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-Those of us who have learned about Dorothy Kilgallen through reruns of "What's My Line?" and who learned about Jack Paar's time as the pre-Johnny Carson host of "The Tonight Show" through clip show nostalgia specials scarcely have any way of knowing how the two of them had a public feud that could only be mildly described as hatred. This video shows how the two of them went from sitting next to each other on a "What's My Line?" in 1954 (before Paar became "Tonight" host) exchanging smiles and pleasantries and then through clippings and surviving audio material shows the depth of hatred that erupted by 1960 and continued for the next several years (and which only diminished once Paar ceased to be a TV performer in 1965, not long before Dorothy's death).
-Several source items were used to put this together that can be seen/heard in their unedited context elsewhere on YT.
-"What's My Line?" July 11, 1954. • What's My Line? - Will...
-"What's My Line?" January 24, 1960. • What's My Line? - Jack...
-Jack Paar Walks Off The Tonight Show, February 12, 1960. • Video
-Jack Paar Returns to the Tonight Show, March 7, 1960. • Video
-Jack Paar's Final Tonight Show, March 29, 1962. • Jack Paar's Last Tonig...
-I have also for the first time synched the superior audio that exists of the walk-off to the only two kinescope clips of this event that have ever been aired on television. While sound is on those clips, the audio is much superior here. It is likely more of the video exists, but it has never been seen publicly. Paar only allowed the two brief clips to be shown in a 1987 retrospective that sought to avoid controversy (hence the reason why the clips aired don't contain any of his remarks you hear about Kilgallen and the reporters he hates)
-I take no sides as to who was in the right in this acrimonious feud of mutual hatred between two people who at one time were both giants in the world of television in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In some respects, its better to have discovered their respective work with the detached hindsight that exists today so both can be appreciated for the work they did (Dorothy in making "What's My Line?" a success on television for 17 years; Paar in changing the face of late-night television and making it a national phenomenon) and not for the passions of the moment that are today lost on a new generation that didn't live through these times.
NOTE-I would like to note one potential error of fact I allude to at 0:55 when I suggest that part of the reason behind the outbreak of the feud was that Dorothy may have made some remark about Paar's daughter. Such an incident did happen with another woman columnist, Harriet Van Horne of the New York World-Telegram but it's not clear that Dorothy wrote anything of a similar nature.