Pat and Vanna were sometimes spinning
The “Wheel of Fortune” wasn’t the only thing spinning for Pat Sajak and Vanna White back in the day.
Sajak said in an interview on ESPN2 this week that the longtime game show team would occasionally walk over to a restaurant for “two or three or six” margaritas during a break in taping early “Wheel of Fortune” shows. Sajak has hosted the show since 1981; White joined him a year later.
Sajak recalled the margarita stops after answering “yes” to a question about whether he had ever hosted the show “a little bit drunk.”
He went on to explain that the show was much more reliant on “cheesy prizes,” which required long set-up times between shows, allowing Sajak and his “Wheel” cohort, Vanna White, to take 21/2-hour dinner breaks.
Although he joked that he had “trouble recognizing the alphabet” for shows taped after the drinks, no one ever said anything to them.
Now that he’s older, Sajak said he couldn’t do that anymore. “Now, if I were to inhale the cork in a bottle of wine, I’d probably keel over,” he said. “I’m getting a little older.”
Treading with care after ‘Potter’
Daniel Radcliffe had to decide what his first starring film role would be after the “Harry Potter” franchise ended in 2011, and he didn’t make that decision lightly.
Despite demonstrating his acting range by starring in “Equus” and “How to Succeed in Business” on Broadway, the pressure was on for Radcliffe to prove he could play more than Potter on the big screen.
He chose “The Woman in Black,” a dark thriller about a recently widowed father who is haunted by his wife’s death. The movie will be in theaters Feb. 3.
“I never expected the first thing I did after ‘Potter’ to be a horror film or anything like that. That was one of the reasons it was intriguing to me as well because it was so unexpected,” Radcliffe said in a recent interview.
“This film is a film that has a great story but it is driven by characters at the heart of it. It fit in perfectly. It was going to be filming when I was on break from finishing ‘Potter’ and starring in ‘How to Succeed,’ so it was perfectly timed out. Also, when I was reading the script, I was surprised to be enjoying a horror film because I have never gravitated towards that in my own life.”
The birthday bunch
Singer Bobby “Blue” Bland is 82. Actor James Cromwell (“Babe”) is 72. Drummer Nick Mason of Pink Floyd is 67. Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov is 64. Actress Mimi Rogers is 56. Guitarist Janick Gers of Iron Maiden is 55. TV commentator Keith Olbermann is 53. Actress Bridget Fonda is 48. Actor Alan Cumming (“Spy Kids”) is 47. Country singer Tracy Lawrence is 44. Comedian Patton Oswalt (“King of Queens”) is 43.