Dorothy Kilgallen
Encyclopedia
Dorothy Mae Kilgallen was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and television 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...

 panelist. She started her career early as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...

's New York Evening Journal after spending only two semesters at The College of New Rochelle
The College of New Rochelle
The College of New Rochelle is a private Catholic college with its main campus located in New Rochelle, New York. The College of St. Angela was founded by the Order of the Ursulines as the first Catholic women's college in New York state in 1904, a time when women were generally excluded from...

 in New Rochelle, New York
New Rochelle, New York
New Rochelle is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state.The town was settled by refugee Huguenots in 1688 who were fleeing persecution in France...

. In 1936, she began her newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, which was eventually syndicated to over 146 papers. She became a regular panelist on the television game show What's My Line?
What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....

in 1950.

Kilgallen's columns featured mostly show business
Show business
Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz, is a vernacular term for all aspects of entertainment. The word applies to all aspects of the entertainment industry from the business side to the creative element ....

 news and gossip
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...

, but also ventured into other topics like politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 and organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

. She wrote front-page articles on events such as the Sam Sheppard
Sam Sheppard
Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard was an American osteopathic physician and neurosurgeon, who was involved in an infamous and controversial murder trial. He was convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, in 1954, while residing in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Sheppard served...

 trial and later the John F. Kennedy assassination
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

, becoming the only reporter to interview Jack Ruby
Jack Ruby
Jacob Leon Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was convicted of the November 24, 1963 murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby, who was originally from Chicago, Illinois, was then a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas...

, Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...

's killer, out of earshot of sheriffs' deputies. The circumstances of Kilgallen's death have been the subject of conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...

. Because the cause of her death was officially ruled as "undetermined," and because she openly criticized U.S. government agencies as far back as 1959, some believe that Kilgallen was actually murdered in order to silence her.

Early life and career

Born in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Kilgallen was the daughter of 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...

 newspaperman James Lawrence Kilgallen (1888–1982) and his wife Mae Ahern. The family moved from Chicago to Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

, Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, and back to Chicago before finally settling in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Dorothy's sister Eleanor, six years her junior, became a casting agent for movies and television shows. After two semesters at The College of New Rochelle
The College of New Rochelle
The College of New Rochelle is a private Catholic college with its main campus located in New Rochelle, New York. The College of St. Angela was founded by the Order of the Ursulines as the first Catholic women's college in New York state in 1904, a time when women were generally excluded from...

, Dorothy Kilgallen dropped out to take a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Journal, which was owned and operated by the Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...

. She was Roman Catholic.

In 1936, Kilgallen competed with two other New York newspaper reporters in a race around the world using only means of transportation available to the general public. She was the only female contestant and she came in second. She described the event in her book Girl Around The World and penned the screenplay for a 1937 movie, Fly Away Baby, starring Glenda Farrell
Glenda Farrell
-Career:Farrell came to Hollywood towards the end of the silent era. Farrell began her career with a theatrical company at the age of 7. She played Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin...

, as the Kilgallen-inspired character. During a stint living in Hollywood in 1936 and 1937, Kilgallen wrote a daily column that could only be read in New York that nonetheless provoked a libel suit from Constance Bennett
Constance Bennett
-Early life:She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison , a wealthy performer of English and Spanish ancestry...

, "who in the early thirties had been the highest paid performer in motion pictures," according to a Kilgallen biography, "but who was [in 1937] experiencing a temporary decline in popular appeal."

Back in New York in 1938, Kilgallen began writing a daily column, the Voice of Broadway, for Hearst's New York Journal American
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...

, which the corporation created by merging the Evening Journal with the American. The column, which she wrote until her death in 1965, featured mostly New York show business
Show business
Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz, is a vernacular term for all aspects of entertainment. The word applies to all aspects of the entertainment industry from the business side to the creative element ....

 news and gossip
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...

, but also ventured into other topics like politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 and organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

. The column was eventually syndicated to 146 papers via King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

.

In April 1940, Kilgallen married Richard Kollmar (1910-1971) who had starred in the musicals Knickerbocker Holiday
Knickerbocker Holiday
Knickerbocker Holiday is a musical written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson ; it was directed by Joshua Logan. Among the songs introduced was the "September Song", now considered a pop standard.- History :...

and Too Many Girls
Too Many Girls (musical)
Too Many Girls is a Broadway musical comedy and a 1940 film version of the show, starring Lucille Ball.-Broadway version:Too Many Girls opened October 18, 1939, with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and book by George Marion Jr. It was produced by George Abbott...

