Dorothy Kilgallen

Who was Dorothy Kilgallen?

Dorothy Mae Kilgallen was an American journalist and television game show panelist. She started her career early as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation's New York Evening Journal after spending two semesters at The College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York. In 1936, she began her newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, which eventually was syndicated to more than 146 papers. She became a regular panelist on the television game show What's My Line? in 1950.

Kilgallen's columns featured mostly show business news and gossip, but also ventured into other topics such as politics and organized crime. She wrote front-page articles on the Sam Sheppard trial and later the John F. Kennedy assassination and interviewed Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald's killer, out of earshot of sheriff's deputies. The circumstances of Kilgallen's death have been the subject of conspiracy theories. As the cause of her death was officially ruled "undetermined," and because she openly criticized U.S. government agencies as early as 1959, some believe that Kilgallen was murdered in order to silence her.