Happy Birthday to one of my favorites, Dorothy Kilgallen! Known primarily as one of the judges of “What’s My Line” Dorothy was so much more than that.

Born the daughter of a newspaper man in 1913 she quit college after a year to become a reporter for The New York Journal. She quickly gained notoriety in 1936 as the only woman, and second place winner, in a race around the world using only using public transportation. She wrote a book about her experience titled, “Girl Around The World.” She began her ultra successful show business column “Voice of Broadway in 1938 and in 1940 she married her husband, Richard Kollmer. A show business type with numerous Broadway shows under his belt, Richard began a career in radio along with his newlywed wife. They both had their own projects: Richard voiced a popular crime show and Dorothy had her own radio program “Voice of Broadway.” The two hosted “Breakfast With Dorothy and Dick” together from their sprawling Upper East Side apartment. A mix of entertainment news and serious fare, it seems very much like an the precursor to the podcast.

But frothy entertainment was not what Dorothy loved best. What she thrived at was crime reporting. Dorothy was witness to some of the largest trials of the mid 20th century, and her investigation into one notorious crime more than likely caused her death. She sat in on the Lindburgh Baby trial. She sat in on the Sam Sheppard murder trial: a famous case of a doctor accused of murdering his wife that inspired The Fugitive. She was almost always the only woman in the press corp but usually was given a scoop because she was such an amazing, dogged writer with a pronounced moral compass.

Nothing could prepare her for November 1963 when JFK was murdered. An acquaintance of JFK’s she had toured the White House with her young son and was extremely impressed at the personal attention that the President paid to her son. She, along with the country, was appalled to see what happened in Dallas and even more appalled when Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on camera. She sat Jack’s trail and she realized that there were inconsistencies that were being glossed over. She was the only reporter to have an interview with Jack Ruby. She published scathing columns about the case and that it was more than was being presented, much to the chagrin of J. Edgar Hoover who wrote “WRONG” in large letters over his copy of these colums. She contended there was major mob involvement; Jack Ruby was very well connected as a club owner. Jack Ruby was set up and Dorothy throughly disagreed that Oswald acted alone. Before her death she went to New Orleans to see a mob boss who would possibly give her more information; shortly after their arrival she told her best friend and hair dresser to leave immediately. Dorothy was visibly shaken.

• 

• 

She had a book deal and was writing about the Jack Ruby trial and the publication was set. We have no idea what was going to be in that book because in November 1965 she was found in her bedroom dead at the age of 52 from an overdoes of Barbiturates and alcohol; the same cocktail that killed her good friend Marilyn Monroe. The FBI swept in in the days after her death and took all her research, including her exclusive interview with Jack Ruby. The circumstances at the death scene were bizarre. She was in full makeup sleeping in a bed she rarely slept in. In The Reporter Who Knew Too Much, author Mark Shaw does an incredible job of going through extensive research on the case. I highly recommend it. It’s part thriller and part biography and so detailed.

It throughly upsets me that Dorothy is not more well know today. She was truly one of the first female moguls. I can’t help but think about what she would think if she were here today to see that in the wake of My Favorite Murder women are invested and involved in true crime. She worked in print, tv and radio when women were barely allowed in one of those genres.

She was always a very stylish woman but certainly not beautiful in an age where women were only valued for their looks; she demanded to be accepted for her talents. Happy Birthday Dorothy!