Paul Gallico, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937

Paul William Gallico (July 26, 1897-July 15, 1976) was a fabulously successful U.S. novelist and short story writer. Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures. He is perhaps best remembered for the story The Snow Goose, which was his only real critical success, and for the motion picture based on his novel The Poseidon Adventure. Image File history File links Gallico. ... Image File history File links Gallico. ... Photographic self-portrait by Carl Van Vechten, 1934 Carl Van Vechten (June 17, 1880 – December 21, 1964) was an American writer and photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. ... July 26 is the 207th day (208th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 158 days remaining. ... 1897 (MDCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... July 15 is the 196th day (197th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 169 days remaining. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ... The Poseidon Adventure was a 1972 action film and adventure film based on a novel by Paul Gallico. ...

He was born in New York City. His father was an Italian, and his mother came from Austria; they had emigrated to New York in 1895. Gallico first achieved notability in the 1920s as a sportswriter, sports columnist, and sports editor of the New York Daily News. His career was launched by an interview with boxer Jack Dempsey in which he asked Dempsey to spar with him, and described how it felt to be knocked out by the heavyweight champion. He followed up with accounts of catching Dizzy Dean's fastball and golfing with Bobby Jones. He became a national celebrity and one of the highest-paid sportswriters in America. He founded the Golden Gloves amateur boxing competition. His 1942 book, Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees was adapted into a classic sports movie. Nickname: The Big Apple Motto: Official website: City of New York Location [[Image:|250px|250px|Location of City of New York, New York]] Location in the state of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R... New York Daily News Building, Raymond Hood, architect, rendering by Hugh Ferriss The New York Daily News is one of the largest newspapers in the United States with a circulation well over 700,000. ... William Harrison Jack Dempsey (June 24, 1895 - May 31, 1983), was an Irish-American boxer who won the world heavyweight title. ... The Golden Gloves is an annual competition for amateur boxing in the United States. ...

In the late 1930s he abandoned sportswriting for fiction, and became an extremely successful writer of short stories for magazines, many appearing in the then-premier fiction outlet, the Saturday Evening Post. Many of his novels, including The Snow Goose, are expanded versions of his magazine stories. There have been many publications called the Saturday Evening Post; several were/are local British newspapers. ...

Gallico once told New York Magazine "I'm a rotten novelist. I'm not even literary. I just like to tell stories and all my books tell stories.... If I had lived 2,000 years ago I'd be going around to caves, and I'd say, 'Can I come in? I'm hungry. I'd like some supper. In exchange, I'll tell you a story. Once upon a time there were two apes.' And I'd tell them a story about two cavemen." New York Magazine was one of the first lifestyle magazines. ...

The Snow Goose was published in 1940 in The Saturday Evening Post and won an O. Henry prize for short stories in 1941. Critic Robert van Gelder called it "perhaps the most sentimental story that ever has achieved the dignity of a Borzoi [prestige imprint of publisher Knopf] imprint. It is a timeless legend that makes use of every timeless appeal that could be crowded into it." A public library puts it on a list of "tearjerkers." Gallico made no apologies, saying that in the contest between sentiment and "slime," "sentiment remains so far out in front, as it always has and always will among ordinary humans that the calamity-howlers and porn merchants have to increase the decibels of their lamentations, the hideousness of their violence and the mountainous piles of their filth to keep in the race at all." It was later adapted into an instrumental album by Camel. 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... A cover of the Saturday Evening Post from 1903 The Saturday Evening Post was a weekly magazine published in the United States from August 4, 1821 to February 8, 1969. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ... Camel is a British progressive rock band formed in 1971. ...

His short story, "The Man Who Hated People" was adapted into the 1953 motion picture Lili, which starred Leslie Caron. It was published as a novel, Love of Seven Dolls, and later staged as a musical, Carnival!, with Anna Maria Alberghetti. The versions differ significantly, but all center around the story of a confusing relationship between a group of friendly puppets, and a young woman who is in love with the puppets but badly treated by the cruel and bitter puppeteer. 1953 (MCMLIII) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Lili is a musical film which opened in March, 1953. ... Leslie Caron Leslie Caron (b. ... Carnival!   was a 1960s Tony-award winning Broadway musical starring Kay Ballard, Jerry Orbach, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Bob Merrill, Henry Lascoe, Richard Chamberlain, and Mel Torme. ... Italian-born actress and singer Anna Maria Alberghetti won a Tony in 1962 as Best Actress (Musical) for Carnival (she tied with Diahann Carroll for the musical No Strings, which co-starred Richard Kiley). ...

