60 Facts About Gail Sheehy

Gail Sheehy was the author of seventeen books and numerous high-profile articles for magazines such as New York and Vanity Fair.

Gail Sheehy penned biographies and character studies of major twentieth-century leaders, including Hillary Clinton, both presidents Bush, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gail Sheehy's most recent book, Daring: My Passages, is a memoir.

Gail Sheehy was born in Mamaroneck, New York, to Lillian Rainey Henion and Harold Merritt Henion.

In 1958, Gail Sheehy graduated from the University of Vermont with a Bachelor of Arts in English and home economics.

Gail Sheehy later returned to school in 1970, earning her Master of Arts in journalism from Columbia University, where she studied on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship under the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Gail Sheehy traveled across the country putting on educational fashion shows for college home economics departments.

The next few years, a young married Gail Sheehy supported her husband through medical school and began her work as a journalist.

Gail Sheehy moved to Rochester, New York where she found a job as a journalist for the Democrat and Chronicle in 1961.

Gail Sheehy wrote for the women's page and for the Sunday feature section.

Gail Sheehy became a mother, but continued to work for various publications including the World Telegram for a brief time in 1963 and then the New York Herald Tribune from 1963 to 1966.

Gail Sheehy decided to leave her daily reporting job to become a freelance journalist.

Gail Sheehy was one of the original contributors to New York magazine and contributed from 1968 through 1977.

Gail Sheehy traveled with the campaign to the West Coast and had access to interview Kennedy directly.

Gail Sheehy was en route back to New York when Kennedy was assassinated in California.

Gail Sheehy covered the rise of amphetamine use in New York after her sister became addicted.

Gail Sheehy helped her sister get off drugs and they attended Woodstock in order to hide from her sister's drug pusher.

Gail Sheehy's story was chronicled in the book Hustling and later made into an NBC 1975 television movie of the same name, starring Jill Clayburgh as Redpants and Lee Remick as the journalist.

Gail Sheehy spent the next few weekends of that summer on the beach with Little Edie learning about their story.

Gail Sheehy profiled the two women in New York magazine in "The Secret of Grey Gardens".

Gail Sheehy traveled to Northern Ireland in 1972 to report on the Irish women involved in the Irish civil rights movement.

Gail Sheehy was trapped inside a Catholic ghetto which was under the authority of the IRA.

Gail Sheehy made her escape in a car over pastureland to Dublin.

Gail Sheehy coined the term "Second Adulthood" to describe the equilibrium that follows the crisis.

Gail Sheehy was awarded a fellowship by the Alicia Patterson Foundation to allow her to finish the book.

Gail Sheehy's editor was concerned that the title would make readers think that it meant "excerpts," but Gail Sheehy was confident they would understand the title once they read the book.

Felker purchased Esquire magazine in 1978 and Gail Sheehy wrote for the magazine including publishing a profile and interview with Anwar Sadat.

In 1977, Gail Sheehy became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press.

Gail Sheehy began work on her next book, Pathfinders, in 1978.

Gail Sheehy then conducted hundreds of phone interviews for the book, where she identified that those who attained well-being have a willingness to take risks and have experienced one or more important transitions in their adult years which they handled in an unusual, personal, or creative way.

Gail Sheehy began her work with Cambodian refugees in the early 1980s.

Gail Sheehy was invited by First Lady Rosalynn Carter to participate with other prominent Americans in a Cambodia Crisis Center.

Gail Sheehy worked with Catherine O'Neill to publicize the plight of refugees through the Women's Refugee Commission.

Vanity Fairs editor, Tina Brown, invited Gail Sheehy to write political profiles for the magazine beginning in 1984.

Gail Sheehy helped organize the Sag Harbor Initiative with William Pickens, Pat Pickens, and Walter Isaacson among others in 1987.

In 1989, Tina Brown asked Gail Sheehy to expand her character profiles for Vanity Fair to include international figures.

Gail Sheehy researched and interviewed both Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Charmed by the relationship between Gorbachev and Thatcher, Gail Sheehy wrote a play based on a fantasy romance called Maggie and Misha.

Gail Sheehy published the book The Silent Passage about menopause in 1992.

Gail Sheehy noticed that no one was talking about menopause and she, herself, was beginning to experience it.

Gail Sheehy profiled Hillary Clinton a total of three times for the pages of Vanity Fair in the 1990s, beginning with her time as First Lady and through her run for the New York Senate.

Gail Sheehy eventually wrote a book on the subject of caregiving, Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence which was published in 2010.

Gail Sheehy wrote a play, Chasing the Tiger, about her relationship with Felker.

Gail Sheehy published her own memoir in 2014, Daring: My Passages.

In 1960, Gail Sheehy married Albert Francis Gail Sheehy, a medical student at the University of Rochester.

In 1984, Gail Sheehy married editor Clay Felker, with whom she adopted a Cambodian child, Mohm.

Gail Sheehy died in Southampton, New York, on August 24,2020, from complications of pneumonia at age 83.

Gail Sheehy wrote the cover story for New York magazine about the growing problem of amphetamine use among young people in East Village.

Gail Sheehy gained notoriety in 1971, after New York magazine published a series she wrote about prostitution called "Wide Open City".

Gail Sheehy told The Washington Post that she had created a "composite character" for "Redpants" in order to trace the full life cycle of a streetwalker, but the explanation was edited out of the story.

Gail Sheehy manipulates her court of bedazzled male advisors with the skill of Elizabeth I And as she completes her unparalleled tenth year in office, the most powerful woman in the world has vanquished the opposition, gagged the media, and booted out the critics in her own party.

Gail Sheehy reported that Clinton complained that the media had made much about Gennifer Flowers' affair with Bill Clinton but did not look into the Bush transgression.

Gail Sheehy learned the back story of Newt Gingrich's life from his mother, who revealed that she was a lifelong manic-depressive.

Gail Sheehy did not blink when Sheehy asked him if he thought he had a genetic predisposition to bipolar disorder.

Gail Sheehy said he did not know, then applauded the special powers of leaders who are thought to have been bipolar.

Gail Sheehy's article revealed that his wife at the time, Marianne Gingrich, did not want him to become president and threatened to make a revelation that would torpedo his 1995 presidential campaign.

Gail Sheehy found a possible source of the malapropisms for which Governor Bush was mocked: a history of dyslexia in the Bush family.

In July 2015, Gail Sheehy appeared for an interview on Huffpost Live to discuss her 2014 work, Daring.

In 1975, Roger Gould, then a psychiatrist at the University of California at Los Angeles, brought a suit, which was settled out of court, against Gail Sheehy intended to enjoin publication of her book, which had not yet been completed.

Gail Sheehy ended up giving Dr Gould ten percent of the royalties for the book.