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Otis Chandler
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TVInews - 114 People Section: The Publisher of the LA Times, The Man From Pasadena, Named "Oats." -- Otis Chandler, 78, died February 28 2006, Bettina Chandler, was at his bedside, said Tom Johnson, spokesman for the Chandler family.
FEATURE STORY
• 02.Time Line
03. More
BYLINES

Otis Chandler, with his mother and Father,
Dorothy and Norman

Otis Chandler -- Publisher of the LA Times - 1960 to 1979. The Man From Pasadena, Named "Oats."
Born in Los Angeles on Nov. 23, 1927, Chandler was the only son of Norman Chandler and Dorothy Buffum Chandler. Although Halberstam would later say, "No single family dominates any other region of this country as the Chandlers have dominated California," Otis had a far-from-pampered upbringing and was never a man who could be described as effete.
"When I first met him, it was at my home in Pasadena during a Stubblefield - China Art Exhibit in late, 1993. There he coxed me over to his favorite barber shop for a haircut and a mixture of his "secret" vegitable juice he called, "Olats". I didn't know who he was at the time, he said -- just call him,"Oats," the name similiar to his drink. -- Troy Cory. MORE.

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120 PIXELS 3 columns

117OtisChandlerPasadenaBoy

Not Pampered, Never Effete -- Just a man from Pasadena

1927 - Born in Los Angeles on Nov. 23, 1927, Chandler was the only son of Norman Chandler and Dorothy Buffum Chandler.
"He used the same tone of voice with the president of the United States and the guy who came to change the lightbulbs in his office," said Donna Swayze, his executive secretary from 1962 to 1988.
John Thomas remembers meeting Chandler -- and not knowing who he was -- when Chandler took one of his Porsches to the auto dealership where Thomas worked as the parts manager in the late 1960s. The two men introduced themselves as "J.T." and "Oats" (Chandler's longtime family nickname), struck up a conversation about motorcycles and soon began dirt-biking together.
"When I asked what he did, he just said, 'I work at The Times,' " Thomas recalled. "But after about 18 months, I accepted an invitation to his house for dinner, and when I drove up to this huge mansion in San Marino, I thought, 'Holy cow!' When I got inside, I said, 'Well, just what do you do at The Times?' "
Only then did Chandler tell Thomas about himself and his family. Despite the enormous difference in their socioeconomic status, the two remained close friends for more than 30 years.
1930s - When Chandler was growing up, he lived with his parents on a 10-acre citrus ranch in Sierra Madre. His father, publisher of The Times from 1944 to 1960, had worked in the fields of the family's Tejon Ranch when he was a boy, so he saw no reason to spare his son from physical labor or spoil him with money.
Otis shoveled fertilizer for the family fruit trees at an early age and was kept on such a modest allowance that even when he went to college, he later recalled, "the most lavish transportation I could afford was half-interest in a secondhand motorcycle."
For a time, when he was young, Chandler rode a bicycle several miles to and from the Polytechnic School in Pasadena.
But he was hardly unaware of his family's powerful position. As a boy, he would stand alongside his father and grandfather at Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever) in annual memorials to the victims of a bomb blast that wrecked the Times building in 1910, killing 20 workers.
The explosion was blamed on union militants, and, Otis once said, "I was raised to hate the unions." (He later mellowed on that topic, although he always opposed unionization at The Times.)