The Silent Miaow 1964 purports to be a guide written by a cat, "translated from the feline," on how to obtain, captivate, and dominate a human family. Illustrated with photographs by Suzanne Szasz, it is considered a classic by cat lovers. Other Gallico cat books include Jennie 1950, Thomasina: The Cat Who Thought She Was God 1957 (filmed in 1964 as The Three Lives of Thomasina), and The Honorable Cat 1972. For the Nintendo 64 emulator, see 1964 (Emulator). ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1972 calendar). ...

His 1969 book, The Poseidon Adventure, about a group of passengers attempting to escape from a capsized ocean liner, attracted little attention at the time. The New York Times gave it a one-paragraph review, noting that "Mr. Gallico collects a Grand Hotel (a reference to the 1930 Vicki Baum novel) full of shipboard dossiers. These interlocking histories may be damp with sentimentality as well as brine—but the author's skill as a storyteller invests them with enough suspense to last the desperate journey." In contrast, Irwin Allen's motion picture adaptation of Gallico's book was instantly recognized as a great movie of its kind. In his article "What makes 'Poseidon' Fun?", reviewer Vincent Canby coined the term "ark movie" for the genre including Airport (movie), The High and the Mighty, A Night to Remember, and Titanic (the 1953 movie, of course). He wrote that "the Poseidon Adventure puts the Ark Movie back where God intended it to be, in the water. Not flying around in the air on one engine or with a hole in its side." The movie was enormously successful, spawned a whole decade of disaster movies, and is a cult classic today. 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday For other uses, see Number 1969. ... 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Hedwig (Vicki) Baum (January 24, 1888 - August 29, 1960) was an Austrian writer. ... Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe; title page of 1719 newspaper edition A novel (from French nouvelle, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ... Irwin Allen (June 12, 1916-November 2, 1991) was a television and film producer nicknamed The Master of Disaster for his work in the disaster film genre. ... Airport DVD cover Airport is a 1970 film which tells the story of an airport manager trying to keep his fictional Chicago airport open during a snowstorm, whilst a bomber plots to blow up an airplane (a Boeing 707 in this movie). ... The High and the Mighty is a 1954 disaster movie released through Warner Brothers. ... See also A Night to Remember (album) for the Cyndi Lauper album by this name. ... Movie poster for Titanic Titanic is 1953 dramatic movie directed by Jean Negulesco. ...

In the spring of 2006, Penguin Publishing was set to re-release "The Poseidon Adventure" in paperback and audio CD formats, in anticipaton of Warner Bros' re-telling of the disaster story.

In his New York Times obituary, Molly Ivins said that "to say that Mr. Gallico was prolific hardly begins to describe his output." He wrote 41 books and numerous short stories, twenty theatrical movies, twelve TV movies, and a television series (The Adventures of Hiram Holliday, starring Wally Cox was adapted from his stories). Molly Ivins (born August 30, 1944, as Mary Tyler Ivins) is a liberal American political commentator, journalist, and author based in Austin, Texas. ... Wallace Maynard Cox (born December 6, 1924; died February 15, 1973) was a television and motion picture actor. ...

Paul Gallico's style and themes

Gallico is a self-described "storyteller." Many of his stories are told in the apparently artless style of a folk tale or legend. Like other "storyteller" writers, the charm and power lies in something about the cumulative effect of plainly told detail after plainly told detail. A summary outline of a Gallico story sounds uninteresting, even bordering on ludicrous; an individual quotation broken out of its context falls flat; their essence exists only in their entirety.

For example, consider Molly Ivins' summary of The Snow Goose: Molly Ivins (born August 30, 1944, as Mary Tyler Ivins) is a liberal American political commentator, journalist, and author based in Austin, Texas. ...

The Snow Goose is a tale about a crippled painter living in a lonely lighthouse on the coast of Essex County in England. One day a girl brings with him a wounded snow goose, which he nurses back to health. The goose returns each year, as does the girl, and a romance develops between the girl and the artist. But the artist is killed rescuing soldiers after the evacuation of Dunkirk, while the snow goose flies overhead.

From this summary, is it possible to believe that this is Gallico's masterpiece and a story which frequently moves readers to tears?

Andrea Park, in a review of Love of Seven Dolls, notes that Gallico's work has power only as a textural whole. "It is difficult to describe and impossible to pinpoint the tenuous, even nebulous word magic that successfully carries a reader into the world of fantasy and make-believe. It is perhaps delineated as a quality, a kind of fragile atmosphere that, once established, cannot be broken. Mr. Gallico creates this atmosphere when he writes the sequences with Mouche and the puppets."

