Oliver Crawford, who wrote scripts for TV shows ranging from Bonanza to Kojak, passed on September 24 at the age of 91.
Oliver Crawford was born on August 12, 1917 in Chicago. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and later studied at the Goodman Theatre, where among his fellow students were future actor Karl Malden and future director Sam Wanamaker.
Crawford made his first sale to television in 1951, writing an episode of The Stu Erwin Show. He would also write episodes of Terry and the Pirates and Boston Blackie. He broke into motion pictures by writing the story for The Man From the Alamo, which was released in 1953. He also wrote one of the segments for the movie The Steel Cage. His career as a writer was on the rise, having scored a two movie deal when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) contacted him in 1953. After he refused to reveal the names of alleged Communists, he was blacklisted.
Crawford then moved to New York and worked a number of different jobs to make a living. It was his friend, actor Sam Levene, who got him back into writing by helpin him get a job. In the late Fifties he wrote episodes for Kraft Television Theatre, Lux Video Theatre, The Restless Gun, and Rawhide, among other shows. In the Sixties into the Seventies he would write episodes of Perry Mason, The Rifleman, Gilligan's Island, The Fugitive, Star Trek, Bonanza, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, Love American Style, Ironside, and Kojak.
Crawford was also an associate professor of filmmaking at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Oliver Crawford was among the most successful television writers of the Fifties and Sixties. He was also a very talented writer. He wrote some of my favourite TV episodes on TV shows in the Sixties: "Joe Cartwright, Detective" for Bonanza, "Night of the Sudden Death" for The Wild Wild West, "Case of the Tarnished Trademark" for Perry Mason, and "Incident of the Town in Terror" for Rawhide. Crawford had a talent for developing unique and interesting episodes for various TV shows--in fact, he was the first writer to write an episode in which the Galileo, one of the shuttlecraft of the Enterprise, played a central role. He was one of a generation of television writers who was not only prolific, but capable of some high quality writing as well.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Answers to the Pulp Magazine Quiz
Here are the answers to the Pulp Magazine Quiz from September 23.
1. What is generally considered the first pulp magazine?
Argosy
2. What was the first pulp magazine dedicated to a single genre?
Detective Story Magazine
3. What was the name of the famous horror pulp (originally published by J.C. Henneberger in 1823 and published stories by Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, and H. P. Lovecraft?
Weird Tales
4. The Shadow was mostly written by what man?
Walter Gibson
5. In what year was the science fiction magazine Astounding (now Analog) first published?
1930
6. Name Doc Savage's five assistants (their nicknames will do)?
Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny.
6. What was the name of The Spider's girlfriend?
Nita Van Sloan
8. What famous hero pulp was first published by Popular Publications the same month that Popular first published The Spider?
G-8 and His Battle Aces
9. Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, first appeared in what pulp magazine?
Spicy Detective
10. In what year did Street Smith cancel nearly all of its pulp magazine line, including The Shadow and Doc Savage (bonus points for the one Street and Smith pulp magazine that was spared and survives to this day)?
1949. Astounding was the one that was spared.
1. What is generally considered the first pulp magazine?
Argosy
2. What was the first pulp magazine dedicated to a single genre?
Detective Story Magazine
3. What was the name of the famous horror pulp (originally published by J.C. Henneberger in 1823 and published stories by Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, and H. P. Lovecraft?
Weird Tales
4. The Shadow was mostly written by what man?
Walter Gibson
5. In what year was the science fiction magazine Astounding (now Analog) first published?
1930
6. Name Doc Savage's five assistants (their nicknames will do)?
Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny.
6. What was the name of The Spider's girlfriend?
Nita Van Sloan
8. What famous hero pulp was first published by Popular Publications the same month that Popular first published The Spider?
G-8 and His Battle Aces
9. Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, first appeared in what pulp magazine?
Spicy Detective
10. In what year did Street Smith cancel nearly all of its pulp magazine line, including The Shadow and Doc Savage (bonus points for the one Street and Smith pulp magazine that was spared and survives to this day)?
1949. Astounding was the one that was spared.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Satanic Panic of the Eighties
Those of you who are old enough may remember that there was a good deal of concern being expressed about Satanism in the United States in the Eighties, both in the media and through the grapevine. There were a number of accusations of Satanic ritual abuse (abuse during Satanic rituals) and quite a few even went to court. Rumours sprang up accusing various individuals and even whole companies of being Devil worshippers. Rumours also spread about allegedly Satanic content in rock songs, role playing games, and even children's cartoons. During the Eighties, there were a number of people speaking of the Devil.
This phenomenon would later be termed by sociologists and other professionals, "the Satanic panic." It was essentially a moral panic (which occurs when a large number of people express concerns over groups of individuals or alleged groups of individuals whom they view as a threat to the moral fabric of society), not unlike the witch hunts of Renaissance Europe or the Red Scare of the United States in the Fifties. That there was little, if any, evidence that widespread Satanic ritual abuse ever took place in the United States or that there were hidden messages on various rock songs did not prevent numerous individuals from expressing undue concern at the threat of Satanism.
The beginnings of the Satanic panic perhaps have their roots in the Sixties. Prior to the Sixties Devil worshippers were rarely mentioned in Anglo-American pop culture. The 1934 Universal horror movie The Black Cat featured Boris Karloff as an unabashed diabolist. Val Lewton's 1943 horror movie The Seventh Victim also dealt with Satanists, although to avoid controversy they were called Palladists (a term used of an alleged Satanic/Masonic group first mentioned in the 19th century). For the most part, however, portrayals of Devil worship and the Devil or demons in the mass media were rare before the Sixties. This would change during that decade, which saw the portrayal of Satanists in the 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby and the 1968 film based upon it, the 1968 Hammer film The Devil Rides Out, and even the TV show Dark Shadows. Depictions of Satan or Satanism would only increase during the Seventies, with the publication of The Exorcist in 1971 and the release of the film based upon it in 1973, the movie Race with the Devil and other low budget horror movies, The Omen and its sequels, and a number of other books and films. While these movies and books did not necessarily spark the panic, they did provide much of the mythology for the Satanic panic, in much the same way that the Renaissance witch hunts had provided much of the mythology for horror novels and movies of the late twentieth century which dealt with Devil worship. At the same time, the foundation of the Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in 1966 and the publication of his Satanic Bible in 1969 may have caused concern for many, even though the Church of Satan has always denied the existence of the Devil.
The Sixties would provide the beginnings of the Satanic panic in another way as well. The Sixties was a time of profound change. The decade saw the rise of the Sexual Revolution, feminism, gay rights, and an increase in recreational drug use. For many the Sixties would cause concern that our society was on the edge of moral collapse. Perhaps as a backlash to the changes which occurred in the Sixties, Christian Fundamentalism would start to grow in numbers in the United States in the late Seventies into the early Eighties. Christian Fundamentalists also became more active in the political sphere, with the creation of the Moral Majority in 1979. According to Jeffrey S. Victor in his 1993 book Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend, those most likely to believe rumours of Satanic ritual abuse were poor, conservative Protestants from the working class. And it was precisely among poor, rural, conservative Protestants from the working class that Fundamentalism would take hold in the late Seventies and late Eighties. Because of the very nature of their beliefs, which among other things espouse a belief in the existence of Satan as an individual, Fundamentalism may have predisposed poor, rural, conservative Protestants to believe in Satanic ritual abuse more so than other groups.
Other factors also probably played a role in the rise of the Satanic panic. Jeffrey S. Victor attributed much of the Satanic panic to economic decline, unemployment, and concern over what was perceived by some as the decline of the nuclear family. With regards to economic decline as a cause of the Satanic panic, Victor could well be correct. The Eighties in the United States was a time when the economy went into sharp decline. Wages did not keep pace with the cost of living. Unemployment was widespread. The homeless became more common. Farm foreclosures took place at record highs. And the gap between the rich and the poor only grew greater. It is perhaps significant as the economy grew worse in the Eighties, the Satanic panic also increased in its intensity. By mid-decade the unemployment rate reached postwar highs. Significantly, the Satanic panic perhaps reached its peak in 1987, the same year that Black Monday took place in October, when stocks collapsed at an unprecedented level.
If one must choose a starting point for the Satanic panic, it should perhaps be 1980, when the book Michelle Remembers by Dr. Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith was published. It was the first book ever written on Satanic ritual abuse, recounting Smith's treatment at Pazder's practice in Victoria, British Columbia in the late Seventies. During Smith's treatment Pazder used hypnosis to uncover alleged repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse that had occurred to her when she was a child. The abuse allegedly was the work of a "Satanic Cult" in town, of which her mother was a member. The book received a good deal of publicity, and Pazder and Smith went on an extensive publicity tour. The book introduced many of the hallmarks of alleged Satanic abuse, including the recovery of repressed memories through hypnosis. It would also introduce the term "ritual abuse." Much of the book would later be proven to be inaccurate and inconsistent, but it would have an impact nonetheless.
It was not long before other individuals claiming to have repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse under hypnosis in psychotherapy emerged. At the same time the first of the Kern County, California child abuse cases, in which Alvin and Debbie McCuan were falsely accused of sexually abusing children, sparked what has become called the "day care sex abuse hysteria." It would not be long before accusations of abuse made by children towards parents and other caregivers would include elements of Satanic ritual. Indeed, it was in 1983 that accusations of Satanic ritual abuse were made towards the McMartin preschool of Manhattan Beach, California. Investigation and arrests in the case lasted from 1984 to 1987. The trial itself would last from 1987 to 1990. The first trial ended in jury deadlock. A second trial would result in an acquittal and a dismissal. Similar allegations would arise towards daycare centres and other caretakers in the United States and abroad. Among the most notable were the Country Walk Babysitting Service case from Dade County, Florida (which went to trial in 1986, although the first accusations were made in 1983), the Glendale Montessori case in Stuart, Florida, and the Little Rascals Day Care Centre case in Edenton, North Carolina.
