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Call for Information: Russell Maloney
Filed under: Letters & Challenges Tagged: E.B. White, Miriam Maloney, Russell Maloney
Martin Schneider writes:
In Comments, Ken Nettleton seeks information on a prominent New Yorker contributor from the past:
Have a very elderly friend whose husband was a Harvard friend of a Russ Maloney (sp?) or Mahoney who worked at the New Yorker and was a contemporary of EB White. His wife's name was Miriam who was an actress. Belief Mr. Maloney/Mahoney died from an anurysm after he lost his wealth in a failed musical. Would like to find some record (if any) of Mr. M's writing and what ever happened to his daughter after his wife remarried.
Russell Maloney (not Mahoney) is credited with 387 items in The Complete New Yorker between 1931 and 1948. The vast majority of them are Comments or Talk of the Town items, both of which were unsigned for many years, I believe. So the occasional Profile or short story notwithstanding, it's likely that readers were not aware of his large impact on The New Yorker in its formative first decades.
According to Wikipedia, Maloney wrote the book and lyrics for a 1948 Broadway musical of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which must be the "failed musical" Nettleton mentions. According to Time Magazine, he died in 1948 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Miriam Maloney is credited with four Talk of the Town items herself. Can anyone help Mr. Nettleton discover what became of their daughter?
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- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
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- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
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- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
I submitted this over on the Ask the Librarians comment thread, too, but Maloney’s wife was Miriam Battista. Her obituary in the New York Times indicates that she was survived by a daughter, Amelia Rosamond Hard, of Portland, OR. If you do a Google search, she appears to be a chef out there.
The descendants of this family can be reached at NysnoopySnoopy@aol.com