WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE

When Merv Griffin aired his final chat show last September, it “came as quite a shock” to his trumpeter and comic relief of 15 years, Jack Sheldon.

Sheldon got only a month’s salary as severance pay. And today, despite regular jazz gigs around town, he’s struggling, according to Ellie Kligman, a Hollywood High business teacher who befriended Sheldon during a concert at the school and now acts as his manager.

“Jack is very anxious to get back into acting,” said Kligman. “But after all that time with Merv, it’s like starting over (for Jack). I sent his bio and picture to all the casting offices, but we got no response. And (as a trumpet player) he’s not getting invited to the big jazz festivals.”

Kligman even took out a small ad in the Hollywood Reporter last week that has Sheldon begging, “Call me! My creditors do!”

(Griffin probably isn’t troubled about the unemployment line: He sold Griffin Enterprises--which included the phenomenally successful “Wheel of Fortune”--to Coca-Cola for $250 million.)

In decades past, Sheldon starred in “Run Buddy Run” on CBS, was a regular on such shows as “The Girl With Something Extra” on NBC and “The Cara Williams Show,” and did TV guest shots and appearances in Disney features.

A “serious problem” with chemical dependency may have hurt Sheldon’s reputation, acknowledged Kligman, “but that’s now two years behind him.

“(The) problem is that young people are manning the casting offices. They don’t know Jack Sheldon from Morey Amsterdam.”