Diehl, Digby 1940–

(Robert Digby Diehl)

PERSONAL: Surname is pronounced "deal"; born November 14, 1940, in Boonton, NJ; son of Edwin Samuel (a writer) and Mary Jane (a professor) Diehl; married Emilie Robertson, June 7, 1967 (divorced, August, 1970); married Kay Beyer; children, one daughter. Education: Rutgers University, A.B., 1962; University of California, Los Angeles, M.A., 1967. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, boating, fishing, scuba diving, jazz musicology, pre-Columbian art, playing bridge, playing the saxophone, and California history.

ADDRESSES: Home—Pasadena, CA. Office—Book Department, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 1111 South Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015.

CAREER: Writer, editor, critic, and educator. Former movie critic and entertainment editor, KCBS television, Los Angeles, CA, Hollywood correspondent for CBS Morning News, and host of The Politics of Culture on KCRW National Public Radio. Learning Center (for educational research), Princeton, NJ, editor, 1962–65; Coast (magazine), Los Angeles, CA, editor, 1965–68; Show (magazine), New York, NY, editor, 1968–69; Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, founding book editor and author of weekly column "Book Talk," 1969–78; Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, NY, vice-president and editor-in-chief, 1978–80; Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Los Angeles, CA, book editor; Sun Valley Writers Conference, founder and codirector. Also hosted the MSNBC Book Club, was the first online book reviewer for Prodigy, was former literary correspondent for Good Morning America, American Broadcasting Company, Inc. (ABC), and a book reviewer for Playboy magazine. Lecturer at University of California, Los Angeles, 1968–78; writer-in-residence at Rancho La Puerta, 1980.

MEMBER: PEN International, National Book Critics' Circle (advisory board member; former vice-president and president), American Society of Journalists and Authors, National Book Critics Circle (founding member), National Medal for Literature, National Book Awards, and Pacifica Foundation (former board member), American Association of University Professors, Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Delta Chi.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) The Dissonant Eye, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1968.

Supertalk, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1974.

Drug Themes in Fiction, National Institute of Mental Health (Rockville, MD), 1974.

Front Page: One Hundred Years of the Los Angeles Times, 1881–1981, H.N. Abrams (New York, NY), 1981.

Tales From the Crypt: The Official Archives, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(With Duane R. Clarridge) A Spy for All Seasons: My Life in the CIA, Scribner (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Esther Williams) The Million Dollar Mermaid, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1999.

(With Natalie Cole) Angel On My Shoulder: An Autobiography, Warner (New York, NY), 2000.

San Gabriel Country Club: One Hundred Years of History and Tradition, Donning (Virginia Beach, VA), 2004.

(With Finola Hughes) Soapsuds (novel), Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Collaborator with Mark McCormack on Hit the Ground Running, an executive travel guide; with the late Henry Rogers on Rogers Rules for Success and The One Hat Solution; with John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, on Lost Honor; with Anne Mayer, on How to Stay Lovers While Raising Your Children; with Michael Murphy on An End to Ordinary History; and with pediatrician Fitzhugh Dodson on How to Parent. Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including TV Guide, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, American Film, Los Angeles Times, People, and Playboy; contributing editor for Modern Maturity; teleplays and screenplays include Boy Wonder for Fox (adapted from a cover story he wrote for Esquire), The Selling of Mother, and Tulla, a television movie; also scriptwriter for the host of the Forty-Ninth Annual Emmy Awards television show, and dialogue and narrative for the opening of the Karen and Richard Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts.

ADAPTATIONS: Angel On My Shoulder was adapted for audio by Time Warner AudioBooks, 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: Digby Diehl has enjoyed great success as a writer and biographical collaborator, and his commentary on the media and its players is well regarded. Over the course of thirty years, he has worked as an editor, writer, cowriter, researcher, workshop leader, and speaker. His talents have taken him into the world of entertainment and travel reporting, including interviewing Hollywood celebrities. Diehl's Supertalk contains twenty-four interviews with such people as Burt Bacharach, Hugh Hefner, Harold Robbins, and Dr. Seuss. New Republic writer Doris Grumbach remarked that "Diehl is a master of the coherent, knowledgeable, sympathetic question-and-answer approach to his subjects." Nino Lo Bello of the New York Times Book Review voiced a similar opinion: "It takes a special kind of news hound, Digby Diehl species, to get mad dogs like Melvin Belli, Joan Baez, Huey Newton, Gloria Steinem, et al, to bare their teeth, grrrowl meanly and bark out answers, answers that make Supertalk super-reading."

With Tales From the Crypt: The Official Archives, Diehl created a volume chronicling the half-century-long phenomenon of these spooky tales that became the most successful horror comic book of the early 1950s. He provides information about the Tales' early non-comic book history and the early publishers of the Tales—EC Comics. He writes of the life, death, and rebirth, of the comic book and offers his readers some spooky fare. Readers are treated to a never-before published horror story by Jack Davis, one of the Tales' early artists, and three complete and original stories by ghost writers Al Feldstein, Graham Ingles, and Jack Kamen. The book also covers the HBO and Fox Television series, with at least one picture from each episode, and a collectibles section highlighting the spookiest and most popular Crypt merchandise. Ray Olson, a contributor to Booklist, wrote: "This is garish, jokey, pop cultural fun."

A Spy for All Seasons: My Life in the CIA, the autobiography of former CIA agent Duane R. "Dewey" Clarridge, reveals how clandestine CIA operations have diverted the agency from its initial and essential responsibility of providing the American government with the best possible information regarding world affairs. Writing for the Brown Alumni Magazine Web site, P. Terrence Hopmann called the book "a good read—at times as gripping as a Le Carré spy novel." Walter Pincus wrote for Washington Monthly that "the [book's] arrogance is all Clarridge's; the freshness is probably equally traceable to his writing colleague, Digby Diehl."

