Robert Crichton’s Followers (5)

Robert Crichton

Born

in Albuquerque, New Mexico, The United States

January 29, 1925

Died

March 23, 1993

Genre

Fiction

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Crichton was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and grew up in Bronxville, New York.[1] He served in the infantry during World War II, and was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Before returning to the States, he ran an ice cream factory on the outskirts of Paris; it was, he said, his decompression chamber. He attended Harvard University on the GI Bill and was a member of the famed class of 1950. His father, Kyle Crichton, was a writer/editor at Collier's magazine and author of novels and biographies, including a biography of the Marx Brothers. He also wrote a column for The New Masses, a Marxist weekly, under the name Robert Forsythe.

Crichton's first book, The Great Impostor, published in 1959, was the true, if picaresque, story Crichton was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and grew up in Bronxville, New York.[1] He served in the infantry during World War II, and was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Before returning to the States, he ran an ice cream factory on the outskirts of Paris; it was, he said, his decompression chamber. He attended Harvard University on the GI Bill and was a member of the famed class of 1950. His father, Kyle Crichton, was a writer/editor at Collier's magazine and author of novels and biographies, including a biography of the Marx Brothers. He also wrote a column for The New Masses, a Marxist weekly, under the name Robert Forsythe.

Crichton's first book, The Great Impostor, published in 1959, was the true, if picaresque, story of Fred Demara, an impostor who successfully assumed scores of guises including serving as a Trappist monk, a Texas prison warden and a practicing surgeon in the Royal Canadian Navy. The book was a bestseller and adapted into a successful 1961 film with Tony Curtis in the starring role. Crichton's second book, The Rascal and the Road, was a memoir about his escapades with Demara.

The non-fiction books were "hack-work", he said, written to support a growing family. In 1966, he published his first novel, The Secret of Santa Vittoria. The New York Times critic Orville Prescott wrote: "If I had my way the publication of Robert Crichton's brilliant novel...would be celebrated with fanfares of trumpets, with the display of banners and with festivals in the streets." The book was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 50 weeks, spending 18 of them at the top of the list, and became an international bestseller. Set in an Italian hill-town and telling the story of local resistance to the Nazis during World War II, the novel was adapted into a Golden Globe winning film of the same name in 1969.

Crichton's second and last novel, The Camerons, published by Knopf in 1972, was drawn from the lives of his great grandparents, a Scottish coal mining family. It too was a bestseller. He had intended to write a sequel, but the work was never completed.

Among countless magazine articles, he was best known for an essay "Air War--Vietnam," published by The New York Review of Books, in 1967. The essay was distributed all over the world.

Crichton died in 1993 in New Rochelle, New York, at the age of 68. ...more

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Robert Crichton’s books

Average rating: 4.1 · 1,055 ratings · 115 reviews · 9 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Secret of Santa Vittoria 4.13 avg rating — 678 ratings — published 1966 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Camerons 4.07 avg rating — 310 ratings — published 1972 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Great Impostor 4.02 avg rating — 59 ratings — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Rascal and the Road 3.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1951	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Great Impostof 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Iron Metabolism: From Molecular Mechanisms to Clinical Consequences 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ontario History 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Rockside Pioneers 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1977	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Reader's Digest Condensed Books: Volume 2, 1973 by Dorothy Gilman (Contributor), Robert Crichton (Contributor) , Jack Seward (Contributor) 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1973	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Robert Crichton…

Quotes by Robert Crichton

“The duty of the people is to tend to their own affairs.
The duty of government is to help them do it.
This is the pasta of politics.
The inspired leader, the true prince, no matter how great, can only be sauce upon the pasta.
--Bombolini”
― Robert Crichton, The Secret of Santa Vittoria

tags: government, leaders

7 likes

“The story is the same, over and over, only the facts are different and the names and the places.”
― Robert Crichton, The Secret of Santa Vittoria

5 likes

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Robert Crichton’s Followers (5)

Robert Crichton

Combine EditionsRobert Crichton’s books

Quotes by Robert Crichton

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Robert Crichton’s books