Monday, April 16, 2012

Dora Saint aka Miss Read

Novelist -- via the New York Times.


Roger Caron

Bank robber, escape artist and writer -- via the Montreal Gazette.


Michael "Flathead" Blanchard

A colorful individual who penned his own obituary -- via the Denver Post.

Cosmas Desmond

Anti-apartheid activist -- via the Telegraph.

Jack Tramiel aka Jacek Trzmiel

Computer entrepreneur -- via the New York Times.

From the New York Times: the obit-writing process

A nice story from NYT public editor Arthur S. Brisbane on  the process and criteria of a New York Times obituary -- "Times obituaries go not to the conventionally virtuous but to the famous, the influential, the offbeat and to others whose lives, through writerly intervention, can be alchemized into newsprint literature."

Hal Chester aka Harold Ribotsky

Film producer and actor -- via the Telegraph. He started off as a Dead End Kid -- then moved into the (I'm not kidding) "Little Tough Guy" series. He later produced the Joe Palooka films for Monograph (he got the film rights to be the popular comic strip through his friendship with Palooka creator Ham Fisher). Still later, he went to England, producing two memorable films -- Jacques Tourneur's "Night of the Demon" and Robert Hamer's "School for Scoundrels."

Side notes: 1) Chester infamously contracted someone to create and film the "demon" of the title of Tourneur's film, earning the eternal hatred of the director. Tourneur, who had directed such horror classics as "Cat People" and "I Walked with a Zombie," prided himself on being able to create a superlative atmosphere of dread through suggestion. Chester, however, did not trust Tourneur and overrode him. Anyone who compares the film cuts with and without the "demon" will have to agree with the director.

2) Although Hamer takes the director's credit for "Scoundrels," Cyril Frankel really directed the picture -- as Hamer turned up drunk every morning to work until he was fired.










Val May

Theatre director -- via the Telegraph.


Katherine Russell Rich

Writer -- via the New York Times.

Kenneth Libo

Historian -- via the New York Times.


Reed Whittemore

Poet, editor, publisher, journalist, biographer and teacher -- via the New York Times.


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Gil Noble

Journalist -- via the New York Daily News.

Edmund Epstein

Scholar, editor and publisher -- via the New York Times. He most famously reprinted "Lord of the Flies," making it a popular success.


Jim Mansell

Educator and activist for the learning-disabled -- via the Guardian.

Gerald Estrin

Computer pioneer -- via the Jewish Daily Forward.

James S. Herr

Potato-chip maker -- via the Philadelphia Inquirer. They are delicious!


Tuesday, April 10, 2012