In 1988 Geraldo Rivera's special Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground perhaps added fuel to the Satanic panic and the daycare sex abuse hysteria. It would be Geraldo's only primetime special to air on NBC (previously he had been a reporter with ABC News and was then a daytime talk show host). Airing on October 25, only a few days before Halloween, the special dealt not only with alleged Satanic ritual abuse of children, but also with such topics as alleged breeding of babies for sacrifice in Satanic rituals, the drinking of the blood of children at cocktail parties, and other sensationalist topics. Evidence was sorely lacking for any of this in the special, and its intent seemed to be more to shock than to inform. Despite this it was watched by more people at the time than any other television documentary. There are many who believe that Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground escalated the Satanic panic in many parts of the country.
Most studies of the Satanic panic of the Eighties deal only with the accusations of Satanic ritual abuse by adults claiming repressed memories and accusations of current abuse by children. I would argue that it entailed more than that. In fact, the Eighties was a period when people saw the Devil everywhere. There were rumours and concerns on the part of some on Satanic content in rock music, role playing games, and even childrens' cartoons. What is more, urban legends of Satanism with regards to individuals and even companies would be widespread in the Eighties.
In fact, one of the most bizarre aspects of the Satanic panic was accusations that many rock groups used backmasking to insert Satanic messages in their music. Backmasking, also called "backwards masking," is a recording technique in which sounds are recorded backwards on a recording that is meant to be played forwards. Backmasking was first used on a wide scale in the Fifties musical movement called musicque concrete, an avant garde form whereby fragments of recorded sounds are edited together to make music. The first well known instance of backwards masking occurred when John Lennon and George Martin used the technique on The Beatles songs "Tomorrow Never Knows," "I'm Only Sleeping," and "Rain." As early as the late Seventies, there were rumours of backwards masking used to insert a message beginning "Oh here's to my sweet Satan..." on Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." The rumour only grew after Christian DJ Michael Mills made the claim on several radio programmes in 1981. From there rumours of backwards masking gained momentum. In 1982 Paul Couch of the PTL Club hosted a show on which a so called neuroscientist William Yarroll made the claim that rock groups were working with the Church of Satan to place diabolic, subliminal messages on their records. Many began to capitalise on these rumours, such as minister Gary Greenwald who held several lectures on the subject. The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) would even repeat such claims about Led Zeppelin. Many Fundamentalists were active on a more local level in spreading accusations that there were Satanic messages backmasked on rock songs. In my area there was a man whose last name was either spelled "Munsey," "Muncy," "Muncey," or "Muncie" who held various lectures on the subject. Among the many songs that were accused of Satanic backmasking were "Do the Dark" by Blondie, "Gonna Raise Hell" by Cheap Trick, "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot, "Fire on High" by the Electric Light Orchestra, and "Snowblind" by Styx.
The backmasking and subliminal message rumours would even result in a lawsuit brought by the families of two Nevada youths who committed suicide against Judas Priest in 1990. The families claimed that the boys were led to take their own lives by a subliminal message on "Better By You, Better Than Me" from their album Stained Class. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that there was no real evidence that Judas Priest placed subliminal messages on their records. In his statement, he pointed out that scientific research does not show that subliminal messages could even cause acts of such a grave nature. Lead Singer Rob Halford pointed out the ludicrousness of it all, stating that it would be counterproductive for Judas Priest to kill off their fan base through subliminal messages to commit suicide.
Of course, while rock groups in the Eighties were plagued by rumours of Satanic subliminal messages in their music, accusations of Satanism had been made against many rock groups (especially heavy metal bands) from the early days. From their very first album in 1970, Black Sabbath had to deal with accusations that they were Satanic. And a rumour current in the Seventies was that members of Led Zeppelin (except for John Pual Jones) had sold their souls to the Devil for their success. A rumour that sprung up about KISS, either in the late Seventies or early Eighties, was that the band's name stood for Knights In Service of Satan. The rumour persisted despite denials on the part of the band and plenty of evidence to the contrary. It was widely believed that The Eagles' "Hotel California" was about the Church of Satan. Of course, it perhaps did not help that in the Eighties some artists, such as Venom, Slayer, and King Diamond actively cultivated a Satanist image. In fact, King Diamond even expressed admiration for Anton LaVey, not the sort of thing that would endear him to Fundamentalists. Later he would reveal that he followed no religion, but that was in 2006 long after the Eighties Satanic Panic had passed.
Of course, it is probably not surprising that accusations of Satanic content was made towards rock groups. After all, as early as the Fifties it was called "the Devil's music," but then during the Satanic panic accusations of Satanism were even made towards things that would not be considered Satanic by the average American. The prime example of this may be Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and fantasy role playing games (RPGs) in general. Of course, the reasons why Fundamentalists would accuse Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPGs of Satanism is simple. To many Fundamentalists magic is more or less witchcraft and in their view witchcraft by its very nature is diabolism. It is the same reason accusations of Satanic content in the Harry Potter books have been made. At any rate, the fact that these accusations towards the fantasy RPGs were made during the Satanic panic perhaps made it much worse than the Harry Potter controversy ever was.
If one must pinpoint the time when the accusations of Satanism towards Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPGs began to gain steam, it is perhaps with the suicide of Patricia Pulling's son Irving in 1982. Irving Pulling had been an avid D&D player, and his mother thought his suicide was directly linked to the game. She would even sue TSR Inc., then the owners of Dungeons and Dragons for wrongful death. The lawsuit was dismissed. It was then that she launched a crusade against Dungeons and Dragons, founding BADD (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). She would accuse the game of using everything from assassination, barbarism, blasphemy, cannibalism, demonology, demon summoning, desecration, divination, gambling, homosexuality, insanity, necromancy, prostitution, sadism, satanic type rituals, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, suicide, and other teachings. BADD would achieve a great deal of success with Fundamentalist groups. She even wrote a book expressing her opinions, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan. Pulling would be followed by other similar critics, such as the notorious Jack T. Chick. Infamous for publishing Fundamentalist tracts since 1960, he naturally tackled the subject of role playing games in one of them.
If accusations that D&D was Satanic might seem strange to many today, stranger today would be thought the accusations that even movies and TV shows that many consider innocent were somehow Satanic. Perhaps the strangest accusation of diabolic content in pop culture artefacts of them all were the classic Walt Disney animated features. Fundamentalists would point to the demon Chernabog in Fantasia and the magic prevalent in his movies in everything from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty (of course, magic is the work of the Devil in their view). This would lead to rumours that Walt Disney himself was a Satanist. The ludicrousness of this is that Disney was not only a Protestant, but very conservative in his views. Once, when two of his cartoonists produced a pornographic cartoon for his birthday, he fired them both promptly on the spot. Of course, perhaps even stranger was the accusation that there was Satanic content in the animated carton The Smurfs (based on Belgian cartoonist Peyo's long running Les Schtroumpfs). Of course, this was largely due to the frequent use of magic in the cartoon (Papa Smurf often whipping up a magical solution in a crisis).
It was not simply rock stars and animators who had reason to worry during the Satanic panic. Among the earliest victims of the panic was the company Procter and Gamble. Starting around 1981 a rumour began circulating that their original logo was a Satanic symbol. The accusation originated from Revelation 12:1, which reads, "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." As Procter and Gamble's original logo (as seen above) consisted of a man in the moon facing thirteen stars, it led some to believe that it was a mockery of this image from Revelation, making it Satanic. Some would go further and claim that where the beard meets the circle, a mirror image of 666 can be seen inside the logo (I don't see it myself). Of course, that their symbol was Satanic in the eyes of many meant that the company itself must be Satanists. Procter and Gamble would ultimately sue many who have spread these rumours. And not only has the company denied any links to Satanism, but there has never been any evidence of such. Indeed, as anyone with any knowledge of the history of trademarks know, the Procter and Gamble logo was created in 1851 when man in the moon imagery was popular. The 13 stars symbolise the 13 founding states of the United States of America. Sadly, despite Procter and Gamble's efforts to defend their old logo, they were eventually forced to adopt a new one.
A later victim of the Satanic panic was designer Liz Clairborne. Starting around 1990, an urban legend began circulating that Clairborne had confessed to being a Satanist and was donating 30% of her company's profits to the Church of Satan on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The upshot of this is that Liz Clairborne has never appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, nor did she ever make any other such confession on any other talk show.
As the Eighties passed, the Satanic panic would begin to lose steam. Among the first victims of the panic were the rumours that backmasking was being used to place Satanic messages on rock songs. The reason for this was simply that anyone with a phonograph could put the accusations to shame simply by playing records backwards on the machine. I remember after Reverend Munsey (or Muncey, or Muncie...) made another visit to our area, my brother and I got a hold of some of the tapes of his lectures he sold and then listened to them. We then went to our extensive vinyl collection (which contained most of the songs he accused of having subliminal messages) and played them backwards. Often, what we heard weren't Satanic messages, but gibberish. In other instances where there was an actual hidden message, it wasn't what he was claiming was being said at all (and not Satanic in the least bit)! Of course, in instances of alleged subliminal messages on rock songs beyond backmasking, all it took was a good set of recording equipment to disprove any such claims of Satanic messages. The 1990 dismissal of the lawsuit against Judas Priest seems to have been the final nail in the coffin of the whole backmasking/subliminal message controversy, which had been on the wane since around 1984-1985 anyhow.
As to the accusations that D&D and other role playing games were somehow Satanic, that too would be put to the test. Many would point out the extreme inaccuracies in Pulling's portrayals of D&D and other RPGs in her writings and particularly her book, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan. In fact, speaking as someone who spent much of his youth playing D&D (and I can tell you that I did not turn into a serial killer, a rapist, or a Satanist--in fact, I am a well adjusted guy who owns his own home), I can testify that practically everything she had to say was utter hogwash. Indeed, there have been many who have pointed out that Patricia Pulling's assumption that her son Irving's suicide was linked to D&D was not the case. Irving Pulling was a troubled young man who had been suffering from depression for many months prior to his suicide. He had trouble fitting in at school and, if reports are to be believed, was off his medication when he killed himself. There were probably many factors which led to Irving Pulling's death, of which D&D was most likely not one of them. In fact, the American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, and Canada's Health and Welfare would all independently conclude there was no link between role playing and suicide.
