Nikki Finke

The native New Yorker and Wellesley College graduate has been reporting from Los Angeles since 1986. Nikki Finke’s journalism career has included years as an AP foreign correspondent in Moscow and London, Newsweek correspondent in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, and Los Angeles Times staff writer covering entertainment and features. Finke had an unusual background for a journalist. A daughter of New York privilege, she attended Buckley Country Day School, on Long Island, and the Hewitt School, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. From 1995 through 2000, she was West Coast Editor and Hollywood columnist first for the New York Observer and then for New York Magazine. She joined LA Weekly as its "Deadline Hollywood" columnist in 2002, writing about the business, politics and culture of the infotainment industry. Finke started DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com on March 3, 2006 as the 24/7 version of her must-read column. On June 23, 2009, Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC), the Los Angeles-based digital media company that owns and operates the Mail.com portal and email service, as well as a growing portfolio of lifestyle brands, including HollywoodLife.com, MovieLine.com and OnCars.com, announced its acquisition of DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com. MMC also began a long-term partnership with Finke, Since then, her site has been renamed Deadline.com, and Finke is General Manager, Editor in Chief, and Founder. She continues to report and write DeadlineHollywood.com. She died at 68 on October 9, 2022, after a long illness, and spent her last weeks at Hospice by the Sea in Boca Raton, Florida.