Despite his family's wealth, Chandler's father insisted that he perform field labor and did not spoil him with gifts. A tribute will be held at The Times at a later date for Times staff, as well as retirees from the paper and the Times Mirror Corp. It is Marilyn Brant. It was clear to me that it meant a lot to him and that he didnt want to feel shut out.. He foresaw the sprawling megalopolis that Los Angeles and its neighboring counties would become, and he wanted The Times to be the dominant paper from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border.. The conservative movement that would lead to Barry Goldwaters presidential candidacy in 1964 and to Ronald Reagans subsequent rise was in its nascence. If a newspaper, even a great newspaper like the Los Angeles Times, loses credibility with its community, with its readers, with its advertisers, with its shareholders, that is probably the most serious circumstance that I can possibly envision. Regardless, Chandler welcomed the outcome, largely because of his dissatisfaction with the existing management of Times-Mirror. Under Otis Chandler, The Times became a critically lauded newspaper. Harry Chandler was born in Landaff, New Hampshire to Moses K. and Emma J. He attended Dartmouth College, and on a dare, he jumped into a vat of starch that had frozen over during winter, which led to severe pneumonia. I wasnt satisfied Im that way whether Im out riding my bike or racing a car.. Otis said he wanted a more assertive, more liberal editorial page, Day said. He handed control of the paper to people outside the family in the mid-1980s and threw himself into other interests such as the Chandler Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife in Oxnard, California, which he founded in 1987 (It was regularly open to the public, primarily as a fundraiser for charities, including the Oxnard Police Activities League). He was convinced that he had taken The Times about as far as he could, and he wanted more challenges and more freedom. In Los Angeles, while working in the fruit fields, he started a small delivery company that . The Times, on his watch, consistently editorialized in favor of gun control, but Chandler himself was a strong advocate of the right to bear arms. The booming Southern California economy helped immeasurably, of course. By his strength and by his judgment of good journalists, he was of unique importance in the history of the Los Angeles Times.. 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. Some close to the family and the paper suggest that it might have been Mrs. Chandler who asked the board members to pressure her husband to step aside as publisher so he could devote his full attention to his chairmanship of the parent Times Mirror company, which was about to embark on a major diversification program. Otis . "No publisher in America improved a paper so quickly on so grand a scale, took a paper that was marginal in qualities and brought it to excellence as Otis Chandler did," journalist David Halberstam wrote in his history of the company.[1]. I was just told to be at the Biltmore an hour early for a civic luncheon.. In 1977, Chandler brought Tom Johnson, publisher of the Dallas Times-Herald and a former aide to President Johnson (no relation), to Los Angeles as president of The Times and heir apparent for publisher. It was a watershed experience, he said. Concerned by the growing competition from television, Chandler urged his editors to transform the paper into a regional daily newsmagazine that placed a high premium on analysis, interpretation and good writing not just covering the days events but putting them in context and doing so in a lively and compelling fashion. Six weeks later, on the day that John Puerner of Tribune Co. took over as publisher of The Times, Chandler had dinner with Puerner and Jack Fuller, then-president of Tribune Publishing at their invitation. Norman Chandler was delighted by this practical evidence that Otis had absorbed his childhood lessons of prudence and thrift. He broke the freshman school record with a toss of 48 feet (15m), 761/47inches. But even though the paper and the company has been sold, it feels to me like Im home again.. Thomas was largely responsible for the great length and literary style of many Times stories qualities for which the paper became both celebrated and criticized. Chandler was just then becoming interested in big game hunting, and his approach to hiring was much the same: only go after the biggest and the best. 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.. But as one of the arena's 10 "founding partners", the paper had agreed to share the issue's ad revenue with the Staples Center without telling its reporters or readers about the fiscal arrangement. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. He was the fourth and final member of the Chandler family to hold the paper's top position. When he arrived at his parents' home with his wife and first child, his father presented him with credentials for a seven-year executive training program at The Times. They said I might be able to lift my hand to my mouth, but just barely and only after two years and only if I exercised it properly, he recalled. For the first time in his life, he found his personal integrity seriously questioned. Those included an increase in the amount of news the paper printed, the adoption of a new statement of principles and ethical guidelines, and the publication of an investigation into how and why the Staples deal had occurred. When Chandler took the job, the paper had only two outside offices. I apologized to my wife and my children and my mother and father and everyone on the board and all my department heads.. Le Dowling arbre gnalogique avec les parents d'undemi-million, contient des milliers de photos et plus d'un millierGeneaStars. Was the daughter of General Harrison Gray Otis and Secretary of the Times-Mirror Company (formerly the publishing company of the Los Angeles Times ). Jack Burke, Chandlers close friend since their days together at Stanford, had assembled an exploratory oil-drilling company called GeoTek in the late 1960s and early 70s. People who knew the Chandlers well say Otis first wife was enormously competitive. But there is nothing as fascinating as the newspaper business, and I cant imagine any challenge more satisfying than the work we did to improve The Times.. Newspapers