Vincent Sheean was born on December 5, 1899 in Pana, Illinois, the son of William and Susan (MacDermot) Sheean. Affectionately known as “Jimmy,” Sheean attended school in Pana and then went on to the University of Chicago where he gained his first newspaper experience working for the college daily, the Maroon. Sheean left the University of Chicago during his senior year in order to take a position as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News. The position in Chicago was short lived as Sheean was fired after three weeks. He soon boarded a train for New York City and took a similar job with the New York Daily News.
In 1922, Sheean left the United States to join other expatriates gathering in Paris, finding a job as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. One of Sheean's drinking partners along the Left Bank was Ernest Hemingway. From trips to Lausanne and Geneva, he went to the Rhineland in 1923 and 1924 and then on to Rome, Madrid, and the London of Ramsey MacDonald. Sheean's big journalistic break came in 1925 when he was able to penetrate the French and Spanish lines in Morocco in order to interview the rebel leader Abd el-Krim. Out of this experience came Sheean's first book, An American Among the Riffs (1926). From this point on, Sheean rarely contributed to newspapers, preferring instead to collect material for publication in his many books.
During the remainder of the 1920's, Sheean traveled throughout the world, moving from one political hot spot to another. He was in China in 1927, where he met the American Communist Rayna Prohme as well as Madam Sun Yat-sen; in Russia where he studied the effects of Bolshevism and underwent a series of social revelations that he would later reject after the onset of the Second World War in 1939; in Jerusalem during the Arab-Jewish riots of 1929; in Central Europe when the German Army marched into the Ruhr Valley; and in Ethiopia during the Italian crisis. During these travels, Sheean interviewed those who were involved in the various conflicts and collected his reminiscences for inclusion in his most famous book, Personal History, which was published in 1935. In Personal History, Sheean describes and explains not only the events that he witnessed but also the philosophical and political currents of thought which lead to the rise and fall of fascism and nazism, the Second World War, the growth of national liberation movements in the lands under colonialism, the fascination and disillusionment that so many intellectuals felt for Marxism, the origins of the revolution in China, and the growth of the conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. Personal History remains required reading for many prospective journalists and politicians.
In 1935, Sheean married Diana Forbes-Robertson, the daughter of the great English actor Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson and niece of the late Maxine Elliott. While the relationship between the Sheeans was highly strained at times, they remained in constant communication with one another through letters and lived together for many years in their home in Arolo, Italy. Mrs. Sheean shared in many of her husband's travels and was also an accomplished writer in her own right with works such as War Letters from Britain, written in conjunction with Roger W. Strauss, Jr., and The Battle of Waterloo Road, an account of modern London, being the most prominent. Mrs. Sheean also carried on a long correspondence with Thornton Wilder.
While living in New York during the winter of 1941, the house that the Sheeans were renting from Dorothy Thompson, the wife of Sinclair Lewis, burst into flames. While all of the occupants of the home escaped unscathed, thousands of dollars worth of furniture and a significant collection of mystery stories belonging to Lewis were destroyed. Shortly thereafter, Sheean returned to England to perform an assignment for the Saturday Evening Post prior to his induction into the United States Armed Forces.
During the Second World War, Sheean served as a captain in the Army Air Forces intelligence in North Africa and Italy. While in Italy, Sheean became reacquainted with the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, who had previously advised him in the writing of Sanfelice, a love story about Luisa Sanfelice, heroine of the uprising of 1799 against the Bourbons of Naples. Sheean persuaded Croce to put together a book consisting of four essays of a philosophical and political nature. Sheean later translated this work into the book Germany and Europe. He was discharged from the armed forces in 1944 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. His book This House Against This House, published in 1946, gave his personal views on war and his pleas for peace.
In 1946, Sheean traveled to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, to cover the trial of twenty-five African-Americans who had been accused of attempted murder in a racial disturbance. While many other journalists attempted to remain objective in their coverage of the trial, Sheean's outspoken condemnation of the remnants of slavery and his pity for both whites and blacks earned him both the enmity and admiration of many.
In November 1947, Sheean traveled to India to interview Mahatma Gandhi. Only three days after starting his interviews, Sheean was present when the Indian leader was shot to death. Lead Kindly Light, the book that was written from Sheean's experience, interprets Gandhi's teachings and explains the fundamentals of Hinduism. It was followed by other writings about India, including a biography of Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. These works had an important and positive influence on relations between India and the west during the 1950's and the 1960's. Sheean would continue to visit India over the course of the rest of his life. He developed a close relationship with Indira Gandhi and made several trips to the subcontinent at her behest.
During his time in New York in the 1920s, Sheean, then a reporter for the New York Daily News, made the acquaintance of several members of the Greenwich Village radical set. Foremost amongst these members was the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. After her death in 1950, Sheean wrote a memoir of her life entitled The Indigo Bunting.
Vincent Sheean's many books and articles covered a wide variety of interests including novels, biographies, political analysis and works of music appreciation. Opera was one of his true loves. One of his biographies, Orpheus at Eighty, details the life of Giuseppe Verdi, written in Arolo in 1958. It combines the story of Sheean's operatic hero with his own love for music and Italian history. Works such as First and Last Love (1956) and Oscar Hammerstein I (1956) reflected his devotion to the form. Sheean was also a regular contributor of columns and reviews for such magazines as Opera News and Bravo. Sheean was also close to both Ethel Barrymore and Lotte Lehman and traveled great distances to see either perform. Much of Sheean's free time in Italy was spent at the opera.
One of Sheean's best-selling works was written towards the end of his literary career. Dorothy and Red (1963) chronicled the disastrous relationship between Sinclair Lewis, one of America's best known authors, and Dorothy Thompson, a prominent journalist. Having become acquainted with Thompson while travelling throughout Europe in the 1920s, Sheean had maintained a close relationship with her through many letters and visits to her home in New England. At one point, Sheean even attempted to purchase Thompson's home but was unsuccessful. During the writing of Dorothy and Red, Sheean remained in constant contact with Ms. Thompson, asking a wide variety of questions related to her marriage. Dorothy and Red was very well received and received an extensive advertising campaign from Sheean's publisher, Houghton-Mifflin. A special supplement of the work appeared in Harpers Magazine. A source of great consternation for Sheean in his later years was the attempt by Marion Sanders to write a book about Thompson and Lewis's relationship. A visit by Sanders to Sheean's Italian home for research purposes fell apart due to Sheean's intoxication.
During the 1960s, Sheean was very involved in Middle Eastern affairs, making several trips around the region including stops in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iran where he had an audience with the Shah. Over the course of these travels, Sheean developed a close relationship with Faisal ibn al-Saud, the King of Saudi Arabia. Sheean had been working on a study of the king's life at the time of his death. Faisal, the King and the Kingdom was published posthumously in 1975.
While Sheean spent the bulk of his time in Italy during his later years, he still remained interested and active in American politics. One of Sheean's closest friends in American political circles was Adlai Stevenson with whom he had a long-standing correspondence. Sheean wrote many letters of encouragement to his friend during his campaigns for the American Presidency in 1952 and 1956.
One of Sheean's last books was a historical novel, Beware of Caesar (1965). Vincent Sheean died at his home in Arolo, Italy on March 16, 1975 as a result of lung cancer. He was seventy-five years old. Biographies of Sheean's life were planned by Stan Augarten and Ted Pasca but remain unpublished as of this writing.
