Norma L. Browning; Hollywood Columnist and Eclectic Author

Norma Lee Browning, Hollywood columnist, ghostwriter and author of books on subjects ranging from a memoir about U.S. Sen. Everett M. Dirksen to psychics and hummingbirds, has died. She was 86.

Browning, who had lived for many years in Palm Springs, died Monday in Desert Hospital of respiratory failure, said her friend, Pam Gallagher.

Born in Spickard, Mo., Browning received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri and a master’s from Radcliffe. She joined the Chicago Tribune as a feature writer in 1944. The newspaper assigned her to Hollywood in 1966, and for the next decade, she wrote a syndicated column about celebrities she met.

Her stories were illustrated by photographs taken by her husband, Russell J. Ogg. When his eyesight failed almost completely, the couple retired from The Tribune in the late 1970s and moved to Palm Springs.

Browning, however, didn’t stop working, and, remarkably, neither did her husband. Although Ogg had lost “all but 2% of his sight,” he became intrigued with hummingbirds and began photographing them. Teaming once again, Ogg and Browning illustrated and wrote the book “He Saw a Hummingbird,” published in 1978.

Ogg died in 1990.

Browning’s books were interspersed with her newspaper career. She published the first, “City Girl in the Country and Other Stories,” in 1955.

She became an occasional visiting faculty advisor at Interlochen Arts Academy and an editorial consultant to the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Mich., which was established by Joe Maddy. That provided material for more books: “Joe Maddy of Interlochen” in 1963, and the updated “Joe Maddy of Interlochen: Portrait of a Legend” in 1991.

Assisted in Memoir About Sen. Dirksen

Browning, in her many years as an Illinois reporter, became quite knowledgeable about the Dirksens during his years as the nationally influential Republican Senate leader. It was only natural that she assist Louella Dirksen in writing “The Honourable Mr. Marigold: My Life with Everett Dirksen,” published in 1972, three years after the senator’s death.

The same year, Browning helped entertainer Ann Miller write her life story, “Miller’s High Life.”

In later years, Browning hopped on the bandwagon of increasingly popular how-to books, assisting George Masters with “The Masters Way to Beauty,” published in 1977; Florence Lowell with “Be a Guest at Your Own Party,” in 1980; and, on her own, “Facelifts: Everything You Always Wanted to Know,” published in 1982.

Browning also tackled more unusual topics, such as astrology and psychic phenomena. With W. Clement Stone she wrote “The Other Side of the Mind,” published in 1965, and with the syndicated astrology columnist, she wrote the 1977 book “The Borderline World of Sydney Omar: Astrology and the Man.”

She became so intrigued with the purportedly psychic Dutch house painter Peter Hurkos that she produced two books about him. First came “The Psychic World of Peter Hurkos,” which she edited in 1970, and then six years later, “Peter Hurkos: I Have Many Lives.”

Hurkos attracted international attention in 1941 when he fell four stories onto concrete pavement. He spent the next four days unconscious and near death in a hospital and then miraculously revived. But, according to Hurkos and all those who knew him, he was a different man--one with musical and artistic talents he never had before and with psychic abilities enabling him to see into the future and trace missing persons.

Browning wrote the second book based on taped interviews with Hurkos dealing primarily with the four days he lay unconscious. According to Hurkos’ story as she reported it, he was not truly unconscious, but in a strangely illuminated place where he walked as if on feathers while nine bearded judges sat on marble chairs solemnly passing on his fate. It is not his time to die, they tell him. He must go back to Earth, even though he pleads to remain in this place of peace and light, because he has a gift to bring to men, and a purpose to fulfill.

Contributing Writer for Magazines

In reviewing the second book for The Times in 1976, author Stanton A. Coblentz concluded: “All this the reader is entitled to believe or disbelieve--such a story is beyond verification or disproof. And much the same is true of the incidental material dealing with such diverse subjects as reincarnation, the occult nature of the Pyramids, the ‘lost Atlantis’ . . . and Hurkos’ ‘out of the body’ experiences.”

During her long career, Browning also contributed articles to national magazines such as Reader’s Digest and the Saturday Evening Post.

She is survived by a sister, Judy Kesler of Trenton, Mo., and a brother, Tom Johnston of Kansas City, Mo.

A graveside service is planned for 1 p.m. Monday at Desert Memorial Park, Palm Springs.