I occasionally hunt with a bow I am a saltwater fisherman and dry-fly freshwater fisherman, a gun collector, a sometime skeet and target shooter, an avid backpacker, outdoor photographer, trophy skinner, wild game gourmet but a lousy cook. The decision stunned the staff and outside observers, many of whom expected him to serve much longer. It is Marilyn Brant. [1] He was the son of Norman Chandler, his predecessor as publisher, and Dorothy Buffum Chandler, a patron of the arts and a Regent of the University of California. As a boy, he would stand alongside his father and grandfather at Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever) in annual memorials to the victims of a bomb blast that wrecked the Times building in 1910, killing 20 workers. When many top Times executives proved either reluctant to change or incapable of meeting his standards after he became publisher, he replaced 22 of 23 department heads within the first year. But Thomas said it really didnt take much persuasion, because he really did want to go., Chandler himself said: I think some of the family members and some of the corporate people were hoping I would step aside although I dont recall that there was strong pressure.. Having been rebuffed by Willes in a spring 1999 inquiry about buying Times Mirror, Tribune executives went around him several months later and dealt directly with Chandler family members and their representatives. With the Mirror still losing money, it had been Chandler who wanted it closed, and his father had reluctantly concurred. Otis Ashmore Chandler (1891 - 1956) They didnt like the L.A. Times, he said in the 2005 interview. People who knew the Chandlers well say Otis first wife was enormously competitive. He had married his college sweetheart, Marilyn Brant having proposed to her on his 23rd birthday on the seventh hole of the Pebble Beach golf course and they had a baby boy (Norman, after Otis father) but no plans and no substantial income. Missy and I had had a good marriage, but we just werent getting along anymore in the last 10 years. This was a flagrant violation of the independence of the editorial department, and it placed the credibility of the paper in jeopardy. George Cotliar, who joined the paper three years before Chandler became publisher and served as an editor for almost 40 years, said The Times had been widely regarded as a crappy newspaper and a politically biased newspaper, and the Birch series and the editorial were a statement to the staff too. How could I have been so stupid? He continued to ride motorcycles. Because much of his Times Mirror stock was tied up in trust funds, a lot of his money came from buying and selling cars. Norman Chandler died in 1973. The Chandlers had no rival as the most powerful family in Southern California. But even though the paper and the company has been sold, it feels to me like Im home again.. They saw the sinister hand of communism behind such government initiatives as fluoridation of the water supply and integration of the schools. With Otis gone, the heat shield was gone, Johnson said. "No publisher in America improved a paper so quickly on so grand a scale, took a paper that was marginal in qualities and brought it to excellence as Otis Chandler did," journalist David Halberstam wrote in his history of the company.[1]. Otis Chandler, whose vision and determination as publisher of the Los Angeles Times from 1960 to 1980 catapulted the paper from mediocrity into the front ranks of American journalism, died today of a degenerative illness called Lewy body disease. The conservative movement that would lead to Barry Goldwaters presidential candidacy in 1964 and to Ronald Reagans subsequent rise was in its nascence. Chandler would assume the newly created position of editor in chief of Times Mirror and, on Jan. 1, 1981, he would succeed Murphy as chairman. He thought they had committed transgressions that jeopardized the reputation and credibility he had worked so diligently to establish. He put in long hours, but he managed to have dinner with his family most nights, even if it meant doing more work at home after dinner. He had the papers support when he ran unsuccessfully for president in 1960. Id work the graveyard shift for a week, then spend a week on days, then a week on the swing shift, then back to the graveyard shift, he recalled. Geni requires JavaScript! Willes, he said in 1999, was basically undoing what I and my father and Franklin Murphy all did, dating back to 1958. That was far from the only example of Chandlers reversal of long-held dogma at The Times. On the fringes of that movement and especially active in Southern California was an ultra-right-wing organization known as the John Birch Society. He had purchased his first a 1931 Duesenberg in 1968 for $35,000, and he built a world-class collection of Porsches, Ferraris, Duesenbergs, Cadillacs, Packards and other classics before selling all of them to meet the financial terms of his divorce settlement. I always had the feeling that I wasnt welcome in the building when Mark was in charge that maybe theyd have a guard try to throw me out if I tried to