Donald Richie oral history interview

1981-05-18

Richie, Donald, 1924-2013; Mayo, Marlene J.

Oral history interview with Donald Richie conducted by Marlene Mayo on May 18, 1981. Donald Ritchie (April 17, 1924 - February 19, 2013) was an author, composer, film historian, film critic, and filmmaker born in Lima, OH. He served in World War II and then decided to volunteer to go abroad as an Army civilian employee. Ritchie arrived in Japan in 1946 and was assigned to the Reparation Council Committee, where he worked as a typist. In his free time, he was a writer, which landed him a job as a film critic for the newspaper, Stars and Stripes, where he mainly reviewed American films for G.I.'s. He remained at this job until 1949. He went on to get his BS in English from Columbia University in 1953 before deciding that he wanted to return to Japan. In 1953, he returned to Japan and got a job as a film critic with The Japan Times. He would go on to author numerous books, direct experimental films, and serve as the Curator of Film at the New York Museum of Modern Art from 1969 to 1972. Donald Ritchie went on to live in Japan for most of his life after returning in 1953, passing away in Tokyo at the age of 88.

University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)

Oral histories

Japan--History--Allied occupation, 1945-1952

Japan; Tokyo

Postwar Japan

Special Collections and University Archives

English

Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the University of Maryland Libraries at http://www.lib.umd.edu/special/contact/home.

Recording: 01:55:00 (audiocassette; mp3); Transcript: 57 pages (PDF)

This oral history interview is part of the Marlene J. Mayo oral histories. A guide to the full collection of Marlene J. Mayo oral histories is available in our archival collections: http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/42478.
Accession 2009-209-GWP
An interview transcript is available.

Filename: prange-087580