Meet…author Zane Grey

Who is Zane Grey?

In the early 20th century, one-time dentist Zane Grey transformed the western novel from pulp fiction into a literary genre. Of his catalog of nearly 90 books, two-thirds of them are westerns. He popularized concepts like the Code of The West, the tormented gunslinger, and the strong-willed and independent women of the frontier.

Born in 1872 in the town of Zanesville, OH, which was founded by his great-grandfather, Grey and his brothers were avid outdoorsmen. Throughout his life, Grey pursued his love of fishing, hunting and horseback riding, as well as canoeing and sailing. He went to the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship, where he studied dentistry. He later played minor league baseball in New York after college.

Initially, he wrote and published articles and stories about his hobbies. His interest in the Old West began on an expedition with Colonel Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones, an adventurer and "plainsman" credited with helping to preserve the American Bison in the last half of the 19th century. He regaled Grey with stories of his life on the plains frontier and became the inspiration for Grey's first western novel, The Last Plainsmen, 1908.

He married Lina "Dolly" Roth in 1905 and had three children. His wife not only supported his career, tolerating is frequent and extensive absences, but she also often edited his manuscripts and helped to broker his deals with the publishers.

Did Grey only write western novels?

His first book, Betty Zane, self-published in 1904, recounted the life of his great aunt who was a heroine of the Revolutionary War. Based on stories he had heard from his grandmother, Grey wrote two books about his illustrious aunt, publishing The Spirit of the Border the next year. He also wrote novels about baseball (The Young Pitcher), nonfiction books about fishing (Tales of Swordfish and Tuna) and the South Seas (The Reef Girl published posthumously). He published various articles, essays and short stories. He also established Zane Grey Productions in 1918, which later became Paramount Pictures and directed and produced the documentary South Seas Adventures in 1932 about a deep-sea fishing trip off the coast of California.

But it was the western that made Grey a bestseller for much of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. Heritage in the Desert (1910) was his breakout novel and first bestseller, but Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) put Grey on the literary map. The book was widely acclaimed by critics and the public and became the author's best-known work. It has been adapted for film and TV numerous times, the latest in 1996 starring Ed Harris and Amy Madigan.

Grey's work is said to have sparked the rise in the western genre's enormous popularity on film and TV in the 1940s and 1950s. More than 100 films (theatrical and TV) have been adapted from Grey's books or stories, according to the International Movie Database (imdb.com).

Can you still find Grey's books available?

Yes, many of Grey's books are still in print, including Riders of the Purple Sage. I found both new and older editions of several titles on Alibris.com. Several of his movies have been collected on DVD as well.

Grey was an influential and prolific writer. He wrote until his death in 1939 from heart failure, with several manuscripts published posthumously. The TV show "M*A*S*H" introduced Grey to a new generation when Colonel Sherman Potter (played by Harry Morgan), an avid Zane Grey fan, joined the show in 1975.





Sources: The Literary Network, Pegasos, Zane Grey's West Society

Meet…author Henry James

What should you know about Henry James?

Henry James was one of the most prolific writers in the late 19th and early 20th century. Not only did he write 20 novels and numerous volumes of literary criticism, he also published more than 100 short stories and penned a dozen stage plays.

Born in New York City in 1843, James grew up in the company of such renowned intellectuals as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who were close friends of his father's. Many rank Henry James, Sr. along side Emerson and Thoreau as some of the most influential people of the mid-19th century.

James interest in Europe began in his youth as he travel and studied extensively abroad. He returned at age 19 to attend Harvard Law School, but he preferred literature to legal studies and published his first short story at age 21.

What was James first popular success?

Shortly after leaving Harvard, the author began publishing in the Atlantic Monthly, his family now settled in Boston, but the appeal of life abroad kept pulling at him and he returned in 1869 briefly. While there he wrote his first novel Watch and Ward, which he published in 1870 upon his return to the States. He didn't stay long this time either and returned within two years, visiting Paris and Rome. Back in Europe James began his second novel, Roderick Hudson.

Americans in Europe was a recurring theme in James' early novels as in Daisy Miller, published in 1879, where young and innocent Daisy, an American, finds her values challenged by European sophistication. The short novel proved to be his first success, garnering him literary fame on both sides of the Atlantic. It seemed to open a floodgate for the author, who wrote four major novels over the next three years - The Portrait of a Lady, The Europeans, Confidence and Washington Square. By 1886, James had written and published a 14-volume collection of novels and tales.

A life-long bachelor, James was believed by many to be a homosexual. His books are known for their sensitive portrayal of women and women's issues, which some attribute to his sexual orientation.

When did James write plays?

