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Our sixth episode is all about gossip columnist and radio news commentator Walter Winchell. 
Created by: Spencer Henry, Madison Reyes
Hosts: Spencer Henry, Madison Reyes
Producers: Spencer Henry, Madison Reyes
Editors: Krys Melo, Madison Reyes
Researchers: Krys Melo, Spencer Henry, Madison Reyes
Writer: Krys Melo, Madison Reyes
Music Supervisor: Krys Melo
Recorded at: The Invisible Studios
Theme Song: Typewriter Song - Mac Taboel
Music:
Epidemic Sound:
The Hipcat Swagger-Ritchie Everett
With a Light Heart-Ofelia Moore
Bring the Bagels-Ofelia MooreIn 
Other Words-Ofelia Moore
Wicked Man-Martin Landstrom
Kill Your Darlings-Martin Landstrom
Tomorrow I’ll Be Gone-Franz Gordon
All Good Things Come in Threes-Ritchie Everett
Trenchcoats-Roosier
Research Sources:
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/walter-winchell-biographical-timeline/15619/ 
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/walter-winchell-documentary/16953/ 
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Walter_Winchell 
https://www.jewage.org/wiki/ru/Article:Walter_Winchell_-_Biography 
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c86h4kj8/ 
https://www.wearebroadcasters.com/radio100/moments/49.asp 
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2020/10/walter-winchell-he-snooped-to-conquer/ 
https://www.americanheritage.com/walter-winchell 
https://archives.nypl.org/the/21480&a
- Duration:
- 58m
- Broadcast on:
- 11 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to "Gossip's Fritle" early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. You're listening to a morbid network podcast. This season Instacard has your back to school, as in they've got your back to school lunch favorites, like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies, like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow. Let's face it, we were all that kid. So first call your parents to say I'm sorry, and then download the Instacard app to get delivery in as past as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last, minimum $10 per order, additional term supply. DHS has designated September 25th, as if you see something, say something, awareness day, also known as #CSAIDay. On September 25th and year round, stay prepared to identify the signs, report suspicious activity to local authorities, and help prevent terrorism-related crime. One tip could make the difference. Learn more by visiting dhs.gov/CSAIDay. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] If you asked the average American in our generation today who the subject of this episode is, they probably couldn't tell you. Unless perhaps they're familiar with the 2004 fictional history novel, The Plot Against America, which imagines an alternate American history. However, from the 1930s to the early 1960s, he was a household name. There have been books, movies, and songs written about him. His daily syndicated newspaper column and weekly radio show reached two-thirds of all Americans every day. Some say he's the founding father of the media circus we live in today. The architect of modern American media, if you remember our drudge episode, you'll realize that's probably true. Every time you fall for clickbait, promising a big scoop on a real housewife, he is somewhere there tipping his fedora. You guessed it. We're talking about America's first pundit, Walter Winchill. He spread rumors, influenced public opinion, promoted politics, set trends, and built careers while tearing down others. He hyped up books, plays, and movies, literally changed the American language, forged feuds, and honestly created the media culture we've known our entire lives. Winchill created infotainment. He blurred the line between gossip and news and turned both into entertainment. We've seen countless examples of its aftermath. We grew up with Oprah, entertainment tonight, The Daily Show, Wendy Williams, and more. Even SNL has a news segment. Ben Loderman, director of the Winchill documentary on PBS, summed it up well. "We live in a polarized moment. We live in alternative fact universes. We are incredibly fractionalized in our media consumption. But at some point, I think Winchill serves as an origin story for that. The Saturday evening post once referred to him as the greatest of great gossips. And with his power of gossip, he could destroy anyone, even himself." Like Heddah, Winchill got his start on the stage. While touring with the vaudeville circuit, he began typing up little bulletins for his troupe filled with gossip, puns, and jokes. People loved it. So he started submitting them to a vaudeville trade paper called "The Vaudeville News." They began publishing his contributions under the headline "Mercilous Truths." Around this time, his wife, Rita Green, whom he met in 1915 after they were paired up for a song and dance act and toured together until he enlisted in the Navy in 1917 and then married in 1919, wanted to leave vaudeville life and end their contract. So they did. And he asked the vaudeville news for a paying job as a contributor. He negotiated a small salary, and Heddah, he was in the print biz, and he loved it. Not only was he a columnist, but he was also an office boy, editor, part-time photographer, and salesman. He was doing it all. The only thing he wasn't doing was being a good husband. One day, he and his wife got into a spat, in which he claimed he slapped her around and she left. A little more than a year after being separated and estranged, but still not divorced, Rita was walking down the street one day when she saw him with another woman. It was a 19-year-old red-headed dancer named June McGee, who had apparently been flirty with Walter for some time. Walter had interviewed her, and after hearing that she was adopting the child of a fellow vaudevillean, who had fallen on hard times, he was smitten and began pursuing her. They eventually married, except they were never legally married. The date he always gave was May 11, 1923. But here's the thing. He was still married to Rita then. They didn't finalize their divorce until 1928. By that time, June and Walter had already started a family. They shared an adopted daughter named Gloria, and a biological daughter named Eileen, whom Walter nicknamed "Walda" after himself. The two never legally married because he was worried someone would play "Where's Walter?" and find out she was born illegitimate. This fear of exposure was not