John Henry O'Hara (January 31, 1905 – April 11, 1970) was one of America's most prolific writers of
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
, credited with helping to invent ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' magazine short story style.
[John O'Hara: Stories, Charles McGrath, ed., The Library of America, 2016.] He became a best-selling novelist before the age of 30 with ''
Appointment in Samarra
''Appointment in Samarra'', published in 1934, is the first novel by American writer John O'Hara (1905–1970). It concerns the self-destruction of the fictional character Julian English, a wealthy car dealer who was once a member of the socia ...
'' and ''
BUtterfield 8
''BUtterfield 8'' is a 1960 American drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor won her first Academy Award for her performance in a leading role. The film was based on a 1935 novel of the same nam ...
''. While O'Hara's legacy as a writer is debated, his champions rank him highly among the under-appreciated and unjustly neglected major American writers of the 20th century. Few college students educated after O'Hara's death in 1970 have discovered him, chiefly because he refused to allow his work to be reprinted in anthologies used to teach literature at the college level.
"O’Hara may not have been the best story writer of the twentieth century, but he is the most addictive," wrote
Lorin Stein
Lorin Hollister Stein (born April 22, 1973) is an American critic, editor, and translator. He was the editor in chief of ''The Paris Review''Dave Itzkoff (March 5, 2010)"Paris Review Names New Editor" ArtsBeat, ''The New York Times''. but resign ...
, then editor-in-chief of the ''
Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'', in a 2013 appreciation of O'Hara's work. Stein added, "You can binge on his collections the way some people binge on ''
Mad Men
''Mad Men'' is an American period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on the cable network AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, lasting for seven seasons and 92 episodes. Its fict ...
'', and for some of the same reasons. On the topics of class, sex, and alcohol—that is, the topics that mattered to him—his novels amount to a secret history of American life." His work stands out from that of his contemporary authors for its unvarnished
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
.
O'Hara achieved substantial commercial success in the years after World War II, when his fiction repeatedly appeared in
Publishers Weekly's annual list of the top ten best-selling fiction works in the United States. These best sellers included ''A Rage to Live'' (1949), ''Ten North Frederick'' (1955), ''From the Terrace'' (1959), ''Ourselves to Know'' (1960), ''Sermons and Soda Water'' (1960) and ''Elizabeth Appleton'' (1963). Five of his works were adapted into popular films in the 1950s and 1960s.
Despite the popularity of these books, O'Hara accumulated detractors due to his outsized and easily bruised ego, alcoholic irascibility, long-held resentments and politically conservative views that were unfashionable in literary circles in the 1960s.
[Introduction by Philip B. Eppard, Critical Essays on John O'Hara, Philip B. Eppard, ed., G. K. Hall & Co., 1994.] After O'Hara's death,
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...
, a fan of O'Hara's writing, said that the prolific author "out-produced our capacity for appreciation; maybe now we can settle down and marvel at him all over again."
Early life and education
O'Hara was born in
Pottsville, Pennsylvania
Pottsville is the county seat of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 13,346 at the 2020 census, and is the principal city of the Pottsville, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area. The city lies along the west bank of th ...
to an affluent Irish-American family. Though his family lived among the gentry of eastern Pennsylvania during his childhood, O'Hara's Irish-Catholic background gave him the perspective of an outsider on the inside of
WASP
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...
society, a theme he returned to in his writing again and again. He attended the
secondary school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...
Niagara Prep in
Lewiston, New York
Lewiston is a town in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 15,944 at the 2020 census. The town and its contained village are named after Morgan Lewis, a governor of New York.
The Town of Lewiston is on the western bord ...
, where he was named Class Poet for Class of 1924. His father died about that time, leaving him unable to afford to attend
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
, the college of his dreams. By all accounts, this fall in social status from a privileged life of a well-heeled doctor's family (including club memberships, riding and dance lessons, fancy cars in the barn, domestic servants in the house) to overnight insolvency afflicted O'Hara with status anxiety for the rest of his life, honing the cutting social class awareness that characterizes his work.
Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill (October 4, 1914 – December 27, 1997) was an American journalist. He wrote for ''The New Yorker'' for more than 60 years. Gill also contributed film criticism for ''Film Comment'', wrote about design and architecture for Architectu ...
, who worked with O'Hara at ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', claimed that O'Hara was nearly obsessed with a sense of social inferiority due to not having attended Yale. "People used to make fun of the fact that O'Hara wanted so desperately to have gone to Yale, but it was never a joke to O'Hara. It seemed... that there wasn't anything he didn't know about it in regard to college and prep-school matters." Hemingway once said someone should "start a bloody fund to send up a collection to send John O'Hara to Yale."
As his literary acclaim grew, O'Hara yearned for an honorary degree from Yale, so much so that he even asked the university for it. According to Gill, Yale was unwilling to award the honor because O'Hara "asked for it."
Career and reputation
Initially, O'Hara worked as a reporter for various newspapers. Moving to New York City, he began to write short stories for magazines. During the early part of his career, he was also a film critic, a radio commentator and a press agent. In 1934, O'Hara published his first novel, ''
Appointment in Samarra
''Appointment in Samarra'', published in 1934, is the first novel by American writer John O'Hara (1905–1970). It concerns the self-destruction of the fictional character Julian English, a wealthy car dealer who was once a member of the socia ...
''. Endorsing the novel,
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
wrote: "If you want to read a book by a man who knows exactly what he is writing about and has written it marvelously well, read ''Appointment in Samarra.''" O'Hara followed ''Samarra'' with ''
BUtterfield 8
''BUtterfield 8'' is a 1960 American drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor won her first Academy Award for her performance in a leading role. The film was based on a 1935 novel of the same nam ...
,'' his
roman à clef
''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship ...
based upon the tragic, short life of flapper
Starr Faithfull
Starr may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Starr (surname), a list of people and fictional characters
* Starr (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
Places
United States
* Starr, Ohio, an unincorporated commu ...
, whose mysterious death in 1931 became a tabloid sensation. Over four decades, O'Hara published novels, novellas, plays, screenplays and more than 400 short stories, the majority of them in ''The New Yorker''. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he was a correspondent in the
Pacific theater
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. After the war, he wrote screenplays and more novels, including ''
Ten North Frederick
''Ten North Frederick'' is a novel by John O'Hara, published by Random House in 1955. It tells the story of Joseph Chapin, an ambitious man who desires to become president of the United States, and his relationships with his patrician wife, two ...
'', for which he won the 1956
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
[ and '']From the Terrace
''From the Terrace'' is a 1960 American DeLuxe Color romantic drama film in CinemaScope directed by Mark Robson from a screenplay by Ernest Lehman, based on the 1958 novel of the same name by John O'Hara. The film stars Paul Newman, Joanne Wood ...
'' (1958), which he considered his "greatest achievement as a novelist." Late in life, with his reputation established, he became a newspaper columnist. In his last decade, O'Hara created "a body of work of magnificent dimensions," wrote the novelist George V. Higgins
George V. Higgins (November 13, 1939 – November 6, 1999) was an American author, lawyer, newspaper columnist, raconteur and college professor. He authored more than thirty books, including ''Bomber's Law,'' ''Trust,'' and ''Kennedy for the De ...
, whose own trademark dialogue was influenced heavily by O'Hara's style. "Between 1960 and 1968," Higgins noted, O'Hara "published six novels, seven collections of short fiction, and some 137 terse and extended stories that all by themselves would supply credentials for a towering reputation in the world of perfect justice that he never did quite find."
Many of O'Hara's stories (and his later novels written in the 1950s) are set in Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, a barely fictionalized version of his home town of Pottsville, a small city in the anthracite region of the northeastern United States. He named Gibbsville for his friend and frequent editor at ''The New Yorker'' Wolcott Gibbs
Wolcott Gibbs (March 15, 1902 – August 16, 1958) was an American editor, humorist, theatre critic, playwright and writer of short stories, who worked for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1927 until his death. He is notable for his 1936 parody o ...
. Most of his other stories were set in New York or Hollywood.
