Wilson was born in
Rockford, in
Mercer County in western
Ohio, to Arthur Wilson, a farmer, and Chloe Huffman Wilson. He attended Central High, where he reported on the doings of the school, using his father's typewriter to write his stories. Young Earl's mother encouraged him to pursue a career outside of farming. Wilson contributed to the
Rockford Press and the Lima
Republican Gazette, which would be the first to pay him for his writing. He also wrote for the
Piqua, Ohio Daily Call before enrolling in college in 1925. Wilson attended
Heidelberg College for two years before transferring to
Ohio State University, where he worked on
The Lantern, the university's student-run daily newspaper. He also held part-time jobs with the
Columbus Dispatch and the capital city's International News Service Bureau. Wilson graduated from
Ohio State University in 1931 with a
B.S. in journalism. In 1935, Wilson began work for
The Washington Post, meanwhile sending samples of his work to one of the editors at the
New York Post. Later in 1935, Wilson arrived in New York to begin work with the
Post, taking a room in a boarding house on
Bleecker Street. There he met Rosemary Lyons from
East St. Louis, IL, a secretary whom he wed in 1936. The couple struggled for several years until Wilson's work at the
Post began to take off. Their only child, Earl Wilson Jr., was born on December 1, 1942. His column, which he took over from a writer who went off to war in 1942, was originally considered "filler". It eventually ran until 1983. As the column grew in popularity and importance, Wilson worked 18-hour days, typically arising in the late morning, telephoning news sources, and taking reports from several assistants. In the evenings he would set out for dinner at
Toots Shor's or a similar theater district restaurant, accompanied by his wife, Rosemary, known to his readers as "B.W." (originally short for Barefoot Wife but when she objected he changed it to Beautiful Wife). The pair made the rounds of night spots until the wee hours of the morning.
Broadway coverage By the early 1950s, the Broadway gossip columns had become an important media outlet. Columnists exercised a great deal of power in providing publicity for the celebrities of the day. But whereas gossip columnists as a group were not held in high regard, Wilson had the reputation of being different: he was a trained journalist who double-checked facts; he was much influenced by his Mid-western upbringing, avoiding innuendo and
sensationalism; and he sought to cover his stories as real news items. With a reputation for being fair and honest, Wilson was trusted so much that celebrities willingly gave him their stories. His chronicling of the
Broadway theatre scene during the "Golden Age" of
show business formed the basis for a book published in 1971,
The Show Business Nobody Knows. For most of its run, his column was titled "It Happened Last Night." By the 1960s, the column ran in 175 newspapers nationwide. He signed his columns with the
tag line, "That's Earl, brother." His nickname was "Midnight Earl". In later years, the name of his column was changed to
Last Nite With Earl Wilson. In his final years with the
Post, he alternated with the paper's entertainment writer and restaurant critic, Martin Burden, in turning out the column. (Burden, who died in 1993, took over the
Last Night column full-time upon Wilson's retirement.) Wilson is also the author of three books,
Show Business Laid Bare, and an
unauthorized biography of
Frank Sinatra,
Sinatra: An Unauthorized Biography. The former book is notable for revealing the extramarital affairs of President
John F. Kennedy; Also, "I Am Gazing Into My 8 Ball", a collection of his NY Post columns "It Happened Last Night" which ran for 41 years, from 1942 to 1983. (1948, Pocket Books.)
Appearances on television and in films In the early 1950s, Wilson was an occasional panelist on the NBC
game show Who Said That? On January 19, 1952, Wilson guest-starred on the
CBS live
variety show ''
Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town'', in which hostess
Faye Emerson visited Columbus to accent the kinds of music popular in the Ohio capital city. Wilson appeared in a few films as himself, notably
Copacabana (1947) with
Groucho Marx and
Carmen Miranda,
A Face in the Crowd (1957) with
Andy Griffith,
College Confidential (1960),
Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) with
Buster Keaton,
Paul Lynde and
Don Rickles, and
Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) with
Doris Day. Wilson also hosted the
DuMont TV show
Stage Entrance from May 1951 to March 1952. ==Death==