Katz, Robert 1933–

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Katz, Robert 1933–

PERSONAL: Born June 27, 1933, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Sidney and Helen (Holland) Katz; married Beverly Gerstel, September 22, 1957; children: Stephen Lee, Jonathan Howard. Education: Attended Brooklyn College (now Brooklyn College of the City University of New York), 1951–53.

ADDRESSES: Home—Tuscany, Italy. Agent—Peter Matson, Sterling Lord Literistic Ltd., 65 Bleecker St., New York, NY 10012.

CAREER: Writer. United Hias Service, New York, NY, writer and photographer, 1953–57; American Cancer Society, New York, NY, writer, 1958–63; United Nations, New York, NY, and Rome, Italy, writer, 1963; freelance writer, 1963–; University of California, Santa Cruz, frequent visiting professor in investigative journalism, 1986–92. Former consultant to PrimeTime Live, American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (ABC), 60 Minutes, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (CBS), History Channel, and Italian television's RAI network news magazine, Mixer; guest lecturer at several universities worldwide.

MEMBER: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

AWARDS, HONORS: Grant, American Council of Learned Societies; Guggenheim fellowship in literature, 1970–71, current fellow; Pulitzer Prize nomination, 1981, for Days of Wrath: The Ordeal of Aldo Moro, the Kidnapping, the Execution, the Aftermath; Best Screenplay, Neorealist Film Festival, Avellino, 1983, for The Salamander; Best Film for Television, Venice Film Festival, 1986, for Blood Ties; fellow, Adlai E. Stevenson College, 1986–92; Golden Globe Award, and Silver Bear Award, Berlin Film Festival, 1987, both for Il caso Moro; inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1991; has twice been elected a Knight of Mark Twain.

WRITINGS:

Death in Rome, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1967.

Black Sabbath: A Journey Through a Crime against Humanity, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1969.

The Fall of the House of Savoy, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1971, published in England as The Fall of the House of Savoy: A Study in the Relevance of the Commonplace or the Vulgarity of History, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1972.

A Giant in the Earth, Stein & Day (New York, NY), 1973.

The Cassandra Crossing, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1976.

Ziggurat, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1977.

The Spoils of Ararat: A Novel, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1978.

Days of Wrath: The Ordeal of Aldo Moro, the Kidnapping, the Execution, the Aftermath, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1980, published in England as Days of Wrath: The Public Agony of Aldo Moro, Granada, 1980.

(With Giuseppe Ferrara and Armenia Balducci) Il caso Moro (nonfiction), Pironti (Naples, Italy), 1987.

Love Is Colder Than Death: The Life and Times of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Random House (New York, NY), 1987.

Naked by the Window: The Fatal Marriage of Carl Andre and Ana Mendieta, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Dossier Priebke, Rizzoli (Milan, Italy), 1996.

The Battle for Rome: The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943–June 1944, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2003, published in England as Fatal Silence: The Pope, the Resistance, and the German Occupation of Rome, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 2003.

Author of screenplays, including Massacre in Rome (based on his book Death in Rome), 1973; The Cassandra Crossing (based on his book of the same title), 1977; La Pelle, 1981; The Salamander, 1983; Kamikaze '89, 1983; Hotel Colonial, 1983; Il caso Moro (based on his book Days of Wrath), 1986; and Blood Ties, 1986; author of sound recording The Great Population Explosion Hoax, Pacifica Tape Library, 1973.

Contributor to anthologies What If? 2: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, edited by Robert Cowley, Putnam (New York, NY), 2001, and The Jews of Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922–1945, edited by Joshua Zimmerman, Cambridge University Press, 2006. Contributor of articles, essays, and book reviews to various publications, including American Film, Esquire, Washington Post, New York Times Book Review, and the New York Times.

Death in Rome has been published in ten languages.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A biography of Giordano Bruno.

