Erich Segal
Erich Wolf Segal (June 16, 1937 – January 17, 2010) was an American author, screenwriter, educator, and classicist. He was best known for writing the bestselling novel Love Story (1970) and the hit motion picture of the same name.
Erich Segal, born and brought up in a kosher household in Brooklyn, New York, was the first of three brothers. His father was a rabbi and his mother was a homemaker. His interest in writing and narrating stories developed as a child. He went to Midwood High School, during which he suffered a serious accident while canoeing. His coach advised him to jog as a part of his rehabilitation which ended up becoming his passion and caused him to participate in the Boston Marathon more than 12 times. Later, he got an opportunity to be a commentator for the ABC Olympics in 1972 and at Montreal in 1976. He attended Harvard College, graduating as both the class poet and Latin salutatorian in 1958, and then he obtained his master’s degree (in 1959) and a doctorate (in 1965) in comparative literature from Harvard University,[1] after which he started teaching at Yale. His book ‘Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus’ published by the Harvard University Press in 1968, gave him considerable recognition. Further, because of a few connections on Broadway, he also got an opportunity to collaborate on the screenplay for the Beatles film “Yellow Submarine”.
Segal was a professor of Greek and Latin literature at Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University. He had been a Supernumerary Fellow and an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College at Oxford University.[2]
In the late 1960s, Segal collaborated on other screenplays. He had also written a romantic story about a Harvard student and a Radcliffe student but failed to sell it. However, literary agent Lois Wallace at the William Morris Agency suggested he turn the script into a novel, and the result was a motion picture phenomenon titled Love Story. A New York Times No. 1 bestseller, the book became the top selling work of fiction for 1970 in the United States, and was translated into 33 languages worldwide. The motion picture of the same name was the number one box office attraction of 1970.
The novel proved problematic for Segal. He acknowledged that its success unleashed “egotism bordering on megalomania” and he was denied tenure at Yale. Moreover, “Love Story” “was ignominiously bounced from the nomination slate of the National Book Awards after the fiction jury threatened to resign.” Segal later said that the book “totally ruined me.”[4]
Segal wrote more novels and screenplays, including the 1977 sequel to Love Story, titled Oliver’s Story.
He wrote widely on Greek and Latin literature. He published a number of scholarly works as well as teaching at the university level.[citation needed] He acted as a visiting professor for the University of Munich, Princeton University, and Dartmouth College. His novel The Class (1985), a saga based on the Harvard Class of 1958, was a bestseller, and won literary honor in France and Italy.[citation needed] Doctors was another New York Times bestseller.
