Teaser Tag: Publishing & Satire

1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Trump Send-Ups”
Spy Magazine, 1980s-1990s

February 7, 2026 J.D.

In April 1988, Spy magazine put Donald Trump — then New York’s rising realtor and tower builder – on its cover. He was shown in a smiling, “thumbs-up” Trumpian pose, having by then made a name for himself with, among other properties, the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. Spy magazine’s cover, however, was followed by a second inside cover, this one showing Trump taking a fall. Spy, in fact, had a long-running bit of jab-and-spoof with Trump, all well before his more loftier positions, yet prescient in its warnings.

Donald Trump on the cover of Spy magazine, April 1988 - billed in a story list as, “A Heck of A Guy.”

A second, inside cover of Spy magazine’s April 1988 edition has Trump taking a fall – and more inside.

Based in New York City, Spy was a satirical monthly magazine published from 1986 to 1998. Co-founded by editors Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen, the magazine specialized in irreverent and satirical pieces targeting the American media and entertainment industries, often mocking high society and prominent celebrities and other public figures, skewering their pretensions, exposing their corruption and foibles. Trump was among the targets, noted in parody pieces that portrayed him as a self-obsessed real estate developer, among other things. The April 1988 edition also included a fake book publishing ad for Trump’s then popular book, The Art of the Deal, as shown below.

This fake publisher ad for Donald Trump’s popular book, “The Art Of The Deal,” which appeared in Spy magazine's April 1988 edition, was preceded by an editor's notation at the top of the ad explaining that it wasn’t a real ad.

The ad had the polished look and layout of a real ad, with the names of then prominently-known leaders from literature and the media offering blurbs credited to, for example: Jonathan Yardly of The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, The New York Times Book Review, Michael Kingsley of The New Republic.

The gag blurbs touted the book as “boastful;” “a public relations sell from the first page to the last;” and, an “exercise in self congratulation” – in fact, all charges and critiques that some Donald Trump critics then, and more later, would actually hold of Trump and his books.

At the base of the ad, an inset of The Art of the Deal book was shown, with descriptive by-line that read: “by Short-Fingered Vulgarian Donald J. Trump with Former Journalist Tony Schwartz.” The Random House logo followed below that, with a claim the book was then in its “12th Printing! Over 700,000 Copies!”, followed by an asterisk that explained in fine print, *“Thousands of them bought by the ‘author’.”

Trump’s book, in any case, was a real success. It had a first printing of 150,000 copies would spend 51 weeks on the bestseller list, with reports indicating it had sold over one million copies within its first few years. By the time of a 2016 investigation, total lifetime sales for the book were placed at roughly 1.1 million copies. While Trump would claim he wrote the book, Tony Schwartz actually wrote it. And former Random House head Howard Kaminsky, the book’s publisher, also noted Schwartz as author, adding, “Trump didn’t write a postcard for us!” Schwartz later regretted writing the book, and also suggested The Art of The Deal be “recategorized as fiction.”

But one of the Spy descriptors used in the fake book ad would live well beyond its 1988 use.

“Short-Fingered Vulgarian”

The author line beneath the book title at the bottom of the fake ad, used the phrase, “short-fingered vulgarian” for author Donald J. Trump. That description was used repeatedly by Spy in other Trump stories, and also by other critics and competitors as Trump later entered the presidential sweepstakes.

In a March 2016 NPR / Morning Edition radio interview with then former Spy co-editors Kurt Andersen and Graydon Carter, coming at a time when Trump was making his first run at the Republican presidential primaries. But Andersen and Carter explained to Morning Edition that for Spy magazine, Trump – then a rising outsider come to Manhattan – “epitomized so much of the sudden ostentation” of New York. In their view, self-promoting Trump embodied the brashness, the ostentation, the vulgarity of New York in the ’80s. And so, there was no question that he would be fair game for Spy’s special brand of barb-and-pique.

Donald Trump shows off the size of his hands at a Repub-lican presidential debate in Detroit, Michigan, on March 3, 2016. Reuters/Jim Young.

On the “short-fingered vulgarian” tag, Carter explained that early on he had noticed Trump had small fingers for a tall man, and that’s where the phrase began to be formed and used at Spy. However, the phrase would go beyond Spy’s pages. In fact, the issue of Trump’s hands would figure into the early rounds of the 2016 Republican Presidential primaries, as Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio — who Trump had nicknamed “Little Marco” — took up his own name-calling during a February 28, 2016 campaign rally in Virginia, and taunted Trump on the size of his hands.

“I’ll admit, he’s taller than me, he’s like 6-2. Which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who’s 5-2,” Rubio said to a cheering crowd. “Have you seen his hands?” And Rubio didn’t let up. “And you know what they say about men with small hands,” then pausing for dramatic effect. “You can’t trust ’em. You can’t trust ’em.”

That sent Trump into a tirade about his “great hands” both then, and also a few days later at the Republican Presidential debate in Detroit, noting Rubio’s remark, and holding up his hands for the audience as he spoke: “Look at those hands. Are those small hands?… And, he [Rubio] referred to my hands if they’re small, something else is small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee it.”

With that, the “small hands” kerfuffle took on a life of its own for a time, as several media outlets picked up on the story, including ABC News, Mother Jones, and others.

The Washington Post later reported that Trump again defended the size of his hands in an interview with the paper’s editorial board. “My hands are normal hands,” he said, according to the Post. “I was on line shaking hands with supporters and one of the supporters said, ‘Mr. Trump, you have strong hands, you have good size hands.’ And then another one would say, ‘Oh, you have great hands, Mr. Trump.’ I had no idea.”

By the end of March 2016, The New Yorker weighed in with a cover illustration titled the “The Big Short” by artist Barry Blitt, in which the illustrator is offering “a reading” of Donald Trump’s palm and hand — by Donald Trump — with various notations made by Trump on the fingers and lines of the palm.

New Yorkers artist Barry Blitt's offering of a palm and hand reading for the cover of The New Yorker magazine, March 28, 2016.

In a short accompanying piece at The New Yorker, Blitt briefly reviewed the practice of palmistry concluding: “it never really established itself as anything more than a pseudo-science.” It was banned by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, he further explained, but enjoyed a popular resurgence in the late nineteenth century. In palm reading, he explained, not only are the lines of the palm considered, but also the relative sizes of the hand and fingers. “Speaking of which,” he added, “I hope Donald Trump doesn’t actually become President.” Blitt would also draw Trump on other New Yorker covers with some attention to his hands, including “Grand Allusion “(May 23, 2016), and “Remote Control” (September 2025).

John Cuneo's cover, June 10, 2024.

Another New Yorker cover, this one by artist John Cuneo – “A Man of Conviction,” June 10, 2024, following Trump’s hush-money trial where he was convicted of 34 felonies – featured Trump extending tiny hands to be handcuffed.

So, what began at Spy with 1988’s “the short-fingered vulgarian” phrase, ended up having quite a run beyond Spy magazine. Yet for Graydon Carter, the Spy editor and prime mover of the “short-fingered vulgarian” phrase, Trump would be unforgiving. As Carter told NPR’s Morning Edition in March 2016:

…He [Trump] blames me for this more than Kurt [Andersen, the other Spy editor]. He’ll send me pictures, tear sheets from magazines… With a gold sharpie, he’ll circle his fingers and in his handwriting say, “see, not so short.” And this [last] April when he sent me one, I should have held onto the thing. But I sent it right back by messenger with a note stapled at the top saying, “actually, quite short.” And I know it just gives him absolute fits. And now that it’s become sort of part of the whole [2016] campaign rhetoric, I’m sure he wants to just kill me …with those little hands…

More Spy Spoofs

Back at Spy, meanwhile, the 1988 edition with Trump on the cover and the fake book review, wasn’t the only time Trump was featured or singled out in the magazine. In fact, over its run, Spy devoted a fair share of copy to “The Donald,” a principal subject of at least eight major articles or features during the magazine’s 1986–1998 run, and numerous other shorter hits. One report noted that Spy averaged one mention of Trump every 25 pages or so. Bruce Feirstein, writing for Vanity Fair in 2015, noted that Spy editors, Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen, “recognized Trump for what he was… a bombastic, self-aggrandizing, un–self-aware bully, with a curious relationship to the truth about his supposed wealth and business acumen.” And accordingly their stories on him highlighted those traits while probing his deal-maker claims.

Another commentary on Spy and Trump at TheBoweryBoysHistory.com in August 2015 noted:

“…Naturally, Spy magazine and Donald Trump were on a collision course. He was the very thing Spy was designed to mock. Trump was one of the most frequent targets for almost six straight years — in almost every issue. His wobbly finances and bristling reputation were common targets, but the editors were not above more superficial accusations about his marriage or his level of taste.”

Cover of Spy magazine’s inaugural issue, October 1986 with feature story, “Jerks: The Ten Most Embarrassing New Yorkers” – which included Donald Trump. Click for Spy magazine page at Amazon.

On the matter of architectural taste, Spy noted that as a builder Trump was fond of tearing down old architecture and replacing it with something, in his view, that was “more modern.” In its inaugural October 1986 issue, in fact, Spy criticized Trump as one of those featured in its story, “Jerks – The Ten Most Embarrassing New Yorkers” – those doing cringe-worthy, tasteless things with their careers and giving New York a bad rep.

In that piece Trump was criticized for his 1980 destruction of the Art Deco Bonwit Teller department store building to make way for the Trump Tower – and specifically, for destroying two Ely Jacques Kahn art moderne frieze sculptures on the front of the Bonwit Teller building. Trump, in fact, had originally promised to preserve the sculptures for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Spy had opined earlier in the piece on Trump’s tastes: “Forget the way he has imposed upon all of us his idea of “class” – more a Dynasty [i.e., popular Texas TV soap opera) notion of panache than anything even faintly evoking the uptown swagger that New York epitomizes. Forget the sheer cheesiness of Trump Tower, Trump Plaza, and his casinos… In fact, forget just about everything concerning Donald Trump except the stupid things he says…”

As for the Bonwit Teller sculptures, Trump later saw them as delaying construction on his Trump Tower. “They weren’t even sculpture,” he said. “They were stones with some engraving on them, They were nothing, Just junk.” So he bought in a gang of workers who demolished the sculptures. Trump suffered a bit of scorn in the New York press for his tasteless handiwork, which he attempted to justify/explain away via his invented Trump Organization spokesman, the fictitious “John Barron.” (more on this at film clip below).

Since the Bonwit-Teller depredations, however, Trump’s “out-with-the-old-and -in-with-the-gold” and other Trumpian décor dictums of poor taste have been on full display elsewhere. Not least of these in 2025 is the White House, with its endless gold trim, a demolished East Wing, and a “Mar-a-Lagoed” Rose Garden. Other Trumpian monstrosities are yet to come with a promised White House ballroom and The Arch of Trump. Spy, it turns out, and much of New York media, warned us early on about these vulgarian tendencies. Here’s a PBS/Frontline clip on the Trump-demolished Bonwit Teller sculptures and controversy stirred.

Spy wouldn’t let up on Trump, as it came at him from all directions. There was a tongue-in-cheek profile of the Trump Tower book store featuring various Trump books, Trump Tower postcards, and other Trump souvenirs – “Book Nook: Trumporama on Fifth” by Susan Orelan (September 1987). As Trump’s name was first bandied about as a presidential candidate, Spy included him, then a non-candidate, in their February 1988 review of presidential contestants. Citing some very low polling number for Trump, Spy wryly offered its short column on him, “Nation To Trump: We Need You,” along with a wild cartoon caricature.

"Spy" magazine cover story on Ivana Trump, May 1989.

Then in May 1989, there came a long cover story on Ivana Trump, Donald’s first wife and business partner during the go-go 1980s. The cover tagline for that story — with a close-up of Ivana’s face — screamed: “IVANARAMA! — An Investigative Tribute To the Most Superficial Trump of All.” Inside, at the story site, the text began with: “She Was a Top Canadian Model and a Top Olympic Skier – Just Ask Her Husband: And She’s a Top Wife! A Top Socialite! A Top Decorator! A Top Fashion Plate! And Now a Top Hotel Executive! She’s Super Glamourous! She’s Supergor-geous! She’s All Over the Place! That Why the Lady Is A Trump!”

That story, by Jonathan Van Meter, ran for ten pages. There was also a short two-page story on Donald that followed in that same issue: “Dear Donald: An Epistolary History of A Year In The Life of Donald J. Trump,” covering some 1988-1989 exchanges between Trump, his lawyers and Spy‘s editors.

In a later edition, following Trump’s separation from Ivana, Spy ventured forth with a contest-like appeal to find Trump a new wife, complete with mail-in application form. “Calling all singles and swingles…,” the appeal began, “Spy is seeking heartfelt essays of 100 words or less on the topic, ‘Why I Should Be The New Mrs. Donald Trump’.” Spy explained that three winners would be chosen, each receiving various Spy swag and rare, unsigned copies of The Art of the Deal, while their applications would be forwarded to the Donald.

In September 1989, Spy had cyclist Sydney Schuster file a report accompanied by a detailed map on the “Tour De Trump,” a Trump cycling race promotion staged as answer to the famous Tour de France cycling classic. The Spy story – “Run Amok! Mapping The Tour De Trump’s Mishaps, Foul-Ups and Egregious Exaggerations” – covered the Trump cycling event run between May 5th and May 14th, 1989, reported as it ran in stages between Albany, NY through Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and ending at Trump’s then under-construction Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, NJ. Spy described the Tour De Trump as “an over-hyped, underscrutinized event, characterized by snafus, Wilie E. Coyote shenanigans, critical errors and a remarkably casual approach to facts.”

Photo of the 1989 "Tour De Trump" from a Virginia location.

The “Tour De Trump,” which did not originate at first with Trump, but was soon embraced by him, would also run in 1990. After that, however, due to Trump’s declining business fortunes at the time, the Tour was taken over by the Du Pont chemical company. But for the 1989 event, for example, Trump reaped generous returns, according to Spy: “In return for his $750,000 sponsor fee, he has got an estimated $4.5 million worth of promotion for himself and his buildings on NBC and ESPN, reams of uncritical newspapers attention, and even some bonus publicity for his not-yet-completed Atlantic City Taj Mahal when a racer [plunged] into a barrier around the construction site.”

There was also another Trump-sponsored sporting event designed to help draw attention to Trump casinos in New Jersey – the World Motor Boat Championships, which Spy also covered in its February 1990 edition with a story by John Shaft, “Crimson Tide: Donald Trump Hosts His Own Very Special Disaster at Sea.” In that story, Trump was criticized for moving the race from the more placid waters of Key West, FL to the rougher seas off Atlantic City, NJ in hurricane season, in part to be fan-proximal to his Trump Castle casino. In the race, one death, three broken backs, and other injuries resulted. Said one contestant at race’s end: “Thank God they’ll never have the world championship here again.”. Trump meanwhile, was musing about bringing another even bigger named race, The America’s Cup, to the Atlantic Ocean waters near his casinos.

Spy also had some fun naming Trump “America’s Cheapest Zillionaire” in July 1990 after he was the only person to cash a 13-cent check sent by the magazine as a prank. And a February 1991 Spy piece, titled, “Okay, Now, What’s The Sign For Debt? Our Special Donald Trump Sign Language Translation Guide,” with diagram and series of Donald Trump photos shown making various hand gestures along with short explanatory captions – e.g., “To an IRS agent: My airplanes are worthless”; “To a sexy woman: I want to grab (you) and milk (you),” and others.

Trump in the 1990s

The August 1990 edition of Spy took a stab at predicting Donald Trump’s future fortunes, and cast them as failing.

By 1990, Trump was beginning to confront both marital and financial problems, separating from Ivana and facing mounting debt. In the August 1990 issue of Spy – as Trump was about to hit the skids – the editors ran the cover story at right depicting Trump as a wailing child with tagline: “Little Donald Unhappy At Last – Trump’s Final Days, Page 50.” On the contents page the story was billed as: “Crybabies II: You Won’t Have Tricky Don To Kick Around Anymore,” as further explained:

What does the future hold in store for a former billionaire? Bankruptcy? Substan-tial Weight Gain? An ex-wife in the Czech parliament? A line of grooming products perhaps? Jamie Malanowski assembles a prophetic scrapbook biography of Donald Trump, an eighties kind of guy lost in a nineties kind of world.”

Inside the magazine, the fictional predictive piece looking ahead to Donald’s business doom, was titled: “A Casino Too Far: Pages From the Donald J. Trump Scrapbook, 1990-1995.” That story was prefaced with the following set up:

…In the previous installment of the Donald J. Trump scrapbook, the following events transpired: Trump attempted to slough off his glamorous reconditioned wife, Ivana, in favor of young, pliable nineties edition Marla Maples; he opened the horrifically kitschy and monumentally leveraged Taj Mahal casino; he saw his net worth devalued by 70 percent in Forbes magazine; he floated the idea of selling his airline and other assets in what he claimed was an effort to become “king of cash”; and he became the subject of speculations about his ability to service the $3.2 billion debt that is the basis of his empire. Now the saga continues: (followed by eight pages of fake news stories, headlines, society-page gossip and photos).

The fictional piece of predicted bad news for The Donald in the 1990s foresaw total financial ruin, a permanent exit from the public eye, and the loss of iconic assets like The Trump Tower, portraying him as irrelevant and reduced to a figure of tabloid embarrassment

Well, that conjured vision, no matter how justified given Trump’s actual historical performance and practices, did not come true, of course – at least not then or even a decade later. Spy ate crow on that one. Still, there is time yet for a vindication to come. In their hearts, the Spy editors suspected history would prove them right.

Beyond The Laughs

Other of the less-speculative Spy stories, however – those that focused more on actual Trump business information – scored closer to the truth. These Spy stories probed more deeply into the Trump game and came up with important revelations about his business practices and misdeeds, shell games, half truths, and misrepresentations. For example, “The Art of the Art of the Deal: Donald Trump, Author, vs. Donald Trump, Aggrieved Taxpayer,” a detailed November 1989 Spy piece by Frank Cerabino, a reporter with The Palm Beach Post, probed Trump’s purchase of his Mara-a-Logo property. He found — and the Spy story documented — that Trump’s claims surrounding that purchase as described in Trump’s 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, were “simply exaggerated if not false.”

Another Trump story at Spy, this one in April 1991 by John Connolly, probed Trump’s shady business and financial manipulations, was short titled, “How to Fool All of the People, All of the Time.” At the story proper, however, as shown below, it carried a more descriptive and longer title: “How Donald Trump Fooled The Media, Used the Media to Fool the Banks, Used the Banks to Fool the Bondholders and used the Bondholders to Pay for the Yachts and Mansions and Mistresses.”

Opening page of John Connolly’s detailed April 1991 story on Donald Trump “wheeling and dealing” in Spy magazine– which in the magazine, was originally displayed in a sideways/vertical layout.

This detailed story portrayed Trump not as the billionaire he claimed to be, but rather a financially strapped, deceptive operator who manipulated financial records and milked failing companies to support and maintain a lavish lifestyle. Connolly’s story was later published as an Amazon “singles classic” in the Kindle format running 26 pages.

In the end, Donald Trump managed a Houdini-esque escape from his various financial and other difficulties in New York. He also survived and outlived the Spy magazine treatment, but not its legacy. Yet the final outcome and judgements for Donald Trump are still to be determined.

“You Can't Spell America Without ME,” is a satirical “fake memoir” by Alec Baldwin & Kurt Andersen (former Spy co-editor) from 2017, that humorously recounts Trump's first year as president. Click for audio & other book editions at Amazon.

Meanwhile, among journalists and media critics, Spy continues to receive high marks for its coverage and trolling of Donald Trump during his New York years – and for the warnings offered. As one example, Andrew Potter, writing at Substack.com, praised Spy‘s coverage of Trump, noting the following in a June 2024 review:

…But the one target [Spy magazine] nailed, probably more often, more incisively, and more presciently, than any other was Donald Trump. The Donald, and in one case, his then-wife Ivana, was the subject of at least eight features in the magazine over the years, along with countless other casual mentions, digs, pot-shots, and sneering asides. The editors peered through the very thin crust of respectability that Trump had cultivated for himself, as a man of great wealth, refined taste, and laser-business acumen, and saw underneath a lying, fraudulent, and extremely vulgar, buffoon. In this, he was the avatar of New York City itself, in all its late ‘80s greed-is-good excess.

…Along the way they dug into his finances, mocked his business failures, trolled him with 13 cent checks (which he cashed), and generally made it clear that while he might have fooled some people, he hadn’t fooled the editors of Spy magazine.

See also at this website, additional history about Donald Trump, including: “Trump on Film: A Partial Listing, 1990-2024,” covering some 30 Trump films. More magazine treatments of Trump at this website include:, “The Trump Dump: New York Magazine, 2016,” profiling a special issue of that magazine and others that chronicle Trump’s early career in New York and beyond. Other stories mentioning Trump include: “Political Science: Randy Newman Music,” regarding nuclear weapons; “I Won’t Back Down” about the use of Tom Petty song in political campaigns; and “Shields, Brooks, Trump,” regarding reaction to some earlier Trump remarks in 2017.

For additional stories on Publishing and/or Politics, see those respective category links. There is also a separate “Topics page” on Magazine History.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle.

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Date Posted: February 7, 2026
Last Update: February 7, 2026

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Trump Send-Ups: Spy Magazine,
1980s-1990s,” PopHistoryDig.com, February 7, 2026.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

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Related Trump Books & Film at Amazon.com…

New book, Sept 2024 > How Trump Squandered a Fortune & Created the Illusion of Success. Click for Amazon.

“The Accidental President,” 2021 documentary film on how Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Click for film,

Charles J. Sykes’ book, “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” w/George Will blurb, 2018 edition, Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Pulitzer Prize- winning reporter, David Cay Johnston’s book, “The Making of Donald Trump,” Updated edition, 288pp. “[C]]arefully fleshes out the details of Trump’s known biography...with solid documentation.” Click for copy.

Michael D'Antonio’s 2015 book, “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success,” Thomas Dunne Books, 400 pp. Click for Amazon.

2017 documentary “Trumped: Inside the Greatest Political Upset of All Time,” w/ Mark Halperin, John Heilemann & Mark McKinnon who follow the rise of Trump from the primaries & debates to election night 2016. Click for Amazon.

2020 documentary film, “Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump.” Is Donald Trump fit to hold the office of President? Analysis of Trump by leading U.S. mental health professionals and Republican strategists. 1 hr 24 min, Click for Amazon.

“The January 6th Report” (December 2022), The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U. S. Capitol, Preface by The New Yorker’s David Remnick and Epilogue by Congressman Jamie Raskin. Click for Amazon.

“Spy (magazine),” Wikipedia.org.

“Spy Magazine,” Google Books.

Susan Orlean, “Book Nook: Trumporama on Fifth” [Donald Trump books, postcards, souvenirs, etc. at Trump Tower book store], Spy, September 1987, p. 22.

“Presidential Prospects for 1988 – Nation to Trump: We Need You.” Spy, January-February 1988.

Bruce Handy, “Egos A-Go-Go; Trump vs. Julian Schnabel: Dueling Books, Dueling Egos, Spy, April 1988, pp. 44-45 [includes fake book ad for The Art of the Deal].

Jonathan Van Meter, Cover Story, “That’s Why the Lady Is a Trump. A Special Spy Investigative Tribute to Ivana,” Spy, May 1989.

“Dear Donald: An Epistolary History of A Year In The Life of Donald J. Trump,” Spy, May 1989, pp. 98, 100.

Sydney Schuster, “Run Amok! Mapping The Tour De Trump’s Mishaps, Foul-Ups and Egregious Exaggerations,” Spy, September 1989, pp. 100-102.

“The Art of The Deal,” Wikipedia.org.

Frank Cerabino. “The Art of the Art of the Deal” (fact-checking Trump’s financial claims in The Art of the Deal”), Spy, November 1989.

John Shaft, “Crimson Tide: Donald Trump Hosts His Own Very Special Disaster at Sea” [Trump Castle World Motor Boat Champ-ionship], Spy, February 1990, p. 88.

John Brodie. “The Spy Trip Tip: Where Playing to Win Was Born — Log Cabin Queens, Visiting Trump’s Boyhood Home,” Spy, March 1990.

Julius Lowenthal, “Every Man Has His Price. In Some Cases, 13 Cents” [also with cover billing as:: “An Exclusive Spy Prank: Who is America’s Cheapest Zilioniare?”], Spy, July 1990.

Jamie Malanowski, “A Casino Too Far, A Speculative, Alternative History of Trump’s 1990s,” Spy, August 1990.

Henry Alford and Micaela Porta, Translations by David Berman, “Okay, Now, What’s The Sign For Debt? Our Special Donald Trump Sign Language Translation Guide,” Spy, February 1991, p. 27.

John Connolly, “How to Fool All of the People, All of the Time: How Donald Trump Fooled the Media, Used the Media to Fool the Banks, Used the Banks to Fool the Bondholders, and Used the Bondholders to Pay for the Yachts and Mansions and Mistresses,” Spy, April 1991.

Bowery Boys, “Spy vs Trump: The Best [of 10] Donald Trump Moments From Spy Magazine 1986-98,” BoweryBoysHistory.com, August 6, 2015.

Bruce Feirstein, “Trump’s War on “Losers”: The Early Years; In the Late 80s and Early 90s, Spy Magazine Carried Out a Lonely – and Hilarious – War Against the Preposterous Real-Estate Lordling it Famously Identified as ‘Short-Fingered Vulgarian Donald Trump.’…VanityFair.com, August 12, 2015.

Graydon Carter, “Steel Traps and Short Fingers; in His November Editor’s Letter, Graydon Carter Reveals the Presidential Candidate’s Thin-Skinned Response to a Favorite 25-Year-Old Epithet,” VanityFair .com, October 7, 2015.

Tim Murphy, “What Donald Trump’s Short Fingers Mean for His Presidency,” Mother Jones.com, February 1, 2016.

Bruce Handy, “Donald Trump’s Short Fingers: A Historical Analysis,” VanityFair.com, Feb-ruary 23, 2016.

Steve Inskeep, Host; David Folkenflik, Media Correspondent, “Decades Later, ‘Spy’ Magazine Founders Continue To Torment Trump,” NPR.org / Morning Edition, March 7, 2016. (interview with Kurt Andersen and Graydon Carter; 7 minute listen for radio session w/transcript).

Nick Gass, “Trump’s ‘Short-Fingered Vulga-rian’ Tormentors Speak Out,” Politico.com, March 7, 2016.

Françoise Mouly and Mina Kaneko, “Cover Story: Barry Blitt’s ‘The Big Short’,” New Yorker.com, March 20, 2016.

Mark Abadi, “The New Yorker’s Latest Cover Hilariously Mocks Donald Trump’s Hands,” Business Insider / Yahoo .com, March 21, 2016.

Donovan Slack, “New Yorker Takes on Trump’s Hands,” USAToday.com, March 21, 2016.

Philip Bump, “The Most Baffling Moments from Donald Trump’s Washington Post Ed Board Interview,” WashingtonPost.com, March 21, 2016.

Leah Garchik, “Graydon Carter on Trump Riding High in Marla Maples Years,” SFChronicle.com, October 6, 2016.

Mark Abadi, “Trump Jokes About the Size of His Hands for the Second Time in 2 Weeks at Hurricane Relief Event,” BusinessInsider.com, September 2017.

“When Trump Demolished the Bonwit Teller Building’s Sculptures,” YouTube.com / Front-line, PBS, August 18, 2017.

Steven Heller, “Who Could Have Imagined? What Can We Say?,” Re-Posting of Spy magazine’s Donald Trump Cover of April 1988 (with send-up ad for his book, 30 years later), PrintMag.com, August 7, 2018.

Michael Lisicky, “How Donald Trump Took Down Bonwit Teller, A Fifth Avenue Land-mark,” Forbes.com, October 3, 2020.

Maria Bustillos, “Donald Trump in SPY, April 1988; Before You Know It, The Unthinkable Has Already Happened,” Popula.com, Feb-ruary 14, 2023.

“The Canadian Journalist Who First Called Donald Trump a ‘Short-Fingered Vulgarian’; Former Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter Got in Trump’s Firing Line after Coining a Description of the Business Tycoon That Has Now Become a Running Joke in Pop Culture.” RNZ Online, April 26, 2025.

Kurt Andersen, “Spy Magazine,” kurtander-sen.com.

Donald Trump, “worst President books” at Amazon. Click for Amazon.

“Donald Trump at The New Yorker” (various covers), Click for Amazon.

Andrew Potter, “Spy vs. Everyone (but especially Donald Trump); The Most Influential Magazine of this Century Stopped Publishing in 1998, but its Legacy Is Both Invisible and Everywhere, From Twitter to the American Presidency,” NevermindGenX.substack.com, June 19, 2024.

Lee Moran, “New Yorker Cover Puts Trump’s ‘Tiny Hand’ On A Terrifying ‘Power’ TV Remote Control; ‘It’s Funny. Funny, Haha, but It’s Also Very Real,’ Explained the Magazine’s Editor, David Remnick,” HuffPost.com, September 19, 2025.

Eric Johnson, “Get inside Donald Trump’s Brain with the Man Who First Called Him a ‘Short-Fingered Vulgarian,’ Spy Magazine Co-Founder Kurt Andersen Says the Key to Understanding Trump May Be Pro Wrestling,” Vox.com, October 13, 2016.

Graydon Carter, When The Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, 2025, Penguin Press, 432 pp. Click for Amazon.

George Kalogerakis, Kurt Andersen, and Graydon Carter, Spy: The Funny Years, 2006, 20th anniversary coffee table book containing a history of the magazine, Miramax, 304 pp. Click for Amazon.

Books at Amazon.com…

“Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and The Fracturing of America,” Click for Amazon.

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Teaser Tag: Chemistry & Fashion

1931-1940, 1941-1950, 1951-1960

“The Nylon Riots”
1939-1946 & New Synthetics

December 14, 2025 J.D.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Du Pont, the chemical company, became a leader in using chemistry to make synthetic materials, of which nylon was initially among the most important and potentially lucrative substance. Nylon became an enormously profitable material, most notably for nylon stockings. But nylon would also become the “gateway synthetic fiber,” leading to a series of synthetic fibers that would upend the fashion world — and decades later, help enable something called “fast fashion,” a quick-turnaround marketing model that would pose serious global environmental challenges (to be covered separately in a forthcoming story). But the initial Du Pont ascendancy with nylon for female stockings was notable for the riotous demand it created — followed by a string of other Du Pont fibers that would also change fashion. Nylon’s initial surge for stockings, however, was halting at first, as government restrictions on nylon as a strategic material came on during WWII. More on that in a moment. First, a bit of stocking history.

Sample Du Pont ad from Sept 1948 Collier’s, touting Du Pont’s role in nylon stockings. But the road to nylon – and the Du Pont bonanza in synthetic fibers to come – began first in the 1920s with female interest in stockings

In the 1920s, as hemlines of dresses rose, women began to wear flesh-colored stockings to cover their exposed legs. Those stockings were sheer, first made of silk or rayon, the latter known as “artificial silk.” Through the 1930s, ladies hosiery became a major business. Stockings became “must have” fashion for the ladies. At the time, American women bought an average of eight pairs of the silk or rayon stockings per year. In the 1930s, meanwhile, the U. S. imported four-fifths of the world’s silk, 90 percent of which came from Japan. And most of that – 75-80 percent – was used for women’s hosiery, and specifically, silk stockings. Japanese silk producers were then reaping over $70 million annually (about $1.3 billion today)

For the ladies, meanwhile, silk stockings were prized, but had their drawbacks. For one, they were not stretchable and needed a garter belt to stay in place. Silk was also prone to snag and run and could be easily ripped. And silk stockings were expensive to replace.…Rayon was seen as a substitute for silk. But rayon stockings also had draw-backs… Women were looking for a more durable and affordable alternative. Rayon, for its part, although not initially called that, had been around since the 1840s. Derived from plant material such as wood pulp, cotton, or bamboo fiber, rayon was not technically a synthetic, though made in a chemical process, described as “chemically-realigned cellulose,” but sometimes called a “semi-synthetic.” Rayon was in commercial production in the UK and the U.S. during 1905-1910. In the 1920’s, Du Pont purchased the rights to the process the material, and that’s when the term “rayon” first appeared, around 1924. Rayon was then seen as a substitute for silk. But rayon stockings also had drawbacks. Generally, rayon was too stiff, ill-fitting, and too shiny to replace real silk, then the preferred stocking material. Rayon, however, would go on to have many other fabric applications, in Du Pont products and others.

1938 news clip with headline hyping Du Pont’s nylon material - “Ladies’ Legs Big Market for ‘Nylon’.”

But in the summer of 1941, before the U.S. entered WWII, Japanese military-forces had taken control of French Indochina, and the U.S. government shut down all trade with Japan, including silk imports. By late July 1941, U.S. manufacture of silk stockings, dresses, fishing- lines, slips, neckties, and underwear all ended.

Du Pont scientists, meanwhile, had been working on chemical polymers to develop new synthetic substances. Du Pont’s Wallace Carothers led a team that had worked for a decade or so on polymers with the goal of producing a new synthetic fiber to replace silk. Carothers’ lab had dozens of chemical candidates to consider, but he focused on developing nylon.

First called “polymer 66” internally, nylon was discovered by Du Pont in 1935. The process involved heating a specific solution of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen molecules to very high temperature until the molecules begin to hook together in what’s called a long-chain polymer that could be drawn from a beaker on the tip of a stir stick like a string of pearls.

After some internal debate on what name to use for the new substance, “nylon” was eventfully chosen, and patented in 1937 (among names reportedly considered by Du Pont before nylon were: Delawear, Dusilk, Moor-Sheen and Silkex). Du Pont then hired the Union Manufacturing Company to secretly manufacture the first experimental nylon stockings. These turned out black with some other shortcomings, but further refinements came. On October 27, 1938, Charles Stine, vice president of Du Pont, officially announced that nylon had been invented. That same year Du Pont began construction of a nylon production plant in Seaford, Delaware that would later produce millions of pounds of the new material. By February 1939, improved versions of nylon stockings were exhibited at a somewhat low-key public demonstration at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. But they were not yet for sale.

First demonstration of the new wonder fabric of nylon – and nylon stockings – at San Francisco “Golden Gate Exposition” in February 1939, with two ladies demonstrating the strength of the stockings – then not for sale.

Nylon stockings first went on sale experimentally after a limited production run on October 24th,1939 – at six selected stores near Du Pont headquarters in the Wilmington, Delaware area. As word got out that the new stockings were on sale in Delaware, a crush of patrons turned out, some traveling from Washington, D.C. The Wilmington experiment, in any event, proved women were ready and eager to try nylon hosiery.

Du Pont newspaper ad at public introduction of Nylon, 1939 New York World's Fair, 'Wonder World of Chemistry' exhibit. New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1939, 'The Women's Forum' section. Source: Science History Institute.

Earlier, Du Pont research chief, Charles Stine, had introduced the product – not to a room full of corporate suits or scientists, but to three thousand women’s club members who were gathered in New York at the site of the upcoming 1939 World’s Fair. Hyping the virtues of his company’s new material, Stine did not hold back: “Nylon can be fashioned into filaments as strong as steel, as fine as a spider’s web, yet more elastic than any of the common natural fibers,” he explained. His female audience, – believing “strong as steel” meant stockings without runs or otherwise vulnerable – burst into applause.

Stine’s announcement to the women’s club was a strategic Du Pont public relations move designed to build consumer demand for the new nylons. The company already knew from its previous work with silk and rayon, that women on average bought up to eight pair of stockings every year.

Also, in advance of the 1939 World’s Fair opening in New York, Du Pont ran full-page newspaper ads such as the one at right appearing in the New York Herald Tribune in late October 1939 introducing and touting nylon – and other of its “wonder products” – for the “world of tomorrow.” At the bottom of the ad came the company’s famous slogan: “Better Things for Better Living …Through Chemistry.”

Nylon stockings, among other products, were displayed at Du Pont’s 1939 World’s Fair exhibit — “Wonder World of Chemistry” — featuring attractive young female models, one dubbed, “Princess Plastics” and another, “Miss Chemistry,” some dressed from head-to-toe in synthetic products, all made by Du Pont. “Du Pont has the best leg show at the fair,” said one newspaper account of “Miss Chemistry,” then modeling a pair of the new nylon stockings at the New York World’s Fair.

Back in Delaware, meanwhile, the construction Du Pont’s first nylon plant, at Seaford – some 87 miles south of Du Pont headquarters in Wilmington – had been completed in nine months. The six-story manufacturing plant began operations in mid- December 1939.

Nylon is the feature story in the September 1941 issue of “The Du Pont Magazine,” showing a factory worker with “pre-formers” for shaping the stockings.

During its first year, the Seaford plant operated around the clock–producing enough nylon for 64 million pairs of nylon stockings. Seaford, in fact, would become known as “The Nylon Capital of the World.”

On May 15th, 1940 – known as “Nylon Day” – some 4,000,000 pair went on sale throughout the U.S. The new stockings became quite the popular fashion item. Nylon stockings were more elastic and stronger than the silk variety and more comfortable than rayon. Women loved them, and they .flocked to stores by the thousands. By one count, those first four million pairs from Du Pont sold out in four days. In fact, 64 million pairs were sold during their first year on the market. They sold for $1.25 a pair, the same price as silk, but their shrink-proof / moth-proof nature made them very popular.

Such was the success of nylon that in 1941, just a year after its launch, a second plant was opened in Martinsville, Virginia, to meet the growing demand and ensure a steady supply of this popular fabric.

In 1941, Du Pont sold $25 million worth of nylon yarn. That’s equivalent to nearly $560 million today. In just two years, with its nylon breakthrough, Du Pont had cornered 30 percent of the women’s hosiery market.

The first round of nylon euphoria, however – and Du Pont’s stocking profits – would be short lived, as nylon became a critical material for various military uses in WWII. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941 America entered the war.

Nylon Goes To War

On February 11, 1942, the War Production Board commandeered Du Pont’s stock of nylon for use in military-related manufacturing. From then on, Du Pont’s production of nylon went to war materials (and Du Pont was compensated accordingly and did not suffer financially).

Nylon is a thermoplastic polymer that is strong, tough, and durable. It’s more resistant to sunlight and weathering than organic fabrics, and because it’s synthetic, it’s resistant to molds, insects, and fungi. It’s also waterproof and quick to dry. For all these reasons and more it became a key war material.

Parachutes, formerly made of silk from Japan, were soon made of nylon. So were ropes, tire cord, shoe laces, certain machinery parts like gears, life rafts, glider tow ropes, mosquito netting, hammocks, flak jackets, and other critical materials

Nylon-made materials became especially important for military uses in the field. By utilizing nylon-made materials during WWII, allied forces became better-equipped than the enemy and able to weather difficult conditions. In fact, in some corners, nylon would be called, “the fiber that won the war.”

1943 B F Goodrich Co. WW II magazine ad: "We Borrowed Their Nylons to Make Tires for Navy."

The Government also sought old & used silk & nylon stockings for the war effort.

As war production at home began using nylon in manufacturing, some companies began telling their stories about how they were integrating nylon into the war materials they made. Tire manufacturer B.F, Goodrich, for example, ran full-page magazine ads with the headline, “We Borrowed Their ‘Nylons’ To Make Tires of The Navy,” offering a kind of “kudos” to the ladies for sacrificing their stocking fashion for the higher cause. Goodrich, in its ad, assuming male readers, noted: “the nylon your wife is not getting is going to war,” explaining that Goodrich was then using “nylon plys” to replace rubber in airplane tires for the U.S. Navy.

There was also a campaign aimed at the ladies at home who were called upon with ads like the one above – “I Want Your Stockings” – to do their part and contribute their old silk and nylon stockings. Drop-off collection bins were set up in stores where women could leave their old and used stockings.

During 1941-1945, not only was the making of nylon stockings halted during WW II with nylon production diverted to the war effort for parachutes and other war materials, but women were also asked to donate their old silk and nylon stockings for use in the war effort, as shown here at a department store collection site.

The used stockings were recycled into essential war materials after being melted down and re-spun into new threads or used to create gun powder bags. Repurposed nylon was also used for other items such as tire cord, ropes for gliders, mosquito netting, hammocks, and even shoelaces.

In one promotional move to encourage ladies to do their share for the war effort, Hollywood pin-up girl Betty Grable “peeled the nylons off her shapely legs at a War Bond rally,” where they were auctioned for $40,000 (nearly $800.000 in 2025).

Nylons Return

…And The Ladies Riot

With the war’s end in 1945, nylon production resumed at Du Pont in August 1945, just eight days after Japan’s surrender. Headlines in Chicago trumpeted: “Peace is here! Nylons on sale!” However, when the first post-war sales of nylon stockings resumed in the late 1945 and early 1946, there wasn’t enough production to meet demand. The first pairs of nylons began appearing in stores in September 1945. But the stores selling nylons confronted huge crowds, touching off “nylon riots” through early 1946 as the stockings quickly sold out.

1946 photo from Du Pont archive showing large crowd lining up for nylon stockings in San Francisco. The caption on back reads: “The buyers’ rush for the first post-war nylon stockings was riotous....Photograph shows 10,000 San Francisco shoppers overflowing in Market Street from a store that had advertised a special sale of nylons for the benefit of working girls. Sale was called off after one of the display windows was pushed in by the force of the crowd, and several women fainted.” Source: Hagley Museum &Library, Wilmington, DE.

In fact, just about everywhere the stockings appeared for sale, newspaper reports noted the crush of customers and “nylon riots” in which hundreds, sometimes thousands, of women lined up to compete for the limited supply. In New York city, thousands lines up in late January 1946 to by nylon stockings at a Gimbles department store (see photo below). The New York Times reported “30,000 Women Join in Rush for Nylons!” and “Nylon Mob, 40,000 Strong, Shrieks and Sways for Mile.” Among the more raucous of the stocking wars was one in Pittsburgh in June 1946, when 40,000 people lined up for over a mile to compete for 13,000 pairs of nylon stockings, where “fighting, hair-pulling and general hysteria” broke out as the mob rioted.

Photo used with a January 1946 New York Times story showing large “crowd waiting its turn to make purchases at Gimbels store,” where some thousands lined up to buy nylon stockings.

Women remained eager to purchase nylons as soon as they were available. One famous photo of the period showed one woman who had managed to buy a pair, sitting down at curbside and putting them on right away.

In any case, the nylon riots continued to escalate in severity until demand was finally met some months later. It wasn’t until sometime in the spring of 1946 when Du Pont by then was producing 30 million pairs per month.

Woman at curbside putting on a pair of nylon stockings in Wash., DC, Oct 1945, having scored a pair during post-WWII limited supply.

New York Times story of January 30th, 1946 with headline, “30,000 Women Join in Rush for Nylons!”

Nylon demand remained so high throughout the 1940s that reportedly, Du Pont required all its customers, no matter how large or reputable, to pay in advance.

“The demand was so great,” said one company official, “we had to make sure customers who wanted nylon had the money to pay for it…. Even Burlington Mills would send a check for $100,000 to fill an order. …Everybody wanted nylon.” It was not until spring 1946 that Du Pont was making enough for supply to catch up with demand.

1948. Sanderson Hosiery Company of Los Angeles built an eye-catching giant leg promotional structure atop a “Nylons” sign at its factory location on Olympic Blvd, here at opening day promotion showing actress Marie Wilson aloft by crane.

But across the country, from the mid-1940s through the early 1950s, nylon stockings were quite the sought-after fashion item. And some marketers used novel strategies and exhibits to attract customers.

In 1948, when Sanderson Hosiery factory and store of Los Angeles opened a new location at 11711 Olympic Blvd, they installed a novel, eye-catching exhibit to sell their stockings – a 35-foot giant women’s leg attired with stocking, standing tip-toe atop a base sign that read: “NYLONS.”

In fact, at the store’s opening promotion, actress Marie Wilson, was placed aloft by crane to showcase the giant leg, said to have been modeled by one of her own. The giant leg exhibit was also illuminated at night and could be seen from some distance.

Meanwhile, by the early 1950s, Du Pont had become such a dominant player in nylon, that an anti-trust suit was believed to be in the offing. But Du Pont, partly in order to meet demand and partly to avoid an antitrust suit, began licensing nylon to outside producers in 1951.

Nylon stockings, however, were just the beginning.

A Versatile Fiber

More Than Stockings

Nylon, however, was a substance that would go well beyond stockings; a substance that could be used in making a vast array of consumer and industrial products. And post-war, Du Pont would use a major marketing and advertising campaign that would showcase the wide-ranging product and uses that were possible with nylon, employing a “News About Nylon” advertising theme and other programs and company material to promote the new substance.

This 1948 Du Pont magazine ad touts nylon’s wide-ranging uses – in sweaters, harpoon rope, a women’s nightgown, the lining of a man’s billfold, and for a conveyor belt in a coal mine.

In the above 1948 magazine ad, for example — one among dozens of Du Pont nylon ads that would appear under the banner, “News About Nylon” and “Nylon Gives You Something Extra” — Du Pont had set about the business of “educating” its readers about all the various materials that could be made with nylon.

In the ad above, for example, to the left of the young lady modeling a sweater, the attached paragraph explains: “It’s Nylon, it’s nicer. The niceist sweater you’ve come across in a long, long time. Put your cheek against it, revel in its soft, fleecy feel. Slip into it; see its well-made lines. Toss it in the tub – marvel at the way it dries without shrinking, stretching, sagging. No other fiber gives a sweater such fashion, washability, lastability, comfort ! There’s something new in sweaters …NYLON!”

This 1949 Du Pont ad -- “Nylon Gives You Something Extra” – features nylon stockings,, long-lasting carpet, lightweight golf jackets & quick-drying umbrellas.

Next in the sequence of nylon uses in the above ad, moving counter-clockwise around the page, is a rendering of a harpoon fisherman pursuing a whale. “When you’re gunning for a whale “ says Du Pont in the ad, “you want a strong rope, a light rope, a smooth, free-running ropes attached to your harpoon – a rope that keeps its strength when wet, a ropes that cane take great stress without snapping, Name it? NYLON.”

Nightime female attire is touted in the next example: “Lucky, Lovely Lady, dressed for the night in nylon, For all its filmy, fragile glamour, its luxurious yards of pleats, her nightgown is easy to wash, needs little or no ironing, and will retain its pleats unusually well. If it’s nylon – lady, lady – you know its nicer!”

A photo of a man’s billfold being opened to is currency section is pictured next, “…That nylon lining [in the billfold] is as strong as the leather – it can take a lot of wear and tear. And every stitch is sewed with nylon thread – the thread that has exceptional strength, resilience, resistance to perspiration and rotting.”

And finally, a pitch to heavy industry, depicting conveyor belt in a coal mine carrying pieces of coal…. “[M]ining, steel, many factory operations – few things live a tougher life than the hard-used conveyor belt. For great strength, long wear, abrasion resistance, economy of operation and toughness, there’s no fiber like NYLON.”

A man's sweater gets the "Du Pont Nylon" treatment in this 1950 magazine ad.

In the central banner run across the lower part of the ad, Dupont gives its summary pitch:

Du Pont makes the nylon fibers used in the products shown. The manufacturers of these products use nylon because nylon has all these outstanding properties:

STRETCH++LONG WEAR++TOUGHNESS
LIGHTNESS++ELASTICITY++RESILIENCE,
EASY WASHINGTON++FAST DRYING
RESISTANCE TO MOTHS AND PERSPIRATION
…CAN BE “SET” TO HOLD ITS SHAPE

DOES YOUR PRODUCT call for textile fibers? Do you want to know more about nylon? Write for “Nylon Textile Fibers in Industry”

The banner in this ad also includes the Du Pont logo and slogan, “Better Things for Better Ling – Through Chemistry,” and there is also an offer for a free book – “About Du Pont Nylon” — and at the bottom of the banner, the parting phrase is offered: “For nylon …. for rayon ….for fibers to come …look to Du Pont.”

Dozens of other similar Du Pont ads touting the versatility of nylon appeared throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

Nylon, in fact, has been described as “a family of synthetic polymers” that can be processed into fibers, films and various shapes. Nylon fibers would come to be used commercially in everything from clothing and carpeting to molded car parts, automobile tires, and food wrappings. And though the years, Du Pont scientists continued to tweak and refine nylon for specific uses and applications. In 1954, Du Pont trademarked the Zytel nylon resin, marketing it as a heavy-duty, heat- and chemical-resistant industrial plastic. In 1958, Du Pont announced the introduction of a semi-dull luster nylon for use in automotive and home upholstery fabrics. This particular nylon was designed to meet then growing demand for a subdued luster in upholstery.

A 1965 ad for nylon stockings made with Du Pont's "Cantrece" variant, called "leg make up," shown with a lady's hand holding a facial make-up kit.

And in the stocking arena too, Du Pont introduced new variants and specialized products, such as “Cantrece” nylon stockings, which were advertised heavily in ads like the one shown here at left. Another 1967 Cantrece ad used the headline, “Cantrece; It Might As Well Be Skin,” run over a photo of a women’s legs in those new stockings.

Fiber & Fashion

But in the textile industry, in particular, nylon revolutionized what might be possible in the ever-changing world of fashion – and would be followed by a parade of new Du Pont-invented and Du Pont marketed synthetic fibers. And with many of these fibers, the fashion market would prove to offer endless possibilities with solid profitability.

Du Pont saw this alliance with fashion early and in an effort to embed Du Pont fibers in the fashion world, beginning in the mid-1950s, the company targeted French fashion designers, such as Coco Chanel, Jean Patou, and Christian Dior, plying them and their teams with fabric samples. Du Pont also hired professional photographers to document and publicize the results.

In 1955, designers Chanel, Patou, and Dior showed gowns created with Du Pont fibers, as fashion photographer Horst P. Horst documented their use of Du Pont fibers. Meanwhile, the influential trade magazine,American Fabrics, was then crediting nylon blends with providing “creative possibilities and new ideas for fashions which had been hitherto undreamed of.” Combining nylon with other fibers to create new materials with unique properties allowed for innovative and affordable designs that had not been possible before. Blending nylon with natural fibers like wool, rabbit, and fur allowed designers to create fabrics with the durability of nylon but the feel of natural materials. Some early examples of such blends included “Bunara” (wool-rabbit-nylon) and “Casmet” (wool-nylon-fur).

Du Pont's 30-page Fall Fashion advertising supplement ran in an August 1965 edition of the New York Times, then featuring its synthetic fabrics as modeled in a range of fashion lines.

Nylon would become a stalwart for Du Pont in the fashion arena. By the 1960s, Du Pont was utilizing television commercials featuring nylon sweaters and also ran a TV show called “The Wonderful World of Nylon.” And for the fall fashion season of 1965, after it had invented other synthetic fibers also used in fashion, the company ran a 30-page advertising supplement in the New York Times then featuring its synthetic fabrics as modeled in a range of fashion lines, mostly pitched to women.

There would, however, be some ups and downs in nylon demand, as consumer interest wore off a bit in the early 1970s, also influenced to some extent by energy supply and environmental issues. Nylon stockings, for one, had lost some of their appeal in later years, as pantyhose, also made with nylon, came on the scene and became wildly popular in the mid-60s due as the mini-skirt trend took hold. And in later years, a preference for a more natural, bare-leg look without stockings also took hold.

Yet with advancing polymer technology and microfiber, nylon would still hold some sway in fashion and other applications. By 1990, Du Pont was eyeing a bigger world market for nylon fiber and other synthetics, targeting expansion in the Far East, then planning to spend $1 billion on its operations in that region over the next 10 years. Du Pont’s investment then was intended for the broader nylon and polyester market in the Asia-Pacific region, which included a mix of industrial and apparel applications.

But through subsequent decades, in addition to nylon, an array of other Du Pont synthetic fibers would pour from the golden horn of polymer chemistry. Among these would be Orlon, Dacron, Lycra and others. That part of the story == and how these fibers began to change fashion — continues next.

The First Acrylic

Du Pont’s Orlon

In 1941, Du Pont created the first acrylic fiber, trademarked as Orlon in 1948. It was first used for items like window curtains and awnings, but eventually became popular for sweaters, and other apparel due to its soft, warm feel, and resistance to mildew and moths. Not produced in large quantities until the 1950s, Orlon acrylic fiber soon found its way in sweaters and tracksuits and also as linings for boots and gloves, as well as in furnishing fabrics and carpets.

Among the advertising Du Pont offered on behalf of Orlon is one 1953 magazine ad touting Du Pont’s Orlon acrylics for fall fashion in its “Chemistry Classroom” ad. This ad, depicts a co-ed perched on a desk reading a chemistry book, molecular model beside her, while being admired by an attentive male student with professor and blackboard behind her. The co-ed is attired in the latest Orlon ensemble skirt and sweater, as Du Pont’s copy provides the narrative:

1953 Du Pont ad for its "Orlon" synthetic fiber used in female clothing lines exhibited in this "Chemistry Classroom" example, run in Life magazine and others. This ad is also available as wall art; click for Amazon.

ORLON teaches new fall fashions to keep their figure in the wash!

On campus and off, today’s bright girls crowd more into every day.
Off to an early class or a big weekend, they want clothers that clook smart,
yest need littl time for usssy “homework.” And that’s why they
bless new Du Pont “Orlon.”

For, alone, or blended with wool, this fiber gives fabrics a new luxurious
softness to the touch ….yet with “Orlon” acrylic fiber, even white
sweaters (first class fashion this fall) are practical. They rinse out like
stockings. No stretching, no blocking. And even skirts too (even when
pleated), wash and dry ready to go!

Brothers and Dads , too find “Orlon” tuned to their living. Look for its
practical luxury in tweeds and flannels, in shirts and socks,
as well as sweaters.

Near the bottom of the ad, beneath the sitting co-ed, is the Du Pont logo and its slogan, “Better Things For Better Living ….Through Chemistry.” And at the very bottom of the page is an enlarged “Orlon” along with the notation – “one of Du Pont’s modern-living fibers.”

A 1958 Du Pont Orlon ad featuring one in a series using “the rich look in knits” theme, in Sports Illustrated magazine.

A 1960 Du Pont ad touting men's Orlon-made sports shirts, appearing in 'Sports Illustrated' magazine.

As with its nylon ads, there would also be a number of Orlon ads, touting that fiber’s many possible products and uses. Du Pont began producing Orlon fiber in 1952 at its Columbia, SC plant at a rate of 35.6 million pounds annually.

DuPont sold Orlon fiber to its customers for approximately 40 years, from 1950 to 1990, when it stopped producing the fiber due to increased competition and declining demand.

Rise of Polyester

May 9, 1951 front-age story in NY Times on Du Pont’s new Dacron fiber.

Du Pont’s Dacron

On May 8th, 1951 in New York, the world’s first commercially-marketed polyester fiber was introduced to consumers in men’s suits to be sold by Hart, Schaffner & Marx Co., featuring a fabric blend that included a new Du Pont synthetic fiber named Dacron. The sale of the new fabric made front-page news the next day in The New York Times.

Dacron was a type of polyester fiber made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). In 1941, British chemists had invented the first polyester fiber, but Du Pont acquired the patent rights to the invention and began marketing it in the U.S, under the brand name Dacron.

The new fiber would usher in the “wash-and-wear” era of low-maintenance, “never-needs-ironing” garments that appealed especially to women, who then managed household clothing chores.

Within weeks of the new Dacron men’s suits coming out, Dacron shirts for men and blouses for women were being sold, along with 100 percent Dacron summer suits,. The suits were said to be cooler than summer-weight woolens, and the pants would hold their crease. Dacron clothing could also be worn for weeks without special care and still look fresh. Later in the 1970a, a polyester “leisure suit” trend would emerge.

Dacron was marketed as something of a “miracle” fiber given as its light weight, durability, and resistance to creasing, shrinking, and fading. Clothing manufacturers loved it, and for a time, it would became a dominant synthetic fiber. Writing on Dacron in 1954, a few years after its introduction, in a New York Times story, D. W. Gaynor of Town & Country, noted:

“…Dacron now goes into suits, slacks, shirts, ties, evening clothes, rainwear, robes, pajamas, socks and even hats and caps. Alone or combined with worsted, silk, nylon, or rayon, it endows a suit with the ability to hold its press for many more wearings than the woolen and worsted suits men have been used to. Tough by nature, it shrugs off moisture and wrinkles, and this tough- ness contributes to easy cleaning. Recent improvements have turned Dacron into a tractable mate for the natural fibers so that the eye and hand can’t readily tell that it’s woven into any given fabric. Materials made entirely of Dacron do not have the agreeably soft texture of the best worsteds. But… it can be spun into thin yarn and woven into the lightweight, porous fabrics needed when the thermometer turns tropical.”

Du Pont, meanwhile, as with nylon and Orlon, had incorporated Dacron into its public relations and advertising programs.

A somewhat rough & closely clipped 1950s Du Pont magazine ad with barefoot, suited model set on a tropical island, featuring the new “Dacron” polyester fiber, touting its “always-look-neat” and “wash-and-wear” virtues. Lower left “happy housewife” inset tells the tale of Dacron’s easy wash-and-drip-dry care-taking.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, Du Pont Dacron ads were ubiquitous throughout popular and general circulation magazines, and also on television. Ads like the one above used the ”wash-and-wear” message to tout it easy care and less ironing, with some ads showing a woman in the background standing in a laundry-type setting apparently pleased with the new “just-pop-them-in-the-dryer” men’s suits and other fabrics. Other Dacron ads featured its light-weight advantage in hot weather, or its use in blending to “improve” other fabrics, as those shown below.

1958 Du Pont ad featuring a Dacron “tropicals” suit that will stay crisp and neat, promising cool comfort to its wearer.

Another 1958 Du Pont ad features wash ‘n’ wear cotton shirts “improved” with 65% Dacron & “extra value in 5 ways.”

But its wasn’t just Dacron for men. Du Pont also hyped women’s lines made with the new synthetic fiber, some with attention to fashion, attaching to popular and/or highly-regarded designers and manufacturers, as in the first example below at left.

A 1958 Du Pont ad: “Lloyd Weill [famous dress manufacturer] requests the pleasure of your company in summer’s ever-fresh sheer...” DACRON and Cotton.

1977 Du Pont ad urges the ladies to “get into Today’s Dacron,” touting the natural look, the natural feeling, and the easy care.

Du Pont’s Dacron polyester went well beyond clothing, and would be marketed for a wide range of uses – for outdoor gear due to its durability, moisture-wicking, and quick-drying properties; in home textiles like curtains, bedspreads, and sheets; as “fiberfill” for batting in upholstery, pillows, mattresses, and quilts; in furniture, offering a softer, rounder, and puffier look to cushions; and even in medical applications such as surgical sutures, skin and vessel grafting, heart-valve sewing, reinforcing ligaments, tendon implants, and hernia repair meshes.

Sleeping bags filled 100 percent with Dacron “fiberfill” are “comfortably warm and easy to roll,” says Du Pont in the company’s 1955 ad, below left. “There’s nothing warmer, nothing more comfortable than a sleeping bag filled 100% with DACRON polyester fiberfill: says the ad. “The outstanding resilience combined with the soft, airy bulk of this filling materials gives sleeping bags superior insulating warmth and lasting comfort.” And the company ads: “DACRON Fiberfill helps make bags lighter, easier to roll, too. It’s non-allergenic, odorless, lint free… needs no moth proofing…. resists mildew. Look for the Du Pont label when you buy…” Dacron fiberfill was also used for insulated jackets.

