Jonathan Reynolds

Jonathan Reynolds (February 13, 1942 – October 27, 2021) was an American writer. He practiced as an actor for a short period before becoming a writer. He wrote for David Frost and Dick Cavett before a breakthrough with two comedy plays (Rubbers and Yanks 3, Detroit 0, Top of the Seventh) which ran off-Broadway in 1975. His most successful play was Geniuses at Playwrights Horizons in 1982, which was inspired by his time on the set of the war movie Apocalypse Now. Reynolds wrote several screenplays, receiving praise for his writing on the 1984 romantic comedy Micki & Maude. His other film work was less well received and he was awarded the 1988 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay for 1987's Leonard Part 6. Reynolds returned to writing plays in the late 1990s and received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nomination for his work on the 1997 play Stonewall Jackson's House. He wrote a food column for The New York Times Magazine between 2000 and 2005, publishing a selection of columns in book form in 2006. Reynolds returned to acting in 2003 leading in Dinner with Demons at the Second Stage Theater.

Early life and acting career Reynolds was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on February 13, 1942. His father was Donald Worthington Reynolds, founder of the Donrey media group, and his mother was Edith Reynolds. Reynolds attended Denison University in Ohio and received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1965. He afterwards spent a year at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Reynolds went uncredited for this contribution. By 1985 Reynolds had been selected for a Rockefeller Foundation grant "to promote the creative work of American writers". Reynolds was awarded an alumni citation by Denison University later that year.

Reynolds' 1988 screenplay for Switching Channels, a comedy set in a television news studio, also failed to impress the critics. He said that its failure "hurt for about a day and then I thought, 'Well, I'm not really part of it so it doesn't really bother me'". Reynolds considered himself more of a playwright than a screenwriter. He received only two more filmwriting credits, for the 1992 political comedy The Distinguished Gentleman and the 1988 science fiction comedy My Stepmother Is an Alien.

Return to theater and food writing Reynolds returned to theater with his works including 1997's Stonewall Jackson's House and 2000's Girls in Trouble, both of which satirised a perceived liberal bias in the theater world. Reynolds divorced from Kirk in 1998.

Reynolds began writing a regular food column in The New York Times Magazine in 2000. Reynolds had no formal training in cooking but was a keen amateur who kept a diary of meals he had prepared or eaten. He continued the column for five years, including comic anecdotes alongside his recipes and cooking tips. Reynolds published a collection of columns as a 2006 book entitled Wrestling with Gravy: A Life, with Food.

In 2003 he returned to theater acting, starring in Dinner with Demons at the off-Broadway Second Stage Theater. The set, which was dressed by Heidi Ettinger, included a fully-functioning kitchen which Reynolds used to deep-fry a turkey during his performance. For legal reasons, the audience could not eat the food but it was served to the backstage crew. Reynolds married Ettinger in 2004, becoming stepfather to her three sons. That same year he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for playwriting.

Reynolds died of organ failure at Englewood, New Jersey, on October 27, 2021, aged 79.