William Jovanovich

William Jovanovich (1920 – 4 December 2001) was an American publisher, author, and businessman of Montenegrin origin. He served as the director of the publishing firm Harcourt, Brace & World from 1954 to 1991, renamed Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich in his honor in 1970. He also owned SeaWorld marine parks, and wrote both fiction and non-fiction. William Jovanovich was born Vladimir Jovanovich in Colorado 1920, the youngest child of a Polish mother and Montenegrin father, who worked as a coal miner. Educated in Denver elementary schools and the University of Colorado, Jovanovich served in the navy during World War II. In 1943 he married Martha Evelyn Davis, with whom he had three children. Unable to comlete graduate study after the war, he joined the publisher Harcourt Brace and Company as a college textbook salesman. He rose quickly through the company's management ranks. In 1953 he became head of Harcourt's school division and the company's president the following year. Jovanovich presided over the steady expansion of Harcourt, Brace's enterprises, acquiring other publishing firms and even purchasing several theme parks. In 1970, with company shareholders's approval, the firm changed its name to Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich (HBJ). Under Jovanovich's leadership, the company published several important authors, such as Günter Grass, Umberto Eco, and Italo Calvino. Jovanovich worked direclty with a number of these writers, including Hannah Arendt, Milton Friedman, and Mary McCarthy. Jovanovich and McCarthy first met in 1958, and their professional relationship evolved into a close personal that lasted until McCarthy's death in 1989. Jovanovich continued to play an important role in the management of HBJ until his departure from the company in 1990. In addition working as a publisher, Jovanovich also wrote a number of books, including a memoir, The Temper of the West. Jovanovich died in 2001 at age 81 in San Diego, California.^[1]

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