1955 Du Pont ad sings the praises of sleeping bags filled with 100% DACRON fiberfill. They’re “comfortably warm” and easy to roll.

1950s Du Pont ad headline: “In Just 8 Minutes, Fire Can Multiply 50 Times.” But fire hose made with lightweight DACRON can save “vital seconds.”

In the automotive sector, Dacron was also marketed for applications such as seat covers, carpets, and headliners, and the polyester fiber also had various industrial applications, including ropes, webbing, conveyor belts, and hoses, as shown in the 1950s ad above right for fire hose. “In Just 8 Minutes,” Du Pont announces with the ad’s headline, “Fire Can Multiply 50 Times.” With fire hose made with Du Pont’s Dacron, the company says, “vital seconds” can be saved because the hose is lightweight. As the company explains:

“Seconds often spell the difference between controlling a fire and disaster. That’s why hose containing filler cords of Du Pont DACRON polyester fiber is essential to modern firefighting efficiency. Hose containing DACRON has unusual strength, yet is lighter than ordinary hose. It had great flexibility and is easer to handle – gets into action fast. Make sure the hose you buy is made with Du Pont DACRON….”

A polyester film derived from the same polymer as Dacron, called Mylar, was also developed, and it too found a range of uses, from food packaging to electronics.

“Great Sails…”

This 1970 Du Pont ad for Dacron polyester details all the benefits of using the new synthetic fiber in sailcloth.

And yes, Du Pont also pitched its Dacron polyester to sailboat enthusiasts. The four paragraphs in the 1970 ad at right details all the good qualities of Dacron-made sailcloth:

Two things make a great sail – a talented sailmaker and a fiber that’s going to perform under all conditions. The fiber is DACRON polyester. It combines all-weather strength with exceptional light weight. And it’s the standard for long-lasting, reliable performance.”

One measure of a sail’s performance is its efficiency as an airfoil. Because DACRON has great strength, it can be made into a lighter, finer yarn. This produces a smoother surface with a low porosity. Thus surface friction is reduced and pulling power improved. A lighter-weight DACRON means a more responsive, easier-handling sail.

Handling is easier under heavy load conditions too. The great strength of DACRON means that your sails won’t stretch out of shape in heavy weather. They stay set and firm, And very long-lasting. DACRON is exceptionally resistant to abrasion, And it will not rot or mildew.

The art of the sailmaker and the properties of DACRON make an unbeatable combination. One that you put to the test every time you sail. So insist on sails of DACRON. Only Du Pont makes DACRON. Du Pont Company, Wilmington Delaware 19898.

Du Pont’s 1974 ad on sailing rope – mooring rope of nylon, and running rigging lines made of Dacron polyester.

…and Sailing Rope

In the 1974 Du Pont ad at left – titled, “All Lines Are Not Created Equal” – the company is offering a bit of a tutorial on two kinds of aquatic roping: mooring / anchoring lines, and running rigging lines. The former, shown here in blue, are made with Du Pont nylon fiber, Super 707, and the latter, with Dacron polyester. And in the ad, Du Pont details their respective strengths and advantages.

“For mooring and anchoring, a combination of elasticity and extremely high strength is necessary,” explains Du Pont. “Lines of Du Pont’s new Super 707 are stronger and longer wearing that any other nylon line.” Citing third party testing, Dupont says its nylon mooring rope shows “at least a 50% increase in wear life under wet conditions” compared to standard nylon – and can also “be stowed wet without fear of rotting”

As for rigging lines, Du Pont also offers reasons why its polyester Dacron lines are the better choice. “To maintain the set of sail it is important that the running rigging has a low degree of elasticity. Lines of Dacron polyester have minimum stretch. Add to this the high strength and abrasion resistance of ‘Dacron’ – plus durability , easy gripping and handling, and no rotting – and you have a totally reliable line for any sailing condition.”

But despite specialty markets – whether sailing rope, sleeping bags, fire hose, or other uses – over the years it would be the apparel markets where Du Pont synthetic fibers flourished and made their biggest and most enduring returns.

The Disco Moment

“Saturday Night Fever” promo featuring John Travolta in his classic white-suited disco move, plus the Bee Gees British rock group, also in white, famous for their“Stayin Allive” song & others in the film’s soundtrack. Click for soundtrack.

Dacron polyester, for one, had a good 25-year run in apparel during its initial period. Through the 1970s, Dacron polyester clothing remained popular, perhaps getting a final boost in the late 1970s from the 1977 film, Saturday Night Fever with the John Travolta’s character, Tony Manero, doing his memorable disco dance in an all-white synthetic leisure suit.

The film inspired sales to thousands of would-be dancers and beyond.

In addition to the Travolta role and his spotless threads, the Bee Gees rock group as well – famous for their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack – were frequently attired in the leisure suit look, often in white.

The “invisible woman” columnist for The Guardian, writing a later retrospective piece on the Bee Gees and their fashion, noted: “The Bee Gees …gave it [glam rock] a disco spin and became synonymous with glitter balls, illuminated dance floors, and enough man-made fibre to light up Manhattan with the static discharge.“The Bee Gees . . . became synonymous with glitter balls, illuminated dance floors, and enough man-made fibre to light up Manhattan with the static discharge…” The late 70s were when clothes melted if they got near a naked flame… the era of tricel, rayon, lycra and polyester.” But to be fair, it wasn’t just the Bee Gees who wore polyester. Elvis Presley and the Beatles also indulged. And apart from the disco scene, late night TV talk show host, Johnny Carson, also had a hugely successful line of polyester suits in the 1970s.

But by the late 1970s, leisure suits and polyester began to fade due in part to the widespread adoption of cheap, garish, and poorly-made polyester suits. And among college kids, in particular, polyester began to get a negative rap as uncomfortable and artificial. Some restaurants even posted signs banning leisure suits. By the end of the 1970s, the polyester fashion “look” (along with disco), was considered tacky.

But all was not lost for polyester. In the 1980s, a group of designers, including big names like Calvin Klein and Oscar de la Renta, decided to create a line of products made of polyester and polyester blends. This helped shine new light on polyester. And in the 1990s, the introduction of microfiber technology improved polyester by creating incredibly fine filaments, making it softer, more absorbent, and better at wicking moisture in sportswear. Polyester’s reputation soon improved, as did its sales.

In 1991, the New York Times reported on Du Pont’s efforts to rehabilitate the public’s perception of polyester. By the late 1990s, in fact, Du Pont had polyester sales at around $2.2 billion annually, though it would later divest of this business through joint ventures. However, polyester would grow to vast proportions in the global apparel industry through the 2000s and 2020s (see Part II, “Fiber Tsunami,” forthcoming). As for Du Pont, there was still more fiber invention to come.

Du Pont Spandex

The Lycra Brand

In 1958, Joseph Shivers, an American chemist at Du Pont, invented a synthetic elastane fiber that would soon become a commercial success as a spandex material – an elastic synthetic fiber. Spandex is a thermoplastic elastomer that can be stretched up to 600 percent and return to its original shape. It is made from a combination of polyurethane and polyester. In 1959, Du Pont went to market with this new flexible fiber under the trade name Lycra.

The first focus for this Du Pont fiber was female undergarments, or “foundation wear” as they are sometimes called. Early advertising emphasized the “give” of the fabric and its ability to improve undergarments for women that were also “figure-flattering,” as seen in ads from the 1960s.

This 1961 Life magazine ad, featuring Du Pont’s ‘Lycra’ synthetic fiber – with headline, 'What nylon did for your legs LYCRA will do for you figure' – features a dark-haired woman wearing a white bra and girdle lying across a chaise-lounge, as the ad’s text sings the praises of the new Du Pont fiber.

The advertisement above – featuring DuPont Lycra – was published in the September 22, 1961 edition of Life magazine, then read by millions. In the image, a dark-haired woman is shown wearing a white bra and girdle lying across chaise-lounge type piece of furniture, as the ad’s text makes the pitch:.

“Remember, remember – when Du Pont nylon led you tenderly by the toes to stockings such as you had never before known? Now, “LYCRA” spandex fiber gives the same loving considerations to the rest of you. With bras and girdles so light, so gentle, they seem only an echo, Yet so persuasive in molding and holding you can only surrender. So enduring they seem ever new. And blissfully free from care. All this is the beauty of LYCRA – the new elastic fiber from Du Pont.”

The “Smoothie” was a type of girdle bra sold by Strouse Adler in the 1960s made with DuPont Lycra.

Du Pont’s Lycra would soon be used in swimwear and many more types of clothing. By 1959, the introduction of pantyhose made it possible for hemlines to rise, and soon thereafter, the miniskirt. In the late 1960s, sports helped push Lycra into new arenas. At the 1968 winter games in Grenoble, France, Lycra-made ski suits worn by the French men’s alpine ski team got attention, as that team dominated the medal count. Other sports soon began using Lycra-made material in their athletic clothing.

Another boost for Lycra came in 1969, when one of the inner layers in spacesuits worn by Apollo astronauts was made with Lycra fiber. By 1972, sports again pushed Lycra to the fore during the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, when form-fitting, lightweight swimwear that moved with the body helped swimmer performance by reducing drag and increasing speed. The sports world noticed, and the use of Lycra continued to spread among athletes in other sports.

In the 1980s, a fitness craze spread to mainstream populations as aerobics programs like Jane Fonda’s Workout (1982) soared to phenomenal success [click for Fonda story]. High-cut leotards and tights made with Lycra allowed freedom of movement and a more comfortable workout. In addition, popular 1980s films, such as Fame (1980) and Flashdance (1983), boosted dancewear, which began moving out of the studio and into casual and street fashion. Professional athletes in a variety of sports—from track and field to tennis and basketball – were also wearing Lycra-made apparel. By 1987, the popularity of spandex in athletic and fashion wear – driven largely by the aerobics boom – was so high that Du Pont struggled to meet worldwide demand.

1980, “Fame.” Click to stream.

Jane Fonda’s Workout. Click

1983, Flashdance. Click for film

Lycra was also transforming hosiery in the 1980s, adding to comfort and fit, while “smoothing out imperfections,” according to some claims. Also noted were “Chanel couture skirts” that set fashion trends “with the use of spandex in leggings.”

Madonna impacted fashion from the 1980s.

Fashion designer Donna Karan was one of the first to add small amounts of Lycra in the 1980s to the bodysuits that made her famous. Top designers including Giorgio di Sant’Angelo, Norma Kamali and Betsey Johnson also incorporated Lycra into their designs for the ready-to-wear lines

Pop singer Madonna. meanwhile, also had an impact on fashion. Beginning in the early ’80s, she incorporated lingerie-inspired looks into her performances, wearing “underwear as outerwear,” including the use of lace bustiers, which shocked some audiences at the time, but also sparked street-wear fashion trends. She also wore tight, athletic-style tops, bodysuits, and other form-fitting outfits during the decade that used stretchy, Lycra/spandex type material to achieve the look.

By the 1990s, female baby boomers were entering middle age and began looking for apparel and undergarments that provided “targeted lift and comfortable support,” as Lycra-based “shape-wear” came on the scene to help create flattering figures. The girdle, for example, which had fallen out of favor decades earlier, reemerged in the 1990s completely redesigned.

According to one source, “sales of new shapewear products made with Lycra fiber exploded even without major advertising support.”

Du Pont, however, did not abandon Lycra advertising. In 1995, in fact, the company launched its “Nothing Moves Like LYCRA” ad campaign which also debuted the brand’s new wave logo. It was a multi-million dollar effort that included both television and print ads. The ads emphasized the comfort, freedom, and range of movement that the addition of Lycra fiber provided to clothing. The ads often featured stylish images of women in motion, wearing various types of apparel from active-wear to everyday clothing.

1995 Du Pont Lycra ad: “Because even if soccer isn’t on your itinerary, this evening you can still make all the right moves”. Advertising series under theme: “Nothing Moves Like Lyra”.

In one clever 1995 Du Pont Lycra print ad that ran in Bazaar magazine (shown above), an attractive young lady is featured dressed in dark attire (described in the ad as: “wool suit with 2% LYCRA and mesh skin dress with 35% LYCRA by Karl Lagerfeld.”). The model in the ad is featured kicking a soccer ball, with one leg in the air after the kick, as her dress rises on one side, revealing the “stretchability” of the material. The attendant text explains: “Because even if soccer isn’t on your itinerary, this evening you can still make all the right moves. Look for the Lyrca Brand.” The sign-off theme is offered at the bottom of the ad – “Nothing Moves Like Lyra”– along with the Lyrca logo icon that includes, “Only By Du Pont.” in the lettering beneath the larger LYCRA label.

By the late 1990s, Du Pont accounted for the lion’s share of world spandex capacity, then producing about 200 million pounds of Lycra annually with annual sales valued at more than $1.5 billion. In 2000,By the late 1990s, Du Pont was producing about 200 million pounds of Lycra every year, with annual sales valued at more than $1.5 billion. Lycra fiber was named one of the top apparel innovations of the twentieth century by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. The decade also saw new Lycra collaborations with top fashion designers including, Julien Macdonald, Mathew Williamson, Hussein Chalayan, and Zac Posen.

By 2003, Du Pont Textiles & Interiors, was operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of Du Pont, and was the largest integrated fiber business in the world with annual revenue of $6.5 billion, operating in 50 countries. In that year, the company launched a $40 million global ad campaign with print and TV spots featuring celebrities using the Lycra tagline “Has It”– meaning “You Either Have It, Or You Don’t” Du Pont at that time was also sponsoring fashion shows in Sao Paulo, Asia, and the U.K.

However, later in 2003, Du Pont began negotiations with Koch Industries to sell its textiles and interiors business, including the Lycra brand. Koch acquired the company in 2004 and renamed it Invista. Some years later, in 2019, Invista’s Apparel & Advanced Textiles business was acquired by Shandong Ruyi, a Chinese textile company, which began operating as The Lycra Company. By 2022, Shandong Ruyi defaulted on a loan, and a group of financial institutions headquartered in Wilmington, DE gained control of The Lycra Company. That company continues to innovate and produce Lycra, which remains the leading brand of spandex.

Kevlar, Nomex, Tyvek

Other Synthetics

1990 Du Pont ad, plugging Nomex & Kevlar fibers, shows firefighter rescuing a child with headline: “Sometimes What You Wear To Work Makes All The Difference”.

Among other Du Pont-developed synthetic fibers are the aramids – aromatic polyamides – a class of strong, heat-resistant, synthetic fibers developed in the 1960s. While technically synthetic fibers, aramids are in a class all their own – industrial-strength super materials. These are not “fashion synthetics” of earlier Du Pont fiber science, but rather, fibers that became known for stopping bullets rather than turning heads on fashion runways. They are commonly used in aerospace, military, police, fire protection and various industrial and construction applications.

Kevlar high-strength synthetic fiber was discovered in 1965 by Du Pont chemist Stephanie Kwolek. A para-aramid fiber, most famously known for its use in bullet-proof vests due to its exceptional strength-to-weight ratio. It is also used in tires, boots for firefighters, hockey sticks, cut-resistant gloves, fiber-optic cables, fire-resistant mattresses, canoes, and armored limousines. It is used in bomb-resistant building materials. Safe rooms have been built with Kevlar to protect occupants from adverse weather and other threats. Kevlar has also been used to reinforce overtaxed bridges.

Nomex is another flame-resistant aramid fiber developed by Du Pont, which is also used in protective gear for firefighters, military pilots, and race car drivers.

In the Du Pont ad above, showing a firefighter carrying a child rescued from a fire, the headline says: “Sometimes What You Wear To Work Makes All The Difference.” And the ad continued with the following:

“At 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, dressing for success in no cliché. It’s a matter of life and death.

Which is why Du Pont engineers worked to create Nomex and Kevlar fire resistant fibers, The remarkable performance of these fibers had made them the standard for state of the art firefighting clothing all over the world.

And everyday, they not only save the lives of thousands of firefighters running into fires, but those they carry out as well.

At Du Pont, our dedication to quality makes the things that make a difference.”

In August 2025, however, Du Pont sold its Kevlar and Nomex business to the Arclin company for $1.8 billion. That sale is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approval. Another Du Pont-invented fiber is trade-named Tyvek, with two of its uses shown below.

Tyvek protective "building wrap" at construction site.

Workers wearing Tyvek coverall suits.

Tyvek is actually a “spun fiber” creation; i.e., “a flashspun high-density polyethylene fiber.” Discovered in the mid-1950s and commercialized in the 1960s and 1970s, Tyvek is used in a number of applications, including: building wraps during construction; laboratory and medical packaging; protective coveralls worn by mechanics, oil industry workers, painters, insulation installers; wristbands used at music festivals, conventions, and like events; U.S. Postal Service and FedEx envelopes; and laboratory and cleanroom workers [Tyvek coveralls, coats or bodysuits were used during the 2013–2016 Western African Ebola virus epidemic, and in the COVID-19 pandemic, to protect health care workers]. In 2018, Du Pont announced plans to expand Tyvek production at its Luxembourg factory.

* * * * * * * *

May 2025 book, “The Scary Truth Of Fast Fashion: A Wake-Up Call For Our Wardrobes: Why We Need To Rethink What We Wear,” Kindle Edition, by Prasanna Jegatha V.G, 300pp. Click for Amazon.

Fast Fashion Fibers. …Yet, of all the synthetic fibers developed by Du Pont and other companies, it is the fashion and apparel-related fibers (especially polyester, nylon and elastane) that in recent years have enabled one of the largest global markets to explode with ever-mounting production volumes.

Since the mid-1990s or so, given a production and marketing model called “fast fashion,” synthetic apparel has exploded in volume across the globe, creating not only booming sales and profits for some, but also adding ominously to major environmental problems, namely: global warming, microplastic pollution, and toxic and material waste.

Part II of this story — “The Fiber Tsunami” (forthcoming) — will explore how the synthetic fiber revolution is contributing to these problems. In the meantime, the book at right, and those on the fashion industry noted below in Sources, offer good overviews.

In addition, for those who may want further reading on chemistry and the environment, any of the following stories at this website may be of interest:

“Applause for Du Pont?, An Environmental Critique,” a story that highlights a 1990-92 battle between Friends of The Earth and Du Pont over a Du Pont TV ad (with “applauding” wildlife) and a corporate strategy that cast the company as an environmental leader, when at the time, according to EPA, it was the largest toxic chemical polluter in the U.S.

“Nurdle Apocalypse: Plastic on The Loose,” about global pollution from chemical company pre-production plastic pellets.

“Doing Great Things? Dow Chemical, 1960s-2020s,” an analysis of a Dow Chemical corporate advertising and public relations campaign designed to put the company in a better light after some of its toxic chemical troubles and environmental issues.

“Oil/Petrochem History, 1950s-2020s,” a topics page with more than 20 story choices on oil and chemical companies in that category.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. +Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 14 December 2025
Last Update: 26 December 2025

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Nylon Riots: 1939-1946 & New
Synthetics,” PopHistoryDig.com, December 14, 2025.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

____________________________________

Related Reading at Amazon.com…

Pap A. Ndiaye, “Nylon and Bombs: DuPont and the March of Modern America,” 2007, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 304 pp. Click for copy.

Tyler Little, “The Future of Fashion: Understanding Sustainability in the Fashion Industry,” 2018, New Degree Press, 200 pp. Click for Amazon.

Susannah Handley, “Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution,” 2000, Johns Hopkins University Press, 192 pp. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

First published in 1974 by Gerard Colby Zilg and titled “Du Pont: Behind the Nylon Curtain.” Reportedly, promotion of the book was abruptly ended after Du Pont family complained to Prentice-Hall. In 1984, published as, “Du Pont Dynasty,” author then using Gerard Colby. Click for Amazon.com.

Elizabeth L. Cline, “Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion,” paperback edition, 2013, Portfolio, 272 pp. Click for Amazon.

1988 book by David A. Hounshell & John Kenly Smith, Jr, “Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R & D, 1902–1980 ,” Cambridge University Press, 780 pp. Click for copy.

Dana Thomas, “Fashionopolis: Why What We Wear Matters,” 2020, paperback, Penguin Books, 320 pp. Click for Amazon.

Maxine Bedat’s 2021 book, “Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment,” Portfolio, 336 pp. Click for Amazon.

Alden Wicker, “To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick--and How We Can Fight Back.” 2023, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 304 pp. Click for Amazon.

Jamie Lincoln Kitman, “The Secret History of Lead” [and Du Pont's role], TheNation.com, March 2000. Click for story.

“The Company State” - Ralph Nader's Study Group Report on Du Pont in Delaware, by James Phelan and Robert Pozen, 1973, Grossman, 1st Edition, 464 pp. Click for copy.

“Nylon,” Fortune, July 1940, pp. 53-60.

Associated Press, “Du Pont Releases Nylon,” New York Times, August 8, 1941, p. 6.

“Stocking Panic,” Business Week, August 9, 1941, p.24.

“Du Pont In The War,” Du Pont Magazine, April May 1943, p. 1.

“To Use Nylon in Plastics; Predicted by Akin of du Pont Co. Before Engineers Group,” New York Times, January 5, 1944, p. 28

“Bootleg Nylons,” Readers Digest, February 1945, pp. 66-68.

“More Nylon: Third Yarn Plant at Chattanooga to Triple Capacity,” Better Living [a Du Pont magazine], December 1946.

“Pair of Women Demonstrating Nylon Stockings..,” Hagley Museum Digital Archives / Digital.Hagley.org.

“30,000 Women Join in Rush for Nylons; Thousands More Turned Away as Gimbels Sells Entire Stock of 26,000 Pairs,” New York Times, January 30, 1946, p.24.

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“Nylon Riots,” Wikipedia.org.

Emily Spivack, “Stocking Series, Part 1: Wartime Rationing and Nylon Riots,” [As hemlines rose, DuPont’s wonder fabric was a sensation among women. But during WW II, it was needed for parachutes,”] Smithsonian Mag.com, September 4, 2012.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, “Blazing the Trail to New Frontiers Through Chem-istry.” Wilmington, Delaware:, 1940, promotional booklet, 31pp.

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Austin Davis, “Pity the Poor Working Girl”: Nylons, Work, Class, Ideology, and Politics in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1945-46,” Tortoise. Princeton.edu, Spring 2020.

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Vicki Moeser, Smithsonian News Service, “Nylon Threads its Way Through History; New Synthetic Fiber Was a Boon to WWII Effort – and to Women’s Legs,” DeseretNews.com, December 8, 1989.

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Emily Spivack, “Orlon! Dacron! Antron! The Great American Knits of Fall 1965; As This Old Newspaper Ad Supplement Shows, in the Heydey of Synthetic Knits, Dupont Advanced its Chemically-Made Fibers as a Key to ‘Better Living’,” Smithsonian Magazine, September 24, 2012.

Jeremy Pearce Stephanie L. Kwolek, “Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90,” New York Times, June 20, 2014.

Jeff Mordock. “DuPont’s ‘Miracle Fiber’ Turns 80,” The News Journal, October 16, 2015.

Derek Guy, “Artificial Intelligence: A Guide To Synthetic Fibers,” PutThisOn.com, November 21, 2018.

Dan Samorodnitsky, Massive Science, “You Can Thank Chemist Stephanie Kwolek for Bulletproof Vests and Yoga Pants; the Long-Serving Researcher at Dupont Invented Kevlar and Contributed to Spandex.” Smithsonian Magazine, August 21, 2019.

William S Dutton, Du Pont: One Hundred and Forty Years, 1942, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 396 pp. Click for Amazon.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Du Pont: The Autobiography of an American Enterprise, 1952, Scribner’s Sons, 138 pp. Click for Amazon.

Alfred D. Chandler and Stephen Salsbury, Pierre S. du Pont and the Making of a Modem Corporation, New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Click for copy.

Leonard Mosley, Blood Relations: The Rise & Fall of the du Ponts of Delaware, 1980, Atheneum; 426 pp. Click for Amazon.

Charles W. Cheape, Strictly Business: Walter Carpenter at Du Pont and General Motors, 1995, Johns Hopkins University Press, 336 pp. Click for Amazon.

Frederick Lewis Allen (Author), Mark Crispin Miller (Editor), Gretchen Morgenson (Introduction), The Lords of Creation: The History of America’s 1 Percent (Forbidden Bookshelf), 2017, Open Road Media, 444 pp. Click for Amazon.

______________________________________________________________

Du Pont/PFAS-Related Book & Films at Amazon.com…

Title screen, 2017 investigative documentary on Du Pont’s PFAS chemicals, “The Devil We Know: The Chemistry of a Cover Up.” Click for Amazon.

Attorney Robert Bilott’s 2019 book on his 20-year PFAS battle with Du Pont, “Exposure,” Simon & Schuster, 400pp. Click for copy.

“Dark Waters,” 2019 Hollywood film on the Du Pont PFAS saga, w/ Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins & Bill Pullman. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Topics Page

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Love Stories”
In Print, Film & Song

December 11, 2025 J.D.

Love & Music

“Goffin & King”

1950s-2010s

Famous young songwriters,
find love & success,
then their lives diverge.

Iowa Love Story

“Of Bridges & Lovers”

1992-1995

Clint Eastwood & Meryl
Streep star in film based
on best-selling book.

Book, Film, Music

“Doctor Zhivago”

1950s-2010s

Oscar-winning epic film
& love story set during
the Russian Revolution.

Author’s Love & Politics

“The Pasternak Saga”

…& Zhivago Chronicles

Boris Pasternak’s life
was every bit as
interesting as Zhivago’s.

Post-Beatles Love Song

“McCartney: Amazed”

The Paul & Linda Story

The love story & Paul’s
famous song in praise
of Linda’s help.

Love & Music

“Diamonds & Rust”

Joan & Bob: 1960s-1980s

The Dylan-Baez years
in music, protest,
love & legacy.

Music & Biography

“Be My Baby”

1960s-2010

Famous Ronettes song
is backdrop to Ronnie &
Phil affair & bad ending.

Righteous Love Songs

“Lost That Lovin` Feelin`”

1964 & 1965

Includes Bobby Hatfield’s
“Unchained Melody” used in
Ghost with Demi Moore.

“Harry & Sue”

“Harry Chapin”

Taxi & Beyond

Song about a long-lost
love brings him to
national prominence.

Tumultuous Love

“Marilyn & Joe, et. al.”

A 70 year Saga

Their love affair became
star-crossed, but it
helped fuel her celebrity.

Powerful Love Song

“At Last”

Etta James: 1939-1980s

Her famous 1960 song,
a troubled life,
and love of the blues.

No.1 R&B Hit

“Love is Strange”

1956-2007

Mickey & Sylvia’s hit song
has 1987 pop encore
in “Dirty Dancing” film.

Frank & Ava

“Ava Gardner”

1940s-1950s

Story includes sidebar
on the Frank & Ava
love story.

Remembering Love

“Summer Wind”

1966

Profile of a classic
Frank Sinatra song of
lost Summer love.

Early Love Songs

“Taylor Swift, Rising”

2003-2009

The rising 19-yr-old
star included love songs
among her early hits.

Losing Love

“The End of The World”

1963

Skeeter Davis sings
a sad song of
unbearable loss.

What’s Love?

“Rocker Supreme”

1958-2008

Tina Turner lived a
hard side of love & had
a few questions about it.

Crying in the Rain

“The Everly Sound”

Don & Phil: 1950s-2000s

Among Everly Brothers hits
were popular love songs
and hurt-by-love songs.

Girl Group Love Songs

“1960s Girl Groups”

1958-1966

Dozens of groups turned
out songs like, “Will
You Love Me Tomorrow?”

Music & Biography

“Dream Lover”

1958-1973

Bobby Darin’s story includes
his courting of, and marriage to, Sandra Dee.

Famous Beach Boy Film

“Love & Mercy”

Brian Wilson Film

Depicts his genius
& demons, and also,
a saving love story.

Boxing Film & Love Story

“Philadelphia Morning”

1976-1977

Poignant music by
Bill Conti helped define
film & love theme.

The Life & Times

“Joplin’s Shooting Star”

1966-1970

Janis Joplin’s last
5 years, and the love
she found in Brazil.

Music, Politics, Celebrity

“Linda & Jerry”

1971-1983

The lives of Jerry Brown
and Linda Ronstadt
during the 1970s.

Blockbuster Book & Film

“The Love Story Saga”

1970-1971

A best-selling book,
Hollywood film & hot young
couple captivate millions.

Finding Her Muse

“Joni’s Music”

1962-2000s

Love relationships helped
fuel Joni Mitchell’s
creative songwriting.

1950s Love Song

“Sea of Love”

1959

Phil Phillips wrote
this No.1 R&B hit
to woo his girlfriend.

Enchanting Love Song

“I Only Have Eyes
For You”

A 1959 remake of
an old standard has
resonance for the ages.

Beatles’ Song History

“Love Me Do”

1962-2012

This song – w/”P.S. I Love
You” on B-side – became
Beatles’ first hit (#17 U.K.).

Dirty Dancing Music

“Do You Love Me?”

1959-1988

Old Contours’ song has
new life after featured
role in 1988 film.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

Date Posted: 10 December 2025
Last Update: 11 December 2035
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: JackDoyle/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Love Stories: In Print, Film & Song,”
PopHistoryDig.com, December 10, 2025.

_______________________________________________

Love Stories on Film at Amazon.com…

Special 2010 Blu-ray anniversary edition of 1965 Hollywood film, “Doctor Zhivago”. Click for Amazon.

1942 classic love story in a time of war starring Humphrey Bogart & Ingrid Bergman. Click for film.

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in the 2018 Hollywood film, “A Star is Born.” Click for film.

Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Etta-James-At-Last.mp3 2851296 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“At Last”
Etta James: 1938-2012

August 14, 2025 J.D.

Etta James on the cover of the Chess Records 50 Anniversary Collection, “Etta James: Her Best”. Click for Amazon.

It was April 1961 when a notable piece of music was getting a well-deserved airing on R&B and popular radio – a song entitled, “At Last.” It was sung by a recording artist with Chess Records named Etta James.

Music Player
“At Last” – Etta James
1966

The song never quite made it to No. 1, hitting No. 2 on the R&B charts, and at the time, also rising to No. 47 on the Billboard pop chart and No. 30 on Cashbox. Still “At Last” was pure gold, and as time would tell, a classic for the ages.

Since 1961 the song has aged like fine wine, and over the years, it is rediscovered by thousands of appreciative new listeners. “At Last” is truly one of the all-time great blues songs that also happens to be a love song – and not a syrupy kind of love song, but one with deep feeling, owing largely to James’ singular rendition. The James version has become a favorite wedding song, and has also been used in a number of films, TV shows, and in advertising. In January 2009 it was famously performed by Beyoncé at one of President Obama’s inaugural balls, as the President and First Lady, Michelle Obama, danced to the song. More on that a bit later.

RCA Victor 78 rpm record label for 1941-42 Glenn Miller version of “At Last” with Ray Eberle.

In 1961, when Chess Records and Etta James first aired their version of “At Last,” the song had already been around for two decades, written in 1941 by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren. Back then, it was heard in the musical film, Orchestra Wives, which starred George Montgomery and Ann Rutherford.

The song was performed both in the film and as a 1942 recording by Glenn Miller and his orchestra, with vocals by Ray Eberle and Pat Friday. The Glenn Miller version became a Top Ten hit that year. Other versions of the song, including an instrumental version, were also recorded and aired in the 1940s and 1950s. But thereafter, it was largely forgotten, until blues singer Etta James recorded the song with Chess Records in Chicago.

Chess Records

1960. Etta James in Chicago studio with the Chess Records founder Phil Chess. Michael Ochs Archives

Chess Records was started in 1950 by two Jewish immigrant brothers from Poland, Leonard and Phil Chess. Over the years, the company and its subsidiary labels, became known for recording soul, gospel, jazz, blues and early rock ‘n roll.

Among artists who recorded at Chess were: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley. Some critics have called Chess “America’s greatest blues label.” Today, the Chess catalogue is owned by Universal Music Group and managed by Geffen Records and Universal Music Enterprises.

In the Etta James/Chess version of “At Last,” the arrangement was improvised on Harry Warren’s melody. Etta James by then had been singing since the mid-1950s and already had a few R&B hits. But Leonard Chess thought Etta could be a classy ballad singer, and at the time saw possible “crossover” appeal in her sound – i.e., become popular with white audiences. So he had begun trying to give her a bigger sound with orchestral backing.

The original cover of the album, “Etta James: At Last!” was released in late 1960 and included two other future classics "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and "A Sunday Kind of Love." The single “At Last” wasn’t released until early 1961. Click for Amazon.

And for “At Last,” Leonard Chess had the idea to back James with violins, which have a prominent role in the song, especially at the opening, while backing the song throughout along with piano. But it is the soulful performance by James and her poignant delivery that makes the song powerful and indelible.

The Chess/Etta James version of “At Last” was released first on her album of that name in 1960, followed by the single in early 1961. Besides the title song, the album also contained other notable Etta James songs, including: “Trust in Me,” “All I Could Do Was Cry,” and, “I Just Want to Make Love to You.” But the title song,” as Time’s Richard Corliss would later write, “was the lifelong keeper.”

In 1999, the Etta James version of “At Last” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. As for James herself, there’s a lot more to her story, both prior to and after this recording. Before she arrived at Chess Records, and before the success of “At Last” — and for some years thereafter — Etta James had some difficult travels.

Growing Up

She was born Jamesetta Hawkins in the Watts area of Los Angeles in January 1938 to an unmarried 14-year-old African American mother. Her mother reportedly told her that her father was Rudolph “Minnesota Fats” Wanderone, the famous pool player (portrayed in the 1961 Paul Newman / Jackie Gleason film, The Hustler). Reportedly, they received financial support from him on condition they kept his paternity secret, which was never resolved.

Johnny Otis shown on 2012 CD from Ace Records highlighting R&B music he helped introduce during 1957-1974. Click for Amazon.

Young Etta was first raised by her mother’s landlady, a woman known as Mama Lu, who took Etta to a local Baptist church, where she fell in love with singing. Etta began singing in a choir at St. Paul Baptist Church in Los Angeles where she received early vocal training from musical director, James Earle Hines. In the 1940s, her foster father, “Sarge,” would rouse young Etta out of her sleep in the early a.m. hours – sometimes beating her – to sing for his poker buddies.

When Mama Lu died in 1950, Etta went to live with relatives in San Francisco, then 12 years old, but was largely unsupervised. As a young teen, James teamed up with two other girls, briefly forming a singing group called The Creolettes

When the girls were fourteen, bandleader, talent scout and music promoter Johnny Otis had them audition, and later helped Etta and girls sign a recording contract with Modern Records in 1954, renaming them The Peaches. Otis also suggested a simple flip of young Etta’s real name, Jamesetta, rechristening her, “Etta James,” the name that stuck. Otis, meanwhile, guided her early career.

At age 15, she and Otis co-wrote her first hit in the mid-1950s,an answer to singer Hank Ballard & Midnighters’ bawdy song, “Work With Me, Annie.” The James answer was initially titled, “Roll With Me, Henry,” but was retitled with the less suggestive, “The Wallflower (Dance With Me, Henry).” That song, with the Peaches as backing vocals, topped the R&B charts for four weeks in 1955. The Peaches eventually left the label, and James began recording as a solo act. James also toured with Little Richard and Bo Diddley and was a frequent performer on the black theater circuit and scored a second 1955 hit with “Good Rockin’ Daddy,” a Top 10 song. Through the mid-1950s Etta James became a mainstay of Johnny Otis’ revue and continued to record for Modern Records until the end of the decade, but without much further success

Eta James Hits
A Partial List, 1950s-1970s

“The Wallflower (Dance w/Me, Henry)”
1955 – #1 R&B
“Good Rockin’ Daddy”
1955 – #12 R&B
“If I Can’t Have You” (w H. Fuqua)
1960 – #6 R&B, #52 BB
“Spoonful” (w/ H. Fuqua)
1960 – #12 R&B, #78 BB
“All I Could Do Was Cry”
1960 – #2 R&B, #33 BB
“My Dearest Darling”
1960 – #5 R&B, #34 BB
“At Last”
1961 – #2 R&B, #47 BB
“Trust in Me”
1961 – #4 BB, #30 BB
“Fool That I Am”
1961 – #14 R&B, #50 BB
“Don’t Cry Baby”
1961 – #6 R&B, #39 BB
“Something’s Got a Hold on Me”
1962 – #4 R&B, #37 BB
“Stop the Wedding”
1962 – #6 R&B, #34 BB .
“Next Door To The Blues”
1962 – #13 R&B, #71 BB
“Pushover”
1963 — #7 R&B, #25 BB
“Tell Mama” / “I’d Rather Go Blind”
1967 – #10 R&B, #23 BB
“Security”
1968 – #11 R&B, #35 BB
“I Got You Babe”
1968 – #32 R&B, #69 BB
“Losers Weepers (Pt. 1)”
1970 — # 26 R&B, #94 BB
“I Found a Love”
1972– #31 R&B
“All The Way Down”
1973 – #29 R&B

Chess Hits

By 1960, Etta James had moved to Chess Records recording on its Argo, and later, Cadet label. A string of mostly R&B hits – some also charting on Billboard – followed. Among the more prominent of these were: “All I Could Do Was Cry” (#2 R&B), “My Dearest Darling” (#5 R&B), and a duet as Etta and Harvey (with Harvey Fuqua of Harvey and the Moonglows) entitled “If I Can’t Have You” (#6 R&B, #52 pop). She also sang background vocals on Chuck Berry’s “Almost Grown” and “Back in the U.S.A.”

Her R&B hits continued through the early ’60s – most notably among her biggest, “At Last” (#2 R&B) and “Trust in Me” (#4 R&B, #30 BB) in 1960. “Don’t Cry Baby (#6, #39 BB) came in 1961, and, “Some-thing’s Got a Hold on Me” (#4 R&B) plus “Stop the Wedding” (#6 R&B) in 1962. “Pushover,” a #7 R&B hit came in 1963, also #25 on the pop chart.

In her personal life, however, Etta had continuing trials throughout. She had begun experimenting with drugs as a teenager, and by 21 she was a heroin addict. During the ’60s her drug habit continued, and later, began writing bad checks and forging prescriptions to support her habit. There were also some internal troubles at Chess over royalties, and bad experiences with abusive men in her relationships.

But in 1967, Leonard Chess saw a possible way to help her focus. He recommended she record with producer Rick Hall at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a move designed in part to take her away from her big city vices. The remedy worked, albeit for a time. At Muscle Shoals, with great backing musicians, she adopted a tougher, grittier style, hitting the R&B charts with new releases and a successful album, Tell Mama (#21 R&B). That album has been described as “an earthy fusion of rock and gospel music featuring blistering horn arrangements, funky rhythms and a churchy chorus.”

The album’s title track single, “Tell Mama” — released with her famous blues song, “I’d Rather Go Blind” on the B side — became one of the biggest hits of Etta’s career (#10 R&B), her first Top 10 hit in four years and her highest-peaking single on the Billboard pop chart, reaching #23. Both songs are considered among her all-time classics.

Janis Joplin — the 1960s rocker and a blues belter herself — had admired James and covered “Tell Mama” during her Festival Express concert tour across Canada in 1970. The Tell Mama album also includes Etta’s cover of Otis Redding’s “Security” that became both a Top 20 R&B hit and Top 40 pop hit. In the early 1970s, Etta turned out still more R&B singles with: “Losers Weepers” in 1970 (#26), “I Found a Love” (#31) in 1972, and “All The Way Down” (#29) in 1973.

Etta James and Curley Mays on stage in a nightclub, believed to be from 1963, with James singing at microphone while Mays plays electric guitar beside her.

Included among other less popular singles she released in the 1960s and 1970s were the following: “Pay Back” and “Two Sides to Every Story” in 1963; “Baby, What You Want Me to Do?,” “Loving You More Every Day,” and “Mellow Fellow” in 1964; and “Would It Make Any Difference to You” and “I Got You Babe” in 1968; “Almost Persuaded” in 1969; “You Can Leave Your Hat On” and “Out on the Street Again” in 1974; “Jump Love” in 1976; and “Piece of My Heart” in 1978.

The Chess Albums. Between 1960 and 1976, Etta turned out 12 studio albums for Chess. Among these were the following:

1960 – At Last
1961 – The Second Time Around
1962 – Etta James 1962
1962 – Etta James Sings for Lovers
1964 – Queen of Soul
1966 — Call My Name
1968 — Tell Mama
1970 — Etta James Sings Funk
1971 — Losers Weepers
1973 — Etta James
1974 — Come a Little Closer
1976 — Etta Is Betta Than Evvah!
_________________________

Of her Chess albums, four charted – At Last, at #68 on the Billboard 200 albums chart; Tell Mama, #21 R&B and #82 Billboard 200; Etta James (1973), #41 R&B, #154 Billboard 200; and, Come A Little Closer, #47 R&B. In 1963, she also did a live album with Chess, titled, Etta James Rocks the House, recorded live in late September 1963 at the New Era Club in Nashville, TN and released in mid-December 1963. Some rate it as among her best live recordings.

1968's “Tell Mama” hit #21 R&B, with title track hitting #10 R&B and #23 pop. Click for Amazon.

“Come a Little Closer,” her 11th studio album w/ Chess, 1974, #47 R&B. Click for Amazon.

In 1969, James had been devastated by the death of record executive Leonard Chess. But in that year she married Artis Mills, who remained her husband for the rest of her life. By the early ’70s, however, her music was fading as her addiction returned. In 1973, after an arrest for heroin possession, she was ordered to rehab rather than prison, thanks to a helpful judge. She than had a rough 18 months or so in recovery. Still, she remained with Chess Records through most of the ’70s, toured small clubs and played occasional blues festivals. After completing her contract with Chess in 1977, James signed on with Warner Brothers Records.

Etta James performing, possibly in 1970s San Francisco at The Boarding House nightclub.

In 1978, the Rolling Stones – longtime Etta James fans – requested that she open shows for them during their tour. Meanwhile, Deep in the Night, a 1978 album with Warner Bros was produced by Jerry Wexler.

“While the album didn’t sell well,” according to one source, “it received enthusiastic reviews and reminded serious blues and R&B fans that James was still a force to be reckoned with.” She next did a 1980 album with MCA titled, Changes.

Toward the mid-1980s, something of a renewed public profile for Etta followed her globally-televised singing performance of “When The Saints Come Marching In” at the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

However, another rough patch of addiction in the 1980s would send Etta James to the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs, where in 1988 she would finally beat her hard-drug addictions, though in later years she would have some pain-killer dependency.

By the late 1980s, she had also made a musical comeback with the album Seven Year Itch. It was her fifteenth studio album, released in September 1988 with Island Records. It received high critical acclaim. The album’s title refers to her comeback after approximately seven years without a major recording contract. A Chicago Tribune critic described it as “the first in her career to consistently capture the magic of James at her live best.” Seven Year Itch was followed in 1990 with another Island album, Stickin’ to My Guns.

1990. Etta James on late night TV with David Letterman, where she sang “Beware” from her LP, ”Stickin' To My Guns.”

In early August 1990, Etta appeared on The David Letterman Show, visiting briefly with Letterman during the show and also performing “Beware” from her Stickin’ To My Guns album.

In 1992, another Etta James album, The Right Time on Electra was released, which included, among others, “Give It Up,” a duet with Steve Winwood of Traffic fame.

In 1993, she signed with Private Music Records and recorded a Billie Holiday tribute album, Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday. That album set something of trend for Etta, as she began incorporating more jazz and blues elements into her music. In 1994, the Billie Holiday album won Etta her first Grammy Award, for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female.

Blue Ray DVD for “Etta James, Live at Montreux, 1993”. Click for copy at Amazon .com.

Throughout her career, Etta would also appear at various music festivals and outdoor venues, including multiple appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland; the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles;, the Monterey Jazz Festival; the San Francisco Jazz Festival; the Playboy Jazz Festival; and the North Sea Jazz Festival. Among DVD/CDs capturing some of those performances is one for her 1993 appearance at Montreux, at left (another CD includes her multiple appearances there from 1975 to 1993).

According to Lupe DeLeon, her manager after 1981, the year 1993 was a very good one for Etta and her band, as he explained in an interview with Goldmine magazine:

“….In ’93? We were rollin’! We were doin’ so well! The money was goooood. We put together an outstanding… band that year, all made up of jazz, blues and rock musicians. Etta loved that 1993 band. That band was so good, it could have made it on its own. That was a very exciting time for us. Etta was really, really powerful. We were touring a hell of a lot in ’93, playing good gigs, people starting to take notice again. It was happening…”

Etta was also inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame that year. Noted the Hall on her induction page: “Her voice delivered nuanced wisdom and raw power in equal measure. Etta James had one of the greatest voices of her century…[T]he matriarch of the blues…” She was inducted by K.D. Lang who said, in part, “she sings truth into every note.”

Inner title page from "Rage To Survive". Click for Amazon.

Etta’s Book

By 1995, she would write her life story with the help of David Ritz in Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story, first published by Villard and later updated in a 2003 DeCapo paperback.

In the book, she not only describes the chaotic world of early R&B – with stories about legends like Sam Cooke and Little Richard – but also details her own troubled times and dependency on drugs and bad men. She also recounts the golden age of soul, when her “Tell Mama” hit climbed the charts.

Rage to Survive, said one review, “is a funky, ribald tale told with unparalleled sass.”

Liz Smith of Newsday would write of the book:

“Candid? Brutally honest? You don’t know about candid and brutal honesty until you’ve read Etta’s life story in her own, rough, unvarnished, and humorously right-on words… [A]ny major movie studio would do itself a huge favor by turning this book into a a sizzling, big-screen saga.”

And indeed, a film would come, but not for another decade or so. Another book about her would appear in 2014 by Charles River editors, American Legends: The Life of Etta James.

Blues & Jazz

“Burnin’ Down The House,” released in May 2002 hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart. Click for Amazon.

Having begun a turn toward more jazz and blues in her music with Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday in 1993, a series of albums followed through the late 1990s and early 2000s, all of which charted in the Top Ten of the Billboard Jazz or Blues charts.

Time After Time, 1995, #5 Jazz
Love’s Been Rough on Me, 1997, #6 Blues
Life Love & The Blues 1998, #3 Blues
12 Songs of Christmas, 1998, #5 Blues
Heart of A Woman, 1999, #4 Blues
Matriarch of the Blues, 2000, #2 Blues
Blue Gardenia, 2001, #1 Jazz
Let’s Roll, 2003, #1 Blues
Blues to the Bone, 2004, #4 Blues

In addition to these studio albums, in December 2001, when Etta was was 63, she did her third live album, Burnin’ Down The House, recorded at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, CA. It was her 28th album overall, and was released in May 2002. The album peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart, issued in CD and DVD versions. A few of the cover songs on this album were also featured on earlier albums, including, ”Leave Your Hat On,” “Your Good Thing Is About To End,” and “Rock Me Baby.” Her final album for Private Music, Let’s Roll (#1 Blues), won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

Etta James, appearing on the cover of her 2006 album. “All The Way” a few years after weight-loss surgery. Click for Amazon.

Standing roughly 5′-3″-to-5′-4″ tall, Etta James had struggled with her weight for years, nearing 400 pounds at one point.

In 2003, she decided to have gastric bypass surgery, which helped her lose 235 pounds. But following surgery she had difficulty adjusting to her smaller stomach. “I had trouble keeping food down,” she would later say, and that she also “went through a depression…. You’re doing well, and then all of a sudden you’re not. I thought I was going to fail.” But she didn’t; she persevered.

In 2004, she signed with RCA Victor and released Blues to The Bone that same year, followed by a pop standards release, All the Way, in March 2006. She appeared on that album cover several years after her weight loss surgery (photo at right). She later told Ebony magazine in 2006 that following her surgery she could sing “lower, louder and longer” than before.

In the 2008 film, “Cadillac Records,” about Chess Records, Beyoncé portrays Etta James. Click for film at Amazon.

Chess & Etta Film

In 2008, Etta James was portrayed by singer Beyoncé Knowles in the film Cadillac Records, a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of Chess Records, and how label founder and producer Leonard Chess helped the careers of James and other jazz, blues, and R&B artists.

In the film, Adrien Brody plays Leonard Chess and Jeffrey Wright plays Muddy Waters, among others also portrayed – including Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, and Chuck Berry.

The film covers the 1940s-1960s era when Chess was an important player in advancing and chronicling the blues, jazz and rock music pioneered by black artists.

Among the film’s strong soundtrack of songs is the Etta James version of “At Last” as performed by Beyoncé.

The film was released in North America on December 5th, 2008, by TriStar Pictures. Critics generally gave the film favorable reviews, praising the music, though some believed it fell short on the Chess part of the story.

Etta James & Beyoncé at Los Angeles premiere of “Cadillac Records” at Egyptian Theater, November 24, 2008 in Hollywood.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film three stars, noting: “The film is a fascinating record of the evolution of a black musical style, and the tangled motives of the white men who had an instinct for it.” Jim Harrington of the San Jose Mercury News praised Beyoncé’s “captivating voice,” but thought the Chess Records part of the story deserved “a better spin”.

When Cadillac Records was released, James had kind words for Beyoncé’s portrayal of her in the film. In fact, James and Beyoncé appeared together on the red carpet at the Los Angeles Premiere of Cadillac Records at The Egyptian Theater on November 24, 2008 in Hollywood, California.

The soundtrack album for the film Cadillac Records – Cadillac Records: Music from the Motion Picture – was released by Columbia Records on December 2, 2008. It features covers of classic songs from Chess Records’ singers such as Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters as performed by the film actors – including Beyoncé as Etta James.

The album also features original songs from contemporary artists such as Beyoncé’s sister, R&B singer Solange Knowles and rapper Nas.

“Cadillac Records” soundtrack - Music From The Motion Picture. Click for Amazon.com.

The Cadillac Records soundtrack was a big hit though 2009, as it spent 48 weeks at No. 1 the Top Blues Albums chart. The soundtrack was also nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, but did not win.

Additionally, Beyoncé’s “At Last” – released as the only single from the soundtrack – won a Grammy for the Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance.

Another of the songs from the sound-track, “Once In a Lifetime,“ also by Beyoncé, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, but did not win.

Beyoncé’s rendition of “At Last” was also released as a single from the album on November 3rd, 2008 and would break into Billboard Hot 100 that fall, reaching No. 67. It would also reach No. 9 on the U.S. Billboard Jazz Songs chart.

At Last

The Obamas Dance

In late January 2009, as the Cadillac Records film was still playing in some theaters, the Inauguration of President Barack Obama was taking place in Washington D.C. During one of President’s Inaugural Balls in Washington, Beyoncé famously performed the Etta James version of “At Last,” as the President and First Lady, Michelle Obama, danced to the song. Beyoncé had been invited to perform the song at the ball by the White House. Etta James, still very much alive at the time, wasn’t very happy about that – at least as press accounts relayed some of her early reaction.

Beyoncé performing “At Last” near the dance floor at President Obama’s Inaugural Ball, January 2009.

First Lady, Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama during “At Last” dance at January 2009 Inaugural Ball.

In the days following the “At Last” dance of the Obamas, Etta publicly complained about Beyoncé “singing my song,” The presumed White House snub had hurt Ms. James, and not long after the Inauguration, she shared her feelings. James told a Seattle audience, “You know, your President, the one with the big ears—he ain’t my President—[and] that woman he had singing for him [Beyoncé], singing my song—she’s going to get…whipped!” In other accounts, Etta also reportedly said: “I can’t stand Beyoncé. She had no business up there singing my song that I’ve been singing forever.” …[T]he White House had called Etta, but she had not answered the call. …At that time, she would rarely even check her voice-mail… But in cooler moments and later statements, James softened her anger, and would say that her critical remarks were meant to be taken as a joke and stemmed from her personal hurt over not having been invited to the sing the song herself for the Obama inauguration

According to some later reporting in Goldmine, Etta’s manager of some years in her later career, Lupe DeLeon, noted that the White House had called Etta, but she had not answered the call. “I gave them [the White House] Etta’s phone number,” DeLeon said, “but she never answered the call. At that time, she would rarely ever even check her voicemail…” He also added, “I learned later that the president personally wanted Etta and Beyoncé to sing the song together as a duet at the White House…But Etta never returned the [White House] call. That’s Etta. So Beyoncé did it alone.”

DeLeon also explained, there may have also been other factors contributing to Etta’s reaction:

“…I think, toward the end of her life, Etta’s dementia was starting to kick in. It was around 2007, 2008. She finally had to come off the road in 2009. Plus, she was still on the pills. I think that night, when she famously spoke out from the stage against President Obama and against Beyoncé for singing Etta’s song at The White House, she didn’t really mean it. It was her illness, plus all the pills. She can’t stand Beyoncé? She’s sick of Beyoncé? She wants her song back? Hey, man, Etta would say things off the cuff and later say, ‘Wow, did I say that?’ And, you know, by that time, the damage was done. But, no, she was really proud of the job Beyoncé did. I mean, well, there was a small part of her that felt no one should touch ‘At Last.’ And I think I feel the same way. However, in Beyoncé’s case, she had to, because [she] did the movie.”

As for Beyoncé, her career was soaring. By January 2023, for example, at the private opening of a luxury hotel in Dubai, Beyoncé would sing “At Last” as the opening song in an hour-long show, her first headline performance in four years, reaping a reported $24 million.

Life & Legacy

Young Etta James, 1960s.

Etta James, meanwhile, had been collecting career awards and recognition through the 2000s. In 2003, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2005, she was inducted into Hollywood’s Rockwalk. In 2006, she received the Billboard R&B Founders Award. And in 2009, her version of “At Last” was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. She also continued recording in those years. In 2011, her album, The Dreamer, was released and hit No. 41 on the R&B chart and No. 2 on the Blues chart.

All told, throughout her career, James released some 58 singles, more than half of which appeared on the R&B and/or pop charts. Fourteen of those reached the Top Ten R&B and nine were Top Forty pop hits. There were also 30 studio albums, at least six compilation albums, three live albums, plus appearances on other albums.

“Etta James was a pioneer,” said Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President Terry Stewart. “…Her ever-changing sound has influenced rock and roll, rhythm and blues, pop, soul and jazz artists, marking her place as one of the most important female artists of our time. From Janis Joplin to Joss Stone, an incredible number of performers owe their debts to her. There is no mistaking the voice of Etta James, and it will live forever.”

Etta James performing at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2009. Photo, Rick Diamond.

Her music has also appeared in films, soundtracks, TV shows and advertising spots. “At Last,” for example, has been used in the following: Father of the Bride Part II (1995), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Mad About You (1997); Rain Man (1998), Pleasantville (1998), Kissing a Fool (1998), and Living Out Loud (1998). In Rain Man, “At Last” is used in the scene where Tom Cruise teaches Dustin Hoffman how to dance.

In advertising, too, Etta James’ songs have also been used. “At Last,” for example, has appeared in ads for Applebee’s, Heinz Ketchup, and Cadillac, among others. In 1996, after an excerpt of “I Just Wanna Make Love to You.” was featured in a U.K. Diet Coke ad campaign, the song again charted there, reaching the top ten. Additionally, “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” has been featured in a Citi App commercial; Google has used “Security” in another spot; while Walmart has used her music in their holiday and manufacturing ads. LG phones and the NFL Network have also used her music.

Bonnie Raitt, writing in Rolling Stone, April 21, 2005, noted Etta James is simply one of the best singers I’ve ever heard. She’s ferocious…and out-there in a way that few performers have the guts to be…There’s a lot going on in Etta James’ voice — a lot of pain, a lot of life but, most of all, a lot of strength…” Music biographer Peter Guralnick told People magazine in 2006: “Etta always comes through with feeling… She coexists with Aretha Franklin and Billie Holiday.”

Etta James 2004 album, “Blues to the Bone” (No. 4 Blues), also won a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album. Click for Amazon.

Etta James had a special impact on the blues. “A lot of people think the blues is depressing,” Etta told The Los Angeles Times in 1992, “but that’s not the blues I’m singing. When I’m singing blues, I’m singing life…” True enough, but her life was a hard road, and in fact, she lived the blues.

As the Washington Post later put it: “she often made a connection between her music and her anguished life, which included heroin addiction, drastic weight fluctuations and a troubled childhood…. [S]he smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine and shot heroin. She associated with gangsters and pimps. She was arrested for forging prescriptions and writing bad checks. When not in jail, she said, she was involved with abusive men, some of whom nearly beat her to death.”

Indeed, Etta James lived a life of the blues.

Her most famous song, too, “At Last,” is tinged with a bit the blues, but it offers, in part, a kind of haven and resolution of the troubles she had then faced. Helen Brown, writing for the Financial Times, hit upon this in part when she noted:

“…[A]lthough this is a song about finding love, for James it was about finding her emotional core and her place in music after such an unsettled existence [re: her childhood & teen years]. You can feel the ragged relief of homecoming in her tone (passionate but never showy) as her vocal sinks on to and stretches over the lush welcome mat of the string section. There’s such a romantic sense of safe harbour in James’s version that her recording remains popular for first dances at weddings…”

And of course, much beyond that as well.

“The Best Of Etta James,” 20th Century Masters, The Millennium Collection. Click for Amazon & choice of format.

As Cary O’Dell of the Library of Congress wrote at the song’s induction there: “At Last” is chief among Etta James’s great legacy. And no amount of time or other covers of the song, heartfelt though they may be, seem likely to ever diminish it.”

By 2010, Etta James had to cancel concert dates because of her gradually failing health, then suffering from dementia and leukemia. In November 2011, she announced her retirement. In late January 2012, she died from complications from leukemia, as her husband, Artis Mills, and her two sons were by her side. She was 73.

At her passing, tributes from fans and fellow musicians were offered as hundreds of mourners attended her public viewing and funeral in late January 2012. Reverend Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy, and U.S. Rep Maxine Waters offered a remembrance. A statement from President Barack Obama (who was then preparing for his State of Union address) was read at the service, noting: “Etta will be remembered for her legendary voice and her contributions to our nation’s musical heritage,” and that “she will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved her.”

Blues Woman Poster, by Atelier Bagatelle, a New Orleans design studio.

Beyoncé posted a condolences note on her website, which read in part: “This is a huge loss. Etta James was one of the greatest vocalists of our time.” Beyoncé also expressed gratitude for having met and portrayed Etta in the Cadillac Records film, which “taught me so much about myself, and singing her music inspired me to be a stronger artist…”

Musical tributes at the funeral were made by Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera, and Etta’s touring band, The Roots. Aguilera, who performed “At Last” at the service, stated that James was her idol and inspiration, and that in her honor, she performs “At Last” at every concert. Following James’s death, “At Last” again rose in the music charts and into the Top 40. In 2021, it was ranked at No. 115 on Rolling Stone‘s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”

See also at this website, “Strange Fruit: 1939,” a story about the hard times and troubled career of jazz great Billie Holiday and her haunting song about lynching and racial strife; and, “Joplin’s Shooting Star: 1966-1970,” about the rising stardom and short life of rock/blues singer, Janis Joplin. Also at this website, the “Noteworthy Ladies” topics page offers 40 stories on famous women – from Rachel Carson and Jackie Kennedy to the 1960s Girl Groups and Lady Gaga.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. +Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 14 August 2025
Last Update: 14 August 2025

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “At Last: Etta James, 1938-2012,”
PopHistoryDig.com, August 14, 2025.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

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Music at Amazon.com…

“Etta James: The Platinum Collection, 60 Classic Songs On 3 CDs”. Click for Amazon & choice of format.

2008 “Best Of Chess Records,” Original Versions Of Songs in Film ‘Cadillac Records’. Click for Amazon.

