Cleveland Amory

Born: September 2, 1917
Birthplace: Nahant, MA
Died: October 15, 1998

Cleveland Amory was as well-known for his great love of animals, as he was for his writing. Having been president of the Harvard Crimson, upon graduation from college, he became the youngest-ever editor at The Saturday Evening Post. Amory served in military intelligence during World War II, and after the war he wrote three social history critiques which are still acknowledged classics: The Proper Bostonians, The Last Resorts, and Who Killed Society?. He was social commentator on The Today Show for a decade, and from the mid-1960s to the late-1970s, Amory served as chief critic for TV Guide, wrote a weekly column for Saturday Review and a daily radio essay, "Curmudgeon at Large."

A co-founder of the Humane Society of the United States, Amory's interest in the animal kingdom became even more public in 1974, with his publication, Man Kind? Our Incredible War on Wildlife, which was widely credited with launching the anti-hunting movement in the United States.

From 1980 to 1998, Amory was senior contributing editor of Parade magazine. He wrote three books about his cat, Polar Bear, which are now available as The Compleat Cat, which contains all three in one volume.

In 1967, Amory founded The Fund for Animals, an organization dedicated to the protection and care of wildlife. Among many advocacy programs, the Fund established Black Beauty Ranch, a 1,620-acre refuge which is home to many hundreds of abused and abandoned animals -- from chimpanzees to burros to elephants. His final publication, Ranch of Dreams, tells the story of the ranch.

When Amory passed away at the age of 81, he was buried next to his beloved Polar Bear, at Black Beauty Ranch in Texas.

Bibliography

The Proper Bostonians (1947)
The Last Resorts (1952)
Who Killed Society? (1960)
Man Kind? Our Incredible War on Wildlife (1974)
The Trouble With Nowadays: A Curmudgeon Strikes Back (1979)
The Cat Who Came for Christmas (1987)
The Cat and the Curmudgeon (1991)
The Best Cat Ever (1993)