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Terry Southern (May 1, 1924 - October 29, 1995) was a extremely influential American short story writer, novelist, essayist, film writer & university lecturer. He was a share of the Paris postwar literary movement in the 1950s and a companion to Beat writers in Greenwich Village; he was at the center of Swinging London in the sixties & helped to change a style and substance of Hollywood films of the 1970s. In the 1980s he wrote for Saturday Night Live and lectured on screenwriting at many universities within New York.
Southern's dark & typically absurdist style of broad however biting satire helped to define the sensibilities of many generations of intelligent writers, readers, directors & filmgoers. He is credited by journalist Tom Wolfe as having invented New Journalism with the publication of "Twirling at Ole Miss" in Esquire in 1962, and his gift for writing memorable film dialogue was evident in Dr. Strangelove, The Cincinnati Kid and Easy Rider. His act in Real life Rider helped produce a independent film movement of the 1970s, in opposition to Hollywood film studios.
Innate within Alvarado, Texas, Southern left Southern Methodist University to serve as a Lieutenant in the US Army during World War II, returning to the States to learn at Northwestern University, where he graduated using the degree withwithin philosophy in 1948. When researching on the G.I. Bill at the Sorbonne he wrote short stories, one of which ("The Sun and the Still Born Stars") was the very first short story published in the Paris Review.
Around 1958 his first novel, Flash player & Fillagree, was brought retired by Andre Deutsch, presently followed by The Magic Christian (1960). Within 1958, Candy, written by Southern in collaboration sustaining Mason Hoffenberg, was published by Olympia Press under the anonym Maxwell Kenton. Southern & Beat poet Gregory Corso helped convince Olympia publisher Maurice Girodias to first publish a controversial novel Naked Lunch by then-little-known author William S. Burroughs.
On the recommendation of British actor Peter Sellers, director Stanley Kubrick asked Southern to help revise the screenplay of Dr. Strangelove (1964). Kubrick's 1st draft of a script was according to the novel Red Alert (1958) by Peter George. Kubrick, Southern & George shared a screenplay credits, however virtually all of the dark & satirical dialogue was written by Southern.
When you took a latter half of the sixties Southern worked on the screenplays of The Loved One (1965) The Collector (1965) The Cincinnati Kid (1966) Casino Royale (1967) and Barbarella (1967). Inside 1968 Southern wrote the script for Easy Rider, generously sharing writing credit using Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. A character of the microscopic-town attorney played by Jack Nicholson was originally written by Southern for actor Rip Torn.
Chartered by Michael O'Donoghue to write for Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s, Southern taught screenwriting at New York University (NYU) and Columbia University from the late 80s until his death in 1995 at the age of 71. His final novel, Texas Summer, was published inside 1992 by Richard Seaver.
Around early 2003 Southern's archives of manuscripts, correspondence & pic were acquired per New York Public Library. A archives include correspondence & more things from either George Plimpton, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Frank O'Hara, Larry Rivers, William Styron, V. S. Pritchett, Gore Vidal, Abbie Hoffman, and Edmund Wilson, as well as John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and the Rolling Stones. Fitly, a announcement of this acquisitiin was processed on April One.
Books:
1958 – Flash and Filigree
1958 – Candy (with Mason Hoffenberg)
1960 – The Magic Christian
1960 – Writers in Revolt
1965 – Journal of The Loved One (with William Claxton)
1967 – Red Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes
1970 – Blue Movie
1992 – Texas Summer
Screenplays:
1964 – Dr. Strangelove (with Stanley Kubrick and Peter George) (Academy Award nomination for screenwriting)
1965 – The Loved One (with Christopher Isherwood)
1965 – The Collector (rewrite; uncredited)
1966 – The Cincinnati Kid (dialogue rewrite of Ring Lardner Jr. script)
1967 – Barbarella
1968 – Easy Rider (Academy Award nomination for screenwriting)
1969 – End Of The Road
1970 – The Magic Christian
1975 – Stop Thief! (teleplay; with William Claxton)
1986 – The Telephone (with Harry Nilsson)
Film appearances:
The Man Who Fell to Earth (journalist at launchpad)
Burroughs (in orgone pack with William S. Burroughs)
Cocksucker Blues documentary with a Rolling Stones
Album handle photograph:
''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (man in sunglasses)
Quotes
"I started reading The Magic Christian'' and I thought I was going to go insane... it was an incredible influence on me." — Hunter S. Thompson
"Terry Southern writes a mean, coolly deliberate, and murderous prose..." — Norman Mailer
"I know you - you're the guy who showed me how to do it - who showed me how you can make a half-million dollar picture - without a studio - and make a lot of money! I know you!" - Sylvester Stallone, on meeting Terry Southern first within 1980 at Harry Nilsson's home
"Terry Southern is the illegitimate son of Mack Sennett and Edna St. Vincent Millay." - Kurt Vonnegut
"In this world [of Flash and Filigree] nothing is true, and censure or outrage is simply irrelevant." - William S. Burroughs
"Terry Southern was one of the first and best of the new wave of American writers, defining the cutting edge of black comedy." - Joseph Heller
"Terry Southern is the most profoundly witty writer of our generation and in The Magic Christian he surpasses Flaubert's Bouvard et Pécuchet, a work similarly inspired by conventional wisdom's serene idiocy." - Gore Vidal
"If there were a Mount Rushmore of American satire, Terry Southern would be the mountain they’d carve it from." - Michael O'Donoghue
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