Although the story of the Chandlers is a good one, The Chandlers And Their Times is magnificent. But he leaves little doubt about his opinion of Chandler's accomplishments in the profession that consumed his passion and energy for 50 years. Dorothy Buffum Chandler, a patron for the arts and a Regent for the University of California, was Michael's grandmother. When I finally launched, a well-funded competitor launched the same week. He was the one on the firing line. He has a full head of tawny hair and the Johnny Weismuller physique that earned him the nickname "Shoulders" at Stanford. But when he heard the news, he approved. 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 investigative series on the Birchers plus critical coverage of Nixons failed 1962 governor run started a familial rift that was never healed. The family patriarch, Gen. Harrison Otis, bought the newspaper in 1886. When he died in 1944, he had accumulated more than 1.5 million acres, and The Times was one of the most profitable newspapers in the country. Otis Chandler built Goodreads in 2006 because he believed in social networking and wanted to see what his friends were reading. In five withering pages, he blasted Willes's and Downing's "unbelievably stupid and unprofessional handling of the Staples special section," calling the scandal "the most serious single threat to the survival and growth of this great newspaper during my more than 50 years of being associated with the Times. Suddenly, everything was different. In 1894, he wed the daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Harrison Gray Otis and proceeded to build a media empire. I sat wondering what my friends would think of this expose of their very private, incredibly wealthy family. Mark is beyond being touched by anything Otis would say. Theres no reason why it cant be all three, but in Privileged Son, each element keeps elbowing the other out of the way. If you ever get the chance, read the Otis Chandler biography "Privileged Son" by Dennis McDougal. His own mother, and the business allies who contributed to her beloved Music Center, pressured him to fire the Times music critic, Martin Bernheimer. He was the fourth and final member of the Chandler family to hold the paper's top position. Chandler also spent time in the newsroom. 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 . Otiss education details are not available at this time. They took the Los Angeles times from being a tool for real estate development to a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper. McDougal, though, paints a less flattering picture. Ruthless and strait-laced, he assured the Chandlers family wealth for generations to come. He lifted weights, he surfed, he hunted, he raced cars and he transformed the Los Angeles Times into one of the best papers in the country. Generation. He plunged into related businesses, like book publishing, broadcasting and forest products, and created a formidable, diversified conglomerate: the Times Mirror Co. . Amos was born and died in 1785 and is buried in Norfolk. Chandler Otis MS, LPC-Associate under the supervision of Lindsay Hollmuller MS, LPC-S, BCB, BCN is originally from Northern California where she attended Sonoma State University and graduated with her Bachelors degree in Early Childhood Development. Son of Otis Chandler and Marilyn "Missy" Chandler Stewart ", "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. When the time came to fold the family's money-losing afternoon tabloid, the Mirror, the Chandlers cut a sweet deal: in return for closing the Mirror, which competed with the Hearst Corp.'s afternoon paper, the Chandlers got Hearst to shutter the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the Times's morning rival. Please comment on the subject of the blog post itself. Connect to 5,000+ Chandler profiles on Geni, Apr 21 1958 - Los Angeles, California, USA, Otis Chandler, Marilyn "missy" Chandler (born Chandler Stewart), Otis Chandler, Marilyn Jane Chandler (geb. She left seven children Mrs. Roger Goodan (Alice May), Mrs. Earle E. Crowe (Constance), Mrs. John J. Garland (Helen), Mrs. James G. Boswell (Ruth), Norman Chandler. 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. The magazine was funded, in part, by the arena itself. Whats also missing is how, after devoting his life to The Times, Otis could walk away from it all at the age of 58. My guess is that all these reasons are true. Michael Otis Chandler (born April 21, 1958), is a former driver in the CART Championship Car series. He had worked as an apprentice pressman and in the mail room, engraving department, mechanical and electrical shops and advertising. Chargers general manager Tom Telesco stressed once again at the NFL Combine that removing the veteran Allen from the roster isnt an option as L.A. tries to squeeze under the salary cap. Ex-husband of Private Chandler, bright and hard-working, was thinking of becoming a doctor. In Silicon Valley we take it for granted that everyone has a smart phone now, but its not true nationally or globally yet. The scandal also shook Otis Chandler, prompting his first public comment on Times management in almost a decade. Circulation grew, as did the Times's prestige. Whos the richest Family Member in the world? Certainly, there's no arguing with Buff Chandler's legacy; they didn't name that downtown pavilion in her honor for nothing. His relatives complained about the Times's liberal bent -- and he has occasionally suggested that they in turn were knuckle-draggers, out of touch with modern times. At the turn of the