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Funny Business: The Legendary Life and Political Satire of Art Buchwald
"A delightful and entertaining book about one of America's greatest humorists."-Seth Meyers
This "absorbing, illuminating" (Jon Meacham) biography of the legendary political humorist reveals the life behind his must-read Washington Post columns, featuring never-before-published photos, documents, and interviews.
Before Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Doonesbury, there was Art Buchwald. For more than fifty years, from 1949 to 2006, Art Buchwald's Pulitzer Prize–winning column of political satire and biting wit made him one of the most widely read American humorists and a popular player in the Washington world of Ethel and Ted Kennedy, Ben Bradlee, and Katharine Graham. Dean Acheson, former U.S. Secretary of State, called Buchwald the "greatest satirist in the English language since Pope and Swift."
Drawing on Buchwald's most memorable columns and unpublished correspondence with other famous people, Funny Business shows how Art Buchwald became an American original. Like Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, and James Thurber, he satirized political scoundrels, lampooned the powerful, and "worshipped the quicksand" that ten presidents walked on, as Buchwald joked. "The key to Buchwald's style of humor, he once stated, was to "treat light subjects seriously and serious subjects lightly."
But there was a darker, more serious side to Art Buchwald. A childhood spent in foster homes taught him to see comedy as a refuge. Buchwald also struggled with depression, a secret he kept from the public for nearly thirty years.
This revealing book is studded with stories of Buchwald's friendships with Humphrey Bogart, John Steinbeck, Irwin Shaw, William Styron, Erma Bombeck, Frank Sinatra, Adam West ("Batman"), Robert Frost, and others. Throughout his career, Buchwald wrote about such historical events as the Vietnam War, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Watergate, and the 9/11 terrorist attack. Featured here are stories of Buchwald's nonstop one-liners, known in his day as "Buchshots."
Entertaining and absorbing, Funny Business looks back on Buchwald's brilliant gift for humor and satire, which will once again bring readers a comedic respite from troublesome times.
This "absorbing, illuminating" (Jon Meacham) biography of the legendary political humorist reveals the life behind his must-read Washington Post columns, featuring never-before-published photos, documents, and interviews.
Before Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Doonesbury, there was Art Buchwald. For more than fifty years, from 1949 to 2006, Art Buchwald's Pulitzer Prize–winning column of political satire and biting wit made him one of the most widely read American humorists and a popular player in the Washington world of Ethel and Ted Kennedy, Ben Bradlee, and Katharine Graham. Dean Acheson, former U.S. Secretary of State, called Buchwald the "greatest satirist in the English language since Pope and Swift."
Drawing on Buchwald's most memorable columns and unpublished correspondence with other famous people, Funny Business shows how Art Buchwald became an American original. Like Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, and James Thurber, he satirized political scoundrels, lampooned the powerful, and "worshipped the quicksand" that ten presidents walked on, as Buchwald joked. "The key to Buchwald's style of humor, he once stated, was to "treat light subjects seriously and serious subjects lightly."
But there was a darker, more serious side to Art Buchwald. A childhood spent in foster homes taught him to see comedy as a refuge. Buchwald also struggled with depression, a secret he kept from the public for nearly thirty years.
This revealing book is studded with stories of Buchwald's friendships with Humphrey Bogart, John Steinbeck, Irwin Shaw, William Styron, Erma Bombeck, Frank Sinatra, Adam West ("Batman"), Robert Frost, and others. Throughout his career, Buchwald wrote about such historical events as the Vietnam War, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Watergate, and the 9/11 terrorist attack. Featured here are stories of Buchwald's nonstop one-liners, known in his day as "Buchshots."
Entertaining and absorbing, Funny Business looks back on Buchwald's brilliant gift for humor and satire, which will once again bring readers a comedic respite from troublesome times.
Editorial Reviews
"In this absorbing, illuminating, and wonderfully entertaining book, Michael Hill brings the great Art Buchwald back to vivid life. Satire has been a force in political life since antiquity, and Hill's account, based on unparalleled access to Buchwald's personal papers, explores both an era and a man with grace and skill."-Jon Meacham, author of American Lion
"There was a time not that long ago when Americans of all views saw political humor mainly as entertainment, not as a weapon for bashing the other side. The most beloved figure in those gentler pre-Twitter times was Art Buchwald-a fun-loving bon vivant, a sweetheart, and, above all, a ridiculously funny man whose columns made Americans, whatever their politics, laugh together. We could use him now. But if we can't have Art, we can, through this delightful book, relive the many wonderful times he gave us."-Dave Barry, author of Best. State. Ever.
