Transcription
There’s a man who is known for the tales he has sown; told to children young and almost full-grown. One sly cat dons a hat, one kind Horton hears a Who. And a Grinch who stole Christmas got a new heart, too. He was a Dr. named Seuss, but not a doctor at all. Just a man who loved writing for both big and small. On today’s Biographics, we offer the story of Ted Geisel, the American author.
School Days Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in 1904 to German immigrants. His father owned a very successful brewery in Springfield, Massachusetts. As a child, his favorite pastime was to go to the zoo with his family every Sunday. He was so good at drawing animals, that his father bought him a sketchbook that he added to every weekend, and his mom allowed him to paint on the walls of his bedroom. His animals always looked like caricatures, and from a young age, they could tell that he had a whimsical imagination.
After prohibition in the 1920’s, his father could no longer run the brewery, and actually chose to become the head of the Springfield Zoo instead. Ted Geisel could now go to the zoo and sketch the animals as often as he wanted, and he continued to do so for the rest of his life. Growing up during World War I, many children in school would make fun of Geisel, calling their family drunken Germans. This stereotype only intensified during prohibition, since their family’s livelihood came from making beer. This isolated him from a lot of his other peers. He spent a lot of time alone, and was mostly an introvert. With the close friends he did have, he would use his good sense of humor to cope with the bad times.
He was accepted to Dartmouth College, and he started drawing short comics for their humor magazine. In his senior year, Geisel became the editor, and this was the beginning of a lifelong literary career. One night, the dean caught Geisel drinking an illegal bottle of bootleg gin and having a party in his dorm, so he was removed from his position as editor. He decided to secretly continue contributing to the magazine, but went by the pen name “Dr. Seuss”. Seuss was his mother’s maiden name, and when he was born, his parents made it his middle name. In German, it’s actually pronounced “Zoice”, but everyone always got it wrong when reading it with an American accent. So he decided to just let people call him “Seuss”. Even though he did not have a doctorate, he chose to go by “Dr.” instead of “Mr.”, because his father had hoped his interest in animals meant he would one day go to veterinary school, but he chose to be an artist and writer instead.
After graduating from Dartmouth, he moved to England to attend graduate school at the University of Oxford. He planned to become a professor, but ended up leaving after just one semester to move to New York City. He was writing funny ads and illustrating them with his characters, and he was able to publish his first cartoon in the Saturday Evening Post in 1927. In the beginning, Ted Geisel fully intended to write jokes for adults, but his ad contract forbid him from publishing any comics in the funny papers, because his clients felt that it would be in direct competition. However, the contract never mentioned children’s books, which is why he decided to get started in that genre.
He wrote his first children’s book, And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street, but every publisher rejected him. The story is all about a young boy who uses his imagination to elaborate over-the-top details about where he lives, which is something that Geisel always did as a child. Publishers saw this as encouraging children to lie, and they thought it would set a bad example. At the time, children’s books were only meant to teach kids moral lessons about manners and obeying their parents. They weren’t exactly enjoyable to read, and there were very strict rules about what could or could not be in them. Geisel continued to draw ads in New York, but he eventually ran into one of his old friends from Dartmouth, who just so happened to have gotten a job at Vanguard Press. His friend helped him get Mulberry Street published. The book only saw modest success, but it was still getting his foot in the door of the industry.
The Dr. Seuss books continued to feature stories where children were getting into some kind of trouble. His stories were fun, and so much more than a thinly veiled lecture. He did have to adjust his writing to market, though, and in 1940, Dr. Seuss switched over to Random House, and he published a book called Horton Hatches the Egg, which gives a moral lesson for children about loyalty and keeping promises. This book became far more successful than any of his other previous titles. But on the brink of America’s involvement in World War II, Geisel was about to take a very long break from writing children’s stories.
American Propaganda, and Taking On Hollywood For a very long time, Ted Geisel stopped sketching pictures of whimsical creatures, and began drawing Hitler, instead. He felt that political cartoons were so important, that he started working for a liberal newspaper called PM, which published his political commentary. For years, the United States refused to get involved with the war, and Geisel strongly believed that the country needed to help the people suffering in Europe. He finally got his wish, though, because the United States entered World War II in December of 1941. Geisel wanted to join and serve in the army, but he was already in his late 30’s, which was far too old. But he enlisted anyway, and after looking over his resume, the army recruiter made him into one of the propaganda “playwrights”, and he earned the title of Captain Geisel. They moved Ted Geisel and his wife out to Los Angeles, and put him in charge of the animation unit. This is where they worked on propaganda cartoons for the US Army called “Private Snafu”, which were very popular among the new army recruits. Dr. Seuss wasn’t the only famous name to come out of the army playwrights, though. Chuck Jones, who was the animator of Looney Tunes, directed the cartoon series. Stan Lee of Marvel Comics was also one of the playwrights, as well. Ted Geisel wrote and directed several propaganda films, including ones that were called “Your Job in Germany” and “Your Job in Japan”. At the time, he was criticized for being too sympathetic towards the enemy countries, but after the war was over in 1945, these movies were edited into a feature-length documentary called Designed for Death, which eventually won an Academy Award.