unfounded, given Winchill's career was built on exposing the secrets of others. Winchill played the very wholesome role of a family man to the public, but his personal life was messy, though it always had been. His public persona of integrity and family values did not match up with his tumultuous private life, filled with lifelong scandal and secrecy. Walter Winchill was born on April 7, 1897, in a small apartment in East Harlem, New York City, to young newlyweds Jenny and Jacob Winchill. Both Jacob and Jenny came from Russian-Jewish immigrant families, but their backgrounds were very different. Jacob's family was eager to assimilate and try to project an air of wealth and status, while Jenny's family remained very traditional in their faith and culture. This difference in upbringings often caused conflict. Jacob was somewhat of a black sheep in his family. He was a bit tacky and acted very new money. He wore spats, carried a cane, and even redubbed himself, Jack Doinchill. In reality, he worked low-wage jobs in the garment industry and was always involved in get-rich-quick schemes that never fully panned out. As a result, the Winchills were usually strapped for cash and often had to borrow from family members to get by. This financial instability caused Walter to have a very unstable childhood. He and his younger brother were often sent to stay with relatives or spend their nights hungry at home. Just like many of the gossips we've discussed on the show, Winchill came from humble beginnings that he so desperately wanted to escape. He craved the high life and sought to gain power through influence. He once said, "A lot of people are going to psychiatrists today to find out what they want. I knew what I didn't want. I didn't want to be hungry, homeless, or anonymous." In 1910, at the age of 13, Winchill left school to work. Common for kids during that era. While many children took on labor or factory jobs, Walter went into showbiz, baby. He and two other boys put together a singing act. And a vaudeville talent scout saw them perform. The scout invited them to join composer Gus Edwards' 1910 song review, which led to Winchill spending several years touring with shows like The News Boy's Sextet, and later with Rita. He went for being a newsboy to writing for vaudeville news. Walter then heard that eccentric millionaire publisher Bernard McFadden was launching a new tabloid called The New York Evening Graphic. Winchill got a friend to arrange a meeting for him about a job there. He shared everything he knew and once said, "The way to become famous fast is to throw a brick at someone who is famous." He threw some metaphorical bricks, and pressing the paper executives with his insider Broadway gossip. Broadway was a whole scene of its own in the roaring 1920s, akin to the Hollywood of the East Coast. In fact, Winchill famously said, "The only difference between a Broadway phony and a Hollywood phony is the distance." The executives offered him the position of Broadway columnist and drama critic for $100 a week. Winchill debuted his column in September of 1924 and quickly made enemies. The Schubertz, mentioned in Hetta's episode, banned him from their theaters. The Evening Graphic was the quintessential tabloid of its time. Printed on pink paper, it featured the kinds of pictures and headlines you'd expect from a national enquirer or gas station checkout magazine. Unproven science, hoaxes, weight loss concoctions, wild crime stories, pin-up girls, and just as you'd imagine, sensationalized gossip. It was a true gossip rag. These magazines were most popular with, and marketed to, the less literate population or those who didn't speak English well. Mainly because the use of snappy headlines, pictures, and easy-to-read articles made them approachable. People fell in love with Winchill's entertaining way of writing. An entertainer, after all. He used jazzy slang, snarky quips, and short, blur-black sentences, written in chaotic, partial sentences, separated with three dots, like a news bulletin coming through. His readers loved it. His use of slang even caught on. And as we'll discuss later, you may have heard or used some of these terms without even knowing they came from Winchill. Things got tense in the workplace at the end of the 20s, and Winchill started beefing with editors and fellow columnists. This is actually where his long feud with Ed Sullivan began. The two would remain rivals for the duration of Winchill's career, and Ed succeeded his column when he left the graphic. By 1930, Winchill hopped over to William Randolph Hearst's nationally syndicated New York Daily Mirror to write a daily column. Winchill brought 200,000 readers with him, but his readership soon skyrocketed to 50 million per day. At the time of his first column, he was making $500 a week. But eventually, his salary increased to upwards of $10,000 a week, equivalent to about $175,000 today. With 50% syndication rights, he became rich and powerful with the trusting eyes and eventually ears of two-thirds of American adults. All because of gossip, he was an influencer. Gossip columns weren't necessarily new. Society columns and entertainment pages already existed. However, Winchill took gossip to another level. He made it less fluffy and more entertaining for readers. He gossiped to the real juice in the private lives of celebrities more than anyone dared to before. Marriages, sex lives, and pregnancy rumors. He didn't care about verifying his information or sharing his personal opinions about them either. He seemed to get a certain satisfaction from exposing the flaws and scandals of the rich and famous, despite now being one of them. His modest upbringing left him with lingering resentment, and by revealing the secrets of celebrities, he diminished their golden idol status, illustrating that they were no better and often worse than ordinary people. This gave him an upper hand that allowed him to wield power and influence over the public, earning their trust as a champion of the common man. One publication described him as a "people's champion who picks out the happenings of the world, selfish, heartless, moronic, and so on, which arouses our spleen and then proceeds to lash them with savage oratory." It wasn't always just Winchell coming through on paper, though. He secretly worked with two ghost writers for 30 years, and never openly gave them credit or admitted he had help. Their names were Ernest Kunil and Herman Klerfeld. As America