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Jonathan Winters
A quick-witted, king of improvisation, Jonathan Winters has enjoyed a long and varied career in TV, live performances and the occasional film. The only son of a banker father and radio personality mother, Winters spent a difficult childhood shuttling between his divorced parents. By his own descriptions, his alcoholic father could be monstrous and his mother tended to want the spotlight focused on her. In order to escape, Winters enlisted in the US Marines at age 17 and spent over two years serving in the South Pacific. After WWII, he enrolled at Kenyon College and then transferred to the Dayton Art Institute. At the suggestion of his wife, he began his entertainment career by entering a talent contest where he wowed the audience and walked away with a gig as a disc jockey which in turn led to a stint as a local TV personality. In the early 1950s, Winters moved to NYC where he could better exploit his comedic talents. He shone in local comedy clubs and early live TV where his expressive, moon-shaped face and abilities for zany mimicry and adept characterizations became increasingly popular. In 1954, Winters was cast as a regular on the comedy-variety series "And Here's the Show" (NBC, 1954) and went on to become nearly a permanent fixture on many TV shows that propelled his antics (which included characters like the ribald old lady Maude Frickert and the quack psychiatrist Dr. Bellenhoffer) into unsuspecting American living rooms. From the mid-50s on, he was... [MORE]
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