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Walter Winchell escaped New York-immigrant poverty via the vaudeville stage, his massive insecurity and ambition driving him on. But it was as a young newspaperman that he found his real calling. In 1925, at a time when most newspaper editors were reluctant to publish even the notice of an impending birth for fear of crossing the boundaries of good taste, Winchell brought unabashed and undisguised gossip into the public press.
He understood the bitter subtext of gossip: how invading the lives of the famous and revealing their secrets empowered both purveyor and audience. His columns revealed who was cavorting with gangsters or chorus girls, who was engaging in financial shenanigans, whose husband was compromisingly sighted with whose wife. By legitimizing gossip he forever shattered the taboo against what could be said about celebrities in the media.
In his own words: "Democracy is where everybody can kick everybody else's ass." Adding: "But you can't kick Winchell's.".
Because Winchell was present at the creation of celebrity as we now know it, because he reached the top and tumbled precipitously, an examination of his life illustrates how fame is achieved, how it is lost, what one gains from it, what it exacts - and why America is obsessed with it. "Historians," said a speaker at his funeral, "will be unable to explain the twentieth century without understanding Winchell." His life and his films are richly recaptured - and understood - in Neal Gabler's brilliant biography.
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Previews available in: English
Showing 4 featured editions. View all 4 editions?
Edition | Availability |
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1
Winchell
April 12, 1997, Random House Value Publishing
Hardcover
in English
0517174014 9780517174012
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2
Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity
September 26, 1995, Vintage
Paperback
in English
0679764399 9780679764397
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3
Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity
October 4, 1994, Knopf
Hardcover
in English
- 1st ed edition
0679417516 9780679417514
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4
Winchell: gossip, power, and the culture of celebrity
1994, Knopf
in English
- 1st ed.
0679417516 9780679417514
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index (p. [649]-659) and index.
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First Sentence
"AS CHAIM WEINSCHEL MADE the long journey from Russia to the United States, he carried within him an implacable darkness of spirit."
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