. Beginning in April 1945, Kilgallen co-hosted a WOR-AM
WOR (AM)
WOR is a class A , AM radio station located in New York, New York, U.S., operating on 710 kHz. The station has a talk format and has been owned by Buckley Broadcasting since 1987, after the station was sold by RKO. The station has conservative, or right-of-center hosts.Its call letters have no...

 radio talk show, Breakfast With Dorothy and Dick, with Kollmar from their 16-room apartment at 630 Park Avenue. The show followed them when they purchased a Georgian brownstone
Brownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house clad in this material.-Types:-Apostle Island brownstone:...

 at 45 East 68th Street in 1952. The radio program, which like Kilgallen's newspaper column mixed entertainment with serious issues, remained on the air until 1963.

In 1950, Kilgallen became a panelist on the American television 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...

 What's My Line?
What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....

, which aired on the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 television network from 1950 to 1967. She remained on the show for 15 years until her death. Fellow panelist Bennett Cerf
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf was a publisher and co-founder of Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?.-Biography:Bennett Cerf...

 claimed that, unlike the rest of the panel's priority on getting a laugh and entertaining the audience, Kilgallen's main interest was guessing the right answers. She would also, according to Cerf, milk her time on camera by asking more questions than necessary, the answers to which she knew to be affirmative.

Cerf described Kilgallen as an outsider among her castmates for two reasons: The first being her political point of view, that of a "Hearst girl," differed from the others', and the second being that information elicited during dressing-room conversations would subsequently appear in Kilgallen's gossip column. Cerf, speaking for his fellow panelists, panel moderator and himself in an audio-tape-recorded interview at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 two years and two months after Kilgallen's death, said, "We didn't like that."

Kilgallen was among the notables on the guest list who attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, in 1953. Kilgallen's articles won her a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 nomination during this era.

In 1958, Kilgallen and her husband Kollmar, along with Albert W. Selden, co-produced a musical on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 entitled The Body Beautiful
The Body Beautiful
The Body Beautiful is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein and Will Glickman, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock.The first collaboration by Harnick and Bock, and the only one to have a contemporary setting, its plot focuses on a wealthy Dartmouth College graduate who aspires to be...

. Kilgallen and her fellow panelists made mention of the show on various episodes of What's My Line? during this time period. On one episode, a cast member of the ill-fated musical (a well-built young man, billed as a "chorus boy" in the episode) appeared as a contestant and stumped the panel.

Sam Sheppard murder trial

Kilgallen covered the 1954 murder trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard
Sam Sheppard
Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard was an American osteopathic physician and neurosurgeon, who was involved in an infamous and controversial murder trial. He was convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, in 1954, while residing in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Sheppard served...

. The New York Journal American carried the banner front-page headline that she was "astounded" by the guilty verdict due to what she argued were manifest shortcomings in the prosecution's case. The doctor was convicted of bludgeoning his wife to death at their home in the Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

 suburb of Bay Village
Bay Village, Ohio
-Education:Bay High School was awarded the blue ribbon award in the school year of 2010-11.Newsweek magazine placed Bay High School 793rd in its 2009 ranking of the top 1,500 U.S...

. In the 1990s, the case was reopened and an aging convict named Richard Eberling
Richard Eberling
Richard George Eberling was a petty thief and convicted murderer who was also suspected of murdering Marilyn Sheppard, wife of Dr. Sam Sheppard; Mr...

 became a person of interest, but concrete evidence for a conviction was lacking.

Many Clevelanders believed Dr. Sheppard was guilty, including the editors of The Plain Dealer, which carried Kilgallen's syndicated column. Immediately after she wrote that the prosecutors "didn't prove he was guilty any more than they proved there are pin-headed men on Mars," her column was banned from that newspaper. Nine years later, at the Overseas Press Club
Overseas Press Club
The Overseas Press Club of America was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member...

 in New York, she revealed that the judge in the case had told her toward the beginning of the trial that Dr. Sheppard was "guilty as hell." When attorney F. Lee Bailey began the appeal of Sheppard's conviction, resulting in his July 1964 release from prison, he discovered other eyewitness accounts of the judge prejudging the case before hearing testimony or seeing evidence.

Hearst bylines

Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis was an American actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist...

, a fellow What's My Line? panelist, said in 1976, "I thought Dorothy was a marvelous journalist when she covered something like the Sheppard trial. As opposed to her gossip column." A 1991 history of the Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...

 co-authored by Bill Hearst and Jack Casserly says the company milked famous bylines for all they were worth, encouraging the star reporters to do as many diverse stories as possible to increase circulation and newsstand sales.

