American journalist (1901?1970)
John Gunther
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Born
| John Guenther
(
1901-08-30
)
August 30, 1901
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Died
| May 29, 1970
(1970-05-29)
(aged 68)
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Nationality
| American
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Alma mater
| University of Chicago
(
BPhil
)
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Occupation(s)
| Journalist, author
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Notable work
| Inside U.S.A
(1947)
Death Be Not Proud
(1949)
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Spouses
|
Frances Fineman
(
m.
1927;
div.
1944)
Jane Perry Vandercook
(
m.
1948)
|
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Children
| 3
|
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John Gunther
(August 30, 1901 – May 29, 1970) was an
American
journalist and writer.
His success came primarily by a series of popular sociopolitical works, known as the "Inside" books (1936–1972), including the best-selling
Inside U.S.A.
in 1947. However, he is now best known for his memoir
Death Be Not Proud
(1949), on the death of his teenage son, Johnny Gunther, from a
brain tumor
.
Life
[
edit
]
Gunther was born in 1901 in the
Lakeview
district of
Chicago
and grew up on the
North Side
of the city. He was the first child of a
German-American
family: his father was Eugene Guenther, a
traveling salesman
; his mother Lizette Schoeninger Guenther.
[1]
During
World War I
, the family changed the spelling of its name from Guenther to Gunther to
avoid having an obviously-German name
.
[2]
In 1922, he was awarded a
Bachelor of Philosophy
from the
University of Chicago
, where he was literary editor of the student paper.
He worked briefly in the city as a reporter for the
Chicago Daily News
, but he soon moved to Europe to be a correspondent with the
Daily News
London
bureau, where he covered
Europe
, the
Balkans
, and the
Middle East
.
Gunther met Frances Fineman in London in 1925 and the two were married in 1927. Until 1936, they worked together (Frances as a foreign correspondent for London's
News Chronicle
) throughout
Europe
.
[3]
Gunther wrote, "I was at one time or another in charge of
Daily News
offices in London,
Berlin
,
Vienna
,
Moscow
,
Rome
, and
Paris
, and I also visited
Poland
,
Spain
, the
Balkans
, and
Scandinavia
. I have worked in every European country except
Portugal
. I saw at first hand the whole extraordinary panorama of Europe from 1924 to 1936."
[4]
In Vienna, Gunther worked alongside a group of English-speaking
central European
correspondents that included
Marcel Fodor
,
Dorothy Thompson
,
Robert Best
, and
George Eric Rowe Gedye
.
[5]
Gunther later described those years as
the bubbling, blazing days of American foreign correspondence in Europe. ... Most of us traveled steadily, met constantly, exchanged information, caroused, took in each other's washing, and, even when most fiercely competitive, were devoted friends. ... We were scavengers, buzzards, out to get the news, no matter whose wings got clipped.
[6]
According to
Michael Bloch
, Gunther enjoyed a same-sex relationship in the 1930s in Vienna with the future
Leader of the British Labour Party
,
Hugh Gaitskell
.
[7]
Gunther's experiences as a journalist in interwar Vienna formed the basis for his novel
The Lost City
.
[8]
His research and the contacts that Gunther developed as a reporter also led directly to the first of the
Inside
books,
Inside Europe
, which was intended by Gunther to summarize the European political situation for the general reader. With the success of the
Inside
books starting in the late 1930s, Gunther resigned his position to devote his full-time to the books. During
World War II
, he worked as a
war correspondent
in Europe.
[9]
The Gunthers had two children: Judy, who died in 1929 before the age of 1, and
John Jr. (Johnny)
, who was born in 1929 and died in 1947 of a brain tumor. The Gunthers divorced in 1944.
[3]
Gunther married Jane Perry Vandercook in 1948; the two adopted a son. Jane P. Gunther, a devoted student of the arts who accompanied her husband on his voyages and contributed to his books, was born in August 1916. She died in New York City, on May 22, 2020, at the age of 103. She had been widowed for a week shy of half a century.
[10]
Gunther died of
liver cancer
in 1970.
