Jared Linder

Walter Winchell: Throwing Bricks at the Famous
Written by: Jared B. Linder, CICS Master's Candidate, Ball State University, 2006

Walter Winchell was born in New York City in 1897, the son of Russian immigrants. His family name was Winchel, with only one “l.” As was often the case with many immigrant families struggling at the turn of the century, his upbringing was full of poverty and urban misery, which included the separation of his parents while he was very young.

Winchell grew up in Harlem, where he had a job as early as seven years old selling newspapers in the neighborhood. This was the start of a truly independent young man making his way into the world of entertainment and media.

His next early profession would bring him to the stage. Winchell started as an usher in a vaudeville theater at the age of 11. He soon became involved in a singing act, and developed a love for the stage. By the age of 13, he had dropped out of school, and had joined a traveling troupe. His primary decision for dropping out and becoming an entertainer was he had been held back in school—the third time in his young life he had met with this academic disappointment. The troupe traveled around the country, delivering the unique comedy and song-and-dance routines that vaudeville was famous for early in the century.

It was in this environment that he developed his love for stories, jargon, and experiences. He learned showmanship, a trait he fostered and carried throughout his career. He also gained a second “l” to his last name: a mistake by a theater manager who posted his name in lights. But, rather than complain, Winchell liked the look of the new name, and immediately adopted it.

After his first jaunt as a traveling vaudeville performer, he returned to New York to find more employment, and while there met fellow performer Rita Greene. The two performed as a duo for about a year. But as World War I was in full swing, he enlisted in the Navy, where he was assigned to the New York customs house, and put their show on hold.

While in the Navy, an early Winchell story takes shape: he apparently burned his nose on a candle trying to lean in and eavesdrop on a conversation. When later asked about the truthfulness of the incident, Winchell replied, “Never spoil a good story by trying to verify it,” (Klurfeld, 1976, p. 18). This was the general perception of Winchell’s take on reporting.

After the war, Winchell left the Navy and married Rita, and they went back to performing shortly thereafter. It was after performing one night that brilliance struck: Winchell typed a one-page bulletin and posted it to the backstage bulletin board. He titled it Newsense, and it contained lighthearted material such as jokes and human interest stories. The piece was popular, so he continued to produce Newsense, including features such as stage romances and minor facts. This was the start of this writing career. This period was unfortunately also both the end of this vaudeville career and his marriage to Rita.

This proficiency for telling stories and reporting facts landed Winchell a job with the New York Vaudeville News in 1920. Tabloids were becoming popular in America at that time, and big names including William Randolph Hearst were producing a variety of publications of this sort. At the time the New York Vaudeville News had a circulation of almost four hundred thousand. This was a large audience for Winchell’s brand of writing, which mainly consisted of covering vaudeville items of interest. While there, Winchell developed his trademark style of using three dots to separate items. He would use this method of stringing items together throughout his career.

While on the job, and covering a story, Winchell met his future wife June Magee. Soon after, he was looking for new work. He landed employment with the publication the New York Evening Graphic, as both their Broadway columnist and in various editor capacities. It was here, with this article, that the gossip column was born:

Helen Edy Brooks, widow of William Rock, has been plunging in Miami real estate….It’s a girl at the Carter de Havens….Lenore Ulrich paid $7.00 income tax…Fannie Brice is betting on the horses as Belmont….S. Jay Kaufman sails on the 16th via the Berengaria to be hitched to a Hungarian….Reports have it that Lillian Lorraine has taken a husband again. (Klurfeld, 1976, p. 30)

America and American journalism would never be the same.

Winchell’s style immediately resonated with readers. Of course opinions ranged from delight to outrage; all the while he was gaining notoriety as a Broadway celebrity, reporting on the goings on of New York’s cultural elite. This attention even drew relationships with the underground scene, including New York crime boss Owen “Owney” Madden, who once gave Winchell a new car. As this was the middle of the prohibition era, mobsters were the talk of the town.

