", For the next 20 years, Chandler would wow them, all right. Which is not to say there weren't setbacks. I feel fortunate to be the steward of such a thing, and the people who use it are what truly inspires us. When I first met him, Chandler vented extraordinary anger at former Times Mirror chairman Mark Willes ("he will not go down in the annals of newspaper history as anything but a failure"). In a supreme irony, once Otis Chandler took charge in 1960 and directed the paper to drop its jingoistic, frankly dreadful writing in favor of classically mainstream American journalism, the Times . Russian Tanks Have Crude Mine-Defenses. He also developed real estate and erected the famous Hollywood sign (which. As an Angelino I have an affinity to the Los Angeles Times. "Why continue to pile on?" Once Dorothy became a Chandler, she didn't have much to do with the Buffums anymore. Willes was promising nothing less than a reinvention of the newspaper business. Chandler clearly blames Willes for weakening the company to the point where it became takeover prey. Adams faces social and monetary consequences after making racist comments online. Perhaps he hadn't pushed the New York Times off its perch. I don't know that she was the most pleasant person to be around during that fund-raising drive, though; from what McDougal writes, her efforts were relentless, and her wealthy friends considered lunch with Buffie to be the most expensive lunch in town. Like Adolph Ochs, the founder of the New York Times, he was the publisher one of the major newspapers of the United States. Probably.". He keeps several motorcycles in running trim and commutes 30 miles each day across the mountains, from his ranch in Ojai to his museum office in Oxnard, aboard a glistening, custom-built Harley Davidson 1100 cc Softail. McDougal, though, paints a less flattering picture. For almost 80 years, this would be the model for the paper. California Revealed Bookmark this page and come back often for updates. I agree! We will continue to update information on Otis Chandlers parents. There is an amazing tale of how Chandler was thrown from a horse at age 7 and knocked unconscious. 326 Galvez Street In 1962, when Nixon lost his bid for the California governorship and made his vituperative comments about the press not having "Dick Nixon to kick around anymore," he singled out the unexpectedly tough coverage by the Times. "He never asked anybody, 'How does this work? She may have single-handedly raised the money for the Music Center and transformed Los Angeles cultural life, but she was a cold and petty tyrant, according to McDougal. Chandler was the great-grandson of Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, the blustery Civil War veteran who bought part-ownership of The Times in 1882, a year after it began publication, and was its. The film is especially good at getting Chandler family members on the record about these and other subjects for the first time, including both of Otis wives and Tad Williamson, allied with the Chandlers right wing. On the day of my visit, Chandler was prepping the space for a large charity bash, which meant getting several dozen gazelle and impala heads off the floor and onto the walls, and ridding the men's bathroom of the girlie posters that invariably festoon the work areas of car and motorcycle aficionados. Despite the presence onscreen of key Times figures such as former publisher Tom Johnson, editor Bill Thomas and Times Mirror exec Peter Fernald (as well as former Times reporter, author and Times chronicler Dennis McDougal), nobody can get to the bottom of what led Otis Chandler to his inexplicable retreat and surrender of control of the paper in the 1980s. To me, there's something poignant about that, as if Dorothy were seeking some atonement for her long neglect of her family. The family was originally landowning farmers of Glastonbury, Somerset, the Otises went to New England during the Puritan migration of the 1630s settling first in Hingham before finally moving to Barnstable. His mother, Dorothy, rushed him to a hospital, only to have the attending physician tell her: "Lady, your son is dead." Kit Rachlis, a former senior projects editor at The Times, is editor-in-chief of Los Angeles magazine, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Shocking, impossible gas bills push restaurants to the brink of closures, Review: A reimagined Secret Garden fails to flower anew at the Ahmanson Theatre, High school basketball: Southern California and Northern California Regional results and updated pairings, Im visiting all 600 L.A. spots on the National Register. It's sad, but it's the only thing to do.". Otis Chandler was a Sagittarius and was born in the Silent Generation. ", "The statement was quintessential Otis," wrote L.A. Times media critic David Shaw in his postmortem analysis of the Staples affair: "He would be the first to admit that he's neither an intellectual nor a sparkling stylist nor a spellbinding orator, and his statement -- repetitive, rambling, at times willfully blind to the paper's ethical shortcomings under his predecessors -- was far from being a model of classic rhetoric. A near head-on crash in practice for the 1984 race left him in a coma for several days and prematurely . Five years later, Otis unexpectedly stepped down as chairman, and for many the golden age was over. We use Lighthouse for a ticketing system and would be lost without it. But Norman and Dorothy had other plans. The decade was one of learning and exploration. He was captain of the legendary Stanford track team that included two-time Olympic decathlon champion Bob Mathias, '53. (Both of Otis Chandler's parents also attended Stanford, and a grandson named Otis Chandler graduated from the Farm in June.). Reporters loved him. But he came close. Perhaps no major newspaper in American history has experienced such dramatic swings in reputation and quality, all due to the whims of the rather bizarre clan that owned it. When I started Goodreads, I bootstrapped it and for a year built it on the side while working half-time at my former job. Like many famous people and celebrities, Otis Chandler kept his personal life private. All Rights Reserved. Chandler works out at least every other day and competes in senior bicycle races. While immersed in the story of a family whose drama rivals any Shakespearean tragedy, I found myself pointing and saying to my husband, "That's how Robbie got into car racing!" John has written many books about the history and mountain trails of southern California; he probably