Michael Freedland, Date of Birth, Date of Death

    

Michael Freedland

British journalist

Date of Birth: 18-Dec-1934

Date of Death: 01-Oct-2018

Profession: biographer, journalist

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius


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About Michael Freedland

  • Michael Rodney Freedland (18 December 1934 – 1 October 2018) was a British biographer, journalist and broadcaster. Freedland was Jewish.
  • He began his career as a journalist on local papers in 1951, initially working for The Luton News.
  • He was reporting for the newspaper in 1957 when he was the only journalist present when prime minister Harold Macmillan made his declaration that Britons had "never had it so good".
  • Later he was on the staff of the Daily Sketch for a year before turning freelance in 1961.
  • His broadcasting career began in the following year, and he wrote for The Sunday Telegraph, The Spectator, The Guardian, The Observer and The Economist.As a biographer, he specialised in Hollywood and its entertainers, plus some prominent British subjects.
  • His book on Al Jolson, originally published in 1971, reached its eighth edition in 2007.
  • Freedland wrote over forty books, mainly biographies.
  • He wrote and presented programmes for BBC Radio 2 in the UK on his subjects, including Elvis Presley, Bob Hope and Judy Garland.
  • Asked about what to include in an individual's life history, the immediate concern was the Garland book, he said in 2010: "I am a great believer in telling it as it was.
  • I am very certain of the need for warts and all.
  • How else can you tell a full rounded story?"Freedland's books included more general histories.
  • Witch Hunt in Hollywood: McCarthyism's War On Tinseltown is an account of the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy and (the not directly connected) House Un-American Activities Committee.
  • In Freedland's view: "For Communist read Jew.
  • The hearings ...
  • were as much (some would say more) antisemitic as anti-Communist.
  • Hollywood was chosen for the attack because of the great publicity value the movie capital offered.
  • It was also a great opportunity to get at the Jews of Hollywood."His radio show You Don't Have To Be Jewish began in 1971.
  • Initially broadcast by BBC Radio London, and later by LBC, it was gradually extended in length and ran for 24 years.Ben Helfgott: The Story of One of the Boys (2018) was the first of his books to relate to the Holocaust in some way.
  • Helfgott, a weightlifter who competed for Britain in the Melbourne and Rome Olympics, was a survivor of the Buchenwald and Theresienstadt concentration camps.

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