Bob Considine
Encyclopedia
Robert "Bob" Bernard Considine (November 4, 1906 – September 25, 1975) was an American
writer and commentator. He is best-known for co-writing Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
and The Babe Ruth Story
.
and George Washington University
, both in his hometown of Washington, DC. He worked as a government employee there, as well.
He launched his career as a journalist by his own initiative. In 1930, he purportedly went to the editors of the now defunct Washington Herald to complain when they misspelled his name in a report about an amateur tennis tournament in which he had participated. He was hired as the newspaper's tennis reporter. He later wrote drama reviews and Sunday feature articles. The newspaper was one in a syndicate of major-market daily newspapers owned by media magnate William Randolph Hearst
. As such, Considine could and would use this fact to his advantage.
He would later become a war correspondent with the International News Service
, also owned by Hearst, with the advent of World War II
.
The wire service was a predecessor to United Press International
. And, his column "On the Line" was a well known syndicated feature.
"Bob Considine is no great writer, but he is the Hearstling who regularly gets there first with the most words on almost any subject," wrote Time magazine in an un-bylined profile.
With Ted W. Lawson, Considine wrote Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, an account of Lt. Col. James Doolittle's 1942 air raid on Japan that was released the following year. It became a best-selling book.
Considine was prolific, with a level of production few could match. "Considine's speed, accuracy, and concentration as a writer and his seemingly inexhaustible energy were legendary in the newspaper profession. He was known to work at two typewriters at one time, writing a news story on one and a column or book on the other. His colleagues at the Washington Post recalled that he wrote a column on the 1942 World Series in nine minutes--on a train with his typewriter on a baggage car and the conductor shouting, 'All aboard.'," according to the Dictionary of American Biography.
In 1955, Considine was a panelist on the television
game show
Who Said That?
, then hosted on American Broadcasting Company
by John Charles Daly
, in which celebrities attempt to determine the speaker of a quotation in the recent news.
But he was not without his detractors. Considine was often taken to task for biased reporting, as in an article about then president Harry S. Truman
that appeared in 1946. Simply working for Hearst was enough for others. “I was talking to Harry [Bridges] about a miserable anti-union article by a Hearst columnist named Bob Considine,” remembered journalist Sidney Roger in a series of interviews. “He was a quintessential Hearstling. Very anti-union and very pro-war. I was describing what Considine wrote in his column. Harry said, ‘I saw it, but you know, after all he works for Hearst and he's loyal to Hearst and Hearst's ideas.’”
A profile of the writer appearing in Time bore the headline "Ghost at Work," alluding to the numerous works to which he contributed in a behind-the-scenes role. "Ghostwriter Considine dashes off his fast-moving autobiographies while their heroes still rate Page One, takes one-third of the 'author's' royalties as his cut. His General Wainwright's Story was in print before Wainwright was out of the hospital. While Ted Lawson was still recovering from wounds suffered in Doolittle's Tokyo raid, Considine finished Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo." He made an estimated $100,000 USD annually.
He continued to work for Hearst while writing his books and adapting some of them into screenplays. He was not daunted by the pace of his schedule. "Last year [1948] I spent time in Palm Springs, Paris and Mexico City. I covered the Kentucky Derby and talked to the Pope. I even saw the World Series. It's a pretty good job,'" he told Time.
With the creation of United Press International in 1958, Considine remained on the Hearst payroll, but his work was syndicated through the wire service.
Considine had a notable array of admirers in high places; he had correspondence from
Lyndon B. Johnson
, Harry S. Truman
, Rube Goldberg
, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Cardinal Francis Spellman, and General William C. Westmoreland. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
in a 1960 letter to William Randolph Hearst, Jr.
, he praised Considine's reporting on the downing of an American aircraft used for intelligence gathering and the abrupt ending to the American-Soviet summit in Paris in 1960. "Writing this note gives me also an opportunity to express my satisfaction over the balanced and reasonable way the Hearst papers handled the recent U-2 incident and the 'Summit' meeting. I thought that some of the pieces by Bob Considine were excellent, and of course from my viewpoint they were highly complimentary. I never forget the old saw -- 'He is a great man; he agrees with me.'"
In his final column in 1975, Considine reportedly wrote: "I'll croak in the newspaper business. Is there any better way to go?" He died in Manhattan that same year following a stroke. Bob Considine is interred in a crypt at Gate of Heaven Cemetery
in Hawthorne, New York
.
His papers are kept at Syracuse University
. The collection includes correspondence, tape recordings, and typescripts, among other ephemera.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer and commentator. He is best-known for co-writing Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is a 1944 MGM war film. It is based on the true story of America's first retaliatory air strike against Japan four months after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The movie was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sam Zimbalist. The screenplay by...
and The Babe Ruth Story
The Babe Ruth Story
The Babe Ruth Story is a 1948 baseball film biography of Babe Ruth, the famed New York Yankees slugger. It stars William Bendix as the ballplayer and Claire Trevor as his wife. It was rush released while Ruth himself was still alive. It makes no mention whatsoever of Ruth's first wife,...
.
Biography
As a student, Considine attended Gonzaga College High SchoolGonzaga College High School
Gonzaga College High School is a Jesuit high school for boys located in Washington, D.C. The school is named in honor of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, an Italian saint from the 16th century...
and George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
, both in his hometown of Washington, DC. He worked as a government employee there, as well.
He launched his career as a journalist by his own initiative. In 1930, he purportedly went to the editors of the now defunct Washington Herald to complain when they misspelled his name in a report about an amateur tennis tournament in which he had participated. He was hired as the newspaper's tennis reporter. He later wrote drama reviews and Sunday feature articles. The newspaper was one in a syndicate of major-market daily newspapers owned by media magnate William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
. As such, Considine could and would use this fact to his advantage.
