Merl Reagle

Reagle was born in Audubon, New Jersey on January 5, 1950. He made his first crossword when he was six years old and sold a puzzle to The New York Times at age 16, a feat that made him the youngest published Times puzzle constructor at the time. He attended the University of Arizona, but dropped out a few credits short of a degree in English.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/arts/merl-reagle-whose-crossword-puzzles-delighted-clued-in-solvers-dies-at-65.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well |title=Merl Reagle, Whose Crossword Puzzles Delighted Clued-In Solvers, Dies at 65 |date=August 24, 2015 |first=Sam |last=Roberts |newspaper=The New York Times}}

Reagle first competed in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in 1979, its second year, and placed third. He submitted a puzzle to the contest starting in 1980, and later served as a tournament judge and a commentator for the tournament's finals.

In the early 1980s Reagle began submitting crossword puzzles to Dell crossword magazine, Games magazine, and Margaret Farrar's Simon & Schuster books. He regarded crossword-making as more of a hobby, working as a television scriptwriter by day and a film scriptwriter by night. In 1985 he was contracted to produce a regular Sunday crossword for the San Francisco Examiner{{'}}s new Sunday magazine. Three years later, he went into syndication.{{cite web |url=http://crosswordcorner.blogspot.co.il/2009/08/interview-with-merl-reagle.html|title=Interview with Merl Reagle |date=4 August 2009 |accessdate=28 November 2012 |publisher=L.A. Times Crossword Corner}}

In the 1990s Reagle was regarded as one of the top producers of a new type of crossword puzzle: "less stodgy and more hip." This trend was encouraged by The New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, who sought to appeal to a wider and younger readership with "pop culture references ... humorous word play, and ... unique and clever themes".{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZOs8VmW2mFYC&pg=PA7 |title=The 21st Century Crossword Puzzle Dictionary|first1=Kevin |last1=McCann|first2=Mark |last2=Diehl|year=2009|publisher=Sterling Publishing Co., Inc |isbn=978-1402721342|page=7}}

In 2011 Reagle donated his expertise to produce an awareness-building campaign for the Alzheimer's Foundation of America. Reagle created the National Brain Game Challenge, an online contest featuring a Sunday crossword that contains a clued secret message. Cash prizes, including a first prize of $25,000, are awarded in two categories, "casual solver" and "puzzle professional".{{cite web |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/merl-reagle/alzheimers-awareness-crossword-contest_b_1893963.html |title=Crossword Contest: My Solution to Raising Awareness of Alzheimer's Disease |last=Reagle |first=Merl |date=19 September 2012 |accessdate=28 November 2012|work=Huffington Post}}{{cite web|url=http://www.alzfdn.org/challenge/|title=National Brain Game Challenge|publisher=Alzheimer's Foundation of America|year=2012|accessdate=28 November 2012|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121211071156/http://www.alzfdn.org/challenge/|archivedate=11 December 2012}}{{cite web |url=http://www.laloyolan.com/news/burning-questions-with-a-crossword-puzzle-maker/article_1d56ff48-91d8-11e2-82f8-001a4bcf6878.html|title=11 Burning Questions with a crossword puzzle maker|year=2013|accessdate=30 March 2013}}

Reagle was one of the few crossword constructors who made a living solely through puzzlemaking, as he retained all rights to his puzzles. They are reprinted in books that he sold under his own imprint, PuzzleWorks.{{cite web |url=http://puzzles.about.com/library/weekly/blreagle.htm|title=A Peek Inside a Beautiful Mind |last=Grossman |first=John |publisher=Delta Sky magazine|year=2012|accessdate=28 November 2012}} With the assistance of his wife, Marie Haley, he published more than 20 volumes of his Sunday crosswords, which he sold from his website. Merl and Marie made their home in the Tampa Bay, Florida area.

Reagle died August 22, 2015, after being hospitalized two days earlier for acute pancreatitis.{{cite web |url= https://www.tampabay.com/news/obituaries/crossword-creator-merl-reagle-dies-in-tampa-at-age-65/2242415/ |title= Crossword creator Merl Reagle dies in Tampa at age 65 |author= Colette Bancroft |work= Tampa Bay Times |date= August 22, 2015 |access-date= August 22, 2015}}