Beyonce’s “Renaissance” album, 2022; vinyl, CD, or streaming. Click for Amazon & choice of format.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

“Chess Blues Classics: 1957-1967,” The 50th Anniversary Collection. Click for Amazon.com.

“Muddy Waters Anthology,” 75 blues classics on 3 CDs from the “Father Of Modern Chicago Blues.” Click for Amazon.

Chess Records, “Chuck Berry, His Best,” The 50th Anniversary Collection. Click for Amazon.com.

“Howlin’ Wolf, The Complete RPM & Chess Singles, 1951-1962,” Click for Amazon.com.

Chess Records, “Little Walter, His Best,” The 50th Anniversary Collection. Click for Amazon.com.

“Etta James,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 481-482.

“Etta James,” Wikipedia.org.

“Etta James, Biography,” RollingStone.com.

John Morthland, “Etta James’ Long Search for Stardom,” Rolling Stone, August 10, 1978.

“At Last,” Wikipedia.org.

“Etta James,” Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, RockHall.com, Induction Year: 1993.

David Writz, “Hall of Fame Essay: Etta James,” RockHall.com, 1993.

“Etta James Discography,” Wikipedia.org.

“Chess Records,” Wikipedia.org.

Mike Joyce, “Etta James, Pure Emotion At Birchmere,” Washington Post, September 5, 2001

David Ritz with Etta James, Rage To Survive: The Etta James Story, 2003.

Mark Deming, “Etta James, Artist Bio,” Amazon.com.

Vintage Music Collection, “Etta James – Live 2005,” YouTube.com.

Bonnie Raitt, “Etta James,” Rolling Stone, April 21, 2005.

Red Kelly, “Etta James,” The B Side, RedKelly .blogspot.com, April 17, 2006.

Cary O’Dell, “At Last – Etta James (1961),” Essay for Addition to the National Registry, 2008, U.S. Library of Congress, LOC.gov.

“At Last — Etta James (1961),” Added to the National Registry: 2008, Essay by Bob Gulla.

Beyoncé, “Neighborhood Inaugural Ball ‘At Last’ Performance,” YouTube.com, January 21, 2009.

Devayr Deva, “Beyoncé – At Last – Barack & Michelle Obama,” YouTube.com, 3:12 min, November 5, 2014.

Devin, “Etta James on Beyoncé Snub: ‘I Didn’t Really Mean Anything’,” RapUp.com, Febru-ary 6. 2009.

Jon Pareles, “Life’s Ups and Downs Add Something to a Song” [Etta James at the B. B. King Blues Club & Grill], New York Times /NYtimes.com, May 12, 2009.

Mark Jacobsen, “Etta James and Johnny Otis: The End of a Great R&B Song,” New York Magazine/NYmag.com, January 2012.

Richard Corliss, “A Voice of Gold, a Life of Pain: Etta James, 1938-2012,” Time Magazine / Time.com, January. 20, 2012.

TheGoodDoctor720, “Etta James Story” (6 part series), YouTube.com, January/Febru-ary 2012.

Peter Keepnews, “Etta James Dies at 73; Voice Behind ‘At Last’” New York Times, January 20, 2012.

Adam Bernstein, “Etta James, Grammy-Winning Blues Singer with Pop Appeal, Dies,” Washington Post, January 20, 2012.

Jon Blistein, “Beyoncé, Adele Pay Tribute to Etta James; The Timeless Voice of Etta James Has Inspired Countless Listeners for Decades, and Following Her Passing Today, Her Vocal Successors Are Paying Tribute,” Billboard .com, January 20, 2012.

Robert Jablon, Associated Press, “Legendary Blues Singer Etta James Dies in California from Complications of Leukemia,” January 21, 2012.

AP / ABC News 6, “Etta James Remembered as Triumphant Trailblazer,” 6ABC.com, January 28, 2012.

Charles River Editors, American Legends: The Life of Etta James, 2014. Click for Amazon.

Fame Studios, “Artist of the Month: Etta James,” Fame Back Stage / FameStudios .com, June 2021.

Mike Greenblatt, “Look Back at the Highs and Lows of Etta James’ Career; Blessed with a Talent Was as Wide as the Grand Canyon and Cursed with Demons Just as Immense, the Troubled Singer Poured Her Heart and Soul into Her Music,” Goldmine / GoldmineMag .com, February 6, 2013, updated, January 24, 2024.

“Etta James,” Biography.com, updated: May 12, 2021.

Jan Dalley and David Cheal, Life of a Song: The Stories Behind 100 of the World’s Best-Loved Songs, December 2022, Chambers (publisher), 256 pp. Click for Amazon.

Helen Brown, “At Last — Etta James Poured Her Heart into this Classic Tune; the Singer Cemented the 1941 Track as a Standard and Dozens More Covered it — Including Beyoncé,” Financial Times / FT.com, March 13 2023.

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Books at Amazon.com…

J. Randy Taraborrelli’s “Becoming Beyoncé: The Untold Story,” 2016 paperback, Grand Central Publishing, 512pp. Click for Amazon.

Nadine Cohodas’s “Spinning Blues Into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records,” 2012 paperback, 494pp. Click for Amazon.

Charles River Editors 2016 book, “Billie Holiday and Etta James: The Lives and Legacies of the Famous Jazz Singers,” 80pp. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Oil Industry History

1931-1940, 1941-1950, 1951-1960, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“The Wellsville File”
Sinclair Oil: 1930s-1990s

July 27, 2025 J.D.

In mid-July 1938, a spectacular fire and series of explosions at the Sinclair Oil refinery in Wellsville, New York killed three people and injured at least 75 others. The incident began on a Sunday afternoon, July 17th, and was officially extinguished two days later on Tuesday evening, July 19th, 1938. But over those three days, havoc ensued, as hundreds of firefighters came to battle the inferno. Dozens of storage tanks filled with various volatile mixtures burned and exploded throughout the fire, twisting and destroying refining equipment, resulting in millions of dollars in property damage, three deaths, and many injured.

One of the main explosions of a large tank – or a series of them – is captured during the July 1938 Sinclair Oil refinery fire at Wellsville, New York – a fire that burned for 3 days, killed 3 people & injured at least 75 others.

The fire had begun in the basement of one of the refinery’s processing plants, where a failure of a motor or pump touched off a blaze which later spread to small tanks and barrels of naphtha, which in turn began burning and exploding, spreading the fire throughout the complex. Electric power was soon lost at the refinery as well, and with that, the failure of pumping power to the steam pipe system which was then used for fire suppression. The fire at the Sinclair oil refinery, which had attracted spectators from around the area, was out of control for the next 24 hours or more.

The refinery disaster made national news, with stories by the Associated Press appearing throughout the country, some with photos, and some running on the front page, as shown below at left in The Lowell Sun of Massachusetts.

The Lowell Sun newspaper of Lowell, MA, ran a front page story on the Wellsville refinery fire: “New Blast At Oil Refinery Adds To Losses Now Set At $15,000,000.”

NYTimes story on the Sinclair Refinery blaze focuses on exploding giant storage tank that went airborne. More on that later below.

More detail on the Wellsville refinery disaster follows below. But first, some background on the region and the Sinclair Oil Company.

First Oil Boom

Welllsville, in SW New York on PA line, close to oil’s first discovery at Titusville in 1859.

The town of Wellsville is located in southwestern New York state, just north of the Pennsylvania line. Oil fever had come to the Wellsville area in the mid-to-late 1800s, as this town was located just north of the Pennsylvania oil region where the early oil industry was born with Edward Drake’s famous discovery of oil in 1859 at Titusville, Pennsylvania.

In addition to Wellsville, another nearby New York town, named “Petrolia,”was also part of the early oil boom, as oil was also discovered there, somewhat later, in 1879. The name “Petrolia” has also been used to define the larger New York / Pennsylvania oil region at that time. A recent book on the topic – Petrolia: The Landscape of America’s First Oil Boom, by Brian Black – recounts some of the history of the NY-PA region that became America’s largest oil producer between 1859 and 1873. That book also describes the region’s “descent into environmental hell,” as the boom played out during those years.

In any case, by 1901, an oil refinery had been built in Wellsville to process both local and Pennsylvania crude oil, and it operated then as the Wellsville Refining Co. for nearly 20 years By 1919, however, a larger oil company, Sinclair Refining Co., purchased the Wellsville refinery and would operate it there for the next several decades, into the 1950s.

A late 1920s-early-1930s postcard, with a painted rendering of the Wellsville refinery, shows the Sinclair operation in its rural setting of Allegany County in southwestern New York. The town of Wellsville itself was about a mile or so away.

This mid-1930s aerial photo shows the layout of the Sinclair refinery at Wellsville, with storage tanks, etc,.

Sinclair Oil

By the 1930s, under the ownership of Sinclair Oil, the Wellsville refinery was expanded and improved. The refinery grounds, plus ancillary areas, including a landfill for wastes, would grow to encompass about 100 total acres.

As shown in the photo at left, there would also be a number of storage tanks at the complex. A rail yard can also be faintly seen in the top left of the photo. The refinery site was also bordered in part by the Genessee River.

In any case, by the 1930s, the Wellsville refinery had become one of Sinclair’s largest refineries.

Sinclair Oil itself, had begun in 1901, as a Kansas pharmacist named, Harry Ford Sinclair, became engaged in trading oil leases, That work took him to the newly opened Oklahoma oil fields. By 1913 he would own more than sixty oil companies, most of which were then in Oklahoma. He later moved his business headquarters to New York City.

In 1916, he formed the Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation, the same year he bought the Cudahy Refining Company of Chicago which itself owned several pipelines and refineries. So, by the time Sinclair bought the Wellsville refinery in 1919, Sinclair Oil was a well-known company.

A 1920s Sinclair Oils image.

By then, the automobile was coming on the scene. Ford Motor Co’s production of the Model-T, for example, had surpassed 1 million in 1921 and 1922. And by the end of the decade, over 15 million Model-Ts had been produced. Sinclair, had already been servicing this growing auto market, and by 1922, had opened the first modern service station in Chicago, offering oil changes and maintenance in addition to gasoline. In 1926, the company introduced a high-octane premium gasoline, demonstrating its early capabilities in fuel technology.

Sinclair, however, and its founder, Harry Sinclair, were not without scandal. In 1922, Sinclair was found to have received favorable treatment for a public land oil lease for is Mammoth Oil subsidiary at Teapot Dome, Wyoming (no competitive bidding) by Interior Secretary Albert Fall – in what became known as the “Teapot Dome” scandal. The scandal, which also involved another company on another lease, included illicit payments to Secretary Fall by Sinclair and another oil executive. The whole affair became a major scandal, with Congressional and Supreme Court drama through 1929, ending in Sinclair’s case, with a conviction for contempt of Congress and a six-month prison sentence for Mr. Sinclair, after which he resumed his business career.

Sinclair the company, meanwhile, through the Depression, continued acquiring oil companies. In 1932, Prairie Oil and Gas of the southern U.S., and Rio Grande Oil of California were added to Sinclair’s growing empire. By 1933 the company was the eighth largest oil company in America boasting the following assets: 14,000 miles of pipelines; 6,446 railroad tank cars; 100,000 tons of ocean tankers; nine deep-water terminals; 2,170 bulk plants; 8,100 service stations (company-owned or held under long-term lease); 21,000 other retail outlets, and 20,000 employees.

Sinclair’s famous green dinosaur mascot became wildly successful.

The Sinclair pitch: “Dinosaur-era” PA oil.

By 1930, Sinclair had also begun its retail advertising and national marketing strategy featuring what would become its famous green dinosaur. This campaign had a connection to Wellsville-refined Pennsylvania oil – described by Sinclair as “Pennsylvania-grade crudes” – those “laid down during the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.” Sinclair’s campaign would feature a dozen different dinosaurs, and became a great success.

Photo from one end of the Sinclair oil refinery at Wellsville, NY showing two storage tanks there – one far left and another smaller tank far right – painted with the company’s dinosaur logo, likely from the 1930s.

And by 1932, one of the big dinosaur images – then known as the brontosaurus – became so popular that Sinclair registered its as a company trademark, soon to be seen throughout company literature, advertising, refinery storage tanks, and more. A gigantic Sinclair dinosaur-themed exhibit graced the 1933-1934 Chicago World’s Fair. That exhibit drew more than 24,000 people daily. In 1935, Sinclair issued a dinosaur stamp album and released accompanying dinosaur stamps weekly at its service stations. The first printing of albums sold out within 48 hours after a single network-radio broadcast of the offer. The dinosaur connection would prove to be a brilliant marketing ploy that would stay with the company for decades to this day.

…Back At The Fire

In July 1938, meanwhile, back at the Wellsville refinery fire, volunteer firefighters from surrounding towns, and across the state line from Pennsylvania, had come to fight the blaze. Before it was over, more than 200 volunteer firefighters from 20 towns would be involved in fighting the fire. One report filed by the Associated Press during the fire fight on July 18, 1938 noted that exploding tanks at the refinery were hampering the efforts of the firefighters. “Frequent rumbling explosions threatened new hours of terror tonight as the flame-swept $15,000,000 Sinclair Oil Refinery…,” said the AP story. Firefighters were especially on edge, given some 300 storage tanks of various sizes, containing various fluids, found throughout the refinery. Many of these were on fire. More than a dozen had already exploded in the early hours of the blaze.

These two photos capture the fire and some explosions (2nd photo) at the Sinclair Oil Refinery at Wellsville, New York, July 1938.

“Anxious firemen, weary but still determined to quench the inferno worked near hot, bulging tanks with little heed for their own safety,” said the AP news report. “…Now and then,” the report continued, “the plates in a tank would begin to shift and swell perceptibly. An alarm would go out. Firemen would run pell-mell to safer quarters. Sometimes the tanks held. Several times they blew up with terrific force. About 16 tanks had exploded by a late hour today….”

Part of a New York Times story, July 19, 1938.

One giant 50,000-barrel tank of highly inflammable naphtha caught fire, but a crew of 100 tired firemen, endangering their own lives, moved close enough to snuff out the fire with chemicals.

Other dangers at the site emerged as fires once put out, blazed up anew, as occurred in the ruins of the dewaxing plant and power house, then flaring very close to a naphtha plant, filled with high explosive chemicals.

With the continuing danger of exploding tanks, emergency calls wet out to Western New York and Pennsylvania for special fire-fighting equipment and chemicals. And later, special American LaFrance chemical fire trucks and more chemicals arrived via the Erie railroad. Still, Wellsville Fire Chief, Hollin Johnston estimated damage – including business, stock, and equipment losses — would amount to about $5,000,000.

At one point during the battle, firemen hastily constructed an earthen dam in the refinery to stop the advance of flaming liquids, as there was a fear of these flaming rivulets not only spreading within the refinery, but of masses of floating, flaming oil reaching the Genesee River and traveling downstream into Wellsville. Fortunately, the earthen dam held.

However, the most dramatic and lethal incident of the 1938 Sinclair refinery blaze at Wellsville was the giant storage tank that went airborne after catching fire.

Big Flying Tank

About two hours into the blaze, one of the refinery’s big tanks – one with a mixture of 2,500 barrels of lube oil and naphtha – started to burn. According to reports at the scene, “as this tank burned it made a low rumbling sound, then some hissing, as it was wrenched from its ground moorings as though it were a toy.” The huge 10-ton tank, filled with it fluids, was then explosively propelled into the sky and across the Genesee River, a distance of more than 500 feet – flying in the air in “a great fiery arc, dripping liquid flame” as it went.

Life magazine photo of “flying giant oil tank” from 1938 Sinclair Refinery explosion, with tank shown just before impact. Close inspection near the bottom of this photo will reveal very tiny figures on the hillside – spectators who had come there to see the fire that day, now running for their lives. Photo, W. H. Kresge.

The giant flaming tank landed on the opposite river bank, where a crowd of spectators had assembled to watch the blaze, believing they were at a safe distance. Upon landing, the flaming tank instantly killed three spectators, burning others. The hurtling, flaming tank was captured in two photos by a Life magazine photographer, one in mid-flight and another just before landing (see above).…The big tank flew across the river in “a great fiery arc, dripping liquid flame” as it went, landing near a crowd of spectators and killing 3…

The editors at Life magazine named the amazing photo of the flying storage tank fireball their “picture of the week,” and described how it was photographed as follows:

…Photographer W. H. Kresge stood on a hill in Wellsville, N.Y., on July 18 {1936], taking pictures of a million-dollar fire in the Sinclair Refining Co.’s plant. Between him and the refinery flowed the Geneses River. Spectators had gathered on the near bank. Suddenly from the plant came an earth-shaking explosion. Into the air rose a ten-ton steel tank, carrying 2,000 barrels of naphtha. The people started running. In the cloud of flame the tank cleared a low building, rocketed 1,000 ft, across the river and dropped among the crowd. Photographer Kresge caught it just before it landed. Killed were three people in the crowd, which you can see as little figures running for their lives.”

Back at the refinery blaze, hundreds of firemen continued to battle the inferno through Sunday night, with periodic tank explosions refreshing the blaze. There were about 300 storage tanks of various sizes at the refinery, each containing explosive liquids.

Early Monday morning, about 4 a.m, now in the second day of the blaze, one tank exploded and landed atop another tank. Firefighters redoubled their efforts again. By Tuesday morning, on the third day of the battle, the steam suppression system had been restored and the fire was then beginning to be brought under control. Minor explosions and flare ups continued, but the fire was mostly out by 6 pm that evening.

Front-page Associated Press aerial photo of Wellsville refinery fire still burning on Monday, July 18, 1938, as published by The Potter Enterprise (Coudersport, PA). Thursday, Jul 21, 1938 with headline, “As Refinery Fire Appeared From Air Monday.”

In the end, there was much destruction at the refinery, including 14 chilling towers, a dewaxing plant and a dozen big storage tanks – including the one that had been propelled across the Genessee River. Electric lines that ran near the refinery had also been knocked out for a time, leaving a number of small communities in the area, without power, including: Wellsville, Whitesville, Andover, Hallsport, Stannards, Lower Riverside, and West Wellsville.

In the cleanup afterwards, the tank that had blown across the river had embedded part of its gear works into the ground, and even tractors could not move the tank shell. Originally the 2,500-barrel-capacity tank had been 25 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter, weighing tons. The immovable tank shell on the river bank was then cut into halves with an acetylene torch and pulled apart by a bulldozer. It was then that the third body of one of the spectators was found, pressed into the earth.

Photograph of the aftermath of the July 1938 fire at the Sinclair oil refinery at Wellsville, NY showing a collection of various refinery tanks scarred and damaged from the blaze, some crumpled and ripped apart.

While the 1938 fire was a significant event causing major damage and loss of life, the available information surveyed so far at this writing does not indicate whether an investigation was held into the Sinclair accident, or if any corrective actions, safety recommendations, penalties, and/or law-suits/reparations resulted given the personal injuries and loss of life that had occurred.

Following the 1938 fire, the Wellsville refinery was rebuilt by Sinclair and reportedly “played a significant role during World War II” and would continue to operate for the next 20 years. However, as regional oil supplies dwindled in later years, the refinery struggled economically.

This 1950s aerial photo shows the town of Wellsville, NY and the Genesee River in the foreground, and also in the distance, upper right, the Sinclair Oil Refinery, then still operating.

In February 1958, a second significant fire took out a vital cracking unit, dealing a final blow to the refinery. That fire also drew spectators from the area, and occurred during a snow storm. The in-house Sinclair Refinery fire crew battled the blaze and eventually put it out. The refinery thereafter was shut down, and by April 1958, was formally closed by Sinclair. At the time, it was Sinclair’s smallest refinery, then processing 3,500 barrels of Pennsylvania crude per day.

In 1969, Sinclair Refining merged with the Atlantic-Richfield Company (ARCO), and ARCO thereafter became a “responsible party” for some subsequent clean up at the Wellsville refinery site (more on this below). In April 2000, BP Amoco (now BP) acquired ARCO for $26.8 billion, then becoming responsible for the site thereafter. Today, parts of the site have been repurposed, as a branch campus of Alfred State College now occupies some of the site.

BP placed this explanatory historic marker on the former site of the Sinclair Oil Refinery at Wellsville, NY, in the early 2000s, some years after much of the site clean-up had occurred there, as described below.

Toxic Aftermath

Wastes & Pollution

During the operating history of the Wellsville refinery – over nearly 60 years – the grounds and surrounding environment there, including the town of Wellsville, took a measure of abuse.

EPA found that tetraethyl lead sludge generated in the refining process was temporarily buried in pits within the refinery area.EPA would later investigate and report on its findings at the 100-acre site, revealing quite a compendium of toxic wastes at the site and its adjacent ten-acre landfill. During Sinclair’s refinery operations at Wellsville, and before,EPA found that tetraethyl lead sludge generated in the refining process was temporarily buried in pits within the refinery area. The sludge was then oxidized or burned, causing the creation of lead oxide. The burned sludges were eventually reburied within an adjacent landfill located along the southernmost portion of the site. Other wastes generated during the course of the refinery operations included tank sludges from a solvent plant, sludges from an oil separator, acids, pesticides, waste oil and heavy metals. While these wastes were primarily disposed of at the landfill, manufacturing and waste handling operations at the time also led to contamination of refinery surface soils, subsurface soils, and groundwater.

Although the dump had been closed since 1958, and the refinery shut down in 1963, waste sludges and spilled petroleum had been seeping into groundwater at the refinery site and also into the Genesee River from the landfill. The river was used as a source of drinking water by the town of Wellsville, located 1.25 miles from the site. The Genesee also had changed course somewhat over the years, and had begun eating into the landfill area. Polluted groundwater in the refinery area indicated three distinct and underground plumes in the shallow aquifer.Effects upon fish, waterfowl, and mammals were determined by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to have been significant into the early 1980s, if not beyond.

Volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds and metals were identified in the refinery area. Sampling and analysis indicated the presence of arsenic and lead in surface soils at action levels, and at much lower levels in subsurface soils. Polluted groundwater in the refinery area indicated three distinct and underground plumes in the shallow aquifer – “northern,” “central” and “southern.” These plumes included levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, nitrobenzene, naphthalene, arsenic, chromium and lead above action levels selected for the site.

At the refinery’s 10-acre landfill site over the years, a number of wastes were deposited, including: cloth filters used for straining oil; sludges from an oil/water separator; tank sludges from the solvent plant; “off-specification” products; oil-soaked soils and sludges (deposited daily); burnt Fullers Earth (used for filtering); tank sludges (deposited weekly); acid spills; cinders and ash from the coal-fired boiler plant; tetraethyl lead; pesticides; waste oil; and heavy metals.

A 1981 site inspection revealed that debris from the eroding landfill area has washed into and contaminated the Genesee River, and EPA later detected “oily material” entering the water intake of the town’s water treatment plant. In 1983, ARCO – EPA later detected “oily material” entering the water intake of the town’s [Wellsville’s] water treatment plant. which had earlier acquired Sinclair, thereby becoming the site’s responsible party – removed about 10 drums of waste material from the Genesee River that had entered the river from flooding of the landfill.

Reports from the community and site inspections conducted by the New York State Department of Environ-mental Conservation (DEC) indicated that the site warranted inclusion on the National Priorities List (NPL) of toxic sites, also known as Superfund. In 1983 the refinery site was declared a Superfund site by EPA. Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), which had acquired Sinclair in 1969?, was then designated the “potential responsible party” for the refinery pollution.

In 1985, EPA authorized an initial remedial measure at the site, consisting of the relocation of the surface water intake for the Village of Wellsville’s public water supply. The intake was moved to a location some distance upstream from the site in order to eliminate the possibility of landfill wastes contaminating the Village’s drinking water supply.In 1983 the Sinclair refinery site was declared a Superfund site by EPA and placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) of toxic sites. The relocation of the new water intake was completed in the Spring of 1988. According to one report, ARCO paid $3.3 million for Wellsville to relocate its water supply

In the early 1990s, EPA accepted a proposed $15.5 million ARCO plan to focus on the clean-up of the refinery site. By 1994, the surface soils at the main refinery site were excavated and replaced and revegetation followed. Ongoing at the time as well was pumping and treatment of contaminated site groundwater, plus monitoring of surface water, groundwater, and soil gas to track potential contaminant migration from subsurface soils. There was also separate work on the landfill portion of the site. In 1992, a partial rechannelization of the Genesee River was completed to protect the landfill from erosion and flooding. At this time, drum removal, excavation, consolidation, and backfilling of the landfill area was also completed. By 1994, the capping and fencing of the landfill was finished.

Since 1997, the EPA has conducted and publicly reported “five-year-reviews” on the Wellsville site cleanup and status to ensure that implemented remedies protect public health and the environment and that they continue function as intended. While the remediation work at the site was essentially completed in 2010, the EPA and DEC continue periodic sampling and maintenance at the site. One of the most recent “five year reviews” was issued in 2017.

The Fossil Legacy

The “Wellsville file” offers one case study of a portion of the fossil fuel industry’s performance and impact over a 100-year period – from oil boom through toxic clean-up. In the U.S. alone, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other cases of fossil-fuel-related performance history – history that tells of the industry’s reckless and often wasteful discovery phase, through its considerable, and yes, decades-long beneficial economic contributions (jobs, growth, wealth, invention, etc), as well as the worker risks, community dangers, and environmental impacts that came during those same periods of prosperity.

Whether abandoned oil and gas wells, pipeline leaks, refinery fires and pollution, tank farm contamination, gas station leaks, tanker truck accidents, offshore pollution, shipping spills, etc, the fossil fuel legacy of social and environmental costs – not even considering climate change – offers a considerable ledger of damages. To this day, the industry’s “routine” and operational impacts continue. And while some of these “externalities,” as economists call them, have been contained through regulation and improved technology, the net result has not been a clean or inherently safe fossil fuels industry. As a consequence, societies across the globe continue to absorb these costs, with ongoing risks to workers, the environment, and public health and safety. The alternative, of course, is the need to adopt clean and safe energy sources – a prospect that appears only possible if pushed by unyielding public demand.

For additional stories at this website on the performance history of the oil and petrochemical industries, see the “Oil & Petrochemical History” topics page with a dozen or more story choices.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: July 27, 2024
Last Update: July 27, 2024

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Wellsville File, Sinclair Oil:
1930s-1990s,”PopHistoryDig.com, July 27, 2024.

____________________________________

Oil-Related History at Amazon.com…

Brian Black’s book, “Petrolia: The Landscape of America's First Oil Boom,” Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, June 2000, Click for Amazon.

Upton Sinclair’s classic 1927 novel, “Oil!” includes Teapot Dome scandal & became basis for 2007 film, “There Will Be Blood.” Click for Amazon.

Ron Chernow’s 2004 best-seller, “Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller,” 832 pp, Vintage Paperback. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Abridged version of Ida Tarbell’s classic profile of J.D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Co., “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” 272 pp. Click for Amazon.

John T. Arnold & Craig E. Colten (ed), “A Thousand Ways Denied: The Environmental Legacy of Oil in Louisiana ,” 2020, LSU Press, 282 pp. Click for Amazon.

2017 book: “One Minute After Sunrise: The Story of the Standard Oil Refinery Fire of 1955,” 246 pp. Click for copy.

2008 book: “Failure to Learn: The BP Texas City Disaster,” 200pp. Click for copy.

“Early Days of Oil: A Pictorial History of the Beginnings of the Industry in Pennsylvania,” by Paul H. Giddens, 1st edition, 1948, Princeton University Press. Click for book.

“Costly Fire Sweeps Great Oil Refinery; Four Men Are Killed and Scores Injured as Storage Tanks Explode And Shower Flames,” Madera Tribune, Number 65, 18 July 1938, p. 1.

“Exploding Oil Tank Leaps River, Kills 4; Falls Into Crowd Watching Fire at Sinclair Wellsville Plant,” New York Times, July 18, 1938, p. 1.

Wellsville, New York, Volunteer Fire Co., “Sinclair Refinery Fire Booklet,” July 17, 18, 19, 1938.”

Associated Press, “New Blast Spreads Havoc in Oil Fire,” San Pedro News Pilot (CA), Volume 11, Number 113, 18 July 1938.

Wellsville, N.Y., July 18 (Associated Press), “Exploding Tanks Hamper Firemen,” The Arizona Republican (Phoenix, Arizona), Tuesday, July 19, 1938.

“Oil Fire Roars On; Spread Is Halted. Tons of Foamite Are Used in Fight to Keep Flames from Gasoline ‘Tank Farm’. Village Still in Peril; Fear Remains That River May Become Blazing Torrent; 3 Dead at Wellsville; Full Doom Seemed Certain,” New York Times, July 19, 1938, p. 38.

Associated Press, aerial photo of Wellsville refinery fire still burning on Monday, July 18, 1938, as published by The Potter Enterprise (Coudersport, PA). Thursday, Jul 21, 1938 with headline, “As Refinery Fire Appeared From Air Monday.”

“Tank at Refinery Fire Drops Death on Three, Sinclair Refining, Wellsville, New York,” Life, August 1, 1938.

“Sinclair Refinery, Wellsville NY” (commentary with postcard, Tichenor Bros. Inc, circa 1927-1938), OpenValley.org, Ken Cooper, contributor.

“Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, OKhistory.org.

“1938 Sinclair Fire Wellsville NY, by Allen Corwin and the Wellsville NY Historical Society,” YouTube.com, Posted by Thelma Rogers G&H Society, (short film [5:18 minutes] of the 1938 Sinclair Fire as photographed by Volunteer Firefighter Allen Corwin and donated to the Thelma Rogers Genealogical and Historical Society by his grandson, Allen Corwin Jr.), January 12, 2015.

“Sinclair Cracking Still Is Struck by Fire Due to Failure of Line; Crew of Five Escapes Without Injury; Big Crowd is Drawn to Scene,” Wellsville Daily Reporter, February 10, 1958, p. 4.

“Sinclair to Close Refinery,” New York Times, April 11, 1958, p. 32.

Phil Shabecoff, “45 Toxic Waste Sites Listed as Health Risks,” New York Times, July 24, 1982, p. 8.

US Fish and Wildlife Service, “Pre-assessment Screen and Determination for the Sinclair Refinery Superfund Site in Allegany County, New York,” May 2015.

Superfund Site: Sinclair Refinery Wellsville, NY, Site Documents & Data, EPA.gov.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Hazardous Waste Sites: Descriptions on Current National Priorities List, October 1984, HW 8.5, Washington, D.C., December 1984.

SMC Martin Inc., Valley Forge, PA, “Feasibility Study for Sinclair Landfill Site, Wellsville, New York (Draft), Volume 2 of 2: Appendices, Prepared For: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, 1985, 204 pp.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “More Work On Sinclair Oil Superfund Site In Allegheny County, New York To Start At End Of Month,” EPA News, October 19, 1990.

“EPA Proposes $15.5 Million Clean-Up Remedy For Superfund Site In Wellsville,” EPA News, October 1, 1991.

“Sinclair Refinery; S. Brooklyn Ave,” Toxic Sites.us.

Local History, “Toppling Sinclair Stack Marks the End of an Era; Industry That Once Employed Hundreds and Kept the Great Depression at Bay Is Now Only a Memory,” Patriot and Free Press (Cuba, NY), November 3-9, 1993 (New York State Digital Library – Fulton History).

“Sinclair Fire 1938 – Paddock Collection,” Allegany County Historical Society, Allegany History.org.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 2, New York, NY, “Five-Year Review Report Sinclair Refinery Site, Wellsville, New York,” September 39, 1997.

U.S. EPA, Region 2, New York, NY, “Five-Year Review Report, Sinclair Refinery Site, Village and Town of Wellsville, Allegany County, New York,” September 2007

U.S. EPA, Region 2, New York, NY, “Fourth Five-year Review Report for Sinclair Refinery Superfund Site, Allegany County, New York,” September 12, 2012, 44pp. (PDF).

U.S. EPA, Community Update EPA Completes Work At The Sinclair Refinery Site in Wellsville, NY,” DEC.NY.gov, December 2012.

Ilena Peng and Jessie Blaeser, “New York’s Once-Booming Oil Industry and the Risky Wells it Left Behind,” CityandStateNY.com, May 9, 2022.

Kathryn Ross, VP, Thelma Rogers Genealogical and Historical Society, “Wellsville’s Dinosaur, How the Sinclair Refinery Impacted the World” (re: historical program open to the public), Wellsville Sun, April 3, 2023.

Allen Kerkeslager, “Triple Divide Trail System Strategic Plan,” Genesee River Wilds Project, GeneseeRiverWilds.org, Belmont, NY, 2011.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, “Wage Chronology: 1941- 77 Atlantic Richfield and the Oil Workers (Former Sinclair Oil Facilities),” 1976, Bulletin 1915, 46 pp.

Alison Laurence, “Afterlives of Extinction: The Politics of Display in the Modem United States,” Submitted to the Program in Science, Technology, and Society on June 14, 2019 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology, September 2019, 293 pp.

________________________________

Oil/Petrochem Books at Amazon.com…

Stephen McGinty’s 2008 book, “Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster,” Macmillan, Click for Amazon.

Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” Penguin Books. 2013. Click for copy.

Christopher Leonard’s 2019 book, “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries...” Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Print & Publishing

2001-Today

“Hubris Maximus”
Book on Musk, 2025

March 24, 2025 J.D.

Faiz Siddiqui’s 2025 book, “Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk.” Click for copy at Amazon.

In April 2025, a new book Elon Musk appeared, using the intriguing title, Hubris Maximus. It is written by Washington Post reporter, Faiz Siddiqui.

Here’s what Amazon.com has posted about the 336-page book published by St. Martin’s Press:

The rise, fall, and revival of the Caesar of Silicon Valley.

Elon Musk has cast himself as the savior of humanity, an altruistic force whose fortune is tied to noble pursuits from halting our dependence on fossil fuels to colonizing Mars. Once frequently heralded as a modern-day Edison, Musk has taken up a new place in the public consciousness with his growing desire to disrupt not just the automotive and space industries but the policies that shape our nation, placing him at the center of America’s most complex undertakings in manufacturing, politics, and defense and technology, even as his increasingly erratic personal behavior has raised questions about his stability and judgement.

Musk famously leads his companies from a bully pulpit, eroding guardrails and cutting through red tape whenever possible with little regard for the fallout as long as it serves his larger goals. Many in his orbit have seen their lives upended or their careers throttled by believing in his utopian vision. As the scale of the wagers he makes with his fortune and concerns about his credibility have grown in recent years, he alternately seems to be in complete command or on the verge of a meltdown. Yet in the long run, he has only become wealthier, and now the stakes have risen. Thanks to astute political maneuvering, Musk is no longer limited to gambling with a company’s bottom line or the livelihoods of his workers; he is poised to apply his uncompromising approach to business to the foundational rules and regulations that hold our society together.

At a moment when America’s tech gods are more influential than ever, Hubris Maximus is a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of lionizing magnetic leaders. Washington Post journalist Faiz Siddiqui offers a gripping, detailed portrait of a singularly messy and lucrative period in Musk’s career, as well as a case study in the power of using one’s platform to shape the public narrative in a world that can’t turn away from its screens.

Among reviewer blurbs for Hubris Maximus, are the following:

“Siddiqui blends insightful reporting with prescient analysis to give an authoritative look at one of the world’s most polarizing figures. He captures the ambition of Elon Musk’s innovations while also holding power to account, questioning the societal and cultural impact at the heart of his transformation. In this time, when Musk’s influence is tangible in everything from how information is shared to the race for space colonization, Siddiqui’s work could not be more vital.”
-Astead Herndon, host of the New York Times political podcast “The Run-Up”

An earlier, pre-Trump 2.0 book on Musk by Walter Isaacson, published in Sept 2023 by Simon & Schuster (668pp), offers a thorough & probing biography. Click for Amazon.

“Siddiqui dissects the rise and psychological unraveling of one of the most influential and controversial figures of our time. Combining meticulous research with vivid storytelling, he reveals how Musk’s bold vision and unchecked ambition transformed industries, reshaped public narratives, and courted chaos. From Tesla’s triumphs to Twitter’s disasters, this gripping book exposes the cost of power without accountability in a world that idolizes innovation.”
-Bradley Hope, Pulitzer Prize finalist and coauthor, Billion Dollar Whale

“An electrifying masterpiece of investigative journalism, offering a riveting deep dive into the rise and fall of Elon Musk, and the definitive account of his transformation from inspirational entrepreneur to a dangerous and polarizing figure. With unmatched clarity and depth, Siddiqui dissects Musk’s power and influence. The book is a gripping cautionary tale and a masterful cultural critique-essential reading for anyone captivated (or confounded) by the most controversial billionaire of our time.”
-Taylor Lorenz, Author of Extremely Online

“A timely look at the mercurial billionaire now as well known in politics as in business…A revealing portrait of a man whom, though chaotic in the extreme, the author considers to be ‘inevitable.’”
–Kirkus Reviews

Faiz Siddiqui is a technology journalist who writes for the Washington Post and has covered companies such as Tesla, Uber and Twitter (now X) for the Business Desk. His reporting has focused on transportation, social media and government transformation, among other issues. His work has been recognized by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing and he has earned multiple Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence and Hearst Journalism awards. His writing has also appeared in the Boston Globe and NPR.

His 336-page book on Musk is published by St. Martin’s Press.

See also at this website the “Print & Publishing” topics page for more stories in that category. Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 24 March 2025
Last Update: 1 October 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: JackDoyle/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Hubris Maximus: Book on Musk, 2025,”
PopHistoryDig.com, March 24, 2025.

____________________________________

More Books on Musk at Amazon.com…

Gregory Quarles’ 2024 book, “The Elon Musk Effect: How Donald Trump Gained from Billionaire’s Support...” 205pp. Click for Amazon.

Asher Fenn’s 2025 book, “Elon Musk: Architect or Anarchist?: A Biography of Innovation, Power, & the Ethics of Influence.” Click for Amazon.

Kate Conger & Ryan Mac’s 2024 book, ”Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter.” Penguin Press, 480pp. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Ashlee Vance's 2017 book, "Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and The Quest for A Fantastic Future." Click for Amazon.

Book Posting & Review at Amazon.com, Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk, by Faiz Siddiqui (release date: April 22, 2025).

Book Review, Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk, by Faiz Siddiqui (release date: May 6, 2025), Kirkus Reviews, Posted Online: March 4, 2025, Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025.

Book Review, Hubris Maximus The Shattering of Elon Musk, by Faiz Siddiqui, 2025, posted at
Google Books / Google.com, 2025.

Elon Musk page at Amzon.com.

Dennis Kneale, former CNBC host and Forbes editor, published his book, The Leadership Genius of Elon Musk, in January 2025 – described as “an admiring portrait.” Click for copy at Amazon.

“Behind The Musk: The Making of a Con Man | A Elon Musk Documentary | Scary Hours Produc-tions,” YouTube.com.

Films on Elon Musk listed at Amazon.com (DVDs, Prime Video, etc). Click for page.

Other documentary films on Elon Musk include: “Elon Musk: To the Limit” (2023): “Elon Musk: The Real Life Iron Man: (2018); and, “Elon Musk – Superhero or Supervillain?” (BBC Select).

____________________________________

Books on Technology & Twitter at Amazon.com…

Ben Mezrich’s 2023 book, “Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History.” Click for copy.

Kara Swisher’s 2024 book, “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story,” Simon & Schuster, 320 pp. Click for copy at Amazon.

Kurt Wagner’s 2024 book, “Battle for the Bird: Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and the $44 Billion Fight for Twitter’s Soul.” Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: The Kennedys & Coal

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000

“Kennedy Coal History”
Bobby & Ted: 1968-2008

February 18, 2025 J.D.

The Kennedy family of Massachusetts, famous for its members in prominent political posts during the 20th and early 21st centuries — not least, John F. Kennedy as President in 1960-63 — also figures in various involvements with coal, from investments to regulation. The paternal grandfather of JFK, RFK, and Ted Kennedy – Patrick J., or “P.J.”, as he was called – had an investment in the Suffolk Coal Company, an interest he held at the time of his death. “PJ’s” son, Joseph P. Kennedy – father of JFK, RFK and Ted Kennedy – is reported to have made a killing in a 1922 stock deal ($45 million in today’s money by some estimates) speculating on Ford Motor Company’s acquisition of the Pond Creek Coal Co. in Kentucky. And Robert F. Kennedy’s wife, Ethel Skakel (married in 1950) was the daughter of multi-millionaire George Skakel who was a principal in The Great Lakes Coal & Coke Company of the 1920s.

August 1963: The Kennedy brothers, from left, Robert, Edward and then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy, in Washington, D.C. (Associated Press). All three would become involved with helping to improve the lot of coal communities and coal miners in one way or another, whether through community assistance programs and/or federal regulation. The story here focuses on the activities of Bobby and Ted.

Yet in subsequent generations, as members of the Kennedy family coursed through American politics in the mid-20th century, they became involved variously with public policies aimed at helping coal communities — whether regulating strip mining, exposing corporate exploitation of coal-state resources, pushing deep-mine safety legislation, or securing economic support for hard-pressed coal communities. Kennedy family members generally worked to help coal miners and their communities, or to spotlight coal-related environmental problems and mine safety issues. Another story at this website, for example, has covered JFK’s focus on West Virginia coal communities as he campaigned for the White House in 1960. What follows here are the activities of his brothers, Bobby and Ted Kennedy, as they worked to bring national attention and/or federal regulation to coal mining communities and coal mine safety.

1968

RFK & Kentucky

After President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, his successor, President Lyndon Johnson, enacted the federal “War on Poverty,” inspired in part by the poverty found in Appalachia. Johnson’s programs were aimed at alleviating those conditions throughout the region. In February 1968, Robert Kennedy, then on the cusp of jumping into the race for president, toured a string of towns in the coal regions of southeastern Kentucky. He went there to see for himself how this part of Appalachia was faring. His two-day “poverty tour” in February 1968 covered some 200 miles and included stops at a number of towns, among them: Neon, Grassy Creek, Mousie, Fisty, Jackhorn, Cody, and others.

February 1968: Robert F. Kennedy, center, looking down, no top coat, with following crowd of onlookers, staff and media, as he makes his tour of Eastern Kentucky, here on Liberty St., Hazard, KY, photo, Paul Gordon. Click for RFK books at Amazon.

RFK, who had served as JFK’s Attorney General, was now a U.S. Senator from New York. And on this trip, he would make scheduled and unscheduled visits with the residents of Eastern Kentucky, including walking tours of small communities, roadside visits with individual families, stops at one-room schoolhouses, speeches at courthouses and colleges, and a look at one strip mine site. As a member of Senate’s Labor and Public Welfare Committee’s Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower and Poverty, Kennedy would also hold two field hearings soliciting the views of area residents. A one-room schoolhouse in Vortex hosted one of Kennedy’s hearings, and the other was held in a school gymnasium at Fleming-Neon.

Robert F. Kennedy greeting residents of Eastern Kentucky as he made his way across the region on his two-day tour.

In Vortex, Kennedy listened to local residents from Wolfe, Breathitt and Madison counties. Some who spoke noted how hard it was to make ends meet, others offering suggestions on what the government should be doing.

In the town of Barwick in Breathitt County, Kennedy visited a one-room schoolhouse that was in session. He spoke with each student individually, asking them what they’d had to eat that day.

Reportedly, the teacher there, Bonnie Jean Carroll, always made sure the kids had a big meal at school to be sufficiently nourished. She would send the boys to walk two miles into town to get milk and other things, while the girls cooked. According to some local history assembled at the RFKinEKY.org website, “Bonnie and her students did a lot of cooking in the classroom; they made a big, hot meal every day.”

February 1968: Robert F. Kennedy in Neon, Kentucky where he listened to local residents tell of hardships.

Public Hearing

RFK and party traveled from Whitesburg to the gym in Fleming-Neon where they conducted a three-and-a-half hour hearing. Twenty eastern Kentuckians gave testimony, including: nationally known author and Kentucky native, Harry Caudill, Judge Wooton of Leslie County, LKLP director Stafford, coal miner Cliston Johnson, and David Zegeer of Beth-Elkhorn Coal Company.

Evarts High School student Tommy Duff testified about school conditions, while other students protested, some with paper bags over their heads. They were opposing, the proposed flooding of Kingdom Come Creek by the Beth-Elkhorn Coal Company, which would have displaced their community (In 1956, Consolidation Coal Company, which had been the dominant company in the area for decades, sold its coal interests to Bethlehem Steel, and their mining subsidiary was Beth-Elkhorn). During the hearing, Senator Kennedy also debated with David A. Zegeer of the Beth-Elkhorn asking whether Mr. Zegeer’s company had many stockholders from Kentucky. During the exchange with Zegeer, Kennedy asserted: “Outsiders have come in and exploited the great wealth of the area—with great profits going elsewhere in the country.”

February 15, 1968. Front-page story from ‘The Courier Journal’ newspaper of Louisville, KY, covers RFK’s field hearing at Neon, KY with the headline “Kennedy Condemns Coal Interests For Exploiting Eastern Kentucky”.

Time magazine reported on RFK’s Kentucky visit, noting that he came with “a caravan of 36 cars crammed with out-of-state reporters, committee staffers and electronic gear.” At one stop, Time reported Kennedy being asked: “Why was a man reared to a multi-millionaire’s comforts concerned with the plight of Kentucky’s poor?” Some thought it a simple political calculation, a way to bring the spotlight on himself as a possible contender in that year’s presidential race. Yet others had noted a change in RFK with the assassination of his brother, and that he was looking at social issues in a new way.

Harry Caudill, here walking with RFK, and among those who testified, wrote “Night Comes to The Cumberlands” (1962), a powerful indictment of Appalachian exploitation. Click for story.

Robert F. Kennedy, listening to a miner relay his concerns during a two-day tour in Neon, KY, February 1968.

Bill Grieder, who covered Kennedy’s Kentucky trip for the Louisville Courier-Journal, noted in a later email recalling the trip: “…Reporters more sophisticated (and cynical) than I assured me he was merely prepping for his as yet unannounced presidential candidacy. Probably so, but you couldn’t imagine any politician slogging through all those hollows and decayed coal camps without some kind of deep conviction.”

Some of those who covered Kennedy on that trip, however, had a different reaction to him. Tom Bethell for one, reporting for The Mountain Eagle newspaper of Whitesburg, KY, had the opportunity to see him in a more private setting, and would later write:

“…[U]p close, Kennedy was harder to read….[I] was struck by how uncurious, even detached, Kennedy seemed when he wasn’t in a public setting. …I found myself riding with him in his car, en route to his next photo-op, and was shocked when a VISTA volunteer in the car tried to engage him in a conversation about what she had learned on the job, and he cut her off, rudely and brusquely. At that moment I thought he was every bit as arrogant as I’d sometimes heard he was, a stereotypically spoiled and entitled little rich kid if ever there was one, and I couldn’t imagine voting for Bobby Kennedy unless the only alternative was Richard Nixon.”

Bethell added, however, that his first impression “might have been completely wrong,” and that Kennedy “might have been a wonderful president, the first since Franklin Roosevelt to offer real and lasting hope for hard-pressed people, rural and urban alike. Or not….”

Back on the 1968 poverty tour, meanwhile, Time magazine quoted Cliston Johnson, 48, a partially disabled miner struggling to raise 15 children on $60 a month: “Whenever you get another kid to feed, just add a little more water to the gravy.” The government’s “gravy,” however – at the time, totaling some $450 million Federal aid to Appalachia since 1965 – had done little to help. Nor were private-sector companies setting up factories in that part of Appalachia, some dissuaded by the ravaged landscape. Kennedy, as Time reported, did not seem inclined toward more federal handouts, quoting him as saying: “Welfare’s not the answer. It’s jobs. It is a basic responsibility of our society to give every man an opportunity to work.” At the tiny school building in Vortex, Kennedy pulled in an overlfow crowd, where he asked questions about diet, clothing and schooling. Over and over again, he said: “This is not satisfactory, this is not acceptable.” And when he said, “We’ve got to do away with welfare,” the people applauded.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy talking with strip mine owner Bill Sturgill at the Yellow Creek mine site in Knott County, Kentucky, February 1968.

Matthew Algeo’s 2020 book on RFK’s Appalachia tour. Chicago Review Press, 268pp. Click for copy.

Strip Mine Site

After leaving Hazard, Kentucky, Kennedy and entourage stopped, unannounced, at the Yellow Creek strip mining site Knott County. In trying to gain access to the site, Kennedy’s entourage was blocked by cars of the mine crew several times. After a contentious moment of negotiation between RFK and the mine’s security staff, mine owner Bill Sturgill allowed Kennedy and his group to access the site.

At the final stop of the Eastern Kentucky tour, in a filmed interview with an off-screen reporter on the streets of Prestonberg (see YouTube video), Kennedy was asked, “Is there anything significant that you’ve learned on this trip?” He answered as follows:

“…Well, people are still having a very, very difficult time… There’s hunger; considerable hunger in this part of the country. There’s no real hope for the future amongst many of these people… who have worked hard in the coal mines. And now the coal mines shut down, they have no place to go. There’s no hope for the future. There’s no industry moving in. The men are trained in government [job training] programs and there’s no jobs at the end of the training program because of the cutback – because of the demands on our federal budget in Washington and the war in Vietnam – even these training programs are being cutback. So people are being cut off, and they have no place to turn. And so they’re desperate and filled with despair. Seems to me that this country, as wealthy as we are, that this is an intolerable condition. It reflects on all of us. We can do things all over the rest of the world, but I think we should do something for our people here in our own country.”

RFK did not have the opportunity to do much of substance for Appalachia following his visit, since shortly thereafter he began his bid for the 1968 Democratic Presidential nomination. And tragically, like JFK, Bobby Kennedy was also taken by an assassin’s bullet. Kennedy was murdered June 5th, 1968, on the night of the California primary, shortly after he won that primary and had made his victory speech. It was four months after his visit to Eastern Kentucky.

In February 1972, New York Times reporter, George Vecsey, doing a four-year follow-up story on RFK’s Kentucky visit, noted: “…The issues have not changed much in four years. Poverty is everywhere; coal miners still die, and the hills are being torn apart ever faster by the strip miners.”

[Some years later, Bobby Kennedy’s son, RFK, Jr., prior to his teaming up with the Trump presidential campaign in 2024, and becoming Trump’s HHS Secretary in 2025, had worked for years as an environmentalist and riverkeeper. In the 1990s-2010s period, he participated in protests over mountain-top strip mining, coal export expansion, coal ash pollution, and more – while supporting wind & solar energy development. His 2004 book, Crimes Against Nature, was highly critical of George W. Bush, roll backs of environmental laws, and the fossil fuel industry, and it became a best-seller. In recent years, however, RFK, Jr. stirred concerns and controversy regarding some of his views on public health – not least being his positions on, and misinformation about, childhood and COVID-19 vaccines, also becoming a Donald Trump acolyte in his bid for the HHS post, resulting in a loss of some of his prior environmental and other supporters. His cousin, and JFK daughter, Caroline Kennedy, called his views on vaccines “dangerous” and said he was unqualified to be HHS secretary.]

U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, Feb. 2004.

1969-2008

Ted Kennedy

Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy served as a U.S. Senator from 1962 until his death in 2009. His service of 46 years in the U.S. Senate at that time made him the fourth-longest, continuously-serving senator in U.S. history. In those years, Kennedy became a friend of labor, and held forth on Senate committees helping to craft and watch over occupational health and safety matters. Kennedy was one of the Senate leaders who helped pass the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which created OSHA, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Prior to passage of the act, there were few federal health and safety protections for workers. And in later years, as well, Kennedy would help to defeat attempts to weaken the law.

Coal mine safety was also one of the areas Kennedy would become involved with as he sought improved worker health and safety regulation. For decades, coal-mine disasters had killed miners regularly. Some mine explosions and fires would kill dozens and even hundreds of miners at a time. The Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, generally known as “the Coal Act,” was the first meaningful law to help govern mining practices. It came about following the deaths of 78 miners at the November 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster in West Virginia.

West Virginia historic marker for the Farmington mine disaster, which killed 78 miners, and helped spur Congress to pass the Federal Coal Mine Health & Safety Act of 1969.

Kennedy Amendment. During Senate floor debate on that legislation in October 1969, Senator Kennedy offered an amendment to make it unlawful to fire, layoff, or otherwise discriminate against any mine employee who sought to report a violation of mine safety standards. “The rationale for this amendment is clear,” said Kennedy at the time. “For safety’s sake, we want to encourage the reporting of suspected violations of health and safety regulations… But miners will not speak up if they fear retaliation. This amendment should deter such retaliation, and, therefore, encourage miners to bring dangers and suspected violations to public attention.” Kennedy’s amendment was approved by voice vote that October, and became section 110(b) of the Act. The Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 was later signed into law by President Nixon. The new law helped reduce the number of major mine disasters, but it did not eliminate them.

Indeed, a few years later more coal-related disasters would occur. In February 1972, at Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, 125 persons died when a coal waste dam burst sending a near tidal wave of coal waste water through a seventeen mile-long valley, leaving a trail of devastation as it went. In July 1972, at Blacksville, West Virginia, a fire was sparked by a continuous mining machine that came into contact with an electric wire, igniting the coal seam. Nine miners who had not been adequately trained in emergency procedures, became trapped and died in the mine.

Senator Kennedy in his younger years, shown here at a 1979 Judiciary Committee hearing.

Then in March, 1976 two explosions occurred within days of one another at the Scotia Mine in southeastern Kentucky, killing a total of 26 miners. Fifteen miners were killed in the first explosion, and 11 more, who had entered the mine three days later to investigate the first disaster – eight company workers and three Federal inspectors – were killed in a second explosion.

New Law. These incidents and others stirred Washington to action again, as House and Senate committees investigated and held hearings. On February 11, 1977, S.717, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act, was introduced by Sen. Harrison Williams (D-NJ), with Senator Kennedy and 25 others as cosponsors. The Harrison bill revised the 1969 Coal Act with the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, also known as “the Mine Act.” It was signed by President Carter in November 1977. This law consolidated federal health and safety regulations for coal and non-coal mining; moved the new Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to the Department of Labor; strengthened and expanded the rights of miners; and enhanced their protection from retaliation. Mining fatalities would drop sharply in subsequent years, but problems still remained.

The Reagan Years. In the 1980s, as the Reagan Administration and the mining industry sought to weaken mine safety regulations, Senator Kennedy and his staff geared up for battle, focusing a series of hearings on the lax regulatory oversight by Reagan’s MSHA. Kennedy described the record of that agency as “shameful and tragic,” and kept pressure on MSHA to strengthen its programs and enforcement. Among those who testified before Kennedy at a March 1987 hearing was J. Davitt McAteer, a lawyer and coal miner’s son who then headed the Occupational Safety and Health Law Center, a public interest group in Washington, D.C.“We know how to prevent many of the unnecessary deaths in the mines. What we seem to have lost is the will to do what good judg-ment and the law require.” – Senator Kennedy, 1987 McAteer testified that in a six-year period during the Reagan Administration, MSHA had muzzled many of its inspectors, dissolved its most successful criminal investigative team, and administratively reduced serious safety violations to minor ones. Since the Federal mine safety act’s adoption in 1969, McAteer stated there had been 2,029 fatal accidents in American coal mines, but only 38 attempts to prosecute those involved under criminal provisions of the law. Kennedy, referring to the Federal mine safety act and MSHA’s powers during the hearing, said: ”We know how to prevent many of the unnecessary deaths in the mines. What we seem to have lost is the will to do what good judgment and the law require. It makes me angry every time I hear about a miner killed because someone would not do his job.” Although no new mine safety legislation was enacted at that time, the Reagan administration did agree to hire about 100 additional mine inspectors, and also rescinded one rule that had reduced criminal convictions of negligent coal operators.

Ted Kennedy, 2005 press conference.

Mine safety regulation was strengthened somewhat during the Clinton years, when Davitt McAteer was appointed head of MSHA. McAteer instituted more worker training and other improvements. In fact, from 1993 to 2000, there was not a single coal-mining disaster, defined by MSHA as an incident that claims five or more worker lives. In Congress, however, by 1995, anti-regulatory sentiment was high, with legislation proposed to reduce MSHA inspections and enforcement, including one failed attempt to abolish MSHA. In the early 2000s, with the election of George W. Bush, MSHA’s budget was slashed, and a former coal industry executive ran the agency.

In July 2002, Kennedy, still chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, and the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), chairman of its Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training, held hearings to investigate coal mine safety, focusing in part on MSHA’s enforcement at the Jim Walters Resources coal mine in Brookwood, Alabama where 13 miners had been killed in a September 2001 explosion. At the time, the mine had 31 outstanding violations, and MSHA inspectors had not returned to determine if they had been corrected. During the hearings, Kennedy called MSHA enforcement record “dismal,” while Wellstone noted that mine fatalities were rising but the Bush Administration had cut MSHA’s 2003 budget by 6 percent. However, as Kennedy and Wellstone tried to turn the spotlight on MSHA’s record, two weeks after their hearing, a few MSHA officials received high media attention and national praise in the successful rescue of 9 coal miners trapped in a flooded underground mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. MSHA reforms were then somewhat derailed. Then, several years later, there was another mine tragedy.

Sago Disaster

Associated Press map & reporting, Jan 2006.

On January 2, 2006 in Upshur County, West Virginia near the town of Buckhannon, an explosion and collapse at the Sago Mine caused the deaths of 13 miners who had been trapped for nearly two days before expiring. A lone survivor later told of the harrowing tale, including his report that some of the miner’s air packs did not work. The Sago disaster received extensive news coverage worldwide. Adding to the tragic situation, incorrect information had been released to the media that 12 survivors had been found alive.

A few days after the Sago Mine had exploded, Kennedy told an Associated Press reporter that Senate hearings were needed to determine how the tragedy happened. “We owe it to these miners and their families to find out what happened and whether this accident could have been prevented,” Kennedy said. “In addition, we should investigate the troubled history of repeated safety violations at the mine.”

Then, just few weeks following the Sago explosion, another West Virginia mine accident occurred this one on the morning of January 19, 2006, at the Aracoma Alma Mine in Logan County. The accident occurred when a conveyor belt in the Aracoma Alma Mine No. 1 at Melville in Logan County, West Virginia, caught fire. The conveyor belt ignited pouring smoke through the gaps in the wall and into the fresh air passageway that the miners were supposed to use for their escape, obscuring their vision and ultimately leading to the death of two of them by carbon monoxide poisoning when they became separated from 10 other members of their crew. The others held onto each other and edged through the air intake amid dense smoke to make their escape. At the time of the fire, the mine was owned by Aracoma Coal Company, a Massey Energy company.

Map showing somewhat larger area and location of the Sago Mine and Alma Mine tragedies of January 2006.

On January 20, 2006, not long after the Sago disaster, a delegation of U.S. Senators including Ted Kennedy, Mike Enzi (R-WY and chairman of the HELP Committee), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), visited with the families of the 12 coal miners who were killed in that tragedy. Kennedy and colleagues traveled to Buckhannon, West Virginia to spend time with the families and convey their condolences and their intention to do what they could in Washington to help improve mine safety. The senators had a private, nearly two-hour meeting with the families. Following the meeting, Kennedy, then ranking Democratic member of the Senate Committee, said he was troubled to learn that the families had not yet been involved in the accident investigation. He urged state and federal investigators to take time to talk to the relatives, who he said were extremely knowledgeable about the industry. “Whoever’s doing the investigation, they won’t spend a better two hours than listening to the people we’ve just listened to,” he said.

