Richard Bach | |
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Born | Richard David Bach June 23, 1936 Oak Park, Illinois. U.S. |
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | Long Beach State College |
Genre | Aviation, fantasy, philosophy |
Years active | 1963–present |
Spouse | Bette Jeanne Franks (m. 1957;div. 1970)Sabryna Nelson-Alexopoulos (m. 1999;div. 2011)Melinda Jane Kellogg (m. 2020) |
Children | 6, including James Marcus Bach |
Signature | |
Website | |
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Richard David Bach (born June 23, 1936) [1] is an American writer. He has written numerous flight-related works of fiction and non-fiction. His works include Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970) and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977), both of which were among the 1970s' biggest sellers.
Most of Bach's books have been semi-autobiographical, using actual or fictionalized events from his life to illustrate his philosophy. His books espouse his philosophy that our apparent physical limits and mortality are merely appearance. Bach is noted for his love of aviation and his books related to flying in a metaphorical context. He has flown as a hobby since the age of 17. In late August 2012, Bach was severely injured when on approach to landing at Friday Harbor, Washington, his aircraft clipped some power lines and crashed upside down in a field.
Bach was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Roland R. and Ruth Shaw Bach. His father was an American Red Cross chapter manager. [2] Bach attended Long Beach State College in 1955.
Bach's first airplane flight occurred at age 14, when his mother was campaigning for a seat on the council of Long Beach, California. Her campaign manager, Paul Marcus, mentioned that he flew airplanes and invited Richard on a flight in his Globe Swift. [3]
Bach served in the United States Navy Reserve, then in the New Jersey Air National Guard's 108th Fighter Wing, 141st Fighter Squadron (USAF), as a Republic F-84F Thunderstreak fighter pilot. He then worked at a variety of jobs, including as a technical writer for Douglas Aircraft and as a contributing editor for Flying magazine. He served in the USAF reserve and was deployed in France in 1960. He later became a barnstormer.
During the summer of 1970, Bach and his friend Chris Cagle traveled to Ireland, where they participated in flying sequences for Roger Corman's film Von Richthofen and Brown . They flew a variety of World War I aircraft of the Blue Max collection owned by ex-RCAF pilot Lynn Garrison. Bach and Garrison first met when Bach wrote articles for Avian, Garrison's aviation publication.
Most of Bach's books involve flight in some way, from the early stories which are purely about flying aircraft, to Stranger to the Ground, his first book, to his later works, in which he used flight as a philosophical metaphor.
Bach's first book, the autobiographical Stranger to the Ground (1963) described his Air National Guard unit's deployment to France. It was received favorably by Edmund Fuller in The Wall Street Journal .
1970's Jonathan Livingston Seagull , a story about a seagull who flew for the love and passion of flying rather than merely to catch food, was released by Macmillan Publishers after the manuscript was turned down by several others. It had first been published in Soaring, the magazine of the Soaring Society of America. The book, which included photos of seagulls in flight by photographer Russell Munson, became a number-one bestseller. Containing fewer than 10,000 words, the book sold more than one million copies in 1972 alone. [4] The surprising success of the book was widely reported in the media in the early 1970s. [5]
In 1973, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was adapted into a film of the same name, produced by Paramount Pictures Corporation, with a soundtrack by Neil Diamond. Bach then filed a lawsuit against producer/director Hall Bartlett, alleging that Bartlett had destroyed Bach's screenplay for the film and that Bartlett had violated a clause in Bach's contract which stated that the film could not be released in theaters without Bach's approval. [6] Associate producer Leslie Parrish was appointed to be a mediator between Bach and Bartlett, but the mediation failed. The lawsuit ended with the film being released in theaters with some changes made to the final cut, while Bach had his name removed from the film's screenwriting credits. [7]
In 1975, Bach was the driving force behind Nothing by Chance , a documentary film based on his book of the same name. The film centers on modern barnstorming around the United States in the 1970s. Bach recruited a group of his friends who were pilots to recreate the era of the barnstormer. [8]
The second novel, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah , published in 1977, tells of an encounter with a modern-day messiah who has decided to quit.
On August 31, 2012, Bach was injured in an aircraft landing accident on San Juan Island in Washington. He was landing a 2008 Easton Gilbert G Searey (N346PE) that he had nicknamed Puff at a private airport when the landing gear clipped some power lines. He crashed upside down in a field about two miles from Friday Harbor, taking down two poles and sparking a small grass fire. [9]
The day after the accident, Bach was reported to be in serious but stable condition with a head injury and broken shoulder. [10] Bach was hospitalized for four months. He reported that his near-death experience inspired him to finish the fourth part of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which had been originally published in three parts. [11]
In December 2012, Publishers Weekly reported that Travels with Puff had been sent to his publisher the day before his accident. [12] Travels with Puff was released on March 19, 2013.
In 2014, Bach published his sequel to Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, which he called Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student . The book incorporates the story of Bach's real-life aircraft crash, with the author imagining he is being visited by the "messiah", Don Shimoda, who helps him through his difficult medical recovery.
Bach had six children with his first wife, Bette Jeanne Franks. Also a pilot, she is the author of Patterns: Tales of Flying and of Life, a book about her life as a pilot and single mother. [13] She typed and edited most of Richard's aviation writing. They divorced in 1970, and Bach spent years without seeing his children.
His and Bette's son Jonathan, named after the titular character in Bach's bestseller, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, is a software engineer and journalist. He wrote the 1993 book Above the Clouds, about growing up without knowing his father and then later meeting him as a college student. Richard gave his approval, although he noted that it included some personal history he would "rather not see in print." [14]
Their other children are Robert, Kristel, James Marcus Bach, Erika, and their youngest daughter, Bethany, who died in an accident at the age of 15 in 1985.