In 1947, he took advantage of this public recognition by publishing another children’s book called McElligot's Pool, which was his first book in 7 years. In 1950, Geisel wrote an animated short called Gerald McBoing Boing, and it won the Academy Award for best animated film. After winning these two Oscars, he did what most people do in Hollywood, which was write a full-length screenplay called The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. in 1953. The movie is a live-action musical about a young boy whose piano teacher is an evil villain bent on kidnapping children and forcing them to play his giant piano forever. In the first draft of the movie, the entire story played out very much like his books. He also wrote songs that made the movie fast-paced and exciting. Everything went downhill when the Hollywood executives pushed back, saying that the movie needed an adult love interest and jokes written for the benefit of the parents. So they cut half of his songs, and hired a second screenwriter. The revisions ruined the story, and it flopped in the box office. If you watch the movie, it’s easy to spot the very funny and crazy moments written by Dr. Seuss mixed with the traditional Hollywood drama that made the movie drag on forever. Today, 5,000 Fingers has become a cult classic, because it is so terrible, it’s actually kind of good. Ted Geisel said that it was the biggest failure of his career, and that he would never trust executives to make another movie again.
A New Purpose After taking a long break from writing new books, Ted Geisel learned that children’s literacy rates in the United States were dramatically low. So he decided to do something about it. This is when he wrote The Cat in the Hat, and it was published in 1957, when he was 53 years old. He purposely wrote the book with a very simple 225-word vocabulary, to ensure that nearly every elementary school child was able to read it. This book exploded in popularity, and it truly did help increase children’s literacy rates. By 1960, it sold over a million copies, and parents were now searching for more Dr. Seuss books that he had published in the past. One of Geisel’s friends gave him the challenge of reducing the vocabulary down to a mere 50 words, and he accepted. This is when he wrote Green Eggs and Ham, which was equally as successful as The Cat in the Hat. He proved that writing doesn’t have to be about showing off a big vocabulary. The important thing is to tell a good story, and he was a genius at doing just that.
Geisel became head of children’s literature at Random House, and edited his own books, as well as contributed to the popular Berenstain Bears series. Now that Geisel was in charge, he made the new goal of the Random House children’s book department to make the stories as simple as possible, so that children would understand every word, and enjoy the book they were reading, instead of struggling. This way, it would improve children’s literacy, because they would feel good about the experience, and crave reading more books. A lot of famous authors wanted to be a part of this project, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author Roald Dahl and even Breakfast at Tiffany’s author Truman Capote tried to pitch their manuscripts to Geisel. But even though they were both amazing writers in their own right, their children’s books were rejected for not fully understanding the simplicity he was looking for. Geisel worked 7 days a week writing and illustrating, and published at least one new Dr. Seuss book every single year. The stories seem simple, but he once said that he wrote over 1,000 pages before he could narrow the story down to 60. Over the course of his lifetime, he authored and co-authored 66 books.
Personal Life Throughout his life, Ted Geisel got to enjoy the success of having a superstar pen name without the annoying and invasive parts of being a celebrity. Even though his picture was in newspapers across the country, and he received over 1,000 fan letters a day, very few children actually knew what the real Dr. Seuss looked like. So he could still blend into society without drawing a lot of attention to himself. At cocktail parties in New York and Los Angeles, Ted was worried that people would expect a lot of him, so he would tell elaborate stories, but only speak to one or two people before retreating into another room to read, smoke, or have a quiet conversation. Even though he was quiet, he was always playing jokes. Whenever an adult asked for his autograph, he would write a long and elaborate fake name in the book, and hand it back to them. He was an introvert, so socializing wore him out in general, and he was always afraid that his true self—Ted Geisel—was incredibly boring, compared to the whimsical persona of Dr. Seuss. On the contrary, friends said that they believed that the select few people he chose to speak to were incredibly lucky, and everyone thought he was interesting. He just didn’t believe it, himself.
You would think that for a man who wrote children’s books, he would have loved being around kids. But the truth is that he often felt uncomfortable around children, and said that they are just like socializing with adults. Some are great, while others can be real jerks, and he could only handle it for short periods of time. But he had to learn to cope, especially when his stories like The Cat in the Hat became popular, and his agent encouraged him to go on a book tour. One time, at a shopping mall, he slipped away from the crowd of children. He started playing pranks on mall employees by altering the displays, and his agent caught him changing the prices of designer shoes to make them less expensive. Ted did not want to disappoint the kids, because he knew that when children imagined “Dr. Seuss”, they expected to see someone out of Whoville, but he was just a normal guy. After a few awkward speeches at elementary schools, he eventually decided to stop being himself, and act like “Dr. Seuss.” He started speaking in sing-songy rhymes that he wrote ahead of time, and thought of clever answers to frequently asked questions. After he started essentially playing a character, he felt much more comfortable.
