A. Scott Berg
Encyclopedia
Andrew Scott Berg is a Pulitzer Prize
-winning American biographer
. After graduating from Princeton University
in 1971, Berg expanded his senior thesis, about editor Maxwell Perkins
, into a full-length biography. Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978) won a National Book Award
, and his second book, Goldwyn: A Biography, was published in 1989. Berg's third book, a highly anticipated biography of aviator Charles Lindbergh
, was published in 1998. Lindbergh became a New York Times Best Seller
, and won the 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. He is currently researching a biography of Woodrow Wilson
.
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
.
, Connecticut
. The son of Barbara Berg and film producer Dick Berg
, young Scott was raised Jewish. When Scott was eight, his family relocated to Los Angeles
, California
. While a sophomore at Palisades Charter High School
, Scott 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. 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." Scott applied to Princeton University
, primarily because it was Fitzgerald's alma mater
, 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". Berg studied under Baker, 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. After graduating from Princeton in 1971, Berg decided to expand the thesis into a full-length biography, thinking it would take around nine months. 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." The Perkins biography, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, took longer than Berg anticipated and was eventually published in 1978. It won the 1980 National Book Award
for biography.
In 1982, Berg was approached by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
to write a biography of his father, 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". He won a 1982 Guggenheim Fellowship
, which helped finance his work on the biography. 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
. He also narrated Directed by William Wyler, a 1986 documentary film
about filmmaker William Wyler
for which Berg interviewed Wyler, Bette Davis
, Audrey Hepburn
, Laurence Olivier
, and Barbra Streisand
, among others. In 1989, Berg published Goldwyn: A Biography, his second biography.
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, 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". 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".
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. Published in 1998, Lindbergh sold about 250,000 copies in hardcover, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
. Berg was noted for his exhaustive research, as well as his sympathetic, but by no means uncritical, approach to Lindbergh, whose alleged anti-Semitism
he addressed in a straightforward, unblinking manner.
, a biography-cum-memoir detailing his 20-year friendship with Hollywood actress Katharine Hepburn
. 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
, 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." Berg responded in a written statement, saying that he was "truly shocked at Liz Smith's professional behavior—or, more accurately, her lack thereof" in "her personal assault on my reputation, one that stops just short of character assassination".
Berg served on Princeton University's Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2003. Since 2000, he has been 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". In February 2008, Berg said he was close to completing research on Wilson, and was beginning to write; he hopes to complete the biography in 2009.
, a leading Hollywood talent and literary agency. Their brother is music producer and musician Tony Berg.
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning American biographer
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
. After graduating from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in 1971, Berg expanded his senior thesis, about editor Maxwell Perkins
Maxwell Perkins
William Maxwell Evarts Perkins , was the editor for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. He has been described as the most famous literary editor.-Career:...
, into a full-length biography. Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978) won a National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
, and his second book, Goldwyn: A Biography, was published in 1989. Berg's third book, a highly anticipated biography of aviator Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
, was published in 1998. Lindbergh became a New York Times Best Seller
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.-1910s:* 1917: Julia Ward Howe by Laura E...
. In 2003, Berg published Kate Remembered
Kate Remembered
Kate Remembered is a well-known book published and released on July 11, 2003 by A. Scott Berg, which tells the story and life of Katharine Hepburn, the legendary film actress. The book was released 12 days after Katharine's death at 96 on June 29...
, a biography-cum-memoir about his friendship with actress Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
that received mixed reviews. He is currently researching a biography of Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
.
Berg also wrote the story for Making Love
Making Love
Making Love is a 1982 American film. It tells the story of a married man coming to terms with his homosexuality and the love triangle that develops around him, his wife and another man...
(1982), a controversial film that was the first major studio drama to address the subjects of gay
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
love, closeted marriages, and coming out
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
. He has contributed articles to magazines such as Architectural Digest
Architectural Digest
Architectural Digest is an American monthly magazine. Its principal subject is interior design, not — as the name of the magazine might suggest — architecture more generally. The magazine is published by Condé Nast Publications and was founded in 1920, by the Knapp family, who sold it in 1993...
and Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
.
Early life and work
Berg was born in NorwalkNorwalk, Connecticut
Norwalk is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of the city is 85,603, making Norwalk sixth in population in Connecticut, and third in Fairfield County...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. The son of Barbara Berg and film producer Dick Berg
Dick Berg
Richard Berg was an American screenwriter as well as a film and television producer. Among his credits is the 1985 miniseries Space and Wallenberg: A Hero's Story....
, young Scott was raised Jewish. When Scott was eight, his family relocated to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. While a sophomore at Palisades Charter High School
Palisades Charter High School
Palisades Charter High School is a secondary school in Los Angeles, California, United States. The public high school serves the neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades, Palisades Highlands, Kenter Canyon and portions of Brentwood...
, Scott researched the author F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
(a favorite of Barbara's, who named her son in part after Fitzgerald) for a report and "developed a mania" for his writing. 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." Scott applied to Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, primarily because it was Fitzgerald's alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
, and was accepted in 1967.
