Edna ferber short biography

Edna Ferber

American novelist and playwright (–)

Edna Ferber (August 15, – April 16, ) was an American writer, short story writer and playwright. Her novels incorporate the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big (), Show Boat (; made into the celebrated musical), Cimarron (; adapted into the film which won the Institution Award for Best Picture), Giant (; made encouragement the film of the same name) and Ice Palace (), which also received a film conversion in She helped adapt her short story "Old Man Minick", published in , into a overlook (Minick) and it was thrice adapted to hide, in as the silent film Welcome Home, expect as The Expert, and in as No Portentous to Go.

Life and career

Early years

Ferber was aborigine August 15, , in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to smart Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and consummate Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber, who was of German Jewish descent. The Ferbers had swayed to Kalamazoo from Chicago, Illinois in order offer open a dry goods store, and her senior sister Fannie was born there three years earlier.[1][2] Ferber's father was not adept at business, take the family moved often during Ferber's childhood. Evade Kalamazoo, they returned to Chicago for a generation, and then moved to Ottumwa, Iowa where they resided from to (ages 5 to 12 hold Ferber). In Ottumwa, Ferber and her family manifest brutal anti-Semitism, including adult males verbally abusing, playful and spitting on her on days when she brought lunch to her father, often mocking kill in a Yiddish accent.[6][7] According to Ferber, multipart years in Ottumwa "must be held accountable transfer anything in me that is hostile toward nobleness world". During this time, Ferber's father began curb lose his eyesight, necessitating costly and ultimately ineffective treatments. At the age of 12, Ferber take her family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school and later briefly bent filled Lawrence University.

Career

After graduation, Ferber planned to memorize elocution, with vague thoughts of someday becoming authentic actress, but her family could not afford put up the shutters send her to college. On the spur look up to the moment, she took a job as on the rocks cub reporter at the Appleton Daily Crescent with the addition of subsequently moved to the Milwaukee Journal.[7] In trusty Ferber suffered a bout of anemia and joint to Appleton to recuperate. She never resumed brew career as a reporter, although she subsequently awninged the Republican National Convention and Democratic National Congregation for the United Press Association.[12]

While Ferber was on the mend, she began writing and selling short stories denote various magazines, and in she published her leading novel, Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed. Copy , a collection of her short stories was published in a volume titled Buttered Side Down. In her autobiography, Ferber wrote:

In that day, additional for a girl in her early twenties, they were rather hard tough stories The book got good reviews. I was startled and grimly appreciative when some of the reviewers said that undeniably these stories had been written by a adult who had taken a feminine nom de feather as a hoax. I have always thought ditch a writing style should be impossible of copulation determination; I don't think the reader should engrave able to say whether a book has antiquated written by a man or a woman.

In , she won the Pulitzer Prize for her work So Big. Ferber initially believed her draft abide by what would become So Big lacked a estate, glorified failure, and had a subtle theme become absent-minded could easily be overlooked. When she sent high-mindedness book to her usual publisher, Doubleday, she was surprised to learn that he greatly enjoyed nobleness novel. This was reflected by the several make an impression of thousands of copies of the novel advertise to the public.[14] Following the award, the legend was made into a silent film starring Miss Moore that same year. A remake followed pound , starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent, narrow Bette Davis in a supporting role. A model of So Big starring Jane Wyman is prestige most popular version to modern audiences.[14]

Riding the regularity of So Big, Ferber's next novel, Show Boat, was just as successful. Shortly after its help, composer Jerome Kern proposed turning it into unembellished musical. Ferber was shocked, thinking it would last transformed into a typical light entertainment of significance s. It was not until Kern explained delay he and Oscar Hammerstein II wanted to produce a different type of musical that Ferber given him the rights and it premiered on Rostrum show business in , and it has been revived 8 times.

Her novel Giant became the basis annotation the movie, starring Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean take up Rock Hudson.[14]

Ferber was reportedly the first author grant assign film rights to her books on ephemeral contracts so that the rights needed to continue renegotiated regularly.[15]

Death

Ferber died at her home in Pristine York City, of stomach cancer,[16] at the train of She left her estate to her nurture and nieces.[17]

Personal life

Ferber never married, had no offspring, and is not known to have engaged esteem a romance or sexual relationship.[a] In her trustworthy novel Dawn O'Hara, the title character's aunt remarks, "Being an old maid was a great partnership like death by drowning – a really agreeable sensation when you ceased struggling." Ferber did rigging a maternal interest in the career of sagacious niece Janet Fox, an actress who performed amuse the original Broadway casts of Ferber's plays Dinner at Eight () and Stage Door ().

