James Clavell was an Australian-born, British-raised and educated, naturalized-American writer, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his Asian Saga novels, a number of which have had television adaptations. Clavell also wrote such screenplays as those for The Fly (1958), based on the short story by George Langelaan, and The Great Escape (1963), based on the personal account of Paul Brickhill. He directed the popular 1967 film To Sir, with Love, for which he also wrote the script.
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael often defied the consensus of her contemporaries.
John William Jakes was an American writer, best known for historical and speculative fiction. His American Civil War trilogy, North and South, has sold millions of copies worldwide. He was also the author of The Kent Family Chronicles. Jakes used the pen name Jay Scotland among others.
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz was an American screenwriter who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Both Mankiewicz and Welles went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film. Mankiewicz was previously a Berlin correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily, assistant theater editor at The New York Times, and the first regular drama critic at The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott said that Mankiewicz was the "funniest man in New York".
Roderick Doyle is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been made into films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. Doyle's work is set primarily in Ireland, especially working-class Dublin, and is notable for its heavy use of dialogue written in slang and Irish English dialect. Doyle was awarded the Booker Prize in 1993 for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
Philip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter who has directed fifteen films over a career spanning nearly five decades. He has received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award along with nominations for an Academy Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He has been described as a "maverick" and an "iconoclast," notable for his versatility and independence, often directing eclectic and controversial films. He is considered an "auteur" whose films have always expressed his personal vision. Kaufman's works have included genres such as realism, horror, fantasy, erotica, western, and crime.
The Power and the Glory is a 1933 pre-Code film starring Spencer Tracy and Colleen Moore, written by Preston Sturges, and directed by William K. Howard. The picture's screenplay was Sturges' first script, which he delivered complete in the form of a finished shooting script, for which he received $17,500 and a percentage of the profits. Profit-sharing arrangements, now a common practice in Hollywood, were then unusual and gained Sturges much attention.
James Gordon Farrell was an English-born novelist of Irish descent. He gained prominence for a series of novels known as "the Empire Trilogy", which deal with the political and human consequences of British colonial rule.
Renata Adler is an American author, journalist, and film critic. Adler was a staff writer-reporter for The New Yorker for over thirty years and the chief film critic for The New York Times from 1968 to 1969. She has also published several fiction and non-fiction books, and has been awarded the O. Henry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the PEN/Hemingway Award.
Samson Raphaelson was an American playwright, screenwriter and fiction writer.
Lawrence George Cohen was an American filmmaker. He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem, before becoming known as an author of horror and science fiction films — often containing police procedural and satirical elements — during the 1970s and 1980s. His directorial works include It's Alive (1974) and its sequels, God Told Me To (1976), The Stuff (1985) and A Return to Salem's Lot (1987).
James Thomas Farrell was an American novelist, short-story writer and poet.
The World According to Garp is a 1982 American comedy drama film produced and directed by George Roy Hill and starring Robin Williams in the title role. Written by Steve Tesich, it is based on the 1978 novel of the same title by John Irving. For their roles, John Lithgow and Glenn Close were respectively nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 55th Academy Awards.
Penelope Gilliatt was an English novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and film critic. As one of the main film critics for The New Yorker magazine in the 1960s and 1970s, Gilliatt was known for her detailed descriptions and evocative reviews. A writer of short stories, novels, non-fiction books, and screenplays, Gilliatt was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971).
Chicago literature is writing, primarily by writers born or living in Chicago, that reflects the culture of the city.
Young Lonigan is a 1932 novel by James T. Farrell. It is the first part of a trilogy about William "Studs" Lonigan, a young Irish-American growing up in Chicago.
The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan is a 1934 novel by James T. Farrell, and the second part of Farrell's trilogy featuring the character William "Studs" Lonigan. This novel covers about 12 years in Studs Lonigan's life, from 1917 through 1928.
Judgment Day is a 1935 novel by James T. Farrell. It is the third and longest installment of Farrell's trilogy based on the short, unhappy life of William "Studs" Lonigan.
Lace curtain Irish and shanty Irish are terms that were commonly used in the 19th and 20th centuries to categorize Irish people, particularly Irish Americans, by social class. The "lace curtain Irish" were those who were well off, while the "shanty Irish" were the poor, who were presumed to live in shanties, or roughly built cabins.
Bernard Clare is a 1946 novel by James T. Farrell. It was the first novel in a trilogy following the writer Bernard Carr. The character's name was changed from Clare to Carr following a libel suit from a man named Bernard Clare. Farrell won the libel case, with the court holding that it was "inconceivable that any sensible person could assume...that it purported to refer to the life and career of the [real] Bernard Clare" The book follows a twenty-one year old novelist who moves from Chicago to New York and becomes involved in radical politics. Unlike the protagonists of the Studs Lonigan and Danny O'Neill novels, Bernard Carr was the first character Farrell had written who was also a novelist and involved with literature.
