Printable Biography of A. Scott Berg

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A. Scott Berg began his career as a professional writer and biographer following his graduation from Princeton University in 1971. His senior thesis on Maxwell Perkins – the legendary editor who “discovered” F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and dozens of other important writers – won the Charles William Kennedy Prize, and Berg spent the next seven years expanding his thesis into Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, which became a national bestseller and won the National Book Award.

The success of that book drew the attention of Samuel Goldwyn Jr., who offered Berg exclusive and unrestricted access to his father’s personal and business papers. With the assistance of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Berg spent the next nine years writing Goldwyn: A Biography, a chronicle of the American motion picture industry from its origins to the present. Shortly thereafter, Berg became the first and only writer to be given unrestricted access to the archives of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Eight years later, Berg published Lindberg, which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.

When Berg interviewed Katharine Hepburn for a magazine article in 1983, she suggested he write her biography; for the next 20 years, he remained her friend and confidant. Between 1999 and 2001, Berg gathered his material on the film icon and composed a biographical memoir – complete except for the final page, which he wrote upon her death in June 2003. Kate Remembered was first on The New York Times bestseller list for most of that summer.

Berg has also written and co-produced two documentary films, Directed by William Wyler and Goldwyn:The Man and His Movies. He is currently writing a biography of Woodrow Wilson.