William Wharton

Author profile

born

November 07, 1925 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The United States

died

October 29, 2008

About this author

William Wharton (7 November 1925 - 29 October 2008), the pen name of the author Albert William Du Aime (pronounced as doo-EM), was an American-born author best known for his first novel Birdy, which was also successful as a film.

Wharton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1943, and was inducted into the school's Wall of Fame in 1997. He volunteered to serve in the United States Army during World War II, and was assigned to serve in a unit to be trained as engineers. He ended up being assigned to serve in the infantry and was severely wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. After his discharge, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles and received a undergraduate degree in art and a d...more William Wharton (7 November 1925 - 29 October 2008), the pen name of the author Albert William Du Aime (pronounced as doo-EM), was an American-born author best known for his first novel Birdy, which was also successful as a film.

Wharton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1943, and was inducted into the school's Wall of Fame in 1997. He volunteered to serve in the United States Army during World War II, and was assigned to serve in a unit to be trained as engineers. He ended up being assigned to serve in the infantry and was severely wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. After his discharge, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles and received a undergraduate degree in art and a doctorate in psychology, later teaching art in the Los Angeles Unified School District.[1]

His first novel Birdy was published in 1978 when he was more than 50 years old. Birdy was a critical and popular success, and Alan Parker directed a film version starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine. After the publication of Birdy and through the early 1990s, Du Aime published eight novels, including Dad and A Midnight Clear, both of which were also filmed, the former starring Jack Lemmon.

Many of the protagonists of Wharton's novels, despite having different names and backgrounds, have similar experiences, attitudes, and traits that lead one to presume that they are partly autobiographical[citation needed]. There is precious little certifiable biography available about Wharton / Du Aime. He served in France and Germany in World War II in the 87th Infantry Division, was a painter, spent part of his adult life living on a houseboat as an artist in France, raised several children (not all of whom appreciated his philosophy of child-rearing), is a reasonably skilled carpenter and handyman, and has suffered from profound gastrointestinal problems[citation needed].

In 1988, Wharton's daughter, Kate; his son-in-law, Bert; and their two children, two-year-old Dayiel and eight-month-old Mia, were killed in a horrific 23-car motor vehicle accident near Albany, Oregon, that was caused by the smoke generated by grass-burning on nearby farmland. In 1995, Wharton wrote a (mostly) non-fiction book, Ever After: A Father's True Story, in which he recounts the incidents leading up to the accident, his family's subsequent grief, and the three years he devoted to pursuing redress in the Oregon court system for the field-burning that caused the accident.[1] Houseboat on Seine, a memoir, was published in 1996, about Wharton's purchase and renovation of a houseboat.

It is worth to be noted that he gained an enormous and very hard to be explained popularity in Poland, which was followed by many editions as well as meetings and, eventually, some works prepared and edited only in Polish (see the Bibliography).

Wharton died on October 29, 2008 of an infection he contracted while being hospitalized for blood-pressure problems.(less)

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Books by William Wharton

Average rating: 3.88 · 2,832 ratings · 144 reviews · 23 distinct works

	Birdy 3.95 avg rating — 1,188 ratings — published 1978 — 13 editions	My rating:
	A Midnight Clear: A Novel 4.17 avg rating — 332 ratings — published 1982 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Dad: A Novel 3.87 avg rating — 300 ratings — 11 editions	My rating:
	Last Lovers 3.78 avg rating — 245 ratings — 10 editions	My rating:
	Franky Furbo 3.73 avg rating — 172 ratings — 6 editions	My rating:
	Pride 3.75 avg rating — 114 ratings — published 1985 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Houseboat on the Seine: A Memoir 3.57 avg rating — 81 ratings — published 1996 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Scumbler 3.49 avg rating — 79 ratings — 6 editions	My rating:
	Wrongful Deaths 3.68 avg rating — 66 ratings — 4 editions	My rating:
	Tidings 4.02 avg rating — 54 ratings — published 1987 — 5 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by William Wharton

“Love is a combination of admiration, respect, and passion. If you have one of those going, that's par for the course. If you have two, you aren't quite world class but you're close. If you have all three, then you don't need to die; you're already in heaven.”
― William Wharton, Ever After: A Father's True Story

15 people liked it

“He's convinced most human adults do not know how to play anymore and that playing is one of the best ways to think. Franky finds children, by far, much more pleasant and intelligent than most adults, but they are easily ruined by their families, schools, and society. He says one of the ways they are ruined is by being forced to think of all the tasks that need to be done as work, not as play. It takes the joy out of living.”
― William Wharton, Franky Furbo

5 people liked it

“Sometimes looking so hard can make one blind.”
― William Wharton

tags: last-lovers

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William Wharton

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combine editionsBooks by William Wharton

Quotes by William Wharton

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Books by William Wharton