O'Hara's short stories earned him his highest critical acclaim. He contributed more of them to ''The New Yorker'' than any other writer. He published seven volumes of stories in the final decade of his career while complaining that they took his time away from writing novels. "I had an apparently inexhaustible urge to express an unlimited supply of short story ideas. No writing has ever come more easily to me," he claimed. In the Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rangi ...
's collection of 60 of O'Hara's best stories, editor Charles McGrath praises them for their "sketchlike lightness and brevity... in which nothing necessarily 'happens' in the old-fashioned sense, but in which some crucial loss or discovery is revealed just by implication... a sense of speed and economy is just what makes the best of these stories so thrilling." Gill, who worked with O'Hara at ''The New Yorker'', ranks him "among the greatest short-story writers in English, or in any other language" and credits him with helping "to invent what the world came to call ''The New Yorker'' short story." In the foreword to a collection published four years before his death, O'Hara declared, "No one writes them any better than I do." Two more volumes of his stories were published soon after his death.
Despite his popular success as a best-selling author, most of O'Hara's longer work is not held in as high regard by the literary establishment. Critic Benjamin Schwarz
Benjamin Schwarz (born 10 July 1986) is a German footballer who most recently played for Preußen Münster, as a left back.
Career
Born in Munich, Schwarz began his career 1991 with SV Ludwigsvorstadt and played here four years before signed fo ...
and writer Christina Schwarz claimed: "So widespread is the literary world's scorn for John O'Hara that the inclusion of ''Appointment in Samarra'' on the Modern Library
The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became an ...
's list of the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century was used to ridicule the entire project." The endings of some of O'Hara's novels and stories are clumsy, hasty conclusions. Some of the criticism of O'Hara's writing is attributed to dislike of O'Hara personally because of his abrasive ego and lack of humility in dealing with others, his vigorous self-promotion, his obsession with his social status, and the politically conservative columns he wrote late in his career. Early and mid 20th century critics also disparaged his novels for their blunt and non-judgmental depictions of loose women and homosexuals, yet critics writing after the sexual revolution
The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
see in O'Hara a pioneer in depicting female sexuality in frank, realistic ways. His most biting critics regard his novels to be shallow and overly concerned with sexual desire, drinking and surface details at the expense of deeper meaning. Many leading characters in O'Hara's novels are alcoholics who live as emotional zombies, anesthetized by drinking and unable to ponder the human heart in conflict with itself. As his contemporary William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...
said of such writers in his Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
address of 1949, "He writes not of the heart but of the glands."
In 1949, O'Hara left ''The New Yorker'' bitterly, after his colleague Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill (October 4, 1914 – December 27, 1997) was an American journalist. He wrote for ''The New Yorker'' for more than 60 years. Gill also contributed film criticism for ''Film Comment'', wrote about design and architecture for Architectu ...
shocked literary circles with a brutally devastating review in ''The New Yorker'' of O'Hara's long novel ''A Rage to Live''. Gill disparaged O'Hara's book as "a formula family novel" turned out by "writers of the third and fourth magnitude in such disheartening abundance" and declared it "a catastrophe" by an author who "plainly intended to write nothing less than a great American novel." Literary critics called Gill's review a "savage attack" and a "cruel hatchet job" on one of ''The New Yorker''s most popular writers. "During the preceding two decades O'Hara had been ''The New Yorker'''s most prolific contributor of stories" (no fewer than 197 by one count). After the magazine published Gill's review, O'Hara quit writing for ''The New Yorker'' for more than a decade, and when readers complained to Gill for driving O'Hara away, Gill deflected blame onto another ''New Yorker'' contributor, James Thurber
James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected in ...
, for stirring up animosity. O'Hara would not resume writing for ''The New Yorker'' until the 1960s, upon the arrival of a new editor who sought out O'Hara with an olive branch. Nearly 50 years after the scandalous review, at a forum on O'Hara's legacy held in 1996, Gill stood up in the crowd to explain his attack on O'Hara, rationalizing his actions by pleading, "I had to tell the truth about the novel."
O'Hara's legacy has many literary heavyweight admirers, including authors Updike and Shelby Foote
Shelby Dade Foote Jr. (November 17, 1916 – June 27, 2005) was an American writer, historian and journalist. Although he primarily viewed himself as a novelist, he is now best known for his authorship of '' The Civil War: A Narrative'', a three ...
