Maxine Mesinger

Who was Maxine Mesinger?

Maxine Mesinger, née Maxine Ethel David was a celebrity gossip columnist of the Houston Chronicle who was active between 1965 and 2000. Her works were published in the "Big City Beat," her social column. She had the nickname "Miss Moonlight". Clifford Pugh of the Houston Chronicle said that she "wrote about big names for half of the 20th century and became a celebrity in her own right". Lisa Gray of the Houston Press said that Mesinger "wrote in the swingin' lingo of '40s showbiz".

She was born in 1925 to Julian "Drake" David and Ella David. She graduated from San Jacinto High School. She took post-secondary education at Texas Woman's University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the University of Houston. In 1944 she married Emil Mesinger. They had two children, Julianne and Jay. Mesinger had a career in television. In the 1950s she hosted two celebrity oriented shows on a television network operated by the University of Houston. In 1964 the Houston Chronicle hired her to be a columnist. For a period she and her family lived at the Shamrock Hotel. She had two children, Jay and Julianne. Her collection of antiques, fine art, mementos, and photographs of Hollywood actors and actresses from the second half of the 20th Century was called the "Maxine Mesinger Memorial Museum" by her family.