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Barnaby Conrad

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Author

The Resume

    (March 27, 1922-February 12, 2013)
    Born in San Francisco, California
    Bullfighter and author
    Wrote the novels 'Matador' (1952), 'Endangered' (1971), 'Condor' (1978), 'Keepers of the Secret' (1983), 'The Last Boat to Cadiz' (2003) and 'The Second Life of John Wilkes Booth' (2010)
    Nonfiction works include 'La Fiesta Brava: The Art of the Bull Ring' (1953), 'The Death of Manolete' (1958), 'Barnaby Conrad's Encyclopedia of Bullfighting' (1961), 'Fun While It Lasted' (1969) and 'Hemingway's Spain' (1989)
    Founded the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (1978)
    Opened the San Francisco nightclub 'El Matador' (1953)

Why he might be annoying:

    While on vacation in Mexico at age 19, 'fueled by youth and tequila,' he jumped into a bullring and used his Brooks Brothers raincoat as a cape.
    Early in his matador career, he suffered an injury that kept him from being drafted in WWII, but was not serious enough to stop him from returning to the bullring.
    He fought bulls under the name 'El Nino de California' or 'the California Kid.'
    Sinclair Lewis gave him the plot outline for 'The Second Life of John Wilkes Booth' (Booth escapes after the Lincoln assassination and heads out for the Wild West), but it took him sixty years to turn it into a novel.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He worked as Sinclair Lewis' secretary for five months, at the end of which Lewis headed off for Europe, taking along Conrad's girlfriend.
    He was almost fatally gored by a bull (1958).
    John Steinbeck called 'Matador' the best novel of 1952.
    Elmore Leonard said the best opening sentence he ever read was Conrad's description of the death of Manolete in 'La Fiesta Brava': 'On August 27, 1947, a multimillionaire and a bull killed each other in Linares, Spain, and plunged an entire nation into deep mourning.'
    His charcoal drawings of his literary friends Truman Capote and James Michener hang in the National Portrait Gallery.
    His son said of his many careers, 'He wasn't necessarily the world's best novelist or the best bullfighter or best artist or best piano player or best nightclub owner, but he was very good at all of them. He was like a pentathlete.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 17 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 5 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 7 Votes: 71.43% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 26 Votes: 57.69% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 116 Votes: 65.52% Annoying