In the 1960s, Winchell wrote some columns for the film magazine "Photoplay". He announced his retirement on February 5, 1969, citing his son's suicide as a major reason as well as the delicate health of his companion, June Magee. Exactly one year after his retirement, Magee died at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, while undergoing treatment for a heart condition. Winchell spent his final two years as a recluse at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Larry King, who replaced Winchell at the "Miami Herald", recalled:  He was so sad. You know what Winchell was doing at the end? Typing out mimeographed sheets with his column, handing them out on the corner. That's how sad he got. When he died, only one person came to his funeral: his daughter. Several of Winchell's former co-workers had expressed a willingness to go but were turned back by his daughter Walda. Winchell died of prostate cancer at the age of 74 on February 20, 1972, in Los Angeles, California. He is buried at Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery in Phoenix. Even during Winchell's lifetime, journalists were critical of his effect on the media. In 1940, St. Clair McKelway, who had earlier written a series of articles about him in "The New Yorker", wrote in "Time":  the effect of Winchellism on the standards of the press... When Winchell began gossiping in 1924 for the late scatological tabloid "Evening Graphic", no U.S. paper hawked rumors about the marital relations of public figures until they turned up in divorce courts. For 16 years, gossip columns spread until even the staid "New York Times" whispered that it heard from friends of a son of the President that he was going to be divorced. In its first year, "The Graphic" would have considered this news not fit to print... Gossip-writing is at present like a spirochete in the body of journalism... Newspapers... have never been held in less esteem by their readers or exercised less influence on the political and ethical thought of the times. Winchell responded to McKelway saying, "Oh stop! You talk like a high-school student of journalism." Despite the controversy surrounding Winchell, his popularity allowed him to leverage support for causes that he valued. In 1946, following the death from cancer of his close friend and fellow writer Damon Runyon, Winchell appealed to his radio audience for contributions to fight the disease.