He said it was good for his back.. The Securities and Exchange Commission dropped all charges against Chandler in 1975, but the case cost him more than $1 million in legal fees, and it had a devastating emotional effect on him. Chandler is survived by his wife; sons Harry of Los Angeles and Michael of Bend, Ore; daughters Cathleen Eckhardt of Soquel, Calif., and Carolyn Chandler of Santa Barbara; sister Camilla Chandler Frost of Los Angeles; and 15 grandchildren. Watkins Glen was to be one of the most enjoyable experiences of Chandlers life. Three years after that, he began construction on a 5,500-square-foot home in Ojai, about 30 minutes from his museum. Although Chandler had been opposed to Sen. Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential race, he had deferred to his father and reluctantly agreed to run an editorial before the Republican convention pledging The Times traditional support to whomever the party chose as its nominee and that turned out to be Goldwater. Under Otis Chandler, The Times became a critically lauded newspaper. Williams wrote a new one, warning that the Birchers extremism and smear tactics were subversive acts that could sow distrust and weaken the very strong case for conservatism. Chandler signed it and published it on Page 1. For the first time in his life, he found his personal integrity seriously questioned. [1], Chandler was raised on a 10-acre (40,000m2) citrus ranch in Sierra Madre owned by his parents. Norman Chandler (1899-1973), Publisher of the Los Angeles Times. 1. The change that ignited the biggest debate was Willes announced intention to blow up, with a bazooka, if necessary, the wall that had traditionally separated and insulated the newsroom of the paper from the business department to avoid conflicts of interest. 'It was three outside members of the [Times Mirror] board who persuaded him to do it In 1998, Chandler dissolved his last official ties with The Times. A year later, he moved again. Jack Burke, Chandlers close friend since their days together at Stanford, had assembled an exploratory oil-drilling company called GeoTek in the late 1960s and early 70s. He started work right away as a pressroom apprentice on the graveyard shift. This was a flagrant violation of the independence of the editorial department, and it placed the credibility of the paper in jeopardy. He accused Willes and Downing of misusing and abusing the newsroom staff, of unbelievably stupid and unprofessional handling of the Staples special section and of perpetrating a scandal and a fiasco that posed the most serious single threat to the future survival and growth of this great newspaper during my more than 50 years of being associated with The Times., This was, he said, probably the single most devastating period in the history of this great newspaper. 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 His Stanford roommate, Norman Nourse, suggested that he try the shotput throwing a 16-pound iron ball. Word that Chandler was breaking his silence ricocheted through the newsroom. Norman Chandler 1899-1973. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. He told me several times, and other people, that no Chandler would again be publisher of The Times, he added, and I thought that was a curious thing to say, especially since some of the Chandler children seemed perfectly suited to be publisher, at least as suited as Otis.. Chandler was an exotic, at times mythic figure among the nations newspaper executives, most of whose exertions and excursions outside the boardroom were generally limited to golf courses and cruise ships. His mother rushed him to a hospital, where doctors initially reported he was dead. He set his sights on a goal making The Times one of the two or three great American papers and he pulled it off.. Doctors estimated that his dislocated right arm would never fully heal, but, citing a disciplined training regimen, Chandler claimed to regain virtually all use. After leaving the Air Force in 1953, he had little direction for his career. He broke the freshman school record with a toss of 48 feet (15m), 761/47inches. Otis Chandler in MyHeritage family trees (Sturtevant Web Site) view all 15 Immediate Family Diana Chandler mother Asa Chandler, Jr. father Cynthia Bailey sister Emily (Chandler) Washburn sister Diana Chandler sister Noah Chandler, I brother Lucinda Chandler sister Laura Chandler sister Martin Chandler brother David Chandler brother George Chandler 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. I loved being a reporter. 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. Willes made several major cutbacks and refocused the companys efforts on newspapers, saying Times Mirror should concentrate on the business it knew best. Chandler later praised his editor for frequently reminding a young publisher that you cant change a whole paper overnight.. The two married in 1922, and had two children, Camilla and Otis, both born in 1927. As much as Chandler remained interested in The Times, he immensely enjoyed his retirement years. Later he would briefly attend the Cate School boarding school in Carpinteria before his parents elected to send him east to attend Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Sure, like any business executive, there were times when I would like to have been away from it all, free of responsibilities. Nixon, by all accounts, was stunned by the turnabout. As it happened, the consultants also recommended that, to ensure stability, the new publisher be capable of holding the job at least 15 years. 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. Its true that in 1958 Norman Chandler had promoted Williams, a 27-year Times veteran, to the top editors job and had given him instructions to initiate a more aggressive and evenhanded approach to the news. Missy and I had had a good marriage, but we just werent getting along anymore in the last 10 years. By all accounts, the family enjoyed their outdoor experiences together, for Chandler focused on his children as intensely as he did on everything else that mattered in his life. He eventually recovered from serious head injuries. [1], Chandler was an enthusiastic athlete and thrill seeker, an image he actively cultivated. Otis Chandler was born on July 4, 1919. The statement was a stinging and unprecedented rebuke of Willes and Downing. In August 1972, the Wall Street Journal broke the story, which dragged on for several years before a federal court sentenced Burke to 30 months in prison. [1] 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. But by 1962, The Times had become a different institution. Other family members had gathered at the Chandler home. Many people wondered if, in retrospect, Chandlers entire tenure at The Times had compromised his passion for freedom if he would have been happier had he been outside all the time, surfing, hunting, riding and racing, instead of being stuffed into a suit, sitting behind a desk, making speeches and attending meetings. I dont butt in.. Critics also thought his position at the top of the citys power structure prevented The Times from aggressively investigating that establishment. [1], On a 1964 safari in Mozambique, an elephant charged his party. Chandler tried to make amends, claiming he had been misquoted, but the damage had been done. Chandler attributed his pursuit of solo athletics like shotputting and weightlifting to the same sources, saying, "No one could say that the team carried me or that the coach put me in because my name was Chandler". He was also so disenchanted with the management of Times Mirror by then that, to the dismay of many, he not only didnt fight or even criticize the sale but instead embraced it as a very positive move a perfect fit a win-win situation.. 