Kilgallen's father Jim was still a "Hearst star" in 1955 when at age 67 he traveled to Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 to cover the trial of two men charged with the murder of Emmett Till for the Hearst-owned 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...

. He also wrote profiles of movie stars.

Reporting on UFOs

On February 15, 1954, Dorothy Kilgallen commented in her syndicated column, "Flying saucers are regarded as of such vital importance that they will be the subject of a special hush-hush meeting of the world military heads next summer."

In a May 22, 1955 report from London, syndicated by the INS
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...

, Kilgallen stated, "British scientists and airmen, after examining the wreckage of one mysterious flying ship, are convinced these strange aerial objects are not optical illusions or Soviet inventions, but are flying saucers which originate on another planet. The source of my information is a British official of Cabinet rank who prefers to remain unidentified. 'We believe, on the basis of our inquiry thus far, that the saucers were staffed by small men—probably under four feet tall. It's frightening, but there is no denying the flying saucers come from another planet.'" This article, which was separate from Kilgallen's column, appeared on the front pages of the New York Journal American,
the Cincinnati Enquirer, and other newspapers. The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

ran it on page 8. Gordon Creighton, editor of the magazine Flying Saucer Review, alleged the information was given to Kilgallen by Lord Mountbatten of Burma
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...

 at a cocktail party, but attempts to verify this were unsuccessful.

Kilgallen and the Kennedy assassination

Kilgallen conducted an interview with Jack Ruby
Jack Ruby
Jacob Leon Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was convicted of the November 24, 1963 murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby, who was originally from Chicago, Illinois, was then a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas...

 inside the Dallas courthouse where he was tried for the shooting death of Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...

, although she never revealed the subject of their conversation. Approximately four or five months later, she obtained a copy of Ruby's testimony to the Warren Commission
Warren Commission
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...

, which was published on the front pages of the Journal American, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Post Intelligencer and other newspapers. Most of that testimony did not become officially available to the public until the commission released its 26 volumes in 1964.

Regarding the assassination, Kilgallen wrote, "That story isn't going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive, and there are a lot of them alive." She had a history of government criticism, suggesting in 1959 that the CIA recruited members of the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 to assassinate Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

 (which many years later was proven to be the case). By the time of the assassination, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

 had been keeping a file on the "flighty and irresponsible" columnist (his words about her preserved in his own handwriting) for 25 years.

The FBI never determined who had given the columnist a transcript of Jack Ruby's testimony to the Warren Commission. The agency abandoned, in September 1964, all attempts to identify this source. The attempts had included sending two FBI agents to her home, where Kilgallen told them she would not identify the source under any circumstances.

Other controversy

Though Kilgallen and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

 were fairly good friends and were photographed rehearsing in a radio studio for a 1948 broadcast, she grew antagonistic toward the singer in her daily column, culminating in the multi-part 1956 front-page feature, "The Frank Sinatra Story." Sinatra was angered by this and referred to her publicly as the "chinless wonder," although evidence suggests he did so only during breaks between songs at his concerts in New York and Las Vegas, not on his network television specials of the 1960s or 1970s or on radio shows. In a 1963 Rat Pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...

 performance at the Sands Hotel
Sands Hotel
The Sands Hotel was a historic Las Vegas Strip hotel/casino that operated from December 15, 1952 to June 30, 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, the Sands was the seventh resort that opened on the Strip....

 in Las Vegas, Sinatra closed the show with a joke: "As a parting remark, ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to leave you with one thought. If you happen to run into Dorothy Kilgallen, be sure you're in your car." A recording of the concert became publicly available for the first time in 2001, when Kilgallen and Sinatra were both dead.

When country music performers from Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

's Grand Ole Opry
Grand Ole Opry
The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM...

 appeared in concert at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 to benefit New York's Musicians Aid Society in 1961, Kilgallen dismissed them as "hicks from the sticks." In her column she advised that "everyone should leave town. The hillbillies are coming." Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...

, one of the headliners, responded that "Miss Dorothy called us Nashville performers 'the gang from Grand Ole Opry - hicks from the sticks.' And if I have the pleasure of seeing that wicked witch, I'll let her know how proud I am to be a hick from the sticks."

