1. Ringgold Wilmer Lardner was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical writings on sports, marriage, and the theatre.
15 Facts About Ring Lardner
1. 2.
Ring Lardner was born in Niles, Michigan, the son of wealthy parents, Henry and Lena Phillips Lardner.
3.
Ring Lardner had a passion for baseball, stage, and music.
4.
Ring Lardner started his writing career as a sports columnist, finding work with the newspaper South Bend Times in 1905.
5.
Two years later, Ring Lardner was in St Louis, writing the humorous baseball column Pullman Pastimes for Taylor Spink and the Sporting News.
6.
In 1913, Ring Lardner returned to the Chicago Tribune, which became the home newspaper for his syndicated column In the Wake of the News.
7.
In 1916, Ring Lardner published his first successful book, You Know Me Al, an epistolary novel written in the form of letters by "Jack Keefe", a bush-league baseball player, to a friend back home.
8.
Ring Lardner was exceptionally close to the White Sox and felt he was betrayed by the team.
9.
Ring Lardner continued to write follow-up stories to You Know Me Al, with the protagonist of that book, the headstrong, egotistical but gullible Jack Keefe, experiencing various ups and downs in his major league career and in his personal life.
10.
Ring Lardner returned to the character when he wrote the continuity for a daily You Know Me Al comic strip that ran from 1922 to 1925.
11.
Ring Lardner was a dedicated composer and lyricist: both his first and last published stage works included several Lardner tunes.
12.
Ring Lardner wrote at least one recorded song for Bert Williams, co-wrote one for Nora Bayes, and provided the lyrics for the song "That Old Quartet" by Nathaniel D Mann.
13.
John Ring Lardner, born in 1912, was a newspaperman, sports columnist, and magazine writer.
14.
The youngest, David Ring Lardner, worked for The New Yorker as a general reporter and war correspondent before he was killed by a landmine near Aachen, Germany on October 19,1944, less than one month after his arrival in Europe.
15.
Ring Lardner died on September 25,1933, at the age of 48 in East Hampton, New York, of a heart attack due to complications from tuberculosis.