Leon Uris Biography and List of Works

American writer whose bestseller Exodus (1958) was immediately translated into some 50 languages. Uris is known for his panoramic, action-filled novels, which often depict determined individuals during the most dramatic periods of modern history. His central themes are the indomitabile nature of the human spirit and the restorative capacity of romantic love.

"This was what I came to find. The conquest of loneliness was the missing link that was, one day, going to make a decent novelist out of me. If you are out here and cannot close off the loves and hates of all that back there in the real world, the memories will overtake you and swamp you and wilt your tenacity. Tenacity, stamina... close off to everything and everyone but your writing. That's the bloody price. I don't know, maybe it's some kind of ultimate selfishness. Maybe it's part of the killer instinct. Unless you can stash away and bury thoughts of your greatest love, you cannot sustain the kind of concentration that breaks most men trying to write a book over a three- or four-year period."
(from Mitla Pass, 1988)

Leon Uris was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of William and Anna (Blumberg) Uris. His father, a Polish immigrant, was a paperhanger and later a storekeeper. Uris attended schools in Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore, failing his English exam on three occasions, and never graduated from high school. At the age of seventeen Uris joined the United States Marine Corp and from 1942 to 1945 served in the South Pacific at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and New Zealand. He was sent to recuperate from malaria in San Francisco, where he met Betty Beck, a Marine sergeant. They married in 1945.

In the late 1940s Uris was a newspaper driver for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin. He had been writing stories since his childhood, but his first attempts at publication were not successful. In 1950 Esquire bought an article on football. He began to work intensively on a novel about the Marine Corp, based on his experiences during training and combat, often writing 18 hours a day. From 1950 he became a full-time writer. Although several publishers first rejected the manuscript, it finally appeared in 1953 and was sold to Hollywood.

Uris's debut novel Battle Cry (1953) is a story about a battalion of Marines during World War II. It received favourable reception from both critics and readers. In 1953 Uris went to Hollywood to write the screenplay of the novel and subsequently wrote an original screenplay western, Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957). The film depicts the defeat of the Clanton Gang by Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. It was directed by John Sturges, starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.

The Angry Hills (1955) is an account of the Jewish brigade from Palestine that fought with the British army in Greece. It received less praise than Battle Cry and Uris had difficulty getting it published. The spy-chase story drew on the actual experiences of Uris's uncle, who had fought as a volunteer in the campaign.

In 1956 Uris covered the Arab-Israeli conflict as a war correspondent. Two years later Exodus was published, which became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest bestseller in the United States since Gone with the Wind. It deals with the struggle to establish and defend the state of Israel. The birth of a new nation was depicted through several characters but the story of an American nurse and an Israeli freedom fighter formed the nucleus of the work. Otto Preminger, who directed the film based on the book, considered it anti-British and anti-Arab. He also thought that his picture avoided propaganda and was much closer to the truth than the book. However, Uris publicly declared that the director had ruined his work, a situation Preminger had already experienced when he directed The Man with the Golden Arm, based on Nelson Algren's novel. Naturally the large historical sections in Exodus, dealing with the origins of ghetto system, pogroms in Russia, the ideas of Theodor Herzl, the birth of kibbutzs, and such issues, were not in the film.

Most scenes of the film were made in locations where the original events had occurred. The historic prison break was shot in the fortress of Acre, and Israeli statesman Meyer Weisgal played the part of David Ben-Gurion in exchange for $1 million for the Weizmann Institute of Science. Almost the only genuine Jew in the entire line-up of show folk was Preminger himself. "Otto, let my people go," said satirist Mort Sahl as he watched the film's 220-minute preview. Ernest Gold won an Academy Award for his musical score.

The film begins when some thirty thousand Jews who have fled from Europe, are interned by the British on the island of Cyprus and denied entry into Palestine. In the book an American journalist, Mark Parker comes to Cyprus to see Kitty Fremont, an American nurse. Kitty has lost her husband in the war.

