Nikki Finke, Caustic Hollywood Chronicler, Is Dead at 68

Her parents traveled frequently, taking Nikki and her sister, Terry, along. In another 2005 essay for The Times, Ms. Finke recalled her mother’s obsession with seeing the finest sights of Europe and staying in its finest accommodations while doing so.

“In her view,” Ms. Finke wrote, “travel was a privilege not to be squandered by booking stingily or mechanically.

“When I begged to be taken to Disneyland to see Cinderella’s castle,” she added, “my mother responded, ‘Why do you want to see fake castles when you’ve seen the real ones?’”

Ms. Finke was a debutante, making her debut in 1971 at the International Debutante Ball in New York. She graduated from the Buckley Country Day School in North Hills, on Long Island, and the Hewitt School, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, then earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wellesley College, where she worked on the campus newspaper, The Wellesley News.

Her travels as a child prepared her well for her Associated Press job, which included covering foreign news.

Her entertainment column and blog didn’t play by the same rules as mainstream journalism; she was noted for publishing rumors and innuendo and sometimes being a little ahead of events. “Toldja!” was a favorite exclamation she would use when something she had foreseen actually occurred.

Starting Deadline was something of a leap of faith, coming at a time when the business model for independent online publishing ventures was unclear. But the site succeeded, and in 2009 she sold it to the Jay Penske company, now known as Penske Media Corp. She remained as editor in chief but clashed frequently with Mr. Penske, and in 2013 they parted ways.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/10/business/media/nikki-finke-dead.html