Author! Author! Author!

WALTER WINCHELL

An Illuminating Exposure of the Theory, Practice and Personnel of the "Ghost-Writing" Business

WHEN the skeptics of centuries ago first whispered that Bacon wrote all of Shakespeare's stuff, there sprang into being the rumour of the "ghost writer." A "ghost" or "shadow" writer today is one who writes what another signs and who is paid a fee for his creative labours, remaining in the background while the advertised author acknowledges the applause, if any. Briefly and obversely stated the signature over the article isn't always that of the author, in these days of big literary business. For example: Sir Harry Lauder's book, A Minstrel in France was written by William Almon Woolf and Damon Runyon, two newspapermen.

It has become a healthy field for obscure and even well known writers, this "ghost" business. Not all of the men and women who know how to handle the English language find ready markets for their wares. In these modern times, when most publications prefer stories and articles signed by celebrated names or "freak" celebrities, who crash the heavens with a channel swim or a trans-atlantic flight, the "ghost writer" cashes in heavily. When you consider the syndicate circuit or the newspaper that buys the story, making the "tie-up" for exclusive first publication rights and retailing the second publication rights, it is not difficult to see that it is a succulent apple for someone. The ghost writer invariably receives fifty percent of the syndication profits plus a juicy advance fee. Several boys and girls in New York City alone, are living comfortably in this manner—preparing, perhaps, not more than two "smash" tales for others during the year.

BUT "ghost-writing" hasn't been confined solely to literary stylists understudying for illiterate rough diamonds. Often "ghostwriters" substitute for those who are too busy or too lazy to fill orders. No better historical precedent is needed than the army of "ghostwriters" or hacks of which Alexander Dumas, the great French "snappy story" scrivener availed himself when he was too busy with dinner engagements to keep up with the demands of his publishers. It was this army of "ghost-writers" that was responsible for the supposed voluminosity of Dumas.

The earliest form of the modern ghost writer, perhaps, was the patent medicine testimonial preparer. You know the type—"So and So's Pills Made Me Thinner, etc.—Minnie Zilch, Oswego, Okla."

Today, the foremost stars of the stage and screen and the sports world are featured in the various magazines and newspapers as being the author of this or that, but in nine cases out of ten, these tales are written by "ghosts." Often these stories are "planted," for exploitation purposes, but not always.

At the present time, a famously known cigarette concern is splurging page advertisements relating that Miss Billie Dove of the films, or Mr. David Belasco, or Mr. Kreisler, recommends their brand of smoke. Humourously enough, the man who arranged these testimonials is known to smoke another kind of cigarette. That of course, belongs under the heading of irony. In cases such as this one, however, the cigarette firm pays nothing for the testimonials of the celebrated recommenders. They merely sell them the idea and swap publicity for the testimonial.

The press agent is another form of "ghostwriter." Among his other duties he must place stories in the newspapers, particularly the Sunday drama sections signed by his boss or the star of his production. The most prominent, perhaps, is A. H. Woods' ghost writer, who is Samuel Hoffenstein, one of the most literary of the praise-agents. Still another form of "ghost" is the movie "double" who risks his or her life during the making of a flicker when the star is too important to risk such danger as driving a speeding motor car or leaping from an airplane or jumping off a bridge or cliff.

BUT there has been great talk lately of the deception in "ghost writing." The public, just discovering that their favourite authors never said or dictated the article they've read, are beginning to snicker. When it is known that Gene Tunney, the world's champion, did not write a certain story, but that it was written over his signature by a newspaperman, the Tunney fans fail to take it seriously. The Tunney personality may be incorporated into the piece, but somehow, when the reader knows that Tunney didn't write it, he mum-' bles, "You can't believe all that you read in the papers, anymore."

Many of the favourite comic strips being syndicated all over the world have made their creators so rich that they can afford to "retire," but not to permit their creatures to retire with them, instead of doing their own work they engage, at a salary a "ghost" or imitator who must not only carry out the characters as expertly as the creator himself but must think up his own "gags."

