meet “the man to blame for our culture of fame”
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BACKGROUND
Walter Winchell pioneered a journalistic phenomenon: gossip, celebrity, politics, and news, all rolled into one. It was nothing less, concluded the New Yorker in a 1940 profile, than a “new form of journalism.”
A poor Jew from Harlem, Winchell began his career in vaudeville, at the age of 12. In time he realized that his performance instincts served him better on the page than on the stage, and left the touring circuit for the newspaper business. He quickly mastered every medium he tackled – newspaper, radio, and film – and found a combined newspaper and radio audience of fifty million – two thirds of American adults. Decades later, an alliance with Roy Cohn and Joseph McCarthy and feuds with Josephine Baker, Ed Sullivan, and others turned his audience against him and forced him into obscurity. His rise and fall embodies today’s fast-paced, celebrity-driven, politically charged media circus.
Department of Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip explores this flawed protagonist and the world he created – a world we live in to this day. Our film breathes new life into Winchell’s newspaper columns and radio scripts, drawing on rare recordings and, especially, a broad collection of his work at the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library. Winchell’s own words comprise much of the film’s script, voiced on-camera by actor Stanley Tucci.
Winchell’s is the origin story of fake news; there could not be a timelier moment to unpack it for a wide audience. “Winchell’s primary objective is to explain the 20th century to his millions of readers,” a friend eulogized at his death. “The fact is, however, that historians will be unable to explain the 20th century without understanding Winchell.”
This film was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
ARTICLES WE LOVE
Frank Rich — “He Got the Poop on America” (The New York Times, October 1994)
Neal Gabler — “Walter Winchell” (American Heritage, November 1994)
Kurt Andersen — “Only Gossip” (The New York Times Magazine, March 2002)
Robert Love — “Before Jon Stewart” (Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2007)
Susan Dunn — “The Debate Behind U.S. Intervention in World War II” (The Atlantic, July 2013)
Jon Meacham — “The Man to Blame for Our Culture of Fame” (The New York Times, April 2017)
Thomas Doherty — “Revisiting Lindbergh and Winchell Ahead of ‘The Plot Against America’” (The Hollywood Reporter, February 2020)
TIMELINE
April 4, 1897
Walter Winchell (nee Winschel) is born.
Spring 1910
Winchell begins performing in vaudeville revues led by composer Gus Edwards. He tours the national vaudeville circuit for the next ten years.
August 11, 1919
Winchell marries his vaudeville partner, Rita Greene.
Fall 1920
Winchell gets his first newspaper job at the Vaudeville News, a trade paper.
Spring 1922
Winchell separates from his wife Rita. Around the same time, he meets June Aster, another vaudevillian and the woman he remains with for the rest of his life.
October 1923
Winchell and June adopt Gloria, a sickly infant. Winchell adores her.
September 20, 1924
Winchell’s column “Your Broadway and Mine” debuts in Bernarr Macfadden’s tabloid, the New York Evening Graphic.
March 31, 1927
The Winchells’ daughter Eileen Joan, nicknamed Walda, is born.
June 10, 1929
Winchell jumps over to William Randolph Hearst’s tabloid the New York Daily Mirror, where he remains until the Mirror folds in 1963. His column gains a nationwide audience when it is picked up by Hearst’s King Features syndicate.
May 12, 1930
Winchell’s first radio show, “Before Dinner – Walter Winchell” debuts on WABC.
July 1930
Winchell stars in the 11-minute Vitaphone short The Bard of Broadway, marking his first screen appearance.
December 4, 1932
Winchell’s long-running radio program, “The Jergens Program” (later renamed “Jergens Journal”) debuts on the NBC-Blue network.
December 24, 1932
Gloria dies of pneumonia at age 9.
March, 1933
Winchell’s column and radio program take a more political turn following his summons to the White House for a 10-minute meeting with new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Soon after, he begins to publicly ridicule Adolph Hitler.
January 2,1935
Winchell becomes a star reporter at the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, arrested and convicted for the kidnapping and murder of the 20-month-old son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh.
June 26, 1935
The Winchells’ son Walt, Jr. is born.
April 1937
Wake Up and Live, Winchell’s first feature film, premieres at the Roxy Theater in New York. He quickly makes a sequel, Love and Hisses.
July 11, 1938
Winchell makes the cover of TIME.
February 12, 1939
The German American Bund holds its “Americanization” rally at Madison Square Garden. Winchell criticizes the event harshly.
August 24, 1939
Winchell facilitates the FBI capture of mobster Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, head of the mafia hit squad Murder, Inc.
April 12, 1945
Winchell’s hero and ally, President Roosevelt, dies; as a result, Winchell loses his political bearings, his access to power at the top, and much of his credibility.
February 28, 1947
Winchell founds the Damon Runyon Memorial Cancer fund following the death of his good friend, columnist Damon Runyon. He remains its treasurer until his death.
October 16, 1951
The Black performer Josephine Baker experiences racial discrimination at the Stork Club, Winchell’s unofficial headquarters. Over the following weeks, Winchell publicly attacks Baker after she publicly calls him out for not coming to her aid and condemning the club. She calls on the NAACP to picket the Stork, files a $400,000 lawsuit against Winchell and appears on the Barry Gray radio talk show.
January 7, 1952
The New York Post publishes a 24-part exposé on Winchell.
October 5, 1952
Winchell makes his debut on ABC-TV with “The Walter Winchell Show,” a television version of his radio show.
Spring 1955
Winchell loses his TV and radio contracts over a dispute with ABC.
October 5-December 28, 1956
Winchell hosts a short-lived variety show, “The Walter Winchell Show,” on NBC. It is cancelled after 13 episodes due to poor ratings.
October 15, 1959
Winchell makes his debut as the iconic narrator of The Untouchables. It is a role he maintains for the entirety of the program’s four-year run.
November 22, 1959
Winchell signs off his final radio broadcast on the Mutual network, after his sponsor drops him. This marks the end of his radio career.
October 16, 1963
The New York Daily Mirror, Winchell’s flagship newspaper for 34 years, folds following a 114-day New York printers’ strike.
December 25, 1968
Walt, Jr. commits suicide. He is 33 years old.
February 5, 1970
June dies of coronary thrombosis at age 66.
February 20, 1972
Winchell dies of prostate cancer at age 74.