Patt Morrison is a writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where her work has spanned national politics and stories from the Los Angeles riots and earthquakes and the Space Shuttle to the Super Bowl – which she covered from inside a women’s bathroom – and the death of the Princess of Wales. As a member of two Los Angeles Times’ reporting teams, she has a share of two Pulitzer Prizes.
For her work hosting programs on public television and radio, she has received six Emmy awards and a dozen Golden Mikes. Patt is also a regular commentator on the Emmy-winning “L.A. Times Today” show on Spectrum 1.
Patt was featured on the cover of “Talkers” Magazine as one of its “Heavy 100” top radio hosts in the nation – a first for any local radio host. She created and hosted “Comedy Congress,” a political satire on her radio show, which twice earned Golden Mike awards as best public affairs show.
Her nonfiction books, “Rio L.A., Tales from the Los Angeles River” and “Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, Justice, and the American Newspaper,” were both bestsellers.
A few among her myriad interview subjects: Salman Rushdie, Jimmy Carter, both James Watson and Francis Crick, Al Gore, Frank Gehry, four past and present Supreme Court justices (Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O’Connor), Norman Mailer, Carl Sagan, Gore Vidal, Kenneth Branagh, Jodie Foster, Jack Lemmon, Steve Martin, Edward Albee, Timothy Leary, Jane Goodall, Stephen Hawking, Eldridge Cleaver, Ray Bradbury, Leonard Cohen, Oprah Winfrey and five of the seven original Mercury astronauts.
She was an early regular panelist on the radio comedy show “Wait, Wait – Don’t Tell Me!” She has been a crossword puzzle clue, the central figure in a diptych called “The Triumph of Civility,” by Los Angeles painter John Martin. Pink’s, the renowned Hollywood hot dog stand, named its vegetarian dog, the “Patt Morrison Baja Dog,” after her.
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Bob Hope, along with Daffy Duck and Marlene Dietrich, helped popularize the catchphrase ‘Now you’re cooking with gas.’ Many decades later, we’re paying out the nose for the privilege.
The motion picture academy’s annual Oscars ceremony worked its way though venue after venue before settling on its current Hollywood home in 2002.
California’s approach to seismic safety, particularly in schools, ramped up significantly after the deadly March 10, 1933, earthquake in Long Beach.
You think this year’s rains were bad? The floods of 1938 were so epic they led to a massive re-engineering of the L.A. River that vastly reduced the ability to recharge groundwater.
The year 2023 marks the centennial of many iconic L.A. landmarks, including the Hollywood sign, Memorial Coliseum, Biltmore Hotel and the Angelus Temple.
A look through criminal and gruesome appearances at Southern California lovers’ lanes may make you reconsider visiting one with your Valentine.
In the earliest days of moviemaking, Annie Oakley’s sharpshooting was committed to film. And Hollywood has had a difficult relationship with guns ever since.
L.A. County’s recent report showed hate crimes at their highest level since 2002. Patt Morrison looks further back into California history, to when we didn’t even count the hateful atrocities.
A mere six years after the Wright brothers’ famous first flight, Los Angeles hosted the United States’ first significant air show. In addition to being a spectacle, it solidified Southern California’s place as an aerospace hub.
The 2023 Rose Parade is on Jan. 2 because of the never-on-Sunday rule. Over its 130-some runnings, the parade has survived its share of controversies — and rainstorms.