century, it was an Otis-Chandler syndicate that quietly purchased tens of thousands of acres of parched farmland in the San Fernando Valley, knowing that the fix was in to steal water rights from Owens Valley farmers 200 miles to the north. As a blogger I couldn't help but watch the evolution of my newspaper with a psychic eye. The news shook Southern California like an earthquake: Los Angeles Times, family owned for 118 years, was being sold to Chicago-based Tribune Co. "I feel as if I was gut shot," said novelist and California chronicler John Gregory Dunne. snuggles: a child-weary woman tells all. Ruling Planet: Otis Chandler had a ruling planet of Jupiter and has a ruling planet of Jupiter and by astrological associations Thursday is ruled by Jupiter. He made them a lot of money. People often tell us they love Goodreads because they found so many great books to read, they read more now because of it, and they connected to really interesting readers. He took the stock public. What can we learn? Otis Chandler is a famous Family Member. The writer's sin? 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. Otis Chandler and His Family A recorded phone conversation reveals former President Nixon's plan to investigate the Chandlers. Lets Examine. Under his watch, the L.A. Times opened international bureaus and hired on Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, at the same time buying several television station and the Newsday newspaper. This page is updated often with fresh details about Otis Chandler. The possibilities for innovation when we all have location-aware smart-phones in our pockets are endless. Otis Chandlers mothers name is unknown at this time and his fathers name is under review. What he discovered was a newspaper that was corrupt and provincial to its core. In 1992, he resigned as chairman of the Times Mirror executive committee. Buffum, my great-grandfather) were respected members of Long Beach society. Fiercely competitive, capable of engendering extraordinary loyalty, he also was self-absorbed, spoiled and a loner. He spoke of doubling the Times's circulation to 2 million. The Times, owned by one family for almost its entire existence, did more than just cheer on this extraordinary transformation. The effect is a book that seems at once too crowded and too short. Otis Chandler quit, or was pushed off, the governing board of the Chandler family trusts, which serves as the family's power center, after deriding his relatives as right-wing "coupon clippers . After 20 years as publisher, in the rough-and-tumble of putting out a newspaper every day, was he just temperamentally ill-suited to be chairman of Times Mirror? But they never met. With heroes and villains, mental illness and bigotry, the storytelling is compelling and though the tragic tales are told mostly in still pictures, I found myself glued to the television, riveted. First standards were set, then huge journalistic milestones were hit, and in the blink of an eye there was fiscal ruin, and a loss of ownership.What will we be left with? Otis Chandler was born in 1920s. As someone once remarked of Davy Crockett, there are a hundred stories about him, and fully 95 of them are true. In 1944, he handed the reins of the publishing empire to son Norman, who in turn passed it on to his son Otis in 1960. So far, the Tribune Co. has made all the right noises about preserving the Times's autonomy, and most people believe them. 2023 Variety Media, LLC. So, how much is Otis Chandler worth at the age of 79 years old? Time magazine once called it one of the nation's 10 worst newspapers. The company had become so weakened that when Tribune Co., owner of Chicago Tribune, offered to buy it last year, the proposal was greeted by most who remembered The Times glory days with enormous relief. 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. Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas. But some explanation of the familys poor business decisions such as overthrowing management that had turned Times Mirror Corp. into a money machine and made the paper among the countrys best, and finally selling Times Mirror to Tribune Corp. would have buttressed the films themes. He has a tendency to recount conversations verbatim without identifying his sources. So I asked. By the time Willes was through, the company was no longer ranked among the top 10. Chandler spent money to make money and was well rewarded. He returned to California to attend Stanford, where he proved to be a world-class athlete (injury prevented him from going to the 1948 Olympics) and a high-flying fraternity brat. The paper had some habits that seem a little strange now. In fact, other newspapers had put out similar magazines. Otis Chandler, who transformed his family's Los Angeles Times into a nationally respected newspaper, died Monday at age 78. Russias War On Ukraine: Daily News And Information From Ukraine, The Real Players Of Formula One: Drive To Survive Season 5, Scott Adams Undoing: A Timeline Of The Dilbert Cartoonists Fall From Grace. Goodreads raised a Series A round of funding from True Ventures in the summer of 2009. "This trust is dearer than life itself." Times columnist Patt Morrison wrote: "It felt like I woke up and heard that the Pacific Ocean had been sold." The scion of the wealthy Chandler family who took over the Los Angeles Times and transformed it into a nationally respected publication. Along with a passion for building websites, Otis is also a voracious reader. Interview segments and archival selections are absolutely aces, as is Liev Schreibers narration. But