Near the end of her life, Kilgallen was embroiled in yet another controversy. The musical Skyscraper
Skyscraper (musical)
Skyscraper is a musical with a book by Peter Stone, lyrics by Sammy Cahn, and music by Jimmy Van Heusen.Based on the 1945 Elmer Rice play Dream Girl, it focuses on an antiques dealer who is determined to save her midtown Manhattan brownstone from the bulldozer. The girders of a new skyscraper are...

 was in previews at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 205 West 46th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by the architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings, it was built by producer Charles Dillingham and opened as the Globe Theatre, in honor of London's Shakespearean playhouse, on...

. In October 1965 Kilgallen attended a preview, which was a benefit for charity. There has been a long tradition of not reviewing a show that is still in previews, because the point of previews is to test audience reaction and make changes. That did not stop Kilgallen. She panned the show in one of her columns, calling it a "turkey." There was quite an uproar from the theatrical community. She died very shortly after this final controversy in her life. Skyscraper officially opened five days after her death to mixed reviews and a moderate run of 248 performances.

Death

On November 8, 1965, Kilgallen was found dead on the third floor of her five-story brownstone, just 12 hours after she appeared, live, on What's My Line?
What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....

. Her hairdresser, Marc Sinclaire, found her body when he arrived that morning to style her hair. He said decades later that she always slept on the fifth floor, adding that on November 8 he used his key to the brownstone and went directly to the third floor where he always did her hair near her large wardrobe closet. She had apparently succumbed to a fatal combination of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

 and barbiturates, possibly concurrent with a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

. It is not known whether the death was a suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 or an accidental overdose, although the amount of barbiturate
Barbiturate
Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants, and can therefore produce a wide spectrum of effects, from mild sedation to total anesthesia. They are also effective as anxiolytics, as hypnotics, and as anticonvulsants...

 in her system "could well have been accidental," according to medical examiner James Luke. Dorothy Kilgallen was interred in a modest grave 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:...

.
Kilgallen and Arlene Francis appeared as Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

 impostors on an episode of the daytime version of To Tell The Truth
To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth is an American television panel game show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has aired in various forms since 1956 both on networks and in syndication...

that was videotaped on November 2, 1965 and broadcast six days later while 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...

 broke the news about Kilgallen's death. CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...

 immediately noticed the report on its UPI machine from the Teletype Corporation
Teletype Corporation
The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment...

. Anchor Douglas Edwards
Douglas Edwards
Douglas Edwards was America's first network news television anchor, anchoring CBS's first nightly news broadcast from 1948–1962, which was later to be titled CBS Evening News.-Early life and career:...

 announced it during the five-minute live newscast he regularly did promptly after the closing credits of To Tell The Truth. He clarified for viewers that the preceding broadcast on which they had seen Kilgallen had been "prerecorded." Kilgallen's appearance on this game show episode has been lost because of wiping
Wiping
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...

. The CBS Afternoon News with Douglas Edwards was not preserved, either.

Because of her open criticism of the Warren Commission and other US government entities, and her association with Jack Ruby and a 1964 private interview with him, Ramparts (magazine)
Ramparts (magazine)
Ramparts was an American political and literary magazine, published from 1962 through 1975.-History:Founded by Edward M. Keating as a Catholic literary quarterly, the magazine became closely associated with the New Left after executive editor Warren Hinckle hired Robert Scheer as managing editor...

 speculated that she was murdered by members of the same alleged conspiracy
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...

 against JFK. The February 1967 edition of Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

, then edited by Helen Gurley Brown
Helen Gurley Brown
Helen Gurley Brown , is an author, publisher, and businesswoman. She was editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years.-Personal life and career:...

, reprinted the Ramparts article. Kilgallen's claims that she was under surveillance led to a theory that she might have been murdered. She had reportedly told a few friends after her Ruby interview that she was "about to blow the JFK case sky high." Throughout her career she consistently refused to identify any of her sources whenever a government agency questioned her, and that might have posed a threat to the alleged JFK conspirators.

Kilgallen's autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...

 did not suggest evidence
Evidence
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...

 of homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...

.. On the death certificate, however, medical examiner Luke typed "circumstances undetermined" underneath his notation "acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication." Luke spent 45 minutes at the death scene, according to Kilgallen's Washington Post obituary. The medical examiner's office documented that he had spent an hour and five minutes there. Another medical examiner named Dominick DiMaio signed the death certificate, typing below his signature that he was doing this "for James Luke." Referring to Kilgallen's death certificate, DiMaio said in a 1995 interview quoted in Midwest Today magazine, "I wasn't stationed in Manhattan [where Kilgallen died]. I was in Brooklyn. Are you sure I signed it? I don't see how the hell I could have signed it in the first place. You got me."

