Quentin Reynolds
Quentin James Reynolds was an American journalist and World War II war correspondent. He also played American football for one season in the National Football League with the Brooklyn Lions.
Early life and education
Reynolds was born on April 11, 1902, in The Bronx. He attended Manual Training High School in Brooklyn and Brown University. At Brown, he played college football as a tackle and starred as a breaststroker on the swimming team.Career
As an associate editor at Collier's Weekly from 1933 to 1945, Reynolds averaged 20 articles a year. He also published 25 books, including The Wounded Don't Cry, London Diary, Dress Rehearsal, and Courtroom, a biography of lawyer Samuel Leibowitz. His autobiography was titled By Quentin Reynolds.After World War II, Reynolds was best known for his 1955 libel suit against right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler, who called him "yellow" and an "absentee war correspondent". Reynolds, represented by noted attorney Louis Nizer, won $175,001, at the time the largest libel judgment ever. The trial was later made into a Broadway play, A Case of Libel, which was twice adapted as TV movies.
In 1953, Reynolds was the victim of a major literary hoax when he published The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, the supposedly true story of a Canadian war hero, George Dupre, who claimed to have been captured and tortured by German soldiers. When the hoax was exposed, Bennett Cerf, of Random House, Reynolds's publisher, reclassified the book as fiction.
On December 8, 1950, Reynolds debuted as a television actor in "The Ponzi Story", an episode of Pulitzer Prize Playhouse. Reynolds was a personal friend of British media mogul Sidney Bernstein. In 1956, Reynolds paid a visit to England to co-host Meet the People, the launch night program for Manchester-based Granada Television which Bernstein founded.
Reynolds was a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.
Death
Reynolds died of cancer, on March 17, 1965, at Travis Air Force Base Hospital in Fairfield, California.Books
Parlor, Bedlam and Bath, Liveright, 1930The Wounded Don't Cry, E P Dutton, 1941A London Diary, Angus & Robertson, 1941Convoy, Random House, 1942Only the Stars are Neutral, Random House, 1942; Blue Ribbon Books, 1943Dress Rehearsal: The Story of Dieppe, Random House, 1943The Curtain Rises, Random House, 1944Officially Dead: The Story of Commander C D Smith, USN; The Prisoner the Japs Couldn’t Hold No. 511 Random House, 1945 70,000 to 1 ; True War Adventure, 1946- Leave It to the People, Random House, 1948,1949The Wright Brothers, Pioneers of American Aviation, Random House Landmark Books, 1950Courtroom; The Story of Samuel S Leibowitz, Farrar, Straus and Co, 1950Custer's Last Stand, Random House, 1951The Battle of Britain, Random House, 1953The Amazing Mr Doolittle; A Biography of Lieutenant General James H Doolittle, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, 1953I, Willie Sutton, Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953The FBI, Random House Landmark Books, 1954Headquarters, Harper & Brothers, 1955The Fiction Factory; or, From Pulp Row to Quality Street; The Story of 100 years of Publishing at Street & Smith, Random House 1955They Fought for the Sky; The Dramatic Story of the First War in the Air, Rinehart & Company, 1957Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story, Viking 1960Known But to God; The Story of the “Unknowns” of America’s War Memorials, John Day 1960Winston Churchill, Random House 1963By Quentin Reynolds, McGraw Hill, 1963Britain Can Take It! Don't Think It Hasn't Been FunThe Life of Saint PatrickMacapagal, the Incorruptible
- A Secret for Two
- ''With Fire and Sword; Great War Adventures''