Guy Endore
Samuel Guy Endore was an American author and screenwriter born on July 4, 1900, in New York City. His early life was marked by tragedy following his mother's suicide, which resulted in him spending time in an orphanage. He pursued higher education at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and Columbia University, earning a B.A. and an M.A. Before becoming known for his literary contributions, he married Henrietta Portugal and had two daughters.
Endore's literary career included notable works such as "The Werewolf of Paris," a novel that explores themes of sympathy towards its titular character, set against the backdrop of the 1871 Paris Commune. He was also known for writing fictional biographies of historical figures like Casanova and Voltaire. Politically engaged, Endore joined the Communist Party in the late 1930s, remaining committed through various political upheavals, including the Stalinist purges.
In addition to his novels, Endore worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, where he faced blacklisting due to his political beliefs. His script for "The Story of G.I. Joe" earned an Academy Award nomination. Later in life, he distanced himself from the Communist Party and became involved with Synanon, a controversial drug rehabilitation program. Endore passed away in Los Angeles in 1970, and while his work is not widely recognized today, some argue that "The Werewolf of Paris" deserves greater acclaim in the realm of fictional lycanthropy.
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Guy Endore
- Born: July 4, 1900
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: February 12, 1970
- Place of death: Los Angeles, California
Biography
Samuel Guy Endore was born in New York City on July 4, 1900, the son of a sometime coal miner and inventor. Dismayed by the family’s poverty, Endore’s mother committed suicide, and he was sent to an orphanage. He attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology and then Columbia University, receiving a B. A. in 1923 and a M.A. in 1925. In 1927 he married Henrietta Portugal, and they had two daughters, Marcia and Gita. Although Endore was born Jewish, he later claimed to have been a more of a mystic, with leanings towards theosophy. His first novel, like several of his later works, was a sensational fictional biography of a well-known person: Casanova: His Known and Unknown Life. Later novels treated Joan of Arc and François-Marie Arouet (more commonly known as Voltaire), among others. His most famous novel, The Werewolf of Paris, is a sympathetic treatment of the title monster, partly set during the revolutionary events of the Paris Commune of 1871.
After reading the complete works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Endore became a member of the Communist Party sometime during the latter half of the 1930’s, at the very time when Stalin’s Moscow Purge Trials were causing other Communist believers to leave the party. Babouk, a novel set during the Haitian slave rebellion of 1791, is his most overtly political work. He remained ideologically faithful during the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, another Communist action that Stalin’s followers in the West found disillusioning. He moved to Hollywood during the 1930’s and worked as screenwriter on various films, such as The Devil Doll (1936), The League of Frightened Men (1937), and Carefree (1938). He taught novel-writing at the People’s Educational Center in Los Angeles and wrote pamphlets in support of the Scottsboro Boys (1938) and the Latino men arrested in the Los Angeles Zoot Suit riots (1944). A mystery novel, Methinks the Lady, has been highly praised (and also criticized) for its reliance on the truthfulness of Freudian theory. (Endore claimed that psychoanalysis had helped him to cope with his mother’s suicide.) Endore’s 1945 script for The Story of G. I. Joe was nominated for an Academy Award, but his Communist beliefs were more apparent in his work on 1944’s notorious Song of Russia, and helped lead to his blacklisting in Hollywood. Unrepentant, he tried to get work using the alias Harry Relis. Later severing his ties to the Communist Party, he became involved in Synanon, a controversial drug-treatment program and self-contained society. He died in Los Angeles in 1970. Though it is largely forgotten today, some claim that The Werewolf of Paris deserves to be as famous in fictional lycanthropy as Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) is in fictional vampirism. At any rate, Endore deserves further study, especially in the area of the intersection of political beliefs and popular culture.