MOCKRIDGE, Norton 1915-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born September 29, 1915, in New York, NY; died of pneumonia, April 18, 2004, in San Antonio, TX. Journalist and author. Mockridge was an award-winning journalist who was also a noted humor columnist. He went into his profession right out of high school, working variously for the Mt. Kisco Recorder, White Plains Daily Reporter, and New York World-Telegram and Sun during the 1930s and early 1940s. World War II saw him enlisting in the U.S. Army, where he rose to the rank of first lieutenant. After the war, he returned to the World-Telegram and Sun, where he became city editor in 1956, a humor columnist from 1963 to 1966, and entered into syndication from 1966 until 1980. While working as the city editor, Mockridge and his staff received a Pulitzer Prize in 1963 for local reporting. In 1978, he filed an age-discrimination lawsuit against Scripps-Howard Newspapers, saying he was being forced into an early retirement; the suit was settled out of court in Mockridge's favor. He kept busy in the 1980s as a foreign correspondent for United Features Syndicate and as president of Valnor Productions. Mockridge, who also hosted radio shows for CBS during the 1960s, was the author of several books, ranging from nonfiction, such as This Is Costello (1951), written with Robert H. Prall, to humorous pieces such as Fractured English (1965). Among his other writings are Mockridge, You're Slipping! (1967) and Eye on the Odds (1976).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, April 24, 2004, p. A13.