I dont know but I didnt have that choice.. 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. It wasnt as much fun.. 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 grandfather and father followed Gen. Otis in the publishers chair. [1], Chandler was raised on a 10-acre (40,000m2) citrus ranch in Sierra Madre owned by his parents. . He and Thomas finished sixth in a field of 72 cars third in their class of 22 a remarkable performance for a 50-year-old rookie driver. When Chandler was growing up, he lived with his parents on a 10-acre citrus ranch in Sierra Madre. He died in 2002. That was far from the only example of Chandlers reversal of long-held dogma at The Times. 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. I loved being a reporter. I was a B student.). 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. He was 78. (Little) Chandler. In 1958, the paper had covered the governors race between Republican William F. Knowland and Democrat Edmund G. Pat Brown in its traditional way: Browns campaign was virtually ignored while Knowlands was championed. 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. I thought Otis was committed in the same way, she said. Chandler pursued excellence in every aspect of his life, said Tom Johnson. In 1986, Chandler surrendered the titles of chairman and editor in chief, although he remained on the board and took on the largely ceremonial role of chairman of the companys executive committee. Two years later, he was made marketing manager of The Times. He gradually worked his way through every department at the paper: production, circulation, the mailroom, mechanical, advertising, the newsroom. Southern California was considered a cultural backwater, and despite his familys vast wealth and power, Chandler felt like a hick. In Los Angeles, while working in the fruit fields, he started a small delivery company that . I think he fears that he would die if he werent building something.. The Dowling Family Tree with over half a million relatives,contains thousands of pictures and over four thousand GeneaStars.We are all related! [1], A sprained wrist kept him from competing as a shot putter for the United States in the 1952 Summer Olympics. When The Times consistently provided editorial support for various downtown redevelopment projects, civic activists were quick to say the projects would enhance the value of the Chandler familys real estate interests there. While he was hunting in Mozambique in 1964, an elephant charged him, his wife and their guide. His goal, he once quipped, was to make it a militant middle-of-the-road paper.. He said he didnt regret the 40 years he spent here. 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. As he did in every posting at The Times, he filled notebook after notebook with his thoughts on possible improvements. One had only to visit the mens room in his car and wildlife museum its walls covered with posters of scantily clad women draped over shiny sports cars to realize that his ultra-masculinity wasnt limited to guns, barbells, fast cars and motorcycles. He sought largely solitary recreational activities throughout his adult life surfing, lifting weights, racing, cycling, hunting. Chandler attributed his pursuit of solo athletics like shotputting and weightlifting to the same sources, saying, "No one could say that the team carried me or that the coach put me in because my name was Chandler". Then, on April 11, 1960, Norman Chandler invited more than 700 people to a luncheon at the Biltmore Bowl ballroom in downtown Los Angeles, where he promised a special announcement.. Some critics felt that his zeal for national recognition led The Times to underemphasize local news, particularly about minority communities. Records may include photos, original documents, family history, relatives, specific dates, locations and full names. Alberta Chandler, the wife of Chandlers uncle (and rival) Philip, was a prominent member of the Birch Society, and she and Philip had played host to Birch Society President Robert Welch. 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. But results were slow in coming, and many top-level executives left. After graduating from Stanford, he tried to enroll in an Air Force training program. He was the fourth and final member of the Chandler family to hold the paper's top position. Chandlers wife, Bettina, was with him. Norman Chandler 1899-1973. Chandlers reign as publisher was not an uninterrupted, 20-year victory lap. Willes had taken charge of the company after a deep and prolonged recession that hit The Times particularly hard; circulation at the paper was declining, and both the stock price and the profits of Times Mirror were falling even faster. This coincided with the shift of the paper's editorial stance from overtly conservative to independent. But after about 18 months, I accepted an invitation to his house for dinner, and when I drove up to this huge mansion in San Marino, I thought, Holy cow! When I got inside, I said, Well, just what do you do at The Times?.. The two married in 1922, and had two children, Camilla and Otis, both born in 1927. [1] When I asked what he did, he just said, I work at The Times,. Thomas recalled. LA Times After dropping out of Stanford, Chandler started working at the newspaper as a secretary to his father, Harry Chandler, who had been its publisher since 1917. Word that Chandler was breaking his silence ricocheted through the newsroom. When the guide missed his shot and ran off in a panic, Chandler shot the elephant in the leg at a distance of 10 yards, deflecting the animal just enough to send it thundering past them. It could be said that the anti-Otis crowd beat up on him so much that he just gave up, said former editorial page editor Day. You transformed the entire staff, he said, and the whole place had a totally different attitude.. For a time, when he was young, Chandler rode a bicycle several miles to and from the Polytechnic School in Pasadena. Shaw, The Times longtime media critic, filed a draft of this obituary before his death Aug. 1. 2443 E Peach Tree Drive is currently listed for rent at $1,995 and was received on February 28, 2023. Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, Chandler Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife, "Publisher Who Couldn't Get Enough Competition", "Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication", "Otis Chandler, 78; transformed L.A. Times into a leading paper", "Otis Chandler, Publisher Who Transformed Los Angeles Times, Dies at 78", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Otis_Chandler&oldid=1112344101, Stanford Cardinal men's track and field athletes, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Pages using infobox person with multiple parents, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2017, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 25 September 2022, at 21:57. As a child, each year his parents held a memorial for the 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing, linked to political agitators, that killed 20 Times workers. Column: 15 minutes of fame flies by. [1][2], After graduation, Chandler tried to enroll in an Air Force training program, but was turned down because he was too large to fit in the cockpit of a jet. During Willes brief tenure as publisher he relinquished the job to Kathryn Downing in 1999 so he could concentrate his energies on Times Mirror he did initiate a number of controversial strategies designed to increase Times circulation and advertising revenue. Brian Lamb, right, founder and CEO of C-Span, interviews Otis Chandler in 2001. For him a project is a process, a growth. He broke the freshman school record with a toss of 48 feet (15m), 761/47inches. Nixon, by all accounts, was stunned by the turnabout. But Tribune had long had Times Mirror in its corporate sights. [4], He was not involved in negotiations by other members of the Chandler family to sell The Times to Tribune Company, a clear sign of how his influence had eroded. In the 1980 speech, he complained that he felt increasingly like an outcast. It wasnt meeting Bettina that did it, even though Missy thinks so, Chandler said many years later, referring to Marilyn Chandler by her nickname. After his divorce, Chandler had begun to move his primary residence so often two places in Malibu, then Hancock Park, back to Malibu, Ojai, Rancho Matilija, Oregon, Ojai again that his children began teasing him about it. 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. The booming Southern California economy helped immeasurably, of course. By the time he left the publishers office, it had increased tenfold during his tenure. Chandler retired as publisher in 1980 at the age of 52 to become chairman of Times Mirror, reducing his involvement in the day-to-day operations of the company. He was also consumed by another passion: buying classic cars for his museum. 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. He eventually recovered from serious head injuries. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Despite Chandlers worries and despite what he said was a constant stream of calls and letters from Times executives past and present, asking him to do something about the direction of the newspaper, he made no real effort for most of Willes tenure to influence what was happening at Times Mirror Square. At 6-foot 3-inches (190cm) tall, after bulking-up to and 220 pounds he won the Pacific Coast Conference title and finished second in the nation during his senior year with a toss of 57 feet (17m), 63/47 of an inch while serving as his team's captain. Jack Burke, Chandlers close friend since their days together at Stanford, had assembled an exploratory oil-drilling company called GeoTek in the late 1960s and early 70s. He was skinny all right 6 feet 1, 155 pounds but he played varsity soccer and basketball, high-jumped and ran the mile, and his successes gave him an identity. Its too big, its too stuffy. Murray had helped create Sports Illustrated and was one of its stars. But