Erich Segal

The son of a rabbi, Segal attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn and traveled to Switzerland to take summer courses. He attended Harvard College, graduating as both the class poet and Latin salutatorian in 1958, and then he obtained his master's degree (in 1959) and a doctorate (in 1965) in comparative literature from Harvard University.[1]

Segal was a professor of Greek and Latin literature at Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University. He had been a Supernumerary Fellow and an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College at Oxford University.[2]

His first academic book, Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus, revolutionized the great Roman comic playwright best known today as the inspiration for the Broadway hit, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 2001 Harvard published his The Death of Comedy, the all-encompassing literary history.

He wrote widely on Greek and Latin literature. He published a number of scholarly works as well as teaching at the university level. He acted as a visiting professor for the University of Munich, Princeton University, and Dartmouth College. His novel The Class (1985), a saga based on the Harvard Class of 1958, was a bestseller, and won literary honor in France and Italy. Doctors was another New York Times bestseller.

Segal was an accomplished competitive runner. He was a sprinter at Midwood High School, and ran the 2 mile at Harvard College. He began marathon running during his second year at Harvard when track and field head coach Bill McCurdy was impressed with how fast he had run 10 miles.[4] Segal ran in the Boston Marathon almost every year from 1955 to 1975.[5] He finished in 79th place at 3 hours, 43 minutes in his first attempt,[4] and his best performance was in 1964 when he finished 63rd with a time of 2:56:30. He recounted that after one Boston marathon someone yelled "Hey, Segal, you run better than you write".[6]

Segal covered the marathon as a color commentator for telecasts of both the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics.[7] His most notable broadcast was in 1972 when he and Jim McKay called Frank Shorter's gold-medal-winning performance. When an impostor, West German student Norbert Sudhaus, ran into Olympic Stadium ahead of Shorter,[8] an emotionally upset Segal screamed "That is an impostor! Get him off the track! This happens in bush league marathons! Throw the bum out! Get rid of that guy!" Moments later, he personalized his on‑air remarks by saying "Come on, Frank! You won it! It's a fake, Frank!"[9] Amby Burfoot called Segal's account "one of the most unprofessional, unbridled, and totally appropriate outbursts in the history of Olympic TV commentary", taking into consideration the fact that Segal had taught Shorter at Yale.[6] In 2000, The Washington Post included the phrase among the 10 most memorable American sports calls.[10]

Segal was married to Karen Marianne James from 1975 until his death; they had two daughters, Miranda and Francesca Segal. Francesca, born in 1980, is a freelance journalist, literary critic, and columnist.

Segal, who suffered from Parkinson's disease,[11] died of a heart attack on January 17, 2010,[12] and was buried in London. In a eulogy delivered at his funeral, his daughter Francesca said "That he fought to breathe, fought to live, every second of the last 30 years of illness with such mind-blowing obduracy, is a testament to the core of who he was – a blind obsessionality that saw him pursue his teaching, his writing, his running and my mother, with just the same tenacity. He was the most dogged man any of us will ever know."[13]

• Yellow Submarine (1968)
• The Games (1970)
• R. P. M. (1970)
• Love Story (1970)
• Jennifer on My Mind (1971)
• Oliver's Story (1978)
• A Change of Seasons (1980)
• Man, Woman and Child (1983)
• Doctors (1988)
• Acts of Faith (1992)

• Segal, Erich (1970) [1968], Roman laughter: the comedy of Plautus, Harvard studies in comparative literature, Harvard University Press, OCLC 253490621
• Segal, Erich (1968), Euripides. A collection of critical essays, Prentice-Hall, OCLC 490074853
• Segal, Erich (1993) [1970], Love Story, Oxford bookworms, Oxford University Press, OCLC 271780786
• Segal, Erich (1973), Fairy tale, Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 978-0-340-17703-7, OCLC 476324471
• Segal, Erich (1977), Oliver's Story, Granada, ISBN 978-0-246-11007-7
• Segal, Erich (1980), Man, Woman and Child, Granada, ISBN 978-0-246-11364-1
• Segal, Erich (1983), Oxford readings in Greek tragedy, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-872110-9, OCLC 489881338
• Millar, Fergus; Erich Segal (1984). Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-814858-5.
• Segal, Erich (1985), The Class, Bantam, ISBN 978-0-593-01004-4
• Segal, Erich (1988), Doctors, Toronto, ISBN 978-0-553-05294-7
• Segal, Erich (1992), Acts of Faith, OCLC 472522180
• Segal, Erich (1995), Prizes, Bantam, ISBN 978-0-593-03837-6
• Segal, Erich (1996), Four comedies : the braggart soldier, the brothers Menaechmus, the haunted house, the pot of gold, World's classics, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-283108-8, OCLC 57136525
• Segal, Erich (1997), Only love, G.P. Putnam's Sons, ISBN 978-0-399-14341-0
• Segal, Erich (2001), The death of comedy, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-00643-0, OCLC 464104819
• Segal, Erich (2001), Oxford readings in Menander, Plautus, and Terence, Oxford Univ. Press, ISBN 978-0-19-872193-2, OCLC 248042166
• Pelzer, Linda C. (1997), Erich Segal: A Critical Companion, Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-29930-7

• Love means never having to say you're sorry

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Erich Segal

• Official Erich Segal Website
• Erich Segal at the Database of Classical Scholars, author: Mary Lefkowitz
• Erich Segal at IMDb
• Weber, Bruce (January 20, 2010). "Erich Segal, 'Love Story' Author, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved January 19, 2010.