Irv Kupcinet, at 91; icon kept Chicago in the know for decades

Mr. Kupcinet's "Kup's Column" appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, but his influence extended far beyond his readers. "Irv Kupcinet is probably the most significant media personality in the history of Chicago because his impact was not only through his daily newspaper column, but also on television for 25 years," said Bruce DuMont, founder of the Museum of Broadcast Communications. "He was a man who loved celebrities and celebrity."

"Irv Kupcinet was as closely identified with Chicago as the Picasso, the Hancock Building, and the Sears Tower -- and he was an important part of this city long before they were," Mayor Richard Daley said.

Mr. Kupcinet started his column in 1943. Befriending many of the stars he wrote about, Mr. Kupcinet was renowned for his late-night clubbing and dinner parties with these friends.

For years Mr. Kupcinet competed with famed New York gossip columnist Walter Winchell, reporting on the doings of the rich and famous on both coasts. But Mr. Kupcinet also acknowledged his hometown's personalities.

"I pride myself in not abusing people, not using the column to ridicule people," he said in 2002. "I stayed away from being nasty as much as I could. Unless somebody really deserved it."

He first appeared on television in 1945 and helped establish the late-night talk-show genre in Chicago with his award-winning "At Random," later called "Kup's Show." The syndicated show, which debuted in 1959, aired every Saturday night for 27 years and reached 70 stations nationwide. It featured a disparate collection of newsmakers from Richard Nixon to Alger Hiss to Robert Kennedy, from Liberace to Malcolm X. According to the Sun-Times, the show was known for its spontaneity: Poet Carl Sandburg once declared in mid-broadcast that he had to "wee-wee," then walked off the set; radical Abbie Hoffman lit up a joint on the air, and was promptly booted out.

The show won 15 local Emmys and the Peabody Award.

In 1957, he replaced Jack Paar on NBC's "America After the Dark," which eventually became "The Tonight Show."

The Sun-Times said Mr. Kupcinet was a close friend of President Truman, who publicly revealed through him the reasoning behind one of the momentous and most controversial events of his presidency: his sacking of General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. The general, he told Mr. Kupcinet eight years after the decision, was urging a nuclear strike on China.

Mr. Kupcinet once said he knew as a child he would be in the newspaper business, but much of his collegiate energy was spent on the gridiron, where he was a star for Northwestern University. His first job was as a sports writer for the Chicago Times, but he went to work there only after a shoulder injury cut short his first and only NFL season with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1935. The Times later merged to create the Sun-Times. Mr. Kupcinet would keep his ties to the football world by broadcasting Chicago Bears games for a quarter-century.

After movie columnist Hedda Hopper died in 1966, Mr. Kupcinet was invited to move to Los Angeles. He chose to stay in Chicago, saying he and his wife could not face living in the city where their daughter, Karyn, an actress, had been killed. The crime was never solved.