Background
Carl Fick was born on August 5, 1918 in Evanston, Illinois, United States.
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States
Carl attended Cornell University, graduating in 1940 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Carl Fick was born on August 5, 1918 in Evanston, Illinois, United States.
Carl attended Cornell University, graduating in 1940 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Carl Fick began his writing career while in college with a job as a weekly columnist for the Trumansburg Leader. Upon graduation, Fick landed a position as staff writer for Collier’s magazine. World War II, in which he was called to serve in 1942, interrupted his career there, but he continued to write for magazines on a staff and freelance basis throughout his life.
Fick served for three years as captain and navigation leader of the U.S. Army Air Corps in Knettinshall, England. While stationed in England, he was able to take elective courses in English and art at Oxford University. He also earned a number of distinguished awards for his military service.
Upon his return to the United States Fick established Colonial Associates, Inc., a creative writing and art service in New York City. This opened a new phase in his career. He spent the next several decades working in film, theater, and book production at a number of different firms, several of which he founded. While establishing himself in the business end of the film industry, Fick also became engaged in the creative end, writing dozens of screenplays in several genres.
Concentrating on films for television as well as documentary, educational, and industrial films, Fick’s subject matter is quite broad. Films range from "Do Me a Flavor", a history of chewing, from the caveman to the present; "On the Move", a film about teamsters and trucking; and "Americans in Paris", an exploration of American expatriates after the era of Hemingway, to the much acclaimed documentary on how heroin ravages the urban youth, "A Day in the Death of Donny B.", which won awards at prestigious film festivals across the world, including first prizes at the Cannes, Venice, Edinburgh, New York, and San Francisco.
As Fick made a name for himself in the world of documentary film, he also continued to write on a freelance basis. In 1972 he published his first novel. "The Danzinger Transcript", which was translated into several languages and also adapted as a two-act play. He followed with "From Mexico with Death", which appeared as an original paperback in 1980.
Fick’s third novel is "A Disturbance in Paris", a grim and intricate thriller centering on a group of BaaderMeinhof terrorists. The hero of the piece is Alex Marin, an apolitical screenwriter who becomes embroiled in international intrigue when he accepts a favor from the wrong person and is blackmailed into creating a documentary about a martyred terrorist leader. Christopher Wordsworth of the Observer commented that Fick exposes not only the machinations of terrorism but also its romantic possibilities.
In 1941, Fick married Shirley Stevens Stuart in Bronxville, New York.