 
Choose another writer in this calendar:
by name: by birthday from the calendar.
TimeSearch |
Richard (Thomas) Condon (1915-1996) | |
|
American satirical novelist, playwright, and crime writer, best known for his thrillers THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1959) and PRIZZI'S HONOUR (1982). Condon ridiculed among other things American politics, President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Mafia, Hollywood agents, and fast-food business, all representing interconnected aspects of the same mad reality. Several of Condon's books have been made into films. "I thought that Condon's The Manchurian Candidate was one of the best books I had ever read. I just couldn't put it down and after I had read it, I thought, 'I've just got to make a film of it.' It had great social and political significance for me at the time, and it has certainly been - unfortunately - a horribly prophetic film. It's frightening what has happened in our country since that film was made." (Frankenheimer in The Cinema of John Frankenheimer by Gerald Pratley, 1969) Richard Condon was born in New York City as the son of Richard and Martha (Pickering) Condon. He was educated in public schools and served in the United States Merchant Navy. In 1938 he married Evelyn Hunt; they had two daughters. Condon worked briefly in advertising and then from 1936 as a publicist in the American film industry for 21 years, among others for Walt Disney Productions, Hal Horne Organization, Twentieth-Century Fox, Richard Condon Inc., and other firms. In 1951-52 he was a theatrical producer in New York and wrote a play, MEN OF DISTINCTION (1953). At the time it produced, he resigned as a vice president of RKO-Radio Pictures. As a novelist Condon made his debut with THE OLDEST CONFESSION (1958). "I am considered a compulsive writer because I spend a seven-hour day and a seven-day week at the typewriter," Condon once confessed. After moving to Paris in the 1950s, Condon lived with his family in Spain, Ireland, and Switzerland. Richard Condon died in Dallas on April 9, 1996. Condon's most famous thriller, The Manchurian Candidate, has inspired two film productions. In John Frankenheimer's Cold War version from 1962 a soldier, Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) comes back with his platoon from the Korean War with a Congressional Medal of Honour. However, he has been brainwashed with the rest of his unit by Chinese during his captivity in North Korea, and primed to kill at the release of a certain code. Shaw's primary target is a U.S. presidential nominee. His own mother (Angela Lansbury) turns out the be the Russian agent, who plans to elevate her husband to the White House. In the case of Major Marco (Frank Sinatra) the brainwashing has been only partially successful, and Marco unlocks Shaw's mind. Shaw kills his mother, stepfather, and then himself. "MARCO: Poor Raymond... poor friendless... friendless Raymond. He was wearing his Medal when he died. I tried to tell you what that means... to be a Medal of Honor winner... to a soldier, anyway..." (from George Axelrod's screenplay) The film was forbidden in Finland during a period of self-censorship, when center-left coalition governments wanted to maintain a good and trusting relationship with the Soviet Union. In spite of political conjunctures, the book was translated into Finnish in 1960. In thas been said, that the film was taken out of circulation in the United States after President John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas. Condon's controversial story inspired also Jonathan Demme's film version from 2004, starring Denzel Washington as the plagued soldier and Meryl Streep as the intriguing mother. In this remake the Operation Desert Storm provided the background for the paradoid story. In the next ten years Condon published prolifically. His novel, A TALENT FOR LOVING (1964), a love story set in the world of bold and beautiful, was made into a film in 1969, starring Richard Widmark and Cesar Romero. AN INFINITY OF MIRRORS (1964) is a story about Paule, a daughter of a great Jewish actor, and Veelee, a descendant of a German military family, who fall in love in Paris. They marry, but on the eve of World War II their paths separate. When the persecution of the Jews starts, Paule leaves her husband, part of the monstrous machine. Veelee continues his career in the army and Paule finds a new lover. The death of their son, Paul-Alain, finally awakes Paule and Veele to see themselves as puppets of evil. "What I wanted to say," explained the author, "was that when evil confronts us in any form, it is not enough to flee it or to pretend that it is happening to somebody else..." "Paule concentrated on her house, on becoming a good German wife, and on learning to think and feel like a German... She had already read Nietzsche and it had madeher giggle, but she reread him