Jonathan Winters

Jonathan Winters

Dayton-born improvisational comedian of Maude Frickert and Elwood P. Suggins, who began on Dayton radio and Columbus television and won the second Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1999.

Born November 11, 1925, Dayton
Died April 11, 2013, Montecito, California

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: November 11, 1925, Dayton (Montgomery County) source
Died: April 11, 2013, Montecito, California source
Buried: Cremated; ashes given to his family source
Also known as: Jonathan Winters, Johnny Winters
Education: Springfield High School, Springfield, OH
: Kenyon College, Gambier, OH
: Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH, cartooning
Known as: Entertainment
Organizations: Television

Life story

Jonathan Winters was born in Dayton in 1925. When he was seven his parents separated and he moved with his mother to his grandmother's home in Springfield. He went to Springfield High School.

He enlisted in the Marines at 17 and served about two and a half years in the Pacific. Afterward he attended Kenyon College and studied cartooning at the Dayton Art Institute, where he met Eileen Schauder; they married in 1948.

He won a talent contest, became a disc jockey and his ad-libbed characters took over. He became a pioneer of improvisational comedy, with characters like Maude Frickert, and won two Grammys, a 1991 Emmy for Davis Rules and the Mark Twain Prize (1999).

He struggled with bipolar disorder and was hospitalized in 1959 and 1961. He died at 87 in Montecito, California, in 2013.

Ohio ties

Dayton (1925-c. 1933)
birthplace and early childhood; his family descended from Valentine Winters of the Winters National Bank Montgomery County · source
Springfield (c. 1933-1943)
lived with his mother at his maternal grandmother's home after his parents separated; Springfield High School until his senior year Clark County · source
Gambier (late 1940s)
attended Kenyon College after the war (listed with the class of 1950) Knox County · source
Dayton (late 1940s-1953)
studied at the Dayton Art Institute, married there in 1948, won a talent contest and became a morning disc jockey at WING Montgomery County · source
Springfield (c. 1950)
local radio personality at WIZE Clark County · source
Columbus (early 1950s)
performed as 'Johnny Winters' on WBNS-TV for about two and a half years, including Gambrinus beer commercials Franklin County · source

Timeline

1925 Born in Dayton on November 11. source
c. 1933 His parents separated when he was seven, and his mother took him to Springfield to live with his maternal grandmother. source
c. 1943 Left Springfield High School in his senior year and joined the U.S. Marine Corps at 17. source
1940s Served two and a half years in the Pacific, including duty as a gunner aboard the aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard. source
late 1940s Studied art at Kenyon College and the Dayton Art Institute, hoping to become a political cartoonist. source
1948 Married Eileen Schauder, whom he met at the Dayton Art Institute, on September 11. source
1949 Six or seven months after his wedding, at his wife's urging, entered a talent contest whose first prize was a wristwatch, won it, and was given a disc jockey job, which became the morning show at WING in Dayton. source
1950 Began about three years as a radio disc jockey and television host in Ohio before leaving for New York. source
1953 Moved to New York to work in nightclubs and television. source
1956 RCA used The Jonathan Winters Show for the first public demonstration of colour videotape, which he used to appear as two characters at once. source
1961 Played a dramatic role in The Twilight Zone episode 'A Game of Pool', aired October 13. source
1963 Appeared in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, one of more than 50 films. source
1965 Accepted Peter Ustinov's supporting-actor Oscar for Topkapi at the April 1965 Academy Awards. source
1967 Began The Jonathan Winters Show, an hour-long CBS variety series that ran until 1969. source
1982 Joined Mork & Mindy as Mearth, the son of Robin Williams's character, in the show's final season. source
1991 Won his only Emmy, as best supporting actor in Davis Rules. source
1996 Won the Grammy for best spoken comedy album for Crank(y) Calls. source
1999 Received the Kennedy Center's second Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. source
2002 Recorded a two-and-a-half-hour oral history for the Television Academy Foundation on October 11, covering his Marine service, WING and WBNS-TV. source
2013 Died of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California, on April 11, aged 87. source

What Jonathan is known for

Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, 1999
Two Grammys and a Primetime Emmy (Davis Rules, 1991)
Characters Maude Frickert and Elwood P. Suggins
Davis Rules (1991)

Stories

Talking to himself in Springfield

When Winters was seven, his parents separated and his mother took him to Springfield to live with his maternal grandmother. 'Mother and dad didn't understand me; I didn't understand them,' he told Jim Lehrer in 1999. Alone in his room he made up characters and interviewed himself, and as a poor student he kept talking to himself and built up a stock of strange sound effects. He entertained his high-school friends by imitating a whole race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He fought boys who mocked him for having no father at home, and later said his adult life had been a response to that sorrow. In his senior year at Springfield High School he quit and joined the Marines at 17.

