Biography
Gingrich was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan of Mennonite parents in 1903 and attended the University of Michigan. He published such authors as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Garry Wills, Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer. He was also one of the few magazine editors to publish F. Scott Fitzgerald regularly in the late 1930s, including Fitzgerald's The Pat Hobby Stories. Gingrich also published stories by Jack Woodford, whom he befriended when they worked together at an advertising agency in the 1920s. He wrote the introduction to Woodford's famous book on writing and publishing Trial and Error.
The magazine’s name Esquire was selected after Gingrich received a letter that was addressed to "Arnold Gingrich, Esq." The magazine he created set the template for future men's magazines; for example, Playboy, a variation, namely Esquire with nude photographs (Esquire had famously published a series of "Varga Girl" paintings and other "cheesecake" imagery since its founding).
His autobiography, Toys Of A Lifetime, with illustrations by Leslie Saalburg, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1966. It has long been out of print. In it, he recounts his experience with cars (he owned several notable Bentleys), including a classic R-series and S-series "Countryman" (obtained through the late J.S. Inskip in Manhattan), as well as an early Volkswagen, transatlantic liners (including the Normandie), French hotels, Dunhill pipes and Balkan Sobranie tobacco, clothes and all manner of other possessions and accommodations.
He died in 1976 in Ridgewood, New Jersey.
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