Kilgallen

by Lee Israel

Book Overview

biography of dorothy kilgallen This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440045223
• ISBN13: 9780440045229
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Length: 485 Pages
• Weight: 1.78 lbs.

Customer Reviews

I'd love to hear more....

Lee Israel did a one-woman investigation into the life and death of columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, and found some extremely interesting bits of information. Every answer seemed to raise two more questions, however, and like many other mysterious deaths in the entertainment community, I suspect that this one will also go unsolved. I'd love for someone to pick up where Lee Israel left off and see if there's more that can be uncovered now that there are few identities to protect. Who was the "Out of Towner," for instance? The only family member who would cooperate with her was Kilgallen's younger son, and that was because he was so small when she died that he wanted to know more about his mother. Kilgallen's father, sisters and other children were still alive at the writing of this book, but declined to participate. Having only ever seen Dorothy Kilgallen on What's My Line? and having never read any of her columns, I was fascinated by her investigations into the JFK assassination, and not terribly surprised that she was found dead when she was getting too close for comfort for those who had something to hide. She is one of many who have gotten too close to the truth about the JFK assassination, and the price she paid is not an unusual one.

Vanity Fair April 2006 Leads You To These Hard Covers

I'd like to echo praise of the book. I like it for the same reasons as the other reviewers. Mr. Nolen, you are right on target except for your identification of Dr. James Luke. When the NYC medical examiner's office handled Dorothy Kilgallen in 1965, Dr. Luke was associate ME, not chief ME. But you are right about the strangeness of her death certificate. Why would Dr. Luke ask the man in charge of Brooklyn deaths to sign out a Manhattan death as "undetermined pending further investigation ?" Dr. Luke hardly had the day off. He visited Kilgallen's house while her body was still there. Lee Israel did a great job investigating this by herself. When Anthony Summers investigated Marilyn Monroe several years later, he had the help of the BBC and the entire staff of "20/20" including the legmen for Barbara Walters and Geraldo Rivera. But Lee Israel worked almost entirely alone. She did such a great job that her text makes me sad that nobody picked up where she left off. In 2006 Dominick Dunne is reviving the Kilgallen mystery in the April issue, but he's saying it's too late to know more than Lee. He says too many sources are dead. I hope he's wrong. Dominick is a great guy but he forgets that any of us can query his old friend Phyllis McGuire. I do thank you, Mr. Dunne, for showing Lee Israel's hard work to a new generation of young people. I mean that *sincerely* the way the McGuire Sisters expressed it in 1955. It is likely that Dominick Dunne has never met Dr. James Luke. The good doctor probably never heard of Mr. Dunne's erstwhile company Four Star Pictures that he ran in the 1960s and 70s. Dr. Luke, who worked in Oklahoma for much of that period, lives today. Also still alive are Dr. DiMaio (that Brooklyn deputy ME), Ms. McGuire and retired NYPD detective Jack Doyle along with God - knows - who - else. I hardly expect Mr. Dunne to investigate how much power and privilege they have in 2006, but I do thank him and I do thank Lee Israel.

