Though Dorothy Kilgallen is n’t a familiar name to many people today , there was a time — from the forties to the mid-1960s — when she was one of the fully grown stars in the media world , a trailblazing womanjournalistand TV personality who paved the elbow room for generation to follow .
As a syndicated editorialist in more than 200 newspapers across the nation , Kilgallen cover everything from amusement and government to crime . When she was n’t covering big narrative such as the1954 execution trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard(the inspiration for the TV series and picture " The Fugitive " ) or Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ’s visit to the U.S. in 1959 , she was arousing the ire of Frank Sinatra by reporting on his personal living . ( accord toSinatra biographer James Kaplan , the Isaac Bashevis Singer and actor was so irked by what Kilgallen wrote about him that he once sent her a tombstone with her name carved on it . ) She also appeared on Americans ' TV screen each workweek as a panellist in the popular quiz program " What ’s My course ? "
But Kilgallen never catch a prospect to stop what might have been her biggest story — her probe into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy , and the suspicion that alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald ’s subsequent murder by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby while in police custody might have been part of a coverup of a bigger plot . Instead , on Nov. 8 , 1965 , Kilgallen was found dead in her New York City townhouse , in what the medical inspector decided was possibly an inadvertent overdose of alcohol and barbiturate , accord to this1965 United Press International narration .
More than a half - one C by and by , that account is challenge byMark Shaw , a former reprehensible defence attorney and effectual analyst for CNN and other medium retail store , and the generator of more than 20 books . He ’s spent years investigating the portion of her death , and believes that Kilgallen actually was dispatch , to prevent her from uncovering the truth about what had happened in Dallas .
" She know it was n’t Oswald alone , " Shaw explains .
Shaw has written extensively about Kilgallen , include a 2016 life history , " The Reporter Who Knew Too Much : The Mysterious Death of ' What ’s My Line ' TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen , " and a 2021 follow - up , " Collateral Damage : The Mysterious Deaths of Marilyn Monroe , Dorothy Kilgallen and the Ties That Bind Them to Robert Kennedy and the JFK Assassination . " The movie rights to " Collateral Damage " recently were optioned by a production company connect to player Mark Wahlberg , according toDeadline . )
Who Was Dorothy Kilgallen?
bear in Chicago in 1913 , Kilgallen was the daughter ofJim Kilgallen , a newspaper and wire service reporter . At a untried long time , she decided to keep abreast in her Padre ’s footsteps . After she briefly attended the College of New Rochelle , her founder managed to get her a two - calendar week tryout at the New York Evening Journal , according to Shaw ’s 2016 biography . She quickly became a superstar reporter in her own right , so adept at covering court cases that in 1935 , she was assigned to overcompensate the visitation of Bruno Hauptmann , impeach of kidnapping and bolt down the son of aeronaut Charles Lindbergh .
After her honcho promoted her from reporter to editorialist , Kilgallen made a name for herself as one of three New York diarist compete in a race around the world . She polish off secondly , attain the journey in 24 days , 13 hour and 51 min , and put out a book about her adventure,“Girl Around the World,“which was made into a 1937 Hollywood film , " aviate aside Baby . "
After the Evening Journal merged with the New York American in 1938 , the new Journal - American appoint Kilgallen as its Broadway editorialist , making her " the first woman in a hitherto masculine field , " as herAssociated Press obituaryeventually would note .
Like today ’s media superstars , Kilgallen worked in multiple platforms . She soon began doing aradio programas well . She married player turned theatrical producer Dick Kollmar , and found meter to raise three children .
By the 1950s , she also was a even panelist on the idiot box course of study " What ’s My Line ? , " where she guessed the military control of guests and the identity of mystery celebrities . ( In thisYouTube videoof a 1965 episode , a blindfolded Kilgallen tries to venture the identity of Sean Connery . ) Kilgallen was such a celebrity in her own right that Edward R. Murrowinterviewedthe editorialist from her home in New York .
Kilgallen was Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey roll up into one , Shaw say . " Nobody ’s ever had a journalistic career like Dorothy had , as well as her goggle box vocation , " he notes .
Kilgallen and the Kennedy Assassination
But fame did n’t stop Kilgallen from keep on to be a hard - drive newsperson . After the blackwash of President Kennedy , with whom she had become friends , the columnist was n’t slaked with the official variant of his assassination and the consequence . In special , she was suspicious about thekilling of charge assassinator Oswald by Rubyin the basement of Dallas police headquarters , two day after JFK ’s murder .
" Well , I ’d like to eff how , in a braggy , overbold town like Dallas , a man like Jack Ruby — owner of a strip taunt honky tonk — can saunter in and out of police headquarters as if it was at a health club at a clip when a little army of law enforcers is keeping a ' tight security safety ' on Oswald , " Kilgallenwrote in a columnpublished a hebdomad after JFK ’s death .
agree to Shaw ’s 2016 life , Kilgallen began probing the Dallas police force and FBI investigations , and built a produce file of entropy about Oswald and Ruby from her contacts in Dallas , in an effort to check that Americans cause the whole narrative of what had happened . She grew even more leery when she learned that San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli , primarily a civil litigator — his1996 obituarycalled him " the King of Torts " – would be represent Ruby . Belli had n’t try a execution sheath in old age , which made him seem like an unusual pick . And as Shaw government note , the flamboyant lawyer ’s client included salient gangster Mickey Cohen , a connection that would later seem troubling to those who suspect organize crime involvement in JFK ’s execution .