In the 1890s James turned to the stage, but it lasted only five years. In 1895, his play "Guy Domville" opened at the St. James Theatre in London. He was publicly jeered and so he abandoned his playwriting career permanently. His plays have rarely been revived, but they were later published in two volumes.

Firmly settled into English life and society, James returned to writing fiction, producing what some consider his best work, including the novella The Turn of the Screw, the novels The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl, and others. In 1904, he returned to the United States to visit his brother in New Hampshire and to see New York City again. He spent most of 1905 lecturing, then returned to his home in England.

During World War I, James wrote for war charities and did other charitable work in hospitals and with war refugees. He became a naturalized British subject in 1915, but was struck down by a stroke five months later. He survived for a few months but died in February 1916. His ashes were returned to the States one final time for burial in the family plot in Cambridge, MA.

James honors include honorary degrees from both Harvard and Oxford, the Order of Merit from England's King George V and a Pulitzer Prize presented in 1931 for the biography of Harvard President Charles W. Eliot he wrote but was not published until 1930.



Sources: Book Rags, The Literature Network, and Pegasos

Meet…novelist/journalist Eric Arthur Blair

Never heard of Eric Arthur Blair?

His pen name is George Orwell, who wrote one the most iconic books of the 20th century, Nineteen Eight-Four.

Born in India in 1903, he moved to England before his second birthday. He began writing in prep school and was first published while at Eton College. His resentment for authority and the English class system began to develop in school but it grew further when he followed his father into civil service becoming an officer in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma (now Myanmar).

Blair followed up Burma by moving to Paris. There he tried his hand at short fiction but had little confidence in his own talent and ended up in menial jobs that he classified as "servile and without art." He used his time in Paris, and later in London and other parts of England, to get to know the poor and "common man" in European society. The studies he made helped to move him to be a proponent of socialism and would later be the fodder for several books.

Where did Blair get the name George Orwell?

Orwell was a small river in East Anglia, a peninsula in eastern England. St. George is the patron saint of England, not to mention the name of several of her Kings. He adopted it in 1933 so as not to embarrass is family, according to some sources.

Unable to support himself with his freelance writing, Blair took a job teaching at a private school in 1932 and while there he finished his first novel Burmese Days about his days in the Imperial Police. Publisher Victor Gollancz commissioned Orwell in 1936 to write a documentary account of the unemployment among miners in northern England. The resulting book, The Road to Wigan Pier, has been considered by critics as a milestone in modern literary journalism.

In 1936, he and his wife traveled to Spain to report on the Civil War and to fight against Franco's Nationalists. Eventually, the Soviet-backed communists attacked the socialist dissenters, whom Orwell and his wife supported and with whom they fought, and the couple had to flee back to England or risk imprisonment or death. It was this experience that turned Orwell against communism, which in turn partly inspired his breakthrough novel, Animal Farm.

Did Orwell use all his experiences as fodder for his books?

Most writers are influenced by what happens to them and around them and Orwell was no different. His first published book, Down and Out in Paris and London, recounted his life among the lower classes after he resigned from the Imperial Police. Homage to Catalonia stemmed from his experiences in Spain, while Orwell took from his experience working in a secondhand bookshop when writing Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

Animal Farm, published in 1945, is a satirical look at Stalin and what Orwell believed to be the dictator's betrayal of the Russian Revolution. Publisher Faber and Faber originally rejected the book, but it is now a classic, often read in high school and college literature courses, and it has been made into a film twice. The concept "all animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others" has been referenced often in politics, the media and literature.

Some sources suspect that the totalitarian society depicted in Orwell's best-known novel Nineteen Eighty-Four stems from his years at the prep school St. Cyprian's. However, the author had long championed the plight of the poor and oppressed and many saw this novel as yet another protest against authority. Critically acclaimed, it also became a staple of literature classes and has been made into multiple films for theatrical release and for television. It, too, contributed words and phrases into today's lexicon, such "Big Brother," "newspeak" and "doublethink."

Of course, most of Orwell's work was banned in the Soviet Union and other communist countries, but today it has even been translated in to Chinese. Orwell did not live to see his work gain popularity and praise worldwide. Nineteen Eight-Four was published in 1949 and the author died of tuberculosis in January 1950.




Sources: BBC - Historic Figures, The Complete Works of George Orwell, The Literature Network, and Pegasos

Meet…writer/entertainer George M. Cohan

Who is George M. Cohan?

Since the Fourth of July or Independence Day is this Friday, George M. Cohan seemed the logical choice for this week's "Meet…" column.

Often called "Mr. Broadway" or "The Man who Owned Broadway," George M. Cohan is most well known for his songs "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "Give My Regards to Broadway" and the WWI anthem "Over There," which won him a Congressional Medal of Honor from President Franklin D. Roosevelt 25 years after it was written. His career in American theatre spanned more than 50 years.

