Biography for Frank McCourt

Biography for Frank McCourt :

Date of Birth
19 August 1930, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Date of Death
19 July 2009, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA (metastatic melanoma)

Birth Name
Francis McCourt

Mini Biography

Frank McCourt was born August 19, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrant parents; grew up in Limerick, Ireland; and, at the age of 19, returned to the United States. Surviving initially through a string of casual jobs, spending every spare minute reading books from the public library, Frank began a process of self-education and improvement that eventually led to a career as a high-school teacher. For 27 years, he taught in various New York City public schools, the last seventeen of which were spent at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan.

After retiring from teaching, Frank and his brother Malachy McCourt performed a two-man show titled "A Couple of Blackguards," a musical review about their Irish youth. Then, in his 60s, McCourt sat down and began writing about his past. The tales of his childhood that he had told many times to his classes at school and in the bars of New York soon took shape as the highly acclaimed memoir Angela's Ashes (1999). Published initially in the United States, it went straight into the bestseller lists and then crossed the Atlantic to take the bookshops by storm in Ireland, in the rest of Europe, and around the world.

"Angela's Ashes" went on to win, in the US alone, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the LA Times Award. His second book, about his life in the US after he moved from Ireland, is called "'Tis." A third volume, "Teacher Man," appeared soon afterward. Frank McCourt lived with his wife Ellen in New York City and Connecticut.

Mini Biography By: VIJAY

Spouse
Ellen Frey (1994 - 19 July 2009) (his death)
Alberta Small (August 1961 - ?) 1 child


Trivia

Brother of Malachy McCourt.

Daughter, Maggie, with first wife. Grandaughter Chiara.

Biography-bibliography in "Contemporary Authors," New Revision Series, Vol. 138, pp. 316-319. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.

His family left the United States for Ireland in 1934, but he returned to the U.S. when he was 19.

Three of his six siblings died of diseases that were aggravated by their malnutrition.

Nearly died of typhoid fever at the age of 10.

Earned a Master's degree in English from
Brooklyn College in 1967.

Survived by his wife, Ellen Frey McCourt; his brothers, Malachy, Alphie, and Mike; his daughter Maggie McCourt; and his three grandchildren, Chiara, Frank, and Jack.

1957 graduate of New York University, having earned a Bachelor's degree in English education.

Born on Classon Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

Was a New York public school teacher for over 30 years.

Lived in the Gramercy section of Manhattan in New York City.