Dorothy Kilgallen

Dorothy Kilgallen married American stage, radio, film and television actor Richard Tompkins Kollmar on April 6, 1940, and had three children with him.

She was found dead in her five-story Manhattan townhouse on November 8, 1965. The postmortem ruled out any chance of a heart attack, a possibility raised by her father, and stated fatal combination of alcohol and barbiturates to be the reason.

A huge mass gathered at St. Vincent Ferrer, where her funeral was arranged. Notable personalities like Joseph E. Levine, Bob Considine, Joan Crawford, John Daly, Arlene Francis, and Ed Sullivan were in attendance.

Dorothy Mae Kilgallen was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July 3, 1913, to Mae Ahern and former newspaper reporter James Lawrence Kilgallen. She had a younger sister named Eleanor who passed away in 2014.

She moved to New York City with her family as her father was posted in the city by his employers, International News Service. She went to Erasmus Hall High School and later enrolled in The College of New Rochelle, where she completed two semesters before opting to drop out and follow a career in journalism.

After deciding to pursue a career in journalism, Dorothy Kilgallen bagged a job at the ‘New York Evening Journal’ which was owned by the Hearst Corporation, the parental company of her father’s employers International News Service.

In 1936, she took part in the ‘race around the world’ which would allow her and her competitors, fellow journalist Bud Ekins of the ‘New York World-Telegram’ and Leo Kieran of the ‘New York Times,’ to use only the means of transportation available to the general public.

She came second in that race, only behind Bud Ekins, who completed the race in 21 days, 3 days earlier than Dorothy. She wrote about all her experiences of that 24-day-long journey in her book ‘Girl Around The World’, which later became an inspiration behind the plot of the movie ‘Fly-Away Baby’, directed by Frank McDonald.

Dorothy Kilgallen faced her first legal trouble when she was sent a libel suit by Constance Campbell Bennett, a very famous actress who was also amongst the highest paid actors in motion pictures. Kilgallen had written a column on her while living in Hollywood, which stated the actress was losing her popularity and facing a decline in her career.

She then started her journey with the ‘New York Journal-American’, writing her own daily column ‘Voice of Broadway’ which mostly carried articles on show business and pop-culture gossip. Occasionally, she would publish her notions on organized crime as well as politics, and in no time her writing became so popular that it was syndicated to 146 newspapers via King Features Syndicate.

Dorothy Kilgallen earned considerable popularity as a panelist of the popular television game show ‘What's My Line?’ She was part of the show for over fifteen years and shared screen time with other panelists like Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, and Hal Block. She joined in 1950 and went a long way with the show until her death in 1967.

She made a name for herself as a journalist with her daily column ‘Voice of Broadway’ in the ‘New York Journal-American’. Her column was eventually syndicated to over 140 newspapers and mostly contained gossip and show business-related articles. She would also write occasional articles on politics and organized crimes in the country.