Source

A wristwatch and a Dayton radio job

After the war Winters studied art at Kenyon College and the Dayton Art Institute, hoping to draw political cartoons. At his wife's urging he entered a Dayton talent contest and won its prize, a wristwatch. The win got him hired as the morning disc jockey at WING. Unable to attract real guests to the show, he invented them. He then spent two years at a Columbus television station before leaving for New York in 1953.

Source

Sir Edmund Denler on the morning show

At the Dayton radio station Winters was supposed to read the time and the temperature. He grew bored with weather reports, and around his third day on the air he decided to interview himself. His guests were invented characters, among them an aviator called Sir Edmund Denler. The station owner wanted only time and temperature, and Winters never told listeners that the guests were imaginary. The habit of switching between characters within seconds became the core of his act on television.

Source

Johnny Winters of WBNS-TV

Before he was Jonathan Winters on national television, he was 'Johnny Winters' on WBNS-TV in Columbus, where he worked for about two and a half years in the early 1950s; a surviving station photo shows him selling Gambrinus beer for the August Wagner Breweries. The station's program director, Jerome R. 'Ted' Reeves, arranged his first audition with CBS in New York. Winters promised his wife he would come back to Dayton if he had not made it within a year, and he left for New York with $56.46 in his pocket, staying with friends in Greenwich Village.

Source

Honors and things named for them

Mark Twain Prize, 1999
Two Grammys
Primetime Emmy, 1991

Family

wife: Eileen Schauder

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

1 Former Springfield High School building (1911; later South High School; now the Springfield Center of Innovation: The Dome), 700 South Limestone Street
Springfield Clark County · source
2 Kenyon College
Gambier Knox County · source
3 Dayton Art Institute, where he studied cartooning and met his wife
Dayton Montgomery County · source

Ohio places

Where Jonathan Winters was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Born: Dayton, Montgomery County ZIP 45402 · Dayton · Montgomery County
Lived: Springfield, Clark County ZIP 45502 · Springfield · Clark County
School: Gambier (Kenyon College), Knox County ZIP 43022 · Gambier · Knox County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Jonathan Winters, and what the record shows.

Often said Winters was a Kenyon College graduate.

The record Kenyon lists him with the class of 1950 but marks him as having 'attended'. He studied there after the war and then went on to the Dayton Art Institute; no source opened says he took a Kenyon degree. source

Often said Winters dropped out of high school for the Marines and never finished.

The record He did leave Springfield High School in his senior year to enlist at 17, but the Boston Globe's obituary says he finished high school after the war, before going on to Kenyon and the Dayton Art Institute. source

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Jonathan Winters interview, The Interviews: An Oral History of Television (October 11, 2002, Santa Barbara; interviewer Dan Pasternack) 2002, Television Academy Foundation

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

Jonathan Winters as a truck driver
Public domain
Jonathan Winters crashes through a wall
Public domain
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. L-R: Dorothy Provine, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Ethel Merman, Milton Berl...
Public domain
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. L-R: Dorothy Provine, Sid Caesar, and Jonathan Winters
Public domain
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. L-R: Edie Adams, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle, Mi...
Public domain
Jonathan Winters as a truck driver
Public domain
Photo of Jonathan Winters performing one of his routines on the television program The NBC Comedy Hour (an int...
Public domain
Publicity photo of Jonathan Winters
Public domain
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Back L-R: Milton Berle, Terry-Thomas, and Jonathan Winters. Front: Ethel Merm...
Public domain
Entertainer Jonathan Winters performs in a United Service Organizations (USO) show in the Pensacola Civic Cent...
Public domain
Comedian Jonathan Winters and actress Angela Lansbury posing with an Oscar at the 1965 Academy Awards. Winters...
John Malmin, Los Angeles Times / CC BY 4.0
Oct 20 1999 Mark Twain awards Kennedy center Wash. D.C.
John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com / CC BY-SA 2.0