Stephen M. Silverman, a long-time entertainment reporter and author who wrote a critically admired biography of British director David Lean and also a forthcoming book about the Broadway titan Stephen Sondheim, died on July 6 in Manhattan. He was 71.

As a journalist, he wrote about Broadway and Hollywood for The New York Post, People Magazine and its website, People Daily, and was its news editor for 20 years.

Some of Mr. Silverman’s books were detours from his entertainment specialty. In 2015, he and Raphael D. Silver, a film producer, published The Catskills: Its History and How It Changed America. Mr. Silverman also wrote The Amusement Park: 900 Years of Thrills and Spills, and the Dreamers and Schemers Who Built Them (2019). He described the appeal of a quintessential amusement park ride: “When you’re at the top of the roller coaster, you’re not thinking of paying the mortgage.”