The New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz has said that "his [Reagle's] themes are consistently fresher and funnier than anyone else's. And he's one of the greatest puzzlemakers at interlocking words in intricate, wide-open patterns".{{cite web |url=http://www.sundaycrosswords.com/SkyMagInterview_files/profile.htm|last=Grossman|first=John|title=Puzzling: Merl Reagle Lives to Tease Your Brain|work=Delta Sky Magazine|date=October 2003|accessdate=29 December 2012}} Games magazine has called Reagle "the best Sunday crossword creator in America".Games Magazine World of Puzzles, March 1995. A poll of puzzlemakers at [http://www.cruciverb.com cruciverb.com], a popular website for crossword constructors, ranked Reagle the most admired by his peers.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xQJT2iBMh4wC&q=gridlock+geniuses|last=Gaffney|first=Matt|title=Gridlock: Crossword Puzzles and the Mad Geniuses Who Create Them|location=New York|publisher=Perseus Books Group|year=2006|page=210|isbn=156025890X}} His 2004 puzzle, "Wide Open Spaces", holds the record for the lowest word count (i.e., number of answers) in a Sunday puzzle. The 21 x 21 grid has only 112 words (with 51 black squares).[http://www.cruciverb.com/index.php/articles/572] The prolific crossword editor Stanley Newman called Reagle's puzzle "Gridlock"[http://www.sundaycrosswords.com/SkyMagInterview_files/gridlock.pdf] "the best single crossword of the last 25 years."Newman, Stanley, ed. Crossworder's OWN Newsletter, June, 1990. "Gridlock" featured a "thick traffic jam of car names crossing in the center".

His fellow constructors routinely credit Reagle for creating some of the funniest themes for his puzzles. One, called "Hit Song", was what he called "Sean Penn's version of "My Way". It included the theme entries I'M IN A / RUSH, NO PICTURES, PLEASE, OR / ELSE YOU'LL LEARN THE / BLACKENED EYE WAY / THE RECORD SHOWS / I'LL BUST YOUR / NOSE IF YOU GET IN... / MY WAY. Other much-discussed puzzles carried titles like "Inappropriate Muzak for a Doctor's Office" and "Least Popular Beanie Babies".

He was noted for making puzzles with pencil and paper, instead of with the aid of a computer. The 2006 documentary Wordplay depicted Reagle's on-camera construction of a crossword that subsequently was published in The New York Times. The film then showed various famous crossword enthusiasts, including Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart, the Indigo Girls, and Mike Mussina, attempting to solve the puzzle.{{cite web|title=Wordplay (2006)|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492506/|website=IMDB.com|accessdate=16 January 2017}}

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Reagle was a member of a psychedelic rock band Greylock Mansion. He played the organ and performed the lead vocals and was also the main songwriter for the group. The band released two singles in their active period but never got a deal for a full album. All of their old recordings were finally released in 2016 by an underground label Lysergic Sound Distributors. Unfortunately Merl Reagle died during the production of the album and never got to witness its release.{{Cite web|url=https://thisistucson.com/entertainment/music/the-musical-life-of-merl-reagle/article_3e01f68a-371f-5055-9f97-a66da5d4a71c.html|title=The musical life of Merl Reagle}} In 2023, television producer Scott Carter shared a recording of one of Reagle's unreleased songs "Calliopes and Clowns" on the WGCU radio show Three Song Stories for the first time.{{Cite web |last=Development |first=PodBean |title=Episode 280 - Scott Carter {{!}} Three Song Stories |url=https://threesongstories.podbean.com/e/episode-280-scott-carter/ |access-date=2024-02-22 |website=threesongstories.podbean.com |language=en}}

On November 16, 2008, Reagle was a "special guest voice" on an episode of The Simpsons called "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words." In the episode, which featured a New York Times crossword, a cartoon version of Reagle appeared together with Shortz, and Lisa Simpson discovered secret messages embedded in both the clues and the puzzle, which Reagle constructed and Shortz edited. The actual crossword appearing that same day in the Times had the embedded messages.

Reagle also was featured on CNN, the Today show, Nightline, Oprah, and National Public Radio.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bu7XAAAAMAAJ&q=365+Reagle|last=Amende|first=Coral|title=The Crossword Obsession: The History and Lore of the World's Most Popular Pastime|location=New York|publisher=Berkley Books|year=2001|isbn=042518157X|page=365}} In 2013, the Washington Post featured an online interview in its [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/video/thefold/clues-to-crossword-perfection/2013/07/18/53cb862a-efbb-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_video.html "The Fold"] feature.

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• [http://www.sundaycrosswords.com/ Reagle's Sunday Crosswords website]

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Category:1950 births

Category:People from Audubon, New Jersey

Category:Crossword creators

Category:2015 deaths

Category:Deaths from pancreatitis