2025 Essays

Tildy Winks

Abel, Richard

In December 1916, the Tulsa [Oklahoma] Times began printing a column with the byline of Tildy Winks. The column appeared as many as a few days a week in either the Times or the Tulsa Democrat through August 1917 and less frequently after that, until early January 1920. From early February 1917 onward, nearly half of the columns were devoted to film reviews, little essays on the movies, and gossip. During the last four months, many of the columns were headed “It Happened in Filmland,” ending with movie theater listings, now edited by Tildy Winks. The woman using this catchy nom de plume, unfortunately, remains unknown, unlike earlier “girl reporters” such as Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) or concurrent film reviewers such as Mae Tinée (Francis Peck) or Dorothy Day (Dorothy Gottlieb). Even the Tulsa Historical Society, when asked, found no records of her (Williams). The graphic head shot topping some of her early columns gave her a “bohemian” look, which she once admitted was scarce in Tulsa (“Bohemians Here?”).