Chicago Still His Oyster p.

By: Mark Fitzgerald

Kup celebrates 50th year of writing his Sun-Times column
THEIR FRIENDS ARE eagerly awaiting the next meeting of George Raft and Leo Durocher. They were Damon-Pythias buddies until a few weeks ago when Raft was accused of using loaded dice in Durocher's apartment.
? Kup's Column Feb. 9, 1945

Washington hears that Tipper Gore, wife of the VP, also is taking on an assignment. She'll devote her energies to the homeless while Hillary Rodham Clinton takes over health care.
? Kup's Column Jan. 28, 1993

Kup. After a half-century, the name has become shorthand for "Chicago."
Six days a week since Jan. 18, 1943, Kup's Column in the Chicago Sun-Times ? and the old Chicago Daily Times before that ? has hosted a procession of stars and wannabes, sages and charlatans, sophisticates and yokels, physicists and boxers, the profound as well as the pompous ? all
the while chronicling the stutter-step March of Time across Chicago, America and the world.
Want a Kup-sized summation of the 50 years?
Consider two items: Jan. 13, 1946: "Prof. Einstein" talks about the frightening power of the "atomic bomb."
And Jan. 28, 1993: Kup writes that a wealthy Chicago realtor helped his son pay off $45,000 in debts run up on the son's credit card by former girlfriend Beverly Hills 90210 star Shannen Doherty.
Irv Kupcinet celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his column Jan. 18, or perhaps it might be better said that the Chicago Sun-Times and a large portion of the Chicago newspaper reading public celebrated the golden anniversary.
Kup himself pretty much shrugged off the milestone in his column.
"Today marks the 50th anniversary of Kup's Column, but I shall spare you one of those I Remember Me paeans with a litany of self-gratifying memories," he wrote. "Suffice it to say that happiness is described as doing something you love. I have been most fortunate. And I thank the readers for making the longevity possible."
Then he was off to races with 14 column items ranging from reports about tensions in the last day of the Bush administration between Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan to a note about a new sitcom planned for Cheers regular George Wendt.

Fast pace

At 80, Kup sustains a work pace that would exhaust many new j-school grads.
"Kup is in the office every day at 8 a.m. and he is never through until 11 at night," Sun-Times editor and executive vice president Dennis A. Britton said.
Britton notes that the workday does not end even then.
"The other day I was in the lunchroom and Kup was chewing out the circulation guy for not getting the 12:30 (a.m.) edition to him on time. He does not go to bed until he's seen the first edition," Britton said.
And when Britton says Kup is in the office every day, he means every day.
"When you write six days a week, you have to be in the office seven days ? six days for writing and the seventh day to clean up after yourself and sort out where you're going," Kup said over lunch ? and between frequent greetings from diners including local politician Tom Hynes and famed boxing promoter Ben Bentley.
With the entre-nous tone of someone delivering a scoop, Kup suggests that soon he may be cutting back on the frequency of his column.
Indeed, on Feb. 14, the newspaper announced that Kup's Column would now be appearing five days ? Tuesday through Sunday.
"Now the problem: What to do with a day off," Kup wrote.
In the recent interview, Kup was sure to repeat one of his favorite lines about retiring from the newspaper business: "I hope to be found lying terminal over my terminal."

On his way at 13

Kup says the secret to his satisfaction with newspapers is simple.
"I am fortunate because I knew when I was 13 years old what I wanted to be when I grew up," he said.
On his first day as a freshman at Harrison High on Chicago's West Side, Kup peeked in on his first newsroom: the journalism class producing the Harrison Herald.
"I thought, Imagine, producing a newspaper. What could be better than that?" he said.
And Kup has remained a newspaper- man ever since, despite his many accomplishments in other fields.
For example, Kup was named to the 1935 College All-Star football team and played professionally with the Philadelphia Eagles until a shoulder injury ended his career almost before it got started.
For 10 years, Kup was a National Football League official ? he was on the field in 1940 when the Washington Redskins thumped the Chicago Bears by
a record 73-0 ? and for 24 years, he broadcast Bears games on radio with another Chicago legend, Jack Brickhouse.
Kup began his professional career in journalism in 1935 as a sportswriter with the old Chicago Daily Times, which would merge with the Chicago Sun 13 years later.
His first story: An analysis of how the Green Bay Packers had beaten the Chicago Bears on the strength of their defense.
His experience with the game gave him a background too few sportswriters have today, Kup says.
"Sportswriters now seem too ready to criticize without knowing the inside details. It's all right to be opinionated, but the opinion has to be grounded in fact," he said.

