James Rufus Agee was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic.
15 Facts About James Agee
2.
When James Agee was six, his father was killed in an automobile accident.
3.
James Agee's mother married St Andrew's bursar Father Erskine Wright in 1924, and the two moved to Rockland, Maine.
4.
At Phillips Exeter, James Agee was president of The Lantern Club and editor of the Monthly where his first short stories, plays, poetry and articles were published.
5.
At Harvard, Agee took classes taught by Robert Hillyer and I A Richards; his classmate in those was the future poet and critic Robert Fitzgerald, with whom he would eventually work at Time.
6.
James Agee was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Advocate and delivered the class ode at his commencement.
7.
James Agee left Fortune in 1937 while working on a book, then, in 1939, he took a book reviewing job at Time, sometimes reviewing up to six books per week; together, he and his friend Whittaker Chambers ran "the back of the book" for Time.
8.
James Agee was an ardent champion of Charlie Chaplin's then unpopular film Monsieur Verdoux, since recognized as a film classic.
9.
In 1948, James Agee quit his job to become a freelance writer.
10.
In 1947 and 1948, James Agee wrote an untitled screenplay for Charlie Chaplin, in which the Tramp survives a nuclear holocaust; posthumously titled The Tramp's New World, the text was published in 2005.
11.
The commentary James Agee wrote for the 1948 documentary The Quiet One was his first contribution to a film that was completed and released.
12.
Later, apparently at Robert Mitchum's request, James Agee visited the set to settle a dispute between the star and Laughton.
13.
James Agee began living in Greenwich Village with Mia Fritsch, whom he married in 1946.
14.
James Agee was buried on a farm he owned at Hillsdale, New York, property still held by Agee descendants.
15.
James Agee's work had been heavily edited before its original publication by publisher David McDowell.