Harvey Breit
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{short description|American dramatist}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Harvey Breit
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = 1909
| birth_place =
| death_date = April 9, 1968
| death_place = New York City
| nationality = American
| years_active = 1943-1957
| employer = The New York Times
| organization =
| known_for = The New York Times book reviews
| spouse = {{plainlist|
}}
}}
Harvey Breit (1909 - April 9, 1968)
{{cite web
| title = Harvey Breit Correspondence
| publisher = Northwest University
| url = http://findingaids.library.northwestern.edu/catalog/inu-ead-spec-archon-490
| access-date = May 2, 2013}}{{cite news | title = Alice S. Morris, 90, An Editor and Writer | newspaper = The New York Times | date = September 30, 1993 | page = B11}} was an American poet, editor, and playwright as well as reviewer for The New York Times Book Review from 1943 to 1957.{{cite news | title = Harvey Breit, 58, writer, is dead; Poet, Playwright and Editor at Times Book Review | newspaper = The New York Times | date = April 10, 1968 | url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0916FF3E5C1A7B93C2A8178FD85F4C8685F9}}
Career
Breit began his writing career at Time, where he worked from 1933 to 1934.
He wrote for the New York Times including the New York Times Book Review from 1948 to 1957.
In 1951, writer Anita Loos told him in an interview about her new book, A Mouse Is Born:
I'm the oldest motion picture writer in the business. I am endlessly grateful to the movies, and I'll tell you why. Because a writer can always make a living writing for the movies when he hasn't anything to say. If it hadn't been for the movies, I would have had to turn out novels when I had nothing to say ... You can do a good job on other people's material ... The movies help writers over their bad periods.{{cite news
| title = People, May 14, 1951
| magazine = Time
| url = http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,935239,00.html
| archive-url = https://archive.today/20130630105640/http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,935239,00.html
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = June 30, 2013
| date = 14 May 1951
| access-date = 2 May 2013}}
In 1952, he interviewed Whittaker Chambers at the publication of his memoir Witness:
From the casual talk, he went on to a point that one heard raised a good deal. The question of Mr. Chambers' memory. He remembered so many things and he had failed to remember a number of other things.
"That's always baffled me," he said In a slow and measured tempo. "There doesn't seem to be any consistency in the importance of what is remembered. One recalls a shadow on a wall, a gesture, something of no great importance, remembers it for years--and then forgets some extremely important fact like the address of one of the underground photographic laboratories. I suppose only a student of memory could give you the answer and then I wouldn't be particularly impressed. Memory is like a hot coal-it fades and grows bright again and fades."
{{cite news
| last = Breit
| first = Harvey
| title = Talk with Mr. Chambers
| work = The New York Times
| date = 25 May 1952
| url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40A13FC3B5D13728DDDAC0A94DD405B8289F1D3
| access-date = 2 May 2013}}
In 1955, he interviewed William Faulkner after his National Book Award best fiction (A Fable).
{{cite news
| title = People, Feb. 7, 1955
| magazine = Time
| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,823736,00.html#ixzz2SCEo9TAB
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081215071020/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,823736,00.html#ixzz2SCEo9TAB
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = December 15, 2008
| date = February 7, 1955
| access-date = May 2, 2013}}
He was one of the last people to talk to poet Dylan Thomas before his death:
That week Thomas called an old friend and said: "I'm tired of all the goddam writers around here. Why don't you give me a party with no writers, only beautiful women?" Late that Saturday night, after the party, Thomas showed up at his favorite tavern, the White Horse, a dark-paneled, homey bar on the western outskirts of Greenwich Village. His eyes were glazed, bloodshot, heavy-lidded. Some pals bought him drinks, and he downed three or four boilermakers in 15 minutes. Later, he went on to another bar, then retired to his hotel room for a warm beer and whisky nightcap with a friend. Three days and several parties later, New York Times Critic Harvey Breit telephoned him at his hotel. "He seemed bad," Breit recalls. "I wanted to say, 'You sound as though from the tomb.' I didn't.{{cite news
| title = Books: The Legend of Dylan Thomas
| magazine = Time
| url = https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,866459,00.html
| archive-url = https://archive.today/20130630104351/http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,866459,00.html
| url-status = live
| archive-date = June 30, 2013
| date = 30 May 1955
| access-date = 2 May 2013}}
He lectured at Sarah Lawrence College.{{cite web
| title = Harvey Breit
| work = Contemporary Authors Online
| url = https://www.gale.com/c/literature-contemporary-authors
| publisher = Gale
| year = 2002
}}
Breit adapted several novels for the stage, including Budd Schulberg's The Disenchanted and R. K. Narayan's The Guide.
