Sandy Campbell

Sandy Campbell (April 22, 1922 – June 26, 1988) was a New York-born actor, editor, publisher, and writer whose career spanned Broadway performance, television, literary journalism, and book publishing. The son of a chemical manufacturing company owner, Campbell was raised in New York City and received his secondary education at Kent School in Connecticut before enrolling at Princeton University.

Following his studies, Campbell pursued a career as a stage actor, appearing on Broadway from 1945 through 1956 in productions that included A Streetcar Named Desire, I Know My Love, Cyrano de Bergerac, King Richard II, Crime and Punishment, Life with Father, and Spring Awakening. Over the course of his Broadway career, he shared the stage with performers including Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Tallulah Bankhead, Spencer Tracy, Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt, and Lois Smith. Campbell also appeared on television, with screen credits that include Shades of Gray (1948), Man Against Crime (1949), and The Philco Television Playhouse (1948).

After leaving acting in the 1950s, Campbell turned his attention to writing and publishing. He contributed biographical pieces to Harper's Magazine, with subjects that included Nora Joyce, E.M. Forster, Lynn Fontanne, and Alfred Lunt. He also worked with The New Yorker as a fact checker and book reviewer. Among his written works is B: Twenty-Six Letters from Coconut Grove, an account of his experience performing in A Streetcar Named Desire alongside Tallulah Bankhead.

Campbell devoted a significant portion of his later life to editing and publishing the books of his life-partner, Donald Windham, through the Stamperia Valdonega in Verona, Italy. He was also a dedicated book collector whose holdings included signed first editions by Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, E.M. Forster, Katherine Anne Porter, Isak Dinesen, Alice B. Toklas, and Marianne Moore. That collection is preserved at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Campbell first met Donald Windham in 1943 while modeling for painter Paul Cadmus, and the two remained partners until Campbell's death in 1988. Campbell left his estate to Windham with the stipulation that the remainder, upon Windham's death, would fund a literary prize. That provision led to the establishment of the Donald Windham Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes by Yale University in 2011.