entered the Great Depression, the nation grappling with unemployment in unpaid bills welcomed the distraction of celebrity affairs and feuds. However, as the economy deteriorated, many could no longer afford to spend their limited resources on newspapers, causing a significant decline in revenue. Recognizing this shift, Wenchill astutely decided to embrace a new medium, Radium. His first radio show, Before Dinner, debuted in 1930. Two years later, in December of 1932, he switched networks and began hosting The Jurgens Journal, a 15-minute show that mixed entertainment news and current events sponsored by the lotion company Jurgens. In his first episode, he introduced himself as New York's most notorious gossip. He would open the show by manically pressing a telegraph key to create a sense of urgent importance in his reporting. Then, in an excited announcer tone, he would say, "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press, Washington, or California, and so on." Before launching into a rapid-fire delivery of news stories and gossip in his signature 1920s gangster slang style, all while pressing a Morse code key. This unique style became known as Wenchillisms, or Wenchillys. Sadly, less than three weeks after his Jurgens Journal debut, Walter's beloved daughter, Gloria, died on Christmas at the age of nine after being sick with pneumonia for two weeks. He and June were absolutely devastated. This tragedy sent him spiraling into a dark place from which he never fully recovered. He poured himself even more into his work. Walter and June had another child three years later, a son named Walt Jr. In 1933, newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the importance of the press and understood that people were more interested in gossip news. He knew he needed to tap into Wenchill's influence to reach his audience. Since gossip columnists weren't typically invited to press briefings, Roosevelt invited Wenchill to the White House for a one-on-one meeting to discuss his new deal. After ten minutes, FDR had completely won Wenchill over, and he left as one of Roosevelt's biggest supporters, referring to him as "the nation's new hero." Soon after his meeting with FDR, Wenchill's column in radio program took a more political turn. He began to publicly ridicule Adolf Hitler, whom he despised. Despite not being an observant Jew, Wenchill was highly sensitive to anti-Semitism and was unafraid to speak out against it. He frequently taunted an insulted Hitler, often referring to his sexuality. Wenchill wrote in one column, "I believe that a man's private life and preferences are his own. But Hitler is so dangerous and such a faker that any weapon can be used with justification." Another job read, "Hitler uses 23 varieties of perfume, and he still smells bad." And "Hitler is a homosexualist." Or, as we vulgarians say, "An outright fairy." Imagine you're walking through the park one day and you see a suspicious backpack sitting underneath a bench. You report it to the police, and upon investigating, they discover two live pipe bombs inside. You rush to clear the area before they explode, saving countless lives and preventing injury. Everyone declares you a hero for a fleeting moment until everything changes, and you are declared the prime suspect. This was the story of security guard Richard Jewell. After the Centennial Park bombing killed one person and wounded more than 100, public pressure and immediate witch hunt pushed a desperate FBI to find a suspect. Despite obvious holes in the case and unethical tactics used by the FBI, security guard Richard Jewell was under pressure to confess. I'm Aaron Habell. And I'm Justin Evans. Join us as we explore the aftermath of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in the newest season of our podcast, Generation Y, the Olympic Park bombing. Follow Generation Y on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Any reference to "demasculinization" drove the Nazis crazy. In 1935, while leaving a barber shop on 7th Avenue in New York, Winchell was attacked by Hitler supporters. Undeterred, he continued his tirades. He was speaking out about something no one in the major media was taking seriously. In 1937, the official newspaper of the Nazi Party published Winchell's picture with the caption, "Walter Winchell is the new Germany's greatest menace because he tells such unconscionable lies about "derführer" in over 100 American newspapers." Winchell loved that he ruffled their feathers enough to keep them bothered. Another daily occurrence was trashing the Nazi regime, dubbing Nazis as "ratsies," a term that amusingly offended them. He also began to call out the U.S. for not intervening in World War II, and voiced opinions about national public affairs, encouraging his audience to speak up about the issues. This was in partnership with the Roosevelt Administration, which referred to him as their "daily conduit to the people." He had a direct line to the President in the ear of millions, making his voice a powerful weapon. In 1932, the 20-month-old son of Charles Lindbergh, nicknamed "Little Lindy," was kidnapped and murdered. Lindbergh, known as a hero for being the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1927, garnered headlines with this case. The 1939 trial of suspect Bruno Hoffman became known as the "trial of the century." Winchell attended every day, typing thousands of words and staying through the entire trial. He believed this demonstrated his seriousness as a reporter and injected himself into the story as a first-hand witness. He also received behind-the-scenes scoop from the prosecutor, with whom he dined almost every night, and pegged Haftmann as guilty before the verdict was read. After the verdict, he wrote, "That spellbinding 40 minutes late Friday afternoon will never be forgotten by those of us who were there. It was the fury and the fire of the prosecutor who had seemed to most of us as representing civilization." Oh, that's another big one for me. Come on, fellas, put it in your story. I was the first one to call it. This gave him some clout. Winchell later turned his sights on Lindbergh when he became a Nazi sympathizer and joined the America First Committee, a white supremacist organization. Winchell emerged as one of Lindbergh's staunchest critics, updating Lindbergh's lone eagle, nicknamed, to the lone ostrich, and arguing that he gave up the country's adoration to become the star's shill for the America First