St. Clair McKelway

St. Clair McKelway (February 13, 1905 – January 10, 1980) was a writer and editor for The New Yorker magazine beginning in 1933.

Childhood McKelway was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Alexander McKelway, a Presbyterian minister, journalist, and child labor reformer, and Lavinia Rutherford Smith. In 1909 the senior McKelway took a job with the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) and moved the family to Washington D.C. McKelway grew up in the Georgetown neighborhood and attended Western High School (now Duke Ellington School of the Arts).

Career He began his journalistic career at the Washington Herald before moving to New York City. While working at the New York Herald Tribune, he was described by Stanley Walker as "one of the twelve best reporters in New York."

The New Yorker McKelway came to The New Yorker at the behest of Harold Ross who "was looking to infuse the magazine with a jolt of gritty reportage." While editor he hired E. J. Kahn Jr., Joseph Mitchell, Brendan Gill, Philip Hamburger and Margaret Case Harriman. According to William Shawn, McKelway "was one of the handful of people who, together with Harold Ross, The New Yorkers founding editor, set the magazine on its course." St. Clair McKelway also wrote screenplays for two other movies in 1948: Sleep, My Love, directed by Douglas Sirk, and The Mating of Millie, starring Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes. He published the book The Edinburgh Caper: A One-Man International Plot, based on a New Yorker article, in 1962.

In 2010, Bloomsbury USA published a paperback-original collection of 18 of McKelway's works, Reporting at Wit's End: Tales from the New Yorker , with an appreciative introduction by Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker.

Personal life McKelway was married five times, including to the writer Maeve Brennan. His brother Benjamin Mosby McKelway was a reporter for The Washington Star. He was also involved with Eileen McKenney.

St. Clair McKelway died at the DeWitt Nursing Home in Manhattan on January 10, 1980.

He should not be confused with his great-uncle, also named St. Clair McKelway, the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle.