A. E. Hotchner

Hotchner was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Sally (née Rossman), a synagogue/Sunday school administrator, and Samuel Hotchner, a jeweler. His family was Jewish. He attended Soldan High School. In 1940, he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with degrees in history (A.B.) and law (J.D.). He was admitted to the Missouri State Bar in 1941, and briefly practiced law in St. Louis in 1941 and 1942. After the United States entered World War II following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, he served from 1942 to 1945 in the U.S. Army Air Forces as a journalist, attaining the rank of major. When the war was over, he decided to forgo his law practice to pursue a career in writing. ==Literary career==

Hotchner was an editor, biographer, novelist and playwright. A Depression-era, bildungsroman memoir, it tells the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis, after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis and his younger brother is sent to live with an uncle. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return. Hotchner's play The White House starred Helen Hayes in a Broadway production staged at Henry Miller's Theater in 1964. Hayes played multiple First Ladies from United States history. It was performed at the White House itself in 1996. In 1993, Welcome to the Club, a musical comedy written with composer Cy Coleman, appeared on Broadway. In addition, Hotchner wrote A Short Happy Life, The Hemingway Hero, Exactly Like You (written with Coleman), and The World of Nick Adams. Hotchner's play Sweet Prince was produced off-Broadway in 1982, at the Theater Off-Park, starring Keir Dullea and Ian Abercrombie. ==Personal life and philanthropy==

With actor Paul Newman, a friend and neighbor, Hotchner founded Newman's Own, Inc in 1982. All profits from this line of food products and other ventures are donated to charities. Hotchner resided with his wife Virginia Kiser in Westport, Connecticut, where he spent most weekends, and cared for a grey parrot. ==Partial bibliography==

• The Boyhood Memoirs of A.E. Hotchner: King of the Hill and Looking for Miracles (Missouri History Museum Press, 2007, ) • The Dangerous American (Random House, 1958) • Papa Hemingway (Random House, 1966) • Treasure (Random House, 1970) • King of the Hill (Harper & Row, 1973, ) • Looking for Miracles: A Memoir about Loving (Harper & Row, 1975, ) • Doris Day, Her Own Story (G. K. Hall, 1976, ) • Sophia, Living and Loving : Her Own Story (Morrow, 1979, ) • The Man Who Lived at the Ritz (Putnam, 1981, ) • Papa Hemingway : The Ecstasy and Sorrow (Morrow, 1983, ) • Choice People : The Greats, Near-Greats, and Ingrates I Have Known (Morrow, 1984, ) • Hemingway and His World (Vendome, 1989, ) • Blown Away: The Rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties (Simon & Schuster, 1990, ) • Louisiana Purchase (Carroll & Graf, 1996, ) • The Day I Fired Alan Ladd and Other World War II Adventures (U. of Missouri Press, 2002, ) • Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good: the Madcap Business Adventure of the Truly Oddest Couple Paul Newman and A.E. Hotchner, (Random House, 2003, ). • ''Everyone Comes to Elaine's'' (Harper Entertainment, 2004, ) • Paul and Me: 53 Years of Adventures and Misadventures with My Pal Paul Newman (Random House Digital, 2010, ) • O.J. in the Morning, G&T at Night (St. Martin's Press, 2013, ) • Hemingway in Love (St. Martin's Press, 2015, ) • The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom: A Novel, 2018, ==Awards and honors==

• Distinguished Alumni Award, Washington University School of Law, 1992. • Honorary D.L., Washington University in St. Louis, 1993. ==Notes==