Although he claimed to be born on the Fourth of July, Cohan was actually born on July 3, 1878. He was the second child of Jerry and Nellie Cohan, a highly popular vaudeville act. He got his start on stage at age nine, playing the violin, reciting poetry and acting in minor sketches. At age 11, he and his sister Josie joined their parents on stage to become "The Four Cohans." As a teen, he began writing skits for the family and songs, selling his first one when he was 15. His writing skills drew the attention of other performers and he was soon writing material for many of them. This impressed his father so that the man put Cohan in charge of the family's act. He was 17.

The Four Cohans - circa 1890s

How did Cohan come to write Broadway musicals?

As the manager for the family act, Cohan was almost as protective as he was ambitious. After a falling out over the billing of the family act with B.F. Keith, the primary producer and theatre owner in vaudeville, the Four Cohans were forced to try the "legitimate" theatre. Cohan had several lack luster comedies before he hit it big with the musical play "Little Johnny Jones" in 1904. The show established the song and dance man as a solid Broadways star and it produced the poplar songs "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Give My Regards to Broadway." His recurring and shameless flag-waving baffled critics, but struck deeply into the hearts of American theatre-goers and they were who mattered most to Cohan.

Cohan wrote more than 40 musicals and dramas, and became a "fixer" for dozens more. His enthusiastic patriotic theme songs are recognized around the world to this day. In 2002, "You're a Grand Old Flag" won the Songwriters Hall of Fame Towering Song Award.

The movie "Yankee Doodle Dandy," made in 1942, loosely tells the story of the entertainer's life, highlighting his music and his tremendous showmanship. James Cagney played Cohan. Many of the musical numbers replicated Cohan's own stagings, including the effect of a flare firing from the deck of an ocean liner for the number "Give My Regards to Broadway."



What is Cohan's legacy today?

Cohan's autobiography, Twenty Years on Broadway and the Years It Took to Get There: The True Story of a Trouper's Life from the Cradle to the "Closed Shop," can be found through used book websites, including a first edition on Alibris.com. I also found a couple bound copies of his play "The Tavern" and sheet music for various songs. Although not his work, Cohan did approve the movie "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and it was released on DVD in 2003 and can still be found occasionally on cable TV.

Cohan died in 1942 from stomach cancer at the age of 63. In 1959, Oscar Hammerstein II presented a bronzed statue of Cohan in Times Square, looking up Broadway, the street he once owned. Nearly 10 years later, the biographical musical "George M!" co-written by Cohan's daughter Mary, opened on Broadway. Every Fourth of July, at least one band or orchestra in America plays "You're a Grand Old Flag" and/or "Yankee Doodle Dandy" more than 100 years after they were first performed. How's that for longevity?





Sources: AuthenticHistory.com, Musicals 101, PBS - Broadway: the American Musical, Songwriters Hall of Fame

Meet...storyteller Aesop

Was Aesop a real person?

Famous for his many fables, Aesop is believed to have lived between 620-560 B.C., although some scholars still deny he existed beyond legend. He is mentioned in the works of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, among others. Some facts of his life have remained constant in reference after reference. He was a slave on the Greek Island of Samos. He had a quick wit, a gift for sarcasm, which enhanced his oratory skills. He has been depicted in sculptures as having a physical deformity and there are several references to him being mute or having a speech impediment that was cured by the goddess Isis.

Aesop died in Delphi, after being accused of stealing. The sentence for the crime was to be thrown from a cliff. He maintained his innocence, even cursing the Delphians. The area suffered through pestilence, famine and war, which many attribute to Aesop's unjust death.

How many fables did Aesop write?

The number of fables attributed to Aesop varies depending on whom you ask. Some say as many as 600 while others say most of the called "Aesop's fables" actually were written in much later in the Middle Ages and collected with the other tales under Aesop's name, much like nursery rhymes were collected under the name of Mother Goose.

One reason for the dispute is the believed purpose of fables in society. Today Aesop's fables teach moral lessons to children, using animals and metaphors to relay the consequences of telling lies or being greedy or being proud. In ancient time, the primary purpose of fables was to explain natural phenomena or unusual occurrences, not moral lessons.

Another reason for doubted the fables' author is that it is unlikely that Aesop actually wrote his stories down. He was a slave so it was unlikely that he could write. Written copies of his fables didn't begin to appear for more than a century after his death. Socrates reportedly passed the time while he was in prison in the early fourth century B.C. by turning some of the fables into verse.

Later collections appear to compile other folk tales from Europe and Asia with the fables under Aesop's name. Still some titles are widely accepted as the storyteller's own fables, including "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Ant and the Grasshopper," "The Shepherd and the Wolf" (a.k.a. "The Boy Who Cried Wolf") and "The Fox and the Crow."

What impact do the fables have today?

Still a popular collection of stories for children, Aesop's fables have been adapted into plays, films, games and more. The fables inspire contemporary writers to retell them in new settings and with new characters. The appeal stems from the simple, gentle way the life lessons are taught to both the characters within the stories and the readers.

You can find various editions of the collected Aesop's fables plus many of the individual tales on Amazon.com, Alibris.com, Barnes and Noble and other bookstores. The stories also appear as VHS and DVD films and you can also find games and toys with an Aesop theme.



Sources: BiographyBase.com, Collection of the World's Fairy Tales, and The Literature Network.

Meet…lyricist Dorothy Fields

Who is Dorothy Fields?

If you're a fan of the modern American musical, you've heard the work of Dorothy Fields. She penned such songs as "The Sunny Side of the Street," "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby," "The Way You Look Tonight," and the Broadway musicals "Annie Get Your Gun," "Sweet Charity," and numerous others. Her career moved from Harlem's Cotton Club, to Broadway, to Hollywood, back to Broadway and even to television, spanning more than 50 years. She won an Oscar, a Tony and was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Born into a theatrical family in 1905, her father was a vaudeville comedian before becoming a successful producer, Fields and her siblings were discouraged from entering the family business, but they found themselves on Broadway nonetheless. Both brothers were playwrights and she and Hebert Fields collaborated on several projects, including "Annie Get Your Gun."

With which composers did Fields collaborate?

Fields worked with dozens of composers during her 50-year career. The most notable one was Jerome Kern with whom she wrote the music for several film projects, the pinnacle being the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie "Swing Time." They won the Oscar for Best Original Song for "The Way You Look Tonight."

Kern had signed on to write the music for "Annie Get Your Gun" but he died before he could start. Irving Berlin stepped in to write the score while Fields and her brother Herb wrote the book. The musical opened in 1946 and was a sensational hit.

The 1950s found Fields splitting her time between the theatre, film and television. She did not produce any stage work in the early 1960s, but was coaxed back to Broadway by a young composer named Cy Coleman. They created "Sweet Charity," which spawned the immediate hits "Big Spender" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now." Her last musical was also written with Coleman. "Seesaw" hit Broadway in 1973. Fields died one year later of a stroke after attending rehearsals for the national tour of "Seesaw." She was 68.

Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern

Which did she like best - Hollywood or Broadway?

Fields had great success both in film and on stage, but she preferred the stage. With theatre, a lyricist is involved in every phase from the writing through the rehearsal and the out-of-town try-outs. A stage production just by its nature is alive and ever changing. She found the movie business distancing creatively. Once the score is written and turned in, the lyricist and composer rarely heard anything from the production until the movie is screened up to a year later.

Hollywood did put several of her Broadways shows on film: "Annie Get Your Gun," "Sweet Charity" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" to name a few. Many of them are on DVDs as are several of her film musicals. I found several titles on Amazon.com, Borders.com and Alibris.com.


Sources: The Dorothy Fields Website, The Guide to Musical Theatre, PBS: Broadway - The American Musical, and The Songwriter's Hall of Fame


l-r: Ethel Merman, Irving Berlin, and Dorothy Fields

Meet…poet and novelist Anne Brontë

Who is Anne Brontë?

Anne Brontë is the youngest and most underrated of the Brontë sisters. She was born in 1820 into a religious family. Her father was a minister in the Church of England and her Aunt Branwell, who raised Brontë after her mother died, was a Wesleyan Methodist. The competing religious ideologies kept her questioning and spiritually confused for most of her adult life.

Brontë began writing stories and poetry at an early age as did most of her five siblings (one brother and four sisters), but she didn't publish until late in her life. As children, she and Emily created an imaginary world complete with its own history, characters, settings and plots. She mined her own life for subject matter in her poetry and novels. Her spiritual struggles were depicted in poems like "The Doubter's Prayer," while her experiences as a governess were fodder for the novel Agnes Grey.

Were her novels important?


Though not as widely known as her sisters' books (Jane Eyre - Charlotte, Wuthering Heights - Emily), Brontë's novels contained complex structures and controversial (at that time) social themes. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall took a feminist stand on marriage and the lack of recourse a woman had in Victorian society. Brontë had a talent for writing with camera-like clarity and detail. Her style of straight-forward, unflinching details and descriptions coupled with her pen name "Acton Bell," led many in the publishing world, and her readers as well, to believe her to be a man, which further irritated the 19th-century feminist.