[6]
Writings
[
edit
]
Inside
series
[
edit
]
The books that made Gunther famous in his time were the "Inside" series of continental surveys. For each book, Gunther traveled extensively through the area the book covered, interviewed political, social, and business leaders; talked with average people; reviewed area statistics; and then wrote a lengthy overview of what he had learned and how he interpreted it.
About
Inside Europe
(published in 1936), Gunther wrote, "This book has had a striking success all over the world. I was fortunate in that it appeared at just the right time, when the three
totalitarian
dictators took the stage and people began to be vitally interested in them."
In 1947, Gunther tackled
Inside U.S.A.
, visiting all 48 states. On the 50th anniversary of the book's publication,
Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
, appraised the book and its impact:
This book, now half a century old, is an astonishing
tour de force
. It presents a shrewd, fast-moving, sparkling panorama of the United States at this historic moment of apparent triumph.
Sinclair Lewis
called it "the richest treasure-house of facts about America that has ever been published, and probably the most spirited and interesting." At the same time, in its preoccupations and insights
Inside U.S.A.
foresaw dilemmas and paradoxes that were to harass and frustrate Americans for the rest of the century.
[6]
The
Inside
series grew to include volumes covering all populated continents:
Inside Europe
,
Inside U.S.A.
,
Inside Asia
,
Inside Latin America
,
Inside Africa
,
Inside Russia Today
, and, finally,
Inside Australia and New Zealand
(with W. H. Forbis). Several of the volumes were issued multiple times in updated and revised editions over the years, as world events demanded.
Inside Africa
proved particularly well-timed as a historical record. During 1952?53 Gunther and his wife visited nearly all forty-four African political entities then in existence during what was to prove the final stage of mainly
colonial rule
.
[11]
Other nonfiction and fiction works
[
edit
]
In addition to the "Inside" series and related volumes, Gunther wrote eight novels and three
biographies
. The most notable of them are
Bright Nemesis
,
The Troubled Midnight
,
Roosevelt in Retrospect
(published in 1950) and
Eisenhower
, a biography of the famous general released in 1952, the year that
Dwight Eisenhower
was elected
President
. In addition, Gunther published several books for young readers, including a biography of
Alexander the Great
in 1953, and
Meet Soviet Russia
, a two-volume adaptation of
Inside Russia Today
in 1962.
Death Be Not Proud
[
edit
]
The book for which Gunther is best remembered today, however, does not deal with politics.
Death Be Not Proud
is the story of his son, Johnny, who died of a
brain tumor
at the age of 17. In the book, "a restrained and moving work intended for family and friends,"
[6]
the elder Gunther details the struggles that he and his ex-wife, Frances Fineman, had gone through in attempting to save their son's life, the many treatments pursued (everything from radical surgery to strictly-controlled diet), the ups and downs of apparent remission and eventual relapse, and the strain that it placed on all three of them. Gunther portrays his son as a remarkable young man, who had corresponded intelligently with
Albert Einstein
about physics. The book became a bestseller, and in 1975, it was made into an
Emmy
-nominated
television movie
, starring
Arthur Hill
as John Gunther,
Jane Alexander
as his wife, and
Robby Benson
as Johnny. It remains a staple of many high-school curricula.
[
citation needed
]
Other media
[
edit
]
Broadway:
Inside U.S.A.
[
edit
]
Inside U.S.A.
was made into a
Broadway
revue
, also titled
Inside U.S.A.
, in 1948, with songs by
Howard Dietz
and
Arthur Schwartz
. The production starred, among others,
Beatrice Lillie
and
Jack Haley
and played for 399 performances.
[12]
Television –
High Road
[
edit
]
From September 7, 1959, until September 17, 1960, Gunther was host and narrator of a television program on the
ABC network
entitled
John Gunther's High Road
.
[13]
It originally aired Monday nights at 8:30, but soon switched to Saturday night at 8 p.m., immediately following the
Dick Clark
variety show. The
High Road
program consisted of travelogues of various nations around the world. Some of the films were produced especially for this program and others were obtained from other sources. The common thread of all episodes was Gunther's narration, although he had little or nothing to do with the actual content.
[14]
List of works
[
edit
]
Nonfiction
[
edit
]
- (1934)
Habsburgs Again?