Winchell also managed to ignite a disagreement with the Shuberts, who owned many of the Broadway theaters. Winchell around this time stated, “The way to become famous is to throw a brick at someone who is famous,” (Klurfeld, 1976, p. 44). His negative comments about them in his columns resulted in his banishment from all of the theaters the Shuberts owned and the shows they produced. His banishment did eventually end when Al Jolson stepped in and demanded that Winchell be in attendance at the opening night of one of his newest shows. Jolson knew the benefits of a good Winchell review.

Winchell had become news himself, and no one knew this more than Winchell. Outwardly, he embodied the stereotypical physical appearance of a reporter: he wore a blue suit and gray felt hat cocked on his head almost everyday. He also pocketed a revolver in his suit coat, and suffered the occasional punch in the nose. He reportedly slept only in the daytime and spent most of his time away from home, given that most of the good gossip only came out at night. It was also well known that he was romantically acquainted with several women over the years, including actresses and showgirls. Winchell never traded in this look or this lifestyle; he was fully immersed in the world of the reporter.

This dedication to the trade strained many relationships. One source noted that Winchell’s, “integrity is such that his duty to his public almost always vanquished whatever impulses of sentimentality he may have toward a friend when what he calls a ‘good item’ is involved,” (McKelway, 1940, p. 26). Winchell’s drive to report breaking news, and to go to great lengths to get those stories, was well known. This kind of competition would later even cause a long-standing feud with Ed Sullivan, who would become one of Winchell’s rivals in the arena of gossip.

Notoriety creates great turmoil, and this definitely was true of Winchell. Due to fighting with his editors and his paper, in 1929 he left the Graphic to take a job with the Hearst-owned publication the Mirror. Hearst knew the draw that having Winchell provided, but privately stated that he appealed to “the whims of the younger degeneration,” (Klurfeld, 1976, p 51). But, even with these misgivings, Winchell would contribute to the Mirror until its collapse in 1963.

The late twenties saw great changes: Radio was starting to take hold, Winchell was the most influential person on Broadway, and then the stock market crashed in 1929. Surprisingly, this economic turmoil had little effect on Winchell, who made a great deal of money for the time, and had virtually no investments—as a matter of principal, and a way to control his finances, he kept all his money in banks. This financial stability allowed him to cavort in all the clubs and hot spots in New York; most prominently, the Stork Club, where he conducted business and held court for the next few decades.

Also in 1929, he was contacted by Al Capone to do an exclusive interview. This publicity skyrocketed Winchell’s fame. His column soon became nationally syndicated, exposing all of the country to his brand of journalism, and exposing Winchell to a new medium: radio.

“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea!” was his trademarked opening line, as his column took verbal form and his subject matter resonated throughout the country. Winchell used sound effects, most notably morse code and telegraph sound effects, to lend an authentic newsroom quality to the broadcasts. His pace of speech was significantly more rapid than normal conversation, lending seriousness and a sense of urgency to his program. His three-dot style of stringing headlines and topics together fit perfectly with the quick pace of his new format.

Radio also gave him the opportunity to obtain even more recognition. He was in the right place and the right time when an attempt was made on Roosevelt’s life. Winchell hustled to the jail where the assassin was being kept, and on account of his fame, was allowed to do an exclusive interview. The incident was international news and made Winchell an international name.

Everything changed at that point. Winchell went from covering gossip and Broadway to scooping politics and even global events. He was even one of the first journalists to publicly denounce Adolf Hitler. But even though the topics had changed, the same Winchell flair permeated his writing. He even published this column, purported to be a telegram from Hitler, “Cable. March 26, Berlin—to Walter Winchell, care of paramount Theatre, Brooklyn—What are you doing over the weekend? Would you like to spend it with me? I think you are cute—Adolf Hitler.” (Thomas, 1971, p. 100). However, even in jest, Winchell recognized the threat of Nazism, and was taking a stand on the side of all things American. This rabid pro-American slant, although honest and heart-felt, would eventually be his downfall.

Throughout his life, Winchell maintained relationships with several high-ranking government officials. The first of which was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Winchell was a strong supporter of the Roosevelt administration, and publicly backed the president on many issues. Winchell was even instrumental in Roosevelt’s running for a third term in office.

