Clancy Sigal

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

American writer, a first rate novelist. As a journalist, he contributed lively, sympathetic and informative articles and stories to major American and English magazines. His works include four novels. The son of immigrant trade unionists, Leo and Jenny (Persily) Sigal, Clancy was born in Chicago, and grew up in various neighborhoods. He read Wilde and Shaw as a youth, and was a member of the Rockets Athletic Club of Albany Park. His education was interrupted by service in the Army during World War II (1944-1946). After the war, in 1946-1947, he worked in Detroit for the automotive workers union. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California in 1950. From 1952-1956 he worked in Hollywood, first as a story analyst for Columbia Pictures and then for the Jeffe Agency. In 1957, after a stint as a free-lance writer and journalist, he settled in England. Sigal's first novel, "Weekend in Dinlock," 1960, is a powerful tale about a Yorkshire mining town. His second novel, "Going Away," 1962, is a fictionalized memoir and chronicle of the American Left since the late 1930s. Sigal is a television and radio commentator and reporter, both in England and the United States. He is an essayist and critic and contributes regularly to a number of English publications, including "The (Manchester) Guardian," "The Observer" and "The Listener." As of August 1996, he is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. Link to Wikipedia biography