Both Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey were more realistic while the other Brontë sisters' novels were more romantic, further separating Brontë and her work. While Agnes Grey was received with mixed reviews, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, with its strong, stubborn heroine, was an instant success in a time where women had no legal rights. The novel's popularity renewed interest in her poetry and she began publishing in popular magazines.

Anne Brontë died in 1849 from tuberculosis at the age of 29.

How widely was Brontë published?


While Brontë wrote several dozen poems, her publishing history is sparse. Her first book of poetry compiled with her sisters, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, was published in 1846, but that was not a complete run. The final portion of the print run was released in 1848 but did not sell well. Agnes Grey was published in 1848 and can still be found in print, as can The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Another collection entitled Brontë Poems was published in 1915.






(l-r: Anne, Emily, Charlotte Brontë)








Sources: The Brontë Parsonage Museum and Brontë Society, The Celebration of Women Writers, The Literature Network

Meet...playwright Lillian Hellman

Who was Lillian Hellman?

Lillian Hellman was a strong-willed outspoken woman, who although she only wrote 12 plays became one of the leading voices of American Theatre and a role model for women playwrights for generations. She maintained a political life almost as dramatic as her plays, organizing a union for script readers in Hollywood, visiting Spain during its Civil War, smuggling money to German dissidents attempting to oust Hitler.

In 1952, Hellman stared down the Committee on Un-American Activities and watched them blink. Yes, she was blacklisted in Hollywood and yes, she was forced to sell her home when served with a large unexplained tax bill, but in spite of her invoking her Fifth Amendment Rights and basically calling the Committee "inhumane and indecent and dishonorable," Hellman was otherwise excused after she refused to name friends and colleagues who may have had Communist ties. In comparison, the Committee sentenced her companion, mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, to prison for six months for virtually the same behavior.

How did Hellman get her start on Broadway?


It happened in Hollywood. Hellman moved to California in 1930 with her husband Arthur Kober, a playwright. She got a job at MGM reading scripts, a dull job she thought, but it offered her the opportunity to click into a network of writers and other creative people, including Hammett. Within two years, she divorced her husband and began a 30-year relationship with the much older writer. It was Hammett who encouraged her to write her first play: "The Children's Hour," a story of how a child ruins the lives of two school teachers by spreading rumors that they have a lesbian relationship.

Hellman hit Broadway with a bang, shocking audiences in 1934 with her frank treatment of lesbianism. However, when trying to convince Samuel Goldwyn to buy the screen rights to the play, she insisted, "It's not about lesbians. It's about the power of a lie." The play ran on Broadway for nearly 700 performances. It has been filmed twice.

"The Little Foxes" is Hellman's most well known play. Written in 1939, the story of a southern family struggling and backstabbing each other to gain control of a cotton mill after the Civil War not only rallied against capitalism and greed, but it explored the family dynamics and the individual motives of the characters. Hellman's ability to blend politics with individual human stories can be seen throughout her work and reveals the complexity of the playwright's own personality.


"The Little Foxes" ran for over 400 performances and Samuel Goldwyn didn't have to be convinced to buy the screen rights. Hellman wrote the screenplay for the film in 1941 and received her first Oscar nomination. Her second Oscar nomination came two years later for "The North Star."

How was Hellman able to recover from being on Hollywood's Blacklist?

She returned to the theatre. To raise money after losing her house to pay that punitive tax bill, Hellman staged a revival of "The Children's Hour," then she set back to writing. She adapted several works for the stage, including a musical version of Voltaire's Candide, with music from Leonard Bernstein. It would be almost 10 years before Hellman wrote an original play, and again Hammett would be the one who initiated it. "Toys in the Attic" opened in 1960. The story about two sisters and their ne'er-do-well brother was later made into a film with Dean Martin and Geraldine Page.

She continued to write and speak out against injustices as she encountered them. Excited by the rise of student activism in the 1960s, Hellman began teaching writing at various colleges, including the University of New York, Yale and Harvard, and often defended student protestors. She founded the Committee for Public Justice in 1970 to create "an early warning system" to monitor violations of constitutional rights, among other things. She continued to support many organizations financially and with her time and energy.


Finally, Hellman published a trilogy of memoirs beginning with An Unfinished Woman in 1969. Some critics claimed that the books were so inaccurate, she should have published them as novels, while others remarked at their artistry and insight. Pentimento, published in 1973, was the basis of the film "Julia." Scoundrel Time (1976) discussed her activism and her call to testify before the Committee on Un-American Activities.

Hellman died in 1984 at the age of 79, but not before garnering a National Book Award, two New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, two Oscar nominations and many other awards and honors.

You can find her three memoirs and some of her plays still available in print today. Many of the film adaptations are also still available on DVD or VHS.





