Legacy

May 31, 1999
A Jewish immigrant fleeing pogroms in East Prussia, Moses Annenberg (1877- 1942) arrived at Ellis Island with his family in 1885. In this gripping dual biography, Ogden (The Life of the Party) charts Annenberg's rise from poverty to the top of a media dynasty that under his son, Walter--a billionaire philanthropist, art collector and U.S. ambassador to Britain--would include the Philadelphia Inquirer, Seventeen and TV Guide. In 1899, Moses signed on with the circulation department of William Randolph Hearst's Chicago American, organizing gun- and bat-wielding gangs of neighborhood toughs to fight the local newspaper distribution wars. In 1922, he bought the racetrack bible, Daily Racing Form; in 1927, he took over a telegraph wire service providing sports and racing data to legitimate news agencies--and to the nation's illegal bookies--tarring himself with gangland associations that he tried to expunge in 1936 by buying the Inquirer, a bastion of Republican conservatism. Moses's campaign against FDR's New Deal, according to Ogden, led to a vindictive federal prosecution for income tax evasion that resulted in two years in prison. Released in 1942, he turned over the Inquirer to his spoiled, callow 33-year-old only son, Walter, a playboy with a bad stutter, entrusting him to redeem the family's honor. How Walter accomplished this while mellowing from hard-charging, partisan publisher to avuncular public figure is the theme of a robust narrative rife with appearances by characters like Ethel Merman, Damon Runyon, Huey Long, Harry Cohn and Katharine Graham. While Ogden had the full cooperation of Walter and his second wife, Lee, for this unauthorized bio, it yields a revealing, warts-and-all portrait of father and son. Photos. Author tour.

May 15, 1999
In this engaging double biography, Ogden recounts in rich detail how immigrant Moses Annenberg enacted a rags-to-riches ascent worthy of a Horatio Alger novel. Moses purchased and aggressively marketed a local horse-racing publication, soon amassing the wherewithal to buy the prestigious "Philadelphia Inquirer." But when the father's questionable business and legal dealings put the newspaper in jeopardy, it was the previously irresponsible son who recovered the family fortune by launching "TV Guide" (the nation's only billion-dollar-a-year publication) and "Seventeen." Indeed, Walter's remarkable financial success helped elevate him to circles of political influence (bringing him an ambassadorship to Great Britain in 1969) and gave him the means to collect fine art and to practice philanthropy on a grand scale. But in chronicling Walter's rise to the top, Ogden does more than reveal a curious melding of financial shrewdness and aesthetic sensitivity: he also limns the contours of power and privilege in late-twentieth-century America. ((Reviewed May 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)