Just the facts

That passion for fact and accuracy has continued to inform Kup's Column, even at a time when many mainstream newspaper gossip columns increasingly adopt the looser standards of the supermarket tabloids.
"Gossip has a great fascination for readers and that's why it remains so popular," he said. "What irks me is that so much of it is false. So many columnists now don't want to let the facts get in the way of a good story."
Chicago was an ideal location for a gossip columnist in the '30s and '40s. Trains going back and forth from New York to Los Angeles were forced to stop and change tracks in the Windy City. The stars had to do something on the long layovers.
"They all would make a beeline for the Pump Room [restaurant], which was a great advantage for me because I practically lived there," Kup said.
When jet travel eliminated a need for a stopover, and television effectively destroyed the night club circuit for stars, Kup continued to attract stars for his freewheeling late-night tv program, Kup's Show.
From presidents to starlets, Kup has known them all, but he says he has always been careful to keep a journalistic distance.
"I have as many [celebrity] friends as anyone, but I never forget that the time may come when you have to criticize them. And believe me, you can praise a celebrity a thousand times and never hear from them, but one word of criticism . . ."
From time to time over the years, for example, Kup has been on the receiving end of Frank Sinatra's volcanic temper. (Just a few weeks ago, however, Frank tipped Kup exclusively to an upcoming Chicago concert.) But Kup has never engaged in feuds.
"Being a columnist gives you a remarkable amount of power, but don't abuse it ? you use it for good. I see so many of my columnist friends abusing their power, using it to punish," he said.
Kup, in fact, genuinely seems to like celebrities.
"The top stars ? Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson ? are all pretty reliable, sensible people . . . interested in good causes. The young stars, all they want to know is, How can I get my picture in the paper at all costs?" he said.
Even then, however, Kup is inclined to be forgiving if a star uses a cause or charity to promote himself.
"Still they do it, and that's the important thing," he said.

Choosing sides

Over 50 years, of course, Kup has taken his shots at celebrities. But colleagues say Kup has shown his courage in more meaningful ways.
Sun-Times columnist Vernon Jarrett, for example, marked Kup's anniversary by recalling all he had done to advance the civil rights cause in the '50s and '60s.
In 1964, for instance, Kup served as master of ceremonies at a rally for Martin Luther King at Soldier Field.
"In the tense racial climate of the 1960s, that act alone represented a controversial choosing of sides," Jarrett wrote. Indeed, a couple of years later in Chicago, violent demonstrations by whites essentially ran King out of town.
Kup has also chosen sides in labor matters.
He is a founding member of the Chicago Newspaper Guild and remains a card-carrying member to this day.
A few years ago when an editorial strike seemed imminent, Kup ? along with another clout-heavy writer, movie reviewer Roger Ebert ? made a point of telling broadcast journalists that he was a Guild member and he would walk out if union leaders called a strike.
Unlike some other journalists who came of age in a different era, Kup's ethical standards have never embarrassed his paper.
Kup has never used the power of the column to get or pay back favors, Sun-Times editors say.
"One thing that has distinguished his tenure is Kup does not try to influence the decision of the newspaper," editor Britton said.
"He knows everybody probably in the entire universe ? but he does not carry their water," Britton said.
What Kup does do, Britton adds, is "jealously guard his material so he can scoop his own newspaper."
And Kup does have a running dispute with the newspaper ? one that goes back 50 years.
"He thinks he should be way up in the paper," Britton said. "He said to me the other day, 'People can't find me back there.' I said, 'Kup, people have been finding you for 50 years.' "
Kup's position is no accident, and Britton is following a grand tradition of using Kup to pull readers deep into the paper.
"He is always the cornerstone for any change in [design] structure," Britton said. "I put him next to the business section . . . not only to get people back into the paper, but I wanted to highlight the business section and show it off."
Wherever Kup is located, news sources as well as readers find him.
Aided for the past 22 years by assistant Stella Foster ? "She's been my right arm," Kup says ? Kup comes to work every day to be greeted by a three-foot pile of fax paper. By day's end, he'll have "two to three times as much material as I need."
? (Gil Stern now addresses letters to the thrice ill-fated Bills in "Buffalose.") [ID]
?(? Kup's Column, Feb. 2, 1993) [Caption]

DATE: Sat 10-Apr-1993
PUBLICATION: Editor & Publisher
CATEGORY: News
SUBJECT: Correction
AUTHOR: Mark Fitzgerald
LOCATION: Page 5

QUICK WORDS:

correction chicago sun-times kup on sunday NFL jack brickhouse sports 50th anniversary dennis britton national football league gil stern

FULL TEXT:

Corrections p.
The March 6 E&P article on Chicago Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet reported the incorrect winner of the lopsided professional football game officiated by Kup.