Walter Winchell
| Walter Winchell | |
|---|---|
Winchell in 1960.
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| Born |
Walter Winchell April 7, 1897 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 20, 1972 (aged 74) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Prostate cancer |
| Resting place | Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery |
| Spouse(s) | Rita Greene (m. 1919; div. 1928) |
| Partner(s) | June Magee |
| Children | 3 |
Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator, famous for attempting to destroy the careers of people both private and public whom he disliked.
Winchell was born in New York City, the son of Jennie and Jacob Winchell, a salesman, they were Russian Jewish immigrants. He left school in the sixth grade and started performing in Gus Edwards's vaudeville troupe known as "Newsboys Sextet".
He began his career in journalism by posting notes about his acting troupe on backstage bulletin boards. He joined the Vaudeville News in 1920, then left the paper for the Evening Graphic in 1924, where his column was named Mainly About Mainstreeters. He was hired on June 10, 1929 by the New York Daily Mirror where he finally became the author of the first syndicated gossip column, entitled On-Broadway. The column was syndicated by King Features Syndicate.
He used connections in the entertainment, social, and governmental realms to expose exciting or embarrassing information about celebrities in those industries. This caused him to become very feared as a journalist, because he would routinely affect the lives of famous or powerful people, exposing alleged information and rumors about them, using this as ammunition to attack his enemies and to blackmail influential people. He used this power, trading positive mention in his column (and later, his radio show) for more rumors and secrets.
He made his radio debut over WABC in New York, a CBS affiliate, on May 12, 1930. The show entitled Saks on Broadway was a 15-minute feature that provided business news about Broadway. He switched to WJZ (later renamed WABC) and the NBC Blue (later ABC Radio) in 1932 for the Jergens Journal.
By the 1930s, Winchell was "an intimate friend of Owney Madden, New York's No. 1 gang leader of the prohibition era", but "in 1932 Winchell's intimacy with criminals caused him to fear he would be 'rubbed out' for 'knowing too much.'" He fled to California and "returned weeks later with a new enthusiasm for law, G-men, Uncle Sam, [and] Old Glory". His coverage of the Lindbergh kidnapping and subsequent trial received national attention. Within two years, he befriended J. Edgar Hoover, the No. 2 G-man of the repeal era. He was responsible for turning Louis "Lepke" Buchalter of Murder, Inc. over to Hoover. His newspaper column was syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, and he was read by 50 million people a day from the 1920s until the early 1960s. His Sunday night radio broadcast was heard by another 20 million people from 1930 to the late 1950s. In 1948, Winchell had the top-rated radio show when he surpassed Fred Allen and Jack Benny. One example of his profile at his professional peak was being mentioned in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's 1937 song "The Lady Is a Tramp": "She follows Winchell, and she reads every line."
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