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Winchell, Walter, 1897-1972.
Collection is open to the public. Library policy on photography and photocopying will apply. Advance notice may be required.
The Walter Winchell papers span 1920-1967 and consist of annotated radio scripts, correspondence, miscellaneous scripts for stage and film, scrapbooks, news articles, clippings from his newspaper columns, and other items related to his journalism career. The largest portion of the collection is the radio scripts, usually typewritten and annotated, which date from 1930 to 1959; because of their fragile condition, these scripts are available only on microfilm. Film scripts include two to which Winchell contributed, BROADWAY THROUGH A KEYHOLE (1933) and WAKE UPAND LIVE (1937), the latter of which provided an opportunity for Winchell to play himself. Winchell's correspondents included Fanny Brice, Samuel Goldwyn, and Billy Rose. Clippings cite Winchell's role in public controversies, such as the battle over racism at New York's Stork Club which pitted Winchell against entertainer Josephine Baker, and Winchell's accusations ofCommunist sympathies made against various public figures during the McCarthyist 1950s.
Walter Winchell (1897-1972) was a radio broadcaster, stageand film performer, and journalist for the New York Daily Mirror and other publications. Born to a poor Jewish family on the upper East Side of New York, Walter Winchellbegan as a song-plugger and performer in vaudeville. In 1920 he began contributing to The Vaudeville News, a tradepublication, and this lead to a job writing a daily columnof news, gossip, and opinion, first for the New York Evening Graphic starting in 1924, then, five years later, for the New York Daily Mirror, where the column would remain a fixture for over three decades. Walter Winchell'sradio career began in 1930. His weekly broadcasts, which would greatly enhance his power and influence, would remain popular into the 1950s, although a move into the new medium of television was unsuccessful. Winchell also wrote and performed in a number of Hollywood films during his heyday, and narrated the TV series THE UNTOUCHABLES.
Shadows (1826). NYPL Art and Architecture Collection.
One of 700,000 pictures in the NYPL Digital Gallery
