Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen?
Gregory Morrow
Spilling Secrets
from Dominick Dunne's Diary
Vanity Fair, April 2006
"It amazes me how many people remember the mysterious death in 1965 of
Dorothy Kilgallen, the controversial gossip columnist and television
personality, which was reported in headlines nationwide as an accidental
overdose of sleeping pills and liquor. On January 25, when I was a guest on
Larry King Live, a woman called in from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to ask if I had
known Kilgallen and if I had any opinions about her death. I hadn't given a
thought to the columnist for decades, but a rush of information came out of
my mouth, as if I had taken something long forgotten out of a storage vault.
When I first lived in New York, in the 1950s, Kilgallen was a huge
celebrity. Her Sunday-night television show, What's My Line?, was watched by
millions and her daily column, "The Voice of Broadway," in the New York
Journal-American, was so popular that she gave Walter Winchell a run for his
money. She also happened to be a first-rate crime reporter, as her father,
Jim Kilgallen, had been before her in the Hearst papers. She broke stories.
She covered trials, including the famous courtroom drama of Dr. Sam
Sheppard, whose conviction for murdering his wife was later overturned.
Kilgallen was not a pretty woman. She had an unfortunate chin, which robbed
her face of beauty, but on opening nights and at El Morocco and the Stork
Club she projected an aura of glamour with her magnificent evening dresses
and jewels. She had wit, power, and a mean streak. Everybody read her, and a
lot of people were afraid of her. Frank Sinatra hated her. Both Johnny
Carson and Jack Paar disliked her and took potshots at her. She was married
for years to Richard Kollmar, the father of her three children, and they had
an early-morning radio show called Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick. She went
to Mass on Sundays. She was a heavy drinker, and she took Seconal to sleep.
She had lovers, and at one point fell madly, passionately in love with the
effete singer Johnny Ray, whose greatest hits were "Cry" and "The Little
White Cloud That Cried." Ray's romantic inclinations, however, went in
another direction.
With her fame and her contacts, Kilgallen was able to get what was perhaps
the only interview Jack Ruby ever gave before he died in prison. Ruby was
the mystery man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of
President Kennedy, in the Dallas Police Station two days after Kennedy died,
in one of the most watched and most shocking historical moments ever
recorded on television. Ruby owned a nightclub in Houston called the
Carousel, and he had friends on both the police force and in the Mafia. How
he was allowed to be in the station at the moment Oswald, shackled and
surrounded by police, was being moved through it remains a baffling
question. Kilgallen, a conspiracy theorist, never believed that Ruby killed
Oswald out of some deep affection for President Kennedy, as the Warren
Report suggested. She died within months of interviewing him.
What I had recalled for the woman from Tulsa was a persistent rumor at the
time that the sleeping pills in Kilgallen's stomach had not dissolved, which
meant that they were undigested. Liz Smith, another famous gossip columnist,
told me recently that the late Arlene Francis, who was also on the panel of
What's My Line?, had been with Kilgallen the evening she died, and she
always maintained that Dorothy was not drunk that night. I forgot to tell
the woman who called in that no notes or tapes from the Ruby interview have
ever been found. Kilgallen told people that she was going to break the case,
so Ruby must have told her something that someone important didn't want her
to print. At least that's my interpretation. She once wrote in her column
that if Lee Harvey Oswald's widow ever told the whole story of her life with
Oswald it would "split open the front pages of newspapers all over the
world," according to Lee Israel in her biography of Kilgallen. There was
talk that the CIA had silenced her, but it was never proved. Seconal and
vodka were given as the official cause of death. She was found in bed in her
town house, on East 68th Street, but it was not the bed she normally slept
in. She was in full makeup, including false eyelashes. She had been reading
a novel by Robert Ruark, which was by her side. Although Kilgallen could not
read without eyeglasses, the police report made no mention of any on or
around the bed.
In later years, when I worked in live television, I became a friend of
Dorothy's younger sister, Eleanor Kilgallen, who was the New York casting
director for Universal Studios in Hollywood. A couple of times, after a
couple of drinks, I asked Eleanor about Dorothy's death and the Ruby notes.
She would never talk to me about it, and she made me feel like a skunk for
asking, but I was dying to know the truth. Since that call from Oklahoma,
I've been thinking once again about Kilgallen's death, and so are a lot of
people I've been hearing from."
