Kate Buford

Kate Buford is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling biography, Burt Lancaster: An American Life, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2000. The book was an Editors’ Choice and Best Book of 2000 for The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and other media. The paperback edition, published in 2001 by Da Capo Press, was named a “New and Notable Paperback” by The New York Times. U.K. hardcover and paperback editions were published by Aurum Press in London, as was a new paperback edition in 2008.

Buford’s next book is Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe, to be published by Knopf in October 2010. From 1994 to 1999 she was a commentator for National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” Since 2000 she has been an occasional commentator for “Marketplace,” broadcast nationally by American Public Media, and for WMRA, the NPR affiliate in Charlottesville and western Virginia.

Articles by Buford have appeared in Architectural Digest, The New York Times, The New York Post, Film Comment, TV Guide, Bluegrass Unlimited and other publications. She has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, ESPN’s Reel Classics and Cold Pizza, PBS History Detectives, BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives and other TV and radio programs. At the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York, she programmed and presented film series on Burt Lancaster, Michael Powell, Katharine Hepburn, War & Film and Horton Foote.

Buford graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, and Columbia University. Prior to her writing career, she was the law librarian for Davis Polk & Wardwell and Cravath Swaine & Moore in New York. Born in Santa Monica and brought up in the East Bay Area of California, Buford now lives in Lexington, Virginia and Westchester, New York. She serves on the boards of Union Settlement Association in East Harlem, New York and the Rockbridge Regional Library in Lexington, Virginia.