One well known comic strip man is making a great deal of money without doing his stuff, although he is sensitive about his "work" and insists that his "ghost" submit his ideas many weeks in advance for approval.

"Babe" Ruth's articles are selling for big money. Of course, the great baseball slugger hasn't had the time to prepare them. It was Christy Walsh who "discovered" Ruth's literary genius and Mr. Walsh contracted with the "Bambino" to write his stuff for him. It was "placed" hurriedly. All newspapers made high bids for the "Babe Ruth Articles" and the newspaper that made the connection attracted much circulation. Mr. Walsh then became a respected member of his community and grew so wealthy that he hired others to write the "Babe's" stuff.

Incidentally it was W. O. McGeehan of the New York Herald Tribune sports bureau who first called attention to the miracle performed by "Babe" Ruth. According to Mr. McGeehan the baseball fans had been honoring the Sultan of the Swat for pasting the ball out of the lot whereas he deserved their reverent awe for literary miracles the like of which has never been known outside the New Testament. In his capacity as baseball reporter, the Babe once achieved the supernatural feat of preparing a brilliant eye-witness account of a baseball game for the New York World while lying unconscious in a hospital nearly a thousand miles away from the game. At any rate, Ruth's present ghost writer is Ford Frick, one of the capables on a New York newspaper.

And while the subject of sports writing shadows has come up, one of the whispers of the Park Rowgues in New York is that Frank Menke of the King Features Bureau (which is the busiest syndicate in America), was responsible for a recent Jack Dempsey letter. The letter was in the way of a complaint or "squawk" from the former heavyweight champion. Just before the last Tunney-Dempsey encounter in Chicago Mr. Dempsey's letter was released to all sports departments. In it, Dempsey complained for the first time over his first meeting with Tunney at Philadelphia. Dempsey told how he believed he was drugged and "framed" to lose that fight. He otherwise disparaged his opponent and his manager and defied the man who won the heavyweight crown from him "to come out in the open and confess everything."

RANK MENKE wrote that letter for Dempsey and the King Features Syndicate and later when the same syndicate firm contracted with Mr. Tunney for articles, it is said that Tunney stipulated that he should be allowed to select his own "ghost." Mr. Menke is one of the pioneer "ghost-writers" whose essays are always arresting attention, and he is one of the few "shadows" who can inject into his "spirit tales" the personality of the nominal author.

I am told that The Roar of the Crowd by Jim Corbett in the Saturday Evening Post was written by Robert Anderson who is putting out a book soon under his own name.

An interesting and never before revealed "ghost" stunt was Frank Campbell's poem of a few years ago. Mr. Campbell is New York City's best known undertaker. It was he who buried Rudolph Valentino, you may recall. A tabloid reporter, whose name is B. Vladimir Berman of the New York Evening Graphic, was Campbell's ghost writer. Berman put the famous undertaker into the Literary Digest on the promise of a free funeral on which happily he hasn't yet cashed in.

Berman at the time was destroying typewriters for the New York City News Association alongside Harry Klemfuss, Campbell's exploiter. Klemfuss asked Berman if he would turn out an Armistice Day poem that might be used instead of the usual Campbell Funeral Parlor advertisement that the great mortician was then running in the Metropolitan newspapers every day, next to the editorial columns. Berman obliged readily, scorning Klemfuss' offer to run the real author's name under it, saying: "It's not my kind of stuff".

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The poem was run above the signature of Frank Campbell, who immediately ran the gauntlet of newspaper twitting to the tune of: "Mr. Campbell had better let poetry alone and stick to stiffs and corpses."

The Campbell publicity man became apprehensive over his reaction, but when the Literary Digest picked up the poem and ran it under its choice poetry column above the undertaker's name, he was quite elated and promised Berman "a free funeral" any time he needed it.

