 | |
| Author | A. Scott Berg |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Biography |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Putnam Publishing Group |
Publication date | September 21, 1998 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 640 |
| ISBN | 978-0399144493 |
| Preceded by | Goldwyn: A Biography |
| Followed by | Kate Remembered |
Lindbergh is a 1998 biography of Charles Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg. The book became a New York Times Best Seller [1] and received the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography.
"I felt it was one of the great untold stories of the 20th century..." - A. Scott Berg [2]
Once he had completed his second book, Goldwyn: A Biography (about film producer Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.) in 1989, Berg began the search for his next subject. He wanted it to be "another great American cultural figure but—because I had written about Perkins [lower-alpha 1] and Goldwyn—not somebody from the worlds of publishing or film". [3] After briefly considering Tennessee Williams, Berg chose the aviator Charles Lindbergh, attracted by what he described as "the dramatic possibilities of the story of the great hero who became a great victim and a great villain". [3] "Charles Lindbergh is a window onto the whole world -- a great lens for observing the American century," Berg elaborated. [4]
When asked about previous biographies of Lindbergh, Berg noted "The problem is most of what has been written about him is wrong or misleading." [5]
Berg had been interested earlier by the idea of writing a book on the life of Lindbergh but "had scratched Lindbergh off my list" when he heard that Lindbergh's papers were locked up and inaccessible. [5] A few years later he was approached by Phyllis E. Grann, who ran Putnam at the time, about a biography of Lindbergh. Berg told her "I'd love to write it, but it can't be done. The papers are locked up. Mrs. Lindbergh is locked up. The children are locked up." [5] Grann suggested he pursue the subject anyway, although she told him "You will never get to Mrs. Lindbergh." [6] Berg took this as a challenge and spent the next nine months trying to get in touch with her. [6] Berg's friend Katharine Hepburn offered to write Mrs. Lindbergh a letter, even though the two women did not know each other. [5] Not long after, Berg heard from Mrs. Lindbergh. [5]
Berg convinced Lindbergh's widow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who considered him "trustworthy," [7] to grant him unprecedented access to the man's archives, which he was surprised to find totaled "1,300 boxes, or several million papers". [8] In addition to his research in the archives, Berg also spoke with Mrs. Lindbergh, their five children and Lindbergh family friends. [2] "You can't write about Charles without writing about me," the widow told Berg, [4] allowing him access to her memoirs and diaries. [9]
"The good news is that Lindbergh saved everything; the bad news is that Lindbergh saved everything." - A. Scott Berg [10]
Berg found Lindbergh's papers "in a miraculous order." [4] Lindbergh retained copies of all his correspondence, including carbon copies of all letters and notes he wrote. Amongst the archives Berg found the tie Lindbergh wore on his famous flight. [6] Lindbergh annotated books that had been written about him, leaving abundant notes for future biographers. [4] Berg found detailed lists of "errors and corrections" to these books, some running up to 75 pages in length. [4] These qualifications were sometimes "less than flattering to him, but they were always the truth. It was done with a cold, objective sense of himself," Berg told Vanity Fair . [4] It took the author two years to go through the voluminous archives. [6]
Berg officially started the process Spring of 1990, with Mrs. Lindbergh's authorization in place, although he had done basic research over the previous six months. [4] Putnam, Berg's publisher, was rumored to have paid the author a seven-figure advance in 1990 to allow him to write the book. [11] With the advance in hand, the author spent four years researching his subject and another four years writing. [12]
When the author told his grandmother that he was writing a biography of Lindbergh, she said "What do you want to write about him for? He was quite awful about the Jews." [13]
During an interview not long after the release of the book, Charlie Rose recalled asking Berg nine years earlier "What's next?" Berg asked him to "think about who is the one person that hasn't been written about in a way that there's a giant great biography." When Rose could not think of a subject, Berg said "Lindbergh," and Rose replied "Absolutely right; he is one person I want to know a lot more about." [14]
The previously unpublished photo of Lindbergh, taken a matter of days before his transatlantic flight, was found at the publishing deadline amongst hundreds of photos from the Lindbergh archives. [5] Of the approximately 90 photos in the book, Berg estimates at least 40 were never before published. [5]
The biography was highly anticipated; prior to its publication the book's film rights were bought, sight unseen, by Steven Spielberg, who planned to direct a movie of it. [15] Published in 1998, Lindbergh sold about 250,000 copies in hardcover [16] and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
Berg was noted for his exhaustive research, [15] as well as his sympathetic, but by no means uncritical, approach to Lindbergh, whose alleged anti-Semitism he addressed "in a straightforward, unblinking manner," [17] although some [18] [19] [20] [21] criticized Berg's reluctance to deal more strongly with it. The author did bring to light the alteration of Lindbergh's "supposedly candid World War II era diaries," reporting that the diaries published in 1970 had anti-Semitic entries omitted. [22] Berg writes: "The bulk of the omissions centered on one subject: the Jews." [23] An example of the quotes omitted from the diaries but included in Lindbergh: "A few Jews add strength and character to a country, but too many create chaos and we are getting too many." [5]
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928), the songs "Swanee" (1919) and "Fascinating Rhythm" (1924), the jazz standards "Embraceable You" (1928) and "I Got Rhythm" (1930), and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935), which included the hit "Summertime".