come in. When the Hearsts and Chandlers agreed to fold the two papers, The Times acquired a monopoly in the increasingly lucrative morning market, while Hearsts Los Angeles Herald-Express (renamed the Herald Examiner) was left with a monopoly in the increasingly problematic afternoon market. He attended Dartmouth College, and on a dare, he jumped into a vat of starch that had frozen over during winter, which led to severe pneumonia. Updated: October 7, 2011 . Chandler's family owned a stake in the newspaper since his great-grandfather Harrison Gray Otis joined the company in 1882, the year after the Los Angeles Daily Times began publication. Also, because Thomas was more aggressive than Williams, more likely to take the initiative and less likely to urge caution, Chandler adopted a largely hands-off approach. Some close to the family and the paper suggest that it might have been Mrs. Chandler who asked the board members to pressure her husband to step aside as publisher so he could devote his full attention to his chairmanship of the parent Times Mirror company, which was about to embark on a major diversification program. It was at Watkins Glen that Chandler got to know Bettina Whitaker, who was an executive at Shakeys International, a sponsor of his Watkins Glen car. When he was with you, he was really with you, Harry said. [1] The statement was a stinging and unprecedented rebuke of Willes and Downing. Research genealogy for Otis Chandler of Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, as well as other members of the Chandler family, on Ancestry. Several prominent members of the family cousins of Otis who reflect the more conservative side of the family declined requests to be interviewed for this article. Did The Times change out of foresight or luck? By the time Thomas became editor in 1971, many of the major changes had been made, resistance had greatly diminished and Chandler was stepping back to take a broader view. I decided it was time to be a little selfish, to give myself full time to the things Id always enjoyed doing in bits and pieces., He may also have been frustrated by his inability to reach his stated goal of supplanting the New York Times as the most widely admired American newspaper. At the age of 8, Chandler was thrown to the ground during a horseback riding lesson. He also showed his father skills that went beyond the reportorial. Six weeks later, on the day that John Puerner of Tribune Co. took over as publisher of The Times, Chandler had dinner with Puerner and Jack Fuller, then-president of Tribune Publishing at their invitation. Chandler made improvement of the paper's quality a top priority, succeeding in raising the product's reputation, as well as its profit margins. The negotiations were so secret that Willes said he didnt know about them until less than two weeks before the deal was done, and Chandler said he didnt learn of them until he began hearing rumors two days before the agreement was made. Its too big, its too stuffy. [1], Times editorial page editor Anthony Day observed that Chandler "had been raised to be a prince". Chandler said he wanted to hunt only the rarest and the biggest and the best, and he killed more than 100 such animals 10-foot brown bears and polar bears, lions and musk ox, wild antelope and mountain sheep many of which he had mounted on the walls of a trophy room in the home he shared with his first wife in San Marino. I was just told to be at the Biltmore an hour early for a civic luncheon.. He surfed. And it became clear over the years that he did not have any such intention. I must confess, he said, I am getting darn tired of defending myself as a hunting person.. Soon there was talk of Otis becoming publisher of the Mirror when he finished his training program most likely as one of the final steps before he became publisher of The Times. He wanted the paper to take what he called more balls out positions, and he wanted us to change our position and editorialize against the war in Vietnam.. Critics also thought his position at the top of the citys power structure prevented The Times from aggressively investigating that establishment. Overnight, copies of an old photo of Chandler were pinned and taped by the dozens to pillars and walls and bulletin boards throughout the newsroom, where some still remain. Thats why we diversified the company and went into television and cable and forest products and books and medical and legal publishing.. Hes restless. The stock price tripled during his first three years at the company, and circulation grew modestly. . I was a B student.). Thats when I decided this was the business for me.. And he took special pleasure in telling friends and colleagues about the telephone call he received from John Madigan, then-chairman and chief executive of Tribune, at 7 a.m. the day the takeover was announced. I think he fears that he would die if he werent building something.. But he also had a princes sense of entitlement, a sense that perhaps I dont have to do this every damn day, he added. His son was perfectly willing, indeed eager, to do and spend whatever was necessary to achieve