The oldest grandson of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Curtis Roosevelt, discusses his new book, *Too Close to the Sun: Growing up in the Shadow of my Grandparents, Franklin and Eleanor*. He talks about FDR’s lively bedside breakfast meetings and the more adult observations of the tension that riddled the family while he was a teenager.
Curtis Roosevelt, is the second eldest child of Anna Roosevelt and her first husband, Curtis Bean Dall. He is the eldest grandson of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. After his parents' divorce, his mother remarried journalist John Boettiger. Roosevelt graduated from St. John's Northwestern Military Academy at Delafield, Wisconsin in 1948. He served two years in the United States Army and obtained his masters degree from the School of Government and Public Law at Columbia University. Between 1956 and 1964, he worked for a number of schools and committees including: The National Citizens Commission for the Public Schools, The New School for Social Research, Columbia University, and The United States Committee for the United Nations. Beginning in 1964, Roosevelt held various positions in the international civil service sector Secretariat of the United Nations in New York City until 1983. Roosevelt served as principal at the Dartington College of Arts in Devon, England, where he received an honorary bachelors degree in theatre, music, and fine art. Roosevelt retired in 1987. Roosevelt also became an occasional writer on American politics for El Mundo and Le Figaro newspapers in Spain and France. He has since moved to the south of France where he regularly appears on French television.