"Art Buchwald was my first newspaper hero. I sent him a bunch of my columns from the college paper, and he wrote back to say he liked them. ‘But if you keep writing,' he added, ‘I'll have to kill you.' In today's reeking dumpster fumes of American politics, we could use a columnist as mercilessly fast and funny as Buchwald. The problem is that there will never be anyone as good, and Michael Hill's rousing and revealing book reminds us why."-Carl Hiaasen, author of Squeeze Me
"Michael Hill has provided the perfect antidote to the vapidity and bile of our mean-spirited times. The story of the columnist who knew how to make a nation laugh at its own absurdities-three times a week-Funny Business is a delightful romp of a book."-Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea
"There was a time not that long ago when Americans of all views saw political humor mainly as entertainment, not as a weapon for bashing the other side. The most beloved figure in those gentler pre-Twitter times was Art Buchwald-a fun-loving bon vivant, a sweetheart, and, above all, a ridiculously funny man whose columns made Americans, whatever their politics, laugh together. We could use him now. But if we can't have Art, we can, through this delightful book, relive the many wonderful times he gave us."-Dave Barry, author of Best. State. Ever.
"Art Buchwald was my first newspaper hero. I sent him a bunch of my columns from the college paper, and he wrote back to say he liked them. ‘But if you keep writing,' he added, ‘I'll have to kill you.' In today's reeking dumpster fumes of American politics, we could use a columnist as mercilessly fast and funny as Buchwald. The problem is that there will never be anyone as good, and Michael Hill's rousing and revealing book reminds us why."-Carl Hiaasen, author of Squeeze Me
"Michael Hill has provided the perfect antidote to the vapidity and bile of our mean-spirited times. The story of the columnist who knew how to make a nation laugh at its own absurdities-three times a week-Funny Business is a delightful romp of a book."-Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
"Plastered in Paris"
Early Years and the Comic Charms of Paris (1948–52)
It is a strange force that compels a writer to be a humorist.
-Dorothy Parker
In the spring of 1948, high school dropout Art Buchwald was having the time of his life. After being discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps at the end of World War II, he had enrolled at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as a "special student" under the GI Bill. "I'm having a ball," the new college man wrote his sisters, Alice, Doris, and Edith, back home in New York. "All your predictions about what would happen to me if I goofed off in high school have not proven true. USC sees something in me that you girls never did-a promising brain surgeon, a future member of the Supreme Court or, at the very least, a Nobel Laureate in literature." Art took great pleasure in writing to his father and sisters about his "charmed life" in California. "I have never been happier in my life. . . . I wear a cotton sweater that could be taken for cashmere, and nobody gives me a bad time or tells me what to do," he wrote home with glee. "As soon as I mail this letter I am going out to buy saddle shoes and get a date with a Trojan coed-Jewish, of course."
Art lived with thirteen other students in an off-campus boardinghouse run by an odd woman named Mrs. Liebschen, who, according to Buchwald, seemed to possess a deep-seated hatred for anyone not of the Aryan race. Although she never displayed any open hostility toward Buchwald as a Jew, he always found her fondness for a "German newspaper with a swastika on the front page" a bit unsettling.
As a "special" non-degree student, he was the "envy" of his classmates since he could enroll in any course that caught his fancy. "When asked what I intend to do with my life," he told one of his sisters, "I reply, ‘I'll probably be a writer for the cinema, or start a book on the corrupt athletic programs in our university system.' " In an effort to hone his skills as a writer, Buchwald took courses in drama and creative writing. "Foreign languages and the sciences interested me as much as nuclear waste," he later said. In one of his writing classes he wrote a theme paper titled "A Short Report on Satire," an ironic bit of foreshadowing in which he claimed that humor and satire can act as a "civilizing agent" on society, tempering its political and cultural excesses. "The satirist is always at war with society," he wrote, "but I think it's a worthwhile fight."
When not in the classroom, Buchwald enjoyed the time he spent as managing editor of the campus humor magazine, Wampus, and as a columnist for the Daily Trojan newspaper, both of which provided an early outlet for his brand of humor and satire. "USC was my training ground before I went out into the world and stuck pins into the rich and powerful," he later wrote.
He even tried his hand at a comic theatrical production, once writing a musical play based on the "atomic experiments at Bikini Island," called No Love Atoll. Despite its catchy title, the play closed after a campus run of only four days.
Then, during his third year at USC, Buchwald struck gold. One morning over coffee he learned from a fellow student about a tuition benefit program under the GI Bill that would permit him to study in Paris-the "Mecca of writers" and the city of romance-where, he told friends, the "streets are lined with beds." His "dream was to follow in the steps of Hemingway, Elliot Paul, and Gertrude Stein," he declared. "I wanted to stuff myself with baguettes and snails, fill my pillow with rejection slips, and find a French girl named Mimi who believed that I was the greatest writer in the world."
