Barry Paris
Encyclopedia
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
. His best-known works include acclaimed biographies of film stars Louise Brooks
Louise Brooks
Mary Louise Brooks , generally known by her stage name Louise Brooks, was an American dancer, model, showgirl and silent film actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W...
, Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
and Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
. He is a movie reviewer
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the "PG," is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.-Early history:...
, and co-host of a weekly radio show on WQED-FM
WQED-FM
WQED-FM is a listener-supported, public radio classical, fine arts, and news station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The station, which is a sister station to both WQED-TV and WINP-TV, operates at 89.3 MHz with an ERP of 28 kW, and is a member station of National Public Radio and an affiliate of...
. Paris has won multiple awards for cultural and investigative reporting. He is currently engaged in writing a biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
of Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army...
(tentatively titled Pierce in Oblivion), the 14th President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
.
Biographic works
Louise Brooks (Knopf, 1989) is Paris’s ground breaking biography of the silent filmSilent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
star. A thoroughly researched and stylishly penned work, it will likely stand as the definitive book on this 20th century icon. Widely praised upon publication, Louise Brooks was named Film Book of the Year by Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
. In reviewing the book, the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
stated "Barry Paris has written the model of a movie biography". Similarly, the Irish Times added, "In a short review it is impossible to give even a taste of the splendor of Mr Paris's work. It is one of the best biographies I have ever read, erudite, literate and always in search of its subject." Other reviews echoed similar positive assessments. The book was published across Europe and South America and remains in print in the United States. Along with this biography, Paris has written articles on the actress and scripted the Emmy-nominated documentary Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998).
Paris authored Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
: The Autobiography (William Heinemann, 1993), which occupied the number one spot on the British best-seller list; Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
(Knopf, 1995), widely considered the definitive biography of the reclusive star; Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
(Putnam, 1996), a biography of the iconic actress which was published in eight countries and Song of Haiti (Public Affairs, 2000), the story of Dr Larry
Larry Mellon
William Larimer "Larry" Mellon was an American philanthropist and physician.He was born in Pittsburgh June 26, 1910, the son of financier William Larimer Mellon, Sr. and a grandnephew of U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon...
and Gwen Mellon and their hospital at Deschapelles
Deschapelles
This article refers to a town in Haiti. For the French chess master, see Alexandre Deschapelles.Deschapelles is a town in Haiti, in the Artibonite Valley. Deschapelles is where the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti is located.-External links:*...
, Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
.
Paris contributed 15 Minutes, But Who's Counting? Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
and His Icons to The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style, Fashion (Bulfinch Press, 1997); and edited and wrote the preface to Stella Adler on Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
, Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
, and Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
(Knopf, 1999), a collection of talks by the legendary drama teacher. A second, Paris-edited, collection of Stella Adler
Stella Adler
Stella Adler was an American actress and an acclaimed acting teacher, who founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and the The Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles with long-time protege Joanne Linville, who continues to teach and furthers Adler's legacy...
’s talks is in preparation.
As well as the above-mentioned books, Paris is also a widely published journalist. His lengthy profiles of the novelist and Mozart biographer Marcia Davenport
Marcia Davenport
Marcia Davenport was an American author and music critic. She was born Marcia Glick in New York City on June 9, 1903, the daughter of Bernard Glick and the opera singer Alma Gluck, and she became the stepdaughter of violinist Efrem Zimbalist when Alma Gluck remarried.Davenport traveled extensively...
and the early film star Lina Basquette
Lina Basquette
Lina Basquette was an American actress noted as much for her more than 75 years in entertainment beginning in the silent film era, as her tumultuous personal life and nine marriages.-Early years:...
appeared in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine. Other publications to which he has contributed articles, reviews and interviews include Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, Opera News
Opera News
Opera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...
, American Film, Art and Antiques
Art and Antiques Magazine
Art & Antiques is an American arts magazine.-1984 launch:Art & Antiques began with the March, 1984, issue, also called the "Premier Issue." While the magazine disclaimed any connection to a previous publication of the same name, the company had in fact bought the rights from a previous magazine...
and (The Washington Post).
Paris is a 1969 graduate of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
(where he studied film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
) and of the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, where he wrote Russian Cinema
Cinema of the Soviet Union
The cinema of the Soviet Union, not to be confused with "Cinema of Russia" despite Russian language films being predominant in both genres, includes several film contributions of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union reflecting elements of their pre-Soviet culture, language and history,...
and the Soviet Film Industry, an early survey of the subject. Paris is fluent in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
, and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and has translated plays by Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
.
Paris was the editor-publisher of the Prairie Journal of Wichita, Kansas
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
from 1972-1974; feature editor of The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
from 1979–1980 and critic/reporter of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the "PG," is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.-Early history:...
from 1980-1986. Since 1981, he has co-hosted Sunday Arts Magazine on radio station WQED-FM
WQED-FM
WQED-FM is a listener-supported, public radio classical, fine arts, and news station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The station, which is a sister station to both WQED-TV and WINP-TV, operates at 89.3 MHz with an ERP of 28 kW, and is a member station of National Public Radio and an affiliate of...
. The weekly program covers the Pittsburgh/Western Pennsylvania cultural and classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
scene. Among his journalistic awards are the National Sunday Magazine Editors' Best Feature (1993), Pennsylvania Press Association's Best Cultural Story (1982) and three Matrix Awards (1980, 1981, 1993).