The series and editorial landed like a bombshell. During his tenure it would expand to 34 foreign and domestic bureaus. 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. "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. They resented my position at the L.A. Times and felt there were a lot of things I could have done differently.. In 1958, the paper had covered the governors race between Republican William F. Knowland and Democrat Edmund G. Pat Brown in its traditional way: Browns campaign was virtually ignored while Knowlands was championed. Mark has the stock price and dividends up, and thats all they care about.. Harry Chandler was born in Landaff, New Hampshire to Moses K. and Emma J. Ex-husband of Marilyn "Missy" Chandler Stewart The two had hunted together, and Burke was the godfather of Chandlers eldest daughter, Cathleen. Thats not in my nature, he said. On March 5, 1980, Chandler announced that Johnson would become the fifth publisher of The Times and the first since the papers infancy who was not a member of the Otis or Chandler families. Chandler was never a meddler or an intruder. The two men introduced themselves as J.T. and Oats (Chandlers longtime family nickname), struck up a conversation about motorcycles and soon began dirt-biking together. Chandler made improvement of the paper's quality a top priority, succeeding in raising the product's reputation, as well as its profit margins. By the time he left the publishers office, it had increased tenfold during his tenure. Laventhol, Johnson and Thomas, among others, agreed that Chandler was just about the only member of his family who was interested in the social issues he mentioned in Vanity Fair, and they shared his anxiety about the threat he said the familys indifference posed to his legacy and to The Times. [1], Chandler was raised on a 10-acre (40,000m2) citrus ranch in Sierra Madre owned by his parents. He said it was good for his back.. Chandler was just then becoming interested in big game hunting, and his approach to hiring was much the same: only go after the biggest and the best. In the 1980 speech, he complained that he felt increasingly like an outcast. Although Chandler had previously been insistent that his criticisms of the business strategies pursued by Times management remain private, this undermining of the papers editorial integrity stirred him to action. Not only did it not, as a rule, endorse Democrats for elective office; it didnt cover their campaigns. But Tribune had long had Times Mirror in its corporate sights. 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. 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. [citation needed]. Some critics felt that his zeal for national recognition led The Times to underemphasize local news, particularly about minority communities. Otis Ashmore Chandler (1891 - 1956) He collected vintage cars and drove most of them to work at one time or another, alternating Porsches and Rolls-Royces with motorcycles, pickups and other vehicles in his growing inventory. The disease is known for its fast progression. [1], Chandler was an enthusiastic athlete and thrill seeker, an image he actively cultivated. When he went home after his time in the Air Force, though, he didnt envision journalism as his lifes work. The Dowling Family Tree with over half a million relatives,contains thousands of pictures and over four thousand GeneaStars.We are all related! 'It was three outside members of the [Times Mirror] board who persuaded him to do it Goodwin J. Knight. Chandler always denied any conflict of interest, and he invariably emerged from these controversies with his reputation for personal integrity intact. Updated: October 7, 2011 . 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.. [4], He was not involved in negotiations by other members of the Chandler family to sell The Times to Tribune Company, a clear sign of how his influence had eroded. Growing up, Chandler had often said hed like to be a doctor, although he later conceded, I was never an outstanding scholar. When he left the Air Force in 1953, he had no clear sense of what he wanted to do with his life. Buff Chandler was the daughter of a prominent Long Beach family, owners of the successful Buffums department store. 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. 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. 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. His efforts led him directly into confrontation with a powerful force for the status quo: his own family. He eventually recovered from serious head injuries. After the papers decision to endorse Nixon for reelection as president in 1972 caused a newsroom firestorm, The Times announced in 1973 that it would no longer routinely endorse candidates for president, governor or U.S. senator. [1], His son, Mike Chandler, was a race-car driver in the CART Championship Car series. The two married in 1922, and had two children, Camilla and Otis, both born in 1927. Norman Chandler died in 1973. [1], Times editorial page editor Anthony Day observed that Chandler "had been raised to be a prince". For him a project is a process, a growth. Like many women of her generation, Marilyn Chandler had long put her own career interests on hold to raise their children. He was the fourth and final member of the Chandler family to hold the paper's top position. A year later, he moved again. The statement was a stinging and unprecedented rebuke of Willes and Downing. 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. [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. My dad had already started to make improvements.. In the next three years, The Times changed as perhaps no other American newspaper has ever done in such a short time. The city editor, who had been hired during Chandlers heyday as publisher, said he felt an obligation to carry out his former boss wishes. Heres a man who led a full life, said Otis Booth, his cousin and longtime hunting companion. Typically, Chandler would offer gentle advice, Carroll said, but never try to dictate what the new management should do with the paper. Word that Chandler was breaking his silence ricocheted through the newsroom. John Thomas remembers meeting Chandler and not knowing who he was when Chandler took one of his Porsches to the auto dealership where Thomas worked as the parts manager in the late 1960s. [1], Chandler visited The Times frequently as a child, sliding down chutes that were used to drop papers to delivery trucks. The paper warmly endorsed Nixon but also praised Browns accomplishments in the same editorial. 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. Nearly a decade after his divorce, he installed the best of his animals in dioramas amid the classic cars and motorcycles in his Oxnard museum. But in the social pecking order of the Southern California elite, she was seen as a cut below the Chandlers, and they never let her forget it. 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. There were so many changes going on, and I think if we hadnt kept up with the flow, The Times wouldnt have continued to do well financially Im glad we did what we did.. Their first child was a boy named Norman after Chandler's father. Chandler re-entered the public eye in 1999 when he publicly criticized the LA Times for creating a special issue of its Sunday magazine dedicated to the new Staples Center in downtown LA when the paper shared a financial interest in the property. 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. The paper's Sunday magazine on October 10, 1999, was a special issue dedicated to the new Staples Center sports arena in downtown L.A., home to the Lakers, Clippers and Kings. Although Halberstam would later say, No single family dominates any other region of this country as the Chandlers have dominated California, Otis had a far-from-pampered upbringing and was never a man who could be described as effete. 