Even though Dr. Seuss wrote children’s stories that were loved all around the world, his personal life was far more complicated. The story of the women he fell in love with became one of the main scandals of his life. But in order to tell the whole story, we need to go back in time to his college years. While he was a student at Oxford, Ted Geisel met a fellow American English major named Helen Palmer. She was five years older than he was, and almost ready to graduate with her Master’s. She sat behind Ted in class, and when she saw his sketches of animals, she encouraged him to become an artist instead of a professor. He dropped out after only spending one semester in Oxford, but Helen graduated. They got married soon after, and moved to New York City together. She would eventually go on to publish several children’s books of her own.
For the majority of their marriage, Helen and Ted had a very happy relationship, and they were very supportive of one another’s work. As a young girl, Helen survived having polio. Because of her poor health, she was not able to have children of her own. But they enjoyed the freedom of not having children. He and Helen traveled to 30 different countries together. They purchased their dream home in San Diego, California that overlooked the community of La Jolla, and they even had a watch tower on top of a mountain. Helen would edit his work, giving feedback and also taking care of the household while Ted worked in his office. For a long time, they had as close to “perfect” as a marriage could be.
In 1954, just a year after his Hollywood movie flopped, Helen was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which is an incredibly painful condition where the body’s immune system attacks its own nerves. She became completely paralyzed, and was placed inside of an iron lung. If she were to leave this huge metal container, Helen wouldn’t have been able to breathe on her own. For a while, they thought that she might die. Ted Geisel stopped writing and illustrating completely, giving up everything in his life to be by her side. Even today, there is still no cure for Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Helen had to go through intensive therapy to learn to walk and talk again, but she continued to be very sick without much recovery time in-between. To make matters worse, she was eventually diagnosed with terminal cancer. Like anyone who’s feeling ill, Helen was no longer acting like her usual self. They started sleeping in separate bedrooms, and their relationship became more of a friendship. Ted went on to have a secret affair with a married woman named Audrey Dimond, who was neighbors and friends with the couple. Even though he had fallen in love with someone else, he never left his wife. But when Helen was 69 years old, she found out about the affair, and she couldn’t handle the possibility that he may leave her. She felt that she was far too old and ill to start her life over and try to move on with someone else. In 1967, she killed herself, leaving a suicide note that was just as lyrical as their children’s books. Helen died of a drug overdose, and Ted was completely beside himself with guilt and grief. He blamed himself for her death, and said, "I didn't know whether to kill myself, burn the house down.”
Audrey Stone Dimond divorced her husband, and they got married the following year. Audrey was 18 years younger than Geisel, and she had two daughters, who were 9 and 14 at the time. She sent them to boarding school, because she knew that they were unhappy about the divorce. The entire community of La Jolla judged Audrey and Ted harshly, and they were shunned by many of their friends and neighbors, because they blamed them for Helen’s death. Audrey and Ted stayed together until his death, and he credited her with helping him find his love for writing again, and get a second chance at life. For the first time, he got to experience being a stepfather and grandfather. He wrote, “Sometimes, when I see my granddaughters make small discoveries of their own, I wish I were a child.”
Legacy In 1984, Ted Geisel won the Pulitzer Prize in Children’s Literature, and his stories were translated into 30 languages. Dr. Seuss is now considered to be a classic author who is taught to each new generation, and his books continue to be reprinted today. Theodor Geisel was diagnosed with mouth cancer from years of smoking, and he died in 1991 at age 87. Three weeks before his death, he asked for a bed to be moved into his office so that he could be surrounded by the sketches and sculptures of his characters, and have a view of the mountains from his picture window.
When he was alive, Ted Geisel did not want any merchandise or movies to be made from his books. However, after he died, his wife, Audrey, became in charge of the Seuss brand. She chose to allow the licensing to make toys, games, and Hollywood films, so long as she was able to oversee the creative decisions to make sure it would have been up to Ted’s standards. Some people have criticized her, saying that it’s exploitation. But she believes that in today’s ever-changing world of children’s media, the Dr. Seuss stories may have not lasted as long as they have if they didn’t get a modern makeover. Audrey was right, and her decisions have helped keep his legacy alive. He appeared on the 2018 Forbes list of richest dead celebrities. His books sold 4.8 million copies and earned $16 million in 2017 alone. His estate is currently worth around $75 million. Today, Audrey Geisel is 97 years old. She gives a huge portion of the proceeds from her husband’s royalties to the Dr. Seuss Foundation, which is a non-profit organization that donates money to various causes. So, all of the money from those new Dr. Seuss movie remakes are actually going to pay for college scholarships, libraries, school art programs, and cancer research. Surely, Ted Geisel would be happy to know that even years after his death, his stories are still making a difference with children everywhere.