Short on glamour and long on tragedy.
Describing World War II|World War II in his autobiography, By Quentin Reynolds (1963).
Quentin James Reynolds was a
journalistA 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...
and
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
war correspondentA war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
.
As associate editor at
Collier's WeeklyCollier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
from 1933 to 1945, Reynolds averaged twenty articles a year. He also published twenty-five books, including
The Wounded Don’t Cry,
London Diary,
Dress Rehearsal, and
Courtroom, a biography of lawyer
Samuel LeibowitzSamuel Simon Leibowitz was a Romanian-born American criminal defense attorney, famously noted for winning the vast majority of his cases, who later became a judge in New York City.-Early years:...
. He also published an autobiography,
By Quentin Reynolds.
After World War II, Reynolds was best known for his libel
suitReynolds v. Pegler, 223 F.2d 429 , was a landmark libel decision in which Quentin Reynolds successfully sued right-wing columnist Westbrook Pegler, resulting in a record judgment of $175,001....
against right-wing
HearstThe Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
columnist
Westbrook PeglerFrancis James Westbrook Pegler was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy...
, who called him "yellow" and an "absentee war correspondent". Reynolds, represented by noted attorney
Louis NizerLouis Nizer was a noted Jewish-American trial lawyer and senior partner of the law firm Phillips Nizer Benjamin Krim & Ballon...
, won $175,001, at the time the largest libel judgment ever. The trial was later made into a Broadway play,
A Case of Libel, which was twice adapted as TV movies.
In 1953, Reynolds was the victim of a major literary hoax when he published
The Man Who Wouldn’t Talk, the supposedly true story of a Canadian war hero,
George DupreGeorge Dupre is a Canadian man who falsely claimed to have been an Special Operations Executive operative during World War II.In 1953 Quentin Reynolds, an ex-war correspondent, had written a book The Man Who Wouldn't Talk about George Dupre's alleged wartime experiences...
, who claimed to have been captured and tortured by German soldiers. When the hoax was exposed,
Bennett CerfBennett Alfred Cerf was a publisher and co-founder of Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?.-Biography:Bennett Cerf...
, of
Random HouseRandom House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
, Reynolds's publisher, reclassified the book as fiction.
Reynolds was a personal friend of British media mogul
Sidney BernsteinSidney Lewis Bernstein, Baron Bernstein was a British media baron who was known as the founding chairman of the London-based Granada Group and the founder of the Manchester-based Granada Television in 1954....
. In 1956, Reynolds paid a visit to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to co-host "Meet the People", the launch night programme for
ManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
-based
Granada TelevisionGranada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
(now
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
Granada) which Bernstein founded.
Books
- The Wounded Don't Cry, E P Dutton, 1941
- A London Diary, Angus & Robertson, 1941
- Convoy, Random House, 1942
- Only the Stars are Neutral, Random House, 1942; Blue Ribbon Books, 1943
- Dress Rehearsal: The Story of Dieppe, Random House, 1943
- The Curtain Rises, Random House, 1944
- Officially Dead: The Story of Commander C D Smith, USN; The Prisoner the Japs Couldn’t Hold No. 511 Random House, 1945 (Published by Pyramid Books under the title He Came Back in multiple printings in the 1960s and early 1970s.)
- 70,000 to 1 (Seventy Thousand to One); True War Adventure, 1946
- The Wright Brothers, Pioneers of American Aviation, Random House Landmark Books, 1950
- Courtroom; The Story of Samuel S Leibowitz, Farrar, Straus and Co, 1950
- Custer's Last Stand, Random House, 1951
- The Battle of Britain, Random House, 1953
- The Amazing Mr Doolittle; A Biography of Lieutenant General James H Doolittle, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953
- The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, 1953
- I, Willie Sutton, Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953
- The FBI, Random House Landmark Books, 1954
- Headquarters, Harper & Brothers, 1955
- The Fiction Factory; or, From Pulp Row to Quality Street; The Story of 100 years of Publishing at Street & Smith, Random House 1955
- They Fought for the Sky; The Dramatic Story of the First War in the Air, Rinehart & Company, 1957
- Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story (by Zwy Aldouby and Quentin James Reynolds), Viking 1960
- Known But to God; The Story of the “Unknowns” of America’s War Memorials, John Day 1960
- Winston Churchill, Random House 1963
- By Quentin Reynolds, McGraw Hill, 1963
- Britain Can Take It! (based on the film)
- Don't Think It Hasn't Been Fun
- The Life of Saint Patrick
- Macapagal, the Incorruptible
- With Fire and Sword; Great War Adventures
See also
- Britain Can Take It! (1940) “Quentin Reynolds, an American journalist, recorded this programme as a film dispatch from London.” Directors: Harry Watt and Humphrey Jennings; Photography: H Fowle and Frank ‘Jonah’ Jones; Narration: Quentin Reynolds
- London Can Take It!
London Can Take It! is a short documentary film produced by the GPO Film Unit for the Ministry of Information covering less than eighteen hours of the German blitz on London and its people...
(1940) a renamed version of Britain Can Take It!
- Reynolds v. Pegler
Reynolds v. Pegler, 223 F.2d 429 , was a landmark libel decision in which Quentin Reynolds successfully sued right-wing columnist Westbrook Pegler, resulting in a record judgment of $175,001....
External links