Paula Fox

Paula Fox was born in New York City on April 22, 1923. Her mother, Elsie De Sola, was a Cuban screenwriter. Her father, Paul Hervey Fox, was a writer as well. Fox was raised by a succession of relatives, friends, and paid caregivers. She attended high school for only five months. Fox attended the Columbia University School of General Studies from 1955 to 1958. ==Career==

Fox worked for years as a teacher and tutor for troubled children. Only in her 40s did she begin her first novel, Poor George, about a cynical schoolteacher who finds purpose—and ruin—in mentoring a vagrant teenager. She was championed by the author Jonathan Franzen, who saw that some of her books were re-issued. ==Personal life and death==

In 1943, Fox was living in the household of famed acting coach Stella Adler and became friendly with Marlon Brando, another of Adler's students who was living there. She became pregnant and gave the child, Linda Carroll, up for adoption. There have been persistent rumors that Brando was in fact Carroll's father, although neither Brando nor Fox ever commented on the matter. Carroll, who became an author and psychotherapist, is the mother of musician Courtney Love. Fox married Richard Sigerson, by whom she had two sons. She later married literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg. ==Adaptations==

A 1993 Portuguese feature film, Coitado do Jorge, was based on Poor George. Desperate Characters was made into a movie starring Shirley MacLaine in 1971. ==Works==

Children's fiction • 1966 ''Maurice's Room'' (illustrated by Ingrid Fetz) • 1967 How Many Miles to Babylon? (illus. Paul Giovanopoulos) • 1967 A Likely Place (illus. Edward Ardizzone) • 1968 Dear Prosper (illus. Steve McLachlin) • 1968 The Stone-Faced Boy (illus. Donald A. Mackay) • 1969 Hungry Fred (illus. Rosemary Wells) • 1969 ''The King's Falcon'' (illus. Eros Keith) • 1969 Portrait of Ivan (illus. Saul Lambert) • 1970 Blowfish Live in the Sea • 1973 Good Ethan (illus. Arnold Lobel) • 1974 The Slave Dancer (illus. Eros Keith) • 1978 The Little Swineherd and Other Tales (1996 edition illus. Robert Byrd) • 1980 A Place Apart • 1984 One-Eyed Cat • 1986 The Moonlight Man • 1987 Lily and the Lost Boy (also as The Lost Boy) • 1988 The Village by the Sea (also as In a Place of Darkness) • 1991 Monkey Island • 1993 Western Wind • 1995 The Eagle Kite (also as The Gathering Darkness) • 1997 Radiance Descending • 1999 Amzat and His Brothers: Three Italian Tales Memoirs • 2001 Borrowed Finery • 2005 The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe Adult fiction • 1967 Poor George • 1970 Desperate Characters • 1972 The Western Coast • 1976 ''The Widow's Children'' • 1984 ''A Servant's Tale'' • 1990 The God of Nightmares • 2011 News from the World: Stories and Essays == See also ==