Incidentally, another Graphic copyreader, named Don Gardin, quit his tabloid for a syndicate and was the first to sign up "Peaches" Browning getting her "intimate secrets" with Mr. Browning. Mr. Gardin cleaned up on this beat and became so fed up with New York and its "tawdry" lovenest tales that he exiled himself to Bangkok, where he is now editing a royal newspaper at a good salary and with a home (presented as a gift) near the King of Siam's Palace.

The tabloid papers were the first, however, to suspect that the reading public was getting its fill of "ghost" signatures, and began to head their first-person stories with the signature of the subject under which was a smaller line saying: "As told to Soand-So of the staff."

Jack Lait, one of the foremost fiction writers in the country, who also edits a score of nationally famous comic strips, was Ruth Snyder. Mr. Lait, representing a syndicate firm, scooped his contemporaries when Mrs. Snyder was in the Queens County lockup and signed her on the dotted line. His story appeared in The New York American—and was featured in huge type but "the breaks" broke against what was certainly a tremendous story. It seems that a young fellow by the name of Lindbergh had arrived in Paris the same day that "Ruth Snyder's Own Story" was scheduled to appear. The Lindbergh achievement buried everything and the Ruth Snyder tale which was bought at a high price never really received its full value. Instead, the syndicate firm put out the story between covers, the magazine selling on the news-stands at twenty-five cents a copy.

When Clarence Chamberlin who flew the Columbia with Charles Levine, returned to America, this recorder was aboard the tug Macom to greet him. "Say," growled the aviator, "which of you fellows wrote that stuff about me in the Times? I never said that we were going to Berlin to get some beer. I never drink beer or liquor. I didn't even agree to write anything for any newspaper." Chamberlin at the time was quite upset over statements attributed to him and added that he was so busy that he had not had time to dictate anything for publication, outside a statement or so about the flight to press services. "I never wrote any special articles with my name over them, anyway" he said.

A humourous definition of the "ghost-writing" racket comes with the remark made at the expense of a moving picture magnate whose stories have been appearing in publications. This particular cinema man is a dialectician and is known to be a wizard at arithmetic, but cannot speak English fluently. A wag in Hollywood described him (or any other movie executive for that matter) as being "one who knows what he wants but can't spell it!"

William Collier, the comedian and toastmaster and pal of the late Sam Bernard was Bernard's "ghost" for the Bernard after-dinner speeches. Just before Mr. Bernard passed away, he was the guest of honour at a dinner tendered to him by 1200 admirers. His speech of thanks was read by him and he broke down and cried. Collier, it appears, had double-crossed him by inserting one or two foursyllable words which stumped Bernard. "I can't even read my own writing," alibied the guest of honour, when a cruel wisecracker yelled out: "Author! Author!" To which Bernard responded by confessing that Collier wrote his speech for him and asked him to come upon the dais and translate it.

The Saturday Evening Post does not bar "ghost-writing" from its pages, although it insists upon the right to edit advertising copy. For instance, that magazine refused to accept a certain dentifrice advertisement because it didn't believe it. The slogan is famous, but when the advertisement appears in The Saturday Evening Post that slogan is omitted.

One of the on-the-level newspaper article writers was Gerald Chapman, the famous bandit, who was hanged at Wethersfield Prison in Connecticut. Spurning all offers until almost his last days, Chapman succumbed to the offer of a New York tabloid to write his memoirs. He wrote them (or so he maintained) because he was broke and wanted to pay his lawyer. The price received was about $7500, most of the money going to the attorney, who up to that time had served Chapman without fee. The rest of the money was said to have gone to Chapman's mysterious sweetheart, "Betty." The tabloid in syndicating the article added great temporary circulation and made a profit on the bargain.

