Everything about Vanna White totally explained
Vanna White (born
February 18,
1957) is an
American television personality, best known as puzzle-board presenter and co-host on the long-running
game show Wheel of Fortune.
Biography
Early life
White was born
Vanna Marie Rosich in
North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the daughter of Joan Marie and Miguel Angel Rosich. Her family is of
Croatian background. White took the name of her stepfather, Herbert Stackley White Jr., a former real estate agent in North Myrtle Beach. One of White's ancestors, whose last name was Barnes, was one of the first mayors of the city of
Ponce, Puerto Rico. She is the niece of actor
Christopher George.
White's first car, a gift from her father, was a metallic blue
1972 "Marathon Edition"
Volkswagen Beetle. Vanna's father reportedly encouraged her to consider other makes and models of cars, but Vanna held firm. She desired the car due to the corporate initials of
Volkswagen AG being the same as her own: VW. A picture of Vanna's Bug was featured in a summer
2007 episode of "Wheel Of Fortune," in which she revisited her childhood hometown.
Television career
White's first national television appearance came on the
June 20,
1980 episode of the seminal game show
The Price Is Right, in which she was among the first four contestants to "come on down." She didn't make it onstage, but the clip of her running to
Contestants' Row would be rebroadcast as part of
The Price Is Right 25th Anniversary Special in
August 1996 and also would be featured on the special broadcast
Game Show Moments Gone Bananas. Two years later, White auditioned to become the letter-turning assistant on
Wheel of Fortune, a job that
Susan Stafford recently had vacated. Producer
Merv Griffin selected her over two other finalists, and her first episode as
Pat Sajak's assistant presenter aired
December 13,
1982. White remained with the
daytime version of
Wheel until its cancellation in
1991.
White's popularity soared after the
primetime version of
Wheel made its debut in
September 1983. Within a year,
Wheel was the highest-rated
syndicated program on broadcast television, in large part because of "Vannamania". Her
1987 autobiography,
Vanna Speaks!, was a best-seller. Also in 1987, she was featured in a
Playboy pictorial, showing photos taken of her (previous to her career on
Wheel of Fortune) wearing see-through lingerie.
White is the subject of
"Weird Al" Yankovic's
1988 song, "Stuck in a Closet With Vanna White". In
1989, she appeared in the
NBC television movie Goddess of Love, in which she played
Venus. The film was panned universally by critics, with
TV Guide joking that White's acting was "wheely" bad.
White also has made
cameo appearances on television shows such as
Married... with Children,
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, and
Full House, movies such as, and served as guest timekeeper for
WrestleMania IV. In 1992, the
Guinness Book of World Records recognized White as "television's most frequent clapper." On
April 20,
2006, she was honored with a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
White's name, well known due to the success of "Wheel," is mentioned in the rapper
Nelly's hit song "
Ride Wit Me" which reached #3 on the
Billboard Hot 100. --
'I'm gettin' pages out of New Jersey, from Courtney B. / Tellin' me about a party up in NYC / Can I make it? Damn right, I be on the next flight / Payin' cash; first class - sittin' next to Vanna White.
Personal life
White dated
Playgirl centerfold/
Chippendales-dancer-turned-actor
John Gibson in the 1980s, and they eventually became engaged. The relationship came to a tragic end in
1986 when Gibson was killed in a plane crash. White divorced her husband of 11 years, George Santo Pietro, in November
2002, maintaining custody of their two young children, Nicholas and Giovanna. From
2004 to
2006, she was engaged to businessman
Michael Kaye, senior partner in a large
leveraged buyout (LBO) fund based in southern California.
Litigation
In
1993, White won a lawsuit against the
Samsung Electronics corporation over its use of a humorous ad featuring a robot turning letters on a game show. The decision later was affirmed by the
U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The issue was over the property right to publicity. The court ruled in favor of White's claim of a right to her property of publicity. The case has been criticized widely by property lawyers who cite the dissenting opinion of Judge
Alex Kozinski after the denial of a rehearing
en banc, which stated, among other things, that, "Overprotecting
intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich
public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture".
Further Information
Get more info on 'Vanna White'.
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