Albert Goldman
| Albert Goldman | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 15, 1927 Dormont, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | March 28, 1994 (aged 66) En route from Miami to London |
| Occupation | Author, professor |
Albert Harry Goldman (April 15, 1927 – March 28, 1994) was an American professor and author.
Goldman wrote about the culture and personalities of the American music industry both in books and as a contributor to magazines. He is best known for his bestselling book on Lenny Bruce and his controversial biographies of Elvis Presley and John Lennon.
Albert Goldman was born in Dormont, Pennsylvania and raised in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
Albert Goldman briefly studied theater at the Carnegie Institute of Technology before serving in the U.S. Navy from 1945–1946. Although he did not possess a bachelor's degree, he earned a master's degree in English from the University of Chicago in 1950. While enrolled in the doctoral program at Columbia University, Goldman taught literature courses at the City College of New York. He completed his PhD in 1961 with a dissertation on Thomas de Quincey. Goldman argued that de Quincey had plagiarized most of his acclaimed journalism from lesser-known writers; the dissertation was subsequently published by Southern Illinois University Press in 1965. From 1963 to 1972, Goldman was an adjunct associate professor of English at Columbia; among his course offerings was the University's first class on popular culture.
Goldman's breakthrough bestseller, Ladies and Gentlemen – Lenny Bruce!! won praise from the likes of Norman Mailer and Pauline Kael, who called the book "brilliant." The book was largely positive in its appraisal of Bruce's talent, though it was attacked by many of Bruce's friends for allegedly distorting his character and for claims that Bruce had had homosexual experiences.
Goldman's critical 1981 biography Elvis was much more controversial. In this book, Goldman drew on more than four years' research into Elvis Presley's life. But for many fans and some critics, his research was undermined by his intense personal dislike of Presley. For instance, Goldman dismissed Presley as a plagiarist who never did anything of note after his first records at Sun Records, insisting that he was inferior as an artist to Little Richard and other early rock'n'roll singers. He also portrayed Presley as nearly insane, using stories that some might see as innocuous (such as Presley taking his friends halfway across the country to buy them peanut-butter sandwiches) to "prove" that the singer had lost his grip on reality.
...
Wikipedia