Christopher Helms
>the only interview Jack Ruby ever gave before he died in prison. Ruby was
>the mystery man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of
>President Kennedy, in the Dallas Police Station two days after Kennedy died,
>in one of the most watched and most shocking historical moments ever
>recorded on television.
There a very long list of people who claimed to see things or claimed
to know things related to the assassination who ended up very dead very
quickly. I'll see if I can dig up a list.
Kris Baker
"Christopher Helms" <Chrish...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1143079600.7...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Ruby was a habitue of the police station, and it was no surprise
he was there.
Kilgallen was a heavy drinker and took sleeping pills. I remember
when she died, and it was no surprise at all.
If Ruby had the ties that everyone likes to pretend, he'd have talked.
Case Closed. Posner. Worth reading.
Kris
Christopher Helms
Alic...@gmail.com
================
Long John Nebel killed DK
Gregory Morrow
Christopher Helms wrote:
Kilgallen was found dead very early that Monday AM, IIRC around 4:00 in
the morning or so. Her copy was due for her column at that time and
when the courier came around to pick it up that's when she was
discovered...
The previous night (Sunday) she had appeared on _What's My Line?_ (the
Mystery Guest was Joey Heatherton!) which at that time was done live.
She appears on the show as a real mess, e.g. she has a shiny face and
slurs her words (I have the tape); a few hours later she would be dead.
She had been in and out of clinics for her alcoholism for years, her
first stint in a clinic was immediately after she had reported on JFK's
inauguration in 1961. Throughout the following years on _What's My
Line?_ she was drunk and out of it many times on live TV, towards the
end it's like watching a ghoulish *real - life* reality show -- where
you know the outcome. _What's My Line?_ is shown nightly on the Game
Show Network at 3:30AM ET, the series now is up to October 1962...most
of the run of the show was preserved for posterity on kinescopes.
I've read that the police were not called to Dorothy's townhouse until
much later that Monday morning, almost noon in fact. One of the
persons that was on the scene that morning was Dorothy's good friend
Joan Crawford (Crawford in fact will be on _WML?_ tonight or tomorrow
to promote her new movie _Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?_...rival
Bette Davis will also be on in a few episodes time [this being Oct. -
Nov. '62]...).
Dorothy's death was overshadowed because that Monday evening the
infamous New York Blackout of 1965 occurred!
It'a a fascinating subject, I don't know if we'll ever know the real
truth...if the truth about the JFK assassination ever comes out I'm
afraid we'll all be long gone ( for example the tapes that Jackie made
for William Manchester discussing the event are sealed in the National
Archives until 2064, I'd LOVE to be around for that!).
Apparently she had been on some NY talk show (David Susskind?) in '65
discussing the Jack Ruby interview. This interview is lost to history
(like most talk shows of that era it wasn't taped for posterity)...
BTW Dorothy's husband Dick Kollmar committed suicide c. 1970. He had
been involved in a Broadway plagiarism scandal in the late 50's and was
somewhat disgraced; he was also a notorious alcoholic and a
womanizer...
--
Best
Greg
Flash Bazbo
<kris....@prodigyy.net> wrote:
>
>"Christopher Helms" <Chrish...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:1143079600.7...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> >With her fame and her contacts, Kilgallen was able to get what was
>> >perhaps
>>>the only interview Jack Ruby ever gave before he died in prison. Ruby was
>>>the mystery man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of
>>>President Kennedy, in the Dallas Police Station two days after Kennedy
>>>died,
>>>in one of the most watched and most shocking historical moments ever
>>>recorded on television.
>>
>> There a very long list of people who claimed to see things or claimed
>> to know things related to the assassination who ended up very dead very
>> quickly. I'll see if I can dig up a list.
>
>Ruby was a habitue of the police station, and it was no surprise
>he was there.
And his nightclub was in Dallas, not Houston. Pretty sloppy fact
checking.
Zeb Quinn
Gregory Morrow wrote:
> It'a a fascinating subject, I don't know if we'll ever know the real
> truth...if the truth about the JFK assassination ever comes out I'm
> afraid we'll all be long gone ( for example the tapes that Jackie made
> for William Manchester discussing the event are sealed in the National
> Archives until 2064, I'd LOVE to be around for that!).
I believe that the period has since been shortened to year 2017,
although it was initally set to 2039, 75 years by executive order
issued by LBJ. It's always been very odd --suspiciously odd-- that it
was deemed necessary to seal these records.
Gregory Morrow
Zeb Quinn wrote:
Thanks for the correction/update...
