Johnny was born in Johnny died at the young age of 17 from a brain tumor. John and Frances Gunther divorced in Gunther married Jane Perry Vandercook in and the couple adopted a son. Writings The books that made Gunther famous in his time were the "Inside" series of continental surveys. For each book, Gunther traveled extensively through the area the book covered, interviewed political, social, and business leaders, talked with average people, reviewed area statistics, and then wrote a lengthy overview of he had learned and how he interpreted it.
I was fortunate in that it appeared at just the right time, when the three totalitarian dictators took the stage and people began to be vitally interested in them. Eisenhower was elected President. The book for which Gunther is best remembered today, however, does not deal with the intrigues of politics: "Death Be Not Proud" is the story of his son, Johnny, who died of a brain tumor at the age of In the book, the elder Gunther details the struggles that he and his ex-wife went through in attempting to save their son's life: the many treatments pursued everything from radical surgery to strictly controlled diet , the ups and downs of apparent remission and eventual relapse, and the strain it placed on all three of them.
It is a staple of many high-school curricula to this day. The "Inside" books sold 3,, copies over a period of thirty years. While publicly a bon vivant and modest celebrity, Gunther in his private life suffered disappointment and tragedy.
He and Frances Fineman, whom he married in , had a daughter who died four months after her birth in The Gunthers divorced in In , their beloved son Johnny died after a long, heartbreaking fight with brain cancer. Dominy conjures up an island, a garden, a castle, a friend, and a lover. But in a moralistic twist, life in this paradise inevitably goes sour. The few that we do see are relics of an almost neolithic past, strange monsters with distorted body lines, paintless fenders, grotesquely fanciful hoods.
The Chicago Daily News reported: "The first few words were fuzzy, while engineers had fumbled with equipment, but then Gunther's voice was heard with remarkable clarity. Gunther considered radio easy work and easy money but dismissed broadcasting as not being "serious journalism".
Judith Gunther was born on 25th September, Unfortunately she died four months later. An autopsy revealed that she was a victim of an undiagnosed thymus ailment known as status thymicolymphaticus. Ken Cuthbertson has pointed out: "Tortured by feelings of guilt at having aborted several unwanted pregnancies, she now became obsessed with the notion that Judy's death was a cruel form of divine retribution for her past indiscretions. Gunther also wrote freelance articles and in October, , Harper's Magazine published a much acclaimed article on Al Capone and other gangsters in Chicago.
Entitled, The High Cost of Hoodlums , Gunther argued that hoodlums had succeeded in terrorizing Chicago's three million citizens. Although his work was being praised Gunther believed that he was a deeply flawed journalist: "I'm terribly limited. I completely lack intensity of soul. I'm not original. I'm really only a competent observer who works terribly hard at doing a job well. He soon became close friends with Marcel Fodor, who worked for the Manchester Guardian. Another friend working in the city was William L.
The two men played tennis together. They also explored the city together and Gunther later recalled that it was "the friendliest city in Europe".
Shirer argued that Gunther was an excellent journalist: "John Gunther would go to a country and he'd immediately want to know who had the power, who made the decisions, who had the money, those sorts of things. Wherever he went, he'd always want to interview the king, or the president, or the prime minister. A student, J. William Fulbright , on a visit to the city, later recalled: "You could find a group of journalists there most evenings.
I remember hearing Fodor hold forth, and he and I became friends. Fodor was a short, stocky man with a mustache, and it was obvious that he was very intelligent; he spoke with great authority on an astounding range of subjects. Richard Rovere described Gunther in the s as being "tall and blond, with a bulldozer frame, blue eyes, a ruddy complexion, and incongruously delicate features.
Gunther's biographer, Ken Cuthbertson , pointed out in Inside: The Biography of John Gunther that: "John Gunther was a larger-than-life figure who embraced life with passion Gunther was an amiable, fair-haired bear of a man. His abiding passions in life were not political, but rather good company, gourmet food and drink, fine clothing, and beautiful women.
As someone once noted, he had no friends, only best friends. In John Gunther was elected president of the correspondents' association.
One of his duties was to arrange informal weekly luncheons for local and visiting celebrities and dignitaries. Wells , Rebecca West and Engelbert Dollfuss. Gunther became infatuated with the young actress, Luise Rainer. Although she was only twenty years old she had already appeared in a couple of German-language films and was clearly a future big star.
Gunther's friend, William L. Shirer , pointed out that this caused problems for his relationship with his wife, Frances Fineman Gunther: "He fell for her to an extent that I don't think Frances was pleased. John had a roving eye and liked to flirt. He was, of course, very bright and had a great sense of humor. I thought he was a terribly nice fellow However, I must say something simply and brusquely: I was never in love with him, or anything of that kind.
In the Austrian town of Braunau , they sought out and interviewed Hitler's surviving relatives, including a disabled first cousin, an aged and poverty-stricken aunt, and his godfather. This was the first time foreign journalists had delved into Hitler's background. The Gunther-Fodor expose appeared in several European newspapers and magazines. Hitler was furious and instructed the Gestapo that the two men were to be hanged if they were caught. On 25th July, , a group of well-armed Austrian Nazis mounted a putsch aimed at toppling the government of Engelbert Dollfuss by storming the chancellery.
Gunther was one of the first journalists on the scene: "The tawny oak doors were shut and a few policemen were outside, but otherwise nothing seemed wrong. Faced with the prospect of surrendering or fighting to the death, the rebels laid down their arms in return for a promise of safe passage out of the building.
Gunther raced upstairs to find that Dollfuss had been shot in the throat at point blank range and had bled to death. Gunther wrote: "His murder marked the entrance of gangsterism into European politics on an international basis Dollfus died to keep anarchy out of Central Europe; and this is his best memorial.
Knickerbocker was in the middle of another project and replied: "Try John Gunther. He's the only one with the brains, the brass, and the gusto to write the book you want.
In his book, A Fragment of Autobiography Gunther wrote: "I persisted in saying no to the project, and finally Miss Baumgarten asked me what, if any, financial advance would induce me to change my mind. Gunther later recalled in the Atlantic Magazine how he did his research for the book. This included having meetings with his many contacts in Europe. Journalism is really a process of barter between two people who each know something and find it to their advantage to exchange or pool their knowledge.
Gunther also met Hubert Knickerbocker who was based in Nazi Germany at the time. Knickerbocker shared his vast store of firsthand inside information on Adolf Hitler , Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini.
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