For his next collaborative effort, Diehl switches gears from a spy to a swimmer. Reviewing The Million Dollar Mermaid on the CANOE, JAM!showbiz Web site, Jane Van Der Voort summed up the autobiography of the seventeen-year-old swimming champion of the 1940s by commenting, "Esther Williams really did live the life of a mermaid. From the thrill of multimillion-dollar swimming musicals, to the horror of finding her six-foot-four cowboy lover Jeff Chandler dressed like a woman, Williams delivers it all in The Million Dollar Mermaid." Robert Gottlieb, writing for the New York Times, noted that she "has written, with the help of Digby Diehl, this interesting and engaging account of her life, and of the Hollywood she knew. Her account is peppered with anecdotes about the great and near-great—Dietrich, Crawford, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, even the Windsors."

Next, Diehl guided singer Natalie Cole through the emotional process of writing her life story. Cole, daughter of famous singer Nat King Cole, penned her autobiography Angel On My Shoulder: An Autobiography in a deeply personal and insightful manner that a reviewer for Publishers Weekly predicted would resonate with readers. The reviewer explained, "Last year, Diehl steered Esther Williams to a surprise bestseller with the Million Dollar Mermaid. His knack for co-writing juicy, no-holds-barred biographies should reap the same benefits with this volume." Jabari Asim of Washington Post Book World observed that, unlike many autobiographies by well-known black female celebrities, Cole's story is more truly a "diva-tells-all." Asim added, "Cole seems determined to let readers in on every sordid detail. The purpose of all the candor, she claims, is to enable her audience to learn from the mistakes she's made." Despite the intrigue and the reflective philosophizing, the book's highlights are, according to Asim, the passages describing the work, effort, and determination that made Cole's breakout album, Unforgettable, With Love, a success.

Diehl put aside his biographical books to collaborate with soap opera actress Finola Hughes on the novel Soapsuds. The authors tell the story of British stage actress Kate McPhee, who ends up acting on the American television soap opera Live for Tomorrow, playing a lesbian cop. The work turns out to be harder than she initially thought. Furthermore, the job is made that much tougher by the jealousy of her coworkers, especially the show's matriarch Meredith Contini, as Kate and her character gain popularity among the viewing audience. Getting over a cheating boyfriend, Kate tries to find a new mate but soon finds that her own life is seeming more and more like a soap opera. Andrea Sisco, writing on the Armchair Interviews Web site, called Soapsuds a "fun summer 'beach read'"and that readers "will enjoy Kate's growing fame, and her crazy situations." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that "humor and good-natured banter make it worth the ride." Ilene Cooper, writing in Booklist, noted that "the behind-the-scene looks at off-screen romances, on-air sex, and backstage backstabbing will titillate [soap opera] fans."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 1996, Ray Olson, review of Tales From the Crypt: The Official Archives, p. 52; January 1, 1997, Roland Green, review of A Spy For All Seasons: My Life in the CIA, p. 788; August, 1999, Mike Tribby, review of The Million Dollar Mermaid, p. 1983; August, 2000, Mike Tribby, review of Angel On My Shoulder: An Autobiography, p. 2068; September 1, 2001, Laurie Hartshorn, review of Angel On My Shoulder, p. 126; May 1, 2005, Ilene Cooper, review of Soapsuds, p. 1570.

Choice, April 1982, review of Front Page: One Hundred Years of the Los Angeles Times, 1881–1981, p. 1060.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2005, review of Soapsuds, p. 375.

Library Journal, September 1, 1999, Kim R. Holston, review of The Million Dollar Mermaid, p. 196; October 15, 2000, Kathleen Sparkman, review of Angel On My Shoulder, p. 73.

New Republic, August 23, 1974, Doris Grumbach, review of Supertalk.

Newsweek, September 13, 1999, Laura Shapiro, "Telling Tales Out of Pool: Esther Williams Makes a Splash with a Fab Memoir," review of The Million Dollar Mermaid, p. 69.

New York Times, October 3, 1999, Robert Gottlieb, review of The Million Dollar Mermaid, p. 11.

New York Times Book Review, August 4, 1974, Nino Lo Bello, review of Supertalk.

Publishers Weekly, August 12, 1996, review of Tales from the Crypt, p. 76; November 11, 1996, review of A Spy For All Seasons, p. 64; August 23, 1999, review of The Million Dollar Mermaid, p. 34; October 9, 2000, review of Angel On My Shoulder, p. 81; April 25, 2005, review of Soapsuds, p. 36.

Washington Monthly, January-February, 1997, Walter Pincus, review of A Spy For All Seasons, p. 44.

Washington Post Book World, November 14, 2000, Jabari Asim, "Book World; Natalie Cole, Making Room for Daddy," review of Angel On My Shoulder, p. C02.

ONLINE

Armchair Interviews, http://www.armchairinterviews.com/ (October 6, 2006), Andrea Sisco, review of Soapsuds.

Brown Alumni Magazine Web site, http://brownalumnimagazine.com/ (October 6, 2006), P. Terrence Hopmann, "Under the Cover-ups," review of A Spy For All Seasons.

CANOE, JAM!showbiz, http://jam.canoe.ca/ (October 6, 2006), Jane Van Der Voort, "In the Swim: Esther Williams Surfaces with a Tell-All," review of The Million Dollar Mermaid.

Satisfaction, http://www.satisfactionmag.com/ (October 6, 2006), brief profile of author.