Ironically, Geraldo's special Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground in 1988 may have been part of the beginning of the end of the Satanic panic. While it was responsible in part for increasing allegations of Satanic ritual abuse among many, it was also raked over the coals by TV critics, commentators, and a good number of people for its utter lack of evidence for its claims and its sensationalist nature. It seems to me that this was not lost on the average person. I remember, with the exception of a few Fundamentalists, the common view of the man on the street seems to be that it was one of the worst pieces of garbage to ever air on television, offering no real proof of some vast Satanic conspiracy or that child sacrifices were taking place on a wide scale.
As to the heart of the Satanic panic, the claims by adults to have recovered memories of ritual abuse as children and the accusations of children that they had suffered ritual abuse, media coverage of such would grow increasingly negative in 1987. One factor in this change of heart on the part of the media is the fact that the existence of repressed memory is not accepted by the mainstream psychological community at large. In fact, so called recovered memory therapy is not even listed in the DSM-IV or used in mainstream psychotherapy. There is even a theory that hypnosis can produce what is known as false memories, either because a psychotherapist underestimates the suggestibility of his or her patient or, worse yet, the therapist asks leading questions creating such false memories.
Indeed, questions regarding the accuracy of the book Michelle Remembers arose nearly as soon as it was published. It was in the October 27, 1980 issue of Macleans that reporter Paul Grescoe questioned Michelle Smith's father, who strenuously denied the accusations she had made against her mother, as well as a childhood friend of Smith's mother who said that she was a kind and loving woman. Grescoe also noticed some omissions in the book--it did not mention either of Smith's sisters, nor that Dr. Pazer and Smith had by that point gotten married to each other. While the Macleans article would not have much impact, it was the first shot in what would eventually become a point of controversy regarding the book. In fact, it would be in 1990 that The Mail on Sunday conducted an investigation into the book. In an interview with Smith's father, he indicated that she had lied on at least three points. Interviewing Smith's childhood family physician, he theorised that the book was created by an overactive imagination. Neighbours of the family when Smith was growing up agreed that her mother was not only kind and gracious, but it was not possible that Smith could have been abused without someone finding out. A childhood friend of Smith had similarly good things to say about her mother. The clincher in the article may well have been when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police noted that there never has been even one prosecution in Victoria for Satanism. The 1995 book Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt by Michael R. Snedeker and Debbie Nathan revealed further inconsistencies. In the book Smith had claimed that there had been a car crash, but there were no newspaper reports from that period of such a crash. Teachers, childhood friends, and former neighbours all testified that Smith had never been absent from school for a long period of time, even though the book claims she was abused in an 81 day non-stop ritual with literally hundreds of Satanists taking part. Absolutely no one who knew Smith as a child could back up any of the claims she made of ritual abuse in the book. The debunking of the book Michelle Remembers would be a serious blow to the Satanic panic, being as it was the book that had started it all.
The debunking of the book Michelle Remembers would only be the beginning. In 1992 I remember an article that appeared in Playboy largely debunking the alleged phenomenon of Satanic ritual abuse. That same year the FBI would issue its Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse. Among other things, this influential report noted the impossibility of an organised Satanic conspiracy, the utter lack of evidence that babies were being bred for cannibalism by devil worshippers or that 50,000 infants had been murdered in Satanic sacrifices, or that diabolists had seized control of the country's daycare centres and preschools. It also concluded that the vast majority of allegations of Satanic ritual abuse are most likely false. Coming from the top law enforcement agency in the nation, The Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse would provide a huge blow to those arguing that Satanic ritual abuse was occurring regularly across the country.
It would be in 1993 that Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend by Jeffery S. Victor would be published. Perhaps the best overview of the Satanic panic, it provided the final blow to a phenomenon that had been losing credibility since 1987. In fact, it is to be noted that since 1992 and 1993, reports of Satanic ritual abuse had drastically decreased. In fact, if we are to say that the Satanic panic began around 1980, we might be able to say it ended in 1992 or 1993.
Today it is easy to look back at many aspects of the Satanic panic of the Eighties and laugh. For many of us today (as it was for many of us then) it seems ridiculous that anyone could have believed rock stars were backwards masking Satanic messages into their records. For many more of us it probably seems even more ridiculous that anyone could believe there were Satanic overtones to classic Disney films, let alone that Walt Disney was a Satanist (he was a Congregationalist, for gods' sakes...) or that there was Satanic content in The Smurfs. But the truth is that the Satanic panic caused a great deal damage as well. Many people's lives were ruined. There were those parents and other caretakers falsely accused of Satanic ritual abuse and even placed under arrest. While most would be acquitted or dismissed, the damage to their lives was done. Indeed, Ray Buckey was cleared of charges against him and his case dismissed in the McMartin Preschool Trial only after he had spent five years in jail. The harm caused by the Satanic panic did not end there. Many families were divided. I remember a case here in Missouri (Springfield, I think) where an adult woman accused her father of abuse--it was dismissed when it was found that despite her claims of repeatedly being raped as a child, she was still a virgin (how a woman could not know this when her maidenhead was still intact, I don't know...). The family later sued the psychotherapist who had implanted the false memories in her mind. As to those who learned their memories of abuse were false, they often find themselves suffering post traumatic stress disorder due to those false memories and guilt over having made accusations based on what was ultimately untrue.
Like the Red Scare of the Fifties, in the end the Satanic panic harmed many. Like so many moral panics before it, ultimately the Satanic panic was anything but moral.
This phenomenon would later be termed by sociologists and other professionals, "the Satanic panic." It was essentially a moral panic (which occurs when a large number of people express concerns over groups of individuals or alleged groups of individuals whom they view as a threat to the moral fabric of society), not unlike the witch hunts of Renaissance Europe or the Red Scare of the United States in the Fifties. That there was little, if any, evidence that widespread Satanic ritual abuse ever took place in the United States or that there were hidden messages on various rock songs did not prevent numerous individuals from expressing undue concern at the threat of Satanism.
The beginnings of the Satanic panic perhaps have their roots in the Sixties. Prior to the Sixties Devil worshippers were rarely mentioned in Anglo-American pop culture. The 1934 Universal horror movie The Black Cat featured Boris Karloff as an unabashed diabolist. Val Lewton's 1943 horror movie The Seventh Victim also dealt with Satanists, although to avoid controversy they were called Palladists (a term used of an alleged Satanic/Masonic group first mentioned in the 19th century). For the most part, however, portrayals of Devil worship and the Devil or demons in the mass media were rare before the Sixties. This would change during that decade, which saw the portrayal of Satanists in the 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby and the 1968 film based upon it, the 1968 Hammer film The Devil Rides Out, and even the TV show Dark Shadows. Depictions of Satan or Satanism would only increase during the Seventies, with the publication of The Exorcist in 1971 and the release of the film based upon it in 1973, the movie Race with the Devil and other low budget horror movies, The Omen and its sequels, and a number of other books and films. While these movies and books did not necessarily spark the panic, they did provide much of the mythology for the Satanic panic, in much the same way that the Renaissance witch hunts had provided much of the mythology for horror novels and movies of the late twentieth century which dealt with Devil worship. At the same time, the foundation of the Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in 1966 and the publication of his Satanic Bible in 1969 may have caused concern for many, even though the Church of Satan has always denied the existence of the Devil.
The Sixties would provide the beginnings of the Satanic panic in another way as well. The Sixties was a time of profound change. The decade saw the rise of the Sexual Revolution, feminism, gay rights, and an increase in recreational drug use. For many the Sixties would cause concern that our society was on the edge of moral collapse. Perhaps as a backlash to the changes which occurred in the Sixties, Christian Fundamentalism would start to grow in numbers in the United States in the late Seventies into the early Eighties. Christian Fundamentalists also became more active in the political sphere, with the creation of the Moral Majority in 1979. According to Jeffrey S. Victor in his 1993 book Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend, those most likely to believe rumours of Satanic ritual abuse were poor, conservative Protestants from the working class. And it was precisely among poor, rural, conservative Protestants from the working class that Fundamentalism would take hold in the late Seventies and late Eighties. Because of the very nature of their beliefs, which among other things espouse a belief in the existence of Satan as an individual, Fundamentalism may have predisposed poor, rural, conservative Protestants to believe in Satanic ritual abuse more so than other groups.
Other factors also probably played a role in the rise of the Satanic panic. Jeffrey S. Victor attributed much of the Satanic panic to economic decline, unemployment, and concern over what was perceived by some as the decline of the nuclear family. With regards to economic decline as a cause of the Satanic panic, Victor could well be correct. The Eighties in the United States was a time when the economy went into sharp decline. Wages did not keep pace with the cost of living. Unemployment was widespread. The homeless became more common. Farm foreclosures took place at record highs. And the gap between the rich and the poor only grew greater. It is perhaps significant as the economy grew worse in the Eighties, the Satanic panic also increased in its intensity. By mid-decade the unemployment rate reached postwar highs. Significantly, the Satanic panic perhaps reached its peak in 1987, the same year that Black Monday took place in October, when stocks collapsed at an unprecedented level.
If one must choose a starting point for the Satanic panic, it should perhaps be 1980, when the book Michelle Remembers by Dr. Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith was published. It was the first book ever written on Satanic ritual abuse, recounting Smith's treatment at Pazder's practice in Victoria, British Columbia in the late Seventies. During Smith's treatment Pazder used hypnosis to uncover alleged repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse that had occurred to her when she was a child. The abuse allegedly was the work of a "Satanic Cult" in town, of which her mother was a member. The book received a good deal of publicity, and Pazder and Smith went on an extensive publicity tour. The book introduced many of the hallmarks of alleged Satanic abuse, including the recovery of repressed memories through hypnosis. It would also introduce the term "ritual abuse." Much of the book would later be proven to be inaccurate and inconsistent, but it would have an impact nonetheless.
