Loudon Wainwright Jr.

Loudon Snowden Wainwright Jr. (December 16, 1924^[2] – December 12, 1988) was an American writer. He was the father of folk singer Loudon Wainwright III and singer Sloan Wainwright, and grandfather to Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy Wainwright Roche.^[3]

Early life

Wainwright was born in New York City, New York, the son of Eleanor Painter (Sloan) and Loudon Snowden Wainwright.^[4] His great-grandfather was politician and diplomat A. Loudon Snowden. He graduated from St. Andrew's School, Middletown, Delaware in 1942,^[5] and attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and joined St. Anthony Hall. After college, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Career

Wainwright joined the staff of Life magazine and worked in a variety of positions over the years, including covering the Mercury astronauts. He and John Glenn listened to the inauguration speech of John F. Kennedy while riding in Glenn's car in 1961.^[6] In 1964 he began writing "The View From Here", a regular column in the magazine which appeared until the magazine ceased weekly publication in 1972. From 1969 on he also served as assistant managing editor.^[7]

When Life resumed publication as a monthly in 1978, he joined its staff as an editor, and continued to contribute to its pages after retiring from that position in 1985. After his death, the magazine published a retrospective in the February 1989 issue with excerpts from some of the two hundred columns he had written for it over the years.^[8]

Wainwright was also the author of The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of Life, an informal history of the magazine.^[8]

Death

Wainwright died of colon cancer on December 12, 1988, at age 63.

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