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“Kilgallen was the greatest female writer in the world.”
-Ernest Hemingway

Few people today know the name of one of the most remarkable Americans ever to live. She was an intrepid journalist, gifted writer, and popular TV personality. The New York Post once described her as “the most powerful female voice in America.” As a fearless crime reporter, she was involved in many high-profile investigations, including the famous Sam Sheppard murder trial and the JFK assassination. In November of 1965, she died mysteriously, but authorities refused to investigate. Her name was Dorothy Kilgallen.
Dorothy Kilgallen was born in Chicago on July 3, 1913. Her family moved to New York City in 1920, and she grew up in Brooklyn. After graduating high school, she briefly attended New Rochelle College but dropped out at the age of 17 to become a crime reporter.
In September of 1936, while working for the New York Evening Journal, she convinced her editors to send her on a “Race Around the World” – competing against reporters from two other newspapers. Dorothy was just 23 years old. She had two days to get her passport and 16 Visas. Off and running, she traveled by plane, dirigible, train, and ship, reporting on her adventures from such places as Germany, Manila, Hong Kong, and Hawaii. The trip took her 24 days, and she came in second place. When she returned home, every house on her block was decorated with her picture and an American flag. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt even wrote to congratulate her. Dorothy later published a memoir of her trip entitled Girl Around the World.
Ever the hardworking journalist, in 1938 Dorothy launched a newspaper column, the Voice of Broadway, for the New York Journal-American. In it she documented the shenanigans of the social elite, and more. Her writing style was a mixture of juicy gossip, dark politics, and crime, peppered with odd tidbits of trivial and fun information. Dorothy cruised New York nightspots like Delmonico’s and the Copacabana, picking up story tips, writing them on matchbooks and napkins, and tossing them in her purse.
By 1950, Dorothy’s column was running in 146 newspapers earning 20 million readers. Not everyone though was enamored with her take on the celebrity world. Dishing dirt sometimes brought her enemies. Frank Sinatra was one of them. In a running feud with Dorothy, he often referred to her as the “chinless wonder.” She responded by writing about his ties to organized crime and the mob.
In 1950, along with her column and a morning live radio program, Dorothy became a regular panelist on the new game show What’s My Line?
The show was broadcast live from New York on Sunday nights and had the panelists interview contestants with unusual occupations, with contestants winning $5 for every “no” answer. Dorothy was intelligent, quick witted, and fun, more often than not correctly guessing her way through the game. During this time, Dorothy became a celebrity herself, often outshining the stars she wrote about. But writing was her gift.
Dorothy’s father, James Kilgallen, a journalist himself recalled “she had an unerring instinct for news. She had a brilliant style of writing. She was accurate and had a flair for the apt phrase. She had an uncanny ability to produce scoops and an inordinate speed in turning out copy.” And readers devoured what she wrote.
In her column on August 3, 1962, Dorothy broke the story of President Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe’s romantic relationship. She didn’t directly identify Kennedy, but readers were able to read between the lines. One day later, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home – under suspicious circumstances.
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and life for America changed forever. Dorothy was devasted, having met the President weeks earlier on a White House visit with her young son. And as a crime reporter, she started asking questions.
Contacts within the Dallas Police Department began feeding her information. Dorothy was soon convinced that the assassination was a conspiracy, with many involved. Things got western after the man arrested for the crime, Lee Harvey Oswald, was gunned down on live TV by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Dorothy soon obtained and published the transcript of Ruby’s testimony before the Warren Commission tasked with investigating the crime. The FBI interrogated Dorothy in an effort to discover her source. She informed the FBI that she “would rather die than reveal his identity.”
Dorothy later interviewed Jack Ruby (she was the only reporter to do so) and began carrying a file of documents with her at all times – believed to be material she was compiling for a book. She told friends that she was “going to break this case.” She believed it would be the biggest scoop of the century.
On the evening of November 7, 1965, Dorothy made her last appearance on What’s My Line? She was later spotted in the bar at the Regency Hotel having drinks with a mystery man, and then leaving the bar at about 2 a.m.
Monday morning, November 8, 1965, Dorothy had an appointment with her hairdresser Marc Sinclaire. Sinclaire arrived at her Manhattan townhouse at approximately 8:45 a.m. He found her dead.
Dorothy was found by her hairdresser in a bedroom she never slept in, dressed in clothes she would never wear to bed, with makeup, hairpiece, and false eyelashes still on, reading a book she had finished and disliked, without her reading glasses, with the lights on and A/C running full blast in the cold of November. Eight days after her death, the New York City Medical Examiners report, signed by a doctor who claimed he was never there and didn’t sign it, stated that Dorothy died of “acute barbiturate and alcohol intoxication – circumstances undetermined.” Her death was never investigated by the authorities.
The file carrying all of Dorothy’s JFK papers has never been found.
© 2025 Jody Dyer
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