Yes, Really, It's James Thurber
This is a real treat, and much thanks to the inveterate Chris Dunn for the heads-up. It’s a 20-minute interview on camera with the legendary humorist James Thurber. The 1956 conversation is with Alistair Cooke, which may possibly have been done for the Omnibus series he hosted – however, since there are standalone credits which are limited in their information and don’t identify the source, it seems like this was done for a separate purpose.
The interview is interesting and a bit dry, though that doesn’t mean it’s without humor since much of Thurber’s humor is bone dry, as are many of his comments here. But about two-thirds of the way through they get into how is drawings initially got into the New Yorker, and there’s a lot of laugh out loud material there. (Besides which, it’s great hearing him talk about E.B. White and New Yorker co-founder Harold Ross. Surprisingly, most of the interview deals with Thurber’s drawing (of which he’s continually disparaging), that ultimately leads to his loss of sight.
Quite a few years back, I wrote about the wonderful stage revue done in 1960 called A Thurber Carnival, which was made up of adaptations of a bunch of short stories by Thurber. As I wrote at the time, there’s a great cast album which is well-worth tracking down if you like Thurber. One of my favorite scenes from the show is also one of my favorite Thurber stories, “File and Forget,” a first-person story about a hellish time that Thurber supposedly had trying to correct with his publisher about a delivery problem of one of his books. On stage, the role of 'James Thurber' was played by Tom Ewell.
Into the run, it turned out that the real Thurber was a bit of a ham, and for a month the Broadway production had James Thurber himself play himself in that one scene! There was one particular challenge: Thurber was legally blind. Because of this, he couldn’t make the entrances and exits properly. What they did was build a sort of conveyor belt with a chair on it. Thurber simply sat in the chair and it would roll on and off the stage.
Now, that I would have paid really-good cash money to see. It's a shame it wasn't recorded (as far as I know). And a shame it occurred in the days before cell phones, when someone in the audience would have recorded it. Much as I’ve long wished to find footage or even just a sound recording of that event, though I suspect it’s a lost cause. In fact, this video of Thurber is the first I’ve ever seen of him. So, it’s the next best thing.
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