{{Short description|American literary critic (1923–2006)}} {{Infobox person | name = Richard Gilman | image = 300px | caption = Gilman on CUNY TV's Cinema Then, Cinema Now (1987) | nickname = | birth_date = {{birth date |1923|04|30}} | birth_place = Brooklyn, New York | death_date = {{death date and age |2006|10|28|1923|04|30}} | death_place = Kusatsu, Japan | alma_mater = | awards = | spouse = {{plainlist| * Esther Morgenstern (m. 1949, divorced)<br> Lynn Nesbit (m.1966, divorced) * {{marriage|Yasuko Shiojiri|1992}} }} | children = | parents = | partner = | family = | known_for = | occupation = }}
'''Richard Martin Gilman''' (April 30, 1923 – October 28, 2006) was an American drama and literary critic.
== Early life == On April 30, 1923, Gilman was born as Richard Martin Gilman in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. Gilman's family is Jewish.<ref name="NYT_Gilman">{{cite web |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/theater/31gilman.html |title=Richard Gilman, Theater Critic, Dies at 83. |work=The New York Times |date=October 31, 2006 |accessdate=August 10, 2018}}</ref> <ref name=NYTGilmanObit>[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-nov-04-me-gilman4-story.html Los Angeles Times: "Richard Gilman, 83; influential theater critic and longtime Yale drama professor" by Charles McNulty ] November 04, 2006</ref>
== Education == In 1947, Gilman graduated with a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin.
== Career == Gilman enlisted into the U.S. Marine Corps in 1941 and was stationed in the Pacific during World War II.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit /> After his service, he attended the New School for Social Research in New York.
Gilman was a freelance writer. After converting to Catholicism, he wrote for the left-leaning Catholic journal ''Commonweal'' and from 1964 to 1967, he was the drama critic for ''Newsweek''.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit />
In 1967, the dean of the Yale School of Drama, Robert Brustein, invited him to teach. Gilman was a professor at Yale School of Drama for 31 years.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit /> He also taught at Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, Barnard and the City University of New York.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit />
Gilman was the author of five books of criticism, and a memoir.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit />
== Personal life == In 1949, Gilman married painter Esther Morgenstern.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit /> In 1966, Gilman married Lynn Nesbit, a literary agent,<ref name=NYTGilmanObit /> (who would go on to co-found the literary agency Janklow & Nesbit Associates with Morton L. Janklow), In 1992, Gilman married Japanese scholar, Yasuko Shiojiri, who would translate his books into Japanese.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit /> Gilman has three children from his first two marriages: Nicholas, Priscilla, and Claire.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit />
Gilman died of lung cancer on October 28, 2006, at the age of 83 at his home in Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan.<ref name=NYTGilmanObit /><ref name="NYT_Gilman"/>
He was born Jewish, converted to Catholicism as an adult, and lapsed from that faith eight years later. His memoir ''Faith, Sex, Mystery'' is primarily devoted to explaining his conversion and deconversion.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/01/books/best-sellers-february-1-1987.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm New York Times: "Best Sellers February 1, 1987"] "''Faith, Sex, Mystery: A Memoir, by Richard Gilman. (Simon & Schuster, $16.95.) In a sort of rueful tranquillity, tinged with the pain of loss, the writer and critic recollects and reflects on his conversion from Jewish atheist to Roman Catholic nearly 35 years ago, and his lapse from the church eight years later''"</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/theater/31gilman.html New York Times obituary] * [http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-gilman4nov04,1,5893868.story?coll=la-news-obituaries Los Angeles Times obituary]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilman, Richard}} Category:1923 births Category:2006 deaths Category:American literary critics Category:20th-century American Jews Category:American theatre critics Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Category:Deaths from lung cancer in Japan Category:David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University faculty Category:Former Roman Catholics Category:21st-century American Jews