Walter Winchell

Walter Winchell (April 7 1897 – February 20, 1972), an American newspaper and radio commentator, invented the gossip column at the New York Evening Graphic. He broke the journalistic taboo against exposing the private lives of public figures, permanently altering the shape of journalism and celebrity.

Professional Career

Born Walter Winchel (with only one l) in New York City, where he spent his formative years, Winchell started performing in vaudeville troupes while still in his teens. His career as a journalist began when he started posting gossipy notes about his acting troup on backstage bulletin boards. He became a professional journalist in the 1920s.

Related Topics:
New York City - Vaudeville

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Winchell was extremely popular and influential in shaping public opinion, notoriously aiding and ruining the careers of many entertainers. Although he concentrated on gossiping about entertainment figures, Winchell frequently expressed opinions about public affairs, too. He was one of the first public commentators in America to attack Adolf Hitler and American pro-Fascist and pro-Nazi organizations such as the German-American Bund. He generally had a left-of-center political view through the 1930s and World War II, when he was stridently pro-Roosevelt, pro-labor, and pro-Democratic Party. Following the war, he perceived communism as the main threat facing American and in a few short years he became allied with the right-wing of American politics. He frequently attacked politicians he didn't like by implying in his commentaries that they were communist sympathizers.

Related Topics:
Adolf Hitler - German-American Bund

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In the 1950s he supported Senator Joseph McCarthy, and as McCarthy's "Red Scare" tactics became more extreme and unbelievable, Winchell lost credibility along with McCarthy. His readership gradually dropped, and when his home paper, the New York Daily Mirror, for which he worked for 34 years, closed in the 1960s, he faded from the public eye. He did, however, receive $25,000 an episode to narrate The Untouchables on the ABC television network for five seasons beginning in 1959. Winchell's highly recognizable voice lent credibility to the series, and his work as narrator is often better remembered today than his long-out-of-print newspaper columns.

Related Topics:
Senator - Joseph McCarthy - Red Scare - The Untouchables

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