{{Short description|American journalist and author (1945–2020)}} {{use mdy dates|date=November 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Robert Sam Anson | image = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1945|03|12|mf=yes}} | birth_place = Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2020|11|02|1945|03|12|mf=yes}} | death_place = Rexford, New York, U.S. | occupation = Writer | spouses = Diane McAniff (c. late-1960s)<br>Sharon Haddock (c. mid-1970s)<br>{{marriage|Amanda Kay Kyser|1985|2017|reason=divorced}} | children = 3 | alma_mater = University of Notre Dame }}
'''Robert Sam Anson''' (March 12, 1945{{spnd}}November 2, 2020) was an American journalist and author.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/robert-sam-anson|title=Robert Sam Anson – Latest Articles|magazine=Vanity Fair|access-date=November 14, 2020}}</ref> He was noted for his work as a contributing editor to ''Vanity Fair''. He also wrote many articles for ''Esquire'', ''Life'', ''Time'', ''The Atlantic'' and other magazines.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-09-24-ls-49408-story.html|title=The Sunday Profile : Last of a Breed : Robert Sam Anson would go to hell and back for a good story--a passion that many admire. But some say making him editor of Los Angeles magazine was a risky move.|date=September 24, 1995|newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}</ref>
He authored six nonfiction books, including ''Gone Crazy and Back Again: The Rise and Fall of the Rolling Stone Generation'', about Jann Wenner and his magazine.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/10/books/books-of-the-times-books-of-the-times.html|title=Books of the Times|work=The New York Times |date=February 10, 1981|via=NYTimes.com}}</ref>
==Early life== Anson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 12, 1945. His mother, Virginia Rose Anson, worked as a teacher. She raised him as a single parent, with the help of her own parents.<ref name="NYT obit">{{cite news|title=Robert Sam Anson, 'Bare-knuckled' Magazine Writer, Dies at 75|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/06/business/media/robert-sam-anson-dead.html|first=Katharine Q.|last=Seelye|date=November 6, 2020|access-date=November 6, 2020|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> His grandfather, Sam B. Anson, was a notable personality in the city's journalism industry as editor and publisher of several local daily newspapers.<ref name="NYT obit"/><ref name=Friend>{{cite magazine|title=Farewell, Robert Sam Anson (1945–2020)|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/11/farewell-robert-sam-anson|first=David|last=Friend|date=November 6, 2020|access-date=November 6, 2020|magazine=Vanity Fair}}</ref> Anson graduated from Saint Ignatius High School in 1963. He went on to study international relations and English at the University of Notre Dame, obtaining a bachelor's degree from that institution in 1967.<ref name="NYT obit"/> He spoke of Theodore Hesburgh, the president of Notre Dame at the time, as "the only father [he] ever had".<ref name=NCR>{{cite news|title=Reporter recalls rocky friendship with Fr. Theodore Hesburgh|url=https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/reporter-recalls-rocky-friendship-fr-theodore-hesburgh|first1=Robert Sam|last1=Anson|first2=Tom|last2=Roberts|date=May 2, 2015|access-date=November 7, 2020|newspaper=National Catholic Reporter}}</ref>
Anson started writing for ''Time'' during his studies and was consequently employed there full-time after graduation.<ref name="WP obit">{{cite news|title=Robert Sam Anson, journalist who chronicled war, power and social ills, dies at 75|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-sam-anson-journalist-who-chronicled-war-power-and-social-ills-dies-at-75/2020/11/07/d3bb87b0-211b-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html|first=Matt|last=Schudel|date=November 7, 2020|access-date=November 7, 2020|newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref>
==Career== Two years after graduating, Anson went to Vietnam and Cambodia to cover the Vietnam War for ''Time''. He was taken prisoner by North Vietnamese troops on August 3, 1970, and remained in captivity for three weeks.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/a/a602.htm|title=Bio: Robert Anson|website=pownetwork.org}}</ref> He avoided execution after convincing his captors that he was a journalist.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-10-16-8901220567-story.html|title=All Caught Up in the Fury of War|newspaper=Chicago Tribune|date=October 16, 1989 }}</ref> He discovered 15 years later that Hesburgh called Pope Paul VI, who purportedly appealed to the Cambodian authorities to secure Anson's release.<ref name=NCR/> Anson subsequently wrote of his experience in ''War News: A Young Reporter in Indochina''.<ref name=Friend/>
After being released, Anson relocated to the New York office of ''Time''. He was a product of the New Journalism, which embraced the notion that journalists ought to immerse themselves in what they wrote and utilize "dramatic literary devices" to create a more powerful narrative.<ref name="WP obit"/> One of Anson's earliest tasks there was to cover boxer Joe Frazier. Fellow editor Chris Byron recounted how Anson got into the ring with Frazier, who promptly broke Anson's leg or dislocated his shoulder.<ref name=Lacher/> Byron added how he "thought this guy [Anson] was completely out of his mind".<ref name="WP obit"/><ref name=Lacher>{{cite news|title=The Sunday Profile – Last of a Breed|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-09-24-ls-49408-story.html|first=Irene|last=Lacher|date=September 24, 1995|access-date=November 7, 2020|newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}</ref>