with the memory of the storm troopers at earnest work all around the army staff car. She felt at home with Stefan George and von Hofmannstahl, though George's work had been used recently to make the Nazis more palatable in German intellectual circles. She would not read Kafka, the Czech whom the Germans adored; she could not afford hopelessness." (from An Infinity of Mirrors, 1964) Condon gained critical success again in 1974 with the WINTER KILLS. It paralled the lives of the members of the Kennedy family with a theme that murdering presidents is a good idea for world leaders who wish to better themselves. The story was also filmed, but despite its cast included Anthony Perkins, Dorothy Malone, Sterling Hayden, Elisabeth Taylor (uncredited) and John Huston, it was never satisfactorily released. One of its producers was murdered and the other sent down for forty years on a drugs charge. Jeff Bridges played a likeable dope and the half-brother of President Keegan, who was assassinated in 1960, tries to track down the man who ordered the murder. John Huston is his father (a Joseph P.Kennedy figure) who walks around in red bikini shorts. William Richert wrote and directed the film which has enjoyed a cult status. "The tongue-in-cheek approach makes what could have been a provocative vision of the corrupt American power elite into something quite trivial. Picture was shut down before completion, and in an effort to raise additional money, Richert made The American Success Company with Bridges and Bauer. Revised for a 1982 re-lease." (from Guide for the Film Fanatic by Danny Peary, 1986) The political scene and its scoundrels gave much material for Condon's novels. "Politics is a from of high entertainment and low comedy," Condon once wrote. "It has everything: it's melodramatic, it's sinister and it has wonderful villains." American presidents are portrayed in THE STAR-SPANGLED CRUNCH (1974) and THE FINAL ADDICTION (1991), in which a simpleton from Connecticut, Goodie Noon, succeeds President Reagan, and a frankfurter salesman, Owney Tompkins Hazman, tries to find his long-lost mother, Oona Noon, and becomes involved with political maneuvers. In EMPEROR OF AMERICA (1990) a private-sector nuclear device explodes in Washington, wipes out the White House. The Royalist Party and the National Rifle Association take the responsibility but Condon's target is Reaganism and its legacy, embodied in the character of an Army colonel, Caesare Appleton, who becomes Emperior Caesare I. Condon wrote: "The Reagan Administration - that shining definition of reigning glamour and romance associated with queens, big money, great dressmakers, great poverty, colorful (moderate) mullahs, glamorous (if shocking) scandals and entertaining South American drug lords - had overtaken the national imagination of a society which had been compartmentalized by money." In 1982 appeared Prizzi's Honour, the first part of Condo's 'Prizzi' saga. The satiric tale of the Mafia killers, and their romance was filmed in 1985, starring Kathleen Turner and Jack Nicholson. Condon wrote the script with Janet Roach. The film follows the novel fairly closely. Charley Partanna, a friend of pasta and a slow-witted hit man from a close-knit Mafia family, falls in love with a woman, Irene Walker, whose husband he had killed as a traitor. The woman turns out to be a freelance assassin. They start to plan a marriage, but finally the both assassins are hired to kill each other. Condon's stories often deal with the theme of loyalty and betrayal. Charley is loyal to his employees, although he do not want to marry one of the Prizzi daughters, Maerose (Anjelica Huston, the director's daughter in the film.) Irene wants to keep the money her late husband stole from the Prizzis. "Rest assured, however, Mr. Condon never allows reality to be too great a burden for the reader. Charley and Irene, in different ways, are eventually undone by the author's delightfully preposterous and perverse plot complications, but throughout the novel, Mr. Condon's wicked sense of humor keeps the dealings and double-dealings in proper perspective." (Robert Asahina in The Nwe York Times, April 18, 1982) Charley learns his lesson-there is no future outside the Family. PRIZZI'S FAMILY (1986) was a prequel to Prizzi's Honour. Charley Partanna appeared again in PRIZZI'S GLORY (1988), in which Charley marries Maerose Prizzi, and becomes Charles Macy Barton. This time he leaves the street operations for politics and other kind business. PRIZZI'S MONEY (1994) told a story of a woman, Julia Asbury, the daughter of a Prizzi hit man. After a few double-crosses, she is chased by the Prizzis who want their money back. Charley is sent after Julia but he falls madly in love with her: " They made cosmic music together. Why else, Charley asked himself, did he always wear a jacket and a necktie when he saw her?"
Selected works:
© 2002 |