Committee, and that his halo has become his noose. Some of Winchell's remarks were so fierce that many local newspaper editors cut them from his syndicated column. Another target of Winchell's was Fritz Kuhn, the head of the newly formed German-American Bund and self-appointed American Führer, who sought to bring Nazism to America. Winchell relentlessly mocked him with terms like "cunazi," "the shamarican," "swastincas," "swastacudies," and "Hitler-rutors." He demanded that authorities investigate the source of Kuhn's funds as he was seen spending far more money than he claimed to earn. In 1939, Kuhn planned a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden to celebrate George Washington's birthday, claiming Washington as the nation's first Fritz Kuhn. Winchell wasn't going to let it go unnoticed, so he started blasting them. 19,000 fascists attended the rally while 100,000 protesters showed up and 1,500 New York City policemen were called in to try to keep them separated. "In every corner of the land, America was nauseated. The American press unanimously condemned it as the vilest sacrilege ever perpetrated in the name of American freedom," he said. "They hung symbols of America and symbols of Nazism side by side." Imagine a large banner behind the podium of George Washington flanked by swastika flags and American flags. The pictures look like scenes from an alternate history movie set. Winchell had also been leaking information on pro-Nazi activities to FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, who became one of his closest professional connections. This was rather ironic, considering the mob ties Winchell had cultivated in the New York nightlife scene. Within just a few years, he went from being a good friend of Oni Madden, New York's number-one gang leader of the Prohibition era, to being publicly associated with J. Edgar Hoover, the number-one G-man of the repeal era. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that in 1932, Winchell's closeness to gangland led to fears that he might soon be swimming with the fishes for knowing too much. He skipped town and went to California for a few weeks before returning. This connection to gangland proved useful when mobster Louis Lepky recalled her, one of the mafia hit squad, Murder Inc., was ready to turn himself in after living as a fugitive for two years. But Kalter had been arrested and sentenced to two years in jail for violating federal antitrust laws in the rabbit-for-industry, but skipped out on bail and went on the run. While on the run, he was also indicted on state charges of conspiracy to smuggle heroin into the U.S., hidden in the trunks of young women and couples travelling by ship from China to France, then to New York. An extortion, bribing U.S. customs agents not to inspect the trunks containing the heroin. These were significant charges, and there was an extensive manhunt for him in both the United States and Europe. During this time, there was also a string of unsolved gangland murders occurring. District Attorney Thomas Dewey, who was determined to dismantle the organized crime syndicate, came up with the idea to offer a $25,000 reward for Boccultur's capture. With a cash reward on the table, the heat was on. Boccultur figured it was only a matter of time before someone turned him in or killed him. So, he thought he might fare better if he could strike a deal with the federal authorities. The two-year sentence for the rabbit-for-charges didn't sound so bad anymore. All he needed was someone to help set it up. What Boccultur didn't know was that the mob was tired of his antics and decided it was time to get rid of him. They couldn't risk any more charges, so they set him up. Lucky Luciano masterminded a scheme from prison to make Boccultur think a deal had been arranged. Knowing that Winchell was so close with J. Edgar Hoover, someone called Winchell and said, "Lucky wants to come in, but he can't trust anybody." The talk around town is that he would be shot while supposedly escaping. Winchell responded, "I'll tell J. Edgar. I'm sure he will see to it that Leppe receives his constitutional rights and nobody will cross it." The caller challenged him to prove it by announcing it on the air. The next night, Winchell broadcasted, "That if you're listening, a deal was arrangeable." Over the next couple of weeks, there were several calls to set it up, then communication went silent and J. Edgar's patience was wearing thin. He was ready to call it off when Winchell was stopped by a stranger on Fifth Avenue who told him to plan. Winchell was instructed to show up the next day at 6 p.m. and wait at a phone booth. When he arrived, the phone rang and the caller instructed him to drive to a theater in Yonkers. Once there, he received a message to drive back to a Manhattan drugstore. He sat down and ordered a coke at the fountain and was soon joined by a man who told him to park at Madison in 23rd and wait there. Shortly after he parked, America's most wanted man, Louis Leppe Bacalter climbed into Winchell's car and then they drove to another location to pick up Hoover. Bacalter had surrendered, believing he had struck a deal. However, he soon learned he had been double-crossed. There was no deal. Bacalter was sentenced to 14 years for federal narcotics charges and district attorney Dewey convicted him on a state charge of extortion, resulting in a 30 years to life sentence. Winchell, of course, relished the moment and shared the letter given to him by Hoover. The letter read, "Without your unselfish and indefatigable assistance, I know that Bacalter would not have surrendered. In rendering this aid you have performed a most patriotic service, not only to your government, but to the American people." Bacalter was later convicted on murder charges and sentenced to the electric chair. In 1940, writer St. Clair McElway wrote a profile on Winchell for The New Yorker and later turned it into a book titled Gossip, The Life and Times of Walter Winchell. It wasn't the admiring fluff piece one might hope for. Book review from Time Magazine in September 1940 read, "This week, the operation appeared in book form for as many of Winchell's some 10 million column readers as might relish dignified. Cruel irony of the best New Yorker's grade." Highlights included, "Wenchhell and most of his readers believe he is fiendishly and uncannily accurate. McElway checked representative columns and found Winchell was 41.2% completely inaccurate, 