His 1981 ''Esquire'' cover story on Doug Kenney, "The Life and Death of a Comic Genius," was the first major print remembrance of the ''National Lampoon'' humorist and screenwriter.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/01/doug-kenney-the-odd-comic-genius-behind-animal-house-and-national-lampoon|title=Doug Kenney: The Odd Comic Genius Behind 'Animal House' and National Lampoon|first=Robert Sam|last=Anson|website=The Daily Beast |date=March 1, 2014|via=www.thedailybeast.com}}</ref> Anson attempted to write about The Walt Disney Company in the early 1990s. However, his publisher, Simon & Schuster, abruptly called off the project. He consequently sued the publishing company for $1 million, alleging that they had been pressured by superiors in the industry to abandon his book. The two parties eventually reached an out of court settlement.<ref name="WP obit"/>
Anson became editor of ''Los Angeles'' magazine in 1995, but was fired after only five months in the position. During this time, all but two of the magazine's 19 contributing editors left the publication within two months.<ref name="WP obit"/> Several employees and the ''Los Angeles Times'' criticized Anson for being temperamental and sexist.<ref name="NYT obit"/><ref name="WP obit"/> Others came to his defense, seeing that his clash of personalities with a dull workplace environment would inevitably upset those who were there.<ref name="NYT obit"/> Anson returned to the East Coast, residing in Sag Harbor at the East End of Long Island. He did the majority of his writing in an Airstream trailer (which he nicknamed "the Bambi"), situated at the back of his house.<ref name="NYT obit"/><ref name=Friend/> He maintained a blog called "About Editing and Writing."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Schudel|first=Matt|date=November 8, 2020|title=Robert Sam Anson, journalist who chronicled war, power and social ills, dies at 75|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-sam-anson-journalist-who-chronicled-war-power-and-social-ills-dies-at-75/2020/11/07/d3bb87b0-211b-11eb-b532-05c751cd5dc2_story.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref>
Anson conducted an interview with Hesburgh in 2006. They discussed political and global issues, as well as their past interactions with each other. The interview was not published until after Hesburgh's death in 2015.<ref name=NCR/>
==Personal life== Anson married his first wife, Diane McAniff, in the late 1960s, after meeting at the University of Notre Dame. They divorced shortly afterwards. His second marriage was to Sharon Haddock during the mid-1970s. He subsequently married Amanda Kay Kyser in 1985. They remained married until 2017. He had one son (Sam Gideon) and two daughters (Christian and Georgia Grace).<ref name="NYT obit"/><ref name=Friend/>
Anson overcame a bout of cancer. He consequently became involved with the Visible Ink writing program at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.<ref name="NYT obit"/> He died on November 2, 2020, in Rexford, New York, at age 75. He had been suffering from dementia in the time leading up to his death.<ref name="NYT obit"/><ref name=Friend/>
==Books== * ''McGovern: A Biography'' (1972). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston; {{ISBN|9780030913457}}<ref name="NYT obit"/> * ''"They've Killed the President!": The Search for the Murderers of John F. Kennedy'' (1975). New York: Bantam Books. {{ISBN|9780553025255}}<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CndAAAAAIAAJ|title="They've Killed the President!": The Search for the Murderers of John F. Kennedy|publisher=Bantam Books|year=1975|last=Anson|first=Robert Sam|isbn=9780552625258}}</ref> * ''Gone Crazy and Back Again: The Rise and Fall of the Rolling Stone Generation'' (1981). Garden City: Doubleday. {{ISBN|9780385131148}}<ref name="NYT obit"/> * ''Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard M. Nixon'' (1984). New York: Simon and Schuster. {{ISBN|9780671440213}}<ref name="NYT obit"/> * ''Best Intentions: The Education and Killing of Edmund Perry'' (1987). New York: Random House. {{ISBN|9780394552743}}<ref name="NYT obit"/> * ''War News: A Young Reporter in Indochina'' (1989). New York: Simon and Schuster; {{ISBN|9780671665715}}<ref name="NYT obit"/>
== References == {{reflist}}
==External links== *Anson's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DARSuMU1TTM appearance] on ''The Ron Reagan Show'' in November 1991 to discuss the Kennedy assassination.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Anson, Robert Sam}} Category:1945 births Category:2020 deaths Category:20th-century American biographers Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American political writers Category:American war correspondents of the Vietnam War Category:Deaths from dementia in New York (state) Category:Saint Ignatius High School (Cleveland) alumni Category:Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters alumni Category:Writers from Cleveland Category:Journalists from Cleveland Category:American male biographers Category:20th-century American male writers Category:20th-century American male journalists Category:20th-century American journalists