03 TIMELINE - Shortly after graduation from high school, he took up weightlifting. By the time he enrolled at Stanford University in 1946, he weighed about 200 pounds.
1946 - College / His Stanford roommate, Norman Nourse, suggested that he try the shotput -- heaving a 16-pound iron ball. Chandler immediately excelled, breaking the school freshman record by putting the shot 48 feet, 7 1/4 inches.
Bulked up to 6 feet 3, 220 pounds as a senior in 1950, when he was captain of the track team, he put the shot 57 feet, 3/4 of an inch, to win the Pacific Coast Conference championship.
1948
- In 1948 the Chandler family had started a second newspaper, an afternoon tabloid called the Los Angeles Mirror.
1948 - Otis was considered a cinch to be one of three shotputters on the U.S. team for the Olympic Games in Helsinki, but he sprained his wrist before the tryouts and had to pull out -- "the biggest disappointment of my life," he recalled almost 50 years later.
He was, in general, something of a loner, a trait he traced partly to "spending my young years on that ranch in Sierra Madre, a little remote, rather than on a neighborhood street with a lot of kids." Asked repeatedly in one interview to name his best childhood friends, he came up blank.
1950 - After graduating from Stanford, he tried to enroll in an Air Force training program. 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. He was rejected anyway; his shoulders and hips were still too big to fit into the cockpit of a jet.
1951 - He was on the ground in the Air Force, supervising sports and acting as co-captain of the Air Force track team at Camp Stoneman in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Growing up, Chandler had often said he'd like to be a doctor, although he later conceded, "I was never an outstanding scholar." When he left the Air Force in 1953, he had no clear sense of what he wanted to do with his life.
1953 - He had married his college sweetheart, Marilyn Brant -- having proposed to her on his 23rd birthday on the seventh hole of the Pebble Beach golf course -- and they had a baby boy (Norman, after Otis' father).
1954 - AS A NEWSPAPER JOURNALIST. After his Air Force tenue, though, his father -- "grinning like a Cheshire cat," Chandler would always remember -- handed him a sheet of paper. On it, neatly typed, was a seven-year "executive training program," scheduled to begin that Sunday night.
"I said something about wanting a week's vacation first, but he wouldn't hear of it," Chandler said. "I started work right away, on the graveyard shift, midnight to 8 in the morning." He was a pressroom apprentice, at $48 a week, the equivalent of $356 in today's dollars.
He gradually worked his way through every department at the paper: production, circulation, the mailroom, mechanical, advertising, the newsroom.
Most of his early jobs in the training program were just that -- jobs, "a grinding routine," he later said -- and because his father wanted him to have as many Times experiences (and meet as many Times employees) as possible, his schedule was constantly changing.
"I'd work the graveyard shift for a week, then spend a week on days, then a week on the swing shift, then back to the graveyard shift," he recalled.
Once he started as a reporter, though, he began to feel different about a career at The Times.
"It was a watershed experience," he said. "I loved being a reporter. That's when I decided this was the business for me."
Chandler was no typical rookie. He wrote offbeat feature stories, such as the seven-part series about the treatment of emotionally disturbed children.
He was also the only reporter, rookie or veteran, whose name regularly appeared in both the Sports section, which chronicled his continuing exploits as a competitive weightlifter, and in the society pages, where his attendance at various black-tie events always rated a mention.
He also showed his father skills that went beyond the reportorial. As part of his training program, Otis worked the Los Angeles Mirror, founded in 1948 by the Chandler family. As he did in every posting at The Times, he filled notebook after notebook with his thoughts on possible improvements.
The Mirror was losing $30,000 a week, and Otis sent his father a confidential memo urging that a strong business manager be hired. He also complained that the paper's editor and publisher "never … try to come up with new ways to cut the deficit. Instead they always find new ways to spend money."
Norman Chandler was delighted by this practical evidence that Otis had absorbed his childhood lessons of prudence and thrift. Soon there was talk of Otis becoming publisher of the Mirror when he finished his training program -- most likely as one of the final steps before he became publisher of The Times. But the Mirror continued to falter, and his parents decided they didn't want his first command to be that of a sinking ship.
1957 - In October 1957, continuing his climb into the executive ranks, Chandler was named special assistant to his father. Two years later, he was made marketing manager of The Times. About that time, Otis began telling Nick Williams, the editor of the paper, the kinds of improvements he envisioned making if and when he had the authority.
1960 - Publisher of The Times - On April 11, 1960, Norman Chandler invited more than 700 people to a luncheon at the Biltmore Bowl ballroom in downtown Los Angeles, where he promised a "special announcement."
On that wisp of a lure, the room filled up with the cream of the Southern California establishment: corporate heads, college presidents, prominent lawyers and judges, Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson, members of the county Board of Supervisors, former California Gov. Goodwin J. Knight.
There was an air of anticipation as the elder Chandler stepped to the microphone and said, after a bit of reminiscing, "I hereby appoint, effective as of this moment, Otis Chandler as publisher of The Times."
Otis stood up, grinned and said, "Wow!"
1979 - Otis resigns from the LA Times. The 20 years he headed the newspaper, the face of the paper changed with Otis. Otis became so dramatically identified with the paper that when he left the publisher's office at age 52, and again when he relinquished his corporate titles five years later, employees at The Times and Chandler's peers throughout the industry were both stunned and puzzled.