Low Fines

At a hearing held March 2, 2006, by the Senate HELP committee (Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) to discuss the state of mine safety, Senator Kennedy was present to voice his concern about mine safety enforcement. In an impassioned statement, Kennedy said that fines as low as $60 give companies “little incentive to make safety improvements.” He added that while he understood that MSHA was then proposing to raise the maximum fines from $60,000 to $220,000, “such gestures are meaningless unless MSHA actually issues those fines.”

$2006 Associated Press graphic showing dollar amounts of fines that then could be levied per infraction by various federal agencies, with mine safety fines being the lowest, a limitation Senator Kennedy & others found deplorable.$
2006 Associated Press graphic showing dollar amounts of fines that then could be levied per infraction by various federal agencies, with mine safety fines being the lowest, a limitation Senator Kennedy & others found deplorable.

Kennedy noted that MSHA rarely used the maximum fine of $60,000, and that MSHA had also failed to use their “enforcement tool” of shutting down mines where there “have been a pattern of violations,” he said. “It’s time the agency did more about chronic and persistent violations, including dangerous mines, before tragedies like those at Sago and Alma can occur,” he said.

In the year prior to the Sago Mine disaster, the operator reportedly received over 200 safety citations, half of them being serious enough to potentially lead to injuries.

David G. Dye, then acting assistant secretary of MSHA, responding to Kennedy, said that the agency had collected $25 million in fines in 2005 and reductions were the result of actions taken by independent administrative law judges. He also said that the 1977 Mine Act “does not give MSHA the authority to preemptively close entire mines because of the frequency of violations.” Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), who grew up in a coal-mining community, said during the hearing that MSHA “had the legal authority to require higher fines” but “didn’t use it.”

January 2003. AP file photo of Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Ted Kennedy on Capitol Hill. photo, Susan Walsh.

Byrd also pressed Dye on why a proposed rule to supply coal miners additional emergency oxygen has been delayed by the White House review process. Kennedy noted that “miners in Canada are required to have 36 hours of breathable air. But miners in the U.S. are required to have only one.”

Byrd, frustrated with the agency said at one point, “It’s been 25 years since mine safety rules have been updated,” Byrd said. “How long do we have to wait?”

Byrd, Kennedy, and others in the U.S. Senate did not wait. In 2006, Congress passed the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (the MINER Act), which President Bush signed into law June 15 2006. The new law required mine-specific emergency response plans in underground coal mines; installation of wireless communications equipment and tracking devices within three years; new regulations for mine rescue teams and sealing abandoned areas; and prompt notification of mine accidents. The MINER Act also raised maximum fines for accidents and gave the government the power to shut down mines when operators failed to pay fines. Senator Kennedy, meanwhile, continued to push for additional mine safety reforms, as yet another mine disaster occurred not long after the MINER Act passed.

Map showing location of Crandall Canyon Mine.

Crandall Canyon

In August 2007, the Crandall Canyon Mine, an underground coal mine in Utah’s Wasatch plateau near Huntington, made headlines when six miners were trapped by a mine collapse. Ten days later, three rescue workers were killed and six more injured as one of the walls of the tunnel exploded inward, toward the rescuers, as they attempted to reach the trapped miners.

On August 31, 2007 the search for the six trapped miners was called off and declared too dangerous for continued rescue efforts. The six men originally trapped were later declared dead and their bodies were never recovered. The mine was then operated by Genwal Resources Inc., an operating division of UtahAmerican, a subsidiary of the Murray Energy Corporation.

Senator Ted Kennedy, shown here in another Senate proceeding, had his committee staff compile a report on the Crandall Canyon mine collapse in Utah. Click for Ted Kennedy books.

Investigations of the accident began, and hearings were held in Congress. Shortly after the accident, on August 23, 2007, Senator Kennedy – then Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee – sent a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao requesting a range of documents and other materials on the mine – documents in the Uniform Mine File on Crandall Canyon; mine plan changes and MSHA consideration of them; inspection reports; meeting minutes, e-mail, handwritten notes; and other communication between the mine owners and MSHA officials.

“The loss of life at the mine, and the devastating emotional toll on families of the victims, underscore the urgent need for a thorough examination of our federal system of mine safety,” Kennedy said in his letter to Chao. In particular, Kennedy said he was “troubled” by reports that roof problems were not reported to MSHA, and that the roof had reportedly collapsed in other areas of the mine where workers were using a dangerous technique called “retreat mining.” Such reports, Kennedy said in his letter to Chao, “raise questions about the integrity of the mine operator’s reporting and the rigor of MSHA inspections.”

Cover of Senator Kennedy’s Committee report on the August 2007 disaster at Utah’s Crandall Canyon coal mine.

On March 6th, 2008, Kennedy’s senate committee issued the results of its investigation of the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster, a 75-page report. It was the first to reveal the serious lapses by both the mine operator and MSHA that led to the deaths of nine miners and rescue workers.

“The committee’s investigation has revealed that the owner of Crandall Canyon Mine, Murray Energy, disregarded dangerous conditions at the mine, failed to tell federal regulators about these dangers, conducted unauthorized mining and, as a result, exposed its miners to serious risks,” Kennedy said. The report also charged that the operator’s parent company, Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., bullied MSHA to gain approval of its overall mining plan.

“MSHA also unconscionably failed to protect miners by hastily rubber-stamping the plan,” said Kennedy. “This is a clear case of callous disregard for the law and for safety standards, and hard-working miners lost their lives. This deserves a full criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.”

Kennedy’s report was followed by a report from the Labor Department’s Inspector General which found that MSHA failed to protect workers at the Crandall Canyon mine. That report blamed federal mining regulators for negligence in approving a roof-control plan for the mine. An audit of events preceding the two collapses found that lower-level MSHA officials skipped many of the agency’s own protocols in approving a roof control plan for the Crandall Canyon mine and could have been subject to “undue influence” by the mine’s operator. It also found that MSHA could not show it made the right decision when it approved risky retreat mining at Crandall Canyon and found the agency “negligent” in its duty to protect underground miners in the Crandall Canyon mine disaster, and in mines across the nation. Rep. George Miller’s (D-CA) House Education and Labor Committee also released a May 8, 2008 report on the Crandall Canyon disaster that repeated the call for a criminal investigation.

On July 24, 2008 MSHA issued one of its highest fines then to date for coal mine safety violations at the Crandall Canyon Mine. Genwal Resources was fined $1.34 million “for violations that directly contributed to the deaths of six miners last year,” plus nearly $300,000 for other violations. MSHA also levied a $220,000 fine against a mining consultant, Agapito Associates, “for faulty analysis of the mine’s design.”

September 2008: Dedication of the memorial commemorating the lives of the 6 miners and 3 rescuers killed at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Huntington, Utah. The memorial is titled, 'Heroes Among Us', sculpture by Karen Jobe Templeton.

Coal mine health and safety to this day continues to be a vexing issue, with mine disasters such as the April 2010 coal mine explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County West Virginia that killed 29 coal miners, while black lung disease continues to diminish coal miner health and take their lives. Yet in recent decades, the efforts of public servants like Ted Kennedy and others have helped make coal mining and other workplaces safer than they might otherwise have been – although, to be sure, they are not as safe as they should be. In 2008, Senator Ted Kennedy was named one of the 50 most influential EHS leaders by Occupational Hazards magazine (now EHS Today) for his 40-plus years of advocating for workers’ rights and health and safety in the U.S. Senate. After a battle with a malignant brain tumor, diagnosed in May 2008, Ted Kennedy passed away in late August 2009.

For additional stories on coal at this website, see, for example, “Sixteen Tons: 1955-1956,” a story about a famous song, plus some history on coal mine safety, or visit the topics page, “Coal History: Selected Stories, 1950s-2010s,” offering 10 story choices. See also the “Kennedy History” page for stories in that category. And if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 18 February 2025
Last Update: 18 February 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Kennedy Coal History: 1968-2008,”
PopHistoryDig.com, February 18, 2025.

____________________________________

Kennedy Books at Amazon.com…

Kerry Kennedy’s 2018 book, “Robert F. Kennedy: Ripples of Hope “(in conversation with others on her father’s impact). Click for copy.

Fredrik Logevall’s 2021 book, “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956.” Click for copy.

Neal Gabler’s 2022 book, “Against the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Rise of Conservatism, 1976-2009,” Click for copy

Sources, Links & Additional Information

"Coal: A Human History", by Barbara Freese, 2016 edition. Click book covers here and below for Amazon links.

Gerald Stern's book on the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster.

Thomas Andrews' 2008 book, "Killing for Coal".

Harry Caudill's 1983 book, "Theirs Be The Power".

Davitt McAteer's book on the 1907 Monongah mine disaster.

Robert F. Kennedy

“Poverty: Misery at Vortex,” Time, February 23, 1968.

“Robert Kennedy in Eastern Kentucky 1968,” YouTube.com, posted March 30, 2010.

George Vecsey, “Vortex, Ky., Recalls Robert Kennedy,” New York Times, February 13, 1972.

“RFK in EKY,” The Robert F. Kennedy Perfor-mance Project, RFKinEKY.org.

“Barwick, KY: An Email From William Greider on RFK’s Visit to Barwick School,” RFKin-EKY.org.

Thomas N. Bethell, “Speak Your Piece: To Watch in 1968, and to Hope in 2007,” DailyYonder.com, July 15, 2007.

Trena KP, “How Did the People of Eastern Kentucky Respond to [Robert F.] Kennedy’s Visit?,” RFKinEKY.Blogspot, December 2, 2010.

Samira Jafari, Associated Press, “Poverty Tour Returns to Kentucky,” USAtoday.com, July 17,2007.
_________________________

Ted Kennedy

“Congress Clears Comprehensive Coal Mine Safety Bill,” CQ Almanac (Congressional Quarterly, Washington D.C., 1969.

Richard D. Lyons, “Appalachia Poor Hit Health Care; Kennedy Committee Is Told of Delays and Neglect,” New York Times, April 20, 1971.

“S.717, Federal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act,” Congress.gov, 95th Congress, 1977-1978.

George Lobsenz, UPI, “Kennedy Charges Mine Safety Rules Dangerously Weakened,” UPI.com, March 11, 1987.

Ben A. Franklin, “Mine Safety Agency Accused of Lax Enforcement,” New York Times, March 12, 1987.

David S. Hilzenrath, “Mine Safety Nominee Defeated,” Washington Post, August 6, 1987.

Steven Greenhouse, “Rise in Mining Deaths Prompts Political Sparring,” New York Times, July 26, 2002.

Press Release, U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, “Kennedy, HELP Committee Leaders Schedule Visit to West Virginia; Will Meet Sago Mine Families, Mine Workers; Check Progress of Investigation,” January 19, 2006.

“Senators Pay Visit to Sago Families: Jay, Ted Kennedy, Two From GOP, Vow to Find Answers for Victims’ Families,” Charleston Gazette (Charleston, WV), January 21, 2006.

Ian Urbina and Andrew W. Lehren, “U.S. Is Reducing Safety Penalties for Mine Flaws,” New York Times, March 2, 2006.

Pamela M. Prah, “Coal Mining Safety: Are Underground Miners Adequately Protected?,” CQ Researcher, Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, March 17, 2006 • Volume 16, Issue 11.

Emily Bazar, “Lawmakers on Both Sides Aim to Prevent Mine Disaster,” USA Today, May 17, 2006.

Alex Chadwick, “Sen. Kennedy on Mine Safety, Bush in Iraq,” Day To Day/NPR.org, June 13, 2006.

“Sago Mine Disaster,” Wikipedia.org.

Jan Austin (ed.), “Deaths Prompt Mine Safety Rewrite,” CQ Almanac 2006, Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 2007.

Michael Rubinkam and Chelsea J. Carter, AP, “Senate Plans Hearing on Mine Collapse,” Washington Post, Thursday, August 23, 2007.

Thomas Burr, “Mine Probe: Congress Begins Crandall Canyon Cave-in Investigation,” The Salt Lake Tribune, August 23, 2007.

Thomas Burr, “Kennedy Blasts Mine Communication Breakdown at Crandall Canyon,” The Salt Lake Tribune, October 2, 2007.

U.S. Government Printing Office, S. Hrg. 110-730, “Current Mine Safety Disasters: Issues and Challenges,” Hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, United States Senate, One Hundred Tenth Congress, First Session, on Examining Issues and Challenges Facing Current Mine Safety, October 2, 2007.

Spencer S. Hsu, “Report Faults Mine Safety,” Washington Post, November 17, 2007.

Press Release, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, “Kennedy Releases New Report on Crandall Canyon Mine Disaster,” March 6, 2008.

Suzanne Struglinski, “Mine Report Pulls No Punches; Criminal Probe of MSHA, Murray Energy Urged,” DesertNews.com, March 7, 2008.

Thomas Burr, Robert Gehrke and Mike Gorrell, “Beyond Crandall: Feds Found Negligent; MSHA Fails Miners Nationwide, Probe Finds,” The Salt Lake Tribune, April 1, 2008.

“Crandall Canyon Mine,” Wikipedia.org.

John Hollenhorst, “Crandall Canyon Mine Memorial Unveiled,” KSL.com, September 14th, 2008.

“Interview with Thomas M. Rollins,” The Miller Center Foundation and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, EMKinstitute.org (Rollins discusses Senate confirmations, mine safety, the minimum wage and other Labor Committee topics), May 14, 2009.

John M. Broderaug, “Edward M. Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Is Dead at 77,” New York Times, August 26, 2009.

Emery Jeffreys, “Kennedy, Working People’s Champion,” bytewriter.com, August 26, 2009.

Ken Ward Jr., “Sen. Edward Kennedy: A Friend to Coal Miners,” Gazette-Mail (West Virginia), August 28, 2009.

Davitt McAteer, “Mine Industry Is Gutting Safety Regulations,” Charleston Gazette-Mail, April 5, 2015.

Teaser Tag: Film & Film Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/01-Arabesque.mp3 4195372 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/09-The-Zoo-Chase.mp3 10505265 audio/mpeg

1961-1970

“Arabesque, 1966”
w/Mancini Music

January 22, 2025 J.D.

Soundtrack album cover for 1966 film, “Arabesque,” showing Gregory Peck in scene with Sophia Loren. Click for Amazon.

Arabesque, a 1966 film starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, is a romantic spy thriller about an American hieroglyphics professor at Oxford in London played by Peck who is hired by a mysterious Arab oil magnate to decipher a secret message. Sophia Loren, who plays, and appears to be, the mistress of the magnate, becomes Peck’s somewhat unpredictable helper and partner in the mystery.

Music Player
“Arabesque” – 1966

The film, which is loosely based on The Cypher, a 1961 novel by Alex Gordon. has its moments, but the musical score, by Henry Mancini, is especially notable, particularly it’s opening theme (above) and its later uses, which include upbeat Middle-Eastern flavored instrumental scores that fit the film’s scenes. Mancini’s score for Arabesque was nominated for a 1966 Grammy Award for Best Original Score for film or TV, but Maurice Jarre’s score for Doctor Zhivago took the prize.

Poster for the 1966 Stanley Donen film, “Arabesque,” starring Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck. Click for Amazon film options.

In the film, Peck’s character is Oxford professor David Pollock, an expert in ancient Arabic hieroglyphics. Pollock’s task is to infiltrate the organization of a man named Beshraavi – the earlier-mentioned oil magnate – who is involved in a plot against the Prime Minister.

The nature of the plot is believed to be found in a hieroglyphic code. Sophia Loren — seemingly Beshraavi’s mistress — is not all that she seems, to be revealed later.

The professor, however, needs her help, as Beshraavi forcibly retains him until the code is deciphered, afterwhich, as Loren explains to him, Beshraavi will kill him.

Loren, in any case, helps him escape from Beshraavi. However, later she repeatedly seems to double-cross Peck, leaving him to doubt who’s side she’s really on.

Eventually, the pair form an alliance and work together to decipher a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister, and set out to stop it. But once the hidden meaning of the cypher is revealed, Peck and Loren become hunted prey and the chase is on.

The film, in its day, was part of the James Bond “007-genre” of spy-type thrillers that proliferated in film and TV during the mid-and-late 1960s And while Arabesque was highly publicized, it didn’t rise to the same level as the Bond films, though it did reasonably well at the box office. Sophia Loren was then at the height of her stunning good looks, and in the film became something of a fashion show for her various and seductive outfits.

Zoo chase segment, aquarium scene, with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in “Arabesque,” as they are being pursued by a gunman.

In one of the film’s later scenes, as the Peck and Loren characters are being pursued by an armed agent in an aquarium setting, the Mancini score plays its role, with aquarium-appropriate interludes, as the Arabesque theme wells up a couple of times to buoy the action.

Music Player
“Arabesque/Zoo Chase” – 1966

Despite their adventure-filled efforts to save prime minister from the plot, he appears to be shot down while making a speech at the London airport. However, it is then that Loren reveals to Peck that she is actually a spy for the real prime minister, and that the man shot down was one of Beshraavi’s employees.

Professor David Pollock (Peck) and Yasmin Azir (Loren) on one of their adventures in “Arabesque.”

The real minister, she explains, has been kidnaped to prevent him from making the speech, which was set to denounce Beshraavi’s oil interests, the reason the prime minister was targeted.

Peck and Loren then proceed to rescue the prime minister; but as they flee across the open countryside, Beshraavi comes after them in a helicopter.

In the resulting fray, Peck manages to hurl a steel ladder into the helicopter’s blades as it approaches at one point, bringing it down into a deadly crash.

As the film ends, Loren decides to give up spy craft and follow professor Pollock back to the peaceful academic life at Oxford.

Mancini’s Music

RCA Victor magazine ad touting Mancini’s film score for “Arabesque” and available album.

The Mancini score for Arabesque, and especially the opening track, stand out in the film. One review called the Arabesque score “stylish.” Another reviewer noted: “Arabesque is an intriguing instrumental work of many moods and styles that can be enjoyed on its own merits.”

RCA Victor also hyped the soundtrack album in full-page trade magazine advertisement amid four photos from the film and a “MANCINI” headline centered with blurb that read: “Mancini sets a fast pace for profits with a new album of music form the fast action movie Arabesque.”

At the bottom of the ad, a photo of Mancini, the album cover and more promo followed: “The tremendous popularity of music from spy and chase films will create big demand for this great new album of original film music by Henry Mancini… an album loaded with musical excitement and one that [his] millions of fans will surely want to add to their collection….”

Mancini’s music in this film, of course, is only one of many scores and other works he composed for film and television over his 40- plus year career, making him one of the more popular film-score producers of the 20th century.

John Caps’ 2012 book, “Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film Music,” University of Illinois Press, 278 pp. Click for Amazon.

Born to Italian immigrants, Henry Mancini (b. 1924 – d. 2094), was raised in Western Pennsylvania’s West Aliquippa area. His father was a laborer in a Jones & Laughlin steel mill for a time, but also a sometimes musician

Having musical interests at a young age, Mancini would rise to become one of the most popular film-score composers in modern times, winning four Oscars and 20 Grammys.

Among Mancini’s more popular works, for example, are his film scores for Breakfast at Tiffany’s (including classic song, “Moon River”), The Pink Panther, Hatari!, Victor/ Victoria, Two for the Road and Wait Until Dark. Other hit film songs include “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “Charade.”

He has also had several popular TV show themes, including, “Peter Gunn,” “Mr. Lucky,” “Remington Steele” and The Thorn Birds miniseries.

For other spy-related book and film stories at this website see: “The Bourne Profitability.” and two James Bond stories with book, film, and music elements – “Goldfinger: 1959-1963” and “You Only Live Twice: Film & Music, 1967.” Additional story choices can be found at “Music in Film: Songs & Soundtracks: 1950s-2010s.”

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 22 January 2025
Last Update: 22 January 2025
Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Arabesque, w/Mancini Music, 1966,”
PopHistoryDig.com, January 22, 2025.

____________________________________

Film Collection & Books at Amazon.com…

“The Gregory Peck Film Collection,” includes, To Kill a Mockingbird, Cape Fear, Arabesque. Click for Amazon.

Sophia Loren, “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life,” 2014, Atria Books, 352 pp. Click for Amazon.

Jon Burlingame’s “Dreamsville: Henry Mancini, Peter Gunn, and Music for TV Noir,” 318 pp. Click for Amazon

Sources, Links & Additional Information

“Arabesque” (1966), AFI Catalog of Feature Films, The First 100 Years 1893–1993, AFI.com.

“Arabesque (1966 film),” Wikipedia.org.

Grace Glueck, “The Screen: ‘Arabesque’ Arrives at the Music Hall: Sophia Loren Starred With Gregory Peck; Tale of Arab Intrigue Makes a Chase Film,” New York Times, May 6, 1966.

Brian Hannan, “The Magnificent 60s: Arabesque (1966),” TheMagnificent60s.com, October 18, 2020.

Alex Gordon, The Cipher, 1966, Pyramid Books, paperback, 205 pp. Click for Amazon.

John Caps, Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film Music, 2012, University of Illinois Press, 278 pp. Click for Amazon.

Songs and Themes by Mancini: A Collection of Outstanding Compositions from Motion Pictures, Northern Music Corporation, 1965 (includes 11 songs: Blue Pianolo; Free and Easy; Lonely Winter; Tana’s Theme; Theme for a Crazy Chick; To Know You is to Love You; Too Little Time; Toy Tiger; The Ways of Love; What’s It Gonna Be; Young Love).

Henry Mancini & Gene Lees, Did They Mention the Music? The Autobiography of Henry Mancini, 2001, Cooper Square Press, 312 pp. Click for Amazon.
_________________________________

Books on Film Music at Amazon.com…

“100 Greatest Film Scores.” Click for copy.

“Hearing the Movies: Music & Sound in Film.” Click for copy.

“50 Best Soundtracks.” Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Coal & The Kennedys

1951-1960, 1961-1970

“JFK & West Virginia”
Road to The White House

January 17, 2025 J.D.

April 1960: JFK greets a one-armed miner near Mullens, WV while on the campaign trail for the West Virginia primary election. Photo: Hank Walker, Time/Life.

John F. Kennedy began his quest for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination when he was a U.S. Senator in the late 1950s. As he began, he was faced with running in several presidential primaries to show party bosses that he had the ability to appeal to a broad voter base. Two key states with primary elections in 1960 were Wisconsin in April and West Virginia in May. The West Virginia primary became a critical test for Kennedy. At the time, Kennedy’s Catholic faith was an issue, as there had never been a Catholic president, and some believed non-Catholics wouldn’t vote for him.

But in April 1960, Kennedy won the Wisconsin primary, beating rival Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. Kennedy’s victory was helped by Catholic voters in some districts. Yet, in many non-Catholic districts, Kennedy did not have a strong showing. That meant the next primary that year – in West Virginia, a state that was 95 percent Protestant – would be a more telling test of Kennedy’s non-Catholic appeal. But West Virginia was uncharted territory for Kennedy. As he had done elsewhere in the country in his early informal campaign, Kennedy had visited West Virginia a few times in 1958 and 1959. But now in 1960, ahead of the May 10th primary, he enlisted all the help he could find with friends and family members fanning out across the state to help him get his message out. JFK himself was also a tireless candidate, traveling throughout the rural state to visit voters wherever he could – though engaging voters directly was difficult due to that state’s rugged terrain.

But it would be West Virginia’s coalfields and coal towns – mostly in the southern part of the state – that would provide Kennedy with a new kind of political education and voter support that would help him gain the Democratic presidential nomination.

April 26th, 1960: JFK meeting with a group of coal miners during a shift change at the Pocahontas Fuel Company’s Itmann mine, near the town of Mullens, West Virginia, in Wyoming County. Photo, Hank Walker.

The coal industry then was in the midst of a pretty brutal downturn. No longer the primary fuel source for home heating, locomotive engines, or industrial factories – as oil and gas replaced coal in many of those uses – coal’s share of the nation’s energy supply had dropped precipitously, from 51 percent in 1945 to 23 percent in 1960. West Virginia’s coal production of 173 million tons in 1947 had fallen to less then 120 million tons by 1960. In addition, increasing mechanization of coal mining in the 1950s had wiped out tens of thousands of jobs. West Virginia’s coal miners – more than 116,400 in 1947 — had fallen to 42,900 in 1960. Local economies in more than 20 of the state’s 55 counties were hit hard. Some counties like Mingo and McDowell had 25-to-40 percent of their populations in need of paltry federal food packages (a minimal system then used prior to food stamps).

April 1960: JFK campaigning in rural West Virginia in advance of the state's May 10th primary.

John F. Kennedy visited several working coal mines in West Virginia as he campaigned for the state’s May presidential primary. In his early visits, some of the miners would not shake his hand and were stand-offish at first meeting. But once he began talking about their economic problems and what he might do to help them as president, they often became more receptive.

On April 6th, 1960, Kennedy spoke with coal miners at Slab Fork Mine in Raleigh County, a county that had experienced a 20 percent population decline between 1950 and 1960. Kennedy gathered with the miners near the mine entrance, shook hands, and answered questions from miners, holding a microphone between himself and the miners as the exchanges were being filmed by a local TV crew. Kennedy’s answers were crisp and made good sense, as he ticked off a list of several policy actions that could be taken to address coal-related economic issues of concern to the miners.

Kennedy also visited miners in the state’s southern-most county, McDowell – where coal mining dated to the early 1890s after the first rail lines came in. By the 1950s, McDowell had become the state’s leading coal producer, a prosperous place with a population of more than 100,000. Yet in 1960, when Kennedy arrived, a decline has set in, part due to the mechanization of the mines, and Kennedy was seeing its effects.

As he traveled around the state, he learned about the hardships people were facing there and how they were living. As one reporter noted: “He saw wives line up for surplus government food. He heard about kids who saved their school milk for younger siblings at home. He passed abandoned miners’ houses with boards over the windows…” Additional accounts noted his remarks as he made campaign stops throughout the state:

Kennedy talking with children as he campaigned in West Virginia for the state's May 1960 primary.

Clarksburg, April 18, 1960:

“…We talk about new industries and new products for the future – and we must. But we must also do something right now, before those new industries and jobs are here, about those who are unemployed now, who can’t find a job and who can’t get by on an average unemployment check of $23 a week…There are more than 60,000 of those men in West Virginia today and only half of them are drawing unemployment compensation. It is a double failure of our civilization if we cannot permit them to pay their bills and feed their families while looking for another job.”

Bethany College, April 19, 1960:

“…Today the United States is living better than ever before. We have more swimming pools, freezers, boats and air-conditioners than the world has ever seen. ‘But the test of our progress,’ said Franklin Roosevelt, ‘is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.’ By that test, the last several years have been years of economic failure.”

Glenwood, April 26 1960:

“…Thousands of your citizens — 14,000 here in Mercer County alone — are forced to struggle for subsistence on a diet which consists primarily of flour, rice and cornmeal. A diet which does not permit a healthy, decent existence, a diet which is causing malnutrition, chronic diseases and physical handicaps, a diet which is a disgrace to a country which has the most abundant and richest food supply in the history of the world.”

April 28, 1960. JFK campaigner, 'Bunny' Solomon (North-eastern University, MA, top center) with coal miners in Tioga, WW, displaying "Kennedy For President” bumper sticker.

On May 4, 1960, about a week before the West Virginia primary, Kennedy and Humphrey engaged in a live televised debate that originated from WCHS-TV studios in Charleston. At one point during the debate Kennedy displayed the contents of government surplus food-ration package of corn meal, powered milk and other items on a table before him to illustrate the poverty in West Virginia.. “This is what people are living on,” Kennedy said as the camera panned the display. Kennedy appeared more concern for state’s poor than Humphrey did, and some voters began switching to Kennedy after that. But Kennedy’s concern was no gimmick.

Author Teddy White would later observe about JFK’s discovery of hunger in West Virginia when writing on the 1960 election campaign in his classic book, The Making of a President:

“…[Senator Hubert] Humphrey, who had known hunger in boyhood, was the natural workingman’s candidate – but Kennedy’s shock at the suffering he saw in West Virginia was so fresh that it communicated itself with the emotion of original discovery. Kennedy, from boyhood to manhood, had never known hunger. Now, arriving in West Virginia from a brief rest in the sun and the luxury of Montego Bay, he could scarcely believe that human beings were forced to eat and live on these cans of dry relief rations, which he fingered like artifacts from another civilization. ‘Imagine,’ he said to one of the assistants one night, ‘just imagine kids who never drink milk.’ Of all the emotional experiences of his pre-Convention campaign, Kennedy’s exposure to the misery of the mining fields probably changed him most as a man (emphasis added); and as he gave tongue to his indignation, one could sense him winning friends.”

Campaigning in Amherst, West Virginia, Kennedy addresses miners from atop a station wagon, April 1960. photo Hank Walker

In April and early May 1960, Kennedy made more than 20 campaign trips to West Virginia, according to the state’s Division of Culture and History. During those visits, he made 96 campaign stops at 63 different cities and towns. He told his listeners as he campaigned that the outcome of the West Virginia primary would determine whether he would have a chance at the Democratic nomination. “Help me,” he said during his speeches, “and I will help you,” he promised, should he be elected president.

Map compiled by The Gazette newspaper of Charleston, WV, based on information from the West Virginia Division of Culture & History, showing JFK campaign stops, some dating to 1956, but most prior to the May 1960 primary.

Kennedy defeated Hubert Humphrey in the West Virginia primary with more than 60 percent of the vote, helping dispel doubts that he could win in Protestant territory and that Americans would support a Roman Catholic nominee. He then secured the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention that July in Los Angeles, followed by his November 1960 victory over Vice President Richard M. Nixon to become President of the United States.

JFK signing autographs for workers at the Amherst Coal Company Grill in West Virginia during 1960 campaign stop.

But Kennedy did not forget what West Virginia had done for him, nor did he forget about the poverty he saw there.

After he was elected president, on January 21, 1961, his second day in office, Kennedy issued his first executive order: a pilot food-stamp program to increase the amount of food distributed to needy people in economically distressed areas. And the first food stamps in this program were issued in McDowell County.

In May 1961, about a year after he had campaigned there, now President Kennedy sent his Secretary of Agriculture to Welch, WV to deliver the nation’s first food stamps — $95 worth — to Alderson Muncy, an unemployed mineworker with 13 children. Three years later, McDowell County would become one of the principal counties in President Lyndon Johnson’s federal War on Poverty legislative effort.

JFK returned to West Virginia in June 1963 for the state’s centennial commemoration. Speaking on the steps of the state capitol in Charleston, he acknowledged that he “would not be where I am now… had it not been for the people of West Virginia.” Five months later, President John F. Kennedy was felled by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas. To this day, however, photos of JFK can be found hung on the walls of West Virginia homes, alongside those of Jesus Christ, FDR, union leader John L. Lewis, or some such mixture of honored souls.

Some years later, JFK’s daughter, Caroline, would also come to know something of life in the coalfields…

Caroline’s Coal Project
1973: Tennessee

During the summer of 1973, Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, then 15½ years old, undertook a brief school project in the coal region of Eastern Tennessee’s Campbell County. At home in Massachusetts, while attending Concord Academy, Caroline had developed an interest in film and photography, and that summer she would work on a documentary film about earlier coal mining and coal camps in Tennessee. During this project, she stayed at the home of former Catholic nun and community advocate, Marie Cirillo, in the Rose’s Creek area near Eagen, Tennessee. Caroline came to Tennessee with a high school friend, Allyson Riclitis, who were among eight students helping to make a film history of the area.

July 1973: Caroline Kennedy, left, poses with local resident Pauline Huddleston at Huddleston's home in Eagan, Tennessee.

Kennedy had learned about Marie Cirillo and the Clearfork Valley in Campbell and Claiborne counties, through the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation, established for her uncle. Cirillo, who at age 19 had joined the Catholic Glenmary Home Mission Sisters of America, had worked for a time in Chicago, helping Appalachian migrants adjust to new lives there. However, along with some fellow nuns, Cirillo concluded it might be more effective to work in the Appalachian communities that were sending the migrants.

July 1973. Caroline’s friend, Allyson Riclitis, about to sample some local moonshine as Marie Cirillo looks on. Photo, C. Kennedy.

In the late 1960s, Cirillo and a few others left the religious order and moved to Tennessee. Cirillo soon set her roots there, became a community advocate, and was all about local empowerment.

By 1973, Cirillo, among other projects, had obtained a grant for an oral history project on earlier coal mining in the region and “coal camp” towns that had formerly existed there. The Clearfork area of Tennessee was then made up of twelve unincorporated communities located between the towns of Jellico, Tennessee, and Middlesboro, Kentucky. As Cirillo would later explain: “When I arrived there, the company towns had been dismantled, mainly because of the shift from deep mining to strip mining as new technology made that possible. Big machines now dug the coal. Production no longer required people, so the companies tore down the miners’ homes because they no longer had to provide housing. That was when people realized for the first time that over the years the companies had bought up most of the land.”

Rough copy of July 1973 AP wire story: 'Caroline Kennedy Joins Crew Taping History of Coal Camps'.

Caroline Kennedy, and the other film project volunteers, would work on the history of the area, visiting with local families and former miners to gain some understanding of what had gone before. The resulting film would be used in local schools for educational purposes. During Caroline’s time there, she traveled among the local folks, visited with former miners, and learned about local culture and coal history. Among those she met with, for example, was former coal miner Joe Siler of Prudens, Tennessee. Siler, then 73 years old, had worked in the coal mines for 58 years. Caroline spent about an hour with Siler and his wife, who had several JFK mementos and plaques in their home. “I sure loved her father,” Mr. Siler would say to one reporter of JFK. Siler gave Caroline a statue of a coal miner made from coal and also promised to send her a walnut-framed, brass coin of “scrip” money from 1899 used by mining companies to pay workers. Another miner Caroline visited was Ed Marlow, who had been paralyzed following a mine accident. Near his bed were several pictures of JFK as well as a photo of he and Ethel Kennedy (Caroline’s aunt and Bobby Kennedy’s wife), who had come to Clairfield, Tennessee the previous summer (1972) to dedicate a local factory. Ethel Kennedy was also a friend of Marie Cirillo’s.

Marie Cirillo some years later, undated photo.

Cirillo, then in the early years of her community service and local advocacy, would in subsequent years, become something of a regional activist and important mentor for numbers of students, including those from Vanderbilt University who did research uncovering legal, land, and health issues in eastern Tennessee. In the mid and late 1970s, Cirillo was also as a member of the coalition of citizen groups from Appalachia and across the U.S. that worked for passage of a federal strip mine law in the 1970s. In 1977, when Tennessee’s Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM) and other advocacy groups began pushing for federal strip-mining regulation, some disgruntled locals involved with strip mining blamed Cirillo for the new activity. There were shots fired into Marie’s house and drive-bys with loudspeakers blaring threats. In one case, the brake lines of a car of one of Marie’s volunteers were cut. In subsequent years, other of Cirillo’s projects were targeted by unhappy local arsonists. Still, she persisted and became a positive force in the region, also pushing for micro-enterprise development. By the late 1970s, Marie and the community established the Woodland Community Land Trust, which helped local residents gain access to land and housing. Although she formally retired as director of the Clearfork Community Institute in 2013, Marie Cirillo continued her activism. As of April 2017, she was talking with a group in New York to have teenagers there spend their summer in Clairfield, Tennessee to do oral histories of area residents.

Caroline Kennedy profiled by Parade magazine in Sept 2011 at release of her book, “Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy.” Click for book.

Caroline Kennedy, meanwhile, stayed in touch with Marie, as Marie attended her wedding to Edwin Schlossberg in 1986 and visited the family in 1988 after Caroline’s daughter, Rose, was born, the first of three Kennedy-Schlossberg children. Some years later, in 2010, Caroline Kennedy was interviewed for a feature story on Marie Cirillo in The Knoxville News-Sentinel. “She’s a saint,” said Kennedy of Cirillo in the story, praising her “incredible career.” Cirillo was “trying to bring change” in the work she did, said Kennedy. “She is one of the more powerful inspirations to me outside my family, making faith real and visible to make people’s lives better,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy, a graduate of Harvard and Columbia Law school, went on to publish several books, and became involved in the JFK Presidential Library and the Profile of Courage Awards. She also served as America’s ambassador to Japan during the Obama Administration.

See also at this website additional stories on JFK’s “road to the White House,” including separate stories on his campaigning in 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960, as well as other related stories such as, ““The Jack Pack, 1958-1960”, covering campaign help he received from Frank Sinatra and his “Rat Pack”. See also the “Kennedy History” page for other stories on the Kennedy family.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 17 January 2025
Last Update: 17 January 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “JFK & West Virginia: 1960,”
PopHistoryDig.com, January 17, 2025.

____________________________________

JFK History at Amazon.com…

Fredrik Logevall’s 2021 book, “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956.” Click for copy.

Tom Oliphant & Curtis Wilkie's book, “The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK's Five-Year Campaign.” Click for copy.

James W. Douglass’s 2010 book, “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.” Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Richard Robbins’ 2020 book, “JFK Rising: The 1960 West Virginia Primary and the Emergence of John F. Kennedy.” Click for copy.

Book by JFK aides, Kenny O'Donnell & Dave Powers, "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye," paperback. Click for book.

"Coal: A Human History", by Barbara Freese, 2016 edition. Click on this book and those below for Amazon.

John F. Kennedy

Dallas Boothe, “Kennedy Says Primaries Important; Thinks People Should Have Right To Choose Presidential Nominee,” Raleigh Register, April 12, 1960.

“Kennedy Raps Food Program; Says GOP Failed To Make Enough Food Available,” Raleigh Register, April 20, 1960.

“The Kennedy Boys Return to Stump; Robert and Teddy Campaign for John in West Virginia but Women Stay Out,” New York Times, May 1, 1960.

“April 6, 1960 – Senator John F. Kennedy Talking With Coal Miners in Raleigh County, West Virginia,” YouTube.com, posted by HelmerReenberg, January 28, 2009.

David Gutman, “He [JFK] Never Forgot West Virginia,” Gazette-Mail (West Virginia), Thursday, November 21, 2013.

Rick Hampson, “When W.Va. Lost its Voice: JFK’s Death Still Resonates,” USA Today, October 29, 2013.

Bill Archer, “John F. Kennedy Wins the Hearts of Southern West Virginia Coalfield Voters,” Bluefield Daily Telegraph (Bluefield, WV), November 22, 2013.

Phil Kabler, Statehouse Reporter, “Historic 1960 Humphrey-Kennedy Debate Took Place in WV,” Gazette-Mail, Monday, July 27, 2015.

_________________________

Caroline Kennedy

Associated Press (Clairfield, TN), “Kennedy Daughter Helps Make Film,” The Lewiston Daily, Sunday, July 3, 1973.

Hildegarde Hannum, ed., “Marie Cirillo: Stories From an Appalachian Community,” Twentieth Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures, Salisbury, CT, October 2000.

Associated Press, “Caroline Summer Sweetheart Of Coal Mine Camps,” The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, IN), July 8, 1973, p. 3.

Associated Press (Clairfield, TN ), “Caroline Kennedy Joins Crew Taping History Of Coal Camps,” The La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wisconsin), July 10, 1973, p. 8.

“Caroline Kennedy Finds Quiet Among Hill Folk,” The Kansas City Times (Kansas City, MO), July 12, 1973, p. 24.

“People,” Time magazine, July 16, 1973.

UPI (Egan,TN), “Caroline Kennedy’s Job Ends,” Washington Post, July 19,1973.

Fred Brown, “Caroline Kennedy Recalls a Summer in Rose’s Creek,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, January 31, 1993.

C. David Heymann, American Legacy: The Story of John and Caroline Kennedy, Atria Books, July 2007. Click for Amazon.

Christopher Andersen, Sweet Caroline: Last Child of Camelot, 2003, William Morrow, 352 pp. Click for Amazon.

Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (with foreword by Caroline Kennedy), 2011, Hyperion, 368 pp, Click for Amazon.

Mark T. Banker, Appalachians All: East Tennesseans and the Elusive History of an American Region, University of Tennessee Press, April 2010. Click for copy.

Georgiana Vines, “For More than 40 Years, a Former Nun from New York Has Helped Appalachian Communities,” KnoxNews.com, March 27, 2010.

Georgiana Vines, “Marie Cirillo’s Career Serving Appalachia Ending,” Knoxville News Sentinel, August 25, 2013.

Merisa Tomczak, “Community Leader: Marie Cirillo,” Appalachian Student Health Coali-tion, Archive Project, June 2, 2015.

_____________________________________________________

Caroline Kennedy Books at Amazon.com…

Ellen Alderman & Caroline Kennedy, “In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action,” 1992, Avon, 430 pp. Click for Amazon.

“A Patriot's Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories, and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love,” 2003, Grand Central Pub, 688 pp. Click for Amazon.

Caroline Kennedy & Ellen Alderman, “The Right to Privacy,” 1997, Vintage Paperback, 432 pp. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Topics Page

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Oil/Petrochem History”
Selected Stories: 1950s-2020s

December 12, 2024 J.D.

Oil Spill History

“Torrey Canyon Spill”

Off U.K., 1967

One of the first, big
“supertanker” oil spills
& story of its impacts.

Pipeline Explosion

“Pipeline Fireball”

Bellingham, WA: 1999

Gasoline pipeline explosion
& fireball kills 3 boys;
terrorizes urban community.

Refinery History

“Exxon at Baton Rouge”

Fire & Fume: 1989-2020s

For more than 30 years
a giant Exxon refinery
has had its troubles.

Fires & Explosions

“125 Significant Incidents”

U.S. Refineries, 2012

Story details CSB’s list
of 125 refinery incidents
for 2012 — and more.

River Pollution

“Burn On, Big River…”

River Fires Ignite Change

Oil pollution history of
Cuyahoga River w/famous
song & national politics.

Oil Spill History

“Santa Barbara Oil Spill”

Union Oil: 1969

Offshore blowout pollutes
beaches, kills wildlife;
ignites environmental cause.

Oil Refinery Blaze

“Inferno At Whiting”

Standard Oil: 1955

Big refinery near Chicago
explodes & burns for
8 days; 1,500 flee.

2003 Explosion

“Barge Explodes in NY”

ExxonMobil Depot

A Bouchard oil barge
blast frightens terrorist-
sensitive NY city area.

Oil Disaster Film

“Deepwater Horizon”

Film & Spill: 2010-2016

Story on Hollywood film
also recounts history &
politics of real BP oil spill.

$Shell’s new ethane cracker, in the middle of PA fracking country, will turn out trillions of plastic pellets annually.$ Western Pennsylvania

“Petrochem Peril”

Shell Cracker & Beyond

Some history and
controversy around Shell’s
new 2022 plastics plant.

Offshore Oil Junk

“The Brent Spar Fight”

Greenpeace:1995

A classic environmental
battle over an offshore oil
structure in the North Sea.

Chemical Plant History

“Shell Plant Explodes”

1994: Belpre, Ohio

Shell plastics plant explodes;
nearby tanks burn, pollute
river; 3 workers killed.

Poplar Pipeline Leak

“Oil Fouls Montana”

January 2015

Oil pipeline break pollutes
Yellowstone River
& Glendive’s water.

Gulf Oil Company

“Burning Philadelphia”

Refinery Inferno: 1975

Eleven-alarm oil blaze
kills eight firefighters
& frightens city.

Gulf of Mexico

“Offshore Oil Blaze”

Shell Oil: 1970-71

Oil rig blowout
kills four, burns for
nearly three months.

Big Tank Failure

“Disaster at Pittsburgh”

Ashland Oil: 1988

Oil tank collapse pollutes
drinking water for
millions downstream.

Petrochem History

“The Phillips Explosion”

23 Dead, 130 Injured

Following Wall Street stock
raids, big oil company
makes costly job cuts.

Modern Chemistry

“Plastic Infernos”

A Short History

Plastic materials implicated
in spread & severity
of deadly fires.

Petrochem Pollution

“Nurdle Apocalypse”

Plastic on the Loose

Plastic pellet spills are
polluting oceans & rivers,
menacing wildlife & more.

Corporate History

“Doing Great Things?”

Dow Chemical Co.

1980s ad campaign sought
to heal a troubled past, yet
toxic legacies remain.

Oil Industry History

“Texas City Disaster”

BP Refinery: 2005

Poorly-maintained oil
refinery explodes,
killing 15, injuring 180.

Business & The Environment

“Applause For Du Pont?”

Pollution History

Critique of a 1990s Du Pont
TV ad & environmental record,
plus recent PFAS troubles.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

Date Posted: 12 December 2024
Last Update: 12 December 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Oil/Petrochem History: Selected Stories,
1950s-2020s,” PopHistoryDig.com, December 12,2024.

________________________________________

Oil/Petrochem Books at Amazon.com…

Stephen McGinty’s 2008 book, “Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster,” Macmillan, Click for Amazon.

Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” Penguin Books. 2013. Click for copy.

Christopher Leonard’s 2019 book, “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries...” Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Topics Page

1921-1930, 1931-1940, 1941-1950, 1951-1960, 1961-1970

“The Tobacco Celebrities”
Advertising Stars, 1920s-1960s

December 5, 2024 J.D.

The Tobacco Celebs

“Wayne For Camels”

1950s

Hollywood film star
John Wayne appears in
Camel cigarette ads.

The Tobacco Celebs

“Al Jolson & Luckies”

1928-1940s

First “talking pictures”
star ushers in era of
Hollywood-tobacco deals.

World Series Champs

“21 of 23 Giants”

…Smoke Camels

Tobacco company uses
entire World Series team in
1933 ad to hawk cigarettes.

Tennis Champion

“Vines for Camels”

1934-1935

Ellsworth Vines, a world-
ranked No. 1 tennis player,
endorses Camel cigarettes.

Tobacco Sports Card

“$2.8 MM Baseball Card”

1909 Honus Wagner

Card’s value rose, in part,
from Wagner’s worry
about kids smoking.

Baseball Celebrity

“Babe Ruth & Tobacco”

1920s-1940s

Famous Yankee slugger
used to sell cigars, cigarettes,
pipe & chewing tobacco.

Lucky Strike Ad

“Gifford for Luckies”

1961-1962

NY Giants football star
Frank Gifford gives his
pitch for Lucky Strikes.

TV & Tobacco

“CBS Loved Lucy”

1950s TV Ads

“Lucy & Tobacco” sidebar
details how Lucy & Desi
pushed Phillip Morris cigs.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

Date Posted: 5 December 2024
Last Update: 5 December 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Tobacco Celebrities, 1920s-1960s” (Topics Page),
PopHistoryDig.com, December 5, 2024.

___________________________________________

Tobacco History at Amazon.com…

Richard Kluger's book, “...America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War,” won Pulitzer Prize. Click for Amazon.

Allan Brandt’s 2009 book, “The Cigarette Century,” Pulitzer Prize finalist, Basic Books, Click for Amazon.

Robert Proctor’s 2012 book, “Golden Holocaust,” University of California Press. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Film, Culture, Politics

1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Trump on Film”
A Partial Listing, 1990-2024

November 2, 2024 J.D.

A prescient 2020 documentary about how Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential election reveals some of the underlying factors in the electorate that allowed him to win again in 2024. Click for Amazon w/trailer.

Films about, starring, or connected to Donald Trump in one fashion or another, cover his family and early biography or feature him as New York real estate mogul, socialite, businessman, TV host, politician, U.S. Presi-dent and/or presidential candidate.

Most of the films about or involving Trump – now likely a couple hundred or more — are documentaries, and a few are made-for-TV docu-dramas or theatrical release.

As will be shown below, some planned biopics on Trump date to the late 1980s, though not always completed in a timely fashion due to litigation or other problems.

But most of the long-form film productions, with Trump as film star and/or principal subject – apart from early TV interviews, talk shows, and news clips – those began in the early-to-mid 2000s, in the wake of his rise in national notice, first as TV star on The Apprentice (noted in the first selection below), and later with his subsequent presidential bids.

The listing that follows here is a partial sampling of those films, including some of the more probing and critical documentaries produced by A&E’s Biography series, the History Channel, CNN, the BBC, PBS Frontline, and others, each with dates, brief descriptions, commentary, or reviews — some with excerpts or summaries from Amazon, Wikipedia, IMDB, and others.

Many of the films listed here are also available in DVD format and/or via streaming, some with free trailers. A number of images or links in this story connect to Amazon pages.

The Apprentice TV shows, in various formats and sometimes with two “seasons” per year, ran for nearly 15 years, with Donald Trump as host for 11 of those years.

2004-2007

The Apprentice

Probably no other filming entity did more to burnish the image of Donald Trump than did The Apprentice TV show – serving as his springboard to bigger ventures ahead.

Broadcast in America by NBC, The Apprentice was a reality TV show that judged the business skills of a group of contestants. It ran in various formats from 2004 to 2017 (also as Celebrity Apprentice, see later below).

The Apprentice was created by British television producer Mark Burnett, and co-produced with Donald Trump, who was the show’s host. Seven of the show’s seasons featured 14-to-18 aspiring, but otherwise unknown, businesspeople who would vie for the show’s prize, a one-year $250,000 starting contract to promote one of Donald Trump’s properties.

DVD cover for “The Apprentice” TV show with host Donald Trump, for the first season. Click for Amazon.

Episodes ended with Trump eliminating one contestant from the competition, with the words, “You’re Fired!” – a phrase that became a famous Trumpism beyond the show. Trump’s grown children – Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump – would also appear on the show beginning in 2005 serving as judges.

The audience numbers for the show steadily declined following the first season. As Wikipedia has noted:

“Although the series was one of the most-watched programs on NBC in the advertiser-friendly 18–49 age demographic, the franchise’s total audience gradually dissolved, starting in late 2004, when it aired its second season culminating in what some Apprentice fans deemed an “overextended” 3-hour season finale on December 16, 2004…”

The show had a high of 20.7 million prime time viewers in season 1 of 2004, with 28.1 million viewers for that season’s finale, then declining in years thereafter to lows of 4.7 million and 4.6 million respectively for the 2010 shows.

Initially hesitant to do the show, and once quoted as saying that reality television “was for the bottom-feeders of society,” The Apprentice would prove a lucrative venture for Trump, as he would earn $214 million from 14 seasons of the show according to the Washington Post, plus more from related product licensing as his brand name became more valuable. The show frequently featured and promoted his properties, products and brand. Melania Trump was also featured on the show several times, along with her fashion and cosmetic products, as were Ivanka Trump’s fashion products.

The Celebrity Apprentice TV show continued The Apprentice show in a somewhat new format, with Trump continuing as host, 2008-2015.

The Celebrity Apprentice. The Apprentice show was rebooted as The Celebrity Apprentice in 2008, and was also hosted by Donald Trump to 2015. In this show format, several celebrities would participate to win money for their chosen charities, with the final prize being a large donation to the celebrity’s charity and the title of “Apprentice”

However, Trump’s outspoken comments and off-show activities began to come into play. After he began to publicly question whether President Barack Obama was born in the U.S., for example, The Apprentice was criticized for its involvement with Trump. Some people publicly called for NBC to fire Trump from his role on The Apprentice. Industry media speculated about the extent to which Trump’s media comments may have contributed to the show’s ratings decline.

“Donald, You’re Fired!” In late June 2015, Trump was fired by NBC when the studio disagreed with derogatory remarks he made about Mexican immigrants during his announcement that he was running for President on June 16, 2015. By September 2015 NBC announced that actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarz-enegger would become the new host of The Celebrity Apprentice, starting January 2017. But apparently Trump was still watching the show and wasn’t hesitant about offering his views. Following repeated criticisms from Trump, Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to do another season of The Celebrity Apprentice after hosting only one season — although Trump stated that Schwarzenegger was fired.

For Trump, however, The Apprentice shows and audience over more than decade, would contribute mightily to his fame and national following, and later his political base of true believers. See, for example, this PBS/Frontline segment on Trump and The Apprentice, and also the book, Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America.

1991-2015 / Early Documentary

Trump: What’s The Deal?

One of the first investigative documentary films about Donald Trump was begun before he was an Apprentice star, and focused on his New York business dealings. This film has an interesting history behind it. In 1988, Leonard Stern, a competing New York real-estate developer, a rival to Trump, was financing work on the film, titled, “Trump: What’s the Deal?” At the time, Stern also owned The Village Voice and another publication, 7 Days, which had also probed some of Trump’s New York activities.

September 4, 1989, New York magazine, “Trump vs. Stern: The Unmaking of A Documentary,” about the early fight to block Trump film.

After the film’s release online by producer Libby Handros in 2015 under an alternate title, the film now uses its original title. Click for Amazon.

When Trump learned that Stern’s film was being made, he began to try and stop it and prevent it from being aired. According to then producer of the film, Ned Schnurman, a former PBS creator, Trump was “threatening litigation before, during, and after the airing of the program.” The full story is told by New York magazine in a September 1989 story titled, “Trump vs. Stern: The Unmaking of a Documentary,” by Edwin Diamond, who laid out all the details of Trump-Stern fight — including a claim Trump made about Stern’s wife. The blocked film was also written about in the New York Times.

Part of an August 19, 1989 New York Times story about the blocked documentary film on Trump by James Barron, “TV Film on Trump Can't Find a Station”.

Later, the film was briefly screened at a small theater in Bridgehampton, NY in July 1991 – but only for two showings. Thereafter, and for the next 20 years or more, it remained unavailable. However, in September 2015, with Trump in his first run for President, producer Libby Handros posted it online using a different title, “The New Trump. The Old Trump. The Same Trump.” Since then, the film, using its original title, “Trump: What’s The Deal?,” became available at Amazon and elsewhere online with a trailer.

According to Trump author, David Cay Johnston, writing in 2015, “the documentary shows Trump manipulating politicians and the criminal justice system, pocketing millions in taxpayer welfare, not paying people he hired, doing some of his biggest deals with mobsters…,” and more. A brief description at the film’s Amazon’s Prime Video page notes: “Donald Trump is one of the richest and most famous men in America, but on what foundation has his success been built? From accusations of harassment to repeated flirtations with bankruptcy, his very public business career has been one of artifice and intrigue. Originally produced in 1991, ‘Donald Trump: What’s the Deal?’ investigates the unscrupulous reality behind this most public of figures.”

May 2005 / ABC-TV

Trump Unauthorized.

In 2005, ABC produced the biographical TV drama, “Trump Unauthorized.”

Among early Trump films is the 2005 American biographical ABC-TV drama, Trump Unauthorized, covering 25 years of his business career and personal life dating to about 1980.

Quinn Taylor, a senior vice president for ABC-TV then making the film, said at the time, “Donald Trump is the American version of royalty. He’s probably one of the most fascinating and intriguing men certainly of my generation who has continually kept himself at the top of his game. That he was able to do it is worth exploring….”

Trump by 2005 was already starring in NBC’s reality television series The Apprentice. At that time he said he was surprised that NBC had not already made a television film based on his life. Trump further stated that he was flattered by ABC’s new film and that he wanted it to be accurate. Trump also mentioned that he was a “ratings machine” and, “they know that, and they’re taking advantage of that.” Trump said he did not care if the actor they used to portray him could act or not, “as long as he’s great-looking.”

The film premiered on ABC on May 24, 2005. Trump said that, overall, he was flattered by the film, which he considered to be a cross between Desperate Housewives and Dynasty. He called the film a “great compliment,” despite some inaccuracies. He also noted: “Having a two-hour movie on network television while you’re still living is sort of wild. You’re supposed to be gone for that to happen.” The film received minimal viewership at approximately 5.6 million viewers, which was ABC’s lowest Tuesday numbers of the season. The film had also received mostly negative reviews.

Oct 2009 / ESPN, “30 for 30″ Series

Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?.

ESPN “30-for-30” film, “Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?.”(October 2009). Click for DVD at Amazon.

There was a time in Donald Trump’s career in the mid-1980s when he became involved with the upstart U.S. professional Football League, known by its USFL acronym. As part of ESPN’s “30 for 30″ series, a 2009 documentary on the early history of the USFL was produced. The one-hour film covers the 1983-1985 period.

In its inaugural season, the 12-team league played before crowds that averaged 25,000 and garnered respectable TV ratings, winning over new fans. The new league also did the unthinkable by playing in the spring and signing three straight Heisman Trophy winners away from the NFL – Steve Young, Reggie White and Doug Flutie.

But with success came expansion and new owners, including Donald Trump, described in one account as a “high profile and impatient real estate baron.” After the 1983 season, Trump became the major owner of the New Jersey Generals, having backed out of an earlier deal for the team in 1982, as he was then angling for a possible run at the NFL’s Baltimore Colts. But with the Generals, Trump signed Doug Flutie in February 1985, among others, and his team that year – which also included, Herschel Walker – went 11-7. Trump’s vision for the new upstart league, however was at odds with the league’s founders.

As Wikipedia explains Trump’s plan for the Generals and the league:

Feb 1985. Doug Flutie & Donald Trump at New Jersey Generals press conference at Trump Tower. Click for Sport Illustrated.

…Almost from the moment he bought the Generals, Trump sought to use them as a vehicle to get an NFL team. To this end, he began advocating moving the USFL from a spring schedule to a fall schedule, directly opposite the NFL. Trump’s long-term plans called for moving the Generals across the Hudson River to New York…. He intended to have the renamed New York Generals play at Shea until the construction of a new 80,000-seat “Trump Stadium” in Manhattan [that stadium was never built].

In 1984, Trump convinced most of his fellow owners to move to a fall schedule in 1986. He contended that if the USFL were to hold its own against the NFL, it would eventually force a merger with the more established league—in which the owners of any USFL teams included in a merger would see their investment more than double.

The Generals acquired the assets of one of the teams displaced by the vote to move to the fall, the Houston Gamblers… This was widely reported as a merger, since the Generals inherited all of the Gamblers’ player contracts—including those of quarterback Jim Kelly and wide receiver Ricky Sanders…. Fans immediately dubbed the Kelly–Walker led Generals as the USFL’s “Dream Team.”

USFL New Jersey General trading card showing owner Donald Trump with star running back Herschel Walker..

Meanwhile, the USFL’s planned spring-to-fall schedule change in 1986 was seen as a move to compete directly with the NFL and to force a merger between the leagues. As part of this strategy to force a merger, the USFL also filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL in 1986, and a jury ruled that the NFL had violated anti-monopoly laws.

However, in a victory in name only, the USFL was awarded a total judgment of $3, which effectively forced the upstart USFL owners out of business, ending the first try of USFL. The league never played its planned 1986 season, and by the time it folded, it had lost over $163 million (equivalent to nearly $400 million in 2024 dollars).

In his film, award-winning director, Mike Tollin, a former USFL employee, showcased the influence the USFL had on pro football history. As part of the documentary, Tollin also seeks to answer the question of why the USFL failed and concludes that Trump’s actions had a negative effect that led to the league shutting down. Trump, for his part, was highly critical of the documentary, calling it “third rate” and calling Tollin “a loser” and “a sad guy”. Turns out, there’s a lot more history on Trump and pro football, including a public opinion campaign Trump sponsored against Jon Bon Jovi, then a rival bidding interest, during Trump’s attempted purchase of the Buffalo Bills in 2014. Details at this Wikipedia story.

2011-2016 / 3 Documentaries

You’ve Been Trumped.

“You’re Been Trumped,” a 2011-2012 film by Anthony Baxter. Click for DVD at Amazon w/publisher video.

You’ve Been Trumped, by filmmaker and reporter Anthony Baxter, investigates the social, economic and environmental impact of Donald Trump’s building of what was touted to be “the world’s greatest golf course” in one of Britain’s sensitive environmental areas in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

In 2006, Trump purchased some 1,400-acres north of Aberdeen at Menie (Balmedie), Scotland, with the intention of building a £1 billion golf resort there capable of hosting world class events. The development plan for Trump International Golf Links, included two 18-hole courses, a five-star hotel, golf villas, holiday homes, and a golf academy.

