We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. After graduating from Stanford, he tried to enroll in an Air Force training program. Nothing but my kids is more important to me than the Los Angeles Times, he said in 1999. 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. But former Editor Thomas, who joined the paper two years after Otis became publisher, said that although Chandler was basically a C-plus student his focus and tenacity made him an A-plus as a publisher or almost anything else he really put his mind to., (Jesus, Bill, Chandler told Thomas when he learned what the editor had said. He worked out daily, lifting weights in a gym he had built at The Times and improvising when he was traveling. [2] In 1945, her husband became publisher of the Times, a position he held until he was succeeded by their son, Otis, in 1960. Le Dowling arbre gnalogique avec les parents d'undemi-million, contient des milliers de photos et plus d'un millierGeneaStars. Its too big, its too stuffy. USE LINKPENDIUM'S FAMILY DISCOVERER TO SEARCH 2,804,127 FREE GENEALOGY SOURCES! My dad had already started to make improvements.. As a student he competed in basketball, soccer, the high jump, running and weightlifting. Updated: October 7, 2011 . Surely, Chandler was the only publisher of his or any generation to have been profiled not only in Time, Newsweek and Editor & Publisher but in such magazines as Road & Track, Strength and Health, and Safari Club and to be depicted on the cover of the Atlantic Monthly in his bathing suit, riding a surfboard made of newspapers through the curl of a massive whitecap of dollar bills. His efforts led him directly into confrontation with a powerful force for the status quo: his own family. He spent 1951 to 1953 on the ground in the Air Force, supervising sports and acting as co-captain of the Air Force track team at Camp Stoneman in the San Francisco Bay Area. When Burke asked Chandler if hed like to invest in his company and introduce Burke to other potential investors among the publishers wealthy friends Chandler was happy to comply. Grandson of Harrison Gray Otis. He surfed. After a year or so in editorial, when I told my dad that Id just like to be a reporter, he said, no, I had to go on to other departments, Chandler said. Typically, Chandler would offer gentle advice, Carroll said, but never try to dictate what the new management should do with the paper. Within a few years, The Times had a 2-1 lead over the Herald Examiner in advertising revenue, which provides about 80% of the income for most newspapers. When he strides out of a meeting to shake hands, it is like looking up at a California redwood., Anthony Day, The Times editorial page editor from 1971 until 1989, once said: After I had been working for Otis for a few years, it occurred to me that I was working for a prince, a man who had been raised to be a prince.. 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.. 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. When I asked what he did, he just said, I work at The Times,. Thomas recalled. 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). Numerous top Times reporters left the paper, many to join the New York Times or to pursue other interests. 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. But as the children grew up and she had more time available, she embarked on a career of her own she got womens lib is how Chandler put it and that exacerbated tensions between them. 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. He entered a six-hour endurance race in Watkins Glen, N.Y., teamed with John Thomas, his motorcycle buddy and Porsche mechanic, who had long raced cars himself. On it, neatly typed, was a seven-year executive training program, scheduled to begin that Sunday night. Chandler tried to make amends, claiming he had been misquoted, but the damage had been done. 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. Chandler was elated; many who knew him well and saw him after that race said they had rarely seen him happier. Chandler was never a meddler or an intruder. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. And that apparently gave Mrs. Chandler the opening she needed. Records may include photos, original documents, family history, relatives, specific dates, locations and full names. Some at the Los Angeles Times felt that Chandlers sharp public criticism of management and the widespread attention it received played a role in several subsequent management decisions. He set his sights on a goal making The Times one of the two or three great American papers and he pulled it off.. [1], In 1986, Chandler won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism to honor his years of service to the newspaper.[3]. Former Times publisher Tom Johnson, left, greets Otis Chandler at a USC Annenberg Distinguished Achievement Awards dinner in January 2000. When he went home after his time in the Air Force, though, he didnt envision journalism as his lifes work. Willes had taken charge of the company after a deep and prolonged recession that hit The Times particularly hard; circulation at the paper was declining, and both the stock price and the profits of Times Mirror were falling even faster. 