It was not long before other individuals claiming to have repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse under hypnosis in psychotherapy emerged. At the same time the first of the Kern County, California child abuse cases, in which Alvin and Debbie McCuan were falsely accused of sexually abusing children, sparked what has become called the "day care sex abuse hysteria." It would not be long before accusations of abuse made by children towards parents and other caregivers would include elements of Satanic ritual. Indeed, it was in 1983 that accusations of Satanic ritual abuse were made towards the McMartin preschool of Manhattan Beach, California. Investigation and arrests in the case lasted from 1984 to 1987. The trial itself would last from 1987 to 1990. The first trial ended in jury deadlock. A second trial would result in an acquittal and a dismissal. Similar allegations would arise towards daycare centres and other caretakers in the United States and abroad. Among the most notable were the Country Walk Babysitting Service case from Dade County, Florida (which went to trial in 1986, although the first accusations were made in 1983), the Glendale Montessori case in Stuart, Florida, and the Little Rascals Day Care Centre case in Edenton, North Carolina.
In 1988 Geraldo Rivera's special Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground perhaps added fuel to the Satanic panic and the daycare sex abuse hysteria. It would be Geraldo's only primetime special to air on NBC (previously he had been a reporter with ABC News and was then a daytime talk show host). Airing on October 25, only a few days before Halloween, the special dealt not only with alleged Satanic ritual abuse of children, but also with such topics as alleged breeding of babies for sacrifice in Satanic rituals, the drinking of the blood of children at cocktail parties, and other sensationalist topics. Evidence was sorely lacking for any of this in the special, and its intent seemed to be more to shock than to inform. Despite this it was watched by more people at the time than any other television documentary. There are many who believe that Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground escalated the Satanic panic in many parts of the country.
Most studies of the Satanic panic of the Eighties deal only with the accusations of Satanic ritual abuse by adults claiming repressed memories and accusations of current abuse by children. I would argue that it entailed more than that. In fact, the Eighties was a period when people saw the Devil everywhere. There were rumours and concerns on the part of some on Satanic content in rock music, role playing games, and even childrens' cartoons. What is more, urban legends of Satanism with regards to individuals and even companies would be widespread in the Eighties.
In fact, one of the most bizarre aspects of the Satanic panic was accusations that many rock groups used backmasking to insert Satanic messages in their music. Backmasking, also called "backwards masking," is a recording technique in which sounds are recorded backwards on a recording that is meant to be played forwards. Backmasking was first used on a wide scale in the Fifties musical movement called musicque concrete, an avant garde form whereby fragments of recorded sounds are edited together to make music. The first well known instance of backwards masking occurred when John Lennon and George Martin used the technique on The Beatles songs "Tomorrow Never Knows," "I'm Only Sleeping," and "Rain." As early as the late Seventies, there were rumours of backwards masking used to insert a message beginning "Oh here's to my sweet Satan..." on Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." The rumour only grew after Christian DJ Michael Mills made the claim on several radio programmes in 1981. From there rumours of backwards masking gained momentum. In 1982 Paul Couch of the PTL Club hosted a show on which a so called neuroscientist William Yarroll made the claim that rock groups were working with the Church of Satan to place diabolic, subliminal messages on their records. Many began to capitalise on these rumours, such as minister Gary Greenwald who held several lectures on the subject. The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) would even repeat such claims about Led Zeppelin. Many Fundamentalists were active on a more local level in spreading accusations that there were Satanic messages backmasked on rock songs. In my area there was a man whose last name was either spelled "Munsey," "Muncy," "Muncey," or "Muncie" who held various lectures on the subject. Among the many songs that were accused of Satanic backmasking were "Do the Dark" by Blondie, "Gonna Raise Hell" by Cheap Trick, "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot, "Fire on High" by the Electric Light Orchestra, and "Snowblind" by Styx.
The backmasking and subliminal message rumours would even result in a lawsuit brought by the families of two Nevada youths who committed suicide against Judas Priest in 1990. The families claimed that the boys were led to take their own lives by a subliminal message on "Better By You, Better Than Me" from their album Stained Class. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that there was no real evidence that Judas Priest placed subliminal messages on their records. In his statement, he pointed out that scientific research does not show that subliminal messages could even cause acts of such a grave nature. Lead Singer Rob Halford pointed out the ludicrousness of it all, stating that it would be counterproductive for Judas Priest to kill off their fan base through subliminal messages to commit suicide.
Of course, while rock groups in the Eighties were plagued by rumours of Satanic subliminal messages in their music, accusations of Satanism had been made against many rock groups (especially heavy metal bands) from the early days. From their very first album in 1970, Black Sabbath had to deal with accusations that they were Satanic. And a rumour current in the Seventies was that members of Led Zeppelin (except for John Pual Jones) had sold their souls to the Devil for their success. A rumour that sprung up about KISS, either in the late Seventies or early Eighties, was that the band's name stood for Knights In Service of Satan. The rumour persisted despite denials on the part of the band and plenty of evidence to the contrary. It was widely believed that The Eagles' "Hotel California" was about the Church of Satan. Of course, it perhaps did not help that in the Eighties some artists, such as Venom, Slayer, and King Diamond actively cultivated a Satanist image. In fact, King Diamond even expressed admiration for Anton LaVey, not the sort of thing that would endear him to Fundamentalists. Later he would reveal that he followed no religion, but that was in 2006 long after the Eighties Satanic Panic had passed.
Of course, it is probably not surprising that accusations of Satanic content was made towards rock groups. After all, as early as the Fifties it was called "the Devil's music," but then during the Satanic panic accusations of Satanism were even made towards things that would not be considered Satanic by the average American. The prime example of this may be Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and fantasy role playing games (RPGs) in general. Of course, the reasons why Fundamentalists would accuse Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPGs of Satanism is simple. To many Fundamentalists magic is more or less witchcraft and in their view witchcraft by its very nature is diabolism. It is the same reason accusations of Satanic content in the Harry Potter books have been made. At any rate, the fact that these accusations towards the fantasy RPGs were made during the Satanic panic perhaps made it much worse than the Harry Potter controversy ever was.
If one must pinpoint the time when the accusations of Satanism towards Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPGs began to gain steam, it is perhaps with the suicide of Patricia Pulling's son Irving in 1982. Irving Pulling had been an avid D&D player, and his mother thought his suicide was directly linked to the game. She would even sue TSR Inc., then the owners of Dungeons and Dragons for wrongful death. The lawsuit was dismissed. It was then that she launched a crusade against Dungeons and Dragons, founding BADD (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). She would accuse the game of using everything from assassination, barbarism, blasphemy, cannibalism, demonology, demon summoning, desecration, divination, gambling, homosexuality, insanity, necromancy, prostitution, sadism, satanic type rituals, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, suicide, and other teachings. BADD would achieve a great deal of success with Fundamentalist groups. She even wrote a book expressing her opinions, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan. Pulling would be followed by other similar critics, such as the notorious Jack T. Chick. Infamous for publishing Fundamentalist tracts since 1960, he naturally tackled the subject of role playing games in one of them.
If accusations that D&D was Satanic might seem strange to many today, stranger today would be thought the accusations that even movies and TV shows that many consider innocent were somehow Satanic. Perhaps the strangest accusation of diabolic content in pop culture artefacts of them all were the classic Walt Disney animated features. Fundamentalists would point to the demon Chernabog in Fantasia and the magic prevalent in his movies in everything from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty (of course, magic is the work of the Devil in their view). This would lead to rumours that Walt Disney himself was a Satanist. The ludicrousness of this is that Disney was not only a Protestant, but very conservative in his views. Once, when two of his cartoonists produced a pornographic cartoon for his birthday, he fired them both promptly on the spot. Of course, perhaps even stranger was the accusation that there was Satanic content in the animated carton The Smurfs (based on Belgian cartoonist Peyo's long running Les Schtroumpfs). Of course, this was largely due to the frequent use of magic in the cartoon (Papa Smurf often whipping up a magical solution in a crisis).
A later victim of the Satanic panic was designer Liz Clairborne. Starting around 1990, an urban legend began circulating that Clairborne had confessed to being a Satanist and was donating 30% of her company's profits to the Church of Satan on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The upshot of this is that Liz Clairborne has never appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, nor did she ever make any other such confession on any other talk show.
As the Eighties passed, the Satanic panic would begin to lose steam. Among the first victims of the panic were the rumours that backmasking was being used to place Satanic messages on rock songs. The reason for this was simply that anyone with a phonograph could put the accusations to shame simply by playing records backwards on the machine. I remember after Reverend Munsey (or Muncey, or Muncie...) made another visit to our area, my brother and I got a hold of some of the tapes of his lectures he sold and then listened to them. We then went to our extensive vinyl collection (which contained most of the songs he accused of having subliminal messages) and played them backwards. Often, what we heard weren't Satanic messages, but gibberish. In other instances where there was an actual hidden message, it wasn't what he was claiming was being said at all (and not Satanic in the least bit)! Of course, in instances of alleged subliminal messages on rock songs beyond backmasking, all it took was a good set of recording equipment to disprove any such claims of Satanic messages. The 1990 dismissal of the lawsuit against Judas Priest seems to have been the final nail in the coffin of the whole backmasking/subliminal message controversy, which had been on the wane since around 1984-1985 anyhow.
As to the accusations that D&D and other role playing games were somehow Satanic, that too would be put to the test. Many would point out the extreme inaccuracies in Pulling's portrayals of D&D and other RPGs in her writings and particularly her book, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan. In fact, speaking as someone who spent much of his youth playing D&D (and I can tell you that I did not turn into a serial killer, a rapist, or a Satanist--in fact, I am a well adjusted guy who owns his own home), I can testify that practically everything she had to say was utter hogwash. Indeed, there have been many who have pointed out that Patricia Pulling's assumption that her son Irving's suicide was linked to D&D was not the case. Irving Pulling was a troubled young man who had been suffering from depression for many months prior to his suicide. He had trouble fitting in at school and, if reports are to be believed, was off his medication when he killed himself. There were probably many factors which led to Irving Pulling's death, of which D&D was most likely not one of them. In fact, the American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, and Canada's Health and Welfare would all independently conclude there was no link between role playing and suicide.
Ironically, Geraldo's special Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground in 1988 may have been part of the beginning of the end of the Satanic panic. While it was responsible in part for increasing allegations of Satanic ritual abuse among many, it was also raked over the coals by TV critics, commentators, and a good number of people for its utter lack of evidence for its claims and its sensationalist nature. It seems to me that this was not lost on the average person. I remember, with the exception of a few Fundamentalists, the common view of the man on the street seems to be that it was one of the worst pieces of garbage to ever air on television, offering no real proof of some vast Satanic conspiracy or that child sacrifices were taking place on a wide scale.
