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James Earle Breslin (October 17, 1928 – March 19, 2017) was an American journalist and author. Until the time of his death, he wrote a column for the New York ''Daily News'' Sunday edition.''Current Biography 1942'', pp. 648–51: "Patterson, Joseph Medill" He wrote numerous novels, and columns of his appeared regularly in various newspapers in his hometown of New York City. He served as a regular columnist for the
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
newspaper ''
Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and fo ...
'' until his retirement on November 2, 2004, though he still published occasional pieces for the paper until his death. He was known for his newspaper columns that became the brash embodiment of the street-smart New Yorker, chronicling wise guys and big-city power brokers but always offered a sympathetic viewpoint of the white
working-class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
people of New York City, and was awarded the 1986
Pulitzer Prize for Commentary The Pulitzer Prize for Commentary is an award administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism "for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool". It is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are ...
"for columns which consistently champion ordinary citizens".


Early life

Breslin was born on October 17, 1928, into an
Irish Catholic Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...
family in
Jamaica, Queens Jamaica is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is mainly composed of a large commercial and retail area, though part of the neighborhood is also residential. Jamaica is bordered by Hollis to the east; St. Albans, Springf ...
, New York. His alcoholic father, James Earl Breslin, a piano player, went out one day to buy rolls and never returned. Breslin and his sister, Deirdre, were raised by their mother, Frances (Curtin), a high school teacher and New York City Welfare Department investigator, during the
Great Depression in the United States In the History of the United States, United States, the Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and then spread worldwide. The nadir came in 1931–1933, and recovery came in 1940. The stock m ...
."Jimmy Breslin." ''Encyclopedia of World Biography''. Vol. 33. Detroit: Gale, 2013. ''Biography in Context''. Web. March 19, 2017. Breslin attended
Long Island University Long Island University (LIU) is a private university with two main campuses, LIU Post and LIU Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. It offers more than 500 academic programs at its main campuses, online, and at multiple non-residential. LIU ...
from 1948 to 1950. He left without graduating due to chronic alcoholism.


