Dorothy Mae Kilgallen Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (July 3, 1913 – November 8, 1965) was an American journalist and television game show panelist. She started her career early as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation's New York Evening Journal after spending two semesters at The College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York. In 1936, she began her newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, which eventually was syndicated to more than 146 papers. She became a regular panelist on the television game show What's My Line? in 1950.Kilgallen's columns featured mostly show business news and gossip, but also ventured into other topics such as politics and organized crime. She wrote front-page articles on the Sam Sheppard trial and later the John F. Kennedy assassination and interviewed Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald's killer, out of earshot of sheriff's deputies. The circumstances of Kilgallen's death have been the subject of conspiracy theories. As the cause of her death was officially ruled "undetermined," and because she openly criticized U.S. government agencies as early as 1959, some believe that Kilgallen was murdered in order to silence her.
While residing in Chicago, the Kilgallen family belonged to and attended church at St. Gabriel's Parish, 4522 S. Wallace Street.
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As a child she lived with her family in Chicago Irish-American Blue Collar community of Canaryville on Normal Avenue.
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Some supporters of the standard "Oswald acted alone official story" have tried to hang the entire theory of Kilgallen learning dangerous secrets and dying suspiciously on two book authors who have questionable reputations: Mark Lane and Lee Israel. But in December of 2016, Simon & Schuster is distributing a new Kilgallen biography by Mark Shaw. He already has authored more than twenty books, and his integrity has not been questioned. His book presents evidence that Kilgallen indeed could have learned dangerous secrets about Oswald and Jack Ruby and that her death on November 8, 1965 in fact was suspicious and is worthy of attention from serious historians. Mr. Shaw's sources include Kilgallen personal hairdresser Marc Sinclaire. Mr. Sinclaire did not reveal anything to Ms. Israel, who was Kilgallen's first biographer. She got him on the phone at the Elizabeth Arden hair salon in midtown Manhattan where he worked in the 1970s, but he refused to discuss Kilgallen with her. But in 2000, he granted a long video interview to a researcher, and Mark Shaw has used it for his book.
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Suffered from insomnia, and regularly took barbiturates. Although many felt this habit led to her death, New York medical examiner James Luke could not prove she ever had abused the pills or capsules. No one came forward to say publicly that she had. She died from an overdose, not from long-term damage to her body that she may have done over the years. Estimates of how many capsules she took while she lay dying were vague. A kinescope of "What's My Line?" shows her, approximately four hours before her death, identifying one person's line and closing in on another person's. During the final seconds before the red light on the camera goes out, Kilgallen can be heard jokingly reacting to a lighthearted comment made by Bennett Cerf about the contestant she almost identified. Tony Randall, seated next to her, can be seen elbowing her left side as if politely expressing disapproval.
Often credited as the first journalist to break the story that John F. Kennedy was having an affair with Marilyn Monroe. Actually, the Voice of Broadway column that reached New Yorkers on Friday afternoon, August 3, 1962 said only that the actress has "proven vastly alluring to a handsome gentleman who's a bigger name than Joe DiMaggio was in his heydey." Monroe died that Saturday night or Sunday morning before other newspapers could publish this edition of the Voice of Broadway. So all that happened was New Yorkers speculated about the identity of the very famous "handsome gentleman.".
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There was a fire in Dorothy's Manhattan apartment on the morning of December 15, 1953. The fireman who extinguished the fire, Harold Gold, was later a contestant on the November 14, 1954 telecast of 'What's My Line?" Dorothy did not recognize him.
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Appeared weekly on 'What's My Line?' throughout her third pregnancy, right up until the week before her delivery. The mores of the 1950s prohibited pregnant women appearing on TV, despite Lucille Ball's groundbreaking 1952 appearances on 'I Love Lucy' while pregnant with her second child. What enabled Dorothy to appear on 'What's My Line?' throughout her entire pregnancy was that the long desk at which the panelists sat was high enough to cover her gravid condition. Dorothy missed the March 21, 1954 telecast, as she was in LeRoy Sanitarium, a private hospital in Manhattan, having given birth two days earlier to her third child and second son, Kerry Ardan Kollmar. Her two older children went on the air as special guests that night.
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Sister of Eleanor Kilgallen, who was a powerful casting agent and talent scout in the entertainment business for several decades. Eleanor played an important part in the rise to fame of James Dean, Kim Cattrall and other actors she spotted in New York.
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Besides Frank Sinatra, she also feuded with Jack Paar and Arthur Godfrey. Her feud with Paar was based on his support of Fidel Castro and Kilgallen, a staunch anti-communist, criticized him for it.
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Was the inspiration for the somewhat-less-than-ethical columnist character "Daisy Kilgranite" on The Flintstones (1960).
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After the initial telecast of What's My Line? (1950), the Goodson Todman company decided that Dorothy was mirthless, combative, competitive and tactless, but much too good to drop from the show. According to officials of Goodson Todman Productions who were interviewed in the mid 1970s by her biographer Lee Israel, the warm and witty Arlene Francis was brought in on the second program to lighten things up and the balance became perfect. Francis claimed in her autobiography, however, that she had been scheduled to appear on the first telecast but had to back out for reasons she no longer could recall.
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Her gossip column called the Voice of Broadway made her enemies in the entertainment business, notably Frank Sinatra, who went out of his way to cut her down in his Las Vegas shows. Although his daughter Nancy Sinatra criticized Kilgallen in a posthumous book on the singer, Nancy was willing to appear as a mystery guest on What's My Line? (1950) while he was feuding with the columnist. The two women shook hands on the air but did not say anything to each other.
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Published Jack Ruby's testimony to the Warren Commission in the New York Journal American before the report was released to President Lyndon Johnson or to the public. Other newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Antonio Light, printed the testimony under Kilgallen's byline.
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Death was caused by combination of alcohol and barbiturates, although the medical examiner typed "circumstances undetermined" underneath it.
$16 Million
