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Botsford, Gardner: Difference between revisions
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== Biography == | == Biography == | ||
Robert Gardner Botsford (July 7, 1917 – September 27, 2004) was an American soldier, editor, and writer. He worked at The New Yorker for nearly 40 years, where he edited the work of many well-known writers, most famously Janet Malcolm, whom he married. | Robert Gardner Botsford (July 7, 1917 – September 27, 2004) was an American soldier, editor, and writer. He worked at The New Yorker for nearly 40 years, where he edited the work of many well-known writers, most famously Janet Malcolm, whom he married. | ||
Botsford was the son of Ruth Gardner, who was admired for her beauty, and Alfred Miller Botsford. His father was a journalist for the New York World; after divorcing Ruth, the elder Botsford moved to Hollywood and became a publicity executive for Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox. Ruth remarried the wealthy Raoul Fleischmann, heir to the Fleischmann's Yeast fortune, and Botsford was brought up in a large townhouse with servants on the Upper East Side. Divorcing Fleischmann, she then married Peter Vischer, a journalist who later worked at the United States Foreign Service. In his memoir, Botsford describes Vischer as a "hustler" whose sympathies, in the 1930s, were with the Germans. He attended Yale University, where he wrote a humor column for the Yale Daily News titled "Once Over Lightly." | |||
Botsford had multiple connections to The New Yorker: his stepfather, Raoul Fleischmann, had cofounded it with Harold Ross, and he met A. J. Liebling, whom he would later edit, in wartime France. After Botsford graduated from Yale, Ross hired and fired him in quick succession, telling him he needed newspaper experience; he found it at the Jacksonville Journal. One of the many writers he worked with, Jeremy Bernstein, recalls him as an exacting editor unafraid to profoundly transform a piece of writing, as he did in reworking Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard into a less mystical, more adventure-driven article. | |||
Botsford's later years at The New Yorker were sometimes difficult. His editing of his wife Janet Malcolm's writing on the murder trial of Jeffrey R. MacDonald was subjected to scrutiny, some of it harsh, when Malcolm was sued by one of her sources, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, for defamation. He clashed with the chief editor, William Shawn, over plans for the magazine's future; Shawn reportedly came to regard Botsford and his friend Roger Angell as "enemies." Botsford officially retired in 1982, though he continued to be involved. Not long before his death, he published a memoir of his patrician childhood, his experiences in the war, and his career at The New Yorker, titled A Life of Privilege, Mostly. | |||
Botsford married twice. His first wife, Katharine Chittenden, known as Tass, appears only sparsely but unhappily in his memoir. In late work published after Botsford's death, Malcolm revealed a number of previously unknown details about their relationship, including that they had had an extramarital affair before their spouses' deaths. They also seem to have shared a puckish sense of humor. Decades after the fact, Malcolm acknowledged that a snapshot she had presented as the work of a professional in her book on photography, Diana and Nikon, was actually an anonymous picture Botsford had found in a pile of rejected materials at The New Yorker and, as "an exercise in absurdism," framed and retained. Malcolm writes with relish of the "delicious condescension" of a reviewer of the book who relied heavily on the photograph in attacking her "wrongheadedness." | |||
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* Slide does not identify him as an instructor; listed among notable trainees/alumni | * Slide does not identify him as an instructor; listed among notable trainees/alumni | ||
* Listed on Notable Ritchie Boys slides; no ASN found in the class roster import | * Listed on Notable Ritchie Boys slides; no ASN found in the class roster import | ||
* Portrait and summary from Notable Ritchie Boys slides ( | * Portrait and summary from Notable Ritchie Boys slides ( ) | ||
== Gallery == | == Gallery == | ||
Latest revision as of 04:22, 11 September 2026
| Gardner Botsford | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Robert Gardner Botsford |
| Born | 7 July 1917 |
| Died | 27 September 2004 |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch |  United States Army |
| Camp Ritchie | Class 10 (23 July – 20 September 1943) |
| Battles / wars | World War II D-Day (Omaha Beach) |
{{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.
Robert Gardner Botsford (July 7, 1917 – September 27, 2004) was an American soldier, editor, and writer. He worked at The New Yorker for nearly 40 years, where he edited the work of many well-known writers, most famously Janet Malcolm, whom he married.
Biography[edit | edit source]
Robert Gardner Botsford (July 7, 1917 – September 27, 2004) was an American soldier, editor, and writer. He worked at The New Yorker for nearly 40 years, where he edited the work of many well-known writers, most famously Janet Malcolm, whom he married.
Botsford was the son of Ruth Gardner, who was admired for her beauty, and Alfred Miller Botsford. His father was a journalist for the New York World; after divorcing Ruth, the elder Botsford moved to Hollywood and became a publicity executive for Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox. Ruth remarried the wealthy Raoul Fleischmann, heir to the Fleischmann's Yeast fortune, and Botsford was brought up in a large townhouse with servants on the Upper East Side. Divorcing Fleischmann, she then married Peter Vischer, a journalist who later worked at the United States Foreign Service. In his memoir, Botsford describes Vischer as a "hustler" whose sympathies, in the 1930s, were with the Germans. He attended Yale University, where he wrote a humor column for the Yale Daily News titled "Once Over Lightly."
Botsford had multiple connections to The New Yorker: his stepfather, Raoul Fleischmann, had cofounded it with Harold Ross, and he met A. J. Liebling, whom he would later edit, in wartime France. After Botsford graduated from Yale, Ross hired and fired him in quick succession, telling him he needed newspaper experience; he found it at the Jacksonville Journal. One of the many writers he worked with, Jeremy Bernstein, recalls him as an exacting editor unafraid to profoundly transform a piece of writing, as he did in reworking Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard into a less mystical, more adventure-driven article.
Botsford's later years at The New Yorker were sometimes difficult. His editing of his wife Janet Malcolm's writing on the murder trial of Jeffrey R. MacDonald was subjected to scrutiny, some of it harsh, when Malcolm was sued by one of her sources, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, for defamation. He clashed with the chief editor, William Shawn, over plans for the magazine's future; Shawn reportedly came to regard Botsford and his friend Roger Angell as "enemies." Botsford officially retired in 1982, though he continued to be involved. Not long before his death, he published a memoir of his patrician childhood, his experiences in the war, and his career at The New Yorker, titled A Life of Privilege, Mostly.
Botsford married twice. His first wife, Katharine Chittenden, known as Tass, appears only sparsely but unhappily in his memoir. In late work published after Botsford's death, Malcolm revealed a number of previously unknown details about their relationship, including that they had had an extramarital affair before their spouses' deaths. They also seem to have shared a puckish sense of humor. Decades after the fact, Malcolm acknowledged that a snapshot she had presented as the work of a professional in her book on photography, Diana and Nikon, was actually an anonymous picture Botsford had found in a pile of rejected materials at The New Yorker and, as "an exercise in absurdism," framed and retained. Malcolm writes with relish of the "delicious condescension" of a reviewer of the book who relied heavily on the photograph in attacking her "wrongheadedness."
Research notes[edit | edit source]
- Class 10 (per Notable Ritchie Boys slide)
- Editor, New Yorker
- Author, "Life of Privilege, Mostly"
- Slide does not identify him as an instructor; listed among notable trainees/alumni
- Listed on Notable Ritchie Boys slides; no ASN found in the class roster import
- Portrait and summary from Notable Ritchie Boys slides ( )
Gallery[edit | edit source]
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Technical record[edit | edit source]
| Field | Imported value |
|---|---|
| row_source | notable_slides_manual |