. Fans admire O'Hara for his deft ability to depict realistic dialogue, his mastery of the telling detail and his sharp eye for the way humans communicate in nonverbal ways—from subtle glances to telling gestures. McGrath, a former fiction editor of ''The New Yorker'' and former editor of ''The New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'', has called O'Hara "one of the great listeners of American fiction, able to write dialogue that sounded the way people really talk, and he also learned the eavesdropper's secret—how often people leave unsaid what is really on their minds.". O'Hara said he learned from reading Ring Lardner
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (March 6, 1885 – September 25, 1933) was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical writings on sports, marriage, and the theatre. His contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Wo ...
"that if you wrote down speech as it is spoken truly, you produce true characters," and added, "Sometimes I almost feel that I ought to apologize for having the ability to write good dialogue, and yet it's the attribute most lacking in American writers and almost totally lacking in the British."
According to biographer Frank MacShane, O'Hara thought that Hemingway's death made O'Hara the leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
. O'Hara wrote to his daughter "I really think I will get it," and "I want the Nobel prize... so bad I can taste it." MacShane says that T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...
told O'Hara that he had, in fact, been nominated twice. When John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...
won the prize in 1962, O'Hara wired, "Congratulations, I can think of only one other author I'd rather see get it." In a letter to Steinbeck two years before that, O'Hara placed himself with Steinbeck in the pantheon of great 20th century American writers, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, singling out Faulkner among them as "the one, the genius."
Death
O'Hara died from cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, h ...
in Princeton, New Jersey, and is interred in the Princeton Cemetery
Princeton Cemetery is located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. It is owned by the Nassau Presbyterian Church. John F. Hageman in his 1878 history of Princeton, New Jersey refers to the cemetery as "The Westminster Abbey of the United State ...
. A comment he made about himself and which was chosen by his wife for his epitaph
An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...
reads: "Better than anyone else, he told the truth about his time. He was a professional. He wrote honestly and well." Of this, Gill commented: "From the far side of the grave, he remains self-defensive and overbearing. Better than anyone else? Not merely better than any other writer of fiction but better than any dramatist, any poet, any biographer, any historian? It is an astonishing claim."
After his death, O'Hara's study and its contents were reconstructed in 1974 for display at Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...
, where his papers are held. His childhood home, the John O'Hara House in Pottsville, was added to the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1978.
Adaptations
O'Hara's epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered ...
'' Pal Joey'' (1940) led to the successful Broadway musical, with libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...
by O'Hara and songs by Rodgers and Hart
Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership between composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and the lyricist Lorenz Hart (1895–1943). They worked together on 28 stage musicals and more than 500 songs from 1919 until Hart ...
. In 1957, '' Pal Joey'' was made into a musical film starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, and Barbara Nichols.
''From the Terrace
''From the Terrace'' is a 1960 American DeLuxe Color romantic drama film in CinemaScope directed by Mark Robson from a screenplay by Ernest Lehman, based on the 1958 novel of the same name by John O'Hara. The film stars Paul Newman, Joanne Wood ...
'' is a 1960 film adapted from O'Hara's 1958 novel of the same title. The film starred Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three ...
as disenchanted Alfred Eaton, son of a wealthy but indifferent father and alcoholic mother as well as Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress. A star since the Golden Age of Hollywood, Woodward made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a charact ...
as his socially ambitious, self-pitying and unfaithful wife Mary St. John.
Also in 1960, O'Hara's best-selling 1935 novel ''BUtterfield 8'' was released as a film with the same name. Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...
won the Academy Award for Best Actress
The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. ...
for her portrayal of Gloria Wandrous. Of the film version, Taylor famously said, "I think it stinks."
''Ten North Frederick
''Ten North Frederick'' is a novel by John O'Hara, published by Random House in 1955. It tells the story of Joseph Chapin, an ambitious man who desires to become president of the United States, and his relationships with his patrician wife, two ...