Beginning writers are often advised to show rather than to describe. One of the mysteries of Gallico's style is its effectiveness despite his constant violation of this rule. When he wants us to know that a Peyrot is cynical, he says "Wholly cynical, he had no regard or respect for man, woman, child, or God." When he wants us to know that Mouche is innocent, he tells us of her "innocence and primitive mind." When he wants us to know that Rhayader has a warm heart in his crippled body, he says "His body was warped, but his heart was filled with love for wild and hunted things." Much of Gallico's stories are told as a string of assertions and generalities, illuminated only by touches of the particular and specific.

Gallico sometimes sets the scene by describing his stories as legends. Within the text of The Snow Goose he says that "this story... has been garnered from many sources and from many people. Some of it comes in the form of fragments from men who looked upon strange and violent scenes." Later he writes "Now the story becomes fragmentary, and one of these fragments is in the words of the men on leave who told it in the public room of the Crown and Arrow, an East Chapel pub." Given this presentation, it is hardly surprising that it has been taken to be a retelling of an actual legend; Gallico writes that "the person and character of the painter are wholly fictional as is the story itself, although I am told that in some quarters the snow goose appearing over Dunkirk has been accepted as legend and I have been compelled to reply to many correspondents that it was sheer invention."

Martin Levin wrote that "Mr. Gallico has long had a way with the quasi-human—puppets (Love of Seven Dolls), cows (Ludmila,) geese (The Snow Goose)" as well as no fewer than five books about cats.

Often, Gallico's point of view implies that the nonhuman character in some way really possesses a human spirit, or a portion of a human spirit. In "the Love of Seven Dolls," the puppeteer's relation to his puppets suggests at least a resemblance to multiple-personality disorder, a disorder which was well-known to the lay public in the 1950s. It is significant that Gallico never even hints at such a thing. He notes that the puppeteer's "primitive" Senegalese assistant "looked upon the puppets 'as living, breathing creatures.'" and that "the belief in the separate existence of these little people was even more basic with Mouche for it was a necessity to her and a refuge from the storms of life with which she had been unable to cope." One could go so far as to say that he leaves it deliberately ambiguous whether the relation between the puppeteer and his puppets is purely natural or whether there could be at least a trace of the supernatural in it. This ambiguity is hinted at in the close of the movie adaptation, Lili. Although the puppeteer Paul's hands are engaged in embracing Lili, the four puppets somehow peek around the puppet stage proscenium to smile their happy approval, apparently under their own power. Lili is a musical film which opened in March, 1953. ...

The treatment contrasts with the 1954 Danny Kaye vehicle, Knock On Wood, which turns on the similar theme of a ventriloquist who can express his true self only through his dummy. This movie not only hints at a psychiatric undertone, it revels in it; Kaye's character's love interest is a "lady psychiatrist" (in the phrase used by a contemporary reviewer). The pop-psychiatric point of view was prevalent during the late 1940s and 1950s, the same period that brought us the psychoanalytic musical Lady in the Dark and the book The Three Faces of Eve. Gallico's distancing of his writing from this "modern" point of view and his use of the language of legend and fairy-tale seems deliberate, the literary equivalent of what painter Thomas Kinkade does today in his painting. 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Kaye entertaining U.S. troops at Sasebo, Japan, 25 Oct 1945 Danny Kaye (January 18, 1913 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, singer and comedian. ... Lady in the Dark was a Broadway musical written by Kurt Weill (music), Ira Gershwin (lyrics), and Moss Hart (book and direction). ... The Three Faces of Eve is a 1957 film which tells the true story of a woman who suffered from Dissociative identity disorder. ... Kinkade with copy of his painting Coming Home presented to USO in October 2005. ...

References

• The New York Times, Aug 24, 1969; pg. BR26: The Poseidon Adventure
• The New York Times, Jan 14, 1973, p. 121: What Makes 'Poseidon' Fun? (Vincent Canby)
• The New York Times, Jul 7, 1976, p. 20: Paul Gallico, Sportswriter And Author, Is Dead at 78 by Molly Ivins
• Madison Public Library's list of "Tearjerkers"

Molly Ivins (born August 30, 1944, as Mary Tyler Ivins) is a liberal American political commentator, journalist, and author based in Austin, Texas. ...

External links

• The Literature of Paul Gallico