanna wrote her book," Merrill remembered, "I remembered how most of America thought I couldn't talk. One day after our show had been on a long time, Monty brought me up into the audience and let me talk. And I talked and I talked and I talked. I think Monty wondered what kind of a monster he had created because I just couldn't stop. I got all kinds of letters from people who wondered why I'd never been allowed to speak before then but that just wasn't my job."
 White will likely surpass the tenure record of Janice Pennington, who lasted a shade more than 28 years on The Price Is Right before her abrupt departure in late 2000 at the age of 58. Vanna has four more years before she can reach the milestone but even if the entire Wheel juggernaut were to end tomorrow, she has a legacy to pass along to young women who aspire to be the next Vanna White.
"Follow your heart and your dreams," White says. "They can come true."
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