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. ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. A few weeks or months after I became publisher, my mother told me, I used to tell your father that I thought you were ready, but he wouldnt listen to me,. he said. And he wrote an exhaustive, if somewhat ponderous, seven-part series about the treatment of mentally ill children. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results Otis Chandler (1928 - 1970) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days How do we create a person's profile? You transformed the entire staff, he said, and the whole place had a totally different attitude.. 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. After the guide missed his shot and fled, Chandler shot the elephant when it was only 10 yards away, preventing himself and his wife from being trampled. They resented my position at the L.A. Times and felt there were a lot of things I could have done differently.. He had the papers support when he ran unsuccessfully for president in 1960. Reporter Gene Blake produced a five-part expose, written in calm, matter-of-fact language. 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. In 1960, he became publisher of the Los Angeles Times. And, like most men of his stature, he was on the boards of several civic organizations and served on a variety of local and national commissions and committees. The city editor, who had been hired during Chandlers heyday as publisher, said he felt an obligation to carry out his former boss wishes. Chandler had always had an active life outside the newspaper business, and in his final years as publisher, close friends and associates knew that the lure of those interests combined with fatigue, restlessness, health problems and major changes in his personal life were inexorably leading him away from The Times. It could be said that the anti-Otis crowd beat up on him so much that he just gave up, said former editorial page editor Day. Well into his 70s, he maintained a long-distance bicycling regimen that few people half his age could attempt. Williams was 21 years older than Chandler and often pulled in his reins. Husband of Bettina Chandler My trips gave me a balance, a perspective, he said. He put in long hours, but he managed to have dinner with his family most nights, even if it meant doing more work at home after dinner. Otis Chandler was born on July 24, 1924. And that apparently gave Mrs. Chandler the opening she needed. He wrote offbeat feature stories, such as one about the people who feed sharks at the aquarium. Otis is someone whos very used to having his own way, and she impeded that.. He hired the best people he could find and gave them the freedom, the resources and the challenge to take a newspaper that had been mocked as partisan, parochial and inferior and turn it into a publication that could no longer be sneered at. [1], In 1966 Chandler received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College. Direct, decisive and at times startlingly frank in both his personal and professional lives, Chandler told people what he expected of them, and he didnt have much patience with failure. 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. He was particularly resentful of Willes frequent promise to reinvent the newspaper and Willes and Downings unwillingness to consult him. Expressions of condolence or remembrance can be sent to the Chandler family at chan@mfire.com. Nothing but my kids is more important to me than the Los Angeles Times, he said in 1999. Everyone wondered why, at so young an age, he would step away from something that he had had such an enormous impact in building, Louis D. Boccardi, former president and chief executive officer of Associated Press, said more than a decade later. Contact Information The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, CA 91108, Phone: (626) 405-2191; Email: reference@huntington.org, www.huntington.org Access-restricted-item true Addeddate The GeoTek affair also damaged Chandler physically. The outdoors is my second home, my chapel, my retreat, my great love in life.. Chandler made improvement of the paper's quality a top priority, succeeding in raising the product's reputation, as well as its profit margins. But as one of the arena's 10 "founding partners", the paper had agreed to share the issue's ad revenue with the Staples Center without telling its reporters or readers about the fiscal arrangement. Like his father before him, he thought he should concentrate on companywide responsibilities, by succeeding Franklin D. Murphy as chairman of the Times Mirror board. Two years later, he was made marketing manager of The Times. Various Chandlers controlled about 65% of the Times Mirror voting stock before the sale to Tribune in 2000, and most of them love Willes, Otis said several months before those negotiations began. [2] At Stanford he was a successful shot putter. As recently as September, Chandler appeared fit, aside from a knee injury, and was lucid enough to sit for an interview and give a visitor a guided tour of his classic car and motorcycle museum in Oxnard. USE LINKPENDIUM'S FAMILY DISCOVERER TO SEARCH 2,804,127 FREE GENEALOGY SOURCES! When stories in local alternative weeklies, followed by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, disclosed details of the deal, the newsroom erupted in protest, circulating petitions and demanding an apology from Downing, the publisher, who had signed the original founding partner agreement. To put together his galaxy of star reporters, Otis Chandler employed what in much of the newspaper business amounts to a secret weapon money.. Otis Chandler, whose vision and determination as publisher of the Los Angeles Times from 1960 to 1980 catapulted the paper from mediocrity into the front ranks of American journalism, died today of a degenerative illness called Lewy body disease. Otis Ashmore Chandler (1891 - 1956) When the guide missed his shot and ran off in a panic, Chandler shot the elephant in the leg at a distance of 10 yards, deflecting the animal just enough to send it thundering past them. 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.. But in 1972, he suffered his most damaging blow and it was, to a significant extent, self-inflicted. He missed the day-to-day challenge and the interaction with the editors and with the news. 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. His father, publisher of The Times from 1944 to 1960, had worked in the fields of the familys Tejon Ranch when he was a boy, so he saw no reason to spare his son from physical labor or spoil him with money. Chandler always denied any conflict of interest, and he invariably emerged from these controversies with his reputation for personal integrity intact. Chandler was elated; many who knew him well and saw him after that race said they had rarely seen him happier. [1], Chandler enrolled at his parents' alma mater, Stanford University, in 1946. When he arrived at his parents' home with his wife and first child, his father presented him with credentials for a seven-year executive training program at The Times. 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