Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber (
August 15 1885 -
April 16 1968), was an
American novelist,
author and
playwright.
Edna Ferber was born in
Kalamazoo, Michigan (in 1885, not 1887 as sometimes stated), to a
Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper and his
Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Jacob Charles and Julia (Neumann) Ferber. She would become a leading female American author who wrote a number of successful books and plays.
After living in
Chicago, Illinois and
Ottumwa, Iowa, at age 12, Ferber and her family moved to
Appleton, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school and briefly attended
Lawrence University. She took jobs at the
Appleton Daily Crescent and the
Milwaukee Journal before publishing her first novel. She covered the 1920 Republican and Democratic national conventions for the United Press Association.
Her novels generally featured a strong female as the protagonist, although she fleshed out multiple characters in each book. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination ethnically or for other reasons; through this technique, Ferber demonstrated her belief that people are people and that the non-so-pretty persons have the best character.
Due to her imagination in scene, characterization and plot, several movies have been made based on her works, including:
Show Boat (a musical featuring
Paul Robeson's marvelous rendition of "Old Man River"),
Giant (starring
Rock Hudson,
Elizabeth Taylor, and
James Dean),
Saratoga Trunk,
Cimarron (which won an
Oscar) and the
1960 remake.
In 1925, she won the
Pulitzer Prize for her book
So Big, which was made into an early talkie movie in 1932, starring
Bette Davis,
Barbara Stanwyck and
George Brent. It was the only movie Stanwyck and Davis ever appeared in together, and Stanwyck played Davis' mother-in-law, although only a year older in real life, which allegedly displeased her, as did the attitude of the hoydenish Davis.
She was a member of the
Algonquin Round Table, a group of wits who met for lunch every day at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.
Edna Ferber died on
April 16,
1968, at her home in
New York City, of cancer, at the age of 82. The
New York Times said, "she was among the best-read novelists in the nation, and critics of the 1920s and 1930s did not hesitate to call her the greatest American woman novelist of her day".
* 1911
Dawn O'Hara * 1913
Roast Beef, Medium * 1914
Personality Plus * 1915
Emma Mc Chesney and Co. * 1915
Our Mrs. McChesney (with George V. Hobart)
* 1917
Fanny Herself * 1918
Cheerful - By Request * 1919
Half Portions * 1921
The Girls * 1922
Gigolo * 1924
So Big * 1924
Minick (with G. S. Kaufman)
* 1926
Show Boat * 1927
The Royal Family (with G. S. Kaufman)
** Revived in 1975
* 1929
Cimarron * 1931
American Beauty * 1932
Dinner at Eight (with G. S. Kaufman)
** Revived in 1966, 2002
* 1933
They Brought Their Women * 1935
Come and Get It * 1926
Stage Door (with G. S. Kaufman)
* 1938
Nobody's in Town * 1939
A Peculiar Treasure * 1941
Saratoga Trunk * 1941
No Room at the Inn * 1941
The Land Is Bright (with G. S. Kaufman)
* 1945
Great Son * 1945
Saratoga Trunk (with Casey Robinson)
* 1948
Bravo! (play with G. S. Kaufman)
* 1949
Bravo (novel with G. S. Kaufman)
* 1952
Giant * 1958
Ice Palace * 1963
A Kind of MagicMusical productions based on novels by Ferber include:
* 1927
Show Boat - music by
Jerome Kern, lyrics and book by
Oscar Hammerstein II, produced by
Florenz Ziegfeld ** Revived in 1932, 1946, 1983 and 1994
* 1959
Saratoga - music by
Harold Arlen, lyrics by
Johnny Mercer, dramatized by Morton Da Costa
*
Algonquin Round Table Walking Tours *
Algonquin Round Table page at the Algonquin Hotel's web site *
Free ebook of Edna Ferber at
Project Gutenberg *
Biography of Edna Ferber from the Appleton, Wisconsin Public Library *
Edna Ferber at the
Internet Broadway Database
