Manhattan authorities have refused to take a fresh look at the suspicious 1965 death of famed journalist and TV celebrity Dorothy Kilgallen — but Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain will star in a movie portraying the reporter’s ill-fated investigation of the JFK assassination as a “murder mystery,” The Post has learned.
Detectives with the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have brushed off a plea by City Councilman Robert Holden to dig into whether Kilgallen’s death was a homicide — not “accidental,” as authorities quickly labeled it at the time.
Kilgallen, a famed columnist for the New York Journal-American, was hot on the trail of a Mafia kingpin she suspected had planned the 1963 shooting of President John F. Kennedy when she was found dead in her Manhattan apartment. The cause was quickly deemed a drug and alcohol overdose, aborting a probe of possible foul play.
New York Post
Last year, Holden, (D-Queens), formally asked the NYPD and the DA’s cold-case unit to reopen the Kilgallen case, but got only “lip service,” he told The Post.
“I was told there was going to be an investigation, but it turned out there wasn’t,” he said.” They just looked at it on a superficial level and decided it wasn’t worth doing.”
A police spokesman confirmed, “The NYPD, along with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, declined to reopen the investigation.” The decision was not explained.
Holden said DA cold-case officials gave him a reason: “Even if we do find foul play, who do we prosecute?”
But New York may have egg on its face when Hollywood looks for answers and does justice to Kilgallen’s courageous pursuit of the truth.
In 2025, Barry Levinson will direct “Assassination,” starring Chastain as the intrepid reporter, along with fellow A-listers Al Pacino, Bryan Cranston, and Brendan Fraser, Deadline reports.
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“Kilgallen’s journey will put her up against the CIA, Mafia bosses and the FBI – all who would love nothing more than to make her disappear,” the promo says.
On Nov. 8, 1965, the morning after she appeared as a regular panelist on the TV game show, “What’s My Line?,” Kilgallen, 52, was found dead in her Manhattan townhouse. She was perched upright in a bed, naked beneath a blue bathrobe, and wearing the same makeup and floral hair accessory from the night before on TV.
Her husband Richard Kollmar told police she had arrived home about 11:30 pm “feeling chipper.”
The city’s Medical Examiner quickly ruled Kilgallen’s death accidental, a toxic mix of booze and barbiturates.
According to Shaw, the ME’s ruling was wrong and unfairly smeared Kilgallen.
Compounding the mystery, Kilgallen’s dossier of research on the JFK killing — possibly seized by law-enforcement agents when she died — vanished without a trace. The files remain missing to this day.
“Her death left a cloud of suspicion and unanswered questions that have persisted for nearly six decades,” said Holden, who pushed for the probe after reading two books by author Mark Shaw, “The Reporter who Knew Too Much,” and “Denial of Justice.”
Kilgallen was compiling a stack of evidence. Among other major crimes, she covered the 1964 trial of Jack Ruby, the bar owner who shot and killed accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald at Dallas police headquarters. She was the only reporter to interview Ruby, who called himself “a patsy.”
Kilgallen published Ruby’s testimony to the Warren Commission in closed-door hearings before its official release, vowing “I’d rather die than reveal the source.” The FBI had her under surveillance, according to records Shaw obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Kilgallen’s 18-month investigation led her to suspect that New Orleans Mafia don Carlos Marcello masterminded the JFK and Oswald killings, Shaw wrote.
“I’m going to break the real story and have the biggest scoop of the century,” the journalist is quoted as telling her lawyer. But she confided to friends she feared for her safety.
At Shaw’s urging, Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., briefly opened a cold case on Kilgallen in 2017, but dropped it eight months later, citing “no evidence” she was murdered. However, his office failed to interview still-living witnesses, sources said. DA officials refused to discuss any findings.
As a major motion picture, “Assassination” can shine a long-overdue national spotlight on Kilgallen’s life – and death, Holden said.
“Dorothy Kilgallen’s story should be told,” the councilman said. “Hopefully this movie is the catalyst to bring it to the public’s attention and put pressure on investigative bodies to get to the bottom of it.”
