Read Online How I Got This Way by Regis Philbin - Free Book Online Page A

street, as well as all those glamorous old nightclubs that we’ll never see the likes of again. The town was jumping in new and exciting ways. So for the showbiz columnists, every day was another field day. And like clockwork, Winchell topped them all; he could seemingly jam close to two hundred names into any one column! The man was untouchable at his craft.
    But now let’s fast-forward to the early sixties, when I’d been anchoring the San Diego KOGO-TV nightly newscasts and hosting my Saturday-night talk show. Walter Winchell had always made it his habit to escape New York in the summer, especially in August, opting to cool off in Southern California instead. He loved heading to the Del Mar racetrack, just north of San Diego, about a mile off the Pacific Ocean. The track had been financed by Bing Crosby back in the thirties, and the Hollywood crowd still regularly zipped down there to hang out and bet on the races—which conveniently provided Winchell with lots of ammunition, or at least plenty of boldfaced names for his column. He also liked to hold court in the newsroom of the San Diego Union-Tribune, which carried his syndicated column. The local reporters couldn’t get enough of the stories he’d spin right on the spot. Naturally, I thought he would be a great guest for my Saturday-night show, but the reality of it intimidated me more than I can express. The local gossip columnist, Frank Rhodes, who was a good friend of mine, encouraged me to just give Winchell a call and ask him. “He’d love to come on,” Rhodes assured me.
    So I sucked up my courage and called Walter Winchell, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I was a nervous wreck. Reading his stuff for so many years had made him something of a god to me. He was the one who had the inside track to Washington for private face-to-face meetings with FDR. He was the one who not only knew every big player in show business but also had the power to make or break most of them. He was the one who Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, the murderous gangster, turned to when he was about to give himself up to the cops—but only if Winchell would walk into the police station with him. Nope, this was no ordinary guest. This guy was a very important figure in American culture. But without hesitation he said yes, that he’d be there for me Saturday night at eleven. I wish I could recall our conversation, but I’m sure I was beside myself over the whole thing. The mere idea of it stirred up a flood of memories—of how, as a kid, I’d buy the New York Daily Mirror for two cents just to read what Winchell had to say. Back in those years, there he was—planted every night at the Stork Club, right in the middle of all the glitz and glamour of New York—and now he was coming to be interviewed by me . . . on a very local but increasingly popular San Diego talk show.
    When he arrived at the studio, he looked exactly the same as he had in all the pictures I’d ever seen of him since the time I was ten years old. He was snazzy as could be in a fedora hat, a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a matching blue tie. But here’s what you also need to know about Winchell, if you don’t already: He was quite controversial. He had an enormous ego. A lot of people hated him for that ego and for his shifting politics and even for his successes. And now, face-to-face with him, I felt his electricity. It was almost overwhelming, but there we were on camera in a couple of chairs reviewing his life. It was Winchell talking about Winchell-in-action, and you could tell pretty quickly that it was a topic he enjoyed thoroughly. Out poured his personal greatest tales spanning the old glory days and beyond—classic New York scandals, behind-the-scenes Broadway feuds, crazy antics in the nightclubs, and his lively relationships with movie stars, mobsters, cops, politicians, singers, everybody. Every minute of it was beyond fascinating. At one point, he even got up and encouraged me to join him