John Jay Osborn, Jr.
| John Jay Osborn, Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 5, 1945 |
| Occupation | novelist, attorney, law professor |
| Notable works | The Paper Chase, The Associates |
John Jay Osborn, Jr. is the author of the bestselling novel, The Paper Chase, a fictional account of one Harvard Law School student's battles with the imperious Professor Charles Kingsfield. The book was made into a movie starring John Houseman and Timothy Bottoms. Houseman won an Oscar for his performance as contracts professor Kingsfield. The Paper Chase also became a television series. Osborn wrote several of the scripts. Osborn's other books include The Associates, The Man Who Owned New York, and The Only Thing I've Done Wrong. His third novel, The Associates, was adapted into a short-lived television series starring Martin Short and Wilfrid Hyde-White.[1]
He is one of the writers (along with Thomas A. Cohen) of the screenplay for the film version of the 1983 novel The River Why by David James Duncan. The movie, starring William Hurt and Kathleen Quinlan, was screened in 2010 at various film festivals.[2]
Background
His parents were John Jay and Anne Kidder Osborn and he is a descendant of John Jay,[3] the first Chief Justice of the United States and of Cornelius Vanderbilt.[4]
He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1967 and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1970.[5] He also did graduate work at Yale Law School. He taught law at the University of Miami, the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University[1] and The University of San Francisco School of Law, from which he retired in 2010.[4] He clerked for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and was an attorney with the firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.
He is married to Emilie H. S. Osborn, a Radcliffe College graduate who is a physician with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.[4] They have three children, Sam, Meredith (who also attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School) and Shef.[6]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Haberman, Clyde and Krebs, Albin: "Notes on People", The New York Times, September 14, 1979, pg B4
- ↑ The River Why (2009)
- ↑ Feron, James: "Westchester Journal", The New York Times, October 18, 1981, pg WC3
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Sipher, Devan (5 September 2010), "Meredith Osborn, Christiaan Highsmith", The New York Times: ST16, retrieved 2010-10-03
- ↑ Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2008. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008.
- ↑ Garcia, Ken (January 28, 2003). "Father of the 'Paper Chase' / San Francisco writer helped define Harvard". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
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