PAUL WINCHELL was a ventriloquist, a voice-over artist, an inventor and even, briefly, a campaigner who corralled celebrities for a visionary African food project. He will remain best known, however, as the voice of the animated cartoon characters Dick Dastardly, Tigger and the Smurfs’ nemesis, Gargamel.
Born Paul Wilchin in a Jewish ghetto on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, he was afflicted by poverty, a stammer and, from the age of 6, polio. He moved with his family to Coney Island, where he lived in a flat with only cold water, close to the Luna Park and Steeplechase amusements.
Winchell longed to be a doctor, but was discouraged from grand ideas by the grinding Depression, and by his hated mother. He would later list her abuses in his disturbing autobiography, Winch, published last year.
Inspired by Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy, Winchell determined instead to be a ventriloquist and built his first dummy, Jerry Mahoney, at school. Recognising his talent, Winchell’s headmaster encouraged him to enter the Major Bowes Amateur Hour on CBS. His sister’s boyfriend drove him to the studio and signed him up as Paul Winchell — the name he stuck with.
He won the $100 first prize — which his mother took — and was signed up to play a series of theatres across the country. Eventually the clay figure of Jerry was replaced by a carved wooden figure made by the Chicago-based figure maker, Frank Marshall. He first appeared on television at the age of 22 with The Bigelow Show, a programme of two halves starring Winchell and Dunninger, a mind reader.
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In 1950 The Spiedel Show appeared, later called What’s My Name? in which Winchell lived in the town of Funville and managed the Make Believe Theatre, interviewing Lucille Ball, Angela Lansbury and other stars of the day — aided by a new wooden accomplice, the harebrained Knucklehead Smiff.
The death of his mother caused a resurgence of the emotional problems that attended Winchell’s life, but he returned in 1956 with Winchell-Mahoney Time on Saturday mornings, which starred Carol Burnett. He and his dummies appeared in several other variety and game shows, and starred in a feature film with the Three Stooges called Stop! Look! and Laugh! (1960). Soon animated cartoons were taking over from the traditional children’s variety show, and Winchell disappeared from television.
He determined to gain the education he had abandoned, and became a medical student at Columbia University. He later became an acupuncturist and a medical hypnotist. In 1963 he patented a design for a motorised artificial heart, in collaboration with his friend, Henry Heimlich, who developed the anti-choking manoeuvre. He gave the patent to Utah University, in return, he said, for access to its research facilities. Later a doctor, Robert K. Jarvik, created an artificial heart to the same specification as Winchell’s. When he successfully implanted it in a human in 1982, Winchell was aggrieved not to receive any credit. He accused Jarvik of causing needless suffering by holding the technology back for four years.
Winchell also created a flameless lighter and a portable blood plasma defroster, and he soon worked with Heimlich again — this time alongside the actors Edward Asner and Richard Dreyfuss in a Hollywood-based project called Africa Tomorrow. It won the support of Jane Fonda, Ted Kennedy, Dennis Weaver and Elliot Gould, along with many popular sports personalities and scientists. The key idea was to drill holes in sub-Saharan Africa to raise undrinkable water, then use it to breed tilapia — a fish with an extremely fast reproductive cycle and growth rate that thrives in brackish water.
The group appeared before a congressional committee, but were refused funds. The committee could not see any value in raising unpotable water, and today the idea remains untried.
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Winchell had just married Jean Freeman, his British-born third wife, who ushered in his happiest years. Her contribution to Winchell’s work was to suggest Tigger’s sign-off: “Ta ta for now” or “TTFN”, which, despite Disney’s objections, was included in the script and has since been repeated by thousands of children.
Winchell did the voices for a clutch of mass-produced Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including Whacky Races, Help! It’s the Hair Bear Bunch, Goober and the Ghost Chasers and Hong Kong Phooey, as well as classic Disney animations such as the Aristocats and The Fox and the Hound. Sadly, all the tapes of his early dummy shows were destroyed — an error for which Winchell was awarded $17.8 million in 1989. He spent his later years trying to hunt down surviving copies of his work.
He is survived by Jean and their two sons, and by three children from his previous two marriages.
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Paul Winchell, ventriloquist, voice artist and inventor, was born on December 21, 1922. He died on June 24, 2005, aged 82.