Ina Jaffe, NPR correspondent, former Chicago actor, dead at 75

NPR correspondent Ina Jaffe, who as a journalist was known for her toughness, wit, sense of humor and flair, first put those qualities to use as an actor and singer in Chicago before turning to a new career that brought her a national spotlight and acclaim.

In the 1960s, she was a New Trier High School student, growing up in Glencoe, and would head to the city with her guitar to play folk music in coffeehouses — once playing the same venue as a young Steve Goodman.

Long before she became a well-recognized National Public Radio voice, she studied philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she met her future husband, Lenny Kleinfeld. They returned to Chicago to try to make it in entertainment, she as an actor, he as a writer.

Teaming with Chicagoan and fellow University of Wisconsin alum Stuart Gordon, co-founder of the groundbreaking Organic Theater Company, her work at the Organic included a role in "Warp!" — a science-fiction trilogy her husband co-wrote. The late Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert wrote that it "anticipated 'Star Wars.' "

"It was the era of the burgeoning Chicago theater movement," said Robert Falls, a friend and the former longtime Goodman Theatre artistic director. "There just weren't a lot of theaters in the city, and the Organic was the Chicago theater company at the time. It was defining and singular."

Among the Organic's actors she worked with were future TV stars Joe Mantegna and Dennis Franz. They appeared together in Organic's production of "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" by Ray Bradbury.

"The Organic was really this rock-and-roll, ragtag group that defined what we now think of as Chicago theater," Falls said. "It's hard to describe. It's a little like: You had to be there. But it was populist to the extreme, not at all highfalutin, down-and-dirty and incredibly imaginative."

Ms. Jaffe died Aug. 1 of breast cancer at a nursing home in Los Angeles. She was 75.

She once shared the stage with the actor and former Chicago bouncer known as Mr. T, who later gained fame on TV's "The A-Team," while taking improv classes at The Second City with renowned instructor Sheldon Patinkin.

"Sheldon used to pair them together, and Mr T. constantly denied where Ina was taking things," Kleinfeld said, noting that the first rule of improv is to agree and build on each other's ideas. "Sheldon was amused at Ina having to constantly harass Mr. T into a dream with her."

"She and Lenny were formidable contributors to the beginning of what I think of as the Chicago theater movement," said B.J. Jones, a friend who is the artistic director at Northlight Theatre in Skokie.

Kleinfeld also worked as a sharp-tongued and influential theater critic for The Reader under his pen name Bury St. Edmund.

Of her move from the theater to reporting, Jones said: "For Ina, anything she put her mind to, she could have achieved. Acting is about truth, and so is journalism."

Ms. Jaffe got her first story published by The Reader, the alternative Chicago weekly. It was about a trove of work found after the death of an eccentric artist. It ran on the front page. More stories followed. Her subjects ranged widely and includes stories on crime and politics.

In the late 1970s, friends who acted at Second City were going to NPR's new Chicago bureau to do improv based on Chicago politics and asked Ms. Jaffe to join them, according to her husband, who said that led to her working for NPR.

"She had some ideas for a few stories, and she shared them, and someone showed her how to use a recorder," Kleinfeld said.

"When I first saw Ina, I remember thinking, 'How could this flippity actress with her halter top and savoir faire ever be a serious journalist," said her friend and former colleague Jacki Lyden. "I was so dismissive. I'd struggled for a year and a half and served in the trenches. But she was just so smart and laser-sharp and funny. And, in no time at all, she was doing really great work."

Her work ethic amounted to "I'm here to get the story or a boot print on the seat of my pants," according to her NPR colleague Scott Simon, who brought Ms. Jaffe with him to Washington in 1985 to work as editor on the new show "Weekend Edition."

After two years in Washington, she moved to Los Angeles as a correspondent in NPR's West Coast bureau, where she worked for more than 30 years, covering everything from politics to entertainment.

She was most proud of the 2012 investigative work she did about the Veterans Administration's West Los Angeles Medical Center campus being leased to businesses instead of housing vets. After her award-winning work, policies were changed, and new housing was built.

Simon, a graduate of Senn High School, remembered working with Ms. Jaffe, in the early days of NPR's Chicago bureau, for a piece aired on “Weekend Edition” and published on NPR’s website in which he wrote: "We all saw each other through long election nights, trials, loves, losses, Cubs games and a full hug of all the complexities of life in a great city."

Simon remembered working with Ms. Jaffe on Chicago's election night in February 1983, when Harold Washington won the primary for mayor: "I rushed over to meet Jaffe at Harold Washington’s campaign headquarters. The crush was so great, she couldn’t get through the crowd to put up her mic. So Harold Washington supporters lifted her up and passed her along over their heads to reach the stage just in time to record a moment of history . . .'Now, that’s an entrance,' she said."

When they worked together in Washington, Ms. Jaffe championed the ethos of “Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em come back for more,” Simon wrote.

She worked for NPR for about 40 years, ending her career there by focusing on aging.

Ms. Jaffe was born Sept. 17, 1948, to Max and Charlotte Jaffe. He owned a luggage manufacturing business, and she was a public grade school teacher.

She grew up a huge Cubs fan. There were days when she and her colleagues took the phone off the hook at their office in Chicago and went to Cubs games, friends said — with Ms. Jaffe always keeping a scorecard at games.

"She's a real, real Cubs fan, like absolutely for real," said Sonari Glinton, an author, podcaster and former colleague. "When the Cubs won the World Series, she and her husband went back just to be there, just to be on the streets."

In their younger days, to celebrate their anniversary, she and her husband liked to sneak champagne in to Wrigley Field in a thermos and share drinks with anyone in their row in the bleachers.

"Ina and Lenny were just beloved by the Chicago theater community, even from afar, and watching Ina's transformation from an actress to this remarkable reporter, I think, was just joyous and wonderful to her friends in Chicago to see," said Falls, who once had a hand in producing a play that Kleinfeld wrote and Ms. Jaffe starred in at the old Wisdom Bridge Theater. "Their marriage was remarkable, I rarely see two people devoted to each other the way they were."

A private memorial is being planned, her husband said.