William David Wine, who wrote freelance movie reviews for the Chestnut Hill Local every week from July 2019 to October 2021, died of age-related illnesses June 14 at home in Wyncote. He was 81. Wine was born in Germantown to a father who was a printer and a mother who stayed at home to raise her family.
For many years before writing reviews for the Local, Wine wrote about movies for KYW NewsRadio, WTFX-TV and WIP radio, the Camden Courier Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Magazine, The Drummer and The Village Voice.
When he started at KYW, Wine replaced Roger Ebert, the late longtime Chicago Sun-Times critic and TV personality, whose work was syndicated. Wine said the move wasn’t because he was better than Ebert but because the station wanted a local voice with a Philly accent.
When he was writing for the Local, I kidded Wine that he was a “dinosaur” since almost no newspapers and magazines run movie reviews anymore because of the Internet. “You can read 50 reviews of a movie, whether it is new or old on Rotten Tomatoes (a movie review website),” he conceded, “so they don’t need people like us anymore. Let’s face it, we are all dinosaurs. When I was starting out, you could take a train to Center City, and most of the people on the train would be reading a newspaper or a book. Now almost every one is looking at a phone. Those phones killed us.”
Wine appreciated a good pun. Since he wrote about old movies as well as new ones, I told him that his articles about old movies were “like old Wine in new bottles.”
“You’re not the first one to kid me about my last name,” he said, “but I think it is the finest vintage.”
Walt Maguire, the interim editor for the Local during the pandemic, told us last week, “Bill’s knowledge of film needs no explanation. Even now, his reviews hold up well. … He let others have their say before he came in with the details that pulled the conversation together and made everyone he was talking to feel like they had made an important point, even if it was just about the cheese being served at the buffet. He was, in other words, a nice man. You could see how much his daughters loved him, and his friends lit up when he walked into the room.”
Wine was also a tenured professor at La Salle University, where he taught in the communications department from 1979 until he retired in 2015. He did reviews on KYW Newsradio from 2001 until 2018, when a spokesperson at the station said, “We are refocusing KYW content to better serve our listeners in the Philadelphia region.”
Wine earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Drexel University. According to the Cremation Society of Philadelphia website, Wine realized early on that his true passion was television and film. His earliest memories had always been reading the credits from his favorite TV shows. After graduating from Drexel, he went on to earn a master’s degree in communications from Temple University. He completed all the course work toward a Ph.D., but decided he would rather write film and TV articles than a dissertation.
Besides reviewing movies, books and plays, he also interviewed actors and entertainers, including Orson Welles, Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Gene Wilder and Jack Lemmon. He was nominated five times and received three Emmy Awards for news writing while at Fox Channel 29.
Although he was best known for his movie reviews, Wine’s true passion was play writing. Since his father had been a child actor in the Yiddish theater, it sparked Wine’s life-long interest in the theater. He wrote 11 plays and won nine playwriting grants and 17 honorable mentions in writing competitions.
Wine could be wickedly funny, especially when delivering a pan of a movie. One of his favorite quotes was “I had a bad seat. It was facing the screen.” Another was “This director would be much more effective directing traffic than directing movies.”
Bill was an avid Philadelphia Phillies, Sixers and Eagles fan. One of his favorite memories was having announcer Harry Kalas shush him by putting his hand over his mouth in the broadcasting booth for cheering too loudly. A good athlete, he played basketball into his 70s and was a lifelong tennis player.
Wine is survived by his wife of 45 years (Suzanne), his daughters Simone (Michael) and Paulina (Seth), his three grandchildren, Nathaniel, Temma and Henry, and his sister Marcia (Lou).
A Celebration of Life will be announced at a later date as well as information about a scholarship fund in his name. In lieu of flowers, he would probably prefer that you go see a good movie in an actual theater.
Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.