As summarized by Wikipedia and various media accounts, Trump’s plan was strongly supported by local business leaders, but met opposition from local residents and others in Scotland and the UK, plus environmental groups concerned about 4,000-year-old sand dunes there designated by the government as a “site of special scientific interest.” Still, by June 2008 government approvals for the Trump project were eventually obtained and work began there in July 2010.

In 2011, a documentary film directed by Scottish citizen, Anthony Baxter, called You’ve Been Trumped, was released, showing some local residents adversely affected by the resort’s construction. The film also contains footage of, among others, economists questioning the benefits claimed for the local economy, environmentalists critical the project’s damages, and others raising doubts about the project, challenging claims by the Trump Organization.

When it was announced that Baxter’s documentary film was to be given its British television premiere on BBC Two on October 21, 2012, Trump’s lawyers demanded the film not be shown, claiming that it was “defamatory” and “misleading.” The screening went ahead anyway. The BBC defended its decision, noting that Trump had repeatedly refused to be interviewed in conjunction with the film.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, writing that the most fascinating aspect of the documentary is “Trump’s almost joyous rudeness” and that “the underlying message is that if you are rich and powerful enough, you can run roughshod over tradition and private property rights and buy your place at the table.” Stephen Holden for the New York Times, described the documentary as an “unabashedly hostile portrait” of Trump, depicting him as “an insensitive, lying bully” who tried to pressure golf course neighbors into selling their properties.

Donald Trump being filmed in what appears to be a promotional video at the site of his then-planed golf course in Scotland. Source: Anthony Baxter's 2011 film,” You've Been Trumped”.

Back in Scotland, Trump and the Trump Organization became concerned about their golf resort investment in 2011 when they learned of a proposed offshore wind farm nearby they believed would impact their project. With one golf course already built, Trump threatened not to build a proposed second golf course as well as the 450- room five-star hotel. The Trump Organization filed official objection to the wind farm with the government, and brought a lawsuit as well, but lost on both counts.

Meanwhile, the golf resort opened on July 10th, 2012. And despite Trump’s threat to withdraw any further investment in Scotland amid the wind turbine controversy, he later purchased the prestigious Turnberry gold resort in Ayrshire, Scotland in April 2014.

In June 2019, Scottish Natural Heritage ruled that Trump’s golf course had “partially destroyed” the sand dune system, causing permanent habitat loss, and recommended that the SSSI status there be revoked, which it was in December 2020. Approval for the second golf course had been obtained by then, and would be named the MacLeod Course after Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod,

Sept 2014 film, “A Dangerous Game,” about Trump golf courses & broader environmental issues. Click for Amazon.

“You've Been Trumped Too,” released before the 2016 presidential election... More on golf course. Click for Amazon.

As for filmmaker Baxter, he set about making a couple of sequels to his first film. In September 2014, A Dangerous Game was released, continuing, in part, the locals’ struggle with Trump at the first site, but also expanding its scope to include Trump’s plans to build a luxury golf course in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on Mount Srd overlooking Dubrovnik, where he again confronts local residents. This film also looks at how luxury golf resorts damage the natural environment in terms of high water and pesticide use while serving a super-rich clientele often at the expense of out-gunned local communities. Another film, You’ve Been Trumped Too, released before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, also continued the story at the first site, then focusing on a 92-year-old woman resident who claimed golf resort construction workers cut off her water supply. Lawyers representing Trump also threatened legal action against the screening of this film.

2015-16 / A&E / History

The Making of Trump

Among the biographical films on Donald Trump, is a 2015 documentary by A&E / History Channel available at Amazon as DVD or Prime Video, the latter of which offers the following in describing the film: “The swagger. The outrageous pronouncements. The ego. The wealth. The hair. This is the story of how Donald John Trump became ‘The Donald.’ And how a kid from Queens took New York City by storm, survived two failed marriages and several failed businesses.” Elsewhere, this two-hour film is described as delving into Donald Trump’s past, “filling in the details and digging up the truth behind his legendary rise, fall and comeback.” Packaging of the film has appeared with two different images at Amazon and elsewhere as shown below.

Poster image for 2015 A&E documentary film, “The Making of Trump”. Click for Prime Video.

DVD cover for 2016 edition of “The Making of Trump.” Click for DVD at Amazon,

As Trump then was heading into the presidential 2015 campaign, one review of the film at IMDB.com, described it as follows:

…As every day of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign seemingly generates new headlines, this two-hour special examines the increasingly polarizing candidate’s past. Included is rarely seen footage from Trump’s interviews with Phil Donahue and his comments about politics from the floor of the 1988 Republican convention. Additionally, celebrities, politicians, and people described as ‘close to The Donald’ weigh in, including former US Senator Al D’Amato (R-N.Y.), former Atlantic City mayor Jim Whelen, boxer Mike Tyson, and notorious “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa.

Some of the people appearing and/or commenting in this film are: Jonathan Allen, Kurt Andersen, David Axelrod, Rona Barrett, Kate Bohner. Tom Brokaw, Pat Buchanan, George Bush, Jeb Bush, Michael Caputo, Ben Carson, Katie Couric, Alfonse D’amato, Michael D’Antonio, Donny Deutsch, Bo Dietl, Phil Donahue, Doug Flutie and others. Studio: Lionsgate.

2016 / Documentary

Trump: The Apprentice President?

2016 film, “Donald Trump: The Apprentice President?,” Available at Amazon with trailer. Click for film.

In 2016, the French media company, Babel, and director David Muntaner made a one- hour film on Donald Trump as he began his presidential candidacy in 2015. One summary of this film notes:

“Since announcing his candidacy, Donald Trump is everywhere. To him, it seems that nothing is taboo and no policy too outlandish to embrace. Somehow, this billionaire candidate has become the champion of ordinary America, with supporters traveling hundreds of miles just to see him.”

Another film note by its producers further explains:

“…To understand this [Trump] phenomenon, we followed his campaign across the country for 200 days. In the beginning, he met his supporters in small rooms and the media was often absent. But quickly, he started packing rallies and the ‘Trump Show’ developed.”

“On stage, he provoked immigrants and Muslims, women and minorities. But behind the scenes, he was tightly managing a slick media campaign and shutting out journalists….”

“We go behind the image and talk to his childhood friends and billionaire buddies, as well as his critics and those who have had the experience of working with him. What would a Trump Presidency be like?” Available at Prime Video and includes pre-view trailer.

2016 / PBS / Frontline

The Choice: 2016

The Choice 2016 – the PBS bio-documentary on the that year’s presidential candidates: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Click for Amazon.

In September 2016, PBS, as it had done regularly with its Frontline series for each presidential election since 1988, ran its in-depth bio-documentary on the two major-party nominees for the 2016 election – Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, offering a look at the backgrounds of each candidate.

An overview of the nearly 2 hour Frontline film at IMDB.com offers the following:

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are two of the most polarizing presidential candidates in modern history. Frontline’s acclaimed election-year series, “The Choice,” returns – going behind the headlines to investigate what has shaped these two candidates, where they came from, how they lead and why they want one of the most difficult jobs imaginable. From veteran Frontline filmmaker Michael Kirk, “The Choice 2016” will investigate formative moments in Clinton and Trump’s lives through interviews with those who know them best, providing in-depth, trustworthy reporting and powerful new insights at a moment when voters are being bombarded with conflicting partisan stories about each candidate.

At the New York Times, reporter James Poniewozik, reviewing the film at its release on Sept. 25, 2016, offered the following on the film’s treatment of each candidate:

The picture “The Choice” draws of Mrs. Clinton is of someone whose faults are within the familiar universe of politicians’ failings: caution, secrecy, suspicion, overcompromising. We see her evolve from the idealistic Wellesley student to a secretary of state who — learning of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s death while preparing for a TV interview — says with a laugh, “We came, we saw, he died!”

Its sketch of Mr. Trump is of a different order. It presents him as petty, vain, self-dealing, image-obsessed, a master manipulator, uninterested in growing as a person, driven only to serve his greater glory. The narrative is sober, straightforward and presented without editorializing. But it is quietly, firmly damning.

Candidates Trump & Clinton during 2016 presidential debates. Click for her 2018 book, “What Happened,” Simon & Schuster.

The PBS film investigates the events that have shaped Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — where they came from, how they lead, and why they want to take on one of the most difficult jobs imaginable.

The two-hour film draws on dozens of interviews from those who know the candidates – friends and family, advisors and adversaries, as well as authors, journalists, and political insiders.

In the 2016 election a few weeks later, the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence, defeated the Democratic ticket of former secretary of state and First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton and the junior senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine, in what was considered one of the biggest political upsets in American history.

January 24, 2017 / PBS

Trump’s Road to the White House

January 2017. PBS Frontline film, “Trump’s Road To the White House.” Click for film at Amazon.

This 2017 PBS Frontline documentary is an investigation of how Donald Trump defied expectations to win the presidency in 2016, how he rallied millions of supporters and defeated adversaries, and who he brought with him to the White House.

One review of this PBS film from the Hollywood Reporter’s story by Frank Scheck used A and B headlines as follows: “‘Frontline: Trump’s Road to the White House’ Plays Like a Horror Film – ‘Frontline: Trump’s Road to the White House’ Is a Stomach-Churningly Scary Look Back on the President’s Unlikely Rise to Power.”

Through interviews with key players, the PBS film details how Trump won the election. “The Frontline Interviews” – a separate offering at their website – provides additional background on this documentary.

Explains Frontline: “…When Donald Trump launched his bid for the presidency in June 2015, few observers gave the businessman turned reality TV star a chance. But over the next year-and-a-half, Trump would defy expectations and shatter political norms en route to becoming the nation’s 45th president…. Trump’s Road to the White House traces key moments from the campaign, as told by insiders who were there at the center of it all.”

The Frontline interviews include the following: David Bossie (Trump campaign adviser); Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y); Kellyanne Conway (White House counselor); Tony Fabrizio (Trump campaign pollster); Jack Kingston (Trump campaign); Corey Lewandowski (former Trump campaign manager); Frank Luntz (Republican pollster); Robby Mook (Clinton campaign manager); Jennifer Palmieri (Clinton campaign communications director); John Podesta (Clinton campaign chairman); Sean Spicer (White House press secretary): Roger Stone (Trump political adviser); and Katy Tur (NBC News).

2017 documentary:”Trumped: Inside The Greatest Political Upset of All Time.” Click for film at Amazon.

February 2017

Trumped

On February 3, 2017, Showtime aired a two-hour documentary titled Trumped with the subtitle, Inside the Greatest Political Upset of All Time, referring, of course, to Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election.

The film was created from footage that was shot for the weekly Showtime TV series, “The Circus,” a politics show starring journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, plus political advisor Mark McKinnon. The three also appear in the film, adding intermittent comment and analysis as they go.

The film and the threesome’s journey chronicles Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, from the time it was announced in June 2015, the primaries, debates, and up to an including the time of Trump’s victory on election night, November 2016. In addition to their own commentary, there are also interviews with various Trump advisors such as Roger Stone, Kellyanne Conway, and others. The film, however, received mostly negative reviews, being criticized mainly for being something of a rushed production, and not going into enough detail on how Trump won the election. Critics also believed that the film was released too soon after the election, with comments like “hastily thrown-together” appearing in one reviews. But Travis Johnson of Australia’s Filmink wrote “Trumped really just tells us things we already know…But there is a kind of car-crash fascination in watching the events unfold now with the benefit of foreknowledge.” It also captured the crushing defeat of supporters and campaign workers at Clinton headquarters on election night, and the somewhat “deer-in-the-headlights” moment of Trump himself discovering he had won the election.

2017 / Documentary / Cinema Libre

Trumping Democracy | Big Data

This 2017 documentary, “Trumping Democracy: Big Data,” is available as DVD or streaming, with trailer. Click for Amazon.

In 2017, Cinema Libre Studio, based in Burbank, CA, released Trumping Democracy. a documentary film about the powers behind the manipulation of election information and voter data in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. One subtitle appearing on some editions reads: Real Money. Fake News. Your Data. The film is described at its Amazon page as follows:

“Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States by winning three key states, a victory engineered by an ultra-conservative faction that quietly mapped its way to power using fake news, lies, social media and psychometrics. This explosive documentary follows the money to the reclusive multi-billionaire Robert Mercer, who bought Breitbart News and funded the effort while inserting Steve Bannon into the presidential campaign as its manager.”

“Using data of millions of Americans acquired from Facebook, Google, banks, credit companies, social security and more, another Mercer company, Cambridge Analytica, used tactics honed during the UK’s Brexit campaign to identify voters deemed most neurotic or worried, whom they believed could swing for Trump.”

“In the days before the election, using a little-known Facebook feature, dark posts, they deployed highly manipulative and personalized messages that could be seen only by the user before disappearing. In the darkness of the web, democracy was trumped by data.”

A longer review at Video Librarian offers a bit more detail, as follows:

“Filmmaker Thomas Huchon’s documentary on the 2016 presidential election—originally broadcast in France under the title Unfair Game — … concentrates on the methods used by reclusive American billionaire Robert Mercer, both to influence the outcome and to place his own people in the Trump inner circle.Voters could be targeted for last-minute disinformation ads in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. After interviews with Paul Horner, who produced admittedly phony stories for the Internet, and Scott LoBaido, a Trump supporter who feasted on such fake news, the film pivots to Mercer’s expenditures benefitting conservative outlets like the Heritage Foundation and Breitbart as well as presidential candidate Ted Cruz. After Cruz faltered, Mercer switched his support to Trump and inserted Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and David Bossie into the campaign. Even more important, he was behind the campaign’s employment of an English firm, Strategic Communications Laboratories, and its American offshoot Cambridge Analytica, which developed incredibly detailed personality profiles of voters who could be targeted for last-minute disinformation ads in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, where modest changes in the vote totals could tip the electoral college in Trump’s favor.”

Netflix released “The Great Hack” film in July 2019. This film available at Netflix.

“Huchon argues that the plan worked, and thus it was Mercer’s manipulation, rather than Putin’s machinations, that determined the outcome. Trumping Democracy‘s conspiratorial tone is somewhat of a mirror image of the technique Huchon deplores on the other side, but its tabloid approach — complete with striking graphics—makes for a provocative, if debatable, cinematic harangue….”. (F. Swietek)

Related to this film is another, The Great Hack, a two-hour 15-minute documentary released by Netflix two years later, in July 2019. Part of the review for this film at Robert Ebert.com explains:

…“The Great Hack” concerns itself with the United States Presidential election of 2016 and, to a lesser extent, the Brexit vote and other international political campaigns….”

…“This is sure to be a controversial documentary, not just because it sees Brexit and the GOP Presidential campaign involvement with Cambridge Analytica as a sinister, almost military-grade level of psychological warfare against an unsuspecting public, but because it also highlights how large groups of people can easily be led to vote against their own interests….”

“Active Measures” documentary of 2018 on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Click for film at Amazon.

2018 / Documentary

Active Measures

Another film about disinformation in the 2016 election is Active Measures.

According to the studio summary, this film “chronicles the most successful espionage operation in Russian history, the American presidential election of 2016. Filmmaker Jack Bryan exposes a 30-year history of covert political warfare devised by Vladmir Putin to disrupt, and ultimately control world events. In the process, the filmmakers follow a trail of money, real estate, mob connections, and on the record confessions to expose an insidious plot that leads directly back to The White House. With democracy hanging in the balance, Active Measures is essential viewing. Unraveling the true depth and scope of ‘the Russia story’ as we have come to know it, this film is a jarring reminder that some conspiracies hide in plain sight.”

Poster for “Active Measures” documentary

The film also covers a number of suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies — including some Russian residents of Trump Tower in New York.

Additional topics covered in the film include the life of Vladimir Putin, social media manipulation broadly, and the Cambridge Analytica scandal

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter calls this film “well researched and truly frightening … One of the doc’s strengths is the amazing number of ‘gets’ (onscreen interview subjects)…”

Among those interviewed, for example, were high-ranking members of the American intelligence community, including Sen. John McCain, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, and others.

Owen Gleiberman, chief film critic for Variety writes “…Active Measures names the names and fills in the flowchart of Trump’s corruption with gripping authority”.[35]

The Los Angeles Times has called the film, “A crash course in accepting that the 2016’s election results were the greatest espionage operation in world history.”

Feb 2017 / Frontline / PBS

Betting on Trump

On February 15, 2017, following Trump’s election, PBS’s Frontline broadcast an “economics special” under the rubric, Betting on Trump, consisting of three film shorts centered on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign promises in three areas – water, coal, and jobs.

2017. “Betting on Trump: Water” - Central Valley, CA.

2017. “Betting on Trump: Coal”- Williamson, WV.

2017: “Betting on Trump: Jobs” - Erie, Pennsylvania.

Each of the short films is about 11 minutes in length and were produced in cooperation with Marketplace and PBS NewsHour. PBS also included related articles on each of the film short subjects at its website. Click on photos for videos and article in each case.

Betting on Trump: Water. What do Trump’s economic promises to the farming industry mean to voters in California’s Central Valley? One in five jobs in the region are connected to agriculture, while water has been in short supply — and most counties voted red in this otherwise blue state. One farmer says, “I think everybody, including myself, was shocked that he was elected, but I voted for Donald Trump because he does give us a better chance of getting things back on track.”

Betting on Trump: Coal. What do Trump’s economic promises to the coal industry mean to voters in West Virginia? Twelve thousand mining jobs have disappeared in the state over the last few years — and 70 percent of the vote went to Trump. One former coal miner says, “I’ve been a registered Democrat all my life, but I crossed over this year. I voted for Donald Trump, because he promised to help the coal miner.”

Betting on Trump: Jobs. What do Trump’s economic promises to the manufacturing industry mean to voters in Erie, Pennsylvania? Manufacturing jobs in Erie have been declining since the ‘70s, and the county bet on Donald Trump to revive them — after voting for Obama twice. One small business owner says, “We’ve never seen anything like him before and I think that scares people, but I think the people who voted for him, they are hopeful.”

2017, “President Trump,” PBS / Frontline. Click for DVD.

May 2017 / Frontline / PBS

President Trump

In May 2017, PBS’s Frontline also aired President Trump, a one-hour investigative biography by filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team that explores the key moments that shaped Donald Trump – from his childhood, to his tumultuous career in the public eye.

This Frontline production draws on some material from its earlier film, The Choice 2016 and seeks to show how Trump transformed himself from real estate developer to entertainer to president.

According to PBS, “It features dozens of in-depth interviews from advisors, business associates, and biographers, and paints a revealing portrait of where Trump came from, how he leads, and why he sought out one of the most difficult jobs imaginable.”

Among those interviewed in this film are, for example, Trump book authors Michael D’Antonio, who wrote, Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success (2015), and Tony Schwartz, co author of the Trump best-seller, The Art Of The Deal (1987).

May 2017 / Frontline / PBS

Bannon’s War

2017 film from PBS / Frontline, “ Bannon’s War.” Click for Amazon.

This PBS/ Frontline profile is subtitled, “Inside Steve Bannon’s Fight to Transform American and Deliver on President Trump’s Promises.” It first aired on May 8, 2017.

According to Wikipedia, Bannon “is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House’s chief strategist for the first seven months of U.S. president Donald Trump’s administration, before Trump discharged him. He is a former executive chairman of Breitbart News and previously served on the board of the now-defunct data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.” See Wikipedia for further career details.

According to PBS, this Frontline film includes a look at Bannon’s confrontational style; his personal crusade to transform America; and his wars with radical Islam, traditional Washington politics, and rivals inside the White House.

Among other initiatives, Bannon had engineered a sweeping executive order aimed at fulfilling a Trump campaign promise to restrict Muslims from entering the United States.

As of mid-October 2024, Steve Bannon was nearing the end of a prison sentence for refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena regarding the January 6, 2021 investigation.

Among other films on Bannon are the following: American Dharma, an 1.5 hour 2019 film by director Errol Morris engaging with Bannon; a July 2022 hour-long CNN production titled, Steve Bannon: Divided We Fall, described as “exploring former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s urge to tear down American institutions and replace the government at all levels;” and, a 2023 hour-long film titled, Steve Bannon: The Trump Takeover.

Oct 2017 / Frontline / PBS

2017. “War on the EPA,” about Trump-era dismantling of environmental regulations. Click for Amazon.

War on the EPA

This one-hour 2017 documentary that tells the tale of how President Donald Trump’s Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, an Oklahoma senator and Attorney General, went about undoing former President Barack Obama’s initiatives on climate change (and more), is an excellent case study on environmental politics.

For one, it provides the needed historical context to understand the work Obama and EPA did – not only domestically, but also inter-nationally – to try and begin to regulate fossil fuel emissions at the center of climate change.

Initially, Obama was stymied by a Republican Congress in his first term. But in his second term he used his executive power to instruct EPA to devise a plan to regulate fossil fuel emissions – the Clean Power Plan, first proposed in 2014 — a plan which provided a generous 2030 compliance timeline and public health benefits such as thousands fewer asthma attacks and premature deaths per year.

The film shows how the coal, oil and natural gas industry, revved up in part by the Tea Party movement, and backed by corporate conservative think tanks, billionaire and corporate funding, a Republican Congress, legal maneuvering by Scott Pruitt-led state attorneys general, and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign – all converged on the Obama Administration’s climate change efforts. During his campaign, meanwhile, Trump had called Obama’s climate-related policies a “war on coal,” among other things, which played well in coal communities and working class America. Trump pledged to undo Obama- era environmental regulations, including those aimed at climate and fossil fuels.

President Trump, with Scott Pruitt at left and a contingent of coal miners present, signs an executive order on March 28, 2017 to begin the process of overturning former president Barack Obama's and EPA’s Clean Power Plan to reduce climate-damaging fossil fuel emissions.

In carrying out that pledge, Trump found the perfect ally in Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who Trump picked to head up the EPA. The film is partly a biographical sketch of the rise of Pruitt as a legal champion for oil interests in his home state and the broader national fossil fuels industry. The film details all the funding, legal, and political maneuvering that went into their successful bid to undo the Obama-era climate change initiatives – including the Trump Administration’s August 2017 U.S. notice of withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords – a U.S. and Obama-supported international treaty for global controls.

All in all, the PBS Frontline’s film, War On The EPA, is an excellent historic resource, which shows how corporate funding, legal maneuvering and raw political power were used over a period of some years to alter and set back key environmental regulation that also offered important public health and economic benefits.

Nov 2017- Mar 2018 / Netfilx

Trump: An American Dream

Trump: An American Dream is a four-part British television documentary series, exploring the journey of Donald Trump through five decades, leading up to his presidential run. It was first released for Channel 4 UK television in November 2017, followed by a global release on Netflix in March 2018.

Image & description for 2018 Netflix film, “Trump: An American Dream” – Says Netflix: “Friends, associates and critics reveal the truly American story of Donald Trump, the brash businessman who defied the odds to become U.S. president”.

The documentary features original footage and interviews with early employees of The Trump Organization, addresses the business and personal relationship Trump had with his first wife, Ivana Trump, and covers his alliances Roger Stone and Roy Cohn. The film was originally aired n four parts as follows: 1) Manhattan. In the 1970s, Donald emerges from his father’s shadow and negotiates a huge real estate deal, then sets his sights on building his namesake tower. 2) The Gambler. Donald’s decadence ramps up in the ’80s as he gets into the casino business and expands his brand. But his personal life begins to unravel. 3) Citizen Trump. Trump teeters on the brink of financial ruin as his divorce and affair make headlines, but he looks to the stock market to fuel his comeback. 4) Politics. In the 21st century, Trump’s star rises again in reality television before he turns his attention toward the ultimate seat of power: the White House.

PBS/Frontline 2018 documentary, “Trump's Takeover,” reporting on President Trump's battle for control of the GOP in his first year as President. Click for Amazon.

April 2018 / PBS / Frontline

Trump’s Takeover

The PBS Frontline 2018 documentary film, Trump’s Takeover, reports on President Trump’s battle for control of the GOP in his first year as President.

According to the PBS synopsis and summary: “Frontline went inside former President Trump’s high-stakes battle for control of the GOP, examining how he attacked fellow Republicans and used inflammatory rhetoric that rallied his base and further divided the country in his first year as president.”

“Through interviews with longtime Republican legislators like former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), House Freedom Caucus members including Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), former senior White House officials including Kellyanne Conway (counselor to the President) and Sean Spicer (press secretary) and other D.C. insiders, Trump’s Takeover examines how, years before the January 6th, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack, the president was remaking the GOP in his own image, counter-punching when criticized and publicly attacking those who defied him.”

Among others interviewed by PBS for this film were: Dave Brat (R-VA), Eric Cantor (Fmr. House Majority Leader); Tom Cole (R-OK); Susan Davis (Congressional Corres-pondent, NPR); Charlie Dent (R-PA); Lisa Desjardins (PBS NewsHour); Josh Holmes (Fmr. Mitch McConnell Chief of Staff); Steven Law (CEO, American Crossroads);Corey Lewandowski (Fmr Trump Campaign Manager); Frank Luntz (Republican pollster); Mark Meadows (RNC., Freedom Caucus); Ed O’Keefe (Washington Post); and Charlie Sykes (author, How the Right Lost its Mind ).

October 2018 / Showtime

The Family Business: Trump and Taxes

The 24 minute documentary on the Trump family business and how Donald Trump became rich, is well worth a visit, (along with the NYT print story) and can be found online.

In October 2018, Showtime aired a short documentary that followed a team of New York Times investigative reporters as they uncovered information that led to a major breaking news story about then- President Donald Trump’s financial history.

The short 24-minute film tracks 18 months in the reporters’ lives as they do the arduous and tedious work of chasing down the story, unraveling a complicated Trump family financial labyrinth and deceitful income maneuverings in the process – what was found to be, in the words of Susanne Craig, one of the reporters, “systematic fraud over decades.”

The film also upends the myth of Trump’s being a “self-made billionaire” – his often-told tale that he parlayed a $1 million loan from his father into his billions-plus real estate empire. Well, it turned out, Trump had a received a lot more help – and a lot more family money – than was widely known. As the investigative team would discover and later report in their detailed special investigative 13,000-word New York Times print story of October 2, 2018, Donald Trump had actually received more than $400 million (in 2018 dollars) from his father, most of it in ways that avoided paying gift or inheritance tax. Their reporting also revealed the following:

…By age 3, Mr. Trump was earning $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father’s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8. By the time he was 17, his father had given him part ownership of a 52-unit apartment building. Soon after Mr. Trump graduated from college, he was receiving the equivalent of $1 million a year from his father. The money increased with the years, to more than $5 million annually in his 40s and 50s…

Susanne Craig also published her first book, “Lucky Loser” (2024), with colleague Russ Buettner on Donald Trump's financial & business practices. Click for book at Amazon.

In this Showtime documentary – part of its “Fourth Estate” series featuring the work of journalists — the filmmakers embedded themselves for more than a year inside The New York Times, following investigative reporters David Barstow, Russell Buettner and Susanne Craig as they put together their story of the Trump family fortune and how Donald Trump became rich.

According to film director, Jenny Carchman: “We followed a singular story, outside of the daily news cycle that illustrates so much of the investigative reporting process – the patience, the perseverance, and the drive to understand a story without knowing where it would lead… We witness these journalists talk to people, review thousands of documents and spend months of exhaustive fact-checking, and see how vital the press’ role is in uncovering the truth.”

The research amassed by the Times reporters on this story entailed tens of thousands of pages of financial documents, including more than 200 Trump family tax returns. For their work, the reporting team of Susanne Craig, David Barstow & Russell Buettner shared the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

In early October 2018, PBS Frontline offered a two-hour film titled, “Trump’s Showdown,” Click for Amazon.

October 2, 2018 / PBS / Frontline

Trump’s Showdown

In early October 2018, PBS aired a two-hour Frontline documentary titled Trump’s Showdown, referring here to Trump’s fight against the ongoing investigation then underway by special counsel Robert Mueller into various possible 2016 election improprieties extending into Trump’s first two years as President, and whether he obstructed justice.

At Salon.com, senior critic, Melanie McFarland described the film as “a multiple- pronged study of the president’s concerted effort to discredit national intelligence agencies and the Fourth Estate.”

The film also takes some time delving into older history – in this case, on the methods of Trump Svengali, Roy Cohn, and his role in the McCarthy communist witch hunts of the 1950s. The film notes Trump’s fondness for Cohn’s “always attack” playbook, pointing out that during his business career, Trump was involved in no less than 4,000 lawsuits. But the film also gives a good overview of the whirlwind of developments then occurring around President Trump and his minions, as Frank Scheck at The Hollywood Reporter offered in his review:

…[T]the documentary delivers a concise and yet exhaustive account of a real-life political drama that includes one unprecedented incident after the other: Michael Flynn caught lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials and then having to resign; Trump’s desperate efforts to enlist “loyalty” from Comey, who took copious notes after every sordid encounter; Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusing himself, which has bedeviled Trump ever since; Trump deciding to fire Comey and then essentially implicating himself in what may well have been obstruction of justice; Trump’s celebratory meeting afterward in the Oval Office with Russian officials, which only Russian journalists were allowed to cover; the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has hounded Trump like Inspector Javert pursuing Jean Valjean. The story goes on and on, culminating in the Helsinki Summit press conference, in which Trump sided with Russia over his own intelligence agencies…

A long list of interviews comprise the backbone of the film – some 60 in fact – with former heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, members and former members of Trump’s inner circle, reporters, authors, and lawyers. And Frontline provides all of those interviews in full at its website.

2019 documentary, “ Where’s My Roy Cohn?,” profiling his life and legacy, including his Trump years. Click for film at Amazon.

2019-2020

Roy Cohn Films

To understand Donald Trump, it is important to know that a key part of his acquired modus operandi came via the tutelage of Roy Cohn.

Roy Cohn (b. 1927 – d. 1986) was an American lawyer and prosecutor who came to prominence as Sen. Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel in 1954, during McCarthy’s investigations of suspected communists. Later, in New York, Cohn became a famous political fixer, mafioso defender, and notably, in the 1970s and 1980s, advisor, mentor, and personal attorney to Donald Trump. Cohn was noted for his hard-ball tactics, once described by writer Ken Auletta as “a legal executioner—the toughest, meanest, loyalest, vilest, and one of the most brilliant lawyers in America.”

Two recent films on Cohn include Where’s My Roy Cohn? of 2019, and Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn of 2020. The first is an American documentary directed by Matt Tyrnauer. As Wikipedia notes, the film stars Roy Cohn as himself, alongside Ken Auletta, Anne Roiphe, Roger Stone, Donald Trump, and Barbara Walters.

The title of this film is reported to be a quote from President Trump as he discussed Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recusal from the Mueller Investigation.” Amazon’s Prime Video page notes of the film, “this thriller-like exposé reveals how Roy Cohn, a deeply troubled master manipulator, shaped the current American nightmare.” Brian Lowry of CNN in his review wrote, Where’s My Roy Cohn? is by no means a flattering portrait; rather, the film portrays Cohn as being emblematic of everything that’s wrong with politics, class disparity and the current toxic political environment.”

HBO/Max2020 film, “Bully Coward Victim: The Story of Roy Cohn. Click for Amazon.

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes offers this consensus summary on the film: “It’s blunt rather than balanced, but Where’s My Roy Cohn? does what it sets out to do, offering a disquieting summary of its subject’s life and legacy.”

Bully Coward Victim: The Story of Roy Cohn, aired on Max in 2020. This film also explores Roy Cohn’s rise to power and how his influence survives to this day. Bully Coward Victim is directed by Ivy Meeropol, a documentary filmmaker who is the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Cohn played a prominent role in the 1951 espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn’s direct examination of Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, produced testimony that was central to the Rosenbergs’ conviction and subsequent execution.

Meeropol, director of the film, has also stated: “Cohn really paved the way for Trump and set him up with the right people, introduced him to Paul Manafort and Roger Stone—the people who helped him get to the White House.”

Roy Cohn is also played by Al Pacino in the 2003 HBO miniseries, Angels in America, and by James Woods in Citizen Cohn, a two-hour film aired by HBO in 2012.

“The Trump Dynasty” three--part film series, originally broadcast in Feb 2019. Click for film at Amazon.

Feb 2019 – A&E / Biography

The Trump Dynasty

In February 2019, the Biography channel (A&E), aired a three-part documentary series on Donald Trump, then in his first term as President. Titled “The Trump Dynasty,” the three roughly 90-minute segments were broadcast on separate nights, as follows:

1.) New Frontiers. Starting with the Yukon Gold Rush of 1880, three generations of the Trump family confront new frontiers and build the foundation for Donald Trump’s fame and fortune.

2.) High Roller. When Donald Trump sets out to become the world’s most famous developer, it pushes his family business and personal relationships to the brink.

3.) The Trump Show. An orchestrated comeback launches Donald Trump’s rise as TV celebrity, international brander, and political firebrand.

March 2019 / Frontline / PBS Newshour

The Mueller Investigation

March 2019. “The Muller Investigation,” PBS / Frontline documentary. Click for Amazon.

The Robert Mueller special counsel investigation – conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019 – was an investigation of president Donald Trump and associates regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Also called “the Russia investigation” and “the Mueller probe,” the investigation focused on three points: 1.) Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections; 2.) Trump associates and their connection to Russian officials and espionage; and 3.) possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates. For two years, the Mueller probe dominated news headlines and rocked Washington D.C.

A Frontline and PBS NewsHour special, The Mueller Investigation, was first aired in March 2019. The hour-long documentary traces how President Trump set himself on a collision course with the country’s top law enforcement officials. Drawing on in-depth interviews with senior law enforcement officials, Trump insiders, attorneys, authors and journalists, the film offers an inside look into the investigation that Trump continually called a witch hunt. The PBS documentary aired following the submission of the final Mueller report to then Attorney General, William Barr.

The Mueller investigation, as summarized by Wikipedia:

….[F]ound no evidence that President Trump or any of his aides coordinated with the Russian government’s 2016 election interference. Though there was insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy, members of the campaign were indicted, including national security advisor Michael Flynn and the chair of the Trump presidential campaign, Paul Manafort. The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and 3 companies, 8 guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial. The report did not reach a conclusion about possible obstruction of justice by Trump, citing a Justice Department guideline that prohibits the federal indictment of a sitting president. However, Attorney General William Barr pointed to ten episodes of potential obstruction.

May 14th, 2019 / CNN Special Report

The Trump Family Business

In mid-May 2019, CNN aired a special one-hour documentary with CNN’s Erin Burnett on the Trump family business. President Trump at the time was battling to keep his taxes and other financial documents away from the public eye. CNN set out to investigate Trump’s role with his businesses and how, as President of the United States, he continued to be involved with them.

In May 2019, CNN anchor Erin Burnett, hosted a one hour special report, “The Trump Family Business.”.

In this one-hour CNN special, Burnett explores the many types of businesses the Trump Organization engages in and how the President’s continuing connections to his family empire raise many questions about his separate roles as President and owner of a number of operating companies.

In its summary of the report, CNN explained, “Burnett speaks to people who have faced financial losses — from investors in Trump properties, to those who lost money after enrolling in Trump University. In addition, Burnett interviews DC Attorney General Karl Racine who is suing the President, because he believes President Trump is violating the constitution by continuing to take money from foreign governments at his hotels. Burnett also speaks with journalists from the Washington Post, WNYC and ProPublica about their discoveries of how the President still makes money today and how his businesses operate.”

May & Sept 2019 / Frontline / NPR

Trump’s Trade War

2019 PBS Frontline/NPR special, “Trump’s Trade War.” Click for Amazon.

In May 2019, PBS Frontline and National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast an investigation on the inside story of President Trump’s gamble to confront China over trade.

Trump had thought – and promised during his 2016 campaign – that he could provoke a level playing field with aggressive tactics, so he enforced a series of highly restrictive tariffs on many of China’s key imported goods. Then China retaliated with tariffs of their own. Trump’s supporters were initially optimistic on the President’s move, but soon the burdens of Trump’s tariffs on industries like steel, manufacturing, agriculture, and technology began to be felt, as costs rose and supplies dwindled, later reaching everyday consumers.

The Frontline/NPR special reports on the inside story of President Trump’s confrontation with China over trade policy and what led the world’s two largest economies to the brink – and the billions at stake. One review at Top Documentary Films explains:

…The filmmakers attempt to piece together the potential endgame as they travel to various factories, and consult figures on the inside of this debate, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and former economic advisor Gary Cohn. Viewers receive a well-informed and rounded portrait of the merits and pitfalls of constrictive tariffs, and how they could conspire to impact the lives of citizens in both countries. … Trump’s Trade War looks beyond the empty rhetoric to find the real human costs of this standoff.

August 2019 / CNN Special Report

A Toxic Tale: Trump’s Environmental Impact

August 2019. CNN special report, “A Toxic Tale: Trump’s Environmental Impact.”

In the August 2019 documentary, A Toxic Tale: Trump’s Environmental Impact, CNN Chief Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a closer look at the Trump administration’s unprecedented rollbacks of environmental regulations and what these deregulations really mean for the health of American families.

Dr. Gupta sits down with a family who believes that the Trump-era EPA’s inaction is responsible for their son’s death. Several former EPA administrators and senior staff, who served both Republican and Democratic presidents, also weigh in on what is really happening at this important government agency that not only protects the environment, but also public health. Dr. Gupta examines weakened rules on everything from air and water quality, to pesticides, to fuel economy for cars, to combating the climate crisis and dangerous chemicals.

January 2020 / PBS / Frontline

America’s Great Divide: From Obama to Trump

In January 2020 – in advance of the debate ahead for that election year – PBS offered a two-night, four-hour Frontline special that sought to examine “the growth of a toxic political environment that has paralyzed Washington and dramatically deepened the gulf between Americans.”

January 2020: PBS/FRontline four-hour special, “America's Great Divide: From Obama to Trump.” Click for Amazon.

Part 1 traced how Barack Obama’s promise of national unity collapsed as increasing cultural and political divisions laid the groundwork for the rise of Donald Trump. Part 2 examined how the country’s political divisions led to Trump’s successful presidential campaign – how his campaign exploited those divisions, how his presidency unleashed anger on both sides of the divide, and what America’s polarization could mean for the country’s future. Brian Lowery of CNN praised America’s Great Divide for “admirably” charting in detail the deepening division within the U.S., adding: “The sobering takeaway … is whether the nastiness that defines current political discourse is irrevocable.”

May 2020 / Wolf Rock Pictures

The Trump I Know

October 2020, ‘The Trump I Know” film. Click for film at Amazon.

This film came about when a Hollywood filmmaker struck up a friendship with Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, who introduced him to the women in the Trump family, administration, campaign, and business. Their stories then relay accounts of the Trump they know.

Trump at the time, in his re-election bid, was lagging Democrat Joe Biden among women in national polls. During one segment of the Republican National Convention that year, women in key positions, such as Kellyanne Conway, White House counselor, and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, were spotlighted and spoke of the way that Trump had put women in key positions during his career. This film would do that as well, with some of the same people. The film then received digital distribution in early October 2020 in advance of the presidential election.

Ted Johnson, political editor at Dead-line.com, noted in his review: “The Trump I Know is different from many of the documentaries and shorts flooding the marketplace before the 2020 presidential election: It’s a positive portrait of the president.”

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Paula White-Cain, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump also appear in the film. Matthew Thayer is this film’s director and Wolf Rock Pictures, its studio.

July 28, 2020 / PBS / Frontline

United States of Conspiracy

In late July 2020, PBS / Frontline released the documentary, United States of Conspiracy, described as: “How trafficking in conspiracy theories went from the fringes of U.S. politics into the White House.”

Screen shot from PBS/Frontline’s YouTube.com page for the 2020 documentary film, “United States of Conspiracy.” Click for film at Amazon.

The film explores how conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, Trump confidant and poltical operative, Roger Stone, and President Donald Trump, have propelled fringe conspiracy theories and misinformation into the mainstream American political dialogue. Wikipedia‘s page describing the career and activities of Alex Jones, for example, notes the following:

…Jones… is an American far-right radio show host and prominent conspiracy theorist. He hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas, which is the longest-running online news and politics talk show, and was previously broadcast by the Genesis Communications Network across the United States via syndicated and internet radio. Jones’s website, InfoWars, promotes conspiracy theories and fake news, as do his other websites, NewsWars and PrisonPlanet.

Among many other conspiracy theories, Jones has alleged that the United States government either concealed information about or outright falsified the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, and the 1969 Moon landing.

Alex Jones, with bullhorn, featured in Frontline film.

….A staunch supporter of Trump’s re-election, Jones also supported the false claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election. On January 6, 2021, Jones was a speaker at the rally in Lafayette Square Park supporting Trump preceding the latter’s supporters’ attack on the US Capitol.

In October 2022, for Jones’s defamatory falsehoods about the Sandy Hook shooting, juries in Connecticut and Texas awarded a total of $1.487 billion in damages from Jones to a first responder and families of victims; the plaintiffs alleged that Jones’s lies led to them being threatened and harassed for years….

The Frontline film examines the alliance of Jones, Roger Stone and Trump in the political battle over misinformation and more. A 2021 Frontline update of this film at YouTube offers this summary of the film and that political period:

“…As the coronavirus pandemic continues, America reckons with racism and the 2020 election looms, United States of Conspiracy investigates how Jones and InfoWars, Stone, and Trump helped to lay the foundation for conspiracy theories to take center stage in America’s national conversation, how the idea of truth itself became part of America’s divide, and what it means for the future of our democracy.”

August 2020 / Documentary / Dark Star Pictures

#UNFIT: The Psychology of Donald Trump

Advertising poster for “#UNFIT: The Psychology of Donald Trump.” Click for film at Amazon.

This documentary film – #UNFIT: The Psychology of Donald Trump – was released in August 2020, not long after the Republican National Convention nominated Donald Trump as their candidate for a second term as President of the United States. It asks the question: Is Donald Trump fit to hold the office of President? The 1 hour 24 min film includes analysis of Trump by leading U.S. mental health professionals and Republican strategists.

Through the words of leading mental health professionals, this film explores mental health and brain-related conditions and disorders and their dangers — and also what is called the doctors’ “Duty to Warn.” The film introduces the syndrome known as malignant narcissism and explains how it is responsible for great inhumanity throughout history. And the professionals interviewed liken its symptoms to Trump’s behavior.

The experts in this film also discuss Trump’s paranoia, his preoccupation with conspiracy theories, his penchant for finding enemies in all disagreements, his anti-social behavior, and his absence of empathy and contrition.

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times, in his review of the film, notes: “The illuminating film, more personal than political, argues that psychiatrists have a duty to speak out on the president’s more disturbing behavior…”And Melanie McFarland’s review for Salon.com, notes, in part: “…#UNFIT successfully makes its case concerning why Trump’s psychological instability should be of concern to the public.” But Frank Scheck of the Hollywood Reporter adds: “Despite its powerfully cogent and well-informed arguments, #Unfit… is sadly unlikely to change the minds of the roughly 35-40% of the population who look at the president’s behavior and apparently see nothing to be concerned about.”

Among those interviewed and/or appearing in the film are: Malcolm Nancy, George Conway, John Gartner, Lance Dodes, Justin Frank, Ramani Durvasula, Anthony Scaramucci, Suzanne Lachmann, Rick Reilly, Bill Kristol, Richard Painter, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Cheryl Koos, Sheldon Solomon. A second film from the makers of #UNFIT explores the psychology underlying the dangerous cult of Trumpism and its “alternative realities, ” #UNTRUTH: The Psychology of Trumpism.

September 2020 / PBS / Frontline

The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden

September 2020. PBS / Frontline film, “The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden”. Click for Amazon.

In November 2020, in the midst of the historic coronavirus pandemic, economic hardship, rising unemployment, race riots and growing insecurity, U.S. citizens were called upon to choose a president for the next four years, through 2024. After Donald Trump’s four years in office, the Democratic challenger was former Vice President Joe Biden, who had served eight years with President Barack Obama.

In this two-hour TV special, the PBS Frontline team use interwoven investigative biographies of both men to answer questions of competence, character, leadership and vision. The film tells the story of the two candidates through interviews with those who know them best — examining the defining moments that shaped their lives, their approaches to power, and their visions for America. To produce The Choice 2020, Frontline conducted 47 interviews totaling more than 100 hours with some of the people closest to Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Friends, family, colleagues and adversaries of each candidate are asked about the challenges that affected Trump and Biden’s lives, and how their experiences qualifies them to face up to national and international crises.

The Choice 2020 was the ninth installment of the PBS/Frontline series on U.S. presidential candidates begun in 1988. It its review of the film, The Daily Beast wrote, “Beyond spin…thoughtful [and] in-depth.”

Biden would ultimately be elected President that November 2020, setting a record for the most votes ever received by a presidential candidate. He also became the first man to defeat an incumbent president in 28 years and received the highest percentage of the popular vote over an incumbent president since Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.

Multiple Documentary Films

Post-January 6th Films

In early January 2021, following the 2020 presidential election which Joe Biden won, the normal government process of certifying the results of the election in advance of inauguration was then in motion. This pro-forma and peaceful process in the transfer of the power was proceeding as expected on January 6th that year, as Congress would then verify and officially record the certified votes from each state for President and Vice President. But on this day, January 6, 2022, an angry Trump-incited mob stormed the U.S. Capitol disrupting the proceeding, damaging the capital, and injuring dozens of law enforcement (hereafter, “J-6” riot). The certification process, however, would resume some hours later that night following the unprecedented rioting, completing the certification. But for months, and now years later, various media accounts of that day, including a number of documentary films, would seek to offer recountings, explanations, and chronologies of the riot, investigating the root causes, politics, participants, prosecutions, and more. Some of these films are noted below.

Jan 26, 2021. PBS / Frontline film, “Trump’s American Carnage.” Click for film at Amazon.

April 13, 2021. PBS /Frontline / ProPublica film, “American Insurrection.” Click for Amazon.

Two PBS films on the “J-6” riots ware among the first to appear – Trump’s American Carnage on January 26, 2021 – followed by American Insurrection on April 13, 2021. The first, tells the story of how Donald Trump’s presidency laid the groundwork for bitter division, violence and insurrection – and why many lawmakers went along with him in what one conservative commentator in the film calls a “Faustian bargain.” This film also examines how Donald Trump aggravated political divisions and stoked violence throughout his presidency, as well as how his party’s leaders failed to heed the warning signs. The second film, American Insurrection, also coming in the wake of the J-6 Capitol storming, is an investigation into how far-right extremist groups have evolved after the deadly Unite the Right rally – and the threat they pose. Frontline and ProPublica investigate the rising threat of far-right violence in America, exposing the individuals and ideologies behind a wave of crimes, culminating in the attack on the Capitol.

August 18, 2021. CNN’s “Assault on Democracy: The Roots of Trump’s Insurrection.” Click for film at Amazon.

October 10, 2021. HBO/Max film, “Four Hours at the Capitol.” Click for Amazon.

Two other films arriving on the heels of the J-6 attack, include: Assault On Democracy: Roots Of Trump’s Insurrection, an August 18, 2021 CNN film, and Four Hours at the Capitol, an HBO original documentary produced in association with the BBC, released on October 20, 2021. In the first, CNN’s Drew Griffin examines the events of January 6th, 2020 and talks with those who stormed the Capitol, relatives of those who were arrested, and died, congressional staffers, police officers, and others. How did this happen? How did millions of Americans come to believe a network of lies so deep, that thousands of those believers would turn into a mob trying to overturn a presidential election, threatening American democracy? Griffin takes a look back to see how the events unfolded and reveals the insurrectionists’ motivations and beliefs.

Another J-6 related film – HBO’s Four Hours at the Capitol, as summarized at IMDB: “An immersive look at the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol.. Footage from the day, along with interviews from Congress members, law enforcement officers, reporters, Trump supporters, etc., create an all around picture of the tragic events.” One user review at IMDB also notes: “If you were not at the Capitol on January 6th, this documentary will make you feel like you were. Presented chronologically on that day, it’s honest, real, and gripping. Recommend for anyone interested in seeing and hearing the experiences of many points of view, and the real life consequences.”

2022 film: “Capitol Riot, Minute by Minute.” Click for Amazon.

Sept 2022: PBS / “Lies, Politics & Democracy.” Click for Amazon.

Jan 5, 2023. “January 6th” film, Discovery+. Click for Amazon.

Among other J-6 related films and follow-ups are these: Plot to Overturn the Election (PBS, 54 mn, March 29, 2022); Capitol Riot: Minute by Minute (Always on Entertainment, 1 hr, 2022 ); Lies, Politics and Democracy (PBS/ Frontline, 1 hr, Sept 6, 2022); and, January 6th (a film by Gédéon & Jules Naudet; 2 hr 30 mn, Discovery+, January 2023). And beyond these, there are any number of others that can be found with a general online search.

January 30, 2024 / PBS / Frontline

“Democracy on Trial,” a 2.5-hour film tracing the roots of the federal criminal case against former President Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss. Click for Amazon.

Democracy on Trial

In January 2024, as the nation was involved in the early months of the 2024 Presidential election campaign, with Donald Trump the presumed Republican front-runner (though Nikki Haley was still in the race), PBS / Frontline aired a 2.5 hour documentary, Democracy on Trial, focused on the Trump-induced upheavals and alleged crimes of the 2020 election.

This film explores both the events that culminated in the January 6th assault – including bodycam footage from officers defending the Capitol – and the criminal cases against former President Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss and the attempted insurrection.

The film reviews the proceedings of the bipartisan House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol and includes interviews with members of the J-6 committee, as well as those with journalists, lawyers, conservative commentators, and Trump administration staff.

Some of the interviews also offer perspective and legal analysis on the four-count federal indictment against Donald Trump, which alleges that while carrying out a criminal conspiracy to defraud the U.S., Trump worked to interfere with the federal government’s counting of votes; that he obstructed the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of Biden’s win; and that he worked to deny voters the right to have their votes counted. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all four counts.

Among those interviewed in the film is Arizona State Rep. Rusty Bowers (R), who describes in detail some of the phone calls he received from Rudy Giuliani on behalf of the President attempting to alter state electors in Arizona to favor Trump.

Arizona State Rep., Rusty Bowers, stood up for oath and constitution when pressured on state electors slate. Click for film clip.

Bowers — who also testified before the J-6 Committee — proves an earnest and most believable witness, stands his ground during the Giuliani phone calls, insisting on evidence that Giuliani doesn’t have. In his interview with Frontline recounting his tale, Bowers emphasized his loyalty to his public service oath and the Constitution.

Also interviewed is Georgia elections official, Gabriel Sterling, a self-described “bureaucrat” also devoted to his official duties, who was moved to make public warnings about worker threats during vote counting in Georgia “No one should know who the hell I am,” he says during the film. “I was just doing my job.” Some viewers of the film later reported to be moved and inspired by Bowers and Sterling. History should mark them as democracy heroes.

One review of Democracy on Trial at The Daily Kos called it “a masterpiece documentary” and “deserves an Oscar for best documentary”. The headline of the Buffalo News (Buffalo NY) review noted: “Frontline’s ‘Democracy on Trial’ is Must-See TV for All Voters.” As of 2024, Democracy on Trial remains one of the five most-watched PBS/ Frontline documentaries.

September 24, 2024 / PBS / Frontline

The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump

September 24, 2024: PBS / Frontline airs its traditional profiles of the U.S. Presidential candidates in “The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump”. Click for Amazon.

In late September 2024, PBS Frontline aired its traditional “Presidential choice” profiles of candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. As with its previous edition, in this two-hour documentary, PBS Frontline investigates the lives and character of each candidate as they seek the presidency. Filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team sought out Trump and Harris’ friends, advisors and critics, as well as authors, journalists and political insiders, to present narrative overviews of both candidates’ lives, going all the way back to their childhoods.

Harris’ journey is traced from 1960s Berkeley, through her rise as a prosecutor, her entry into California politics, her time in Washington, D.C. as a U.S. senator, then Joe Biden’s vice president. Harris’ childhood friends, college classmates, advisors in California, White House journalists and others were among those quizzed by Frontline. Trump’s path – better known – was also reiterated, from his New York real estate doings to entertainment and politics, his 2016 campaign through the present, along with interviews of his niece, business and television associates, biographers, and White House advisors.

“How Trump Built His Base” (5:40 min), is one in a series of shorts taken from the full PBS/Frontline film, “The Choice 2024” – this one, covering in part, Trump’s focus on the power of television as a base-building device and his discovery of televangelist Pastor Paula White, who led a massive following. Click for that clip.

A review of The Choice 2024 in Forbes magazine calls it “an unflinching investigation into the candidates life experiences and how their choices and decisions have shaped how they could lead the country over the next four years..” In that review, Kirk is quoted saying, in part: “…This is not a piece about where each of them stands on policy, this story is about the preparation of how they got to be who they are right now, and who they might be as president. Because whoever they might be as president is the result of the years of their lives.”

According to PBS, “What emerges in The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump is the story of two fighters: One seeking vindication and promising a return to greatness, and the other seeking to move beyond the past and promising a greater future.”

October 2024 / Theatrical Biopic

Poster for 2024 film, “The Apprentice,” about Donald Trump during his New York period – here depicting Roy Cohn and first wife, Ivana, on a New York City set – is one of dozens of films & documentaries about him. Click for Amazon.

The Apprentice

The Trump theatrical docudrama, The Apprentice, was released to American theaters in mid-October 2024, about three weeks ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Directed by Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi, the film covers Trump’s early years as a real estate developer and the relationship with first wife Ivana.

But at the center of this film is Trump’s key relationship with the nefarious Roy Cohn, (subject of two earlier films noted above) who teaches his charge how to amass wealth and power through deception, intimidation, and media manipulation

The film stars Sebastian Stan as Trump, Jeremy Strong as Cohn, Martin Donovan as Trump’s father Fred, and Maria Bakalova as Trump’s first wife, Ivana. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024 where the audience gave it an eight-minute standing ovation.

According to Agence France Press, the movie “paints an unflinching but nuanced portrait” of Trump. Along the way in young Donald’s makover, decency is trampled as dealmaking and power moves prevail. Once the Faustian bargain is made with Cohn there is no turning back. Cohn imparts to Trump his three golden power rules: First, “attack, attack, attack.” Then: “admit nothing, deny everything.” And finally: “No matter what happens, claim victory and never admit defeat.” All evident maxims in the real Trump world for the last 50 years.

The film includes controversial scenes, including those that depict Trump raping his first wife, Ivana, abusing amphetamines to lose weight, and undergoing liposuction and plastic surgery to remove a bald spot. Donald Trump described the film as “a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job” and those involved in making it as “human scum.” Earlier, the Trump campaign had denounced the movie as sensationalizing long-debunked lies and said it would be filing a lawsuit. The film struggled to find American distribution due to its subject matter and an attempt by Trump’s legal team to block its release. Briarcliff Entertainment eventually bought the rights, and theatrically released the film on October 11, 2024. As of late October 2024, the film has received generally positive reviews from critics.

Films Not Profiled

Still More Trump

The documentary and theatrical films noted above represent only a portion of those made about or involving Donald Trump. They are mostly on the liberal and critical side of the ledger. There are, of course, a number of other films offering more praiseworthy, conservative, and/or farther-right perspectives on Mr. Trump. Those can be found on the internet, Amazon, or other social media. And Fox News has its own list of Trump specials and documentaries.

CNN Trump Reports
Sample List, 2015-2022

The Trump Interview
August 19, 2015

All Business: The Essential
Donald Trump
September 5, 2016

Why Trump Won
August 7, 2017

Trump and Twitter
August 25, 2017

Trump-Russia: Behind The
Scandal & Suspicion
November 16, 2017

Trump’s First Year: Reign of Chaos
January 19, 2018

Hush Money – Trouble for Trump?
April 14, 2018

The Trump Show: TV’s New Reality
July 20, 2018

The Trump Family Business
May 17, 2019

A Toxic Tale: Trump’s
Environmental Impact
August 16, 2019

The Impeachment Inquiry:
In the Words of the Witnesses
November 24, 2019

All the President’s Lies
November 24, 2019

Trumping Democracy:
An American Coup
November 5, 2021

White Power on Trial: Return
to Charlottesville
December 5, 2021

The Fight to Save American
Democracy
January 9, 2022

The Alex Jones Story:
Megaphone for Conspiracy
February 27, 2022

Steve Bannon: Divided We Fall
July 17, 2022

American Coup: The January 6th
Investigation
September 18, 2022

Perilous Politics: America’s
Dangerous Divide
October 30, 2022

_______________
Not a complete list.

While a few CNN special reports on Donald Trump have been mentioned in this story, there have been at least two dozen CNN hour-long specials involving him in one form or another (see list at right). And the venerable 60 Minutes newsmagazine at CBS has also done a number of Donald Trump segments on its Sunday night shows, also available on line.

Available at HBO is Stopping the Steal (2024), a 1.5 hour account of President Trump’s challenge of the 2020 presidential election results, featuring Repub-lican insiders and former White House appointees.

Filmmaker and author Michael Moore has made two films that involve Donald Trump – Michael Moore in TrumpLand (2016) and Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018)

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow produced the 2024 documentary, From Russia With Lev, about Ukrainian- born Lev Parnas’s association with Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani to dig up Ukrainian dirt on Joe Biden and son that led to former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.

The UK’s BBC has also produced a number of Trump films, as have Canada and Australia.

Among BBC productions, for example, are: Donald Trump: The Man (January 2021); Trump Takes On the World (Feb 2021) about President Trump and his foreign policy; The Trump Show (BBC 2 TV series, 2020-21, “Follows key moments in Trump’s presidency. Through sex scandals, a pandemic, impeachment, public unrest…the whole world was watching. It was one hell of a show.”); and Trump: The Comeback? (September 2022). In addition to these, British documentary film-maker Alex Holder produced the TV mini-series, Unprecedented (July 2022, Discovery+).

Other British productions include: Trump: The Criminal Conspiracy Case (BBC Studios, October 2024, 1.5 hr), focusing on the Georgia election racketeering case, and Trump: A Second Chance? (Oct 2024) which follows a group of his supporters. Also among UK productions is Journeyman Pictures’ 40-minute documentary, The Company He Keeps (July 2017), regarding Trump business dealings in Indonesia for resorts in Bali and Java, raising questions about presidential conflicts of interest.

In the spring of 2016, Canada’s CBC News aired a documentary titled, The Rise and Rage of Donald Trump: The Fire Breather. That film was part of CBC’s highly regarded The Fifth Estate series. In Australia, at the University of Sydney, the U.S. Studies Centre produced an hour-long 2017 documentary, President Trump: The First 100 Days. And in August 2018, the Australian TV program, Four Corners with Sarah Ferguson, broadcast the three-part documentary, Trump and Russia.

In addition to documentaries, Trump has also made dozens of cameo appearances in various Hollywood films, television series, and advertisements since the 1980s. In the 1992 movie, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Trump makes a cameo appearance as the Plaza Hotel owner. He also appeared as a guest in: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Job, Suddenly Susan, Sex and the City, The Drew Carey Show, Two Weeks Notice, Spin City, The Nanny, The Associate, The Little Rascals, Zoolander, and Eddie.

Trump, in fact, even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, awarded in 2007 on the basis of his involvement in producing the Miss Universe pageants TV shows from 1996 to 2015. The Trump star, however, has received a share of protests and has been vandalized a few times, though repaired, since it is the custom that once awarded, Walk of Fame stars always remain.

