Early Life and Career
Gallico was born in New York City. His father was the famous Italian concert pianist, composer and music teacher Paolo Gallico (Trieste, May 13, 1868 - New York, July 6, 1955) and his mother, Hortense Erlich, came from Austria; they had emigrated to New York in 1895. Gallico graduated from Columbia University in 1919 and first achieved notability in the 1920s as a sportswriter, sports columnist, and sports editor of the New York Daily News.
Gallico's career was launched by an interview with boxer Jack Dempsey in which he asked Dempsey to spar with him, and described how it felt to be knocked out by the heavyweight champion. He followed up with accounts of catching Dizzy Dean's fastball and golfing with Bobby Jones. He became a national celebrity and one of the highest-paid sportswriters in America. He founded the Golden Gloves amateur boxing competition. His 1941 book, Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees was adapted into the classic sports movie The Pride of the Yankees (1942), starring Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright.
Read more about this topic: Paul Gallico
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many people, and get into as many houses as ever you can.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practise it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies.”
—Terry Waite (b. 1939)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)