PAUL WINCHELL

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Common misspelling: Paul Wincell, Paul Winchel

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PAUL WINCHELL BIOGRAPHY

• Paul Winchell (named Paul Wilchin) was born on December 21, 1922 in New York City, New York (on the lower East Side) to Clara and Sol Wilchin.  He family included an older sister, Ruth and a younger sister Rita.  He grew up in a strict home where he had childhood polio, had a speech impediment (he stuttered) and a verbally abusive mother. His family moved to Coney Island, Brooklyn when he was still very young.

• He began doing voices as a young child and began to perfect a whole array of different characters.  After listening to the famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (and dummy Charlie McCarthy) on the radio.  Because this was radio, he did not know at first that this was one man talking to a puppet.

• As a young teenager, he enjoyed making voices and practicing his ventriloquism, but he was on a path to become a commercial artist and attended the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan.  It was there that he was able to make a ventriloquist dummy in one of his classes for class credit.  Although he only made the head, it only took him a few weeks to learn ventriloquism.  When this shy young boy began to show his classmates what he could do, they realized that he was very good and he soon became the most popular kid in the school.  His principal was so impressed with his skills that he called up a friend at the radio station and got Paul an appearance on a radio show. He was soon appearing on the radio show Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour in 1936. [Note: This is also the time his name was changed from Wilchin to Winchell when a friend at the radio station intentionally gave them the wrong info because he thought it would be a better stage name.] He was won as the best act of the evening.  A few days later the station called him up and asked him if he would like to go around the country with his act – which he agreed to for the whopping salary of $35 a week.

• In 1948, he began to be noticed by the networks and became a regular ventriloquist on The Bigelow Show (a variety show).  This opened up more eyes and landed him his own show in 1950 called the Spiedel Show (more commonly known as The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show). The show stayed on the air for almost five years. Although he was the star of the program in which he showcased his skills as a ventriloquist, he shared the spotlight with his longtime associate, a wisecracking puppet named Jerry Mahoney.  Another “dummy” (created in 1950) that also shared the spotlight at times was Knucklehead Smiff.

• He also took his act to other adult venues such as the Ed Sullivan Show.  This also allowed him (and Mahoney) to make guest appearances over the next two decades on shows such as The Lucy Show, What’s My Line, The Dean Martin Show, Laugh-In, The Beverly Hillbillies and Perry Mason. In fact, he was named “Television’s Most Diverse Performer” by Look magazine in 1952 and 1953.

• The 1950s saw the height of his fame as a ventriloquist and in 1954 he wrote a book entitled Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit so that he can share his methods with all of his fans.

• In 1954, he was on the air again with his wooden sidekicks in the Winchell and Mahoney Show, which ran until 1956.  In 1956, he hosted the TV series Circus Time.  Circus time did not last very long and he went back to a show with his old format called the Paul Winchell Show from 1957-1960. In 1963, he hosted the short lived Cartoonies, but made headway again when he appeared on Saturday mornings from 1965 to 1968 in the nationally syndicated children’s variety show Winchell-Mahoney Time (where a young Carol Burnett debuted playing a farm animal).  The team of Winchell and Mahoney made one last stand together in their own show with Runaround in 1972, which only lasted one season.

• The 1960’s brought Winchell into the world of animation.  He began doing voices for some of Hanna Barbera’s animated television shows and full length animated features.  In 1962, he took on several voices in the well known animated television series The Jetsons.  A few years later, in 1968, he voiced several characters in the animated series Wacky Races, including the first time he voiced the infamous role of Dick Dastardly.

• Paul Winchell also enjoyed learning and pursuing science.  In 1959 he attended Columbia University for a short while taking Pre-Med classes.  He eventually graduated from the Acupuncture Research College of Los Angeles in 1974 and became a Doctor of Acupuntrure.  He also studied hypnotism and worked at the Gibbs Institute in Hollywood developing ground breaking theories and treatments in the field of hypnotherapy.

• He still worked at his first love during the 1960s – ventriloquism, and performed on the Winchell Mahoney Time from 1964 to 1968. If you were wondering what ever happened to Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff, Winchell donated them to the Smithsonian Institute where they are on display.

