1897-1972
Journalist, Radio Commentator

Controversial Columnist.

Walter Winchell was the most famous, most popular, and most controversial "gossip" columnist in twentieth-century American journalism. He made a career of printing scoops about celebrities and making "informed" predictions (many of which did not come true). In the 1930s he also began to make partisan political pronouncements.

Background.

Winchell was born in 1897 and left school in 1910 to work as a vaudeville performer. After years of minimal success he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1917 and worked in New York City as a receptionist for Adm. Marbury Johnston at the New York Customs House. In 1919 he returned to vaudeville and started a newsletter that featured light vaudeville news and punnish quips such as "You tell'em Quija, I'm bored." In 1922 the Vaudeville News, a paper run by a vaudeville circuit, hired Winchell at the salary of twenty-five dollars a week...