Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times
How One Family Formed Los Angeles
Emmy-winning filmmaker Peter Jones takes viewers through the history of the Chandler family and subsequently the Los Angeles Times newspaper. The Chandlers made their mark on the city of Los Angeles and are regarded as the most powerful family in the history of the city.
Live Schreiber narrates this fascinating story of the basic invention of Los Angeles. From Harrison Gray Otis, the founding publisher and beginning of the Chandler dynasty, through the four generations of Chandlers who have steered the newspaper and the city, this show reveals their personal struggles, some of their ineptitudes, some of their achievements, and some of their charitable generosity.
The Four Generations of Chandler Publishers
Harrison Gray Otis was a real newspaperman. He had his ideas of how to run a newspaper and stuck to them. He was a true journalist. Next came Harry Chandler, Harrison’s son-in-law who had his hand in the entire economic activities in the city. Next, Norman Chandler took over keeping the newspaper conservative. His wife, Dorothy Chandler, is considered a “cultural matriarch of modern Los Angeles,” according to PBS. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Music Center in downtown Los Angeles is home to many cultural events. And finally, Otis Chandler, the fourth publisher in the family, is responsible for making the Los Angeles Times a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper.
The Legacy of The Chandlers in Los Angeles
Otis Chandler’s son, Harry Brant Chandler, spoke to the Television Critics Association about the documentary that at times is not too flattering to his family. “You probably aren’t aware today that almost all the large cultural institutions of the city have board members from my family. They don’t all have the last name Chandler, but there are a lot of Chandlers still making contributions. Maybe not on the scale in this documentary, but they are out there. We are out there.”
Harry also explained, “My father certainly was a flawed character, but he was also probably the most competitive person you would ever have met. He was so focused on that career of bringing this newspaper to world prominence. So for 20 years, that’s what he did. He wasn’t a great dad during those periods. He was a great publisher.
“Both my older brother and myself were starting careers, and my father was still just so focused on his own [career], he wasn’t really looking at us. And by the time I was in my other career – I was a television producer and executive – he didn’t really care about that. He only cared later in my life, when I decided to go to the L.A. Times and start their Internet activities. His passion, though, never ended.”
Harry said that the Chandler name helped him a lot. “It certainly opened doors. It was a privilege to have a father, when he was running the paper, have access to presidents and leaders of industry and sports figures. So that was great fun.”
After returning home from college, Harry said he had a lot of fun with his grandmother Dorothy Chandler. “My grandfather Norman had passed on and I became the escort for Dorothy Chandler to go to the Music Center so she could kind of show off her grandson. And that was great fun because she had this lovely world of the arts that I was just kind of getting into. Today, it’s still a great legacy. I’m out there in civic causes and people still seem to care about the name. And hopefully the work that I and other family members do will sustain that legacy beyond just where this documentary ends.”
The saga of the Chandlers is interesting and historic.
Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times premiers Monday, October 5, 2009 from 9-11 PM ET/PT on PBS.
Harry Chandler
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