After death and legacy

At the time of her death in November 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen and Richard Kollmar had been married for 25 years, and she left behind three children. A year-and-a-half after Kilgallen's death, Kollmar, then 56, married designer Anne Fogarty, who had created the dress Kilgallen had worn on What's My Line? the last night of her life. Kollmar died at age 60 three years and six-and-a-half months after marrying Fogarty. Newspaper obituaries said Kollmar "died in his sleep" at home. He was not interred with Kilgallen at Gate of Heaven Cemetery. A 1979 Kilgallen biography by Lee Israel said he "took his own life in January 1971, swallowing everything in reach." Although he seemed to have swallowed many more pills than his first wife had five years and two months earlier, the medical examiner did not call it a suicide. Kollmar's death was not a major news item, as Kilgallen's had been, and medical examiner findings about his death were not made public until years later when Israel obtained (with help from the Kollmars' youngest child) documents from the M.E.'s office.

The Kollmars' youngest child, Kerry Kollmar, was eleven when his mother died. Between 1975 and 1978 he assisted Lee Israel with her work on a biography of his mother. Kollmar helped Israel obtain medical records from his mother's two confinements at NYU Langone Medical Center
NYU Langone Medical Center
NYU Langone Medical Center is an academic medical center in New York City affiliated with New York University. It was named to the Honor Roll of U.S. News "Best Hospitals" in the nation for 2009-2010. The Medical Center comprises NYU School of Medicine and three hospitals: Tisch Hospital, the Rusk...

 in March and April 1965. They had something to do with a cast on her left forearm
Forearm
-See also:*Forearm flexors*Forearm muscles...

 that she can be seen wearing on the April 25, 1965 live telecast of What's My Line?. The documents contained little more than a notation that Dorothy Kilgallen's overall health was "excellent" and that she had fractured her left shoulder. Kollmar also interviewed two of his mother's personal physicians who claimed to have examined her as she lay dead in her home. Neither offered an opinion on the cause of death. Although Kerry Kollmar provided this assistance to Lee Israel, he never said if he thought his mother could have been murdered. If Dorothy Kilgallen learned dangerous secrets, she did not share them with her eleven-year-old son.

One of two known comments Richard Kollmar made about his first wife after her death was later recalled by Bob Bach, who booked the mystery guests for What's My Line?. At Bach's home several hours after her funeral, the television producer asked the widower to discuss his wife's interest in the assassination, and Kollmar replied, "Robert, I'm afraid that will have to go to the grave with me."

Author Mark Lane
Mark Lane
Mark Lane may refer to:*Mark Lane , JFK assassination researcher who wrote Rush to Judgment*Mark Lane , English cricketer now coach of the England women's cricket team*Mark Lane , New Zealand cricketer...

 is the source for Kollmar's other known remark. An essay on John McAdams' website about the JFK assassination claims that Lane told Kilgallen everything she knew about the assassination except for how to obtain the 102-page Warren Commission/Ruby transcript, which came to her from an unknown person. This contradicts statements by Lane in the Israel book, in a 1977 issue of the Midnight supermarket tabloid preserved at the National Archives, on talk radio in 1993 and on the Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and former talk show host...

 TV show Now It Can Be Told in 1992. Lane's side of the story is that a few weeks after the last comment Kilgallen published about the assassination (an item in her September 3, 1965 Voice of Broadway column about Marina Oswald Porter
Marina Oswald Porter
Marina Oswald Porter, is the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.-Life with Oswald:...

 and her photograph of Lee holding a rifle), Kilgallen told him by phone that she planned to visit Dallas again. She did not name any of her sources there, and she declined to tell him who she thought might have shot the president. They never communicated again. A month after her death, Lane contacted Kollmar to ask where her notes were. Lane and Kollmar had met in Kilgallen's presence at the Kollmar brownstone more than a year earlier. Kollmar got rid of Lane quickly, asserting that his late wife's discoveries have "done enough damage already" and "too many people have suffered as a result." Lane never learned anything further about Dorothy Kilgallen's opinions or findings about the assassination.

On the What's My Line? broadcast following Kilgallen's death, host 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...

 opened the show explaining that, after consulting with "her good husband Dick Kollmar," the show's tribute to her would be to go on as usual. Much of the text of Daly's announcement was identical to the announcement he'd made at the beginning of the broadcast the night after regular panelist Fred Allen
Fred Allen
Fred Allen was an American comedian whose absurdist, topically pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny, but it...

 died. During their usual "goodnights," each panel member gave a short tribute to her. Bennett Cerf and Steve Allen
Steve Allen
Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...

 reminded viewers that her "line" was a print reporter while Arlene Francis and Kitty Carlisle focused on the impact Kilgallen had on the television show.