'' is a 1958 film based on O'Hara's 1955 novel of the same title. Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, quiet screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, a ...
starred as Joe Chapin, with Diane Varsi
Diane Marie Antonia Varsi (February 23, 1938 – November 19, 1992) was an American film actressHyams, Joe (December 16, 1957)"In Hollywood: Diane Varsi Sees Herself as 'Just an Actor,' Not Star" ''New York Herald Tribune''. p. 15. Retri ...
, Suzy Parker
Suzy Parker (born Cecilia Ann Renee Parker; October 28, 1932 – May 3, 2003) was an American model and actress active from 1947 until 1970. Her modeling career reached its zenith during the 1950s, when she appeared on the covers of dozens of ma ...
and Geraldine Fitzgerald
Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald (November 24, 1913 – July 17, 2005) was an Irish actress and a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 2020, she was listed at number 30 on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Early li ...
in supporting roles. O'Hara called Cooper's performance "sensitive, understanding and true."[Meyers, Jeffrey (1998). ''Gary Cooper: American Hero'', p. 289. New York: HarperCollins. .]
''A Rage to Live
''A Rage to Live'' is a 1965 American drama film directed by Walter Grauman and starring Suzanne Pleshette as a woman whose passions wreak havoc on her life. The screenplay by John T. Kelley is based on the 1949 novel of the same name by John O' ...
'' is a 1965 film directed by Walter Grauman and starring Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette (January 31, 1937 – January 19, 2008) was an American theatre, film, television, and voice actress. Pleshette started her career in the theatre and began appearing in films in the late 1950s and later appeared in prominent ...
as Grace Caldwell Tate, a well-mannered, uppercrust beauty whose passions wreak havoc on multiple lives. The screenplay by John T. Kelley is based on O'Hara's best-selling 1949 novel of the same name.
O'Hara's short stories about Gibbsville were used as the basis for the 1975 NBC television movie '' John O'Hara's Gibbsville'' (also known as ''The Turning Point of Jim Malloy'') and for the short-lived 1976 NBC dramatic television series '' Gibbsville''.
In 1987, an adaptation of O'Hara's 1966 story "Natica Jackson," about a film actress in 1930s Hollywood, was produced for the PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
anthology series ''Great Performances
''Great Performances'' is a television anthology series dedicated to the performing arts; the banner has been used to televise theatrical performances such as plays, musicals, opera, ballet, concerts, as well as occasional documentaries. It is pr ...
''. It was directed by Paul Bogart
Paul Bogart (né Bogoff; November 13, 1919 – April 15, 2012) was an American television director and producer. Bogart directed episodes of the television series Way Out'' in 1961, ''Coronet Blue'' in 1967, ''Get Smart'', '' The Dumplings'' ...
and starred Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (; born April 29, 1958) is an American actress and producer. A prolific performer whose List of Michelle Pfeiffer performances, screen work spans over four decades, she became one of Hollywood's most bankable stars and ...
in the title role.
The television period drama series ''Mad Men
''Mad Men'' is an American period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on the cable network AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, lasting for seven seasons and 92 episodes. Its fict ...
'' which aired on cable channel AMC from 2007 to 2015 generated renewed popular interest in O'Hara's work for the window it opens on the same themes in mid-20th century American life.
Columns
In the early 1950s, O'Hara wrote a weekly book column, "Sweet and Sour" for the ''Trenton Times-Advertiser'' and a biweekly column, "Appointment with O'Hara", for ''Collier's
''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Collie ...
'' magazine. MacShane calls them "garrulous and outspoken" and says neither "added much of importance to O'Hara's work". Biographer Shelden Grebstein says that O'Hara in these columns was "simultaneously embarrassing and infuriating in his vaingloriousness, vindictiveness, and general bellicosity." Biographer Geoffrey Woolf says these earlier columns anticipated "his disastrous 'My Turn' in ''Newsday
''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'', which endured fifty-three weeks ... beginning in late 1964... of his dismissive and contemptuous worst".
His first ''Newsday'' column opened with the line, "Let's get off to a really bad start." His second complained, "the same hysteria that afflicted the Prohibitionists is now evident among the anti-cigarettists." His third column nominally supported the Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
*Republican Party (Liberia)
* Republican Part ...
nominee Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and United States Air Force officer who was a five-term U.S. Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for presiden ...
for U.S. president by identifying his cause with fans of the corny accordionist and band leader Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992) was an American accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted the ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' from 1951 to 1982. His style came to be known as "champagne music" to his radio, tele ...
