Robert Leslie Conly (January 11, 1918 - March 5, 1973) (better known by his pen name, Robert C. O'Brien) was an American author and journalist for National Geographic Magazine.
Conly was the third of five children from a well-educated Irish-Catholic family. During World War II, he was listed as 4-F largely because his sickliness as a child made him physically questionable. However, there were also psychological grounds for the 4-F classification:...
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Robert Leslie Conly (January 11, 1918 - March 5, 1973) (better known by his pen name, Robert C. O'Brien) was an American author and journalist for National Geographic Magazine.
Conly was the third of five children from a well-educated Irish-Catholic family. During World War II, he was listed as 4-F largely because his sickliness as a child made him physically questionable. However, there were also psychological grounds for the 4-F classification: he had had a mental breakdown in early adulthood.
With interests in music and literature, Conly entered Williams College in 1935 but left in his second year. Although he later studied for a time at Juilliard, he went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Rochester in 1940.
In 1951, having covered both national and city news, Conly began working as an editor and writer for National Geographic, a job which was to take him around the world.
In 1963 Conly developed glaucoma. Because he could no longer drive to work,...
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