UNITED STATES AUTHOR · CHILDREN · HISTORY
Otto Friedrich
Otto Friedrich (born 1929 Boston, Massachusetts; died April 26, 1995 Manhasset, New York), was an American journalist, writer and historian. The son of the political theorist, and Harvard professor Carl Joachim Friedrich, Otto Friedrich graduated from Harvard University in 1948 with a degree in History. Upon graduation, he became a journalist, eventually becoming the managing editor of The Saturday Evening Post in 1965. After the Post closed down, he spent the remainder of his career at TIME magazine where he wrote over 40 cover stories. During this time, he also authored over 14 books on diverse subjects ranging from the rise of Hollywood to the rise of the Third Reich. In 1970, he won the George Polk Award for his book Decline and Fall. Otto Friedrich was married to Priscilla Boughton, with whom he had five children. He died of lung cancer at the North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York in 1995.
"SENT down for indecent behavior, eh?"
— from Decline and Fall, 1970
Most acclaimed
City of Nets
1986
Close to being the last word of the golden age of the flicks. All the stars are here and more, but it is the author's perspective that makes this so interesting and captivating. Hollywood's power lay in its ability to create potent images that defined a nation's awareness of itself. But often the creators were unaware of how well they succeeded. The author here gives us the dream machine's layers of power, warts and all, and we are subsequently overwhelmed by this business that could produce assembly-line fantasies at such a frenetic pace. Of course, there is plenty of good gossip about the stars and shakers. Those who can never get enough of the vulgar, crass, vicious, larger-than-life people who too often made up the celluloid empire, who eat up scandal and outrageous idiocy, will have a field day. There's union organizing and union busting, gangsters and nearly illiterate moguls of immense clout, lackeys and press-agent madness in this engrossing survey. Some heroes emerge and there are surprises galore: What did Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Brecht, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Dorothy Parker and Ronald Reagan have in common? Tinseltown, of course. Movie mavens will love this. Even the familiar stories delight on the retelling. Can there be someone who knows zilch about Hollywood's golden age? Well, here's the perfect remedy for such a lamentable deficiency. What's more, it's intelligent, superbly written and thoroughly enjoyable
Decline and Fall
1970
I stand with my back in the corner with a sword in one hand and a stilleto in the other""-that is Clay Blair talking, one of the four presidents of the S.E.P. during its raddled decline in the '60's. Actually its causes go back much further--to the '30's and the '40's and the limited view of earlier regimes as well as the profit-motivated system of competition of which it was the ultimate victim. Friedrich, its managing editor during its last phase, has written the most exhaustive book to date: Goulden's Curtis Caper--1965--dealt primarily with the earlier Post; Culligan's just appearing Curtis-Culligan Story (p. 33) is only a self-defensive coda. Friedrich's book, running to more than 500 pages and based on his own account of the time, retracks the whole disastrously embroiled attempt to salvage the magazine via Clay Blair (""elemental energy"" but a suggestion of instability), via Culligan, the patsy of the later palace rebellion, via Bill Emerson the last editor, and via an incredible entrepreneur ""Mortician Marty"" Ackerman who insisted he and his millions could save it. There's a lot here too about the financial backing (banker Semenenko--watch him), circulation, advertising (the under-cover aspects most people don't know about) and editorial control and in this case dedication which brought out some of the best issues of this magazine during its terminal period. A cautionary and uneasily prophetic story in these times when other mass magazines are undergoing many similar stresses; and in terms of general extensiveness of coverage and liveliness of tone, the best Postmortem to have appeared and likely to attract some of The Power and the Glory's readership.
Clover
Clover is the fourth book in the popular What Katy Did series. After Katy's wedding, the focus shifts to her little sister Clover. Their brother Phil encounters serious illness in the winter, and Dr. Carr sends him with Clover to the mountains of Colorado. Clarence Page, their naughty cousin from the other books, lives nearby. He is a rancher now with an attractive English partner, Geoff Templestowe, whom Clover falls for.