SIDELIGHTS: About Robert Katz's Days of Wrath: The Ordeal of Aldo Moro, the Kidnapping, the Execution, the Aftermath, Caroline Moorehead of the Times Literary Supplement asserted: "It is a skilful book in which the arts of a thriller writer are combined with the critical curiosity of a reporter." Moorehead also commented on the book's authenticity: "Where Days of Wrath is fascinating is in its detail; names, places, protagonists, phone calls, the long saga of political and private manipulation that went into this full-blown Italian theatre of terrorism." Godfrey Hodgson of the Washington Post Book World wrote that "anyone who can be moved by the pity and terror of a modern tragedy, will want to read this original and passionately heartfelt book."

Katz encountered legal difficulties with the release of the film Massacre in Rome, which the author wrote based on his best-seller Death in Rome. The book aroused international religious and political controversy; the film brought the controversy to court, culminating in a two-year criminal trial. Katz was ultimately convicted and sentenced to fourteen months in prison for defaming the memory of Pope Pius XII. The verdict was overturned on appeal and later the case was dismissed by Italy's Supreme Court.

Katz recounts a true-life fatal incident involving a famous sculptor and his artist wife in the book Naked by the Window: The Fatal Marriage of Carl Andre and Ana Mendieta. Andre claimed that his wife fell out of their apartment window in New York during an argument, but police charged him with her murder. He was later acquitted in a non-jury trial even in the face of damaging evidence that his wife was terrified of heights and avoided windows and that Andre's body had been severely scratched. Genevieve Stuttaford, writing in Publishers Weekly, called the book a "shocking police procedural."

In The Battle for Rome: The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943–June 1944, the author chronicles a turbulent nine months follow-ing the downfall of Italian dictator Mussolini at the end of World War II. As the Nazi forces took control, Italian resistance soon followed. The author recounts how people within the Vatican helped some resisters while going against the directives of the pope, who saw Russian occupation as a more dangerous threat. A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote: "An episodic reconstruction, complete with a dazzling dramatis personae." Brian K. DeLuca, writing in the Library Journal, commented that "this is an excellent work." In a review of the book under its English title of Fatal Silence: The Pope, the Resistance, and the German Occupation of Rome, New Statesman contributor Peter Stanford commented that the author "has a novelist's gift for narrative" and added that "this is popular history at its best."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Catholic Historical Review, July, 2004, Brian R. Sullivan, review of The Battle for Rome: The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943–June 1944, p. 566.

Contemporary Review, March, 2004, review of Fatal Silence: the Pope, the Resistance and the German Occupation of Rome, p. 187.

Independent, July 19, 2000, Michael Mewshaw, "The Silence of the Critics."

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2003, review of The Battle for Rome, p. 894.

Library Journal, April 15, 2003, review of The Battle for Rome, p. 64; August, 2003, Brian K. DeLuca, review of The Battle for Rome, p. 101.

New Republic, March 22, 2004, IstvAn DeAk, review of The Battle for Rome, p. 30.

New Statesman, October 13, 2003, Peter Stanford, review of Fatal Silence, p. 49.

New York Times Book Review, August 31, 1969, review of Black Sabbath: A Journey Through a Crime against Humanity, p. 6; April 8, 1973, review of A Giant in the Earth, p. 30; June 12, 1977, Newgate Callendar, review of Ziggurat, p. 32; August 6, 1978, Newgate Callendar, review of The Spoils of Ararat: A Novel, p. 33; May 18, 1980, Flora Lewis, review of Days of Wrath: The Ordeal of Aldo Moro, the Kidnapping, the Execution, the Aftermath, p. 12; May 17, 1987, William J. Harding, review of Love Is Colder than Death: The Life and Times of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, p. 51; June 10, 1990, Vincent Patrick, review of Naked by the Window: The Fatal Marriage of Carl Andre and Ana Mendieta, p. 24.

Publishers Weekly, March 20, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Naked by the Window, p. 47.

Times Literary Supplement, January 1, 1970, review of Black Sabbath, p. 6; July 11, 1980, Caroline Moorehead, review of Days of Wrath, p. 777.

Washington Post Book World, May 27, 1980, Godfrey Hodgson, review of Days of Wrath.