Erich Wolf Segal was an American author, screenwriter, educator, and classicist who wrote the bestselling novel Love Story and its hit film adaptation.
21 Facts About Erich Segal
2.
Erich Segal's father was a rabbi and his mother was a homemaker.
3.
Erich Segal went to Midwood High School, during which he suffered a serious accident while canoeing.
4.
Erich Segal's coach advised him to jog as a part of his rehabilitation, which ended up becoming his passion and caused him to participate in the Boston Marathon more than 12 times.
5.
Erich Segal attended Harvard College, graduating as both the class poet and Latin salutatorian in 1958, and then obtained his master's degree and a doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, after which he started teaching at Yale.
6.
In 1967, through connections on Broadway, Erich Segal was given the opportunity to collaborate on the screenplay for the Beatles' 1968 motion picture Yellow Submarine, based on a story by Lee Minoff.
7.
Erich Segal wrote a romantic story about a Harvard student and a Radcliffe student but failed to sell it.
8.
Erich Segal acknowledged that its success unleashed "egotism bordering on megalomania" and he was denied tenure at Yale.
9.
Erich Segal published scholarly works on Greek and Latin literature and taught Greek and Latin literature at Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities.
10.
Erich Segal was a Supernumerary Fellow and an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College at Oxford University.
11.
Erich Segal served as a visiting professor at Princeton, the University of Munich and Dartmouth College.
12.
Erich Segal's novel The Class, a saga based on the Harvard Class of 1958, was a bestseller, and won literary honors in France and Italy.
13.
Erich Segal had been a sprinter at Midwood High School, and ran the two-mile at Harvard College.
14.
Erich Segal began marathon running during his second year at Harvard, when track and field head coach Bill McCurdy was impressed with how fast he had run 10 miles.
15.
Erich Segal ran in the Boston Marathon almost every year from 1955 to 1975.
16.
Erich Segal finished in 79th place at 3 hours, 43 minutes in his first attempt, and his best performance was in 1964 when he finished 63rd with a time of 2:56:30.
17.
Erich Segal recounted that, after one Boston marathon, someone yelled, "Hey, Segal, you run better than you write".
18.
Erich Segal was a color commentator for Olympic marathons during telecasts of both the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics.
19.
Erich Segal was married to Karen James from 1975 until his death; they had two daughters, Miranda and Francesca Erich Segal.
20.
Erich Segal, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, died of a heart attack on January 17,2010, and was buried in London.
21.
Erich Segal was the most dogged man any of us will ever know.