David Freedman (April 26, 1898 – December 8, 1936) (aged 38) was a Romanian-born American playwright and biographer who became known as the "King of the Gag-writers" in the early days of radio.
Biography
David Freedman was born in
Botoşani, Romania, as the first child and only son of Sara and
Israel Freedman. Israel, a political refugee, immigrated with his young family to the United States in 1900, where four years later, David's sister Sophie became the first Freedman born in the U.S.
Freedman graduated from the
City College of New York in 1918, the first in his family to complete a formal education beyond high school. In September 1918, he married Beatrice (née Rebecca Goodman), a fellow New Yorker, who was born in the city on September 27, 1899 (her parents had fled from
Kishinev,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
). Within five years they had three sons,
Benedict
Benedict may refer to:
People Names
*Benedict (given name), including a list of people with the given name
*Benedict (surname), including a list of people with the surname
Religious figures
* Pope Benedict I (died 579), head of the Catholic Chu ...
(1919–2012),
Noel (1922–2008, later adopted name David Noel), and
Toby
Toby is a popular, usually male, name in many English speaking countries. The name is from the Middle English vernacular form of Tobias. Tobias itself is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew טוביה ''Toviah'', which translates to ''Good i ...
(1924–2011). A decade later their only daughter, who is now known as Laurie Hayden, arrived.
From 1924 on, Freedman was a self-employed writer. He created
sketches for musicals and had shows on Broadway almost every year from 1926 through 1937. His novel ''Mendel Marantz'' (1925) featured a Jewish father who frequently made witty remarks. His first play, ''Mendel, Inc.'', debuted in 1929. When radio replaced
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
, Freedman—who already enjoyed a reputation as a popular, versatile writer—was ready for the new medium. He was prolific, creating as many as six entertainment programs a week for several years, and eventually worked in movies as well.
Freedman was also a biographer and wrote about industry insiders. His first biography, the
Eddie Cantor memoir ''My Life Is in Your Hands'' (1928, "as told to" Freedman by Cantor), became a bestseller. Freedman and Cantor collaborated on a biography of showman
Florenz Ziegfeld; ''Ziegfeld: the Great Glorifier'' (1934) was used for the film ''Ziegfeld Follies'' (1945). Similarly, ''Phantom Fame'' which he co-authored with the impresario
Harry Reichenbach
Harry Reichenbach (1882 – 1931) was a US press agent and publicist who staged sensational publicity stunts to promote films. He was one of the founding members of the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers.
Biography
Born in Frostburg, Maryla ...
(1931) became the basis for the movie ''
The Half-Naked Truth'' (1932).
In the mid-1930s Freedman contributed scripts for short comedies produced by
Educational Pictures
Educational Pictures, also known as Educational Film Exchanges, Inc. or Educational Films Corporation of America, was an American film production and film distribution company founded in 1916 by Earle (E. W.) Hammons (1882–1962). Educational pr ...
in New York. The best known is probably ''
Blue Blazes'' (1936), starring
Buster Keaton as an inept fireman.
Freedman suffered a massive heart attack on the evening of Monday, December 7, 1936. By the morning of the 8th, he was dead, leaving Beatrice, his partner of 18 years, and their four children, who ranged in age from just under 17 to just under 2 years.
Legacy
According to his son, David Noel Freedman, it is unlikely that contemporary audiences would appreciate most of David Freedman's work (though his jokes about the stock market still ring true), because most of his jokes played on the peculiarities and sensitivities of his era. Freedman's stories, however, have a timeless quality. As the years passed, his family honored his memory with the posthumous publication of ''The Intellectual Lover'' (1940, repr. 2007), a collection of short stories that were originally published individually between 1922 and 1928.
Of the countless pieces Freedman wrote between 1920 and 1936, ''Mendel, Inc.'' (1929) is the only fully realized play. A product of the beginning of his brief career, it embodies the mature thoughts of a humorist/playwright. On June 2, 2004, this classic comedy about an immigrant Jewish family living in the uncertain times of 1929 of the Lower East Side was read to a packed house at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach, California. ''Mendel, Inc.'' was used as the basis for the 1932
Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
movie ''The Heart of New York.'' a vehicle for Jewish-dialect comedians
Smith and Dale
Smith and Dale were a famous American vaudeville comedy duo. They consisted of Joe Smith (born Joseph Sultzer on February 17, 1884February 22, 1981) and Charlie Dale (born Charles Marks on September 6, 1881November 16, 1971), who both grew up in ...
