Jeffrey Potter

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Jeffrey Potter
Born
Jeffrey Brackett Potter

(1918-04-12)April 12, 1918
Biographer
SpousePriscilla Bowden
ChildrenJob Potter
Manon Potter
Gayle Basso
Horatio Potter
Parent(s)Mary Barton Atterbury
Joseph Wiltsie Fuller Potter

Jeffrey Potter (April 12, 1918 – December 15, 2012) was an American biographer best known for his 1985 biography of Jackson Pollock, whom he had befriended in 1949. He also published two children’s books and two non-fiction works: one about environmental disaster, and an authorised biography of Dorothy Schiff.[1]

Potter was born to Mary Barton Atterbury and Joseph Wiltsie Fuller Potter, on April 12, 1918, in Manhattan. His father was a Wall Street stockbroker. The young Jeffrey dropped out of

Burma Campaign.[1]

While working as a building contractor in the

Amagansett, New York. They remained friends until Pollock's death in 1956.[1]

Potter's first biography, Men, Money & Magic: The Story of Dorothy Schiff was published by

Time Magazine of June 7, 1976. Schiff denied it and came to refer to Potter's work as "that awful book",[2] although, when she left her papers to the New York Public Library, after her death in 1989, pages initialed by her referred to the joint purchase with FDR of a house next to Hyde Park, New York. Potter felt betrayed by the denial.[3]

In 1985, Potter published a book on Pollock, consisting of selections from hundreds of taped interviews with Pollock's family, friends, colleagues and neighbors.[4] A production company representing Barbra Streisand and Robert De Niro bought the film rights; Pollock, a competing production, featuring Ed Harris as Pollock, eventually won the day.

Pollock (2000) was based on the

Pulitzer Prize winning Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. Potter claimed the book had plagiarised his, and Naifeh and Smith sued him for libel. Ed Harris would later say that his interest in portraying Pollock was inspired by Potter's book, which he had received as birthday gift from his father.[1][5]

Publications

References

  1. ^ a b c d Vitello, Paul (29 December 2012). "Jeffrey Potter, Biographer of Pollock, Dies at 94". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  2. ^ Staff writer (31 August 1989). "Dorothy Schiff, 86, Ex-Post Owner, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  3. ISBN 9780977197002
    .
  4. ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (5 December 1985). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  5. ISBN 9781576079522
    .
  6. ISBN 9780399129100
    .
  7. ^ Potter, Jeffrey (1976). Men, money & magic: the story of Dorothy Schiff. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan.
  8. ^ Potter, Jeffrey (1973). Disaster by oil: oil spills: why they happen, what they do, how we can end them. New York: Macmillan.
  9. ^ Potter, Jeffrey (1960). Elephant Bridge. Hutchinson.
  10. ISBN 9780670601424
    .
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