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator and military officer. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles (5,800 km), flying alone for 33.5 hours. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was designed and built to compete for the $25,000 Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities. Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the longest at the time by nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) and the first solo transatlantic flight. It became known as one of the most consequential flights in history and ushered in a new era of air transportation between parts of the globe.
Philip Milton Roth was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "sensual, ingenious style" and for its provocative explorations of American identity. He first gained attention with the 1959 short story collection Goodbye, Columbus, which won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Ten years later, he published the bestseller Portnoy's Complaint. Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's literary alter ego, narrates several of his books. A fictionalized Philip Roth narrates some of his others, such as the alternate history The Plot Against America.
Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh was an American writer and aviatrix. She was the wife of decorated pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, with whom she made many exploratory flights.
Zelda Fitzgerald was an American novelist, painter, and socialite. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, to a wealthy Southern family, she became locally famous for her beauty and high spirits. In 1920, she married writer F. Scott Fitzgerald after the popular success of his debut novel, This Side of Paradise. The novel catapulted the young couple into the public eye, and she became known in the national press as the first American flapper. Because of their wild antics and incessant partying, she and her husband became regarded in the newspapers as the enfants terribles of the Jazz Age. Alleged infidelity and bitter recriminations soon undermined their marriage. After Zelda traveled abroad to Europe, her mental health deteriorated, and she had suicidal and homicidal tendencies, which required psychiatric care. Her doctors diagnosed her with schizophrenia, although later posthumous diagnoses posit bipolar disorder.
William Maxwell Evarts "Max" Perkins was an American book editor, best remembered for discovering authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Thomas Wolfe.
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife, aviatrix and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was murdered after being abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road.
Samuel Goldwyn, also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer and pioneer in the American film industry, who produced Hollywood's first major motion picture. He was best known for being the founding contributor and executive of several motion picture studios in Hollywood. He was awarded the 1973 Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1947) and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1958).
Gertrude Berg was an American actress, screenwriter, and producer. A pioneer of classic radio, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce, and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs (1929), later known as The Goldbergs. Her career achievements included winning a Tony Award and an Emmy Award, both for Best Lead Actress.
Sidney Coe Howard was an American playwright, dramatist and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925 and a posthumous Academy Award in 1940 for the screenplay for Gone with the Wind.
Dwight Whitney Morrow was an American businessman, diplomat, and politician, best known as the U.S. ambassador who improved U.S.–Mexico relations, mediating the religious conflict in Mexico known as the Cristero rebellion (1926–29), but also contributing to an easing of conflict between the two countries over oil. The Morrow Mission to Mexico was an "important step in the 'retreat from imperialism.' " He was the father of Anne Morrow and father-in-law of Charles A. Lindbergh.
The Spirit of St. Louis is an autobiographical account by Charles Lindbergh about the events leading up to and including his 1927 solo trans-Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis, a custom-built, single engine, single-seat monoplane. The book was published on September 14, 1953, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
Come and Get It is a 1936 American lumberjack drama film directed by Howard Hawks and William Wyler. The screenplay by Jane Murfin and Jules Furthman is based on the 1935 novel of the same title by Edna Ferber.
G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group.
Andrew Scott Berg is an American biographer. After graduating from Princeton University in 1971, Berg expanded his senior thesis on editor Maxwell Perkins into a full-length biography, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978), which won a National Book Award. His second book Goldwyn: A Biography was published in 1989.
The Reader is a 2008 romantic drama film directed by Stephen Daldry, written by David Hare on the basis of the 1995 novel by Bernhard Schlink, and starring Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Bruno Ganz and Karoline Herfurth.
The Wedding Night is a 1935 American romantic tragedy film directed by King Vidor and starring Gary Cooper and Anna Sten. Written by Edith Fitzgerald and based on a story by Edwin H. Knopf, the film is about a financially strapped novelist who returns to his country home in Connecticut looking for inspiration for his next novel and becomes involved with a beautiful young Polish woman and her family.
Jon Morrow Lindbergh was an American underwater diver. He worked as a United States Navy demolition expert and as a commercial diver, and was one of the world's earliest aquanauts in the 1960s. He was also a pioneer in cave diving, and one of the children of aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Wilson is a 2013 biography of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg. The book is a New York Times Best Seller.
The Des Moines speech, formally titled "Who Are the War Agitators?", was an isolationist and antisemitic speech that American aviator Charles Lindbergh delivered at a 1941 America First Committee rally held in Des Moines, Iowa. In the speech, Lindbergh argued that participation in World War II was not in the United States' interest, and he accused three groups of trying to push the country toward war: British people, who, he said, propagandized the United States; Jewish people, whom Lindbergh accused of exercising outsized influence and of controlling the news media; and the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, he said, wanted to use a war to consolidate power. Called Lindbergh's "most controversial public speech", his use of antisemitic tropes and his monolithic characterization of American Jews as war-agitating outsiders prompted a nationwide backlash against him and America First that the organization "never recovered from".
{{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)