- Born: December 9, 1942
- Birthplace: New York
Joe McGinniss became an overnight success when his first book, The Selling of the President 1968 landed on the New York Times bestseller list when he was 26 years old, the youngest living writer to have a book at the top of that list. The book described the marketing of Richard Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign. McGinniss followed up with several other best-sellers, including his 1983 account of the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case, Fatal Vision, and 1993's The Last Brother: The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy. In 1999, McGinniss sat through the O.J. Simpson trial, expecting to write a book about it, but he ended up waiving the $1 million advance after Simpson was acquitted, saying the trial was "a farce." His next book was The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, about the the members and coach of an Italian soccer team.
McGinniss graduated from Holy Cross College in 1964 and became a general assignment reporter at the Worcester Telegram, in Worcester, MA. Within the year, he left that paper and became a sportswriter for The Philadelphia Bulletin and, later, The Philadelphia Inquirer. After the success of his book in 1968, McGinniss left the newspaper and turned to book-writing. His next attempt was a novel, The Dream Team. He wrote another few books, including the warmly-received Going to Extremes, about an Alaskan trek, and became a writer-in-residence at the L.A. Herald Examiner. Next came McGinniss' trilogy of true crime books, Fatal Vision, Blind Faith and Cruel Doubt. All three of the books were made into TV miniseries.
His most recent book is The Big Horse (2004).
Most Famous Works
- The Selling of the President (1968)
- Fatal Vision (1983)
- The Last Brother: The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy (1993)
- The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (1999)
