Robert Cherry - Biography
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Robert Cherry (born December 15, 1943) has been a teacher, journalist, businessman and author, as well as a life-long fan of sports and his hometown, Philadelphia. His first book, Wilt: Larger Than Life, is a widely praised biography of the American sports legend Wilt Chamberlain, who played professional basketball in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles and ranks among the game’s greatest players.[1]
Early life[edit]
Cherry has spent most of his life in Philadelphia or its suburbs, save for stints reporting in Phoenix, editing in New York and teaching in Liberia. He attended Philadelphia public schools, graduating in 1961 from Overbrook High School, six years after Chamberlain. And like Chamberlain, Cherry started on the Overbrook varsity basketball team—although as he acknowledges with somewhat less of an impact on the school, city, and the sport.
Wilt: Larger Than Life (2004)[edit]
After Chamberlain died at age 63 in October 1999, Cherry spent almost five years researching and writing this biography. He crisscrossed the country interviewing over 150 personal and professional associates who knew Chamberlain well, among them his doctor, lawyer, accountant, and college roommate; high school, college and professional teammates and opponents; his high school and three of his professional coaches; his sister Barbara Chamberlain Lewis, who was his closest confidant, life-long friends, and an ex-lover.
From NBA great and Chamberlain’s teammate, Elgin Baylor: “The Wilt I liked and respected lives in this book.”[2]
From Angelo Cataldi, Philadelphia sports radio talk show host for 34 years: “. . . extraordinary biography. . .capturing the greatest athlete—and my favorite athlete—of the past half-century. . . Cherry sugar coats nothing, and he explores every facet of Wilt’s life, including a whole chapter on the 20,000 women Wilt supposedly slept with and the never before told final days of Chamberlain’s life. The book has my highest recommendation.”[3]
From Bill Mayer, the long-time Sports Editor of the [Kansas] Lawrence Journal-World: “Don’t bother looking for a better treatise about the complexities, mysteries, and caprices of Wilt Chamberlain than a new book by Robert Cherry. You won’t find one, now or ever. Cherry’s . . . research, extensive coverage, clear and concise narrative, and obvious devotion to a labor of love will astound you. At least it did me, and I thought I knew a lot about the Big Dipper. [one of Chamberlain’s nicknames][4]
Recognition for the biography also came in 2019 when the Library of Congress invited Cherry to write an essay about Chamberlain’s hundred-point game, one of the greatest individual accomplishments in sports. The game was not televised and only the fourth quarter was recorded from the radio broadcast of the event and that audiotape, now accompanied by Cherry’s essay, is in the Library of Congress Registry.[5]
Other books[edit]
Living Liberia: Laugher, Love & Folly: (2017) is a memoir/travel book of Cherry’s life as a Peace Corps volunteer in a village in the Liberian rainforest where he spent 1966-67, his 22nd and 23rd years—and later, age 38, he returned for a two-month visit in 1982. The book first evokes the challenges of living for two years without electricity and running water, experiencing tribal culture, and teaching with a principal who made up national holidays. Then Cherry shares the delights (and frustrations) of returning 15 years later, reuniting with his students, now adult men and women, financing a long-needed water project and, not least, his encounter with a memorable gallery of African idealists and rogues. He is as proud of Living Liberia as his much better-known Chamberlain book.
Cherry Delight: A Family Memoir: (2013) Primarily about Cherry’s parents, Joseph and Mary Cherry, the story begins in the Russian Empire and unfolds in Philadelphia, spanning the late nineteenth century to the first decade of the twenty-first. Cherry’s father was an accomplished all-around athlete, playing professional football and baseball in the early 1930s. No slouch as a businessman, Joe Cherry and Adolph “Al” Levis, Joe’s partner and brother-in-law, created in the 1940s the iconic smoked sausage which they named the Slim Jim.[6] They ended their 13-year business partnership in 1949 and in 1967 Levis sold the Cherry-Levis company to General Mills. [7]
Journalism[edit]
Cherry has worked for three newspapers, including The Arizona Republic, 1971-73, and his freelance work has appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Bulletin, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Jerusalem Post, among others.
From 1980-81 he was also the editor and publisher of Philly Week, named by Frommer’s 1981-82 Guide to Philadelphia & Atlantic City one of the two best sources for entertainment information in the city.[8]
Business life[edit]
Cherry was President of Great American Foods Inc, from 1985-90. GAF was a Philadelphia company started by his father in 1949. It manufactured salad dressings and mayonnaise and sold the product to wholesale food distributors in the northeastern United States. Cherry sold the company in 1990 to Holsum Foods of Waukesha, Wisconsin but continued to run the Philadelphia operation until he retired in December 1995 to write, teach and travel. (An inveterate traveler, Cherry has visited 52 countries.)
Teaching[edit]
Cherry taught school in a Liberian village from 1966-67, where most of his students were the first person from their families to attend school. He also taught 5th and 6th grade (1969-70) in a Philadelphia elementary school, T.M. Peirce; and journalism at Temple University (1978), literary journalism at Cabrini College (2006), and public speaking and business writing at Drexel University (2006-2010).
Personal life[edit]
Cherry has a daughter who speaks five languages, while her mother speaks four.
Literary influences[edit]
H.L. Mencken, Red Smith [9], A.J. Liebling [10], and Malcolm Muggeridge [11], the last three of whom Cherry has also written about.
External Links[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Kevin Mulligan, Philadelphia Daily News, October 21, 2004
- ↑ Conversation with Robert Cherry, July 2024
- ↑ Angelo Cataldi
- ↑ Bill Mayer
- ↑ Library of Congress Registry, link to Cherry essay on 100-point game
- ↑ The New York Times
- ↑ The New York Times
- ↑ Frommer’s 1981-82 Guide to Philadelphia & Atlantic City
- ↑ Red Smith by Robert Cherry, The Philadelphia Bulletin, January 1982
- ↑ A.J. Liebling by Robert Cherry, Philly Week, August 5, 1981
- ↑ Malcolm Muggeridge by Robert Cherry, Philly Week, September 2, 1981
References[edit]
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