McCandlish Phillips, Famed Journalist, Dies at 85

Journalist McCandlish Phillips, who spent 21 years at The New York Times before following a new path into evangelical Christianity, died Tuesday in New York after a bout with pneumonia, The Times reported. He was 85.

Born John McCandlish Phillips, Jr. on Dec. 4 1927 in Glen Cove, the son of a travelling salesman frequently moved. He graduated from Brookline (Mass.) High School and served in the U.S. Army from 1950-52.

Phillips rose from copy boy at The Times in 1952 to a cub reporter in Brooklyn in 1955. He is best known for exposing a Jewish Ku Klux Klan official from Queens named Daniel Burros. The Oct. 31, 1965 Times story read, “State Klan Leader Hides Secret of Jewish Origin.” Burros killed himself the day the story ran.

It spawned the 2001 film "The Believer," starring Ryan Gosling. Phillips was also the author of several books.

He left journalism for the Pentecostal New Testament Missionary Fellowship, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Phillips is survived by his sister, Janet DeClemente.