The conservative movement that would lead to Barry Goldwaters presidential candidacy in 1964 and to Ronald Reagans subsequent rise was in its nascence. I was just told to be at the Biltmore an hour early for a civic luncheon.. He said to me many times that he hadnt wanted to come to the paper in the first place, but he felt an obligation to his family to do it, said Robert F. Erburu, who succeeded Chandler as Times Mirror chairman. Two years later, he was made marketing manager of The Times. When Williams showed him the piece, the publisher said it wasnt tough enough. Other family members had gathered at the Chandler home. Chandler was elated; many who knew him well and saw him after that race said they had rarely seen him happier. He was featured on the cover of sporting magazines like Road & Track, Strength and Health, and Safari Club. Chandler is survived by his wife; sons Harry of Los Angeles and Michael of Bend, Ore; daughters Cathleen Eckhardt of Soquel, Calif., and Carolyn Chandler of Santa Barbara; sister Camilla Chandler Frost of Los Angeles; and 15 grandchildren. At the age of 8, Chandler was thrown to the ground during a horseback riding lesson. When the Hearsts and Chandlers agreed to fold the two papers, The Times acquired a monopoly in the increasingly lucrative morning market, while Hearsts Los Angeles Herald-Express (renamed the Herald Examiner) was left with a monopoly in the increasingly problematic afternoon market. Constance Chandler 1896-1962. On the fringes of that movement and especially active in Southern California was an ultra-right-wing organization known as the John Birch Society. After his divorce, Chandler had begun to move his primary residence so often two places in Malibu, then Hancock Park, back to Malibu, Ojai, Rancho Matilija, Oregon, Ojai again that his children began teasing him about it. With Otis gone, the heat shield was gone, Johnson said. The truth probably falls in the middle. They saw the sinister hand of communism behind such government initiatives as fluoridation of the water supply and integration of the schools. Chandler would assume the newly created position of editor in chief of Times Mirror and, on Jan. 1, 1981, he would succeed Murphy as chairman. Norman Chandler, then near his 60th birthday, saw the logic in the change. ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. Seldom has a newspaper had such an opportunity to meld the best of three staffs. Chandler, who had retired 19 years prior, sent his message directly to reporters, to the dismay of the newspaper's management. His efforts led him directly into confrontation with a powerful force for the status quo: his own family. Chandler tried to make amends, claiming he had been misquoted, but the damage had been done. Chandler made improvement of the paper's quality a top priority, succeeding in raising the product's reputation, as well as its profit margins. He was 70 then, mandatory retirement age for members of the board of directors. Chandler was raised to share his family's distaste for labor unions, a tradition that favored the family's financial interests. He expected the very best of himself and of those around him.. The stock price tripled during his first three years at the company, and circulation grew modestly. He thought they had committed transgressions that jeopardized the reputation and credibility he had worked so diligently to establish. Buffum), Michael Otis "mike" Chandler, Norman Brant Chandler, From http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2010/09/found-on-ebay-norman-chandler.html, From http://www.laopera.org/tickets/Plan-Your-Visit/About-the-Music-Center/Dorothy-Buffum-Chandler/, U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007. Well into his 70s, he maintained a long-distance bicycling regimen that few people half his age could attempt. Many at The Times hoped that in the aftermath of that re-emergence, Chandler would use his moral authority to help reverse what he and they saw as the declining fortunes of the paper. It was a watershed experience, he said. Otis Chandler was born on July 24, 1924. In 1986, Chandler surrendered the titles of chairman and editor in chief, although he remained on the board and took on the largely ceremonial role of chairman of the companys executive committee. Murphy was scheduled to retire soon, and Otis was determined to give up the publishers job in 1980, when he would have been publisher for 20 years four years longer than my father, he often pointed out to those disappointed by his departure. Under Otis Chandler, The Times became a critically lauded newspaper. . He broke the freshman school record with a toss of 48 feet (15m), 761/47inches. He said it was good for his back.. I said something about wanting a weeks vacation first, but he wouldnt hear of it, Chandler said. [1], In 1966 Chandler received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College. 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. Married Harry Chandler . Asked in a 1997 television interview whether he was satisfied with his legacy, he replied: I wanted to be No. Soon there was talk of Otis becoming publisher of the Mirror when he finished his training program most likely as one of the final steps before he became publisher of The Times. In an extreme example of the papers penchant for treating Democrats like nonentities, one lengthy article featured Knowlands attack on my opponent, the Democratic candidate for governor, who was described as a tool of union bosses and socialists. Newspapers are a mature, non-growth industry, vulnerable to cyclical economic downturns and increases in the cost of newsprint, he said. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. There Chandler spent much of his time alone, later in life unable to name a single childhood friend. Ultimately, he was able to do everything right-handed, he said, except serve hard in tennis.. It wasnt meeting Bettina that did it, even though Missy thinks so, Chandler said many years later, referring to Marilyn Chandler by her nickname. Because much of his Times Mirror stock was tied up in trust funds, a lot of his money came from buying and selling cars. I was more upset with myself than with Jack Burke, he said years later. I apologized to my wife and my children and my mother and father and everyone on the board and all my department heads.. And in January 1964, they hired a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist away from the Denver Post. He continued to ride motorcycles. 