The directory «Plots»

Segal Erich Wolf
(1937—2010)

Erich Wolf Segal was an American author, screenwriter, and educator. He was best-known for writing the novel Love Story (1970), a bestseller, and writing the motion picture of the same name, which was a major hit.

The son of a rabbi, Segal attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn and traveled to Switzerland to take summer courses. He attended Harvard College, graduating as both the class poet and Latin salutatorian in 1958, after which he obtained his master's degree (in 1959) and a doctorate (in 1965) in comparative literature, from Harvard University.

Segal was a professor of Greek and Latin literature at Harvard University, Yale University and Princeton University. He had been a supernumerary fellow and subsequently an honorary fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford.

In 1967, from the story by Lee Minoff, he wrote the screenplay for The Beatles' 1968 motion picture, Yellow Submarine.

In the late 1960s, Segal collaborated on other screenplays, and also had written a synthetic romantic story by himself about a Harvard student and a Radcliff student, but failed to sell it. However, literary agent Lois Wallace at the William Morris Agency suggested he turn the script into a novel and the result was a literary and motion picture phenomenon called Love Story. A New York Times No. 1 bestseller, the book became the top selling work of fiction for 1970 in the United States, and was translated into 33 languages worldwide. The motion picture of the same name was the number one box office attraction of 1970.

Segal went on to write more novels and screenplays, including the 1977 sequel to Love Story, called Oliver's Story. He published a number of scholarly works as well as teaching at the university level. He acted as a visiting professor for the University of Munich, Princeton University, and Dartmouth College. He wrote widely on Greek and Latin literature. His novel The Class (1985), a saga based on the Harvard Class of 1958, was also a bestseller, and won literary honor in France and Italy. Doctors was another New York Times bestseller from Segal.

Guinea, 2008, Winners of Golden Globe