Career

Breslin began working for the '' Long Island Press'' as a
copy boy A copy boy is a typically young and junior worker on a newspaper. The job involves taking typed stories from one section of a newspaper to another. According to Bruce Guthrie, the former editor-in-chief of the ''Herald Sun'' who began work there ...
in the 1940s. After leaving college, he became a columnist. His early columns were attributed to politicians and ordinary people that he chatted with in various watering holes near Queens Borough Hall. Breslin was a columnist for the ''
New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...
'', the '' Daily News'', the ''
New York Journal American :''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal'' The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...
'', ''
Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and fo ...
'', ''
The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...
'', the '' National Police Gazette'' and other venues. When the Sunday supplement of the ''Tribune'' was reworked into ''
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
'' magazine by editor Clay Felker in 1962, Breslin appeared in the new edition, which became "the hottest Sunday read in town." One of his best known columns was published the day after John F. Kennedy's
funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect ...
and focused on the man who had dug the president's grave. The column is indicative of Breslin's style, which often highlights how major events or the actions of those considered "newsworthy" affect the "common man". Breslin's public profile in the 1960s as a regular guy led to a brief stint as a TV pitchman for Piels Beer, including a bar room commercial wherein he intoned in his deep voice: "Piels—it's a good drinkin' beer!" In 1969, Breslin ran for president of the
New York City Council The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs. The council serves as a check against the mayor in a mayor-council government model, the performance of ...
in tandem with
Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Maile ...
, who was seeking election as mayor, on the unsuccessful independent 51st State ticket advocating secession of the city from the rest of the state. A memorable quote of his from the experience: "I am mortified to have taken part in a process that required bars to be closed." The ticket was referred to as "Vote the Rascals In". Breslin's career as an investigative journalist led him to cultivate ties with various Mafia and criminal elements in the city, not always with positive results. In 1970, he was viciously attacked and brutally beaten at The Suite, a restaurant then owned by
Lucchese crime family The Lucchese crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the " Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, in the United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon know ...
associate Henry Hill. The attack was carried out by Irish mobster Jimmy Burke, who objected to an article Breslin had written involving another member of the Lucchese family, Paul Vario. Breslin suffered a major
concussion A concussion, also known as a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), is a head injury that temporarily affects brain functioning. Symptoms may include loss of consciousness (LOC); memory loss; headaches; difficulty with thinking, concentration ...
, a minor concussion, three broken fingers, a fractured rib, a broken nose and nosebleeding, but survived the ordeal without any permanent injury. He filed a police report claiming Burke attacked him, but no charges were filed. In 1971, Breslin spoke at Harvard's Class Day. Two years later, on September 6, 1973, he appeared on ''
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the ''Tonight Show'' franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, ...
'' alongside Glen Campbell, Don Rickles and Dom DeLuise. In 1977, at the height of the Son of Sam scare in New York City, the killer, later identified as David Berkowitz, addressed letters to Breslin. Excerpts from the letters were published and used later in
Spike Lee Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut ...
's film '' Summer of Sam'', which Breslin, portraying himself, bookends. In 2008, the
Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors ran ...
selected one of Breslin's many Son of Sam articles published in the '' Daily News'' for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime writing. In 1978, Breslin, without significant acting experience, appeared in Joe Brooks' feature film ''
If Ever I See You Again "If Ever I See You Again" is the title of a 1978 hit single by Roberta Flack. The song was composed by Joseph "Joe" Brooks and served as the title song for the 1978 film '' If Ever I See You Again'', which Brooks directed and also starred in wit ...
'' in a main supporting role playing "Mario Marino", the assistant to two
Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Str ...
jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually ...
composers. Breslin's performance received a
Golden Turkey Award ''The Golden Turkey Awards'' is a 1980 book by film critic Michael Medved and his brother Harry. About The book awards "Golden Turkey Awards" to films judged by the authors as poor in quality, and to directors and actors judged to have created a ...
nomination for "Worst Performance by a Novelist". In 1985, he received a
George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...
for Metropolitan Reporting. In 1986, he was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Commentary The Pulitzer Prize for Commentary is an award administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism "for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool". It is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are ...
. In 1986, Breslin revealed that
Donald Manes Donald R. Manes (, ; January 18, 1934 – March 13, 1986) was a Democratic Party politician from New York City. He served as borough president of the New York City borough of Queens from 1971 until just before his suicide while under suspicion ...
, the Borough President of
Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
, was involved in a kickback scheme. Manes later committed suicide. In October 1986, Breslin landed his own twice-weekly late night television show on ABC, ''Jimmy Breslin's People'', in which he was seen interviewing poor New Yorkers at home, as well as some who were incarcerated. However, because many network affiliates had already committed to syndicated programming for Breslin's time slot when the new season started a month earlier, Breslin's show was often delayed or preempted altogether; even the network's flagship station WABC pushed it back from its midnight slot to 2 a.m., and would occasionally only air it one night a week. Disgusted, Breslin took out a full-page ad in ''
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 ...
'' announcing that he was "firing the network" and would be ending the show after its December 20 broadcast (at which time his 13-week contract expired). In 1991, while covering the Crown Heights riot, he was beaten and robbed by a crowd of youths.


Controversies

In May 1990, after fellow ''Newsday'' columnist Ji-Yeon Yuh described one of his articles as
sexist Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...
, Breslin heatedly retorted with racial and sexual invective.
Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peopl ...
and anti-hate groups forcefully decried Breslin's outburst. Breslin appeared on ''
The Howard Stern Show ''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The show has aired on Howard 100 a ...
'' to banter about his outburst and
Koreans Koreans ( South Korean: , , North Korean: , ; see names of Korea) are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula. Koreans mainly live in the two Korean nation states: North Korea and South Korea (collectively and simply r ...
in general. Following this controversial radio broadcast, ''Newsday'' managing editor Anthony Marro suspended Breslin for two weeks, who then apologized. Author and former FBI agent Robert K. Ressler has stated that Breslin "baited Berkowitz and irresponsibly contributed to the continuation of his murders" by trying to sell sensationalist newspapers. In Ressler's book ''Whoever Fights Monsters'', Ressler condemns Breslin and the media for their involvement in encouraging serial killers by directing their activity with printed conjectures. In return for his "relentless columns on police misbehavior", the local patrolmen's union bought protest ads in his own newspaper.Robbins, Tom
"The Importance of Jimmy Breslin"
''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
'', March 19, 2002. Retrieved 2017-04-19.


