Stephen ambrose biography
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Stephen E. Ambrose
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Lessons from Stephen Ambrose
Illustrations: Barry Roal Carlsen
After I read a feature article about celebrated author and UW visiting professor Stephen Ambrose ’57, PhD’63 in On Wisconsin in August , I decided that he was someone I had to meet.
I offered to buy Ambrose lunch in exchange for advice about writing biography, and he invited me to meet him in Madison later that fall. When I arrived, I noted that his quarters in the Humanities Building were strewn with books and papers. A telephone was perched on a chair, innocently out of place in the middle of the room. A framed photograph of the author embracing his grandson at a campsite in the West and reviews of his best-selling Undaunted Courage were the only personal effects I recognized.
As Ambrose motioned me to take a chair, I eavesdropped on a telephone conversation he had begun. He seemed frustrated. “No, February 24 is not available! Oh, wait a minute, you mean February 24, !” When he hung up the receiver, he exclaimed
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Stephen Ambrose, () PhD, inspired and guided the early development of The National D-Day Museum with his close friend, Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller, PhD, a colleague in the History Department at the University of New Orleans and Vice Chancellor of the University. Ambrose’s role as founder of the institution that would later become The National WWII Museum was strengthened in many ways by his celebrity as a bestselling historian who was sought after as a speaker and film consultant.
His notable works included D-Day, Citizen Soldiers and Band of Brothers, all exploring major episodes and themes from WWII history, as well as books on the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, and biographies of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon. Ambrose was a consultant to the blockbuster Normandy invasion film Saving Private Ryan, won an Emmy as a producer of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, and served as a commentator for the Ken Burns documentary Lewi