William Alan Overend
1942-2025
On June 18, 2025, the world lost a beloved father and highly-respected journalist who lived a very full life.
William Alan Overend was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 29, 1942. His father, Alan, was a big band leader and his mother, Marion, was a singer in a female vocalist group called The Lorraine Sisters. For his first four years, Bill grew up largely in hotels as his parents traveled all over the West.
After his parents divorced when he was about four, Bill lived with his mother in an apartment near Lake Michigan in Chicago. A few years later, his mother remarried with George Schillinger, who had actually been the saxophone player in his father’s band earlier. They continued to move around a lot, with Bill living in Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri over the next few years, ultimately landing in Kansas City. Marion and George would later have two other sons together, Marc and Steve.
From an early age, Bill knew he wanted to be a reporter, even starting a small newspaper in the fourth grade at the urging of a teacher. He was the editor of the school paper at Shawnee Mission High in Kansas City, and when facing another move toward the end of high school, he stayed back and lived with his high school journalism teacher, “Doc” Watson.
Bill went to college at Arizona State University. When he was nineteen, he met Marilyn Fish at ASU, and they married shortly after. After graduating, he started his journalism career at the Arizona Republic.
In 1965, Bill got his first big break in journalism, when he landed a job in Paris at the International Edition of the New York Herald Tribune. He was only 22 at the time, and had never traveled past the mid-west before. The Herald-Tribune was considered the voice of America overseas, and Bill moved from the copy desk to becoming one of the paper’s three staff writers — primarily a feature writer but also covering some political news.
Bill and Marilyn lived in Paris from 1965-1967, and those years were a highlight of both of their lives: two kids who had never traveled before, living in Paris amidst the backdrop of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights movement and all the chaos of the 60’s …. It was there that they first heard Bob Dylan (a French copy of “Freewheelin’”), who became the hero of Bill’s life.
In 1967, Bill and Marilyn moved from Paris to New York, where they had their only son together, Bill, in July of 1968. While in New York, Bill worked under Walter Cronkite at CBS News for seven years, as a writer, editor and producer. Young Bill remembers fondly as a young child watching the evening news and spotting his father as the camera would pan across the newsroom at the beginning of the broadcast. While working for Cronkite, Bill not only lived through the 1960’s but wrote about them: the Apollo moon launch, ‘68 Chicago Democratic Convention, on and on …. It was the era of Gonzo journalism and he lived it, interviewing and mixing with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, Tim Leary, and Tom Wolfe.
Bill and Marilyn moved from New York to Scottsdale, Arizona around 1973. During that time, he wrote about and then befriended a cowboy named Bill Parker. He would go along on horseback rides with Bill Parker and his “rough rider” posse … fond memories that led to a lifelong cowboy image and appreciation for Outlaw country music.
Bill and Marilyn divorced in the mid-1970s, and Bill (after a brief stint in Tahiti), ended up in Southern California, where he started working at the Los Angeles Times in 1976. Bill re-married and divorced a couple times in the coming decade, and had a second son, Paul, in 1985, whom Bill raised on his own in Southern California.
Bill worked at the Los Angeles Times for roughly 30 years, starting downtown as a feature writer for the View section, and later covering law enforcement and the federal courts. In 1989, Bill moved with Paul to Ventura, where he became the bureau chief of the Ventura County edition, and ultimately its editor in 1997. People trusted him as a reporter because he was fair and a straight shooter. His stories with the L.A. Times act act as a chronicle of Los Angeles through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
Characterized as the “quintessential journalist” by the L.A. Times’ Editor, Bill was honored for his writing on issues such as drug law enforcement, the lives of homeless people and problems with court systems. He was nominated individually for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing by The Times in 1984 for his groundbreaking series on homelessness. And as an editor, he won two Pulitzers for team reporting for Spot News: one for coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, and one for coverage of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. He was also nominated — and was a finalist — for another team Pulitzer for Spot News based on the Alaska Airlines crash in Ventura in 2000.
Bill was known for his intelligence and keen wit. He had amazing stories and a writer’s eye for details. He had striking blue eyes and was a sharp dresser. He was the type of person who liked to remark on how things “really worked,” and had a cynical view of the machinations of politics and power that was often all too accurate. He could also be very silly. His heroes were Bob Dylan and Tom Wolfe.
Bill was fiercely loyal to family, and both his sons knew he was always in their corner. He shared many things with his sons, including a love of Bob Dylan and classic Outlaw country music, an interest in politics and political satire, street sense, and a fascination with the dark and often violent underbelly of society.
Bill spent his last six years living in Petaluma, where he was able to spend more time around his grandchildren. He continued to consume news daily, taught a writing class at the senior apartments where he lived, and (fortunately) wrote down at least a few vignettes from his life before he passed peacefully.
Bill was preceded in death by his two parents and his brother, Steve. He is survived by his sons Bill and Paul, his brother Marc, and his grandchildren Riley and Cam. A private family service will be held to celebrate his life and scatter his ashes.
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