Brendan Gill wrote for 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...

 for more than 60 years. He also contributed film criticism for Film Comment

Film Comment

Film Comment is an arts and culture magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features critical reviews and in-depth analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world...

 and wrote a popular book about his time at the New Yorker magazine.

Biography

Born in Hartford, Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, Gill was graduated in 1936 from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, where he was a member of Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....

. He was a long-time resident of Bronxville, New York

Bronxville, New York

Bronxville is an affluent village within the town of Eastchester, New York, in the United States. It is a suburb of New York City, located approximately north of midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County. At the 2010 census, Bronxville had a population of 6,323...

 and Norfolk, Connecticut

Norfolk, Connecticut

Norfolk is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,660 at the 2000 census.Norfolk is perhaps best known as the site of the Yale Summer School of Music – Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, which hosts an annual chamber music concert series in "the Music Shed," a...

.

A champion of architectural preservation and other visual arts, he chaired the 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...

 Foundation for the Visual Arts and authored 15 books, including Here at The New Yorker and the iconoclastic Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

 biography Many Masks.

In September 1989, Gill wrote the controversial article "The Faces of Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell

Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...

" for the New York Review of Books where he made a number of accusations against Campbell, including charging him with anti-Semitism. Gill was acquainted with Campbell through the Century Club. After his article, many people and from various walks of life who knew Campbell personally, vigorously denied the accusations levied by Gill. But many people who knew Campbell personally also strongly supported Gill's accusations of racism and anti-semitism. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20116047,00.html

Gill was a good friend of actor Sir Rex Harrison

Rex Harrison

Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...

 and was among the speakers who memorialized the legendary actor at his memorial service in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1990 .

Brendan Gill died of natural causes in 1997, at the age of 83 .

Legacy

Gill's son, Michael Gates Gill, is the author of How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else

How Starbucks Saved My Life

How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else is a memoir by Michael Gates Gill which chronicles his journey from a high-level advertising executive with J. Walter Thompson to a barista at Starbucks. The book has been optioned by Tom Hanks for a film; filmmaker...

. His youngest son, Charles Gill, is the author of the novel The Boozer Challenge

The Boozer Challenge

The Boozer Challenge is a fiction book by author Charles Gill, son of famed New Yorker writer Brendan Gill, and brother of Michael Gates Gill, who wrote How Starbucks Saved My Life.The Boozer Challenge was published on April 1, 1989, by Penguin....

, a sexy romp of the struggling upper class with tongue-in-cheek humor and wit.

Offices Held

Chairman of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Chairman of the Municipal Art Society

Municipal Art Society

The Municipal Art Society of New York, founded in 1893, is a non-profit membership organization that fights for intelligent urban planning, design and preservation through education, dialogue and advocacy in New York City....

Chairman of the New York Landmarks Conservancy

New York Landmarks Conservancy

The New York Landmarks Conservancy is a non-profit organization "dedicated to preserving, revitalizing, and reusing New York’s architecturally significant buildings." It provides technical assistance, project management services, grants, and loans, to owners of historic properties in New York State...

Vice President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Books

• Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright
• Here at The New Yorker
  Here at The New Yorker
  Here at The New Yorker is a 1975 best-selling book by American writer Brendan Gill, writer and drama critic for the magazine The New Yorker.-The book:...
  
  
• Late Bloomers
• Portable Dorothy Parker (Dorothy Parker biography) (1972)
• New York Life: Of Friends and Others
• Cole Porter (Cole Porter biography) (1972)
• Tallulah (Tallulah Bankhead biography) (1972)
• Ways of Loving (short stories) (1974).
• Summer Places (with Dudley Whitney Hill) (1978)
• Lindbergh Alone - May 21, 1927 (1980)
• The Dream Come True: Great Houses of Los Angeles (1980)
• Fair Land to Build in: The Architecture of the Empire State (1984)
• The Trouble of One House (1951)
• The Day the Money Stopped (1957

Articles

I Can Hear it Now - album of speeches and news broadcasts, 1932-45 (with Spencer Klaw). Transit Radio, Inc. Hiding telephone lines in the ivy at Princeton (with M. Galt). Reviews Bill C. Davis' "Dancing in the End Zone", James Duff

James Duff (writer)

James Duff is an American television writer, producer and director. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and has written plays and television screenplays...

's "Home Front" and Rodgers and Hammerstein

Rodgers and Hammerstein

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...

's "The King and I". West 44th Street development.

External links

• Encyclopedia Britannica entry