Anthony is pictured In the photo with filmmaker\/historian Rel Dowdell at The Mountain Film Festival in 2013.
\u2014Courtesy William Stevenson<\/p>\n
Florence \u201cFlo\u201d Anthony, whose career as a groundbreaking entertainment columnist inspired generations of journalists, died on Thursday after a battle with cancer.<\/p>\n
By Denise Clay-Murray<\/p>\n
Florence \u201cFlo\u201d Anthony, the pioneering entertainment journalist who provided the Black community with the inside scoop on celebrities and sports figures while blazing a trail for the next generation, died on Thursday. She was 74.<\/p>\n
News of her death was confirmed to the SUN via email.<\/p>\n
Anthony became a historical figure in journalism thanks to the barriers she broke as a sports and entertainment columnist. After spending some time as a sports publicist, working with luminaries including Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes and Matthew Saad Muhammad, Anthony got a job at the New York Post as an agate clerk, becoming the first Black woman to work in newspaper\u2019s sports department.<\/p>\n
But once the newspaper saw that Anthony was much better at getting the scoop on celebrities than she was with box scores, she was moved to the entertainment section and became the first Black woman to work on the New York Post\u2019s infamous Page Six gossip column, breaking stories on celebrities, including Mike Tyson and Robin Givens. She later went on to become the first Black woman to write for a supermarket tabloid when her column, \u201cEye On The Stars\u201d began appearing in the National Examiner.<\/p>\n
She was also a frequent presence on such shows as \u201cInside Edition,\u201d \u201cThe Insider\u201d and \u201cEntertainment Tonight,\u201d and was a co-host on E! Entertainment television\u2019s \u201cThe Gossip Show.\u201d She also went on to edit Black Noir and Black Elegance magazines, and syndicated radio segments under her company, the Dottie Media Group.<\/p>\n
While she mostly worked in New York \u2014 her column last appeared in New York\u2019s Amsterdam News \u2014 Anthony also had a presence in Philadelphia. Her \u201cGossip to Go With Flo\u201d segment was a daily occurrence on WDAS FM, and she was also the SUN\u2019s first entertainment columnist with her syndicated column, \u201cGo with the Flo\u201d appearing in the newspaper weekly.<\/p>\n
Anthony was also an author, writing murder mysteries \u2014 \u201cDeadly Stuff Players\u201d and its sequel, \u201cOne Last Deadly Play\u201d \u2014 that drew on her knowledge of Hollywood and those who populate it. She also co-authored the book, \u201cMichael \u201cJinx\u201d Spinks: An Authorized Biography,\u201d which was published in March.<\/p>\n
Flo Anthony was born on March 4, 1952 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was a graduate of Howard University. She is survived by her husband, Michael Spinks, who she married in January.<\/p>\n
Information on services is pending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony is pictured In the photo with filmmaker\/historian Rel Dowdell at The Mountain Film Festival in 2013.\u2014Courtesy William…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-262473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}