Iles Brody
{{eastern name order|Bródy Illés}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Iles Brody
| image = Iles Brody 1953.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Brody {{circa}} 1953
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| other_names = Elias Brody
| birth_name = Illés Bródy
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1899|12|27}}
| birth_place = Budapest, Hungary
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1953|11|11|1899|12|26}}
| death_place = San Francisco, California, U.S.
| resting_place =
| occupation = Writer
| nationality = Hungarian
| citizenship =
| education =
| alma_mater =
| notable_works = Gone with the Windsors
| spouse = Vera Robertson (1927–1932; divorced)
Marie Hollingsworth (1938–??; likely divorced)
Sanna Klaveness (1949–1953; his death)
| children =
| relatives = Sándor Bródy (father)
}}
Illés Bródy ({{IPAc-hu|ˈ|i|l|é|s}} {{Respell|EE-laysh}}, December 27, 1899 – November 11, 1953) name="NYT obit">{{cite news |title=Iles Brody, 54, Wrote 'Gone With the Windsors' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1953/11/12/archives/iles-brodn-54-wrote-gone-with-windsorsi.html |work=The New York Times |date=November 12, 1953 |page=31}} {{subscription required}}{{efn|His Hungarian birth and marriage records give his date of birth as December 27, 1899.{{cite web |title=Hungary Civil Registration, 1895-1980: Births, 1899|url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DRP9-SZG |website=FamilySearch |accessdate=25 November 2019}} {{registration required}} Later sources give differing birth dates ranging from December 25–26, 1898–1900.{{cite web |title=New York, Southern District, U.S District Court Naturalization Records, 1824-1946 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLMZ-6H4Q |website=Family Search |accessdate=23 November 2019}} {{registration required}}{{cite web |title=California Death Index, 1940-1997 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VPKH-RLG |website=FamilySearch |accessdate=23 November 2019}} {{registration required}}{{cite web |title=California, San Francisco County Records, 1824-1997 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKD4-TSJ6 |publisher=FamilySearch.org |accessdate=23 November 2019}} {{registration required}} Contemporary newspaper obituaries variously gave his age at death as 54 or 55.{{cite news |title=Windsors' Critic Succumbs at 54 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39471397/ |work=Spokane Chronicle |date=November 12, 1953 |page=14}}}} was a Hungarian-born journalist and writer who lived in the United States from the 1930s.{{cite journal |last1=Fakazis |first1=Elizabeth |title=Esquire Mans the Kitchenette |journal=Gastronomica |date=2011 |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=29–39 |doi=10.1525/gfc.2011.11.3.29 |issn=1529-3262|jstor=10.1525/gfc.2011.11.3.29 }} {{registration required}} After a false start as a portrait artist, he became known as a food writer and gourmet. For his writing career his preferred spelling of his own name was Iles Brody; other sources sometimes anglicized his name as Elias Brody.
Early life
Brody was born in Budapest, Hungary, the youngest son of writers Sándor Bródy and Isabella Rosenfeld.{{cite web |last1=Brody |first1=Alexander |authorlink1=Alexander Brody (businessman) |title=Akit az Isten jókedvében teremtett |url=http://ketezer.hu/2004/05/akit-az-isten-jokedveben-teremtett/ |website=Ketezer.hu |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160809093053/http://ketezer.hu/2004/05/akit-az-isten-jokedveben-teremtett/ |archivedate=August 9, 2016 |language=hu-HU |date=May 2004}} His family was Jewish.{{cite web |last1=Singer |first1=Isidore |last2=Weisz |first2=Max |title=Bródy, Sándor |url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3733-brody-sandor |website=Jewish Encyclopedia |accessdate=26 November 2019 |date=1906}} After serving in the Hungarian cavalry in his youth,{{cite book |last1=Morton |first1=Andrew |title=Wallis in Love: The Untold True Passion of the Duchess of Windsor |date=2018 |publisher=Michael O'Mara Books |isbn=978-1-78243-723-9 |authorlink=Andrew Morton (writer)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SKZJDwAAQBAJ&dq=iles+brody+cavalry&pg=PT303 }} he travelled extensively throughout Europe.
