Gardner was on staff of The New York Times for seven years as a writer-critic and assistant editor of Sunday Arts & Leisure.[1] In Paris, where he lived for over three years, he contributed theatre and film reviews to the Financial Times of London and worked on film projects with director Claude Chabrol, co-scripting Chabrol's Ten Days' Wonder (film) (La Décade prodigieuse),[2][3] which starred Orson Welles and Anthony Perkins.
He published a William Faulkner portrait published in A Faulkner Perspective for the Franklin Library; Lynn,[4][5] the memoirs of Royal Ballet star Lynn Seymour; Brooklyn: People and Places, Past and Present, a socio-cultural history of the famous borough; and Louise Bourgeois, a personal journey into the life of the acclaimed sculptor. Writing for a variety of periodicals, Gardner interviewed subjects as diverse as the Beatles (on their first visit to the U.S.A.), Howard Hawks in Palm Springs, and Leni Riefenstahl in Pöcking, Bayern.[6]
A founding board member of the Delaware Theatre Company,[7] Gardner helped launch the state's first regional theatre in Wilmington.
He co-produced the Art City series of three contemporary art documentaries[8] featuring artists Brice Marden, Elizabeth Murray (artist), Agnes Martin, and Neil Jenney, among others; and the visual profile, Richard Tuttle: Never Not an Artist. The films have been shown at festivals in Toronto, Montréal, Paris, and Naples, as well as at art museums throughout the world.
Bibliography
Books
Lynn : The Autobiography of Lynn Seymour. London : Granada Publishing Ltd., 1984.
Brooklyn : People and Places, Past and Present (with Grace Glueck). New York : Harry N. Abrams, 1991.