18.3% partially inaccurate, 40.5% completely accurate. Out of 19 self-trumpted scoops in the Hoptman case, six had been printed from four days to seven weeks earlier in The New York Times. McElway's aching concern is the legacy of an axe hoofer, the effect of Winchellism and the standards of the press. Winchell sneered at that last critique saying, "Oh stop, you talk like a high school journalism student." Even though he was dishing out gossip to millions daily, there were unspoken rules among columnists about not airing each other's dirty laundry. To the public, Winchell played the part of a wholesome family man, living on 12 acres with his wife and kids. In reality, he resided alone in a suite at the Hotel of St. Moritz and was rarely under the same roof as his family. Every day, Winchell's routine began at 4 p.m. After catching up on the news, he made his way to the local barbershop to catch the latest buzz. From there, he headed to his main haunt, the Stork Club. This iconic venue, managed by a head waiter known as St. Peter, was where the elite vied for entry into the exclusive cub room, disparaged by the excluded as the Snub Room. Winchell had a standing reservation at Table 50, which served as his command center. Here, he penned columns, broadcasted his radio shows, and kept a working phone on the table, ensuring he was always reachable. The Stork Club even honored him with a Winchell burger on the menu. Dressed to the nines with his signature fedora adding a bit of extra height to his 5'7" frame and a cigarette perpetually in hand, Winchell was the epitome of a cool cat. His table was a magnet for desperate press agents and publicity-seeking celebrities, all eager to gain his favor. Those who snubbed him, he had a penchant for generous kickbacks, or fed him false information, dubbed "wrongos," would find themselves on his dreaded DDL. "Drop Deadlist." After holding court at the club, Winchell would make his rounds with the police to stay informed of the latest crimes. Equipped with an official police scanner and siren in his car, he was always ready to chase down a scoop. His day would end in the early morning hours as he returned to his hotel to sleep. With such a demanding schedule, there was little time left for family life. His daughter, Waldo, was quite the wild one, a beautiful girl who had quit school to become an actress. She married a soldier she had known for less than a day, broke up with him that night, and had the marriage annulled. Time magazine's gossip column wrote, Walter Winchell's blonde, 18-year-old actress daughter Eileen, her birth name, known to her friends as Waldo, known professionally as Tony Eden, pulled a surprise wedding on her usually alert father. The groom, William Lawless, 29, art student son of a retired Boston Motorman. Next day, Winchell reported the event with characteristic a plum. First man to scoop Walter Winchell in a long time is William Lawless. Two days later, father scooped son-in-law by announcing the daughter had decided to annull it. Two months later, Waldo got engaged to wannabe Broadway producer Bill Kahn. Winchell hated Kahn, suspecting he was just trying to marry Waldo to leverage Winchell's influence. When Waldo refused to break it off, Walter had her committed to a mental institution. She was subjected to all the harsh treatments of the day, including electroshock therapy. This dramatic episode between Winchell and Kahn inspired a story written by publicity writer Ernest Lemon for Cosmopolitan, which later inspired the plot of the 1957 film, Sweet Smell of Success, starring Bert Lancaster and Tony Curtis. His son, Walt Jr., who was sent away to boarding school at age six, was even more rebellious. He became a gun enthusiast and Germanophile. Often goose stepping down the street like a Nazi and an obvious attempt to provoke his Nazi-hating father. Adding to their disgruntled behavior was the fact that Winchell had some not-so-secret affairs. In 1941, Winchell and showgirl, Mary Lou Bentley, began an open affair. The rules we mentioned prohibited reporting on affairs involving columnists. Blind items were allowed, but naming names was taboo. Winchell's rival, Ed Sullivan, tried to include a tidbit about Winchell and Bentley in his column. After news editor, Dick Clark, deleted it, Ed stormed into his office, causing quite the commotion, and demanded it be reinstated. Dick calmly explained that if it ran, Winchell would retaliate by exposing Sullivan's own indiscretions. Old Ed wisely decided to let it go and keep his mouth shut. The affair with Bentley ended when she befriended radio and TV announcer Frank Gallup. Realizing Winchell would never divorce his wife, she broke up with him and moved into the apartment next door to Gallup. Their friendship blossomed into romance, and they married in 1946. But Winchell wasn't one to let go quietly. He bombarded Bentley with flowers and gifts and turned his wrath on Gallup. Winchell had him constantly followed by police and sabotaged his career by convincing program sponsors not to hire him. Gallup was even fired from a soap opera announcing job due to Winchell's pressure. By 1948, Gallup had had enough and divorced Mary Lou. Winchell also had an affair with actress Jane Keene, who ended it because he wouldn't leave his wife, and she felt their relationship was hastening her sick mother's decline. She claimed he became vindictive towards her as well. After the breakup, he never mentioned Keene, Bentley, or any other woman who snubbed him in his column again. Cultural critic Kurt Anderson summed it up well. "Winchell was all about the grody exercise of power, relentlessly and specifically, day after day, doling out bits of patronage or punishment in response to the greedy murmur of little men." Studios would pay a press agent as much as $5,000, the equivalent of $25,000 today, for giving a movie an orchid. Winchell's highest praise. An orchid from Winchell in his column or on his broadcast meant months of bookings. Over the years, he was responsible for discovering or boosting the careers of Jackie Gleason, Buddy Ebsen, Frank Sinatra, and scores of others. Winchell didn't have many close friends, but among them were Joe Kennedy and David Sarnoff. They played golf together in Palm Beach, dined on fish prepared by Kennedy's house chefs, and frequented Bradley's casino. Another good pal was Damon Runyon, the legendary Broadway writer. Runyon was one of the very few people who could tease Winchell and get