William Jourdan Rapp
Writer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Jourdan Rapp (June 17, 1895 – 1942) was a writer and editor in the United States. He wrote plays,[1] novels, and radio scripts. He edited True Story magazine.
Rapp was born in New York City. He graduated from Cornell in 1917[2] and worked as a health inspector in New York City until World War I. He served in France. After the war he also worked in Turkey.[3]
He kept a scrapbook during his time at a YMCA camp in Greece. He went on to edit the popular True Story magazine and various radio series. In 1925 he wrote a piece in the New York Times about French Royalists.[4]
He wrote with Wallace Thurman, Hughes Allison, and Lowell Brentano.[5]
He married actress Virginia Venable Rapp and had a son and daughter.[6]
Plays
- Osman Pasha[2]
- Whirlpool (1929)[7][8]
- Hilda Cassidy
- Substitute for Murder[9]
- Holmses of Baker Street
- Harlem: A Melodrama of Negro Life in Harlem written with Wallace Thurman,[10] adapting Thurman's first novel The Blacker the Berry to the stage
- Jeremiah the Magnificent written with Wallace Thurman about Marcus Garvey and "Black Mecca"[5]
Books
- When I Was a Boy in Turkey
- Looking Down from Olympus
- Poolroom