In 1927, he married American Follies dancer Vera "Kittens" Leightmer (née Robertson, 1899–1997).{{cite news |title=Kittens' Birthday a Double Riddle |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39591271/ |work=The Sunday News |date=September 22, 1929 |location=New York |page=3|via=Newspapers.com}}{{cite news |title=Obituaries: Vera L. Cuyler |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39487796/ |work=Tampa Bay Times |date=April 11, 1997 |page=7|via=Newspapers.com}}{{cite news |title=The Social Register's 'Very Grave Social Error' |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39487343/ |work=The Salt Lake Tribune |date=December 29, 1940|via=Newspapers.com}} The couple had met in Paris, married in Budapest,{{cite web |title=Hungary Civil Registration, 1895-1980: Marriages, 1927 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-D18G-KD?i=316&cc=1452460 |website=FamilySearch |accessdate=23 November 2019}} {{registration required}} and settled in New York City, but the marriage proved tumultuous and ended in divorce in 1932:{{cite news |title=Follies Girl gets Divorce from Artist |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39471447/ |work=Chicago Tribune |date=June 8, 1932 |page=5|via=Newspapers.com}} Brody (then described as a portrait artist) had reportedly bashed Leightmer prior to their engagement, and attempted suicide several times during the course of their relationship.{{cite news |title=Beats Up Follies Girl, Shoots Self, Then Marries Her |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39485882/ |work=The St. Louis Star |date=May 4, 1928 |page=1|via=Newspapers.com}}{{cite news |title=Fierce Love Leads To Suicide Attempt |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39531524/ |work=Brooklyn Daily Times |date=December 18, 1929 |page=10|via=Newspapers.com}}{{cite news |title=But They 'Love Her and Leave Her' |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39484958/ |work=The San Francisco Examiner |date=February 14, 1932 |pages=83|via=Newspapers.com}} The couple was also involved in a highly publicized court case when Leightmer unsuccessfully sued a prominent American banker, Jefferson Seligman, for breach of promise.{{cite news |title=Kittens' Neighbors Turn Catty |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39533000/ |work=Daily News |date=November 8, 1929 |location=New York |page=6|via=Newspapers.com}}
In 1932, after separating from Leightmer, Brody was convicted in London, England of blackmailing two American sisters, Mildred Reid Burke and Constance Reid Netcher. Although he maintained his innocence, he was jailed for ten months and was deported from England after serving his sentence.{{cite news |title=He Gave Them Black Eyes O.K.; He Gave Them Blackmail K.O. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39531809/ |work=Minneapolis Sunday Tribune |date=June 19, 1932 |pages=48|via=Newspapers.com}}{{cite news |title=Iles Brody Gets 10 Months Term in London |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39532332/ |work=Daily News |date=April 14, 1932 |location=New York |page=17|via=Newspapers.com}}{{cite news |title=Here's the Kind of Worm He Is
|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000729/19530927/005/0001 |work=The People |date=September 27, 1953 |location=London|via=British Newspaper Archive}} {{subscription required}}
In 1938, after returning to the U.S., he married Marie Hollingsworth in Virginia.{{cite web |title=Virginia, Marriage Certificates, 1936-1988 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK9F-63BM |publisher=FamilySearch.org |accessdate=23 November 2019}} {{registration required}} This marriage appears to have also ended in divorce prior to 1949.