Personal life

Breslin was married twice. His first marriage, to Rosemary Dattolico, ended with her death in 1981. They had six children together: sons Kevin, James, Patrick, and Christopher, and daughters Rosemary and Kelly. His daughter Rosemary died June 14, 2004, from a rare
blood disease Hematology ( always spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the produc ...
, and his daughter Kelly, 44, died on April 21, 2009, four days after suffering from
cardiac arrhythmia Arrhythmias, also known as cardiac arrhythmias, heart arrhythmias, or dysrhythmias, are irregularities in the heartbeat, including when it is too fast or too slow. A resting heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adult ...
in a
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
restaurant. From 1982 until his death in 2017, Breslin had been married to former
New York City Council The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs. The council serves as a check against the mayor in a mayor-council government model, the performance of ...
member
Ronnie Eldridge Ronnie Eldridge (''née'' Myers) is an American activist, businesswoman, politician, and television host. She is the current host of ''Eldridge & Co.'', a weekly television talk show on CUNY TV, the television station of the City University of ...
. Shortly before his death, Breslin was interviewed with
Pete Hamill Pete Hamill (born William Peter Hamill; June 24, 1935August 5, 2020) was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and editor. During his career as a New York City journalist, he was described as "the author of columns that sought to capture ...
for the 2019 HBO documentary '' Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists''.


Death

Breslin died from
pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...
on March 19, 2017, at his home 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 ...
, aged 88.


Filmography


Selected works

In addition to writing articles, Breslin authored multiple books. Selected works are listed below. * 1962 ''Sunny Jim: The life of America's most beloved horseman, James Fitzsimmons'' ASIN B0007DY5XS * 1963 ''
Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? ''Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?'' is a book written by journalist Jimmy Breslin, about the 1962 New York Mets.Sandomir, Richard (April 7, 2012)"Affectionate Scorn for '62 Mets" ''The New York Times''. Retrieved June 26, 2016. The book chroni ...
'' ASIN: B00704TRH6 * 1969 ''World of Jimmy Breslin'' * 1969 '' The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight'' * 1973 ''World without End, Amen'' * 1976 ''How the Good Guys Finally Won'' * 1978 ''.44'' * 1983 ''Forsaking All Others'' * 1986 ''Table Money'' * 1988 ''He Got Hungry and Forgot His Manners'' * 1988 ''The World According to Jimmy Breslin'' * 1991 ''
Damon Runyon Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946) was an American newspaperman and short-story writer. He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To ...
: A Life'' * 1997 ''I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me: A Memoir'' * 2002 ''American Lives: The Stories of the Men and Women Lost on September 11'' * 2002 ''I Don't Want to Go to Jail: A Novel'' * 2002 ''The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutiérrez'' ; from Tom Robbins' review in ''The Village Voice'': "Abuse of office, greedy builders, a growing army of easily victimized immigrants: All of these elements came to a head in the mangled construction of 50 Middleton Street and the death of Eduardo Gutiérrez. ... he story'stelling is one more debt the city owes to Breslin, who keeps track of these things for us." * 2004 ''The Church That Forgot Christ'' * 2005 ''America's Mayor: The Hidden History of
Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 19 ...
's New York'' – Preface to Robert Polner's book * 2007 ''America's Mayor, America's President? The Strange Career of Rudy Giuliani'' – Preface to Robert Polner's next book * 2008 ''The Good Rat: A True Story'' * 2011 ''Branch Rickey''


References


External links

* *
Jimmy Breslin quotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Breslin, Jimmy 1928 births 2017 deaths American columnists American investigative journalists American male journalists American people of Irish descent Deaths from pneumonia in New York City Newsday people New York Daily News people New York Herald Tribune people Organized crime novelists People from Jamaica, Queens Pulitzer Prize for Commentary winners Journalists from New York City Writers from Queens, New York