John Secondari
John H. Secondari (1919–1975) was an American writer, journalist, war veteran, and television producer, best known for his bestselling 1952 novel *Coins in the Fountain*, which inspired the Oscar-winning film "Three Coins in the Fountain".
Born in Rome, Italy, he immigrated to the United States with his family at age five. He earned a B.A. from Fordham University in 1939 and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1940. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army, commanding both a reconnaissance unit and a tank company in combat across France, Germany, and Austria. After the war, he was assigned to the staff of General Mark W. Clark in Vienna and was discharged in 1946 with the rank of captain.
Secondari returned to Italy as a journalist and public information specialist during the country’s postwar reconstruction. He reported for the "Rome Daily American", served as a foreign correspondent for CBS, and was Deputy Chief of the Information Division for the U.S. Economic Cooperation Administration’s Special Mission to Italy under the Marshall Plan. In that role, he oversaw public communications and media strategy at a pivotal moment in Italy’s recovery. His deep familiarity with Rome and its cultural rebirth informed his first novel "Coins in the Fountain", a novel that captured the city’s romance and renewal in the years after the war.
He later became a pioneering figure in American television. Secondari served as the founding Washington Bureau Chief and White House Correspondent for ABC Television, and subsequently as Executive Producer of the network’s Special Projects division. His documentary series "Saga of Western Man" earned both Peabody and Emmy Awards and established him as a major voice in long-form broadcast storytelling.
Over the course of his career, he received more than twenty Emmy nominations, three Peabody Awards, and Italy’s Guglielmo Marconi World Television Award. He died in 1975, leaving a legacy that spanned literature, journalism, and television across two continents.
