The Chicago Tribune is running a nearly heroic-scale obit on Max. Here’s the lead:
“Australian-born Maxwell McCrohon was a journalistic visionary whose innovations in design, story-packaging and feature writing changed the face of the Chicago journalism and had a wide impact throughout the U.S. newspaper industry.”
And a fun detail recounting his early days at the Chicago American:
“He also was a fill-in movie reviewer. A sample lead from one of his reviews: ‘The Frenchmen who produced the film version of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” have spread the rather bitter bread of his play with a heavily spiced syrup of sex.’ ”
12/10/04: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is carrying Hearst’s more workaday version of the obit. The WLS site in Chicago is running the AP’s version at length. And the Washington Times has UPI’s take.
12/11/04: The New York Times has an obit, too, this morning.
Dan-O: I spoke to Sean for about ninety minutes tonight, swapping stories about his pop and just generally shooting the breeze. It was a good talk. He told me that Max looked the same to the end, using the word “robust” to describe his physical stature and even said the last meal he had before going into the hospital at the Outback Steakhouse was something he enjoyed a great deal. He really liked going to those steak places, was completely in love with life, which he could never get too much of. I was lucky to get to see him fairly often in last few years and you’re right about the McCrohon’s door always being open to us when we were kids and it is the same today.