Grunwald, Henry A. 1922–2005

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Grunwald, Henry A. 1922–2005

(Henry Anatole Grunwald)

PERSONAL: Born December 2, 1922, in Vienna, Austria; died, 2005; came to the United States, 1940; naturalized U.S. citizen, 1948; son of Alfred (an operetta librettist) and Mila (Lowenstein) Grunwald; married Beverly Suser, January 7, 1953 (died, 1981); married second wife, 1987; children: (first marriage) Peter, Madeleine, Lisa. Education: New York University, A.B., 1944.

CAREER: Journalist and editor. Reporter for labor newspaper, c. 1944–45; Time (magazine), New York, NY, copy boy, 1944–45, reporter in foreign news department, 1945–51, senior editor, 1951–66, assistant managing editor, 1966–68, managing editor, 1968–77, member of board of directors, c. 1979–89; Time, Inc., corporate editor, 1977–79, editor-in-chief, 1979–87, member of board of directors, c. 1979–89; served as United States ambassador to Austria, beginning 1987. Former director, World Press Freedom Committee; member of Council on Foreign Relations and American Council on Germany; member of board of directors, Washington Star.

MEMBER: American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), Metropolitan Opera Association, Metropolitan Opera Guild (director), Century Association, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: L.H.D., New York University, 1975; LL.D., Iona College, 1981.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and author of introduction) Salinger: A Critical and Personal Portrait, Harper (New York, NY), 1962.

(Editor) Sex in America, Bantam (New York, NY), 1964.

(Author of biographical essay) Churchill, the Life Triumphant: The Historical Record of Ninety Years, introduction by Dwight D. Eisenhower, American Heritage Publishing (New York, NY), 1965.

"The Age of Elegance," Time-Life Records (New York, NY), 1966.

One Man's America: A Journalist's Search for the Heart of His Country, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1997.

Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight, Knopf (New York, NY), 1999.

A Saint, More or Less (novel), Random House (New York, NY), 2003.

Also author of The World's Greatest Religions, Time-Life. Contributor to books, including Ein Walzer muss es sein: Alfred Gruenwald und die Wiener Operette / mit Beitraegen von Henry Grunwald … [et al.], Ueberreuter (Vienna, Austria), 1991; and Finding America's Voice: A Strategy for Reinvigorating U.S. Public Diplomacy: Report of an Independent Task Force Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations Press (New York, NY), 2003. Contributor of articles to periodicals, including Time, Life, Fortune, and Horizon.

Grunwald's papers are housed in the U.S. Library of Congress.

SIDELIGHTS: In 1987 Henry A. Grunwald was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as the United States Ambassador to Austria, Grunwald's native country. However, Grunwald's primary and most notable role was as a leading editor of Time magazine and its sister publications. During his career, Grunwald revitalized Time. At the age of twenty-eight, he became the youngest senior editor in the periodical's history. Later, he moved up the ladder to become corporate editor, editor-and-chief, and a member of the board of Time, Inc. Soon after his resignation, Grunwald published two autobiographical narratives. In 1997, Grunwald's One Man's America: A Journalist's Search for the Heart of His Country was released, followed two years later by Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight, "a slim but splendid memoir" in which "Grunwald is candid," about losing his eyesight, related Henry Kisor in the New York Times Book Review.

Grunwald's "lucid, elegant" Twilight was referred to by Time contributor Pico Iyer as "a touching essay on vulnerability." Grunwald's "engrossing meditation … reveals what sight means to him," stated a Publishers Weekly critic, who added: "Since he was diagnosed with macular degeneration in 1992, Grunwald … has been learning how to live with serious visual impairments." "Grunwald concludes that in learning to live with the afflictions that make life difficult, we are actually experiencing living," related James Swanton in a Library Journal review, predicting that Twilight might provide some people with "perspective." In Twilight "Grunwald simply weds a graceful, economic prose to a lucid vision of his changed world—exactly what we would expect from such a distinguished journalist—and produced a lovely book," wrote Kisor.