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. Despite the enormous difference in their socioeconomic status, the two remained close friends for more than 30 years. [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. 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.. Under Otis Chandler, The Times became a critically lauded newspaper. In one of their biggest coups, they brought in Robert J. Donovan, the Washington Bureau chief of the New York Herald-Tribune and one of the most respected journalists in the country, to be chief of the expanded Times bureau in the capital. At the same time, it doubled its circulation to more than 1 million daily and for many years during and after his tenure published more news and more advertising than any other newspaper in the United States. One cannot successfully run a great newspaper like the Los Angeles Times with executives in the top two positions, both of whom have no newspaper experience at any level, Chandler said. As he did in every posting at The Times, he filled notebook after notebook with his thoughts on possible improvements. I dont butt in.. 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.. Chandler, who had retired 19 years prior, sent his message directly to reporters, to the dismay of the newspaper's management. Chandlers primary role was to provide the impetus, framework and financial support for change, rather than dictating specifics. And, like most men of his stature, he was on the boards of several civic organizations and served on a variety of local and national commissions and committees. Chandler had his own ways of blowing off such stress like getting behind the wheel of a turbocharged Porsche. As long as I knew him, Otis had an adventurous spirit and the courage to pursue it.. 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.. Chandler had always had an active life outside the newspaper business, and in his final years as publisher, close friends and associates knew that the lure of those interests combined with fatigue, restlessness, health problems and major changes in his personal life were inexorably leading him away from The Times. Chandlers reign as publisher was not an uninterrupted, 20-year victory lap. 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 remained an avid reader of the paper. Chandler was honored with a Lifetime of Achievement award. Thats why we diversified the company and went into television and cable and forest products and books and medical and legal publishing.. He gradually worked his way through every department at the paper: production, circulation, the mailroom, mechanical, advertising, the newsroom. His grandfather, Charles Abel Buffum, was a businessman who founded Buffum's, a department store chain, with his brother, Edwin E. Buffum, and a politician, who served as Mayor of Long Beach, California. During Willes brief tenure as publisher he relinquished the job to Kathryn Downing in 1999 so he could concentrate his energies on Times Mirror he did initiate a number of controversial strategies designed to increase Times circulation and advertising revenue. As a boy, he would stand alongside his father and grandfather at Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever) in annual memorials to the victims of a bomb blast that wrecked the Times building in 1910, killing 20 workers. Thats more than I ever heard from Mark Willes.. 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. Seldom has a newspaper had such an opportunity to meld the best of three staffs. He lost part of the big toe on his left foot, saw another toe severely damaged and the rest of the foot became largely numb. They didnt like the L.A. Times, he said in the 2005 interview. Many people found him a bit distant cool, controlled, difficult to know well and these qualities became more pronounced as he matured and increasingly tried to escape the burden of being a Chandler. 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. Hed put you in there, and he let you do it and if you werent performing, out you went.. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. He quickly increased the budget of the paper, allowing it to expand its coverage. Shaw, The Times longtime media critic, filed a draft of this obituary before his death Aug. 1. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. He lifted weights three times a week in his home gym. Despite Chandlers worries and despite what he said was a constant stream of calls and letters from Times executives past and present, asking him to do something about the direction of the newspaper, he made no real effort for most of Willes tenure to influence what was happening at Times Mirror Square. To put together his galaxy of star reporters, Otis Chandler employed what in much of the newspaper business amounts to a secret weapon money.. 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. Instead they always find new ways to spend money.. Murray had helped create Sports Illustrated and was one of its stars. Doctors said his right arm, yanked from its socket by the impact, would be virtually useless for the rest of his life. In the next three years, The Times changed as perhaps no other American newspaper has ever done in such a short time. 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