Vanna White is the 5:1 favorite to succeed Pat Sajak as host of “Wheel of Fortune,” but there are plenty of other candidates on her heels.
White has been turning letters on the show since Merv Griffin hired her four decades ago because, he explained, her relatively large head looks good on TV.
Expert oddsmaker Danny Sheridan has Ryan Seacrest — “high energy, great hair; knows how to play to a TV audience” — close behind at 6:1.
Tied at 8:1 are Wayne Brady, who hosted “Let’s Make a Deal,” and LaVar Burton, who was in line to succeed Alex Trebek as host of “Jeopardy!”
Steve Harvey already hosts “Family Feud” so he drops to 10:1, tied with Scott Rogowsky, who hosts “HQ Trivia,” a mobile trivia game.
“If ‘Wheel’ wants to appeal to a young audience, Rogowsky’s their guy,” Sheridan said.
At longer odds are John Michael Higgins, Michael Strahan and Jerry O’Connell.
At 1 sextillion:1 is Meghan Markle, “who would do anything to be media relevant,” said Sheridan.
Even less likely, at 1 googolplex:1, is Whoopi Goldberg, who “was shamefully lobbying for the job” on “The View” this week.
“If she doesn’t get hired, it’s 50-50 that she’ll appear on a milk carton cover for missing people,” Sheridan cracked.
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Bill Bratton doesn’t want the top cop job.
At a Hamptons speaking engagement Wednesday night, when the moderator pointed out Eric Adams needs a new police commissioner, the man who has held the job twice laughed and said, “I’m busy.” He is.
Bratton runs a private security company, writes books on the subject of policing and travels with wife, CBS reporter/attorney Rikki Klieman.
Bratton spoke about the indictment of Daniel Penny, the importance of stop-and-frisk and surprisingly perhaps, his support of body cams on cops.
“They prove more often than not that the officers were in the right. People don’t tell the truth about what happens when they’re pulled over.”
He doesn’t support guns for teachers. When it comes to how cops are portrayed on screen, he likes “The French Connection,” “Madigan” and an old TV show called “The District.”
He and his wife are friendly with “Connection” director William Friedkin and wife Sherry Lansing from Bratton’s L.A. days. But his favorite Hollywood guy is Tom Selleck.
“They used my books for some of the background in his show ‘Blue Bloods,’ so when you watch the show, look for the lapel pin on his jacket. It’s a commissioner’s shield. I gave him that.”
The crowd of 200 at Canoe Place in Hampton Bays gave him a standing ovation. No one got arrested.
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Did no one else but me recognize former Mayor Mike Bloomberg in the front row behind home plate on Tuesday night as the Yankees beat the Mets?
Bloomberg was with his daughter Georgina and two boys, one of whom was her son Jasper, 10.
They stayed until the final out.
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Pro golfer Jimmy Walker and his wife, Erin, a top horse show jumper, were at the Greenwich Country Club on Monday helping raise $215,000 for Global Lyme Alliance.
Walker, who got Lyme disease in 2017, lunched with Charles Balducci, the charity’s vice chair as well as a Merrill Lynch honcho who nearly died from a tick bite in Montauk in 2004.
Then Walker showed the amateurs how to drive a golf ball.
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Donald Trump and Lawrence Taylor are old friends. The two spent a week-ago Friday on the links at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Taylor and Trump go back to the ‘80s when Trump tried to sign L.T. to his USFL team, the New Jersey Generals.
Taylor was then driven to Greenwich for a Music Beats Cancer benefit where DJ Lee Kalt was spinning tunes.
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Add another $1 million to the potential take of the new “Transformers” movie. That’s because 10 watches at $100,000 each were just released this week.
First-time collaboration between Hasbro and the artisans at Kross Studio brings you a watch patterned after “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” It debuted this week at a high-end jewelry show in Las Vegas, but there are only 10 pieces coming out so maybe the film’s stars like Pete Davidson and Michelle Yeoh will pick one up.
It comes with a sculpture and the watch itself is a “tourbillon” which is fancy watch talk for complicated movement. Makes it more accurate. Hey, at these prices it should also do your laundry.
My watch-collecting pal Bill McCuddy says, “For a hundred grand the watch should also transform into a car.”
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Amy Tripp — who has been telling fortunes for years under her handle Starheal — predicts that former President Trump will win the 2024 election and will pardon himself. As for Ron DeSantis, she sees him flaming out and not going further in his White House ambitions.
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Irina Shayk is single and ready to mingle.
The Russian model had hoped to rekindle her relationship with Bradley Cooper and possibly have a second child together. But Cooper would not fully commit or marry her.
Since then she has showed off her body all over Cannes — there are photos — and has been attending high-profile events.
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Nightlife guru Omar Hernandez has launched the summer edition of his Oh La La Supper Club tucked in the back of La Goulue on the Upper East Side.
The hotspot was originally made famous by Jackie Kennedy Onassis when she dined there regularly while working as a book editor at Doubleday.
The cuisine of chef Antoine Camin comes with vaudeville acts that have drawn Martha Stewart, Spike Lee, Sienna Miller and Alicia Keys.
Opening night guests included Manhattan Movie Studio producers Zack Weiner and Joe Gallagher, Milestone Scientific CEO Arjan Haverhals, and mother-daughter divorce lawyer duo Harriet Newman Cohen and Martha Cohen Stine.
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Mark Wahlberg flew into the Hamptons last weekend on his private jet for eight hours to play miniature golf at The Clubhouse in East Hampton and promote his new tequila Flecha Azul.
After scoring two holes in one and pocketing $20 on a bet, the movie star’s team won hands down.
Then the action star jumped over the bar and started pouring shots for fans and friends, including the club’s owner Matt Rubenstein. One customer jokingly put a bill in the tip jar.
Wahlberg explained to the crowd that the Flecha partnership came about over a round of golf with his partners, pro golfer Abraham Ancer and Aron Marquez. The macho trio is going to tour golf courses and clubs to get people acquainted with the new spirit.
The star, famous for his intense 3 a.m. workouts, confided, “If you’re going to drink, Flecha tequila is the healthiest alternative.”
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George Hamilton, who starred in such cult classics as “Love at First Bite,” is headed to London for a party to celebrate being named the ambassador for Isabelle Bscher’s Galerie Gmurzynska.
The actor — whose co-stars have included Joan Collins and Elizabeth Taylor, whom he dated — was also linked with Lynda Bird Johnson, the daughter of President Lyndon Johnson.
The permanently tanned star was also a favorite of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines.
The dinner will also honor photographer Johnny Pigozzi, who is credited with inventing the selfie.
Bscher will show photographs of some of Pigozzi’s famous friends including Keith Richards, Kate Moss, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mick Jagger at the Treasure House Art Fair in London, which opens on June 21.
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