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Loudon Wainwright Jr.

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Loudon Wainwright Jr.
BornLoudon Snowden Wainwright Jr.
December 16, 1924
New York City, New York[1]
DiedDecember 12, 1988 (1988-12-13) (aged 63)
OccupationWriter, editor
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
EducationSt. Andrew's School
Alma materUniversity of North Carolina
Spouse
Martha Harriet Taylor
​
​
(after 1945)​
Children5, including Loudon, Sloan
RelativesA. Loudon Snowden (great-grandfather)
Rufus Wainwright (grandson)
Martha Wainwright (granddaughter)
Lucy Wainwright Roche (granddaughter)

Loudon Snowden Wainwright Jr. (December 16, 1924 – December 12, 1988) was an American writer.[2] He was the father of folk singer Loudon Wainwright III and singer Sloan Wainwright, and grandfather to Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy Wainwright Roche.[3]

Early life

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Wainwright was born in Manhattan, New York.[4] He was the son of Eleanor Painter (née Sloan) (1903–1985) and Loudon Snowden Wainwright (1898–1942).[5][6] His father, a graduate of the Pawling School and Princeton University, was a senior partner in the insurance firm of Wainwright & Page, Inc.[7]

His paternal grandparents were Stuyvesant Wainwright, a direct descendant of Director-General of New Netherland Peter Stuyvesant, and Caroline Smith (née Snowden) Wainwright.[8][9][10] His great-grandfather was politician and diplomat Archibald Loudon Snowden, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Serbia, Romania, Greece, and Spain.[11] His uncle, the artist Carroll Livingston Wainwright, was married to Edith Gould, the daughter of George Jay Gould, and was the father of U.S. Representative Stuyvesant Wainwright II, Loudon's first cousin.[9]

He graduated from St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware in 1942, and attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and joined St. Anthony Hall.[12][4] After college, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.[13]

Career

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Wainwright joined the staff of Life magazine and worked in a variety of positions over the years, including staff writer, reporter, correspondent, bureau chief.[4] He was assigned to cover the Project Mercury astronauts.[4] He and John Glenn listened to the inauguration speech of John F. Kennedy while riding in Glenn's car in 1961.[14] In 1964 he began writing "The View From Here", a regular column in the magazine which appeared until the magazine ceased weekly publication in 1972.[4] From 1969 on he also served as assistant managing editor.[15]

When Life resumed publication as a monthly in 1978, he joined its staff as an editor, and continued to contribute to its pages after retiring from that position in 1985.[4] After his death, the magazine published a retrospective in the February 1989 issue with excerpts from some of the two hundred columns he had written for it over the years.[16]

In 1986, Wainwright was also the author of The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of Life, an informal history of the magazine.[16][4]

Personal life

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On September 13, 1945, Wainwright was married to Martha Harriet Taylor (1922–1997), the daughter of Walter Taylor of Atlanta, Georgia.[17] At the time of their wedding, Martha was a Private first class with the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve.[17] Together, they were the parents of:[13]

Although they never divorced, Wainwright was separated from his wife for the last 10 years of his life.[4] He had a long time relationship with Martha Fay, with whom he had one daughter:[13][4]

  • Anna Fay Wainwright (b. 1982).[4]

After two years of illness, Wainwright died of colon cancer in his home in Manhattan at age 63.[13][4] Wainwright was buried at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton, New York.[4]

Descendants

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Through his son Loudon, he was the grandfather of singer-songwriters Rufus Wainwright (born 1973), who married Jörn Weisbrodt and had a child, Viva Wainwright Cohen, with friend Lorca Cohen (herself the daughter of singer Leonard Cohen);[21] Martha Wainwright (born 1976), who married Brad Albetta; and Lucy Wainwright Roche (b. 1981).[18][22]

Through his daughter Sloan, he was the grandfather of two, Sam and Gabe McTavey.[20]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "FamilySearch.org". Familysearch.org. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  2. ^ "Ancestry® | Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records". Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2008. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  3. ^ family tree Archived 2006-09-01 at the Wayback Machine on Sloan Wainwright's web site.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Writer Wainwright Dies". The Tampa Tribune. December 13, 1988. p. 19. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  5. ^ Princeton Alumni Weekly. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Alumni Weekly. 1923. p. 14. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
  6. ^ "Clement C. Jaggard/Annie Jane Wright". Pennock.ws.
  7. ^ "LOUDON S. WAINWRIGHT; Senior Partner in Insurance Firm Was Flier in World War". The New York Times. January 24, 1942. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  8. ^ "MRS. CARL F. WOLFF". The New York Times. 14 March 1960. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  9. ^ a b Reynolds, Cuyler (1914). Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. pp. 1011–1015. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
  10. ^ "S. WAINWRIGHT DIES; NOTED YACHTSMAN; Was Descendant of Governor Peter Stuyvesant and Bishop Wainwright. NAVAL OFFICER IN THE WAR Raced Yachts for Several Decades-- Representative J. Mayhew Wainwright a Brother". The New York Times. 4 November 1930. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  11. ^ Times, Special To The New York (7 September 1912). "COL. A. L. SNOWDEN DEAD.; Ex-Minister to Spain Expires After a Long Illness". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  12. ^ 1942 Criss Cross, p. 20, St. Andrews School Publications.
  13. ^ a b c d "Loudon S. Wainwright, Columnist, Dead at 63". The New York Times. December 13, 1988. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  14. ^ John Glenn A Memoir, 1999
  15. ^ Contemporary Authors vol. 127 (1989), Trosky, Susan M., ed, Gale Research Inc., p. 470.
  16. ^ a b Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (11 December 1986). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  17. ^ a b "Wainwright--Taylor". The New York Times. September 14, 1945. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  18. ^ a b Bonfiglio, Jeremy. "Keeping It in the Family: Lucy Wainwright Roche Shares Stage with Suzzy Roche". Nodepression.com. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  19. ^ Garner, Dwight (September 12, 2017). "In 'Liner Notes,' Loudon Wainwright Looks Squarely at His Flaws and His Musical Family Tree". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  20. ^ a b Gerstenzang, Peter (August 9, 2008). "Carrying On the Wainwright Tradition". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  21. ^ Bernstein, Jacob (November 15, 2012). "Rufus Wainwright's Studio Remake: Add Husband and Wallpaper". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  22. ^ Wainwright, Martha (December 29, 2009). "Martha Wainwright: Thank God I had my baby in Britain". The Times. London. Retrieved December 29, 2009.[dead link‍]
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