A. Scott Berg

For the Alaskan hunting guide, see Andrew Berg.

A. Scott Berg

A. Scott Berg at the 2013 Texas Book Festival
Born Andrew Scott Berg
(1949-12-04) December 4, 1949
Norwalk, Connecticut
Occupation Biographer, journalist
Period 1978–present
Notable works Lindbergh (1998)
Kate Remembered (2003)
Notable awards

National Book Award
1980

Pulitzer Prize
1999

Andrew Scott Berg (born December 4, 1949) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning 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.[1][lower-alpha 1] His second book Goldwyn: A Biography was published in 1989.

Berg's third book Lindbergh, a highly anticipated biography of aviator Charles Lindbergh was published in 1998, becoming a New York Times Best Seller,[2] and winning the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. In 2003 Berg published Kate Remembered, a biography-cum-memoir about his friendship with actress Katharine Hepburn that received mixed reviews. His book Wilson, a biography of Woodrow Wilson was published on September 10, 2013.

Berg also wrote the story for Making Love (1982), a controversial film that was the first major studio drama to address the subjects of gay love, closeted marriages, and coming out. He has contributed articles to magazines such as Architectural Digest and Vanity Fair.

Life

Early life and work

Berg was born in Norwalk, Connecticut. The son of Barbara (Freedman) Berg and film producer Dick Berg, Berg was raised Jewish.[3] When Berg was eight, his family relocated to Los Angeles, California.[3] While a sophomore at Palisades Charter High School, Berg researched the author F. Scott Fitzgerald (a favorite of Barbara's, who named her son in part after Fitzgerald) for a report and "developed a mania" for his writing.[4] Berg read all of Fitzgerald's works and later recalled: "It was the first time I saw the fusion of an artist and his life, a tragic and romantic life."[5] Scott applied to Princeton University, primarily because it was Fitzgerald's alma mater,[6] and was accepted in 1967.

At Princeton, Berg performed in the Princeton Triangle Club theater troupe and considered dropping out to become an actor, though he was convinced by English professor Carlos Baker, a well-regarded biographer of Ernest Hemingway, to "graduate, so at least you'll be an actor with a college degree".[4] Berg studied under Baker,[7] who offered him "constant encouragement and counsel" on his senior thesis, which was a study of editor Maxwell Perkins's career between 1919 and 1929.[8] After graduating from Princeton in 1971, Berg decided to expand the thesis into a full-length biography, thinking it would take around nine months.[9] He also formulated a career plan at this time, and later recalled: "I did tell myself early on: I think it would be interesting, perhaps, to spend a career writing a half-dozen biographies of twentieth-century American cultural figures—each one, as I often use as my metaphor, a different wedge of the great apple pie."[10] The Perkins biography, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, took longer than Berg anticipated and was eventually published in 1978. It won a 1980 National Book Award in Biography.[1][lower-alpha 1]

“When I was about 22, I had an idea that I was going to write a series of biographies of 20th Century American cultural figures and each one was gonna be from a different part of the country and each one was gonna be from a different slice of the apple pie." - A. Scott Berg[11]

In 1982, Berg was approached by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. to write a biography of his father, the independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn. Berg initially turned the project down, telling Goldwyn that "he was interested in American culture, not Hollywood," but changed his mind after visiting Goldwyn's archives and discovering gin rummy I.O.U.s, menus from Goldwyn's dinner parties, and "all the quotidian minutiae that are a biographer's dream".[12] He won a 1982 Guggenheim Fellowship, which helped finance his work on the biography.[13] The same year, Berg wrote the story for Making Love, a controversial film that was the first major studio drama to address the subjects of homosexual love, closeted marriages, and coming out.[14][15] He also narrated Directed by William Wyler, a 1986 documentary about the filmmaker William Wyler for which Berg interviewed Wyler, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Olivier, and Barbra Streisand, among others.[16] In 1989, Berg published Goldwyn: A Biography, his second biography.

Lindbergh

After completing Goldwyn in 1989, Berg began the search for his next subject, who he wanted to be "another great American cultural figure but — because I had written about Perkins and Goldwyn — not somebody from the worlds of publishing or film".[17] After briefly considering Tennessee Williams, Berg decided to research 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".[17] Berg convinced Lindbergh's widow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, to grant him unprecedented access to the man's archives, which he was surprised to find totaled "1,300 boxes, or several million papers".[18]

The biography, Lindbergh, 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.[19] Published in 1998, Lindbergh sold about 250,000 copies in hardcover,[20] and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. Berg was noted for his exhaustive research,[19] as well as his sympathetic, but by no means uncritical, approach to Lindbergh, whose alleged anti-Semitism he addressed in a straightforward, unblinking manner.

