Maurice Zolotow (November 23, 1913 - March 14, 1991[1]) was a show business biographer[2]. He wrote books and magazine articles. His articles appeared in publications including Life, Collier's Weekly, Reader's Digest, Look [3], Los Angeles, and many others. His book Marilyn Monroe [4][5] was the first written on the iconic actress and the only one published during her lifetime.
Zolotow attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he met his future wife, Charlotte Shapiro. In 1936, after graduation, Zolotow took a job at Billboard, then a publication covering not just the music business, but all aspects of show business. Zolotow was an early jazz lover and gave Duke Ellington his first national review. Zolotow remained devoted to pop culture, literature (one of his closest friends was poet Delmore Schwartz)[6], politics, and magic. As a child, Zolotow recalled seeing Harry Houdini perform at Coney Island and based his novel, The Great Balsamo, on the famous magician. In later life, Zolotow befriended contemporary magician Ricky Jay.
Other biographies by Zolotow include Shooting Star, about John Wayne[7], Stagestruck: The Romance of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, concerning the husband and wife Broadway legends[8], and Billy Wilder in Hollywood, about the Oscar-winning director and screenwriter[9][10]. He also wrote shorter celebrity profiles on such entertainers as Tallulah Bankhead, Walter Matthau, Grace Kelly, and Milton Berle. References to his magazine work and his compilation of shorter profiles, It Takes All Kinds, may be found in Wikipedia under entries for Jack Webb, Samuel Sorenson Adams, and Richard Himber.
Zolotow also wrote occasionally on food and alcohol, including several articles on the latter for Playboy. One, a 1971 piece on absinthe[11], has been widely reprinted. His book, Confessions of a Race Track Fiend, describes Zolotow's own experiences playing the horses at Southern California tracks.
He lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, for much of his adult life, but moved to Los Angeles, California, after his divorce. He had two children, poker enthusiast Steve Zolotow[12] and author Crescent Dragonwagon[13]. His former wife, to whom he was married from 1938 to 1969, is children's author and editor Charlotte Zolotow[14].