# Jonathan Winters
**Jonathan Winters** (Jonathan Harshman Winters III; 1925–2013) was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist whose stream-of-consciousness improvisation, celebrity mimicry, and invented characters made him an acknowledged model for later improvisers such as [Lily Tomlin](https://www.edgepedia.org/lily-tomlin) and [Robin Williams](https://www.edgepedia.org/robin-williams).[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) • [2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html) He began as a stand-up comedian and radio disc jockey in Ohio, became a national television figure in the 1950s, and worked in the medium for more than half a century.[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Encyclopedias/Archive-Encyclopedia-of-Television/Encyclopedia-of-Television-Vol-4.pdf) • [4](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/comic-legend-jonathan-winters-dies-at-87)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name and dates | Jonathan Harshman Winters III; born 1925; died April 11, 2013 at his longtime home in Montecito, California, aged 87[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) • [5](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/jonathan-winters) • [2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html) |
| Signature style | Improvisational character comedy with mimicry and realistic sound effects, a rotary phone being dialed, raindrops, a rushing subway[2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html) |
| First TV series | *The Jonathan Winters Show*, a 15-minute NBC program that introduced his characters Maude Frickert and Elwood P. Suggins[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) |
| Signature characters | Maude Frickert, a granny he performed in drag; Elwood P. Suggins; Chester Honeyhugger; King Kwasi[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) • [2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html) |
| Emmy | Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, 1991, as Gunny Davis on *Davis Rules*; nominated in 2003 as Q.T. Marlens on *Life With Bonnie*[5](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/jonathan-winters) |
| Honors | Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (1999); star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, February 8, 1960, at 6290 Hollywood Blvd[6](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005565/awards/) |
| Recordings | Recorded 12 albums for Verve[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Encyclopedias/Archive-Encyclopedia-of-Television/Encyclopedia-of-Television-Vol-4.pdf) |
## Early life and radio years
Winters served in the Marines in World War II, where he gave his first comedic performance, and after the war he attended art school before a local station asked him to work as a disc jockey at WING in [Dayton, Ohio](https://www.edgepedia.org/dayton-ohio).[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) • [7](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jonathan-winters-mn0000824219) His job description called only for introducing records and reading news and weather, but his ad-libbed remarks and a menagerie of strange voices came to dominate his weekday broadcasts.[7](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jonathan-winters-mn0000824219) He moved to WBNS television in [Columbus, Ohio](https://www.edgepedia.org/columbus-ohio), where he hosted a local program for three years, and became a nightclub comedian in New York in 1953.[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Encyclopedias/Archive-Encyclopedia-of-Television/Encyclopedia-of-Television-Vol-4.pdf) • [1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters)
**A turning piece of advice.** While he was struggling to make a name for himself in the early 1950s, a man at the nightclub where he performed observed that although Winters could channel celebrities such as [Gary Cooper](https://www.edgepedia.org/gary-cooper) and [Boris Karloff](https://www.edgepedia.org/boris-karloff), "All you're doing is shining their shoes. You'd best think up your own characters." Winters later called this "the best hunk of criticism I ever got."[2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html)
## Television and characters
Winters broke onto the national scene in the 1950s in television's early years, appearing on *The Steve Allen Show* and *The Garry Moore Show* and guesting on *The Tonight Show* under [Steve Allen](https://www.edgepedia.org/steve-allen).[4](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/comic-legend-jonathan-winters-dies-at-87) • [1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) In 1956 NBC gave him his own variety series, and in 1958 he became one of the regular panelists on *Masquerade Party*.[8](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Radio-Programming/The-Encyclopedia-of-American-Television-Lackman-2002.pdf) The first *Jonathan Winters Show* was a 15-minute program whose format he described in a later interview, and it introduced two of his best-known characters, the granny Maude Frickert and Elwood P. Suggins.[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) Other characters from this period included the redneck ballplayer, a lisping child, a prissy schoolmarm, Chester Honeyhugger, and King Kwasi; Maude Frickert, performed in drag, he described as a cross between Whistler's and [Norman Bates](https://www.edgepedia.org/norman-bates)' mothers.[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) • [2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html)
His improvisation made him a coveted guest on talk shows and variety programs. [Jack Paar](https://www.edgepedia.org/jack-paar), introducing him on the "Tonight" show, quipped, "If you ask me who are the 25 most funny people I know, I would say, 'Here they are: Jonathan Winters.'"[2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html) He also appeared on *The Jack Paar Show*, guest-hosted it, worked with [Andy Williams](https://www.edgepedia.org/andy-williams), Dean Martin, and [Bob Hope](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-hope), and took a dramatic role on Rod Serling's *The Twilight Zone*.[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) In his own account he did the first color TV show in the United States.[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters)
