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Times Square Tintypes: Samuel Shipman

In this chapter from his 1932 book, Times Square Tintypes, Broadway columnist Sidney Skolsky profiles Samuel Shipman, a playwright of some prominence in the first half of the twentieth century.

NO MAN IS A HERO TO HIS VALET

SAMUEL SHIPMAN. When he was graduated from Columbia this line appeared under his picture in the college book: “God Makes Some Strange Things.”

His first play, which he wrote at the age of twelve, was something called Justice. It was performed at the Jewish Educational Alliance.

He is marvelously unkempt. Even after he has had a shave and a haircut he needs a shave and a haircut.

As a kid he wore phony jewelry to appear rich.

Writes all his plays in Atlantic City. He engages a suite in one of the exclusive hotels. He always takes two stenographers an a collaborator with him. He dictates everything he writes. Paces the floor and is often in another room shouting the lines. The stenographers work in relays, one resting while the other is taking the dictation.

He never sleeps more than four hours a day. And always one of these hours is between five and six in the morning.

He made a million dollars in royalties from Friendly Enemies and East Is West. So did Wall Street.

Likes to drink and play with tea. Is always pouring the tea from the glass to the saucer and then back into the glass.

Has only one superstition. That is he must start an finish his plays on a Tuesday. It doesn’t matter if the Tuesdays are months apart.

He once taught English in an East Side school.

Everything he does he describes as “terrific.”

Has only one superstition: that is, theatrical notables. Eugene O’Neill, for example, he believes is only an intellectualized Theodore Kremer. Claims the only thing he likes about George Jean Nathan is H. L. Mencken. A. H. Woods is his favorite producer. Because whenever he hands that impresario a flop Woods never cries, but merely says: “It’s all right, sweetheart; try again.”

He rarely eats meat. His favorite meal is one composed solely of caviar.

Likes to go prowling about the city at night and often sets out at midnight, alone.

The sight of fish fascinates him. He is a frequent visitor at the Aquarium.

He never hangs up anything. His clothes are sprawled about the house. On entering he tosses his hat anywhere. His coat is dropped on the living room floor; the vest on the bedroom floor. His trousers he carefully places at the foot of his bed. He dresses faster than a fireman.

To date he has had twelve collaborators. His favorite is John B. Hymer because Hymer understands him.

He wants to know everything before anyone else.

Never reads a book during the winter. Every summer he goes for a vacation in the Catskill Mountains, taking two valises full of books with him.

Doesn’t like young girls. Never goes out with a lady under thirty-five.

Never falls in love with an actress. His sweetheart is a nonprofessional. Her parents, however, dislike everything connected with the theater and won’t allow him in the house.

His ambition in life is to write the libretto of an opera and to have it presented at the Metropolitan Opera House.

He suffers from indigestion. His secretary carries his pills and reminds him when he has indigestion.

At Columbia he studied playwriting under Brander Matthews, who gave him a C minus. He asked that his mark be raised and Matthews asked why. Shipman then pulled out a contract for a play he had just sold. Matthews merely replied: “It’s the old story. Theory is theory and practice is practice.”

He covered the Ruth Snyder case for a tabloid newspaper.

Never cleans his shoes on the outside, but only inside. This, he claims, is healthy for the feet.

He can recite most of Ibsen’s plays from memory. While writing a play his teeth become loose; in fact, so loose that he can pluck them. To date he has plucked six. The minute the play is finished his teeth tighten. He is continually visiting dentists because of this condition.

The greatest disappointment one can get in life, he believes, is meeting somebody one had heard a lot about.

One evening at the Lambs Club Eugene O’Neill was playing poker with a group of playwrights. After losing all his money O’Neill offered to play on his ability as a dramatist. After another hour of heavy losing O’Neill got up and started for home. As he was leaving the doorman said: “Good night, Mr. Shipman.”

The only time he ever combs his hair is before going to bed.

26 Dec 11 | Tags: A. H. Woods, Atlantic City, Brander Matthews, Broadway, Catskill Mountains, Columbia University, Eugene O'Neill, George Jean Nathan, H. L. Mencken, Ibsen, Lambs Club, Metropolitan Opera House, Ruth Snyder, Theodore Kramer
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Pitch perfect: communities

As the Pitch Perfect series continues, today we feature a 1949 collection of advertising slogans used to market cities and civic campaigns.

America’s birthplace (Plymouth Colony Assn.), Plymouth, Wisc.
America’s dairyland (Wisconsin).
America’s home town (Plymouth Colony Assn.).
America’s lake country (The Thousand Lakes Assn.), St. Paul.
America’s Mediterranean (Miami Shores), Miami.
America’s only tropics (Coral Gables), Miami.
At the seashore, in the country, near the city (Lido Beach), New York.

Birth state of the nation (Pennsylvania).

Center of scenic America (Salt Lake City).
City that does things, The (Norfolk, Va.).
City of destiny (Tacoma).
City of industrial opportunity, The (Warren, Pa.).
Clean up and paint up (Nat. Clean Up Campaign Bureau), New York.
Clean, paint up and fix up (Nat. Clean Up Campaign Bureau).
Climate best by government test (Redwood City, Calif.).
Cool off in Colorado.
Cordage city, The (Auburn, N. Y.).
Crossroads of the Pacific (Hawaii).

Dallas is the door to Texas.
Double crossroads of America (Indianapolis).
Dynamo of Dixie, The (Chattanooga, Tenn.).

Enchanted land of opportunity, Florida.

Find your place in the sun (San Francisco Peninsula).
For cleanliness, thrift and civic pride (Nat. Clean Up Campaign).
Forging a share in victory (Thompson McLaughlin Co.), Portland, Me.
Forward with Memphis, since ’69.

Give them life and make it worth living (United Jewish Appeal).
Give to conquer cancer (American Cancer Society).
Good citizenship is good business (Nat. Clean Up Campaign).
Great state in which to live and work, A (Rhode Island).

Heart of America, The (Missouri).
Heart of the fruit belt, The (Benton Harbor, Mich.).
Help others help themselves (Salvation Army).
Hub city of the southeast, The (Spartanburg, S. C.).
Hub of the Americas (New Orleans).
Hub of the highways, The (Cape Girardeau Bridge, Mo.).
Hub of world flight (Mass. Development & Industrial Comm.), Boston.

Inside the sins of adventure (Manitoba, Canada).
Isle of June (Nassau Development Board, Nassau).
It is profitable to produce in Massachusetts.
Read more

06 Jun 11 | Tags: American Cancer Society, Atlantic City, Auburn N. Y., Benton Harbor Mich., Bloomfield N. J., Boston, Buffalo N. Y., Calif., Cape Girardeau Bridge, Chattanooga Tenn., Colorado, Coral Gables, Dallas Texas, El Paso, Fort Lauderdale, Freeport Illinois, Great Falls, Hawaii, Indianapolis, Jamaica, Jersey City, Lakeland Fla., Lido Beach, Los Angeles, Mackinac Island, Manitoba, Massachusetts, Miami Shores, National Guard, New Hampshire, New Orleans, New Zealand, Newport R. I., Norfolk, Oklahoma City, Pennsylvania, Pensacola, Plymouth Colony Assn., Redwood City, Rhode Island, Salt Lake City, Salvation Army, San Antonio, Sarasota Bay, Saratoga, Spartanburg S. C., St. Louis, St. Paul Minn., St. Petersburg, Sun Valley, Tacoma, The Thousand Lakes Assn., United Jewish Appeal, Va., Vancouver, Warren Pa., West Palm Beach, Wilmington Del., Wisconsin
| Cladrite Culture, Pitch Perfect | Read on | Comments (0)

Snapshot in Prose: Red Nichols

This week’s Snapshot in Prose captures cornet and trumpet player Red Nichols at a relatively early point in his career, though he had already made hundreds of recordings under a variety of band names. But, to a certain degree, the more traditional jazz he favored, with its Dixieland flavor, was on the verge of being replaced by the new swing craze.

But Nichols survived and even thrived, continuing to record and perform until his death in 1965. In this 1935 profile, Nichols looks back at his salad days in the world of jazz.