away with it. When Runyon died of cancer in 1946, Winchell founded the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation in his honor. He didn't have many friends, but he did have plenty of feuds. In his own words, quote, "I'm not a fighter, I'm a waiter. I wait until I can catch an ingrate with his fly open, and then I take a picture of it." Essel Berrymore once said, "It is a sad comment on American manhood that Walter Winchell is allowed to exist." Ernest Hemingway called him the only reporter who could last three rounds with a zeitgeist. Winchell was petty, too. When he heard that Marlin Pugh, of the trade journal editor and publisher, had criticized him as a bad influence on the American press, Winchell retorted by calling him, "Marlin Pugh." On April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt died, and with him, Winchell lost his biggest political ally and much of his credibility. He was soon about to lose his composure and become an even bigger son of a bitch. Winchell and the new President Truman didn't hit it off, perhaps because Truman didn't see him as the great asset FDR did, which bruised Winchell's ego. Consequently, Winchell began sharing anti-Truman sentiment in his column, entering his pettiest era yet. He needed a new political cause, a new enemy. World War II was over, Hitler was gone, and Winchell was bored. After years in aimless political limbo, Winchell befriended Roy Cohn, a young New York City lawyer who later played a pivotal role in President Reagan's election and mentored future President Trump. Cohn, at the suggestion of J. Edgar Hoover, became Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army McCarthy hearings. Winchell shocked his audience by suddenly championing McCarthyism, turning his show into a platform for the anti-communist redbaiting of the 1950s. Winchell was more than happy to have Winchell push his agenda. Just like Hoover, Winchell used Winchell to cast suspicion and plant rumors. Winchell wielded this power as a weapon, frequently attacking politicians he didn't like by implying in his commentaries that they were communist sympathizers. He had the power to make or break careers. In her book, Love Lucy, Lucille Ball recounted how Winchell broke the news of her pregnancy in 1950 before she even knew. Lucille had been feeling unwell for weeks and had gone to the doctor for a pregnancy test. Using a fake name to maintain privacy. However, someone from the doctor's office leaked her test results to Winchell, who then announced it on his broadcast. Lucille recalled, "Desi was fast asleep and I was knitting, listening to the radio." Walter Winchell came on the air and announced, "After 10 childless years of marriage, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are infinitiating. I dropped my knitting, ran into Desi's dressing room and woke him up. We're going to have a baby!" Unfortunately, Lucille miscarried three months after the pregnancy announcement. That wasn't the only time Winchell prematurely broke news about her. He almost ruined her career. In the early 1950s, Lucille was under investigation by the HUAC, the notorious committee that investigated communism in Hollywood, because there was a voting card floating around, where she had registered as a communist in the 30s to please her uncle. People were shaken when Winchell dropped this blind item on his show. What top redheaded television comedian has been confronted with her membership in the Communist Party? Funnily enough, Lucille was actually listening to the broadcast while at home alone with her children. Her first thought was, "Oh my gosh! Do they think Imagin Koka is a communist?" referring to another famous redhead of the time. Then Desi called, who was away for the weekend and asked if she had been listening to Winchell. She replied, "Do you believe that about Imagin? It never even crossed her mind that Winchell was talking about her." Lucille had already gone through the investigation and had been cleared, so she thought, "Oh, give me a break." But just by Winchell putting it out there, it could have ruined her. Fortunately, Lucille's charm won out and it all turned out fine. However, Winchell and Hoover received a lot of angry letters about her. She later said, "I don't blame Walter Winchell. He had heard that the charge against me was going to be publicized in a magazine. He wanted the scoop. That's what he's paid for, but he might at least have been accurate." She was such a class act. While he may not have ruined Lucille's career, he did, however, ruin the career of Josephine Baker, the first black woman to star in a major motion picture and a renowned singer and dancer. Baker had moved to Europe to escape the rampant racism in the American entertainment industry. After World War II, she was honored with the Resistance Medal by the French Army for her work as a counterintelligence spy against the Germans. With renewed hope for change, she returned to the United States in 1951 for a nightclub gig in Miami, on the condition that the club desegregated its audience. After a public battle, the club agreed, and Baker's performance was a sell-out success. This led to a tour that further promoted desegregated audiences. She was named NAACP Women of the Year and honored with a parade in Harlem, flying high on her achievements. However, everything changed during a visit to the Stork Club, Winchell's favorite haunt. Despite the legal desegregation of clubs in New York City, many still unofficially catered to whites only. When Baker and her party arrived, she greeted Winchell and they were seated, served drinks, and ordered their meals. An hour later, no food had been served, and the waitstaff offered flimsy excuses about kitchen delays. Frustrated, Baker contacted the NAACP to organize a picket and publicly accused Winchell of witnessing the discrimination and doing nothing to speak up on her behalf, despite his support for civil rights in the public eye. Initially, Winchell denied being at the club, but later admitted his presence, claiming he didn't see what transpired. He defended the club, owned by his friend Sherman Billingsley, and questioned Baker's sensitivity to racism, which sparked outrage among New Yorkers. Sugar Ray Robinson threatened to withdraw from Winchell's Damon Runyon Memorial Fund unless Billingsley, quote, cleared up the situation immediately. Robinson also revealed that Winchell had previously admitted Billingsley's racism, but chose not to confront