WILSON, Sloan 1920-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born May 8, 1920, in Norwalk, CT; died May 25, 2003, in Colonial Beach, VA. Journalist and novelist. Wilson is best remembered as the author of the bestselling novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Earning a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1942, during World War II he served in the U.S. Coast Guard. With the war's end he found work as a reporter for the Providence Journal, followed by work as a writer for Time, Inc., and as an assistant director of the National Citizens Commission for Public Schools from 1949 to 1952. Next, he taught for three years at the University of Buffalo. With the success of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit in 1955, however, he found enough financial security to focus his time on writing. His novel, which was also adapted as a 1956 movie starring Gary Cooper, was praised for capturing the angst of suburbanites in the 1950s as they struggled to achieve the American dream of affluence while conforming to the oppressive corporate culture. Though Wilson continued to write through the 1980s, he never duplicated the success of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit; the sequel to the novel, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit II (1984), was a financial and critical disappointment. Somewhat more successful, however, was his novel A Summer Place (1958), which was also adapted into a film starring Sandra Dee. In his later career, Wilson supplemented his fictionwriting income by penning biographies and books on yachting history, as well as working as a writer-inresidence at Rollins College from 1981 to 1982 and as director of the Winter Park Artists Workshop from 1983 to 1985. From 1984 to 1987 he was also a consultant to Philip Crosby Associates. Among the author's other works are All the Best People (1970), Ice Brothers (1979), Pacific Interlude (1982), and the autobiographies Away from It All (1970) and What Shall We Wear to This Party?: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Twenty Years Before and After (1976).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Novelists, sixth edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Writers Directory, 14th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, May 28, 2003, section 1, p. 13.

Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2003, p. B10.

New York Times, May 27, 2003, p. A25.

Times (London, England), June 6, 2003.

Washington Post, May 27, 2003, p. B7.