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Bernard Taper
Bernard B. Taper (1918-2016) was an American journalist and author.
Born in Scotland on January 28, 1918 and raised in London, England, Taper came to the U.S. alone on a freighter at the age of 11...view moreBernard B. Taper (1918-2016) was an American journalist and author.
Born in Scotland on January 28, 1918 and raised in London, England, Taper came to the U.S. alone on a freighter at the age of 11. He was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army during WWII and, immediately after it ended, became one of the “monuments men” charged with the duty of recovering paintings and sculptures looted by the Nazis. He earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in creative writing from Stanford. He used many of those skills during his reporting career at The Chronicle from 1950 to 1955.
In 1956, Taper joined the staff of The New Yorker, where he remained for three decades and, with his friend and former Chronicle reporter Kevin Wallace, wrote countless Talk of the Town stories. Taper profiled 14-year-old chess prodigy Bobby Fischer; the first prime minister of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah; cellist Pablo Casals; and Broadway producer Jerome Robbins.
In 1963, he expanded a series of his profiles of choreographer George Balanchine into a best-selling biography, considered the definitive account of the great Russian man of dance.
In 1970, he joined the faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, where he was best known for teaching a class on the writing of profiles and short biographies.
Taper helped found the California Shakespeare Theater in 1973.
He died in Berkeley, California on October 17, 2016, aged 98.view less
Books by Bernard Taper
Cellist in Exile: A Portrait of Pablo Casals Gomillion Versus Lightfoot: The Tuskegee Gerrymander Case Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings