The World of SJ Perelman: The Marx Brother’s Greatest Scriptwriter

213 Pages·2010·1.06 MB·English

About the author
Sidney Joseph Perelman (1904–1979) was born into a Russian Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn. He
grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and attended Brown University in 1922 where he became the
cartoonist of the college magazine and finally its editor. After publishing his first two books, he was invited
to Hollywood by Groucho Marx to script two films: Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. It was an
unhappy experience and Perelman soon went back East, though he would return again and again to work for
the studios and eventually won an Oscar in 1956 for Around the World in Eighty Days. A regular
contributor to the New Yorker from 1935, he soon became the magazine’s most successful humorist. He
continued in this vein for the next thirty years writing scenarios, sketches, plays, travel pieces and
publishing twenty books – many of them collections of his New Yorker pieces. He divided his time between
New York and his country home in Erwinna, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In his later years he travelled the
globe, settling briefly in England, before finally returning to New York where he died aged 75.
“the funniest writer in America since—himself ”
Gore Vidal
“the supreme lunatic humorist in the language”
Good Book Guide “court jester of all magnificent absurdities of present day civilisation” Boston Globe
“he is the most precious lunatic in America… Perelman is very, very funny but he is not so very, very funny
as to obscure the fact that he is also an extraordinary prose writer”
Clifton Fadiman “side-splittingly funny” James Agate, Daily Express
“a brilliant humorist” Sunday Times
“a uniquely gifted comic writer” Philip French, Observer
“the most original, and funniest, comic prose stylist of the present century” Frank Muir “He is unique,
and the man who would pin him down would also chase a bumblebee with tweezers. And suffer the same
result.” Nathaniel Benchley “Perelman commanded a vocabulary that is the despair (and joy) of every
writing man. Sid is like a Roxy organ that had three decks, fifty stops and a pride of pedals under the bench.
When he wants a word, it’s there.” E B White
The World of
S J Perelman
P H C
RION UMOUR LASSICS
Henry Howarth Bashford
Augustus Carp Esq
E F Benson
Mapp and Lucia
J L Carr
How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup THhe FD EilalirsyE oMf aDelafield
Provincial Lady * The Papers of A J Wentworth BA
Michael Green
Squire Haggard’s Journal
George and Weedon Grossmith
The Diary of a Nobody Three Men in a Boat Jerome K Jerome
Douglas Jerrold
Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures
Stephen Leacock
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town No Mother To Guide Her Anita Loos
S J PerelmanCyra McFadden
The Serial * The World of S J Perelman * The Leo Rosten
Education of Hyman Kaplan * The Return of Hyman Kaplan * STahkeiLeo Rosten
Unrest-Cure and other Beastly Tales
Mark TwainJames Thurber
My Life and Hard Times * Cannibalism in the Cars
* for copyright reasons these titles are not available in the USA or Canada in the Prion edition.

Contents
Introduction
Beauty and the Bee
Abby, This is Your Father
Slow—Dangerous Foibles Ahead!
Midwinter Facial Trends
The Body Beautiful
What am I Doing Away From Home?
Tomorrow—Fairly Cloudy
Whereas, the Former Premises Being Kaput—
My Heart’s in the Highlands, and My Neckband Too
The Swirling Cape and the Low Bow
Swindle Sheet with Blueblood Engrailed, Arrant Fibs Rampant
Come On In, the Liability’s Fine
Sorry—No Phone or Mail Orders
Don’t Tell Me, Pretty Gypsy
Cloudland Revisited: By the Waters of Razz-Ma-Tazz
Next Week at the Prado: Frankie Goya Plus Monster Cast
You’re My Everything, Plus City Sales Tax
Calling All Addlepates
Nasal-Happy Mamma, Don’t You Try to Two-Time Me
White Bimbo, Or, Through Dullest Africa With Three Sleepy People
Whose Lady Nicotine?
Hit Him Again, He’s Sober
Why Boys Leave Home
The Longer the Lip, the Smoother the Grift
Call and I Follow, I Follow!
Eine Kleine Mothmusik
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mime
Monomania, You and Me Is Quits
Dry Run—Everybody Down!
Baby, I Will Enchant Thine Ear—Maybe
Impresario on the Lam
Front and Center, Kiddies!
Revulsion in the Desert
I Declare Under Penalty of Milkshake
Three Loves Had I, in Assorted Flavors
Call Me Monty, and Grovel Freely
Be a Cat’s-Paw! Lose Big Money!
Five Little Biceps and How They Flew
Moonstruck at Sunset
Hark—Whence Came Those Pear-Shaped Drones?
Too Many Undies Spoil the Crix
I
NTRODUCTION
by
WOODY ALLEN
There is no writer of comic prose to compare with S J Perelman. It is really as
simple as that. His writing towers above Robert Benchley’s who was the other
truly great and authentic funny author and is his closest competitor. Lardner,
Ade, Bill Nye, Leacock and Thurber were often superb, yet none holds a candle
to the creator of Lucas Membrane, the Wormsers, Suppositorsky and “I Am Not
Nor Have I Ever Been A Matrix of Lean Meat”, among other inspired flights. No
one writing today touches Perelman’s comic flair, his inventive lunacy, his
erudite narrative skill, and dazzlingly original dialogue.
No collection can do him justice because his humor is so inventive and varied
that inevitably certain of one’s favorite masterpieces get left out as choices must
be made. Still no collection of his is ever less than wonderful because over the
years there have been so many hilarious pieces to pick from. I usually prefer his
later writing but that does not mean I don’t often laugh out loud at the broader
earlier gems. I began reading him in my teens and he has never disappointed me.
Among all the comedy writers I’ve worked with or spoken to over the years,
Perelman was always the most revered icon, the most widely-imitated comic
genius and the most discouraging to any would-be funny prose stylist. For many
of us, starting out years ago, it was impossible to not write like him, so
dominating was his elegant voice.
This collection, I am sure, will demonstrate that I have not given him too big
a build-up.
EDITOR’S NOTE
After serving a comic apprenticeship at Judge magazine and on his college rag before that, S J Perelman
had his first piece accepted by the New Yorker in 1930 at the age of 26. He went on to make it his spiritual
home, becoming a regular contributor from 1935 until his death in 1979. Perelman enjoyed both the steady
income and the creative freedom on offer at the New Yorker – his editor never tried to fiddle with his
baroque prose or ask him to tone down his often obscure insider references. He was deeply frustrated
throughout his career in his role elsewhere as a jobbing writer for both Hollywood and Broadway where he
frequently felt his work was abused and misunderstood. His New Yorker comic essays or feuilletons as he
called them, became the only form of writing which he truly relished. So meticulous was he, that his output
rarely topped 1,000 words per week, despite the fact that he wrote six days a week from 10am to 6pm. He
claimed to rewrite most of his pieces at least thirty times, retyping each version from scratch.
Most of the work gathered here first appeared in the pages of the New Yorker and occasionally in a
variety of other magazines: College Humour, Judge, Life, Contact, Stage, Holiday. The present selection
has been made from the regular collections of his essays that spanned his entire career: Crazy Like a Fox
(1944) – a ‘best of’ his early material; Keep It Crisp (1947); The Road to Miltown (1957); The Rising Gorge
(1961); Baby It’s Cold Inside (1970). As such, it is the most comprehensive Perelman collection available
to date.