Education
New York University.
New York University.
An influential biographer, he published 17 biographies, 15 of which were related to French culture, commerce, or politics. Including works on Albert Camus, Colette, Gustave Flaubert, Henri Philippe Pétain, Jules Verne, and the Rothschild banking family of France. Born in Brooklyn, was the son of a Broadway press agent.
He graduated from New York University in 1948 with degrees in English and biology.
In 1956 moved to Paris where he briefly attempted to pursue a career as a novelist. He ultimately settled on managing the Paris branch of the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, writing freelance articles for magazines, and working as a biographer, publishing his first book, Detours From the Grand Tour, in 1970.
He also worked for Publishers Weekly as a writer for four decades. In 1991 was appointed Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and was later made an Officer in 1996.
He died at his home in Paris at the age of 87 and is buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery.