Harriet Van Horne (May 17, 1920 – January 15, 1998) was an American

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...

columnist and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

critic. She was a writer for many years at the ''

New York World-Telegram The ''New York World-Telegram'', later known as the ''New York World-Telegram and The Sun'', was a New York City newspaper from 1931 to 1966. History Founded by James Gordon Bennett Sr. as ''The Evening Telegram'' in 1867, the newspaper began ...

'' and its successors.Severo, Richard (January 17, 1998)
Harriet Van Horne, 77, Critic Of Early TV and Radio Shows.
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Life and career

Van Horne was born in Syracuse, New York, graduated from Newark, New York High School and from the College for Women of the University of Rochester in 1940. During the 1940s and 1950s, she appeared frequently on television as a celebrity panelist. Van Horne was a regular on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's popular series ''

Leave It to the Girls ''Leave It to the Girls'' is an American radio and television talk show, created by Martha Rountree, and broadcast, in various forms, from the 1940s through the 1980s. Broadcast details Radio version The series was originally a radio program ...

'' from 1949 to 1954. She was also a regular on the DuMont Television Network's quiz show ''

What's the Story ''What's the Story'' is an American television panel show broadcast on the DuMont Television Network from July 25, 1951, to September 23, 1955, and aired in eleven different timeslots.Brooks, Tim & Marsh, Earle (1964). ''The Complete Directory to ...

'' from

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

to 1955. She was a syndicated columnist appearing in the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'' and other newspapers around the country. In 1960 she covered the Nixon-Kennedy debates as a television critic for the

Scripps-Howard The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...

newspaper chain. Her work landed her on the

master list of Nixon political opponents Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans * Grandmaster (chess), National Maste ...

.Staff report (June 28, 1973)
Lists of White House 'Enemies' and Memorandums Relating to Those Named.
''The New York Times'' Van Horne was also a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1958 to 1967. Van Horne had to deal with prevailing sexism against female journalists. Ray Erwin of '' Editor & Publisher'' described syndicated columnist Van Horne as "a dainty, blue-eyed blonde with a sweet-voiced feminine manner-and a harpoon in her typewriter."Senat, Joey (Fall 2004)
Editor & Publisher Slow To Change Depiction of Women.
''Newspaper Research Journal'' In 1972, she published the essay collection ''Never Go Anywhere Without a Pencil''. According to Van Horne, "I used to enjoy radio until I realised that by listening to it, I had become almost as sterile and unimaginative as the programs themselves." She said that TV review was arduous work, commenting "Imagine having to review 'I Love Lucy' 20 times or 'Gunsmoke' 10 times." In her later years, she said "For all my criticism, I almost enjoyed 'Playhouse 90' compared to the canned shows from Universal or all that cowboy and cop nonsense." Van Horne continued writing her newspaper column almost up to her death, eventually replacing TV reviews with any random subject that crossed her mind. While her columns remained popular with readers, few newspapers carried them due to the impossibility of categorization.

Personal life

Her husband David Lowe (1913–1965) was a television producer.

Death

Van Horne died of

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a r ...

at New York Hospital in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

on January 15, 1998. She was 77.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Horne, Harriet 1920 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers American columnists American television critics American women columnists Deaths from breast cancer Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Journalists from New York City University of Rochester alumni Writers from Syracuse, New York