In 1981, Bach married the actress Leslie Parrish, whom he met during the making of the film Jonathan Livingston Seagull. She featured significantly in two of his subsequent books: The Bridge Across Forever and One , which primarily focused on their relationship and Bach's concept of soulmates. They divorced in 1999. [15]
Bach married his third wife, Sabryna Nelson-Alexopoulos, in April 1999. They divorced on April 1, 2011. [16]
Bach has been married to his fourth wife, Melinda Kellogg, since November, 2020. [17] [ non-primary source needed ]
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an allegorical fable in novella form written by American author Richard Bach and illustrated with black-and-white photographs shot by Russell Munson. It is about a seagull who is trying to learn about flying, personal reflection, freedom, and self-realization. It was first published in book form in 1970 with little advertising or expectations; by the end of 1972, over a million copies were in print, the book having reached the number-one spot on bestseller lists mostly through word of mouth recommendations.
Leslie Parrish is an American actress, activist, environmentalist, writer, and producer. She worked under her birth name for six years before changing it in 1959.
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah is a novel by writer and pilot Richard Bach. First published in 1977, the story questions the reader's view of reality, proposing that what we call reality is merely an illusion we create for learning and enjoyment. Illusions was the author's follow-up to 1970's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
This is a list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1970s, as determined by Publishers Weekly. The list features the most popular novels of each year from 1970 through 1975.
The Progressive Aerodyne SeaRey is an American two-seat, single-engine, amphibious flying boat designed and manufactured by Progressive Aerodyne originally in Orlando, Florida, and now in Tavares, Florida. It was first flown in November 1992 and is sold as a kit aircraft for amateur construction as well as a light-sport aircraft.
Jan Potměšil is a Czech actor.
Weston Airport, also called Dublin Weston Airport, is a publicly licensed general aviation (GA) airport serving Dublin and its environs since the early 1930s. It is located between Leixlip, County Kildare, and Lucan, Dublin 8 NM west of Dublin. Its traffic is primarily private and commercial flight training as well as business/executive travel. It is the only general aviation airport in the greater Dublin region, and is home to one of Ireland's two approved training organisations for ab-initio professional pilot training.
Hall Bartlett was an American film producer, director, and screenwriter.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is the soundtrack album to the 1973 American film Jonathan Livingston Seagull, recorded by singer-songwriter Neil Diamond and produced by Tom Catalano. The album marked Diamond's return to Columbia Records, and grossed more than the film itself. It is Diamond's ninth studio album, and his first album after his successful 1972 live album Hot August Night. It won the 1974 Grammy as Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special.
Von Richthofen and Brown, alternatively titled The Red Baron, is a 1971 war film directed by Roger Corman and starring John Phillip Law and Don Stroud as Manfred von Richthofen and Roy Brown. Although names of real people are used and embedded in basic historic facts, the story by Joyce Hooper Corrington and John William Corrington makes no claim to be historically accurate, and in fact is largely fictional.
Jack Craig Couffer A.S.C. was an American cinematographer, film and television director, and author. Couffer specialized in documentary films, often involving nature and animal cinematography. Couffer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on the film version of the novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1974).
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a 1973 American drama film directed by Hall Bartlett, adapted from the 1970 novella of the same name by Richard Bach. The film tells the story of a young seabird who, after being cast out by his stern flock, goes on an odyssey to discover how to break the limits of his own flying speed. The film was produced by filming actual seagulls, then superimposing human dialogue over it. The film's voice actors included James Franciscus in the title role, and Philip Ahn as his mentor, Chiang.
John H. Livingston (1897–1974) was an American aviator and air race pilot of the 1920s and 1930s. He placed first in 80 national air races.
Eleanor Friede was an American book editor and literary agent, best known for bringing the 1970 novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull to publication.
Women in the Wind is a 1939 film directed by John Farrow and starring Kay Francis, William Gargan and Victor Jory. The plot concerns women pilots competing in the so-called "Powder Puff Derby", an annual transcontinental air race solely for women.
Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student is the 2014 novel by writer and pilot Richard Bach. The first Illusions book was published in 1977 and was an international best-seller, telling the story of a pilot who encounters a messiah who has absconded from the "job" of being a messiah. The sequel is in author Bach's own voice, as his "imaginary" literary characters help him in his recovery from his real-life plane crash in August 2012.
One is a 1988 novel by Richard Bach about what could happen in an alternate world. The characters are based on Bach and his wife, Leslie Parrish.
Nothing by Chance is a 1975 American documentary film based on the 1969 book by Richard Bach, Nothing by Chance: A Gypsy Pilot's Adventures in Modern America. The film centers on modern barnstorming around the United States in the 1970s. One of the driving forces behind the production, star Richard Bach, is a pilot in real life, and recruited a group of his friends who were also pilots to recreate the era of the barnstormer.
Weasels are mammals belonging to the family Mustelidae and the genus Mustela, which includes stoats, least weasels, ferrets, and minks, among others. Different species of weasel have lived alongside humans on every continent except Antarctica and Australia, and have been assigned a wide range of folkloric and mythical meanings.
The Ferret Chronicles is a series of short novels set in a fantasy world mostly similar to the real world except in which intelligent animals live alongside humans. It primarily focuses on ferret characters with only occasional references to humans or other intelligent animal species. The author and illustrator of the series is Richard Bach, and the five novels were originally published by Scribner Publishing. Condensed versions of the novels have since been republished first by Hampton Roads Publishing Company. and more recently by Jaico Publishing House. The first two novels share the same publication date leading to Amazon and GoodReads disagreeing on the numbering of the novels. The books themselves do not explicitly state a sequence.