Biografia

Exuberant voice

Voice of Tigger

Distinct high-pitched, whooping laugh

Voice of Gargamel from Os Smurfs (1981)

Voice of Dick Dastardly

Held patents on over 30 devices, a flameless cigarette lighter, an invisible garter belt, a method of breeding Tilapia fish so that poorer countries could feed their citizens, and an indicator to show when frozen food had gone bad after a power outage. As for his major achievement, the artificial heart, which he built in 1963, was donated to the University of Utah for research. The first transplant into a human happened on December 3, 1967. Paul Winchell invented the disposable razor he had neglected to patent. When friends told him, "Who would buy a razor just to throw it away?", Paul abandoned the idea. Later, to Paul's dismay, a major razor company proved Paul was right.

His puppet side-kicks, Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff, are now in the Smithsonian Institution.

Winchell worked for years developing his ideas for artificial hearts and was mentioned in news stories about the Utah man who got the first artificial heart and later when the Jarvik heart came to the fore. He held several patents in artificial organ development.

He won a $17.8-million jury verdict in his lawsuit against Metromedia Inc. over Metromedia's destruction of the only remaining tapes of his Winchell-Mahoney Time (1965) children's television series. Metromedia, which produced the show from 1964 to 1968, erased the 288 tapes in a dispute with Winchell over the syndication rights.

Credits his British born third wife Jean who came up with Tigger's signature phrase "TTFN: Ta-ta for now". TTFN was a popular British expression frequently used during WWII (c1939 - 1945). Use as a catch phrase in the weekly British radio comedy "It's That Man Again" (1940) added to its popularity.

Television and its use of computers can make everything talk, so there's no need for the art of ventriloquism anymore. I don't think young kids today would even understand it.

Ventriloquism is closely related to magic. It's all about misdirection. You practice speaking from your diaphragm and low in your throat. You substitute letters for 'B' and 'P' that allow you to speak without moving your lips.

I first met Walt Disney 25 or 30 years ago.

Children are so used to seeing puppets that when they see a real ventriloquist they don't understand it.

on Walt Disney: Walt gave me a VIP tour of the studio. I remember people doing voices.