Calder Willingham

Barry Mendel (Independent Scholar - North America)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 23 Dec 1922
Died 19 Feb 1995
Activity 1947-1995

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Film/TV Script-writer/ Screenwriter
Novelist

Resources

Willingham's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Before the age of thirty, after just three novels and a collection of short stories, the

New Yorker

was already describing Calder Willingham (1922-1995) as having “fathered modern black comedy”, his signature a dry, straight-faced humor, made funnier by its concealed comic intent. His work matured over six more novels, including his best,

Eternal Fire

(1963), which Newsweek said “deserves a place among the dozen or so novels that must be mentioned if one is to speak of greatness in American fiction” (Jack Kroll,

Newsweek

). He had a significant career in cinema, too, as a frequent collaborator of Stanley Kubrick, as well as writing

The Graduate

and other notable films.

Born and raised in Georgia, Willingham’s two most famous novels, End As A Man (1947) and Eternal Fire (1963),

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2938 words

Citation: Mendel, Barry. "Calder Willingham". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 January 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11815, accessed 25 November 2024.]