Radio: Keeping Jerry in Line

Paul Winchell,* mouthpiece-godfather of a goggle-eyed dummy named Jerry Mahoney, is out to prove that there is more to his talents than dandling a doll on his knee. Television’s top ventriloquist, Winchell is beginning his sixth TV season by filling his half-hour show (Sun. 7 p.m. E.S.T., NBC) to the brim with Paul Winchell, master of ceremonies, man of many voices, dramatic actor, singer, dancer and soap salesman (Cheer and Camay). By such breathless activity, Winchell, a muscular, 29-year-old New Yorker, hopes to escape an occupational hazard of ventriloquism: becoming incidental to his “doll” in the public mind.

End as a Stooge. A ventriloquist’s dummy is usually the center of attention and gets most of the funny lines in a comedy act. Edgar Bergen, never as well known as his Charlie McCarthy, once lamented: “I didn’t intend to end up the stooge in the combination, but it pays so well I can’t quit now.” Winchell, who does not enjoy being addressed as “Paul Mahoney,” tries to dominate his dummy by demanding top billing, keeping some of the laughs for himself, and crowding Jerry’s act by introducing new characters. A Brooklyn bumpkin named Knucklehead Smiff is now getting a big buildup. But Jerry, a redhaired, eye-rolling twelve-year-old, remains a scene stealer whose small-boy enthusiasms (Winchell reads comic books to keep in style) and good-natured sauciness (but none of Charlie McCarthy’s lethal impudence) surmount the reality that he is actually 25 Ibs. of whitewood, metal and rubber, with rods, latches, levers, springs, glass eyes and a broomstick spine.

The present Jerry Mahoney is a reincarnation of a dummy carved by Winchell in a high school commercial art class. Like many another ventriloquist, Winchell got his start by answering an advertisement (“Amaze your friends, throw your voice into a trunk”) which offered “The Secrets of Ventriloquism” (25¢). After discovering that ventriloquists do not actually throw their voices but create the illusion that they do, Winchell proceeded to amaze his friends. At 14, he also impressed radio’s Major Bowes, who gave him $100 first-prize money on his Amateur Hour and a $75-a-week contract to perform in one of his traveling vaudeville units. Winchell was on the road for the next ten years playing theaters and nightclubs.

Into the Gap. By the time Winchell got to the big radio money in 1944, Edgar Bergen was the world’s most successful ventriloquist. But was it ventriloquism? On a sightless medium, it was less an illusion than high aural comedy by a man with a natural wit and an educated larynx. Television was another matter. Bergen, his technique rusty after radio, made a few exploratory TV appearances, then went off to semi-retirement to think things over and work on his movie autobiography (From Little Acorns). Into the gap streaked Winchell, his ventriloquial skills razor-sharp.

Nagged by the thought that he might become typed as a ventriloquist and some day go stale, Winchell began taking on straight acting roles (“I want to become so flexible that I just can’t get into a rut”), today does a weekly seven-minute dramatic sketch midway in his comedy show. He turns down most offers to guest-star his ventriloquist act on other television programs, but he keeps an ear cocked for calls for Paul Winchell, actor. It’s not that he doesn’t have enormous affection for his wooden pal Jerry, but he asks: “How long can I stick with him? My project is building me.”

* No kin to the gossipist.