Erich Segal
Erich Wolf Segal was an American author, screenwriter, and academic, born on June 16, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York. He gained early recognition as an exceptional student at Harvard University, where he became the only individual in the institution's history to serve as both class poet and Latin salutatorian. Following his studies, Segal joined the faculty at Yale University, where he specialized in comparative literature, focusing on the classics and comedy. His career took a significant turn when he transitioned into screenwriting, notably contributing to the animated film "Yellow Submarine."
Segal's most renowned work is the novel "Love Story," published in 1970, which tells the poignant tale of a doomed romance between two Ivy League students. The book became an international bestseller and inspired an Academy Award-nominated film, despite mixed critical reviews. Throughout his career, Segal continued to publish novels, such as "Doctors" and "Acts of Faith," which explored various social issues, although they often faced similar critical skepticism. In addition to his fiction, he authored a well-regarded academic study, "The Death of Comedy," which highlighted his expertise in theater. Ultimately, Segal's legacy is closely tied to the cultural impact of "Love Story," which resonated deeply with audiences during a time of significant societal unrest in the United States.
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Erich Segal
- Born: June 16, 1937
- Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
- Died: January 17, 2010
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Erich Wolf Segal was born on June 16, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a rabbi. A prodigiously gifted student, Segal attended Harvard University, the only student in that university’s distinguished history to serve as both class poet and Latin salutatorian. He completed postgraduate work at Harvard and, in 1964, joined the faculty at Yale University in the department of comparative literature, specializing in the classics with an emphasis on comedy. The charismatic Segal quickly earned a reputation as a first-rate teacher.
He began to pursue an interest in screenwriting in the late 1960’s, although none of his initial scripts were optioned. While Segal was in London in the summer of 1967, Segal’s agent put him in touch with Al Brodax, who was adapting “Yellow Submarine,” a little-known song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, into an animated film. The story for the film existed only in a number of unworkable drafts. Segal signed on to the project and remains among those most credited with shaping the concept into a workable script, with the film Yellow Submarine eventually becoming a landmark in the 1960’s flower power movement.
At the suggestion of his agent, Segal rewrote one of his scripts into a novel. It told of a doomed romance between two Ivy League students, an aloof Harvard law student estranged from his wealthy father and a poor but spunky Radcliffe College coed who wanted to be a concert pianist. The result, Love Story (1970), became a publishing phenomena, an international best- seller, and the basis for an Academy Award-nominated film for which Segal wrote the screenplay. The novel tested every romantic cliché and verged on sappy melodrama, but audiences bought into the story when Jenny dies of leukemia and Oliver must face life without the love that revived his heart. Critics were less kind, dismissing it as sentimental and manipulative, its prose flat and workmanlike.
Over the next two decades, Segal published several additional best-sellers which would elicit similarly lukewarm critical responses, most notably Doctors (1987), an ensemble narrative about students at the prestigious Harvard Medical School in the 1960’s, in which Segal tackled social issues, including bigotry, feminism, and euthanasia. Acts of Faith (1992), was a massive, melodramatic examination of contemporary religion in which a brother and sister and their father, a respected rabbi, each struggle with the difficult burden of their religious upbringing, complicated when the daughter falls in love with a prominent renegade Catholic priest.
Continuing for more than twenty years as an adjunct professor at Yale (he was famously denied tenure during the peak of Love Story’s popularity), Segal published a well-received history of comic theater, The Death of Comedy (2001), which reflected his long career in the classroom. Presenting an intriguing and wide ranging look at the defining eras of comedy since the ancients, the study was hailed as solidly academic while being accessible to a general audience. Despite the success of this study, and although he has written and edited several other scholarly works, Segal’s career remains largely defined by the impact of Love Story. Published at the height of domestic unrest against the Vietnam War, Segal’s simple narrative of a profound love, whatever its mawkish sentimentality, addressed the psychic needs of a fractured and dispirited country.