McIntyre, Oscar Odd
HEART ATTACK FATAL TO O. O. MCINTYRE, BELOVED COLUMNIST
Oscar
Odd McIntyre, newspaper columnist, to whom millions of Americans looked for
their impressions of New York City , died Monday in his Park Avenue apartment.
One of the famous newspapermen of the nation, he came
to New York from a small Ohio town, and always boasted that he never lost the
naïve
curiosity of the “home town boy.” For a quarter of a century his
daily column, “New York Day By Day,” gained increasing fame, and
in recent years was published in almost 500 newspapers.
McIntyre, who would
have been 54 on Friday, died at 2 o’clock in
the morning, apparently of a heart attack. His health had not been good for
some time. He was taken ill Saturday.
McIntyre’s friendships ran through
all classes and types of people – Broadway’s
great, the big city’s ordinary people, each alike claimed his attention.
He lived much alone in recent years doing his work
in his richly-furnished apartment, aided in great measure by his wife, the
former Maybelle Hope Small of Gallipolis, Ohio .
Friday, which would have
been McIntyre’s birthday, also would have
been his 30 th wedding anniversary.
The first man to write a syndicated New
York column, forerunner of the many present-day gossip writers, McIntyre began
his newspaper career on the Gallipolis Journal in 1902.
Broadway was still
far from his deft pin. He left Gallipolis to become a feature writer on the
East Liverpool , O., Tribune, then became managing editor of the Dayton,
O., Herald, and later assistant managing editor of the Cincinnati Post.
To New York in 1912
The “big
town” lure finally brought him to New York as associate
editor of Hampton ’s Magazine in 1912. In a few months he had started
the brisk-phrased jottings of the Gotham scene which brought him fame and
fortune as one of the highest-paid newspaper writers in the world.
The sledding
was hard, at first. McIntyre began the column as a press agent “blurb” for
a New York hotel, in return for his room and board. He gave it away free,
eagerly seeking to have it circulated. Gradually it caught on until it was
syndicated from coast to coast-read over thousands of breakfast tables by
newspaper subscribers who felt they knew New York even if they had never
seen it, through the daily jottings of “O. O.”
In later years
he was accused of portraying a New York which no longer existed but which
represented the idea of “ Baghdad on the Subway” to
the nation’s hinterland millions.
He never faltered at his daily stint,
although he frequently complained that it was the most soul-trying task in
the world. His regular column, written in the Samuel Pepys manner he sometimes
assumed, appeared yesterday morning.
By coincidence, the opening paragraph
spoke of his beloved Gallipolis, where he had built a fine home in the oft-repeated
hope of some day “going
back.”
Thus he wrote: “Then palavering with Ward Morehouse
about his recent stop-over in Gallipolis.”
Small Town Boy
Although
McIntyre typified the “typical New Yorker” to his
legions of readers, he never pretended to the veneer of New York sophistication.
He took pride, rather, in being a “small town boy” who was forever
fascinated by the passing scene of the “big city.”
A master of
both crisp and whimsical phrase-making, McIntyre, delighted in one or two-word
descriptions of the countless celebrities who became his friends. Among them
were Irvin S. Cobb, the late Ray Long, Gene Fowler, Major Bowes and almost
every shining star of the Broadway firmament.
Sartorially Perfect
Appropriately, his Monday column dealt
extensively with sartorial splendor – an art he cultivated himself
with almost fabulous effect. The final stanza, a contribution, read:
“How
neckties do accumulate!
“I buy each gorgeous one I see.
“Now I have
over 98,
“But I always wear the same old three.”
McIntyre
himself had hundreds, and he confessed that he could never resist buying
vivid-hued “screamers” he saw in store windows. He had
one of the largest wardrobes in New York , with scores of suits, dressing
gowns, brilliant-toned pajamas, neckties, handkerchiefs and he disliked crowds.
Much of his material he gathered while being driven in his big limousine
by his chauffeur, on nocturnal sorties through the narrow, twisted streets
of Chinatown a scene he loved to depict with imaginative shudders.
A shy
man, frankly admitting he was “scared to death” of trying
to warm up a conversation with many of the celebrities he wrote about he
remained in comparative seclusion with his wife and his beloved dogs.
Not
infrequently his daily column contained a heart-moving paragraph or two on
some tragic story of dogdom, and each time he received thousands of letters
in response.
In turning out his daily stint, approximately 800
words, or about 292,000 words a year, McIntyre started work after breakfast
with the blinds drawn and the lamps lit-because he hated sunlight and carried
on until the job was done, usually about 5:30 p.m.
His columns followed a loose-flowing design, mostly idle descriptive chatter
about all manner of things and people, which he variously labeled “bagatelles,” “thingumbobs,” “thoughts
while strolling,” “look-alikes” or “purely
personal piffle.”
7,000,000 Readers
A recent article in the Saturday Evening
Post estimated that McIntyre devotees numbered somewhere about 7,000,000
readers. The column was released simultaneously to 508 newspapers in every
state and in Mexico and Canada , through the McNaught Syndicate. His average “fan
mail” was 3,000 letters a week.
He made much money from the column,
and declined fabulous offers to appear on radio programs and other entertainments.
McIntyre’s death marks the passing of a second
famous long-time New York columnist in recent ______(missing from the article.)
Gazette and Bulletin,
Williamsport, Pennsylvania
February 15, 1938
Contributed by Joyce Robinson |