ISTR than in Jackie's particular case she didn't want any of her
immediate survivors to hear the tapes, they are apparently quite
"graphic". If it's 2017 Caroline and some other Kennedy family members
alive in 1963 will still be around...
--
Best
Greg
Zeb Quinn
> ISTR than in Jackie's particular case she didn't want any of her
> immediate survivors to hear the tapes, they are apparently quite
> "graphic".
What tapes? I don't know of anything that could be more graphic than
the Zapruder film is, and it's been shown in its entirety.
And it's not just tapes that were sealed. All of the records of the
Warren Commission were sealed. All we get to see is their report.
Everything they relied upon in drawing the conclusions they drew has
been sealed.
> If it's 2017 Caroline and some other Kennedy family members
> alive in 1963 will still be around...
Yeah, well, she's a grownup. She'll deal with it. The American public
has a right to know --indeed had a right in 1964 to know-- everything
that was uncovered about the whole event.
My theory is that the real reason LBJ ordered the records sealed was to
protect the commission members and other politicos in positions of
power, making sure that they were all dead and gone when the records
are unsealed. I suspect that there is something in there that will
suprise people. I suspect that they've hidden something "for the good
of the republic," that they believed would be safe to reveal when a lot
of time had elapsed from the event. Maybe the truth.
Fragile Warrior, F'loonslayer
"Zeb Quinn" <nast...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1143133091.3...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
My theory is it will be like the Jack The Ripper files: a big ol' steamin'
pile of missing items, things we already know and not much else.
Lily
Kilgallen told people that she was going to break the case, so Ruby must
have told her something that someone important didn't want her to print.
silenced her, but it was never proved. >>
It's a big jump from "nothing was found" to "everything was destroyed."
Where is the proof or the contemporary report that she interviewed Ruby
at all? Maybe she hoped to, maybe the interview never took place.
The absence of something doesn't mean that something must have been
there.
Kilgallen was no liberal but she did like Kennedy, apparently because he
was the first Catholic president and that was a big deal then.
It was surprising to some that Kilgallen, a right winger, was doggedly
investigating a conspiracy that (at the time) was presumably engineered
by radical conservatives.
This may have given her conviction that there was a conspiracy and her
investigation into it credibility.
Gossipy tidbit: She was an ardent Catholic, and refused to attend her
daughter's wedding to a Jew.
Lily
Gregory Morrow
Lily wrote:
> Kilgallen was no liberal but she did like Kennedy, apparently because he
> was the first Catholic president and that was a big deal then.
>
Yep, on _What's My Line?_ in early 1961 she is as excited as a little star -
struck schoolgirl about the prospect of covering JFK's inaugural...
> It was surprising to some that Kilgallen, a right winger, was doggedly
> investigating a conspiracy that (at the time) was presumably engineered
> by radical conservatives.
>
> This may have given her conviction that there was a conspiracy and her
> investigation into it credibility.
>
> Gossipy tidbit: She was an ardent Catholic, and refused to attend her
> daughter's wedding to a Jew.
Hmmm...that's interesting. I knew she was not especially close to the other
panel members of _What's My Line?_ who were Jewish, e.g. Martin Gabel and
his wife Arlene Francis (she was of Armenian descent, if she wasn't already
Jewish she apparently converted when she married Gabel in 1946) and Bennett
Cerf. Plus which they were liberal Democrats and she was a Republican.
There was tension with some of her _What's My Line?_ comrades when she would
sometimes go after their friends in her columns...
[Host John Daley was not close to any of them. He'd arrive for his hosting
duties at precisely 9:50 and be gone immediately after the show's end at
10.30. His preferred watering hole was Toots Shor's and he liked to hang
out with Jackie Gleason&Co. Daley was somewhat conservative but that did
not prevent him in 1960 from marrying the daughter of liberal Chief Justice
Earl Warren...]
There was a bit of a "rivalry" between Dorothy and Arlene -- both were very
successful but Arlene was more the "golden girl", e.g. she was more
glamorous, better - looking, often on the "best - dressed" and "10 most -
admired" lists, etc. Arlene didn't cotton to public grudges like Kilgallen
did. Arlene was also always absolutely poised and charming* while Dorothy
often came off as dour and grumpy (especially in the later years when the
booze and pills took over)...