He would later become a war correspondent with the International News Service
International News Service
International News Service was a U.S.-based news agency founded by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1909.Established two years after the Scripps family founded the United Press Association, INS scrapped among the newswires...
, also owned by Hearst, with the advent of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
The wire service was a predecessor to United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
. And, his column "On the Line" was a well known syndicated feature.
"Bob Considine is no great writer, but he is the Hearstling who regularly gets there first with the most words on almost any subject," wrote Time magazine in an un-bylined profile.
With Ted W. Lawson, Considine wrote Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, an account of Lt. Col. James Doolittle's 1942 air raid on Japan that was released the following year. It became a best-selling book.
Considine was prolific, with a level of production few could match. "Considine's speed, accuracy, and concentration as a writer and his seemingly inexhaustible energy were legendary in the newspaper profession. He was known to work at two typewriters at one time, writing a news story on one and a column or book on the other. His colleagues at the Washington Post recalled that he wrote a column on the 1942 World Series in nine minutes--on a train with his typewriter on a baggage car and the conductor shouting, 'All aboard.'," according to the Dictionary of American Biography.
In 1955, Considine was a panelist on the television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
Who Said That?
Who Said That?
Who Said That? is a 1947-55 NBC radio-television game show, in which a panel of celebrities attempts to determine the speaker of a quotation from recent news reports. The series was first proposed and edited by Fred W. Friendly, later of CBS News....
, then hosted on American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
by John Charles Daly
John Charles Daly
John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly (generally known as John Charles Daly or simply John Daly (February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991) was an American journalist, game show host and radio personality, probably best known for hosting...
, in which celebrities attempt to determine the speaker of a quotation in the recent news.
But he was not without his detractors. Considine was often taken to task for biased reporting, as in an article about then president Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
that appeared in 1946. Simply working for Hearst was enough for others. “I was talking to Harry [Bridges] about a miserable anti-union article by a Hearst columnist named Bob Considine,” remembered journalist Sidney Roger in a series of interviews. “He was a quintessential Hearstling. Very anti-union and very pro-war. I was describing what Considine wrote in his column. Harry said, ‘I saw it, but you know, after all he works for Hearst and he's loyal to Hearst and Hearst's ideas.’”
A profile of the writer appearing in Time bore the headline "Ghost at Work," alluding to the numerous works to which he contributed in a behind-the-scenes role. "Ghostwriter Considine dashes off his fast-moving autobiographies while their heroes still rate Page One, takes one-third of the 'author's' royalties as his cut. His General Wainwright's Story was in print before Wainwright was out of the hospital. While Ted Lawson was still recovering from wounds suffered in Doolittle's Tokyo raid, Considine finished Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo." He made an estimated $100,000 USD annually.
He continued to work for Hearst while writing his books and adapting some of them into screenplays. He was not daunted by the pace of his schedule. "Last year [1948] I spent time in Palm Springs, Paris and Mexico City. I covered the Kentucky Derby and talked to the Pope. I even saw the World Series. It's a pretty good job,'" he told Time.
With the creation of United Press International in 1958, Considine remained on the Hearst payroll, but his work was syndicated through the wire service.
Considine had a notable array of admirers in high places; he had correspondence from
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
, Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
, Rube Goldberg
Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor.He is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complex gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. These devices, now known as Rube Goldberg machines, are similar to...
, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Cardinal Francis Spellman, and General William C. Westmoreland. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
in a 1960 letter to William Randolph Hearst, Jr.
William Randolph Hearst, Jr.
William Randolph Hearst, Jr. was the second son of the publisher William Randolph Hearst. He became editor-in-chief of Hearst Newspapers after the death of his father in 1951. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his interview with Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, and associated commentaries in...
, he praised Considine's reporting on the downing of an American aircraft used for intelligence gathering and the abrupt ending to the American-Soviet summit in Paris in 1960. "Writing this note gives me also an opportunity to express my satisfaction over the balanced and reasonable way the Hearst papers handled the recent U-2 incident and the 'Summit' meeting. I thought that some of the pieces by Bob Considine were excellent, and of course from my viewpoint they were highly complimentary. I never forget the old saw -- 'He is a great man; he agrees with me.'"
In his final column in 1975, Considine reportedly wrote: "I'll croak in the newspaper business. Is there any better way to go?" He died in Manhattan that same year following a stroke. Bob Considine is interred in a crypt at Gate of Heaven Cemetery
Gate of Heaven Cemetery
The Gate of Heaven Cemetery, approximately 25 miles north of New York City, was established in 1917 at 10 West Stevens Ave. in Hawthorne, Westchester County, New York, United States, as a Roman Catholic burial site...
in Hawthorne, New York
Hawthorne, New York
Hawthorne is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place located in the town of Mount Pleasant in Westchester County, New York. The population was 4,586 at the 2010 census.-History:...
.
His papers are kept at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
. The collection includes correspondence, tape recordings, and typescripts, among other ephemera.
Select Works
- MacArthur the Magnificent, 1942
- Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, 1943
- The Babe Ruth Story, written with Babe Ruth, 1948
- The Red Plot Against America, with Robert E. Stripling. 1949
- Innocents at Home, 1950
- The Maryknoll Story, 1950
- The Panama Canal, 1951
- It's the Irish, 1961
- The Men Who Robbed Brink's, 1961
- Ripley, The Modern Marco Polo, 1961 - The Life and Times of the Creator of Ripley's Believe It or Not!Ripley's Believe It or Not!Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a franchise, founded by Robert Ripley, which deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims...
- The Remarkable Life of Armand Hammer, 1975
- It's All News to Me, 1967
- Toots, 1969