Nelson Algren (March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. He may be best known for The Man with the Golden Arm, a 1949 novel that won the National Book Award and was adapted as a 1955 film of the same name.According to Harold Augenbraum, "in the late 1940s and early 1950s he was one of the best known literary writers in America." The lover of French writer Simone de Beauvoir, he was featured as the hero of her novel The Mandarins, set in Paris and Chicago.He is considered "a bard of the down-and-outer", based on this book and his novel A Walk on the Wild Side (1956). The latter was adapted as a play of the same name, produced on Broadway. Its fame increased with Lou Reed's song of the same title.
Betty Ann Jones (m. 1965–1967), Amanda Kontowicz (m. 1937)
Awards
National Book Award for Fiction
Movies
The Man with the Golden Arm, Fearless Frank
Star Sign
Aries
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Quote
1
We must recognize that, in the eyes of the world, the CIA is now reversing what it once meant to be an American.
2
Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.
3
[about his time spent in Hollywood] I went out there for a thousand a week, and I worked Monday, and I got fired Wednesday. The guy that hired me was out of town Tuesday.
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Fact
1
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 13-15. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.
2
Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, volume 61, pg. 2-10. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1998.
3
Although Algren, due to his surname, was thought of by most casual observers in the more tribal times of the 20th Century as a Scandinavian-American, he was primarily Jewish. His paternal grandfather, who was of Swedish stock, converted to Judaism as an adult and married a Jewess. His father, brought up as a Jew, married within the faith. Algren's mother was Jewish, and under Judaism, one is a Jew only if one's mother is of the faith. On his part, Algren was not religious and really did not identify with any religious or ethnic group. His creed could best be described as compassion for the poor and downtrodden.
4
His 1949 novel, The Man with the Golden Arm, won the first National Book Award. He hated Otto Preminger's movie version of the novel, primarily as he felt he was financially cheated by Preminger.
5
His affair with French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir was dramatized in the John Susman play "Nelson & Simone" that premiered in Fall, 2000, at Chicago's Live Bait Theatre with Gary Houston as Algren and Rebecca Covey as Beauvoir. With Fred Wellisch as Jean-Paul Sartre. Director: Richard Cotovsky.
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Nelson Algren Live
2016
Documentary
Walk on the Wild Side
1962
novel "A Walk on the Wild Side"
Shoestring Theatre
1960
TV Series short story - 1 episode
The Man with the Golden Arm
1955
from the novel by
Schlitz Playhouse
1952
TV Series story - 1 episode
Actor
Title
Year
Status
Character
Fearless Frank
1967
Needles
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
The New Deal for Artists
1976
TV Movie documentary
Himself
Goldstein
1964
Himself
Archive Footage
Title
Year
Status
Character
Nelson Algren: The End Is Nothing, the Road Is All...
$600,000
