James Kaplan
James C. Kaplan is an American novelist, journalist, and biographer.
Biography
Kaplan was born in New York City and grew up in rural Pennsylvania and suburban New Jersey. He matriculated at New York University and graduated from Wesleyan University in 1973 with a degree in studio art. After graduation, Kaplan studied painting at the New York Studio School in Greenwich Village. He is the brother of editor Peter Kaplan.In the mid-1970s, Kaplan worked as a typist at The New Yorker, where he came under the tutelage of the writer and editor William Maxwell. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he published a number of short stories in The New Yorker. In the mid-1980s, Kaplan worked for several years as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers. Since the late 1980s, he has been a writer of magazine profiles for Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and The New Yorker, among others.
He is the author of the following books, among other works:
- 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool
- Sinatra: The Chairman
- Frank: The Voice
- Two Guys from Verona: A Novel of Suburbia, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year
- The Airport: Terminal Nights and Runway Days at John F. Kennedy International
- Pearl's Progress
- With Jerry Lewis, a memoir of Lewis's relationship with Dean Martin, Dean & Me
- With John McEnroe, You Cannot Be Serious