Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill was an influential American writer and cultural figure born on October 14, 1914, in Hartford, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale University and began his distinguished career at The New Yorker in 1936, where he remained for over sixty years, contributing to various sections including "Talk of the Town." Initially recognized for his poetry and short fiction, Gill published notable works such as *Death in April, and Other Poems* and *Ways of Loving: Two Novellas and Eighteen Short Stories*. He later ventured into novels, winning acclaim for titles like *The Trouble of One House* and adapting his comic novel *The Day the Money Stopped* into a play.
Aside from fiction, he was a prominent critic, serving as film critic from 1960 to 1967 and drama critic from 1968 to 1987, while also writing an architecture column. His passion for art and historic preservation was evident in his writings on architecture and his involvement in various cultural organizations, including the New York City Commission on Cultural Affairs. Gill played a significant role in efforts to preserve landmarks like Grand Central Terminal and received accolades for his contributions, including the first Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award in 1995. He authored biographies of notable figures and left a lasting legacy through his diverse body of work and cultural influence until his death on December 27, 1997.
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Subject Terms
Brendan Gill
Critic
- Born: October 4, 1914
- Birthplace: Hartford, Connecticut
- Died: December 27, 1997
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Brendan Gill was born on October 14, 1914, in Hartford, Connecticut, and attended Yale University. Upon graduation, he joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1936, a position he held for the next six decades. He married Anne Barnard in 1936, and the couple had six children.
Gill initially was known for his poetry and short fiction. His collection, Death in April, and Other Poems, was published in 1935, and his short fiction was published in the Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, and The New Yorker, among other journals. His short fiction later was collected in Ways of Loving: Two Novellas and Eighteen Short Stories, published in 1974. Gill later wrote novels, including The Trouble of One House, which won several national book awards, and The Day the Money Stopped, a comic novel he adapted into a play with dramatist Maxwell Anderson in 1958.
Gill contributed a number of pieces to the “Talk of the Town” section of The New Yorker throughout his career, and in 1975 he published Here at “The New Yorker”, an account of his years at the magazine which coincided with the magazine’s fiftieth anniversary. The book included descriptions of the many roles he played at the magazine and of the magazine’s other interesting writers, including Harold Ross, James Thurber, and John O’Hara. Gill was the film critic for The New Yorker from 1960 to 1967, the drama critic from 1968 to 1987, and the author of an architecture column, “The Sky Line,” for a decade until his death on December 27, 1997.
Gill had a real passion for art and architecture, especially in New York, and he wrote A Fair Land to Build In: The Architecture of the Empire State and The Dream Come True: Great Houses of Los Angeles. He was a member of the New York City Commission on Cultural Affairs, the Mayor’s Committee in the Public Interest, and of the board of directors of the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many other cultural organizations. He also chaired the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts and the Landmarks Conservancy of New York. He helped to preserve New York City’s Grand Central Terminal and received the first Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award in 1995 in recognition of these efforts.
Gill wrote biographies of Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Lindbergh, and Frank Lloyd Wright and published two collections of portraits, A New York Life: Of Friends and Others and Late Bloomers. He was a gifted and prolific writer who produced works in a number of genres and left his imprint on several cultural fields, particularly historic preservation. He was also the quintessential writer for The New Yorker, who seemed to write effortlessly and stylishly on any subject he chose.