Leon Uris
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Leon Uris (August 3, 1924 - June 21, 2003) was an American novelist, known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels. His two bestelling books were Exodus, published in 1958, and Trinity, in 1976.[1]
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[edit] Life
Leon Uris was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Jewish-American parents Wolf William and Anna (Blumberg) Uris. His father, a Polish-born immigrant, was a paperhanger and then later a storekeeper. William spent a year in Palestine after World War I before entering the United States. He derived his surname from Yerushalmi, meaning man of Jerusalem. "He was basically a failure", Uris said later of his father. "He went from failure to failure."
Uris attended schools in Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore but never graduated from high school, having failed English three times. At the age of seventeen Uris joined the United States Marine Corps. He served in the South Pacific as a radioman at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and New Zealand from 1942 to 1945. While recuperating from malaria in San Francisco, he met Betty Beck, a Marine sergeant. They married in 1945.
In 1950, Esquire magazine bought an article from him and this encouraged him to work on a novel. The result was the best seller Battle Cry, graphically showing the toughness and courage of U.S. Marines in the Pacific and The Angry Hills, a novel set in war-time Greece. As a screen writer and a newspaper correspondent, he became intensely interested in Israel which led to his best-known work, Exodus, which is about the Jewish history from the late 19th Century through the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Exodus was a worldwide bestseller, translated into a dozen languages, and was made into a feature film in 1960, starring Paul Newman.
Later works include Mila 18, a story of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, which reveals the detailed work by British and American intelligence services in planning for the occupation and pacification of post WWII Germany, Trinity, an epic novel about Ireland's struggle for independence, QB VII, a chilling novel about the role of a Polish doctor in a German concentration camp, and The Haj, with insights into the history of the Middle East and the secret machinations of foreigners which have led to today's turmoil.
He also wrote the screenplays for Battle Cry and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Leon Uris died of congestive heart failure at his Long Island home on Shelter Island. He was 78.[2]
[edit] Selected titles
- Battle Cry, 1953
- The Angry Hills, 1955
- Exodus, 1958
- Exodus Revisited, 1960 (GB title: In the Steps of Exodus)
- Mila 18, 1961
- Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, 1963
- Topaz, 1967
- The Third Temple (with Strike Zion by William Stevenson), 1967
- QB VII, 1970
- Ireland, A Terrible Beauty, 1975 (with Jill Uris)
- Trinity, 1976
- Jerusalem: A Song of Songs, 1981 (with Jill Uris)
- The Haj, 1984
- Mitla Pass, 1988
- Redemption, 1995
- A God in Ruins, 1999
- O'Hara's Choice, 2003
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Author Leon Uris Dies at 78," The Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle Telegram, June 25, 2003, page A8.
- ^ "Author Leon Uris Dies at 78," The Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle Telegram, June 25, 2003, page A8.