Enjoy A Mysterious Autopsy AND A Mysterious Love Affair

The previous reviewer, Mr. Nolen, wrote: "That Brooklyn deputy M.E., Dominick Di Maio, is still alive." [Dr. Di Maio signed Dorothy Kilgallen's death certificate even though she died in the borough of Manhattan. That's one of many mysteries surrounding her death that might have something to do with Kennedy's assassination.] I'd like to add that not only is Dominick still alive, but a book he co-authored with his son Vincent, also a medical examiner, is still in print three years after its publication. The title is "Forensic Pathology, Second Edition." I can't really fault Lee Israel, author of the Kilgallen biography that I'm reviewing here, for not interviewing Dr. Dominick DiMaio. She had a tough job. Her publisher couldn't have advanced her all that much money because the market for biographies of female journalists was small in 1975 when she got the job. Stuff about Kilgallen's journalistic colleagues Theo Wilson, Clare Boothe Luce and Dickey Chappelle didn't come out until long after 1975. While Ms. Israel's access to Dorothy Kilgallen's mortal remains was limited, she did a great job of communicating with the living. Newspaper colleagues and criminal defense attorneys opened up to Ms. Israel. In the book you will get fascinating stories of the demure, beautifully dressed Kilgallen doing her job in male - dominated courtrooms. I particularly enjoyed one man's description of Kilgallen: "She's a newspaperman in a 500 dollar dress." Lee Israel also did a great job of documenting Kilgallen's love affair with pop singer Johnnie Ray that the Beautiful People of New York witnessed starting in 1957. Lee interviewed Johnnie in his home in 1976. She respected his privacy. Who cares what he did when Dorothy was busy covering a murder trial? Dorothy Kilgallen and Johnnie Ray were an unlikely match in the Eisenhower era. It's wrong to judge this man based on what he said at press conferences. Back then record company executives and TV producers ordered celebrities to say nice simple things. Let's just say Johnnie's public persona and Dorothy's public persona were out of synch in 1957. He came across as a passionate gentle boy from a farm below a cloudy sky. Her image was that of a pushy reporter demanding to know what a total stranger did for a living or why a rich doctor would cheat on his wife with a tramp at 10 Downing Street in London or with a stripper in Dallas, Texas or what have you. Lee Israel proves these two public figures loved each other nonetheless. Johnnie was permanently traumatized by Dorothy's death. Lee wisely avoids speculating why. Only they knew.

Death Certificate Says "Pending Further Investigation"

I encourage people to buy a hardback copy of this 25 - year - old book because I have seen two pieces of evidence that make the Dorothy Kilgallen murder theory plausible. First I'll ramble on for a few paragraphs, then I'll describe those two pieces of evidence.Of course, we don't have evidence that the "accidental" death of any celebrity really was murder. I believe Princess Diana was murdered, but I also believe that we will never get evidence of it. Dodi Fayed's father is chasing his tail.So posterity needs to evaluate each mysterious death according to how plausible the murder theory is. Lee Israel puts in this book some evidence that a broken love affair with Johnnie Ray and the fall of the Hearst newspaper empire gave Dorothy Kilgallen trouble sleeping, and she *could have* mixed barbiturates with booze. But Lee also details the strange circumstances of Dorothy's death. Police and medical examiner reports say her body was found in a bed in which she never slept. Nobody slept in it. It was a showroom to convince celebrity houseguests who partied in the next room that everything was hunky dory in the 25 - year marriage of Dorothy and her husband Richard Kollmar.There was no pill bottle on the bedside table or anywhere else in the death scene. Dorothy had fallen "asleep" while reading a new novel by Robert Ruark, even though she had said in her newspaper column four months earlier that the protagonist of the book dies in the end. She had discussed said novel with her hairdresser Marc Sinclaire some weeks before cops and doctors found the book in her dead hand. She had told Mr. Sinclaire that she had enjoyed the work after having finished reading it.That's what you will find in this book. Now I'll add the two things I've seen while sight seeing. First, you can find Dorothy Kilgallen's death certificate at the National Archives in Maryland, a popular tourist site. In the section where the doctor makes the classification of natural causes, suicide, homicide, etc., the thing says "undetermined pending further investigation." Strangely, the deputy medical examiner of Brooklyn signed it "for James Luke," the chief medical examiner. Kilgallen died in the borough of Manhattan, and Dr. Luke had no reason not to sign it. He visited the death scene for 45 minutes, according to the Washington Post obituary. That Brooklyn deputy M.E., Dominick Di Maio, is still alive.The second thing I've seen that's not in the book is a video interview with criminal defense attorney Joe Tonahill preserved at Lamar University in Texas. On it he says his last telephone conversation with Dorothy Kilgallen happened a short time before she died, "maybe a week before." They planned to participate in a radio talk show about the JFK assassination, but she died before the plans could materialize. Shortly before that conversation, Dorothy visited Miami to discuss Oswald, etc. on the talk show of a young Larry King. The same Larry now on CNN.You won't find the

interesting book; very opinionated but factual lady

Even though she seems to be remembered as just a gossip columnist, DK knew many important persons and reported on their comings and goings at a time before we were "blessed" with E and other similar cable channels. Catch her on the What's My Line?" reruns and you'll see her charm, wit, and catch many bon mots traded with her cohorts.