Hamptons Arts & Entertainment Anniversaries

100 Years of East Enders Winning the Pulitzer Prize
Norman Mailer (1969, The Armies of the Night; 1980, The Executioner’s Song), John Steinbeck (1940, The Grapes of Wrath), Edward Albee (1994, Three Tall Women; 1975, Seascape; 1967, A Delicate Balance), Wendy Wasserstein (1989, The Heidi Chronicles), Marsha Norman (1983, Night Mother), Lanford Wilson (1980, Talley’s Folly),  Tennessee Williams (1955, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; 1948, A Streetcar Named Desire); Jules Feiffer (1961, Editorial Cartoon); Robert Caro (1975, The Power Broker; 2003, Master of the Senate); Colson Whitehead (2016, The Underground Railroad).

FIRST BOOKS
95 The Great Gatsby (kind of)
A bit a stretch perhaps, as The Great Gatsby was published only 92 years ago. But it’s a great read if you want to get an idea of what some parts of Long Island looked like 95 years ago, that’s when F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic novel was set—1922.

65 Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut didn’t live on the East End when his first novel was published in 1952, but he did spend a lot of time out here later in life.

60 The Hunters by James Salter
Another first novel, longtime Sag Harbor resident James Salter’s The Hunters, a story of the slow self-destruction of a 31-year-old fighter pilot in Korea, was published 60 years ago.

55 Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck’s 1962 novel follows the Sag Harbor-based author across America with his 10-year-old French Poodle, Charley. It begins in Sag Harbor, with the author delayed due to Hurricane Donna.

35 Robert Caro’s first volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson series
At over 3,500 pages (so far) and who knows how many words, Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson series started 35 years ago with The Path to Power, covering the 36th president’s life up to his failed 1941 campaign of the U.S. Senate. Book five is said to be in the works.

35 Entertaining by Martha Stewart
Now in its 30th printing, East Hampton’s Martha Stewart’s iconic Entertaining was published 35 years ago. Now, she has a cooking variety show with Snoop Dogg…

30 A Loss for Words by Lou Ann Walker
Oliver Sacks called it “a deeply moving, often humorous and beautiful account of what it means to be the hearing child of profoundly deaf parents…I have rarely read anything on the subject more powerful or poignant.”

25 The Montauk Project
The popular conspiracy theory book by Preston Nichols and Peter Moon, which alleged that secret experiments were carried out at the Camp Hero site in Montauk, was published in 1992.

20 The Accidental Bond by Susan Scarf Merrell
The Sag Harbor author’s first book tackles the complex theme of sibling connection, specifically examining the Three Cs of Competition, Cooperation and Comparison.

MOVIES Starring East Enders
1942 Pride of the Yankees (Gary Cooper)
1947 Dark Passages (Lauren Bacall); Unconquered (Gary Cooper)
1967 In Cold Blood (Truman Capote); Thoroughly Modern Millie (Julie Andrews); The Graduate (Anne Bancroft)
1982 E.T. Extra Terrestrial (Drew Barrymore, Steven Spielberg, director); An Officer and a Gentleman (Richard Gere)
1987 Swimming to Cambodia (Spalding Gray)
1992 Poison Ivy (Drew Barrymore); A Few Good Men (Jack Nicholson)
1997 Titanic (Leonardo DiCaprio); Boogie Nights (Julianne Moore); As Good as it Gets (Jack Nicholson); Tomorrow Never Dies (Pierce Brosnan); The Jackal (Richard Gere); Private Parts (Howard Stern); Copland (Robert DiNero)
2002 Gangs of New York (Leonardo DiCaprio); About Schmidt (Jack Nicholson, written by Sagaponack resident Louis Begley); Chicago (Reneé Zellweger); The Hours (Julianne Moore); Die Another Day (Pierce Brosnan); Unfaithful (Richard Gere); Far From Home (Julianne Moore)