Trivia

Mark David Chapman was obsessed with "Catcher in the Rye" and was found calmly reading the book when he was arrested for the murder of John Lennon, lead singer of The Beatles.

A neighbor once went to his house to see if Salinger would contribute to a local charity. Salinger met him in the driveway with a gun in his hand and told the man to go away.

Was so incensed by Hollywood's treatment of his story "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut" that he has refused to sell the movie rights to any of his stories to Hollywood. It is reported that his last will and testament has a stipulation blocking any Hollywood adaptations of his works after his death.

Suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from World War II.

Despite stating his hatred for technology in his novel "The Catcher in the Rye," he has a computer in his home as well as an AOL e-mail account.

Sean Connery's character in Finding Forrester (2000) is based on J.D. Salinger.

When his wife divorced him in 1966, she stated that Salinger refused to communicate with her, sometimes for weeks on end.

Did most of his writing in a concrete bunker. His wife and children were forbidden to enter it.

Shortly after purchasing his home, he had an eight-foot-tall wall built around it.

The character Terence Mann in Field of Dreams (1989) (based on "Shoeless Joe" by W.P. Kinsella) is actually based on J.D. Salinger.

Despite his reputation as a recluse, he had a very active social life and enjoyed spending time with his friends and neighbors.

Despite his most famous character Holden Caulfield's intense dislike of film, he was an avid movie buff in real life.

A big fan of classic black-and-white movies.

Was of Scottish, German, and Irish descent on his mother's side.

J.D. Salinger's father's family originally came from Sudargas, a small shtetl (Jewish village), which was then located in the Russian Empire near the present day border of Poland and Lithuania. His great-grandfather Hyman Joseph Salinger moved from Sudargas to the town of Taurage when he married the daughter of a prominent family. Hyman's son Simon F. Salinger emigrated to the United States in 1881, marrying Fannie Copland, a Lithuanian immigrant living in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Simon Salinger went to medical school and became a physician. When he died in 1960, he was just shy of his 100th birthday. J.D. Salinger's father Solomon was born in 1887, the second child of five children.

At the time of his death, he had a safe full of manuscripts, with detailed instructions on how and when they were be released to the public.

According to his children, he would often disappear for weeks on end in his personal writing shack.

Served in a U.S. Army counter-Intelligence division in World War II.

His family nickname was "Sonny". He had a sister, Doris, who was six years older.

His novel "Catcher in the Rye" is mentioned in Billy Joel's song "We didn't start the fire".

Father of Margaret Salinger and Matt Salinger; father-in-law of Betsy Salinger.

His works are one of many literary references to be found in Daniel Handler's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books. Salinger wrote a short story called "For Esmé - with Love and Squalor". "The Ersatz Elevator" introduces two characters named Jerome and Esme Squalor. Jerome is named after Salinger himself.

He was a huge fan of Ernest Hemingway.

Used homeopathic medicines for most of his life.

Had two grandchildren by his son Matt.

Body Cremated and the Location of ashes is unknown.

It was rumored that J.D. Salinger's mother Miriam was born in County Cork, Ireland, likely fueled by an erroneous assertion in a 1963 "Life Magazine" article that she was Scotch-Irish. This led to a further rumor that Miriam's Irish Catholic parents shunned her and refused to speak to her after marrying the Jew Solomon Salinger. Salinger's sister Doris actually believed that their mother had been born in Ireland. In actuality, Miriam's parents were dead by the time she married. She was born Marie Jillich (she took the name Miriam when she converted to Judaism upon her marriage) in Atlantic, Iowa on May 11, 1891. Miriam's paternal grandfather George Lester Jillich, Sr. was the son of German immigrants, and her paternal grandmother Mary Jane Bennett was Anglo-Saxon. George, Sr. was a successful grain merchant whose son George, Jr. (Miriam's father) worked in the family business. Miriam's mother, Nellie McMahon, a Kansas City native, was the daughter of immigrants from Ireland. Miriam's father died in 1909, the year before she met Solomon Salinger (a Chicago movie theater manager). Miriam's mother Nellie died before J.D. Salinger was born in 1919. Solomon Salinger's parents thought that the fair-skinned, red-haired Marie (as she was then known before her conversion) resembled a "little Irisher".