'Wheel of Fortune' Hostess Vanna White Was on 'The Price Is Right' Before Turning Letters
This year not only marked the 50th anniversary of The Price Is Right, but it was also the 42nd anniversary of the time Vanna White appeared as a contestant on the show. The future Wheel of Fortune letter-turner appeared as a contestant on the June 20, 1980 episode, before she would go on to star in the movies Looker and Graduation Day. White didn't make it onto the stage, but she recalled her brief time on The Price Is Right during Thursday night's CBS special celebrating the long-running daytime game show.
Although White didn't get on stage, she did get a memorable "come on down" moment. She ran to the contestants' row wearing a shirt that read "Get Serious," which spawned a funny quip from host Bob Barker. After explaining to the audience how there are monitors for the backstage crew, Barker noted how a member of the crew read "get serious" out loud. "And he said, 'I am... I am,'" Barker told White. "I thought you'd like to know that."
"I didn't win a doggone thing," White said in her appearance on the 50th-anniversary special. She also spoke with current Price is Right host Drew Carey about how she was so nervous when she first met her Wheel of Fortune co-host Pat Sajak. "I remember Pat telling me after I got the job he said, 'I didn't really think you would get the job because you were so nervous,'" she noted. "But I did. I got it, and 39 years later, we're a great team. We work together, we've never had one argument."
White, 64, joined Wheel of Fortune in 1982 and has never looked back. Sajak, 74, started hosting the show in 1981. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight last month, the two joked about how long they would continue hosting the show. They also host ABC's Celebrity Wheel of Fortune primetime spinoff.
"We're certainly closer to the end than the beginning," Sajak told ET. "I'd like to leave before people tune in and look at me and say, 'Ooh, what happened to him?'" He added that he would not bet on them still hosting the show 10 years from now. "Is that fair [to say]?" he asked White. "Probably, yes," she added.
White and Sajak have been working together so long that they feel like members of each others' families. "We've been together for like 38 years and he's like my brother," White told ET. "He's funny. I mean, we could finish each other's sentences if we wanted to. We know each other that well." Sajak and White will continue to host Wheel until at least 2024 since they recently renewed their contracts with series producer Sony Pictures Television.