Michael Korda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Korda

Michael Korda (born October 8, 1933, London, England, United Kingdom) is a novelist who was editor-in-Chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City.

He is the son of English actress Gertrude Musgrove and artist and film production designer Vincent Korda and the nephew of Hungarian-born film magnate Sir Alexander Korda and brother Zoltan. Michael Korda grew up in England but received part of his education in France where his father had worked with film director Marcel Pagnol. He was schooled at the private Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland and then studied at Oxford University. He served in the Royal Air Force.

While in his early twenties, he moved to New York City where he was employed by playwright Sidney Kingsley as a research assistant. In 1958 he joined the book publishing firm, Simon & Schuster, starting as an assistant editor, which included the task of reading "slush pile" manuscripts. He became Editor-in-Chief of the company and was a major figure in the book industry, publishing numerous works by high-profile writers and personalities such as William L. Shirer, Will and Ariel Durant, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. However, from a commercial point of view, Korda is best noted for pioneering best-selling novels by authors such as Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins that in the 1960s were considered very daring.

Michael Korda was a major part of Simon & Schuster for more than forty years and one of the most influential people in the business of book publishing. In the autumn of 1994, he was diagnosed as having prostate cancer. In 1997 he wrote Man to Man, which recounted his medical experience. In 2000, he published Another Life: A Memoir of Other People, about the world of publishing.

Among Korda's better-known books are Charmed Lives, which was a memoir about his life with his father and uncle, and the novel Queenie, which is a roman a clef about his aunt Merle Oberon. The latter was adapted into a TV miniseries.

Michael Korda is the father of Chris Korda, the leader of the controversial Church of Euthanasia.