According to Mary Carroll in a Booklist assessment, "Twilight is at once a smaller and a more affecting narrative" than its predecessor, One Man's America. However, according to John F. Stacks in Time, "One Man's America … is an often eloquent and emotional account of [Grunwald's] astonishing passage, filled with the triumphs of a determined and intelligent man successfully navigating the strange waters of an adopted country." Stacks applauded Grunwald for being "candid … about his occasional failures" and for bringing "insight and detachment to his encounters." People Weekly contributor Francine Prose, in contrast, felt Grunwald "races from one momentous event to another without pausing long enough to offer revealing details or penetrating insights." Reviewing "Grunwald's absorbing autobiography," Irwin Ross, writing in the New Leader, noted: "Possessing an admirable sense of proportion, [Grunwald] rarely portrays himself on a par with the movers and shakers he calls on. Moreover, he is himself a major figure, one of the outstanding editors of the last half-century, and any reader interested in journalism or public affairs has reason to be curious about him. Grunwald has a wonderful tale to tell, a mythic American success story."

Grunwald "movingly tells … in One Man's America … [how he] escaped as a teenager with his parents from Nazi-occupied Austria," wrote Osborn Elliott in Newsweek. He recounted: "They made their way to France, to Casablanca, to New York—where Henry painfully taught himself English by watching every movie on 42d Street…. He graduated from New York University and landed a job [in 1944] as a part-time copy boy at Time—one of the very few Jews in a hive of WASPs."

Grunwald acted as the overseer of most of Time's departments as well as served as the first editor of the magazine's essay section until he was appointed to the position of managing editor in 1968. At this point, Grunwald initiated several innovations to the magazine. Under his direction, Time became less conservative politically, and new sections appeared in the periodical, including sections on the environment, behavior, and energy. The editor also instituted special issues, some of which dealt with women, blacks, the bicentennial, and the new South. Task forces to investigate interdisciplinary topics also produced major projects, such as extensive reports on the new genetics or the changing perceptions of science and religion. With Grunwald came bylines, the extended use of color photography, and a new typographical format.

In 1979 Grunwald was appointed editor-in-chief of Time, Inc. He vowed to commit Time, Inc. to the creation of new magazines and to explore the frontiers between print and electronics. As editor-in-chief, a role he held until 1997, Grunwald was in charge of eight magazines and involved in the management of Time-Life Books.

Besides magazine editing, Grunwald has also edited several book-length works, most notably Salinger: A Critical and Personal Portrait. Grunwald's purpose in generating a collection of criticism on writer J.D. Salinger's work "is not merely to add another product to the Salinger Industry," quoted Robert Gutwilling in the New York Times Book Review, "but to illustrate the range of meaning our society can find in the work of one 'minor' but magical writer." The "ably edited" Salinger suggests that its subject "is undergoing a literary beautification comparable to the sainthood that is gradually overtaking Seymour Glass," observed David Dempsey in Saturday Review.

Before he died in 2005, Grunwald had his first novel published. A Saint, More or Less is an historical novel that takes place during the French Counter-Reformation. Based somewhat on the real-life Barbe Acarie, who founded the Discalced Caremlite order of nuns in France, and charismatic preacher Nicole Taverier, the novel focuses on these two characters as the fulcrum around which the author "explores tensions between the church establishment and popular religious enthusiasms," as well as the battle of the sexes and the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, mysticism and religious intellectualism, according to a Publishers Weekly contributor. Meredith Parets, writing in Booklist, concluded that the author "has crafted a rich and compelling novel about the meaning of faith and the limits of holiness."

Grunwald once told CA: "I started out intending to be a playwright, no doubt in part because my late father, Alfred Grunwald, was an extremely successful librettist in Austria. I came to Time for what I thought would be a temporary job while making it as a playwright. I realized in due course that the theatre was not really my calling, but that journalism (which of course can be theatrical) indeed was."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 1999, Mary Carroll, review of Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight, p. 486; December 1, 2003, Meredith Parets, review of A Saint, More or Less, p. 645.

Library Journal, September 15, 1999, James Swanton, review of Twilight, p. 106.

New Leader, December 16, 1996, Irwin Ross, review of One Man's America: A Journalist's Search for the Heart of His Country, p. 20.

Newsweek, January 20, 1997, Osborn Elliott, review of One Man's America, p. 61.

New York Times Book Review, July 1, 1962, Robert Gutwilling, review of Salinger: A Critical and Personal Portrait; November 29, 1999, Henry Kisor, review of Twilight, p. 14.

People Weekly, March 31, 1997, Francine Prose, review of One Man's America, p. 38.

Publishers Weekly, October 11, 1999, review of Twilight, p. 63; November 10, 2003, review of A Saint, More or Less, p. 41.

Saturday Review, June 30, 1962, David Dempsey, review of Salinger.

Time, January 20, 1997, John F. Stacks, review of One Man's America, p. 76; November 15, 1999, Pico Iyer, review of Twilight, p. 110.