[*except when she made one of her last media appearances on the Howard Stern
show in 1990 with pal Kitty Carlisle Hart. Hart handled Stern's provocative
grossness with aplomb but Arlene seemed all at sea (this may have been
because she was in the early stages of Ahlzeimers, she would die of it in
2001 at the age of 93)]
Kilgallen was a really *tough* reporter and could hang out with the best of
them. Arlene wasn't quite so tough with the big guys, which was one of the
reasons why she lost her NBC _Home_ daily talk show after only a short run
(this was part of the NBC "trilogy" of shows, e.g. _Today_, _Home_, and
_Tonight_ which were developed by NBC programming genius "Pat" Weaver
[Sigourney's father] in the early 50's]. Losing this show was a humiliation
for Francis, it took more than being on the board of directors of Bergdorf -
Goodman and being charming to stand up to top NBC management...
Kilgallen also definitely was not a member of the elite _What's My Line?_
"jet set" inner circle which consisted of Arlene Francis and her husband
Martin Gabel and the Bennett Cerfs (and also Kitty Carlisle Hart and her
husband, among others). The Cerfs and the Gabels had adjoining country
estates in Mt. Kisco NY and they were always discussing their fun weekends
on the show. I doubt Dorothy was ever invited. Also Bennett Cerf was close
friends with Frank Sinatra, Sinatra and Kilgallen HATED each other (Frank
would only deign to appear on the show in 1966 [with wife Mia Farrow],
*after* Dorothy's demise). The Gabels and the Cerfs were invited to Truman
Capote's "Party of the Century" at the Plaza Hotel in 1966 (Capote and Cerf
were good friends very early on since Random House [which Cerf founded] was
Capote's publisher). If Dorothy had lived you can bet she would only have
been there in her capacity as a press columnist -- if at all.
Oh, and as I've somewhat mentioned before, Kilgallen's husband Dick Kollmar
was seen as something of a leech and a disgrace, that was enough for many to
distance themselves socially from Kilgallen in those days...
--
Best
Greg
Zeb Quinn
Fragile Warrior, F'loonslayer wrote:
> My theory is it will be like the Jack The Ripper files: a big ol' steamin'
> pile of missing items, things we already know and not much else.
Kinda like the Air Force's 1947 Roswell files, eh?
Very possible. But who knows, we might get lucky. Besides, if they
open them up and nothing new or of any significance is there, it'll be
an even bigger problem, because it would contradict the decision to
seal them in the first place .
Gregory Morrow
Zeb Quinn wrote:
There ya go...
--
Best
Greg
subscriber1997
"Gregory Morrow" <gregor...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:1143082089.5...@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
often she unknowingly or knowingly
put on a 'show' for Johnny Ray's gay friends
.... as she and JR engaged in various sexual
positions in the bedroom his buddies peered
thru the keyhole
true story
JennyB
Thanks Greg -- that was really interesting!
--Jen
Zeb Quinn
> Kilgallen was no liberal but she did like Kennedy, apparently because he
> was the first Catholic president and that was a big deal then.
>
> It was surprising to some that Kilgallen, a right winger, was doggedly
> investigating a conspiracy that (at the time) was presumably engineered
> by radical conservatives.
>
> This may have given her conviction that there was a conspiracy and her
> investigation into it credibility.
1. I have never heard it said or seen it written anywhere before your
post here that Kilgallen was a "right winger," and she showed
absolutely no indicia of being such. She was a journalist and gossip
columnist extraordinaire, going back to the 30s. Her politics for the
most part were a cipher, and she didn't play favorites. She dug up and
published information on everybody.
2. One exception to the above was the JFK and the Kennedy family. She
didn't just "like" JFK, she was a close personal friend. She had
access to much information about JFK that she could have reported,
especially about his affairs with mistresses, but she chose instead to
bury that stuff and to protect JFK.
3. Another exception to the above is that Kilgallen was clearly
anti-communist and anti-Castro. But that doesn't make her a
right-winger. Most normal people were anti-communist and ant-Castro in
those days. Kennedy was anti-communist and ant-Castro. The Democrat
Party was anti-communist and ant-Castro back then. I know that seems
odd today, now that the mouth-foaming lunatic left fringe has seized
control of the Democrats, but there really and truly was a day when the
Democrats actually were sane and patriotic and pro-American, and proud
of it.
4. Yes, conspiracy theories of who killed Kennedy and why are legion
and abound, but the one that features right wing nuts taking him out is
way down the list and has little currency. There are also theories that
the far left took him out. They are also not credible. The most
likely and credible theory is apolitical: that the mob whacked him as
payback because he and his father and his brother double-crossed them.
