David McCullough was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of popular history narratives, as well as the narrator of films including “Seabiscuit.”
- Died: August 7, 2022 (Who else died on August 7?)
- Details of death: Died at his home in Hingham, Massachusetts at the age of 89.
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Author and narrator
McCullough got his start as an author with 1968’s “The Johnstown Flood,” telling the story of the catastrophic 1889 Pennsylvania flood that killed more than 2,200 people. Following it with “The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge,” McCullough began to gain a reputation as a meticulous historian whose engaging writing made his subject matter come alive for readers. His biographies of presidents Harry S. Truman and John Adams both won Pulitzer Prizes, and they were adapted by HBO into a TV film and a miniseries. Not just a writer, McCullough also found a niche as a narrator, beginning with the 1981 Ken Burns film “Brooklyn Bridge,” based on McCullough’s book. He went on to work with Burns as a narrator on a number of films and miniseries, including “The Statue of Liberty,” “The Congress,” and “The Civil War.” McCullough also narrated the Oscar-nominated film “Seabiscuit.”
Notable quote
“People often ask me if I’m working on a book. That’s not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It’s like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It’s almost like hypnosis.” —from a 1992 interview for the New York Times
Tributes to David McCullough
Full obituary: The New York Times