. "I think it's time the Lawrence Welk people had their say," wrote O'Hara. "The Lester Lanin
Nathaniel Lester Lanin (August 26, 1907 – October 27, 2004) was an American jazz and pop music bandleader. He was famous for long, smoothly arranged medleys, at a consistent rhythm and tempo, which were designed for continuous dancing. Lani ...
and Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...
people have been on too long. When the country is in trouble, like war kind of trouble, man, it is the Lawrence Welk people who can be depended upon, all the way." In his fifth column, he argued that Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
should not have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
The syndicated column was not a success, published by a continuously decreasing number of newspapers, and did not endear him to the politically liberal New York literary establishment.
Several of his columns demonstrate his knowledge of trivia about and yearning for association with Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...
colleges. As he noted, "Through the years I have acquired a vast amount of information about colleges and universities." The May 8, 1965 column takes as its ostensible topic the fact that Yale owns stock in American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Cali ...
and thus is a beneficiary of the television program '' Peyton Place''. O'Hara writes:
Later, he notes that James Gould Cozzens
James Gould Cozzens (August 19, 1903 – August 9, 1978) was a Pulitzer prize-winning American writer whose work enjoyed an unusual degree of popular success and critical acclaim for more than three decades. His 1949 Pulitzer win was for the WWI ...
is a "genuine Harvard alumnus" and speculates that Harvard should broker a television serialization of a Cozzens novel:
His September 4, 1965 column deals entirely with his failure to have received any honorary degrees, going into detail about three honorary degrees he was actually offered but, for various reasons, did not accept. In the column, he lists the awards he has received:
He complains that the colleges write him "highly complimentary" letters asking him to perform "chores" such as officiating as writer-in-residence
Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...
, judging literary contests, and give lectures, yet do not give him degree citations. "The five major distinctions," he notes, "were awarded me by other writers, not by cademia"
The column closes with the comment:
Bibliography
Novels
* ''Appointment in Samarra
''Appointment in Samarra'', published in 1934, is the first novel by American writer John O'Hara (1905–1970). It concerns the self-destruction of the fictional character Julian English, a wealthy car dealer who was once a member of the socia ...
'' (1934)
* ''BUtterfield 8
''BUtterfield 8'' is a 1960 American drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor won her first Academy Award for her performance in a leading role. The film was based on a 1935 novel of the same nam ...
'' (1935)
* '' Hope of Heaven'' (1938)
* '' Pal Joey'' (1940)
* ''A Rage to Live
''A Rage to Live'' is a 1965 American drama film directed by Walter Grauman and starring Suzanne Pleshette as a woman whose passions wreak havoc on her life. The screenplay by John T. Kelley is based on the 1949 novel of the same name by John O' ...
'' (1949)
* ''The Farmers Hotel'' (1951) — adapted from O'Hara's original play
* ''Ten North Frederick
''Ten North Frederick'' is a novel by John O'Hara, published by Random House in 1955. It tells the story of Joseph Chapin, an ambitious man who desires to become president of the United States, and his relationships with his patrician wife, two ...
'' (1955) — winner of the National Book Award for Fiction
The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but ...
["National Book Awards – 1956"]
National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...
. Retrieved 2012-03-31. With essay by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.
* '' A Family Party'' (1956)
* ''From the Terrace'' (1958)
* '' Ourselves to Know'' (1960)
* '' The Big Laugh'' (1962)
* ''Elizabeth Appleton
''Elizabeth Appleton'' is a novel by John O'Hara written in 1960 and first published in 1963. The story is set mostly in Pennsylvania, and the time of the narrative stretches from the early 1930s to 1950. As in earlier novels, O'Hara minutely ...