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. Periodically, Chandler rented the now-defunct Riverside Raceway for a day so he, Thomas and their friends could race their cars. When Chandler took the job, the paper had only two outside offices. His two predecessors as chairman his father and Murphy had been invited to remain on the board, in a non-voting capacity, after their 70th birthdays, but Chandler was not extended a similar invitation, and he was clearly hurt by that. It may sound strange for a Chandler to say this, he said in one such conversation, but I dont think my family and the other people running the company are looking ahead enough to the Internet and other new media. More than most high-level executives, Chandler also seemed willing to interrupt the workday occasionally when pleasure beckoned. 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. He hired the best people he could find and gave them the freedom, the resources and the challenge to take a newspaper that had been mocked as partisan, parochial and inferior and turn it into a publication that could no longer be sneered at. Otis himself offered contradictory explanations of his mothers role in his promotion, befitting a mother-son relationship that had its share of paradox. But he didnt disclose to other investors that he received $109,000 in finders fees and $373,000 in promotional shares of GeoTek stock for his efforts. Recovery was slow but complete, and it was during that period of recuperation, Chandler said many years later, that he did a lot of thinking and somehow developed my competitiveness.. In 1998, Chandler dissolved his last official ties with The Times. Otis is someone whos very used to having his own way, and she impeded that.. FOR THE RECORD:In an earlier version of this article, the date of the Helsinki Olympic Games was incorrectly given as 1948. No one could say that the team carried me or that the coach put me in because my name was Chandler.. 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. If you will, its too complicated.. George Cotliar, who joined the paper three years before Chandler became publisher and served as an editor for almost 40 years, said The Times had been widely regarded as a crappy newspaper and a politically biased newspaper, and the Birch series and the editorial were a statement to the staff too. 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. She was athletic, she surfed, she hunted and she was always vying for equal status or greater status than Otis, said Howard Gilmore, one of Chandlers longtime hunting companions. Ultimately, there was little that Chandler could or would do to influence the fate of The Times beyond this brief but dramatic entry into the fray. Going with newspapers only is a flawed strategy, a dangerous philosophy that puts The Times at risk. He was convinced that he had taken The Times about as far as he could, and he wanted more challenges and more freedom. Regardless, Chandler welcomed the outcome, largely because of his dissatisfaction with the existing management of Times-Mirror. Chandlers grandfather and father followed Gen. Otis in the publishers chair. Chandler said he wanted to hunt only the rarest and the biggest and the best, and he killed more than 100 such animals 10-foot brown bears and polar bears, lions and musk ox, wild antelope and mountain sheep many of which he had mounted on the walls of a trophy room in the home he shared with his first wife in San Marino. According to official documents, he wrote and telephoned a number of such people, including Evelle Younger, the former state attorney general and Los Angeles County district attorney. 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). Otis Chandler, whose vision and determination as publisher of the Los Angeles Times from 1960 to 1980 catapulted the paper from mediocrity into the front ranks of American journalism, died. The explosion was blamed on union militants, and, Otis once said, I was raised to hate the unions. (He later mellowed on that topic, although he always opposed unionization at The Times.). He built a newspaper that was as great as the city it covers. After graduating from Stanford, he tried to enroll in an Air Force training program. While in college, he sometimes worked summers at the paper, most often moving printing plates and other heavy equipment. Otis enthusiastically supported Michael's racing career until a near-fatal crash while qualifying at Indianapolis in 1984. Such special issues were financial windfalls for the Times, generating a record $2 million in ad revenue. But he said he wished people realized that if hed been left totally on his own, he might have done something different, so why did they question it when he finally decided he would do something different., Although Chandler often likened himself to the eagle that serves as the symbol of The Times I like to soar, to get above the minutiae and the crowds he insisted that as long as he was publisher, I was living the life I wanted to live. Thats more than I ever heard from Mark Willes.. There was widespread speculation after he gave up his corporate titles that he had been gently nudged aside by long-disgruntled family members. Chandlers wife, Bettina, was with him. I was 50, and I didnt want to be unhappy for the rest of my life.. To grasp the breadth of the changes, it is necessary to understand what The Times had been. Katharine Graham, who became publisher of the Washington Post three years after Chandler took over The Times, and who relied on him as a mentor in her first days on the job, said in a 1999 interview the day after her 82nd birthday, when she was still very much involved with the Post Im so committed to the company and so is Punch [former New York Times Publisher Sulzberger] that I cant imagine one of us actually leaving. But he never interfered with an editorial decision, Thomas said, never tried to tell me how a story should be written or edited or played, or how a page should