Richard Meryman

Richard Sumner Meryman (August 6, 1926 – February 2, 2015) was an American journalist, biographer, and Life magazine writer and editor. He pioneered the monologue-style personality profile, beginning with a famous Marilyn Monroe interview, published two days before her death in 1962, which became the basis for a 1992 HBO program, Marilyn: The Last Interview.

Some of Meryman's most notable interviews were with Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Olivier, Mae West, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Carol Burnett, Burt Reynolds, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Louis Armstrong, Paul McCartney, Marilyn Horne, Joan Sutherland, Joan Rivers, Neil Simon and Andrew Wyeth, who became a lifelong friend.

A number of those interviews led to books, including two Joan Rivers autobiographies, Louis Armstrong's 1971 self-portrait, Elizabeth Taylor's self-titled 1964 autobiography, and four books on Andrew Wyeth, the last of which was published in 2013. He also reflected on the death of his first wife, artist Hope Meryman, in the 1980 memoir, Hope: A Loss Survived.

Early life

Richard Sumner Meryman Jr. was born August 6, 1926, in Washington, D.C., where his father, Richard S. Meryman, Sr., a portrait and landscape painter, served as principal of the Corcoran School of Art. His mother, Dorothea Bates Meryman, was a kindergarten teacher. He grew up and attended grammar school in Dublin, New Hampshire, and spent summers on his mother's family ranch in Carpinteria, California.

A graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, and Williams College, Meryman was an all-American lacrosse player and served in the U.S. Navy as an ensign during World War II. He did graduate work at Harvard University.