'' (1963)
* ''The Lockwood Concern'' (1965)
* ''The Instrument'' (1967)
* ''Lovey Childs: A Philadelphian's Story'' (1969)
* ''The Ewings'' (1970)
* ''The Second Ewings'' (1972)
Short story collections
* ''The Doctor’s Son and Other Stories'' (1935)
* ''Files on Parade'' (1939)
* ''Pipe Night'' (1945)
* ''Hellbox'' (1947)
* ''Sermons and Soda Water: A Trilogy of Three Novellas'' (1960)
* ''Assembly'' (1961)
* ''The Cape Cod Lighter'' (1962)
* ''The Hat on the Bed'' (1963)
* ''The Horse Knows the Way'' (1964)
* ''Waiting for Winter'' (1966)
* ''And Other Stories'' (1968)
* ''The Time Element and Other Stories'' (1972)
* ''Good Samaritan and Other Stories'' (1974)
* ''Gibbsville, PA'' (Carroll & Graf, 1992, )
Screenplays
* '' He Married His Wife'' (1940)
* ''Moontide
''Moontide'' is a 1942 American romantic drama with elements of a thriller. It was produced by Mark Hellinger and directed by Archie Mayo, who took over direction after initial director Fritz Lang left the project early in the shooting schedule. ...
'' (1942)
Plays
* ''Five Plays'' (1961)
''(The Farmers Hotel'',
''The Searching Sun'',
''The Champagne Pool'',
''Veronique'',
''The Way It Was)''
* ''Two by O'Hara'' (1979)
''(The Man Who Could Not Lose'' creen treatmentand ''Far from Heaven'' lay
Lay may refer to:
Places
*Lay Range, a subrange of mountains in British Columbia, Canada
*Lay, Loire, a French commune
*Lay (river), France
*Lay, Iran, a village
*Lay, Kansas, United States, an unincorporated community
People
* Lay (surname)
* ...
Nonfiction
* ''Sweet and Sour'' (1954) Assorted columns on books and authors
* ''My Turn'' (1966). Fifty-three weekly columns written for ''Newsday
''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
''
* ''Letters'' (1978).
Other
''BUtterfield 8'', ''Pal Joey'' and ''The Doctor's Son and Other Stories'' were published as Armed Services Edition
Armed Services Editions (ASEs) were small paperback books of fiction and nonfiction that were distributed in the American military during World War II. From 1943 to 1947, some 122 million copies of more than 1,300 ASE titles were distributed to s ...
s during WWII.
References
Further reading
* Gill, Brendan. ''Here at The New Yorker
''Here at The New Yorker'' is a 1975 best-selling book by American writer Brendan Gill, writer and drama critic for ''The New Yorker'' magazine.
The book
Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of ''The New Yorker'', Gill's book i ...
''. Random House, 1975. Da Capo Press, 1997, . (O'Hara desperately wanting to attend Yale, p. 117. Failure to get honorary Yale degree, p. 268.)
* O'Hara, John (1966), ''My Turn: Fifty-three Pieces by John O'Hara'' (collected newspaper columns), Random House.
* Farr, Finis (1973): ''O'Hara: A Biography.'' Boston: Little Brown.
* Bruccoli, Matthew J. (1975): ''The O'Hara Concern: A Biography of John O'Hara.'' New York: Random House.
* MacShane, Frank (1980): ''The Life of John O'Hara.'' New York: Dutton.
* Woolf, Geoffrey (2003): ''The Art of Burning Bridges: A Life of John O'Hara.'' New York: Knopf.
The Western Canon
Appointment in Samarra
''Appointment in Samarra'', published in 1934, is the first novel by American writer John O'Hara (1905–1970). It concerns the self-destruction of the fictional character Julian English, a wealthy car dealer who was once a member of the socia ...
included by Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...
.
External links
Philly Burbs O'Hara's lost papers and reward
*
*
*
* John O'Hara Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ohara, John
1905 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American columnists
American male novelists
American male screenwriters
American male journalists
National Book Award winners
People from Pottsville, Pennsylvania
The New Yorker people
Niagara University alumni
Novelists from Pennsylvania
American male short story writers
American people of Irish descent
20th-century American short story writers
Journalists from Pennsylvania
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Screenwriters from Pennsylvania
Screenwriters from New York (state)
Burials at Princeton Cemetery
20th-century American screenwriters
20th-century American journalists
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters