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Revision as of 19:00, 22 September 2004
Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (July 3, 1913 - November 8, 1965) was an American actress, reporter and television presenter. She was born in Chicago, Illinois the daughter of James Kilgallen, a newspaperman.
Dorothy's early working career was as a crime reporter for which she became famous, along with participating in a world race in which she was the only female contestant, a race which inspired her autobiography, Girl Around The World, which would then be turned into a movie Fly Away Baby. She became a popular Broadway columnist and also co-hosted, with her husband Richard Kollmar, Breakfast with Dick and Dorothy.
In 1950, she was added to the American television gameshow What's My Line? where she became more popular on-air, but her personality clashed with her co-hosts so they brought in Arlene Francis for the second episode to complement her personality.
Her reporting had contributed to getting Dr. Sam Sheppard a new trial. She was a critic of the Warren Commission, parts of which she had published in the New York Journal-American before its public release. It is often reported that she had conducted an "exclusive interview" with Jack Ruby before her death, but this seems to have been nothing more than questioning Ruby during a recess in his trial in the presence of other reporters.
Kilgallen had long had drinking and drug problems. She checked herself into rehabilitation clinics twice, and had more than once was drunk on What's My Line? (which was usually broadcast live). In 1965, she was found dead in her New York City home. She had swallowed a combination of alcohol and seconal which contributed to her heart attack. It is not known whether it was a suicide or an accidental death, though the relatively low amounts of barbituates in her system indicate that it was probably accidental.
Because of her Ruby interview and criticism of the Warren Commission, some people speculate that she was murdered by mysterious strangers who apparently broke into her apartment and forced pills down her throat. However, there is no evidence of a break-in or a struggle either in Kilgallen's apartment or in her autopsy. Kilgallen's husband, who was sleeping in another bedroom in the same apartment, reported nothing unusual.
At the time of her death, she had been married 25 years and left behind 3 children. She is interred in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.