Background

Irv Kupcinet was born on July 31, 1912, in North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago to the family of Russian Jewish immigrants Max Kupcinet and Anna Paswell. He was the youngest child.

Education

Irv Kupcinet studied at Carter H. Harrison Technical High School. He eventually won a football scholarship to Northwestern University, but a tussle with another student led to his relocation to the University of North Dakota, which he graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1935.

Career

Irv Kupcinet was a longtime journalistic fixture in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois. He first became interested in journalism after visiting a high school class on the subject. Although he was offered a contract to play professional football after he attended college at both Northwestern and the University of North Dakota, an injury forced him to decline, and he began working as a sportswriter for the Chicago Daily Times in 1935. By 1943 Kupcinet had become a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he wrote “Kup’s Column.” He was one of the few popular columnists who stayed with the paper even after it was purchased by Australian entrepreneur Rupert Murdock.

When television was still new, Kupcinet began hosting his own The Irv Kupcinet Show simply called Kup’s Show. Though his newspaper column centers on entertainment industry gossip, Kupcinet has also provided television and radio sports commentary - particularly for the Chicago Bears football team. Kupcinet has received several awards for his work in Chicago, including an Emmy and a Peabody Award; a bridge in the city was also named after him. A writer in Celebrity Register called Kupcinet “as much a Chicago institution as the Loop itself.”

In addition to his other media work, Kupcinet is the author of two books. His first, Kup’s Chicago, is full of information about his hometown, according to a writer in Celebrity Register. Much of this information takes the form of debunking popular myths about Chicago. The city, though known for its stockyards, does not, for instance, lead the nation in butchering hogs - both Kansas City, Missouri and Omaha, Nebraska, process more pork. Also, eighteen other United States cities have a higher average wind velocity than Chicago, despite its nickname of “the Windy City.”

Kupcinet penned his autobiography with the help of Paul Neimark; the resulting Kup, a Man, an Era, a City: Irv Kupcinet’s Autobiography became available to readers in 1988. Like his newspaper column, Kup contains many anecdotes about celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, and John Barrymore. Kupcinet discusses encounters with United States presidents Harry S. Truman and Ronald Reagan. The journalist also includes material about famed sports figures such as Ernie Banks and George Halas, and, of course, recalls the highlights of his lengthy Chicago career. According to a critic in Publishers Weekly, Kupcinet included “some shockers” among the many stories he tells; the reviewer went on to assert that “readers who enjoy inside tales of the great and near-great will find this memoir a treasure-trove.”

Despite a brush with tragedy in 1963, when Kupcinet’s daughter Karyn was murdered in Hollywood, Kupcinet has experienced a positive career. By 2003 Kupcinet had been a print journalist for sixty years, and a television host and commentator for several decades, and is considered a writer who, according to a reviewer in Publishers Weekly, writes books that are consistently “informative and readable.”

Irv Kupcinet died on November 10, 2003, from respiratory complications from pneumonia at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in Chicago. He was 91 years old.

Achievements

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  Irv Kupcinet managed to achieve the status of an iconic Chicago journalist and media figure. The Wabash Avenue Bridge over the Chicago River near the now demolished Sun-Times Building was re-named by the city as Irv Kupcinet Bridge in 1986. In 2006 an outdoor bronze sculpture by Preston Jackson depicting Kupcinet was installed in Chicago. He was elected to Chicago's Journalism Hall of Fame in 1982.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Kup: A Man, an Era, a City

    (In addition to chronicling the adventures of his lengthy ...)

    1988
  • Kup's Chicago: A many-faceted and affectionate portrait of Chicago

    (Writing in the breezy style that made his syndicated Sun-...)

    1962

Views

Quotations: "What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive?"

"I've never wanted to do anything but be a newspaperman ever since I was 13."

"An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day"

Membership

• National Press Club , United States

• Newspaper Guild , United States

• Chicago Press Club , United States

• Tau Delta Phi , United States

Connections

Irv Kupcinet married Esther "Essee" Joan Solomon on February 12, 1939. They had two children: Karyn and Jerry Solomon.

Father:

Max Kupcinet

Mother:

Anna Paswell

Wife:

Esther "Essee" Joan Solomon

Daughter:

Karyn Kupcinet

Karyn Kupcinet, an actress, was slain in Hollywood in 1963. The case was never solved. Irv Kupcinet and his wife established a playhouse at Shimer College in Waukegan, Illinois, in her honor and also a school at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Son:

Jerry Solomon Kupcinet

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 166 This volume of Contemporary Authors contains biographical information on approximately 300 modern writers.
  1998