knows those mountains as well as anyone alive. I was weaned on column one and Steve Lopez, reading the Times became part of my mornings somewhere in my sixteenth year. . Interest in the skilful, highly technical Spanish midfielder will only increase after a surge in form. I said, no, I feel fine. (Crawford replaced all of the interior chrome fixtures with pewter so photographers couldn't take pictures of her distorted reflection in the door handles.) Son of Otis Chandler and Marilyn "Missy" Chandler Stewart There were Chandlers in my life, quite a few of them, apparently they were from different branches of the extraordinary family. The city and the newspaper are so intertwined, Dennis McDougal points out in Privileged Son, his sprawling history of The Times, that its impossible to separate the two. Buffum's department stores were co-founded by his great-grandfather, former Mayor of Long Beach, California Charles Abel Buffum and great-grand uncle Edwin E. Buffum. What he discovered was a newspaper that was corrupt and provincial to its core. JUMP TO: Otis Chandlers biography, facts, family, personal life, zodiac, videos and related celebs. This uniquely American saga should stir the interest of specialized distribs and worldwide fests prior to Stateside PBS tube dates. Furthermore, tensions started to surface within his extended family. Buffie seems to have also been a fairly demanding wife; for example, if Norman slouched in his chair during a social dinner, Buff would whisper sharply to him, "Posture, Chan, posture!" The scion of the wealthy Chandler family who took over the Los Angeles Times and transformed it into a nationally respected publication. Behind me -- dead, thank heavens -- stands an equally gigantic polar bear ("Kotzebue, Alaska; Record Book Size; February 1964") that Chandler shot, then gutted on an arctic ice floe before he and his guide dragged the 300-pound carcass back to their tiny plane, 5 miles away. Whats missing is how a rich Southern California jock, who showed no passion for the family business as a young man, suddenly fell in love with his own newspaper and understood at some elemental level that journalism is more than a business; its also a public trust. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. So, sure, I'm sad. We spent the last 4 years building tools for readers to find new books, build their virtual libraries, and connect with friends and other readers. He was 32. When I finally launched, a well-funded competitor launched the same week. The newspaper he inherited was very like the California of its time -- fat, parochial and happy. ", So on November 3 at 6:10 p.m., more than 100 employees gathered around the city desk to listen to a philippic written by a man most of them had never met -- one of the last bona fide legends in their rapidly changing business. After years of cold-shoulder treatment from Willes, Chandler was flattered to be back in the loop. "[Washington Post publisher] Donnie Graham called me when he heard about the Tribune sale and said, 'Aren't you just wiped out? The Los Angeles Times' rise as, first, the engine of Southern California's profound economic boom and, second, a world-class newspaper, is recounted by filmmaker Peter Jones as an unfolding tragedy in "Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers & Their Times." We embrace MVP, rapid prototyping, A/B testing, and good old fashioned person to person usability testing.[/quote]. Otis Chandler was born in 1920s. And. As Otis poured money into The Times, the paper became the most profitable in the country. Buffum, my great-grandfather) were respected members of Long Beach society. Three months later, Willes fired 750 Times employees. At a paper long known as "the velvet coffin," that move earned him the nickname "the cereal killer." Hasalyn Harris : News Anchor and Co-Founder of Aloneinforest. So far, the Tribune Co. has made all the right noises about preserving the Times's autonomy, and most people believe them. What's most unfortunate about the family split, in my opinion, is that my uncle John would probably have gotten along with his second cousin Otis very well. His concerned colleagues retrieved the note from the trash can to find out what had happened. Chandler's family owned a stake in the newspaper since his great-grandfather Harrison Gray Otis joined the company in 1882, the year after the Los Angeles . Reporters, already disenchanted by the Willes regime, demanded an investigation and a public apology from Downing, which she gave. James, 1794, Minerva, 1797, and Olive, 1799, were all born in Rutland county, Vermont. Stanford University. Hiring great people who can do all the above is crucial. When he grew into the top job at theTimes,he was that rarity among publishers -- a manager who understood every aspect of the business. The greatest overall compatibility with Sagittarius is Gemini and Aries. "This has been the greatest week of his life," says his friend John Thomas, referring to Chandler's meetings with the Tribune brass. I had toyed with the idea of asking him to arm-wrestle, because I knew that an angry Canadian musk ox had torn his right shoulder from its socket and impaired his upper-arm mobility. James Otis Chandler Obituary With heavy hearts, we announce the death of James Otis Chandler (Huntsville, Alabama), born in Auburn, Alabama, who passed away on February 7, 2023 at the age of 82. My guess is that all these reasons are true. Otis is also well known as, The scion of the wealthy Chandler family who took over the Los Angeles Times and transformed it into a nationally respected publication. The scion of the wealthy Chandler family who took over the Los Angeles Times and transformed it into a nationally respected publication. Was it a midlife crisis? He never got the full credit he deserved for having taken care of the family. His pulse started to fall. Yes we are all nostalgic for the feel of print books, but I think we will come around when we see that ideas can be better conveyed through digital, interactive ebooks. He would start in two days. The Milwaukee Bucks are trying to rediscover corner magic and weaponize the three-point shot in their offense. Otis war with unions is told here with hair-raising detail and archival materials. Search the history of over 797 billion His second wife, Bettina, is not particularly enthusiastic about his dangerous trips into the Great Beyond. Who are the richest people in the world? The paper had some habits that seem a little strange now. 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