Paul Gallico | |
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 Gallico photographed byCarl Van Vechten, 1937 | |
| Born | (1897-07-26)July 26, 1897 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | July 15, 1976(1976-07-15) (aged 78) |
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| Children | 2 |
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Paul William Gallico (July 26, 1897 – July 15, 1976) was an American novelist and short story and sports writer.[1] Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures. He is perhaps best remembered forThe Snow Goose, his most critically successful book, for the novelThe Poseidon Adventure, primarily through the 1972 film adaptation, and for four novels about the beloved character of Mrs. Harris.
Gallico was born in New York City in 1897. His father was the Italian concert pianist, composer and music teacher Paolo Gallico (Trieste, May 13, 1868 – New York, July 6, 1955), and his mother, Hortense Erlich, came from Austria; they had emigrated to New York in 1895. Gallico's graduation fromColumbia University was delayed to 1921, having served a year and a half in theUnited States Army duringWorld War I.[2] He first achieved notice in the 1920s as asportswriter, sports columnist, and sports editor of theNew YorkDaily News.
In 1937, in Gallico's "Farewell to Sport" he stated, "For all her occasional beauty and unquestioned courage, there has always been something faintly ridiculous about the big-time lady athletes." In the same book, Gallico later explained why he thinks Jewish people are drawn to and good at basketball, "The game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart aleckness."
Gallico's career was launched by an interview with boxerJack Dempsey in which he asked Dempsey to spar with him. Gallico described how it felt to be knocked out by the heavyweight champion. He followed up with accounts of catchingDizzy Dean's fastball and golfing withBobby Jones. He became one of the highest-paid sportswriters in America. His book,Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees (1941) was adapted into the sports movieThe Pride of the Yankees (1942), starringGary Cooper andTeresa Wright.
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In the late 1930s, he abandoned sports writing for fiction, first writing an essay about this decision entitled "Farewell to Sport" (published in an anthology of his sports writing, also titledFarewell to Sport (1938)), and became a successful writer of short stories for magazines, many appearing in the then-premier fiction outlet,The Saturday Evening Post. His novellaThe Snow Goose and other works are expanded versions of his magazine stories.
Gallico once confessed toNew York magazine: "I'm a rotten novelist. I'm not even literary. I just like to tell stories and all my books tell stories.... If I had lived 2,000 years ago I'd be going around to caves, and I'd say, 'Can I come in? I'm hungry. I'd like some supper. In exchange, I'll tell you a story. Once upon a time there were two apes.' And I'd tell them a story about two cavemen."[3]
In 1939, Gallico publishedThe Adventures of Hiram Holliday, known for itslater television adaptation withWally Cox. It depicts the comic adventures of a modern American knight-errant visiting Europe on the verge of World War II and waging a single-handed, quixotic struggle against theNazis in various countries. Gallico's Austrian background is evident in the book's strongHabsburg Monarchist theme. (The protagonist saves an Austrian princess, wins her love and takes charge of her young son – who, the book hints, is fated to become the new Habsburg Emperor once the Nazis are driven out of Austria.)
The Snow Goose was published in 1941 inThe Saturday Evening Post and won theO. Henry Award for short stories in 1941. Critic Robert van Gelder called it "perhaps the most sentimental story that ever has achieved the dignity of aBorzoi [prestige imprint of publisher Knopf] imprint. It is a timeless legend that makes use of every timeless appeal that could be crowded into it."[4] A public library puts it on a list of "tearjerkers". Gallico made no apologies, saying that "in the contest between sentiment and 'slime,' 'sentiment' remains so far out in front, as it always has and always will among ordinary humans that the calamity-howlers and porn merchants have to increase the decibels of their lamentations, the hideousness of their violence and the mountainous piles of their filth to keep in the race at all."[5]
On December 25, 1949, Gallico's short story"'Twas the Night Before Christmas" was dramatized as Attraction 66 of the NBC radio seriesRadio City Playhouse. It tells the humorous tale of a New York newspaper reporter and a photographer sent on a Christmas Eve wild goose chase by their publisher's wife for two goats harnessed to a little red wagon, which she intends to give her nephews for Christmas. During a night-long search fueled by a few drinks along the way, the reporter and photographer run across the evening's most dramatic news stories, which they must supposedly ignore in favor of the chore set out by their publisher's wife. The radio dramatization remains very popular with Old Time Radio fans and is featured each year on Sirius XM Radio Classics.
His short story "The Man Who Hated People" was reworked into an unpublished short story "The Seven Souls of Clement O'Reilly", adapted into the movieLili (1953) and later staged as the musicalCarnival! (1961). The filmLili is a poignant, whimsical fairy tale, the story of an orphaned waif, a naïve young woman whose fate is thrown in with that of a traveling carnival and its performers, a lothario magician and an embittered puppeteer. In 1954, Gallico published the novellaThe Love of Seven Dolls, based on "The Man Who Hated People". The versions, while differing, share a core theme surrounding the girl and the puppeteer. The puppeteer, communicating with Lili through his puppets as a surrogate voice, develops a vehicle whereby each of them can freely express their inner pain and anguished emotions.