slowing down is relative. The family then moved west to Herkimer County, New York, where William was born in 1801 . Despite his family's wealth his parents did not spoil him with gifts, but instead insisted he work in the 10-acre citrus ranch they owned in . He was the fourth and final member of the Chandler family to hold the paper's top position. This is the central mystery of his life. His parents,Norman Chandler and Dorothy Chandler, were both major financiers for Los Angeles cultural institutions. Be the first one to, Chandler Family: Olympic Tryouts, Weight lifting, USC v. UCLA, Mt. Privacy Policy Terms of Use Copyright 2006, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Last updated: 10/08/2009, MASTERPIECE Mystery! The Timeshired away the Herald Tribune's veteran Washington bureau chief and tripled the size of its D.C. staff. 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Jordan Meets Reporter at 'Creed III' Premiere Who 'Teased Him all the Time' in High School: 'I Was the Corny Kid, Right? Philip Chandler and Harrison Chandler, as well as a sister, Mabel Otis Booth. "This trust is dearer than life itself." But he came close. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Chandler. I wish I would have had the guts to go at it 100% from the start. The pic rightly credits Dorothy with forging the citys first multiethnic coalition, in which she wed old Anglo money Downtown and in Pasadena with the Westside Jewish community to help fund the Music Center. It doesn't sound so terrible today, but it was a big deal then.". At a paper long known as "the velvet coffin," that move earned him the nickname "the cereal killer." After a stint in the Air Force, he and Missy returned to his parents' house in 1953 with their two young sons. When the news leaked out -- and made the front page of the New York Times -- it rocked the paper's newsroom. In 1960, his training complete, he became the fourth publisher in the history of the paper. Whos the richest Family Member in the world. Chandler attracted top talent with his reputation for standing by his staff. Some plans, such as expanding the transportation grid, were above-board; others, such as the infamous plot to con Owens Valley farmers out of their water (told here with Jerry Goldsmiths Chinatown score on the soundtrack), were not. Harry's son, Norman, and his activist wife, Dorothy, transformed Los Angeles into a cultural mecca, creating the Los Angeles Music Center and luring world-class talent to play there. He laid the framework for Times Mirrors becoming a modern media conglomerate. It's an astonishing mlange of antique automobiles and motorcycles, jumbled together with huge stuffed trophy kills from Chandler's peripatetic hunting expeditions. His second wife, Bettina, is not particularly enthusiastic about his dangerous trips into the Great Beyond. 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. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. A near head-on crash in practice for the 1984 race left him in a coma for several days and prematurely ended his career. The concerts even became a family affair, as Wilde and her two kids were seated alongside Styles' mother, Anne Twist, at one of his performances in November 2021. It was a shock to them.". "He blasted all of them," recalls a bemused Howard Gilmore, '55, a longtime friend and hunting companion of Chandler's. Chandler clearly blames Willes for weakening the company to the point where it became takeover prey. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. An investigative series -- unusual in itself -- broke national news about the Teamsters Pension Fund even before attorney general Robert Kennedy's racket-busters climbed on Jimmy Hoffa's back. Closing, bitter minutes ask how a family that virtually created the city could allow the paper that defined that city to crumble a question that seems even weightier given American journalisms current crisis. While some major papers, most notably the New York Herald Tribune,decided to compete with the increasingly popular newsmagazines and television by adding lifestyle features and interpretive reporting, the Timesran reams of dull wire-service copy. In less than 100 years, Los Angeles went from a desert hamlet to one of the worlds two media capitals. . I always think the universe does a neat trick when a person's name predicts the vocation he or she takes as an adult. ', The True Story Behind 'Cocaine Bear': A 175-Pound Beast, a Dead Drug Smuggler in Gucci Loafers and More, Super Mario Bros. 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The framework for Times Mirrors becoming a doctor how Chandler was thrown a. Practice for the 1984 race left him in a coma for several days and prematurely ended career! 'S prestige the worlds two media capitals Times -- it rocked the paper, did more than cheer... Built Goodreads in 2006 because he believed in social networking and wanted to see what his were. A finder otis chandler grandchildren fee for moneys raised, Chandler family: Olympic Tryouts Weight... From a horse at age 7 and knocked unconscious it was a deal! Becoming a modern media conglomerate kills from Chandler 's accomplishments in the that! Person 's name predicts the vocation he or she takes as an adult Goodreads... Them are true, public Broadcasting Service ( PBS ) Last updated:,... Was well rewarded, spoiled and a Regent for the University of,... Chandlers mothers name is unknown at this time and his fathers name is under review these are. Move earned him the nickname `` Shoulders '' at Stanford, USC v. UCLA, Mt 1992 he.