PEARY, Dannis 1949-

(Danny Peary)

PERSONAL: Born August 8, 1949, in Philippi, WV; son of Joseph Y. (a professor) and Laura (Chaitan) Peary; married Suzanne Rafer (an editor), June 21, 1980; children: Zoe. Education: University of Wisconsin—Madison, B.A., 1971; University of Southern California, M.A. (with honors), 1975.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, N.Y. Office—15 Stuyvesant Oval 9B, New York, N.Y. 10009. Agent—Christine Tomasino, Robert L. Rosen Associates, 7 West 51st St., New York, N.Y. 10019.

CAREER: Writer, 1971—. Script reader for Brut Productions, 1975. Sports editor for Los Angeles Panorama,1976. Photo researcher for Workman Publishing, 1977. Writer for syndicated radio program, "The Tim McCarver Show," 1986.

WRITINGS:

UNDER NAME DANNY PEARY

Close-Ups: The Movie Star Book, Workman (New York, NY), 1978.

(Editor, with brother, Gerald Peary) The American Animated Cartoon: A Critical Anthology, Dutton (New York, NY), 1980.

Cult Movies: The Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird and the Wonderful, Dell (New York, NY), 1981.

Cult Movies II: 50 More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful, Dell (New York, NY), 1983.

(Editor) Omni's Screen Flights/Screen Fantasies: The Future According to the Science Fiction Cinema, introduction by Harlan Ellison, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1984.

Guide for the Film Fanatic, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1986.

Cult Movies III: 50 More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor) Cult Baseball Players: The Greats, the Flakes, the Weird, and the Wonderful, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Bruce Chadwick) How to Buy, Trade and Invest in Baseball Cards and Collectibles: Smart Strategies for Starting, Building, and Enjoying Your Collection, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

Cult Movie Stars, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1991.

Alternate Oscars: One Critic's Defiant Choices for Best Picture, Actor, and Actress from 1927 to the Present, Delta (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor) We Played the Game: 65 Players Remember Baseball's Greatest Era, 1947-1964, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1994.

Super Bowl, the Game of their Lives, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Tim McCarver) Tim McCarver's Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans: Understanding and Interpreting the Game So You Can Watch It Like a Pro, Villard Books (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Tim McCarver) The Perfect Season: Why 1998 Was Baseball's Greatest Year, Villard Books (New York, NY), 1999.

(With Harry Sheehy) Raising a Team Player: Teaching Kids Lasting Values on the Field, on the Court, and on the Bench, Storey Books (North Adams, MA), 2002.

(With Ralph Kiner) Baseball Forever: Reflections on 60 Years in the Game, Triumph Books (Chicago, IL), 2003.

1001 Reasons to Love Baseball, Stewart, Tabori & Chang (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to anthologies. Contributor of articles to newspapers and magazines, including Philadelphia Bulletin, TV Guide (Canada and America), Bijou, Focus on Films, Take One, The Velvet Light Trap, Boston Globe, Newsday, and Films and Filming. Contributing editor for Video Times, 1985.

SIDELIGHTS: Danny Peary has written and edited, alone and with others, several volumes dealing with film and sports, particularly baseball. Among his earlier works is The American Animated Cartoon: A Critical Anthology, a collection he edited of articles by animators and others involved in the animation industry. Selections include Art Babbit's explanation of the drawing techniques used in Goofy cartoons, and Richard Thompson's comments on his Road Runner-versus-Coyote film shorts and Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons. Winsor McCay, R. Bray, and Vlad Tytla are among the other animators represented. Walt Disney's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee is reproduced in The American Animated Cartoon, as are John Canemaker's articles about several of the early developers of animation.

According to Los Angeles Times Book Review critic Charles Solomon, the book is "valuable for the amount of information compressed in readily accessible form." He adds, "the fact that enough serious criticism exists to fill a book like The American Animated Cartoon is indeed a hopeful sign; this medium is finally receiving its due respect and attention."

Another interesting title Peary penned on the subject of film is 1993's Alternate Oscars: One Critic's Defiant Choices for Best Picture, Actor, and Actress from 1927 to the Present. While George W. Hunt, discussing the volume in America, noted: "I ended up agreeing with [Peary's] choices more often than not," David Thomson in the New Republic felt that "Peary's revisionism underlines the arbitrariness of all Oscars, winners and losers."

Later in his career, Peary worked as a writer for former Cardinals catcher Tim McCarver's syndicated radio program. He also collaborated with McCarver on a couple of books about baseball, 1998's Tim McCarver's Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans: Understanding and Interpreting the Game So You Can Watch It Like a Pro and 1999's The Perfect Season: Why 1998 Was Baseball's Greatest Year. Of the former, Ray Hoffman in Business Week remarked that Peary and McCarver "show how this simple playground game has nuances and imagery extending far beyond that of any other sport," and called the volume "the Gray's Anatomy of baseball." George Robinson, discussing the second Peary-McCarver collaboration in the New York Times Book Review, assured readers that "there are moments of tremendous insight." Peary also edited a volume of recollections from some well-known baseball players from the late 1940s through the 1960s—not the superstars, but good, workman-like players like Dick Ellsworth and George Kell. We Played the Game: 65 Players Remember Baseball's Greatest Era, 1947-1964 met with praise from Wes Lukowsky in Booklist, who called it a "wonderful collection." With Harry Sheehy, Peary tackled the issue of sportsmanship for children in 2002's Raising a Team Player: Teaching Kids Lasting Values on the Field, on the Court, and on the Bench. Douglas C. Lord, reviewing it in the Library Journal, recommended Raising a Team Player as a "heartfelt, instructional work."

Peary once told CA:"I treat film as a pop culture: part art, part mass entertainment. I write for no specific audience, but my intention is to make the serious film student more of a fan and the fan more of a student. I choose projects that require research because I am very enthusiastic about film and want to learn, as much as I want to enlighten the reader."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, 1975-1991, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1992.

PERIODICALS

America, March 25, 1995, George W. Hunt, review of Alternate Oscars: One Critic's Defiant Choices for Best Picture, Actor, and Actress from 1927 to the Present, p. 2.

Booklist, April 15, 1994, Wes Lukowsky, review of We Played the Game: 65 Players Remember Baseball's Greatest Era, 1947-1964, p. 1500.

Business Week, April 30, 1998, Ray Hoffman, review of Tim McCarver's Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans: Understanding and Interpreting the Game So You Can Watch It Like a Pro.

Library Journal, May 15, 2002, Douglas C. Lord, review of Raising a Team Player: Teaching Kids Lasting Values on the Field, on the Court, and on the Bench, pp. 120-121.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, February 11, 1979; October 12, 1980; September 9, 1984.

New Republic, April 12, 1993, David Thomson, review of Alternate Oscars, pp. 39-42.

New York Book Review, May 30, 1999, George Robinson, "Baseball Books in Brief; Big Mac, Sammy and the Yanks," p. 16.

Philadelphia Inquirer, November 4, 1983.

Publishers Weekly, February 16, 2004, review of Baseball Forever: Reflections on 60 Years in the Game, p. 164.

Seattle Times, January 2, 1987.

Telegram-Post (Bridgeport, CT), October 1, 1983.*