Jean Shepherd

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Jean Shepherd posed as Frederick R. Ewing on the back cover of Ballantine's I, Libertine (1956).
Jean Shepherd posed as Frederick R. Ewing on the back cover of Ballantine's I, Libertine (1956).

Jean Parker Shepherd (July 26, 1921 - October 16, 1999) was an American raconteur, radio and TV personality, writer and actor who was often referred to by the nickname Shep.

With a career that spanned decades, Shepherd is perhaps best-known to modern audiences for narrating the film A Christmas Story (1983), which he co-wrote, based on his own semi-autobiographical stories.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Born in the south side of Chicago, Illinois, Shepherd was raised in Hammond, Indiana, where he graduated from Hammond High School in 1939. As a youth he worked briefly as a mail carrier in a steel mill and earned his Amateur radio license when he was 16. He later attended several universities.

During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Shepherd had an extensive career in a variety of media:

[edit] Radio career

Shepherd began his broadcast radio career on WSAI-AM in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1948. From 1951 to 1953 he had a late-night broadcast on KYW-AM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after which he returned to Cincinnati for a show on WLW. After a stint on television (see below), he returned to radio. "Shep," as he was known, settled in at WOR radio New York City, New York on an overnight slot in 1956, where he delighted his fans by telling stories, reading poetry (especially the works of Robert W. Service), and organizing comedic listener stunts. The most famous of the latter involved creating a hoax about a non-existent book, I, Libertine, by the equally non-existent author "Frederick R. Ewing", in 1956. Later co-written by Shepherd, Theodore Sturgeon and Betty Ballantine, this Ballantine Book is now a collector's item. Among his close friends in the late 1950s were Shel Silverstein and Herb Gardner. With them and actress Lois Nettleton, Shepherd performed in the revue he created, Look, Charlie. Later he was married to Nettleton for about six years.

When he was about to be released by WOR in 1956 for not being commercial, he did a commercial for Sweetheart Soap, not a sponsor, and was immediately fired. His listeners besieged WOR with complaints, and when Sweetheart offered to sponsor him he was reinstated. Eventually, he attracted more sponsors than he wanted—the commercials interrupted the flow of his monologues. He broadcast until he left WOR in 1977. His subsequent radio work consisted of only short segments on several other stations. In later life he publicly dismissed his days as a radio raconteur as unimportant, focusing more on his writing and movie work. This distressed his legions of fans who fondly remembered nights with Shep on WOR. He once made such comments during an appearance on the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. This contrasts with his frequent criticisms of television during his radio programs.

Aside from his stories, other shows were devoted to observations about life in New York, accounts of vacations in Maine and travels throughout the world. Among the most striking of his programs were his account of his participation in the March on Washington in August 1963, during which Dr. Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, and the program that aired on November 25, 1963—the day of President Kennedy's burial. Another memorable program was his discussion of Lyndon Johnson upon his death.

On January 9, 2000, Zippy recalled Jean Shepherd.
On January 9, 2000, Zippy recalled Jean Shepherd.

Throughout his radio career, he performed entirely without scripts. His friend and WOR colleague Barry Farber marveled at how he could talk so long with very little written down. Yet during a radio interview, Shepherd once claimed that some shows took several weeks to prepare. On most Fourths of July, however, he would read one of his most enduring and popular short stories, "Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb that Struck Back," about a neighborhood drunk and his disastrous fireworks escapades. In the 1960s and 1970s, his WOR show ran from 11:15pm to midnight, later changed to 10:15pm to 11pm, so his "Ludlow Kissel" reading was coincidentally timed to many New Jersey and New York local town fireworks displays, which would traditionally reach their climax at 10pm. It was possible, on one of those July 4 nights, to park one's car on a hilltop and watch several different pyrotechnic displays, accompanied by Shepherd's masterful storytelling.

The theme song used on his long-running radio show was "The Bahn Frei Polka" by Eduard Strauss. The particular version he used was recorded by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops.

[edit] Print

Shepherd wrote a series of humorous short stories about growing up in northwest Indiana and its steel towns, many of which were first published in Playboy. The stories were later assembled into books titled In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories, and A Fistful of Fig Newtons. Some of those situations were incorporated into his movies. He also wrote a column for the early Village Voice, a column for Car and Driver and numerous individual articles for diverse publications, including Mad Magazine.

When Eugene B. Bergmann's Excelsior, You Fathead! The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd was published in 2005, Publishers Weekly reviewed:

This prismatic portrait affirms Shepherd's position as one of the 20th Century's great humorists. Railing against conformity, he forged a unique personal bond with his loyal listeners, who participated in his legendary literary prank by asking bookstores for the nonexistent novel I, Libertine (when Ian Ballantine had Shepherd and Theodore Sturgeon make the fake real, PW called it "the hoax that became a book"). Storyteller Shepherd's grand theme was life itself... Novelist Bergmann (Rio Amazonas) interviewed 32 people who knew Shepherd or were influenced by him and listened to hundreds of broadcast tapes, inserting transcripts of Shepherd's own words into a "biographical framework" of exhaustive research.

[edit] Television and films

Early in his career, Shepherd had a television program in Cincinnati called "Rear Bumper". Reportedly he was eventually recommended to replace the resigning Steve Allen on NBC's The Tonight Show. NBC executives sent Shepherd to New York City to prepare for the position, but they were contractually bound to first offer it to Jack Paar. The network was certain Paar would hold out for a role in prime time, but he accepted the late-night assignment.

In the early 1960s he did a weekly television show on WOR in New York. Between 1971 and 1994, Shepherd became a screenwriter of note, writing and producing numerous works for both television and cinema. He was the writer and narrator for the show "Jean Shepherd's America", produced by Boston Public Television station WGBH in which he told his famous narratives, visited unusual locales, and interviewed local people of interest. He used a similar format for the New Jersey Network TV show "Shepherd's Pie".

He also wrote and narrated many works, the most famous being the feature film A Christmas Story, which is now considered a holiday classic. In the film, Shepherd provides the voice of the adult Ralph Parker. (This narrative style was later appropriated, without acknowledgement, in the popular television sitcom The Wonder Years.) He also has a cameo role playing a man in the line at the department store waiting for Santa Claus. Much to Ralphie's chagrin, he points out to him that the end of the line is much further away.

A 1994 movie sequel, My Summer Story, was narrated by Shepherd but featured an almost entirely different cast from the previous film. The PBS series American Playhouse aired a series of television movies based on Shepherd stories, also featuring the Parker family. These included "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss", "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters", and "The Phantom of the Open Hearth".

[edit] Live performances and recordings

Shepherd also performed for several years at the Limelight Cafe in New York City's Greenwich Village, and at many colleges nationwide. His live shows were a perennial favorite at Rutgers and Fairleigh Dickinson Universities. He performed at Princeton University annually for 30 years, until 1996. The Limelight shows were broadcast live on WOR radio.

He also performed before sold-out audiences at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall. He was also emcee for several important jazz concerts in the late 1950s. Shepherd improvised spoken word lyrics for the title track on jazz great Charles Mingus's 1957 album The Clown. Eight record albums of live and studio performances of Shepherd were released between 1955 and 1975. Shepherd also recorded the opening narration and the voice of the Audio-Animatronics "Father" character for the updated Carousel of Progress attraction at Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom.

[edit] Music

Many of his narratives were accompanied by novelty songs such as "The Bear Missed the Train" (a parody of the Yiddish ballad "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen") and "The Sheik of Araby", or by Shepherd himself, playing the Jew's harp, nose flute and kazoo.

On radio as well as on his WOR-TV show, he frequently used his own head as a musical instrument, knocking the top of his skull with his knuckles while changing the size of his open mouth to produce different notes. Shep's "Head Thumping" (as he called it) spanned about an octave.

[edit] Fact and fiction

What is still unknown is to what extent Shepherd's radio and published stories were fiction, fact, or a combination of the two.

The childhood friends included in many of his stories were people he claimed to have invented, yet high school yearbooks confirm that many of them did exist. His father was always referred to as "my old man" who worked in the Borden Milk Company offices. During an interview on the Long John Nebel Show -- an all-night radio program that ran on WOR starting at midnight -- Shepherd once claimed that his real father was a cartoonist along the lines of Herblock, and that he inherited his skills at line drawings. This may well not have been true, but Shepherd's ink drawings do adorn some of his published writings.

The 1930 Federal Census Record for Hammond, Indiana indicates that Jean's father did work for a dairy company. His actual occupation is illegible, but may read "cashier." The 1930 census record lists the following family members: Jean Shepherd, age 30, head; Anna Shepherd, age 30, wife; Jean Shepherd, Jr, age 8, son; and Randall Shepherd, age 6, son. According to this record, Jean Sr, Anna, Jean Jr, and Randall were all born in Illinois. Jean, Sr's parents were born in Kansas. Anna's parents were born in Germany.

Jean Shepherd had two children, Randall and Adrien, but publicly denied this. Randall Shepherd describes his father as having frequently come home late or not at all. Randall had almost no contact with him after his parents' divorce.[1] Randall Shepherd is still alive and living in Irvington, NY.

[edit] Influence

Shepherd oral narrative style was a precursor to that used by Spalding Gray and Garrison Keillor. Marshall McLuhan in Understanding Media wrote that Shepherd "regards radio as a new medium for a new kind of novel that he writes nightly." In the "Seinfeld Season 6" DVD set, commenting on the episode titled "The Gymnast" Jerry Seinfeld says "He really formed my entire comedic sensibility—I learned how to do comedy from Jean Shepherd."

Shepherd was an amateur radio operator, with call sign K2ORS. When operating as an amateur, he was known to use his middle name, Parker. He was listed in the Amateur Radio Callbook and for a number of years his address was on 57th Street in New York City.

Shepherd spent his final years in relative seclusion on Sanibel Island, Florida, with his wife Leigh Brown. She was also his producer at WOR, and played many roles in his varied career. He died on Sanibel Island in 1999 of "natural causes". In 2005, Shep was posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

[edit] Watch

[edit] Listen to

[edit] Bibliography

  • I, Libertine (1956)
  • In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash (1966)
  • Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories (1971)
  • Ferrari in the Bedroom (1972)
  • The Phantom of the Open Hearth (1978)
  • A Fistful of Fig Newtons (1981)
  • A Christmas Story (2003, posthumously)

[edit] Filmography

  • America, Inc. NET Playhouse (1970) (TV)
  • Jean Shepherd's America (1971) (TV)
  • The Phantom of the Open Hearth (1976) (TV)
  • The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters (1982) (TV)
  • The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski (1983) (TV)
  • A Christmas Story (1983)
  • The Great American Road-Racing Festival (1985) (TV)
  • Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss (1988) (TV)
  • My Summer Story (aka It Runs in the Family) (1994)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Shepherd, Randall (2006). One More Hat on a Man. Shep's vast file of dynamic trivia: People in Shep's Life. Jim Clavin. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.

[edit] External links

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