Winchelldom: The World that Walter Winchell Built

FAIN: TR-266384-19

International Documentary Association (Los Angeles, CA 90010-2207)
Ben Loeterman (Project Director: January 2019 to present)

Production of a sixty-minute documentary film about the prominent newspaper columnist and radio commentator Walter Winchell (1897–1972).

This is a request for a grant of $650,000 to produce a 60-minute documentary film about the lasting cultural impact of gossip columnist cum political commentator Walter Winchell. Winchelldom: The World that Walter Winchell Built (w.t.) traces this flawed protagonist, who at the height of his career had a combined print and radio audience of fifty million, two out of three American adults. In addition, it explores the phenomenon Winchell pioneered: celebrity, gossip, politics and news all rolled into one. It was, concluded the New Yorker in a 1940 six-part profile, nothing less than a, “new form of journalism.” A friend eulogized him saying, “Winchell’s primary objective is to explain the 20th century to his millions of readers. The fact is, however, that historians will be unable to explain the 20th century without understanding Winchell.”

Associated Products

Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip
Writer: Ben Loeterman
Director: Ben Loeterman
Producer: Ben Loeterman
Abstract: Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip traces the life and career of the syndicated columnist, radio news commentator and television host who pioneered the fast-paced, gossip driven, politically charged media culture that dominates today. At the height of his career, Winchell had a combined print and radio audience of 50 million and the power to make or break careers. He became the most feared and admired man in America, a man who transformed entertainment journalism and championed “Mr. and Mrs. America” in his daily columns and Sunday night radio program. Decades later, an alliance with Senator Joseph McCarthy and feuds with Josephine Baker and Ed Sullivan turned his audience against him and forced him into obscurity. Featuring Stanley Tucci as Winchell and narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, this American Masters documentary breathes new life into Winchell’s original newspaper columns and broadcast scripts, drawing on rare recordings and a recently digitized collection of his work in the Billy Rose Theatre Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Winchell’s own words comprise nearly a quarter of the script as the film tracks the rise and fall of his career, and his continued influence on today’s media. “He was not only present at the creation of modern journalism,” concludes biographer and film interviewee Neal Gabler, “in many respects he was the creation.”
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.walterwinchellfilm.com/
Primary URL Description: URL provides a link to the production company's, BLPI, dedicated Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip website.
Secondary URL: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/walter-winchell-documentary/16953/
Secondary URL Description: URL provides a link to American Master's webpage dedicated to Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip with options to view.
Access Model: Broadcast premiere open access, subsequently available via subscription/membership/purchase on various streaming platforms.
Format: Video

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