Flashback 2003: 'Mr. Chicago' is dead at 91

     When mentioning Irv Kupcinet in my column last week, I went to check his obituary, and was surprised to see that it had never been posted here, despite my occasionally sharing runs of past obits when on vacation — which I will be this entire week. 

     That he was a man from a former era goes without saying — when journalists mattered, when they wielded true power, when there was at least a tang of reality to their relationships with the famous. Bob Hope MC'ed Kup's 25th anniversary dinner; when I hit 25 years of column writing, I didn't even mention it, not wanting to draw attention to my age.

     After he died, his faithful assistant Stella told me to take what I liked from his memento-jammed office. I helped myself to a coffee cup from Kup's Show, a photo of him smoking cigars with Nixon (which, sadly, I can't put my hands on at the moment) and the above street sign, from when the Wabash Avenue bridge was named in his honor in 1986. I had it in my office for years, but when we moved from the Apparel Center to smaller quarters on Racine Avenue, I gave it away to a reader as a prize in the Saturday contests that EGD used to hold.

    This obit is long — over 2500 words, more than three times the length of a regular column. We'd never run such a long obituary of a staffer nowadays. Then again, we don't employ anyone who would merit it.

     Irv Kupcinet knew everybody before they were anybody. He knew CBS's Mike Wallace when he was still Myron Wallace, an obscure announcer on a Chicago variety show. He reported from Israel when it was still British Palestine. And when he met Marilyn Monroe, she was still a brunette.
     He even knew this newspaper before it was the Sun-Times, back when it was just the Times and had yet to have its 1948 union with the Chicago Sun.
     Mr. Kupcinet — Kup, as he was known to one and all — wrote his column so well and so long that he seemed connected to every celebrity around. Kup had the phone numbers nobody had; stars who weren't taking calls took a call from Kup.
     Kup died Monday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was admitted Sunday with respiratory complications from pneumonia. He was 91.
     "He was the best of the best in the business," said Stella Foster, his assistant for 34 years. "There will never be another. Never."
     Kup was friendly with presidents, barbers and the top A-list of Hollywood. It wasn't a press agentish, fake kind of friendship. He stayed at their homes — at Jack Benny's, at Danny Thomas', at Joan Crawford's. When he went on vacation, Bing Crosby might pitch in to write his column, or Mike Todd, or Betty Grable. Bob Hope spoke at the 1968 dinner honoring Kup's 25th anniversary as a columnist.
     He was known for nightclubbing, but he also gave dinners, and John Wayne might show up. Or Frank Sinatra, with Ava Gardner in tow, or Cary Grant, or Clark Gable, or too many others to mention.
     But he was no relic. Kup survived the changing times, on sheer determination, hard work and good contacts. He never retired. He never slowed down except under a doctor's orders. While his health deteriorated over recent years, Kup insisted on coming in to the office to write his column, always quipping that he wanted to be "terminal at the terminal," and he nearly was. His last column ran Nov. 6.
     Nobody could match Kup. He was a Chicago institution, the link between local celebrity and international fame.
     "Irv Kupcinet was as closely identified with Chicago as the Picasso, the Hancock Building and the Sears Tower — and he was an important part of this city long before they were," said Mayor Daley. "In six decades of columns, he had thousands of scoops — and when something was in Kup's Column, you knew it was true ... Chicago won't be quite the same without him."
     His passing "marks the end of an era," said Gov. Blagojevich, who offered condolences to readers of his column along with Kup's family. Kup's Column "was the source of information for all Chicagoans," the governor said. "Kup was a part of the fabric of Chicago. With his passing, he has now joined the pantheon of Chicago legends: Harry Caray; Walter Payton; Jack Brickhouse; Mayor Richard J. Daley; Mike Royko, and Ann Landers."
     He "was a great colleague and a great friend," said John Cruickshank, Sun-Times vice president of editorial. As "Mr. Chicago," he helped solidify the reputation of the paper, which takes "enormous pride" in his career, Cruickshank said. "Kup's greatness was as a connector of the disparate communities that make up Chicago," Cruickshank said.
     Indeed, when Cruickshank and Editor in Chief Michael Cooke arrived to lead the Sun-Times, Kup welcomed them to the city, Cooke said.
     "He had a work ethic that was staggering, but he also had the good sense to have the fun that journalism can give," Cooke said.
     He was the man in Booth One at the Pump Room, chatting easily with stars making the layover on the Super Chief and the California Zephyr. (A.J. Liebling, in his classic essay on Chicago, pointed out that the stars frequently stopped in Chicago specifically to talk to Kup; otherwise, they'd take the express.)
     "He was unique because he represented an era of the gossip columnist, the sportswriter and the political columnist all rolled into one," said Ald. Bernard Stone (50th). "What I remember best was that Kup never printed a story about me where he didn't call me first and check with me to make sure it was true."
     Kup lunched with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall at the Pump Room the day after they married in 1945. Harry Truman would phone to remind him to look after his daughter, Margaret, when she was in town.
     Kup covered every Academy Awards ceremony from 1945 to 1986. He went to London for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and crashed the dress rehearsal by flashing his Chicago police press card.
     Over the years, Kup's Column was distributed to more than 100 newspapers around the world and its author showered with innumerable awards. In 1982, he was elected to Chicago's Journalism Hall of Fame. The city renamed the Wabash Avenue bridge over the Chicago River in his honor in 1986.
     His other accomplishments were enough to fill several careers. He broadcast Chicago Bears football games, with Jack Brickhouse, for 24 years. He appeared in two movies, produced by friend Otto Preminger, "Advise and Consent" and "Anatomy of a Murder."
     He appeared on television as early as 1945 and was a pioneering television talk show host — he started on CBS in 1952 with a late-night news/interview program. In 1957, he replaced Jack Paar on NBC's "America After the Dark," which eventually became "The Tonight Show." His own television program ran from 1959 to 1986, syndicated at one point to 70 stations nationwide, and featured newsmakers from Richard Nixon to Alger Hiss to Malcolm X — with whom he forged an improbable friendship.
     The show was known for its spontaneity. Carl Sandburg once walked off the set in mid-broadcast, declaring he had to "wee-wee." Radical Abbie Hoffman lit up a joint on the air and was asked by Kup to leave.
     Ann Landers shocked the audience — and Kup — when, on a show that paired her with porn star Linda Lovelace, the advice columnist described in precise detail the act Lovelace was famous for.
     The show won 15 local Emmys and the prestigious Peabody Award.
     He was a close friend of Truman, who gave Kup and his family a personal tour of the White House while he was president. Eight years out of office, when Truman finally revealed why he had fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War, he gave the scoop to Kup: The general had been chafing to attack Communist China with atomic bombs.
      A sign of Kup's lasting influence was that, decades later, when Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan wanted to make a public relations gesture toward the Jewish community, he did so by having dinner with Kup.

