Richard Kollmar, the son
of a businessman, was born in Brooklyn on 31st December, 1910. A rebellious
child, he was sent to a school for problem boys in New Jersey. Later
he attended Tusculum College in Tennessee. It was while he was a student
he became involved in acting and won a place at Yale Dramatic School.
In 1938 Kollmar obtained
a leading role in Knickerbocker Holiday.
This was followed by the musical, Too Many
Girls. The New York Times
described him as "an exuberant comedian unspoiled by cleverness".
Kollmar married Dorothy Kilgallen in
April, 1940. The
couple had three children (Jill, Richard and Kerry).
In April 1945 the couple
began a daily morning radio show, Breakfast
with Dorothy and Dick. The programme went out live: Monday
to Saturday (8.15 to 8.55 a.m.) and Sunday (11.30 to 12.00). Over
the years the programme was gradually commercialized. Companies paid
to have their products mentioned over breakfast and theatre producers
arranged to have their plays and musicals discussed over breakfast.
Films and books were also promoted by the hosts.
Kollmar also worked as
a theatre producer. This included Early to
Bed, By Jupiter, Leave
It to the Girls and Dream With
Music. He also owned and operated a nightclub in New
York City called The Left Bank. He worked closely with the Arts
Students League and started a small art gallery.
Dorothy
Kilgallen took an interest in the assassination of John
F. Kennedy.
In September 1964 she reported in the New
York Journal American that Jack
Ruby,
J.
D. Tippet and
Bernard Weismann had
a two hour meeting at the Carousel Club on 14th November, 1963.
Later Kilgallen managed
to obtain a private interview with Jack
Ruby.
She told friends that she had information that would "break the
case wide open". Aware of what had happened to Bill
Hunter and Jim Koethe, Kilgallen handed
a draft copy of her chapter on the assassination to her friend, Florence
Smith.
On 8th November, 1965,
Dorothy Kilgallen, was found dead in
her New York apartment. She was fully
dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she
had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes
of her interview with Ruby and the article she was writing on the
case had disappeared.
Richard Kollmar committed
suicide on 7th January, 1971.
John
McAdams and Dorothy Kilgallen
Dorothy
Kilgallen: The Key Witness
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Lee
Israel, Kilgallen (1979)
During
one of her (Kilgallen’s) visits - sometime in March, before the
verdict – she prevailed upon Joe Tonahill to make arrangements
through Judge Brown for a private interview with Jack Ruby.
Brown, awestruck by Dorothy, acceded readily to Tonahill’s request.
The meeting room in the jailhouse was bugged, and Tonahill suspected
that Brown’s chambers were as well. Brown and Tonahill chose
a small office off the courtroom behind the judge’s bench. They
asked Ruby’s ubiquitous flank of four sheriff’s guards to
consent to remain outside the room.
Dorothy was standing by
the room during a noon recess. Ruby appeared with Tonahill. The three
entered the room and closed the door. The defendant and Dorothy stood
facing each other, spoke of their mutual friend, and indicated that
they wanted to be left alone. Tonahill withdrew. They were together
privately for about eight minutes, in what may have been the only
safe house Ruby had occupied since his arrest.
Dorothy would mention the
fact of the interview to close friends, but never the substance. Not
once, in her prolific published writings, did she so much as refer
to the private interview. Whatever notes she took during her time
alone with Jack Ruby in the small office off the judge’s bench
were included in a file she began to assemble on the assassination
of John F. Kennedy.
(2)
New York Journal American (15th November, 1965)
The death of Dorothy Kilgallen, Journal-American columnist
and famed TV personality, was contributed to by a combination of moderate
quantities of alcohol and barbiturates, a medical examiner's report
stated today.
As many personalities whose
multiple duties and responsibilities demand unceasing attention, Miss
Kilgallen experienced recurring tensions in meeting her deadlines
for performances - both as a newspaperwoman and TV performer.
In his report today, Dr.
James Luke, Assistant Medical Examiner, said that although Miss Kilgallen
had only "moderate amounts of each," the effect of the combination
had caused depression of the central nervous system "which in
turn caused her heart to stop."
(3)
William
Penn Jones, The
Midlothian Mirror (November 25, 1965)
I have a concern for the strange things happening in America
in recent months. With the passing of the second anniversary of the
murder of President Kennedy, we take not of some of the strange things
which continue to plague those around the principals.
Miss
Dorothy Kilgallen joins the growing list of persons who have died
after a private interview with one of the two members of the Jack
Ruby-George Senator team. We have printed the strange deaths of Bill
Hunter and Jim Koethe after they had a private interview with George
Senator and Ruby’s attorney, Tom Howard. Hunter and Koethe were
murdered. Lawyer Tom Howard died under strange circumstances...
