MacKinlay Kantor
MacKinlay Kantor | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
MacKinlay Kantor (4 February 1904 - 11 October 1977)[1] was an American journalist and novelist and screenwriter who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for his 1955 novel Andersonville about the infamous Confederate prisoner of war camp in the American Civil War. Kantor was noted for his limited use of punctuation within his literary compositions[2].
It was the intention of Mrs. Kantor to name her son McKinley. While she was still under obstetrical anesthesia, someone asked her older children the name of the baby. They said what they heard, but neither child could spell McKinley. The father of MacKinlay was a Jewish, recidivist con artist who spent many years inside American prisons. He met the future Mrs. Kantor while pretending to be a Protestant evangelist holding tent revivals, a scam called "fleece the flock".
Kantor published his first poem at the age of 17, and at 18 he won a state story writing contest. His first novel, Diversey, was about Chicago gangsters and was written in 1928, when the subject matter was contemporary. In the 1930s, Kantor first wrote about the American Civil War with his novel Long Remember. Kantor had spoken with Civil War veterans when he was young, and he was an avid collector of first-hand narratives. Long Remember is one of the first realistic novels about the Civil War.
In World War Two, MacKinlay Kantor reported from London for a Los Angeles newspaper. After flying with some bombing missions, he asked for and received (illegally) training in operation of the bomber's turret machine guns. Kantor interviewed myriad wounded troops. He understood from them that no soldier who had seen war regarded it being "the best time of my life". All these men could think of was just getting home alive. This basic goal reminded Kantor of a Protestant Hymn: "When all my labors and trials are o're / And I am safe on that beautiful shore (heaven), O that will be / Glory for me!" Kantor returned from the European theater of war by hops on Military Air Transport. As he waited and as he flew, Kantor began writing notes on a pad strapped to leg. He had the inspiration to compose a novel about three men returning from war to the same home town, but written in Blank Verse. He entitled the work Glory for Me.
When Kantor sold the movie rights to this literary treasure, he never imagined that some fool would rename his creation The Best Years of Our Lives. Were they out of their minds? Kantor's character with bomb shrapnel in his brain was replaced with a double-hand amputee. With all creative control stripped from him, and being treated with contempt, MacKinlay Kantor spewed invective at producer Sam Goldwyn and walked off the Hollywood lot, never to return. Goldwyn got revenge upon Kantor by indicating in the first 15 seconds of the movie that it is "based upon a novel by MacKinlay Kantor" but the NAME of the novel was not mentioned. This defect remains today.
MacKinlay Kantor worked a Police Beat on newspapers and the basis of most of his short crime novels came from riding with the police on night shifts. He wrote over 30 novels in his lifetime, and he returned to the theme of the Civil War frequently, including Gettysburg, If the South Had Won the Civil War and Lee and Grant at Appomattox. His last novel was 1975's Valley Forge. Kantor also wrote the screenplay for the noted film noir Gun Crazy (aka Deadly Is the Female) (1950) and appeared in the 1958 film Wind Across the Everglades as an actor.
| MacKinlay Kantor Publications | |||||
| Publication | Adaptation | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
— (1936). The Voice of Bugle Ann. {{cite book}}: |last= has numeric name (help)
|
The Voice of Bugle Ann (1936) | ||||
— (1943). Happy Land. {{cite book}}: |last= has numeric name (help)
|
Happy Land | ||||
— (1944). Gentle Annie. {{cite book}}: |last= has numeric name (help)
|
Gentle Annie (1944) | ||||
—. Glory for Me (novella). {{cite book}}: |last= has numeric name (help)
|
Best Years of Our Lives (1946) | ||||
— (August 1965) [November 1960 - Look magazine]. If the South had won the Civil War. Isa Barnett (illustrations) (Bantam Pathfinder ed.). New York: Bantam Books, Inc. {{cite book}}: |last= has numeric name (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
|
|||||
— (1965). Mission with LeMay: My Story. Doubleday. ISBN B00005WGR2. {{cite book}}: |last= has numeric name (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
|
|||||
—. God and My Country. {{cite book}}: |last= has numeric name (help)
|
Follow Me, Boys! (1966) | ||||
References
- ^ "MacKinlay Kantor". biography at answers.com.
- ^ McCarthy, Cormac (2007). "interview" (html). The Oprah Winfrey Show. Retrieved 2008-11-13.