Recent work

From 1998 to 2000, Berg wrote Kate Remembered, a biography-cum-memoir detailing his 20-year friendship with the Hollywood actress Katharine Hepburn.[21] The book was published in 2003, only 12 days after Hepburn's death. It spent 11 weeks on the New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller list,[22] but received uneasy critical response. In The New York Times, Robert Gottlieb called it an "odd and unsettling book [that leaves] a sense of exploitation", and gossip columnist Liz Smith, a friend of Hepburn's, called Berg "vain and narcissistic", and declared the book "[s]elf-promoting fakery....Hepburn would have despised it and his betrayal of her friendship."[23][24] Berg responded in a written statement, saying that he was "truly shocked at Liz Smith's professional behaviour — or, more accurately, her lack thereof" in "her personal assault on my reputation, one that stops just short of character assassination".[24]

Berg served on Princeton University's Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2003. In 2000, he began researching a biography of Woodrow Wilson, of whom Berg says, "I have an image of him in my mind that is unlike any picture I have seen anywhere else, based on material at Princeton and 35 years of researching and thinking about him".[25] In March 2010 he became involved in a film production project, transforming the 1960s television program 77 Sunset Strip into a feature film, which delayed the Wilson biography a further 18 months.[26] Wilson was published on September 10, 2013.

Personal life

Berg lives with his boyfriend Kevin McCormick, a film producer, in Los Angeles.[27][28]

His brothers are Jeff Berg, former CEO of International Creative Management, a leading Hollywood talent and literary agency; and music producer and musician Tony Berg. His youngest brother Rick is a partner and manager at the production company Code Entertainment. His niece is Z Berg, a musician of The Like and JJAMZ.

Bibliography

Notes

  1. 1 2 This was the 1980 award for paperback Biography.
    From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Award history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories, and multiple nonfiction subcategories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Book Awards – 1980". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  2. ↑ "BEST SELLERS: January 24, 1999", The New York Times, 1999-01-24. Retrieved on 2007-11-26.
  3. 1 2 Lamb, Brian. Lindbergh: by A. Scott Berg (interview transcript), Booknotes, 1998-12-20. Retrieved on 2011-12-31.
  4. 1 2 Merritt, J. I. "Biographer A. Scott Berg '71 confronts the remarkable -- and still controversial -- flier, 'a great lens for observing the American century'", Princeton Alumni Weekly, 1998-11-18. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
  5. ↑ Hafkin, Jessica. "Stories of 20th century heroes: Biographer A. Scott Berg '71", The Daily Princetonian, 2001-04-14. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
  6. ↑ "The Great Gatsby: Recommended by A. Scott Berg", Academy of Achievement Recommended Books. Retrieved on 2007-11-26.
  7. ↑ Zernike, Kate. "Havana To Unlock Hemingway Papers", The New York Times, 2002-09-21. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
  8. ↑ Berg (1978.) Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, p. 455.
  9. ↑ Silver, Allison. "Writing the Good Life" (fee required), The New York Times, 1981-11-08. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  10. ↑ Yardley, Jonathan. Interview with A. Scott Berg (video), Kentucky Author Forum, 1998. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  11. ↑ "Pulitzer Prize winning author A. Scott Berg on his new book, Wilson". youtube.com. Retrieved 29 September 2013.
  12. ↑ Harmetz, Aljean. "A Child of the Movies Writes About a Mogul", The New York Times, 1989-03-27. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  13. ↑ 1982 Fellows Page, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved on 2007-11-08.
  14. ↑ Arnold, Thomas K. "Piggybacking on 'Brokeback'", USA Today, 2006-02-06. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  15. ↑ "The Back Pages: Making History", The Advocate, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  16. ↑ Canby, Vincent. "FILM FESTIVAL; Study of William Wyler Includes Documentary", The New York Times, 1986-09-20. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  17. 1 2 Berg (2003.) Kate Remembered. p. 179-182.
  18. ↑ Weinraub, Bernard. "At the Movies: Lindbergh Flies, Author Learns", The New York Times, 1998-04-10. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
  19. 1 2 Hindes, Andrew. "Spielberg eyes sky", Variety, 1998-04-03. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
  20. ↑ Arnold, Martin. "MAKING BOOKS: They're Bigger. But Better?", The New York Times, 1999-10-28. Retrieved on 2007-11-26.
  21. ↑ Fitzgerald, Carol, and Roberta O'Hara. "Interview", Bookreporter.com, 2003-08-08. Retrieved on 2007-10-28.
  22. ↑ "BEST SELLERS: October 5, 2003", The New York Times, 2003-10-05. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
  23. ↑ Gottlieb, Robert. "Bringing Up Biographer", The New York Times, 2003-08-17. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
  24. 1 2 DiGiacomo, Frank. "Kate Dismembered", The New York Observer, 2003-09-29. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
  25. ↑ Greenstein Altmann, Jennifer. "Illuminating lives: Berg researches Wilson biography while teaching ‘Life Writing’", Princeton Weekly Bulletin, 2008-02-18. Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
  26. ↑ Deadline New York, 18 March 2010, Mike Fleming, "How Scott Berg Detoured From Woodrow Wilson Bio to ’77 Sunset Strip’ Feature Film"
  27. ↑ Ehrenstein, David. "Kate selectively remembered: out writer A. Scott Berg reverts to 'don't ask, don't tell' in his Hepburn biography" (reprint), The Advocate, 2003-09-02. Retrieved on 2007-10-28.
  28. ↑ Berg (2003.) Kate Remembered. p. 318.

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