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Mitch Albom
MITCH ALBOM is an internationally renowned and best-selling author, journalist,
screenwriter, playwright, radio and television broadcaster and musician. His
books have collectively sold more than 35 million copies worldwide; have been
published in forty-eight territories and in forty-four languages around the
world; and have been made into Emmy Award-winning and critically-acclaimed
television movies.
Mitch was born on May 23, 1958 in Passaic, New Jersey, the middle of three
children to Rhoda and Ira Albom. The family moved to the Buffalo, N.Y. area
briefly before settling in Oaklyn, New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia. Mitch
grew up wanting to be a cartoonist before switching to music. He taught himself
to play piano, and played in bands, including The Lucky Tiger Grease Stick Band,
throughout his adolescence. After attending high schools in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, he left for college after his junior year. He earned a bachelor’s
degree in 1979 at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, majoring in
sociology, but stayed true to his dream of a life in music, and upon graduation,
he worked for several years as a performer, both in Europe and America. One of
his engagements during this time included a taverna on the Greek island of
Crete, in which he was a featured American performer who sang Elvis Presley and
Ray Charles songs. He also wrote and produced the recording of several songs. In
his early 20’s, while living in New York, he took an interest in journalism and
volunteered to work for a local weekly paper, the Queens Tribune. He eventually
returned to graduate school, earning a Master’s degree from Columbia
University’s Graduate School of Journalism, followed by an MBA from Columbia
University’s Graduate School of Business. During this time, he paid his tuition
partly through work as a piano player.
Mitch eventually turned full-time to his writing, working as a freelance sports
journalist in New York for publications such as Sports Illustrated, GEO, and The
Philadelphia Inquirer. His first full time newspaper job was as a feature writer
and eventual sports columnist for The Fort Lauderdale News and Sun Sentinel in
Florida. He moved to Detroit in 1985, where he became a nationally-acclaimed
sports journalist at the Detroit Free Press and one of the best-known media
figures in that city’s history, working in newspapers, radio and television. He
currently hosts a daily talk show on WJR radio (airs Monday through Friday, 5-7
p.m. EST) and appears regularly on ESPN Sports Reporters and SportsCenter.
In 1995, he married Janine Sabino. That same year he re-encountered Morrie
Schwartz, a former college professor who was dying of ALS, also known as Lou
Gehrig’s disease. His visits with Schwartz would lead to the book Tuesdays
with Morrie, which moved Mitch away from sports and began his career as an
internationally recognized author.
Tuesdays with Morrie
is the chronicle of Mitch’s time spent with his beloved professor. As a labor of
love, Mitch wrote the book to help pay Morrie’s medical bills. It spent four
years on the New York Times Bestseller list and is now the most successful
memoir ever published. His first novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven,
is the most successful US hardcover first adult novel ever. For One More Day
debuted at No.1 on the New York Times Bestseller List and spent nine months on
the list. In October 2006, For One More Day was the first book chosen by
Starbucks in the newly launched Book Break Program, which also helped fight
illiteracy by donating one dollar from every book sold to Jumpstart. His most
recent, Have a Little Faith, was released in September 2009 and selected
by Oprah.com as the best nonfiction book of 2009.
All three of Albom’s best sellers have been turned into successful TV movies.
Oprah Winfrey produced the film version of Tuesdays With Morrie in
December 1999, starring Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria. The film garnered four Emmy
awards, including best TV film, director, actor and supporting actor. The
critically acclaimed Five People You Meet in Heaven aired on ABC in
winter, 2004. Directed by Lloyd Kramer, the film was the most watched TV movie
of the year, with 19 million viewers. Oprah Winfrey Presents Mitch Albom’s
For One More Day aired on ABC in December 2007 and earned Ellen Burstyn a
Screen Actors Guild nomination. Most recently. Hallmark Hall of Fame produced
the film adaptation of Have a Little Faith, which aired on ABC in
November 2011. It starred Laurence Fishburne, Bradley Whitford, Martin Landau,
and Anika Noni Rose.
An award-winning journalist and radio host, Albom wrote the screenplay for both
For One More Day and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and is an
established playwright, having authored numerous pieces for the theater,
including the off-Broadway version of Tuesdays With Morrie (co-written
with Jeffrey Hatcher) which has seen over one hundred productions across the US
and Canada.
Mitch is also an accomplished song writer and lyricist. Later in his life, when
music had become a sideline, he would see several of his songs recorded,
including the song “Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song)” which he wrote for rock
singer Warren Zevon. Albom also wrote and performed songs for several TV movies,
including “Cookin’ for Two” for Christmas in Connecticut, the 1992 remake
directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Albom has founded seven charities, many in the metropolitan Detroit area:
The Dream Fund,
A Time To Help, and
S.A.Y Detroit, an umbrella
organization for charities dedicated to improving the lives of the neediest,
including the S.A.Y. Detroit Family Health Clinic.
A Hole in the Roof Foundation
helps faith groups of every denomination who care for the homeless repair the
spaces in which they carry out their work. The seed that gave root to the
Foundation – and also inspired its name—was the hole in the roof of the I Am My
Brother's Keeper church in inner-city Detroit, written about in
Have a Little Faith.
The
Have Faith Haiti Mission
is a special place of love and caring, dedicated to the safety, education,
health and spiritual development of Haiti’s impoverished children and orphans.
The Mission was founded in the 1980’s by a Detroit Pastor named John Hearn Sr.
as The Caring and Sharing Mission. Since then, it has raised and cared for
hundreds of children, some of whom now work there caring for the next
generation.Following the devastating earthquake of January, 2010, the mission
fell upon hard times, and later that year, operations were taken over by Albom
and his
A Hole In The Roof
Foundation,
and the name changed to Have Faith Haiti Mission, inspired partly by Albom’s
book “Have a Little
Faith.”
Working
Homes/Working Families
is a new charity devoted to providing homes for working families in need of
decent housing. Homes that are donated or abandoned are rehabbed with the help
of volunteers from A Time to Help and the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries.
The Heart of Detroit is a
groundbreaking public service initiative. Airing weekly during Local 4 News
(Detroit) at 5 p.m. and then on
MitchAlbom.com,
The Heart of Detroit will share
inspiring stories of metro Detroiters with heart and everyday people who step up
to help make our community a better place to live.
Albom devoted an area of his website,
www.mitchalbom.com/service
, to hosting a directory of local and national service opportunities. He also
raises money for literacy projects through a variety of means including his
performances with The Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of writers which
includes Stephen King, Dave Barry, Scott Turow, Amy Tan and Ridley Pearson.
Albom serves on the boards of various charities and, in 1999, was named National
Hospice Organization's Man of the Year.
In 2010, Albom was named the recipient of the Red Smith Award for lifetime
achievement by the Associated Press Sports Editors.