**1961.** In his Television Academy interview Winters discussed a nervous breakdown in 1961, for which he was diagnosed as manic depressive.[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) In 1963 he appeared in the star-studded comedy film *It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World*.[8](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Radio-Programming/The-Encyclopedia-of-American-Television-Lackman-2002.pdf)
## Later career
Winters's television work was hard to contain in conventional formats; one encyclopedia notes that his comedy was almost too unpredictable for network television, and that he was given more freedom in *The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters*, a syndicated program built around his improvisations.[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Encyclopedias/Archive-Encyclopedia-of-Television/Encyclopedia-of-Television-Vol-4.pdf) The series ran from 1972 to 1974, and in the same period he recorded [Ogden Nash](https://www.edgepedia.org/ogden-nash)'s poem "The Carnival of the Animals" on LP.[9](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/jonathan-winters/) On film he appeared occasionally, most notably in the 1960s in *It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World*, *The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming*, and *The Loved One*, and later in *The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle*.[2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html) He voiced Grandpa Smurf in the 1980s television cartoon series and Papa Smurf in the later Smurfs film.[10](https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/138822853/plus.npr.org/throughline) In television comedy he joined the cast of *Mork & Mindy*, appeared on *Hee Haw*, and won the 1991 Emmy for *Davis Rules*; his last major nomination came in 2003 for playing Q.T. Marlens on *Life With Bonnie*.[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters) • [5](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/jonathan-winters)
In 2011 he was the subject of the mockumentary *Certifiably Jonathan*, which followed his life and career while indulging in a storyline about the comic's attempts to get his paintings into the [Museum of Modern Art](https://www.edgepedia.org/museum-of-modern-art); painting was a lifelong parallel pursuit for a performer who had first trained in art school.[9](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/jonathan-winters/) • [1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters)
## Influence and honors
The Los Angeles Times obituary described Winters as a "creative godfather" to later generations of comedians including Lily Tomlin and Robin Williams.[2](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html) In a 1978 profile, Time noted that Robin Williams in his club act displayed a range encompassing Winters, Danny Kaye, Steve Martin, and [Daffy Duck](https://www.edgepedia.org/daffy-duck), and that as a child Williams had tape-recorded television routines of comics including Winters and practiced imitations of his characterizations such as Maude Frickert.[11](https://time.com/3991288/robin-williams-articles/) • [12](https://time.com/3102046/robin-williams-dead-hollywood-television-movies/) Winters was also a member of [Sons of the Desert](https://www.edgepedia.org/sons-of-the-desert), the Laurel and Hardy appreciation society founded by fans in 1965, alongside Dick Cavett, Dick Van Dyke, and Soupy Sales.[13](https://time.com/5483354/true-story-story-behind-the-movie-stan-ollie/)
His awards trace the length of the career. He received his Hollywood Walk of Fame star for television on February 8, 1960, won the Primetime Emmy for *Davis Rules* in 1991 and an American Comedy Award the same year for *Jonathan Winters and His Traveling Road Show*, received a 1987 Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy, and was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1999.[6](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005565/awards/) Later honors included lifetime achievement recognitions at the Ojai and TV Land awards programs and a 2003 DVDX Award for *Comic Book: The Movie*, shared with Sid Caesar.[6](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005565/awards/) His advice to those starting out in comedy, as he gave it in his 2002 interview, was to be an observer: "You must look at everything around you."[1](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters)
## References
1. [Jonathan Winters, Television Academy Interviews (interview conducted by Dan Pasternack, October 11, 2002, Santa Barbara, CA)](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/jonathan-winters)
2. [Dennis McLellan, "Jonathan Winters dies at 87; comic genius of improvisation," Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2013](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-me-winters-20130413-story.html)
3. ["Winters, Jonathan," The Encyclopedia of Television, Vol. 4](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Encyclopedias/Archive-Encyclopedia-of-Television/Encyclopedia-of-Television-Vol-4.pdf)
4. ["Comic Legend Jonathan Winters Dies at 87," PBS NewsHour](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/comic-legend-jonathan-winters-dies-at-87)
5. [Jonathan Winters, Television Academy awards and nominations](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/jonathan-winters)
6. [Jonathan Winters, Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005565/awards/)
7. [Jason Ankeny, "Jonathan Winters Biography," AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jonathan-winters-mn0000824219)
8. ["Winters, Jonathan," The Encyclopedia of American Television (Lackman, 2002)](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Radio-Programming/The-Encyclopedia-of-American-Television-Lackman-2002.pdf)
9. ["Jonathan Winters, Comedian, Actor, Writer, Host, Artist," TVInsider](https://www.tvinsider.com/people/jonathan-winters/)
10. ["Jonathan Winters Reflects On A Lifetime Of Laughs," North Country Public Radio / NPR](https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/138822853/plus.npr.org/throughline)
11. ["The first full-fledged TIME article about Williams," TIME, October 1978](https://time.com/3991288/robin-williams-articles/)
12. ["Robin Williams Dead: Television: Manic of Ork," TIME, March 12, 1979](https://time.com/3102046/robin-williams-dead-hollywood-television-movies/)
13. ["The Not-So-Funny True Comedy Story Behind the Movie Stan & Ollie," TIME](https://time.com/5483354/true-story-story-behind-the-movie-stan-ollie/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Theater and dance › Stand-up comedy and comedians › American stand-up comedians, contemporary › Stand-up comedians born before 1940*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license