Haynes Johnson was a terrific journalist who went on to become a terrific historian. I’ve always felt that journalists make great historians because they know how to write and keep a reader’s attention. From the Times obit…

Haynes Bonner Johnson was born in New York City on July 9, 1931. His mother, the former Emmie Ludie Adams, was a pianist; his father, Malcolm, was a newspaperman with The New York Sun. For The Sun, the elder Mr. Johnson won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for his 24-part series, “Crime on the Waterfront.”

This was turned into the greatly overrated movie “On The Waterfront.” Brando was great. But the director, Elia Kazan, is one of the worst “humans” ever to populate Hollywood. I suggest you read about all the careers Kazan destroyed by naming innocent names before H.U.A.C. Budd Shulman who wrote the screenplay also named names. Sucky movie made by even suckier people. More from obit…

That series, which exposed the unsavory, often violent alliance of labor unions and organized crime on New York’s docks, inspired “On the Waterfront,” the 1954 film starring Marlon Brando.

via Haynes Johnson, Journalist and Author, Dies at 81 – NYTimes.com.