In the 1950s, Gallico spent time inLiechtenstein, where he wroteLudmila, the retelling of a local legend.[6]
His novelMrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris (1958) was a bestseller, and became the first of four books about the lovablecharwoman Mrs. 'Arris. The character was said byThe New York Times to be "perhaps Mr. Gallico's most beloved creation".[1] Negotiations for film rights began as early as 1960 when he was resident in Salcombe. It was produced as a TV movie withAngela Lansbury in 1992.
During his time in Salcombe, Gallico serialised an account of the sinking of theMVPrincess Victoria, the ferry that plied between Larne and Stranraer, an event which left only 44 out of 179 surviving. It was his habit, at this time, to wander in his garden dictating to his assistant Mel Menzies, who then typed the manuscript in the evening, ready for inclusion in the newspaper.
The Silent Miaow (1964) purports to be a guide written by a cat, "translated from the feline", on how to obtain, captivate, and dominate a human family. Illustrated with photographs bySuzanne Szasz, it is considered a classic by cat lovers. Other Gallico cat books includeJennie (1950) (American titleThe Abandoned),Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God (1957), filmed in 1964 by the Walt Disney Studios asThe Three Lives of Thomasina (which was very popular in the formerUSSR in the early 1990s, inspiring the Russian remakeBezumnaya Lori), andHonorable Cat (1972), a book of poetry and essays about cats.
Gallico's 1969 bookThe Poseidon Adventure, about a group of passengers attempting to escape from a capsizedocean liner, attracted little attention at the time.The New York Times gave it a one-paragraph review, noting that "Mr. Gallico collects aGrand Hotel (a reference to the 1930Vicki Baum novel) full of shipboard dossiers. These interlocking histories may be damp with sentimentality as well as brine—but the author's skill as a storyteller invests them with enough suspense to last the desperate journey." In contrast,Irwin Allen'smotion picture adaptation of Gallico's book instantly became a hit. In his article "What makes 'Poseidon' Fun?", reviewerVincent Canby coined the term "ark movie" for the genre includingAirport,The High and the Mighty,A Night to Remember, andTitanic (the 1953 movie). He wrote that "'The Poseidon Adventure' puts the Ark Movie back where God intended it to be, in the water. Not flying around in the air on one engine or with a hole in its side." The movie was enormously successful, part of a decade ofdisaster films, and remains a cult classic.
In hisNew York Times obituary,Molly Ivins said that "to say that Mr. Gallico was prolific hardly begins to describe his output."[1] He wrote 41 books and numerous short stories, 20 theatrical movies, 12 TV movies, and had a TV series based on his Hiram Holliday short stories.
On resigning from theDaily News to become a full-time fiction writer, Gallico moved from New York to the town ofSalcombe, England.[7] Later he lived in different regions of the world, including other parts of England, Mexico,Liechtenstein andMonaco.[8] He spent the last part of his life inAntibes, France, and was buried there after his death from a heart attack in 1976, aged 78, which is variously reported to have happened in Antibes or Monaco.[8][1]
In 1955, Gallico took an automobile tour of the United States, traveling some 10,000 miles, sponsored byReader's Digest.[9] He wrote that "it had been almost twenty years since I had traveled extensively through my own country and the changes brought about by two decades would thus stand out."[9] Several stories resulted.
In 2000,J.K. Rowling declared that Gallico's 1968Manxmouse was one of her favorite childhood books.[10] Theboggarts appearing in Rowling'sHarry Potter books closely resemble Manxmouse's "clutterbumph", which takes the form of whatever the viewer fears the most.Manxmouse was illustrated by Anne and Janet Grahame-Johnstone who also illustratedThe Hundred and One Dalmatians byDodie Smith. The Japanese animation studioNippon Animation adapted this tale into a feature-length anime film in 1979, directed byHiroshi Saito. The anime, titledTondemo Nezumi Daikatsuyaku: Manxmouse (Manxmouse's Great Activity) in Japanese, was dubbed into English in the 1980s, broadcast on Nickelodeon, and released on video by Celebrity Home Entertainment.
The television seriesThe Adventures of Hiram Holliday (starringWally Cox) was adapted from a series of Gallico's stories about a newspaper proofreader who had many adventures dealing withNazis and spies in Europe on the eve of World War II.
InFredric Brown's science-fiction novelWhat Mad Universe, a magazine editor from our own world is accidentally sent to a parallel Earth significantly different from ours; in this parallel world, the editor reads a biography written of a dashing space hero, a figure central to the novel's narrative, which is supposedly written by Paul Gallico.
In 1975, the British progressive rock bandCamel released an album of work based on Gallico'sThe Snow Goose. Although the author was initially opposed to the album's release, legal action was evaded on the condition that the band used the words "Music Inspired by The Snow Goose" on the album's cover.
In 2005, a televised disaster film titledThe Poseidon Adventure, which was a remake of the movie inspired by Gallico's novel, was aired; the Captain, played byPeter Weller, is named after Gallico.
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Film
Television
Radio
Stage musicals
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