As to the heart of the Satanic panic, the claims by adults to have recovered memories of ritual abuse as children and the accusations of children that they had suffered ritual abuse, media coverage of such would grow increasingly negative in 1987. One factor in this change of heart on the part of the media is the fact that the existence of repressed memory is not accepted by the mainstream psychological community at large. In fact, so called recovered memory therapy is not even listed in the DSM-IV or used in mainstream psychotherapy. There is even a theory that hypnosis can produce what is known as false memories, either because a psychotherapist underestimates the suggestibility of his or her patient or, worse yet, the therapist asks leading questions creating such false memories.
Indeed, questions regarding the accuracy of the book Michelle Remembers arose nearly as soon as it was published. It was in the October 27, 1980 issue of Macleans that reporter Paul Grescoe questioned Michelle Smith's father, who strenuously denied the accusations she had made against her mother, as well as a childhood friend of Smith's mother who said that she was a kind and loving woman. Grescoe also noticed some omissions in the book--it did not mention either of Smith's sisters, nor that Dr. Pazer and Smith had by that point gotten married to each other. While the Macleans article would not have much impact, it was the first shot in what would eventually become a point of controversy regarding the book. In fact, it would be in 1990 that The Mail on Sunday conducted an investigation into the book. In an interview with Smith's father, he indicated that she had lied on at least three points. Interviewing Smith's childhood family physician, he theorised that the book was created by an overactive imagination. Neighbours of the family when Smith was growing up agreed that her mother was not only kind and gracious, but it was not possible that Smith could have been abused without someone finding out. A childhood friend of Smith had similarly good things to say about her mother. The clincher in the article may well have been when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police noted that there never has been even one prosecution in Victoria for Satanism. The 1995 book Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt by Michael R. Snedeker and Debbie Nathan revealed further inconsistencies. In the book Smith had claimed that there had been a car crash, but there were no newspaper reports from that period of such a crash. Teachers, childhood friends, and former neighbours all testified that Smith had never been absent from school for a long period of time, even though the book claims she was abused in an 81 day non-stop ritual with literally hundreds of Satanists taking part. Absolutely no one who knew Smith as a child could back up any of the claims she made of ritual abuse in the book. The debunking of the book Michelle Remembers would be a serious blow to the Satanic panic, being as it was the book that had started it all.
The debunking of the book Michelle Remembers would only be the beginning. In 1992 I remember an article that appeared in Playboy largely debunking the alleged phenomenon of Satanic ritual abuse. That same year the FBI would issue its Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse. Among other things, this influential report noted the impossibility of an organised Satanic conspiracy, the utter lack of evidence that babies were being bred for cannibalism by devil worshippers or that 50,000 infants had been murdered in Satanic sacrifices, or that diabolists had seized control of the country's daycare centres and preschools. It also concluded that the vast majority of allegations of Satanic ritual abuse are most likely false. Coming from the top law enforcement agency in the nation, The Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse would provide a huge blow to those arguing that Satanic ritual abuse was occurring regularly across the country.
It would be in 1993 that Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend by Jeffery S. Victor would be published. Perhaps the best overview of the Satanic panic, it provided the final blow to a phenomenon that had been losing credibility since 1987. In fact, it is to be noted that since 1992 and 1993, reports of Satanic ritual abuse had drastically decreased. In fact, if we are to say that the Satanic panic began around 1980, we might be able to say it ended in 1992 or 1993.
Today it is easy to look back at many aspects of the Satanic panic of the Eighties and laugh. For many of us today (as it was for many of us then) it seems ridiculous that anyone could have believed rock stars were backwards masking Satanic messages into their records. For many more of us it probably seems even more ridiculous that anyone could believe there were Satanic overtones to classic Disney films, let alone that Walt Disney was a Satanist (he was a Congregationalist, for gods' sakes...) or that there was Satanic content in The Smurfs. But the truth is that the Satanic panic caused a great deal damage as well. Many people's lives were ruined. There were those parents and other caretakers falsely accused of Satanic ritual abuse and even placed under arrest. While most would be acquitted or dismissed, the damage to their lives was done. Indeed, Ray Buckey was cleared of charges against him and his case dismissed in the McMartin Preschool Trial only after he had spent five years in jail. The harm caused by the Satanic panic did not end there. Many families were divided. I remember a case here in Missouri (Springfield, I think) where an adult woman accused her father of abuse--it was dismissed when it was found that despite her claims of repeatedly being raped as a child, she was still a virgin (how a woman could not know this when her maidenhead was still intact, I don't know...). The family later sued the psychotherapist who had implanted the false memories in her mind. As to those who learned their memories of abuse were false, they often find themselves suffering post traumatic stress disorder due to those false memories and guilt over having made accusations based on what was ultimately untrue.
Like the Red Scare of the Fifties, in the end the Satanic panic harmed many. Like so many moral panics before it, ultimately the Satanic panic was anything but moral.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Paul Newman R.I.P.
Actor Paul Newman passed yesterday at the age of 83. The cause was lung cancer.
Paul Newman was born January 26, 1925 in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Newman's mother was an active fan of the theatre and so Newman naturally developed an interest in the thespian arts. He made his acting debut at the age 7 playing the court jester in a school play, Robin Hood. Following his graduation from high school, he attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He spent less than a year there, deciding to enlist in the Navy. He had wanted to be a pilot, but it was discovered he was colour blind, the Navy made him a radio operator instead. After World War II Newman attended Kenyon College in Gambler, Ohio on a football scholarship. While there he performed in several plays.
Following his father's death in May 1950, Paul Newman returned to Ohio to manage family's sporting goods store. It was only a little over a year that he convinced his brother to take over the store and Newman went to Yale University to study theatrical directing. He left Yale University in 1952 and started concentrating on acting full time. Newman's television debut had been as a regular on The Aldrich Family in 1949, but in 1952 he began appearing on television more frequently. His second appearance on television was that year, on an episode of Tales of Tomorrow. He also appeared in episodes of Suspense and The Web.
It was in 1953 that he made his debut on Broadway in Picnic, playing a small role in the play. Director Joshua Logan very quickly gave him Alan Seymour, the second male lead role in the show. Newman continued to appear on television, in episodes of You Are There, The Mask, Goodyear Television Playhouse, and Danger. In 1954 he made his screen debut in The Silver Chalice. Newman continued to appear on television, in episodes of The Philco Television Playhouse (playing Billy the Kid, no less) and Appointment with Adventure. In 1955 he appeared in Somebody Up There Likes Me. Except for episodes of The United States Steel Hour, The Kaiser Aluminum Hour and Playhouse 90, Newman would not act on television again, except for a part in a television adaptation of Come Along with Me in 1982, until the Naughts.
Newman's film career would really take off in 1958. That year he appeared in such major films as The Long, Hot Summer, The Left Handed Gun (as Billy the Kid again), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing the male lead in all three. From the Sixties into the Seventies Newman would be one of the most successful actors of all time, appearing in several classic films. Among them were The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Sting, and Slap Shot. During this period he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor for The Hustler, Hud, and Cool Hand Luke.
Newman's screen acting career would slow down in the Eighties, although he still made several successful movies, including Fort Apache the Bronx, The Colour of Money, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Road to Perdition. He provided the voice of Doc Hudson in Cars. He appeared on television in a 2003 production of Our Town and the telefilm Empire Falls in 2005.
Newman also had a career as a film director. He made his directorial debut with Rachel, Rachel in 1968. He would go onto direct Sometimes a Great Notion, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Harry and Son, and the 1987 version of the Glass Menagerie. He also received a producer's credit on several films, including Winning, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, They Might Be Giants.
Newman also had a career on stage. On Broadway he appeared in The Desperate Hours in 1955, Sweet Bird of Youth in 1959, Baby Want A Kiss in 1964, and a revival of Our Town in 2002.
Following his role in the movie Winning in 1969, Newman developed an interest auto racing. He went attended racing school. He raced professionally for the first time in 1972 in Thompson, Connecticut. He would win several n Sports Car Club of America championships. He also owned his own racing team in the Can-Am series and founded Newman/Haas Racing with Carl Haas, a Champ car team, in 1983.
Newman was married to Joanne Woodward for fifty years. The two first met in 1953 in Picnic, but as he was married at the time, they would not have a romantic relationship for a few years. The two would work together several times, including the movies From the Terrace, Harry and Son, and Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.
Paul Newman was one of my favourite actors of all time and, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest as well. While he was saddled with a pretty boy image very early in his career, he quickly overcame that and established himself as one of the best motion picture actors in the field. In many respects Newman was a chameleon, capable of playing many different sorts of roles. In The Hustler and The Colour of Money he played small time pool hustler Fast Eddie. In Cool Hand Luke he played the rebellious, but self destructive convict of the title, who resisted the prison's attempts to break him. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid he played the fun loving Cassidy. In The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean he starred as Judge Roy Bean, the at times curmudgeonly judge who often made up the laws as he went along. Newman very rarely played the same sort of role twice. He was a truly great actor, definitely one of the best of his generation.
Paul Newman was born January 26, 1925 in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Newman's mother was an active fan of the theatre and so Newman naturally developed an interest in the thespian arts. He made his acting debut at the age 7 playing the court jester in a school play, Robin Hood. Following his graduation from high school, he attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He spent less than a year there, deciding to enlist in the Navy. He had wanted to be a pilot, but it was discovered he was colour blind, the Navy made him a radio operator instead. After World War II Newman attended Kenyon College in Gambler, Ohio on a football scholarship. While there he performed in several plays.
Following his father's death in May 1950, Paul Newman returned to Ohio to manage family's sporting goods store. It was only a little over a year that he convinced his brother to take over the store and Newman went to Yale University to study theatrical directing. He left Yale University in 1952 and started concentrating on acting full time. Newman's television debut had been as a regular on The Aldrich Family in 1949, but in 1952 he began appearing on television more frequently. His second appearance on television was that year, on an episode of Tales of Tomorrow. He also appeared in episodes of Suspense and The Web.
