Otis Chandler facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Otis Chandler
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Chandler in 1972
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| Born | November 23, 1927 |
| Died | February 27, 2006 (aged 78) |
| Alma mater | Stanford University |
| Occupation | Publisher |
| Spouse(s) | Marilyn "Missy" Chandler, nee Brant (June 1951–July 1981) Bettina Chandler, nee Whitaker (August 1981–February 2006, his death) |
| Children | 5, including Mike Chandler |
| Parent(s) | Dorothy Buffum Chandler Norman Chandler |
| Relatives | Charles Abel Buffum (grandfather) Harrison Gray Otis (great-grandfather) Eliza Ann Otis (great-grandmother) Marian Otis Chandler (grandmother) |
Otis Chandler (born November 23, 1927 – died February 27, 2006) was an important publisher of the Los Angeles Times newspaper. He led the newspaper from 1960 to 1980. During his time, the Los Angeles Times grew a lot and became much more respected. He was the fourth and last person from his family to lead the newspaper.
Otis Chandler's main goal was to make the newspaper much better quality. He succeeded in making it famous and also helped it earn more money. A well-known journalist, David Halberstam, once wrote that Otis Chandler improved the Los Angeles Times faster and on a bigger scale than almost any other publisher in America.
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Chandler Family History
Otis Chandler's family had been involved with the Los Angeles Times for a long time. His great-grandfather, Harrison Gray Otis, joined the newspaper company in 1882. This was just one year after the Los Angeles Daily Times first started.
Otis's father, Norman Chandler, was the publisher before him. His mother, Dorothy Buffum Chandler, was famous for supporting the arts. She also helped lead the University of California. Otis's grandfather, Charles Abel Buffum, was a successful businessman. He started a department store chain called Buffum's. He was also a politician who served as Mayor of Long Beach, California.
Otis was raised with his family's strong opinions about worker groups. Each year, his parents held a special event to remember the 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing. This sad event, linked to political activists, killed 20 newspaper workers. Otis later said, "I was raised to hate the unions."
His family often called him "Oats." Otis Chandler once said that he wanted to make The Times a better newspaper. He wanted to prove wrong those on the East Coast who thought The Times was "a bad newspaper from a hick town." He also felt this way about his love for sports like shotput. He said, "No one could say that the team carried me or that the coach put me in because my name was Chandler."
Otis Chandler's Early Life
Growing Up in Sierra Madre
Otis Chandler grew up on a large citrus ranch in Sierra Madre, California. His parents owned the ranch. Even though his family was very wealthy, Otis's father made sure he worked hard. He did not spoil Otis with many gifts. Otis spent a lot of time by himself as a child. Later in life, he could not even remember the name of a single childhood friend.
When he was 8 years old, Otis fell off a horse during a riding lesson. His mother quickly took him to a hospital. Doctors first thought he had died. His mother then rushed him to a second hospital. There, a doctor she knew gave him an adrenaline shot to his heart, which saved his life.
Education and Sports
Otis first went to the Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California. He often rode his bicycle to school. Later, he briefly attended the Cate School, a boarding school in Carpinteria. His parents then decided to send him to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. When he started at Phillips, Otis weighed 155 pounds. He played basketball, soccer, and competed in high jump, running, and weightlifting. By the time he graduated, he weighed 200 pounds.
In 1946, Chandler went to Stanford University, where his parents had also studied. Like his father, he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. At Stanford, he was a very good shot putter. He broke the freshman school record with a throw of about 48 feet. He grew to be 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 220 pounds. He won the Pacific Coast Conference title. In his senior year, he was second in the nation for shot put and was his team's captain. He also competed in weightlifting and finished third in the nation in the heavyweight division.
A sprained wrist kept him from competing in the 1952 Summer Olympics for the United States.
Starting Adulthood
After college, Otis Chandler tried to join an Air Force training program. However, he was too big to fit into a jet's cockpit. So, from 1951 to 1953, he served in the Air Force's ground service. He was a co-captain of the track team. He also supervised sports and drama at Camp Stoneman in Pittsburg, California.
On his 23rd birthday, Otis proposed to his college girlfriend, Marilyn Brant. They were on the seventh hole of the Pebble Beach golf course. Their first child was a boy, named Norman, after Otis's father.
