Name: ________________________________ Date: ________________ Class: _________ Biography of Richard Connell By Bob Gay Skip to Story Many authors are remembered for their body of work: numerous collections and/or novels that represent a certain era or point of view. Others are remembered for a certain character, or group of characters, who strike a certain chord within us and, in many cases, live on long after their creator has passed away. There is a small group of authors, however, who have their reputations based on a single work, or rare still, a single story. It is in this small group that we find Richard Connell. Richard Edward Connell, Jr. was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on October 17, 1893 to Richard Edward Connell Sr. and Mary Miller Connell. His father was a reporter and the editor of a local paper, the Poughkeepsie News­Press, as well as an aspiring politician. There seem to be no accounts of the younger Richard's childhood, except that by age 10, he had followed his father into newspaper work by reporting on baseball games (reportedly receiving 10 cents per story). By age 16, he had advanced to city editor of the paper and, upon graduation from high school, entered Georgetown University. While at Georgetown, Connell worked for a time as secretary to his father, who had seen a culmination of his political aspirations, when he was elected to Congress in 1911. Unfortunately, the elder Connell's political career was cut short by his sudden death a year later, and the younger Connell returned to college, moving over to Harvard, where he became the editor of The Harvard Lampoon. Connell moved to New York City after his graduation and accepted a job as a newspaper reporter at the New York American. After a short time he decided to try his hand at writing advertising copy and, by all accounts, was quite successful. Connell left advertising during WWI to serve in the army, where he did some editing of his camp newspaper and even served for a year in France. Upon his return from the war, he returned to advertising and in 1919 married Louise Herrick Fox. This was not the only change in his life, however, since, emboldened by the publication of his first short story, he abandoned advertising to embark on a career as a freelance writer. Connell was a popular author during this period of his life, writing over 300 short stories and several novels. He received the O. Henry Award in both 1923 and 1924 for his stories "A Friend of Napoleon" and "The Most Dangerous Game", but, aside from these early honors, never attained any real critical success with his work. Eventually, he tried his hand at screenwriting Name: ________________________________ Date: ________________ Class: _________ and, in 1937, abandoned freelance writing to work only on films. The IMDB lists 39 films made from Connell's work (both his original work and adaptations of his short stories) and he received two Academy Award nominations, including one for his scripting credit on Meet John Doe. Connell was in great demand in Hollywood when he succumbed to a heart attack on November 22, 1949 and died at his home in Beverly Hills. "The Most Dangerous Game" originally appeared in the January 19, 1924 issue of Colliers, has been the basis for at least 8 films and, according to most sources, has never been out of print since its original publication. Bob Gay November, 2007 Source "The Library." The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. Web. 29 Sept. 2014. <http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/connell­most­dangerous­game.html>. Name: ________________________________ Date: ________________ Class: _________ Write down three important details about Richard Connell’s life that you learned from this passage. 1. _____________________________________________________________________ 2. ____________________________________________________________________ 3. _____________________________________________________________________ What do you predict will be the detail that impacts Connell’s stories the most? Why? __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________