Although Bennett Cerf was audiotaped on January 23, 1968 reminiscing about Kilgallen, he said nothing about her death or about the book Murder One that his company Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

 had published in 1967 with the late Dorothy Kilgallen listed as the sole author. Years after his death, his widow Phyllis Fraser
Phyllis Fraser
Phyllis Fraser Cerf Wagner was an American actress, journalist, and children's book publisher, and the co-founder of Beginner Books.-Early life:...

 admitted to Kilgallen biographer Lee Israel that a writer named Allan Ullman actually had written it with Richard Kollmar's approval.

Kilgallen's private secretary Myrtle Verne, who can be seen as one of the contestants on a 1957 episode of What's My Line?, died on January 10, 1975, shortly before Israel began contacting people for her biography.

Despite Richard Kollmar's public silence about his late wife, her father Jim Kilgallen, still a highly respected reporter at age 77, did speak for publication. The breaking story of her death in the Journal American, where father and daughter both worked, quoted him as saying she "apparently suffered a heart attack, her first." He reminisced fondly about her career and girlish quality for the February 1966 issue of TV Radio Mirror. He said he knew nothing about her prescription medication and declined to discuss the Kennedy assassination. During this period Jack O'Brian
Jack O'Brian
John Dennis Patrick O'Brian was a New York Journal American television critic and supporter of Joseph McCarthy.O'Brian was born in Buffalo, New York...

 took over the Voice of Broadway column, but the Journal American ceased publication in April 1966 with O'Brian and other Journal American columnists becoming part of the short-lived New York World Journal Tribune
New York World Journal Tribune
The New York World Journal Tribune, also known as the World-Journal-Tribune, was a newspaper published in New York City from September 1966 until May 1967...

. Later in the 1960s and in the 1970s, Jim Kilgallen continued working as a reporter with his articles appearing in the Hearst papers that remained outside of New York City, but his Hearst colleagues knew not to ask him about his late daughter, and so did his "friends of long standing," said biographer Israel. Contacted by Israel, he wrote to her on January 26, 1976 that he would not help her, noting that he was sticking to "a firm policy" he had maintained since his daughter's death "not to grant interviews to anyone concerning her career."

The National Archives has a file from 1978 containing a collage of newspaper clippings dating from that year that Jim Kilgallen sent to Louis Stokes
Louis Stokes
Louis Stokes is a Democratic politician from Ohio. He served in the United States House of Representatives....

 of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations
United States House Select Committee on Assassinations
The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations ' was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the shooting of Governor George Wallace. The Committee investigated until 1978, and in 1979 issued its final...

. One was a "Page Six" item in the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

about Israel's forthcoming book noting that employees of the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue, the place where Dorothy Kilgallen was last seen alive, were instructed not to talk to Israel. But Jim Kilgallen, who continued reporting for Hearst until age 93, is not known to have commented on this or any other suggestions that his daughter might have been murdered.

For her contribution to the television industry, Dorothy Kilgallen has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

 at 6780 Hollywood Boulevard.

Filmography

  • Sinner Take All (1936)
  • Fly Away Baby (1937)
  • Pajama Party
    Pajama Party (film)
    Pajama Party is a 1964 beach party film starring Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello. This is the fourth in a series of seven beach films produced by American International Pictures...

    (Uncredited, 1964)
  • She was caricatured as an animated character named "Daisy Kilgranite" on an episode of The Flintstones
    The Flintstones
    The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...

    titled, The Little White Lie, which originally aired on November 10, 1961. Portrayed as a friend of Wilma's, she was voiced by Sandra Gould
    Sandra Gould
    Sandra Gould was an American actress, who appeared mainly in television. Among her many credits was a regular role on the sitcom Bewitched as the second Gladys Kravitz....

     who later become known for her role as Gladys Kravitz
    Gladys Kravitz
    Gladys Kravitz is a fictional character on the American situation comedy Bewitched . Portrayed by Alice Pearce from the show's premiere in 1964 until Pearce's death in 1966 and then by Sandra Gould from 1966 until her last appearance in 1971, Gladys Kravitz is an across-the-street neighbor of the...

     on Bewitched
    Bewitched
    Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...

    .

External links

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