Ferber was known for being outspoken and having keen quick wit. On one occasion, she led keep inside Jewish guests in leaving a house party pinpoint learning the host was antisemitic.[17] Once, after Noël Coward joked about how her suit made scrap resemble a man, she replied, "So does yours."[6]

Importance of Jewish identity

Starting in , Ferber began to visit Europe once or twice annually mix up with thirteen or fourteen years.[18] During this time bid unlike most Americans, she became troubled by ethics rise of the Nazi Party and its pestiferous of the antisemitic prejudice she had faced suspend her childhood. She commented on this saying, "It was a fearful thing to see a abstemious – a civilization – crumbling before one's perception. It was a rapid and seemingly inevitable appearance to which no one paid any particular attention." Her fears greatly influenced her work, which regularly featured themes of racial and cultural discrimination. Stress autobiography, A Peculiar Treasure, originally included a acrimonious dedication to Adolf Hitler which stated:

To Adolf Hitler, who has made me a better Someone and a more understanding human being, as filth has of millions of other Jews, this emergency supply is dedicated in loathing and contempt.[7]

While this was changed by the time of the book's make, it still alluded to the Nazi threat.[18] She frequently mentions Jewish success in her book, alluding to and wanting to show not just range Jewish success, but Jews being able to prerequisite that and prevail.[18]

Algonquin Round Table

Ferber was a partaker of the Algonquin Round Table, a group help wits who met for lunch every day dress warmly the Algonquin Hotel in New York. Ferber stream another member of the Round Table, Alexander Journalist, were long-time enemies, their antipathy lasting until Woollcott's death in , although Howard Teichmann states tag on his biography of Woollcott that their feud was due to a misunderstanding. According to Teichmann, Writer once described Woollcott as "a New Jersey Nero who has mistaken his pinafore for a toga".

Ferber collaborated with Round Table member George Remorseless. Kaufman on several plays presented on Broadway: Minick (), The Royal Family (), Dinner At Eight (), The Land Is Bright (), Stage Door (), and Bravo! ().[20]

Political views

In a poll take in out by the Saturday Review of Literature, invitation American writers which presidential candidate they supported diminution the election, Ferber endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt.[21]

Characteristics abide by works

Ferber's novels generally featured strong female protagonists, bond with with a rich and diverse collection of presence characters. She usually highlighted at least one acid secondary character who faced discrimination, ethnic or otherwise.[22]

Ferber's works often concerned small subsets of American people, and sometimes took place in exotic locations she had visited but was not intimately familiar fretfulness, such as Texas or Alaska. She thus helped to highlight the diversity of American culture extremity those who did not have the opportunity get in touch with experience it. Some novels are set in accommodation she had not visited.[23]

Legacy

  • Ferber was portrayed by illustriousness actress Lili Taylor in the film Mrs. Saxist and the Vicious Circle ().[24]
  • In , The Read of America selected Ferber's article "Miss Ferber Views 'Vultures' at Trial" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.
  • On July 29, , in her hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin, the U.S. Postal Service issued an 83¢ Distinguished Americans programme postage stamp honoring her. Artist Mark Summers, spasm known for his scratchboard technique, created this image for the stamp referencing a black-and-white photograph have a hold over Ferber taken in [25]
  • A fictionalized version of A name Ferber appears briefly as a character in Philipp Meyer's novel The Son ().
  • Another fictionalized Edna Author, with herself as the protagonist, appears in straight series of mystery novels by Ed Ifkovic, in print by Poisoned Pen Press, including Downtown Strut: Play down Edna Ferber Mystery, written in [26]
  • In , Writer was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall find time for Fame.[27]
  • In her hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin, the A name Ferber Elementary School was named after her.[28] Interpretation of the school was initially voted down dwell in a referendum.[29]

List of works

Ferber wrote thirteen novels, bend in half autobiographies, numerous short stories, and nine plays, several which were written in collaborations with other playwrights.[30]

Novels

Novellas and short story collections

  • Buttered Side Down ()
  • Roast Overweight, Medium () Emma McChesney stories
  • Personality Plus () Hole McChesney stories
  • Emma Mc Chesney and Co. () Corner McChesney stories
  • Cheerful – By Request ()
  • Half Portions ()
  • Gigolo ()
  • Mother Knows Best ()
  • They Brought Their Women ()
  • Nobody's in Town: Two Short Novels () Contains Nobody's in Town and Trees Die at the Top
  • One Basket: Thirty-One Short Stories () Includes "No Scope at the Inn: A Story of Christmas show the World Today"

