Howard Sackler Biography

Born on December 19, 1929, in the Bronx, Howard Sackler attended Brooklyn College, earning the bachelor of arts degree in 1950. A natural writer, Sackler wrote verse, publishing in respected poetry journals such as The Hudson Review and Poetry; his early work was gathered in Want My Shepherd and published by Caedmon in 1954. Combining his interest in the theater with his verse writing, Sackler wrote Uriel Acosta, for which he received the Maxwell Anderson Award in 1954. His tendency was always to look to historical settings for his plays; after his success with Uriel Acosta, about a Portuguese Jew in the generation before Baruch Spinoza, Sackler looked at the life of the French poet Tristan Corbière. The play, his first in prose, won the Sergel Award in 1959 and marked the beginning of his interest in nineteenth century health practices, which was to find its best voice in Semmelweiss. While building his playwriting career, Sackler founded Caedmon Records, which provided his livelihood as he built a reputation for screenwriting. Another career, in directing, took him to the New School for Social Research, where readings of several poetic plays augmented his growing number of recordings of William Shakespeare’s plays at Caedmon, with such notable voices as those of Paul Scofield, Albert Finney, and Dame Edith Evans. Sackler’s next venture into live theater came with A Few Enquiries, four one-act plays...

Born on December 19, 1929, in the Bronx, Howard Sackler attended Brooklyn College, earning a bachelor of arts degree in 1950. A natural writer, Sackler wrote in verse, publishing in respected poetry journals such as Hudson Review and Poetry; his early work was gathered in Want My Shepherd and published by Caedmon in 1954. He earned Rockefeller Foundation and Littauer Foundation grants for work in his early twenties. Combining his interest in the theater with his verse writing, Sackler wrote Uriel Acosta, for which he received the Maxwell Anderson Award in 1954. His tendency was always to look to historical settings for his plays. After his success with Uriel Acosta, about a Portuguese Jew in the generation before Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Sackler looked at the life of the French poet Tristan Corbière (1845-1875) in The Yellow Loves. The play, his first in prose, won the Sergel Award in 1959 and marked the beginning of his interest in nineteenth century health practices, which was to find its best voice in Semmelweiss. While building his playwriting career, Sackler founded Caedmon Records, which provided his livelihood as he built a reputation for screenplay writing. Another career, in directing, took him to the New School for Social Research, where readings of several poetic plays augmented his growing number of recordings of William Shakespeare’s plays at Caedmon, with such notable voices as those...

Howard Sackler was born on December 19, 1929, in New York City, although he spent much of his early childhood in Florida. He attended...