Who plays the red-hottest trumpet in captivity? Red Nichols! Who has the grandest, wavy red hair and come-hitherest laughing brown eyes? Red Nichols! Yet, this utterly charming and totally unaffected young maestro, who became famous from the hour “Red Nichols and His Five Pennies” lit on Broadway, is almost shy.

The day, recently, when this fascinating, slim young leader celebrated his thirtieth birthday, he was also congratulated upon having devoted a quarter of a century to the art of playing a trumpet!

The “veteran” is of medium height. He doesn’t tan tan but red, and his face retains its ruddiness from one season to the next. While Red is remarkably good-humored, he literally sees red when he has to do with chiselers and liars. For the big red haired boy is a square straight-shooter himself.

He was born thirty miles from Salt Lake City. He lists Brigham Young among the half-dozen greatest men in history. However, the Nichols family were not practical Mormons.

Red’s father, E. W. Nichols, was professor of music at Weber College, Ogden, Utah, and at the State University in Salt Lake City. When little E. Loring (Red, to us) was three years old he was running around with a silver-plated trumpet in his mouth. At five, he played “America” before Weber’s entire student body.

“I always loved the cornet best. My trumpet technique improved under the guidance of Captain O’Callaghan,” he told me.

The boy was a good student. He also excelled on the track, and at basketball. A military career loomed ahead. For strangely enough, Red’s parents strenuously objected to their son having a musical career, unless he would devote himself exclusively to the classics.

“I ran away from home, the summer I was sixteen, to join a dance band at Piquet, Ohio,” the affable leader said. “It was called the Syncopating Five. We got stranded in Indianapolis. There was no work. I wouldn’t go home. Washed dishes in a lunch room for three weeks for my food.”

“Then, with nothing at all, I got Ralph Dunkee, of the now famous Sisters of the Skillet and organized a cooperative dance band. In Lake James, Indiana, we found ourselves broke. Luckily, about that time along came the Syncopating Five, and asked me—” Red gave us one of those priceless, roguish looks, and went on, “or rather I asked them, if I could have a job again.

09 Sep 10 | Tags: Ambassador Hotel, Atlantic City, Casino Gardens, Dorsey Brothers, Earl Carroll, Eddie Lang, Indianapolis, Joe Venuti, Red Nichols, Red Nichols and His Five Pennies, Royal Palm Orchestra, Sisters of the Skillet, Syncopating Five
| Cladrite Culture, Cladrite Performers, Snapshot in Prose | Read on | Comments (0)

Meet me tonight in Atlantic City

We are avidly awaiting the new HBO series Boardwalk Empire, due this fall, and we don’t care who knows it.

Terence Winter, Emmy award-winning writer of The Sopranos and Martin Scorsese teamed to create the series, which is based on Nelson Johnson’s book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City and depicts the seamy underbelly (hey, we’ll use the phrase “seamy underbelly” every chance we get) of prohibition-era Atlantic City.

It’s a don’t-miss, as far as we’re concerned. See what you think of these two previews:

Preview

Preview Trailer #2

17 Mar 10 | Tags: Atlantic City, Boardwalk Empire, Martin Scorsese, Prohibition, Steve Buscemi, Terence Winter
| Cladrite Culture, Cladrite television | Read on | Comments (0)

Are You Having Any Fun?
Hey fellow with a million smackers
And nervous indigestion
Rich fellow, eats milk and crackers,
I'll ask you one question,
You silly so and so,
With all your dough...

Are you having any fun?
What you getting out of livin'?
What good is what you've got
If you're not having any fun?

Are you having any laughs?
Are you getting any lovin'?
If other people do,
So can you, have a little fun.

After the honey's in the cone,
Little bees go out and play.
Even the old grey mare down home
Has got to have hay. Hey!

You better have some fun.
You ain't gonna live forever.
Before you're old and gray, feel okay.
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!

Why do you work and slave and save?
Life is full of ifs and buts.
You know the squirrels save and save,
And what have they got? Nuts!

Better have a little fun.
You ain't gonna live forever.
Before you're old and grey, still okay,
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!
Are you havin' any fun?

---Sammy Fain (music) and Jack Yellen (lyrics), 1939

Times Square Tintypes: Samuel Shipman

Pitch perfect: communities

Snapshot in Prose: Red Nichols

Meet me tonight in Atlantic City

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