Born in North Lawndale

     Irving Kupcinet was born July 31, 1912, in the largely Jewish North Lawndale neighborhood around 16th and Kedzie, the youngest of four children of Russian immigrants Olga and Max Kupcinet. His father drove a bakery truck. As a young boy, Kup — whose nickname then was "Bubbles" — helped his father make deliveries on a horse and wagon.
     He got his first taste of journalism at Harrison High School, where he edited the school paper, starred in the school play and was president of the senior class.
     He also played football. He was good enough to earn a football scholarship to Northwestern University. But a fistfight with the coach's brother led to his transferring to the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks.
     He played on a college all-star football team with future president Gerald Ford. Kup was the quarterback, Ford was the center, and Kup always quipped that he had an intimate view of Ford.
     On graduation, Kup was drafted in 1935 by the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League. A serious shoulder injury cut that rookie season short, and he returned to Chicago, landing a $32.50-a-week sportswriter's job at the Chicago Daily Times late in 1935.
     Kup had his share of fistfights in that pre-litigious age: He was in the thick of a notorious brawl that took place April 3, 1937, in the lobby of a Tampa hotel, when Kup sallied to the defense of Jack Miley of the New York Daily News, who was taking on nearly the entire St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean, goaded by his wife, laid a punch on Kup and then ran away. The story made headlines for over a year, fed by Kup challenging Dean to a fair fight with taunts such as "You yellow-bellied, hen-pecked husband, you wouldn't fight a baby."
     As the 1930s ended, Kup was ready to trade fistfights for marital harmony. Four years earlier, he had met a feisty redheaded Northwestern undergrad named Esther "Essee" Solomon. The two wed on Feb. 12, 1939, and honeymooned at spring training in Florida.
     Kup covered the Bears and became close to Bears owner and founder George Halas. Kup worked as an NFL referee — a common practice for newspapermen at the time — and he presided over the Bears' historic 73-0 demolition of the Washington Redskins in the 1940 championships.
     The practice ended, the story goes, after a game between the Bears and the Green Bay Packers. Kup was head linesman and called for a measurement to see if the Bears had made a crucial first down. When it was determined they had, Kup headed for the sidelines whooping, "We made it!"
     By the early 1940s, Kup had his own sports column. Each column ended with a short "people" section. So he was a natural to be tapped by Times editor Russ Stewart for the new column he had in mind to rival Walter Winchell's. His competition in Chicago, Nate Gross at the old Chicago's American, was known for gathering his information over the phone, from home. So Kup shrewdly decided to go where the action was and get his news, hot, direct and firsthand.
      "I'd be there. I'd be visible," Kup recalled in his autobiography. "If someone had something worth printing, they'd know where to find me -- if I wasn't already within earshot."
     Kup's column debuted Jan. 18, 1943.

