Legacy

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAY 31, 1999

A Jewish immigrant fleeing pogroms in East Prussia, Moses Annenberg (1877- 1942) arrived at Ellis Island with his family in 1885. In this gripping dual biography, Ogden (The Life of the Party) charts Annenberg's rise from poverty to the top of a media dynasty that under his son, Walter--a billionaire philanthropist, art collector and U.S. ambassador to Britain--would include the Philadelphia Inquirer, Seventeen and TV Guide. In 1899, Moses signed on with the circulation department of William Randolph Hearst's Chicago American, organizing gun- and bat-wielding gangs of neighborhood toughs to fight the local newspaper distribution wars. In 1922, he bought the racetrack bible, Daily Racing Form; in 1927, he took over a telegraph wire service providing sports and racing data to legitimate news agencies--and to the nation's illegal bookies--tarring himself with gangland associations that he tried to expunge in 1936 by buying the Inquirer, a bastion of Republican conservatism. Moses's campaign against FDR's New Deal, according to Ogden, led to a vindictive federal prosecution for income tax evasion that resulted in two years in prison. Released in 1942, he turned over the Inquirer to his spoiled, callow 33-year-old only son, Walter, a playboy with a bad stutter, entrusting him to redeem the family's honor. How Walter accomplished this while mellowing from hard-charging, partisan publisher to avuncular public figure is the theme of a robust narrative rife with appearances by characters like Ethel Merman, Damon Runyon, Huey Long, Harry Cohn and Katharine Graham. While Ogden had the full cooperation of Walter and his second wife, Lee, for this unauthorized bio, it yields a revealing, warts-and-all portrait of father and son. Photos. Author tour.