TV Guide Magazine profiled Wheel’s graceful letter-turning icon Vanna White in the March 4, 1989, issue. At the time, the 32-year-old former model was pulling double duty working on both the daytime version (with host Rolf Benirschke) and nighttime iteration (with Pat Sajak) of the game show, starting her business empire — and charming everyone along the way.
It’s leather week on Wheel of Fortune. At least that’s the way it seems. In the three shows just finished taping, every skintight outfit Vanna White wore was leather.
“I’ll be out in just a minute.” It’s White talking as she disappears into her dressing room to squeeze out of a leather dress for supper.
A minute, two minutes pass, then a startling, “OK, you ready?” and there she is — cheerleader extraordinaire, adolescent fantasy in the flesh — dressed for dinner in a blue terry-cloth bathrobe.
Sitting at one of the rows of folding tables for Wheel’s catered dinner, White digs into a plateful of barbecued ribs and chicken. She saws in vain at the ribs, using a flimsy plastic knife and fork. After a little of this, she gives in and picks up the ribs with her fingers.
Yes, America, Vanna White, eating with her fingers. Vanna White, chowing down.
Mario Casilli / TV Guide Magazine / Everett Collection
Between bites, White talks about her cats, the fishing trips she’s taken and her passion for the Los Angeles Lakers. For dessert, she washes down two fat chocolate chip cookies with a paper cup of ice tea. The cookies are definitely not on her “Get Slim, Stay Slim” video.
Wiping barbecue sauce from her fingers with a wet napkin, White seems far from the living mannequin so often portrayed in the press. She may be real famous. She may be real pretty. But most of all, White is real…real.
“What you see is what you get with me,” she says simply.
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That, perhaps as much as anything, is the secret to her mysterious success.
It’s been six years since Merv Griffin plucked White from obscurity, selecting her out of 200 other women for what should have been a minor role on NBC’s then modestly successful daytime Wheel. What happened next is media history. Ratings soared after the debut of the nighttime, syndicated Wheel in 1983. Quicker than you can say “Oh, Vanna?” White became a household name. No one’s quite sure why. Least of all White.
“I have to tell you truthfully,” she says, words sweetened by a slight Southern drawl, “I have no idea why I get the recognition I get.”
Pat Sajak, who’s worked with White from the start and still hosts the nighttime Wheel, says it’s the force of her personality that draws all kinds of people to her. “We’ll go out to some interview and this hard-nosed reporter is going to rake her over the coals for being just a ‘letter turner,’ and within two minutes the guy’s eating out of her hand because she’s a charming, delightful woman. She’s just a very likable person. And somehow she manages to transmit that across the television set. That’s just a gift.”
When the show took off, White’s life changed dramatically. No more sporadic modeling assignments. No more bit parts in low-budget horror flicks. At the time, many pundits said White was proof positive that Andy Warhol was right when he declared that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes.
Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune Season 10 (Everett Collection)
Yet White’s 15 minutes have stretched out now for more than six years. Her 1987 autobiography, Vanna Speaks, made the New York Times bestseller list. And she recently had her first starring role in a TV movie. In fact, the only way she can go out in public and not be recognized is to wear a wig and glasses. “Even then,” she says, “people look at me like, ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’”
Despite her unexpected stardom, White has changed little, says Sajak, from the small-town girl who stumbled through her first audition. Talk to those on the crew, and you get comments that sound like remarks on the back of a junior-high report card: “Friendly, cooperative, punctual, responsible,” says Suzy Rosenberg, Wheel’s promotion coordinator.
“She tries to make everything else easy around her,” says DJ Plumb, White’s hairdresser. “She makes the show go more smoothly.”
White says it’s only been through a conscious effort that she’s kept her sense of perspective. “I’m very aware of the celebrity-ism,” she says. “When you have people all around you all the time saying, ‘You’re the best, you’re wonderful…,’ it starts going to your head. I told all my friends if I even start to do that [become phony] to kick me, just kick me right in the butt.”
White personally answers every one of the 300 or so letters that come in each week, often autographing a picture or enclosing a personal note. “When I get stopped at airports or in grocery stores for autographs, I’m more than happy to give one because those are the people that made me what I am.”
Vanna White and Rolf Benirschke on Wheel of Fortune in 1989 (Everett Collection)
In a sense, White is the realization of what we were told as children: Listen to your mother, work hard, be nice, say your prayers and everything will be all right. She considers herself “honest, down-to-earth, old-fashioned.” Somehow, even as she struts across the set before the show in yet another leather outfit she says reminds her of “trashy lingerie,” White maintains an innocent sexuality that endears her to prisoners and grandmothers alike.
Not that she’s a prude: White lived with soap actor John Gibson, a Chippendales dancer and Playgirl centerfold, until his May 1986 death in a plane crash. And, of course, there were the pictures of her in actual trashy lingerie that ran in Playboy against her will two years back, destroying her friendship with Hugh Hefner. (“It taught me I can’t trust anyone,’’ she says now. “That’s a terrible thing to say, but it’s true.”)
But White can hold her own. And not just when it comes to barbecue. A self-taught businesswoman, she personally approved each dress in the Vanna Collection line at Kmart. She incorporated herself for tax purposes a few years back. “Vanna White is an employee of Vanna White Productions,’’ she says. “I’m a loan-out.’’ Her off days are filled with appearances around the country at mall openings and other promotional events.
Because her fame has been so dreamlike, White is haunted by the fear that she’ll wake up one day and it will be gone. “You never get over that,” she says. “This business is very fickle. You never know from day to day if the audience is going to follow you or not. What happens after Wheel? I may never work again. That’s why I’ve tried to develop myself in other areas, like the clothing line. I’m just so afraid that tomorrow the phone’s not going to ring. I know that day will come, and it’s scary. So that’s why it’s hard to say no.”
Pat Sajak and Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune Season 10 (Everett Collection)
One of the projects White didn’t say no to was the role of Venus in NBC’s The Goddess of Love. Despite being widely panned, she remains upbeat but typically realistic. “I think for the first movie I’ve ever [starred in], I did an OK job,’’ she says. “On a scale from 1 to 10, hmmm, I was maybe a 3 or 4. That sounds awful, doesn’t it? But like I said, I would much rather have good ratings than good reviews. And I got that.”
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Sure, White admits, she was lucky to have been picked for Wheel. But it was only her determination, fueled by her mother’s encouragement, that saw her through the lean years. “Since I was 10 years old, I always wanted to be on television or in the movies. My mother said to me, ‘I don’t want you to look back when you’re 40 and ask why you didn’t try that. If there’s anything you want to do, do it.’ I took her advice.”
Her mother died six months after Vanna moved to Hollywood, leaving her to carry on the dream alone. “It was very hard,” she says of those times. “But if I had come out here and it had been handed to me very fast, I don’t think I would appreciate it like I do now. I worked for everything I got. I slept on the floor, and now I’m national spokesperson for Spring Air mattresses. So it paid off.”
The dream fulfilled, White says she still has some unfinished business. “All my friends have babies. I know there’s something missing in my life, but I’m not ready to make the commitment to a child right now.’’
White, who just turned 32 last month, occasionally dates Los Angeles restaurateur George Santo Pietro. She says she’ll probably be ready to settle down and have a family within the next two years. “I mean, I’ll continue to work, but I think a family is very important.’’ She laughs at the thought of being pregnant. “Can you see that? Me waddling back and forth to the puzzle board.’’
This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s Wheel of Fortune: Farewell, Pat Sajak issue. For more inside scoop on the long-running game show and Pat’s final episode, pick up a copy of the issue available on newsstands and for order online at WheelofFortuneMag.com.
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