Loudon Wainwright Jr.

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Loudon Wainwright Jr.
BornLoudon Snowden Wainwright Jr.
December 16, 1924
New York City, New York[1]
DiedDecember 12, 1988 (1988-12-13) (aged 63)
OccupationWriter, editor
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
EducationSt. Andrew's School
Alma materUniversity of North Carolina
Spouse
Martha Harriet Taylor
​
​
(after 1945)​
Children5, including Loudon, Sloan
RelativesA. Loudon Snowden (great-grandfather)
Rufus Wainwright (grandson)
Martha Wainwright (granddaughter)
Lucy Wainwright Roche (granddaughter)

Loudon Snowden Wainwright Jr. (December 16, 1924 – December 12, 1988) was an American writer.[2] He was the father of folk singer Loudon Wainwright III and singer Sloan Wainwright, and grandfather to Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy Wainwright Roche.[3]

Early life

Wainwright was born in Manhattan, New York.

née Sloan) (1903–1985) and Loudon Snowden Wainwright (1898–1942).[5][6] His father, a graduate of the Pawling School and Princeton University, was a senior partner in the insurance firm of Wainwright & Page, Inc.[7]

His paternal grandparents were Stuyvesant Wainwright, a direct descendant of

U.S. Representative Stuyvesant Wainwright II, Loudon's first cousin.[9]

He graduated from

U.S. Marine Corps.[13]

Career

Wainwright joined the staff of

Life magazine and worked in a variety of positions over the years, including staff writer, reporter, correspondent, bureau chief.[4] He was assigned to cover the Project Mercury astronauts.[4] He and John Glenn listened to the inauguration speech of John F. Kennedy while riding in Glenn's car in 1961.[14] In 1964 he began writing "The View From Here", a regular column in the magazine which appeared until the magazine ceased weekly publication in 1972.[4] From 1969 on he also served as assistant managing editor.[15]

When Life resumed publication as a monthly in 1978, he joined its staff as an editor, and continued to contribute to its pages after retiring from that position in 1985.[4] After his death, the magazine published a retrospective in the February 1989 issue with excerpts from some of the two hundred columns he had written for it over the years.[16]

In 1986, Wainwright was also the author of The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of Life, an informal history of the magazine.[16][4]

Personal life

On September 13, 1945, Wainwright was married to Martha Harriet Taylor (1922–1997), the daughter of Walter Taylor of

Atlanta, Georgia.[17] At the time of their wedding, Martha was a Private first class with the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve.[17] Together, they were the parents of:[13]

Although they never divorced, Wainwright was separated from his wife for the last 10 years of his life.[4] He had a long time relationship with Martha Fay, with whom he had one daughter:[13][4]

  • Anna Fay Wainwright (b. 1982).[4]

After two years of illness, Wainwright died of

colon cancer in his home in Manhattan at age 63.[13][4] Wainwright was buried at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton, New York.[4]

Descendants

Through his son Loudon, he was the grandfather of singer-songwriters Rufus Wainwright (born 1973), who married Jörn Weisbrodt and had a child, Viva Wainwright Cohen, with friend Lorca Cohen (herself the daughter of singer Leonard Cohen);[21] Martha Wainwright (born 1976), who married Brad Albetta; and Lucy Wainwright Roche (b. 1981).[18][22]

Through his daughter Sloan, he was the grandfather of two, Sam and Gabe McTavey.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ "FamilySearch.org". Familysearch.org. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  2. ^ "Ancestry® | Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records". Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2008. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  3. ^ family tree Archived 2006-09-01 at the Wayback Machine on Sloan Wainwright's web site.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Writer Wainwright Dies". The Tampa Tribune. December 13, 1988. p. 19. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  5. ^ Princeton Alumni Weekly. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Alumni Weekly. 1923. p. 14. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
  6. ^ "Clement C. Jaggard/Annie Jane Wright". Pennock.ws.
  7. ^ "LOUDON S. WAINWRIGHT; Senior Partner in Insurance Firm Was Flier in World War". The New York Times. January 24, 1942. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  8. ^ "MRS. CARL F. WOLFF". The New York Times. 14 March 1960. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  9. ^ a b Reynolds, Cuyler (1914). Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. pp. 1011–1015. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
  10. ^ "S. WAINWRIGHT DIES; NOTED YACHTSMAN; Was Descendant of Governor Peter Stuyvesant and Bishop Wainwright. NAVAL OFFICER IN THE WAR Raced Yachts for Several Decades-- Representative J. Mayhew Wainwright a Brother". The New York Times. 4 November 1930. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  11. ^ Times, Special To The New York (7 September 1912). "COL. A. L. SNOWDEN DEAD.; Ex-Minister to Spain Expires After a Long Illness". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  12. ^ 1942 Criss Cross, p. 20, St. Andrews School Publications.
  13. ^ a b c d "Loudon S. Wainwright, Columnist, Dead at 63". The New York Times. December 13, 1988. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  14. ^ John Glenn A Memoir, 1999
  15. ^ Contemporary Authors vol. 127 (1989), Trosky, Susan M., ed, Gale Research Inc., p. 470.
  16. ^ a b Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (11 December 1986). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  17. ^ a b "Wainwright--Taylor". The New York Times. September 14, 1945. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  18. ^ a b Bonfiglio, Jeremy. "Keeping It in the Family: Lucy Wainwright Roche Shares Stage with Suzzy Roche". Nodepression.com. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  19. ^ Garner, Dwight (September 12, 2017). "In 'Liner Notes,' Loudon Wainwright Looks Squarely at His Flaws and His Musical Family Tree". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  20. ^ a b Gerstenzang, Peter (August 9, 2008). "Carrying On the Wainwright Tradition". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  21. ^ Bernstein, Jacob (November 15, 2012). "Rufus Wainwright's Studio Remake: Add Husband and Wallpaper". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  22. ^ Wainwright, Martha (December 29, 2009). "Martha Wainwright: Thank God I had my baby in Britain". The Times. London. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
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