Annalee Whitmore Fadiman (May 27, 1916 - February 5, 2002) was a scriptwriter for

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

, and World War II

foreign correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...

for ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' and ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazines. She was the co-author with Theodore H. White of ''

Thunder Out of China Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. Depending upon the distance from and nature of the lightning, it can range from a long, low rumble to a sudden, loud crack. The sudden increase in temperature and hence pressure caused by the lightning pr ...

,'' a book on the Chinese civil war.

Early life

Fadiman was born in Price, Utah, the daughter of bank president Leland Whitmore and Anne Sharp Whitmore, who later became a librarian at

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

. Fadiman graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1937. She was the first woman to be managing editor of the ''

Stanford Daily ''The Stanford Daily'' is the student-run, independent daily newspaper serving Stanford University. ''The Daily'' is distributed throughout campus and the surrounding community of Palo Alto, California, United States. It has published since the U ...

'' newspaper. She moved from San Francisco, where she briefly worked at the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, to Los Angeles taking a secretarial pool job at MGM. She wrote several screen treatments including ''

Andy Hardy Meets Debutante ''Andy Hardy Meets Debutante '' is a 1940 American romantic comedy film directed by George B. Seitz. The film stars Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden and Judy Garland. It is the ninth of the ''Andy Hardy'' full-length film ...

'' (1940) and a screen adaptation for ''

Tish ''TISH'' was a Canadian poetry newsletter founded by student-poets at the University of British Columbia in 1961. The publication was edited by a number of Vancouver poets until 1969. The newsletter's poetics were built on those of writers associa ...

.''

Career

MGM offered her a contract but once the war began, Fadiman found "the prospect of seven years of Hollywood fluff when the real world was falling apart unendurable," and she tried to become a war correspondent but the War Department didn't allow female correspondents. She became a publicity manager for an aid organization called United China Relief and wrote speeches for Madame Chiang Kai-shek. During her marriage to correspondent Melville Jacoby, Fadiman survived a month-long escape from the Philippines, and did six weeks of reporting from the front lines of

Bataan Bataan (), officially the Province of Bataan ( fil, Lalawigan ng Bataan ), is a province in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines. Its capital is the city of Balanga while Mariveles is the largest town in the province. Occupying the entir ...

and

Corregidor Corregidor ( tl, Pulo ng Corregidor, ) is an island located at the entrance of Manila Bay in the southwestern part of Luzon in the Philippines, and is considered part of the Province of Cavite. Due to this location, Corregidor has historically b ...

. Their writings were used nearly unedited, by

John Hersey John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to n ...

, in his best-seller ''Men on Bataan.'' After the death of her husband, she continued to pursue war writing. Theodore H. White persuaded Time Magazine's

Henry Luce Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967) was an American magazine magnate who founded ''Time'', ''Life'', ''Fortune'', and ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine. He has been called "the most influential private citizen in the America ...

to petition the War Department for credentials for Fadiman. She became the only female correspondent reporting from Chungking. She collaborated with White on the best-selling book ''Thunder Out of China,'' about China's role in the war which contained portions of their published dispatches from Time. After the war, Fadiman wrote, lectured, and participated in the radio quiz show ''

Information Please ''Information Please'' is an American radio quiz show, created by Dan Golenpaul, which aired on NBC from May 17, 1938, to April 22, 1951. The title was the contemporary phrase used to request from telephone operators what was then called "inform ...

.''

Personal life

She was married to Melville Jacoby on November 24, 1941 in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

. He was killed in an airfield accident in Darwin in 1942 after the couple had moved to Brisbane. She married Clifton Fadiman in 1950. The couple had two children, Kim Fadiman and

Anne Fadiman Anne Fadiman (born August 7, 1953) is an American essayist and reporter. Her interests include literary journalism, essays, memoir, and autobiography. She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for ...

. Fadiman lived on Captiva Island, Florida and was a member of the

Hemlock Society The Hemlock Society (sometimes called Hemlock Society USA) was an American right-to-die and assisted suicide advocacy organization which existed from 1980 to 2003. It was co-founded in Santa Monica, California by British author and activi ...

. She took her own life in 2002 after living with

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...

and

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fadiman, Annalee Whitmore 1916 births 2002 deaths American women journalists Women in World War II 20th-century American women 20th-century American people Stanford University alumni