See also at this website, “The Trump Dump: New York Magazine, 2016,” profiling a special issue of that magazine that chronicles Trump’s early career in New York and beyond. Other stories at this website mentioning Trump include: “Political Science: Randy Newnan Music,” regarding nuclear weapons; “I Won’t Back Down” about the use of Tom Petty song in political campaigns; and “Shields, Brooks, Trump,” regarding reaction to some earlier Trump remarks in 2017.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle.

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Date Posted: November 2, 2024
Last Update: January 6, 2025

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Trump on Film: A Partial Listing,
1990-2024,” PopHistoryDig.com, November 2, 2024.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

New book, Sept 2024 > How Trump Squandered a Fortune & Created the Illusion of Success. Click for Amazon.

“The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” 37 mental health experts offer assessments.Click for book at Amazon.

Charles J. Sykes’ book, “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” w/George Will blurb, 2018 edition, Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

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Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig’s book, “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America,” 2021 paperback edition, Penguin Books, 512 pp. Click for copy.

Michael Wolff’s best-selling 2018 book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” 352 pp. Click for Amazon.

Michael D'Antonio’s 2015 book, “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success,” Thomas Dunne Books, 400 pp. Click for Amazon.

John R. O'Donnell, former President of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, tells his story in 1991 book, “Trumped!: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump - His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall,” Simon & Schuster. Click for copy.

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Peter Baker & Susan Glasser’s 2022 book, “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,”Doubleday, 752 pp. Click for Amazon.

Congressman Jamie Raskin’s 2022 bok, “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy,” Harper, 448 pp. Click for Amazon.

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Deepa Seetharaman, “New Netflix Documen-tary on Cambridge Analytica Doubles as a Mystery Despite Intense Scrutiny, Film Highlights How Impact of Facebook Data Mining on U.S. Politics Is Still Poorly Understood,” Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2019.

“#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump,” About The Film, UnfitFilm.com.

Owen Glleiberman, “‘#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump,’ Review: A Documentary Dissects the President’s Malignant Narcissism; Putting Donald Trump on the Couch Has Become a National Pastime, and this Movie Does it Well,” Variety.com, August 21, 2020.

Frank Scheck, “Film Review; A Gallery of Mental Health Professionals Deliver a Devastating Diagnosis of Our Current Chief Executive in Dan Partland’s Documentary, ‘#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump’,” HollywoodReporter.com, August 26, 2020.

Alan Ng, “The Accidental President,” Film Threat.com, June 18, 2021.

PBS / Frontline, “United States of Conspiracy” PBS.org/WGBH, July 2020 & January 2022.

(Update) “United States of Conspiracy” (full documentary), Frontline /PBS/Official, You- Tube.com, January 20, 2021.

“Alex Jones,” Wikipedia.org.

Greggory Moore, “TV Review — Frontline’s ‘United States of Conspiracy’ Doesn’t Tell Us Anything We Don’t Already Know,” Ran-domLengthsNews.com, February 24, 2022.

Nina Zafar, TV, “What to Watch on Tuesday: ‘Frontline: Trump’s American Carnage’ on PBS,” Washington Post, January 26, 2021.

David Smith, Washington, DC, “Enabling a Demagogue: a New Film Traces Republicans’ Capitulation to Donald Trump; Michael Kirk’s Documentary ‘Lies, Politics and Democracy’ Is a Chilling Study in How Trump Subdued the Republican Party,” TheGuardian.com, September 6, 2022.

Brandon Yu, “‘January 6th’ Review: Scenes of a Riot; a New Documentary from Gédéon and Jules Naudet Recounts the Day of the U.S. Capitol Attack,” New York Times, Jan. 5, 2023.

Patrice Taddonio, “Jan. 6, Three Years Later: 10 Documentaries to Watch,” PBS.org, January 6, 2023, updated, January 5, 2024.

Patrice Taddonio, “Watch FRONTLINE’s 5 Most-Streamed Documentaries of 2024 (So Far),” PBS.org/WGBH, July 3, 2024.

Andrew Gumbel (Los Angeles), “Walk of Infamy: The Trump Star Causing a Stir in Los Angeles; City Leaders Largely Agree the Memorial Should Go, But There Is Little Consensus on How to Remove It,” TheGuardian.com, September 19, 2023.

Anne Easton, “‘The Choice 2024: Harris Vs. Trump’” Doesn’t Focus On Policy But Rather How The Candidates Have Lived Their Lives,” Forbes.com, September 20, 2024.

“The Frontline Interviews: Democracy on Trial,” PBS.org, WGBH, January 2024.

Patrice Taddonio, “Rusty Bowers, Witness on a Central Charge of Trump Indictment, Speaks Out,” PBS.org, WGBH, January 30, 2024 (with video).

“Democracy on Trial Is a Masterpiece Documentary at the Perfect Time That Should Go Viral,” DailyKos.com, January 31, 2024.

Zita Ballinger Fletcher, “’Democracy on Trial’ Among PBS Frontline’s Most Watched Films this Year, Producer Says,” National Press Club, Press.org, March 29, 2024.

Patrick Svitek, “Trump Called ‘Apprentice’ Contestant a Racist Slur, Former Producer Says; Bill Pruitt, Who Served as a Producer on the Reality Show, Said in an Online Essay That Trump Used the Slur When Discussing Who Would Win the Show’s First Season. “‘Yeah,’ He Says to No One in Particular, ‘But, I Mean, Would America Buy a [N-word] Winning?,’ Pruitt wrote,” WashingtoPost.com, May 31, 2024.

Mike Poulos, “‘Untruth’ Puts Focus On ‘Psychology Of Trumpism’,” Journal-Topics.com, September 11, 2024.

Tony Schwartz (coauthor, The Art of the Deal), “I Was Trump’s Ghostwriter. A New Biopic Gets the Most Important Thing Right,” New York Times, October 11, 2024.

Owen Gleiberman, `The Apprentice’ Review: Sebastian Stan Plays Donald Trump in a Docudrama That Nails Everything About Him but His Mystery; Ali Abbasi’s film is arresting when it shows us Donald Trump being schooled by Roy Cohn. But was that Enough to Make Him the Trump We Know?.” Variety.com, May 20, 2024.

Jada Yuan, “Inside the Battle to Release Controversial Trump Movie ‘The Apprentice’, Washington Post, June 25, 2024.

Jocelyn Noveck, “How Did Trump Become Trump? ‘The Apprentice’ Has a Theory,” APnews.com / Associated Press, October 9, 2024.

Manohla Dargis,‘The Apprentice’ Review: An Origin Story for Donald J. Trump; in this Ribald Fictional Telling of a Young Trump’s Rise, the Man Responsible Is the Lawyer Roy Cohn, Played to Sleazy Perfection by Jeremy Strong,” New York Times, October 10, 2024.

Rebecca Nicholson, Film Review, “Trump: The Criminal Conspiracy Case Review – Out-standing But Blood-Chilling; This Gripping Documentary About the Case of a Former President Challenging Votes Plays Out like a Wild Legal Drama. But If You’re Anxious about the November Election, It Is Also a Pre-Halloween Horror Story,” TheGuardian.com, October 23, 2024.

Books at Amazon.com…

Cropped cover of Melissa Murray / Andrew Weissmann book on Trump Indictments. Click for copy.

“Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and The Fracturing of America,” Click for Amazon.

Liz Cheney’s 2023 book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning.” Little, Brown, 384 pp. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Second-Chance Music

1961-1970, 2001-Today

“White Bird – 1969”
Caged Gem Breaks Free

October 4, 2024 J.D.

A somewhat forgotten song born more than 50 years ago in the San Francisco hippie music scene of the late 1960s – “White Bird” — has managed to have some new exposure in recent years. In 2015, for example, it was used in the film Focus, starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie. In 2017, it was also used in the premiere episode of the PBS-TV series, Prime Suspect: Tennison.

But this violin-infused song, along with its prominent vocals by a group known as ‘It’s A Beautiful Day,’ holds up quite well for any era, and has an optimistic if somewhat dreamy quality about it — but also a kind of determination. Some history on this song, sampled below in a YouTube clip, follows after the music (scroll down for lyrics).

David LaFlamme, a classically-trained musician, is the featured violinist on “White Bird,” also the leader and founder of the group, It’s A Beautiful Day. In 1967, the year of the San Francisco Summer of Love, when hippie “flower power” flourished, LaFlamme and his wife-to-be, Linda Rudman, a keyboardist, formed their group. It was a heady time for music then, as a number of singers and groups formed in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco, among them, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others.

David LaFlamme, co-author of “White Bird” and founder of It's a Beautiful Day rock group, shown here in later undated photo.

LaFlamme began his life-long affiliation with the violin at age 5 when he was gifted a cast-off violin by a relative, which he soon used to craft a version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” impressing his parents enough to invest in a teacher – and away he went into violin music and composition, later rising to perform as a young soloist with the Utah Symphony Orchestra.

Some years later, in 1962, he had come to San Francesco after a hitch in the Army, having spent some military leaves in the city. Then arriving with duffle bag, some Army clothes, and a “few bucks in my pocket,” he then began jamming with guitar and violin in parks and clubs with the likes of Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, and Country Joe and the Fish.

In 1963, David had met Linda Rudman and the two were married the following year. Soon thereafter, he became involved in some early bands – the Electric Chamber Orkustra in 1966, and later, part of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks. But it would be the group ‘It’s A Beautiful Day’ where “White Bird” and other songs would be created.

The original line-up of the LaFlamme-led group included Patti Santos on vocals, David’s wife, Linda Rudman LaFlamme on keyboards, Hal Wagenet on guitar, Mitchell Holman on bass, and Val Fluentes on drums. However, the group had a somewhat circuitous and tortured route to recognition and their “White Bird” song.

Members of the San Francisco-based rock group, “It’s A Beautiful Day,” circa, late 1960s, from left: David LaFlamme, Patti Santos, Mitchell Homan, Val Fuentes. Hal Wagenet, and Linda LaFlamme.

The group’s then manager, Matthew Katz, not always known for his fair dealings with rock groups, persuaded them to temporarily relocate to Seattle, where he argued they could hone their act without San Francisco press attention. Katz believed they weren’t yet ready for the San Francisco scene. Katz had also come up with the name for the group, It’s A Beautiful Day. “I wasn’t in love with the name,” Linda LaFlamme would later say, “because it was during the Vietnam War, and I wasn’t thinking that it was such a beautiful day.” Still, they went with it.

“White Bird”
David & Linda LaFamme
1968

White bird
In a golden cage
On a winter’s day
In the rain

White bird
In a golden cage
Alone

The leaves blow
Across the long, black road
To the darkened skies
In it’s rage

But the white bird
Just sits in her cage
Unknown

White bird must fly
Or she will die

[ brief violin feature ]

White bird
Dreams of the aspen trees
With their dying leaves
Turning gold

But the white bird
Just sits in her cage
Growing old

White bird must fly
Or she will die
White bird must fly
Or she will die

The sunsets come
The sunsets go
The clouds roll by
And the earth turns old
And the young bird’s eyes
Do always glow

She must fly
She must fly
She must fly

[ guitar intro w/
++ violin feature ]

White bird
In a golden cage
On a winter’s day
In the rain

White bird
In a golden cage
Alone

White bird must fly
Or she will die
White bird must fly
Or she will die
White bird must fly
Or she will die

White bird must fly!

And though reluctant to go to Seattle, the group agreed to relocate there, staying at an old five-story Victorian house that Katz owned – a house shared with others. The LaFlammes and group would also have practice sessions and performances at a Katz-owned nightclub/ dancehall in Seattle’s historic Encore Ballroom that he had renamed The San Francisco Sound.

And so it was December 1967 that the band’s Seattle sojourn began with practice sessions and performances at The San Francisco Sound, a venue that yielded little attendance. The group also worked on their music at Katz’s old Victorian house.

Making The Song

As David and Linda LaFlamme (then some months pregnant) first began working on the “White Bird” song, they were holed up in the Seattle house working in the attic. They were using a small Wurlitzer piano near a window looking out on rainy-day winter scenes, with leaves blowing around on the streets below. For the LaFlammes and their band, it was a time of frustration.

“We were like caged birds in that attic,” LaFlamme later recounted. “We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable were just barely getting by “We were like caged birds in that attic…”
-David LaFlammeon a very small food allowance provided to us. It was quite an experience, but it was very creative in a way.”

LaFlamme would later note that the “White Bird” song, with its references to darkened skies and rage – beyond their own difficulties at the time – could also describe struggle between freedom and conformity, or as he would later put it, between the pull of freedom and the compromises of conformity. “The white bird in a golden cage represents someone trying to break out of the constraints of the affluent middle class,” he would also offer.

Linda LaFlamme, for her part, wrote in a later email, that she considered “White Bird” a song of hope, and that the only rage they had felt was about the Seattle weather. Still, others interpreting the song’s chorus, “white bird must fly, or she will die,” also saw it as a reflection of the times, given 1960s disillusionment and social turmoil.

At any rate, in that rainy-day attic, at the point of the song’s initial creation, when the LaFlammes had first collaborated on chords, lyrics and melody, they knew they had something quite good.

Linda LaFlamme believed “White Bird” to be a song of hope…“The song kept evolving,” Linda LaFlamme would say some years later. But even “after two hours,” she said, “David and I looked at each other, and we knew we had a beautiful song.” Still, it would take another year or more to get that song, and others, to market and the broader world.

In 1968 the LaFlammes and band headed back to California. But they were still broke, and increasingly frustrated by their manager, Katz, manipulating their career. They soon began playing at a few clubs without his approval, thereby gaining some recognition and income.

They also gained notice with a performance at the Sky River Rock Festival in Sultan, Washington over the 1968 Labor Day weekend — one of the first major multi-day rock festivals.

But then, in early October that year, they had another break. The rock group Cream was then in the midst of a Farewell Tour, but their opening act, Traffic, could not perform as singer Steve Winwood had fallen ill. Concert promoter Bill Graham then had to scramble for a replacement act and that’s when he contacted LaFlamme’s group to do the opening act.

At the Oakland Coliseum concert on October 4th, 1968, the crowds and critics loved what they heard in the substitute performance by It’s a Beautiful Day. Not long thereafter, they began to play at more clubs in San Francisco.

As their reputation grew in San Francisco with a number of appearances at the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms, record producers began taking an interest. Among those who had contacted the group was Clive Davis of Columbia Records, who had signed Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and others. Lou Adler was also interested. Adler was then famous for his Dunhill Records label (Mamas & Papas and others), which about that time he sold to ABC, but continued his success with other labels, such as Ode Records (Carole King & others).

Linda Rudman LaFlamme, 1968.

Linda LaFlamme would later recall the group going to Los Angeles to meet both Adler and Davis, as the group had also scheduled a performance at the Whisky A Go Go club on the same trip. They first met with Adler at this home. Linda was quite taken with the visit.

“We walked into Lou’s house, and I still to this day have not experienced that kind of stopping at the door, gasping for air at the beautifulness of this house. The wood was sent over from Spain. You walked over this little bridge, then around the swimming pool, and then came to this very open-spaced living room. All wood. And sitting there is John Phillips [of the Mamas & Papas]. He left, we talked to Lou Adler, and it was a wonderful experience….”

David LaFlamme later met with Clive Davis after the group had performed at Whisky A Go Go, and he brought Davis’s proposal back to the group, and they agreed to sign with Columbia, basically because they were the bigger company

The first recordings by It’s A Beautiful Day for Columbia Records were produced by David LaFlamme at Columbia’s studios in Los Angeles, California,

First album by San Francisco group, It’s A Beautiful Day, 1969. Click for digital copies of 'White Bird,' other singles, or album.

The band’s debut album was released in the Summer of 1969 using the band’s name as its title, It’s a Beautiful Day. Its featured songs included: “White Bird,” “Hot Summer Day,” “Wasted Union Blues,” “Girl With No Eyes” and “Time Is.”

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 139 the week of June 14, 1969. By November of that year it peaked at No. 47 for two weeks, and would stay on that chart for 70 weeks, regarded by one reviewer as “pretty impressive for a one-song LP.” The album also reached No. 58 on the UK albums chart.

The album’s cover was designed by George Hunter and painted by Kent Hollister, based on the 1912 painting, Woman on the Top of a Mountain by Charles Courtney Curran. The cover, in fact, was rated at No. 24 on Rolling Stone‘s list of 100 greatest album covers.

“White Bird,” sung by David LaFlamme and Pattie Santos, did not crack the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, though it did reach No. 118. Since the song’s six-minute length ran up against the preferred three-minute A.M. radio length of most songs then, it was believed that a shortened version might do batter.

“White Bird” was then issued in a more radio-friendly 3:07 minute length, but was still ignored, though in early October 1969 it did rise to No. 3 on San Francisco’s KYA radio station and No. 5 on KFRC. It would be the song’s original album version – the longer version at 6:01 minutes – that became an FM radio staple, remaining so for several years. To this day, “White Bird” is still the song for which It’s a Beautiful Day are known.

Record sleeve cover for “White Bird” single.

Radio promo version of 3:07 “White Bird”.

The band’s second album, Marrying Maiden, rose to No. 28 on the album charts. But by then the LaFlammes had split up and would later divorce. David, it seems had fallen for someone else, as Linda, then with daughter, left the band and would later join another group. While full of praise for David’s musical abilities, Linda later explained, “I can’t say anything positive about David LaFlamme as a human being,” though adding,..“I can say very positive things about David as a musician. And that’s who he is. Because the rest of it is not good….”

David LaFlamme, co-author of “White Bird” and founder of It's a Beautiful Day rock group, shown here in a later performance.

David LaFlamme’s violin play in those times had an impact on other groups and performers. As the Washington Post would later note, “LaFlamme was credited as an influence on violinists including bluesman Papa John Creach and his work with Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna; Robby Steinhardt with the rock group Kansas; and Scarlet Rivera with Bob Dylan on songs such as ‘Hurricane,’ released in 1976.” A Rolling Stone reference has noted that LaFlamme played on a specially adapted amplified solid-body five-string violin – the fifth string of which was a low C, so the instrument’s range was as wide as that of a violin and viola combined.

In the early 1970s, It’s Beautiful Day would produce two more albums, Choice Quality Stuff/Anytime (1971) and It’s a Beautiful Day…Today (1973). But the group would not again reach the recognition it had achieved in 1969-70. David LaFlamme, in fact, was booted from his own group in 1973 over differences in royalties and management. Thereafter, he had something of a solo career for a time, producing his own version of “White Bird” that would crack the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 89 in 1976. He also had a long-running legal battle with Matthew Katz over the group’s name and other issues. In later years LaFlamme would also join others in various groups from time to time up until his death in 2023. Pattie Santos, the group’s other singer, had formed a group in 1977 with her then husband, but was later killed in a 1989 car crash in California.

The Coin Flip
…At Woodstock, 1969

David LaFlamme and It’s A Beautiful Day reportedly missed out on a Woodstock performance slot that might have sent their career soaring. Bill Graham had taken on management of the band at that point, and was negotiating with Woodstock organizer, Michael Lang, on which acts would appear (shown below, Lang left, Graham right).

Michael Lang & Bill Graham at Woodstock, 1969.

Lang wanted the Grateful Dead to appear, but Graham pushed for two other acts that he managed – It’s A Beautiful Day and Santana. Lang had listened to tapes of both groups and liked what he heard in each case, but could only pick one group. So he reportedly flipped a coin to decide, and Santana won – that group performing to wide acclaim at Woodstock with endless gigs and fame thereafter. With similar exposure, LaFlamme and It’s a Beautiful Day might have soared to new heights as well. As it turned out, It’s A Beautiful Day would perform at Graham’s Fillmore West in San Francisco on several occasions, and in one case, yielding a double album from a July 1971 performance there.

Over the years, “White Bird” has appeared on nine compilation albums and four more retrospective albums. A nearly 10-minute version of the song appeared on the 1972 live album, It’s a Beautiful Day at Carnegie Hall.

“White Bird” has also appeared in the soundtracks of several other films beyond those mentioned earlier, among them, Wolves At the Door (2016), Adult World (2013), and A Walk on The Moon (1999), the latter starring Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, Liev Schreiber, Anna Paquin – and according to one SongFacts.com visitor, used to “great effect” in that film.

The song was also used in the soundtrack of Uncharted Waters, a 2013 documentary about the life of surfer Wayne Lynch.

And in the 1980s, the song was also used in three episodes of the TV series Knight Rider, serving as something of a theme song for the relationship between main character Michael Knight and his one true love.

“White Bird” Kudos

“White Bird,” meanwhile, holds a special place among discerning music fans who have found the song to have lasting value and appeal. YouTube listeners commenting on video clips of the song, as well as some Amazon customer responses to CDs and albums, offer high praise for the song.

“The level of musicality in both the composition and the performance of this song is off the charts,” said one YouTube responder. Steve K., also at a YouTube posting wrote: “…As to this song specifically, what can I say about it: the beautiful power of the vocals & harmonies, the uniqueness of the tune, the wonderful professionalism of the instrumentation, the haunting feelings evoked by the lyrics, the perfection of the production – I could go on…” He said he intended to have the song played at his funeral.

YouTube’s “AquarianRealm,” who posted the full song, noted: “I adore this song…always sends me flying, then sailing…on a cloud of joy!” At that site, there are more than 1,000 visitors who posted comments on the song. among them, “christinespier500,” who noted, “This song has been my heart for 50 years. It is haunting, beautiful and uplifting…” And “cricketbat08″ calls it “an amazing song – timeless and beautiful.” Another adds “I’ve always loved this song. It’s so sad and beautiful at the same time. I think the white bird symbolizes the human spirit.”

Undated cover art for the song, “White Bird” by the group, ‘It’s A Beautiful Day.’ originally released in 1969.

“CharlieBrown3404,” also responding at a YouTube posting says: “…[T]he instrumental part is smooth & soothing…[T]his song just doesn’t take us back in time, it’s also helps us move forward in the present time…food for our soul.” “GordonColeman2446,” also at a YouTube posting, believed the song was “sadly overlooked and certainly deserved much better recognition.” A number of others with online comment noted the song’s nostalgic pull, recalling youthful days from decades past when hearing the song anew, triggering memories from long-ago moments.

As for the members of It’s A Beautiful Day, despite the hardships, misfortunes, legal difficulties and interpersonal traumas experienced and endured back in the late 1960s, the legacy of their creative enterprise survives in the music they made, and perhaps most beautifully in “White Bird.” The song has achieved “classic” status, and is a worthy survivor of the late 1960s San Francisco music scene, surely to be heard for many years to come.

See also at this website the “Annals of Music” page offering more than two dozen story choices on song histories and artist profiles, ranging from early Taylor Swift to late Frank Sinatra, as well as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Sting, Stevie Wonder, 1960s Girl Groups, Elton John, Tina Turner, Dion DiMucci, Louis Armstrong, Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles, and others. The “Music in Film” page also offers stories that profile soundtracks and movie themes, including those from: Blackboard Jungle, The Big Chill, Glory, Dr, Zhivago, Goldfinger, Stand By Me, Rocky, Soylent Green, Dirty Dancing, Platoon, Love Story, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, among others.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

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____________________________________

Date Posted: 4 October 2024
Last Update: 1 December 2024

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “White Bird, 1969: Caged Gem Breaks
Free,” PopHistoryDig.com, October 4, 2024.

____________________________________

Books & Film at Amazon.com…

“The Music of 1969" - week-by-week survey, from “Let The Sunshine In” to ”Crimson & Clover.” Click for copy.

2021 book, “The Haight: Love, Rock, and Revolution,” w/ iconic sixties-era San Francisco photos. Click for copy.

“Last Days at the Fillmore,” 1971 concert film w/ “It’s A Beautiful Day” & other bands. Click for DVD.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

It’s a Beautiful Day on album cover, “Live in The Studio, San Francisco ‘71.” Click for CD.

It’s A Beautiful Day, Live at The Fillmore West, 2 CDs, July 1971. Click for Amazon.

“It's a Beautiful Day at Carnegie Hall,” 1972 concert album. Click for Amazon, CD or vinyl.

“White Bird (song),” Wikipedia.org.

“It’s A Beautiful Day,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 468-469.

“It’s A Beautiful Day – White Bird (1969),” YouTube.com, video posted by Aquarian Realm, May 7, 2012, with comments.

Peter Blecha, “It’s a Beautiful Day’s Seattle-Penned Song, ‘White Bird,’ Hits the Billboard Charts on October 4, 1969,” HistoryLink.org, Essay 8942, April 10, 2009.

“It’s a Beautiful Day,” ProgArchives.com (progressive rock music website).

Dan Taylor, “David LaFlamme Plays San Rafael; Rock Violinist David LaFlamme Turned 70 on Wednesday, But His Fans Still Want to Hear ‘White Bird,’ a Song He Recorded 42 Years Ago. Fans Will Get Their Chance this Weekend in San Rafael,” The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA), May 6, 2011.

“It’s a Beautiful Day (album),” Wikipedia.org.

“White Bird by It’s a Beautiful Day,” Song Facts.com.

Dave Thompson, “It’s a Beautiful Day – Interview with David LaFlamme; There Was Never Another Band Like It’s a Beautiful Day, Even Amidst the Manic Fervor of Mid-Late Sixties San Francisco,” GoldMineMag.com, July 28, 2016.

Richie Unterberger, “It Was a Beautiful Day: The Original Linda Laflamme Remembers,” PleaseKillMe.com, October 21, 2020 (long story with early history about the group from the perspective of Linda Rudman LaFlamme, later known as Neska).

“Matthew Katz,” Wikipedia.org.

Charles Swanson, “David LaFlamme, Sonoma County Musician and ‘White Bird’ Songwriter, Has Died; the Pioneering Rock-Violinist, Whose ‘Immortal’ Song Captured the Spirit of 1960s San Francisco, Died Aug. 6 in Santa Rosa,” The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA), August 23, 2023.

Alex Williams, “David LaFlamme, Whose ‘White Bird’ Captured a 1960s Dream, Dies at 82,” New York Times, August 26, 2023.

Brian Murphy, “David LaFlamme, Violin Innovator of 1960s With ‘White Bird,’ Dies at 82; Mr. Laflamme and His Wife Spent Two Hours on a Dreary Winter’s Day in Seattle Crafting the Classic ‘White Bird’,” WashingtonPost.com, August 10, 2023.

“It’s a Beautiful Day Album Review by Lindsay Planer,” AllMusic.com.

“The Story Behind the Song: White Bird > by It’s A Beautiful Day,” NorseLandsRock.com (Norway), October 3, 2020.

Peter Thelen, “A Beautiful Day in Mill Valley — The David and Linda LaFlamme Interview,” Expose.org, published, 2003-12-01.

Also at this website:

“White Rabbit: Grace Slick, 1960s” – Jefferson Airplane song propelled group; lyrics drew political fire. Click for story.

“Legend of A Mind, 1968” – Moody Blues song about the “Pied Piper” of psychedelia (Timothy Leary), and related cultural & political history. Click for story.

“The Santana Sound: Woodstock, 1969” – An unknown band playing Afro-Latin rock electrifies 400,000. Click for story.

____________________________________

Teaser Tag: Politics & Publishing

1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“The Trump Dump”
New York Magazine, 2016

September 8, 2024 J.D.

A New York magazine edition of March 5, 1990. The magazine has covered Trump’s business, cultural, political and life-style activities for decades, to the present day.

On January 29, 2016, New York Magazine released a story online it described as “Our Trump Dump” – the magazine’s “Look Back on the GOP Prince’s Days as an NYC Clown.”

This accounting of Donald Trump’s days in New York City, came out just as he entered the fray of the presidential race in 2016 – the year he would surprise pundits with an electoral college win over Democratic candidate – and former first lady, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State – Hilary Clinton.

This Trump history may be regarded by many as “old news” – and true enough, it is that. But it is still a useful look at a part of Trump’s life during a revealing time in New York city: – i.e., Donald Trump as realtor, playboy, cultural star, and self-promoter. And in these various roles, Trump then received scrutiny by the New York media, and not least, New York magazine.

As the magazine’s editors would explain in one of the opening paragraphs for its January 2016 “Trump Dump” story:

…Trump went into business in 1968, the same year New York came into being. “The first time anyone heard much about Donald Trump was about five years ago,” contributing editor Marie Brenner wrote in a 1980 profile. “And it all sounded very fishy.” But over the succeeding years, this magazine got to know Trump intimately, chronicling his deals, his bankruptcies, his marriages, his affairs, his casinos, his yacht, his children, his vendettas, his television show, his marketing schemes, and his presidential campaigns. He occasioned and survived multiple bans by editors skeptical that there was anything about Trump left to say. He graced the magazine’s cover numerous times…

…And so, as hordes of Iowan Republicans race to declare Donald Trump their pick to be the nation’s next president, we went into New York’s archives to find our favorite Trump moments…

New York magazine contents page describing Donald Trump in November 1980 story, “Trumping The Town.”

As the editors also explained, Trump’s first appearance in New York magazine was in 1976, a few months after President Ford told New York to drop dead, the city then in desperate financial straits. Trump, then 29, an unknown real-estate developer with a grandiose plan for a convention center seeking big tax breaks, ended up in a feud with hotel mogul Bob Tisch, all of which New York covered in that first Trump story. But many more were to follow.

…If You Missed It

What follows below is a selected portion of New York magazine’s 2016 “Trump Dump” story, to give readers an idea of what’s covered there in more detail. Listed below, for example, are the descriptive section heads the magazine used in compiling the full story on-line. Each of these sections at the New York website, includes a related short summary, typically with links to other publications and/or fuller treatments in New York magazine pieces.

The section heads included here are also complimented with a right-hand column of several of the New York magazine covers that were featured or referred to in the “Trump Dump” compilation.

The general intent here is simply to re-introduce this story to readers who may have missed it years ago, directing them to the New York magazine compilation of useful and informative Trump history up through September 2016.

These stories, while older Trump history known to many, may still offer readers insight into Donald Trump’s various business and cultural activities in the Big Apple and beyond during the 1950s-2016 period. Most of these New York stories are well-written and lively accounts, and some quite revealing of Trump’s personality, values, behavior, and dealings with others in those times. Later in the piece, other Trump stories and magazine covers by The New Yorker, Time magazine, The Economist, Politico.com, and some New York tabloids will also appear. But first, consider New York‘s “Trump Dump.”

___________________________________________________

May 19. 1980, New York magazine cover, “The Men Who Own New York,” Young Donald Trump among them, top left.

Nov 16, 1987. New York cover: “Trump On Trump: How I Do My Deals - Excerpts From His New Book.”

November 9, 1992: New York magazine cover, “Fighting Back: Trump Scrambles off the Canvas.”

1994: “Trump’s Near-Death Experience” - He claws way back from the abyss – thanks to luck, bluster & Chinese billionaires.

“The Trump Dump”
New York Magazine, 2016

Chapter 1:
Faking It, Making It
(1946-1982)

He Stole His Brother’s Toys
He Picked His First Development Fight
He Seduced Ivana
He Loved Studio 54
He Learned His Positive Thinking From
the Master
He Tried to Manipulate a Village
Voice Reporter
He Built Trump Tower

Chapter 2:
The Heyday
(1983-1989)

His Tower Defined the Decade
He Tried to Topple the NFL
He Blew Up Palm Beach
He Retained Joe McCarthy’s Favorite Law-yer
He Didn’t Pay Retail
He Tried to Build the World’s Tallest Sky-scraper – And Lost
He Began to Consider Himself Presidential Material
He Became a Best-Selling Author
He Won Nixon’s Endorsement
He Bought the Plaza
He Advised Mike Tyson on His Fights
He Advised Mike Tyson on His Marriage
He Called for the Execution of Black Teens (Who Were Innocent)
He Buried a Documentary That Ultimately Screened Just Twice
His Womanizing Caught Up to Him

Chapter 3:
Debts and Defiance
(1990-2003)

He Began to Lose His Mojo
He Rebounded!
He Gambled on Atlantic City
He Owed the Banks Billions
He Fell Off the Billionaire List – Loudly and Homophobically
His Father Bought Him $3.5 Million in Chips at His Own Casino
He Ran Into Macaulay Culkin
He Blew Up at Barbara Corcoran
He Picked a Fight With the Cuomo Family
He Had a Thing for Princess Di
He Swore He Was a Really Good Dad
He Bought the GM Building, Predicting the Apple Store
He Started Selling Models
He Became a Rap Icon
He Impressed At Least One Architecture Critic
He Began to Mull the White House Again
He Buried His Face in Rudy Giuliani’s Bosom
He Lost the GM Building

Chapter 4:
Celebrity Grotesque
(2004-2015)

He Had an Idea for a Reality Show You’re Gonna Love
He One-Upped Monopoly (Or at Least Tried)
He Dominated the Ratings (At Least by His Telling)
He Was Skewered by Muppets
He Swore He Was a Billionaire
He Patented Himself
He Let Rosie O’Donnell Get Under His Skin
He Almost Shaved His Head
He Monetized His Appetites
He Dabbled in What Certainly Looked Like a Pyramid Scheme
He Married Off His Daughter — To a Jew!
He Wouldn’t Let Oliver Stone Near His Hair
He Was the Most Entertaining of All the Birthers
He Hawked Sunscreen
He Entered the Republican Primary Race,
Shot to the Top of the Pack, and Shows
No Signs of Losing (last entry, Sept 2015)

Concludes with a quote from Donald Trump’s 1987 book, Trump: The Art of The Deal:

Trump: “You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.”

** Click here to visit full New York magazine “Trump Dump” story from January 29, 2016.

NYmag Sample Stories

New York’s May 2, 1983 edition, ran a two-page spread (turned sideways) on the Trump Tower’s six-story interior atrium.

In its reporting on Donald Trump, New York magazine also covered Trump’s architectural accomplishments, even as it would criticize his methods, politics, and deal-making in securing building locations, financing, tax breaks, labor and management contracts, etc.

When the Trump Tower was completed in 1983, for example, New York lauded the building, offering a headline atop its May 2nd, 1983 cover that read:, “Trump’s Spec-tacular Atrium on Fifth Avenue.” Inside that edition, the magazine also ran a two-page, enlarged, “turn-it-sideways” photo of the building’s six-story interior atrium.

Said the magazine, describing the Trump Tower on the contents page:

“With its 68 stories of bronze glass and its dazzling six-story atrium, its pricey boutiques and pricier apartments, its mock grenadiers and its cascading ‘waterwall,’ the Trump Tower, the ‘world’s most talked about address,’ is getting a lot of talk.”

The magazine also explained that Trump, who became the most recognized New York City builder of the 1980s, was not content with just real estate:

“Trump Tower begat a litter of Trump- branded condo buildings — Trump Parc, Trump Plaza, Trump Palace — but Trump himself was not content to remain a mere real-estate developer. He expanded into Atlantic City casinos, bought the Eastern Airlines shuttle (which he renamed Trump Air), sponsored a professional cycling event called the Tour de Trump. But perhaps his most audacious move came in taking on the entire National Football League” Not all of these ventures would fare the way Trump had hoped, with some falling far short of Trump’s vision, some incurring huge debt and other troubles [see, for example, 2013 ESPN documentary, Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL ]. In some of his subsequent real estate ventures, he would also do battle with renters not willing to leave their apartments.

Feb 1985. NY magazine cover story of Donald Trump’s battle with tenants of a building he wanted for a new project.

In February 1985, New York magazine published a story by Tony Schwartz titled, “A Different Kind of Donald Trump Story.” It was about Trump’s failed attempts to forcibly and illegally evict rent-controlled tenants from a building on Central Park South he had acquired in 1982.

A group of tenants in that building – located at a desirable New York City location, 100 Central Park South, with some units looking into the park – had organized to block Trump from raising the building in order to build a new tower there and on an adjoining property. Trump hired a management company to deal with the property and begin eviction proceedings. Tenants charged they were soon receiving reduced services, and repairs had been stopped as well. Soon, the legal wars began, but the tenants held their ground. And New York magazine told the story.

In the end, Trump never realized his original project for that site. But the value of the property soared in the booming 1980s New York City real estate market. By the late 1990s, Trump converted the building into condominiums, though some of renters were allowed to remain at lower-than-market level rents. Among the residents, as of 2016, was Trump’s son Eric, who also served on the condo board.

Doing His Deals

But New York magazine stories also helped to sell Donald Trump and make him a cultural figure in New York and beyond. In November 1987, for example, just prior to publication of Trump’s first book, The Art of The Deal, New York ran extensive excerpts from the book over a generous 14 pages. Trump had collaborated with Tony Schwartz on the book – the writer who did the earlier story on Trump’s battle with Central Park South renters. Along with the excerpts from Trump’s The Art of the Deal, the magazine also included an update of how some of Trump’s deals actually fared in the real world.

Part of a 14-page spread New York magazine offered on Trump with its November 16, 1987 story, “Trump on Trump: How I Do My Deals,” with extensive excerpts from Trump’s first book, “The Art of the Deal.”

As introduction to the November 1987 New York story on the Trump book, the magazine described Trump as follows:

…Donald Trump is one of the most remarkable figures of the roaring eighties – a true creature of the age. More than a New York real estate developer and deal-maker, Trump has become the personification of hustle and chutzpah, flogging Mayor Koch one day, raiding Holiday Inns or United Airlines the next, pronouncing on the Persian Gulf on the back page of the Times the day after that.

At just 41, Trump has amassed a personal fortune (of $850 million by Forbes estimate), put up some of the gaudiest and most popular buildings in New York, made himself the biggest casino operator in the country, and is even flirting with a presidential run.

Trump’s 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal.” Click for copy.

Trump may also be America’s most enthusiastic conspicuous consumers. Over the past two years, he’s acquired Mar-a-Lago, Marjorie Merriweather Post’s 118-room mansion n Palm Beach; an $8 million French helicopter; and an $8 million used Boeing 727 complete with master bedroom, full bath and study….

And with that, the magazine then ran its excepts from the book. That exposure no doubt helped move the book in the New York market and beyond.

Published by Random House in November 1987, a promotional campaign at the book’s release included a celebrity-thick release party at Trump Tower; Trump making the rounds on the TV talk-show circuit; and a number of magazine covers on Trump and the book.

The Art of the Deal became a huge hit, selling 835,000 copies in hardcover alone. After that showing, Random House reportedly paid Trump a $2.4 million advance for a sequel. Trump, however, by all accounts, did not write the book; Tony Schwartz did, reportedly to his great regret (see Wikipedia profile of the Trump book, which includes history on Tony Schwartz).

July 1988 New York magazine cover story on Trump’s yacht.

Big Yacht

Among other New York magazine cover stories in the “Trump Dump,” is a July 11th, 1988 story that focused on his yacht – or as New York’s cover story headline put it: “Trump’s Newest Toy.”

The magazine further explained on its contents page:

“It cost him nearly $30 million, and he says it was a bargain. He calls it the “ultimate toy,” but he plans to use it for business. It’s Donald Trumps new yacht, which he introduced to his New York Fiends at a July 4 bash on the East River. The 292-foot yacht will soon be docked at a marina in Atlantic City, where Trump will use it entertain the high rollers at his casinos….”

That story also included a detailed description and graphic of the boat’s various decks, its size relative to other commercial and military boats, and photos of some of its elaborately-decorated rooms. In a separate story, Newsweek magazine would call it “the world’s most luxurious yacht.”

The yacht was originally built in 1980 for Saudi businessman and billionaire, Adnan Khashoggi, for $100 million. Trump named it the Trump Princess. Although for a time he talked about having a bigger yacht built to accommodate all his high-roller friends – one perhaps 400 feet in size – that never came to pass. The Trump Princess, meanwhile, was sold in 1991.

September 4, 1989 edition: “Trump vs. Stern: The Unmaking of A Documentary,” about once-blocked documentary film about Trump.

Blocked Film

One of the stories featured in New York magazine’s 2016 “Trump Dump” was a cover story that appeared in the September 4th, 1989 edition of the magazine regarding a documentary film that was being made about Trump, and backed by Leonard Stern, a competing New York real-estate developer.

At the time, Stern owned The Village Voice and another publication, 7 Days, which had probed some of Trump’s activities. In 1988 Stern was also financing work on a documentary film titled, “Trump: What’s the Deal?”

According to New York, as Trump learned that the film was being made, he began to try and stop it from being aired, and in the process, became “really nasty, spreading a rumor that Stern’s wife of 18 months, Allison, had repeatedly phoned his office asking for a date,” which she called “absurd.”

In any case, New York magazine’s story, “Trump vs. Stern: The Unmaking of a Documentary,” by Edwin Diamond, laid out all the details on the Trump-Stern fight over the film. The story ran for eight pages with screen shots from the film, its history, and quotes from its principals. Trump threatened lawsuits and used business connections to block the film on TV, although it was later screened briefly at a small theater in Bridgehampton, New York in July 1991 – but only for two showings.

Title card for once-blocked documentary film, “Trump: What’ The Deal,” now available. Click for film at Amazon.

The film then remained unavailable thereafter — in fact, for more than 20 years, even after Trump announced he was running for president in 2015. However, in September 2015, producer Libby Handros posted it online for streaming, by then using a different title, “The New Trump. The Old Trump. The Same Trump.” But today, the film can be found online, or at any of the streaming providers, using its original title, “Trump: What’s The Deal.”

According to Trump author, David Cay Johnston, writing in The National Memo in August 2015, “the documentary shows Trump manipulating politicians and the criminal justice system, pocketing millions in taxpayer welfare, not paying people he hired, doing some of his biggest deals with mobsters, retaining a cocaine dealer as his helicopter pilot, and evidently benefitting from having his sister working in the Justice Department before winning appointment as a federal judge.” As of August 2024, Amazon’s Prime Video described the film as follows: “Donald Trump is one of the richest and most famous men in America, but on what foundation has his success been built? From accusations of harassment to repeated flirtations with bankruptcy, his very public business career has been one of artifice and intrigue. Originally produced in 1991, “Donald Trump: What’s the Deal?” investigates the unscrupulous reality behind this most public of figures.”

Tabloid Coverage

February 16, 1990. Famous cover of New York Post re: Marla on Trump.

In early 1990 came some big Trump news – about his affair with Marla Maples and the beginning of the end of his marriage to Ivana. And it was the February 1990 front-page headline and cover photo of a grinning Donald Trump in the New York Post that got the most attention – as Marla reportedly said about Trump, it was the best sex she ever had. (see also Wikipedia’s account of this story, FYI).

Thereafter, the tabloids – especially the New York Post and the New York Daily News – exploded with the news about Trump, Ivana, and Marla, offering nearly non-stop coverage and front-page stories for the next few weeks.

New York magazine, for its part, added its own coverage, beginning with the March 5, 1990 cover story noted at the top of this story – “Trump The Soap.” And in subsequent months and years, other stories on Ivana and Marla would continue to be a part of the Trump media swirl, especially in the New York City tabloids (more on the tabloids later below).

Ivana and Trump had married in 1977, divorced in December 1990. Trump married Maples in 1993 and they divorced in 1999.

New York magazine, meanwhile, continued to include stories about Trump’s marriages, affairs, divorce, and family – some of these mentioned in the “Trump Dump” compilation. An October 1990 cover story by Michael Gross, “Ivana’s New Life,” focused on the life of first wife, Ivana, then not yet divorced, but beginning to plan her new life after Donald’s affair with Marla Maples. Maples, for her part, would get her own New York cover story a few years later, on April 11, 1994 with then Marla Trump on the cover, headlined, “Look Who’s New Age Now: Marla Trump And Her Society Pals Go Holistic.”

NY mag, October 15, 1990. “Ivana’s New Life,” i.e., after Trump.

NY mag, April 11, 1994. Marla Trump. “Look Who’s New Age Now.”

NY mag, December 13, 2004. “Growing Up Trump.”

Regarding Trump’s role as a father, a cover story by Jonathan Von Meter of December 2004 was titled, “Growing Up Trump: How Did Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Survive New York’s Weirdest Family?” On the magazine’s contents page that story was given a longer title: “Did Their Father Really Know Best? In a City Full of Narcissistic Competitive Parents, Donald and His Ecx-Wife Ivana Trump Seem to Have Won the Prize. Could Their Three Kids Really Have Survived Such Mythic Over-The-Top Dysfunction?”

More Trump…

New York magazine’s “Trump Dump” also includes other Trump history. A “Trump World” section of New York‘s January 16, 1995 edition, included reporting claiming that Princess Diana and Prince Charles were applying for membership at Mar-a-Logo, plus another report that Diana was negotiating to buy a $3.5 million apartment in Trump Tower, both of which were denied by a Palace spokesman. New York also reported that Trump had repeatedly sent flowers to Diana after her marriage ended. But according to Diana friend, Selina Scott in London’s Daily Mail, Trump gave Princess Diana “the creeps.”

Portion of a “Trump World” report from New York magazine’s January 16, 1995 edition noting alleged interest by Princess Diana and Prince Charles in joining Mar-a-Lago, and separately, that Princess Diana was said to negotiating for a Trump Tower apartment – both denied by Palace spokesman.

Other New York stories noted in the “Trump Dump” focused on Trump’s earlier attempted presidential bids – briefly in October 1987 and also, briefly again, in January 2000 with the Reform Party – the latter coming with another Trump book, The America We Deserve. The January 2004 premiere of Trump’s NBC TV show, The Apprentice, is also covered, and a 2005 Muppetts segment about an orange-haired “Donald Grump” – who has more and better trash than anyone else — is also mentioned. More serious matters at the “Trump Dump” involved a January 2006 entry, when Trump sued Timothy O’Brien for libel, as O’Brien’s 2005 book, TrumpNation, found at the time that Trump’s real worth was around $150-$250s million, not the billions Trump claimed.

Donald Trump’s Jan 2000 book, “Trump: The America We Deserve,” came at 2nd Presidential bid. Click for copy.

Tim O’Brien’s “TrumpNation” book of 2005 brought a $5 billion Donald Trump lawsuit. Click for copy.

Trump then sued O’Brien, seeking $2.5 billion in compensatory damages and $2.5 billion in punitive damages. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2009, and an appeals court affirmed the decision in 2011. A new edition of TrumpNation was published in June 2016 that included O’Brien’s introduction that criticized Trump and also noted his 2016 presidential campaign.

Other New York / “Trump Dump” entries included background on Jared Kushner and family when Jared and Ivanka married in October 2009. President Barack Obama’s remarks on Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April 2011 – when Trump became the butt of Obama’s jokes – is also included.

New York’s Sept 2015 cover story argued that Donald Trump’s campaign may actually be saving Democracy.

And the final New York cover story to be referenced in the “Trump Dump” compilation came with a September 2015 cover treatment showing a digitally dressed-up Donald Trump in George Washington-like patriotic garb with the tag line: “Donald Trump Is Saving Our Democracy.”

The accompanying story, by Frank Rich, held that Trump’s chaos, was actually doing America’s democratic system a favor by “exposing all its phoniness and corruption,” and changing it, and maybe, perhaps, strengthening it for the better.

Throughout his long piece, Rich pulled in elements from journalism, film, politics past, and more to make his points. And while he missed the mark in a few of his predictions, he did succeed in raising some interesting observations about Trump’s impact – which may still hold in 2024.

Trump, he explained, “has performed a public service by exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the posturings of both the Repub-licans and the Democrats and the foolishness and obsolescence of much of the political culture they share.” …And that “Trump may be injecting American democracy with steroids…”

“…[T]he Trump campaign,” explains Rich, “has already made a difference. Far from being a threat to democracy or a freak show unworthy of serious coverage, it matters because it’s taking a much-needed wrecking ball to some of what has made our sterile politics and dysfunctional government as bankrupt as Trump’s Atlantic City casinos….” This was, of course, before Trump won the 2016 election, and before the Trump wrecking ball took a swing at the Constitution on January 6, 2021.

Other Media

April 1984. New York Times Magazine cover story: “The Expanding Empire of Donald Trump,” by William Geist.

New York’s “Trump Dump” included references and/or links to other New York and national media when relevant to one of its Trump stories. Among those cited, for example, were: The New York Times, New York Post, National Journal, Bloomberg, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Washington Post, and others.

Many of these publications had their own Donald Trump coverage during those years, including detailed profiles, featured cover stories, and more, often with photos of Trump on their magazine covers or front pages.

The New York Times Magazine, for example, offered an April 1984 cover story shown at right, with Trump in the cover photo standing in the ornate atrium of his Trump Tower, along with cover tag line, “The Expanding Empire of Donald Trump.”

Coverage of Trump in those years generally ran the gamut, from flattering and praiseworthy, to critical and probing.

How Rich?

One Trump cover story by Forbes magazine of May 14, 1990 targeted his much self-promoted billionaire status. Forbes essentially dropped him from its “Forbes 400 richest list” after investigating his financial standing. That cover, shown below, depicts a scowling Donald Trump with the tagline: “How Much is Donald Really Worth Now?”

Donald Trump on the cover of Forbes for the first time, May 14, 1990. The story inside, explained Forbes, “offered a devastating look at his finances.”

Forbes, in a later 2023 story, offered a bit of history on Trump and the Forbes 400:

…He conned his way into sharing a spot on the inaugural [Forbes 400] list in 1982 with his father, Fred Trump, by convincing a reporter that he held a larger percentage of Fred’s fortune than he actually did. Trump secured massive loans that led to massive bankruptcies, and he fell off the list in 1990, when Forbes exposed deep problems with his debt-fueled empire, ultimately putting his net worth “within hailing distance of zero.” But Trump emerged from those troubles and regained a legitimate spot on the 400. He remained on the list from 1996 until 2021, when six years of polarization and one year of Covid finally caught up to him, dropping him from the ranks once again.

Time Magazine

Time magazine has also covered Donald Trump as he rose to fame in New York and beyond — in fact, for more than 25 years now — including dozens of Time magazine Trump covers.

Donald Trump first landed on Time’s cover on January 16, 1989 with the headline “This Man May Turn You Green With Envy – or Just Turn You Off. Flaunting It is His Game, and Trump is His Name.”

Trump, in fact, has held a special place in his self-boosterism for Time magazine covers. In his early days as President, in January 2016, he boasted at a CIA appearance about his Time magazine covers: “I have been on their cover like 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time Magazine…. I’ve been on the cover 15 times this year. I don’t think that’s a record that could ever be broken.” Time magazine’s creative director, C.W. Pine, would later correct the record, noting that as of January 2016, Trump had been on 11 covers, and did not then hold the record of most Time magazine covers.

A sampling of Time magazine covers as of January 2021 with various photos, caricatures, and other renditions of Donald Trump making news, controversy, and/or chaos as he went, dating from 1989. (Click for Amazon page of Trump magazine covers).

However, since 2016, as the graphic above illustrates, Trump does have many more Time covers to his credit, with more than 35 as of 2021, though these covers do not always render him in a stately or flattering way, to say the least. Still, as Time’s C. W. Pine noted in 2021, Richard Nixon had more at 55 covers, and Ronald Regan, 46. True, with more Donald Trump chaos and controversy ahead, he may eventually eclipse Nixon and Reagan for the most Time covers.

Fake March 1, 2009 editions of Time magazine found at 7 Trump Golf Clubs.

Curiously, however, as one footnote in the Time cover sweepstakes, in June 2017 the Washington Post found that framed, fake Donald Trump Time covers were found hung on the walls at seven of Trump’s golf clubs — five in the U.S. and two abroad. The fake March 1st, 2009 editions of the Time cover — looking much like the real thing to most unsuspecting viewers — featured Trump in a stately pose with associated story taglines. However, the Post did not find any definitive proof as to who made the fake covers or how they came to be displayed at those Trump Golf Club locations. After the Washington Post story appeared, Time requested the clubs remove the framed fake editions. (more on Time later below).

Shenanigans aside, however, the media – all media; print, electronic, and digital – have been happy about the arrival, antics, and controversy that is Donald Trump, whether in New York, Washington, or anywhere else. Trump boosts circulation, sells books, gets eyeballs, and raises TV, streaming, and podcast viewer/listener share. But it was perhaps the New York tabloids that first sent Trump into the Big Leagues of front-page obsession.

Tabloid King

Trump himself observed of his tabloid coverage during his 1990 marital troubles: “Papers like the Daily News and the New York Post were selling an extra thirty thousand copies whenever they splashed the Trump story across their front pages. In view of the money they were making off Ivana’s and my problems, they weren’t about to let the story drop.” Indeed, the Trump fervor went well beyond Ivana and Marla, and would continue for years, as Politico.com noted, “with more tabloid covers marking Trump’s books, failed business deals, TV reality show and finally his presidential bid. If Trump is a made man, it was perhaps the tabloids that did the making.” By mid -2016, Politico’s Media Issue compiled a collection of “the very best Trump covers” from the New York Post and New York Daily News – “nearly 100 in total.”

A partial collage of “New York Post” and “New York Daily News” front-page treatments of Donald Trump-related news that appeared regularly in the 1990s and beyond – Trump coverage that continues today for dozens of publications wide and far.

Michael Kruse, writing for Politico.com in its May/June 2016 media issue, offered some history on the tabloids and Trump:

…Donald Trump’s staying power as a celebrity and success as a presidential candidate is not because he’s some kind of emblem of wealth—it’s because he’s a product of the tabloids. In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, starting in the gossip pages of papers like the New York Post and the New York Daily News, the lines between news and entertainment began to blur more and matter less.“…[T]he tabloid writers used him and their papers thrived. But it turns out that he was using them too….” And Trump, the arriviste real estate mogul with attention-grabbing projects and personality to match, was a perfect character. “He was this guy who walked out of tabloid heaven,” says Larry Hackett, who worked for the News. “He was rich. He was vulgar. He was a city guy … and the women… Business, sex and a guy who loves the attention. You couldn’t beat it.” So the tabloid writers used him and their papers thrived. But it turns out that he was using them too. To keep his name in print, to build his brand, to learn the kinds of lessons that have helped him put together a run for the White House the likes of which has never been seen. Talk to some of those tabloid writers now and they can see—with some discomfort—that the seeds of Trump’s celebrity were nurtured in their notebooks….

The tabloids, certainly, were not alone, as the above review of New York’s “Trump Dump” makes clear. And as Trump edged into presidential politics – at first, with a few false starts, but full on by 2015 – more mainstream magazines began feature coverage of him, with Trump showing up on more and more covers.

Trump, in fact, delights in his magazine covers – as Washington Post reporter, Dan Balz, discovered during an October 2015 visit with Trump at his New York office, receiving a guided tour of his “awards wall.” Part of that wall was filled with framed versions of some of Trump’s favorite magazine covers, as he explains in the 2015 Washington Post video clip. below:

As the camera in the above interview pans the top of Trump’s desk – with a stunning view of Central Park out the window of Trump’s office high up in the Trump Tower – piles of other recent magazines featuring Trump can bee seen on his desk – Rolling Stone, Newsweek, The Economist, Time, New York, BloombergBusinessweek, and others. Trump remarks during the interview, that there are so many covers he doesn’t have room for all of them on his wall.

When Trump is asked if he had a favorite, Trump replies that he thought the recent issue of Time magazine (August 31, 2015) — showing him in a portrait-like pose, with the tag line, “Deal With It,” a generally positive story about his surprising rise in the Republican ranks via his unorthodox campaign style — was a “good one.” Some seven months later, however — as Trump was headed for the Republican nomination after months on the campaign trail revealing his tactics — he might not have thought the Time story and cover that appeared then (March 14th, 2016) was a “good one.” That issue, as shown below, had a close-up of Trump’s face filling the entire page with ballot-box check-off options displayed across the page, each separately labeled: “bully,” “showman,” “party crasher,” “demagogue” — all checked – and a remaining one, “the 45th President of the United States,” left unchecked. No, this magazine cover was likely not a candidate for Trump’s wall of greatest hits.

August 31, 2015 edition of Time -- a "good one."

March 14th, 2016 edition of Time -- maybe not so good.

Still, as those reporting on Trump would come to understand, all Trump media coverage – any coverage, in fact – is good coverage, as far as Trump is concerned. David Von Drehle, for example, reporting for Time in the “checked-boxes” issue, interviewed Trump aboard his plane as he campaigned, with Trump then laying out his media philosophy.

According to Von Drehle’s account: “what matters more than accuracy [to Trump] is the sheer fact of being covered. Own the airwaves, own the campaign, run the world. To be certain that I’ve grasped this point, he expands on the theme: ‘You see what this is, right? It’s ratings. I go on one of these shows and the ratings double. They triple. And that gives you power. It’s not the polls. It’s the ratings’.”

It’s as if Trump views his life as permanently on television, and he’s in a constant game of ratings – ratings secured by any means, honorable or not. P.T. Barnum, indeed. It’s the coverage, stupid!

As magazine editors, artists and creative directors learned more about Trump as he campaigned and later governed, their covers of him became more overtly critical. Consider for example, a selection of some New Yorker covers: one from February 2016 with former presidents huddled around a TV with disapproving expressions while watching Trump speak; another from 2019 with prominent Republicans shining his shoes; and a third from June 2024 with Trump being handcuffed.

New Yorker: Feb 1, 2016.

New Yorker: June 3, 2019.

New Yorker: June 10, 2024.

The Economist, as well, has also offered critical and negative Trump imagery, as shown below: a December 2015 cover with the tag line “Playing With Fear,” as a Trump rendering is shown standing with anti-immigration populist politicians, Marine Le Pen of France and Viktor Orban of Hungary; an October 2016 cover heading into the U.S. Presidential election with the headline, “The Debasing of American Politics,” depicting Trump imagery and takeover effects on a stylized Republican elephant; and a February 2017 cover showing Trump in MAGA ball cap about to throw a Molotov cocktail, and headlined, “An Insurgent in the White House.”

The Economist: December 2015.

The Economist: October 2016.

The Economist: Feb 2017.

New York magazine, meanwhile, continued its coverage of Trump as he became president and thereafter, as a few samples below illustrate. One New York edition in early April 2018, for example, featured a close-up of Donald Trump’s laughing face, filling the entire page, but also fitted with pig’s snout. In small white type, at three places on the cover, the title begins: “Not Collusion… Not Incompetence…. Not Cruelty… It’s The Corruption, Stupid: Why Self-Dealing Is His Biggest Political Liability.” Inside that edition, a collection of stories were focused on then Trump Administration corruption.

2018: New York's April 2-15 edition, focused on corruption in the Trump Administration.

2020: New York September 14-27 edition, “Defeating Trump in November Will Not Be Enough.”

2023: October 9-22 edition, “Chasing Trump” - 13 Weeks on the Campaign Trail with Republican Also-Rans.

New York editor, Eric Bates, explained how the idea for the April 2018 cover first arose: “Reading the news every day, we were struck by the constant drip-drip of reports of corruption by the Trump administration. We wanted to find a way to bring together all the ways that Trump and his circle are using the presidency to enrich themselves into one comprehensive list — something that would drive home the unprecedented scale and of the self-dealing and thievery. It was clear that Trump hasn’t drained the swamp — he’s just cornering the market on it.” The two additional New York covers shown above include a September 2020 cover that features Trump in a swearing-in pose in a court-like setting or hearing room with the tagline: “The Case For Consequences: Defeating Trump in November Will Not Be Enough (September 14 – 27, 2020 edition). And an October 2023 New York cover showing the scramble of Republican candidates trying to challenge Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination with tag line, “Chasing Trump.”

Politico.com magazine, Friday Cover, August 7, 2015.

Politico.com magazine, Friday Cover, November 25, 2016.

Politico.com magazine, Friday Cover, October 7, 2016.

