I bought this book off a remainder table (sad) because I was a fan of H. Allen Smith. By the time I finished it I was a fan of Gene Fowler.
Both Fowler and Smith were journalists in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s who went everywhere, knew everybody and wrote about everything. This is Smith’s laugh-out-loud biography of his friend. It was Smith’s last book, published posthumously in 1977. Thank God he lived to finish it.
If you already are familiar with Gene Fowler you probably won’t find much here that is new. If you aren’t familiar with him, this is a great introduction.
Smith broke no new biographical ground in this book. Fowler wrote quite a bit about his own life (in his memoirs A Solo in Tom-Toms and Skyline), and as one of the most colorful characters of his generation he was well chronicled by others. Smith’s gifts were as a salty story teller, and The Life and Legend of Gene Fowler tells the story of a wonderfully salty life.
When the world was young
The early 20th century was a great time to be a print reporter. Back then there were actually newspapers. Multiple competing newspapers in every city of any size. New York City, the Mecca of journalism, boasted more than a dozen general-interest dailies in the 1920s, not to mention dozens more weekly, foreign language and special interest papers. It was the age of the tramp reporter, when a reporter could work his way across the country from city to city and be sure of landing a job at one of the newspapers wherever he went. This produced several generations of hard-drinking, colorful and ribald characters. Not all were terribly talented and the legacy of most has not outlived them.
Smith was a member of this tribe whose legacy has lasted, although it is fading today. He started his newspaper career in Huntington, Ind., in 1922 at the age of 15 and worked at papers in Indiana, Kentucky, Florida and Oklahoma before ending up at the Denver Post. He was a feature writer for the old UPI before moving to the New York World Telegram in 1934.
His subject, Gene Fowler, was not so much of a tramp. He began his career in his native Colorado working for the Denver Republican, Rocky Mountain News and the colorful Denver Post, published by the notorious scamps Frederick G. Bonfils and Harry H. Tammen. He moved to New York in 1918 as a protégé of fellow Coloradan Damon Runyon (of Guys and Dolls fame), joining Hearst’s New York American. He later moved to Hearst’s Mirror and rounded out his career as a sports promoter, book author and writer of screenplays. Along the way he had as much fun as possible.
Enjoying life
As a young reporter in Denver Fowler interviewed and became friends with Buffalo Bill Cody. In later years he was the intimate of politicians and prize fighters, writers and actors, cardinals and queens. Just how intimate with the attractive Queen Marie of Romania during her 1926 U.S. visit remains an open question, but there were rumors. Fowler, after all, had a reputation as a womanizer and the profile of a matinee idol.
A short aside: One of Fowler’s friends in Hollywood was character actor and writer Thomas Mitchell, who played Uncle Billy in It’s a Wonderful Life. Mitchell was the first male actor to win an Oscar, Emmy and Tony. He also holds the distinction of appearing in three movies in 1939 that were nominated for best movie: Gone with the Wind (as Gerald O’Hara, Scarlett’s father), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Diz More) and Stagecoach (Doc Boone). Gone With the Wind won best picture and Mitchell won best supporting actor for his role in Stagecoach. A pretty good year for Hollywood and for Mitchell.
H. Allen Smith reached the height of his popularity in the 1940s and ’50s as a gifted storyteller and profiler. He was at his best when being a little ribald, racy or risqué, and the subject in this book gave him full latitude in exercising these gifts.
Unfortunately, The Life and Legend of Gene Fowler, published in hardback by William Morrow and Co., no longer is in print. But it’s worth asking for at your local library or looking for at a good used book store.