Mitchell Fink, the author and entertainment journalist who wrote gossip columns for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, People magazine and the New York Daily News, died Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Florida, his family announced. He was 82.
Widely recognized for his “golden Rolodex” and list of contacts spanning New York, Washington and Hollywood, Fink also was a contributor to celebrity.land’s Showbiz Today for six years while appearing on such other programs as Access Hollywood, Good Day New York and the CBS Morning News.
After graduating from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Fink served as the editor of Record World magazine before he moved to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, where he transitioned from music criticism to covering politics and hard news.
In 1987, he took over the newspaper’s “Page 2” column, and that got him on the air as an entertainment reporter for KTTV in Los Angeles.
Following the shutdown of the Herald Examiner in 1989, Fink joined People magazine and launched its popular “Insider” column. He joined the New York Daily News in 1998 and wrote a column six days a week through 2002.
As an author, Fink achieved New York Times Best-Seller status with his 2002 book, Never Forget: An Oral History of September 11, 2001, written with his wife, Lois Mathias.
His other books included 2006’s The Last Days of Dead Celebrities, 2011’s Change of Heart and 2014’s Frank Sinatra, Miriam and Me.
More recently, he completed Second Chances, an oral history of shoe designer Steve Madden; produced the 2017 documentary Maddman: The Steve Madden Story; and served as CEO of 1on1 Public Relations.
In addition to his wife, survivors include sons Jesse and Brian and grandchildren Samson, Alice and Cameron.
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