Rick Kogan

Rick Kogan (born September 13, 1951) is a Chicago newspaperman, a Chicago radio personality and a noted author.

A native of Chicago's Old Town neighborhood, Kogan is the son of longtime Chicago newspaperman Herman Kogan (1914–1989) and longtime Chicago literary and journalism fixture Marilew (Cavanagh) Kogan (1919–2007). His parents named him Rick and not Richard as a tribute to Riccardo's, a legendary Chicago restaurant and watering hole that now is known as Stefani's. On the night that Kogan was born, noted author, historian and broadcaster Studs Terkel came over and took Kogan's father, Herman, out for a celebratory drink.

Kogan's first home was in an apartment on the second floor of an old graystone at 1444 N. State Parkway on Chicago's Gold Coast, a building that was demolished in 1959. When Kogan's brother Mark was born several years later, the family relocated to an apartment in Old Town.

Kogan attended LaSalle Elementary School in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood. and The Latin School of Chicago, Class of 1969. He did not earn a college degree, and worked a variety of jobs in his late teens and early twenties, including as a cab driver.

Kogan earned his first byline in the Chicago Sun-Times at age 16. Although he did not attend college, Kogan continued to write for the Sun-Times, the Chicago Daily News, and then, after the Daily News ceased publication in 1978, returning to the Sun-Times, where he specialized in writing about Chicago's nightlife.

In 1985, Kogan joined the Chicago Tribune, eventually becoming the paper's TV critic and later serving as editor of the Tribune's Tempo section. He currently is on the staff of the Chicago Tribune Magazine, and he also typically writes front-page obituaries of notable Chicago figures, particularly those who have worked in the news media or literature. Among those whom Kogan has memorialized with front-page tributes are Mike Royko (with Jerry Crimmins),Irv Kupcinet,Ann Landers,Gene Siskel,Charles M. Schulz,Studs Terkel,Jeff MacNelly and Abraham Lincoln Marovitz (with Noah Isackson).

...
Wikipedia