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Damon Runyon (4 October 1884 – 10 December 1946) was a newspaperman and writer.1
He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. He spun humorous tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters; few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead to be known as "Nathan Detroit," "Big Jule," "Harry the Horse," "Good Time Charley," "Dave the Dude," "The Seldom Seen Kid" and so on. These stories were written in a very distinctive vernacular style: a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions.
Here is an example from the story Tobias the Terrible, collected in More than Somewhat (1937):
If I have all the tears that are shed on Broadway by guys in love, I will have enough salt water to start an opposition ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific, with enough left over to run the Great Salt Lake out of business. But I wish to say I never shed any of these tears personally, because I am never in love, and furthermore, barring a bad break, I never expect to be in love, for the way I look at it love is strictly the old phedinkus, and I tell the little guy as much.
To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted.
The musical Guys and Dolls was based on two Runyon stories, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure";2 the film Little Miss Marker grew from his short story of the same name.
Runyon was also a newspaperman. He wrote the lead article for United Press on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933.
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Biography
He was born Alfred Damon Runyan in Manhattan, Kansas, and grew up in Pueblo, Colorado, where Runyon Field, The Damon Runyon Repertory Theater Company, and Runyon Lake are named after him. He was a third-generation newspaperman and started in the trade under his father in Pueblo. He worked for various newspapers in the Rocky Mountain area; at one of those, the spelling of his last name was changed from "Runyan" to "Runyon," a change he let stand.
After a notable failure in trying to organize a Colorado minor baseball league, Runyon moved to New York City in 1910. For the next ten years he covered the New York Giants and professional boxing for the New York American. In his first New York byline, the American editor dropped the "Alfred," and the name "Damon Runyon" appeared for the first time.
A heavy drinker as a young man, he seems to have quit the bottle soon after arriving in New York, after his drinking nearly cost him the courtship of the woman who became his first wife, Ellen Egan. He remained a heavy smoker.
His best friend was mobster accountant Otto Berman, and he incorporated Berman into several of his stories under the alias "Regret, the horse player." When Berman was killed in a hit on Berman's boss, Dutch Schultz, Runyon quickly assumed the role of damage control for his deceased friend, correcting erroneous press releases (including one that stated Berman was one of Schultz's gunmen, to which Runyon replied, "Otto would have been as effective a bodyguard as a two-year-old.")
Runyon frequently contributed sports poems to the American on boxing and baseball themes, and also wrote numerous short stories and essays. He was the Hearst newspapers' baseball columnist for many years, beginning in 1911, and his knack for spotting the eccentric and the unusual, on the field or in the stands, is credited with revolutionising the way baseball was covered. Perhaps as confirmation, Runyon was inducted into the writers' wing (the J. G. Taylor Spink Award) of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967. He is also a member of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame and is known for dubbing heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, the "Cinderella Man."
Gambling was a common theme of Runyon's works, and he was a notorious gambler himself. A well-known saying of his paraphrases Ecclesiastes: "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet."
Runyon's marriage to Ellen Egan produced two children (Mary and Damon, Jr.), and broke up in 1928 over rumors that Runyon had become infatuated with a Mexican girl he had first met while covering the Pancho Villa raids in 1916 and discovered once again in New York, when she called the American seeking him out. Runyon had promised her in Mexico that, if she would complete the education he paid for her, he would find her a dancing job in New York. Her name was Patrice Amati del Grande, and she became his companion after he separated from his wife. After Ellen Runyon died of the effects of her own drinking problems, Runyon and Patrice married. Though Runyon forged a better relationship with his children, the marriage ended when Patrice left him for a younger man in the same year he died (1946).
He died in New York City from throat cancer in 1946, at age 62. His body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered over Manhattan by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker on December 18, 1946.
The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, established in his honor, was set up to fund promising scientists in the field of cancer research.
Every year, the Denver Press Club hands out the Damon Runyon award to a notable journalist.
Media
Bibliography
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Films
Numerous Damon Runyon stories were adapted for the stage and the screen. Some of the best of these include:
- Lady for a Day (1933)—Adapted by Robert Riskin, who suggested the name change from Runyon's title "Madame La Gimp," the film garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Frank Capra), Best Actress (May Robson), and Best Adaptation for the Screen (Riskin). It was remade as Pocketful of Miracles in 1961, with Bette Davis in the Apple Annie role; Frank Sinatra recorded the upbeat title song (his rendition is not used in the film). The film received Oscar nominations for composers Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen and for co-star Peter Falk (Best Supporting Actor). In 1989, Jackie Chan adapted the story yet again for the Hong Kong action film Miracles, adding several of his trademark stunt sequences.