Getting Ready to Lead
As a child, Otis often visited The Times newspaper office. He would slide down chutes used to drop papers to delivery trucks. In college, he sometimes worked there during summers. He mostly moved heavy printing plates and other equipment. Even so, Otis did not think he would work in journalism when he was young. He often said he wanted to become a doctor.
After leaving the Air Force in 1953, he wasn't sure what career he wanted. When he arrived at his parents' home with his wife and first child, his father gave him a plan. It was a seven-year training program to become an executive at The Times. He started right away as an apprentice in the pressroom, working the night shift. He earned $48 a week. His father made sure Otis worked in all parts of the company. This included making the paper, managing the business, office work, and gathering news.
Professional Career at the Los Angeles Times
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In 1960, Otis Chandler became the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He quickly increased the newspaper's budget. This allowed it to cover more news and topics. At the same time, the newspaper's views changed from being very conservative to being more independent. Under Otis Chandler, The Times became a highly praised newspaper.
When Chandler took over, the paper had only two offices outside of Los Angeles. During his time as publisher, it grew to have 34 offices around the world and in the United States.
In 1966, Chandler received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award. He also received an honorary degree from Colby College.
Chandler retired as publisher in 1980 when he was 52 years old. He became chairman of Times Mirror, the company that owned the newspaper. This meant he was less involved in the daily running of the company. His decision surprised many people. They expected him to stay as publisher for much longer.
In 1986, Chandler won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. This award honored his many years of service to the newspaper.
In the mid-1980s, he gave control of the newspaper to people outside his family. He then focused on other interests. One of these was the Chandler Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife in Oxnard, California. He started this museum in 1987. It was often open to the public to raise money for charities.
Life After Retirement
Otis Chandler became publicly known again in 1999. He openly criticized the LA Times for a special issue of its Sunday magazine. This issue was about the new Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The newspaper had a financial interest in the building. The special magazine issue on October 10, 1999, was about the new sports arena. This issue brought in a lot of money for The Times, about $2 million in ads. But the newspaper had agreed to share this money with the Staples Center. They did not tell their reporters or readers about this money deal.
Chandler, who had retired 19 years earlier, sent his thoughts directly to reporters. This upset the newspaper's leaders. He said his successors had been "unbelievably stupid." He felt they had caused "the most serious single threat to the future" of the newspaper his family had bought in 1882. He believed this deal hurt the newspaper's ability to report fairly.
He was not involved when other members of the Chandler family decided to sell The Times to the Tribune Company. This showed that his influence had lessened. However, Chandler was happy with the sale. He was not pleased with how Times-Mirror was being managed at the time.
Otis Chandler passed away at his home in Ojai at age 78. He died from the effects of Lewy body disease. He had been diagnosed seven months earlier. Chandler had faced other health issues before. He had prostate cancer in 1989 and a heart attack in 1998.
Hobbies and Adventures
Otis Chandler loved sports and exciting activities. He enjoyed being seen as an adventurous person. He appeared on the covers of sports magazines like Road & Track, Strength and Health, and Safari Club. For the cover of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, he was shown on a surfboard made of newspapers, riding a wave of dollar bills.
In 1964, while on a safari in Mozambique, an elephant charged at his group. The guide missed his shot and ran away. Chandler shot the elephant when it was only 10 yards away. This saved himself and his wife from being trampled.
In 1990, a musk ox trampled Chandler in the Northwest Territories of Canada. He had to be flown to a hospital. Doctors thought his dislocated right arm would never fully heal. But Chandler said he regained almost full use of it through hard training.
In 1995, at age 68, he crashed his motorcycle into a tractor in New Zealand. He lost part of his left big toe. Another toe was badly damaged, and the rest of his foot became mostly numb.
In 1998, at age 71, Chandler had minor head injuries. This happened when he spun out a Ferrari car on a road in Oxnard.
His son, Mike Chandler, was a race-car driver in the CART Championship Car series. Otis strongly supported Michael's racing career. However, he stopped after a very serious crash during qualifying at Indianapolis in 1984.
Images for kids
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Chandler in 1972
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A bust of Otis Chandler in the lobby of the former Los Angeles Times Building, 2014.
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Chandler with Mayor Tom Bradley and Hugh Hefner, 1980.
