Korda Michael

Early years:

 

   Born in London, Michael Korda is the son of English actress Gertrude Musgrove, and artist and film production designer Vincent Korda. He is the nephew of Hungarian-born film magnate Sir Alexander Korda and brother Zoltan, both film directors. Korda grew up in England but received part of his education in France where his father had worked with film director Marcel Pagnol. He was schooled at the private Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland and read History at Magdalen College, Oxford. He served in the Royal Air Force. As a child, Korda also lived in the United States from 1941 to 1946.

 

Career:

 

   While in his early twenties, he moved to New York City where he was employed by playwright Sidney Kingsley as a research assistant. In 1958 he joined the book publishing firm, Simon & Schuster, starting as an assistant editor, which included the task of reading "slush pile" manuscripts. He became Editor-in-Chief of the company and was a major figure in the book industry, publishing numerous works by high-profile writers and personalities such as William L. Shirer, Will and Ariel Durant, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Korda was a major part of Simon & Schuster for more than forty years and one of the most influential people in the business of book publishing. In the autumn of 1994, he was diagnosed as having prostate cancer. In 1997 he wrote Man to Man, which recounted his medical experience. In 2000, he published Another Life: A Memoir of Other People, about the world of publishing.

 

   Among Korda's better-known books are Charmed Lives, which was a memoir about his life with his father and uncle, and the novel Queenie, which is a roman à clef about his aunt, actress Merle Oberon, which was later adapted into a television miniseries.

 

Private life:

 

  Michael Korda married first wife Carolyn Keese in 1958, and had one child, Chris, leader of the Church of Euthanasia. Michael remarried to Margaret Mogford, a former fashion model.