Doug Kaufman

I was a feature writer at the Belleville (IL) News-Democrat from June 1984, when I graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with a journalism degree, through the end of November 1999.

In the early days at the BND, I was given mostly cub reporter stories, but gradually I began to show certain strengths and a willingness to tackle and embrace assignments others didn’t want to try. In 1985, for instance, I wrote a story about a skydiving school, and safely parachuted out of a single-prop plane at the end of the day.

Soon I was taking the leap into entertainment writing, which had always been an interest of mine. Other reporters at the paper admitted they were intimidated by celebrities because they were famous and made lots of money. But I approached them as regular people, which they usually genuinely appreciated.

For most of my 15-plus years at the News-Democrat, circulation was 52,000 daily, 62,000 on Sunday – well below the numbers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch but still the second largest daily newspaper in the St. Louis area. Publicists recognized the value of getting stories in the second largest paper in the area, plus it’s in Southern Illinois across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, so it was a different audience.

I also followed the philosophy of it never hurts to ask, which got me a lot of interviews you wouldn’t expect in a medium-sized paper, like John Denver, Shirley Jones, Charles Schulz, Cloris Leachman, Buddy Ebsen, Jerry Lewis, Lauren Bacall and more.

While I covered plenty of other topics, including science, medicine, the environment and religion, entertainment writing was my passion. I hope you enjoy this look into what was going on in the lives of these celebs when I met them.

A portion of my book sales will benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, which funds research to find a cure and treatments for blood cancer and also provides patient care and education.

Thank you.

Doug Kaufman