 1984 - Otis relinquished his LA Times corporate titles.
 1990 - 1995 Otis retires to do what pleased him around Pasadena area.
 1996 - In a controversial 1996 story in Vanity Fair, Chandler was quoted as criticizing his relatives as "coupon clippers … elitists … bored with the problems of AIDS and the homeless and drive-by shootings." They wished The Times wouldn't cover those issues, and they weren't interested in either the paper's editorial quality or its social responsibility, he said.
That article deeply wounded some of the 160-odd descendants of Otis' grandfather, family patriarch Harry Chandler. Many had led quietly productive lives outside the newspaper industry and had tried to keep their complaints about cousin Otis and The Times within the family circle. Chandler tried to make amends, claiming he had been misquoted, but the damage had been done.
Several prominent members of the family -- cousins of Otis who reflect the more conservative side of the family -- declined requests to be interviewed for this article. Despite Chandler's worries and despite what he said was a "constant stream of calls and letters" from Times executives past and present, asking him to "do something" about the direction of the newspaper, he made no real effort for most of Willes' tenure to influence what was happening at Times Mirror Square.
1999 - Almost 20 years after he left the publisher's office, (1979) -- and with no official ties to the paper anymore -- its standing 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.
2000
- He recalled almost four decades after his father said "I hereby appoint, effective as of this moment, Otis Chandler as publisher of The Times," he had "no inkling what my dad was going to say until an hour before the luncheon.
2006 - February 28 2006, Chandler, 78, died at 4 a.m. Monday at his home in Ojai of a degenerative illness called Lewy body disease, according to Tom Johnson, a former publisher of The Times who was acting as a spokesman for the Chandler family. Chandler's wife, Bettina, was at his bedside, and other family members had gathered in and around their home.

2006 - March 6th. Family Eulogys and After thoughts, by Josie Cory, Publisher of Television International Magazine
At Monday's memorial, held at the All Saints Church in Pasadena, the Rev. George Regas, the former rector of All Saints who officiated at Otis and Bettina Chandler's wedding, said Chandler was not much of a churchgoer.
"Otis' church was nature," he said. "His cathedral was Planet Earth."
" 'Let's be the best' was the goal that Otis conveyed to his family and those of us who worked for him throughout the years," said Tom Johnson, who took over as Times publisher when Chandler stepped down in 1979.
Harry Chandler, said in his eulogy. "He was an original," his son, "He broke the mold that his parents and the extended Chandler family and The Times had set for him."
Bettina Chandler brought tears to many in the church when she told a story about Chandler that included a reference to his firstborn son, Norman, who died of a brain tumor in 2002. Otis, she said, woke up recently, when disease was claiming his reasoning powers, and announced to her: "I have to pack."
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I don't know," Chandler replied, "but Norman's coming for me."
The eulogy's of both Harry and Bettina Chandler brought tears to the eyes of many. Harry described how, in the minutes after his father's death, just before dawn, he took a ruminative stroll around the property surrounding the elder Chandler's Ojai home. After a couple of minutes, he said, he turned to see a flock of large birds circling over his father's bedroom. Otis Chandler had always compared himself to the eagle that is The Times' symbol, saying that he wanted to soar.
Harry said he watched the birds "rising up, gliding around and around, higher and higher," as if lifting his father's soul heavenward.
" 'Goodbye,' I breathed, unable to speak. 'I will miss you always.' "
Lou Boccardi, the former president and head of the Associated Press, recalled that he once told Chandler that he should write his memoirs to ensure that his life and times with The Times, were properly told. Chandler, he said, seemed to be horrified at the suggestion.
"Maybe," Boccardi said, "he understood that not everybody had to leave a book. You could, as he did, leave a newspaper, and it would speak volumes about a life."
As for the interuption of the service by Big Willie Robinson's impromptu eulogy, after the service, I was told, Harry Chandler approached Robinson and thanked him for the eulogy.
Had Otis Chandler never worked a single day, his would have been a memorable life. An Olympic-caliber athlete, a champion weightlifter, an accomplished race car driver, big game hunter, surfer, cyclist, antique car and motorcycle collector, Chandler, who died Monday at 78, was a man whose avocations alone were the stuff of legend. --"That's not in my nature," he said. "I don't butt in."