are a mature, non-growth industry, vulnerable to cyclical economic downturns and increases in the cost of newsprint, he said. Heres a man who led a full life, said Otis Booth, his cousin and longtime hunting companion. Prep Rally is devoted to the SoCal high school sports experience, bringing you scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular. As much as Chandler remained interested in The Times, he immensely enjoyed his retirement years. Chandler welcomed Tribune in part because he admired its management and strategy and in part because he thought its diverse holdings four newspapers, 22 television stations and an aggressive Internet presence would help stabilize The Times financial position in the new century. The Securities and Exchange Commission dropped all charges against Chandler in 1975, but the case cost him more than $1 million in legal fees, and it had a devastating emotional effect on him. Chandler retired as publisher in 1980 at the age of 52 to become chairman of Times Mirror, reducing his involvement in the day-to-day operations of the company. The most traumatic experience of Chandlers childhood one that assumed mythic proportions as he grew toward adulthood came when he was 8. But Thomas said it really didnt take much persuasion, because he really did want to go., Chandler himself said: I think some of the family members and some of the corporate people were hoping I would step aside although I dont recall that there was strong pressure.. But it was clear that he had felt a growing personal animosity toward Willes, and he saw the takeover as a repudiation of Willes and a vindication of his own criticism. He was airlifted to a hospital. Many people wondered if, in retrospect, Chandlers entire tenure at The Times had compromised his passion for freedom if he would have been happier had he been outside all the time, surfing, hunting, riding and racing, instead of being stuffed into a suit, sitting behind a desk, making speeches and attending meetings. Many Chandler associates said his marriages breakup and the end of his publishership were inextricably intertwined. His successors, he said, had been "unbelievably stupid" and caused "the most serious single threat to the future" of the paper his family had bought in 1882 for this dangerous compromise of the paper's objectivity. He was also consumed by another passion: buying classic cars for his museum. You cannot overstate the importance of Otis Chandlers impact on the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper industry and all of Southern California, said current Times Publisher Jeff Johnson (no relation to Tom Johnson). Direct, decisive and at times startlingly frank in both his personal and professional lives, Chandler told people what he expected of them, and he didnt have much patience with failure. He was initially miserable; the other students all seemed richer, better-educated and more sophisticated. Otis Chandler at the Los Angeles Times in 2003 with a photo of his mother, Dorothy Chandler, in the backgorund. [1], Chandler made improvement of the paper's quality a top priority, succeeding in raising the product's reputation, as well as its profit margins. The only other possible publisher in the family, however, was Normans younger brother Philip, then general manager of The Times and a member of the Times Mirror board. The GeoTek affair also damaged Chandler physically. But in a letter to his mother 12 years later, Otis referred to her as that person who made it possible for me to provide leadership to The Times, adding: It was a tremendous gamble for you to take on any young man of 32. There was no mention of his father. But he was hardly unaware of his familys powerful position. Chandler re-entered the public eye in 1999 when he publicly criticized the LA Times for creating a special issue of its Sunday magazine dedicated to the new Staples Center in downtown LA when the paper shared a financial interest in the property. Asked in a 1997 television interview whether he was satisfied with his legacy, he replied: I wanted to be No. Not only did it not, as a rule, endorse Democrats for elective office; it didnt cover their campaigns. By the time he enrolled at Stanford University in 1946, he weighed about 200 pounds. I think he fears that he would die if he werent building something.. He sought largely solitary recreational activities throughout his adult life surfing, lifting weights, racing, cycling, hunting. Chandler was honored with a Lifetime of Achievement award. Such special issues were financial windfalls for the Times, generating a record $2 million in ad revenue. Chandlers wife, Bettina, was with him. When doctors said Otis was dead, Mrs. Chandler wailed, My son is not dead! She picked him up and raced to another hospital, screaming all the way there, Otis is alive, Otis is alive!. He was turned down because he was 17 pounds heavier than the maximum allowed for jet pilots, so he starved himself and quickly lost the weight. [1] To put together his galaxy of star reporters, Otis Chandler employed what in much of the newspaper business amounts to a secret weapon money.. 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. In the next three years, The Times changed as perhaps no other American newspaper has ever done in such a short time. 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. Landsberg did additional reporting and rewriting of the text. He hunted. The two men introduced themselves as J.T. and Oats (Chandlers longtime family nickname), struck up a conversation about motorcycles and soon began dirt-biking together. At the time he enrolled at Phillips, Chandler weighed 155 pounds. He surfed. Son of Norman Chandler and Dorothy Buffum Chandler Married Harry Chandler . As a child, each year his parents held a memorial for the 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing, linked to political agitators, that killed 20 Times workers. Thats why we diversified the company and went into television and cable and forest products and books and medical and legal publishing.. He built a newspaper that was as great as the city it covers. 