WALTER, Eugene 1921-1998

PERSONAL: Born November 30, 1921, in Mobile, AL; died of liver cancer, March 29, 1998, in Mobile, AL; son of Eugene and Muriel (Sabina) Walter. Education: Attended Spring Hill College, University of Alabama (Mobile extension), Museum of Modern Art (New York City), New York University, New School for Social Research, Alliance Francaise, Institut Brittanique de la Sorbonne, Instituto Dante Alighieri.

CAREER: Writer, editor, set designer, and musician. Scenic designer for more than 60 stage productions in New York area; actor, who once toured his own marionette theater to schools and prisons in Gulf Coast region, and has played character parts, including leads, in 47 films, chiefly Italian; musician, who has played recorder with Ancient Instruments Society in Alabama; founding member and first manager of the Mobile Symphony Orchestra. Military service: U.S. Army Airways Communications System, cryptographer, 1942-46.

MEMBER: The Willoughby Institute (secretarytreasurer).

AWARDS, HONORS: Lippincott Fiction Prize, 1954, for The Untidy Pilgrim; Sewanee-Rockefeller fellowship, 1956, for Monkey Poems; O. Henry citation, 1959, for story, "I Love You Batty Sisters."

WRITINGS:

(And illustrator) Jennie, the Watercress Girl, Willoughby Institute (Rome, Italy), 1947.

Monkey Poems, Editions Finisterre (Paris, France), 1953, Noonday Press (New York, NY), 1954.

The Untidy Pilgrim (novel), Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1954, reprinted, introduction by Katherine Clark, University Press (Tuscaloosa, AL), 2001.

(Author of text) Gwen Barnard, The Shapes of theRiver: The London Thames, Gaberbocchus Press (London, England), 1955.

Singerie Songerie: A Masque on the Subject of LyricMode (ballet-opera), Willoughby Institute (Rome, Italy), 1958.

Love You Good (novel), Julliard (Paris, France), 1963, published as Love You Good, See You Later, Scribner (New York, NY), 1964.

Fellini Satyricon (English shooting script for film), Ballantine (New York, NY), 1970.

American Cooking: Southern Style, Time-Life (New York, NY), 1971.

(And author of preface and illustrator) Hints &Pinches, Longstreet (Atlanta, GA), 1991, revised, with foreword by John T. Edge, Hill Street Press (Athens, GA), 2001.

Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life onThis Planet, edited by Katherine Clark, with foreword by George Plimpton, Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 2001.

Also author of ballad, "What is a Youth?," in Zefferelli film, Romeo and Juliet. Contributor of stories, poems, and articles to periodicals, including Ladies' Home Journal, Transatlantic Review, Harper's, Harper's Bazaar, and Gourmet, and to several anthologies.

Associate editor of Botteghe Oscure, 1950-59, Paris Review, 1951-60, Folder, 1951-54, Whetstone, 1953-58, Intro Bulletin, 1957-58, Wormwood Review, 1957-58, Transatlantic Review, 1959-1998.

SIDELIGHTS: A Publishers Weekly reviewer described Eugene Walter as "one of the most fascinating literary figures most of us have never heard of." Walter, who had a varied career as an editor, set designer, and writer, is remembered for his novel The Untidy Pilgrim, which was originally published in 1954 and garnered the Lippincott Prize. Although "he ranks as a minor American writer," observed Brad Hooper in Booklist, Walter was a raconteur who "apparently knew everyone who was anyone in American and European arts and letters."

Born 1921 in Mobile, Alabama, Walter attended schools in Alabama, New York, and France, including Institut Brittanique de la Sorbonne. After a stint during World War II with the U.S. Army Airways Communications Systems as a cryptographer, Walter worked as a theatrical set designer on more than sixty stage productions in the New York City area.

Walter's own story of his life appears in Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews which author Katherine Clark conducted with Walter, Milking the Moon stands as "a fascinating oral biography about a life lived large and impulsively," wrote Pat H. Broeske on BookPage. "Walter displays an abiding fascination with people of all kinds," the Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked. Among the luminaries that Walter knew and associated with were Tallulah Bank-head, Greta Garbo, Dylan Thomas, Leontyne Price, Alice B. Toklas, T. S. Eliot, and Archibald MacLeish. "Milking the Moon can be read as an exercise in the higher gossip, with its delicious recollections" of Walter's famous companions, wrote Jonathan Yardley in Washington Post.

As editor of the book, "Clark has done little of what she calls 'editorial meddling,'" Broeske wrote. "Consequently, the book is chatty and conversational. Walter jumps around in his thoughts, sometimes taking shortcuts with people and places." However, "Of all the characters whom we meet in these pages," Yardley observed, "by far the most endearing is Walter himself." Walter himself may have modestly claimed his life story is simply that of "a Southern boy let loose in the big world."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 2001, Brad Hooper, review of Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet, p. 1971.

Library Journal, July, 2001, Pam Kingsbury, review of Milking the Moon, p. 92.

Publishers Weekly, July 9, 2001, review of Milking theMoon, p. 59.

Washington Post, August 19, 2001, Jonathan Yardley, "The Life of the Party," review of Milking the Moon, p. BW01.

ONLINE

BookPage Web site,http://www.bookpage.com/ (January 6, 2002), Pat H. Broeske, review of Milking the Moon.

OBITUARIES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, April 26, 1998, p. A39.*