Robert Sklar

{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox academic | name = Robert Sklar | birth_name = Robert Anthony Sklar | birth_date = {{Birth date |1936|12|3}} | birth_place = New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2011|07|2|1936|12|3}} | death_place = Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain | occupation = {{Hlist|Film scholar|journalist}} | alma_mater = {{ubl|Princeton University|Harvard University}} | relatives = Marty Sklar (brother) | workplaces = {{ubl|University of Michigan|Tisch School of the Arts}} | main_interests = Film history | thesis_title = F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Last Laocoon | thesis_year = 1965 }}

'''Robert Anthony Sklar''' (December 3, 1936 – July 2, 2011) was an American historian and author specializing in the history of cinema.

Sklar began his career as a reporter for the ''Los Angeles Times''. He received a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard University in 1965. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.<ref>"Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" January 30, 1968 ''New York Post''</ref>

He was a history professor at the University of Michigan, and in 1977, became a professor of cinema in the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.<ref name = Grimes>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/movies/robert-sklar-film-scholar-dies-at-74.html?ref=deathsobituaries|title=Robert Sklar, Film Scholar, Is Dead at 74|date=July 6, 2011|work=The New York Times|author=William Grimes|author-link=William Grimes (journalist)}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=McLellan|first=Dennis|date=July 11, 2011|title=Robert Sklar dies at 74; historian broke new ground in study of American film|url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-xpm-2011-jul-11-la-me-robert-sklar-20110710-story.html|access-date=March 24, 2021|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=March 26, 2020|title=If you build it, they will enroll|url=https://michigantoday.umich.edu/2020/03/26/if-you-build-it-they-will-enroll/|access-date=March 24, 2021|website=Michigan Today|language=en-US}}</ref>

== Early life and biography == Sklar was born on December 3, 1936, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His father was a high school teacher in Highland Park, New Jersey. Sklar was 9 years old when his family moved to Long Beach, California,<ref name=":0" /> where he went to Long Beach Polytechnic High School and was the editor of the school newspaper.<ref name=":0" /> Later, at Princeton University, Sklar served as chairman of the editorial board of The Daily Princetonian. After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1958, he worked on the rewrite desk in the Associated Press bureau in Newark and as a writer and reporter for the Los Angeles Times before doing graduate study at the University of Bonn on a Fulbright Scholarship from 1959 to 1960.<ref>{{Cite web|date=January 21, 2016|title=Robert A. Sklar '58|url=https://paw.princeton.edu/memorial/robert-sklar-%E2%80%9958|access-date=March 24, 2021|website=Princeton Alumni Weekly|language=en}}</ref>

Sklar received a doctorate from Harvard in 1965. His dissertation became the title of his first book, ''F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Last Laocoon'' (1967).

Sklar was married twice and had two children.<ref name = Grimes/> He had an older brother, Marty Sklar, who was the former creative head of Walt Disney Imagineering. On July 2, 2011, Sklar died while on vacation in Barcelona, aged 74, from a brain injury sustained in a bicycle accident.<ref name = Grimes/><ref name = Hoberman>{{cite news|url = http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/07/robert_sklar_19.php|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110817004511/http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/07/robert_sklar_19.php|date = July 5, 2011|archive-date = August 17, 2011|title = Robert Sklar, 1936-2011|author = J. Hoberman|work = The Village Voice}}</ref>

== Books == *{{Cite book|last=Sklar|first=Robert|title=F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Last Laocoön|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1967|location=London, New York}} *{{Cite book|last=Sklar|first=Robert|title=Prime-Time America: Life on and Behind the Television Screen|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1980|location=}} *{{Cite book|last=Sklar|first=Robert|title=Film: An International History of the Medium|publisher=Prentice Hall|year=2002|isbn=0130340499|edition=2|location=|orig-year=1990}} *{{Cite book|last=Sklar|first=Robert|title=City boys: Cagney, Bogart, Garfield|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1992|isbn=978-0-691-04795-9|edition=|location=|oclc=24318057|orig-year=}} *{{Cite book|last=Sklar|first=Robert|title=Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies|publisher=Vintage Books|year=1994|isbn=978-0-679-75549-4|edition=|location=New York|oclc=499793364|orig-year=1975}} *{{Cite book|last1=Sklar|first1=Robert|title=Frank Capra: Authorship and the Studio System|last2=Zagarrio|first2=Vito|publisher=Temple University Press|year=1998|isbn=1439904898|edition=|location=|oclc=|orig-year=}} *{{Cite book|last=Putnam|first=Michael|title=Silent Screens: The Decline and Transformation of the American Movie Theater|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=2000|isbn=0801863295|edition=|location=|oclc=|orig-year=}} (with an introductory essay by Robert Sklar) *{{Cite book|last=Sklar|first=Robert|title=A World History of Film|publisher=Harry N. Abrams|year=2002|isbn=0810906066|edition=|location=|oclc=|orig-year=}} *{{Cite book|last1=Sklar|first1=Robert|title=Global Neorealism: The Transnational History of a Film Style|last2=Giovacchini|first2=Saverio|publisher=|year=2011|isbn=|edition=|location=|oclc=|orig-year=}}

== References == {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{IMDb name|id=1051685}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sklar, Robert}} Category:1936 births Category:2011 deaths Category:20th-century American historians Category:20th-century American journalists Category:21st-century American historians Category:American film historians Category:American newspaper reporters and correspondents Category:American tax resisters Category:Cycling road incident deaths Category:Deaths from head injury Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Historians from New Jersey Category:Los Angeles Times people Category:New York University faculty Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Road incident deaths in Spain Category:Tisch School of the Arts faculty Category:University of Michigan faculty Category:Writers from Long Beach, California Category:Writers from New Brunswick, New Jersey