This is the definitive biography of prominent social historian, television critic, and animal-rights activist Cleveland Amory. In this first comprehensive biography of Cleveland Amory, Marilyn Greenwald applies her considerable journalistic skills to a searching account of the complex life and times of this successful writer turned dedicated animal-rights activist - what shaped his beliefs in social responsibility and how his own intense commitment to his chosen cause, ignited by the spectacle of a Mexican bullfight he covered as a young journalist, permeated every aspect of his life. Amory's bestselling books included three classic social history critiques, "The Proper Bostonians", "The Last Resorts", "Who Killed Society?" and his popular series on 'Polar Bear,' a cat that he rescued from the streets of Manhattan on Christmas Eve 1978, now available as "The Compleat Cat". In the 1960s and 1970s, Amory wrote prolifically for "TV Guide" (for which he was chief critic for over a decade), "Saturday Review", "Parade", and other publications.
He was a regular commentator on Today until 1963, when he was summarily fired for a story on animal abuse that greatly disturbed NBC's breakfast audience. In 1967 Amory founded the charity Fund for Animals, and as an animal-rights activist he employed his charm, intelligence, and understanding of human nature to garner national publicity for a movement that was, in the 1960s, relatively obscure. He was the first to use celebrities, including Mary Tyler Moore, Doris Day, Grace Kelly, Dick Cavett, and Jack Paar, to help get support for the Fund for Animals. Amory's Fund merged with the Humane Society in 2005. Throughout his life, Amory reinvented himself several times, and Marilyn Greenwald follows him every step of the way with an outstanding narrative and penetrating analysis of the man, his career, the animal-rights movement, the times, and the extraordinary legacy of Cleveland Amory.