Finis Farr

Finis Farr (December 31, 1904 – January 3, 1982) was an American writer and biographer. In addition to books, his work appeared in newspapers, magazines, radio programs, television programs, and films. He worked for the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950s.

Life and career The son of Rev. Dr. Finis K. Farr and his wife Ethel Riley Farr, Finis Farr was born in Lebanon, Tennessee. He was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio;

In the late 1930 Farr was employed as a contributing editor to Time magazine. In 1959 he resumed writing full time, and was principally active as a writer of biographies thereafter. He also contributed articles to magazines like American Heritage, Sports Illustrated, and The Saturday Evening Post.

Farr was a longtime resident of Ridgewood, New Jersey prior to retiring to Portland, Maine in 1978. He died in Portland on January 3, 1982.

Works Frank Lloyd Wright (1961), biography of an architect Frank Lloyd Wright (Charles Scribner's Sons) Black Champion: The Life and Times of Jack Jackson (1964), biography of the boxer Jack Johnson The Elephant Valley (1967) FDR (1972), biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Arlington House) O'Hara: A Biography (1973), biography of John O'Hara (Little, Brown and Company) Chicago: A Personal History of America's Most American City (1973) (Arlington House) Fair enough: The life of Westbrook Pegler (1975), biography of Westbrook Pegler (Artington House) Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta: the author of Gone With the Wind (1976), biography of Margaret Mitchell (Avon) Richenbacker's Luck: An American Life (1979), biography of Eddie Rickenbacker