Chuck Woolery, ‘Love Connection’ Host, Dead at 83

The game show host whose career included hosting the inaugural Wheel of Fortune, also co-helmed a right-wing podcast

Chuck Woolery, who served as host for Love Connection, Wheel of Fortune, and other popular television game shows and later went on to co-host a right-wing podcast, died on Saturday at his home in Texas. He was 83.

Mark Young, the co-host of their podcast Blunt Force Truth, confirmed the news to The Associated Press via email. “Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him,” Young wrote via The AP.

Woolery served as the first host of Wheel of Fortune in the late 1970s; the show has gone on to become one of the longest-running game shows on television. By the next decade, he scored his breakout role as host of the dating show hit Love Connection, beginning in 1983.

With a genial smile, classic Hollywood-host looks, and a charming sense of humor, he elicited fun remarks and exchanges between Love Connection contestants, and easily navigated when there were conflicts as well. A year after he began hosting Love Connection, he added hosting Scrabble into the mix, simultaneously hosting both shows until 1990.

He also hosted the shows Lingo, Greed, and The Chuck Woolery Show, as well as the shortlived syndicated revival of The Dating Game from 1998 to 2000. In 1992, he appeared as himself in two episode of Melrose Place.

Beyond his television career, he was also in the psychedelic rock duo The Avant-Garde, which was formed in 1967. They garnered a Top 40 hit called “Naturally Stoned,” which features Woolery singing the lines, “When I put my mine on you alone/I can get a good sensation/Feel like I’m naturally stoned.”

That song inspired the title to the reality show Chuck Woolery: Naturally Stoned for the Game Show Network in 2003, which was panned by critics and lasted only six episodes.

After the Avant-Garde broke up, Woolery released his debut solo single “I’ve Been Wrong” in 1969 alongside other singles. He later moved to making country music, releasing the singles “Forgive My Heart” and “Love Me, Love Me.”

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Woolery wrote songs for other artists, too, including Pat Boone and Tammy Wynette. He wrote Wynette’s “The Joys of Being a Woman,” which appeared on 1971’s We Sure Can Love Each Other.

After a generally successful run on television, he appeared to turn on the place that made him famous: targeting Hollywood along with the Democratic Party and public health officials over Covid-19 protocols and messaging. He initially accused medical professionals and Democrats of lying about the coronavirus to ruin Trump’s chances of reelection, writing in July 2020: “The most outrageous lies are the ones about COVID-19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, media, Democrats, our doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.”

Trump, who Woolery fully supported, retweeted the post. By month’s end, nearly 4.5 million Americans had been infected with Covid-19 and more than 150,000 had died. Days after Woolery’s first post, he walked back his statement after his son contracted the virus, acknowledging that the virus is real. “I feel for of those suffering and especially for those who have lost loved ones,” Woolery wrote.

He and Mark Young launched the conservative Blunt Force Truth in 2014. Alongside the podcast, Woolery perpetuated his conservative beliefs online.

Woolery was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in 2007 and earned a daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.