James Agee facts for kids

Quick facts for kids James Agee
Agee in 1937
Born	James Rufus Agee November 27, 1909 Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.
Died	May 16, 1955(1955-05-16) (aged 45) New York City, U.S.
Nationality	American
Notable works	A Death in the Family, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Spouse	Via Saunders (1933-1938) Alma Mailman (1938-1941) Mia Fritsch (1946-1955; his death)
Children	Joel (b. 1940) Julia Teresa ("Deedee") Andrea John

James Rufus Agee (pronounced AY-jee; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American writer. He wrote novels, worked as a journalist, wrote poetry, and created movie scripts. He was also a very important film critic in the 1940s. His novel, A Death in the Family, was published after he died in 1957. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1958, which is a very famous award for books.

Early Life and Education

James Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1909. His parents were Hugh James Agee and Laura Whitman Tyler. When James was six years old, his father died in a car accident. After this, James and his younger sister, Emma, went to different boarding schools.

School Days and Friendships

One important school was Saint Andrews School for Mountain Boys. It was near his mother's summer home in Sewanee, Tennessee. Here, James Agee became good friends with Father James Harold Flye. Father Flye was a history teacher at the school and an Episcopal priest. He became a mentor and close friend to Agee throughout his life. They wrote many letters to each other, which were later published as a book.

In 1924, Agee's mother married Father Erskine Wright. Agee then went to Knoxville High School for a year. The next summer, when he was 16, he traveled to Europe with Father Flye. After this trip, Agee went to another boarding school, Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire.

James Agee Park in the Fort Sanders neighborhood of Knoxville, Tennessee. This area was Agee's childhood home and the setting for his novel A Death in the Family.

College Years at Harvard

At Phillips Exeter, Agee was very involved in school clubs. He was president of The Lantern Club and edited the Monthly magazine. This is where his first stories, plays, poems, and articles were published. Even though he didn't always get great grades, Agee was accepted into Harvard College.

At Harvard, Agee continued to write. He became the editor-in-chief of the Harvard Advocate, which was a student magazine. He also gave a special speech at his graduation ceremony.

Career as a Writer

After college, James Agee started working for Time Inc. He moved to New York City and wrote for Fortune magazine from 1932 to 1937. He later became very well known for writing about movies for Time and The Nation magazines. In 1934, he published his only book of poems, called Permit Me Voyage.

Documenting the Great Depression

In 1936, during the Great Depression, Agee worked on a special project. He spent eight weeks in Alabama with photographer Walker Evans. They lived among sharecroppers, who were farmers who paid for their land with a share of their crops. Agee wrote about their lives, but Fortune magazine did not publish his article.

Agee later turned this material into a famous book called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). This book is now considered one of the greatest literary works of the 20th century. Another manuscript from this time, called Cotton Tenants, was found in 2003 and published as a book. It showed a different side of Agee's writing.

Film Critic and Screenwriter

Agee started working as a book reviewer for Time magazine in 1939. He sometimes reviewed many books each week. In 1941, he became Time's film critic. From 1942 to 1948, he also wrote movie reviews for The Nation. Agee was a big fan of films by Charlie Chaplin and Laurence Olivier. His movie reviews were later collected in a book called Agee on Film (1958).

In 1948, Agee decided to become a freelance writer. This meant he could write for different magazines and work on movie scripts. He wrote a popular article for Life Magazine about silent movie comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. This article helped bring attention back to Buster Keaton's career.

Writing for the Big Screen

James Agee also wrote screenplays, which are scripts for movies. He wrote a script for Charlie Chaplin in 1947 and 1948. It was about Chaplin's famous character, the Tramp, surviving a nuclear disaster. This script was published in 2005.

Agee's health problems made it hard for him to work on many movie scripts. However, he is known for writing two important films from the 1950s: The African Queen (1951) and The Night of the Hunter (1955).

Personal Life

James Agee was married three times. His first marriage was to Olivia Saunders in 1933. They later divorced. He then married Alma Mailman. They also divorced, and Alma moved to Mexico with their son, Joel.

Agee then married Mia Fritsch in 1946. They lived in Greenwich Village in New York City. They had two daughters, Julia and Andrea, and a son, John.

In 1951, Agee had a heart attack. On May 16, 1955, he had another heart attack in a taxi in New York City and passed away. He was buried on his farm in Hillsdale, New York.

Legacy

During his life, James Agee was not widely famous. But after he died, his writing became much more recognized.

Awards and Recognition

In 1957, his novel A Death in the Family was published. This book was based on the real events of his father's death. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1958. In 2007, a new version of the novel was published using Agee's original writings.

His movie reviews and screenplays were collected in two books called Agee on Film. Many people consider Let Us Now Praise Famous Men to be Agee's most important work. Even though it was not popular when it first came out, it is now seen as a major literary achievement.

Influence on Arts and Media

Agee's writings have inspired other artists. The composer Samuel Barber used parts of Agee's poems and prose in his music. For example, he created a famous piece for a singer and orchestra called Knoxville: Summer of 1915, using Agee's words.

In 1979, a filmmaker named Ross Spears made a documentary film about James Agee. It was called AGEE: A Sovereign Prince of the English Language. The film was nominated for an Academy Award. It featured interviews with Agee's friends and his three wives. Even President Jimmy Carter spoke about how much he loved Agee's book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

A play called The Man Who Lives Here Is Loony was also written about Agee's life. It takes place during one night in his New York apartment.

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See also

In Spanish: James Agee para niños