My Pal Quentin Reynolds - 1964
Between September 7 and October 18, 1964 I had the
priviledge to be six weeks in the company of Quentin Reynolds.
Quent was narrator and master of ceremonies of
Columbia show " The Wonderful World of Sport" in which I was also
participating. September 7 - 13 at Utica, N.Y. September 14 - 20 at
Baltimore Civic Center. September 23 - 27 at the Forum, Montreal, Que.,
Canada. September 29 - October 4 at Maple Leaf Gardens. Totonto, Ont.,
Canada. October 7 - 12 Rochester War Memorial, Rochester, N.Y. October 14 -
18 Washington Coliseum, Washington, D.C. Among the many U.S. government
officials and foreign diplomats that visited our performance in
Washington was Robert Kennedy.
After the show we met with Quentin mostly in a nearby
bar. I was fascinated by Quents vivid recollection of his past. When the
news of his death reached me in Australia in 1965 - only then I realised why
Quentin was always drinking so heavily. All the time he was narrating the
show in September and October 1964, he suffered advanced abdominal cancer.
He never mentioned his illness to me or as far as I know to anyone else in
the show. Scotch was his way to overcome the pain.
He autographed for me several of his books. His
autograph on the cover of the show program read: " To
Frank from his pal Quent"
 |
 |
| |
Photo
from
Brown University Archives |
| |
|
Quentin Reynolds
Born on 11 April 1902 in New York, N.Y. Died
age 62 in 1965.
U.S. journalist and writer; associate editor
Collier's magazine 1933–45; war correspondent World War II (books
for adults: ‘Courtroom, the Story of Samuel S. Liebowitz', ‘Minister of
Death: the Adolf Eichmann Story', ‘By Quentin Reynolds',
autobiography; for younger readers: ‘Wright Brothers', ‘Custer's Last
Stand', ‘Winston Churchill').
Studied at Brown University and later at Brooklyn
law school, graduating in 1930.
In 1945 the New Yorker called Quentin Reynolds a “hard-bitten,
two-fisted old newspaper man.” One of the most famous World War II
correspondents, Reynolds reported on the era from beginning to end as an
associate editor at Collier’s magazine. In his 1963 autobiography, By
Quentin Reynolds, he described the war as “short on glamour and long on
tragedy.” He covered Hitler’s rise to power and reported from Europe, the
Pacific, Russia, North Africa, and the Middle East.
When Reynolds arrived in Germany in 1933, few Americans viewed Hitler
as a threat. Reynolds, however, quickly recognized Hitler’s power when he
heard him speak to German farmers: “They didn’t laugh; they all wept and
kneeled,” the correspondent said after the war. “And then they applauded
him for a good fifteen minutes. He had that certain animal magnetism—like
an evangelist.”
During the German blitz on London, Reynolds and Edward R. Murrow were
the only American correspondents in the city. In London, he started his
celebrated series of Sunday evening broadcasts over BBC which made his
name a household word to the embattled Brittons. He also had the
distinction to be the only correspondent during the war to interview Prime
Minister Churchill. Reynolds was also in France just before it fell to the
Germans. At the time, American correspondents were being kept away from
the front lines, but the resourceful Reynolds figured out a way to get in.
He presented a French official with a telegram he threatened to send: dear
uncle franklin, am having difficulty getting accredited to french army.
time is important...please give my love to aunt eleanor.
The French, believing that Reynolds was President Roosevelt’s nephew,
soon allowed him to reach the front. He was one of the last correspondents
to leave France after the German occupation.
Reynolds averaged twenty articles a year for Collier’s and also
published twenty-five books, including The Wounded Don’t Cry, London
Diary, Dress Rehearsal, and Courtroom, a biography of lawyer Samuel S.
Leibowitz. But after the war Reynolds was best known for his libel suit
against Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler, who called him “yellow” and an
“absentee war correspondent.” He won $175,001, at the time the largest
libel judgment ever. The trial was later made into a Broadway play, A Case
of Libel.
His six months with W.Averill Harriman in Moscow got him in trouble with Soviet
authorities when he protested the censorship there.
