But he also worried about his legacy, and he increasingly spoke critically, if only in private at first, about his unhappiness with the direction of Times Mirror and the paper under Mark Willes, a former executive at General Mills who had been hired to succeed Erburu as chairman and chief executive in 1995 and also assumed the title of Times publisher when Richard T. Schlosberg III retired unexpectedly in 1997. The paper warmly endorsed Nixon but also praised Browns accomplishments in the same editorial. The disease is known for its fast progression. As a weightlifter, Chandler finished third in the nation competing in the heavyweight division. Former Times publisher Tom Johnson, left, greets Otis Chandler at a USC Annenberg Distinguished Achievement Awards dinner in January 2000. And, like most men of his stature, he was on the boards of several civic organizations and served on a variety of local and national commissions and committees. 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.. There Chandler spent much of his time alone, later in life unable to name a single childhood friend. We treated him as an insider and told him what was happening, Carroll said. While he was hunting in Mozambique in 1964, an elephant charged him, his wife and their guide. He entered a six-hour endurance race in Watkins Glen, N.Y., teamed with John Thomas, his motorcycle buddy and Porsche mechanic, who had long raced cars himself. Many had led quietly productive lives outside the newspaper industry and had tried to keep their complaints about cousin Otis and The Times within the family circle. His father made sure that Chandler experienced work in all sections of the organization, assigning him to jobs in the industrial production of the paper, business management, clerical administration, and the news-gathering operation.[1]. Updated: October 7, 2011 . His Stanford roommate, Norman Nourse, suggested that he try the shotput throwing a 16-pound iron ball. After the series was published, Otis asked for an editorial criticizing the Birchers. 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. The corporate air was a little too rarified for him, said Swayze, his secretary. 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. Because he had five children and heavy corporate responsibilities, his wife tried to dissuade him from this favored leisure time activity. He was the fourth and final member of the Chandler family to hold the paper's top position. In 1948 the Chandler family had started a second newspaper, an afternoon tabloid called the Los Angeles Mirror, and as part of his training program, Otis worked there too. 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. I dont know but I didnt have that choice.. He always has to have a project. Because much of his Times Mirror stock was tied up in trust funds, a lot of his money came from buying and selling cars. 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. Despite the enormous difference in their socioeconomic status, the two remained close friends for more than 30 years. [1], Chandler enrolled at his parents' alma mater, Stanford University, in 1946. [1], On a 1964 safari in Mozambique, an elephant charged his party. 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. 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. 'It was three outside members of the [Times Mirror] board who persuaded him to do it 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. But he persisted and in 1978 at age 50, after years of what he called Walter Mitty fantasies about becoming a race car driver finally got a chance to race professionally. Column: 15 minutes of fame flies by. Many people found him a bit distant cool, controlled, difficult to know well and these qualities became more pronounced as he matured and increasingly tried to escape the burden of being a Chandler. Under Otis Chandler, The Times became a critically lauded newspaper. Like many women of her generation, Marilyn Chandler had long put her own career interests on hold to raise their children. 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. The Hearst paper was subsequently hit by a devastating strike and ceased publication in 1989. The GeoTek debacle helped greatly exacerbate the colon problem. Married Harry Chandler . Perelman once wrote that while traveling through the western United States by train, he asked a porter to bring him a newspaper and unfortunately, the poor man, hard of hearing, brought me the Los Angeles Times.. The 1962 gubernatorial campaign was another. His mother rushed him to a second hospital, where a doctor she knew revived him with an adrenaline shot to the heart. But he said he wished people realized that if hed been left totally on his own, he might have done something different, so why did they question it when he finally decided he would do something different., Although Chandler often likened himself to the eagle that serves as the symbol of The Times I like to soar, to get above the minutiae and the crowds he insisted that as long as he was publisher, I was living the life I wanted to live. When Chandler was growing up, he lived with his parents on a 10-acre citrus ranch in Sierra Madre. . My style was to do the job and push the boundaries, and once Otis realized I knew what I was doing, he let me do it, Thomas said. It was the best down time I ever had, and I always kept a notebook with all the things I wanted to do when I got back.. Respect and credibility for a newspaper is irreplaceable.. For a time, when he was young, Chandler rode a bicycle several miles to and from the Polytechnic School in Pasadena. Norman, the eldest, went through an executive training program and rose to be composing superintendent a position overseeing much of the physical production of the paper before leaving in 1989, when he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. Marian Otis Chandler (1866-1952), Born Emma Marian Otis. Although Chandler had previously been insistent that his criticisms of the business strategies pursued by Times management remain private, this undermining of the papers editorial integrity stirred him to action. 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. I never understood how he could just opt out like that., But Chandler, asked often about his decision to leave, said: I gave 40 years of my life to The Times and Times Mirror. Wall Street responded favorably. Otis Chandler died at age 51 years old in March 1971. . Who can help student-athletes cash in? But the newsroom was riddled with hacks, and Norman Chandler was unwilling to make sweeping personnel changes or to approve the expenditures necessary to effect significant improvement. Chandler himself invested more than $200,000 of his personal funds. 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. It is Marilyn Brant. How could I have been so stupid? He remained an avid reader of the paper. USE LINKPENDIUM'S FAMILY DISCOVERER TO SEARCH 2,804,127 FREE GENEALOGY SOURCES! login . When, by late September, it appeared that Brown might win as he ultimately did Times political editor Kyle Palmer, the papers lead reporter on the campaign, wrote a column acknowledging that the situation sounds a trifle grim for us Republicans.. During Chandlers first year as publisher, the paper ran one of the most important series in its history, stories that helped define the new Los Angeles Times. 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. But when Williams, the editor, suggested that the paper look into the organization anyway, both Otis and Norman Chandler gave him the go-ahead. Otis Chandler (November 23, 1927 February 27, 2006) was the publisher of the Los Angeles Times between 1960 and 1980, leading a large expansion of the newspaper and its ambitions. Staffing in Washington and Sacramento was expanded. By all accounts, the family enjoyed their outdoor experiences together, for Chandler focused on his children as intensely as he did on everything else that mattered in his life. He used the same tone of voice with the president of the United States and the guy who came to change the lightbulbs in his office, said Donna Swayze, his executive secretary from 1962 to 1988. Nobody had ever heard of the Chandlers, he said later. Norman Chandler was delighted by this practical evidence that Otis had absorbed his childhood lessons of prudence and thrift. 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. It was a watershed experience, he said. [1], In 1986, Chandler won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism to honor his years of service to the newspaper.[3]. He lost part of the big toe on his left foot, saw another toe severely damaged and the rest of the foot became largely numb. Chandlers wife, Bettina, was with him. Chandlers reign as publisher was not an uninterrupted, 20-year victory lap. 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. 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. Reporter Gene Blake produced a five-part expose, written in calm, matter-of-fact language. My trips gave me a balance, a perspective, he said. Find records of Otis Chandler Birth records Marriage records Divorce records . But in 1972, he suffered his most damaging blow and it was, to a significant extent, self-inflicted. 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