journalistic respectability. After a year or so in editorial, when I told my dad that Id just like to be a reporter, he said, no, I had to go on to other departments, Chandler said. Marian Otis Chandler (1866-1952), Born Emma Marian Otis. Unbeknown to the reporters and editors who worked on that project and to the entire editorial staff of The Times the paper had agreed to share the profits from the issue with Staples Center as part of a complicated arrangement by which The Times became a founding partner of the arena. Seldom has a newspaper had such an opportunity to meld the best of three staffs. He was also consumed by another passion: buying classic cars for his museum. Sulzberger recalled decades later that he once walked into Chandlers office and found him hanging upside down in the doorway, like a bat. Of all the political figures to benefit from The Times partisanship over the years, none had been more favored, or more successful, than Nixon. During Chandlers 20 years as publisher and five subsequent years as editor in chief and chairman of the board of The Times then-parent company, Times Mirror the paper won nine Pulitzer Prizes and expanded from two to 34 foreign and domestic bureaus. [1] The change that ignited the biggest debate was Willes announced intention to blow up, with a bazooka, if necessary, the wall that had traditionally separated and insulated the newsroom of the paper from the business department to avoid conflicts of interest. Otis himself offered contradictory explanations of his mothers role in his promotion, befitting a mother-son relationship that had its share of paradox. But the series also served notice that The Times was in the process of becoming a different and much better newspaper. But there is nothing as fascinating as the newspaper business, and I cant imagine any challenge more satisfying than the work we did to improve The Times.. ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. He was particularly resentful of Willes frequent promise to reinvent the newspaper and Willes and Downings unwillingness to consult him. They wanted the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations. Elisha Graves Otis Print Family Tree Born 3 August 1811 - Halifax, Windham Co., VT Deceased 8 April 1861 - Yonkers, Westchester Co., NY,aged 49 years old Founder of the Otis Elevator Co. 1 file available Parents Stephen Otis 1773-1859 Phoebe Glynn 1778-1867 Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren The two men introduced themselves as J.T. and Oats (Chandlers longtime family nickname), struck up a conversation about motorcycles and soon began dirt-biking together. Chandler, he said, loved being publisher. Otis Chandler was born on July 4, 1919. Chandler and his editor, Williams, lured reporters away from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News, the Washington Star, BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report. login . But it was Otis Chandler a world-class shotputter in college and a fierce competitor in every arena he entered who took charge of a paper that for decades had generated almost as much ridicule as revenue and transformed it into one of the best newspapers in the country. He said he didnt regret the 40 years he spent here. Theyll have to carry me out of here feet first, he said. The night he arrived home, his young familys possessions crammed into a used station wagon and rented trailer, his mother and father welcomed him enthusiastically. Despite that, Chandler did not envision journalism as a career during his youth; instead, he often said he would like to become a doctor. Chandlers words hit like a bombshell, both in the Times newsroom and in the newspaper business nationwide. Chandler is survived by his wife; sons Harry of Los Angeles and Michael of Bend, Ore; daughters Cathleen Eckhardt of Soquel, Calif., and Carolyn Chandler of Santa Barbara; sister Camilla Chandler Frost of Los Angeles; and 15 grandchildren. I dont know but I didnt have that choice.. [2], On his 23rd birthday, Chandler proposed to his college sweetheart, Marilyn Brant, on the seventh hole of the Pebble Beach golf course. Chandler said the move would help allay the concerns of readers who, mindful of the papers partisan history, find it hard to believe that this newspapers editorial page endorsements really dont affect the news columns.. Married Harry Chandler . When he went home after his time in the Air Force, though, he didnt envision journalism as his lifes work. He saw them both as restraints on his freedom. Nixon, by all accounts, was stunned by the turnabout. In 1995, after moving to another ranch in Oregon, he announced that hed found paradise. Its true that in 1958 Norman Chandler had promoted Williams, a 27-year Times veteran, to the top editors job and had given him instructions to initiate a more aggressive and evenhanded approach to the news. Chandlers wife, Bettina, was with him. Both refused. After the series was published, Otis asked for an editorial criticizing the Birchers. As a Times columnist, he would become one of the most celebrated sportswriters ever. He was the fourth and final member