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.. After the guide missed his shot and fled, Chandler shot the elephant when it was only 10 yards away, preventing himself and his wife from being trampled. Chandler cared deeply about how The Times was regarded by East Coast opinion-makers, and more than 40 years after his father first took him to a national convention of newspaper publishers, he could still recall, with an edge in his voice, how clear it was that The Times was regarded as a bad newspaper from a hick town.. By 1962, Palmer was gone and the gubernatorial race between Brown and Richard Nixon was covered primarily by two new reporters: Richard Bergholz, who had come from the Mirror, and Carl Greenberg, from Hearsts Los Angeles Examiner. They also gave me quiet time so I could really think. Chandlers reign as publisher was not an uninterrupted, 20-year victory lap. Ex-husband of Marilyn "Missy" Chandler Stewart No publisher in America improved a paper so quickly on so grand a scale, took a paper that was marginal in qualities and brought it to excellence as Otis Chandler did, David Halberstam wrote in The Powers That Be, his 1979 book about the news media. Chandler started prep school at Cate, in Carpinteria, but his parents thought hed find a greater challenge and broader perspective back East, so after a year they transferred him to Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. He finished second in the nation, third in the heavyweight division at the national weightlifting championships that year. When Chandler left the publishers office and again when he left the chairmans job, his former colleagues worried that without him, they would no longer be immune to corporate and outside pressures. Thirty years later, he could still recall receiving a message from a fellow surfer one morning in the late 1960s telling him that waves were cresting at 12 to 15 feet off Dana Point the largest Southern California surf of my lifetime, he said. Chandler was raised to share his family's distaste for labor unions, a tradition that favored the family's financial interests. Williams and Frank McCullough, one of the papers two managing editors, agreed at the outset of the gubernatorial campaign to monitor the coverage inch by inch to ensure that both candidates were covered fairly and equally. 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. He had the papers support when he ran unsuccessfully for president in 1960. Because much of his Times Mirror stock was tied up in trust funds, a lot of his money came from buying and selling cars. Also, the name of Otis Chandlers first wife was incorrectly given as Marilyn Brandt. Thats more than I ever heard from Mark Willes.. My dad had already started to make improvements.. [1], Chandler was an enthusiastic athlete and thrill seeker, an image he actively cultivated. Id work the graveyard shift for a week, then spend a week on days, then a week on the swing shift, then back to the graveyard shift, he recalled. Thomas, who was among the editors brought over from the Mirror, said he believed that the windfall of local talent was as responsible for The Times subsequent success as the hiring of big guns from the East. Hed put you in there, and he let you do it and if you werent performing, out you went.. One had only to visit the mens room in his car and wildlife museum its walls covered with posters of scantily clad women draped over shiny sports cars to realize that his ultra-masculinity wasnt limited to guns, barbells, fast cars and motorcycles. At 6-foot 3-inches (190cm) tall, after bulking-up to and 220 pounds he won the Pacific Coast Conference title and finished second in the nation during his senior year with a toss of 57 feet (17m), 63/47 of an inch while serving as his team's captain. As he did in every posting at The Times, he filled notebook after notebook with his thoughts on possible improvements. Almost 20 years after their divorce, the happily remarried Marilyn Brant DeYoung said she didnt think shed been competitive with Chandler, except on the tennis court, where I did get upset when he beat me. She said they had a wonderful marriage, and he was an involved father, especially when he was younger, before he was publisher.. Find records of Otis Chandler Birth records Marriage records Divorce records . Overnight, copies of an old photo of Chandler were pinned and taped by the dozens to pillars and walls and bulletin boards throughout the newsroom, where some still remain. He gradually worked his way through every department at the paper: production, circulation, the mailroom, mechanical, advertising, the newsroom. The next evening, a Friday, his father grinning like a Cheshire cat, Chandler would always remember handed him a sheet of paper. Victims suffer from severe dementia, as well as the stiffness, tremors and impaired movements characteristic of Parkinsons. For most of the first 80 years of its existence, the paper was such a journalistic laughingstock that humorist S.J. After graduating from Stanford, he tried to enroll in an Air Force training program. Chandler had his own ways of blowing off such stress like getting behind the wheel of a turbocharged Porsche. Although The Times had, on rare occasion, endorsed conservative Democrats for state legislative and U.S. House seats, the backing of a Democrat for such a high office was a momentous decision, Chandler said in a 2005 interview. He set his sights on a goal making The Times one of the two or three great American papers and he pulled it off.. John Thomas remembers meeting Chandler and not knowing who he was when Chandler took one of his Porsches to the auto dealership where Thomas worked as the parts manager in the late 1960s. [1], In 1998, at age 71, Chandler suffered minor head injuries when he spun out a Ferrari automobile on the road in Oxnard. Well into his 70s, he maintained a long-distance bicycling regimen that few people half his age could attempt. During his tenure it would expand to 34 foreign and domestic bureaus. Wall Street responded favorably. For him a project is a process, a growth. Ultimately, he was able to do everything right-handed, he said, except serve hard in tennis.. Going with newspapers only is a flawed strategy, a dangerous philosophy that puts The Times at risk. At 71, he resumed playing tennis. In the midst of a horseback riding lesson, he was thrown hard to the ground. Everyone wondered why, at so young an age, he would step away from something that he had had such an enormous impact in building, Louis D. Boccardi, former president and chief executive officer of Associated Press, said more than a decade later. 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