PicoBlog

I only recently became aware of the controversy surrounding Dorothy Kilgallen’s death. She was famous for being a panelist on the TV quiz show What’s My Line? as well as for her newspaper column and radio show.

There was some mystery surrounding her untimely death on November 8, 1965 at age 52. She had reported critically on, and was said to be writing a book about, the assassination of President Kennedy, casting doubt on the official Warren Commission explanation.

The coroner’s report said Kilgallen’s body contained alcohol and barbiturates (sleeping pills) but added “circumstance undetermined.” Several theories about her death have been advanced over the years—was it an accidental or intentional overdose, was it her husband, was it a lover, or did her role in investigating Kennedy’s death play a part?

Although busy finishing up a book on another subject, I was curious. But I doubted I could add much to what had already been investigated by a number of people over the years. Could I find anything new after 56 years?

I decided to concentrate on a couple of aspects that I could independently verify. In particular, I decided to do some research on journalist Ron Pataky. He had met Kilgallen on a Fox overseas press junket in 1964. A year later Kilgallen would be dead.

Kilgallen was married in name only, according to Mark Shaw, author of a book about Kilgallen’s death, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much; her husband was seeing other women. Pataky and and Kilgallen were said to be lovers by people who knew Kilgallen well, such as her makeup artists; however, Pataky claimed they were only very good friends. Shaw has speculated that Pataky was present the night she died; he also suggests Pataky may have been part of the Kennedy connection. In interviews with Shaw, Pataky repeatedly denied being in New York at the time of her death. Pataky claims that he was in the newspaper office in Columbus, Ohio, though Shaw was not able to independently verify that.

So I decided to check Pataky’s newspaper columns about the time of Kilgallen’s death to see if they were consistent with his claim that he was in the office. Pataky was the theater and film critic for the Citizen-Journal in Columbus. The paper went out of business in 1985 but is available on microfilm. While others have looked at these columns, they seem to have missed some key facts.

I discovered that Pataky had written columns about local film and theater events in Columbus before Kilgallen’s death. The paper didn’t publish on Sundays, which would have made it easier for him to go out of town on the weekend. (It’s an eight or nine hour drive from Columbus to New York.) To my surprise, his two first columns after Kilgallen’s death mentioned a film playing in New York City that was only going to come to the Columbus several days later. But he wrote an in-depth review just two days after Kilgallen’s death acknowledging he had seen the film. In addition, it seemed strange that his columns did not mention the death of Kilgallen, whom he described as a good friend in Shaw’s book, though he did refer to New York in connection with the films.

.Here is a timeline of Pataky’s columns a few days before and after Kilgallen’s death:

• Saturday, November 6, 1965—Pataky’s column is about a local production of Euripides’ Trojan Women at a Columbus theater. (This would have been submitted by Friday, November 5.)

• Sunday, November 7, 1965, The Citizen-Journal does not have a Sunday edition. Dorothy Kilgallen tapes her last episode of What’s My Line? and afterward is seen by a contestant from the show sitting with a man in the cocktail bar at the Regency Hotel, where the cast, crew, and guests often went after tapings. The hotel was seven blocks from Kilgallen’s townhouse.

• Monday, November 8, 1965. Pataky’s column features a review of Bunny Lake is Missing, which was playing at a movie theater in Columbus. (This could have been submitted on Friday.) Dorothy Kilgallen is found dead in bed at her home.

• Tuesday, November 9, 1965. News of Kilgallen’s death hits newspapers across the country, including the front page of the Citizen-Journal. Pataky did not mention Kilgallen in his column in the two days following her death, though New York is featured in other ways. (In fact, he never addressed her death ever in the column in the coming years.) Pataky’s Tuesday column was headlined, Holiday Film Lineup Finest the City Has Seen in Years. He listed half-a-dozen films that would be playing in Columbus during the holidays, including The Pawnbroker—“A picture that sent the New York press into ecstasy—definitely one you connoisseurs will want to see.”

• The next day, Wednesday, November 10, Pataky’s column was devoted entirely to a detailed review of The Pawnbroker, which was playing in New York, but didn’t open until Friday, November 12 in Columbus. His column was titled: Watch For The Pawnbroker. It Will Go Down As A Classic. An advertisement in The New York Times confirms that The Pawnbroker was playing at the Playhouse Theater on 72nd street in New York, about seven blocks from Kilgallen’s townhouse, the week she died.

The long review makes it clear Pataky has seen the film. The Pawnbroker was about a Holocaust survivor who moves to New York, where scenes of daily life and violence in the city cause him to have flashbacks to the concentration camp. Two of the women in the film—the pawnbroker’s wife, who is killed by the Nazis, and later the woman he has an ambivalent companionship with—bear a passing resemblance to Kilgallen, insofar as both have long black hair.

Pataky observes, “Rod Steiger probably should win the Academy Award for his performance of the central figure. I only insert probably because I haven’t seen several of the pictures from which a competitor might emerge. The supporting players are strong. The screenplay is both articulate and emotional…”

The review also contains some interesting observations. Pataky writes, “We are told for the umpteenth time that hate, in any of its endless forms, breeds other kinds of hate, and that passing years do little to absolve the guilty or relieve the offender.”

More disturbingly, he adds, “The drama is one of seething discontent, which is to say it could only end in tragedy. Here, that tragedy leads to a cleansing or purification that no reviewer should attempt to describe. Suffice it to say that the torment builds until it can no longer contain itself, at which time it breaks out in violence.”

Clearly, Pataky had a strong reaction to the film. Did it break out in violence?

Why did he so strongly deny being in New York when Kilgallen died, when his columns suggest otherwise?

Now, it’s possible Pataky saw the movie earlier in New York or even in another city. If so, he could have been in Columbus that weekend. But the columns are also consistent with his being in New York. So the content of his columns do not 100% prove he was in Columbus that weekend (the way they would have if he had written about seeing a local play that weekend), nor do the columns rule out his being in New York City. The columns could be consistent with either scenario.

Pataky had several brushes with the law in Columbus. He made the front page of the Columbus Dispatch in 1971 after being arrested for shooting at football player James Otis. He had previously been arrested in 1963 after an incident at a drinking party. He is said to have had confrontations at Stanford University in 1954 that led to his transferring to Ohio State, from which he graduated before meeting Kilgallen.

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