Charles Samuels
Charles Samuels was an American journalist, and writer best known for his biographies of celebrities, He penned as-told-to autobiographies for Buster Keaton and Ethel Waters which was a best seller. Among his other books were Magnificent Rube: The Life and Gaudy Times of Tex Rickard and The King: A Biography of Clark Gable.
Samuels began his career as a sports and feature writer with the Brooklyn Eagle in 1923.
His book with Boris Morros, My Ten Years as a Counterspy was made into the film, Man on a String, starring Ernest Borgnine. The title of another, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, about Evelyn Nesbit, was used in the 1955 movie. He was the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe award in 1957 for Night Fell on Georgia.
Samuels, who wrote thousands of magazine and newspaper articles, also helped write the newspaper columns of Ben Hecht and Billy Rose. He was the New York City Editor of Paramount News.
He lived mostly in New York City and its suburbs Hastings-on-Hudson, Nyack, New York, and Grand View, New York, where he was the director for the Rockland Foundation and retired in Cuernavaca, Mexico. His son Robert C. Samuels was an award-winning journalist and writer and his namesake grandson, is a director/photographer.
Works
;Writings by the author- The Frantic Young Man, Coward, 1929.
- A Rather Simple Fellow, Coward, 1931.
- ', Gold Medal, 1953.
- The Girl in the House of Hate, Gold Medal, 1953.
- Death Was the Bridegroom, Gold Medal, 1953.
- Night Fell on Georgia, Dell, Edgar Allan Poe Award, 1956.
- The Magnificent Rube: The Life and Gaudy Times of Tex Rickard, McGraw, 1957.
- The King: The Biography of Clark Gable, Coward, 1962.
- Only One New York : The Unknown Worlds of the Great City, Simon & Schuster, 1965.
- Once upon a Stage: The Merry World of Vaudeville, Dodd, 1974.
- His Eye Is on the Sparrow, Doubleday, 1951, published with a new preface by Donald Bogle, Da Capo Press, 1992.
- Lady on the Beach, Prentice-Hall, 1952.
- Hockshop, Random House, 1954.
- My Ten Years as a Counterspy, Viking, 1959.
- My Wonderful World of Slapstick, Doubleday, 1960, published with a new introduction by Dwight Macdonald and a new filmography compiled by Raymond Rohauer, Da Capo Press, 1982.
- How to Catch 5,000 Thieves'', Macmillan, 1962.
Quote
Samuels never graduated from high school or lost his Brooklyn accent. "I never wanted to be anything but a writer, have talent for nothing else except fast, furious, and occasionally witty conversation. I wouldn't trade my memories for anyone's," he told an interviewer.