Maxine Cheshire (
née Hall; April 5, 1930December 31, 2020) was an American newspaper
reporter. She worked at ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' between 1965 and 1981.
Early life
Cheshire was born in
Harlan, Kentucky
Harlan is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Harlan County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 1,745 at the 2010 census, down from 2,081 at the 2000 census.
Harlan is one of three Kentucky county seats to share its name w ...
, on April 5, 1930. Her father worked as a lawyer who represented the miners'
union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
; her mother worked as his legal assistant. He wore a
bulletproof vest to work due to recurring assassination attempts, while her mother had to use the gun she kept in the family home on several occasions.
Cheshire studied at the
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...
between 1949 and 1950, and for a further two years at
Union College
Union College is a private liberal arts college in Schenectady, New York. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, and second in the state of New York, after Columbia Co ...
.
[ Riley (1995): p. 57] Although she initially wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and become a lawyer, his death in 1951 led to her dropping out of college. She subsequently joined ''
The Harlan Daily Enterprise'' at the age of 21.
Reporting career
Cheshire first worked as a reporter for two local papers, the ''Barbourville Mountain Advocate'' and ''The Harlan Daily Enterprise''.
[ From 1951, she worked for three years for the '' Knoxville News Sentinel'' as a police reporter. She subsequently joined ''The Washington Post'' in 1954. She first worked as a society reporter until 1965, when she began to write her own column, entitled "VIP", until 1981. In that guise she did not simply stick to the contents of a typical gossip columnist, but spoke of other, more serious matters such as bribes to government officials.][ Because of this, she was known and feared by the establishment, having worked on a variety of ]scandal
A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...
-type stories concerning various political leaders, such as Koreagate, the lechery of John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
, and Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
's habit of keeping, illegally, gifts given to him by foreign dignitaries. This line of work earned her the nickname "The Last of the Fast-Draw Gunslingers" at the ''Post''.
Cheshire wrote an eight-part series in the early 1960s on the restoration of the White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
undertaken by Jacqueline Kennedy. She reported that several pieces that were supposedly antiques were actually fakes, and that the true cost of the decorations exceeded the official stated figure. President Kennedy phoned Phil Graham
Philip Leslie Graham (July 18, 1915 – August 3, 1963) was an American newspaperman. He served as publisher and later co-owner of ''The Washington Post'' and its parent company, The Washington Post Company.
During his years with the Post Comp ...
, the publisher of the ''Post'', to gripe about the report. He said, "Maxine Cheshire has reduced my wife to tears. Listen to her", as his wife cried in the background.
Cheshire was the subject of one of Frank Sinatra's most widely known slurs in 1973 when, at a pre-inaugural party, he told her, "Get away from me, you scum. Go home and take a bath... You're nothing but a two-dollar
Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, ...
cunt. You know what that means, don't you? You've been laying down for two dollars all your life". With that, he thrust two one-dollar bills into her wine glass in front of a variety of witnesses and added, "Here's two dollars, baby, that's what you're used to".[ Rojek (2004): pp. 141–142]
Ben Bradlee
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (, 1921 – , 2014) was an American journalist who served as managing editor, then as executive editor of ''The Washington Post'', from 1965 to 1991. He became a public figure when the ''Post'' joined ''The New Y ...
, one of the editors of the ''Post'' during Cheshire's time there, wrote in his autobiography ''A Good Life'' that he "probably spent more time dousing fires ignited by Maxine than any other journalist except those that Woodward and Bernstein would ignite in 1972". However, he added that "she was fun to work with and awesome to watch once she sank her teeth in someone’s flank".
Personal life
Cheshire's first marriage was to Herbert Cheshire, a fellow journalist. Together, they had four children: Marc, Hall, Gideon, and Leigh. They later divorced. She subsequently married Jasper "Jack" Warren – who owned an oil-drilling company in Texas – in 1982. They moved to Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
, and remained married until his death in 2013.
Cheshire died on December 31, 2020, at her home in McAllen, Texas
McAllen is the largest city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States, and the 22nd-most populous city in Texas. It is located at the southern tip of the state in the Rio Grande Valley, on the Mexico–United States border. The city limits extend ...
. She was 90, and suffered from cardiovascular disease in the time leading up to her death.
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheshire, Maxine
1930 births
2020 deaths
People from Harlan, Kentucky
University of Kentucky alumni
Union College (New York) alumni
American reporters and correspondents
The Washington Post people
Journalists from Kentucky
Kentucky women writers
American women non-fiction writers
21st-century American women