At Princeton, Berg performed in the Princeton Triangle Club
Princeton Triangle Club
The Princeton Triangle Club is a theater troupe at Princeton University. Founded in 1891, it is the oldest touring collegiate musical-comedy troupe in the United States, and the only co-ed collegiate troupe that takes an original student-written musical on a national tour every year...
theater troupe and considered dropping out to become an actor, though he was convinced by English professor Carlos Baker
Carlos Baker
Carlos Baker was an American writer, biographer and former Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature at Princeton University. He earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton respectively. Baker's published works included several novels and books of poetry and various literary...
, a well-regarded biographer of Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, to "graduate, so at least you'll be an actor with a college degree". Berg studied under Baker, who offered him "constant encouragement and counsel" on his senior thesis, which was a study of editor Maxwell Perkins's
Maxwell Perkins
William Maxwell Evarts Perkins , was the editor for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. He has been described as the most famous literary editor.-Career:...
career between 1919 and 1929. After graduating from Princeton in 1971, Berg decided to expand the thesis into a full-length biography, thinking it would take around nine months. 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." The Perkins biography, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, took longer than Berg anticipated and was eventually published in 1978. It won the 1980 National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for biography.
In 1982, Berg was approached by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. is an American film producer.Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California. He is the son of actress Frances Howard and the pioneer motion picture mogul Samuel Goldwyn...
to write a biography of his father, independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...
. 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". He won a 1982 Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
, which helped finance his work on the biography. The same year, Berg wrote the story for Making Love
Making Love
Making Love is a 1982 American film. It tells the story of a married man coming to terms with his homosexuality and the love triangle that develops around him, his wife and another man...
, a controversial film that was the first major studio drama to address the subjects of homosexual
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
love, closeted marriages, and coming out
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
. He also narrated Directed by William Wyler, a 1986 documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about filmmaker William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
for which Berg interviewed Wyler, Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
, Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, and Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, among others. 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". After briefly considering Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
, Berg decided to research the aviator Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
, 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". Berg convinced Lindbergh's widow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an American author, aviator, and the spouse of fellow aviator Charles Lindbergh.She was an acclaimed author whose books and articles spanned the genres of poetry to non-fiction, touching upon topics as diverse as youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and...
, to grant him unprecedented access to the man's archives, which he was surprised to find totaled "1,300 boxes, or several million papers".
The biography, Lindbergh, was highly-anticipated; prior to its publication, the book's film rights were bought, sight unseen, by Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
, who planned to direct a movie of it. Published in 1998, Lindbergh sold about 250,000 copies in hardcover, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.-1910s:* 1917: Julia Ward Howe by Laura E...
. Berg was noted for his exhaustive research, as well as his sympathetic, but by no means uncritical, approach to Lindbergh, whose alleged anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
he addressed in a straightforward, unblinking manner.
Recent work
From 1998 to 2000, Berg wrote Kate RememberedKate Remembered
Kate Remembered is a well-known book published and released on July 11, 2003 by A. Scott Berg, which tells the story and life of Katharine Hepburn, the legendary film actress. The book was released 12 days after Katharine's death at 96 on June 29...
, a biography-cum-memoir detailing his 20-year friendship with Hollywood actress Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
. 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
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
, but received uneasy critical response. In The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Robert Gottlieb
Robert Gottlieb
Robert Adams Gottlieb , is an American writer and editor. From 1987 to 1992 he was the editor of The New Yorker.-Personal:Robert Gottlieb was born in New York City in 1931 and grew up in Manhattan...
called it an "odd and unsettling book [that leaves] a sense of exploitation", and gossip columnist Liz Smith
Liz Smith (journalist)
Mary Elizabeth "Liz" Smith is an American gossip columnist. She is known as The Grand Dame of Dish.- Early life and career :...
, 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." Berg responded in a written statement, saying that he was "truly shocked at Liz Smith's professional behavior—or, more accurately, her lack thereof" in "her personal assault on my reputation, one that stops just short of character assassination".
Berg served on Princeton University's Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2003. Since 2000, he has been researching a biography of Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
, 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". In February 2008, Berg said he was close to completing research on Wilson, and was beginning to write; he hopes to complete the biography in 2009.
Personal life
Berg lives with his partner Kevin McCormick, a film producer, in Los Angeles. His brother is Jeff Berg, CEO of International Creative ManagementInternational Creative Management
International Creative Management is a talent and literary agency with offices in Los Angeles, New York, and London. ICM is a full-service agency representing creative and technical talent in the fields of motion pictures, television, fiction and nonfiction publishing, music, live performance,...
, a leading Hollywood talent and literary agency. Their brother is music producer and musician Tony Berg.
External links
- 1998 Kentucky Author Forum interview with Berg, conducted by Jonathan YardleyJonathan YardleyJonathan Yardley is a book critic at The Washington Post, and at one time of the Washington Star. In 1981 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.-Background and education:...
(60 minutes, streaming video) - 1998 Charlie Rose interview with Berg about Lindbergh (18 minutes, streaming video)
- 1999 NewsHour interview with Berg about Lindbergh (transcript)