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He may have made TV history as the first black game show host back in the 1970s, but the talents of singer/actor/musician Adam Wade extend far wider. Born Patrick Henry Wade, he grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the late 1950s he served as a lab assistant for Dr. Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine.
In 1959, he switched to performing and found in himself a smooth, gifted vocalist, his early influences being Johnny Mathis and Nat 'King' Cole. In 1960, he decided to make the journey to New York and pursue his dream. He signed with CoEd Records within a very short time and scored quickly with a string of mild successes including "Ruby" and "I Can't Help It." He also started traveling as a night-club entertainer playing all over the world and highlighting in such important venues as the Copacabana. The next year (1961) proved to be the peak of his recording success with "Take Good Care of Her," "Writing on the Wall" and "As If I Didn't Know" making the charts. Comparisons to Mathis at CoEd Records, however, damaged his momentum and he looked elsewhere, moving to Epic Records. Only one of his singles, "Crying in the Chapel," broke the "Top 100" charts.
In the late 1960s, he discovered voiceover work and started grooving as an actor. After appearing in the national tour of the musical "Hallelujah, Baby!" with Kim Weston and Julius LaRosa, the became a part of the film "blaxploitation" scene of the early 1970s. He bounced around in a few hip support roles such as Shaft (1971), Come Back Charleston Blue (1972), Across 110th Street (1972) and The Education of Sonny Carson (1974), among others. On television, he was seen in the soaps "The Guiding Light" and "Search for Tomorrow," and was a familiar presence on the popular black-oriented sitcoms of the day including "Sanford & Son", "The Jeffersons", "What's Happening", and "Good Times." The handsome actor became the first African-American to host a national television game show with Musical Chairs (1975). The resulting attention encouraged him to restart his recording career in a funkier vein on Kirshner Records in 1978 with songs including "Alexander's Soul Time Band".
He returned to acting and, in 1978, co-starred in an all-black cast of "Guys and Dolls" starring Leslie Uggams in Las Vegas. He also gave able support in such films as Texas Lightning (1981) and Kiss Me Goodbye (1982). An occasional stage director ("Cafe Society," "Guys and Dolls"), the gray-haired actor understudied Ben Vereen on Broadway in "I'm Not Rappaport" in 2002, and subsequently appeared in the movie Brother to Brother (2004). He took time out to go back to school (after forty years) and earned his BA and Master's degrees, at Lehman College and Brooklyn College, respectively. He was a speech and theater adjunct at LIU and Bloomfield College for some time and appears frequently on the L.A.-area stage.
Formerly married to Kay Wade, with whom he had three children, Adam remarried to entertainer Jeree Wade. They produced shows and performed together on cruise ships and in concert forums.
