I wasnt satisfied Im that way whether Im out riding my bike or racing a car.. Their first child was a boy named Norman after Chandler's father. 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. 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.. 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. As a boy of 5 or 6, he had frequently accompanied his father to the office and slid down the chutes that were used to drop papers from the pressroom to the delivery trucks. This was a flagrant violation of the independence of the editorial department, and it placed the credibility of the paper in jeopardy. Other family members had gathered at the Chandler home. Chandler attributed his pursuit of solo athletics like shotputting and weightlifting to the same sources, saying, "No one could say that the team carried me or that the coach put me in because my name was Chandler". His mother rushed him to a hospital, where doctors initially reported he was dead. Willes, he said in 1999, was basically undoing what I and my father and Franklin Murphy all did, dating back to 1958. As he did in every posting at The Times, he filled notebook after notebook with his thoughts on possible improvements. I was strictly a tall, skinny blond kid from California.. Wall Street responded favorably. Son of Norman Chandler and Dorothy Buffum Chandler LA Times After dropping out of Stanford, Chandler started working at the newspaper as a secretary to his father, Harry Chandler, who had been its publisher since 1917. Although the decision stunned her, friends said they had long seen the breakup coming. 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. Word that Chandler was breaking his silence ricocheted through the newsroom. On one memorable occasion, a hotel maid walked in on him while he was doing full squats with his wife on his shoulders in place of a barbell. By his strength and by his judgment of good journalists, he was of unique importance in the history of the Los Angeles Times.. Chandler said there was no simple answer: The region was changing, the demographic was changing, the type of paper was changing, he said. 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. But he also had a princes sense of entitlement, a sense that perhaps I dont have to do this every damn day, he added. 2443 E Peach Tree Drive, Chandler, AZ 85249 (MLS# 6525796) is a Single Family property with 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. Well into his 70s, he maintained a long-distance bicycling regimen that few people half his age could attempt. 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. Williams wrote a new one, warning that the Birchers extremism and smear tactics were subversive acts that could sow distrust and weaken the very strong case for conservatism. Chandler signed it and published it on Page 1. Lucy Otis (born Chandler) in MyHeritage family trees (OBRIEN Web Site (FamilySearch)) view all 19 Immediate Family Stephen Otis husband Arunah Otis son Caroline Graves daughter Calvin Otis son Alice Otis daughter Chandler Otis son Lucy Randall daughter Stephen Otis son James Otis son Seth Otis son Nathaniel Otis son James Otis son view all 15 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. MyHeritage Family Trees; FamilySearch Family Tree; WikiTree; Geni World Family Tree; California Deaths, 1940 - 1997; U.S. Social Security Death Index (SSDI) U.S . He quickly increased the budget of the paper, allowing it to expand its coverage. . He was the fourth and final member of the Chandler family to hold the paper's top position. Norman Chandler was delighted by this practical evidence that Otis had absorbed his childhood lessons of prudence and thrift. You transformed the entire staff, he said, and the whole place had a totally different attitude.. Though Chandler said he was naturally saddened that Times Mirror will cease to exist and saddened by the end of local ownership, he had wondered aloud for at least five years whether Times Mirror could continue to thrive on its own in the turn-of-the-century mega-media merger environment. By the time he left the publishers office, it had increased tenfold during his tenure. Records may include photos, original documents, family history, relatives, specific dates, locations and full names. As it turned out, however, several members of the Chandler family had begun to share Otis disenchantment with Willes, especially the companys lack of diversification, interest in new media and long-term strategic plan, as Chandlers sister, Camilla Chandler Frost, put it the morning the sale to Tribune was announced. He started work right away as a pressroom apprentice on the graveyard shift. I was just told to be at the Biltmore an hour early for a civic luncheon.. He was also consumed by another passion: buying classic cars for his museum. 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. We treated him as an insider and told him what was happening, Carroll said. Otis Chandler in MyHeritage family trees (Sturtevant Web Site) view all 15 Immediate Family Diana Chandler mother Asa Chandler, Jr. father Cynthia Bailey sister Emily (Chandler) Washburn sister Diana Chandler sister Noah Chandler, I brother Lucinda Chandler sister Laura Chandler sister Martin Chandler brother David Chandler brother George Chandler During Chandlers 20 years as publisher and five subsequent years as editor in chief and chairman of the board of The Times then-parent company, Times Mirror the paper won nine Pulitzer Prizes and expanded from two to 34 foreign and domestic bureaus. Such special issues were financial windfalls for the Times, generating a record $2 million in ad revenue. [1], In 1966 Chandler received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College. While in college, he sometimes worked summers at the paper, most often moving printing plates and other heavy equipment. If he hadnt divorced Missy, Im not sure he wouldve left the paper. 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. 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. Toward that end, he initiated a more aggressive marketing program, expanded the papers geographic reach and started the Orange County edition to serve the burgeoning population there the first such satellite plant for any metropolitan daily in the country. When stories in local alternative weeklies, followed by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, disclosed details of the deal, the newsroom erupted in protest, circulating petitions and demanding an apology from Downing, the publisher, who had signed the original founding partner agreement. Thats not in my nature, he said. 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. The youngest son, Michael, also worked in the papers production departments, ultimately taking early retirement in a companywide buyout. In a controversial 1996 story in Vanity Fair, Chandler was quoted as criticizing his relatives as coupon clippers elitists bored with the problems of AIDS and the homeless and drive-by shootings. They wished The Times wouldnt cover those issues, and they werent interested in either the papers editorial quality or its social responsibility, he said. About that time, Otis began telling Nick Williams, the editor of the paper, the kinds of improvements he envisioned making if and when he had the authority. [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. When The Times consistently provided editorial support for various downtown redevelopment projects, civic activists were quick to say the projects would enhance the value of the Chandler familys real estate interests there. The GeoTek affair also damaged Chandler physically. At a time when newspapers were becoming increasingly vulnerable to competition from the Internet, television, direct mail and other sources for information and advertising, Willes said it was imperative that they market themselves more aggressively and improve journalistically to make themselves more relevant to readers and more valuable to advertisers. [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. More than most high-level executives, Chandler also seemed willing to interrupt the workday occasionally when pleasure beckoned. The pay was $48 a week. Various Chandlers controlled about 65% of the Times Mirror voting stock before the sale to Tribune in 2000, and most of them love Willes, Otis said several months before those negotiations began. Heres a man who led a full life, said Otis Booth, his cousin and longtime hunting companion. In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be made to the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Central Coast chapter of the Alzheimers Association in Santa Barbara, or the Livingston Memorial Visiting Nurse Association/Hospice of Ventura. [1][2], After graduation, Chandler tried to enroll in an Air Force training program, but was turned down because he was too large to fit in the cockpit of a jet. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. Otis Chandler (November 23, 1927 February 27, 2006) was the publisher of the Los Angeles Times between 1960 and 1980, leading a large expansion of the newspaper and its ambitions. Chandlers words hit like a bombshell, both in the Times newsroom and in the newspaper business nationwide. Chandler realized that to build up The Times reputation, he had to demand fair and nonpartisan news coverage. "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]. Research genealogy for Otis Chandler of Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, as well as other members of the Chandler family, on Ancestry. He was bold in making changes and investments in the paper that transformed The Times into a world-class news organization., Otis was a giant in every way, said Donald Graham, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the Washington Post Co. The paper you are reading is his monument. His goal, he once quipped, was to make it a militant middle-of-the-road paper.. The two had hunted together, and Burke was the godfather of Chandlers eldest daughter, Cathleen. He was airlifted to a hospital. He was, in general, something of a loner, a trait he traced partly to spending my young years on that ranch in Sierra Madre, a little remote, rather than on a neighborhood street with a lot of kids. Asked repeatedly in one interview to name his best childhood friends, he came up blank. Former Times publisher Tom Johnson, left, greets Otis Chandler at a USC Annenberg Distinguished Achievement Awards dinner in January 2000. Otis, meanwhile, still had no idea what his mother and father had in mind for him. 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. He used the same tone of voice with the president of the United States and the guy who came to change the lightbulbs in his office, said Donna Swayze, his executive secretary from 1962 to 1988. Grandson of Harrison Gray Otis. Chandler later praised his editor for frequently reminding a young publisher that you cant change a whole paper overnight.. 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. Also, because Thomas was more aggressive than Williams, more likely to take the initiative and less likely to urge caution, Chandler adopted a largely hands-off approach. 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. It wasnt meeting Bettina that did it, even though Missy thinks so, Chandler said many years later, referring to Marilyn Chandler by her nickname. When he started buying vintage cars again several years later, he purchased another 1931 Duesenberg, this time for $1.2 million, en route to building another world-class collection. He wrote a statement, dictated it to Bill Boyarsky, then city editor, and asked that it be read aloud to the newsroom staff. [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. Otis said he wanted a more assertive, more liberal editorial page, Day said. And it became clear over the years that he did not have any such intention. 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. When the guide missed his shot and ran off in a panic, Chandler shot the elephant in the leg at a distance of 10 yards, deflecting the animal just enough to send it thundering past them. [1], Chandler was raised on a 10-acre (40,000m2) citrus ranch in Sierra Madre owned by his parents. 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. Perelman once wrote that while traveling through the western United States by train, he asked a porter to bring him a newspaper and unfortunately, the poor man, hard of hearing, brought me the Los Angeles Times.. He always has to have a project. There is something about him that suggests if Otis Chandler hadnt existed, Ernest Hemingway would have created him, the Christian Science Monitor said in 1980. 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. Otis Chandler (November 23, 1927 February 27, 2006) was the publisher of the Los Angeles Times between 1960 and 1980, leading a large expansion of the newspaper and its ambitions. [citation needed]. The collection also included dozens of vintage motorcycles, some of which were loaned to the Guggenheim Museum for its Art of the Motorcycle exhibit, which opened in 1998. Sure, like any business executive, there were times when I would like to have been away from it all, free of responsibilities. 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. His sudden elevation and his record as an athlete, not a scholar, at Stanford, led some members of the family (and their friends) to openly wonder if he had the intellectual capacity to run The Times. 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