Making the rounds

     Kup, often with Essee at his side, did the rounds of Chicago nightclubs during their elegant heyday. The Chez Paree. The HiHat Club. The Trade Winds. The 5100 Club, where he saw Danny Thomas when he was just starting out. He took Bob Hope, of all people, to see Lenny Bruce, who returned the favor by basing a scathing routine on Kup (Saul Bellow, too, parodied Kup, using him as a character in Humboldt's Gift: "He looked haughty, creased and sleepy, like certain oil-rich American Indians from Oklahoma," Bellow wrote).
     So identified were Kup and Essee with the Ambassador East's Pump Room that the hotel installed a full-scale replica of Booth One, the restaurant's seat of prestige, in their East Lake View apartment.
     "Being mentioned in Kup's column was more important than being mentioned anywhere else," said Stone. "Being mentioned in Kup's column was the epitome of making it and being recognized as somebody."
     The couple had two children, Jerry and Karyn, who was called "Cookie." Cookie was an aspiring actress and moved to Hollywood, where she was murdered in 1963 at the age of 22. The crime was never solved.
     Kup grieved the loss of his daughter for the rest of his life. In 1966, when the Tribune syndicate asked Kup to replace the recently deceased Hedda Hopper, dangling a "mind-boggling" offer that included Hopper's Hollywood home, Kup refused, largely because he and Essee did not want to move to what he later described as "the Hollywood that had sucked our daughter into its maelstrom."
     While Kup did not dish the dirt that other gossip columnists thrived on, he was no lightweight, either. After he pointed out that Abigail Van Buren had reprinted a 20-year-old Dorothy Dix witticism in her "Dear Abby" column, a "furious" Van Buren never spoke to him again.
     When the Chicago Bar Association refused membership to a black attorney, claiming that it was a social club and not a professional organization, Kup riposted that its "members have some adjusting to do with Uncle Sam's Internal Revenue Department" since social club dues were not tax deductible.
      "His legacy is that of a communicator of substance and a bridge builder with compassion whose life and legacy made all of us better," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was in Atlanta when he heard of Kup's death.
     "Kup built bridges between the races and facilitated a dialog when there was no way out," said Jackson, adding that one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s last interviews was on Kup's show. "He was one of the few platforms we had to engage in the broader debate of social issues such as war and peace."

Wrong turn at Vatican

     Kup could laugh at himself. In his 1988 autobiography, Kup, a Man, an Era, a City, he tells the story of how, after meeting with Pope Pius XII in 1949, he exited through the wrong door in the Vatican.
     "Suddenly, I was in a giant red velvet room filled to capacity with 1,500 people ... all of whom began to genuflect at my entrance! I realized something was askew."
      Kup was a tireless worker for charities — raising funds at the Irv Kupcinet Open celebrity golf tournament and the old Harvest Moon Festival; conducting the annual Purple Heart Cruise outings for wounded veterans for 50 years after 1945, and as the original and perennial Chicago host of the annual Cerebral Palsy telethon. The Variety Club of Chicago and Little City were favorites.
      He also raised huge sums for Israeli organizations, especially the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he established the Karyn Kupcinet International Science School. He traveled to Palestine in 1947 to report on the plight of Jewish displaced persons trying to flee the aftermath of the war. In Israel's Judean Mountains, the Irv Kupcinet Forest now grows on what was barren land before 1960.
     "Irv Kupcinet's death leaves a large tear in Chicago's social fabric," said Cardinal Francis George, Chicago's Roman Catholic leader. "Interested in everyone and always kind in his comments, he was a treasured part of our lives. May God give him rest."
      Survivors include his son, Jerry, and two grandchildren, Kari Kupcinet Kriser and David Kupcinet, and two great-grandchildren.

     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, November 11, 2003