Marie Brenner | |
|---|---|
 Marie Brenner | |
| Born | Marie Harriet Brenner (1949-12-15)December 15, 1949 (age 75) San Antonio,Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Author, investigative journalist |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | Anita Brenner (aunt) |
Marie Harriet Brenner (born December 15, 1949) is an American author,investigative journalist and writer-at-large forVanity Fair.[1] She has also written forNew York,The New Yorker and theBoston Herald[2] and has taught atColumbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.[3] Her 1996Vanity Fair article ontobacco insiderJeffrey Wigand, "The Man Who Knew Too Much", inspired the 1999 movieThe Insider, starringRussell Crowe andAl Pacino. Her February 1997Vanity Fair article "American Tragedy: The Ballad ofRichard Jewell" partially inspired the 2019 filmRichard Jewell directed byClint Eastwood.[4]
Brenner earned aBachelor of Fine Arts from theUniversity of Texas at Austin and received aM.A. fromNew York University Film School.[5] She was the first femalebaseball columnist covering theAmerican League, traveling with theBoston Red Sox for theBoston Herald during the 1979 season.[6] Brenner worked as a contributing editor forNew York magazine from 1980 to 1984, and covered the royal wedding ofPrince Charles andLady Diana Spencer.[7]
Brenner joinedVanity Fair as a special correspondent in 1984. She left the magazine in 1992 to become a staff writer atThe New Yorker, returning toVanity Fair in 1995 as writer-at-large.[2] Her 1996 article forVanity Fair onJeffrey Wigand and the tobacco wars, titled "The Man Who Knew Too Much",[8] was made into the 1999 feature filmThe Insider, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, and directed byMichael Mann. It was nominated for sevenAcademy Awards, including Best Picture.[9]
In 2012, Brenner penned a piece entitled "Marie Colvin's Private War", forVanity Fair. This article was later adapted into the filmA Private War, directed by first time director,Matthew Heineman, and starring Academy Award nominated actress,Rosamund Pike. Pike was nominated forBest Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama at the76th Golden Globe Awards, while Heineman was recognized with a nomination from theDirectors Guild of America with a nomination forOutstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director.
In 1997, she wrote an article forVanity Fair onRichard Jewell, the security guard hailed as a hero, then incorrectly suspected, of theOlympic Park bombing in 1996. Titled "American Tragedy: The Ballad of Richard Jewell", it was, along with the 2019 bookThe Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen, the basis of the 2019 filmRichard Jewell.[4][10][11][12]
Brenner's 2002Vanity Fair article, "The Enron Wars," delving into the investigation into theEnron scandals, made national news when SenatorPeter Fitzgerald used it to question witnesses testifying before asenate committee.[13]
In 2009, theManhattan Theater Club announced that it had commissionedAlfred Uhry to adapt Brenner's memoirApples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found for the stage.[14]
In 2020, Brenner was granted 18-month access to the New York Presbyterian hospital, depicted in her bookThe Desperate Hours: One Hospital's Fight to Save a City on the Pandemic's Front Lines, published in 2022.[15]
An archive of Brenner's work is stored at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center atBoston University.[16]
During a black-tie gala atTavern on the Green in 1991,Donald Trump poured a glass of wine down Brenner's suit because she had written an unflattering piece about him earlier that year.[17]
Brenner was born December 15, 1949, inSan Antonio, Texas, to Milton Conrad Brenner and Thelma (Long) Brenner. She grew up in San Antonio and moved to New York City in 1970.
Her father was chairman of Solo Serve Corporation, a chain ofTexasdiscount stores started by her grandfather Isidor Brenner. Isidor, born in 1872, was aJewish emigrant to Texas from theDuchy of Kurland (in modernLatvia), in 1892. He married Paula, a Jewish emigrant fromRiga, Latvia, by way of Chicago.[18] The couple moved their family back and forth between Mexico and Texas during the first years of theMexican Revolution,[19] finally settling the family in San Antonio, in 1916.[20]
She is the niece ofAnita Brenner,anthropologist, author, and one of the first women to be a regular contributor toThe New York Times. She had an older brother Carl, a lawyer turned apple farmer who was the focus of hermemoir,Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found.[21]
