Background

Nellie McAleney Revell was born on March 13, 1873 in Springfield, Illinois, the daughter of the editor and publisher of the Springfield Republican.

Career

She started her career on an opposition paper and was hired by her father after proving a worthy competitor for news.

Revell left Springfield for Chicago, where she attracted attention as a writer for the Chicago Journal. Later in the decade she reported for the Denver Post, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Chicago Times. During this period she was as near to being a general assignment reporter as any woman could be in the decades of sensational reporting and frantic circulation drives.

She learned to cover murder trials and to extract a full measure of emotion from the proceedings. But she wearied of this work, and left to become press agent for a circus. Contemporaries credited her attraction to the circus to her mother's family background, and Revell was said by acquaintances to have been "brought up on P. T. Barnum's lot. " New York was the center for American journalism at the turn of the century, and an offer from the New York World to become its first woman reporter lured Revell from the Midwest.

In New York her interests in both show business and journalism were nurtured. She refused to have anything to do with the woman's page and covered such pageantry as the coronation of Czar Nicholas II (1895) and Queen Victoria's funeral (1901). Revell, reportedly the first woman to cover a prizefight, gibed at James J. Corbett when he objected to her plans: "If I don't come, neither will Bob Fitzsimmons. I don't think he has to anyway. He could lick you by mail. " She always threatened, "When you put my stuff on the woman's page, I quit. " And she did so when she joined the New York Evening Mail, recently merged by Frank Munsey with the New York Evening Telegram, and her column was moved to the woman's page. Shortly after this Revell became press agent for Al Jolson. Her interest in press agentry for circuses also continued, so that in the years following she had as clients such Broadway stars as Lily Langtry, Norah Bayes, Lillian Russell, Elsie Janis, Eva Tanguay, and Will Rogers, as well as six circuses. Revell was head of publicity for the Keith-Orpheum motion-picture circuit and business manager of the Winter Garden.

In 1919, at the peak of her success, Revell's world collapsed. First, through an unfortunate investment, she lost her life's savings. Only weeks later a severe spinal ailment developed that placed her in the hospital for years. The collapse of several vertebrae left the doctors little hope that she would ever walk again, should she survive the long hospitalization.

While undergoing treatment, Revell published three books dealing with her battle for survival: Right Off the Chest (1925), Fighting Through (1925), and Funny Side Out (1925). All were written in the highly colorful and personal style that had served her well in her years as a journalist. Wit rather than profundity was her aim. Funds to pay her hospital and medical expenses were also raised by a testimonial performance at the Cohan and Harris Theater.

By 1930, Revell discarded the plaster cast that had encased her for years, lifted herself out of her wheelchair, and joined the National Broadcasting Company, where she became well known through her interviews with stage, screen, sports, and political figures. After her retirement in 1947, she continued to conduct a program called "Neighbor Nell. "

Revell died in New York City. Her own life, not unlike the highly emotional human-interest stories she frequently wrote for the sensational press, was marked with excitement, adventure, recognition, acquaintance with the famous, and years of life-threatening paralysis.

Achievements

• She was one of the most colorful American journalists in the first half of the twentieth century. Her contribution lay not in the stylistic quality or profound thought of her writing, but in the wide range of activities that she undertook and in the spirit and courage with which she approached challenges in both her professional and private life.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Funny Side Out: After, Before and During Dinner Stories, with Apologies to Whoever First Told Them
  • Spangles

Personality

Nellie McAleney was described as "a large woman, loud and opinionated, not afraid to step face-to-face with any man. "

Connections

She married Joseph Revell; they had no children and were divorced. Revell married Arthur J. Kellar, a press agent; they had one daughter.

Father:

Hamilton Hugh McAleney

Mother:

Mary Elizabeth Evans McAleney

Spouse:

Arthur J. Kellar

Spouse:

Joseph Revell