Aileen Mehle

{{Infobox person |name = Aileen Mehle |birth_name = Aileen Elder |birth_date = {{birth date|1918|6|10}} |birth_place = El Paso, Texas, U.S. |death_date = {{death date and age|2016|11|11|1918|6|10}} |death_place = New York City, New York, U.S. |occupation = Society columnist |years_active = 1950–2005 |spouse = Roger W. Mehle (1939–1946; divorced)<br>Mark Kenneth Frank Jr. (?–1957; divorced) |children = Roger Mehle Jr. }}

'''Aileen Mehle''' (née '''Elder''', June 10, 1918 – November 11, 2016), known by the pen name '''Suzy''' or '''Suzy Knickerbocker''', was an American society columnist, active in journalism for over fifty years.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/business/media/suzy-knickerbocker-died-aileen-mehle.html|title=Aileen Mehle, Gossip's Grande Dame Known as 'Suzy,' Dies at 98|last=Roberts|first=Sam|date=2016-11-11|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-11-12}}</ref> Her column was syndicated to 100 newspapers and read by over 30 million people.<ref name=":3">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/26/nyregion/gossip-column-becomes-target-for-the-gossips.html|title=Gossip Column Becomes Target For the Gossips|last=Dullea|first=Georgia|date=1988-03-26|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-11-12}}</ref>

== Early life == Mehle was born on June 10, 1918, in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Aileen (O'Keefe) and Lawrence Herman Elder, an oil company employee. Mehle moved with her family to California when she was a child. She attended Long Beach Junior College and Santa Barbara State College (now the University of California, Santa Barbara).<ref name=":0" />

In the early 1940s she, her mother and her infant son moved to Florida.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=http://wwd.com/eye/people/aileen-mehle-suzy-gossip-columnist-dies-10699677/|title=Aileen Mehle, 'Suzy' Gossip Columnist, Dies at 98|last=Koski|first=Lorna|date=2016-11-11|newspaper=WWD|language=en-US|access-date=2016-11-12}}</ref>

== Career == While living in Palm Beach, Mehle became friends with Jan Cox, the wife of the editor of ''The Miami Daily News''. Cox's husband overheard Mehle complaining about the quality of writing in his paper and invited her to submit sample columns; she did, and was hired to cover society news.<ref name=":0" /> She adopted the pen name "Suzy" and wrote for the paper until 1957, when she moved to New York. There she was hired by ''The Mirror,'' and wrote a column for the paper (which was syndicated by King Features Syndicate) for the next six years, until the paper ceased publishing.<ref name=":0" /> In 1963 she took over Igor Cassini's column in the ''New York Journal-American'', which he wrote under the pen name Cholly Knickerbocker. Mehle added this surname to her pen name "Suzy" and became "Suzy Knickerbocker".<ref name=":0" /> She wrote six columns a week for the paper, until it closed. Mehle then joined ''The Daily News,'' followed by ''The New York Post.''<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> From 1985 to her retirement in 2005, Mehle wrote for ''Women's Wear Daily'', "Architectural Digest" and ''W'' magazine.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|url=http://www.wmagazine.com/story/aileen-mehle-ws-longtime-gossip-columnist-known-to-all-as-suzy-dies-at-98|title=Aileen Mehle, Gossip's Infamous Suzy, Dies at 98|last=Munzenrieder|first=Kyle|newspaper=W Magazine|access-date=2016-11-12}}</ref>

In 1988, James Revson, a rival gossip columnist at ''Newsday,'' accused Mehle of fabricating some of the content of her columns. He alleged that she had reported on parties which she had not attended, instead writing from press releases and guest lists.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|title=1988 Winners and Sinners|journal=New York Magazine|volume=December 1998, page 54}}</ref><ref name=":5" /> The situation was referred to as "Suzyscam" and "Suzygate" in the news media and reported widely.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" />

Mehle acknowledged that her writing was centred on the trivial and superficial, and that part of her goal was to bring some glamour to the lives of regular people.<ref name=":0" /> She has been also called the "social historian" of her time.<ref name=":0" /> Her writing style was considered crisp and colourful,<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|title=Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power|last=Signorile|first=Michelangelo|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|year=2003|pages=45}}</ref> and she was skilled at making flattering observations without risk of hurting a person's reputation.<ref name=":1" />

=== Television appearances === In the 1960s, Mehle appeared often as a guest panelist on the game show ''What's My Line?'', perhaps an attempt by the producers to replicate the perky newspaper columnist persona of regular Dorothy Kilgallen, who'd died mysteriously several months prior to Knickerbocker's first guest show. She also appeared as the mystery guest on October 23, 1966. She made a cameo appearance in the ''Batman'' TV series.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1573724/|title=Aileen Mehle|website=IMDb|access-date=Apr 24, 2020}}</ref>

=== Honours and recognition === In 1991, Mehle received an honorary doctorate from Marymount Manhattan College. The school also holds a scholarship fund in her name, the Aileen Mehle Scholarship Fund for Journalism.<ref name=":1" />

==Personal life== Mehle married Roger W. Mehle in 1939 and had a son, Roger, in 1941.<ref name=":0"/> The couple divorced in 1946.<ref>{{cite web |title=Florida Divorce Index, 1927-2001 |url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VKHW-HCG |website=FamilySearch |access-date=8 July 2018}}</ref> She married a second time, to Mark Kenneth Frank Jr.; they were divorced in 1957.<ref name=":1"/>

Aileen Mehle died at her home in Manhattan on November 11, 2016, aged 98.<ref name=":0"/>

==References== {{reflist|30em}}

==External links== *[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rAwuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jaEFAAAAIBAJ&dq=confidence-man%20gazette&pg=1251%2C1754586 Example of Mehle's column] *{{IMDb name|1573724}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehle, Aileen}} Category:1918 births Category:2016 deaths Category:Mass media people from El Paso, Texas Category:University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Category:American columnists Category:American women columnists Category:American women television personalities Category:20th-century American women journalists Category:20th-century American journalists Category:20th-century American women writers Category:21st-century American women Category:Television personalities from Texas