Biographie
Dorothy Kilgallen was the daughter of James Kilgallen, a well-known and charismatic newspaperman with the Hearst Corporation. She followed in her father's footsteps, establishing her early reputation as a crime reporter—a rarity for women at the time—and for participating in a 1936 around-the-world race using transportation accessible to ordinary people, not aviators. Kilgallen placed second among the three newspaper reporters in the race. Her status as the only woman competitor and her subsequent book about the journey, *Girl Around the World*, cemented her presence in journalism. The book inspired the 1937 film *Fly Away Baby*.
In 1938, Kilgallen became a prominent and influential Broadway columnist. Beginning in 1945, she and her husband, Richard Kollmar, hosted a long-running early morning radio talk show titled *Breakfast With Dorothy and Dick*. Although their two children occasionally joined in on-air conversations, the couple maintained what a biographer described as an early form of an open marriage, allowing both to have affairs as long as they occurred outside their cherished and elaborately decorated five-story neo-Georgian brownstone on Manhattan’s East 68th Street.
Millions of Americans came to know and admire Kilgallen through the TV quiz show *What’s My Line?* (1950). She approached the game with more seriousness than her more lighthearted colleagues. It reportedly troubled her that she was never as popular with viewers as fellow panelists, especially Arlene Francis. However, NBC News B-roll footage from Kilgallen’s February 1964 visit to Dallas, Texas, shows her delight when autograph seekers surrounded her. Game show audiences appeared polarized: they either adored her and cheered her on or disliked her and enjoyed seeing other contestants outwit her. (Kilgallen also appeared on other game shows besides *What’s My Line?*)
Kilgallen’s relationship with singer Johnnie Ray began as playful and secret but turned strained as she competed for his attention against his male lovers. Eventually, they were seen drinking heavily together in public, a habit that may have impacted her performance on *What’s My Line?* and her work at the typewriter. Kilgallen’s journalism extended far beyond her “gossipy” syndicated Broadway column. Her knowledge of judicial misconduct during the 1954 murder trial of Samuel Sheppard—whose case inspired the 1963 TV series *The Fugitive*—helped attorney F. Lee Bailey secure a new trial for Sheppard. When Sheppard was released from the Columbus, Ohio penitentiary in July 1964, Bailey organized a “late-night champagne party” in Cleveland, attended by Kilgallen, where she had her first conversation with the wrongly convicted man.
Several months earlier, Kilgallen traveled to Dallas to cover the murder trial of Jack Ruby, who was accused of killing alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. She secured two exclusive interviews with Ruby. Years later, one of Ruby’s lawyers, Joe Tonahill, remarked that Kilgallen and Ruby exchanged looks in court suggesting they may have met before his arrest. Tonahill and other attorneys, including Melvin Belli, were too occupied trying to save Ruby from the death penalty to investigate this further. Kilgallen’s first post-arrest conversation with Ruby took place during a courtroom recess and led to the headline “Nervous Ruby Feels Breaking Point Near” in the *New York Journal-American* (also owned by Hearst). She never published or even acknowledged her second, eight-minute conversation with Ruby, which happened privately in a small office behind the judge’s bench, out of earshot of guards, lawyers, and others, according to Tonahill.
Possibly influenced by what she learned from Ruby, Kilgallen became a vocal critic of the Warren Commission’s investigation into JFK’s assassination. She reportedly told friends and her lawyer—but not her readers—that she was about to reveal significant new information about the president’s murder. While her reactions to the Warren Commission report are accessible, her actual theory about the shooter remains unknown. Kilgallen died under mysterious circumstances shortly after allegedly alerting friends and her lawyer to her impending revelations—some say suicide or accidental overdose, others suggest murder.
The notebooks containing her unpublished information vanished and were never recovered. Some believe assassination researchers should have questioned Ron Pataky, a little-known Columbus, Ohio newspaper critic Kilgallen befriended months after meeting Ruby. Pataky’s newspaper sometimes noted his trips to New York City, and in June 1964, Kilgallen’s column mentioned them riding together in a London taxi. A month after her death, widower Richard Kollmar declined to cooperate with conspiracy theorist Mark Lane’s attempts to locate her notes. A decade later, other close relations, including her father—still working for Hearst in his late eighties—refused to discuss her career or the assassination with a biographer.
As the 50th anniversary of her death approached, a researcher uncovered at Syracuse University a lengthy audio recording of Richard Kollmar’s 1967 appearance on a New York City radio show hosted by John Nebel, known as “Long John Nebel.” Kollmar was promoting *Murder One*, a book credited to Kilgallen that sold well enough for multiple printings and a paperback reissue. Nebel, a fan of the *Breakfast With Dorothy and Dick* show who had known Kilgallen, encouraged Kollmar to discuss many facets of his late wife’s life and career, including her involvement in the Sheppard case.
Throughout the extended broadcast, topics such as Johnnie Ray, Ron Pataky, and the JFK assassination were avoided. Neither Kollmar, Nebel, nor the two other participants broached these subjects. (*Murder One* omitted a chapter on the Jack Ruby trial, which Ruby’s lawyer Joe Tonahill said Kilgallen had intended to include.) While Nebel and his guests discussed Kilgallen’s feud with Frank Sinatra, they steered clear of mentioning that Sinatra had publicly drawn attention to Kilgallen’s chin, which made her less photogenic.
Kilgallen’s only relative to speak publicly about the mysteries surrounding her was her youngest child, who was eleven and a half when she died. At 21, he told a biographer that his family was also keeping him in the dark about the events of a decade earlier.
