LOGAN, John 1963–

PERSONAL

Born 1963, in Chicago, IL; father, served in U.S. Navy. Education: Northwestern University, B.F.A., theatre, 1983.

Addresses: Agent—Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

Career: Producer, director, and writer.

Awards, Honors: Outer Critics Circle Award, best off–Broadway play, 1998, for Never the Sinner; Sierra Award nomination (with David Franzoni and William Nicholson), best screenplay—original, Las Vegas Film Critics Society, 2000, Academy Award nomination (with Franzoni and Nicholson), best writing—screenplay written directly for the screen, Film Award nomination (with Franzoni and Nicholson), best screenplay—original, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Saturn Award nomination (with Franzoni and Nicholson), best writing, Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, 2001, all for Gladiator; Emmy Award nomination, outstanding writing for a miniseries or a movie, 2000, Writer Guild of America Award (TV), adapted long form, 2001, both for RKO 281; Golden Globe Award nomination, best screenplay—motion picture, Writers Guild of America Award (screen) nomination, best screenplay written directly for the screen, Golden Satellite Award nomination, best screenplay—original, Broadcast Film Critics Association Award nomination, best writer, Film Award nomination, best screenplay (original), British Academy of Film and Television Arts, 2005, all for The Aviator; Helen Hayes Award nomination, play category.

CREDITS

Film Work:

Executive producer, Bats, Destination Films, 1999.

Coproducer, The Time Machine, DreamWorks, 2002.

Television Appearances; Specials:

A Life without Limits: The Making of the Aviator (documentary), F/X, 2004.

Stage Director:

Hauptman, Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City, 1992.

WRITINGS

Screenplays:

(With others) Any Given Sunday (based on a story by Logan), Warner Bros., 1999.

Bats, Destination Films, 1999.

(With others) Gladiator, DreamWorks, 2000.

The Time Machine (adapted from H. G. Wells' book of the same title), DreamWorks, 2002.

Star Trek: Nemesis, Paramount, 2002.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, DreamWorks, 2003.

The Last Samurai (also known as The Last Samurai: Bushidou), Warner Bros., 2003.

The Aviator, Warner Bros., 2004.

Sweeney Todd, DreamWorks, 2005.

Television Movies:

Tornado!, Fox, 1996.

RKO 281 (also known as RKO 281: The Battle over Citizen Kane), HBO, 1999.

Stage Plays:

Never the Sinner, produced 1985.

Also wrote Hauptmann, produced in Chicago, IL; Riverview, produced at Goodman Theatre, Chicago; The View from Golgotha, produced in Australia; Speaking in Tongues, produced in Washington, DC; Of Poems, Youth, and Spring.

OTHER SOURCES

Periodicals:

New York Times, January 9, 2005.

Logan, John (1826–1886), Civil War general, politician, author.Logan abandoned his political career in 1861 to raise an Illinois volunteer regiment for the Union during the Civil War. “Black Jack” Logan served in the western theater, where he won a major generalcy by 1863. Following division and corps commands, he temporarily led the Army of the Tennessee in the 1864 Atlanta campaign.

Subsequently, Logan chaired the Military Affairs Committees during his years in the House and Senate (1866–86); he founded and was three‐time president of the Grand Army of the Republic, 1869 through 1871. In both roles, he extolled the volunteer citizen‐soldier and excoriated the dominance of military high command by “aristocratic” army officers. Logan's ponderous The Volunteer Soldier of America (1887) reiterated these themes.

Logan's attacks on the regular army represented in part resentment following Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's selection (1864) of a West Pointer to permanent command of the Army of the Tennessee. Logan was more than the mere political hack and unthinking military critic some scholars have depicted. Recognized as the one of best of the “political” volunteer generals, his ideas for training citizen‐soldiers and opening high command opportunities for them were not mindless. The hyperbole of Logan's rhetoric, however, gravely weakened his assessment of postwar military policy.
[See also Atlanta, Battle of; Civil War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Union Army.]

Bibliography

Russell F. Weigley , John A. Logan: The Rebuttal for a Citizen Army, in Weigley, ed., Towards an American Army: Military Thought from Washington to Marshall, 1962.
James P. Jones , “Black Jack”: John A. Logan and Southern Illinois in the Civil War Era, 1967.
James P. Jones , John A. Logan: Stalwart Republican from Illinois, 1982.

Jerry Cooper