Pat was born in Chicago,
Illinois on October 26, 1946. He spent all of his young life in
that city, attending both Goethe and Gary Elementary Schools, Farragut
High School and Columbia College. He was the oldest of three brothers,
and he remains so today, except even older.
His first chance to broadcast came in 1965 when his name was drawn
on WLS Radio’s “Dick Biondi Show” to be a “Guest
Teen Deejay.” Biondi was ill the night Pat was to appear,
so he went on with Dick’s replacement, Art Roberts, for a
full hour that Saturday night, reading commercials, announcing records
and trying to sound professional. He was hooked.
While attending Columbia College in Chicago, (and working nights
as a desk clerk at the Palmer House Hotel) one of Pat’s broadcasting
instructors, a local announcer named Al Parker (who passed away
recently after an incredible 50-plus years at Columbia) told him
that they might be looking for an newsman at a little local radio
station called WEDC. Pat went in, read a few things for the Program
Director, and was hired to work from midnight until 6 a.m. doing
an hourly five-minute “rip and read” newscast (you ripped
it off the newswires and read it as was).
 In
1968, Pat left Columbia after only three years, joined
the U.S. Army, and was promptly sent to Vietnam. After
a few months as a finance clerk, he was transferred into
Armed Forces Radio and given the morning show on AFVN
in Saigon where he yelled, “Good Morning, Vietnam!”
for a year and a half. He finished his military career
at the Pentagon in 1970.After his discharge in late 1970,
Pat stayed in Washington trying to find radio or TV work.
With no success on the broadcasting front, he again found
himself working as a desk clerk, this time at the Madison
Hotel in downtown D.C. Finally, a friend told him that
he knew someone who owned a radio station in Murray, Kentucky,
and maybe he would hire Pat.So, in 1971, he became the
nighttime disc jockey at a 250-watt station in Southeastern
Kentucky. It took about a year for this 25-year-old to
look around and come to the conclusion that his career
was not exactly “taking off”. So he packed
up his belongings and headed to the nearest big city,
which happened to be Nashville, Tennessee.
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Despite interviewing at virtually every radio and television station
in town, Pat found himself (again!) as a desk clerk at a local motel.
He continued to visit the local broadcasting outlets and was finally
hired by the local NBC television affiliate, WSM.
He spent five years at Channel 4 as everything from an anonymous
staff announcer to a talk-show host, to a disc jockey at their sister
radio station, but it was as a weatherman that Pat was getting the
most on-air exposure.
In Los Angeles, KNBC-TV was looking for a weatherman in 1977,
and they spotted Pat in Nashville and hired him to be their full-time
weatherman. He worked both the early and late newscasts, as well
as a local weekend talk show called “The Sunday Show”.
One of those who sat home and watched was Merv Griffin. He called
in 1981 and asked whether Pat would be interested in taking over
for Chuck Woolery, who was leaving “Wheel of Fortune”
a daytime game show on NBC, after seven years as host.
 While
Pat had done a few other game show pilots, most notably for
Ralph Edwards and Mark Goodson, he never felt completely comfortable
in the role. Assuming that “Wheel” probably had
a year or two left in it, he agreed to step in. His assessment
of its longevity proved to be off by a couple of decades.
The nighttime version of the show went on the air in September
1983, and it has been the Number One program in syndicated
television ever since. |
 In
1989, Pat began doing a late-night talk show on CBS. While
it ran less than a year and a half, he calls it the most enjoyable
18 months of his career. It was during the run of that show
that he met Lesly Brown, who became his wife on New Year’s
Eve of 1989. They have two children.
Pat has three Emmys, a Peoples’ Choice Award and a star
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. |
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