Later writing career
In the late 1930s, Brody returned to New York City, where he became a regular columnist for Esquire magazine. As a former cavalry officer, his early contributions were on equestrian sports and horsemanship. He later became a food writer, with a long-running column called "Man the Kitchenette", which – somewhat unusually for the era – offered culinary advice intended for a male readership.{{cite book |last1=Breazeale |first1=Kenon |editor1-last=Scanlon |editor1-first=Jennifer |title=The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader |date=2000 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-8132-6 |page=230 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VbaSycuIos8C&dq=%22iles+brody%22&pg=PA230 |chapter=In Spite of Women: Esquire Magazine and the Construction of the Male Consumer}} He also wrote for Gourmet magazine.{{cite book |editor1-last=Reichl |editor1-first=Ruth |title=History in a Glass: Sixty Years of Wine Writing from Gourmet |date=2006 |publisher=Modern Library |location=New York |isbn=9780679643128 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyinglasssi00newy/page/372}}
Brody published two books relating to gastronomy: On the Tip of My Tongue (1944){{cite news |title=Good Taste |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-apr-05-1947-1446859/ |work=The West Australian |date=April 5, 1947 |location=Perth |page=5|via=NewspaperArchive.com}} and The Colony: Portrait of a Restaurant and its Famous Recipes (1945), a history of the noted New York restaurant.{{cite news |last1=DeCasseres |first1=Benjamin |title=The World of Books |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39476132/ |work=Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph |date=October 14, 1945 |pages=59|via=Newspapers.com}}
His third and final book, for which he is probably best remembered, was Gone with the Windsors (1953), a best-selling exposé of {{nowrap|Edward VIII}} and Wallis Simpson, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. American critic E.V. Durling described it as "the most brilliantly written book so far dealing with the lives and loves of the Duke and Duchess."{{cite news |last1=Durling |first1=E.V. |title=On The Side |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39471928/ |work=The Salt Lake Tribune |date=September 11, 1953 |page=8A|via=Newspapers.com}} Other reactions were less favorable: the British tabloid The People denounced the work as "scurrilous", called attention to Brody's 1932 blackmail conviction, and discouraged Brody's prospective British publishers from publishing the book in Britain. Brody had struggled for three years to find a U.S. publisher for Gone with the Windsors, and was reportedly pressured by associates of the Duke and Duchess not to publish the book.{{cite book |last1=Sifakis |first1=Carl |title=The Mafia Encyclopedia |date=2005 |publisher=Facts on File Inc. |isbn=0816056943 |edition=3rd|page=269 |url=https://archive.org/details/mafiaencyclopedi00sifa_0/page/269/mode/1up }} The Duchess of Windsor is reported to have expressed relief when Brody died shortly after its publication.{{cite news |last1=Maxwell |first1=Elsa |authorlink1=Elsa Maxwell |title=What the Duchess of Winsdor Won't Tell in her Memoirs |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39471833/ |work=St. Louis Globe-Democrat |date=December 18, 1955 |pages=7, 12|via=Newspapers.com}}
Death
Brody died suddenly of a heart attack on November 11, 1953, while staying at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.{{cite news |last1=Barkham |first1=John |title=Among Books, Authors |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39472090/ |work=Tampa Bay Times |date=December 6, 1953 |page=4G}} He was survived by his third wife, Sanna Klaveness,{{cite news |title=Deaths: Brody, Iles |work=The New York Times |date=November 16, 1953 |page=25}}{{cite news |title=Deaths: LURIE, Sanna Klaveness |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/classified/paid-notice-deaths-lurie-sanna-klaveness.html |work=The New York Times |date=June 5, 2005}} whom he had married in 1949.{{cite news |last1=Winchell |first1=Walter |title=On Broadway |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39476453/ |work=Chillicothe Gazette |date=December 15, 1948 |page=6|via=Newspapers.com}}
Bibliography
- On the Tip of My Tongue (1944)
- The Colony (1945)
- Gone with the Windsors (1953)
Notes
{{notelist}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor=%22Brody,%20Iles.%22&type=author&inst= Works by Iles Brody] at Hathi Trust
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brody, Iles}}
Category:Writers from Budapest
Category:Hungarian emigrants to the United States
Category:20th-century Hungarian journalists
Category:Hungarian male journalists