Martin Torgoff (born November 29, 1952) is an American journalist,
author, documentary filmmaker, and writer, director and producer of
television, who has worked extensively in the fields of music and
American popular culture. He is best known for his book "Can’t Find
My Way Home: America In the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000" (2004) a
narrative cultural history of illicit drugs, and for "The Drug Years",
the series for VH1 and Sundance that Torgoff wrote and appeared in,
which was based on his book. Over the span of his forty-year career,
his work has encompassed music, art, film, theater, literature,
politics, biography, history, race, sociology, sexuality, and
celebrity culture.Torgoff was born in New York City and grew up in
Glen Cove, on Long Island. He is the son of Bess Kagan and Irving
Torgoff, a two time All American basketball player at LIU who later
became a notable player in the NBA as the first “sixth man†in pro
basketball history when he played for Red Auerbach's Washington
Capitols. Torgoff grew up playing sports before being swept up in the
turbulence of the late 1960s as a teenager, becoming one of the
leaders of the student strike at his high school after the shootings
at Kent State in May 1970. He attended SUNY Cortland and the
University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, receiving BAs in both History
and French.In 1976, at the age of twenty-two, Torgoff was hired as
Associate Editor of Grosset & Dunlap Publishers in New York, which
brought him into the literary world. He specialized in oversized
illustrated books that reflected his diverse interests like The Woody
Guthrie Songbook and The Things I Love by Liberace, early examples of
what would become a whole trend of “scrapbooks†in trade
publishing.Torgoff left publishing and wrote an inside account of the
decline and death of Elvis Presley titled Elvis: We Love You Tender
(1980). Torgoff then edited an anthology and comprehensive reference
work on Presley's life and work, The Complete Elvis (1981). In 1986,
he published American Fool: The Roots and Improbable Rise of John
‘Cougar’ Mellencamp, a book-length portrait of the artist which
charted his odyssey from Seymour, Indiana, through the music industry.
The book was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in
music journalism.
author, documentary filmmaker, and writer, director and producer of
television, who has worked extensively in the fields of music and
American popular culture. He is best known for his book "Can’t Find
My Way Home: America In the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000" (2004) a
narrative cultural history of illicit drugs, and for "The Drug Years",
the series for VH1 and Sundance that Torgoff wrote and appeared in,
which was based on his book. Over the span of his forty-year career,
his work has encompassed music, art, film, theater, literature,
politics, biography, history, race, sociology, sexuality, and
celebrity culture.Torgoff was born in New York City and grew up in
Glen Cove, on Long Island. He is the son of Bess Kagan and Irving
Torgoff, a two time All American basketball player at LIU who later
became a notable player in the NBA as the first “sixth man†in pro
basketball history when he played for Red Auerbach's Washington
Capitols. Torgoff grew up playing sports before being swept up in the
turbulence of the late 1960s as a teenager, becoming one of the
leaders of the student strike at his high school after the shootings
at Kent State in May 1970. He attended SUNY Cortland and the
University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, receiving BAs in both History
and French.In 1976, at the age of twenty-two, Torgoff was hired as
Associate Editor of Grosset & Dunlap Publishers in New York, which
brought him into the literary world. He specialized in oversized
illustrated books that reflected his diverse interests like The Woody
Guthrie Songbook and The Things I Love by Liberace, early examples of
what would become a whole trend of “scrapbooks†in trade
publishing.Torgoff left publishing and wrote an inside account of the
decline and death of Elvis Presley titled Elvis: We Love You Tender
(1980). Torgoff then edited an anthology and comprehensive reference
work on Presley's life and work, The Complete Elvis (1981). In 1986,
he published American Fool: The Roots and Improbable Rise of John
‘Cougar’ Mellencamp, a book-length portrait of the artist which
charted his odyssey from Seymour, Indiana, through the music industry.
The book was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in
music journalism.
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