Simple as that.
FeAudrey
Lil...@webtv.net says...
>
>
>It was surprising to some that Kilgallen, a right winger, was doggedly
>investigating a conspiracy that (at the time) was presumably engineered
>by radical conservatives.
She may have been looking into the possibility that Fidel Castro was
behind Kennedy's assassination. This seems to have been the CIA's
favorite theory.
One thing it had going for it was that Castro was the only suspect with a
rational motive and a realistic expectation of benefiting from Kennedy's
removal.
And reason for covering it up and sealing all evidence was that:
If that theory were true, it could have set off World War III (which we
had almost had over the Cuban missile crisis of just the previous year).
--
Visit my Iron Age Pages for technical and fun stuff (holiday specials,
too)!
http://pages.prodigy.net/feaudrey
Lily
<<Oh, and as I've somewhat mentioned before, Kilgallen's husband Dick
Kollmar was seen as something of a leech and a disgrace, that was enough
for many to distance themselves socially from Kilgallen in those
days...>>
I snipped the rest of this fabulous post because it was long, but thanks
for the MARVELOUS tidbits, none of which I'd ever heard before. Yummy.
Lily
Sirius Howard
She covered the Sam Shepard Murder trial in Cleveland. One day she was
riding in a courthouse elevator with the judge in the case. He said to
Kilgallen, "He's guilty & I'm going to see that he's convicted". That
was revealed in a bio of her several years after her death. She never
reported that.
Shepard was convicted, spent years in prison before the conviction was
overturned & at a new trial was found not guilty.
It has long been suspected that a neighbor killed Marilyn Shepard.
The Shepard case is the basis of the TV sow "The Fugitive"
subscriber1997
"Sirius Howard" <stric...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1143179994.9...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Lincoln was shot !!!
Michael Alden
I read it and most of what he postulates is as ridiuculous as the
wilder conspiracy theories. He is basically a shill for the Warren
Report, which even LBJ never believed. If you've ever been in the Texas
School Book Depository window (I have), you just laugh at how
preposterous the whole Oswald hoax is. And the magic bullet that
changes directions like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. C'mon. Carlos Marcello
and the mob did it and got away with it. You want a plausible
explanation, read Mafia Kingfish: Carlso Marcello and the Assassination
of John F. Kennedy.
Alma Lopez
Kilgallen's death; there isn't much on the Internet about it so any info
about it is great. I have the issue of Vanity Fair where Dominick Dunne
talks about it, but I hadn't gotten to it yet so it was interesting to
see it talked about here.
I believe too that she had something "big" to possibly expose about the
Kennedy assassination. I heard that she would sort of hint to friends
and co-workers on "What's My Line" about the info she had discovered,
but as far as I know she never actually told anybody anything and her
notes and any documents(or copies of documents)supposedly were lost
after her death.
I didn't know her husband had committed suicide...wonder how much he
knew, being her spouse, about what Dorothy had discovered. I have read
that the rest of the "What's My Line" cast never really talked about her
death(at least not in public)...a tiny interesting sidebar to this. John
Daly's(WML's host)father-in-law at time of DK's death was Chief Justice
Earl Warren, of the Warren Commission, who declared Lee Harvey Oswald
the sole assassin of President Kennedy.
Gregory Morrow
Lily wrote:
You're welcome :-)
_What's My Line?_ is my fave "nostalgia" teevee show, I'm fascinated by
the "characters" on the show. Kilgallen's death is still somewhat of a
mystery after all these years...I'm glad someone has put the spotlight
on the matter again.
BTW for any of you that are interested we have a Yahoo! group devoted
to _What's My Line?_, go to Yahoo! Groups and you'll find it under IIRC
"whatsmylineoncbs". We have many lively discussions and there is a
great archive of pix, articles, etc. We are devoted "hobbyists" and
put a lot of work and passion into our "hobby". Come on down!
The show is simply an interesting window into another era, it's a
cultural time capsule of sorts. Right now it's autumn 1962 are there
are lots of "New Frontier" references to the Kennedys, John Glenn/space
stuff, Cuba, the UN, the World Series, etc. A lot of the women sport
the bouffant hairdo and fashions made then popular by Jackie, there are
lots of guest related to and references to the "Rat Pack", etc...
--
Best
Greg