, with comedian George Sidney as Mendel Marantz.
Four books by Freedman were translated into Russian and published by Ogonyok in 1926; they enjoyed tremendous popularity for a short period, and Mendel's witty "definitions" were quoted everywhere, but within a year they were eclipsed by the comic writings of
Ilf and Petrov
Ilya Ilf (Ilya Arnoldovich Feinsilberg or russian: Илья Арнольдович Файнзильберг, 1897–1937) and Yevgeny Petrov (Yevgeniy Petrovich Katayev or russian: Евгений Петрович Катаев, 1902–1942 ...
and
Mikhail Zoshchenko
Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko (russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович Зо́щенко; – 22 July 1958) was a Soviet and Russian writer and satirist.
Biography
Zoshchenko was born in 1894, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, according to h ...
, and soon were forgotten, although
Anatoly Rybakov
Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov (russian: Анато́лий Нау́мович Рыбако́в; – 23 December 1998) was a Soviet and Ukrainian writer, the author of the anti-Stalinist ''Children of the Arbat ''trilogy, the novel ''Heavy Sand' ...
has a character quote Mendel in ''
Children of the Arbat'' (set in 1933). His novel ''Mendel Marantz'' was republished as an audiobook in Russian in 2011, narrated by noted actors Klara Novikova, Leonid Kanevsky and others.
A. Mokrousov, Review of D. Freedman's Mendel Marantz
/ref>
A fictionalized version of David Freedman appears as Harry Goldhandler in the novel '' Inside, Outside'' by Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk ( ; May 27, 1915 – May 17, 2019) was an American author best known for historical fiction such as ''The Caine Mutiny'' (1951) for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
His other major works include ''The Winds of War'' and ...
.
Writings
Books
* ''The Intellectual Lover and Other Stories'' (1940 and 1986)
* ''Ziegfeld: the Great Glorifier'' (1934)
* ''Your Next President!'' (1932)
* ''Phantom Fame: The Anatomy of Ballyhoo'' (1931)
* ''Yoo-Hoo Prosperity! The Eddie Cantor Five-year Plan'' (1931)
* ''Between the Acts'' (1930)
* ''Caught Short! a Saga of Wailing Wall Street'' (1929)
* ''My Life Is in Your Hands'' (1928 and 2000)
* ''Mendel Marantz'' (1925 and 1986)
Shows
* ''Betsy''
* ''Crazy Quilt''
* ''Forward March''
* '' Life Begins at 8:40''
* ''Mendel, Inc.''
* ''The Show is On
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
''
* ''Sweet and Low''
* ''White Horse Inn''
* ''Ziegfeld Follies
The ''Ziegfeld Follies'' was a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as ''The Ziegfeld Follies of the Ai ...
of 1934''
* ''Ziegfeld Follies of 1936''
* ''Lucky Fred
''Lucky Fred'' is an animated series created by Myriam Ballesteros and is a co-production between Imira Entertainment, Televisió de Catalunya, RAI Fiction and Top Draw Animation, in collaboration with Disney Channel Spain. It debuted on Disney C ...
''
Movies
* ''Ziegfeld Follies''
* ''The Half Naked Truth''
*'' The Heart of New York''
* ''Palmy Days''
References
Sources
* Auerbach, Arnold, ''Funny Men Don't Laugh'' (Doubleday, NY, 1965); this book is a memoir, largely covering Auerbach's period of apprenticeship with Freedman, but the name "Lou Jacobs" is substituted in place of "David Freedman"
* Bercovici, Konrad, introduction to ''The Intellectual Lover and Other Stories'' by David Freedman.
*Morris Buckley, Patricia, "Long-lost Play Resurrected for Jewish Arts Festival", ''North County Times'', May 26, 2004.
*Additional sources include the credits listed in the items in the Select Anthology and confirmation of the contents of this article by Herman Wouk (December 2004, Palm Springs, CA), David Noel Freedman (December 2004, La Jolla, CA, and other members of the Freedman family in 2005), and members of the Cantor family (2006).
External links
David-Freedman.info
* The Internet Movie Database entry for David Freedman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freedman, David
1898 births
1936 deaths
American people of Romanian-Jewish descent
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
American humorists
20th-century American biographers
American male biographers
American musical theatre librettists
Jewish American dramatists and playwrights
People from Botoșani
Romanian emigrants to the United States
American male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American Jews