After the war, when Life Magazine wished to publish a life of General
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the general would not agree to cooperated with any
journalist other then Quentin Reynolds.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| Britain Can Take It! (1940) |
|
|
|
| |
Quentin Reynolds, an American journalist, recorded this
programme as a film despatch from London. Re-titled London Can Take
It, it gave President Roosevelt the kind of material he needed to
swing American popular opinion behind Britain’s war effort in World
War II. Directors: Humphrey Watt, Humphrey Jennings
Photography: H Fowle, Frank ‘Jonah’ Jones
Narration: Quentin Reynolds |
|
---------------------------------------------------------------
War Commercials
Winston Churchill & Quentin Reynolds
Mr. G. Robert Vincent has devoted many, many years to preserving, collecting
and recording the spoken word of men and women who have helped build our
civilization. On these tapes he narrates brief, but intimate descriptions of
the occasions which prompted the original recordings to be made -- "telling
the true story behind the record". There are over a hundred episodes of
nostalgia-evoking collector's items. Each tape is three to four minutes in
duration featuring the actual voices of world-famous personalities and
events in the past.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
 |
|
The creator of the
very new State of Israel, David Ben Gourion discusses with Quentin
Reynolds, a journalist present for the event.
They are
twelve. Five women, seven men. All were born in 1948, the same year as
Israel. Much of them is the children of rescapés of the Holocaust. All
made grow this State that their parents were confined in the pain. They
are the first flower. However, for some of them the creation of this
country of which they hold the passport today is made in tearing. That of
dual membership. Today, for these men and these women who have the age of
their country, the Jubilee of the State of Israel is the occasion of an
assessment. Between political choices and personal choices, between
amazement for work accomplished and called in question, these pioneers
throw a glance on this Utopia which definitively was born on May 14, 1948.
The country which has their age: 50 years.
In the car
which slips by, this morning of shabbat, in the deserted streets of Such
Aviv, the creator of the very new State of Israel, David Ben Gourion
discusses with Quentin Reynolds, a journalist present for the event. Like
the majority of the correspondents present this 15 May 1948 in the Israeli
capital Reynolds places in Kaete daN hotel. A small building of 22 rooms
located on the sea front.
A few days
before, Reynolds had probably attended a private conversation held in the
restaurant of this hotel, almost the only one of the new capital. Around
the table
Sam Federman the owner of the place, some friends and Golda Meir which
will become Prime Minister of Israel twenty and one years later. The
object of the discussion is, for once, optimist. It is a question of
choosing the first name of the first baby until wait
Federman arrived of Europe hardly a year earlier, after a chaotic
tour. The choice is quickly stopped. On the councils of inflexible Golda
Meir Simply the little boy will be called Ami. because this first name
means my people. Now remain to await the birth.
While
getting out of the car which brings back it to its hotel this 15 May 48,
Quentin Reynolds launches a last question to the man who, the day before,
had proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel.
-"Comment
hope you to resist the Arab armies "questions the journalist.
-"Nous let
us have a very many army "him rétorque Ben Gourion.
-"Très
many?" be astonished Reynolds
-"Oui 750
000 men "releases the Jewish leader. That is to say total population of
the country
- "Then,
him rétorque Quentin Reynolds who has just seen the radiant face of
Sam Federman , you can consider that you are 750 001 here bus a child
have just been born".
---------------------------------------------------------
"Courtroom: The Story of Samuel S.
Leibowitz" by Quentin Reynolds
Published by Farrar Straus & Giroux
Copyright: December 1950
Everyone once in a while will pick up a book; an old book and say
"Someday, I'll read this!" The book I happened to pick up was "Courtroom"
by Quentin Reynolds and it turned out to be a book I could not put down.
The true story of Samuel S. Leibowitz, attorney and jurist as told by
Mr. Reynolds reminds us of the truth of the courtroom and a time when that
when the truth did not apply to all men (women). More than any history
lesson, I took from the book the trials and tribulations of the Scottsboro
Nine; those nine young "black" boys tried for rape in Scottsboro, Alabama.
The depiction of the scene that Leibowtiz encouters in the southern courts
is overpowering. The actual transcripts of the trial brings to light words
and images that should never take place in an American courtroom. But it
did - and the author pulls no punches as he repeats history's most
degrading time as far as the judicial process in the deep south. You
actually become ashamed when you read portions of the testimony and walk
away with a great respect for Samuel S. Leibowitz whose dedication and
belief in the judicial process prevailed after nine years of trials and
appeals. His greatest victory was having Afro-American added to the jury
rolls and making it mandatory for those same persons to appear as jurors.
For anyone who enjoys courtroom drama, "Courtroom" is certainly loaded
with defenses and brilliant legal strategies by Leibowitz including those
many cases he tried that resulted in "not guilty by reason of insanity"
verdicts.
The truisms of Leibowitz's stories and the interpretation by Reynolds
leads to one tremendous book. |
|
