Out and about with Winsor French / James M. Wood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wood, James M., 1939-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French, Winsor, 1904-1973.

French, Winsor.

Gossip columnists--Ohio--Cleveland--Biography.

Gossip columnists.

Ohio--Cleveland.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xv, 310 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, 2011.

Summary:

Winsor French was a journalist with a singular voice. A self-described "effeminate young man," French occupied desks in city rooms drenched with masculinity, enduring his colleagues' homophobia and risking the loss of his job by defending unconventional behavior. He ignored newspaper taboos by publishing the price of bootlegged liquor during Prohibition and by writing stories about "sepia" entertainers, Jewish socialites, schoolchildren in wheelchairs, and men who found males more exciting than females.

French's reports of urban nightlife appeared in Parade, a magazine he founded and edited, as well as in two Cleveland newspapers. His most illuminating observations were items in an about-town column, a metropolitan newspaper format begun in the 1920s to publicize the local affairs of cafe society. French's wanderlust, however, led him to extend his geographical boundaries from Cleveland to the "smoke and music" haunts of Havana, Hollywood, Manhattan, Paris, London, and Pago Pago. His sources were crooners, deckhands, fan dancers, hoboes, gangsters, millionaires, redcaps, torch singers, and several of the twentieth century's most celebrated stage, film, and literary artists, including No?l Coward, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Somerset Maugham, and Cole Porter.

The four decades of French's professional career are often described as an era that forced homosexuals to be sexually vague and anonymous, especially if they aspired to prominence in their local community. But French's life and career contradicted that assumption. He never hid his sexuality yet achieved journalistic leadership and unchallenged influence over Cleveland's social life. Richly illustrated with contemporary news photographs and editorial drawings, Out and About with Winsor French documents the powerful role played by about-town columnists during a raucous episode in the history of American newspapers. Book jacket.

Contents:

"The plot is very, very daring": Monday, January 2,1933, 8:25p.m. 1

"Rudderless in a ... sea of hospitality": Sunday, January 8,1933, 7p.m. 16

"Please bear with my incoherence": Saturday, September 30, 1933, 8:30 p.m. 29

"What price Repeal?": New Year's Eve, 1933, 11 p.m. 46

"The men wear anything they please": Friday May 17,1935, 6:30 p.m. 68

"You've never heard such music": Wednesday, June 10, 1936, 6p.m. 94

"I may have been a little harsh": Monday December 6, 1937, 1 a.m. 115

"Nights are ... a Bacchanalian rout": Saturday, January 20,1940, Midnight 130

"Our own design for living": Tuesday, December 2, 1941, Mid-afternoon 148

"Solid gold from wrist to elbow": Monday, October 1, 1945, 11 a.m. 160

"Blow off a little steam": Sunday, October 3,1948, 8:30 p.m. 174

"Squawks from unexpected places": Friday, January 9, 1953, 5p.m. 196

"Accustomed as I am to off-beat rhythms": Sunday, December 20, 1959, 9 p.m. 214

"No one even whimpers" Monday, December 25, 1961, 8 p.m. 228

"I cannot use my hands to write": Saturday, September 7,1963, 4 p.m. 242.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781606350607

1606350609

OCLC:

700709130