For the most part, Monday's memorial was a relatively formal and staid affair, more in keeping with Chandler's boardroom persona than his parallel life as a surfer dude, said the LA Times.

4. Bylines / Editor's -- "It was a memorable and enlightening event," said author, entertainer, Troy Cory. The most startled and unexpected, was the impromptu eulogy, delivered by "Big Willie," Robinson, head of a drag racing group organized to help reduce racial tension and street crime. He said "Big O," Chandler was instrumental in helping him found the organization in 1966, and frequently attended its drag races over the years. Chandler, Robinson said, gave him the nickname "Big Willie," and he called the publisher "Big O."
After the "Big Willie" eulogy about auto racing and street crime, Troy Cory, later recalled and told his wife, Josie Cory, that it was probably our old Stutz automobile that attracted Chandler to our Rosemont home in Pasadena - in late, 1993, "not the NBS Stubblefield or China Art Exhibit."
"If I remember right," said Troy, "Chandler came back two days in a row gazing at the Stutz. During Troy's two or three afternoon visits with Chandler, it was on the second day "Oats" brought along the vegtables to make his "Olats" vegitable juice in our mixer.
"Oats" brewed his "Olats" drink, using our bar room overlooking the Rose Bowl.
MEDIA NEWS DIGNITARIES ATTENDING:
Lou Boccardi, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Sr., the retired publisher of the New York Times; William Dean Singleton, the head of MediaNews Group, which owns the Long Beach Press Telegram and Los Angeles Daily News, among other papers; Dennis FitzSimons, chief executive of Tribune Co.; and Paul Steiger, the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.
  There were, in addition, nearly all the living editors and publishers of The Times, past and present. They included current editor Dean Baquet and predecessors John Carroll, Michael Parks, Shelby Coffey and William F. Thomas, and publisher Jeff Johnson and predecessors Richard Schlosberg III, David Laventhol and Tom Johnson. Among dozens of former Times staff members were cartoonist Paul Conrad, retired Washington bureau chief Jack Nelson and retired City Editor Bill Boyarsky.

POLITIANS DIGNITARIES ATTENDING:
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was among a small contingent of political leaders that included Los Angeles County supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavsky, and Los Angeles City Council members Eric Garcetti, Tom LaBonge and Dennis Zine.

More Articles • Converging News 072006 / TeleCom BuyOuts, Spinoffs and Asset Seizure Boom

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Yes90 tviNews S90 114 People Section: The Publisher of the LA Times, The Man From Pasadena, Named "Oats." -- Otis Chandler, 78, died February 28 2006, Bettina Chandler, was at his bedside, said Tom Johnson, spokesman for the Chandler family. / Feature Story / • people/otischandler.htm / Smart90, lookradio, nbs100, tvimagazine, vratv, xingtv, Ddiaries, Soulfind, nbstubblefield, congming90, chinaexpo, vralogo, Look Radio, China Expo, Soul Find, s90tv, wifi90, dv90, nbs 100, Josie Cory, Publisher, Troy Cory, ePublisher, Troy Cory-Stubblefield / Kudoads, Photo Image665, Movies - Television With No Borders

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