And then there is Politico.com, the online digital news magazine on politics. Shown above are three sample “Friday Covers” from Politico Magazine on Trump — among dozens at Politico on Trump since 2015. The first, above left, is an August 15, 2015 edition with the title line, “I Overdosed on Trump: What I Leaned From 24 Hours of Mainlining The Breakout 2016 Candidate,” by Adam Wren. A second sample, from November 25, 2016, “Donald Trump And the rise of the Alt-Right Media: You Think the Truth Took A Hit Last Year? It’s About To Get Worse. A Lot Worse,” by Charles Sykes. And a third sample with the title, “Trump and The Crash of ‘08: The Celebrity Developer Says He Called the Financial Crisis. Here’s What Really Happened,” by Michael Kruse.

“Trumpian Truths”
Michael Kruse & Politico.com
October 2020

1. Attention is power.
2. Words don’t matter.
3. Everything’s a show.
4. People are props.
5. The crowd knows.
6. Conflict is the key.
7. Nothing motivates like fear.
8. Division works.
9. Life’s a fight.
10. Chaos is fuel.
11. There’s no such thing as
+++going too far.
12. Bigger is always better.
13. The answer to any problem
+++is always more Trump.
14. Exhaust the enemy.
15. It’s good to be selfish.
16. Altruism is for losers.
17. Trusting is for losers.
18. Loyalty is for losers.
19. Taking blame? For losers.
20. Losing is for losers.
21. Sometimes winning means
+++not losing now.
22. Sometimes winning is just winning
+++that hasn’t happened yet.
23. And sometimes winning is whining.
24. Reality doesn’t matter.
25. The past doesn’t matter.
26. The future doesn’t matter.
27. Nothing, actually, matters.
28. Create your own world.
29. Tell your own story.
30. Shame is for losers.
31. There is no subtext.
32. Everything’s a transaction.
33. Nothing’s on the level.
34. The ends justify the means.
35. You can’t be stopped if nobody
+++stops you.
36. People aren’t inherently good.
37. People look out for themselves.
38. People don’t change.
39. You are who you are.
40. No slight is too small.
41. Never turn the other cheek.
42. Nothing worse than weakness.
43. The loneliness is bottomless.
44. Everybody needs to be seen.
45. Nothing’s ever over.

Like New York magazine’s “Trump Dump,” Politico did something similar with its Trump reporting by Michael Kruse, who covered Trump extensively for more than five years, filing more than 60 stories.

On the eve of the November 2020 election, Politico and Kruse assembled some 46 of their “Friday Covers” as visual aide, as Kruse then wrote a detailed piece listing “45 Self-Evident Truths About Donald Trump.”

Kruse also explained the scope of his October 29, 2020 piece with an introduction, as follows below, in part:

…It has been well-documented that the 45th president operates with evident disregard for norms and rules. But over the past 5 ½ years of reporting I have determined that he abides by a firm code of conduct as predictable as it is confounding. In more than 60 stories in the Politico Magazine oeuvre that came to be known as “Trumpology,” I documented how his unswerving allegiance to a certain set of principles, unprincipled as they might seem to some, elevated him to the pinnacle of global power. If widespread polling holds true on Election Day, these same traits and tics, and rock-ribbed beliefs, might also be the reasons he’s ousted from office.

Much has been made recently of this election [i.e., 2020 election] as a referendum on the president not just as a politician with a set of policies, but as a person. This list—compiled using excerpts from my pieces and my interviews with sources who have known him most of his life—is the distillation of his worldview, a condensed sketch of Donald Trump as a man. And no matter what happens, and whether or not he retains his grip on the White House or decamps in defeat to Mar-a-Lago, these truths will continue to guide his behavior—and the way we perceive it.

Displayed here in the sidebar at right are the section heads only from the Kruse/Politico story of October 29, 2020. Readers are encouraged to go there via this linked title, “45 Self-Evident Truths About Donald Trump,” for the full story.

* * * * *

Politico’s Trump stories, as well as the New York magazine stories and others profiled here, are, of course, only a portion of the larger media world following Donald Trump since he began his rise in the 1970s. While the focus here has been largely on magazines, there are also countless books about Trump and a number of documentary films about him – all covering his biography, his business history, his campaign history, his presidential term, and more. Some of these are listed and shown below in “Sources.”

As this story is posted in early September 2024, the November presidential election is nearly two months away. And likely battles over Trump’s yet-to-be-resolved legal issues are still to come as well, some possibly stretching well into 2025. So there will certainly be continued media coverage of the Trump circus, with magazines, tabloids, TV, and social media all doing their part to capture all the Trumpian news, imagery, entertainment and outrage likely to come. Yet for sure, during the last decade or so, much gratitude is owed to the Fourth Estate for investigating, reporting, and doing its best to reveal and hold to account the real Donald Trump and the risks he poses still for our nation going forward. Hopefully, the results to come this November will bring us closer to historic political normalcy than what we’ve had since Trump’s arrival.

See also at this website, “Trump on Film: A Partial Listing, 1990-2024,” covering some 30 Trump films. For additional stories on Publishing and/or Politics, see those respective category links. There is also a separate “Topics page” on Magazine History.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: September 8, 2024
Last Update: September 18, 2024

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Trump Dump: New York Magazine,
2016,”PopHistoryDig.com, September 8, 2024.

____________________________________

Related Books & Film at Amazon.com…

New book, Sept 2024 > How Trump Squandered a Fortune & Created the Illusion of Success. Click for Amazon.

“The Accidental President,” 2021 documentary film on how Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Click for film,

Charles J. Sykes’ book, “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” w/George Will blurb, 2018 edition, Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig’s book, “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America,” 2021 paperback edition, Penguin Books, 512 pp. Click for copy.

PBS Frontline documentary, “Trump's Road to the White House,” an investigation of how Donald Trump defied expectations to win the presidency in 2016. Through interviews with key players, the film shows how Trump rallied millions of supporters, defeated adversaries, and who he brought with him to the White House. Click for DVD.

Michael D'Antonio’s 2015 book, “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success,” Thomas Dunne Books, 400 pp. Click for Amazon.

PBS/Frontline 2018 documentary film, “Trump's Takeover,” reporting on President Trump's battle for control of the GOP in his first year as President. Click for Amazon.

Michael Wolff’s best-selling 2018 book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” 352 pp. Click for Amazon.

Bob Woodward’s 2018 best-seller, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” Click for Amazon.

Peter Baker & Susan Glasser’s 2022 book, “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,”Doubleday, 752 pp. Click for Amazon.

Congressman Jamie Raskin’s 2022 bok, “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy,” Harper, 448 pp. Click for Amazon.

New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman’s 2022 book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” Penguin, 608 pp. Click for Amazon.

Jonathan Karl’s 2023 book, “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party,” Dutton, 336 pp. Click for Amazon.

Anthony T. Michalisko’s 2018 book, “President Trump's Tweets 2016: General Election Edition,” 253 pp. Click for Amazon.

Donald Trump, Best-Selling Books page at Amazon .com. Click to visit.

Andrew Rice and Nick Tabor, “Our Trump Dump: New York Magazine’s Look Back on the GOP Prince’s Days as an NYC Clown,” New York, January 29, 2016.

“Developer [ i.e., Donald Trump] Proposes a Convention Center in Midtown,” New York Times, December 18, 1975, p. 49.

Dan Dorfman, The Bottom Line, “Will New York Get A New Hotel; The Trump-and-Tisch Tiff,” New York, April 26, 1976, pp 11 -12.

Wayne Barrett, “How a Young Donald Trump Forced His Way from Avenue Z to Manhattan,” The Village Voice (originally published: January 15, 1979).

Howard Blum, “Trump: The Development of a Manhattan Developer,” New York Times, August 26, 1980, pp. B-1, B-4.

Marie Brenner, “Trumping The Town,” New York, November 17, 1980, pp. 26-37.

“Trump’s Spectacular,” New York, May 2, 1983, pp. 30-31.

Marylin Bender, “The Empire and Ego of Donald Trump,” New York Times, August 7, 1983, Section 3, Page 1

By William E. Geist, “The Expanding Empire of Donald Trump,” New York Times Magazine, April 8, 1984, Section 6, p. 28.

Martin Gottlieb, “Trump Says He Wants to Build World’s Tallest Tower at East Side River Site,” New York Times, July 31, 1984, p. B-1.

Carter Wiseman, Cityscape, “Donald Trump’s Fantasy Island,” New York, January 20, 1986, pp, 51-53.

George James, “Trump Drops 5-Year Effort to Evict Tenants,” New York Times, March 5, 1986.

Peter Blauner, “Ice Capades: Donald Trump Takes on the Wollman Rink,” New York, June 23, 1986. p. 25.

“Will The Peacock Roost in Jersey” [re: Trump & TV City], New York, September 8, 1986, p. 15.

Intelligencer, ”Trump Getting New Park View,” New York, October 20, 1986, p. 13.

Joe Klein, “Koch Agonistes: The Mayor and the Big Questions,” New York, July 13, 1987, pp, 29-32.

“Trump Stages a Campaign Event in New Hampshire,” Boston.com, October 1987.

“Trump: The Art of the Deal,” [and Tony Schwartz], Wikipedia.org.

Julie Baumgold, “Mr. Lucky and The Champs: Going To The Big Fight With Donald Trump,” New York, February 15, 1988, pp. 34-40.

Sarah Bernard, “The Plaza Lives!”, New York, April 21, 2005.

Liz Smith, “Donald Trump – Because His Buildings And His Books And His Ego Are So Much Bigger Than Life” (part of New York’s 20th Anniversary Special Featuring “The Top 20: The Most Important New Yorkers for 1988″), New York, April 25, 1988, pp. 113-114.

Intelligencer, “Trump Takes The Pepsi Challenge,” New York, June 13, 1988, p. 13.

David Johnston and Michael Schurman, “Trump’s Ship Comes In – To Cheers” [Atlantic City, NJ], Philadelphia Inquirer, July 10, 1988.

John Taylor, “Trump’s Newest Toy,” New York, July 11, 1988, pp.20-26.

Bill Barol, “Trump Ahoy; The World’s Most Buoyant Billionaire Unveils His New Plaything; The World’s Most Luxurious Yacht,” Newsweek, July 18, 1988. Pp. 62-63.

William H, Meyers, “The Great Plaza Plot: Jockeying for One of the World’s Great Hotels,”(In the Global Bidding for the Old Hotel, Robert Bass Won Out, But Donald Trump Persevered), The Business World / New York Times Magazine, September 25, 1988.

Intelligencer, “Him Again: Donald’s Depart-ment Stores,” New York, December 12, 1988, p. 13.

John Taylor, Circus of Ambition: The Culture of Wealth and Power in the Eighties, 1989.

Otto Friedrich, “Flashy Symbol of an Acquisitive Age: Donald Trump; Young, Handsome and Ridiculously Rich, Donald Trump Loves Making Deals and Money, Loathes Losing and Has an Ego as Big as the Ritz — er, Plaza,” Time, January 16, 1989.

James Barron, “TV Film on Trump Can’t Find a Station,” New York Times, August 19, 1989, p. 27.

Edwin Diamond, “Trump vs. Stern: The Unmaking of A Documentary,” New York, September 4, 1989, pp, 30-38.

“Trump: What’s the Deal?,” Wikipedia.org.

John Taylor, “Trump The Soap; Stay Tuned…”(cover story), New York, March 1990, pp. 30-37.

“Best Sex I’ve Ever Had,” Wikipedia.org.

Edwin Diamond, Media, “Trump Week: Bonfire of The Inanities,” New York, March 5, 1990, pp, 22-23.

“How Much is Donald Trump Really Worth Now?” (cover story), Forbes, May 14, 1990.

Joanna Molloy, Intelligencer, “Trump’s Book: The Forbes ‘Bombshell’,” New York, May 21, 1990, p. 11.

John Taylor, “Fantasy Island: My Weekend at The Taj,” New York, May 21, 1990, p. 48-55.

Christopher Byron, The Bottom Line, “Trump Is US: Signs of A Shrinking City Economy,” New York, June 18, 1990, pp. 18, 22.

Marie Brenner, “After the Gold Rush, Unfortunately for Donald and Ivana Trump, All That Glittered Wasn’t Gold. But the Reign of New York’s Self-Created Imperial Couple Isn’t over Yet. Donald’s Midas Touch May Be Tarnished, but the Banks Are Still Throwing Money at Him, While Ivana Is Busy Brokering a Future of Her Own,” Vanity Fair, September 1990.

Michael Gross, “Ivana’s New Life,” New York (cover story), October 15, 1990, pp. 40-50.

“Trump Castle Complaint; NJ Casino Control Commission Complaint Regarding Fred Trump’s Purchase of $3.5 Million in Chips.” Scribd.com, April 1991.

Christopher Byron, The Bottom Line, “Who’s Laughing Now? Trump Stays Afloat,” New York, April 22, 1991, pp.19-20.

Susan Heller Anderson, “Chronicle,” New York Times, July 5, 1991, p. D-6.

David S. Hilzenrath and Michelle Singletary, “Trump Went Broke, But Stayed on Top; Fearing a Bankruptcy Quagmire, Lenders Made Deals with Developer,” Washington Post, November 29, 1992.

Lisa Birnbach, Cover tagline: “An Exclusive Weekend with Donald Trump in Palm Beach As He Hypes (and hypes and hypes) his Mar-a-Lago Club,” New York, February 12, 1996.

Wayne Barrett, Trump: The Deals and the Downfall, 1992. Click for Amazon.

Julie Baumgold, “Fighting Back: Trump Scrambles Off The Canvas,” New York, November 9, 1992, pp. 36-46.

Craig Horowitz, “Trump Gets Lucky (cover story); The King of Hype Almost Bit It. Now, Thanks to a Very Sweet Deal with Some Chinese Billionaires to Develop the West Side Rail Yards, He’s Starting to Get Back That 1980s Smirk,” New York, August 15, 1994, pp. 20-26.

“Trump World,” New York, January 16, 1995, p.14.

Hugo Lindgren, Cityside, “Railroaded: The Rail Yard Was Supposed To Give Donald Trump Sixteen Luxury Towers and The City A Waterfront Park. Two Bad a Highways Runs Through It,” New York, March 17, 1997, pp. 28-29.

Chris Smith, “The Main Event: How Whitman Ended Up Getting Trumped,” New York, November 3, 1997.

Associated Press (NY), “Donald Trump Regretting Not Asking Out Princess Diana,” Daily News (Bowling Green, KY, Sunday, November 2, 1997, p. 16-C.

Claire Duffin, “’He Gives Me the Creeps’: What Princess Diana Said about Donald Trump after He ‘Bombarded Her with Flowers When Her Marriage Broke Up’,” The Daily Mail (UK), August 16, 2015.

Johanna Berkman, “Fashion Faux Pas,” New York, February 8, 1999.

Herbert Muschamp, “Trump, His Gilded Taste, and Me… Architecture as Personality,” New York Times, Arts & Leisure, Sunday, December 19, 1999, pp. 1, 52.

Walter Kirn, “In Trump We Trust” (review of Trump book, The America We Deserve), “Trump’s platform? Arrest Castro; Oprah in the Cabinet; No hotels for China, among other modest proposals,” New York, January 17, 2000.

Andrew Rice, “The Tummler of Turtle Bay: As Trump Monster Surpasses U.N., Alberto Vilar Puts Up $1 Million,” Observer.com, March 6, 2000.

James Traub, “Trumpologies,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 2004.

Jonathan Van Meter, “Growing Up Trump: How Did Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Survive New York’s Weirdest Family” (cover), New York, December 13, 2004.

Lloyd Grove, “Can Barbara Walters’s Career Survive Rosie and Donald’s War?– Barbara Falters,” NYmag.com, March 5, 2007.

“Donald Trump on Failure, “ May 19, 2009, from “The Failure Interview Series; 9 Prominent People Talk About Their Failures,” PsychologyToday.com, May & July, 2009.

Gabriel Sherman, “The Legacy” [Jared Kushner], New York, July 10, 2009.

Jessica Pressler, “If I Can’t Trust Donald Trump, Who Can I Trust?,” New York, January 21, 2011.

“Trump Sends Investigators to Hawaii to Look Into Obama,” CNN.com, April 4, 2011.

Jim Swift, “Trump: The Documentary,” WashingtonExaminer.com, August 1, 2015.

Michael Scherer, “The Donald Has Landed: Deal With It; Trump’s 2016 Hit Show Is Driving the Political Elite Crazy,” Time, August 20, 2015 (story date). Final issue with Donald Trump cover photo, August 31, 2015 (original story also incorporated 8 short videos with Trump).

“Donald Trump Is…13 Historians Scour the Past for Trumpian Precedents,” Politico Magazine / Politico.com, August 29, 2015.

S.V. Dáte, “The 1 Easy Way Donald Trump Could Have Been Even Richer: Doing Nothing By Putting His Inheritance into the Stock Market Back in the 1970s, Trump Might Have Been ‘Really Rich’ Without All the Drama,” NationalJournal.com, September 2, 2015.

Michael Barbaro, “Donald Trump, Praised by Former President Nixon, Biography Says; Former President Richard Nixon Sent Donald Trump a Letter in 1987,” New York Times, September 8. 2015.

Michael Barbaro, “Donald Trump Likens His Schooling to Military Service in Book [Never Enough],” New York Times, September 8, 2015.

Frank Rich, “Donald Trump Is Saving Our Democracy: The Importance of Donald Trump,” NYmag.com, September 20, 2015.

William D. Cohan, “Decades-Old Questions Over Trump’s Wealth and Education,” New York Times, September 28, 2015.

“Trump’s Alliance With National Enquirer,” New York, October 2015.

Graydon Carter, “Steel Traps and Short Fing-ers… Graydon Carter Reveals the Presidential Candidate’s Thin-Skinned Response to a Favorite 25-Year-Old Epithet, VanityFair .com, October 7, 2015.

Gabriel Sherman, “Donald Trump’s Alliance With the National Enquirer,” NYmag.com, October 30, 2015.

David Von Drehle, “Donald Trump’s Wild Ride,” Time.com, March 3, 2016.

Charlotte Triggs and Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, Cover story, “Who Is the Real Donald Trump? ‘I’m a Much Nicer Person Than People Would Think,’ He Insists; Donald Trump Speaks to People About His Presidential Campaign – and Controversy,” People.com, March 30, 2016.

Jonathan Mahler, “Tenants Thwarted Donald Trump’s Central Park Real Estate Ambitions,” New York Times, April 18, 2016.

Susan Mulcahy, “Confessions of a Trump Tabloid Scribe; How New York’s Gossip Pages Helped Turn a Lying Real Estate Developer into a Celebrity Phenom,” Politico.com, April 29, 2016.

Manuela Tobias, Optics, “Shameless Mogul Found in Breathless Tabs! A Quarter-Century of Donald Trump in the Tabloids,” Politico.com, May/June 2016.

Michael Kruse, “Tales From the Tabloids: Six New York Writers Remember the Donald’s Early Years in the Public Eye,” Politico.com, May/June 2016.

Jane Mayer, “Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All,” The New Yorker, July 25, 2016.

Callum Borchers, “Donald Trump Should Hate This Time Magazine Cover, But He’ll Probably Hang it in His Office,” Washington Post / WashPost.com, August 11, 2016 (with video, Dan Balz, “Donald Trump Gives Us A Tour of His Trump Tower Office,” Washington Post video, 2:32 minutes, 2015).

“The Many (Magazine) Faces of Donald Trump,” Time.com, September 2, 2016 [sample covers].

The Data Team, Tracking Trump, Presidential Candidate, “Donald Trump’s Rise Seen Through the Economist’s Covers; From Novelty Outsider to Republican Presidential Candidate,” The Economist / Economist.com, October 13th, 2016.

Christopher Bonanos, “A History of the Trumps on New York’s Cover,” New York, October 31, 2016.

David Cay Johnston, “Trump: Documentary The Donald Suppressed, Free At Last”, The National Memo, August 1, 2015.

Jesse Kornbluth, “25 Years Ago, A Documentary Called ‘Trump: What’s the Deal?’ Told The Truth About Trump. Trump Threatened To Sue. It Was Never Shown. You Can See It Now,” The Huffington Post, April 19, 2016.

Charlie Lyne, “Trump: What’s the Deal?: a distinctly 90s takedown,” The Guardian, August 15, 2015.

“Trump’s Crazy Rise, in 22 Magazine Covers; How Magazines Around the World Have Documented Trump Since He Began His Political Ascent,” Politico.com, May/June 2017.

Collection by Lynnette Heber, “Magazine Covers on Trump,” Pinterest.com, 43 Pins.

“The Life of Donald Trump — Told Through New York Post Covers,” HollywoodReporter .com.

Rahel Gebreyes, “Mike Tyson Just Endorsed Donald Trump; ‘He Should Be President of the United States’,” HuffPost.com, October 26, 2015.

Alex Kuczynski, “Melania Trump’s American Dream; Donald Trump’s First Lady Talks Candidly about Her Husband’s Controversial Presidential Bid, the Secrets to Their Happy Marriage, and Why She’s Stayed out of the Spotlight—Until Now,” HarpersBazaar.com, January 6, 2016,

Peter Grant and Alexandra Berzon, “Trump and His Debts: A Narrow Escape; He Cut Deal with Banks, Took Cash out of Casinos to Weather 1990s Bind,” Wall Street Journal /WSJ.com, updated January 4, 2016 ( w/video).

Ike Swetlitz, “Donald Trump, Bad Science, and the Vitamin Company That Went Bust,” Stat.com, March 2, 2016; originally published on Nov. 4, 2015 (w/video).

Kyle Ligman, “The Trump of Magazines Past,” New York Times, May 18, 2016.

Frank Rich, “Trump’s Appeasers; Why Charles Lindbergh is a Cautionary Tale for Republican Leaders,” NYmag.com, October 31, 2016.

Michael Scherer, “2016 Person of the Year: Donald Trump,” Time, December 19, 2016.

Jonathan Chait, “How the Loyal Opposition Will Work in Trump’s America,” NYmag.com, November 2016.

Caitlin Flanagan, “The People’s Princess Ivanka Trump Is Hard at Work in Washington — But for Whom?,” TheCut.com, May 2017.

David A. Fahrenthold, “A Time Magazine with Trump on the Cover Hangs in His Golf Clubs. It’s Fake; Breaking Down Trump’s Fake Time Magazine Cover,” Washington Post, June 27, 2017 ( w/video).

Kalhan Rosenblatt, “Time Asks Donald Trump’s Golf Clubs to Remove Phony Magazine Cover; Trump Has Repeatedly Appeared on the Cover of Time in the Last Year. But the Cover Hanging in at Least Four of His Clubs Is a Phony,” NBCnews.com, June 28, 2017.

Jake Nevins, “’As a Satirist, I Can Barely Keep Up’: The Stories Behind the Trump Magazine Covers, The Artists Who Have Found Inspiration, and a Deep Well of Satire, in a Chaotic Administration Reveal the Thinking Behind Some of the Most Notable Covers of the Past Seven Months,” TheGuardian.com, August 24, 2017.

Aude White, “On The Cover: It’s The Corruption, Stupid,” NYmag.com, April 2018.

Jonathan Greenberg, “Trump Lied to Me About His Wealth to Get onto the Forbes 400. Here Are the Tapes; Posing as ‘John Barron,’ He Claimed He Owned Most of His Father’s Real Estate Empire,” WashingtonPost.com, Outlook, April 20, 2018.

Nick Hilton. “A Visual History of Trump Magazine Covers, A Thematic Organization of How Trump Has Been Illustrated by the Media, from Pre-Election to Now,” Medium.com, April 23, 2018.

David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches from His Father; The President Has Long Sold Himself as a Self-Made Billionaire, But a Times Investigation Found That He Received at Least $413 Million in Today’s Dollars from His Father’s Real Estate Empire, Much of it Through Tax Dodges in the 1990s,” NYTimes.com, October 2, 2018.

Dan Alexander, “Why We Took Trump Off The Forbes 400 During His Decade Of Tax Losses,” Forbes.com, May 8, 2019.

Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig, “Decade in the Red: Trump Tax Figures Show over $1 Billion in Business Losses; Newly Obtained Tax Information Reveals That from 1985 to 1994, Donald J. Trump’s Businesses Were in Far Bleaker Condition than Was Previously Known,” NYTimes.com, May 8, 2019.

Michael Kruse, “The Escalator Ride That Changed America: It Seemed like a Stunt When Donald Trump Rode Down to Make His Presidential Announcement, And Maybe it Was. But Nothing Would Be the Same Again. The Full Oral History of That Moment, From People Who Were There,” Politicao.com, June 14, 2019.

Michael Kruse, The Friday Cover, “Trump’s Art of the Steal: How Donald Trump Rode to Power by Parroting Other People’s Fringe Ideas, Got Himself Impeached for It — and Might Prevail Anyway,” Politico.com, January 10, 2020.

Aude White, On The Cover: “Inside Trump’s Reelection Campaign,” NYmag.com, Aug. 16, 2020.

Michael Kruse, Trumpology, “45 Self-Evident Truths About Donald Trump; After Five Years, We Have Learned Who He Really Is,” Politico.com, October 29, 2020.

D.W. Pine (Creative Director at TIME), “The Stories Behind Donald Trump’s TIME Covers,” Time.com, January 19, 2021.

“The Trump Era in Covers; Our Editors Pick out 13 Covers That Chronicled a Presidency like No Other,” The Economist, January 19th, 2021.

Mary Trump’s best-selling 2022 book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man, Simon & Schuster, 240 pp. Click for copy.

Dan Alexander, “Donald Trump Drops Off The Forbes 400 For Second Time In 3 Years; As the New York Attorney General Accuses Donald Trump of Fraud, Forbes Answers the Question at the Heart of the Case: What Is He Really Worth?,” Forbes.com, October 3, 2023,

Patrice Taddonio, “Jan. 6, Three Years Later: 10 Documentaries to Watch,” PBS.org/WGBH, January 5, 2024.

Books at Amazon.com…

Cropped cover of Melissa Murray / Andrew Weissmann book on Trump Indictments. Click for copy.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s 2022 book, “Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power...,” Click for copy.

Liz Cheney’s 2023 book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning.” Little, Brown, 384 pp. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Music, Politics, Culture
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Jimi-Hendrix-All-Along-The-Watchtower.mp3 9648128 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/01-Sympathy-For-The-Devil-50th-Anniversary-Edition.mp3 13358988 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Gimme-Shelter-Remastered-2019.mp3 9810931 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Time-Has-Come-Today.mp3 10086936 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/01-For-What-Its-Worth.mp3 5521192 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Whats-Going-On.mp3 7994855 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Era-Defining Music”
1967-1971

August 4, 2024 J.D.

Time magazine cover from January 1988 marking 20th anniversary of 1968, with four photos from that year – of Vietnam War, rock music, Robert F. Kennedy, and Coretta Scott King at the funeral of her assassinated husband and civil rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King. Click for Time's 1968 special edition hardback.

In the middle of the 20th century, as a swirl of politics and culture seemed to engulf all of life, popular music was helping to define and mark those times – troubled as they were.

The year 1968, for example, was a particularly tremulous time in America, as a series of wrenching socio-political crises seemed to converge all at once – the Vietnam War, political assassinations, civil rights strife, mass protests, urban riots, a contentious presidential election, etc. And music was there providing the soundtrack.

Music Player
“All Along The Watchtower”
Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1968

One song of 1968 that stands out and that helped capture a bit of the angst and turmoil – especially the Vietnam War and its protests – was the Jimi Hendrix version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.”

Dylan, of course, was known by then for his extensive oeuvre of civil rights and anti-war protest songs, many from the early- and mid-1960s, among them: “Blowin` in Wind,” (1963, also a Peter, Paul & Mary hit), “The Times They Are A-Changin'” (1964), “Master of War” (1963), “Oxford Town” (1962, enrollment of black student, James Meredith at the University of Mississippi), “Only A Pawn in Their Game” (1964, assassination of Medgar Evers), and others. But in 1967, Dylan had written “All Along The Watchtower,” releasing his version that December.

Sheet music for Jimi Hendrix Experience version of “All Along The Watchtower,” Hendrix here with bandmates Noel Redding & Mitch Mitchell. Click for digital.

Hendrix, meanwhile, had received a Dylan tape of the “Watchtower” song earlier in 1968, and began working on it in his studio in January. That work continued for months with numerous takes to craft his version of the song. Hendrix music author Peter Dogget would note: “Hendrix used the sound of the studio to evoke the storms and the sense of dread [in his version of the song], creating an echoed aural landscape.”

Dylan’s lyrics and “story” in “Watchtower” have been subject to a range of interpretations over the years – from doom, exploitation, and even certain bible verses. Dylan’s lyrics do signal a certain dread and foreboding – or at a minimum, wariness of trouble and exploitation, not unlike what was happening in the late 1960s.

Musically, Dylan’s version of the song is what some might call “sonically reserved,” using acoustic guitar and harmonica in a folk-rock offering, while the Hendrix version is more sonically explosive, filling in all available space with power guitar and studio effects. Hendrix essentially amplified the Dylan message by leaps and bounds. He takes the “Watchtower” lyrics, story, and sound all to another level, or as one observer described it, “cataclysm…rendered scarily palpable through the dervish whirls of guitar.”

But however it’s parsed musically, the Hendrix version effectively captured the feelings and angst of that time; it has a gripping “late-1960s” signature and resonance about it that makes it one of the classic “music markers” of that era. It would also be used in soundtracks for Vietnam War and other period documentaries and Hollywood films, among them, Forest Gump

When released, the Hendrix version of “All Along The Watchtower” became more popular than Dylan’s original version of the song – which even Dylan lauded with a glowing review in Melody Maker magazine. In fact, Dylan is said to have remarked: “It’s Jimi’s song, I just wrote it.” The Hendrix version came out as a single in early September 1968, a month prior to also appearing on the Electric Ladyland Hendrix album. It would rise to No. 20 on the U.S. Billboard chart in 1968, receive a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2001, and would be ranked at No. 40 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2021 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Hendrix and “All Along The Watchtower,” however, aren’t alone in defining the late 1960s. A number of songs and artists also qualify for their distinctive music from the late 1960s and early 1970s. But before exploring some of those, a little more historic perspective on the wrenching turmoil of those times follows next.

Wash., DC anti-war protest, 1967.	Vietnam War, October 1967.
Riot Control, April 1968.	The Negro in America, Nov. 1967.
LBJ's woes, February 1968.	McCarthy's rise, March `68.
MLK assassination, April 1968.	Generation Gap, May 1968.
Black Students, May 1968.	RFK’s campaign, June 1968.
Street battles at Aug 1968 DNC.	Dems Humphrey & Muskie.
George Wallace, spoiler, Aug. `68.	Protests at Columbia, Sept `68.
Nixon elected, November 1968.	Protests continue, October 1969.
Nixon & Cambodia, May 1970.	Kent State killings, May 1970.

Time of Tumult

In the 1960s, the 1967-68 period stands out for the tumult and upheaval that occurred in America and around the world. Popular magazines of the day – some of which are shown in the column at right – featured the nation’s troubled times on its covers.

The Vietnam War and civil rights were the primary national concerns of that time – as campus protests, urban riots, and mass demonstrations flowed from those two overriding issues – and others, including two assassinations – Martin Luther King in April 1968 and Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.

America’s role in the the Vietnam War was jolted early in 1968 after the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong mounted their surprise Tet Offensive in late January.

In matters of race, the summer of 1967 had seen 159 race riots across the U. S. In June there were riots in Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Tampa. In July riots occurred in Newark, Detroit, Birmingham, Chicago, New York City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Rochester, Toledo and other locations. As a result of these riots, and those of preceding years, President Johnson established the Kerner Commission to investigate the rioting and urban condition and issues of Black Americans. As a result of Johnson’s action, some publications, such as Newsweek, did special reporting.

The full Kerner Commission Report, issued on February 29, 1968, blamed lack of economic opportunity, failed social service programs, police brutality, racism, and the white-oriented media for racial divisions and the unrest that had ensued. The 426-page report became a bestseller.

The 1960s were also a time of youthful rebellion, when a “generation gap” ensued between baby boomers and their parents; a time of challenging authority and experimentation – of “sex, drugs, and rock n roll,” went the expression – which didn’t always turn out well.

1968 was also a presidential election year — one of the most tragic, divisive, and tumultuous on record. Embattled Democrat incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, was expected to seek a second term. Republican contestants from Nelson Rockefeller to George Romney vied from their party’s nomination with former Vice President Richard Nixon and running mate, Maryland Governor, Spiro Agnew, filling out the ticket.

The Democrats, however, had a lot more drama, as Sen. Gene McCarthy — an announced anti-war candidate — did well enough in the New Hampshire primary to become a challenger to President Johnson. Sensing Johnson’s vulnerability, Senator Robert F. Kennedy then jumped into the race, later becoming a favorite.

However, on March 31, 1968, at the end of a nationally-televised address on suspending the bombing of North Vietnam in favor of peace talks, Johnson surprised everybody by bowing out of the race.

In April 1968, civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, sparking weeks of riots and racial unrest all across the country. Two months later, in early June 1968, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after giving a victory speech upon winning the California primary that night.

By August 1968, the site of the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, became something of a nationally-televised war zone, as police and protestors battled in the streets over the Vietnam War and Democratic politics. Democratic Senators Hubert Humphrey and Ed Muskie emerged from the maelstrom as the Democratic ticket.

Meanwhile, in mid-October 1968 in Mexico City, at the Summer Olympic Games, African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, at the medals ceremony, raised their fists in protest with black power salutes after winning their track events.

In the general election campaign that fall, Alabama governor, George Wallace, an avowed segregationist, had entered the race for President as a third party candidate, complicating the possible electoral outcome. As it was, Wallace and his running mate, General Curtis LeMay of WWII fame, took five southern states — Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia — garnering 46 electoral votes. But in the end that November, the Republican ticket of Richard Nixon-Spiro Agnew prevailed to take the prize.

In his campaign, Nixon had appealed to “the silent majority” and ran as a “law and order” candidate and someone who “had a plan” to end the war in the Vietnam. But for many in the nation that fall, there was an uneasy feeling about Nixon, not sure exactly what he would do as President.

The troubled ‘60s carried over into the 1970s, as Nixon expanded the Vietnam War with an invasion of Cambodia in May 1970, touching off more protests at home, resulting in National Guard shootings of students at Kent State University in Ohio (see “Four Dead in O-hi-o”). Beyond the war and everything else, there was more trouble ahead as something called Watergate — implicating nefarious political activities of the Nixon White House — would roil the nation through the mid-1970s.

In any case, the music of the late 1960s helped capture those turbulent times. And in addition to the Jimi Hendrix contribution of “All Along The Watchtower,” there were other artists and songs “sound-tracking” those times — and not least, a few from the Rolling Stones.

Art work for Rolling Stones' song, "Sympathy for the Devil." Click for digital single.

Rolling Stones

Among Rolling Stones songs that also weigh in as late-1960s musical markers is “Sympathy for The Devil,” recorded in June 1968, and released in December that year with their Beggars Banquet album.

Music Player
“Sympathy for The Devil”
Rolling Stones, 1968

While the lyrics for this song, narrated by “Lucifer” (Mick Jagger), deal with historic events of war, carnage and assassination, the song’s sentiments could easily segue to those of the troubled 1960s. In fact, as the Stones were recording this song in early June of 1968, U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, then running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, was assassinated in California, causing a change in the lyrics then being composed. One line in the lyrics that had referred to the killing of “Kennedy” in the singular (i.e., JFK, 1963), was changed to “Kennedys” plural, in the line: …I shouted out, who killed the Kennedys? When after all, it was you and me.

“Sympathy for the Devil” was certainly channeling 1960s rage – and was so received by its listeners in that time and later: that Lucifer wasn’t only present during the historic acts described, but was also there in the cauldron of the late 1960s. The Stones, in fact, had been presenting their concerns about socio-political milieu since their earlier 1963 hit, “Satisfaction,” which offered plenty of social commentary and “attitude.” Another Stones’ tune from 1965, “Paint It Black,” a funeral dirge for a lost lover, came to be associated with Vietnam, used in film and TV. And another, “Street Fighting Man,” had its inspiration in part from 1960s rioting and protests.

Rolling Stones' 1968 album, "Let It Bleed." Click for album and/or digital singles.

But perhaps “Gimme Shelter,” written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and powered in part by the soaring female vocals of Merry Clayton, takes the prize as the Stones’ “most 1960s-ish turbulent” song.

Music Player
“Gimme Shelter”
Rolling Stones, 1969

“Gimme Shelter” was recorded and released in 1969, the first song on their Let It Bleed album, and as Jagger would explain some years later, was inspired, in part, by the Vietnam war and its protests:

…Well, it’s a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense….It was a real nasty war, and people didn’t like it. People objected, and people didn’t want to fight it…[Gimme Shelter is] a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It’s apocalypse; the whole record’s like that.

In one review some years later in 2019, The Financial Times noted that the song “heralded the arrival of a new brutish era — a winter of discontent to follow the Summer of Love. With the war in Vietnam escalating and the threat of nuclear annihilation from the Soviet Union unremitting, hopes for the future had evaporated by the decade’s close.” And indeed, in the latter case, in late August 1968, a somewhat more democratic Czechoslovak was invaded by the Soviet Union.

The song generally would become a time capsule of late ’60’s anxiety. One comment at a YouTube posting of the song, noted: “Gimme Shelter” is the anthem for the apocalyptic ending of the 60’s, the decade which can never end.” Still, one reviewer of the song, Catheriin Walthall, writing for American Songwriter, asked if there could be a happy ending with this song, answering: “In short, yes. The 1969 song does leave Stones fans and listeners with a little bit of hope. The closing verse, sung by both Jagger and Clayton, promises that love is just as possible as war – I tell you love, sister, It’s just a kiss away.”

A jacket cover used for late 1967 release of Chambers Brothers’ single, “Time Has Come Today.” Click for digital.

Time Has Come…

Another popular song from 1968 that helped capture a bit of the angst and turmoil of that year and those times is “Time Has Come Today,” by the Chambers Brothers.

Music Player
“Time Has Come Today”
Chambers Brothers, 1968

The song, written by Willie and Joe Chambers, and performed by their group, had gone through a few variations and false starts dating to 1966. The Chambers Brothers were from Mississippi and started out as a gospel act of four African American brothers – George, Joe, Lester and Willie Chambers. By 1965, after ten years performing, but still relatively obscure, they added a drummer – a white musician named Brian Keenan – and began to change their act to a more rock/soul style. As their music evolved, they would soon be described as “black/gospel/funk/ psychedelic innovators,” and part of a wave of new music “that integrated American blues and gospel traditions with modern psychedelic and rock elements.” In 1967, Columbia Records signed them to a contract.

Meanwhile, at their live outings in popular concert venues and clubs of that era, such as the Fillmore (East and West), Hollywood Bowl, Electric Factory, and others, they had developed an extended version of their song – “Time Has Come Today” – that ran 11 minutes or so but had connected with audiences. Columbia’s Clive Davis, reluctant at first, agreed in November 1967 to put out a Chambers Brothers album – titled, The Time Has Come – which included the longer, 11-minute rendition of “Time Has Come Today” as the final track.

“Time Has Come Today" was featured on The Chambers Brothers’ November 1967 album, titled, “The Time Has Come.” Click for album or digital singles.

But despite its reception at some progressive FM radio stations, the song was far too long for single release and popular radio play. A shorter, radio-friendly version was made and issued as a single in December 1967. Between the single and the album version, “Time Has Come Today” was heard increasingly across the nation by the summer and fall of 1968 and began to move up the charts. In San Francisco it went to No. 1. By August 10th, 1968 it entered Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, and on September 15th it peaked at No.11 on that chart, where it stayed for five weeks. In all, “Time Has Come Today” spent 14 weeks on the Billboard 100. By late December 1968, the album, The Time Has Come, had spent 27 weeks on the Billboard albums chart, peaking at No. 6 (although some accounts say No. 4). On January 12, 1969 the Chambers Brothers also performed an abridged version of “Time Has Come Today” on CBS-TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show, along with a medley of their No. 37 hit “I Can’t Turn You Loose” and “People Get Ready”.

“Time Has Come Today” – with its clock-like “tick-tick-tick” backing, offered a foreboding of unpleasant expectation. The song became part of the late 1960s playlist, helping time-stamp the era’s socio-political turmoil and disaffection. Without specifically referencing Vietnam, civil rights, or other concerns in its lyrics, the song’s musical arrangement and energy served to convey a seminal message: “it’s time for change.” The song’s power, in part, was in what was not said. The musical frame alone was sufficient enough, capturing the times, but allowing space for listeners to provide their own thoughts and feelings.

As George Lipsitz of the University of California at Santa Barbara would later write in the Michigan Sociological Review in 2016: “‘Time Has Come Today,’ marked the moment as a time of transformative change… where the old ways seemed obsolete but unwilling to die, while the new appeared promising but not yet able to be born…”

But the legacy of “Time Has Come Today” would go well beyond 1968 performance and reception, becoming one of the late 1960s’ musical touchstones. “Time Has Come Today” helped define that era in national memory, if only by certain musical riffs from the song that would be used repeatedly in later documentaries, Hollywood films, and TV series, helping to make it a notable late-1960s musical marker.

1978, Coming Home film.	1988, HBO Vietnam series.
1991, The Doors film.	1999, Girl Interrupted film.
2011, Vietnam in HD Tv series.	2020, Da 5 Bloods film.

In Film & TV

In a later interview with the Los Angeles Times, Willie Chambers would note about the popularity of the song for use in film and TV: “That song was a monster. It’s been used in over 160 movies, commercials and television shows.”

However, not all of these uses relate to the 1960s or its issues, but a number of them do have 1960s storylines or period imagery (click images for related Amazon.com pages).

Coming Home, a 1978 Academy Award winning Vietnam War-related film, stars Jane Fonda, who plays a married volunteer medical attendant who has an affair with wounded veteran (Jon Voight). The director of that film, Hal Ashby, used all 11 minutes of the long version of “Time Has Come Today” as the backdrop to the climactic scene when Marine Captain Robert Hyde (Bruce Dern) “comes home” to his unfaithful wife (Fonda). Captain Hyde has an “out-of-his-mind” breakdown and rampage scene, during which the “tick-tick-tick” and full version of “Time Has Come Today” runs as the background music.

Another film about Vietnam, Casualties of War, released in 1989, starring Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox, also uses the song, as does the 1991 film, The Doors, an Oliver Stone film about Jim Morrison, frontman for the 1960s rock group, The Doors.

A 1998 documentary film, 1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation, narrated by long-time CBS newsman, Walter Cronkite, had the song in its score. Girl, Interrupted, a 1999 American psychological drama set in 1967-68, starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg and others, also uses the song, as did the The Zodiac, a 2006 psychological thriller based on the Zodiac serial killer active in northern California in the 1960s and 1970s. The song is also heard in Da 5 Bloods, a 2020 Spike Lee war drama, follows a group of four African American Vietnam War veterans who return to the country in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader and a stash of gold treasure they buried while serving there.

On television, the song was used in the 1987-88 HBO TV series, Vietnam War Story, and also in the History Channel’s 2011 documentary series, Vietnam in HD. The PBS show, American Experience featured “Time Has Come Today” as its theme song during 2009-2010. In Ken Burns’ PBS Baseball documentary, the song is heard during a 1960s segment. It is also used in video games – featured in Homefront and also used in Call of Duty. Beyond Vietnam documentaries and/or films about the late 1960s, “Time Has Come Today” is also heard in more than a dozen other films and TV shows that have nothing to do with the 1960s, but is used primarily as a play on it’s “time” motif for suspense or other purpose. Still, the repeated use of “Time Has Come Today” for film and documentary soundtracks dealing with Vietnam and the late 1960s has given the song historic bona fides and burnished it deeply in social memory as attached to those troubled times.

The 1966-67 Buffalo Springfield song, "For What It's Worth," by Stephen Stills, would become a popular period piece & protest song for the 1960s. Click for digital.

Period & Protest Music

Other Songs

There were, of course, numerous artists who contributed vintage period and/or protest music in the 1960s. A Buffalo Springfield song from 1966-67, “For What It’s Worth,” while not written as an anti-war anthem, conjured up those sentiments in later years, and like other songs of that kind, would be heard in later film accounts of the war and ‘60s protests. Released in December 1966, it peaked at No. 7 in the Spring of 1967.

Music Player
“For What It’s Worth”
Buffalo Springfield 1966-67

Pete Seeger, folk singer and songwriter from the 1950s with the Weavers folk group, had a hand in various songs used in 1960s protest music, including, “Where Have All The Flowers Gone,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” and “If I Had A Hammer” — as well as helping popularize the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” Seeger attracted some controversy in 1967 with his song, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” initially banned from a national TV show (though later aired) for hitting too close to incumbent President Lyndon Johnson, then mired in Vietnam. Added to the folk and protest contributions of Seeger and Dylan, are the works of Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton and others.

The Beatles’ released “All You Need Is Love” in July 1967, charged at one point as “selling peace in a time of war,” and for some hard-line leftists at the time, a little too pacifist. “Revolution,” released by the Beatles in August 1968, was sympathetic to the cause but eschewed violence. Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” written by John Fogerty and aimed at protected elites, was released in November 1969, and became part of the anti-war hit parade of its day. And in May 1970, after four students were killed by National Guard troops during anti-war protests at Kent State University, the folk-rock group, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released their protest song, “Ohio.” There were also other songs in the period, such as Bobby Darin’s “Simple Song of Freedom,” from 1969, that called for an end to war and exploitation generally, as did John Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance” of that year, and later more powerfully, his “Imagine” of 1971.

Marvin Gaye's 1971 song and album, "What's Going On". Click for album and/or singles.

Among African American artists with vintage 1960s period music and/or protest songs are: Sam Cooke with “A Change Is Gonna Come” (1965), Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin for “Respect” (1965 and 1967, respectively), and James Brown’s 1968 hit song, “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud.”

Music Player
“What’s Going On”
Marvin Gaye, 1971

Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” (1971), was originally inspired by a police attack on anti-war protestors in Berkeley witnessed by “Obie” Benson of the Four Tops, who penned an earlier version of the song, then gave it to Gaye who expanded the subject line to civil rights, urban unrest, and other concerns (Click for lyrics). Gaye’s conversations with his brother Frankie, who served for three years in Vietnam, and his cousin’s death in the war, also figured into the composition. In 2011, the song was ranked No. 4 on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Mark Kurlansky's 2013 book, "Ready for A Brand New Beat: How 'Dancing in the Street' Became the Anthem for a Changing America". Click for copy.

In addition, Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions’ “People Get Ready” (1965), a gospel song, is said to have been a favorite of Martin Luther KIng Jr., who regarded it the unofficial anthem of the early civil rights movement. Nina Simone’s, “Mississippi Goddam” (1964) and Stevie Wonder’s, “Living For the City” (1973) are also part of the civil rights genre. And earlier Motown songs, such as “Dancing in the Street,” “Nowhere To Run,” and “Quicksand” (1964-65) by Martha and the Vandellas, though not initially intended as such, became more politically-freighted with use in late 1960s civil rights rallies.

The songs mentioned in this story are only a small part of a much larger catalog of protest and period music; they represent some of the songs associated with the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1967 alone, for example, there were over 100 anti-war songs written and composed. So the songs used here represent only some of the more popular versions, offered only as examples, with no slight intended for any number of other important songs and artists with music from that period and/or genre. See references below for additional sources.

Additional stories at this website on music history, artist profiles, song and album histories can be found at the “Annals of Music” category page, or visit the Home page for other story choices. For two stories on the 1968 U.S. presidential race, see: “1968 Presidential Race, Republicans” and “1968 Presidential Race, Democrats,” each of which also explores the role of celebrities in those campaigns.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 4 August 2024
Last Update: 14 January 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Era-Defining Music: 1967-1971,”
PopHistoryDig.com, August 4, 2024.

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Also at This Website:

“The Pentagon Papers: 1967-2018,” PopHis-toryDig.com, February 5, 2018.

“Motown’s Heat Wave, 1963-1966,” PopHis-toryDig.com, November 7, 2009 (includes “Dancing in the Street” analysis).

“Paint It Black, 1966-2000s”(Rolling Stones song history), PopHistory Dig.com, March 19, 2009.

“Dylan’s Hard Rain, 1962-1963,” PopHistory Dig.com, March 6, 2012.

“Only A Pawn In Their Game, 1962-1964” (Dylan & civil rights), PopHistoryDig.com, October 13, 2008.

“LBJ’s Atomic Ad: Daisy Girl, 1964” (political campaign ad), PopHistoryDig.com, April 26, 2008.

“Four Dead in O-hi-o, 1970” (Kent State shootings & song), PopHistoryDig.com, July 13, 2009.

“Beatles History: 1960s-2000s” (topics page with 14 story choices), PopHistorydig.com, December 27, 2017.
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Teaser Tag: Popular Music History
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Everly-Brothers-Wake-Up-Little-Susie.mp3 1972464 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Everly-Brothers-Bye-Bye-Love.mp3 2269144 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Everly-Brothers-All-I-Have-to-do-is-Dream-Stereo-VG-.mp3 5800064 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/The-Everly-Brothers-Let-it-be-Me.mp3 3276155 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Everly-Brothers-Cathys-Clown.mp3 2334800 audio/mpeg

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“The Everly Sound”
Don & Phil: 1950s-2000s

July 22, 2024 J.D.

The Everly Brothers – Phil and Don – performing in the 1950s.

They were arguably one of the most important singing duos to come out of the 1950s – Don and Phil Everly – commonly known as The Everly Brothers. Both became accomplished country guitarists who grew up under the tutelage of their father’s training. But most of all, the music they made would become known for its exquisite harmonies, distinguished as “the Everly sound.”

With Kentucky Appalachian roots, they grew up in the Midwest doing early morning country radio as young boys with their family. But soon thereafter, the Everly Brothers would storm the pop and country charts with their special sound.

Music Player
“Wake Up Little Suzie”-1957
Everly Brothers

By the late-1950s they had a string of hits, beginning with “the big three” as they came to be called – “Bye Bye Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie” in 1957, and “All I Have To Do is Dream” in 1958.

All three of these songs, plus “Bird Dog” — all in 1957-58 — became No. 1 hits, either on the country and/or pop music charts, with “Susie” being their first No. 1 pop hit. (more on this song later).

During their recording career, and especially in their early years, their guitar-driven ballads and extraordinary harmonies swept the nation off its feet. On most recordings, Don sang the baritone part and Phil the tenor harmony. Don usually sang most of the solo lines.

For a period of six years, from 1957 to 1962, The Everly Brothers’ songs were regularly at the top of the contemporary music charts. In that six-year span, the Everly’s had an amazing run on the charts, landing 15 Top Ten singles with three at No. 1. All told, the Brothers would have 35 charting Billboard singles in their career, 26 in the top 40. In the UK, they would have similar success, with 30 chart singles, 29 in the Top 40, 13 Top Ten, and four at No. 1. Throughout their career, they would release 75 singles, 21 studio albums, two live albums, and 29 compilation albums. They would also have a significant influence on rock groups that followed, among them, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Bee Gees, and Simon & Garfunkel.

2016 BBC documentary on the lives and career of the Everly Brothers, “Harmonies From Heaven.” Click for DVD.

Art Garfunkel, for one, would later explain on camera in the 2016 documentary film, Harmonies From Heaven, how much he and Paul Simon were in awe of the Everly Brother’s sound when they first came out. Simon and Garfunkel both studied the Everly brothers method and tried to copy their sound in hopes it would help them in fashioning their own unique sound and harmonies.

And while the Simon and Garfunkel sound of the 1960s did became notable in its own right, Garfunkel, for one, would admit that the Everlys – being brothers – had a DNA advantage in the harmony department over he and Paul. Indeed, “brotherly harmony,” as it was called, is pretty powerful stuff.

Paul Simon, in his later career, would also work with the brothers on his Graceland album, and would say of them shortly after Phil’s death in January 2014: “Phil and Don were the most beautiful sounding duo I ever heard. Both voices pristine and soulful. The Everlys were there at the crossroads of country and R&B. They witnessed and were part of the birth of rock and roll.”

The Everly Brothers would be inducted into the inaugural class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and they were also selected for the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the Everly Brothers No. 1 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time, and their entry in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll states flatly they are “the most important vocal duo in rock.”

Starting out at the ages of 8 and 6, the boys joined their parents on “The Everly Radio Show,” broadcast from Shenandoah, Iowa during the 1940s & early 1950s.

Early Years

Don Everly was born in 1937, and Phil two years later. They were raised in a musical family with Kentucky roots, and in 1940s appeared on an early morning country radio show in Shenandoah, Iowa, before school started, singing with their father, Ike Everly and mother, Margaret Everly, as “The Everly Family.”

In their high school years, after the family had moved to Tennessee, the brothers would meet their father’s friend, Nashville musician Chet Atkins, who would help groom the boys and send them to music publisher Acuff-Rose.

Atkins introduced the boys to Wesley Rose, of Acuff-Rose, who told them he would secure a recording deal for them if they signed on with Acuff-Rose as songwriters. They signed in late 1956, and in 1957 Rose helped arrange an introduction to Archie Bleyer, who was looking for artists for his Cadence Records. The Everlys signed on with Cadence in February 1957 and would soon make their first recording there.

Felice & Boudleaux Bryant, the husband and wife team who wrote early Everly Brothers hits. Click for their book.

The Everlys had started out writing and recording their own music in 1956, and one song written by Don for Columbia, flopped. However, an earlier song by Don when he was 17, “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” became a country hit for Kitty Wells. Still, the boys were eager have their own hits. And soon after they hooked up with songwriters, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, a husband and wife team, their fortunes began to change.

The Bryants initially were a struggling song-writing team starting out in the 1940s before having a country hit in 1948, and from that point on, they also became associated with Acuff-Rose in Nashville, where they would write many other country and pop hits – of which “Bye Bye Love” for the Everly Brothers would become one of their early and most successful songs – but not at first.

Initially, in fact, “Bye Bye Love” had been rejected by 30 other acts, but with the Everly Brothers it became a 1957 smash hit. In fact, it was a musical breakthrough, as described by Kit Rachels in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll: “…Simultaneously precise, cohesive and effervescent, Bye Bye Love” had fused country music’s obsession for order with the boundless energy of rock & roll.” It reached No. 2 on the pop charts, behind Elvis Presley’s “Teddy Bear,” but it also hit No. 1 on the country chart and No. 5 on the R&B chart. The song became the Everly Brothers’ first million-seller.

“Bye Bye Love,” No. 1 country hit, 1957. Click for digital.

The Bryants, meanwhile, starting with “Bye Bye Love,” would create many of the songs that shaped the Everly Brothers’ early career, with 12 of the 27 songs they wrote for them becoming major hits.

Music Player
“Bye, Bye Love”-1957
Everly Brothers

But the key innovation on this song came in the recording studio, courtesy of Don’s intervention, as he and his brother had become enamored of the guitar styles of Bo Diddley and other R&B musicians.

At the session, Don suggested they add a more aggressive guitar intro at the front of “Bye Bye Love.” As later explained at EverlyBrothers.com, the front-loaded guitar riff “utilized an open G tuning and an unusual rhythm. Everyone at the [recording] session knew immediately that this was like nothing they had heard on the front of a song before.” The term “rock and roll” at the time was still taking form, and popular musicians then saw the use of a separate guitar riff up front, and not used elsewhere in the song, as something new. So the Everlys, in that March 1, 1957 session and others, were country guitar players pioneering new rock-and-roll techniques, helping invent and advance the new genre.

“Bye Bye Love” would be the first song a young teenager named Paul McCartney performed on stage with his brother Mike at a holiday camp in North Yorkshire, England. And some years later, in 1974, another Beatle, George Harrison, reinterpreted “Bye Bye Love” for his album, Dark Horse, changing some of its lyrics to reference his wife, Pattie Boyd, who would leave him for his friend Eric Clapton.

“Wake Up Little Susie,” No. 1 hit, on Cadense Records.

Famous 1960s troubadours, Simon & Garfunkel, included a live version of “Bye By Love” on their 1970 album, Bridge over Troubled Water. In 2004, the Everlys’ song would also be ranked at No. 210 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

Their second hit of 1957, “Wake Up, Little Susie” – sampled at the top of this story – came next for the Everlys. The song’s lyrics were also penned by the Bryants.

Released in September 1957, this Everly Brothers song quickly scaled the charts, rising to No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart and the Cash Box chart. The song also had a seven-week run at the top of the Billboard country chart and hit No. 2 on the UK Singles chart.

The Everly Brothers performed “Wake Up Little Susie” on The Ed Sullivan Show, October 6, 1957. The brothers also appeared at least twice on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand TV show in 1957 – September 13th & December 23rd, singing “Wake Up Little Susie” and other songs. As of 2011, Roiling Stone magazine listed “Wake Up, Little Susie” at No. 318 on its list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

Warner Brothers record jacket for Everly Brother’s hits, “Wake Up, Little Susie” (No. 1) and “Bird Dog” (No. 2 Pop, No. 1 Country). Click for digital.

The song, written from the point of view of a high school boy and his girlfriend who have gone out on a date to a movie, only to fall asleep during the show (drive-in theaters were then popular with teens, though the type of theater is not specified in the Everly’s song). When the narrator and his date wake up, he declares: “it’s 4 a.m. and we’re in trouble deep” – way past Susie’s 10 o’clock curfew. As the worrying lyrics explain:

… What are we gonna tell your Mama / What are we gonna` tell your Pa. / What are we going to tell our friends when they say ‘O lah lah’…

That last phrase carrying a little suggestive sexual innuendo, and perhaps the reason the song was banned in Boston (after all, this was the 1950s). Yet when songwriter Boudleaux Bryant heard about the Boston ban, he was overjoyed, knowing that controversy would only boost sales.

Simon & Garfunkel, lifelong Everly Brothers fans, included “Wake Up Little Susie” in their famous 1981 New York City Central Park Concert. Click for CD.

Years later, lifelong fans of the Everly Brothers, Simon & Garfunkel, included their own live version of “Wake Up, Little Susie” at their famous concert in New York city’s Central Park on September 19, 1981.

In fact, a recorded version of that Central Park performance hit No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982, becoming Simon & Garfunkel’s last Top 40 hit.

Beyond that, during Simon & Garfunkel’s “Old Friends” tour in 2003–2004, they performed “Wake Up Little Susie” and others in a segment with the Everly Brothers joining them, as the brothers had agreed to perform with Simon & Garfunkel on their tour.

In 2017, sixty years after the Everly Brothers 1957 recording of “Wake Up, Little Susie,” this song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Big Hit Ballad

Record jacket for 1958 Everly Brothers hit song, “All I Have To Do is Dream.” Click for their digital music.

Among the first “big three” Everly Brothers hits, their 1958 ballad, “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” was perhaps their biggest in those early years. Written by Boudleaux Bryant, the song became a No. 1 hit across most of the American music charts of that day, as well as those aboard.

Music Player
“All I Have To Do Is Dream”
Everly Brothers – 1958

In fact, by June 2, 1958, it was the only single ever to reach No. 1 on all of the Billboard singles charts simultaneously – having reached each of those four charts: the “Most Played by Jockeys” chart; the “Top 100″ chart; the R&B chart; and the Country chart. In August 1958 – when Billboard created the new Hot 100 chart – “All I Have to Do Is Dream” ended the year at No. 2. Three years later, in 1961, the Everly Brothers briefly returned to the Hot 100 in 1961 with this song. It was also ranked at No. 141 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

Outside the U.S., meanwhile, “All I Have to Do…” saw massive success, most notably the in the UK, where it topped the Singles Chart in June 1958 and remained there for seven weeks. In total, “All I Have To Do” spent 21 weeks on the UK charts. The song has also been featured on several notable lists of the best songs or singles of all time, including the “1,001 best songs ever” list offered by the British music magazine, Q, in 2003. The Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame named “All I Have to Do…” one of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll” and in 2004 it received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award (the B-side on this recoding. “Claudette,” was the first major song-writing success for Roy Orbison).

