James Agee Photograph by Walker Evans, 1937. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-103100).
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Agee, James Rufus (1909-1955)
In
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Agee, James Rufus (1909-1955), writer
William Stott
Agee, James Rufus (27 November 1909–16 May 1955), writer, was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of Hugh James Agee, a construction company employee, and Laura Whitman Tyler. The father’s family were poorly educated mountain farmers, while the mother’s were solidly middle class. Agee was profoundly affected by his father’s death in a car accident in 1916. He idealized his absent father and struggled against his mother and her genteel and (he felt) cold values. “Agee’s mother wanted him to be clean, chaste, and sober,” the photographer ...
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Balderston, John Lloyd (1889-1954), dramatist and journalist
James Ross Moore
Balderston, John Lloyd (22 October 1889–08 March 1954), dramatist and journalist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Lloyd Balderston, a British doctor, and Mary Alsop, an American. He attended local Philadelphia schools. Early transatlantic travels prefigured his internationally varied career. In 1911 Balderston became the New York correspondent for the ...
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Connelly, Marc (1890-1980)
Maker: Carl Van Vechten
In
Marc Connelly Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1937. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-103960).
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Connelly, Marc (1890-1980), playwright, screenwriter, and journalist
Malcolm Goldstein
Connelly, Marc (13 December 1890–21 December 1980), playwright, screenwriter, and journalist, was born Marcus Cook Connelly in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, the son of Patrick Joseph Connelly and Mabel Fowler Cook. The elder Connelly, as a young man, had been an actor and the manager of a theatrical company. His wife, who had dared the wrath of her parents to elope with him, acted in his company. While they were on tour, their first child, a daughter, died of pneumonia. Believing that this melancholy event might not have occurred had they had a regular home life, they left the stage and settled in McKeesport, where the senior Connelly bought a hotel. Connelly’s first experience of theater came at age seven, when his parents took him to nearby Pittsburgh to see ...
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Crouse, Russel McKinley (20 February 1893–03 April 1966), journalist, playwright, and screenwriter
Robert Nelson
Crouse, Russel McKinley (20 February 1893–03 April 1966), journalist, playwright, and screenwriter, was born in Findlay, Ohio, the son of Hiram Powers Crouse, a newspaper editor and publisher, and Sarah Schumacher. Crouse was educated in public schools in Toledo, Ohio, and Enid, Oklahoma, and as a teenager he began working on his father’s newspaper, the ...
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Ebert, Roger (18 June 1942–04 April 2013)
Bruce J. Evensen
Ebert, Roger (18 June 1942–04 April 2013), film critic, journalist, and screenwriter, was born Roger Joseph Ebert in Urbana, Illinois, the only child of Walter H. Ebert, an electrician at the University of Illinois, and Annabel Stumm Ebert, a bookkeeper. His family was Roman Catholic. In grade school he wrote and mimeographed the ...
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Kober, Arthur (1900-1975), author and journalist
L. Moody Simms
Kober, Arthur (25 August 1900–12 June 1975), author and journalist, was born in Brody, Austria-Hungary, a center of Yiddish culture, the son of Adolph Mayer, a bushelman, and Tillie Ballison. The family came to the United States in 1904, settling first in Harlem, a part of New York City then populated by many Jewish immigrants, and moving soon thereafter to the Bronx. Kober left the High School of Commerce after only one semester, which caused him to comment later, “That’s why I write in the first person and don’t worry about grammar.” He went to work at fourteen as a stock clerk for Gimbel’s department store. Between 1915 and 1922 one odd job followed another. He became a stenographer for the Maxwell Automobile Company, then for the author Grenville Kleiser. He also sailed as a bellboy on a ship bound from New York to San Francisco via the Panama Canal....
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MacArthur, Charles Gordon (05 November 1895–21 April 1956), playwright, screenwriter, and journalist
Malcolm Goldstein
MacArthur, Charles Gordon (05 November 1895–21 April 1956), playwright, screenwriter, and journalist, was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of William Telfer MacArthur, an evangelical preacher, and Georgeanna Welstead. When MacArthur was in his teens the family settled in Nyack, New York. There his father enrolled him in Wilson Memorial Academy, a school that prepared its students for the ministry. The young man’s talents lay elsewhere, however. Persuaded by one of his teachers to enter a literary contest at the school, he discovered that he had a flair for writing. That was to be his life’s work....
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St. Johns, Adela Rogers (20 May 1894–10 August 1988), journalist, author, and screenwriter
Barbara Loomis
St. Johns, Adela Rogers (20 May 1894–10 August 1988), journalist, author, and screenwriter, was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Earl Rogers, a noted criminal defense lawyer, and Harriet Belle Greene. From an early age, Earl Rogers exerted an important influence on his daughter’s life. After her parents’ divorce, when Adela was eight, the young girl chose to remain with him. She later described their life together and her father’s courtroom triumphs in her adoring biography, ...
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Thurman, Wallace (1902-1934), Harlem Renaissance writer and editor
Michael Maiwald
Thurman, Wallace (16 August 1902–21 December 1934), Harlem Renaissance writer and editor, was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of Oscar Thurman and Beulah Jackson. His father left the family while Wallace was young, and his mother remarried several times, possibly contributing to his lifelong feelings of insecurity. Thurman’s lifetime struggle with ill health began as a child, and his fragile constitution and nervous disposition led him to become a voracious reader with literary aspirations. Thurman entered the University of Utah in 1919, but he quickly transferred to the University of Southern California, where he studied for entrance into medical school until 1923. After leaving college, Thurman worked in a post office to support himself while he wrote a column for a black newspaper and edited ...
