His biographers draw the same conclusion: Walter Winchell, once one of America's premier celebrities during the age of radio, never adapted to television. OK, he had some modest success as the unseen narrator of "The Untouchables" but that was no more than a faint echo of what he once enjoyed. So: how would we get Winchell to somehow become less rigid and adapt to TV, keeping some measure of success and influence? Would his friendship with Roy Cohn and his support of Joseph McCarthy happen anyhow, or would he be too busy in front of the camera? And would he be able to parlay his persona as a stock movie character (the hard-boiled cynical '30s reporter) into something of a TV trademark?
AFTERTHOUGHT: might Winchell have either....
AFTERTHOUGHT: might Winchell have either....
- …become an outspoken proponent of the new nation of Israel, given his outspoken condemnations of anti-Semitism in the 1930s?
- …moved to Las Vegas and adapted to the Strip as a new sort of Broadway, rubbing elbows with the Rat Pack and the like (as well as mobsters, as he had in New York)?
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