Haley, Alex(ander Palmer)

(born Aug. 11, 1921, Ithaca, N.Y., U.S.—died Feb. 10, 1992, Seattle, Wash.) U.S. writer. He was raised in North Carolina, served in the Coast Guard (1939–59), and later became a journalist. An interview with Malcolm X led to the best-selling Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965; film, 1992). His greatest success, however, was Roots (1976, special Pulitzer Prize), a history of seven generations of his ancestors beginning with their enslavement. Adapted for television, it became one of the most popular American television shows ever and spurred great interest in genealogy, though Haley later admitted that the saga was partly fictional.

Haley, (Alexander Murray Palmer) Alex (1921–92) journalist, writer; born in Ithaca, N.Y. He grew up in Henning, Tenn., studied at Elizabeth City (N.C.) Teachers College (1937–39), and became a journalist while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard (1939–59). Retiring from the service, he established himself in Los Angeles as a free-lance writer, distinguished by his Playboy interviews. He first gained some national attention as the collaborator-editor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965). His highly acclaimed work, Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976, Pulitzer Prize) turned out to be a mixture of fact and fiction but was definitely based on his African-American roots; he had spent 12 years researching his ancestry and claimed to trace it to a Kunte Kinte, brought as a slave to America from Gambia in 1767. The book was the basis of a phenomenally successful television miniseries (1977), for which he received a special Pulitzer Prize and the Spingarn Medal. A sequel, Queen (1993), also appeared as a book and television miniseries.