I wrote this little thing last year, after reading Lee Israel’s biography of Dorothy Kilgallen. I picked the parts of the story one could relate to the movie business in some way. At the time, I was planning to do these “Old Hollywood stories” on the blog once every while. Clearly, it did not work out. But I wanted to publish something to make myself more motivated to write.
In 1936 New York journalist (from New York Evening Journal) Dorothy Kilgallen, who was only twenty-three at the time, boarded the German ship Hinderburg and set off on a journey around the world. The idea was for her and two other journalists to race and see who can get back to the US first, in the spirit of Around the World in 80 Days. To the public, Kilgallen was the most exciting part of the whole expedition because she was a woman — and everyone was wondering if a woman could accomplish such a feat. Of course, all three travelers would write about their journey in their respective magazines, and the Americans would „tune in” to see how they are doing.
The journey was full of adventures and drama and twists and turns, even before it really started. Still aboard Hinderburg, Kilgallen met and fell for a German general. A general that was, as it turns out, one of the soldiers from the immediate circle close to Hitler. Not only that but when the travelers got to Germany, Dorothy openly talked about her appreciation for the land. She thought that the Germans truly knew how to run the country. On the other hand, she hated Baghdad and other „Arab” places, called them dirty, made fun of the customs and traditional clothes. She also described Indochina as a jungle where primitive tribes hunt helpless white women. She evidently enjoyed the postcolonial narrative-fantasy of a poor white woman against the savage tribes of the „exotic” lands.
Maybe in 1936 the ignorance about what was happening and what was going to happen in Europe very soon was widespread enough that we could try and look past Kilgallen’s sympathies. But we can all agree that being that into German officers was not something to be proud of. The comments about the Middle Eastern, Asian countries alone prove that xenophobia and fear of anything foreign was a big part of Kilgallen’s columns. Did people care in 1936? Some of them, sure, but I am afraid that her sentiments were in a large part shared by the 1930s America. So her comments did not cause the backlash they might have if her column was being published today, in fact the public’s response to Dorothy was rather enthusiastic. Even after one of the other journalists, Ekins, ended up being the winner of the race, it was Dorothy who the Americans were most excited about. She became a celebrity. And she would soon set off on a new journey, a journey to a place where celebrities go — Hollywood, California.
After the competition Dorothy Kilgallen became a staple of popular culture. She appeared in ads, interviews, people started writing books and songs about her. Plus, Hollywood decided to make a movie based on her adventure. The film was called Fly Away Baby and changed the story „slightly”. In the film, the character based on Dorothy won the race, the character based on Kieran, another journalist, cheated. Dorothy herself appeared in a movie called Sinner Take All — she got a cameo as a reporter. Originally she had five lines of dialogue but in the final version of the movie they were cut to just one. There wasn’t really a big movie career in Dorothy’s future.
So, there was an actual Dorothy Kilgallen — although appearing under different names, in the movies in Hollywood, but the real life Kilgallen also quickly became part of the industry. She was a writer first, so it made sense for her to get her own Hollywood column. It was first known as Evening Journal: Hollywood Scene as Seen by Dorothy Kilgallen, and later changed to As Seen in Hollywood by Dorothy Kilgallen. While there were definitely parts of the Hollywood life that impressed Dorothy, at her first exposure to the place she was quite shocked by the way of life there. She was not used to the very common informality of behaviours and the language. And she was rather critical of the stars, using her column to write snarky comments about Hollywood’s biggest names.
Dorothy was not a fan of, what seems like, the majority of stars of the era. She regularly wrote snarky article about stars like Simone Simon or Constance Bennett. Actually, Constance Bennett was at that time feeling pretty militant and ready to fight anyone who has done her wrong. What that means is that she was suing everyone who slandered her name in some way. So there came a time for Dorothy as well, and Constance had the support of none other than Louella Parsons. That does now mean, though, that there were no stars that she respected. Take the likes of Myrna Loy (because she was bad at sports, and women ought to be bad at sports), Henry Fonda (because he was „very New York” — whatever she meant by that, it was obviously something Kilgallen, a native New Yorker, appreciated in the West), Loretta Young (because she was pretty), and she simply LOVED Tyrone Power.
Quite a lot could possibly be said about Kilgallen and Tyrone Power (if we could actually pin down reliable sources, Lee Israel’s book threads the subject rather carefully): let’s just say that her admiration for him went beyond his career. Or, to put it more bluntly, she developed a real, high-schoolish crush. There is some debate as to whether the couple actually… was a couple, but I think it is pretty safe to say that there was at least one-sided attraction between them. In fact, during the period of time when Dorothy and Tyrone were part of the same social scene, she published a short romantic story in Cosmopolitan called Holiday for Hollywood which (apparently, I have not been able to find it) was a not-so-subtle reference to the actor. The big romance part of the story is questionable.
With the Bennett conflict and Tyrone Power getting married (to someone else), there was not much left for Kilgallen in Hollywood. That period allowed her to get to know a whole new world but was not exactly a grand success. So she went back home to New York City. Her social circle changed only slightly because she continued to write about affluent people, the so-called Cafe Society. She became a Broadway reporter which was a big thing back in the day as it was, apparently, a „man’s job” and Kilgallen was the „First and Only Woman” to be doing it (which was not exactly true as there was another female reporter who was doing it at the same time, Virginia Vale).
In 1950 Dorothy became a true celebrity when she started to appear on a new TV game show, What’s My Line?. In the following years she would become an integral part of the show. She and her husband also had their own radio broadcast, a scenes from a married life kind of thing. They would record their lovely husband-wife banter morning after morning, even when their relationship was not quite idyllic. She started having an affair with a big star, the teen heartthrob Johnnie Ray.
Even though her journalistic career ended up focusing more on crime and reporting high-profile trials in the later years, she still commented on Hollywood when the occasion called for it. She was very moved by Marilyn Monroe’s death. Interestingly, she did not go the sensational, conspiracy-theory route when reporting on it. She did believe Marilyn committed suicide, or rather, used pills to make her pain go away, if only momentarily, and took too many just to make sure she would get through the night.
The death of a tortured creature from the black shapes of a nightmare into the path of an onrushing locomotive. I think she took a few pills to help her get over whatever her last problem was, and sleepily thought, „Oh THAT feels better,” and took a few more to make sure she wouldn’t wake up until morning came along to make the day safe for her.
That was Dorothy’s theory about what happened to Marilyn. But she went further. And while Kilgallen might not have seemed like the warmest person on the planet, she seemed to really be touched by Marilyn’s death.
This is a story I have known I was going to be writing in the not too distant future. When I first heard Marilyn was dead I said „Oh, no – it can’t be true” which is what almost everyone else said, but as the voice filled in the details I found myself thinking, of course. Of course. This is the way it would have to be… Nude… the pill bottle… the record player. And alone.
Among the things the friends kept asking is, „I wonder why she didn’t leave a note?”… Her life was a suicide note, written for everybody to read, but nobody would believe the message.
Sleep well, sweet girl. You have left more of a legacy than most, if all you ever left was a handful of photographs of one of the loveliest women who ever walked the earth.
Dorothy Kilgallen does not seem to me like the nicest person. I find a lot of her politics worrying. But I think her empathy towards Marilyn is admirable. It is also, sadly, pretty dark when one considers that she too would die of an early death, alone. But in the end, don’t we all? At least she got to go around the world and be right in the middle of “the things” happening many, many times.
Source of all information, the quotes, and the photo scans: Kilgallen: A Biography of Dorothy Kilgallen, by Lee Israel, published in 1979 by Delacorte Press.
Swingin' at the Seance 