Welcome back as we continue down the lyrics of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire. Today we look at Walter Winchell, a newspaper gossip columist and radio news commentator from the 1930s-1950s.
Winchell started his career as a Vaudville actor, but quickly switched to a newspaper career as a Broadway critic and columnist for the New York tabloids. His rise to fame came in the 1930s when he was syndicated in the Hearst newspapers. His style included gossipy news briefs, jokes, and jazz slang and said to have turned journalism into entertainment.
He became popular with both his hard news stories and his embarrassing stories about famous people. He was both admired and feared at the same time. In the 1940s he attacked the appeasers of Nazism, and then aligned with Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s in his campaign against communism.
Known over the years for his attempts to destroy careers, he unapolegetically published information told to him in confidence. Then when confronted about the matter would tell people that he knew that he was a son of a bitch.
In 1951, he helped ruin the career of Josephine Baker, a black American singer/dancer. Baker played before segregated crowds and began criticizing the Stork Club’s unwirtten policy of discouraging black patrons. She then scolded Winchell, an old ally, for not coming to her aide. He responded with allegations of communist sympathies which was a major charge at the time. This fued led to many venues cancelling her gigs.
He spoke out in 1954 about the newly released deadly polio vaccine. Of course, he was wrong in this instance as he was in others as well. This, and other instances, let to the feeling he was ruthless, cruel, and arrogant.
By the end he was a recluse living out his final days in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died in 1972 at the age of 74. While several of his former co-workers expressed interest in attending his funeral, they were turned away by his daughter Wanda who wound up being the only attendent.
Be sure to check back for more from Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire for more tidbits of history.