Aggie Underwood, Pioneer Woman City Editor

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Aggie the City Editor: “You S.O.B., don’t ever call my desk and try to bribe me,” L.A. city editor Aggie Underwood yelled into the phone.

On the other end of the line: the mayor of Los Angeles.

That was back in the 1950s, overheard when Rilla Underwood arrived at the L.A. Herald Express to have lunch with her sharp-tongued mother-in-law, one tough cookie and the first woman city editor of a major daily in the country.

On the Beat

Rilla, a professional photographer who teaches art at Santa Barbara City College Adult Education, recalls how Aggie (real name Agness) fought her way out of homelessness as an orphaned pre-teen. With barely an eighth-grade education, if that, Aggie charged into the male-dominated world of big-city reporting in the gritty 1930s.

Aggie was not only tough as nails but a crackerjack reporter. She was first on the scene after poor Elizabeth Short’s nude, sliced-up body was found in an L.A. vacant lot in 1947. According to Rilla, Aggie coined the moniker “The Black Dahlia” case because party girl Short often wore a flower in her hair. Others, however, have claimed authorship.

After winning her spurs as a crack reporter, Aggie ran the demanding Hearst Herald Express (renamed Herald Examiner in 1992) for more than 17 years until 1964, commanding a staff of 40 reporters and 22 photogs, turning out seven editions a day, Before she took over, city editors fell like bowling pins. Managing editor John Campbell was a quick man with a pink slip. But with circulation rising from 100,000 when she arrived to 700,000 when she left, who cared if she was a woman? The Her-Ex was then the largest afternoon paper in the country.

“She was resented as a woman reporter by the men of that era,” Rilla recalled. But as city editor, woe unto the guy who tried to give her a hard time. She kept a baseball bat and a starter pistol on her desk and periodically fired the gun.

Old-timers love to chuckle about the time, while she was still a reporter, when she smacked the city editor in the kisser with a barracuda. It apparently followed an argument over an assignment to work on Christmas Day, which she’d planned to spend with her family. The escapade took place after she had steamed into the photo lab and joined the gang there in a few drinks.

She once hid a murderess in her house for hours while her daughter entertained a group of Girl Scouts in the dining room. One of her most famous stories started after she was sent to cover what police figured was an accidental killing. A woman was shot to death in what looked like a scuffle during a holdup. She persuaded the victim’s husband to confront the robber for a finger-pointing “I accuse” photo.

But the quick-witted Aggie spotted a wink pass between the two men. She tipped off the cops, who squeezed a confession from the gunman: The “scuffle” was staged so the husband could shoot his wife for $18,000 in insurance money. Famously, the hubby shouted, “If I’m guilty, may God strike me dead.” He later dropped dead in prison.

Then there was the guy who insisted that when his car went over a cliff, killing his wife and three children and a friend, it was an accident. But Aggie thought there were too many theatrics in his grief and noticed that his shoes didn’t look scuffed enough for him to have climbed up the cliff. After Aggie alerted cops, they arrested him and a court condemned him to die.

She was born in San Francisco in 1902. After her parents died she was handed from relative to relative until one day when she arrived home to find her sole remaining dress in a paper bag on the doorstep.

“She wandered the streets of San Francisco, spent her last money on candy, and cried,” Rilla said. A woman saw her on a park bench and gave her shelter in a church-run home.

At about 15, Aggie struck out for L.A., where she met a short-order cook who promised, “Marry me and you won’t have to worry.” She did, at 17, but after two children, she’d had enough of his problem ways. In 1926 Lady Luck brought her into the newspaper business. Joining on as a switchboard operator at the old L.A. Record, she began copying stories to sharpen her typing, sometimes rewriting them in her own way. The women’s editor looked over her shoulder and said, “That’s better than the story we’re running in the paper. We’ll use yours.”

Aggie was hooked, becoming a Record reporter in 1931 and moving to the Her-Ex four years later. Aggie’s daughter Evelyn married Rilla’s brother, Bill Reed. Then, Rilla told me, “She wanted me in the family.” So Rilla married Aggie’s son George.

Aggie died in 1984. Read her book, What a Woman, What a Book, if you can find it.

Responses to Travis: Citizen McCaw documentary producers have launched a new feature on their citizenmccaw.com Web site, entitled Spotlight on Travis Armstrong. It allows people to respond to his criticism. Videos of Mayor Marty Blum and Santa Barbara City Councilmember Helene Schneider are first.

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