Sources: American Masters Series (PBS), Moonstruck Drama Bookstore, Pegasos, Perspectives in American Literature, Theatre Database

Meet…playwright and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II

What should you know about Oscar Hammerstein II?

Born in 1895 in New York City into a prominent theatrical family, Oscar Hammerstein II contributed more to American musical theater than any other single person. His grandfather, whom he was named after, was an opera producer. His father managed the Hammerstein's Victoria, a vaudeville theatre, and his uncle was a successful Broadway producer. Though encouraged by his father to study law at Columbia Law School, he couldn't deny the draw of theatre, and he soon talked his uncle into hiring him as an assistant stage manager for his current production. He soon was promoted to stage manager for all his uncle's productions.

He began writing books and lyrics for musicals, although primarily for operettas. His first play, "The Light", produced by his uncle in 1919, ran for four performances, but Hammerstein kept writing with a series of collaborators. His two most successful partnerships were with Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers. With them, Hammerstein would change musical theatre forever.

What were Hammerstein's greatest contributions to American musical theatre?


Hammerstein wrote eight musicals with composer Jerome Kern, including "Show Boat" which is widely considered the first modern American musical play. Produced in 1927, "Show Boat" transcended previous musical comedies with rich, dynamic songs that served to move the plot, developed the characters and helped to reinforce the setting and time. Later, he and Kern later won Best Original Song Academy Award for "The Last Time I Saw Paris" in the film "Lady be Good" in 1941, making him the first Oscar to win an Oscar.

In his partnership with Richard Rodgers, Hammerstein won a Pulitzer Prize for "Oklahoma!" in 1943 and a second Academy Award for "It Might as Well be Spring" in the film "State Fair" in 1945. "Oklahoma!" broke new ground in musical theatre. It was a musical without humor, without sight gags. It drifted into tragedy, killing one of the main characters at the climax of the story. Instead of showgirls dancing in scant outfits, it incorporated an extended ballet sequence. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen.


With their seemingly simple and accessible lyrics and music, the duo tackled social issues in many of their musicals. "South Pacific," which won the duo a second Pulitzer in 1949, examined racial and social prejudices, as did "The King and I" two years later. Hammerstein's last musical "The Sound of Music" in 1959 dealt in part with the pervasiveness of the Nazi movement through Europe in the late 1930s.

Oscar Hammerstein II died in 1960.

What is Hammerstein's legacy?

With Rodgers, Hammerstein produced numerous plays, musicals and revivals including Irving Berlin's widely popular "Annie Get Your Gun". He was a mentor to Alan Lerner, who wrote "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot" with composer Frederick Lowe, and a mentor and close friend of Stephen Sondheim, who penned such hits as "Sweeney Todd" and "Sunday in the Park with George."


Hammerstein served on the board of directors for many theatrical and film professional organizations, won five Tony Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Academy Awards and received five honorary degrees. During the centennial anniversary of his birth in 1995 and 1996, three of his musicals played simultaneously on Broadway. "Show Boat" and "The King and I" took home the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival in 1995 and 1996 respectively, while "State Fair," which was the only musical Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote for film, was nominated for the 1996 Tony Award for Best Score.




Sources: Broadway: The American Musical on PBS.com, Songwriters Hall of Fame, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, TheatreHistory.com

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

Meet…author/journalist Joel Chandler Harris

Why should you know Joel Chandler Harris?

If you ever saw the Disney movie "Song of the South" or heard the story of the Tar Baby, you've experienced the talent of Joel Chandler Harris. His Uncle Remus tales have been translated into more than 20 languages and many of the collections have remained in print more than 100 years since the original was published.

Harris was born in Eatonton, GA, in 1848 to an unwed mother. His illegitimacy may have been the cause of his shyness, a slight stammer and his self-effacing manner. He was gifted with a fantastic memory and a love of books and reading. As a teenager, he apprenticed with a small plantation newspaper called The Countryman, run by Joseph Addison Turner on his Turnwold Plantation. Here Harris developed his talent for writing under Turner's encouragement, and by the time the paper was shut down after the Civil War, he had published more than 30 poems, book reviews and comic paragraphs.

Journalism had a firm hold on Harris and he took jobs in Macon, GA, Forsyth, GA and New Orleans before becoming an associate editor at the Savannah Morning News in 1870. There his "Affairs of Georgia" column grew in popularity with many of his comic and human-interest pieces being reprinted around the state. When a yellow fever epidemic hit Savannah in 1876, Harris moved his young family to Atlanta, where he would work for 24 years with the Atlanta Constitution. Harris died in Atlanta in 1908.

How did he come to create Uncle Remus?