It was in 1953 that he made his debut on Broadway in Picnic, playing a small role in the play. Director Joshua Logan very quickly gave him Alan Seymour, the second male lead role in the show. Newman continued to appear on television, in episodes of You Are There, The Mask, Goodyear Television Playhouse, and Danger. In 1954 he made his screen debut in The Silver Chalice. Newman continued to appear on television, in episodes of The Philco Television Playhouse (playing Billy the Kid, no less) and Appointment with Adventure. In 1955 he appeared in Somebody Up There Likes Me. Except for episodes of The United States Steel Hour, The Kaiser Aluminum Hour and Playhouse 90, Newman would not act on television again, except for a part in a television adaptation of Come Along with Me in 1982, until the Naughts.
Newman's film career would really take off in 1958. That year he appeared in such major films as The Long, Hot Summer, The Left Handed Gun (as Billy the Kid again), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing the male lead in all three. From the Sixties into the Seventies Newman would be one of the most successful actors of all time, appearing in several classic films. Among them were The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Sting, and Slap Shot. During this period he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor for The Hustler, Hud, and Cool Hand Luke.
Newman's screen acting career would slow down in the Eighties, although he still made several successful movies, including Fort Apache the Bronx, The Colour of Money, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Road to Perdition. He provided the voice of Doc Hudson in Cars. He appeared on television in a 2003 production of Our Town and the telefilm Empire Falls in 2005.
Newman also had a career as a film director. He made his directorial debut with Rachel, Rachel in 1968. He would go onto direct Sometimes a Great Notion, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Harry and Son, and the 1987 version of the Glass Menagerie. He also received a producer's credit on several films, including Winning, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, They Might Be Giants.
Newman also had a career on stage. On Broadway he appeared in The Desperate Hours in 1955, Sweet Bird of Youth in 1959, Baby Want A Kiss in 1964, and a revival of Our Town in 2002.
Following his role in the movie Winning in 1969, Newman developed an interest auto racing. He went attended racing school. He raced professionally for the first time in 1972 in Thompson, Connecticut. He would win several n Sports Car Club of America championships. He also owned his own racing team in the Can-Am series and founded Newman/Haas Racing with Carl Haas, a Champ car team, in 1983.
Newman was married to Joanne Woodward for fifty years. The two first met in 1953 in Picnic, but as he was married at the time, they would not have a romantic relationship for a few years. The two would work together several times, including the movies From the Terrace, Harry and Son, and Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.
Paul Newman was one of my favourite actors of all time and, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest as well. While he was saddled with a pretty boy image very early in his career, he quickly overcame that and established himself as one of the best motion picture actors in the field. In many respects Newman was a chameleon, capable of playing many different sorts of roles. In The Hustler and The Colour of Money he played small time pool hustler Fast Eddie. In Cool Hand Luke he played the rebellious, but self destructive convict of the title, who resisted the prison's attempts to break him. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid he played the fun loving Cassidy. In The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean he starred as Judge Roy Bean, the at times curmudgeonly judge who often made up the laws as he went along. Newman very rarely played the same sort of role twice. He was a truly great actor, definitely one of the best of his generation.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Star Trek Superfan Joan Winston Passes On
Chances are you have never heard of Joan Winston. That is, unless you are a Star Trek fan. Joan Winston played a leading role in organising the first Star Trek convention in 1972. She was perhaps the most famous Star Trek fan known primarily as a fan (as opposed to an actor, writer, or other sort of celebrity) besides Bjo Trimble, who organised the letter writing campaign to save Star Trek from cancellation in the series' third season. She passed from complications from Alzheimer’s Disease on September 11. She was 77.
Joan Winston was born June 19, 1931. She was born in Washington, but grew up in Brooklyn. Out of high school she went to work at Bonwit Teller as a merchandiser. She would later work for the contracts departments at CBS and then ABC in New York. A science fiction fan since childhood, she became one of the first generations of Star Trek when it first aired in 1966. When the series was in danger of cancellation in its second season, she picketed NBC. In 1968 she was able to attend the shooting of the final Star Trek episode.
Eventually one of Winston's friends, Elyse Pines, brought up the idea of a convention for Star Trek fans. Winston used her contacts in the entertainment industry to get fifteen Star Trek episodes, the blooper reel, and Gene Roddenberry, creator of the series, for the first convention. She was able to get memorabilia from the lunar missions from NASA for the convention (two tons' worth, as it turned out). She and her fellow organisers would organise four more conventions before she retired from organising them in 1976.
With Sondra Marshak and Jacqueline Lichtenberg she co-wrote Star Trek Lives, a chronicle of anecdotes of their experiences in Star Trek fandom, as well as an examination of Star Trek fandom itself. She wrote The Making of the Star Trek Conventions, chronicling the history of the early cons. She edited Startoons, an anthology of science fiction oriented cartoons.
Joan Winston was pivotal in the development of Star Trek fandom and its subculture. She was also described as one of the nicest people one could meet. William Shatner described her as "...bright, bubbly, and energetic beyond every law of human physiology and comprehension." George Takei said of her, "She was an energetic and vivacious advocate for Star Trek and we loved her very much." Jacqueline Lichtenberg stated, "Joan Winston was one of the most giving people I have ever met. She literally would give you clothing out of her closet." Dennis Rayburn, a fellow fan who works on roddenberry.com, noted her humility, "She didn’t let the status she had among the Trek fans go to her head. She was just one of us." If Joan Winston is a legend among Star Trek fans, it is for than having helped organise the first convention. She was a truly great lady.
Joan Winston was born June 19, 1931. She was born in Washington, but grew up in Brooklyn. Out of high school she went to work at Bonwit Teller as a merchandiser. She would later work for the contracts departments at CBS and then ABC in New York. A science fiction fan since childhood, she became one of the first generations of Star Trek when it first aired in 1966. When the series was in danger of cancellation in its second season, she picketed NBC. In 1968 she was able to attend the shooting of the final Star Trek episode.
Eventually one of Winston's friends, Elyse Pines, brought up the idea of a convention for Star Trek fans. Winston used her contacts in the entertainment industry to get fifteen Star Trek episodes, the blooper reel, and Gene Roddenberry, creator of the series, for the first convention. She was able to get memorabilia from the lunar missions from NASA for the convention (two tons' worth, as it turned out). She and her fellow organisers would organise four more conventions before she retired from organising them in 1976.
With Sondra Marshak and Jacqueline Lichtenberg she co-wrote Star Trek Lives, a chronicle of anecdotes of their experiences in Star Trek fandom, as well as an examination of Star Trek fandom itself. She wrote The Making of the Star Trek Conventions, chronicling the history of the early cons. She edited Startoons, an anthology of science fiction oriented cartoons.
Joan Winston was pivotal in the development of Star Trek fandom and its subculture. She was also described as one of the nicest people one could meet. William Shatner described her as "...bright, bubbly, and energetic beyond every law of human physiology and comprehension." George Takei said of her, "She was an energetic and vivacious advocate for Star Trek and we loved her very much." Jacqueline Lichtenberg stated, "Joan Winston was one of the most giving people I have ever met. She literally would give you clothing out of her closet." Dennis Rayburn, a fellow fan who works on roddenberry.com, noted her humility, "She didn’t let the status she had among the Trek fans go to her head. She was just one of us." If Joan Winston is a legend among Star Trek fans, it is for than having helped organise the first convention. She was a truly great lady.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A Pulp Magazine Quiz
Anyhow, onto post 1001! As regular readers of this blog probably already know, Beth of the lovely voice laid down a challenge for me at the first of the year. The challenge was simply this: I must create and post one pop culture quiz a month in A Shroud of Thoughts. The quizzes can have a single theme or simply be a collection of random things. At the end of 2008, the reader who has accumulated the most points throughout the year will win a pop culture related prize. For those of you curious about the prize, I decided that it will be a pop culture related key chain of the winner's choice, to cost no more than $5.00 (minus sales tax). The price limit is for the simple fact that I can't afford platinum plated key chains... I'll provide the answers around the end of the month.
This year has seen the 75th anniversary of three of the most famous pulp magazine heroes: Doc Savage, The Spider, and G-8. For that reason, I thought this month's quiz should be dedicated to the old pulp magazines (by the way, a lot of the answers can be found in this blog's old and not so old posts....)?
1. What is generally considered the first pulp magazine?
2. What was the first pulp magazine dedicated to a single genre?
3. What was the name of the famous horror pulp (originally published by J.C. Henneberger in 1823 and published stories by Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, and H. P. Lovecraft?
4. The Shadow was mostly written by what man?
5. In what year was the science fiction magazine Astounding (now Analog) first published?
6. Name Doc Savage's five assistants (their nicknames will do)?
6. What was the name of The Spider's girlfriend?
8. What famous hero pulp was first published by Popular Publications the same month that Popular first published The Spider?
9. Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, first appeared in what pulp magazine?
10. In what year did Street Smith cancel nearly all of its pulp magazine line, including The Shadow and Doc Savage (bonus points for the one Street and Smith pulp magazine that was spared and survives to this day)?
This year has seen the 75th anniversary of three of the most famous pulp magazine heroes: Doc Savage, The Spider, and G-8. For that reason, I thought this month's quiz should be dedicated to the old pulp magazines (by the way, a lot of the answers can be found in this blog's old and not so old posts....)?
1. What is generally considered the first pulp magazine?
2. What was the first pulp magazine dedicated to a single genre?
3. What was the name of the famous horror pulp (originally published by J.C. Henneberger in 1823 and published stories by Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, and H. P. Lovecraft?
4. The Shadow was mostly written by what man?
5. In what year was the science fiction magazine Astounding (now Analog) first published?
6. Name Doc Savage's five assistants (their nicknames will do)?
6. What was the name of The Spider's girlfriend?
8. What famous hero pulp was first published by Popular Publications the same month that Popular first published The Spider?
9. Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, first appeared in what pulp magazine?
10. In what year did Street Smith cancel nearly all of its pulp magazine line, including The Shadow and Doc Savage (bonus points for the one Street and Smith pulp magazine that was spared and survives to this day)?
