William Dufty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Francis Dufty (1916-2002) was an American writer, and nutrition activist. Including ghostwriting, he wrote approximately 40 books.
Dufty attended Wayne State University in Detroit. (Even in his final decade, he spoke often to students there about unionism.) His first and one of his most beloved causes was unionism. Dufty was an organizer for the United Auto Workers, wrote speeches for former UAW President Walter Reuther, edited Michigan CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) News and handled publicity for Americans for Democratic Action. His columns and exposés for the New York Post drew acclaim, including one that charged that the FBI bungled cases under J. Edgar Hoover's leadership.
He served in the Army during World War II, with French soldiers, because he could speak the language. He also spoke German and Japanese.
Dufty had one son, Bevan Dufty, with first wife Maely. (His son became a popular politician and human-rights activist in San Francisco). Maely Bartholomew had arrived in New York City during World War II after losing most of her family in the Nazi concentration camps. She settled near Harlem where she met her best friend and Bevan's godmother, Billie Holiday. The Dufty's later divorced and Maely raised Bevan as a single mother.
Dufty co-wrote Holiday's autobiography Lady Sings the Blues in 1956, which in turn was made into a 1972 movie starring Diana Ross in the title role.
It was, however, the marriage of his devotion to healthy eating, spirituality and writing for which he is best known. Dufty practiced and promoted macrobiotics, a low-fat, high-fibre diet of whole grains, vegetables, sea algae, and seeds, that are prepared in accordance with specific principles; said to synchronise eating habits with the cycles of nature.
In the 1960s he met Gloria Swanson, an enthusiast for macrobiotic diets, who introduced him to the macrobiotic culture and convinced him white sugar was unsafe.
He became good friends with Japanese artist Yoko Ono and her husband, musician and former Beatle, John Lennon after producing, in 1965, an English edition of the book credited with starting the macrobiotic food movement in America, Georges Ohsawa's You Are All Sanpaku.
Dufty's most popular book is Sugar Blues, first published in 1975, which cautions against white sugar, and presents its history and cultural influence.
He and Swanson were married (she for the sixth time) in 1976. He helped her write her autobiography Swanson on Swanson; they were favorite socialites and lived in many places, including New York City, Rome, Portugal, and Palm Springs, California. After her death in 1983, he returned to his home state and birthplace of Michigan, settling in metropolitan Detroit.
Dufty died from cancer at the age of 86, on Friday, June 28, 2002, at his home in Birmingham, Michigan.
