Cheek" (1,000,000 copies) (2,000,000 copies) PHOTOGRAPH BY INGE MORATH May, 1942, just before my graduation, Ken McCormick, editor-in-chief of Doubleday, came through Minneapolis on a cross-country talent hunt. Somebody showed him my college columns and he asked me whether I would write a book. I would have been less surprised if he had asked me to fly to Mars. However, I was young and dumb and too green to panic, so I sat down and wrote Barefoot Boy With Cheek. Doubleday published the book in 1943 with trepidation—you might say, stealthily—but somehow the college kids turned it into a runaway, making me like the rookie who goes to bat for the first time in the big leagues and knocks it out of the park. Luckily, I didn't have time to ponder my success. In October, 1942, just after finishing Barefoot Boy, I was inducted into the Air Force as a flying cadet, but washed out immediately for insufficient coordination, faulty eyesight, and morbid fear of propellers. I was put in public relations and wrote "How To Fly" manuals in Texas and Oklahoma, but at night, on Sundays, on furloughs, I wrote for myself. I turned out two novels—The Feather Merchants and The Zebra Derby—and a couple of dozen short stories. After the war, at George Abbott's request, I tried my first play—a musical version of Barefoot Boy With Cheek, which opened and closed in the spring of 1947. I licked my wounds and paid my bills with a raft of short stories and a novel called Sleep Till Noon, published in 1950. In 1951 I had a collection of short stories called The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis. In 1951-'53 I made a series of daring daylight robberies in Hollywood. I sold them six original stories, some of which reached the screen. The stories were not too bad, but Hollywood in this period was in a state of shock because of the inroads made by television, and the moguls were simply too shaky to make good movies. In 1954 I wrote a play with Robert Paul Smith, The Tender Trap. It had a good run on Broadway and was made into a fine movie with Frank Sinatra. In 1955 I compiled an anthology called Max Shulman's Guided Tour of Campus Humor. Then, in 1956, after many alarums and false starts, I finally buckled down to write the book that had been gnawing at the base of my skull for years. It was Rally Round The Flag, Boys, and I still like it. Whatever its faults—and it has plenty—it is the only book I ever wrote that came out exactly as I planned it. In October, 1959, I made my maiden voyage into television with my old friend Dobie Gillis. I am pleased to report that the show is still around every Tuesday on CBS. MY HOME is in Westport, Connecticut. My wife's name is Carol and we have been married for 18 years. We have four children: Dan, 17; Bud, 16; Peter, 13; and Martha, 11. I have no hobbies, except croquet, which I play very seriously. I belong to no clubs except the unions of my trade. I am a Democrat, weigh 136 pounds and stand 5'6". My future plans are to spend one more year in television, write one more play and one more novel and then hang up the gloves. I'm tired. Just the same, I know of no happier way to earn a living—provided, of course, that a measure of success attends your efforts. When I began writing I made every mistake in the book. I have a vast store to draw from for the teaching I do now through the Famous Writers School and it is my earnest hope that I have come up with a tip or two which will keep anyone else from making the same mistakes. This is my advice: • The oldest cliche in the writing business is "Write about what you know about." Like all cliches this is true. Your own life is your largest source of material. This is not to say that you must live everything you write; as you learn your craft, as you acquire technique, you will be able to handle all kinds of plots and situations of which you have no personal knowledge. But in the beginning write about yourself, your family, your friends, your home, your neighborhood. Shape the material—give it form and direction. Arrange it as your story requires—but basically write about yourself. • A plot is simply this: a problem and a solution. Be sure your people are in a real problem. Be sure the solution is plausible. What you're after in popular fiction is not truth but plausibility. Motivate carefully. Make each event in your story an inevitable outgrowth of preceding events. • If finding names to suit your characters is difficult, the telephone book is a big help. • I am never without a notebook in my pocket—nor should you be. You never know when a bright notion for a story will strike you. The mind, being a capricious organ, often lets you forget some truly valuable ideas. If you have a notebook and make your notes instantly, you don't have to rely on your memory. • Don't show your manuscript to anyone at frequent intervals during its composition. You cannot expect a baby to be born if you pull it out every few hours and pass it around. There may come a point in the composition of a story when you are stuck and need help—but try your best to lick your problem by yourself. As a general rule it's wise not to show a story until it is completed. • In my early years I was hell-bent on becoming a humorist and so I read the humorists—read them Continued on page 9
Max Shulman weighs 136 pounds, stands 5'6", and is a very busy man. Currently he is working on a play and a novel and a humor column and a TV show. He also serves, with eleven other famous writers, on the faculty of the Famous Writers School in Westport, Connecticut, where he teaches his "difficult and highly paid craft" by correspondence to students all over the country. Landshoff
Suburbia Today, April 1961 7
Coral Gables Historical Archive