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The Spider Turns 75
The first issue of The Spider was dated October 1933. Since most pulp publishers would get their titles to newsstands about a half a month or only a little less than that before their cover dates, I imagine Popular Publications had The Spider October 1933 on newsstands by September 13 to 15, although I can't be certain of that. Regardless, this month The Spider has turned 75 years old.
For those of you who have no idea who The Spider is, he is perhaps the third most popular pulp magazine hero after The Shadow and Doc Savage. His adventures were published by Popular Publications, a company that also published G-8 and His Battle Aces (which also turns 75 this month--it was perhaps Popular's second most popular title) and Operator #5. The Spider would evolve in a character who was practically compelled to fight crime, as well as the most violent pulp hero. It was rare that he did not shoot to kill. But then if The Spider was overly violent, it was perhaps because he had to be. He fought such menaces as a madman who drugged all the tobacco, liquor and coffee in the city, a villain who caused mass suicides across the United States, and a villain who killed with song. No one in pulp magazines faced as outré opponents as The Spider.
The Spider was initially created by Henry "Harry" Steeger, co-founder and publisher of Popular Publications, as competition for rival Street and Smith's The Shadow. To develop the character he hired writer R. T. M. Scott. Scott was most famous for having created "Secret Service Smith," the hero of five novels and several stories. Smith was an American detective with a Hindu assistant who was deadly with a knife. Coincidentally, there is a very strong resemblance between Scott's version of The Spider and Secret Service Smith. For Scott "The Spider" was little more than a psuedonym adopted by Richard Wentworth as he fought crime as an amateur criminologist. Like Smith, Wentworth was assisted by Ram Singh, a Hindu deadly with a knife. A big difference between Smith and Wentworth was that Wentworth was a bit more bloodthirsty. While Smith always shot to wound, Wentworth would shoot to kill. Wentworth would also brand his victims with the seal of The Spider using a specially made cigarette lighter.
Scott left The Spider after only two issues, whereupon Norvell Page took over as the magazine's writer. Norvell Page was a newspaper writer turned pulp writer, who belonged to the famous Pages of Virginia, one of the First Families of Virginia. Those familiar with Virginia's history might recall that there was a John Page who was governor of the state and a U.S. Congressman. Novelist, lawyer, and one time United States Ambassador to Italy, Thomas Nelson Page was also a member of Norvell Page's family. Page had written the Ken Carter stories for Ten Detective Aces and would later write two sword and sorcery novels featuring Prester John, also known as "Hurricane John" or Wan-Tengri.
Page transformed the basic concept of The Spider as created by Steeger and Scott into something entirely different. In fact, in some respects it is hard to say that Page didn't simply create a whole new character. While "The Spider" began simply as a nom de guerre for Richard Wentworth under R. T. M. Scott, Norvell Page would soon make The Spider a distinct identity from Richard Wentworth. In at least one early novel written by Page, Wentworth would go out as The Spider wearing a cloth mask that covered his whole face except for his eyes. It was in the March 1934 issue of The Spider that Wentwoth would don the costume that would later be The Spider's look. That issue he took the alias of Tito Caliepi, a hunchbacked violinist who wears a cape and a felt hat. It would not be long before Wentworth would stop using the Tito Caliepi alias and adapt Caliepi's for The Spider. It was in that same issue that the first mention was made of The Spider's ring (which was offered as a premium in the same issue). Eventually Wentworth as The Spider would dress in a sallow fright mask complete with fangs, a black felt hat, and a black cape, giving him what was perhaps the most frightening appearance of any pulp hero (curiously, the covers featured The Spider in a simple mask of the sort The Lone Ranger wore--only seven issues published from March through September 1940 had covers featuring the fanged Spider). And while Wentworth was a bit bloodthirsty under Scott's tenure as writer, he became even more so when Norvell Page wrote him. As The Spider, Richard Wentworth was wholly obsessed with fighting crime--one might say he was even compelled to do so. And in his war against evil he showed absolutely no mercy.
Norvell Page changed The Spider in other ways as well. While Ram Singh was originally portrayed as Wentworth's Hindu assistant under Scott, Page made him a Sikh who was not Wentworth's assistant, but his friend and equal. Richard Wentworth's girlfriend Nita Van Sloan played a more prominent role, becoming his partner in fighting crime. In fact, Nita Van Sloan would even sometimes become The Spider herself! Another change Norvell Page made to The Spider was in the aforementioned nature of the enemies he faced. In the two novels by R. T. M. Scott ("The Spider Strikes" and "Wheel of Death"), Richard Wentworth faced rather ordinary criminal masterminds. Page drew upon his own aforementioned Ken Carter series from the magazine Ten Detective Aces to provide The Spider with a whole new sort of opponent. Carter was a former professional juggler turned detective who fought menaces of an outre nature, such as criminals who use music to kill ("Hell's Music") or who transform human beings into statues ("Statues of Horror"). In the hands of Norvell Page, then, The Spider faced such bizarre menaces ranging from giant robots (Satan's Murder Machines) to a madman who plans to gas and rob the whole city via Zeppelin (Prince of the Red Looters).
Norvell Page would not only make The Spider perhaps the most violent pulp hero of them all, but would also bring emotion to the hero that was rarely seen in other pulp heroes. Richard Wentworth sometimes felt considerable angst over his role as The Spider, worrying over what he had become. He and Nita were devoted to each other with an intensity unseen in other pulp magazines. They would seriously consider marriage, only to realise that if The Spider was ever unmasked or killed it would make his wife a target for the criminal underworld. Despite this, Wentworth was compelled to fight crime. He simply could not give up fighting against criminals on behalf of the common man, even though he was often injured, beaten, betrayed, and even hounded by the city's police force.
Ultimately, Norvell Page made The Spider entirely his own character. While Steeger and Scott may have created the initial concept and other writers would pen novels for the magazine (including Emile C. Tepperman and Prentice Winchell), there really can't be much argument that The Spider as we know him is largely the creation of Norvell Page.
In the hands of Norvell Page and writers, such as Emile C. Tepperman, who worked much less frequently on the title, The Spider became one of the most successful pulp magazines of the Thirties. Its circulation was large enough that Page would eventually be paid $700 per novel. And The Spider was popular enough that he would be adapted into two movie serials. The first was The Spider's Web, released in 1938. Warren Hull was cast as Richard Wentworth/The Spider. In the serial Wentworth battled the villainous Octopus, whose plot was to destroy the transportation system of the United States. The Spider's Web was successful enough to warrant a sequel, so that a second serial was released in 1941, The Spider Returns. Warren Hull returned once more as Richard Wentworth/The Spider. This time The Spider battled The Gargoyle, who threatened various national defence projects.
There may have been a Spider radio show as well. There was an ad for a radio show, airing on KMOX in St. Louis in The Spider August 1935. According to the ad, it was to air every Thursday at 6:30 Central Standard Time. Unfortunately, the radio show was never mentioned before or since in the pages of The Spider. Interestingly enough, it is possible that Lee Falk, creator of The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, could have scripted the show--he was working as a writer at KMOX at the time. Unfortunately, there seems to be no proof that the show ever aired. It could have been a project that died before it reached the air. At the moment it seems that only a search of St. Louis radio schedules from July and August of 1935 would show if there was ever actually a Spider radio show.
Despite the success of The Spider, it would not survive the Forties. World War II would bring paper shortages, which force pulp magazine publishers to make their titles shorter or cancel them entirely. Worse yet, pulp magazines had new competition from comic books, then in their Golden Age, who lured many young readers away from the pulps. It would be with the June 1943 issue of The Spider that the title, which had always been monthly, would switch to a bi-monthly schedule. In only another three issues, The Spider would be cancelled. In its entirety, it had run for 118 issues.
While his magazine was cancelled, The Spider would not be forgotten. In 1964 Bantam began reprinting the Doc Savage novels to great success. It was in 1968 that Berkley Books followed suit with reprints of The Spider. Berkley would continue reprinting the novels from November 1969 to March 1970. It was in 1975 that Pocket Books took the rather odd approach of recasting The Spider as a men's action hero of The Executioner type, rewriting both Death Reign of the Vampire King from The Spider November 1935 and three other titles as modern day, men's action novels. Fortunately, the project proved to be a colossal flop. It only lasted briefly in the early part of 1975, producing a total of four novels. In 1980 Dimedia would reprint the six of the original pulp novels, complete with the original Spider logo and graphics resembling those of Popular Publications. From 1991 to 1993 Carroll and Graf reprinted eight of the pulp novels. Although the reprints only lasted briefly, it was the Carroll and Graf reprints that would largely create modern day Spider fandom. More recently, Bold Venture Press and Baen Books have both reprinted the original pulp novels, both companies featuring multiple novels in one book. In 2007 Moonstone Books published The Spider Chronicles, an anthology of stories featuring The Master of Men by such writers as John Jakes and Howard Hopkins.
It was in 1990 that Eclipse Comics adapted the novel Corpse Cargo as a three issue comic book miniseries. It was followed in 1992 by an adaptation of Reign of the Vampire King. The Spider would later appear in the 192 page anthology comic book Titanic Tales published in 1999. In 2002 Vanguard Productions published Scavengers Of The Slaughtered Sacrifices, an original story featuring The Spider. In 2007 Moonstone Books would publish their comic book Holiday Super Spectacular with a story featuring The Spider. They plan an adaptation of The Devil's Paymaster from The Spider May 1941 in the near future.
Although The Spider would only last for a little over ten years, it remains one of the best remembered of the pulp magazines. The Spider himself would have an influence on pop culture artefacts in the future. Its most immediate effect may have been upon the comic book character Batman, who resembles The Spider to a large degree. Both are multi-millionaires who fight crime. Both tend to be merciless towards criminals. And both were friends with the city's police commissioner. The Spider may have influenced the classic Fleischer Superman cartoon "The Mechanical Monsters," which uses the same giant robot motif as Satan's Murder Machines. Later the film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow would use the same idea. Among the tales of Spider-Man's creation told by Stan Lee is that The Spider was partially the inspiration for Spider-Man. Although not as famous as either Doc Savage or The Shadow. The Spider has had a lasting influence on pop culture that survives to this day. Indeed, seventy five years after his first appearance, The Spider's novels continue to be reprinted.
