William Fifield
American writer (1916-1987)
William Fifield (1916–1987) was an American writer of novels, nonfiction, essays and short stories.
He published several works on Jean Cocteau and recorded Jean Cocteau: A Self-Portrait, A Conversation with William Fifield in French. He also recorded a conversation in English with the mime Marcel Marceau, Marcel Marceau Speaks.
Fifield was the author of a biography of Modigliani and of In Search of Genius, a collection of his conversations on the creative process with Picasso, Cocteau, and other twentieth-century artists and writers, both books published by William Morrow and Company and edited by J. D. Landis.
He won an O. Henry Award short story prize in 1943.
Fifield married Mercedes McCambridge in 1939, and had one son, John Lawrence, in 1941. The two divorced and John Lawrence was adopted by McCambridge's second husband, Fletcher Markle. John Lawrence Markle committed suicide after murdering his wife and two daughters in November 1987. Fifield died a month later.
Early life and education
Fifield was the elder of two sons born to the Reverend L. (Lawrence) Wendell Fifield and Juanita “Nita,” maiden name Sloan.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Fifield” is american writer (1916-1987). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Fifield and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q98915661. VIAF identifies the subject as 110495419. The Library of Congress control number is n50002718. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 1987, 1943 and 1939.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Fifield” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.