Dorothy Kilgallen

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Dorothy Kilgallen bigraphy, stories - Journalist, television personality

Dorothy Kilgallen : biography

July 3, 1913 – November 8, 1965

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," Israel, page 410 and because she openly criticized U.S. government agencies as early as 1959, some believe that Kilgallen was murdered in order to silence her.Israel, page 414

Death

On November 8, 1965, Kilgallen was found dead on the third floor of her five-story brownstone, just 12 hours after she had appeared live on What’s My Line?. 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 and barbiturates, possibly concurrent with a heart attack. It is not known whether the death was a suicide or an accidental overdose, although the amount of barbiturate in her system "could well have been accidental," said medical examiner James Luke. Dorothy Kilgallen was interred in a modest grave at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

Kilgallen and Arlene Francis appeared as Joan Crawford impostors on an episode of the daytime version of To Tell The Truth that was videotaped on November 2, 1965, and broadcast six days later while United Press International broke the news about Kilgallen’s death.Krebs, Alvin. Dorothy Kilgallen Dead. New York Herald Tribune November 9, 1965, front page. CBS News immediately noticed the report on its UPI machine from the Teletype Corporation.Krebs, Alvin. Dorothy Kilgallen Dead. New York Herald Tribune November 9, 1965, front page. Anchor Douglas Edwards 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. 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 speculated that she was murdered by members of the same alleged conspiracy against JFK.Welsh, David and Turner, William. "Controversy: the Strange Deaths of JFK Assassination Figures." Ramparts, November 1966 edition. The February 1967 edition of Cosmopolitan, then edited by Helen Gurley Brown, reprinted the Ramparts article. Kilgallen’s claims that she was under surveillance Israel, page 393 led to a theory that she might have been murdered. She reportedly had 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.Israel, pages 389, 390, 440