Biography for
J.D. Salinger More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

1 January 1919, New York City, New York, USA

Date of Death

27 January 2010, Cornish, New Hampshire, USA (natural causes)

Birth Name

Jerome David Salinger

Mini Biography

U.S. writer whose novel "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951) won critical acclaim and devoted admirers, especially among the post-World War II generation of college students. His entire corpus of published works consists of that one novel and 13 short stories, all originally written in the period 1948-59. Salinger was the son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, and, like Holden Caulfield, the hero of "The Catcher in the Rye," he grew up in New York City, attending public schools and a military academy. After brief periods at New York and Columbia universities he devoted himself entirely to writing, and his stories began to appear in periodicals in 1940. After his return from service in the U.S. Army (1942-46), Salinger's name and writing style became increasingly associated with "The New Yorker" magazine, which published almost all of his later stories. Some of the best of these made use of his wartime experiences: "For Esmé - With Love and Squalor" (1950) describes a U.S. soldier's poignant encounter with two British children; "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (1948) concerns the suicide of the sensitive, despairing veteran Seymour Glass. Major critical and popular recognition came with the publication of "The Catcher in the Rye", whose central character, a sensitive, rebellious adolescent, relates in authentic teenage idiom his flight from the "phony" adult world, his search for innocence and truth, and his final collapse on a psychiatrist's couch. The humour and colourful language of "The Catcher in the Rye" place it in the tradition of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and the stories of Ring Lardner, but its hero, like most of Salinger's child characters, views his life with an added dimension of precocious self-consciousness. "Nine Stories" (1953), a selection of Salinger's best work, added to his reputation. The reclusive habits of Salinger in his later years made his personal life a matter of speculation among devotees, while his small literary output was a subject of controversy among critics. "Franny and Zooey" (1961) brought together two earlier New Yorker stories; both deal with the Glass family, as do the two stories in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters"; and "Seymour: An Introduction" (1963).

IMDb Mini Biography By: Marcos Eduardo Acosta Aldrete

Spouse

Colleen O Neill'	(1988 - 27 January 2010) (his death)
Claire Douglas	(17 February 1955 - October 1967) (divorced) 2 children
Sylvia	(September 1945 - 1946) (divorced)

Trade Mark

His characters are often young people or adolescents.

Reclusive personality.

Trivia

Was so incensed by Hollywood's treatment of his story "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut" that he has refused to sell the movie rights to any of his stories to Hollywood. It is reported that his last will and testament has a stipulation blocking any Hollywood adaptations of his works after his death.

The character Tarrance Mann in Field of Dreams (1989) (based on "Shoeless Joe" by W.P. Kinsella) is actually based on J.D. Salinger.

Father of Matt Salinger and Margarete Salinger.

Sean Connery's character in Finding Forrester (2000) is based on J.D. Salinger.

Despite stating his hatred for technology in his novel "The Catcher in the Rye," he has a computer in his home as well as an AOL e-mail account.

Mark David Chapman, was obsessed with "Catcher in the Rye" and was found calmly reading the book when he was arrested for the murder of John Lennon, lead singer of The Beatles.

His works are one of many literary references to be found in Daniel Handler's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books. Salinger wrote a short story called "For Esmé - with Love and Squalor". "The Ersatz Elevator" introduces two characters named Jerome and Esme Squalor. Jerome is named after Salinger himself.

Father-in-law of Betsy Salinger.

An extremely private man.

A neighbor once went to his house to see if Salinger would contribute to a local charity. Salinger met him in the driveway with a gun in his hand and told the man to go away.

When his wife divorced him in 1966, she stated that Salinger refused to communicate with her, sometimes for weeks on end.

Did most of his writing in a concrete bunker. His wife and children were forbidden to enter it.

Shortly after purchasing his home, he had an eight-foot-tall wall built around it.

Used homeopathic medicines for most of his life.

A big fan of classic black-and-white movies.

Had two grandchildren by his son Matt.

Was of Scottish, German, and Irish descent on his mother's side.

Served in the Counter-Intelligence division in World War II.

Suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from World War II.

It was rumored that J.D. Salinger's mother Miriam was born in County Cork, Ireland, likely fueled by an erroneous assertion in a 1963 "Life Magazine" article that she was Scotch-Irish. This led to a further rumor that Miriam's Irish Catholic parents shunned her and refused to speak to her after marrying the Jew Solomon Salinger. Salinger's sister Doris actually believed that their mother had been born in Ireland. In actuality, Miriam's parents were dead by the time she married. She was born Marie Jillich (she took the name Miriam when she converted to Judaism upon her marriage) in Atlantic, Iowa on May 11, 1891. Miriam's paternal grandfather George Lester Jillich, Sr. was the son of German immigrants, and her paternal grandmother Mary Jane Bennett was Anglo-Saxon. George, Sr. was a successful grain merchant whose son George, Jr. (Miriam's father) worked in the family business. Miriam's mother, Nellie McMahon, a Kansas City native, was the daughter of immigrants from Ireland. Miriam's father died in 1909, the year before she met Solomon Salinger (a Chciago movie theater manager). Miriam's mother Nellie died before J.D. Salinger was born in 1919. Solomon Salinger's parents thought that the fair-skinned, red-haired Marie (as she was then known before her conversion) resembled a "little Irisher".

J.D. Salinger's father's family originally came from Sudargas, a small shtetl (Jewish village), which was then located in the Russian Empire near the present day border of Poland and Lithuania. His great-grandfather Hyman Joseph Salinger moved from Sudargas to the town of Taurage when he married the daughter of a prominent family. Hyman's son Simon F. Salinger emigrated to the United States in 1881, marrying Fannie Copland, a Lithuanian immigrant living in Wiles-Barre, Pennsylvania. Simon Salinger went to medical school and became a physician. When he died in 1960, he was just shy of his 100th birthday. J.D. Salinger's father Solomon was born in 1887, the second child of five children.

His family nickname was "Sonny". He had an older sister, Doris, who was six years older.