Otis had certainly been aware of the family pressure. The youngest son, Michael, also worked in the papers production departments, ultimately taking early retirement in a companywide buyout. His two predecessors as chairman his father and Murphy had been invited to remain on the board, in a non-voting capacity, after their 70th birthdays, but Chandler was not extended a similar invitation, and he was clearly hurt by that. Like his father, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Sigma Rho chapter). Le Dowling arbre gnalogique avec les parents d'undemi-million, contient des milliers de photos et plus d'un millierGeneaStars. Chandler was diagnosed seven months ago, although doctors had determined about a year earlier that he was suffering from some form of dementia, his wife said. Williams wrote a new one, warning that the Birchers extremism and smear tactics were subversive acts that could sow distrust and weaken the very strong case for conservatism. Chandler signed it and published it on Page 1. Born in Los Angeles on Nov. 23, 1927, Chandler was the only son of Norman Chandler and Dorothy Buffum Chandler. On one memorable occasion, a hotel maid walked in on him while he was doing full squats with his wife on his shoulders in place of a barbell. 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. Critics also thought his position at the top of the citys power structure prevented The Times from aggressively investigating that establishment. Chandler insisted that he wasnt giving up the journalistic chase or losing his competitive edge, simply assuming a larger corporate responsibility. In August 1972, the Wall Street Journal broke the story, which dragged on for several years before a federal court sentenced Burke to 30 months in prison. Thats when I decided this was the business for me.. People who knew the Chandlers well say Otis first wife was enormously competitive. Was the daughter of General Harrison Gray Otis and Secretary of the Times-Mirror Company (formerly the publishing company of the Los Angeles Times ). But by 1962, The Times had become a different institution. About the same time, McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm, was conducting another of its periodic studies for The Times, and it too recommended dividing the responsibilities of publisher and chairman. 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. In October 1999, The Times published a special issue of its Sunday magazine devoted entirely to Staples Center, the sports arena and entertainment venue then about to open in downtown Los Angeles. Sierra Canyon proves to be too much for Taft in Division I regional basketball opener, High school soccer: Southern California Regional results and updated pairings, High school basketball: Southern California and Northern California Regional results and updated pairings, Clippers still seeking right roster combination as they fall to Timberwolves. 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. Constance Chandler 1896-1962. Goodwin J. Knight. But even though the paper and the company has been sold, it feels to me like Im home again.. Otis himself offered contradictory explanations of his mothers role in his promotion, befitting a mother-son relationship that had its share of paradox. She was athletic, she surfed, she hunted and she was always vying for equal status or greater status than Otis, said Howard Gilmore, one of Chandlers longtime hunting companions. He said I had to be well-rounded and implied that it was so I could ultimately take some executive position. By his strength and by his judgment of good journalists, he was of unique importance in the history of the Los Angeles Times.. But he didnt disclose to other investors that he received $109,000 in finders fees and $373,000 in promotional shares of GeoTek stock for his efforts. He moved gradually at first, then much more quickly, especially after hiring Day, who joined the paper as chief editorial writer in 1969 and later became editor of the editorial pages. 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. But he never interfered with an editorial decision, Thomas said, never tried to tell me how a story should be written or edited or played, or how a page should look.. This was a flagrant violation of the independence of the editorial department, and it placed the credibility of the paper in jeopardy. At the same time, he shifted the papers editorial page philosophy from the extreme right to slightly left of center. From the start, he wrote periodic first-person columns, prominently displayed in the front section of the paper, musing about the life of an athlete or the quirks of an outboard motor. In 1998, Chandler dissolved his last official ties with The Times. He hired the best people he could find and gave them the freedom, the resources and the challenge to take a newspaper that had been mocked as partisan, parochial and inferior and turn it into a publication that could no longer be sneered at. 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