him on it. In a final remark to the New York Post, Robinson said, "Walter is a newspaperman and is entitled to his opinion, but it appears as though he is attacking Miss Baker for standing up against Sherman Billingsley." Winchell went on the offensive, calling on his ally, Jay Edgar Hoover, for any evidence of Baker's alleged communist ties. Hoover provided quotes from before the war, in which Baker had praised Mussolini. Winchell used this to publicly label her a dangerous communist. Baker filed a $400,000 libel lawsuit against Winchell, but it was dismissed. His relentless accusations led to the termination of her work visa, having given up U.S. citizenship while living in France, forcing her to cancel all her tour dates and return to France immediately. She was banned from returning to the U.S. for almost a decade. Josephine Baker shared her experience on the very gray radio talk show. Gray invited Winchell to tell his side on the show, but he never did. Winchell, once an ally with Gray and their shared rivalry with Ed Sullivan, found himself on the opposite side this time, because who showed up on the show? Ed. He delivered an hour-long scathing attack on Winchell, stating, "I despise Walter Winchell because he symbolizes to me evil and treacherous things in the American setup." Winchell, unable to match Sullivan's popularity, was left seething. Those familiar with Winchell's ways knew it was only a matter of time before he turned on Berry. True to form, he resorted to petty nicknames calling Berry "Bory Pink" and retaliated by snubbing Berry's favorite restaurant, Chandler's, leading the owners to file a $1 million libel suit against Winchell and the Hearst Corporation. In his autobiography, "My Night People" 1975, Gray hinted that thugs hired by Winchell were responsible for multiple beatings he had suffered. 1951 marked the beginning of Winchell's decline as he entered his "flop era." The Josephine Baker incident at the Stort Club cast Winchell as a self-serving hypocrite, if not a closeted racist. His increasingly unpopular views only further diminished his good standing. Among the missteps that dug his grave were his interview with underworld figure Frank Costello, was widely ridiculed, supporting General MacArthur after his dismissal by Truman alienated many of his left-wing fans, offering a $7,000 reward for the capture of each of the seven fugitive Reds, further isolated him. For the first time, his weekly radio show fell out of the top ten. Then came the exposés. Lyle Stort, the publisher of a monthly newspaper called "Exposé," devoted a cover story to the truth about Walter Winchell, which turned out to be a long list of Walter's wrongdoings. But the big blow was the 24-part series by the New York Post, which delved deep into Winchell's life and declared him a public menace. It all started when the paper heard that Stort Club owner Sherman Billingsley had sent agents to investigate New York Post owner Dorothy Schiff. In a preemptive strike, the Post decided to investigate Billingsley first. But when they realized all the trails led to Winchell, they shifted focus. The Josephine Baker incident provided the perfect timing to print their findings. The Post exposé depicted Winchell as one of the loneliest men in the world. Despite his assumption that he knows everybody and everybody knows him. They acknowledged that he made the gossip column a respectable newspaper feature, but noted that he spends much of his time justifying the existence of gossip columns and trying to prove he is a heavier thinker than Walter Lipman. The series painted Winchell as a hypocrite, highlighting his habit of playing all sides. He schmoozed with Al Capone while befriending J. Edgar Hoover, served as Roosevelt's most faithful mouthpiece, then inexplicably supported McCarthyism. The exposé detailed how Winchell ran a column of anecdotes, recalling all sorts of things about crime boss Frank Costello, all nice, followed by an exclusive interview depicting Costello as an authority on how to stamp out crime. They also criticized Winchell's vanity. He is a sucker for the most faded verbal orchid from the most cynical suitor. The worst book will get his best notices if he is favorably mentioned in it. And his need for validation. He feels compelled on all occasions to remind the world that he is a central figure in the history of the 20th century. One hundred years from now, I'm the only newspaper men they'll remember, he told a private audience. The exposé also touched on his performative compassion. He depicts himself as the eternal friend of the underdog, his only requirement is that the underdog remained forever on his leash. Although the exposé certainly didn't help his reputation, it didn't significantly diminish Winchell's power in the media either. In 1952, The Walter Winchell Show, a television version of his radio program, debuted on ABC TV. Despite his successful on-screen debuts in the 1930s short film, The Bard of Broadway, and the 1937 film, Love and Hisses, Winchell was a total flop on television. Walter Winchell of the New York Daily Mirror and the Washington Post. Mr. Mrs. North of South American, all the ships in sea, let's go to press. The energy he exuded on radio did not translate well to the small screen. His intense delivery, which was captivating on radio, came off as unsettling and off-putting on TV. Instead of the dynamic figure listeners imagined, he appeared as a mean old man manically ranting. The audience's awkward laughter was a clear indicator that the transition from voice to visual was unsuccessful. The sting of this failure was particularly painful, given that his rival, Ed Sullivan, was thriving on his own TV show. Winchell, the man who once commanded the attention of millions with just his voice, found himself out of sync with the visual demands of television. His only real success on TV came as the unseen narrator of the series, The Untouchables, in which he landed his distinctive voice from 1959 to 1963. Once a lovable rogue, Walter Winchell had become a detestable grump, and his columns and broadcasts had grown increasingly volatile and vindictive. The man of the people, persona, had vanished, replaced by a man who wielded his power purely to settle personal scores and praise his dwindling circle of friends. By the mid-1950s, Winchell was widely perceived as an arrogant, cruel, and ruthless individual. The transformation in Winchell's character can be illustrated by comparing