Walter Winchell

Walter Winchell had been a cultural icon, celebrated in song and story since the early 1930s. In 1946 he was not yet the demon he came to be to the Left for naming names and printing rumors about the real or imagined Communist involvement of celebrities. In fact, he was still something ofa New Dealer, avid FDR fan and crusading anti-Fascist, qualities that endeared him to the many Jews among his regular readers. Most of all he was known as the prime source of New York gossip, a genre he took to new levels (depths?). His radio show was also a big hit, starting out with the random clatter of a telegraph key followed by Winchell's raspy, staccato voice welcoming "Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press" then letting loose with a machine gun volley of news items.

His column in the Sunday Mirror on April 14 was mostly a laundry list of one-sentence plugs for plays, movies, books and radio shows with only a couple of political asides.

In his coverage of radio that day he noted the many "tear-dipped eulogies" to FDR on the occasion of the one year anniversary of his death. He wrote that they "soothed the spirit and became the heart's closest friend" but couldn't match the rebroadcasts of Roosevelt's own voice which he likened to "a message from Paradise" with each word "winging through the air like an angel on an errand of hope." He scoffed at newly chosen GOP chairman Carroll Reece, a congressmen from Tennessee and the choice of the party's "arch-conservatives." who had claimed to be a liberal in a radio interview.

Winchell also was on the side of the Left when it came to Francisco Franco. He praised radio commentator Max Lerner for airing the US government's "odious policy toward Franco" and condemned the "squirmy and weasel-wording" of the American diplomats who were trying to block the Security Council from dealing with the "fair-haired rat in Spain." But he also pointed out the threat to peace of Russia's "aggression in Iran." He wrote "Global amity cannot be built on one nation's bullying--or another nation's hypocrisy."

He also scoffed at the city government's recent crackdown on "penny-ante gamblers" As he wrote "If the City Fathers are really interested in abolishing gambling--they will have to shut down Wall Street." As we can see from the current economic crisis this was never going to happen.

He led off his April 14 column with Broadway items. The first sentence read "Billy Rose's humdinger, "Carmen Jones" hopped into the rumble seat of the departing season for a reunion with theatregoers at the City Centre. The passing of time hasn't dimmed the show's wow and glitter. It received enthusiastic welcome home bravos from the aisle oracles."

He also plugged the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus, in town for the Easter holiday. He noted the opening that week of Bella and Sam Spewack's comedy "Woman Bites Dog," which he said "tosses a satirical brick at reactionaries" and "Call Me Mister." Both shows had "rated salaams in the suburbs." And he put in a good word for "St. Louis Woman," which he wrote was playing to standees thanks to two columns from critic George Jean Nathan and nine rave reviews from the dailies.

"Dragonwyck," which Winchell said "lights the fuse for a stunning display of emotional pyrotechnics" led off his move paragraph. Otherwise it was a laundry list of B-pictures that got his nod that day, including "The Falcon's Alibi," "The Wife of Monte Christo (sic)" "She-Wolf of London," "Last Ride" and "Junior Prom," which he wrote "is replete with frantic jive cacaphony that sounds like a jukebox calling to its mate." What press agents jumped through what hoops, or spilled what secrets, to get plugs for these dogs?

Radio shows that came in for recognition were The Theatre Guild's broadcast of Eugene O'Neill's "Strange Interlude," with Lynn Fontanne in the lead and the suspense series "Dark Venture."

In a section of his column subheaded "The Intellegentsia," Walter Winchell gave brief nods to several books and writers, leading off with the news that James Branch Cabell's new novel, There Were Two Pirates was scheduled for fall publication. Once highly respected and popular, Cabell and his adventure fantasies had fallen out of favor with critics and readers some years earlier (but this book is still in print in 2009) . Winchell also took note of Gerald Kersh's Night and the City, a tale of the London underworld; Eleanor Clark's The Bitter Box, a satirical novel about New York City's left wing circles; and former magazine editor and bon vivant Norman Anthony's memoir, How to Grow Old Disgracefully. He repeated a blind item from Times book columnist John K. Hutchen about a "lady novelist" who charges her psychiatric sessions to her publisher as research.

He also wrote that AP war reporter Larry Allen had "laundered" his "nonsensorship trouble" with Polish officials, a "famed digest" was launching its "Jap edition," and columnist Bob Dana had suffered minor injuries in a tumble down a flight of subway stairs. Prentice-Hall editor/critic Gorham Munson was at Doctors Hospital and Luce had appointed John Haverstick religion editor- his researchers were a Miss Faith and a Miss Bishop. Winchell also reported that his good friend Damon Runyon was now "in more different anthologies with more different stories than any other living writer."

He recounted an anecdote from magazine editor E. Hillman about a young woman who elbows her way to a seat in the subway and after combing her hair, applying makeup, straightening her stockings and putting on gloves, falls asleep. He ended with a bunch of quotations, historical, literary and contemporary.