John Corry, former Times reporter and TV critic, dies at 89

John Corry, a former culture news reporter and television critic for The New York Times whose investigative articles helped clear a young man wrongly convicted of killing his mother and disputed plagiarism allegations against bestselling author Jerzy Kosinski, died Saturday in his home in New York City. He was 89.

Corry’s daughter Colette Corry Dahlberg confirmed the death.

In 31 years in journalism (1957-1988), nearly all at the Times, Corry covered the comings and goings of shows and stars on Broadway and wrote the “About New York” column and three books. He also reported on the efforts by Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy to prevent the publication of a William Manchester book on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In 1966, Corry broke the news of the Kennedys’ threat to sue Harper & Row to block publication of “The Death of a President” on grounds of breach of contract.

While relying on interviews with the Kennedys, the Manchester book included passages unflattering to Jacqueline Kennedy and potentially damaging to Robert Kennedy’s political career. After a settlement, the book was published with minor changes in 1967. Corry followed with a quickie book of his own, “The Manchester Affair.”

Corry wrote the first Times articles about the sex studies by William Masters and Virginia Johnson, beginning with their definitive and graphically revelatory bestseller, “Human Sexual Response” (1966). In an era of restrictive social conventions, the Corry articles raised issues of taste in a fastidious newspaper whose editors had rarely allowed the publication of sexually explicit language, even in health and science reports.