Another tie Winchell had to the government was the FBI. Winchell maintained a personal relationship with J. Edgar Hoover for many years. Due to this relationship, he often received exclusive scoops on stories. And, out of respect for the FBI director, at times he even held up stories until it was deemed appropriate to print them, which was a courtesy he extended to few others.

By 1940, Winchell was making a reported $800,000 a year, making him the highest-salaried American at the time. But this financial freedom did not slow down his pace. And, as the world entered into war again, Winchell reported from many locations around the world on behalf of the Navy. His style and attack did not always bode well with his superior officers or with rival civilian critics and publishers, and he was eventually relieved of duty. Roosevelt’s death also at this time also shook Winchell, who would remain disillusioned with American politics and presidents for years to come.

During the 1950s, Winchell attached himself to two different causes: cancer research and McCarthyism. The first cause was the result of a friend and fellow author’s passing. Winchell established the Damon Runyon Fund and used his celebrity to attract money for research. At the time of Winchell’s death, he had raised more money for cancer research than any other individual.

Unfortunately, his attachment to McCarthyism was not so positive. Winchell, in the spirit of a die-hard American citizen, wanted to protect this country from evils of all types. And since one unforgettable crisis, in the form of WWII, had just passed, the threat of more potential undoing in the form of Communism was enough for Winchell to back a movement that promised to curb that threat. This was an unexpected shifting toward the right wing from a man who had so strongly backed the Democratic policies of Roosevelt. The fervency of his anti-communism backing would cause Winchell to lose popularity with many Americans.

Also during the 1950s, Winchell expanded into yet another medium: television. ABC signed him for life, with guaranteed payments if ever he should stop broadcasting. Winchell, however, in a typical tirade against an employer, furiously quit after four years on television, thereby abolishing his lifetime contract. ABC accepted his resignation due to lower than expected ratings for the show. He did find work on television again a few times after, but with little success. His style apparently did not translate as well to television as it had from print to radio before. The urgency and immediacy were lost on the screen when compared with his audio broadcast.

By now though, television had captured the minds of Americans, and as Winchell’s Broadway scene was dwindling, and his radio show was losing listeners, his subject matter was reaching an ever-shrinking audience. He also never found another political perspective that he could endorse. He would never regain the status and celebrity that he had enjoyed for two decades. Then in 1963, the Mirror suddenly stopped publication due to an industry strike, and fell out of existence. Even Winchell’s print outlets had all but dried up.

Winchell died in 1972, and only one person attended his funeral: his only living daughter. His obituary, however, ran to almost 10,000 words in the New York Times, and was front page news.

Winchell was a man of both great conviction, and many contradictions. He helped to create the gossip column, where stories needed little proof, yet he also believed that the journalist’s job—no, his duty—was to report the truth. It may seem illogical that one man could make this jump, from Broadway reporter to national news icon, but in both avenues he merely reported what he heard, and overturned every stone along the way. He excelled at getting the scoop.

He was credited with introducing several new phrases and coined words into the language, such as “Chicagorilla,” “debutramp,” “hehehehe (mocking laughter),” and even “making whoopee,” (Thomas, 1971, p. 48). His contribution to the language in both style and substance is visible and viable.

At the height of this career, Winchell was published in over 1,000 publications and read by over 50 million people. His radio audience was also substantial. And, although Winchell’s name is not necessarily a mainstream, household name for most of today’s generation of Americans, his presence is still felt through the offspring of his seemingly divergent journalistic ideals.

Also, maybe as his greatest legacy, the concept of the gossip column that Winchell helped to invent is as prevalent as ever, now having expanded into dozens of magazines, journals, and even entire television stations devoted to delivering the type of news that he helped create.

References
Klurfeld, Herman. (1976). Winchell: his life and times. New York: Praeger.
McKelway, St. Clair. (1940). Gossip: the life and times of Walter Winchell. New York: The Viking Press.
Thomas, Bob. (1971). Winchell. Garden City: Doubleday.