Vanna White Shares the Meaning of Her Name and More Secrets About Her Fascinating Life

If Vanna White hadn’t become a star on Wheel of Fortune, she’d probably be working in real estate! “Before all those HGTV shows came out, I would buy a little condo, fix it up, and flip it,” she exclusively tells Closer. “I would be the OG!”

Of course, Vanna has been a fixture on television for the past 40 years, and she admits that even as a little girl she wanted to be famous. The South Carolina-reared letter turner got her start in beauty pageants and modeling before heading out to California. She made her first appearance on a television game show on The Price Is Right two years before interviewing for Wheel. “I was so nervous because I wanted the job so badly,” Vanna recalls. “I could hardly talk. My mouth was quivering so much. My teeth were chattering.” Sometime later, she asked Wheel’s creator, the legendary producer Merv Griffin, why he chose her. “He said, ‘You turned the letters better than anyone else,’” she says.

Vanna finds it ironic that Merv also gave current Wheel host Ryan Seacrest his big break in show business. That’s just one of the things she and Ryan have bonded over since they began working together last fall. “He’s another southern boy. I’m a southern girl,” Vanna says. “So, we have a lot in common. We both like chicken and dumplings. That was one of our first meals together.” She confides that Ryan has stepped up to former host Pat Sajak’s podium with humility and a positive attitude. “Ryan has made it easy, and he always said, ‘I am not replacing Pat Sajak. I’m just stepping in,’” she says.

Over the years, Vanna has met a lot of stars — and a few of them left her in awe. “I was starstruck by Stevie Wonder,” she remembers. “I was sitting in the makeup chair, and he walked into the room. And I just was like, ‘Wow, it’s Stevie Wonder.’ And another one was Mr. Rogers — he was the sweetest, sweetest man. And one more. It was Mickey Mantle.”

Vanna also feels a real connection to Wheel’s audience and her fans believe they know everything there is about this divorced mom of two. But Vanna insists that off-set, she is not the glamour girl she appears on the show. “I’m a very natural person with no makeup, flip-flops and hair in a ponytail,” she says about her off-duty look. If she’s going out, she might dab on a little bronzer. “Just to give me a little color because I don’t really go in the sun,” she says.​

She attributes much of her good fortune to the confidence her family instilled in her. “My parents said, ‘Always be yourself. Don’t ever change.’ So, I think that that grounded me,” she says, adding that it also helped to have memorable name. “My grandmother’s next-door neighbor was named Vanna. My mother named me after her,” she says. “Growing up, people pronounced my name wrong all the time. Vanya, Vana? No, it’s Vanna. The most important thing for me was having an unusual name.”