Loading AI tools
American novelist (1945–2022) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Jay Osborn Jr. (August 5, 1945 – October 19, 2022) was an American author, lawyer, law professor, and author of The Paper Chase, a bestselling novel published in 1971, and other works.
John Jay Osborn Jr. | |
|---|---|
Osborn in 2016 | |
| Born | August 5, 1945 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | October 19, 2022 (aged 77) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Education | Harvard University (BA, JD) Yale University |
| Notable works |
|
Osborn was born in Boston, on August 5, 1945.[1] His father, John Jay Sr., was a doctor at Stanford University School of Medicine; his mother was Anne (née Kidder). He was a descendant of both John Jay,[1][2] a Founding Father and the first Chief Justice of the United States, and of railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt.[1][3]
When Osborne was nine, he relocated with his family from Boston to the San Francisco Bay Area.[1] He attended Harvard University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in American history in 1967, and then obtained his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1970.[4] He also did graduate work at Yale Law School.[5]
For his third-year writing project at Harvard Law, Osborn wrote The Paper Chase, a fictional account of one Harvard Law School student's battles with the imperious Professor Charles Kingsfield. Osborn found a publisher with the assistance of William Alfred and the book was released in 1971.[1] It was made into a film two years later, starring John Houseman and Timothy Bottoms.[6] Houseman won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as contracts professor Kingsfield.[1][7] The Paper Chase also became a television series, and Osborn wrote several of the scripts.[1][8]
After graduating from law school, Osborn clerked for Judge Max Rosenn of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1970 to 1972.[9] He was later an associate attorney with the firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.[10]
Osborn taught law at the University of Miami, the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the UC Berkeley School of Law,[5] and the University of San Francisco School of Law, from which he retired in 2018.[3]
Osborn's third novel, The Associates, was adapted into a short-lived television series starring Martin Short and Wilfrid Hyde-White.[5] He was also one of the writers, along with Thomas A. Cohen, of the screenplay for the 2010 film version of the 1983 novel The River Why by David James Duncan.[11] His final book, Listen to the Marriage, was published in 2018.[1][12]
Osborn married Emilie Heffron Sisson in 1968.[1][3] She was a Radcliffe College graduate who worked as a physician with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and they remained married until his death.[1] Together, they had three children, including Sam Meredith, who also attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School.[13]
Osborn died on October 19, 2022, at his home in San Francisco, lat age 77.. He suffered from squamous cell cancer prior to his death.[1]
Novels
Scripts
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
