Paul Winchell

Born Paul Wilchinsky on December 21 1922 the son of Sol and Clara Wilchinsky Paul Winchell grew up to be the most beloved ventriloquist of American children Ironically as famous as Paul was his dummy Jerry Mahoney was probably more famous Not since Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy in the previous two decades had a ventriloquist and his dummy known equal celebrity Entering the spotlight on the Edward Bowes Original Amateur Hour 1948 he began working soon after in a review show in which Major Bowes would showcase the winners of his radio program He started his television career on the CBS program The Bigelow Show 1948 in 1948 The Paul Winchell Show 1950 originally called The Spiedel Show in 1950 and finally the bestknown of his shows WinchellMahoney Time 1965 With a clubhouse premise his dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiffanother of Pauls charactersas the clubhouse leaders and the music of the bandleader Milton Delugg A new innovation of Winchells was to replace the dummys hands with those of puppeteers who were hidden behind the dummies in a crate Winch also played many serous dramatic roles on television without his dummy sidekicks What may be even more famous is that he created the voice of Tigger for the Walt Disney Companys Winnie The Pooh motionpicture series based on the famous books by AA Milne He played the role behind the scenes until 1999 when he was replaced by Jim Cummings who also voiced Pooh from the time that Sterling Holloway died He was also the voice of many other worldfamous cartoon characters A littleknown fact about Winchell is that he was one of the original inventors of an artificial heartyears before the first successful transplant with such of a devicean automobile that runs on battery power a method for breeding tilapia and many other inventions that are still around today IMDb Mini Biography By MeanDean