Another bit of history this A.M. on the Game Show Network's Black and White Overnight. They ran the 11/7/65 episode of What's My Line? with regular panelists Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis and Bennett Cerf, plus guest panelist Tony Randall. The show was broadcast live and, at the end, moderator John Daly said good-night to them all, as usual. The following morning, Ms. Kilgallen was found sitting up in her bed, fully-dressed, dead from what the coroner determined was a lethal combo of alcohol and barbiturates. The odd circumstances of her demise quickly became fodder for those out to prove a conspiracy in the death of President Kennedy.
They claimed she had recently returned from Dallas where she'd interviewed Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, and had been telling associates that she was about to blow the Kennedy assassination case "wide open" with startling revelations. The premise, of course, is that someone murdered her to silence her, and conspiracy buffs would point out that her notes from her meeting with Ruby were never found.
None of this, of course, is verifiable. There is some question as to whether she ever met with Ruby and, if so, if she even took any notes. Ruby was, by this time, pretty well out of his mind, babbling all sorts of delusions to whatever reporters got in to see him. There's no reason to assume he had a lucid moment and told Ms. Kilgallen anything of note, or that she had done much legwork on the matter. Friends of hers said she never claimed to be about to break the J.F.K. killing "wide open" and that she only planned to write a brief chapter about Kennedy, Oswald and Ruby in a book about sensational murders — hardly the place one would solve the crime of the century. In any case, the coroner ruled her death accidental and no one ever came up with a coherent theory as to why it wasn't.
Still, the death of Dorothy Kilgallen rocked the nation, albeit briefly. One of the more amazing reactions took the form of a telegram to Mark Goodson, producer of What's My Line? It was from a prominent actress and it read:
I KNOW HOW DISTRESSED YOU ARE AT DOROTHY KILGALLEN'S PASSING AND ALL IN SHOW BUSINESS SHARE YOUR SORROW. SHE IS IRREPLACEABLE BUT PERHAPS I COULD BRING TO THE "WHAT'S MY LINE" PANEL PROMOTIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT VALUES THAT WOULD BE ALMOST AS EFFECTIVE. COULD WE CHAT ABOUT IT. MAY I CALL YOU TUESDAY FOR AN APPOINTMENT.
The telegram was time-stamped Monday morning, November 8 at 3:36 AM — or about the time Dorothy Kilgallen's death was first reported on the radio. (No, its sender did not get the job of replacing her. No one did.)