Harris was an ardent champion of reconciling the South after the war. He often wrote about political and social reform in an attempt to heal his wounded country. When he was asked to fill in for another writer, Harris created Uncle Remus, basing him on some of the slaves he met on Turnwold Plantation. Uncle Remus first related tales of postwar Atlanta, but Harris soon had him telling old plantation folktales and slave songs. His stories humorously addressed the racial tensions of the day through wily Brer Rabbit, sly Brer Fox and the brutish Brer Bear. Harris' ear for dialect and his talent for literary imagery made the Uncle Remus stories favorites of both children and their parents.

He published Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings from the Old Plantation in 1880 and collected five more books full of Remus tales. In 1946 Disney made a water-down version of Uncle Remus in "Song of the South" which mixed a live-action Uncle Remus with cartoon Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear. In later years some people labeled Uncle Remus and Harris as racist, when in fact the characters represented both whites and blacks and their relations in the postwar South.

Did Harris write any other books?


He wrote a variety of collections of children's stories, including Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country, and other story collections for adults, which focus on some of the darker social issues of the day, including Mingo and Other Sketches in Black and White and Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches. He also wrote some novels and a fictionalized memoir and tribute to his mentor Turner, called A Plantation Printer: The Adventures of a Georgia Boy During the War.

Many of Harris' books are available today. I found several editions of the Uncle Remus books on both Alibris and on Amazon. Many of the other titles were also available. His Atlanta home the Wren's Nest houses the Joel Chandler Harris Association and museum. The Uncle Remus Museum in Harris' hometown, Eatonton, GA, contains memorabilia from the author plus dioramas of scenes from the folktales and is housed in authentic slave cabins.




Sources: New Georgia Encyclopedia, All American: Literature, History and Culture, Wren's Nest Online, Answers.com

Meet…author Louisa May Alcott

What should you know about Louisa May Alcott?

Louisa May Alcott is one of the most prolific female writers in the 19th century. She published more than 30 books and collections. Born in Germantown, PA in 1832, she always had a passion to write and a flair for drama. As a child, she wrote stories for her and her sisters to perform. As a young adult, she published poetry and short fiction in magazines, but it was the novel Little Women that sealed her place in literary history.

Assigned by her publisher to write a book for girls, Alcott broke the mold of children's fiction with the headstrong and independent Jo March. The book has been filmed numerous times with such actresses as Katherine Hepburn, June Allyson and Wynona Ryder in the role of Jo.

Like her mother, she was committed to many social issues, including the abolition of slavery and equality for women, and through her books and characters became an inspiration to young women for generations. However, her strongest commitment was to her family. After her father's attempt at an Utopian community, Fruitlands, failed, leaving the family impoverished, Alcott vowed at age 15 she would do anything to help her family and worked as a teacher, governess, house servant and other positions for many years. She also wrote what she referred to as "rubbish novels" anonymously or under the pen names A.N. Barnard and Flora Fairfield to add to the family income.

Who were Alcott's greatest influences?


Her parents - Bronson, a philosopher and teacher and Abigail, a feminist and social reformer - were naturally her first influences. She spent her childhood in the company of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. She also was a fan of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the Brontë sisters. Her first book, Flower Fables, was a collection of stories for Emerson's daughter, Ellen.

Alcott drew from her own life for a lot of her work. Hospital Sketches was adapted from letters she wrote during her time as a nurse during the Civil War. Work: A Story of Experience tells of her experiences as a house servant. And of course, she retooled her own family into the March family in Little Women.

How long did Alcott publish?


Her first book, Flower Fables, was published in 1854. She was 22. Her last book was published in 1996. (That's not a typo.) A Long Fatal Love Chase was thought to be too scandalous in post-Civil War America. It was originally written for serialization in a magazine. The story of obsession and deception was not published in book form until 108 years after her death. A Garland for Girls was the last book published in her lifetime. Alcott died in 1888, two days after her father.

Many of Alcott's books can be found on Alibris and on Amazon, but not in great numbers on Amazon. Alcott's work has been a favorite of Hollywood since the silent movie days. In addition to many incarnations of Little Women, Little Men, The Inheritance, Primavera, Onawandah and An Old Fashioned Girl made it to film or t.v.




Sources: Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association, Online Literature Network, Pegasos, The Dictionary of Unitarian and Univeralist Biography

Meet…screenwriter Frances Marion

What should you know about Frances Marion?

She is not the "Swamp Fox" of Revolutionary War fame, although Francis, "The Swamp Fox," Marion is rumored to be one of her ancestors. Frances Marion is the first woman to be nominated and to win an Academy Award for writing. In 1930 she won the Academy Award for Achievement in Writing for the movie "The Big House." The following year she won the Academy Award for Original Story for "The Champ" and was nominated for the story award again the following year for "The Prizefighter and the Lady."

Born in 1887 in San Francisco, Marion came to Hollywood in 1913 at the age of 23, already a journalist and published author. She made friends quickly and was a natural at networking and soon found herself in the midst of the Hollywood machine. One of her best friends was the film star Mary Pickford, for whom she wrote several films. She wrote scripts for many of her friends, including Billie Burke, Ronald Coleman, Rudoph Valentino and Marie Dressler.


Marion's first film was produced in 1915 and began the journey, which would make her the most renowned female scriptwriter in the 20th century, responsible for writing or adapting between 150 and 200 movies, spanning both the silent and talking film eras. She was the highest paid screenwriter of either gender at that time. In 1940 she retired from films but taught screenwriting at the University of California - Los Angeles.

How did she become so highly respected?

Marion wrote across genre and gender lines. She could write "four-hankerchief tearjerkers" like "Stella Dallas" and "The Champ," and high drama, like her Oscar-winner "The Big House." She successfully transition from silent movies to the "talkies" because she wrote scripts that were always conscious of the camera. She often wrote scenes with no dialogue, relying on the actors' expressive faces and actions to relay the story. She was also extremely adept when it came to translating a book to film. She tried her hand at directing at various times throughout her career, but never garnered the recognition and acclaim her writing received.


Marion also wrote plays, a book on writing and selling scripts, magazine articles, several novels and her autobiography, Off With Their Heads, in 1972. Marion died in 1973, but many of her scripts have been remade at least once. Some, like "The Champ," have been remade multiple times.

Is any of her work still available?

Yes, I found the original and remakes of "The Champ" on DVD as well as versions of "Stella Dallas," "Anna Christie" and others on NetFlix and Amazon. I found a VHS copy of "The Big House" on Alibris. Her autobiography, her book on writing/selling scripts and some of her novels are available new and used from venders on Amazon.




Sources: Answers.com, Britannica.com, FilmReference.com, The Oscar Site









NOTE: Don't forget The Virtual Book Tour by Font Literary Agency & Writing Centre is tomorrow, April 8. Click here to read more about Lover's Hollow author Orna Ross, then stop by tomorrow evening to read her responses to your questions!

Meet...playwright/screenwriter Sidney Howard

What should you know about Sidney Howard?

A journalist, playwright and screenwriter during the 1920s and 1930s, Sidney Howard was the first person to win a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award. Born in 1891 in Oakland, CA, he began writing while at the University of California-Berkeley for various student publications. He later studied at Harvard and served in the military during World War I before moving to New York City in 1919. There he began working as a journalist, writing for Life, The New Republic and Hearst International.

For what did he win his awards?

Between 1921 and 1938, Howard wrote more than 50 plays, but his most successful was They Knew What They Wanted in 1924. It won the Pulitzer the following year. Set in the California wine country, the play follows the story of an Italian immigrant and his mail-ordered bride. It was later adapted into the Frank Loesser musical The Most Happy Fella. Nearly all of Howard's plays had successful runs in New York. Three of his plays were produced in the early and mid-1950s, more than 13 years after his death.


While he wrote plays he also delved into screenwriting for which he received three Oscar nominations, winning once. The first nomination in 1932 was for his adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel Arrowsmith. The second nomination in 1937 was for another Lewis novel adaptation, Dodsworth, which he had also adapted for the New York stage, but it was the third time that was the charm for Howard.

In 1940, just months after his death, Howard won an Oscar for his adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. His final distinction was to be the first person to be awarded the Oscar posthumously. He had died in an accident in August 1939 before the film was completed.

How is Howard remembered?


Aside from his awards, Howard was also a major force in New York theater in the 1920s and 1930s. He, along with other powerful playwrights such as Robert Sherwood, founded The Playwrights' Company in 1938 to rival the Theatre Guild on Broadway. The producing company was responsible for such memorable plays as Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Tea and Sympathy and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof before it disbanded in the 1960s.

His three Oscar nominated movies are available on DVD and as are a handful of his plays. Of course, his screenplay of Gone with the Wind is available in various editions from the published shooting script to an illustrated version.




Sources: FilmReference.com, Perspectives in American Literature: a Research and Reference Guide, Writers' Guild of America





NOTE: Don't forget The Virtual Book Tour by Font Literary Agency & Writing Centre is coming April 8. Click here to read more and to leave comments or questions Orna Ross.

Meet...novelist Anatole France

What should you know about Anatole France?

Anatole France is a study in contradictions. The son of a bookseller, France was born Jacques Anatole Thibault in 1844 in Paris, France. Although he is one of the major figures in French literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, earning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1921, many of his works were put