Shaw , who also has compose a2011 biography of Belli , notes that Belli choose to put on an unorthodox insanity defense for Ruby , take that a rare form of epilepsy had interpret the nightclub owner incapable of knowing right from wrong when he snap Oswald . It was a theory " which I did n’t understand , and neither did the jury , " Shaw take down .
When Ruby went on trial in Dallas in February 1964 , Kilgallen was in attendance . She had dinner with Belli and asked for an interview with his client . The attorney told her it was n’t potential . But Kilgallen persisted , and eventually circumvented Belli by going through his co - guidance , Joe Tonahill , according to Shaw ’s biography .
" She set ashore the interview , " Shaw allege . " She was the only newsperson out of 400 there who interview Jack Ruby . "
As Kilgallen recounted in an exclusive for the Journal - American , the defendant had a shaking handshake , " like the instant of a razzing , " and seemed unnerved . " I feel I ’m on the verge of something I do n’t understand — the breaking head possibly , " she quote him as saying . Later in the trial , Kilgallen spoke to Ruby a 2nd clock time , but did n’t compose a pillar about it , alternatively keeping the substance secret , according to Shaw ’s biography .
After Ruby ’s conviction , Kilgallen continued to dig into the case , convinced that the whole truth had n’t been tell . She obtained from a source a copy of Ruby ’s secret testimonial to the Warren Commission . In herAugust 1964 exclusive , she revealed that Ruby differentiate Chief Justice Earl Warren that he conceive JFK ’s blackwash had been the result of a plot , but insist that he had n’t been involved . He also separate Warren that the prescribed investigation was " a fall behind cause , " Kilgallen reported . ( In 1966 , Ruby ’s conviction wasoverturned by an appeals court , which found that the tribulation judge had allowed inadmissible testimony and should have granted a change of venue , but Rubydied of cancerbefore he could be retried .
But Kilgallen was n’t through look into . In aSeptember 1965 column , she wrote that the story of Oswald and the assassination " is n’t going to kick the bucket as long as there ’s a genuine reporter alive — and there are a lot of them awake . "
The following month , consort to Shaw ’s biography , Kilgallen traveled to New Orleans — a tinge that she may have been investigating organized criminal offence involvement in the JFK assassination .
" She did n’t go to Washington , D.C. , to await into the military - industrial complex , or stay in Dallas and expect at Lyndon Johnson , or go to Miami looking at these Cuban exiles , " Shaw says . He believes that Ruby had told Kilgallen that he was connected toLouisiana rout Bos Carlos Marcello , and that at his behest , Ruby had killed Oswald — " to build the wall , to silence him , " Shaw explicate .
Marcello had reasons to be raging at the Kennedy administration , after he was comport to Guatemala in 1961 and later on prosecute in federal courtroom on in-migration - link charge ( though he was acquitted on the same day that JFK was toss off ) . A U.S. House committee reinvestigating the JFK assassination in 1979concludedthat Marcello " had the motive , means and chance to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated , though it was ineffective to instal direct evidence of Marcello ’s complicity . "
Kilgallen Is Found Dead
But if Kilgallen was onto something , she did n’t have the time to prosecute it further . On Nov. 8 , 1965 , her body was found — newspaper invoice dissent about whether it was by a maid or her stylist , Marc Sinclaire – in her New York City rest home . But Shaw says there were passel of details that should have been a tipoff that something was awry .
" She was find in her townhouse in a sleeping room she never slept in , " Shaw says . " The columnist also was wearing make-up , mistaken eyelashes and a hairpiece , and a gown instead of the pajamas that she usually wore to bed . There was a book upside down in her circle that she ’d already study , and her recitation looking glass were n’t around . "
" evidently , to anybody with a Einstein , that ’s a staged death scene , " Shaw continue . " But the police came , they bump an empty bottle of Seconal sleeping anovulant and aright away , okay , this is another fame who overdosed on drugs . "
As detail in " The newsperson Who Knew Too Much , " other troubling details are patent in the medical examiner ’s account on Kilgallen ’s death , let in the comportment ofTuinal , a hefty sedative - hypnotic medication that she had n’t been order by her doctor .
And then there were the missing filing cabinet and greenback from her probe into Jack Ruby , the crime syndicate and the Kennedy assassination . Hairdresser Marc Sinclaire later recalled that he saw Kilgallen carrying around " a big bundle of newspaper with her that she said pertained to the assassination . " The file mysteriously choke lacking after Kilgallen ’s death and has never been found , according to Shaw ’s biography .
In addition to hold her investigating , the assumption that Kilgallen had perish of a drug - and - alcohol overdose " destroyed Dorothy Kilgallen ’s repute , " Shaw lament . As a solvent , he order , " She basically disappeared from the human face of the earth . "
Shaw ’s life story of Kilgallen and subsequent body of work about her has helped to repair pursuit in the pioneering woman journalist , and he ’s determined to keep alive the computer storage of " one of the heavy reporters who ever live . " He gibe with new admirers of her work , including students inspired to study journalism by her example . " Two guys that email me all the meter — they go to Dorothy ’s burial site and lay bloom there , " he says .
More than a half - 100 after Kilgallen ’s death , " she ’s get that deference back , " Shaw says .
Dorothy Kilgallen was 52 years old when she died .
