Edwin Diamond was true hereditary Hearst royalty. His father was Chicago American sportswriter Lou Diamond. Ben Hecht, co-author of His Girl Friday, worked for the Chicago Daily News, a PM competitor of the American. He either knew or knew of Edwin’s father, because he slipped a reference to him, by name, into the play and movie.
Cary Grant sends his goon, Diamond Louie, after Hildy's fiancé. "He looks just like Ralph Bellamy," Grant says, which was pretty rich, as Ralph Bellamy was the actor playing the fiancé. Diamond Louie was named after, but not modeled on Edwin’s father.
As a science writer in the Chicago bureau of the International News Service, he wrote many great stories, one of which was headlined in many Hearst Newspapers as "A-Powered Locomotives and Smokeless Cities," about the future of atomic power. It was dated Sept. 15, 1954.
He did talk about his wire service experience. He would tell wonderful stories of his days at INS. “One Saturday, I covered 12 midwestern states by myself all day from the Chicago bureau.”
When I told him that Boston Bureau chief Don Davis had flipped me a quarter to take the streetcar to Hynes Auditorium for a story (ROX gave reporters cab vouchers), Edwin said, “I can top that. In Chicago, the Bureau Chief said, ‘The EL is only a nickel. Pay it yourself.’”
One of his most-carried stories was A-Powered Locomotives and Smokeless Cities
On the day of the merger with United Press, Edwin had moved to the Washington, D.C. bureau. INS locked him in a room and tried to convince him to stay. The bureau manager told him “You’ll be one of the few that UP will keep.” Within a week, United Press bought INS and fired virtually its entire staff. Edwin just dodged the bullet by taking a science writer job at Newsweek.
For more stories, see Edwin's obituary.