He also edited the letters of novelist Malcolm Lowry (The Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, Lippincott, 1965) with Lowry's wife Margerie Bonner.
{{cite web
| title = Selected Letters
| publisher = Library of Congress
| access-date = May 2, 2013
| url = http://lccn.loc.gov/65011016}}
=''The Disenchanted''=
He co-wrote the play The Disenchanted with Budd Schulberg, adapting it from Schulberg's novel of the same name
{{cite news
| last = Gelb
| first = Arthur
| title = Schulberg Novel Ready for Stage; 'The Disenchanted,' Starring Jason Robards Jr., Due in '58--Casting Notes
| newspaper = The New York Times
| date = November 25, 1957
}} about the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
{{cite news
| title = The Theater: New Plays in Manhattan, Dec. 15, 1958
| magazine = Time
| date = December 15, 1958
| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,810744,00.html
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060209142047/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,810744,00.html
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = February 9, 2006
| access-date = October 20, 2009}} The play was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play in 1959. It starred Jason Robards, who won a Tony Award for his performance.
=''The Guide''=
With second wife Patricia Rinehart, he adapted R. K. Narayan's novel The Guide for Broadway.
{{cite news
|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0C12FB3A5C147493C5A91788D85F4C8685F9&scp=6&sq=%22Narayan%22+%22The%20Guide%22&st=cse
|title=Theater: Reluctant Guru; Mohyeddin Excels in 'The Guide' at Hudson
|last=Barnes
|first=Clive
|date=March 7, 1968
|work=The New York Times
|access-date=August 31, 2009}}
In 1968, Time magazine reported:
On Broadway The Guide is a showcase for Pakistani Actor Zia Mohyeddin, who gives an electric performance as a jailbird mistaken for a holy man by the people of an Indian village. He is having a ball, until a drought and a misunderstanding force him into a real Gandhi-type fast. The play itself, adapted by Harvey Breit and Patricia Rinehart from a novel by R. K. Narayan, is disappointingly thin in emotion and thick in talk.{{cite news
| title = Television: Mar. 22, 1968
| magazine = Time
| url = https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,828456,00.html
| archive-url = https://archive.today/20130630105421/http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,828456,00.html
| url-status = live
| archive-date = June 30, 2013
| date = 22 March 1968
| access-date = 2 May 2013}}
Personal
=Marriages=
Breit was married first to writer and editor Alice S. Morris and then in 1955 to poet and playwright Patricia Rinehart.
{{cite news
| title = Mrs. Campbell Rewed; Former Patricia Rinehart Is Married to Harvey Breit
| newspaper = The New York Times
| page = 9
| date = May 28, 1955
| url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0617F6395C177B93CAAB178ED85F418585F9
| access-date = October 20, 2009}}
=Death=
=Correspondence=
Breit's letters at Northwestern University include correspondence with Brooks Atkinson, W.H. Auden, Jacques Barzun, Ludwig Bemelmans, Margaret Bourke-White, Erskine Caldwell, Whittaker Chambers, Madge Evans, Dudley Fitts, Arthur Kober, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Harold Rome, Budd Schulberg, Lionel Trilling, and Glenway Westcott.
Publications
- Two Robert Nathan pieces (1950). "A Talk with Robert Nathan" by Harvey Breit and "Advice to My Son", a poem by Robert Nathan
- This Thing Called Love (1955), a collection of stories edited by Mark Slonim and Harvey Breit
- The Writer Observed (1956), a collection of interviews
- The Disenchanted (1959), a play by Budd Schulberg and Harvey Breit. Based on the novel by Budd Schulberg
- A Narrow Action (1964), a novel
- The Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry (1965), edited by Harvey Breit and Margerie Bonner Lowry
{{cite news
| title = Books: One Man's Volcano
| magazine = Time
| date = December 31, 1965
| url = https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,842368,00.html
| archive-url = https://archive.today/20130630104405/http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,842368,00.html
| url-status = live
| archive-date = June 30, 2013
| access-date = May 2, 2013}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://findingaids.library.northwestern.edu/repositories/7/resources/483 Harvey Breit Correspondence] - Harvey Breit Correspondence, 1940-1965, Manuscript Series I, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Library.
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Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights