Alex Ayres’s Followers (3)

Alex Ayres

Died

May 14, 2019

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Alex Ayres (b. 1953) was a successful writer, editor, executive film producer and entrepreneur. He received a B.A. with honors from Harvard College, an M.A. from George Mason University and an M.F.A. from UCLA's Graduate School of Theater, Film and Television. During the peak of the running craze of the 1970s, Alex and his brother Ed founded Running Times magazine, still one of the two major magazines in the sport today. He served as Senior Editor of the magazine, but left to study script writing at UCLA, where he won the school's most prestigious writing award in his final year. His career included writing positions with the U.S. Army Research Institute, Running Times, Runner's World, CBS Productions, Fine Line, New Line, Mutual Films, Par Alex Ayres (b. 1953) was a successful writer, editor, executive film producer and entrepreneur. He received a B.A. with honors from Harvard College, an M.A. from George Mason University and an M.F.A. from UCLA's Graduate School of Theater, Film and Television. During the peak of the running craze of the 1970s, Alex and his brother Ed founded Running Times magazine, still one of the two major magazines in the sport today. He served as Senior Editor of the magazine, but left to study script writing at UCLA, where he won the school's most prestigious writing award in his final year. His career included writing positions with the U.S. Army Research Institute, Running Times, Runner's World, CBS Productions, Fine Line, New Line, Mutual Films, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000, Alliance-Atlantis, Capitol Films, The Artist's Studio, Cross Creek and Mark Gordon Productions. He wrote and edited many scripts that were made into television and feature films and served as Executive Producer and script consultant for the The Evil Within (2017), produced by Andrew Getty, heir to the Getty oil fortune. His writing credits include the acclaimed made-for-television movie Search for Grace, as well as Napoleon and Josephine and Hellfire Club. At the time of his death, Alex was working on the production of Playwright, an historical film based on the life of Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan playwright whom Alex and others (including Mark Twain and Orson Welles) have suggested was the true author of the works attributed to William Shakespeare. He was a frequent speaker and panelist on this topic and had produced critical scholarship in the area, including the discovery of previously unknown details of Marlowe's life.
Between films, Alex edited over three dozen books for the Wit and Wisdom series and the Quotable Wisdom series that he created and continued to expand over the years. The series compiled quotations (many not commonly known) from Will Rogers, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and many others.
Alex considered his election as an editor of the Harvard Lampoon one of the landmark accomplishments of his life. He was one of the scriptwriters mentioned in the June 2001 article in Brill's Content that coined the term "Harvard Lampoon Media Mafia." Jim Downey, former Head Writer of Saturday Night Live and "godfather" of the Lampoon Media Mafia, once described Ayres as "the best writer on the Lampoon." His modest style and quiet personality camouflaged an extraordinary wit, notably demonstrated when he introduced John Wayne at the now famous John Wayne Roast at the premiere of Wayne's film McQ, which some consider the greatest Lampoon media event of all time. Several of Alex's jokes from that event were quoted in the national media and referenced in a biography of John Wayne, in which Wayne called this event the most fun he ever had in his life. ...more

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Alex Ayres’s books

Average rating: 4.15 · 234 ratings · 25 reviews · 20 distinct works

	The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain by Mark Twain, Alex Ayres (Editor) 4.19 avg rating — 1,742 ratings — published 1987 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	QUOTABLE AYN RAND: An A to Z Glossary of Quotations from Ayn Rand 4.19 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. 4.33 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 1993	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wit and Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt: An A-Z Compendium of Quotations 4.33 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1996	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain 3.88 avg rating — 8 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wit and Wisdom of John F. Kennedy: An A-to-Z Compendium of Quotations it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1996	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Quotable Jesus: An A to Z Glossary of Quotations 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	English Grammar: A Workable Knowledge Of Grammar 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wit And Wisdom Of Harry S Truman 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fill It In Puzzles 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Alex Ayres (?)

“We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy or we cannot be content.”
― Alex Ayres, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Timeless Anthology—Hilarious, Cranky, and Insightful Quotations from America's Legendary Humorist

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“Ours is the “land of the free”—nobody denies that—nobody challenges it. (Maybe it is because we won’t let other people testify.) —Roughing It, 1872, ch. 54 (commenting on mistreatment of
Chinese in the West)”
― Alex Ayres, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Timeless Anthology—Hilarious, Cranky, and Insightful Quotations from America's Legendary Humorist

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“This country was not built... by men who sought handouts. John Galt speech, Atlas Shrugged, 1957”
― Alex Ayres, QUOTABLE AYN RAND: An A to Z Glossary of Quotations from Ayn Rand

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Alex Ayres’s Followers (3)

Alex Ayres

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