ACT Blog

Remembering Gil Spencer Reporter, Editor, Character By: Joe Ball, Publisher

F. Gilman Spencer Jr. a former- -and possibly the most memorable- – editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, died June 24, 2011 at the New York University Hospital. He was 85.

I was a copy boy with Gil Spencer over a seven year period, from 1947 to about 1954, at the Inquirer’s City Desk, on the fourth floor at 400 N. Broad St.

In those days, the newsroom was an incubator for young people headed towards careers in communications- -especially with newspapers.

Typical weekly pay was $12 to $18/week.

I remember my and Gil’s fellow copy boys and editorial clerks in those days included…

…Al Gaudiosi, who years later became a Pulitzer prize winning reporter, after he left The Inquirer and joined The Evening Bulletin. He later became a deputy mayor of Philadelphia, under Mayor Frank Rizzo.

…Larry Campbell, who also became a Deputy Mayor of Philadelphia in the Rizzo administration.

…Russ Carmichael. He moved to The Inquirer’s library (“morgue” as it was called) where he had a long distinguished career, and is now living in Florida.

…Bill Kennedy. He was a chief copy boy. He was promoted to The Inquirer’s Features Department, where he had a long-time Inquirer career.

…Hal Freeman. He was a Sports Department copy boy. he became the first President of the Spectrum, under the ownership of Jerry Wolman.

…Me? I went into business, as the sole proprietor of an advertising agency, which continues in business, and has formed multiple publishing, broadcasting and marketing divisions.

 Looking Back

 In those days of linotype machines, Western Union teletypes, typewriters, carbon paper, a plethora of reporters stationed throughout the city and suburbs, it was also an era of news people being, well, different. Though…

…We all had the same-on-job name. When an editor, rewrite man or slot man wanted us, we would be summoned by a one-word shout of:

“Boy!”

     ______________

 Gil was always a character.

Even as a copy boy, in his early twenties, he was quirky, gangley- -and most likeable.

Even as a copy boy, he had a cigarette in use, or nearby.

He was a favorite a “comer” with Inquirer Day and Night City Editors like Joe Van Hart and Joe Harper.

They were also the days of bookies working in the Composing Room.

Gil had a lifetime interest in playing the horses. (Enough said.)

Though it was not reported in newspaper obituary columns after his death; I believe he was a descendant of the publisher of a daily newspaper “The Brooklyn Eagle.”

He joined The Inquirer in 1947 after Groton Prep School, Swarthmore High and the U.S. Navy.

He did not get his high school diploma until after leaving the Navy.

 Onward & Upward

His death brought an outpouring of praise from newspapermen across the country.

Among those quoted in area newspapers that published major-length obituaries, were…

…Rich Aregood, a Pulitzer Prize winner who worked with Mr. Spencer at the Philadelphia Daily News.

He said, Mr. Spencer had a passion for tabloid journalism, and “The Daily News was a real zoo and Mr. Spencer was its ringmaster.”

Current Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky was quoted as remembering, “The first time I saw him (at the Daily News) he was leaning back in his chair, with his long legs on his desk, holding a cigarette at arm’s length and dropping live ashes on a Oriental rug a previous editor had installed.”

…Eugene L. Roberts, Jr., a former executive editor of The Inquirer, said: “He (was) a weird and wonderful editor.”

…William K. Marimow, a former editor at The Inquirer, said: “Gil was a ferocious competitor…”

…Chuck Stone, a former Daily News columnist, was quoted, “A tall Ichabod Crane of a man with a mischievous twinkle…(He) carried this city’s soul in his heart.”

Mr. Spencer was Daily News editor for nine years, from 1975 to 1984.

He left to become top editor at the New York Daily News. He also served as editor of the Denver Post until he retired in 1993.

His early stints, after leaving The Inquirer included being a reporter at the Chester Daily Times, a photographer-sportswriter at the Mount Holly Herald, editor at The Main Line Times and editor at the Trentonian.

Other platitudes…

…Zachary Stalberg, who took over Mr. Spencer’s job in 1984 when he went to the N.Y. paper, and is now executive director of the Committee of Seventy, said: “Gil was the best newspaperman I ever met. And the best human being.”

_____________

Mr. Spencer is survived by his second wife, Isabel Caroline Brannon, who he married in 1968.

She had worked with Gil at The Main Line Times, and joined him again at The Daily News where she was that papers first female police reporter.

He is also survived by three daughters, Amy Becker, Blair Margel and Isabel “Charlie”; plus two sons, Gil Spencer IV, a columnist for the Delaware County Times, and Jonathan; 10 grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.