Populist columnist in NYC won Pulitzer
Jimmy Breslin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who pilloried the powerful and celebrated working people in columns for the New York Herald Tribune, Newsday, the New York Daily News and other publications, died Sunday morning. He was 88, according to his widow, Ronnie Eldridge.
William Cole, the Breslin family physician and friend, said Mr. Breslin died in his New York City home Sunday. The cause of death was complications from pneumonia, Dr. Cole said.
“Jimmy Breslin was oneof-a-kind,” said Debby Krenek, co-publisher of Newsday and a former Daily News editor. “He was a master craftsman who, beyond being a gifted writer, was a great reporter — the basis for great columns. His voice was the voice of New York in all its incarnations: tough, passionate, witty, eloquent and most of all authentic.”
Mr. Breslin, best known for his interview with the man who dug President John F. Kennedy’s grave and his columns on the Son of Sam murders and John Lennon’s assassination, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for commentary for columns he wrote for the Daily News. In awarding him journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer board cited him “for columns which consistently champion ordinary citizens.”
Former Newsday editor John Mancini said Mr. Breslin was a great columnist because he was a “terrific listener.”
“He had a big ego, which you have to have if you think people should be interested in what you have to say, but he still had a big heart,” Mr. Mancini said.
Mr. Breslin’s work also appeared in the New York Post and the New York Journal-American. He was the author of several books, most notably the novels “Table Money” and “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”
Mr. Breslin was known for his brusque, outspoken manner, which often infuriated readers. He was often ill-tempered and impatient with political leaders and even journalists who reported from the newsroom rather than the streets.
Newsday suspended the columnist in 1990 after he used racial slurs in response to a Korean-American reporter who had criticized one of his columns as sexist.