Florence “Flo” Anthony died early Thursday, Aug. 6, at 74, closing a career that made her one of the most recognizable voices in celebrity journalism. Jack Hirsch confirmed the death and said she had recently disclosed that she was battling cancer.
For readers searching her name now, the reason is the loss itself and what it represents: Anthony was not just a columnist, but a barrier-breaker whose byline carried across newspapers and magazines for decades. Lisa Respers France summed up that reach in a tribute, saying she was deeply indebted to Anthony because she did more than cover gossip and was important to the culture.
Anthony’s weekly “Go With The Flo” column had appeared in The New York Amsterdam News since 2001, and her work also ran in the Philadelphia Sunday Sun and the Columbus Times. She contributed entertainment news to the New York Daily News, served as publisher and editor-in-chief of Black Noir magazine, and was editor-in-chief of Black Elegance magazine. Her career also reached books and broadcast, making her a familiar figure to readers who followed Black celebrity journalism across different forms.
Her rise was unusual even before she became widely known. Anthony was first a publicist, then a columnist and media personality, and her work with Tobe Gibson expanded into publicity, sportswriting, and an agate clerk position in the New York Post’s sports department. From there she made history as the first woman to work in the paper’s sports department, the first African American in its entertainment and Page Six departments, and the first African American woman to write a column for a supermarket tabloid. She also wrote “Eye on the Stars” for the National Examiner.
That path is what made her hard to categorize and harder to replace. She came to New York with dreams of becoming an actress, graduated from Howard University, and also worked as a teacher before turning her attention fully to media. The story of Anthony is not that she fit one lane; it is that she kept breaking into new ones, even in an industry where Black women were rarely handed a first turn.
There is still one detail left unanswered in the public account of her illness: the specific cancer she was fighting has not been disclosed. What is clear is that Anthony knew her own time was short, and the people who followed her work are now left with the measure of it — a trail of firsts, a long run of columns, and a career that changed who could claim space in American celebrity journalism.