two fictional movie gossip columnists based on him. In the 1932 film Okay America, the columnist played by Lou Ayers is portrayed as a hero, a good guy. In contrast, the 1957 film Sweet Smell of Success features Bert Lancaster as an obnoxious and unhinged columnist, a far cry from Winchell's earlier image. In April 1954, Winchell sparked a major public health scare with a controversial broadcast about the polio vaccine. The New York City Department of Health had launched a massive publicity campaign to promote polio vaccination, and Winchell undermined this effort by ominously declaring, "Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea." Attention everyone. In a few moments, I will report on a new polio vaccine claimed to be a cure. It may be a killer. Despite the vaccine not yet being fully tested, Winchell falsely claimed that authorities were stockpiling little white coffins for the vaccine's victims. His alarmist broadcast led to 150,000 children being withdrawn from the vaccine trials that week. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, defending Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh, criticized Winchell, noting he was "distinguished for a long career of washroom gossip, self-glorification, and journalistic vendettas of the basis sort." Jonas Salk himself accused Winchell of playing armchair scientist and sidewalk superintendent. Most who had withdrawn their children reinstated them in the trials. Nonetheless, Winchell's reckless misinformation had caused unnecessary panic and revealed the depths to which he would stoop for a baseless scoop. Winchell ended his TV and radio contracts with ABC after disagreements over finances and his protection against libel suits. He was getting sued a lot. He attempted a comeback with a half-hour television-only broadcast, but it was a ratings disaster and was canceled after just six episodes. By late 1959, Winchell signed off on his final radio broadcast after his sponsor dropped him, including the end of an era. One of the final nails in Winchell's career coffin was the Tonight Show incident. Jack Parr, who became the host of the Tonight Show in the late '50s, when Winchell's career was already faltering, relentlessly mocked him. Parr quoted the most damning excerpts from the book, The Secret Life of Walter Winchell, on air, causing the audience to gasp in shock at Parr's audacity. Parr knew Winchell no longer had the clout to retaliate. When the book was published in 1953, its author, Lyle Stewart, faced severe backlash. Stewart recalled, "People I went to didn't want to see me." Or they'd spot me two blocks away and say, "Please God, don't tell anybody. After all, I have a wife and two kids." People were genuinely petrified of me, but by the time Parr spoke out, Winchell's power had waned, and the fear he once held over others all but vanished. The New York Daily Mirror, Winchell's flagship newspaper for 34 years, shut its doors for good following a 114-day New York printer strike, effectively ending his column. Without his column, Winchell felt he had nothing. He mourned. I died on October 16, 1963, the day the paper shut down. His column's syndication plummeted from 800 papers to less than 175. Desperately, he tried to syndicate himself but found little success. In 1967, he even published an ad in Variety, pleading for employment, saying, "I'll even sweep the floors." Winchell's private life had grown bitter and empty. He rarely saw his wife June. Tragically, his son, Walt, died by suicide in the family garage on Christmas night in 1968 at the age of 33 years old. A couple of months later, Winchell announced his retirement citing his son's death as a major reason, along with June's failing health. Exactly one year later, she died at Phoenix Hospital of coronary thrombosis at the age of 66. Winchell's final two years were spent in seclusion at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Larry King, who replaced Winchell at the Miami Herald, were called, "He was so sad. You know what Winchell was doing at the end? Typing out mimeograph sheets with his column, handing them out at the corner. That's how sad he got." When Walter Winchell died on February 20, 1972, from prostate cancer, only one person attended his funeral, his daughter, Walda. Several of Winchell's former coworkers wanted to pay their respects, she turned them away. He was buried in Phoenix near June, the wife he had barely seen in his later years. Just two years after his death, People magazine was launched, and since then, there has been no shortage of commentators and goss-ups, gracing our papers, magazines, and screens. Winchell created the tabloid entertainment news genre that has influenced every modern celeb gossiper from drudge to Wendy Williams, reflecting on his career, Herman Clurfeld, Winchell's ghostwriter, said, "Gossip was only a small part of his column." Maybe 20 percent. He broke some of the biggest stories. He wrote about politics. He fought anti-Semitism when it wasn't so fashionable. I loved working for him. We had a father-son relationship, but he was an egomaniac. He was stubborn, and in the end, he was fooled by an evil devil named Roy Cohn. Winchell himself once remarked, "There is nothing I want to discuss about my career. I leave it to you historians to deal with." We're not historians, but we did do a little digging and learned some of the popular phrases coined by Winchell, known as Winchellisms. There's scram when you need to make a quick getaway. G-Man, slang for an FBI agent. G stands for government. Pushover, someone who's easily swayed or convinced. Garboing it, like Greta Garbo, when you're falling in love. Makey Whoopi whichells playful way of saying "having sex." Blessed event/getstorched/infanticipating when someone's pregnant. Renovated/tell it to a judge, talking about getting a divorce. Giggle water. A fun term for booze. Flicker or flick. Another word for a movie. Razzies. What they called Nazis back then. She's been on more laps than an abgan. Not so nice way to call someone a slut. Frenemy. A term Winchell came up with to describe a friend who's also a rival. In his prime, Winchell would sign off with his characteristic flair. I remain your New York correspondent, Walter Winchell, who can sit out his window and review the passing parade below. He sees everyone he likes and doesn't. He can either drop a flower or a flower pot. Thank you, and good night. 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