William A. Henry III

American cultural critic and author (1950–1994)

William A. Henry III
Born	William Alfred Henry (1950-01-24)January 24, 1950 South Orange, New Jersey, US
Died	June 28, 1994(1994-06-28) (aged 44) Maidenhead, Berkshire, England
Education	Yale University (BA)
Occupation	Cultural critic

William Alfred Henry III (Janury 24, 1950 – June 28, 1994) was an American cultural critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.^[1]^[2]

Career

Henry lived in North Plainfield, New Jersey as a young man. He graduated from Yale in 1971 and began his career in journalism in Boston, writing for the Boston Globe. His coverage of school desegregation in Boston won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975. He also wrote on the arts for the Globe, winning a second Pulitzer for his television criticism in 1980.^[3]

In the 1980s he worked as an arts critic for Time magazine, while pursuing his interests in cultural criticism and in American politics. Among his articles for Time was a story critical of the Hollywood trade newspapers in their cozy relationship in an industry town.^[4] In 1984, he wrote Visions of America, an account of the American presidential campaign of that year. His 1990 video documentary of Bob Fosse, Steam Heat, won an Emmy.^{[citation needed]} He also wrote a 1992 biography of Jackie Gleason, The Great One.^[5]^[6]

His final book was In Defense of Elitism, a work of social and cultural criticism that argued that societies and cultures might be ranked on a spectrum ranging from 'egalitarianism' to 'elitism', and that the contemporary United States had moved too far away from the latter; a view he defended with reference to college education, multiculturalism, and other topics. He died of a heart attack on June 28, 1994, while the book was coming to press.^[7]

Publications

Henry, William A. (1985). Visions of America : how we saw the 1984 election. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 9780871130129. OCLC 564291516.
Henry, William A. (1992). The Great One: The Life and Legend of Jackie Gleason. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-41533-0. OCLC 651898009 – via Internet Archive.
Henry, William A. (1994). In Defense of Elitism. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-47943-1. OCLC 30155600.

References

^ Fischer, Heinz D.; Fischer, Erika J. (2002). Complete Biographical Encyclopedia of Pulitzer Prize Winners 1917-2000 (Vol. 16). Berlin: De Gruyter. p. 103. ISBN 978-3-598-30186-5.
^ Grimes, William (June 29, 1994). "William Henry 3rd, A Drama Reviewer At Time, Dies At 44". The New York Times. p. D19. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
^ Official website of the Pulitzer Prize
^ Trades Blow No Ill Winds, TIME, September 27, 1982
^ Henry, III, William A. (1992). The Great One: The Life and Legend of Jackie Gleason. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-41533-0. OCLC 651898009 – via Internet Archive.
^ Henry's biographical sketch at Random House, which published In Defense of Elitism
^ Short obituary of Henry at Time magazine; long obituary of Henry at TIME Magazine