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• Vanna White Play Picture

Vanna White, possibly the best-known part of the TV show Wheel of Fortune, has been a game-show goddess for a long time. Her path started in 1980 when she competed for a role on The Price Is Right. In 1982 she was chosen as a substitute on Wheel of Fortune and then got the position. But she really permeated the public consciousness starting in 1987 when she published an autobiography and appeared shortly before appearing in several TV shows and films. Vanna was born Vanna Marie Rosich in golfing-centric Conway, South Carolina, but changed her last name to her stepfather’s after her father left the family. Vanna’s first public relationship, her dating and engagement to Chippendale John Gibson, ended tragically when he died in a plane crash.

Later Vanna was married to restaurant mogul George Santo Pietro, from 1990 to 2002, and she has a son and daughter from that union. She was engaged to businessman Michael Kane from 2004 to 2006. She and host Pat Sajak have been “America’s one-two punch,” as the Wheel of Fortune PR folks call them, since the beginning. Rumors have flown about the two for the duration of their working relationship, with none confirmed.

Vanna White Play Picture

She was recognized with a star on the Hollywood a Walk of Fame in 2006. A certain power comes with flipping those letters, Vanna said. “I’m not just a model on the show; I have an identity. And I think that has just made America more aware of the males and the females on these shows,” she told the Archive of American Television in 2011. Vanna loves knitting and created a line of yarns with her name sold under Lion Brand Yarns, which calls her “America’s favorite crocheter.”.

Thursday, March 30, 2017, 9:55 AM Vanna White wasn’t always standing on a fortune. The beloved and beautiful “Wheel of Fortune” hostess, 60, revealed in a recent that she had been dealing with financial struggles and was “too embarrassed to ask her dad for rent money,” when she made the decision to appear on the 1987 cover of Playboy. White, who grew into fame five years prior after being offered the position on the popular daytime game show, said without the help from Hugh Hefner, she wouldn’t have had the guts to go through with the plan.