Sandy Campbell (April 22, 1922 – June 26, 1988) was a Broadway actor, and later editor and publisher, mainly for his life-partner, Donald Windham.
Early life
Sandy Campbell was born in New York City in 1922, the son of the owner of a chemical manufacturing company.
He attended Kent School, Connecticut and then studied at Princeton University.
Career
After college, Sandy Campbell tried to become an actor in Broadway; he was in Life with Father, Spring Awakening, and A Streetcar Named Desire. In more than 20 years of acting he played alongside actors by the like of Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, Jessica Tandy, Tallulah Bankhead, Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt, Lois Smith. On the screen he can be seen in Shades of Gray (1948), Man Against Crime (1949) and The Philco Television Playhouse (1948).
Campbell was a book collector, avid reader and publisher. His collection includes signed first editions by Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, E.M. Forster, Katherine Anne Porter, Isak Dinesen, Alice B. Toklas, and Marianne Moore.
As author, Campbell wrote biographies for Harper's Magazine, among whom those of Nora Joyce, E.M. Forster, Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt. He also collaborated with The New Yorker as fact checker and book reviewer. He wrote B: Twenty-Six Letters from Coconut Grove, an account of his experience playing A Streetcar Named Desire alongside Tallulah Bankhead.
He stopped acting in the 1950s and he devoted himself to publishing and editing Donald Windham's books through the Stamperia Valdonega in Verona, Italy.
Personal life
Sandy Campbell met Donald Windham in 1943 while Campbell was modeling for painter Paul Cadmus. The relationship lasted until Campbell's death in 1988.
Legacy
Campbell left his estate to Windham with the agreement that, at Windham's death, the remaining of the estate would be used to create a literary prize. The Donald Windham Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes was established in 2011 by Yale University.
Sandy Campbell's book collection is preserved inside the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1948 | Shades of Gray | U.S. Army Soldier #1 |
References
- ^ "Sandy Campbell". Retrieved 25 September 2017.
- ^ Kellner, Bruce (1991). Donald Windham: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press.
External links
- Donald Windham and Sandy Campbell papers at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
- Sandy Campbell material in the Robert A. Wilson collection at Special Collections, University of Delaware Library
- 1922 births
- 1988 deaths
- American gay actors
- American male stage actors
- 20th-century American publishers (people)
- Kent School alumni
- American male film actors
- 20th-century American biographers
- 20th-century American memoirists
- American male non-fiction writers
- American gay writers
- 20th-century American male actors
- 20th-century American male writers
- 20th-century American LGBTQ people