After preparations made by Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman), a young officer of the Palestine's Jewish Underground, three hundred refugees, mostly orphaned children, escape from the internment camp. They board an old freighter called the "Exodus" and go on a hunger strike in protest at the British destroyers blocking their path. Kitty (Eva Marie Saint) is also aboard the ship. She becomes attached to a refugee girl named Karen (Jill Haworth). Dov Landau, a survivor from Auschwitz, befriends Karen. Influenced by the intervention of the island commander, General Sutherland (Ralph Richardson), the British permit the "Exodus" to sail for Haifa. In Palestine a strong bond of affection develops between Ari and Kitty. Ari's uncle Akiva (David Opatoshu) and Dov are members of the Irgun, a terrorist organisation. Ari joins the Irgun, which executes a mass breakout of Jews from the Acre prison. Though the escape is successful, Akiva dies and Ari is wounded.

When the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine, hostilities increase. Kitty remains by Ari's side. During a Syrian raid Karen and Ari's Arab friend Taha (John Derek) are killed. Ari delivers an impassioned eulogy at their grave and goes off to continue the fight for his country. - In the book Taha's and Ari's friendship have already ended in a quarrel. Karen and Dov Landau plan their future. Karen wants to continue her work in a kibbutz. Ari and Kitty wait for Karen to attend the seder. When she fails to arrive, Ari discovers that terrorists from Gaza have killed her, and crying tells the news to Kitty.

After Exodus Uris travelled throughout Eastern Europe. For the new book he collected material from the Memorial Archives in Warsaw and interviewed the survivors of the Holocaust. Mila 18 (1961) is set in the midst of the Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis in 1943. In 1964 a German doctor sued Uris and his British publisher for libel. He claimed that Uris had mentioned him by name as one of the surgeons who had committed atrocities against the Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz. The incident provided the basis for the novel QBVII (Queen's Bench Seven), which was published in 1970 and deals with British legal practices.

After divorce in 1965 Uris married Margery Edwards in 1968; she died the following year. In 1970 Uris married the photographer Jill Peabody; they had three children. She became his chief editor and published in collaboration with Uris two books, IRELAND: A TERRIBLE BEAUTY (1975) and JERUSALEM: SONG OF SONGS (1981).

The real life background to Topaz (1967) belongs in a spy novel. An exiled French diplomat, who did not support DeGaulle's foreign policy, approached Uris with papers containing information about the French Intelligence Service. The publication of Topaz caused a serious conflict inside the French government. When Alfred Hitchcock decided to adapt the book for screen, Uris wrote the screenplay. Samuel A. Taylor, who had worked with the director in Vertigo, wrote the final scrip. The location filming in Paris was delayed. André Malraux, the French Minister of Culture, withdrew the crew's shooting permit as he felt the film was anti-French. At least three different versions for the ending were shot and later Hitchcock regarded the film as a complete disaster.

Trinity (1976) was based upon Uris's Irish experiences. While living in Dublin he had written a photo-essay entitled Ireland, a Terrible Beauty (1975). Trinity is a chronicle of a Northern Irish farm family from the 1840s to 1916, whose fate is connected with two other families, one representing the British aristocracy and the other coming from Scotland. The central characters are a young Catholic rebel and a Protestant girl, who try to find their own place in a country divided by religion and wealth. The story of the Larkin family continued in The Redemption (1995).

In The Haj (1984) Uris returns to the lands of Palestine. It depicts the lives of Palestinian Arabs from World War I to the Suez war of 1956. Some extremist Arab groups threatened Uris although this time the tragedy in the Middle East was seen through the experience of the Arab nations.

Mitla Pass (1988) is a semi autobiographical account of the Sinai campaign of 1956. The protagonist is Gideon Zadok, a gifted young author of a successful World War II novel. He travels to Israel, determined to find material for a new book. There he meets Natasha Solomon, a survivor of the Holocaust. Gideon is torn between Natasha and his love for his wife, who supported him when he was an aspiring writer. On the eve of the '56 Sinai War, Gideon joins the Israeli forces and is parachuted to the key junction of Mitla Pass, deep behind enemy lines. - Uris's latest novel, A God in Ruins, appeared in 1999. The story is narrated in flashbacks and set in the United States on the eve of the 2008 presidential election.

For further reading: Leon Uris, A Critical Companion by Kathleen Shine Cain (1998); Contemporary Popular Writers, ed. by David Mote (1997); World Authors 1950-1970, ed. by John Wakeman (1975)

Battle Cry, (1953)
Screenplay: Battle Cry, (1955)
Screenplay: Gunfight at the OK Corral, (1957)
Exodus, (1958)