The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What's My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen

This review of <i>The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What’s My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen</i> must begin with a disclaimer (and add another one later). The reviewer is too quick to see conspiracy by tying the slimmest of threads together. Although finding myself less skeptical than I once was about the assassinations of the Kennedys, there is still a great deal of discomfort in my mind about the inadequacies of the Warren Commission Report and the belated release of certain papers related to JFK’s final hours. <i>The Reporter Who Knew Too Much</i> both feeds on that discomfort and adds a new mystery to the mix—the strange circumstances surrounding the death of Dorothy Kilgallen, television star and newspaper columnist/reporter. And, if nothing else, it answers some of the questions my younger self used to have as to why this woman in the fancy clothes was always on the <i>What’s My Line</i> game show and why she was so good at playing the game.Shaw uses his own interviews and those performed earlier by investigative journalists (cynics would call them sensationalists) to weave a plausible case for, most likely, a hit ordered by famed Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. Of course, I wouldn’t spoil that if it weren’t more complicated than that and Shaw only offered that possibility. It’s just that it makes the most sense to me out of all the scenarios. [DISCLAIMER: I once interviewed a novelist who lived in Marcello’s mob domain. The novelist is now dead so I can reveal what he shared with me “off the record.” There was a distinctive character in most of this novelist’s work (a recurring antagonist who sometimes acted as a patron). I asked him if said character was modeled on anyone in particular. “Off the record,” he told me that it could be fatal if he told me. Later, after he was assured I wasn’t going to print it, he said it was the New Orleans mob boss. So, I have to admit that my mind has a pre-disposed fertile receptivity to suggestions that Marcello may have ordered the death of Kilgallen as part of a JFK conspiracy cover-up. BTW, said author died of natural causes which even I have been unable to package into a conspiracy. (chuckle)]Even if one doesn’t buy into any of the nefarious possibilities presented by Shaw, the research points to a definitely botched toxicology report with pretty convincing (deliberate) incompetence and negligence in the investigation of the famous reporter’s death. The conspiracy comes in because Kilgallen had never been satisfied with the Warren Commission’s report, had leaked confidential material (the interview with Jack Ruby), had talked to Jack in confidence about the killing of Oswald, and had just met and was planning to meet again a secret source in New Orleans that would, in her own words, break the JFK story wide open. She died before that second meeting. Her death was ruled either suicide or accidental death by overdose. The timing was an inconvenient coincidence concerning what she was about to do during the week she died and the combination of barbiturates (two for which she was not prescribed of which one of those two would be fatal if mixed with her prescribed Seconal). Conspiracies loom concerning the thick JFK assassination file she carried around with her which was conspicuously missing and has never been found. And, it was strange that she was found dead in a bed in which she hadn’t slept for years on a floor of her Manhattan townhouse where she hadn’t slept for years. Plus, there was the “mystery man” with which she was seen only an hour or so before her death.And what I have shared here is merely the tip of the iceberg, the carefully qualified iceberg in which Shaw carefully paints a canvas of possibility, maybe even probability, without going over the line of false accusation or libel. Think the mafia is the only suspect? Consider Shaw’s presentation of the CIA (not chartered to spy on its own citizens) with a 20-page dossier on Kilgallen (having contacted more than 50 CIA offices in its compilation—p. 165) or the ever more villainous (the more one reads about him) J. Edgar Hoover not only detested but obsessed on Kilgallen. However, he doesn’t look like a good suspect to this reviewer since the bureau was still seeking the illusive JFK file that had disappeared in 1975, twenty years after her death (p. 178).<i>The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What’s My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen</i> is as exciting (and cynics would argue as fanciful) as a fictional thriller novel. As in all conspiracy books, there are times that it seems like the author is pushing on a string of evidence to make his case. At other times, he seems to bend over backwards to be fair (perhaps, on attorney’s advice, but being a former attorney himself…). This book will be stimulating to anyone who is interested in those events of November, 1963 and any potential aftermath within the next couple of years. It is the perfect book for an aging baby-boomer like myself who will never forget that incredible image of the guy in the hat sliding between two policemen to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald point-blank.

This book is about a great reporter (and TV star) who was about to blow the Kennedy assassination case wide open. She was an impressive woman. Then she, herself, was murdered. Fascinating read. And it makes an excellent case that the mob was behind the Kennedy hit.My only criticism is that the book would have benefitted from a better editor. But the subject matter is very interesting.

In 1931, at the age of 17, she was a cub reporter for the “New York Evening Journal.” At age 23, she was the first woman “to fly around the world on commercial airlines.” In 1937, she wrote the screenplay for the film, “Fly Away Baby.” She had a cameo role in the Hollywood flick, “Sinner Take All,” and her moniker is enshrined on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her name is Dorothy Mae Kilgallen and she broke the glass ceiling for women in her chosen profession. Kilgallen was born on July 3, 1913, in Chicago, Illinois. Her dad, James, was a highly-respected reporter for the Hearst newspaper chain. From her earliest days, “she yearned to be a reporter like her father.” In his book, “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What’s My Line TV and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen,” author Mark Shaw tells her compelling story. He focuses on her work as a first class investigative reporter and more particularly on her highly suspicious death, on November 8, 1965, at her townhouse in Manhattan. Kilgallen was very fond of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). She boosted him whenever she could in her “Journal-American” column. In 1962, thanks to “JFK’s aide Pierre Salinger,” she and her youngest son, Kerry, then eight years old, visited the White House and met the president. The meeting left a deep impression on Kilgallen. When JFK was murdered in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, Kilgallen refused to accept the party line put out by the FBI’s Director, J. Edgar Hoover. He insisted that the supposed assassin Harvey Lee Oswald “acted alone.” His agency then took over all the files of the Dallas Police Department. When Oswald was shot and killed, on November 24, 1963, by Jack Ruby, Kilgallen made it her business to attend his trial. Like some Americans of my generation, I watched Ruby shoot and kill Oswald on live television. It was beyond shocking. Author Shaw details Kilgallen’s extensive journalism background. Her “Voice of Broadway” column, where she also covered Hollywood and politics, was syndicated in close to 200 papers. She attended and wrote about some of the biggest trials of her era: Bruno Hauptmann, Dr. Sam Sheppard, Dr. Bernard Finch, Wayne Lonergan, Anna Antonio and John Profumo. In addition, Kilgallen was a regular panelist on the popular CBS TV game show, “What’s My Line?” from 1950 until her death. She was known for having a “terrific sense of humor.” The magazine, “Variety,” praised Kilgallen as “The First Lady of Broadway.” Ernest Hemingway, himself, had labeled Kilgallen as one of the “greatest women writers in the world.” She had become “a media icon” in her own time. Shaw wrote that Kilgallen was a feminist “before the word was coined.” For a while, Kilgallen also did a popular early morning program, called: “Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick,” with her husband, Richard Kollmar, on WOR Radio, in NYC. He was an actor and producer. They had three children together. An Irish-Catholic, Kilgallen attended weekly Mass. Investigating JFK’s death became a passion for Kilgallen. She asked a lot of questions. Given that Ruby was the owner of a “strip tease honky tonk,” she asked: How was he allowed to “stroll in and out of police headquarters in Dallas as if it were a health club?” She let Hoover and his cronies know that she was on the job. On November 29, 1963, she filed a column entitled, “Oswald File Must Not Close.” Not only did Kilgallen cover Ruby’s trial, she got to interview him twice. She started to believe that he, like Oswald, might have been a “patsy.” Kilgallen also made a trip to New Orleans to talk with sources. She was zeroing in on what Mob boss Ruby may have been working for at the time of the hit on the president. She began building an investigatory file on the case that she intended to turn into a book that would be the “scoop of the century.” The book, sorry to say, never happened. Kilgallen was found dead in her townhouse on the morning of November 8th. The police went along with the Medical Examiner’s report that she most likely died from an “accidental” drug overdose of a prescription sleeping pills mixed with alcohol. There was no investigation of foul play. Author Shaw rips that scenario apart. He states the death scene was “staged.” The body was found in “the wrong bed” and in “the wrong bedroom.” In addition, Kilgallen’s “makeup, false eyelashes and hairpiece” were still on her. She was found in a blue bathrobe with nothing underneath. According to her hairdresser, she always wore “her favorite pajamas and old socks to bed.” Kilgallen had a prescription for the sleeping pills, “Seconal.” A second drug, “Tuinal,” however, was also found in her system. She had no prescription for that one. Was she slipped a “mickey?” On top of all that, Kilgallen’s file on the Ruby case was missing and it has never been found. Author Shaw, I must add, goes off the rails when he tries to show who may have done Kilgallen in. It’s all speculation in my opinion and lacks any probative value. Also, in the book, I found it irritating that he was repetitive in places. Plus, he got Kilgallen’s birthdate wrong. Shaw also doesn’t show much expertise with respect to the JFK assassination. My Bible on that crime of the century is “Deep Politics and the Death of JFK,” by Peter Dale Scott. Kilgallen was one of the finest journalists of her generation. Justice demands that the truth finally comes out about how this fearless reporter really died. Mark Shaw’s book is a tribute to her distinguished career and legacy. It is long past the time for the stain on Kilgallen’s memory to be removed.

This is a well researched, thoughtful ,and provocative book. For anyone looking for answers to how and why JFK and subsequently Dorothy Kilgallen were taken from us, this book offers plausible scenarios.

I have had the pleasure of reading many literary pieces that surround the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on 22nd November, 1963; this being my most recent read - 'The Reporter Who Knew too Much' ~ author, Mark Shaw. It is not a lengthy book, & in truth, thankful that it is not. Shaw covers Kilgallen's life & death reasonably well. A Criminal Defence lawyer, with more than twenty other literary endeavours - centring on conspiratorial issues concerning the great & the good. The 'overture' to this book is overly long, & in my opinion, unnecessary - there are constant reiterations to points already made, & grammatically, it suffers greatly. I am sure Mr Shaw is a fine & competent advocate of the law, but a writer, no. He champions Kilgallen's cause admirably, but I found his conclusions - in terms of having her mysterious death re-investigated - woefully naive. I certainly appreciate his passion for restoring this award winning journalist/broadcaster/celebrity to a place of prominence in recent American history, but it is Shaw's preamble & general discourse that frankly, gave me a headache; that said, I have read this bio to completion, & offer three stars - no more. Not sure I would choose to pick up another of this author's works - but perhaps that's unfair. I might recommend you find a cheaper copy if you so decide to purchase same - £9.99 is unjustified.

The tragedy of the death of Dorothy Kilgallen, reporter, broadcaster and sophisticated woman-about-town, was insufficiently investigated at the time. To the extent that a cover-up seems highly likely. The death of Kennedy, which she was investigating, may have brought unwelcome attention from the authorities, but her complex love-life may also have played a role. The author, whose command of spelling and syntax is sometimes shaky, has nonetheless made a very thorough job of his investigation, as far as is possible, and tells his tale excitingly. A good editor would have helped this excellent and compulsive book into the top rank.

Killed because of what she knew…, shame she didn’t stay under the radar until dhe had time to publish her findings

The book explicity summarises the life and tragic death of an extraordinary woman who was determined to expose those who were really behind JFK's assassination - and paid for it with her life. RIP Dorothy - hopefully one day the truth will finally be revealed.

Well written, but too much personal information before the case, which I wish had been condensed