* Ed Montgomery; Award-Winning Journalist
Ed Montgomery, 82, the San Francisco Examiner crime reporter who led an ill-fated crusade to prevent Barbara Graham from dying in California’s gas chamber. The 1953 execution was the basis for a 1958 film that won an Academy Award for actress Susan Hayward, who played Graham. Montgomery’s newspaper and magazine stories also were used for a 1983 television movie starring Lindsay Wagner. Montgomery won a Pulitzer Prize for a 1950 series of articles about a tax scam run by Internal Revenue Service agents. He retired in 1975. On Monday in San Francisco of pneumonia.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
