Balliett was born in
Manhattan and raised in
Glen Cove, New York, on
Long Island. He attended
Phillips Exeter Academy, where he learned to play drums in a band he summed up as "baggy Dixieland"; he played summer gigs at a Center Island yacht club. He was drafted into the Army in 1946, interrupting his freshman year at
Cornell University, to which he returned to finish his degree in 1951 and where he was a member of
Delta Phi fraternity. He then took a job at
The New Yorker, where he was hired by
Katherine White, one of the magazine's fiction editors. He went on to write more than 550 signed pieces for
The New Yorker, as well as many anonymous pieces. Acclaimed for his literary writing style, Balliett died at his Manhattan home on February 1, 2007, aged 80, from
liver cancer. He was survived by his second wife, Nancy Balliett, and his five children (from both marriages): James Fargo Balliett,
Blue Balliett, Will Balliett, Julie Lyon Rose, and Whitney Lyon Balliett Jr. ==Bibliography==