Paul Winchell

Paul Winchell (December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005), born Pinkus Wilchinski (the family later shortened it to Wilchin), was an American ventriloquist and voice actor from New York City whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also an amateur inventor who was the first person to build and patent a mechanical, artificial heart, implantable in the chest cavity (US Patent #3097366).

Career

Ventriloquist work

The ventriloquist figures for which he was best known are Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. Both figures were carved by Chicago-based figure-maker Frank Marshall. His first series as a ventriloquist was on radio with Mahoney in 1943. The program was short-lived, as he was overshadowed by Edgar Bergen. However, radio historian John Dunning, in his 1998 book, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, thought Winchell was the better ventriloquist.

Voice-over work

Winchell's later career included a great deal of voice-over acting for animated cartoons, notably for Disney and Hanna-Barbera. For the latter, he played the character Dick Dastardly in several series (notably Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley), Fleegle on The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, and Gargamel on The Smurfs. He also provided voices on The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch!, Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, The Robonic Stooges, and The CB Bears.

For Disney, Winchell was best known for voicing the character Tigger in Disney's Winnie the Pooh films, and won a Grammy for his performance in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too.

Beginning with the television series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, he alternated in the role with Jim Cummings, the current voice of Pooh. Winchell's final performance as Tigger was in Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (though Winchell played Tigger one last time in the attraction, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh featured in the Disney theme parks). Following Winchell's retirement, Cummings permanently took over the role of Tigger starting with The Tigger Movie in 2000. Other Disney roles included parts in The Aristocats as a Siamese cat, and The Fox and the Hound as Boomer the woodpecker. On TV, he was the original voice of Zummi Gummi on Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears.

Winchell provided the voices of Sam-I-Am and his unnamed friend on Green Eggs and Ham from the animated television special Dr. Seuss on the Loose (1973). He also did the voice of Fearless Freddy the Shark Hunter on the Pink Panther cartoon spin-off Misterjaw in 1976. In commercials, he voiced the Scrubbing Bubbles for Dow Chemicals and Mr. Owl for Tootsie Roll Pops.

Live appearance work

Other work included on-camera guest appearances on such series as The Beverly Hillbillies, The Lucy Show, "The Dick Van Dyke Show", and The Brady Bunch, as well as a 1960 movie that included a compilation of Three Stooges shorts (Stop!, Look and Laugh), and a part in the Jerry Lewis movie Which Way to the Front? On Love, American Style, he appeared with fellow ventriloquist Shari Lewis in a sketch about two shy people in a waiting room who choose to introduce themselves to each other through their dummies.

Winchell's most successful TV show was Winchell-Mahoney Time (1965–1968), a highly-imaginative kids' show. Winchell played several onscreen characters, including Knucklehead Smiff's father, as well as himself, as friend and adult advisor to Mahoney and Smiff. He also created "Oswald," a surreal character by painting eyes and a nose on his chin, covering his face with a small costume, then having the camera inverted. The resulting pinheaded character seemed to have an immensely wide mouth and a highly mobile head. Winchell created this illusion by moving his chin back and forth.

The show was produced at KTTV-TV in Los Angeles, which was owned by Metromedia. In 1986, Winchell sued Metromedia over syndication rights to 288 surviving videotapes of the show. Metromedia responded by destroying the tapes. Subsequently, a jury awarded Winchell $17.8 million.

Winchell's last regular on-camera TV appearances working with his puppets were The Storybook Squares (a children's version of the adult celebrity game show The Hollywood Squares which was seen Saturday mornings on The NBC TV network during the 1969 TV season) and Runaround, another children's TV game show seen Saturday mornings on NBC TV from September 1972 to September 1973.

Medical

He was very interested in medicine and studied pre-med at Columbia University. He graduated from The Acupuncture Research College of Los Angeles in 1974, and became an acupuncturist. He also worked as a medical hypnotist at the Gibbs Institute in Hollywood.

Patents

Winchell developed over 30 patents in his lifetime. He invented an artificial heart with the assistance of Dr. Henry J. Heimlich (the inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver) and held the first patent for such a device. The University of Utah developed an similar apparatus around the same time, but when they tried to patent Winchell's heart was sighted as prior art. The university requested that Winchell donate the heart to the University of Utah, which he did. There is some debate as to how much of Winchell's design Dr. Robert Jarvik used in creating his artificial heart. Dr. Heimlich states, “I saw the heart, I saw the patent and I saw the letters. The basic principle used in Winchell's heart and Jarvik's heart is exactly the same.” Dr. Jarik denies that any of Winchell's design elements were incorporated into the device he fabricated for humans — the Jarvik-7 — which was successfully implanted into Barney Clark in 1982.

Winchell established more medical patents while working on projects for the Leukemia Society and the American Red Cross. Some of the other devices he invented and patented include a disposable razor, a blood plasma defroster, a flameless cigarette lighter, an "invisible" garter belt, a fountain pen with a retractable tip and battery-heated gloves.

Personal life

Humanitarian Efforts

In the 1980's Winchell — concerned about the starving African people — developed a method to cultivate Talapia fish in tribal villages and small communities. The fish thrives in brackish waters, which made it particularly well suited for sub-Saharan Africa. Winchell appeared before a Congressional Committee with several other celebrities including, Richard Dreyfuss, Ed Asner and Dr. Henry Heimlich. The Committee declined to finance a pilot program for the tilapia aquaculture project (in Africa) because it required digging a well into non-potable water, which the Committee felt was not advisable.

Hobbies

Winchell was interested and involved in technology—particularly the Internet—right up to the time of his death. He created and maintained a personal website until 2004. For a short time, he operated the now-defunct website ProtectGod.com, which discussed the theology of the latter years of his life.

Family

Winchell had five children: a son, Stacy Paul Winchell; and a daughter Stephanie from his first marriage to Dorothy (Dottie) Movitz; a daughter, April Winchell, who is a comedienne and voice actress, from his second marriage, to actress Nina Russell; and two stepsons, Larry and Keith Freeman, from his third marriage, to Jean Freeman.

Winchell's autobiography, Winch (2004), exposed many dark areas of Winchell's life, which had hitherto been kept private. The autobiography opened old wounds within the Winchell family, prompting daughter April to publicly defend her mother who was negatively portrayed in the book. Winchell was estranged from his children, and thus they were not immediately notified of his death. A message on April's website stated:

T.T.F.N. I got a phone call a few minutes ago, telling me that my father passed away yesterday. A source close to my dad, or at least, closer than I was, decided to tell me himself, instead of letting me find out on the news, which I appreciate. Apparently a decision had been made not to tell me, or my father's other children. My father was a very troubled and unhappy man. If there is another place after this one, it is my hope that he now has the peace that eluded him on earth.

External links

• Official website
• Obituary by Mark Evanier
• Archive.org mirror of Paul's ProtectGod.com website
• Knock on Wood: An Insider's View of Belly Speaking