After bidding goodbye to his friends and the peculiar Frau Liebschen, Buchwald hitchhiked from Los Angeles to New York, where he booked a one-way ticket to France on a former troop carrier. As the ship hit the open seas, Art had no doubts that he had made the right decision, and he was as happy as ever.
During the long ocean voyage to France, Buchwald spent evenings out on the deck reflecting on his past. "I started adding up everything that had happened to me since my birth," he later wrote. "My life had been a series of zigs and zags. Soon after I was born, my mother was confined to a mental institution, where she remained for thirty-five years. With my three sisters, I was placed in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York, and then boarded out with foster parents . . . in eight different kinds of homes with God knows how many strangers."
Because his father, Joseph, a struggling curtain salesman in New York, was unable to afford the expense of his wife's hospital bills and the cost of supporting a f...
"Plastered in Paris"
Early Years and the Comic Charms of Paris (1948–52)
It is a strange force that compels a writer to be a humorist.
-Dorothy Parker
In the spring of 1948, high school dropout Art Buchwald was having the time of his life. After being discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps at the end of World War II, he had enrolled at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as a "special student" under the GI Bill. "I'm having a ball," the new college man wrote his sisters, Alice, Doris, and Edith, back home in New York. "All your predictions about what would happen to me if I goofed off in high school have not proven true. USC sees something in me that you girls never did-a promising brain surgeon, a future member of the Supreme Court or, at the very least, a Nobel Laureate in literature." Art took great pleasure in writing to his father and sisters about his "charmed life" in California. "I have never been happier in my life. . . . I wear a cotton sweater that could be taken for cashmere, and nobody gives me a bad time or tells me what to do," he wrote home with glee. "As soon as I mail this letter I am going out to buy saddle shoes and get a date with a Trojan coed-Jewish, of course."
Art lived with thirteen other students in an off-campus boardinghouse run by an odd woman named Mrs. Liebschen, who, according to Buchwald, seemed to possess a deep-seated hatred for anyone not of the Aryan race. Although she never displayed any open hostility toward Buchwald as a Jew, he always found her fondness for a "German newspaper with a swastika on the front page" a bit unsettling.
As a "special" non-degree student, he was the "envy" of his classmates since he could enroll in any course that caught his fancy. "When asked what I intend to do with my life," he told one of his sisters, "I reply, ‘I'll probably be a writer for the cinema, or start a book on the corrupt athletic programs in our university system.' " In an effort to hone his skills as a writer, Buchwald took courses in drama and creative writing. "Foreign languages and the sciences interested me as much as nuclear waste," he later said. In one of his writing classes he wrote a theme paper titled "A Short Report on Satire," an ironic bit of foreshadowing in which he claimed that humor and satire can act as a "civilizing agent" on society, tempering its political and cultural excesses. "The satirist is always at war with society," he wrote, "but I think it's a worthwhile fight."
When not in the classroom, Buchwald enjoyed the time he spent as managing editor of the campus humor magazine, Wampus, and as a columnist for the Daily Trojan newspaper, both of which provided an early outlet for his brand of humor and satire. "USC was my training ground before I went out into the world and stuck pins into the rich and powerful," he later wrote.
He even tried his hand at a comic theatrical production, once writing a musical play based on the "atomic experiments at Bikini Island," called No Love Atoll. Despite its catchy title, the play closed after a campus run of only four days.
Then, during his third year at USC, Buchwald struck gold. One morning over coffee he learned from a fellow student about a tuition benefit program under the GI Bill that would permit him to study in Paris-the "Mecca of writers" and the city of romance-where, he told friends, the "streets are lined with beds." His "dream was to follow in the steps of Hemingway, Elliot Paul, and Gertrude Stein," he declared. "I wanted to stuff myself with baguettes and snails, fill my pillow with rejection slips, and find a French girl named Mimi who believed that I was the greatest writer in the world."
After bidding goodbye to his friends and the peculiar Frau Liebschen, Buchwald hitchhiked from Los Angeles to New York, where he booked a one-way ticket to France on a former troop carrier. As the ship hit the open seas, Art had no doubts that he had made the right decision, and he was as happy as ever.
During the long ocean voyage to France, Buchwald spent evenings out on the deck reflecting on his past. "I started adding up everything that had happened to me since my birth," he later wrote. "My life had been a series of zigs and zags. Soon after I was born, my mother was confined to a mental institution, where she remained for thirty-five years. With my three sisters, I was placed in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York, and then boarded out with foster parents . . . in eight different kinds of homes with God knows how many strangers."
Because his father, Joseph, a struggling curtain salesman in New York, was unable to afford the expense of his wife's hospital bills and the cost of supporting a f...
