Dorothy Kilgallen
American journalist, television personality (1913-1965)
Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (July 3, 1913 – November 8, 1965) was an American columnist, journalist, and television game show panelist. After spending two semesters at the College of New Rochelle, she started her career shortly before her 18th birthday as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation's New York Evening Journal. In 1938, she began her newspaper column "The Voice of Broadway", which was eventually syndicated to more than 140 papers. In 1950, she became a regular panelist on the television game show What's My Line?, continuing in the role until her death.
Kilgallen's columns featured mostly show-business news and gossip, but also ventured into other topics, such as politics and organized crime. She wrote front-page articles for multiple newspapers on the Sam Sheppard trial and, years later, events related to the John F. Kennedy assassination, such as testimony by Jack Ruby.
Early life
Kilgallen was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of newspaper reporter James Lawrence Kilgallen (1888–1982) and his wife, Mae Ahern (1888–1985). She was of Irish descent, and Catholic. She had one sister, Eleanor (1919–2014), who was six years younger. The family moved to various regions of the United States until 1920, when the International News Service hired James Kilgallen as a roving correspondent based in New York City.
The public source identifies “Dorothy Kilgallen” as american journalist, television personality (1913-1965). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dorothy, Kilgallen and American.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q273177. VIAF identifies the subject as 67744820. The Library of Congress control number is n79097358. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 1965, 1938 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dorothy Kilgallen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.