Charles Samuels

Charles Samuels (September 15, 1902, in Brooklyn, New York – April 27, 1982, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico) was an American journalist, and writer best known for his biographies of celebrities, He penned as-told-to autobiographies for Buster Keaton (My Wonderful World of Slapstick) and Ethel Waters (His Eye is on the Sparrow) which was a best seller. Among his other books were Magnificent Rube: The Life and Gaudy Times of Tex Rickard and The King: A Biography of Clark Gable.

Samuels began his career as a sports and feature writer with the Brooklyn Eagle in 1923.

His book with Boris Morros, My Ten Years as a Counterspy was made into the film, Man on a String (1960), starring Ernest Borgnine. The title of another, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, about Evelyn Nesbit, was used in the 1955 movie. He was the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe award (now called the Edgar Award) in 1957 for Night Fell on Georgia (written with his wife Louise Samuels).

Samuels, who wrote thousands of magazine and newspaper articles, also helped write the newspaper columns of Ben Hecht and Billy Rose. He was the New York City Editor of Paramount News.

He lived mostly in New York City and its suburbs Hastings-on-Hudson, Nyack, New York, and Grand View, New York, where he was the director for the Rockland Foundation (now the Rockland Center for the Arts) and retired in Cuernavaca, Mexico. His son Robert C. Samuels was an award-winning journalist and writer and his namesake grandson, Charles Samuels is a director/photographer.