Not many months ago one of the New York publishing companies tempted this writer with an offer to do "Texas" Guinan's life story, but the price could not be agreed upon. Miss Guinan, however, told her life tale to a young woman who wholesaled it to a syndicate. Many of the Guinan "specials" were prepared by your correspondent, but the one which drew the most favorable comments of New York literary reviewers was written by Willard Keefe, author of the play, Celebrity. The story was signed by Miss Guinan and appeared in Morrow's Almanack.

Will Rogers has never been accused of having a ghost writer. And as added proof that Rogers writes his own material there was the time when he was working for the old Goldwyn firm. Howard Dietz, publicity director for Goldwyn, tried to imitate Rogers' humourous style in the advertising copy and Rogers obliged by writing it himself, after seeing Dietz's attempt.

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Did Twain really write "1601"? He never laid claim to having done so. The only clue that he did write "1601" was the character "Countess of Bilgewater" in it and Twain's Huck and Finn contains a character named "The Duke of Bilgewater."

Ask almost anyone who wrote "Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum, fifteen men on a dead man's chest" and they'll say, "Robert Louis Stevenson—in Treasure Island,"

As a matter of tact Stevenson quotes that line. It was written in a poem for the Chicago Tribune many years ago, before Treasure Island was published, and the author was Young E. Allison. I think he still lives. Stevenson incidentally never claimed it and most of us think that it means that fifteen men drank standing on a dead man's chest whereas "Dead Man's Chest" was the name of a reef or small island.

Bernard Sobel is Florenz Ziegfeld. Walter J. Kingsley was the Kaiser before the war. Kingsley was also "Elbert H. Gary" and prepared propaganda for Japan during the JapaneseRuss tussle. Bugs Baer, the wit, did all of the Saturday Evening Post articles signed by George Rector. They were called The Girl from Rector's. Mr. Rector supplied Mr. Baer with much historical data about his father's famous restaurant in New York during the mauve decade, but Baer's wit and incidental observations made it a fine document. Maxim Gorky is credited with the first part of the recent autobiographical Life of Chaliapin.

Other "ghost writers" include Antoinette Donnelly, who was "Lillian Russell" for many years as a writer on facial creams and other complexion secrets and is now conducting her own copyrighted column on the same subject. Mary Margaret McBride is Paul Whiteman. Harry Reichenback is Ruth Elder now. Hype Igoe is Jack Kearns, the prizefight manager. Robert H. Davis was Bob Fitzsimmons when Fitz was at Carson City, Nevada. Eddie Sullivan, sports writer, was Vincent Richards, but Richards is now his own author. Bill Tilden, by the way, writes his own material as does Knute Rockne. Bill Slocum at one time was Red Grange. Damon Runyon did Dempsey for awhile. Dickie Martin is Walter Hagen. Ray McCarthy is Gene Sarazen and Ned Brown was once James J. Corbett. Brown first represented Corbett when Corbett helped train Jeffries at Reno for the Jeffries-Johnson tiff. Arthur Robinson and Harry Schumacher did Babe Ruth before Ford Frick drew the assignment. Paterson McNutt once contracted to "ghost" for Walter Camp for two years at $250 weekly, but Camp died during the second week.

Hazel Canning is a well known "ghost", she being credited with the autobiographies of such personages as the late Jansci Rigo, the Gypsy violinist and Mrs. Jean Nash, frequently alluded to as the best dressed woman in the world. Clark Kinnaird prepared an autobiography of Aimée Semple MacPherson. Lillian Lauferty was for many years the trade-name, "Beatrice Fairfax".

John Wheeler of the Bell Syndicate did all of Christy Mathewson's stories. Many statesmen and renowned politicians have engaged "ghost writers".

It is quite a profession because the public, as the newspapers and magazines know, appreciate reading something from the pen of a name with which they are familiar. Take Luis Firpo's articles. The Argentine fighter was known to be an illiterate who couldn't speak one word of the English language.

All of which prompts the deponent to add herewith that he, Walter Winchell, of Broadway and Park Row, New York City, wrote all of the foregoing by himself, so help him God! Certified to before a notary public on this day of Our Lord.