Ring Lardner - Personal Life

Personal Life

Born in Niles, Michigan, Ring Lardner was the son of wealthy parents Henry and Lena Phillips Lardner. He was the youngest of nine children. Lardner's name came from a cousin of the same name. The cousin, in turn had been named by Lardner's uncle, Rear Admiral James L. Lardner, who had decided to name his son after a friend, Rear Admiral Cadwalader Ringgold, who was from a distinguished military family. Lardner never liked his given name and shortened it, naming one of his sons Ring Jr.

Lardner was married to Ellis Abbott of Goshen, Indiana in 1911. They had four sons, John, James, Ring Jr., and David. John was a newspaperman, sports columnist and magazine writer. James, also a newspaperman, was killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting with the International Brigades. Ring Lardner, Jr. was a screenwriter who was blacklisted after the Second World War as one of the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters who were incarcerated for contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions posed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He won two Academy Awards for his screenplays—one before his imprisonment and blacklisting (for Woman of the Year in 1942), and one after (for M*A*S*H in 1970). His book, The Lardners, My Family Remembered (ISBN 0-06-012517-9), is a reliable source of Lardner information. David worked for The New Yorker as a general reporter and war correspondent before he was killed by a landmine near Aachen, Germany in October 1944, less than one month after his arrival to the European Theater of war. Lardner was a grand uncle to 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner George Lardner, Jr., a journalist at The Washington Post since 1963.