Joe Eszterhas
| Joe Eszterhas | |
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| Born | József A. Eszterhas November 23, 1944 Csákánydoroszló, Hungary |
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| Spouse |
Gerri Javor (m. 1974; div. 1994) Naomi Bakar (m. 1994) |
| Children | 6 |
| Website | |
| joeunchained |
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József A. "Joe" Eszterhas (Hungarian: Eszterhas József; pronounced [ˈɛstɛrhɒʃ ˈjoːʒɛf]; born November 23, 1944) is a Hungarian-American writer. He has worked on 16 films that have grossed over two billion dollars. He has also written several non-fiction books, including an autobiography entitled Hollywood Animal, American Rhapsody and Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith.
Eszterhas was born in Csákánydoroszló, a small village in Hungary, the son of Mária (née Bíró) and István. Eszterhas was raised as a young child in a refugee camp in Austria. The family eventually moved to New York City, and then to poor immigrant neighborhoods in Cleveland, where Eszterhas spent most of his childhood. Eszterhas' father was a Roman Catholic newspaper editor and author. Eszterhas learned at age 45 that his father had concealed his collaboration in the Hungarian Nazi government and that he had "organized book burnings and had cranked out the vilest anti-Semitic propaganda imaginable."p.201 After this discovery, he cut his father out of his life entirely, never reconciling before his father's death.
Eszterhas was a newspaper reporter for The Plain Dealer, in Cleveland, where he gained access to color photos of Vietnam's My Lai Massacre, which depicted American soldiers murdering Vietnamese civilians. Although he was annoyed at his newspaper’s apparent lack of belief in the authenticity of the photos, the paper permitted Eszterhas to try to sell them for $125,000. Some media outlets, however, used the photos without permission, causing the photos to decline in value. He ended up receiving $20,000 from Life magazine.
Eszterhas went on to be a senior editor from 1971 to 1975 for Rolling Stone. He became a National Book Award nominee for his nonfiction work Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse in 1974.
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