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Albert Goldman | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1927-04-15)April 15, 1927 Dormont, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | March 28, 1994(1994-03-28) (aged 66) |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Occupations |
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Albert Harry Goldman (April 15, 1927 – March 28, 1994) was anAmerican academic and author.[1][2]
Goldman wrote about the culture and personalities of the American music industry, both in books and as a contributor to magazines. He is known for his bestselling book onLenny Bruce and his controversial biographies ofElvis Presley andJohn Lennon.[3]
Albert Goldman was born inDormont, Pennsylvania, and raised inMount Lebanon, Pennsylvania.[1]
Goldman briefly studiedtheater at theCarnegie Institute of Technology before serving in theU.S. Navy from 1945 to 1946. He earned amaster's degree in English from theUniversity of Chicago in 1950; under the chancellery ofRobert Maynard Hutchins, students who were not enrolled in the generalist "Chicago Plan" undergraduate degree program were designated as master's students and received the higher degree after five years of study.[1]
Upon matriculating in the English doctoral program atColumbia University, Goldman began to teach literature courses at several institutions inNew York City, including theCity College of New York,Hunter College,Baruch College,Brooklyn College, theSchool of Visual Arts and theColumbia University School of General Studies. During this period, he first became acquainted with Lenny Bruce through his wife, Florence Singer, who introduced her husband to New York's jazz scene before going on to "re-raise [Goldman] as a hipBrooklyn Jew" along with her family and friends throughout his doctoral studies, effectively planting the seeds for his later interest inpopular culture.[4] Following studies underLionel Trilling andJacques Barzun, he completed hisPh.D. in 1961 with a dissertation onThomas de Quincey. Goldman argued that de Quincey hadplagiarized most of his acclaimed journalism from lesser-known writers; the dissertation was subsequently published as a monograph (The Mine and the Mint: Sources for the Writings of Thomas DeQuincey) bySouthern Illinois University Press in 1965. He also co-editedWagner on Music and Drama (1964), a compendium ofRichard Wagner's theoretical writings.[5]
After completing his doctorate degree, Goldman remained affiliated with Columbia, where he was an adjunct associate professor of English andcomparative literature from 1963 to 1972; among his course offerings was the university's first class on popular culture. A close friend ofPhilip Roth, Goldman may have influenced the characterisation of libidinous academic David Kepesh, notably showcased by Roth in such works asThe Breast (1972) andThe Professor of Desire (1977).[4]
A biography onLenny Bruce showing where Bruce's humor came from. Writing forThe New Yorker, critic of the timePauline Kael mentions that Goldman's provides a "sense of how Bruce's act developed, and who the audiences were, what the clubs were like, and what the other comics were doing." Goldman revered Bruce and argues against the sanctification of him shedding light on Bruce as a "junkie and putting down those who stayed clear of drugs."[6]
In Goldman's critical 1981 biographyElvis, he dismissed the performer as a plagiarist who never did anything of note after his first records atSun Records, insisting that he was inferior as an artist toLittle Richard and other contemporaries. He also portrayed Presley as mentally ill, using stories such as Presley taking his friends halfway across the country to buy them peanut-butter sandwiches as evidence that the singer had lost his grip on reality.[7]
InThe Boston Phoenix, rock criticPeter Guralnick declared the book "not worth reading." Guralnick said that "even given factual accuracy, scholarly integrity (a large concession), and thematic core, nothing about this book is true. It misses the point of Elvis’s life, of Elvis’s music, and of our response. It misses the humor, it misses the complexity, it misses the excitement, it misses the awfulness; and it offers as a substitute - what? The rhetoric of loathing. A single unvarying note of contempt."[8] Other critics liked the book, withJonathan Yardley ofThe Washington Post calling it a "nasty book, written in spectacularly execrable prose, but the view of Presley that it expressed dovetailed in many instances with my own, and in spite of itself I found things in it to admire."[9]
InThe Lives of John Lennon (1988), a product of years of research and hundreds of interviews with many of Lennon's friends, acquaintances, servants and musicians, Goldman juxtaposesJohn Lennon's talents against his dark side. The book reveals a very personal side of the musician who was prone to faults, such as anger, domestic violence (exemplified by an assistant's allegation that then-girlfriendYoko Ono's 1968 miscarriage was triggered by a beating from Lennon), drug abuse (including longstanding addictions tococaine andheroin), adultery, and indecisiveness, but who was also a generational leader. It deals with Lennon's childhood and the impact others had on his life, among them his aunt,Mimi Smith, his father,Fred Lennon, and Johnny Dykins. Goldman implies that strong women ruined Lennon, starting with Smith, and that he was later being held prisoner by Ono (who may have encouraged their mutual heroin addiction as a way of controlling him and his vast fortune to her own ends).
Concerning Goldman's account of Lennon's consumption ofLSD,Lucy Sante, inThe New York Review of Books, said: "Goldman's background research was either slovenly or nonexistent."[10]Peter Doggett writes inYou Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles that Goldman's book had many faults, but still managed to capture significant elements of Lennon's life.
Goldman died of a heart attack on March 28, 1994, while flying from Miami to London. He left unfinished a biography ofDoors singerJim Morrison.[1]
Three years before his death,Penthouse published a long excerpt from his work-in-progress on Morrison.[11] The excerpt focused on documents that Goldman claimed to have obtained from theParis Police Prefecture regarding the minor police investigation that had been conducted in response to Morrison's wifePamela Courson's notification that he had died suddenly at the apartment they were renting.[12] According to Goldman, Courson provided a detailed account of the activities she and Morrison had done together throughout the day and night of Friday, July 2, 1971.[12] They included setting up a movie projector and screening theirSuper 8 film home movies that they had made during a recent trip toSpain.[12]
According to Goldman, Courson seemingly gave police the whole truth about the early-morning hours of Saturday, except that she carefully refrained from admitting that either of them had used narcotics.[12] According to Goldman, she even admitted that Morrison had vomited blood extensively and she grabbed a series of pots from their kitchen to catch all of it, and police believed her claim that this had happened in the middle of the night without the deceased, age 27, being under the influence of narcotics or alcohol.[12]
Goldman's biography of Morrison was never published, nor did a publication other thanPenthouse refer to the alleged contents of Paris Police Prefecture documents related to Morrison and Courson. In an obituary in theLos Angeles Daily News,Phil Rosenthal said of Goldman's last project, "At the time of his death, he was picking over Jim Morrison's bones for yet another book."[13]
U2 lead singerBono referenced his disdain for Goldman in the song "God Part II" from the 1988 albumRattle and Hum:
