‘Love Connection,’ ‘Wheel of Fortune’ host was 83

Chuck Woolery, who over the course of his career was a psychedelic pop singer, game show host, right-wing podcaster, and conspiracy theorist, has died at age 83. His podcast cohost and friend Mark Young confirmed his death in a social media post and to the Associated Press.

“It is with a broken heart that I tell you that my dear brother @chuckwoolery has just passed away,” Young wrote on X. “Life will not be the same without him. RIP, brother.”

Woolery was best known for hosting the hit dating show Love Connection from 1983 to 1994, and he was also the original host of Wheel of Fortune.

Born Charles Herbert Woolery in Ashland, Ky., on Mar. 16, 1941, Woolery served two years in the Navy before beginning his career in entertainment. As one half of the psychedelic pop duo the Avant-Garde, Woolery had a top 40 hit in 1968 with “Naturally Stoned,” which would serve as the subtitle to his short-lived, critically panned 2003 reality show, Chuck Woolery: Naturally Stoned.

After the Avant-Garde broke up in 1969, Woolery went solo, switching to country music in the ’70s. In addition to his own songs, he wrote for artists like Pat Boone and Tammy Wynette, penning her 1971 tune “The Joys of Being a Woman.”

After he performed on The Merv Griffin Show, host Merv Griffin tapped Woolery to host his new game show Wheel of Fortune in 1975. Woolery hosted the show until 1981, earning a Daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.

Due to a salary dispute, Woolery was replaced by Pat Sajak, but in 1983 he rebounded with Love Connection, sort of a crowdsourced Tinder in which the audience would help a contestant choose a romantic match from a group of three potential paramours that the contestant would then take on a date. Love Connection ran until 1994 and then went into syndication before it was rebooted for one season in 1998 with host Pat Bullard, and again in 2017, for two seasons, with host Andy Cohen.

During his stint on the original Love Connection, Woolery also hosted Scrabble from 1984 to 1990 and then a brief revival of the show in 1993. From 1999 to 2000, he hosted the game show Greed on Fox, and from 2002 to 2007 he hosted Lingo on the Game Show Network. In 2007, Woolery was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame.

Woolery eventually made the shift from television to radio and finally podcasts, starting the right-wing pod Blunt Force Truth with Young in 2014. In his new role as a conservative firebrand, Woolery frequently trafficked in conspiracy theories, arguing that minorities do not need civil rights and claiming that the government was lying about the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Woolery changed his stance after his son contracted the virus.

Woolery is survived by his wife, two sons, and a daughter.