For those of you who have no idea who The Spider is, he is perhaps the third most popular pulp magazine hero after The Shadow and Doc Savage. His adventures were published by Popular Publications, a company that also published G-8 and His Battle Aces (which also turns 75 this month--it was perhaps Popular's second most popular title) and Operator #5. The Spider would evolve in a character who was practically compelled to fight crime, as well as the most violent pulp hero. It was rare that he did not shoot to kill. But then if The Spider was overly violent, it was perhaps because he had to be. He fought such menaces as a madman who drugged all the tobacco, liquor and coffee in the city, a villain who caused mass suicides across the United States, and a villain who killed with song. No one in pulp magazines faced as outré opponents as The Spider.
The Spider was initially created by Henry "Harry" Steeger, co-founder and publisher of Popular Publications, as competition for rival Street and Smith's The Shadow. To develop the character he hired writer R. T. M. Scott. Scott was most famous for having created "Secret Service Smith," the hero of five novels and several stories. Smith was an American detective with a Hindu assistant who was deadly with a knife. Coincidentally, there is a very strong resemblance between Scott's version of The Spider and Secret Service Smith. For Scott "The Spider" was little more than a psuedonym adopted by Richard Wentworth as he fought crime as an amateur criminologist. Like Smith, Wentworth was assisted by Ram Singh, a Hindu deadly with a knife. A big difference between Smith and Wentworth was that Wentworth was a bit more bloodthirsty. While Smith always shot to wound, Wentworth would shoot to kill. Wentworth would also brand his victims with the seal of The Spider using a specially made cigarette lighter.
Scott left The Spider after only two issues, whereupon Norvell Page took over as the magazine's writer. Norvell Page was a newspaper writer turned pulp writer, who belonged to the famous Pages of Virginia, one of the First Families of Virginia. Those familiar with Virginia's history might recall that there was a John Page who was governor of the state and a U.S. Congressman. Novelist, lawyer, and one time United States Ambassador to Italy, Thomas Nelson Page was also a member of Norvell Page's family. Page had written the Ken Carter stories for Ten Detective Aces and would later write two sword and sorcery novels featuring Prester John, also known as "Hurricane John" or Wan-Tengri.
Page transformed the basic concept of The Spider as created by Steeger and Scott into something entirely different. In fact, in some respects it is hard to say that Page didn't simply create a whole new character. While "The Spider" began simply as a nom de guerre for Richard Wentworth under R. T. M. Scott, Norvell Page would soon make The Spider a distinct identity from Richard Wentworth. In at least one early novel written by Page, Wentworth would go out as The Spider wearing a cloth mask that covered his whole face except for his eyes. It was in the March 1934 issue of The Spider that Wentwoth would don the costume that would later be The Spider's look. That issue he took the alias of Tito Caliepi, a hunchbacked violinist who wears a cape and a felt hat. It would not be long before Wentworth would stop using the Tito Caliepi alias and adapt Caliepi's for The Spider. It was in that same issue that the first mention was made of The Spider's ring (which was offered as a premium in the same issue). Eventually Wentworth as The Spider would dress in a sallow fright mask complete with fangs, a black felt hat, and a black cape, giving him what was perhaps the most frightening appearance of any pulp hero (curiously, the covers featured The Spider in a simple mask of the sort The Lone Ranger wore--only seven issues published from March through September 1940 had covers featuring the fanged Spider). And while Wentworth was a bit bloodthirsty under Scott's tenure as writer, he became even more so when Norvell Page wrote him. As The Spider, Richard Wentworth was wholly obsessed with fighting crime--one might say he was even compelled to do so. And in his war against evil he showed absolutely no mercy.
Norvell Page changed The Spider in other ways as well. While Ram Singh was originally portrayed as Wentworth's Hindu assistant under Scott, Page made him a Sikh who was not Wentworth's assistant, but his friend and equal. Richard Wentworth's girlfriend Nita Van Sloan played a more prominent role, becoming his partner in fighting crime. In fact, Nita Van Sloan would even sometimes become The Spider herself! Another change Norvell Page made to The Spider was in the aforementioned nature of the enemies he faced. In the two novels by R. T. M. Scott ("The Spider Strikes" and "Wheel of Death"), Richard Wentworth faced rather ordinary criminal masterminds. Page drew upon his own aforementioned Ken Carter series from the magazine Ten Detective Aces to provide The Spider with a whole new sort of opponent. Carter was a former professional juggler turned detective who fought menaces of an outre nature, such as criminals who use music to kill ("Hell's Music") or who transform human beings into statues ("Statues of Horror"). In the hands of Norvell Page, then, The Spider faced such bizarre menaces ranging from giant robots (Satan's Murder Machines) to a madman who plans to gas and rob the whole city via Zeppelin (Prince of the Red Looters).
Norvell Page would not only make The Spider perhaps the most violent pulp hero of them all, but would also bring emotion to the hero that was rarely seen in other pulp heroes. Richard Wentworth sometimes felt considerable angst over his role as The Spider, worrying over what he had become. He and Nita were devoted to each other with an intensity unseen in other pulp magazines. They would seriously consider marriage, only to realise that if The Spider was ever unmasked or killed it would make his wife a target for the criminal underworld. Despite this, Wentworth was compelled to fight crime. He simply could not give up fighting against criminals on behalf of the common man, even though he was often injured, beaten, betrayed, and even hounded by the city's police force.
Ultimately, Norvell Page made The Spider entirely his own character. While Steeger and Scott may have created the initial concept and other writers would pen novels for the magazine (including Emile C. Tepperman and Prentice Winchell), there really can't be much argument that The Spider as we know him is largely the creation of Norvell Page.
In the hands of Norvell Page and writers, such as Emile C. Tepperman, who worked much less frequently on the title, The Spider became one of the most successful pulp magazines of the Thirties. Its circulation was large enough that Page would eventually be paid $700 per novel. And The Spider was popular enough that he would be adapted into two movie serials. The first was The Spider's Web, released in 1938. Warren Hull was cast as Richard Wentworth/The Spider. In the serial Wentworth battled the villainous Octopus, whose plot was to destroy the transportation system of the United States. The Spider's Web was successful enough to warrant a sequel, so that a second serial was released in 1941, The Spider Returns. Warren Hull returned once more as Richard Wentworth/The Spider. This time The Spider battled The Gargoyle, who threatened various national defence projects.
There may have been a Spider radio show as well. There was an ad for a radio show, airing on KMOX in St. Louis in The Spider August 1935. According to the ad, it was to air every Thursday at 6:30 Central Standard Time. Unfortunately, the radio show was never mentioned before or since in the pages of The Spider. Interestingly enough, it is possible that Lee Falk, creator of The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, could have scripted the show--he was working as a writer at KMOX at the time. Unfortunately, there seems to be no proof that the show ever aired. It could have been a project that died before it reached the air. At the moment it seems that only a search of St. Louis radio schedules from July and August of 1935 would show if there was ever actually a Spider radio show.
Despite the success of The Spider, it would not survive the Forties. World War II would bring paper shortages, which force pulp magazine publishers to make their titles shorter or cancel them entirely. Worse yet, pulp magazines had new competition from comic books, then in their Golden Age, who lured many young readers away from the pulps. It would be with the June 1943 issue of The Spider that the title, which had always been monthly, would switch to a bi-monthly schedule. In only another three issues, The Spider would be cancelled. In its entirety, it had run for 118 issues.
While his magazine was cancelled, The Spider would not be forgotten. In 1964 Bantam began reprinting the Doc Savage novels to great success. It was in 1968 that Berkley Books followed suit with reprints of The Spider. Berkley would continue reprinting the novels from November 1969 to March 1970. It was in 1975 that Pocket Books took the rather odd approach of recasting The Spider as a men's action hero of The Executioner type, rewriting both Death Reign of the Vampire King from The Spider November 1935 and three other titles as modern day, men's action novels. Fortunately, the project proved to be a colossal flop. It only lasted briefly in the early part of 1975, producing a total of four novels. In 1980 Dimedia would reprint the six of the original pulp novels, complete with the original Spider logo and graphics resembling those of Popular Publications. From 1991 to 1993 Carroll and Graf reprinted eight of the pulp novels. Although the reprints only lasted briefly, it was the Carroll and Graf reprints that would largely create modern day Spider fandom. More recently, Bold Venture Press and Baen Books have both reprinted the original pulp novels, both companies featuring multiple novels in one book. In 2007 Moonstone Books published The Spider Chronicles, an anthology of stories featuring The Master of Men by such writers as John Jakes and Howard Hopkins.
It was in 1990 that Eclipse Comics adapted the novel Corpse Cargo as a three issue comic book miniseries. It was followed in 1992 by an adaptation of Reign of the Vampire King. The Spider would later appear in the 192 page anthology comic book Titanic Tales published in 1999. In 2002 Vanguard Productions published Scavengers Of The Slaughtered Sacrifices, an original story featuring The Spider. In 2007 Moonstone Books would publish their comic book Holiday Super Spectacular with a story featuring The Spider. They plan an adaptation of The Devil's Paymaster from The Spider May 1941 in the near future.
Although The Spider would only last for a little over ten years, it remains one of the best remembered of the pulp magazines. The Spider himself would have an influence on pop culture artefacts in the future. Its most immediate effect may have been upon the comic book character Batman, who resembles The Spider to a large degree. Both are multi-millionaires who fight crime. Both tend to be merciless towards criminals. And both were friends with the city's police commissioner. The Spider may have influenced the classic Fleischer Superman cartoon "The Mechanical Monsters," which uses the same giant robot motif as Satan's Murder Machines. Later the film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow would use the same idea. Among the tales of Spider-Man's creation told by Stan Lee is that The Spider was partially the inspiration for Spider-Man. Although not as famous as either Doc Savage or The Shadow. The Spider has had a lasting influence on pop culture that survives to this day. Indeed, seventy five years after his first appearance, The Spider's novels continue to be reprinted.
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