Corey Ford

Corey Ford (April 29, 1902 – July 27, 1969) was an American humorist, writer, outdoorsman, and screenwriter. He was friendly with several members of the Algonquin Round Table in New York City and occasionally lunched there.

Early years

Ford was a member of the Class of 1923 at Columbia College of Columbia University, where he edited the humor magazine ''Jester of Columbia,'' and wrote the Varsity Show ''Half Moon Inn'' and Columbia's primary fight song, " Roar, Lion, Roar"''.'' He also joined, and was expelled from, the Philolexian Society. Failing to graduate, he embarked on a career as a freelance writer and humorist. In the 1930s he was noted for satirical sketches of books and authors penned under the name "John Riddell".Pseudonyms include John Riddell and June Triplett. Theodore Dreiser was shown adopting the guise of a common workman building his newest and biggest novel from bricks and mortar. He reviewed ''Dead Lovers are Faithful Lovers'' as "Dead Novelists are Good Novelists."

Ford's series of "Impossible Interviews" for '' Vanity Fair'' magazine featured ill-assorted celebrities, among them Stalin vs. John D. Rockefeller, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes vs. Al Capone, Sigmund Freud vs. Jean Harlow, Sally Rand vs. Martha Graham, Gertrude Stein vs. Gracie Allen, Adolf Hitler vs. Huey Long.

Ford published 30 books and more than 500 magazine articles, many of them marked with a gregarious sense of humor, a love of dogs and "underdogs." He told many stories of the literary scene in the twenties, of headhunters in Dutch Borneo, of U.S. airmen in combat during World War II. He loved conversation and comradeship and was a great listener as well.

Ford created the name Eustace Tilley for the dandyish, top-hatted symbol of ''The New Yorker'' magazine. According to Ford's memoir, ''The Time of Laughter'', the last name came from a maiden aunt and he chose the first name "for euphony".

Ford lived in Hanover, New Hampshire in the 1950's and 1960's where sponsored the Dartmouth Boxing Club (there was no sanctioned Dartmouth Boxing Team). Members of the club trained in Ford's basement where he built a gym with a boxing ring, light and heavy bags and boxing gloves. He also built a basement locker room for club members. A Dartmouth art professor, a friend of Ford's would recruit artist models from members of the Dartmouth Boxing Club.

The Lower Forty Hunting, Shooting and Inside Straight Club

Ford wrote a monthly column, "The Lower Forty Hunting, Shooting and Inside Straight Club", for ''Field & Stream'' for almost 20 years in the 1950s and 1960s.

The column told about a fictional group of New England sportsmen, detailing the club members' adventures in and around the town of Hardscrabble, Vermont. The primary characters in the column were Colonel Cobb, Judge Parker, Cousin Sid, Uncle Perk, Doc Hall, and Mister McNabb. The columns have been anthologized into several books such as ''Minutes of the Lower Forty'', ''Uncle Perk's Jug'', and ''The Corey Ford Sporting Treasury''.

Bibliography

Books

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* ''Cloak and Dagger'', 1946
* ''The Last Time I Saw Them'', 1946
* ''Horse of Another Color'', 1946
* ''A Man Of His Own'', 1949
* ''How To Guess Your Age'', 1950
* ''The Office Party'', 1951
* ''Every Dog Should Have A Man'', 1952
* ''Never Say Diet'', 1954
* ''Has Anybody Seen Me Lately?'', 1958
* ''You Can Always Tell A Fisherman(but can't tell him much)'', 1958
* ''The Day Nothing Happened'', 1959
* '' Guide To Thimking'', 1961
* ''What Every Bachelor Knows'', 1961
* ''Minutes of the Lower Forty'', 1962
* ''And How Do We Feel This Morning?'', 1964
* ''Uncle Perk's Jug'', 1964
* ''A Peculiar Service'', 1965
* ''Where The Sea Breaks Its Back'', 1966
* ''The Time of Laughter'', 1967
* ''Donovan of OSS'', 1970 (posthumously)

Essays, reporting and other short pieces

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Filmography

* ''The Sophomore'' (1929) aka ''Compromised'' in the UK
* ''The Sport Parade'' (1932)
* ''The Half-Naked Truth'' (1932)
* ''Her Bodyguard'' (1933)
* ''Topper Takes a Trip'' (1938)
* ''Start Cheering'' (1938)
* ''Remember?'' (1939)
* '' Winter Carnival'' (1939)
* ''Zenobia'' (1939) aka ''Elephants Never Forget'' in the UK, and ''It's Spring Again'' in the US
* ''Cloak and Dagger'' (1946)

Notes

External links

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The Papers of Corey Ford
at Dartmouth College Library

Dartmouth Women's Rugby: Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, Corey
Columbia College (New York) alumni
The New Yorker people
1902 births
1969 deaths
American humorists
20th-century American writers
20th-century American male writers
Algonquin Round Table