Sally Quinn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sally Sterling Quinn (born January 7, 1941) is an American author and journalist. She is also considered one of the arbiters of society and mainstream opinion in Washington, D.C..[citation needed]
Contents |
[edit] Personal
Quinn was born in Savannah, Georgia to Lt. Gen. William Wilson "Buffalo Bill" Quinn (November 1, 1907-September 11, 2000) and his wife Sara Bette Williams (January 27, 1918-September 26, 2004). Both are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Her parents also had two other children, Quinn's younger sister Donna and younger brother William Jr.
Lt. Gen. Quinn was an intelligence officer and played a key role in the transition of the Unites States's intelligence service from the Office of Strategic Services to the Central Intelligence Agency. From 1964 to 1966 he was commander of the 7th Army in Germany.
For many years the Quinns maintained a residence on Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., where Bette Quinn was known for her cooking and entertaining. Sally Quinn reports in CC Goldwater's HBO film Mr. Conservative that Senator Barry Goldwater spent much time with the Quinns, often staying at their home, after his wife decided to remain in Arizona instead of coming out to D.C. while Congress was in session.
Quinn graduated from Smith College in 1963.
Quinn is married to Benjamin C. Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post, her former boss. Quinn and Bradlee have one child, [Josiah] Quinn Crowninshield Bradlee who born in 1982 when she was 41. They have acknowledged that he was born with velo-cardio-facial syndrome, and Quinn wrote of her son's learning problems and attendance at special schools in her 2006 article "What My Son Taught Me About God."
On her mothers side, she is a descendant of William Williams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
[edit] Residences
[edit] East Hampton
In 1979, the Bradlee-Quinn family purchased Grey Gardens, the East Hampton mansion shown in the 1975 film of the same name. The two only stay there in the month of August. During the rest of the year it is lived in by Frances Hayward, also known as Frances Singer-Hayward. Hayward is believed to be a member of the Singer family that founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company and is married to Sir Jack Hayward, a member of one of the founding families of Freeport, Bahamas.
[edit] Maryland
Quinn's main country estate is Porto Bello Farm, which sits on the St. Mary's River in Drayden, Maryland. As reported by the Washingtonian magazine, Quinn has built a circular labyrinth there out of concrete. She finds walking the labyrinth contributes to her religious and spiritual contemplation.
[edit] Washington, D.C.
Quinn and her husband live in the historic Laird-Dunlop House, in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C.
[edit] Career
[edit] Newspaper journalism
Quinn began as a reporter for the Washington Post with very little experience: reportedly called by Ben Bradlee after a report of her pajama party in celebration of the election to congress of Barry Goldwater, Jr., the job interview included the following exchange.
"Can you show me something you've written?" asked Managing Editor Benjamin Bradlee. "I've never written anything," admitted Quinn. Pause. "Well," said Bradlee, "nobody's perfect." [1]
However, she soon demonstrated, as a reporter for the Style section, a talent for drawing out the subjects of her interviews and profiles. Henry Kissinger said, "[Post reporter] Maxine Cheshire makes you want to commit murder. Sally Quinn makes you want to commit suicide." A notable incident of her career was her claim that Zbigniew Brzezinski, then the National Security Adviser, jokingly opened his fly in front of a reporter, a claim that the Post retracted the following day. [2]
[edit] Television journalism
In August 1973, Quinn tried her hand at television, joining CBS News reporter Hughes Rudd as co-anchors of the CBS Morning News.[3] The show's anchoring team was its first disaster since debuting in 1963 -- ninety minutes before her television debut on August 6, 1973, Quinn, who never reported for television before, collapsed while trying to fight the flu. The next day, she was forced to anchor solo when Rudd's mother died. Quinn's ad libs during the show's first week also tended toward the inappropriate -- on one episode, following a report on the children of California migrant farm workers, she quipped that child labor "was how I felt when my mother and father made me clean up my room." Quinn left the CBS Morning News after the February 1, 1974 telecast.
[edit] Other
Quinn had a cameo role in Born Yesterday, the 1993 remake of the 1950 romantic comedy.
[edit] Controversies
[edit] Bill Clinton
Quinn was critical of President Bill Clinton during the impeachment trial, stating that he had "fouled the nest,"[4] much to Clinton's outrage[citation needed]. Quinn had a long-standing animus for the Clintons, possibly due to a perceived snub by First Lady Hillary Clinton, who declined a party invitation from Quinn.[5] Regarding Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr, she wrote:[6] "Similarly, independent counsel Ken Starr is not seen by many Washington insiders as an out-of-control prudish crusader. Starr is a Washington insider, too. He has lived and worked here for years. He had a reputation as a fair and honest judge. He has many friends in both parties. Their wives are friendly with one another and their children go to the same schools." Starr had won the gratitude of Quinn's husband Ben Bradlee in 1987, as an Appeals Court judge, by dismissing a $2 million libel suit against the Washington Post. [7] It was also pointed out by Harry Jaffe, writing for Salon, that Quinn's condemnation of Bill Clinton's adultery rang hollow coming from someone who broke up the marriage of her boss Ben Bradlee and then went on to marry Bradlee herself.[8]
[edit] Barack Obama
In early May 2007, liberal Web sites and commentators were critical of Quinn for an extensive op-ed piece published in the Washington Post in which she complimented herself at length for not noticing the color of his skin: "I realized that when I look at him, I don't see a person of color. I see a really smart, appealing, thoughtful person." She also expressed a lack of knowledge about his staff, despite the fact that his campaign's chief political advisor was David Axelrod and the campaign had many other experienced staffers. Quinn's comments were taken as a dismissal by one of the grandees of elite Washington political society.
[edit] Bibliography
- Quinn, Sally. The Party: A Guide To Adventurous Entertaining. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
- Quinn, Sally. We're Going To Make You a Star. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975.
[edit] References
- ^ Sallying Forth - TIME
- ^ Brzezinski's Zipper Was Up - TIME
- ^ The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television, by Wesley Hyatt (Billboard Books, 1997)
- ^ Washingtonpost.com Special Report: Clinton Accused
- ^ Salon | Media Circus: The (not so) mighty Quinn
- ^ Washingtonpost.com Special Report: Clinton Accused
- ^ TWM - The Clinton-Lewinsky Obsession/Gitlin
- ^ Salon | Media Circus: The (not so) mighty Quinn