- Little Miss Marker (1934)—The film that made Shirley Temple a star, launched her career as perhaps America's most beloved child film star, and pushed her past Greta Garbo as the nation's biggest film draw of the year. Subsequent remakes include Sorrowful Jones (1949; Bob Hope, Lucille Ball), Forty Pounds of Trouble (1963; Tony Curtis), and Little Miss Marker (1980)— Walter Matthau, Julie Andrews, Bob Newhart, Tony Curtis.
- The Lemon Drop Kid (1934); also filmed in 1951 starring Bob Hope and future I Love Lucy co-star William Frawley as a racetrack tout.
- A Slight Case of Murder (1938)— with Edward G. Robinson, remade in 1953 as Stop, You're Killing Me with Broderick Crawford and Claire Trevor.
- The Big Street (1942)— adapted from Runyon's story, "Little Pinks"; Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball
- Butch Minds the Baby (1942)— Broderick Crawford, Shemp Howard
- It Ain't Hay (1943)—adapted from "Princess O'Hara"; Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Patsy O'Connor
- Money from Home (1953)—Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis
- Guys and Dolls (1955)—Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra
Radio
Broadcast from January to December 1949, "The Damon Runyon Theatre" dramatized 52 of Runyon's short stories for radio.
Literary Style
The near total avoidance of past tense (it is used only once, in the short story "The Lily of St Pierre") is not the only oddity of Runyon's use of tense; he also avoided the conditional, using instead the future indicative in situations that would normally require conditional. An example: "Now most any doll on Broadway will be very glad indeed to have Handsome Jack Madigan give her a tumble ..." (Guys and dolls, "Social error"). There is an homage to Runyon that makes use of this peculiarity ("Chronic Offender" by Spider Robinson) which involves a time machine.
Some examples of Runyonesque slang terms include the following:
- pineapple—pineapple grenade
- roscoe/john roscoe/the old equalizer/that thing—gun
- shiv—knife
- noggin—head
- snoot—nose
There are many recurring composite phrases such as:
- ever-loving wife (occasionally "ever-loving doll")
- more than somewhat (or "no little, and quite some")
- loathe and despise
- one and all
Runyon's stories also employ occasional rhyming slang, similar to the cockney variety but native to New York (e.g.: "Miss Missouri Martin makes the following crack one night to her: ‘Well, I do not see any Simple Simon on your lean and linger.’ This is Miss Missouri Martin’s way of saying she sees no diamond on Miss Billy Perry’s finger.” (from "Romance in the Roaring Forties").
The comic effect of his style results partly from the juxtaposition of broad slang with mock-pomposity. Women, when not "dolls" (or "Judies", "pancakes", "tomatoes", "broads" etc.), may be "characters of a female nature".
Legacy
- History's first telethon was hosted by Milton Berle in 1949 to raise funds for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.
- The house in Manhattan, Kansas where Runyon was born is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
- Named in his honor, the Damon Runyon Stakes is a Thoroughbred horse race run every December at Aqueduct Race Track. Runyon loved horse racing and ran a small stable of his own.
- In the mid-1930s, Runyon persuaded promoter Leo Seltzer to formally change his Roller Derby spectacle from a marathon roller skating race into a full-contact team sport.3
See also
References
- ^ Philip Pullman, Nick Hardcastle (1998). Detective stories, Kingfisher Publications. ISBN 0753456362, http://books.google.com/books?visbn=0753456362&id=6OsgjZkA_pEC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=Damon+Runyon&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html&sig=VQFfSVfRpzXaNP9TIdkwsll79ak.
- ^ "Damon Runyon". Authors. The eBooks-Library. Retrieved on 2008-07-20.
- ^ Turczyn, Coury (1999-01-28). "Blood on the Tracks", Metro Pulse. Retrieved on 11 February 2008. (link points to the archived article in the Spring 2000 edition of the author's own PopCult Magazine Web site) “The faster skaters would break out and try and get laps so they would get ahead in the race, and some of the slower skaters started to band together to try and hold them back,” says Seltzer. “And at first, they didn’t want to let them do that–but then the people liked it so much, they kind of allowed blocking. Then they came down to Miami–I think it was 1936, early ’37–and Damon Runyon, a very famous sports writer, saw it and he sat down with my father and hammered out the rules, almost exactly as they are today.”
External links
- Baseball Hall of Fame - Spink Award recipient
- Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and Broadway Theater Service
- Text of Story "The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew" at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606431.txt
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