Stanley Ambrose Harrington Reynolds (November 27, 1934 – November 27, 2016) was an American journalist, author, and critic who spent most of his life in the UK. Reynolds was born in

Holyoke, Massachusetts Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, that lies between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,247. Loca ...

on November 27, 1934 to Ambrose Harrington Reynolds, a sales manager for the

R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) is an American tobacco manufacturing company based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded by namesake R. J. Reynolds in 1875, it is the largest tobacco company in the United States. The company is a w ...

, and Irene Ducharme, who was French-Canadian. He was raised as a Catholic, and spoke only French until he was four. He served in the US military with the First Infantry Division. He met his first wife, Gillian Morton, in Holyoke; she was from

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

and was spending a year studying at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the h ...

. The couple moved to the UK together, where they married in 1958. They returned to the US for a year, and Reynolds worked as a reporter for ''The Providence Journal'' in Rhode Island, but the couple had returned to the UK by 1960. Reynolds worked for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' in the 1960s, and published his first novel, ''Better Dead than Red'', in 1964; it was praised by

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his Utopian and dystopian fiction, dy ...

as "savagely funny". He also wrote the lyrics for a production of

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

's '' Androcles and the Lion''. He became ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' television reviewer in 1972. By this time, he had turned freelance, and wrote for ''The Guardian'', ''The Times'', and '' Punch'', where he took a job as literary editor in 1980. Around 1980, he made a BBC documentary called ''Great Little Railways'', about a trip through the

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

ean

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

. Later he contributed to '' The European''. His first marriage ended in divorce in 1975. In an interview in 2018, his first wife, the journalist

Gillian Reynolds Gillian Reynolds (née Morton; born 15 November 1935) is an English radio critic. After writing for ''The Guardian'' from 1967 to 1974, she was the radio critic for ''The Daily Telegraph'' for over 42 years, from 1975 to 2018. She then continued ...

, reported that she was the victim of domestic violence. "When sober he was lovely, when drunk monstrous", she said. She gained custody of the couple's three sons. He married Jane McLoughlin in 2004. He wrote crime novels included ''Death Dyed Blonde'', which appeared in 2008. He was a notoriously heavy drinker, but gave up alcohol in 1984. He had a serious heart attack in 2003 and became increasingly disabled, till he was unable to walk. He died on November 27, 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Stanley 1934 births 2016 deaths American male journalists Obituary writers Writers from Massachusetts Punch (magazine) people Writers from Holyoke, Massachusetts