Winchell, Walter 1897-1972

COLUMNIST

Gossip.

The claim that Walter Winchell created the modern gossip column has been disputed, but he was indisputably the most widely known and widely read columnist in American journalism. By various estimates the readers of his column and the listeners to his radio broadcasts totaled between 25 million and 50 million at the peak of his fame.

Show Biz.

Raised in poverty in Manhattan, Winchell left school in the sixth grade to become a vaudeville singer. He was a song-and-dance man in second-rate vaudeville circuits in 1919 when he began posting pages of gossip and news backstage. In 1922 he began writing the "Stage Whispers" news column for The Vaudeville News. This trade paper had a limited circulation, but it provided him connections with people who assisted his rise. His two early mentors were speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan and Mark Hellinger. A columnist and reporter on The Daily...

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