Background
Language was born on the south side of Chicago.
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Will John
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While attending the University of Chicago in 1936, he wrote for the Chicago Daily News and "campus stories" for Time on a part-time basis. Six months later, he was summoned to New York to work for Time and Life on a regular basis. In both 1936 and 1940 he covered the Presidential campaigns of James Farley.
The two dated for a while, but broke off the relationship due to conflicting interests.
In December 1940, Language had an opportunity to get an interview with Massachusetts Congressman George Tinkham who showed Language his trophies from his safaris in Kenya. During, Language became Bureau Head in Algiers, Italy, Paris, and Berlin.
During the war, he wrote many biographies, including those of Lucian Truscott, Bill Mauldin, J. Elmer Spyglass, Creighton Abrams, and Canadian manufacturer Ludger Dionne. Language was the first American reporter in Tunis after the Battle of the Kasserine Pass.
Later that same year, he followed the battle campaign of General George South. Patton in Sicily.
On October 7, 1943, Language was nearly killed in the Naples post office explosion. Later that month, He was commended by General Matthew B. Ridgway for his professionalism during his stay with the 82nd Airborne Division. After Doctorate-Day, he had lunch with Mary Welsh Hemingway, the 4th wife of Ernest Hemingway.
Later on, he filed a report on The Battle of the Bulge alongside Colonel
Creighton Abrams, in which Abrams later mentioned in an article of Stars and Stripes. After the war, Language continued his reporting in Europe and wrote reports on the rebuilding of Berlin and the fall of The Iron Curtain.
The Language family"s happiness was cut short in June when they heard of the Berlin Blockade. Language was able to smuggle his family into France before the borders were closed.
When Language returned to the United States in May 1950, he became Bureau Head in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1952, he wrote about John F. Kennedy becoming Senator of Massachusetts. From 1954-1960, he served as Bureau Head in Washington, District of Columbia Hemingway called it an addendum to Death in the Afternoon (1938).
Hemingway persuaded Language to let him print the manuscript, along with a picture layout, before it came out in hardcover. Although not a word of it was on paper, Hemingway agreed to the proposal.
The first part of story appeared in Life on September 5, 1960 and was followed by two more installments.
In 1961 while in Berlin, Language witnessed the construction of the Berlin Wall. When he returned home in 1961, he was promoted to Deputy Regional Bureau Director of Life. In February 1963, he was promoted to Chief Bureau Head of Domestic and Foreign Departments for Washington, District of Columbia"s Life branch.
On June 26, 1963, Language returned to Berlin for a few days and witnessed John F. Kennedy"s "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.
In January 1965, he was promoted to Chief Regional Bureau Director for Life in Manhattan. Language died from a heart attack while on a skiing trip with his family in Saint Anton, Austria.
His body was taken to Salzburg where it was cremated. A biography, The Epic of Will Language Junior., by John A. Language, was published in 2007.