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. Well into his 70s, he maintained a long-distance bicycling regimen that few people half his age could attempt. He had family money, but he had looked on GeoTek as another chance to prove he could succeed on his own, and he wound up embarrassed and forced by the exposure to return his stock and finders fees. Sulzberger recalled decades later that he once walked into Chandlers office and found him hanging upside down in the doorway, like a bat. 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. 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. But Otis had certainly been aware of the family pressure. He was convinced that he had taken The Times about as far as he could, and he wanted more challenges and more freedom. Both Thomas and Johnson said he hated being chairman. Unlike his father, however, he had not insisted that his children follow him into leadership positions at The Times. He quickly increased the budget of the paper, allowing it to expand its coverage. He was 70 then, mandatory retirement age for members of the board of directors. They would race their cars down the Pasadena Freeway at 140 mph in the predawn hours en route to weightlifting sessions at the Times gym and double cheeseburgers at Tommys, just west of downtown. 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). He was also the only reporter, rookie or veteran, whose name regularly appeared in both the Sports section, which chronicled his continuing exploits as a competitive weightlifter, and in the society pages, where his attendance at various black-tie events always rated a mention. Chandler liked the shotput and weightlifting, he once said, because they were individual sports, and he could be judged on his own merits. [2] At Stanford he was a successful shot putter. As he did in every posting at The Times, he filled notebook after notebook with his thoughts on possible improvements. 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. Mrs. Chandler later achieved fame on her own by raising almost $20 million to finance the creation of the Music Center, a step that went a long way toward erasing the hick town image that Otis had long resented, and she was always keenly interested in the papers coverage of culture and society. People who knew the Chandlers well say Otis first wife was enormously competitive. I think building houses is a replacement for the satisfaction he got from The Times, his wife, Bettina, said just before construction began on the Ojai house. They told me Id have to learn to do everything left-handed., With characteristic tenacity, Chandler exercised the arm rigorously, and six months later he could lift it over his head. 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. Like his father, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Sigma Rho chapter). Critics also thought his position at the top of the citys power structure prevented The Times from aggressively investigating that establishment. Chandler won many distinguished awards in his years at The Times: honorary degrees and plaques and certificates from various universities and other prestigious institutions, including a lifetime achievement award from the Annenberg School for Communication at USC a few months before the sale of Times Mirror. 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. But after about 18 months, I accepted an invitation to his house for dinner, and when I drove up to this huge mansion in San Marino, I thought, Holy cow! When I got inside, I said, Well, just what do you do at The Times?.. Chandler later praised his editor for frequently reminding a young publisher that you cant change a whole paper overnight.. 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. While he was hunting in Mozambique in 1964, an elephant charged him, his wife and their guide. He was turned down because he was 17 pounds heavier than the maximum allowed for jet pilots, so he starved himself and quickly lost the weight. With Otis gone, the heat shield was gone, Johnson said. On the fringes of that movement and especially active in Southern California was an ultra-right-wing organization known as the John Birch Society. 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.. FOR THE RECORD:In an earlier version of this article, the date of the Helsinki Olympic Games was incorrectly given as 1948. 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. [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. But the series also served notice that The Times was in the process of becoming a different and much better newspaper. I started work right away, on the graveyard shift, midnight to 8 in the morning. He was a pressroom apprentice, at $48 a week, the equivalent of $356 in todays dollars. Doctors said his right arm, yanked from its socket by the impact, would be virtually useless for the rest of his life. 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. Expressions of condolence or remembrance can be sent to the Chandler family at chan@mfire.com. Because he had five children and heavy corporate responsibilities, his wife tried to dissuade him from this favored leisure time activity. I said something about wanting a weeks vacation first, but he wouldnt hear of it, Chandler said. 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. He was skinny all right 6 feet 1, 155 pounds but he played varsity soccer and basketball, high-jumped and ran the mile, and his successes gave him an identity. [1] (1924 - 1972) Jump to: Bio graphy Family Photos Comments Obit uary. The negotiations were so secret that Willes said he didnt know about them until less than two weeks before the deal was done, and Chandler said he didnt learn of them until he began hearing rumors two days before the agreement was made. 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. When Williams showed him the piece, the publisher said it wasnt tough enough. Norman, the eldest, went through an executive training program and rose to be composing superintendent a position overseeing much of the physical production of the paper before leaving in 1989, when he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. 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. 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. Williams and Frank McCullough, one of the papers two managing editors, agreed at the outset of the gubernatorial campaign to monitor the coverage inch by inch to ensure that both candidates were covered fairly and equally. After the series was published, Otis asked for an editorial criticizing the Birchers. Find records of Otis Chandler Birth records Marriage records Divorce records . ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. Philip Chandler resigned from the Times Mirror board seven months later. 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 Daily Times began publication. Brian Lamb, right, founder and CEO of C-Span, interviews Otis Chandler in 2001. But in 1989, two months after Laventhol replaced Johnson as publisher, Day was removed. 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. But he also worried about his legacy, and he increasingly spoke critically, if only in private at first, about his unhappiness with the direction of Times Mirror and the paper under Mark Willes, a former executive at General Mills who had been hired to succeed Erburu as chairman and chief executive in 1995 and also assumed the title of Times publisher when Richard T. Schlosberg III retired unexpectedly in 1997. 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 Otis . Chandler told his wife he wanted a divorce while the two were on vacation in Montana in 1978. 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. As much as any other change at the paper, the arrival of Paul Conrad brilliant, sharp-penned and liberal served notice that an entirely new breed of Chandler was in charge. 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