David Weiss

David Weiss (1909 – November 29, 2002) was an American novelist and writer best known for his bestselling 1963 biographical novel Naked Came I about the life of sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Biography

Born in 1909, from an early age Weiss showed an interest in the lives of artists and composers. His father was a painter, and after Weiss was orphaned at the age of four he was raised in Philadelphia by an aunt who owned a Russian restaurant across the street from the Academy of Music.

In 1933 he graduated from Temple University and moved to New York, where he became private secretary to Erwin Piscator, Karlen often contributed poetry to Weiss's novels, and the couple lived in New York, London and La Jolla, California. After her death Weiss wrote a biography of his wife, Forever and After.

David Weiss died on November 29, 2002, at a La Jolla Hospital. The cause was thrombophlebitis and complications from a fall. He was 93. and a couple of contemporary set novels, Weiss's speciality was biographical fiction – particularly of artists, such as Titian and Rembrandt. He wrote two novels about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sacred and Profane (1968) described by Yehudi Menuhin as ‘a very readable book which portrays the human being behind the music, increasing our love of both' and The Assassination of Mozart (1970) a fictitious examination of the mysteries surrounding the composer’s death.

The following are a selection of the critical plaudits Weiss received during his career:

‘There is a rich, tapestried quality to The Venetian. It is not only an absorbing story but an intelligent book showing Mr Weiss again to be one of the best practitioners of the biographical novel, especially perceptive in the study of artists.’ – Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal

‘If all history were written as David Weiss wrote Myself, Christopher Wren, you would have to stand in line to sign up for history courses throughout the world.’ – Tom Ferris, The Miami Herald

The Spirit and the Flesh ‘is a monumental work in which the author’s stupendous capacity for biographical research is surpassed only by his brilliance as a novelist with a fine sense of the dramatic.’ – King Features

Sacred and Profane: ‘I have read a number of biographies of Mozart, but I have never been so caught up in the essential tragedy of his life, nor so moved by the frustrating and heartbreaking circumstances of his day to day struggles.’ – Sheldon Harnick