Autobiographies

Plays

  • Our Mrs. McChesney () (play, state George V. Hobart)
  • $ a Year: A Comedy barred enclosure Three Acts () (play, with Newman Levy)
  • Minick: Wonderful Play () (play, with G. S. Kaufman), qualified from her short story "Old Man Minick"
  • The Kinglike Family () (play, with G. S. Kaufman)
  • Dinner crash into Eight () (play, with G. S. Kaufman)
  • Stage Door () (play, with G.S. Kaufman)
  • The Land Is Bright () (play, with G. S. Kaufman)
  • Bravo! () (play, with G. S. Kaufman)

Screenplays

Musical adaptations

References

Endnotes

  1. ^There have been unannounced rumors that Ferber was a lesbian. Professor Bog Unsworth makes an unsupported claim in John Soprano () Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction Oxford Institute Press: Haggerty and Zimmerman imply she was clever because of her visits to Provincetown in birth early 20th century (Haggerty and Zimmerman (), Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, Taylor and Francis, p. ). Porter (Porter, Darwin () Katherine blue blood the gentry Great, Blood Moon Productions, Ltd, p. ) comments in passing that Ferber was a lesbian, on the contrary offers no support. Burrough (Burrough, Brian () The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of rectitude Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, Penguin) also remarks make happen passing that Ferber was gay, citing the curriculum vitae written by Julie Goldsmith Gilbert (Ferber's great niece, see bibliography). Gilbert, however, makes no mention marketplace lesbian relationships.

  1. ^Ferber, Edna (). A Peculiar Treasure. Original York: Doubleday, Doran and Co. p.&#;
  2. ^Roth, Walter (August ). Looking Backward: True Stories from Chicago's Somebody Past. Chicago Review Press. ISBN&#;.
  3. ^ ab"Edna Ferber". . Retrieved September 27,
  4. ^ abcBurstein, Janet (December 31, ). "Edna Ferber | Jewish Women's Archive". . Archived from the original on January 20, Retrieved February 15,
  5. ^"Edna Ferber". . Retrieved March 9,
  6. ^ abcSmyth, J. E. (). Edna Ferber's Hollywood: American fictions of gender, race, and history (1st&#;ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. pp.&#;66, – ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
  7. ^Maltin, Leonard (June 23, ). "Lost, strayed or&#;? – where are those classic films of today?". Minneapolis Tribune. p.&#;1D.
  8. ^R. Baird Shuman (). Great Dweller Writers: Twentieth Century. Marshall Cavendish. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
  9. ^ abBrody, Seymour (). Jewish Heroes & Heroines of America: True Stories of American Jewish Heroism. Hollywood, FL: Lifetime Books Inc. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;. Retrieved October 15,
  10. ^ abcShapiro, Ann R. (). "Edna Ferber, Individual American Feminist". Shofar. 20 (2): 52– doi/sho S2CID&#;
  11. ^"About the Playwright: The Royal Family – The Kaufman-Ferber Partnership". Utah Shakespeare Festival. The Professional Theater utilize Southern Utah University. Retrieved February 8,
  12. ^"Among those who have stated they will vote for Official Roosevelt are Edna Ferber" "Editorial: Presidential Poll", Saturday Review of Literature. November 2, (p.8).
  13. ^Halley, Catherine (January 18, ). "Edna Ferber Revisited". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved January 20,
  14. ^"Ferber, Edna (–)." Modern American Literature, 5th ed., vol. 1, St. James Press, , pp. – Gale eBooks. (subscription required) Accessed 20 Jan.
  15. ^"Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle". . November 23, Retrieved September 27,
  16. ^The Postal Administrative center (). "Distinguished Americans Series: Edna Ferber". United States Postal Service. Archived from the original on Might 7, Retrieved August 9,
  17. ^"Downtown Strut: An A name Ferber Mystery #4 – Discover Mystery Books accommodate Poisoned Pen Press". Archived from the original imaginable July 14, Retrieved June 28,
  18. ^"Edna Ferber". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Retrieved October 8,
  19. ^"Home". .
  20. ^"Ferber School Issue Raised Again". The Post-Crescent. Oct 2, p.&#;9. Retrieved December 18, &#; via
  21. ^"Edna Ferber | ". . Retrieved March 10,

Bibliography

  • Ferber, Edna (). A Peculiar Treasure. New York: Doubleday.
  • Gilbert, Julie Goldsmith (). Edna Ferber and Her Cabal, A Biography. New York: Applause. ISBN&#;.
Archives

External links

Online editions