Obituaries : Louis Sheaffer; Pulitzer Prize-Winning Biographer
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NEW YORK — Louis Sheaffer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Eugene O’Neill, has died at age 80.
Sheaffer, who lived in Brooklyn, died of heart failure Saturday at Long Island College Hospital, said Michele Slung, his niece.
In 1974, Sheaffer won a Pulitzer for “O’Neill, Son and Artist,” published in 1973 as the second of two volumes. The first volume, “O’Neill, Son and Playwright,” published in 1968, won a George Freedley award from the Theater Library Assn.
A native of Louisville, Ky., he attended the University of North Carolina. He worked for the Brooklyn Eagle from 1934 to 1955, leaving to serve in the Army during World War II.
Sheaffer, whose name originally was Louis Slung, changed his name to Sheaffer but sometimes called himself Louis Sheaffer Slung.
He was a Guggenheim fellow three times and received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In addition to his niece, Sheaffer is survived by a brother, Rafael Slung of Pompano Beach, Fla.
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