Will Cuppy, American Satirist: A Biography

223 Pages·2013·5.628 MB·English

by  Wes D. Gehring

Will Cuppy, American Satirist
This page intentionally left blank
Will Cuppy,
American Satirist
A Biography
W D. G
ES EHRING
Foreword by Mark H. Massé
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
ALSOBYWESD. GEHRINGANDFROMMCFARLAND:
Forties Film Funnymen: The Decade’s Great Comedians at Work
in the Shadow of War (2010); Film Clowns of the Depression:
Twelve Defining Comic Performances (2007); Joe E. Brown: Film
Comedian and Baseball Buffoon (2006); Mr. Deeds Goes to
Yankee Stadium: Baseball Films in the Capra Tradition (2004)
All photographs are from the author’s collection.
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Gehring, Wes D.
Will Cuppy, American satirist : a biography / Wes D. Gehring ;
foreword by Mark H. Mass.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-6961-1
♾
softcover : acid free paper
1. Cuppy, Will, 1884–1949. 2. Authors, American—20th
century—Biography. 3. Critics—United States—Biography.
4. Humorists, American—20th century—Biography. I. Title.
PS3505.U47Z68 2013 818'.5209—dc23 [B] 2013032002
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2013 Wes D. Gehring. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover: “Will Cuppy and Friends”—a publicity photograph for
How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes, 1931 (author’s collection)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
For my grandson,
Michael David Long
This page intentionally left blank
Table of Contents
Foreword by Mark H. Massé 1
Preface and Acknowledgments 5
ONE: Hoosier Childhood, 1884–1902 9
TWO: University of Chicago Years, 1902–1914 23
THREE: A Wannabe Playwright and His Humor Mentor:
Isabel Paterson 38
FOUR: Writing How to Be a Hermit 53
FIVE: Early Greenwich Village Years, Groucho Marx, and
How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes 75
SIX: Easing Into the 1930s, and Two More Important
Friendships 89
SEVEN: Cuppy’s Multifaceted 1930s 103
EIGHT: Here Come Cuppy’s Mystery Anthologies of
the 1940s 123
NINE: The Years Leading to Suicide—Literally, How to
Become Extinct, and Still Attract the Wombat 140
TEN: Enhancing a Legacy by Way of Posthumous
Publications 158
Afterword: Comparing Cuppy to Some of His Comic
Contemporaries 174
Chapter Notes 185
Bibliography 198
Index 211
vii
This page intentionally left blank
Foreword by Mark Massé
The paradox of writing a biography is that your subject becomes
an almost friend ... and yet there remains a sense of an enigma.
—Wes D. Gehring
Who was Will Cuppy and why should today’s readers care about him?
Film scholar and biographer Wes Gehring is quick to explain that Cuppy
was a prolific author and humorist in the first half of the 20th century.
Gehring notes that Cuppy had a distinctive satirical, darkly comedic writ-
ing style that mirrored better-known contemporaries Robert Benchley and
Groucho Marx.
Although Cuppy is largely forgotten in today’s frenetic pop culture,
61-year-old Gehring considers him a kindred spirit. He says writing this
book about a reclusive, curmudgeonly Midwestern writer connected with
him. He identifies with Cuppy’s writer’s work ethic, erudite insights and
sarcastic view of human nature. Wes feels that “while the typical individual
is so unfocused s/he is practically blurry, Cuppy remained productively
driven ... though ultimately at a great cost.”
“This subject sucked me in,” says Gehring, author of more than 30
texts on noted American comedic talents, including Charlie Chaplin, W.
C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy, Joe E. Brown and Red
Skelton. Gehring has also written books on such film legends as James
Dean, Steve McQueen and Robert Wise. Since 1978, Wes Gehring, an
Iowa native, has been a professor of film in the telecommunications depart-
ment at Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana).
As associate mass media editor of USA Today Magazine, for which
he also writes the column “Reel World,” Gehring punningly described
Will Cuppy in a 2011 feature article as a “Cuppy-ful of Laughter—and
Sorrow,” a title meant to suggest the dark side which has haunted so many
humorists.
1