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William A. Henry III

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William A. Henry III
Born
William Alfred Henry

(1950-01-24)January 24, 1950
South Orange, New Jersey, US
DiedJune 28, 1994(1994-06-28) (aged 44)
Maidenhead, Berkshire, England
EducationYale University (BA)
OccupationCultural critic

William Alfred Henry III (January 24, 1950 – June 28, 1994) was an American cultural critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.[1][2]

Career

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Henry lived in North Plainfield, New Jersey as a young man. He graduated from Yale in 1971 and began his career in journalism in Boston, writing for the Boston Globe. His coverage of school desegregation in Boston won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975. He also wrote on the arts for the Globe, winning a second Pulitzer for his television criticism in 1980.[3]

In the 1980s he worked as an arts critic for Time magazine, while pursuing his interests in cultural criticism and in American politics. Among his articles for Time was a story critical of the Hollywood trade newspapers in their cozy relationship in an industry town.[4] In 1984, he wrote Visions of America, an account of the American presidential campaign of that year. His 1990 video documentary of Bob Fosse, Steam Heat, won an Emmy.[citation needed] He also wrote a 1992 biography of Jackie Gleason, The Great One.[5][6]

His final book was In Defense of Elitism, a work of social and cultural criticism that argued that societies and cultures might be ranked on a spectrum ranging from 'egalitarianism' to 'elitism', and that the contemporary United States had moved too far away from the latter; a view he defended with reference to college education, multiculturalism, and other topics. He died of a heart attack on June 28, 1994, while the book was coming to press.[7]

Publications

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  • Henry, William A. (1985). Visions of America : how we saw the 1984 election. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 9780871130129. OCLC 564291516.
  • Henry, William A. (1992). The Great One: The Life and Legend of Jackie Gleason. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-41533-0. OCLC 651898009 – via Internet Archive.
  • Henry, William A. (1994). In Defense of Elitism. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-47943-1. OCLC 30155600.

References

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  1. ^ Fischer, Heinz D.; Fischer, Erika J. (2002). Complete Biographical Encyclopedia of Pulitzer Prize Winners 1917-2000 (Vol. 16). Berlin: De Gruyter. p. 103. ISBN 978-3-598-30186-5.
  2. ^ Grimes, William (June 29, 1994). "William Henry 3rd, A Drama Reviewer At Time, Dies At 44". The New York Times. p. D19. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
  3. ^ Official website of the Pulitzer Prize
  4. ^ Trades Blow No Ill Winds, TIME, September 27, 1982
  5. ^ Henry, III, William A. (1992). The Great One: The Life and Legend of Jackie Gleason. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-41533-0. OCLC 651898009 – via Internet Archive.
  6. ^ Henry's biographical sketch at Random House, which published In Defense of Elitism
  7. ^ Short obituary of Henry at Time magazine; long obituary of Henry at TIME Magazine
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Wikiquote has quotations related to William A. Henry III.
  • George Scialabba's review of In Defense of Elitism
  • Roger Kimball's article in The New Criterion, April 2001 references In Defense of Elitism
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