look.. [1] Instead, he spent 1951 to 1953 in the Air Force's ground service, as a co-captain of the track team and supervisor of athletics and drama at Camp Stoneman in Pittsburg, California. His son was perfectly willing, indeed eager, to do and spend whatever was necessary to achieve journalistic respectability. And he wrote an exhaustive, if somewhat ponderous, seven-part series about the treatment of mentally ill children. He wrote a statement, dictated it to Bill Boyarsky, then city editor, and asked that it be read aloud to the newsroom staff. The city editor, who had been hired during Chandlers heyday as publisher, said he felt an obligation to carry out his former boss wishes. To put together his galaxy of star reporters, Otis Chandler employed what in much of the newspaper business amounts to a secret weapon money.. [1], Chandler died at his home in Ojai at the age of 78 due to the effects of Lewy body disease, seven months after his diagnosis. Three top editors asked Boyarsky not to read the statement aloud, fearing that it would further provoke an already enraged staff. Most historians credit Otis mother Buff to her friends and family with persuading her husband to make their son his successor. Until shortly before his death in 1973, Chandlers father had helped insulate him from those protests. When Chandler was growing up, he lived with his parents on a 10-acre citrus ranch in Sierra Madre. I never understood how he could just opt out like that., But Chandler, asked often about his decision to leave, said: I gave 40 years of my life to The Times and Times Mirror. Alberta Chandler, the wife of Chandlers uncle (and rival) Philip, was a prominent member of the Birch Society, and she and Philip had played host to Birch Society President Robert Welch. 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. At the time of her death in 1997, she had eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. [citation needed]. [1] He was the son of Norman Chandler, his predecessor as publisher, and Dorothy Buffum Chandler, a patron of the arts and a Regent of the University of California. Critics also thought his position at the top of the citys power structure prevented The Times from aggressively investigating that establishment. He had purchased his first a 1931 Duesenberg in 1968 for $35,000, and he built a world-class collection of Porsches, Ferraris, Duesenbergs, Cadillacs, Packards and other classics before selling all of them to meet the financial terms of his divorce settlement. He lived out one of his fathers fantasies when he became a professional race car driver, but nearly died in 1984 when his car slammed into a wall at the Indianapolis 500. He also complained that the papers editor and publisher never try to come up with new ways to cut the deficit. He accused Willes and Downing of misusing and abusing the newsroom staff, of unbelievably stupid and unprofessional handling of the Staples special section and of perpetrating a scandal and a fiasco that posed the most serious single threat to the future survival and growth of this great newspaper during my more than 50 years of being associated with The Times., This was, he said, probably the single most devastating period in the history of this great newspaper. Emma Marian Otis 1866-1952. Not only did it champion GOP candidates, its editors helped select them. The GeoTek affair also damaged Chandler physically. By the time Thomas became editor in 1971, many of the major changes had been made, resistance had greatly diminished and Chandler was stepping back to take a broader view. On arrival, she encountered a doctor she knew, and he revived the boy with a shot of adrenaline in the heart. He missed the day-to-day challenge and the interaction with the editors and with the news. Unencumbered by union contracts, Chandler made major technological improvements at The Times, shifting from traditional hot type letterpress production to more flexible photo-composition and offset printing, and making The Times the first major newspaper in the United States to computerize typesetting. Chandler and his editor, Williams, lured reporters away from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News, the Washington Star, BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report. Chandler attended Stanford, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Sigma Rho chapter). 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. 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. [2] In 1945, her husband became publisher of the Times, a position he held until he was succeeded by their son, Otis, in 1960. Even Chandler said some of those long stories made the paper seem gray, somewhat dull at times. In 1999 almost 20 years after he left the publishers office and with no official ties to the paper anymore its standing in the national journalistic firmament was still so important to him that he emerged from a largely self-imposed exile and issued a strong denunciation of top Times and Times Mirror executives. 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. Only then did Chandler tell Thomas about himself and his family. He also showed his father skills that went beyond the reportorial. From the start, he wrote periodic first-person columns, prominently displayed in the front section of the paper, musing about the life of an athlete or the quirks of an outboard motor. But it was fitting that his departure was so surprising to so many, for he had long been something of an enigma to his fellow publishers. Instead they always find new ways to spend money.. Readers could be excused for thinking that only one political party existed in Southern California. Over time, Chandler and others said, that began to wear on him. He put in long hours, but he managed to have dinner with his family most nights, even if it meant doing more work at home after dinner. It could be said that the anti-Otis crowd beat up on him so much that he just gave up, said former editorial page editor Day. The agreement made sense financially for The Times, but it proved to be a boon in another way as well. The annual news department budget at The Times was $3.7.million when Chandler took over. 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