Bob Considine | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Considine in 1927 | |
| Born | (1906-11-04)November 4, 1906 |
| Died | September 25, 1975(1975-09-25) (aged 68) |
| Resting place | Gate of Heaven Cemetery inHawthorne, New York |
| Alma mater | Gonzaga College High School George Washington University |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist and author |
| Years active | 1930–1975 |
Robert Bernard Considine (November 4, 1906 – September 25, 1975), was an Americanjournalist, author, and commentator.[1] He is best known as the co-author ofThirty Seconds Over Tokyo andThe Babe Ruth Story.
As a student, Considine attendedGonzaga College High School andGeorge Washington University, both in his hometown ofWashington, D.C., where he also worked for the government.
He launched his journalism career on his own initiative. In 1930, he purportedly complained to the editors of the now defunctWashington Herald when they misspelled his name in a report about an amateur tennis tournament in which he had participated. He was hired as the newspaper's tennis reporter.[2] He later wrote drama reviews and Sunday feature articles.[3] The newspaper was part of a syndicate of major-market daily newspapers owned by media magnateWilliam Randolph Hearst. Considine could and would use this fact to his advantage.[4]
With the advent ofWorld War II, Considine became a war correspondent with theInternational News Service, also owned by Hearst.[5][6] The wire service was a predecessor toUnited Press International.[7] and, his column "On the Line" was a popular syndicated feature.[8]
"Bob Considine is no great writer, but he is the Hearstling who regularly gets there first with the most words on almost any subject", wroteTime magazine in an unsigned profile.[2]
WithTed W. Lawson, Considine authoredThirty Seconds over Tokyo, an account of Lt. Col.James Doolittle's1942 air raid on Japan that was released the following year. It became a best-selling book.[9]
Considine was prolific, with output that few could match. "Considine's speed, accuracy, and concentration as a writer and his seemingly inexhaustible energy were legendary in the newspaper profession. He was known to work at two typewriters at one time, writing a news story on one and a column or book on the other. His colleagues at the Washington Post recalled that he wrote a column on the 1942 World Series in nine minutes--on a train with his typewriter on a baggage car and the conductor shouting, 'All aboard'", according to theDictionary of American Biography.[9]
In 1955, Considine was a panelist on thetelevisiongame showWho Said That?, hosted onAmerican Broadcasting Company byJohn Charles Daly, where celebrities attempt to identify the speaker of a quotation from recent news.[10]
Considine was not without his detractors. He was often taken to task for biased reporting, such as a 1946 article about thenU.S. PresidentHarry S. Truman.[11] Simply working for Hearst was enough for others. "I was talking toHarry Bridges about a miserable anti-union article by a Hearst columnist named Bob Considine", remembered journalist Sidney Roger in a series of interviews. "He was a quintessential Hearstling. Very anti-union and very pro-war. I was describing what Considine wrote in his column. Harry said, 'I saw it, but you know, after all he works for Hearst and he's loyal to Hearst and Hearst's ideas.'"[12]
A profile of the writer appearing inTime bore the headline "Ghost at Work", alluding to the numerous works to which he contributed in a behind-the-scenes role. "Ghostwriter Considine dashes off his fast-moving autobiographies while their heroes still rate Page One, takes one-third of the 'author's' royalties as his cut. HisGeneral Wainwright's Story was in print before Wainwright was out of the hospital. While Ted Lawson was still recovering from wounds suffered in Doolittle's Tokyo raid, Considine finishedThirty Seconds Over Tokyo." He made an estimated $100,000 annually.[2]
He continued to work for Hearst while writing his books and adapting some of them into screenplays. He was undaunted by the pace of his schedule. "Last year [1948] I spent time inPalm Springs,Paris, andMexico City. I covered theKentucky Derby and talked to the Pope. I even saw theWorld Series. It's a pretty good job", he toldTime.[2]
With the creation of United Press International in 1958, Considine remained on the Hearst payroll, but his work was syndicated through the wire service.[13]
Around 1960, a children's parody of theHowdy Doody show theme song went "It's Howdy Doody time, the show's not worth a dime, so turn on channel nine, and watch Bob Considine."[citation needed]
Considine had an array of influential admirers. He had correspondence from Truman,Lyndon B. Johnson,Rube Goldberg,Nelson A. Rockefeller,Cardinal Francis Spellman, andGeneralWilliam C. Westmoreland. PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower in a 1960 letter toWilliam Randolph Hearst Jr., praised Considine's reporting on the1960 U-2 incident in which the Soviets downed an American aircraft piloted byFrancis Gary Powers and used for intelligence gathering. The controversy sank the American-Soviet summit which was about to convene in Paris. "Writing this note gives me also an opportunity to express my satisfaction over the balanced and reasonable way the Hearst papers handled the recent U-2 incident and the 'Summit' meeting. I thought that some of the pieces by Bob Considine were excellent, and of course from my viewpoint they were highly complimentary. I never forget the old saw -- 'He is a great man; he agrees with me.'"[14]
Considine's "On The Line With Considine" commentaries were heard at different periods on the ABC Radio Network, and on NBCMonitor.[citation needed] WNBC-TV broadcast a television version of the program in 1951.[15]
In his final column in 1975, Considine reportedly wrote: "I'll croak in the newspaper business. Is there any better way to go?"[9] He died in theManhattanborough ofNew York City that same year following a stroke.[8] Bob Considine is interred in a crypt atGate of Heaven Cemetery inHawthorne, New York.
His papers are held by the Special Collections Research Center atSyracuse University (see "External links" below).[3]
Media related toBob Considine at Wikimedia Commons