- (1936)
Inside Europe
- (1938 ed)
Inside Europe
(includes minor updates)
- (1939 ed)
Inside Europe
(includes minor updates)
- (1939)
The High Cost of Hitler
- (1939)
Inside Asia
- (1940 ed)
Inside Europe
(includes major additions and changes due to the geopolitical impacts of
Hitler
and
Nazi Germany
)
- (1941)
Inside Latin America
- (1944)
D-Day
- (1947)
Inside U.S.A.
- (1949)
Death Be Not Proud
, memoir
- (1949)
Behind the Curtain
(published in the UK as
Behind Europe's Curtain
)
- (1950)
Roosevelt in Retrospect: A Profile in History
, biography
- (1951)
The Riddle of MacArthur: Japan, Korea, and the Far East
- (1952)
Eisenhower, the Man and the Symbol
, biography
- (1953)
Alexander the Great
, biography
- (1955)
Inside Africa
- (1956)
Days to Remember: America 1945-1955
(with
Bernard Quint
)
- (1958)
Inside Russia Today
- (1959)
Julius Caesar
- (1960)
Taken at the Flood: The Story of
Albert D. Lasker
, biography
- (1961)
Inside Europe Today
- (1961)
A Fragment of Autobiography: The Fun of Writing the Inside Books
- (1962)
Meet Soviet Russia
(2 volumes)
- (1965)
Procession
- (1967)
Inside South America
- (1969)
Twelve Cities
- (1972)
John Gunther's Inside Australia and New Zealand
(with W. H. Forbis)
ISBN
0-241-02180-4
Novels
[
edit
]
- (1926)
The Red Pavilion
- (1927)
Peter Lancelot: An Amusement
(published in the U.S. as
Eden for One: An Amusement
)
- (1929)
The Golden Fleece
- (1932)
Bright Nemesis
- (1945)
The Troubled Midnight
- (1964)
The Lost City
- (1970)
The Indian Sign
(published in the UK as
Quatrain
)
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Cuthbertson, Ken (1992).
Inside: The Biography of John Gunther
. Bonus Books. pp.
5
?8.
ISBN
978-0929387703
.
- ^
Cuthbertso, Ken (October 2002).
Inside: The Biography of John Gunther
. Open Road Integrated Media, Incorporated. p. 11.
ISBN
9780759232884
.
- ^
a
b
"Gunther, Frances Fineman. Papers, 1915-1963: A Finding Aid"
.
Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
.
Harvard University Library
/
Radcliffe College
. September 1991. Archived from
the original
on July 3, 2018
. Retrieved
December 2,
2012
.
- ^
John Gunther: Abbreviated profile from World Authors 1900-1950
. Accessed 4 July 2007.
- ^
"Vienna's Cafe Louvre in the 1920s & 1930s: Meeting Place for Foreign Correspondents | Coffeehouse | Nazi Germany"
.
Scribd
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. (April 1, 1997).
"A Man From Mars"
.
The Atlantic
.
- ^
Bloch, Michael (2015).
Closet Queens
. Little, Brown. p. 229.
ISBN
978-1408704127
.
- ^
Gunther, John (1964).
The Lost City
. New York: Harper & Row.
- ^
JohnGunther
. Retrieved
October 22,
2012
.
- ^
John J. Gunther, About the Author, Biography
at
Harper Collins Publishers
, Accessed 22 October 2012.
- ^
John Gunther, page ix "Inside Africa", published Hamish Hamilton Ltd London 1955
- ^
"Inside U.S.A. ? Broadway Musical ? Original | IBDB"
.
- ^
Woolery, George W. (1985).
Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946-1981, Part II: Live, Film, and Tape Series
. The Scarecrow Press. pp. 248?249.
ISBN
0-8108-1651-2
.
- ^
Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh,
The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946 to
the Present
, eighth edition, copyright 2003,
Ballantine Books
, page 616.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Cohen, Deborah.
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War
(2022) American coverage of 1930s in Europe by John Gunther,
H. R. Knickerbocker
,
Vincent Sheean
, and
Dorothy Thompson
.
excerpt
- Cuthbertson, Ken (1992)
Inside: The Biography of John Gunther
. Bonus Books.
- Hamilton, John M. (2009)
Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting
. Louisiana State University Press.
External links
[
edit
]
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People
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