ATKINSON, BROOKS

(1894-1984)

   Born in Melrose, Massachusetts, the son of a journalist, Justin Brooks Atkinson was educated at Harvard University, then worked as a reporter for the Springfield Daily News and taught English at Dartmouth College. Atkinson served in the U.S. Army during World War I, after which he became a reporter and assistant to the drama critic of the Boston Evening Transcript. Atkinson was associate editor of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin (1920-1922) before becoming a book review editor for the New York Times in 1922. He was Broadway drama critic at the Times from 1925 to 1942, served as a news correspondent in China and Russia during World War II, and resumed his post as Times drama critic from 1946 to 1960, when he became critic-at-large (a post he held until 1965). Atkinson authored more than a dozen books and, besides numerous awards for his drama criticism, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for his writings on the Soviet Union. In 1960, New York's old Mansfield Theatre was renamed the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.