• In 1968 he was asked to do the voice of one of his most remembered characters – Tigger (“That’s T-I-Double G- errr.”) for the Academy Award winning (for the short film category) Disney animated movie Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. This was the first of many movies and videos in which Winchell voiced the Tigger character over the next three decades. [Note: Jim Cummings has “filled in” for the voice of Tigger over the last few years.]

• Another amazing aspect of the person who is Paul Winchell is his inventive great mind.  In his private life he was also an inventor.  He patented thirty different inventions during his lifetime.  This included a patent for a disposable razor, invisible garter belt, frozen food measurement device and a flameless cigarette lighter. In 1963, he even invented and held a patent for an artificial heart.  As to the heart, he donated his designs to the University of Utah who used it in their own research.  It was Dr. Robert Jarvick ad other members of the University of Utah staff that created the Jarvik-7 artificial heart that was actually implanted in several persons beginning in 1982. His work on the artificial heart was well received and he was given an honorary doctorate in science fro the Nation ional Christian University.  At one point he even came up with an idea to solve the hunger problems in Africa, and got a lot of well known celebrities to back him, however, in the long run, the African leaders rejected his ideas.

• In 1974, he was awarded a Grammy Award for The Best Children’s Recording for his recording of The Most Wonderful Things About Tiggers. This record included parts of the movie Winnie The Pooh and Tigger Too

• 1974 was a good year for Winchell and he married his true love, actress Jean Freeman in Tiajuana, Mexico.  This was actually his third marriage.  He was first married to Dorothy (Dottie) Morse and they had two children (a son, Stacy  and a daughter Stephani) before they were divorced.  His second wife was Nina Russel and they had one daughter April Winchell who has followed in her dad’s footsteps and does voice over as well as being a talk show host and owning her own production company.  Jean and Paul did not have any children of their own, but she had two sons, Larry & Keith Freeman from a previous marriage.

• He continued to perform the voices of several animated characters during the 1970s and 1980s besides Tigger and Dick Dastardly including: The Chineese Cat in the Aristocats (1970), various voices on Hong-Kong Phooey (1974), Boomer in The Fox and The Hound (1981), Gargamel in The Smurfs (1981-1989) and Zummi in The Gummi Bears (1985-1989).

• After hearing that most of his live recordings as a ventriloquist were erased by Metromedia, Inc. he the company.  Although he won a 17.8 million dollar verdict in 1986, most of the recordings (288 tapes of the show from 1965-1968) of his live work were gone forever. 

• He was awarded an Annie award in 1998 for his voice work (as Tigger) in the animated movie Pooh’s Grand Adventur: The Search for Christopher Robin.  The following year after lending his voice once again as Tigger in the movie Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving,  he “retired” from doing voice overs.

• Winchell was also a writer, and wrote an autobiography called Winch, published in 2004, which told all about the good and bad things that have happed during his lifetime.  He was also a deeply religious person and wrote many essays on theology.  He even had a website ProtectGod.com where he would publish some of his writings (no longer active).

• Mr. Winchell was working even up to the time of his death.  He was involved in a project that was transferring old children’s television shows (from the 50s & 60s) onto streaming video that would be free to the public.  He first began by doing this for the shows he was involved with on the Paul Winchell Kids Network, but had opened up this project to all shows from those eras. [Note: the project slowed down a bit in recent years due to issues with broadband (being too narrow for most users) and licensing.

• Paul Winchell passed away on June 24, 2005 at the young age of 82 while sleeping in his home in Moorpark, California. 

Mr Winchell, from all of your fans – We wish you a final TTFN (Ta-Ta-For Now).

Biography by Ian Ripley, PopStarsPlus.com, Sr. Staff Writer

 

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PAUL WINCHELL NEWS

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PAUL WINCHELL WEBSITES

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Paul Winchell Official Website: PaulWinchell.com

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Paul Winchell Articles and Interviews

• Paul Winchell: 1922-2005 (Myrna Oliver: SFGate.com: June 27, 2005)

• Paul Winchell Announces Comeback (PR Release: PRWeb: Mar. 7, 2004)

• Point of View: Paul Winchell (Mark Evanier: POVOnline.com: Jan. 19, 1996)

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Paul Winchell & Jerry Mahoney (TVParty.com)

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PAUL WINCHELL ON VIDEO, A FILMOGRAPHY

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PAUL WINCHELL BOOKS & MAGAZINES

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Winch

Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit

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