Now
Miss Kilgallen dies under clouded circumstances. During the Ruby trial
in Dallas, Judge Joe B. Brown granted Miss Kilgallen a privilege given
no other newsman. She had thirty minutes alone in a room with Jack
Ruby. Even the guards were outside the door. Miss Kilgallen told some
of what went of during the interview in her columns. But was someone
afraid she knew more? Is she another victim of possibly knowing the
secret that still moves in the troubled mind of Jack Ruby?...
What is happening in our land? How many murders of persons connected
in some way with the assassination principals can go unnoticed by
our people? How many lies must we prove on The Warren Commission before
a demand for reopening becomes a commanding one?
(4)
William
Penn Jones,
Volume
I: Forgive My Grief (1966)
Now we can add to that list of strange deaths that of Miss
Dorothy Kilgallen. Miss Kilgallen joins Bill Hunter, Jim Koethe, Tom
Howard and others. Miss Kilgallen is the only journalist who was granted
a private interview with Jack Ruby since he killed Lee Oswald. Judge
Joe B. Brown granted the interview during the course of the Ruby trial
in Dallas – to the intense anger of the hundreds of other news
people present.
(5)
David Welsh, Ramparts (November,
1966)
We know of no serious person who really believes that
the death of Dorothy Kilgallen, the gossip columnist, was related
to the Kennedy assassination. Still, she was passionately interested
in the case, told friends she firmly believed there was a conspiracy
and that she would find out the truth if it took her all her life.
Miss Kilgallen was the
first to make public the existence of Acquilla Clemons, a witness
to the Tippit killing whose name does not appear once in the Warren
Report or volumes. She was also the only reporter ever to interview
Jack Ruby privately since the killing of Oswald. During the Ruby trial,
which she covered for the now defunct New York Journal-American, Judge
Joe E. Brown granted her 30 minutes alone with Ruby in the judge's
chambers; the other reporters were furious.
One of the biggest scoops
of Miss Kilgallen's career came when she pirated the transcript of
Ruby's testimony before the Warren Commission and ran it in the Journal-American.
Thousands of New Yorkers were shocked at the hopelessly inept questioning
of Ruby by Chief Justice Warren, by Warren's almost deliberate failure
to follow up the leads Ruby was feeding him.
Miss Kilgallen died in
her bed on November 8, 1965. Dr. James Luke, a New York City medical
examiner, said the cause of death was "acute barbiturate (sic)
and alcohol intoxication, circumstances undetermined." Dr. Luke
said there were not high enough levels of either alcohol or barbiturates
(sic) to have caused death, but that the two are "additive"
and together are quite enough to kill. This cause of death, he observed,
is not at all uncommon. Was it suicide? Accident? Murder? - Dr. Luke
said there was no way of determining that.
As we say, Dorothy Kilgallen
probably does not belong on any list of Kennedy-related deaths. But
questions do remain. An editor of Screen Stars magazine, Mary
Brannum, says she received a phone call a few hours before Dorothy's
body was discovered, announcing that she had been murdered. Miss Kilgallgen's
"What's My Line" makeup man said that shortly before her
death she vowed she would "crack this case." And another
New York show biz friend said Dorothy told him in the last days of
her life: "In five more days I'm going to bust this case wide
open."
(6)
William
Penn Jones,
Volume
II: Forgive My Grief (1967)
Tom Howard knew too much from Ruby and he knew too well
how the Dallas power structure and Police Department worked. Howard
had to die.
At
the Ruby trial in Dallas during March of 1964, Dorothy Kilgallen had
a private interview during one of the noon recesses with Judge Joe
B. Brown. This was immediately followed by a thirty minute private
interview with Jack Ruby in Judge Brown’s chambers. Even Ruby’s
bodyguards were kept outside the Judge’s chambers. Joe Tonahill
and others thought the meeting room in the jail was “bugged,”
but it is doubtful if the Judge’s own chambers would be bugged.
Judges have the power of contempt of court for such irregularities.
This
then, was the second person Ruby had talked to who could know for
whom Ruby was acting; therefore Miss Kilgallen had to be silenced
along with Tom Howard.
Shortly
before her death, Miss Kilgallen told a friend in New York that she
was going to New Orleans in 5 days and break the case wide open. Miss
Kilgallen 52, died November 8, 1965, under questionable circumstances
in her New York home. Eight days after her death, a ruling was made
that she died of barbiturates and drink with no quantities of either
ingredient being given.
Also
strangely, Miss Kilgallen’s close friend, Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith,
died two days after Miss Kilgallen. Mrs. Smith’s autopsy read
that the cause of death was unknown.
Many
skeptical newsmen have asked: “If Miss Kilgallen knew anything,
surely as a journalist wouldn’t she have left some notes?”
This is a legitimate question. Possibly Mrs. Smith was the trusted
friend with the notes. No one will ever know now.
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