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Erich Segal | |
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 Segal in 1965 | |
| Born | Erich Wolf Segal (1937-06-16)June 16, 1937 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died | January 17, 2010(2010-01-17) (aged 72) London, England |
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| Alma mater | Harvard University (A.B.,A.M.,Ph.D.) |
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| Children | 2 |
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| erichsegal | |
Erich Wolf Segal (June 16, 1937 – January 17, 2010) was an American author, screenwriter, educator, andclassicist who wrote the bestselling novelLove Story (1970) and itsfilm adaptation.
Born and raised in a Jewish household in Brooklyn, New York, Segal was the first of three brothers. His father, Samuel Segal (1904-1961), was a prominentrabbi in theReform Judaism movement (best known for serving as spiritual director of the now-defunct Mount Neboh Congregation at 130 West79th Street from 1939 to 1961) who was educated at theUniversity of Pennsylvania (B.A., 1928;M.A., 1929) andNew York University (Ph.D. in religion on the history of Jewish day schools in New York City, 1952), while his mother was a homemaker; his grandfather was fromVilnius.[1][2][3] His interest in writing and narrating stories developed as a child, when his father published variousJudaica-oriented reference books.
Although his family had since relocated from Brooklyn to a luxuryUpper West Side apartment house onWest End Avenue in Manhattan, he attendedMidwood High School (approximately an hour away via theNew York City Subway) in the former borough, likely due to its reputation as one of the few New York City public high schools of the era that consistently served as a feeder toIvy League andSeven Sisters undergraduate institutions under the aegis of longtime guidance counselor Elizabeth Bradshaw. During his tenure at Midwood, he suffered a serious accident while canoeing. His coach advised him to jog as a part of his rehabilitation, which ended up becoming his lifelong avocation, enjoining him to participate in theBoston Marathon more than 12 times. He attendedHarvard College, graduating as both the class poet andLatinsalutatorian in 1958, and then obtained his master's degree (in 1959) and a doctorate (in 1965) incomparative literature fromHarvard University,[4] after which he started teaching atYale.
In 1967, through connections on Broadway, Segal was given the opportunity to collaborate on the screenplay forthe Beatles' 1968 motion pictureYellow Submarine, based on a story by Lee Minoff. He occasionally worked as an actor, having a supporting role in the French crime thrillerWithout Apparent Motive and a cameo appearance as agondolier inJennifer on My Mind, which he also wrote.
His first academic book,Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus (1968), published by the Harvard University Press, gave him considerable recognition and chronicled the great Roman comic playwright who inspired the Broadway hitA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962).[citation needed]
In the late 1960s, and early '70s Segal collaborated on other screenplays. He wrote a romantic story about a Harvard student and aRadcliffe student but failed to sell it. Literary agentLois Wallace at theWilliam Morris Agency then suggested he turn the script into a novel, and the result wasLove Story (1970). ANew York Times No. 1 bestseller, the book became the top selling work of fiction for 1970 in the United States, and was translated into 33 languages worldwide. Themotion picture of the same name was the number one box office attraction of 1970.
The novel proved problematic for Segal. He acknowledged that its success unleashed "egotism bordering on megalomania" and he was denied tenure at Yale. Moreover,Love Story "was ignominiously bounced from the nomination slate of theNational Book Awards after the fiction jury threatened to resign." Segal later said that the book "totally ruined me."[5] He would go on to write more novels and screenplays, including the 1977 sequel toLove Story, titledOliver's Story.
Segal published scholarly works on Greek and Latin literature and taught Greek and Latin literature at Harvard, Yale andPrinceton universities. He was a Supernumerary Fellow and anHonorary Fellow ofWolfson College atOxford University.[6] He served as a visiting professor at Princeton, theUniversity of Munich andDartmouth College.
His novelThe Class (1985), a saga based on the Harvard Class of 1958, was a bestseller, and won literary honors in France and Italy.[citation needed]Doctors (1988) was anotherNew York Times bestseller. In 2001, he published a book on the history of theatre calledThe Death of Comedy.[7]
Segal was an accomplished competitive runner. He had been a sprinter at Midwood High School, and ran the two-mile at Harvard College. He began marathon running during his second year at Harvard, when track and field head coach Bill McCurdy was impressed with how fast he had run 10 miles.[8] Segal ran in theBoston Marathon almost every year from 1955 to 1975.[9] He finished in 79th place at 3 hours, 43 minutes in his first attempt,[8] and his best performance was in 1964 when he finished 63rd with a time of 2:56:30. He recounted that, after one Boston marathon, someone yelled, "Hey, Segal, you run better than you write".[10] Segal was featured in the 1965 documentary shortMarathon, which documents the 1964 Boston Marathon and was directed by filmmakersJoyce Chopra andRobert Gardner.
Segal was acolor commentator forOlympic marathons during telecasts of both the1972 and1976 Summer Olympics.[11] His most notable broadcast was in 1972, when he andJim McKay calledFrank Shorter's gold-medal-winning performance. After an impostor,West German student Norbert Sudhaus, ran intoOlympic Stadium ahead of Shorter,[12] an emotionally upset Segal yelled, "That is an impostor! Get him off the track! This happens in bush league marathons! This doesn't happen in an Olympic marathon! Throw the bum out! Get rid of that guy!"[13] When Shorter appeared to be confused by the events, Segal yelled, "come on, Frank, you won it!"[14] and "Frank, it's a fake, Frank!"[15]
In 2000,The Washington Post included the incident among the 10 most memorable American sports calls (albeit misquoting the latter line as being "it's a fraud, Frank!").[16] In a 2010 posthumous tribute to Segal, marathon runnerAmby Burfoot called Segal's call "one of the most unprofessional, unbridled, and totally appropriate outbursts in the history of Olympic TV commentary", taking into consideration the fact that Segal had taught Shorter at Yale.[10]
Segal married Karen James in 1975 and subsequently settled in North West London;[1][17] they had two daughters, Miranda andFrancesca Segal. Francesca, born in 1980, is a freelance journalist, literary critic, and columnist.
Segal, who suffered fromParkinson's disease,[18] died of a heart attack on January 17, 2010,[19] and was buried in London. In a eulogy delivered at his funeral, his daughter Francesca said, "That he fought to breathe, fought to live, every second of the last 30 years of illness with such mind-blowing obduracy, is a testament to the core of who he was – a blind obsessionality that saw him pursue his teaching, his writing, his running and my mother, with just the same tenacity. He was the most dogged man any of us will ever know."[20]
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