39 Facts About Paul Winchell

Paul Winchell was an American actor, comedian, humanitarian, inventor and ventriloquist whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s.

Paul Winchell, who had medical training, was an inventor, becoming the first person to build and patent a mechanical artificial heart, implantable in the chest cavity.

Paul Winchell has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television.

Paul Winchell's father was a tailor; his grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Congress Poland and Austria-Hungary.

When Paul Winchell was 12 or 13, he came across a magazine advertisement offering a ventriloquism kit for ten cents.

Magon was agreeable, and Paul Winchell thanked him named his creation Jerry Mahoney.

Paul Winchell went back to reading magazines, gathering jokes from them and putting together a comedy routine, which he then took to the Major Bowes Amateur Hour in 1938, winning first prize.

Sometime later Paul Winchell had basswood copies of Jerry's head made by a commercial duplicating service.

Paul Winchell modified two other copies to create Knucklehead Smiff.

Paul Winchell's first show as a ventriloquist was on radio with Jerry Mahoney in 1943.

In October 1956, Paul Winchell moved to ABC, hosting Circus Time on Thursday evening for one season before returning to Paul Winchell-Mahoney on Sunday afternoons.

Paul Winchell made an appearance on Nanny and the Professor as a "mean old man".

In 1996, Paul Winchell contracted with figure maker Tim Selberg to construct a more contemporary version of Jerry Mahoney, which Paul Winchell described as "Disney-esque".

Paul Winchell used the new figure version to pitch a new TV series idea to Michael Eisner.

In 2009, Winchell was featured in the comedy documentary I'm No Dummy, directed by Bryan W Simon.

For Disney, Paul Winchell voiced Tigger in Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh featurettes, and won a Grammy Award for his performance in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too.

Paul Winchell provided the voices of Sam-I-Am and the unnamed character Sam pesters in Green Eggs and Ham from the animated television special Dr Seuss on the Loose in 1973.

Paul Winchell played Fleabag on The Oddball Couple, Fearless Freddy the Shark Hunter on the Pink Panther spin-off Misterjaw in 1976, as well as a number of one-shot characters in The Blue Racer series.

From 1981 to 1989, Paul Winchell voiced Gargamel on The Smurfs as well as on several Smurfs television movies.

Paul Winchell appeared as himself in 1963 in the NBC game show Your First Impression.

Paul Winchell appeared in the late 1960s in a sketch on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in as a French ventriloquist named Lucky Pierre, who has the misfortune of having his elderly dummy die of a heart attack in the middle of his act.

Paul Winchell played several onscreen characters, including Knucklehead Smiff's father, Bonehead Smiff.

Paul Winchell played himself as friend and adult advisor to Mahoney and Smiff.

Paul Winchell created "Mr Goody-good," a surreal character, by painting eyes and a nose on his chin, covering his face with a small costume, then having the camera image inverted.

Paul Winchell created this illusion by moving his chin back and forth.

Paul Winchell started "negotiating with Metromedia in 1970 to syndicate the 305 color segments of the show" but nothing came of it.

Paul Winchell graduated from The Acupuncture Research College of Los Angeles in 1974, and became an acupuncturist.

Paul Winchell worked as a medical hypnotist at the Gibbs Institute in Hollywood.

Paul Winchell owned more than 30 patents in his lifetime.

Paul Winchell invented an artificial heart with the assistance of Dr Henry Heimlich, inventor of the Heimlich maneuver, and held an early US patent for such a device.

The University of Utah developed a similar apparatus around the same time, but when they tried to patent it, Paul Winchell's patents were cited as prior art.

Paul Winchell established more medical patents while working on projects for the Leukemia Society and the American Red Cross.

Paul Winchell appeared before a Congressional committee with several other celebrities, including actors Richard Dreyfuss and Ed Asner, and Dr Heimlich.

Paul Winchell died on June 24,2005, at the age of 82, from natural causes in his sleep at his home in Moorpark, California, after years of recurring mental problems that came from his youth.

Paul Winchell wrote a long and detailed autobiography called Winch The Autobiography, published April 2004, at age 81, which revealed the bad treatment he had from his mother for a considerable period, and the mental impact that continued to negatively affect him for decades after his mother's death.

Paul Winchell was survived by his wife, his children, and three grandchildren.

Paul Winchell's remains were cremated, and his ashes scattered over his home property.

Paul Winchell was estranged from his children, and they were not immediately informed of his death.

Jim Cummings took on the role of Tigger full-time starting with The Tigger Movie after Paul Winchell was rejected by the studio as they thought at that time that his voice and energy sounded and felt too old for the role of the character.