of the Chandler family to hold the paper's top position. The pay was $48 a week. On that wisp of a lure, the room filled up with the cream of the Southern California establishment: corporate heads, college presidents, prominent lawyers and judges, Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson, members of the county Board of Supervisors, former California Gov. Despite his family's wealth, Chandler's father insisted that he perform field labor and did not spoil him with gifts. He died in May 1972 at age 47. Doctors said his right arm, yanked from its socket by the impact, would be virtually useless for the rest of his life. 1. Chandler re-entered the public eye in 1999 when he publicly criticized the LA Times for creating a special issue of its Sunday magazine dedicated to the new Staples Center in downtown LA when the paper shared a financial interest in the property. Direct, decisive and at times startlingly frank in both his personal and professional lives, Chandler told people what he expected of them, and he didnt have much patience with failure. A go-anywhere, ride-any-wave surfer for more than 60 years, Chandler also hunted big game on safaris, raced high-speed cars and motorcycles on official tracks and urban freeways and was always looking for new challenges, preferably those with some measure of risk. Three years after that, he began construction on a 5,500-square-foot home in Ojai, about 30 minutes from his museum. In 1977, Chandler brought Tom Johnson, publisher of the Dallas Times-Herald and a former aide to President Johnson (no relation), to Los Angeles as president of The Times and heir apparent for publisher. A year later, he moved again. The Dowling Family Tree with over half a million relatives,contains thousands of pictures and over four thousand GeneaStars.We are all related! Chandler realized that to build up The Times reputation, he had to demand fair and nonpartisan news coverage. Once he started as a reporter, though, he began to feel different about a career at The Times. Newspapers are a mature, non-growth industry, vulnerable to cyclical economic downturns and increases in the cost of newsprint, he said. He also began to develop a love of speed and once had to do a stint in traffic school after getting a speeding ticket on his bicycle, he said. Even Chandler said some of those long stories made the paper seem gray, somewhat dull at times. In the midst of a horseback riding lesson, he was thrown hard to the ground. Chandler continued to meet regularly with Puerner and John Carroll, who became editor of The Times shortly after the Tribune purchased the paper and remained in that position until last summer. When Chandler took the job, the paper had only two outside offices. But most of his friends and associates said he didnt really have his heart in his new jobs. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Chandler was an exotic, at times mythic figure among the nations newspaper executives, most of whose exertions and excursions outside the boardroom were generally limited to golf courses and cruise ships. But the Mirror continued to falter, and his parents decided they didnt want his first command to be that of a sinking ship. He handed control of the paper to people outside the family in the mid-1980s and threw himself into other interests such as the Chandler Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife in Oxnard, California, which he founded in 1987 (It was regularly open to the public, primarily as a fundraiser for charities, including the Oxnard Police Activities League). Connect to 5,000+ Chandler profiles on Geni, Norman Chandler, Dorothy Chandler (born Buffum), Cause of death: Motor neuron disease, Dementia with Lewy bodies - Feb 27 2006 - Ojai, 1930 - Los Angeles (Districts 0001-0250), Los Angeles, California, USA, 1940 - 800 West Orange Grove, Arcadia, Manrovia Township, Los Angeles, California, USA, June 18 1951 - Los Angeles, California, United States, Feb 27 2006 - Meiners Oaks, Ventura, California, United States, Nov 23 1927 - Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, Norman Chandler, Dorothy Chandler (geb. FOR THE RECORD:In an earlier version of this article, the date of the Helsinki Olympic Games was incorrectly given as 1948. Toward that end, he initiated a more aggressive marketing program, expanded the papers geographic reach and started the Orange County edition to serve the burgeoning population there the first such satellite plant for any metropolitan daily in the country. Not once did the article refer to Brown by name. Column: 15 minutes of fame flies by. He worked out daily, lifting weights in a gym he had built at The Times and improvising when he was traveling. The annual news department budget at The Times was $3.7.million when Chandler took over. Other key members of the Chandler family wanted Philip to succeed Norman, wrote Marshall Berges in his 1984 book, The Life and Times of Los Angeles. But Norman regarded Philip as something of a lightweight, not entirely competent to take an aggressive leadership role at The Times.. 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