Georgie Anne Geyer

Georgie Anne Geyer (April 2, 1935 – May 15, 2019)

Geyer had more than 21 honorary degrees, including three from Northwestern alone.

In an October 1996 letter published in the Chicago Tribune, now Judge Ramon Ocasio III criticized Geyer for anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic rhetoric in her Op-ed "The anti-Columbus Day march."

Personal life and death

In 1992, the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire thinly based its lead female character, Georgie Anne Lahti, on Geyer's life and career. In January 1993, Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko excoriated the show's producers for doing so, and stated that Geyer was not pleased with that depiction. "Did the TV producers ask if they could use the real Georgie Anne that way?" Royko wrote. "Not only did they not ask, they loftily deny that their TV Georgie Anne is in any way based on the real life Georgie Anne. A mere coincidence, yuck, yuck. Not to butter you up, but most of my readers are logical. So let me pose this question: If you were a Chicago-born blond named Georgie Anne, had built an international reputation as a foreign correspondent and columnist, and had written an important book about Fidel Castro, and you turned on your TV and saw a lewd sitcom about a Chicago-born blond named Georgie Anne who built a national reputation as a foreign correspondent and had written an important book about Fidel Castro, wouldn't you say something like: 'Hey, what the hell's going on?'"

Geyer developed cancer of the tongue more than a decade before her death. She died at her home in Washington, D.C. on May 15, 2019.

Books