Life of John O'Hara

At his best John O'Hara was amiable, warm, relaxed, and gay. He never preened. His friends included J. Robert Oppenheimer, but most of his friends in Princeton were not intellectuals. The biographer claims that O'Hara's best writing went into his fiction. He had no Puritan inhibitions to treating himself to what he wanted. His appetite for things represented his appetite for life. By his fifties, ten or fifteen short stories put O'Hara in the position of being one of the most memorable and most skillful writers of short stories. During Princeton winters and Quogue summers he came to live a conventional life. In 1963 he was featured on the cover of NEWSWEEK. His work did not evoke enthusiasm in the intellectual community. Prizes and honors he sought were never granted. The American Academy of Arts and Letters did give him a prize in 1964, an Award of Merit for the Novel. O'Hara said he was fascinated by the rich and how they live. For O'Hara writing was a compulsive occupation. He died in 1970 at age sixty five. Psychologically John O'Hara never left the small mining town of Pottsville, Pennsylvania. O'Hara worked at the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE in 1928. In the 1920's and 1930's newspaper journalism was an unusually social occupation. Speakeasies helped lower class barriers and eliminated the professional isolation that is common today. He was fired from the HERALD TRIBUNE. He had talent, but he was misplaced on the paper. Next he worked for TIME. John departed from TIME. Journalists were migratory. His first piece for THE NEW YORKER appeared in May of 1928. O'Hara's first marriage unwound around 1933. He moved to Pittsburgh, but left four months later to return to New York. Dorothy Parker was helpful. She nagged him to work. He was writing APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA. O'Hara's second novel, BUTTERFIELD 8, sold well but its critical reception disappointed him. In 1936 O'Hara stayed with Dorothy Parker and her husband in Hollywood. In California he met the woman who was to become his second wife, Belle Wylie. They married in 1937 in Elkton, Maryland. PAL JOEY'S success on Broadway made O'Hara a celebrity. O'Hara was insecure and self-absorbed. O'Hara's wife Belle died in 1953 when his daughter Wylie was only eight. His third wife was Katharine Barnes Bryan, nicknamed Sister. He married her in 1955.