The late 1950s became a whirlwind time for the Everly’s – with road tours, TV appearances, recoding sessions. Singer Frankie Avalon recalled their touring the country in a school bus with disc jockey Alan Freed’s road show in 1958, a show that included “maybe 15 to 18 different acts.” As Avalon recounted their itinerary, he noted, “we did 91 nights; different city every night.” At one of the Freed shows at New York’s Paramount Theater the Everlys were headliners with Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

Earlier, in July 1957, the Everlys appeared along with The Billy Williams Quartet, Connie Francis on the premiere of Alan Freed’s ABC-TV, show, “The Big Beat.” They also appeared at least twice in 1957 on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand TV show – September 13th & December 23rd, singing “Wake Up Little Susie” and other songs. Other TV appearances included those on The Perry Como Show and Tennessee Ernie Ford’s show, on the latter, performing “Bird Dog” with Ford, an Everlys’ song which had hit No. 1 on the country charts.

Everly Brothers 1958 country album, “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.” Click for Amazon.

2013 remake of Everly Bros. country album by Billie Joe Armstrong & Norah Jones. Click for Amazon.

In 1958, in something of a surprise, the Everly Brothers, then at the top of their rock ‘n roll fame, also released a pioneering album of country music, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us (shown above, left). The album is filled with classic folk songs the brothers grew up singing — songs their father, Ike Everly, taught them. The album was not considered mainstream at the time, but both brothers were proud of it. Said Don at one point: “It was a good idea; it was a natural. We put our hearts into it and it was as good a thing as we’d ever done. It was true and it was from the heart and that’s exactly where we were in those days… I still love that whole thing, that whole album.” One of the songs on this album, and a fan favorite, “Kentucky,” is partly in homage to their family roots, also showcasing their amazing harmonies. ( clip below from later performance).

Some decades later, in 2013 Green Day frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, and jazz singer, Norah Jones, recorded a remake of the album, titled Foreverly. It was released on November 25, 2013. And that version charted on the Billboard 200. In one interview, Armstrong noted on the 1958 Everly Brothers album, in part: “…I got into the Everly Brothers’ record a couple years ago and I thought it was just beautiful. I was listening to it every morning for a while off and on. I thought it would be cool to remake the record because I thought it was sort of an obscure thing and more people should know about it…”

Record jacket cover for “Let It Be Me”. Click for digital.

Back in the 1950s, meanwhile, the Everly Brothers continued their run of pop hits, releasing their version of “Let It Be Me,” in 1959. That song was first recorded in France by Gilbert Bécaud, in 1955 and was written in French by Pierre Delanoë. It was also recorded by Les Compagnons de la chanson, a French harmony vocal group, in 1956.

Music Player
“Let It Be Me” – 1959
Everly Brothers

This song was the first Everly Brothers single to be recorded in New York, and not in Nashville, and their version hit No. 7 on the Billboard chart. On the B side of the Cadense single, the brothers used “Since You Broke My Heart.” But “Let It Be Me” featured a harmony arrangement that was used by a long list of others who would also cover the song in later years. In 1964, for example, Betty Everett and Jerry Butler released their version of the song that became a No. 5 hit on Billboard and No. 1 on the Cashbox R&B chart. And the Everly Brothers themselves, nearly 25 years later in 1983 at their famous reunion concert at London’s Albert Hall, performed a quite moving version of “Let It Be Me” with somewhat older voices, but still on the mark (see video, later below).

New Label

Sheet music cover for “Cathy’s Clown.” Click for digital.

In 1960, after three years on Cadence Records, the Everlys moved to Warner Brothers Records, where they would record for the next 10 years. They had been lured away from Cadence with a then record-breaking $1 million Warner Brothers offer and contract (worth about $10 million in today’s money). Their first Warner Brothers hit came in 1960 with “Cathy’s Clown,” which they wrote and composed themselves.

Music Player
“Cathy’s Clown” – 1960
Everly Brothers

“Cathy’s Clown” rose to No. 1 on the Billboard charts, holding that position for five weeks in 1960, It sold eight million copies and became the duo’s biggest-selling record. And so far, it is the only Everly Brothers’ song to be cited by the U.S. Library of Congress – in 2013 — as being culturally significant and worthy of inclusion in the National Recording Registry.

National Recording Registry

“Cathy’s Clown”
A Musical Analysis

Daniel Levitin, American-Canadian psychologist, writer, musician, and record producer, is the author of four New York Times best-selling books, including, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, a million seller in 2006. Levitin wrote an essay on the Everly Brothers “Cathy’s Clown” song for the Library of Congress upon its selection in 2013 to the National Recording Registry. An abridged and excerpted version of Levitin’s essay follows below, which offers, in part, a somewhat technical analysis of that song’s singular musical attributes:

…”Cathy’s Clown” did not represent a major departure for the duo. Their tight, seamless, fraternal harmonies are still the song’s most distinguishing feature. The song is catchy and an important part of early rock music’s heritage. It begins as a three-cord tune in D Major but an E minor chord is added for the third line of the verse. “Cathy’s Clown” begins on the verse, followed by a bridge (there is no chorus).It is the sound of “Cathy’s Clown” that is so gripping. Like “I Walk the Line” and “Heartbreak Hotel,” it features voices that are instantly recognizable, and an overall sonic profile that puts the record in a class by itself. But far more distinctive than the song itself is this recording of it because “Cathy’s Clown” sounds like no other record before or since. Along with only a handful of other recordings—Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” (1956) and Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” (1956), for instance—“Cathy’s Clown” established a line of demarcation for the increasingly important role that timbre (tonal color) would play in 20th and 21st century popular music. In the selection of a particular vocalist or instrumentalist, composers, musical arrangers, and conductors understood the importance of an individual’s own sound, a notion that traces back to Mozart and before that to the ancient Greeks. But the idea that timbre could overshadow melody and rhythm and become the dominant, identifying attribute of a piece of music was probably first shown by Ravel in “Boléro” (1928).What the Everlys, and their producer Wesley Rose, did with this idea for “Cathy’s Clown,” influenced music for the next several decades.

The Everly Brothers at work.

It is the sound of “Cathy’s Clown” that is so gripping. Like “I Walk the Line” and “Heart-break Hotel,” it features voices that are instantly recognizable, and an overall sonic profile that puts the record in a class by itself. The plate reverberator was a new sound in 1960 and the entire track is drenched in it, thick as the hot, humid Kentucky summer.

The song opens with bass, drums, electric guitar and piano. The kick drum, bass and piano come in on the downbeat, playing a I–V root motion that sounds vaguely Celtic; the bass (Floyd Chance) slides into the I at the top of the second measure contributing the drone-like qualities of a bagpipe. The snare drum (Buddy Harman) plays a standard rock backbeat on the second beat of the measure, and then rolls into the backbeat in a kind of march cadence for the fourth beat, propelling the song inevitably forward. The guitars play crisp, punctuated I and V chords on beats two and four, emphasizing the backbeat while drenched in thick, liquid reverb.

At six seconds, the band stops completely after the downbeat of measure 4. Then, on the second beat of the fourth measure, Phil and Don enter, singing in unison “Don’t want your love.” The word “love” starts on the downbeat of measure 5 and then something miraculous happens. They stretch the word “love” out for six beats, and beginning on the third of those beats, Don diverges from the unison, putting a harmony underneath brother Phil’s high, single held note. This splitting and spreading of the melody into two parts gives the vocals on this song its distinctive sound. It’s not just a musically pleasing maneuver, it’s textually brilliant.This splitting and spreading of the melody into two parts gives the vocals on this song its distinctive sound. It’s not just a musically pleasing maneuver, it’s textually brilliant. As the unity of the relationship starts to fall apart and the couple separates, the word “love” splits and descends harmonically into two distinct parts, settling on their famous open thirds harmony for the lyrics “any more.” They repeat this for the second line of the verse, “Don’t want your kisses, that’s for sure.” On the next line, “I die each time,” they introduce a four note guitar arpeggio call, followed by a four note guitar arpeggio response on “I hear this sound.” The final line’s hook, “Here he co-o-o-o-o-omes, that’s Cathy’s clown,” follows that beautifully separating-and- descending vocal line, with each of the brothers adding a vocal scoop as they elongate the word “comes,” underlining the narrator’s long walk of embarrassment and shame. In the verse, the drummer switches to the ride cymbal and pianist Floyd Cramer .appears, playing a part slightly reminiscent of the one he played on “(Til) I Kissed You” a year earlier–slightly behind the beat, giving it a relaxed, laid-back feel…

In his essay, Levitin also singled out engineer Bill Porter who used a then innovative approach in the song of a taped drum loop to give the song a sound like that of two drummers.

“Cathy’s Clown” wasn’t the only hit the Everly Brothers had in 1960. “When Will I Be Loved,” written by Phil Everly, released in May 1960, became a Top 10 hit that summer, rising to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Fifteen years later, Linda Ronstadt covered the song in 1975 – transposing and altering the lyrics a bit, but her version was an even bigger hit, peaking at No. 2 on the pop charts and No 1 on the Billboard country chart. Ronstadt released her version in March 1975 as the second single from her chart-topping album, Heart Like A Wheel (more on Linda & her career at “Linda & Jerry: 1971-1983”). Vince Gill also covered “When Will I Be Loved” in 1994, which appeared on the film soundtrack for 8 Seconds, about bronc- and bull-riding rodeo cowboys.

The Everly’s “When Will I Be Loved,” became a Summer 1960 hit at No. 8. Click for Amazon digital.

Linda Ronstadt hit paydirt with her 1975 cover of “When Will I Be Loved,” a No. 2 hit. Click for Amazon.

By August 1960, the Everly Brothers had released, “So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad).” That song, written by Don Everly, spent 12 weeks on the Billboard chart, peaking at No. 7. It was also a Top 10 hit in multiple countries – including No. 4 in the UK, and No. 7 in New Zealand. In the 1970s and 80s, the song also became a later country hit for multiple artists. Another 1960 Everly Brothers song, “Like Strangers,” written by Boudleaux Bryant, was released that fall and spent 10 weeks on the Billboard chart, peaking at No. 22 and also reaching No. 11 in the UK.

In the following year the Everlys released more songs – “Walk Right Back” and “Ebony Eyes,” songs that became No. 7 and No. 8 hits, while “Temptation” and “Don’t’ Blame Me” were somewhat lesser Top 40 hits, at respectively, No. 27 and No. 20. But it was during 1961 and 1962 that their careers began to change.

Feb 1962. Everly Brothers on Ed Sullivan Show in their Marine uniforms.

In October 1961, however, the brothers enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, reportedly to avoid being drafted into the Army. Their musical careers dropped off somewhat during their enlistment. Yet releases of their songs continued in 1961-62. They had a Top Ten hit with “Crying In the Rain,” written by Carole King and Howard Greenfield, at New York’s Aldon Music in the Brill Building (King in those years normally worked with Gerry Goffin).That single peaked at No, 6 on the Billboard chart in 1962. And in mid-February 1962, they appeared on CBS-TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show, performing “Jezebel” and “Crying in the Rain.” in their Marine dress uniforms.

Don and Phil were discharged from their active duty with the Marines on May 24, 1962. A Warner Brothers-issued single only weeks earlier – “That’s Old Fashion (That’s the Way Love Should Be)” – would become their second 1962 Top Ten single in a row, peaking at No. 9 in late June 1962. But changes had been afoot in the Everly Brothers career, as troubles began surfacing in 1961 and 1962.

Troubled Times

The Everly Hits
Selected Songs: 1957-1967

“Bye Bye Love”
Mar 1957 – No. 2 *
“Wake Up Little Susie”
Sept 1957 – No. 1*
“All I Have to Do Is Dream”
Apr 1958 – No. 1*
“Bird Dog”
Aug 1958 – No. 2*
“Devoted to You”
Aug 1958 – No. 10*
“Problems”
Nov 1958 – No. 2
“…Message To Mary”
Mar 1959 – No. 16
“Poor Jenny”
Mar 1959 – No. 22
“(‘Til) I Kissed You”
Aug 1959 – No. 4*
“Let It Be Me”
Jan 1960 – No. 7
“Cathy’s Clown”
Apr 1960 – No. 1*
“When Will I Be Loved”
May 1960 – No. 8
“Lucille”
Sept 1960 – No. 21
“So Sad (…Good Love Go Bad)”
Sept 1960 – No. 7
“Like Strangers”
Oct 1960 – No. 22,
“Walk Right Back”
Feb 1961- No. 7
“Ebony Eyes”
Feb 1961 – No. 8
“Temptation”
May 1961- No. 27
“Don’t Blame Me”
Sept 1961 – No. 20
“Crying in the Rain”
Jan 1962, No. 6
“That’s Old Fashioned”
May 1962 – No. 9*
“Gone, Gone, Gone”
Oct 1964 – No. 31
“Bowling Green”
May 1967 – No. 40
__________________________
Songs listed by release date w/Pop ranking.
*also Top 10 Country and/or R&B

By 1962, recordings by the Everlys had reportedly generated $35 million in sales (worth about $360 million in today’s money). But the brothers had become unhappy with their publisher, Acuff-Rose, and Wesley Rose in particular, as well as their share of the revenue. And by then they were located in California recording at Warner Brothers in Los Angeles, not Nashville.

But a full-blown falling out with Wesley Rose had ensued in 1961 over the recording of their song, “Temp-tation,” for which Rose was not the publisher and would not receive publishing royalties. Rose then made efforts to block their recording and slow their careers as they were also shut off from Acuff-Rose songwriters, including hit-makers, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The Everlys themselves were also still contracted to Acuff-Rose as songwriters. From 1961 through early 1964, the Everlys recorded songs by other composers to avoid paying any royalties to Acuff-Rose and had also tried using a pseudonyms briefly until Rose took legal action. Had it not been for this disruption with Acuff-Rose, and especially the loss of the Bryant’s songwriting talents, the Everly’s might have had a few years worth of additional hit songs. But there was still more trouble to come.

The Everlys’ dispute with Acuff-Rose lasted until 1964, when they resumed writing and composing as well as working with the Bryants. By then, however, the popular music landscape was changing and both of the brothers had become addicted to amphetamines — with Don collapsing at one point in England during a mid-October 1962 tour. By 1963-64 the Beatles had arrived on the music scene, and the “British invasion” of pop music in America had begun. Suddenly, the rising country rock that had propelled the Everly’s to rising fame – was no longer in vogue. Still, they continued recording and touring, with success in the UK and Canada in particular. But through the 1960s, their hit making in the U.S. had fallen off sharply. Of their 27 singles on Warner Bros. from 1963 through 1970, only three made the Billboard Hot 100, and none peaked higher than No. 31. Album sales were also down. Outside of their first two albums for Warners (in 1960 and 1961) which peaked at No. 9, of a dozen more Warner Brothers albums, only one made it to No.141 on the top 200, Beat & Soul (1965).

A 1968 album, Roots, received some notice as a promising early country-rock album. But by the end of the 1960s, the Everly Brothers were no longer contemporary hit-makers. And in 1970, their ten-year contract with Warner Bros had expired.

Split & Reunion

In 1973, the Everlys announced their final performance would occur on July 14, 1973, at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. However, tensions between the brothers had been mounting and surfaced during the show, as Phil slammed his guitar down on the floor and walked off the stage. Don performed solo the following night, commenting to the audience that “the Everly Brothers died ten years ago.”

Indeed, the two brothers had been in a decade-long pressure cooker, turning out hits and performing practically non -stop since 1957 and even earlier. In the music business at that time, singles were the more popular and preferred recording strategy, and the Everlys were constantly under the gun to do more of them. And nine-month long touring stints to promote those songs were also part of the grind. Don Everly, later noting the long-standing strain they experienced that contributed to their break up. “We had been singing together, and hadn’t really been apart, since we were around 6 years old. It kept us immature, in a way, kept us from developing any individuality….”

Following their 1973 split, the Everly Brothers would not perform together for the next ten years. In the interim they would do a mix of things as solo artists, TV hosts, guest performers, background singers, and other projects.

The Everly Brothers' 1983 Reunion Concert at London's Albert Hall. Click for Amazon.

Then, in 1983, after the brothers had made amends, an Everly Brothers reunion concert was planned for Royal Albert Hall in London. The early response was pretty amazing as more than 60,000 people requested tickets, but Albert Hall could only accommodate 12,000.

The concert proved to be a big deal for a lot of Everly fans, including popular musicians of that day who had grown up with, and were influenced by, the Everly sound. Tom Petty, for one, flew in from L.A. to be there, and others in the UK from groups such as The Who and others were also in attendance.

Among the performances that evening was their closing song, “Let It Be Me,” slowed down a bit from their 1950s version, but coming across quite movingly and to the great approval of their audience that evening (see video clip below).

The reviews of the the Everlys’ reunion concert at Albert Hall were quite positive, and brought renewed interest in their music.

Following the concert, they began receiving media exposure they hadn’t seen in years. A video of the concert was scheduled to be shown on HBO in January 1984, and a documentary film on their career was also scheduled for PBS in March. They also had a new recording contract and their first U.S. concert tour in 11 years covering some 35 U.S. cities. And they returned to the studio as a duo for the first time in over a decade, recording the album EB ’84, produced by Dave Edmunds, with the lead single, “On the Wings of a Nightingale”(August 1984), written by Paul McCartney and becoming their most popular song since 1970, reaching No. 50 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Stephen Holden of the New York Times reporting on the Everly’s July 1984 appearance at Pier 84 in New York City noted, “The years haven’t diminished the distinctive appeal of the Everlys’s bluegrassy style in which Phil Everly’s penetrating tenor sails lyrically over his brother Don’s somewhat darker, more resonant voice. While they offered a smattering of new material, the focus of the concert, especially its second half, was on the Everlys’s greatest hits.”

[Above video clip from Everly Brothers Sept 1983 reunion concert in London].

In March 1986, Time magazine’s music writer, Jay Cocks, found that the Everlys had come to terms with their split, acknowledging they had needed the time apart. But Cocks also found promise in their recent music, citing their 1986 album, Born Yesterday and its title track. “The Everlys are back,” he wrote, “They are back to stay. Back, and as good as ever. And rock ‘n’ roll just doesn’t get any better than that.”

Everly Brothers 1984 album, “EB-84” (#34 Billboard; #24 Country). Click for Amazon.

In 1986, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was first opened, and in that year, Don and Phil Everly were among the inaugural class of inductees, along with Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, James Brown, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Sam Cooke, and Bo Diddley.

Through the 1990s and 2000s the Everly Brothers continued to perform periodically while pursuing other interests and spending time with family. They appeared at the 10th annual Everly Brothers Homecoming concert in Central City, Kentucky in 1997. In 1998, they recorded “Cold” for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s and Jim Steinman’s musical Whistle Down the Wind. In 2003 and 2004 there was the touring with Simon & Garfunkel mentioned earlier. In the UK, they played their last headlining tour in 2005. Country star Vince Gill recorded a duet with Phil Everly in 2006 for his These Days album set.

Kudos & Critics

Over the years, the Everly Brothers have received many notable honors and awards, among them: the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. (1997); a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their work in the music industry (1986); inductees to the Country and Vocal Group halls of fame (2001, 2004); and a ranking at No. 33 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time” (2004). Their life stories have been covered in a number of books and documentary films (see “Sources” below), and they also inspired several musicals, including, Bye Bye Love: The Everly Brothers Musical (1998), which ran in Nashville, and Dream, Dream, Dream (2000’s), which played Atlantic City.

Popular Everly Brothers “Greatest Hit” album – a 3-CD set with 75 songs. 2013 release. Click for Amazon.

Phil Everly, a lifelong smoker, died of lung disease in 2014 at the age of 74. Don died seven years later in 2021 in his sleep at the age of 84. Don Everly had revealed earlier that he had endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in January 2016, the first time he had ever publicly supported a political candidate, acknowledging that differences between he and Phil had prevented them from free expression of such views or active support for political candidates.

In some press accounts, and a 2024 book, Crying in the Rain: The Perfect Harmony and Imperfect Lives of the Everly Brothers, by Mark Ribowsky, the Everlys’ problems and discontents during their careers are covered, sometimes in not-so-flattering ways. Both brothers suffered from drug abuse, but Don’s dependence on Ritalin for drug therapy, led him into deeper trouble than Phil. There were also reports of girlfriends, mistresses and infidelity. Both brothers experienced multiple divorces; Don, three, and Phil, two. Internal family difficulties were also reported, as well as later inter-family litigation over some copyrights and other issues. As for their troubled behaviors, no doubt personal and business pressures were involved – especially after rising to peak success so quickly in their 20s. Demands on their professional performances and personal lives, set both by themselves as well as publishers, agents, management, and record companies, were surely challenging.Graham Nash has said the Everly Brothers produced a “ghost harmonic” with their blended voices.

But in the end, it is their indelible harmonic sound that will abide through the ages. In January 2014, Terence McArdle, in the Washington Post, wrote about their harmonies: “…When brothers harmonize, their genetically close voices often produce a distinctive, ethereal sound, and the Everlys exemplified that. In their case, though, the sound was rendered almost spooky by the fact that Don, the baritone, and Phil, the tenor, hardly ever sang more than a diatonic third apart.” And on some of their songs, “…the two melodies, rendered by two nearly identical voices, formed what was called a ‘ghost harmonic’ by Graham Nash of the Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash” – a kind of a “two-plus-two-equals-five” effect. Indeed, as Don Everly once said: “I swear that there are times that what comes out is not either of us, but the voice of a third person.”

“…They were just so tight..,” offered John Pareles of the New York Times, describing the Everlys’ harmonies in a video that ran with Phil Everly’s obituary in January 2014. “It sounds easy when you listen to them sing; sounds just as natural as can be. But it wasn’t easy. …Everybody learned from them: the Beatles learned from them, the Hollies learned from them, the Byrds learned from them. They really taught rockers the way voices could blend. The Beatles admitted that they took “Please Please Me” from a trick they learned from the Everly Brothers: one voice would be holding a single note while the other voice descended and sang a melody…”

And then there’s the innocence – both in the Everly sound and the times in which they produced that sound.

The 1950s…

Everly Innocence

Songwriter Felice Bryant on camera, re: Everly Brothers' innocent sound.

“It was such an innocent sound,” Felice Bryant would later say of the Everlys’ singing, she being part of the husband- and-wife songwriting team who crafted early Everly hits. “Remember your fist love? That’s what the Everlys felt like. Felt like that all-encompassing feeling; one that will burn you up if it goes any further… That’s what they were like; that’s what their music was like. Their sound was like…it was virgin, felt like true love…”

Kit Rachels, then with L.A. Weekly and writing an Everlys profile for The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, would also pick up on this theme.

“The Everly Brothers were innocents,” he wrote. “From their first hit, “Bye Bye Love” in 1957, to their last, “That’s Old Fashioned” five years later, the Everly Brothers sang about love, always love, and always with ingenuous passion and conviction. They never hungered after sex and never sought revenge. Instead, they were dreamers, seeking not the ideal woman, but the ideal – or perhaps more accurately, the idealized – relationship…”

And indeed, the innocence projected, or then found, in the harmonic “Everly ether,” was also, in a way, characteristic of those times – the late-1950s-early-1960s period – a time between Eisenhower and the assassination of JFK; before things became a little meaner. America then, when those first-round Everly hits were in the air, was a kinder place (and yes, to be sure, there was the Cold War, racism, Communist witch-hunts, FBI surveillance, etc,). Still, for many, at least on the surface, this was the Saturday Evening Post era, or the “Happy Days,” as they would later be portrayed.The Everly sound seemed to offer a kind of purity; a longing for that perfect love; a kind of hopeful innocence… There was innocent newness and innocent technology (before the knowing of side effects). The automobile and interstate highways could take you anywhere. TV projected innocence, too. Leave it To Beaver was celebrating perfect families and the suburbs. Ricky Nelson was there, too, a teen idol boosted by The Ozzie and Harriet Show. And yes, in addition to the Everlys, there was lots of rock ‘n roll talent on the rise: Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, and of course, Elvis Presley. But the Everlys stood out and stood apart – in their own little corner of the market with that special harmony sound that seemed to offer a kind of purity; a longing for that perfect love; a kind of hopeful innocence. And so that sound remains, now digitally archived and encased in its innocence; now perhaps, an aspirational sound for the ages, but never again to be felt quite like it was in the 1950s.

See also at this website, “Pop Music, 1950s: Artists, Songs, Bios” – a topics page with more than 20 story choices from that era. Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 22 July 2024
Last Update: 22 July 2024

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Everly Sound: 1950s-2000s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 22, 2024.

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Everly Brothers Music at Amazon.com…

“Very Best of Everly Brothers,” WB, 2006 – as CD, streaming, MP3, cassette / vinyl. Click for Amazon.

“Everly Brothers ... Country Rock Ses-sions, 1966-1968,” 3-CDs, hits & country mix. Click for Amazon.

“Everly Brothers Platinum Collec-tion,” 3-CD set w/60 tracks. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Roger White’s 1998 book, “The Everly Brothers: Walk Right Back,” 1998, Plexus Publishing, 192 pp. Click for Amazon.

Mark Ribowsky’s 2024 book, “Crying in the Rain: The Perfect Harmony and Imperfect Lives of the Everly Brothers,” Backbeat Press, 256 pp. Click for Amazon.

“Hey Doll Baby” is a 2022 remastered 17-track compilation of lesser-known Everly songs, which Everly family and Don Everly (before he passed), had input and offer commentary. Click for Amazon.

“The Best of Simon & Garfunkel” album, reissued & remastered, 2006. Click for Amazon.

Ricky Nelson, another popular 1950s rock star. Click for his “Greatest Hits” album at Amazon.

“Everly Brothers,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 315-316.

“Everly Brothers,” CountryMusicHallofFame .org, 2001.

“The Everly Brothers,” Wikipedia.org.

“History,” EverlyBrothers.com.

“Bye Bye Love (The Everly Brothers song),” Wikipedia.org.

Early Photograph of Everly Brothers on Iowa Radio Program, Iowa Museums, PastPerfect Online.com.

“Wake Up Little Susie,” Wikipedia.org.

“The Everly Brothers Discography,” Wikipedia .org.

Richmond Times Dispatch, July 7, 1957 (story about the premiere of Alan Freed’s “Big Beat Show” on ABC-TV, which included an Everly Brothers appearance).

“The Everly Brothers: They Deal in Millions,” Gibson Gazette, Summer, 1963.

Alan Cackett, “The Everly Brothers: Back To Their Roots,” Country Music People, August 1973.

Kit Rachlis, “The Everly Brothers,” in Anthony DeCurtis and James Henke (eds), with Holly Geroge Warren; Original Editor: Jim Miller, The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, 1978, 1980, 1993, New York: Random House / Straight Arrow Publishers, pp. 80-84.

Alan Cackett, “Don Everly: ‘I’ve Always Been A Solo Singer’,” AlanCackett.com, April 1978, pp. 16-17.

Alan Cackett, “Riding Success – Bryant Style: Boudleaux & Felice Bryant, Part Two,” Country Music People / AlanCackett.com, March 1981.

Richard Williams, “Harmonic Delight: Everly Brothers, Albert Hall,” The Times (London), September 24, 1983.

Robert Palmer, “The Pop Life; New Record by Everlys,” New York Times, February. 29, 1984.

John J. Archibald, “Everlys: Comeback Kids,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 4, 1984, p. 169.

Mark Schwed, UPI Archives, “Everly Brothers Back on Music Trail,” UPI.com, July 5, 1984.

Stephen Holden, “Rock Group: Everly Bros. At Pier 84,” New York Times, July 26, 1984, p. 66.

BBC / Arena, “The Everly Brothers: Songs of Innocence and Experience” (1984 film about the Everly Brothers), YouTube.com.

Steve Morse, “The Everly Brother’s Shindig” (Everly Brothers – In Concert with Pat Alger at the South Shore Music Circus on Saturday), The Boston Globe, August 5, 1985, p. 7.

Jay Cocks, “Music: The Everly Brothers in Arms,” Time, March 17, 1986.

“The Everly Brothers,” Encyclopedia.com.

“The Life & Times of The Everly Brothers,” 1996 film, YouTube.com.

Jim Patterson, Associated Press (Nashville, TN), “Nashville Show Spotlights Everly Brothers,” The Times-Tribune (Scranton, PA), Sunday, May 10, 1998, p. 95.

“Everly Brothers International Archive: A&E Biography,” (1999) film

“Cathy’s Clown – The Everly Brothers (1960) Named to the National Registry,” Library of Congress /LOC.gov, 2013, Guest Essay by Daniel J. Levitin.

“Boudleaux Bryant Dies at 67; Writer of Country Music Hits,” New York Times, June 28, 1987.

“Old Friends Unite on Stage,” The Miami Herald (Miami, FL), Monday, October 20, 2003, p. 128.

“The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time,” RollingStone.com, April 15, 2004.

Paul Simon, “The Everly Brothers” (No.33), RollingStone.com, April 15, 2004.

Jon Pareles, “Phil Everly, Half of a Pioneer Rock Duo That Inspired Generations, Dies at 74,” New York Times, January 4, 2014 (w/short video by Jon Pareles).

Terence McArdle, “Appreciation: Phil Everly, Half of a Duo with Ethereal Sound,” Washington Post.com, January 4, 2014.

“How Music Row & Acuff-Rose Killed The Everly Brothers,” SavingCountryMusic.com, January 4, 2014.

“Foreverly,” Wikipedia.org.

Bill Friskics-Warren, “Don Everly, 84, Brother In Groundbreaking Duo That Changed Rock, Dies,” New York Times, August 23, 2021, p. B-7.

Mariah Timms, “Nashville Judge Has Last Word in Everly Brothers’ Famous Argument: Who Wrote ‘Cathy’s Clown?’, Nashville Tennessean, May 6, 2021.

Matt Friedlander, “The Everly Brothers’ Don Everly Dies at Age 84; Don’s Brother, Phil, Died in 2014,” ABCnews.go.com /GMA, August 23, 2021 (with video).

John Blackstone “‘Hey Doll Baby’: Revisiting the Everly Brothers’ Enduring Harmonies,” CBS News / Sunday Morning, March 26, 2023.

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1950s-Related Reading at Amazon.com…

J.C. De Ladurantey’s 2016 book, “Rock & Roll and Doo-Wop...” 1950s & Early 1960s. 256 pp. Click for Amazon.

Richard Aquila’s 2016 book, “Let's Rock!: How 1950s America Created Elvis and the Rock and Roll Craze,” 368 pp. Click for Amazon.

David Halberstam’s best seller, “The Fifties,” w/fascinating profiles of Madison Avenue, Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, etc. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Baseball History

1951-1960, 2001-Today

“The Catch”
Willie Mays: 1954

June 23, 2024 J.D.

Sept 1954. Willie Mays, deep in center field at the Polo Grounds, running full speed with his back to home plate, about to make an incredible catch of Vic Wertz’s 425' blast during Game 1 of the 1954 Giants v. Cleveland Indians World Series. More details on this catch later below.

In the annals of baseball, there are great plays, and on occasion, there are spectacular plays. In 1954, one of the latter came along, and no less, during a World Series game. It was September 24th, 1954.

America then was in the second year of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency, a time of prosperity and growth that would extend through most of the 1950s – an era when The Saturday Evening Post was one of the nation’s most popular weekly magazines.

In politics, Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) was then hunting communists in government, holding his “Army-McCarthy hearings” that year. And in a bit of overdue social progress, on May 17th, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated schools were unconstitutional — touching off a decades long fight.

In music, among top hits that year – still largely in the crooner era – were: “Rags to Riches” by Tony Bennett, “Oh My Pa Pa” by Eddie Fisher, “Make Love to Me” by Jo Stafford, “Wanted” by Perry Como, “Sh-Boom” by The Crew Cuts, “Mr. Sandman” by The Chordettes, and others. But there was also a new young singer on the horizon named Elvis Presley who had released his first single, a cover of “That’s All Right” on Sun Records.

Best-selling books that September included those by John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, and Irving Stone. In film, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Dragnet, and Sabrina were among popular movies that month.

Major League baseball, meanwhile, was then in something of a golden era, more popular than professional football or basketball, providing inspiration for millions of kids who dreamed of becoming big leaguers, also offering televised coverage of regular-season games. And in the New York region, there was a surfeit of baseball teams and talent: the New York Yankees had Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra; the Brooklyn Dodgers had Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider, and the New York Giants had Willie Mays, a rising young star who had led his team to the World Series.

Willie Mays & Don Mueller, both NY Giants, battled down to the wire for National League batting title, each compiling an average of .340 or better, with Mays winning at .345.

Mays, in fact, was having a standout season with a .345 average, 41 home runs, and 110 runs batted in. He led an offense that also featured Don Mueller (.342), Alvin Dark (.293, 98 runs), Hank Thompson (26 HRs, 86 RBIs) and successful pinch-hitter Dusty Rhodes (.341). Mays was then in his third year of what would become a 22-year Hall-of-Fame career,

But that fall, on September 24th, the first game of the best-of-seven baseball championship World Series would begin. The Giants of the National League were hosting the American League champion Cleveland Indians. The first two games of the Series were played at the Polo Grounds stadium in New York.

The Cleveland Indians that year were heavily favored to win the Series, having compiled a phenomenal 111–43 win-loss record. The Indians had some very strong pitching that year with Early Wynn (23–11) and Bob Lemon (23–7) plus others including an aging Bob Feller (13–3) and some top relievers. Cleveland also led their league in home runs (156) and had stand-out performers in Bobby Ávila (.341 avg., 112 runs scored); Larry Doby (.272, 32 HRs, 126 RBIs) and Al Rosen (.300, 24 HRs, 102 RBIs). Doby, who joined Cleveland in July 1947, was the first African American to play in the American League, and the second to integrate major league baseball, following Jackie Robinson. (See Gary Webster’s book on the 1954 Indians for more details — .721: A History of The 1954 Cleveland Indians. Click for Amazon).

The New York Giants, for their part, had taken the National League pennant with a 97-57 record, and had top-flight pitching as well, with Johnny Antonelli (21–7, 2.30 ERA), Rubén Gómez (17–9, 2.88) and 37-year-old Sal Maglie (14–6, 3.26). The Giants also had some notable relief pitching with Hoyt Wilhelm (12–7, 2.10, 7 saves) and Marv Grissom (10–7, 2.35, 19 saves). The Giants pitching staff also led the NL in shutouts that year with 17. The Giants had a solid, consistent lineup that year, with plenty of firepower at the plate.

1954 United Press photo of New York Giants players in their clubhouse – shortstop Alvin Dark; outfielder Monte Irvin; catcher Wes Westrum, and center-fielder, Willie Mays.

Game 1 of the World Series was played in the cavernous sports stadium known as the Polo Grounds, which had somewhat unorthodox dimensions for baseball, but nonetheless, had been home to the New York Giants for years, and also for a time (1913-1922), the New York Yankees.

Simplified sketch of the Polo Grounds stadium showing foul line and outfield dimensions. Click for book.

An earlier version of the park on the site, but later demolished, dated to 1870s-1880s, and was built in fact for polo. But by the 1950s, the new Polo Grounds was noted for its somewhat quirky dimensions, with short distances down the left and right field foul lines – 279 feet and 258 feet, respectively – but also an unusually deep center field, deepest at 483 feet in the alcove section, which led to a clubhouse entrance there (see later photo below). The left-center and right-center field dimensions were also deep, at 450 and 449 feet. And it was in this deep outfield area of the Polo Grounds ball park where center fielder, Willie Mays, roamed as Game 1 of the World Series got underway.

In the game, the Indians had jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. In the third inning, the Giants came back with two runs to tie the score.

For the next few innings, neither team scored. But then in the eighth inning with the score still tied at 2-2, the Indians were threatening.

Giants starting pitcher Sal Maglie walked Indians lead off hitter Larry Doby. Al Rosen then singled, putting him on first and moving Doby to second, now in scoring position with a hit.

New York manager Leo Durocher then summoned left-handed relief pitcher Don Liddle to pitch to Cleveland’s Vic Wertz, a left-handed batter.

Cleveland's Vic Wertz shown on a 1950s baseball card.

Wertz had made his major league debut with Detroit Tigers in 1947, and was a capable power hitter. He had been among the Top 10 in the American League in home runs in 1949 (20), 1950 (27), 1951 (27), 1952 (23), and 1953 (19). He had also finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting in 1949 and 1950.

Wertz, in fact, was already responsible for the Indians’ 2 runs scored in the first inning, having hit a triple driving in two men then on base.

Attendance that day at the Polo Grounds was 52,751. In the Ken Burns documentary film, Baseball, narrator John Chancellor, describing the setting that day at the Polo Grounds as Wertz came to bat, explains: “No one there would ever forget the remarkable play they saw that afternoon. The score is tied, 2-2- in the 8th inning…Cleveland at bat, Don Liddle on the mound. Vic Wertz comes to the plate…”

Facing the new relief pitcher, Liddle, Wertz worked the count to two balls and one strike. Then on the fourth pitch, Wertz unloaded, hitting a powerful drive into the air toward center field.

Jack Brickhouse, calling the game for NBC television, along with Russ Hodges, described the Mays catch to viewers as follows:

Brickhouse: There’s a long drive… way back at center field… way back, back, it is a… Oh my! Caught by Mays! The runner on second, Doby, is able to go to third. Willie Mays just brought this crowd to its feet with a catch which must have been an optical illusion to a lot of people! …Boy! [pause] …Notice where that 483 foot mark is in center field? The ball itself — Russ, you know this ballpark better than anyone else I know — had to go about 460, didn’t it?

Hodges: It certainly did, and I don’t see how Willie did it, but he’s been doing it all year.

Photo of NY Giants’ Willie Mays about to make the catch on Vic Wertz’s 8th inning shot for the Cleveland Indians to the farthest reaches of the cavernous Polo Grounds center field during Game 1 of the 1954 World Series.

In many, if not most ballparks of that era, the Wertz 420-425 foot shot would have been a home run, which would have given the Indians a 4-2 lead, possibly changing the outcome of that game. But on this day, that wasn’t to be, as Willie Mays was in center field and he ran it down, making the amazing catch.

Over the years, in baseball lore, the Mays feat has simply been called “The Catch” – and those paying attention in that golden era of baseball know exactly what that means.

Bob Costas, on camera in Ken Burns’ documentary film, Baseball, gave his take on Mays’ phenomenal feat, offering a brief and insightful tutorial on the kinds of thinking and calculations that ballplayers make in seconds as a play unfolds, and what goes on in an outfielder’s head as a ball is hit in his direction, and what Willie Mays might have been calculating in that moment:

Bob Costas, on camera in the Ken Burns’ documentary film, “Baseball,” as he made his commentary on the Willie Mays catch and more. Click for his baseball book, “Fair Ball”.

“…It was more than just a great catch. It was a catch no one had ever seen before. When that ball left Wertz’s bat – and this is one of the great things about baseball, where you calculate so many things simultaneously: A ball’s hit into the gap. How good is the outfielder’s arm? Where is the cut-off man? A quick look and a glance; the runner’s between first and second base. How fast is that runner? How many outs? Should he try for third? Is his history that he’s daring? Will he try for third? What’s the third base coach doing? – And you take in all these things and with depth perception and try and calculate in those fleeting seconds: What are the possibilities? Well, when the ball left Vic Wertz’s bat in the massive Polo Grounds, where it was headed and where Mays was standing, there was only one possibility: Could he [Mays] get to it before it was an inside-the-park home run? Could he hold it to a triple? Catching it was out of the question. And he turned and ran to a place where no one can go to get that ball, starting where he started, with the ball as it was hit. So it was more than just a great acrobatic play. It was a play, that until that point, was outside the realm of possibility in baseball.”

…And it wasn’t just the catch Mays made, but also the throw he made after he caught it, whirling around and throwing it into the infield – a fair piece away – which kept the lead runner from scoring…

Sequence of photos of Willie Mays making the 1954 World Series catch of Vic Wertz’s 420-foot blast at the Polo Grounds, showing Mays recovering after catch to make throw to hold 2 runners. Click for “A Day In The Bleachers” book.

The Giants, after the play by Mays, managed to keep the game tied at 2-to-2, sending it into extra innings. But by the tenth inning, it was Vic Wertz once again who, as lead-off hitter that inning, sent another shot into the outfield, this time for a double. (Wertz, in fact, went 4-for-5 that day). The Indians, however, were unable to capitalize on the Wertz hit. Then in the bottom of the 10th inning, came Giant’s pinch-hitter Dusty Rhodes, who, with two Giants already on base, hit a three-run, walk-off home run to take Game 1 of the Series, 5-2.

Bill Madden’s 2014 book, “1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever.” Click for copy.

Rhodes became the hero of the moment with the bat, yet, some saw Mays as the game’s true hero, and perhaps even for the whole Series. For if Mays had not tracked down the Wertz blast and held the runners with his throw, the Giants might have lost that game, and possibly also, World Series momentum.

But alas, the Giants would surprise the bookmakers, and sweep the Indians in four games, taking the Series. The Giants, however, moved west to San Francisco in 1958, and would not win another World Series until 2010.

Bob Feller of the Indians would later say of the Mays catch: “There’s three things that made the catch memorable: One, it was a great play. Two, it was in a World Series. And three, it was on national television.” However, Mays himself didn’t necessarily believe it was his greatest catch, and he would later describe other good catches he made, including a running bare-handed catch he made at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh in 1951.

But those who saw the Wertz catch, either in person, on TV, or later on film, would agree that it was certainly something very special and very athletic.

And even before “The Catch,” Mays had wowed fans and sportswriters with his defensive abilities, as Time magazine observed in a July 1954 cover story: “…Once, when he dove out from under his cap (Mays frequently loses his cap) to catch a sinking line drive, he reached back, caught his cap in one hand and the ball in the other. Against the Dodgers one day, he raced into right center after a long fly, snagged it with prodigious stretch, spun completely around, off balance, and rifled a perfect strike to the plate to throw out the Dodgers’ speedy Billy Cox. Around big-league locker rooms, that play is still referred to as ‘The Throw’.”

1954. Willie Mays, 23 years old, offering a “basket catch” pose for photographer. Sporting News / Greene.

Willie Mays, of course, was more than an amazing outfielder who could chase down well hit fly balls – even those of “the-impossible-to-get-to” variety. Willie Mays, in fact, was one of the best and most complete all-around players to ever play the game.

In later years, the baseball cognoscenti would describe him as the quintessential “five tool player” – one who could run, catch, throw, hit, and hit for power.

Born in Westfield, Alabama in 1931, Mays played multiple sports at Fairfield Industrial High School.

In basketball, he led players at all-black high schools in Jefferson County in scoring, and in football he played quarterback, fullback, and punter.

In 1948, still in high school, he joined the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro professional League, playing with them until he was signed by the Giants in 1950 after finishing high school.

His Major League debut with the Giants came in 1951 when he won the Rookie of the Year honors after hitting 20 home runs to help the Giants win their first pennant in 14 years.

With the Giants through the 1950s and 1960s, Mays would compile a Hall of Fame career that would mark him as one of the all-time great, all-around players.

In December 1954, while he was playing winter baseball in Puerto Rico, Mays was notified that he had been voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player for 1954.

In New York, Mays had endeared himself to the city and Giant’s fans, being an enthusiastic team member and regular good guy, found occasionally on New York streets playing stick ball with kids. “…[H]e plays baseball with a boy’s glee, a pro’s sureness and a champion’s flair,” wrote Time magazine in July 1954.

By 1959, Willie Mays the highest-paid player in baseball with a $75,000 contract that year (worth about $810,000 in today’s money). On April 30th, 1961, Mays had one of his best games hitting four home runs and driving in eight runs against the Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium.

Book by Willie Mays & John Shea, “24: Life Stories and Lessons From the Say Hey Kid,” St. Martin’s Press, 352 pp. Click for copy.

After the Giants moved to San Francisco, Mays helped lead the Giants to the 1962 World Series, though losing the classic to the NY Yankees. In 1965, Mays hit a career best 52 home runs, including his 500th in September, also wining his second MVP Award.

Unlike New York, San Francisco fans had been slow to warm to Mays, but with his great play and positive manner, he eventually won them over. When the club built its new stadium, later named Oracle Park, a nine-foot-tall bronze statue of Mays, depicting him at bat with his trademark follow-through swing across his body – bat in one hand at the end and leaning into a run – was dedicated at the park entrance in March 2000.

Mays ended his career with the New York Mets after a midseason trade, retiring after that team’s trip to the 1973 World Series.

Willie Mays finished his career with a batting average of .302. He would also drive in more than 100 runs in ten different seasons, and score more than 100 runs in twelve consecutive years. At retirement, he held the NL record for career runs scored (2,062), ranked second behind Stan Musial in games played (2,992), third in home runs (660), at bats (10,881), runs batted in (1,903), total bases (6,066), extra-base hits (1,323) and walks (1,464), fourth in hits (3,293), and fifth in slugging percentage (.557).

Mays had also won Gold Glove Awards 12 times, a record for outfielders (shared by Roberto Clemente). He is also baseball’s all-time leader in outfield putouts, with 7,095. And his 24 appearances on an All-Star Game roster place him in a tie with Stan Musial for second all-time, behind only Hank Aaron’s 25. On January 23, 1979, in his first year of eligibility, Willie Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Don Zimmer, who had long experience as a baseball player and coach, remarked, “In the National League in the 1950s, there were two opposing players who stood out over all the others — Stan Musial and Willie Mays. … I’ve always said that Willie Mays was the best player I ever saw. … [H]e could have been an All-Star at any position.”

Longtime sports columnist for the Washington Post, Thomas Boswell, recently offered this take on one possible statistical interpretation of Willie Mays’ baseball value:

“Baseball fans love debates, especially ones we know will never get settled. Wins Above Replace-ment is a modern stat with imperfections. But, for today, the all-time leaders among everyday players make an interesting top five: 1. Barry Bonds (162.8), who gets a big asterisk from me; 2. Babe Ruth (162.2, not including his pitching); 3. Willie Mays (156.2); 4. Ty Cobb (151.5); and 5. [Hank] Aaron (143.1).”

In June 2015, Willie Mays was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, who said the time: “In his quiet example while excelling on one of America’s biggest stages, (he) helped carry forward the banner of civil rights…It’s because of giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for president.”

July 14, 2009. Aboard Air Force One en route to the MLB All-Star Game in St. Louis, President Barack Obama, having a conversation with Willie Mays. Source: The White House/Pete Souza/Associated Press.

Willie Mays passed away on June 18th, 2024. He was 93 years old.

Readers of this story may also like, “A Season of Hurt: Aaron Chasing Ruth,” which offers a detailed profile of Hank Aaron’s baseball biography and the racism he endured in his career and during the last few years of closing in on, and surpassing, Babe Ruth’s career home run record.

Additional baseball history at this website can be found at “Baseball Stories, 1900s-2000s,” a topics page with links to more than a dozen baseball-related stories, including one on Jackie Robinson. For sports generally, see the “Annals of Sport” category page. There is also a topics page on “Civil Rights Stories.”

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 23 June 2024
Last Update: 23 June 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Catch: Willie Mays, 1954,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 23, 2024.

____________________________________

Baseball Books & Film at Amazon.com…

“Baseball: A Film By Ken Burns,” – the definitive history; fully restored in high definition, 2021, blue-ray or DVD. Click for Amazon.

Ben Lindbergh & Travis Sawchik’s best-selling 2020 book, “The MVP Machine,” building baseball talent. Basic Books, 416 pp. Click for book.

Joe Posnanski’s 2020 best seller, “The Baseball 100,” the 100 greatest players, with foreword by George Will. Simon & Schuster. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

“Say Hey, Willie Mays,” Prime Video at Amazon. The life of Willie Mays is explored in this documentary film; 1hr 38 min. Click for film.

R. Clemente, W. Mays & H.Aaron. Click for special framed photo collage with career stats on each player.

Cover of Arnold Hano’s 1966 biography, “Willie Mays,” Grosset & Dunlap, hardback edition, Click for copy.

“Willie Mays,” Wikipedia.org.

“He Come to Play,” Time (Willie Mays cover story), July 26, 1954.

“Polo Grounds,” Wikipedia.org.

“1954 World Series,” Wikipedia.org.

“Willie Mays: Say Hey, for 1959!,” Sports Illustrated, April 13, 1959.

Willie Mays and Lou Sahadi, Say Hey: The Autobiography of Willie Mays, 1988, Simon & Schuster, 226 pp. Click for copy.

“Baseball 7th Inning – The Capital of Base-ball,” YouTube.com (from 1994 Documentary film by Ken Burns, Baseball), posted, March 26, 2020.

“The Catch (baseball),” Wikipedia.org.

Paul Liotta, “On the Anniversary of Willie Mays’ ‘Catch,’ a Look at Baseball’s Best Playoff Snags,” New York Daily News, September 29, 2015.

Dave Sheinin, “Willie Mays Broke Barriers His Own Way. White Fans Embraced Him. Jackie Robinson Criticized Him. But Mays, Baseball’s Greatest Living Player, Paved the Way for the Game’s Black Stars,” WashingtonPost.com, August 17, 2021.

Andrew Hoyem, Book Review, “’Willie Mays’,” by James S. Hirsch, San Francisco Chronicle, February 7, 2010.

Gary Webster, “.721: A History of the 1954 Cleveland Indians,” Journal of Baseball History and Culture, March 2014, 22(2):154-156.

Harvey Frommer (author), Monte Irvin (foreword), New York City Baseball: The Last Golden Age, 1947-1957, University of Wiscon-sin Press; 2004. Click for copy.

Arnold Hano, A Day in the Bleachers, Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2004. Click for copy.

George F. Will, “Calling Willie Mays a ‘Natural’ Was to Underrate His Craft and Smarts. His Athleticism and Ebullience Encouraged the Perception of Him as Man-Child Effortlessly Matched Against Grown Men. Don’t Believe It,” WashingtonPost.com, June 18, 2024.

Associated Press, “Timeline of Willie Mays’ Career,” June 18, 2024.

Richard Goldstein, “Willie Mays, Baseball’s Electrifying Player of Power and Grace, Is Dead at 93; Mays, the Say Hey Kid, Was the Game’s Exuberant Embodiment of the Complete Player. Some Say He Was the Greatest of Them All.” NYtimes .com, June 18, 2024, updated June 21, 2024.

Thomas Boswell, “Willie Mays Was as Good — and as Cool — as Anyone Who Ever Played. I Met Mays. I Watched Mays for Decades. I Can Still Hardly Believe What I Saw,” Washington Post.com, June 19, 2024.

“Willie Mays and Barack Obama’s Four Iconic Encounters: ‘Inspiration’,” Newsweek.com, June 19, 2024.

Brian Gross, “A Statistical Appreciation: The Legacy of Willie Mays Through His Iconic Baseball Cards and Career Numbers. A Year-by-Year Look at Mays’s Legendary Career…” WashingtonPost.com, June 19, 2024.

Kevin B. Blackistone, “The Enduring Power of Willie Mays and the Catch. Nearly 70 Years since Willie Mays Made the Catch in the 1954 World Series, the Moment Remains a Part of Our Collective Sports Psyche,” WashingtonPost.com, June 22, 2024.

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Baseball Books & Film at Amazon.com…

Robert Peterson’s book, “Only the Ball Was White” a history of black baseball players & teams, 1992. Oxford Univ. Press, 416 pp. Click for book.

2011baseball film, “Moneyball,” based on a true story, starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill & others. Click for film at Amazon.

Joe Posnanski’s 2007 book, “The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America,” William Morrow, 304 pp. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: WWII & Film

1941-1950, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Spielberg’s D-Day”
Saving Private Ryan, 1998

June 10, 2024 J.D.

Among notable moments in the history of film-making is Steven Spielberg’s depiction of the absolute horrors of the June 1944 Allied landing at Omaha Beach during WWII. The unforgettable scenes come in his seminal 1998 film, Saving Private Ryan. As its title suggests, the film is primarily about the wartime trials of one D-Day platoon, led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), on a mission to find and remove from battle, one Private Ryan (Matt Damon) and send him home, he being the sole surviving son after his three brothers were killed elsewhere in WWII action. But for many, the most memorable and wrenchingly impactful part of the film is its opening D-Day invasion scenes of the horrific carnage American soldiers faced, scrambling for their lives on Omaha Beach (that film clip in a moment; but first, some context).

Map of Allied Forces landing areas along beaches of Normandy for D-Day invasion, June 6, 1944. Thousands of soldiers embarked from multiple locations in Great Britain, crossing the English Channel. Click for books about Normandy & D-Day.

The Omaha Beach landing was part of a much larger Allied Forces D-Day invasion of Normandy, France on that June day. The Germans, expecting and planning for an Allied invasion, had long fortified their positions all along the Normandy coast and beyond, as Hitler had built his “Atlantic Wall.” Included as part of these defense fortifications at Omaha and elsewhere, were concrete bunkers outfitted with high-caliber machine guns, some on high cliffs overlooking the beaches below, with a clear sight line to the surf. Some of the beach areas were also interlaced with hidden mines, heavy metal cross-like structures known “hedgehogs,” barbed-wire lines, and more.

Graphic showing variety of German fortifications on Normandy beaches, creating a deadly maze of entrapments, explosives & obstacles for incoming Allied troops, also facing withering machine-gun fire from bluffs above. Click for “Atlantic Wall” books.

So, it is this fortified beach and coastal setting where the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan occur. Spielberg puts viewers into the landing craft and among the American soldiers as the vessels are shown bobbing in the sea, approaching the fortified shoreline. To have been an 18-19 year old kid aboard those landing craft, about to step into the horrors of war and possibly death in minutes, is truly a soul-wrenching terror to contemplate. To have been an 18-19 year old kid aboard those landing craft, about to step into the horrors of war and possibly death in minutes, is truly a soul-wrenching terror to contemplate. Some are shown vomiting, others are praying. The Tom Hanks character is shown with hand shaking as he attempts to drink from his canteen. Then the landing craft gate drops open, and all hell breaks loose.

Within seconds, before even taking a step forward from the craft, the first few rows of soldiers are shot immediately from incoming machine-gun fire, dropping where they stood, some with their heads snapping back from the bullet’s impact. Others jump over the sides and plunge into water over their heads, sinking in a tangle of equipment and floating bodies. The action is non-stop thereafter, with Spielberg capturing all the horrific nuance of the bloody beach scene – the sound of bullets pinging off the metal hedgehogs, men losing their limbs from explosions, one picking up his severed arm in a daze, others thrown into the air from explosions. The Hanks character on the beach had one soldier beside him killed instantly by incoming fire, and later, as he tried to carry a wounded soldier, he turns after an explosion to find he is only dragging part of a shredded body. Truly a gruesome hell is shown.

At one point, the Hanks character is seen in a slow-motion daze as has he surveys the hell around him – men on fire, others with intestines bulging out of their wounds, and some hysterically seeking cover behind the metal hedgehogs. The Hanks character soon pulls it together and rallies his men to get off the beach and move inland to attack the German bunkers (The clip below from Saving Private Ryan runs about 9:20 horrifying minutes. Most images are disturbing).

When the film came out in July 1998, there were reports of some veterans having to leave theaters after viewing the opening scene, unable to finish watching the remainder of Saving Private Ryan; the memories were just too powerful. There were also some critics who called the violence in the Omaha beach scene excessive and over the top. Spielberg, for his part, was steadfast in believing the horrific scene was a necessary depiction for history, wanting to show the reality and horrors of war.

One influence on the film’s script was a famous book by noted WWII historian, Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (1994). Spielberg had also done some of his own research, interviewing D-Day veterans who had been at the Omaha beach battle about their experiences. In fact, many World War II veterans described the opening of Saving Private Ryan as depicting the most realistic representation of combat. One veteran interviewed by Time magazine noted: “I remember when I walked out into the lobby of the moviehouse, not a single person coming out of that showing said one word… Everybody was stunned by it …”

Screenshot from “Saving Private Ryan” showing the Tom Hanks character, Captain Miller, in his daze sequence surveying the ongoing carnage around him at the Omaha beach landing. He soon recovers to lead his men off the beach.

Spielberg had a long-standing interest in WWII history. As a teenager, he had made war films and would later say, “it was the seminal conversation inside my family. My parents talked about the Holocaust and they talked about combat and war. … My dad was a veteran … he had many veterans over to the house, and I became absolutely obsessed … based on my father’s stories, recollections, and also based on all the WWII movies.”

Film poster for Steven Spielberg's 1998 film, “Saving Private Ryan,” starring Tom Hanks. Click for film at Amazon.

But producing the Omaha Beach scene was no small undertaking. It would cost $12 million in the 1990s, took four weeks to film, and employed some 1,500 extras. And even on set during filming, the Omaha landing scene had its effect on crew and actors. Tom Hanks, in recounting the filming of the scene aboard the landing craft, would later remark about the realistic effect it had on him:

The first day of shooting … I was in the back of the landing craft, and that ramp went down and I saw the first 1-2-3-4 rows of guys just getting blown to bits. In my head, of course, I knew it was special effects, but I still wasn’t prepared for how tactile it was. The air literally went pink and the noise was deafening and there’s bits and pieces of stuff falling all on top of you and it was horrifying.

In fact, some of those later viewing the final film found the opening scene so disturbing and thought-provoking that it overshadowed the rest of the film. And indeed, in some ways, Saving Private Ryan is really a film with two parts – one being the opening Omaha Beach landing, and the remainder about the mission to find and save Private Ryan.

Throughout the second part of the film, there are various situations, challenges, and choices that occur for Captain Miller and his men, some raising questions on morality, the rules of war, heroism, and more. Does it make sense to endanger the lives of 8 men to save one from harm’s way? Is it OK to shoot surrendering Germans — or set one free? And how about capping the captain – or at least, disobeying his orders? There is also a famous scene of cowardice in the film, when the translator character, Upham, more academic than combatant, is paralyzed with fear and fails to come to the aide of a nearby fellow American soldier, Mellish, who is being knifed to death by larger German soldier in a horrendous face-to-face scene. These quandaries and further horrors are left to viewers and critics to ponder, which an ample review literature suggests they have.

Cropped version of famous WWII photo titled, “Into the Jaws of Death,” taken on D-Day, June 6, 1944, by Robert F. Sargent, a chief photographers mate in the U.S. Coast Guard. It depicts soldiers from U.S. Army infantry divisions disembarking from landing craft and wading ashore at Omaha Beach.

Still, the primary and most enduring message of Saving Private Ryan – coming right at the outset with the Omaha Beach landing horrors – is the heroic sacrifice ordinary men made in that time of fascist threat, giving life and limb to set the world on a better path. Spielberg is not preachy about this, allowing his camera to tell that story, as the machine-gun horrors and spilling of guts burnish that message more deeply than any words alone could.

1943-1945

“Monumental D-Day”
…and Massive Logistics

The actual D-Day invasion was a monumental undertaking, still among the largest mobilizations of troops, support personnel, and military hardware ever undertaken. Planning by a team under American General Dwight D. Eisenhower had begun in December 1943. Logistically, a major ramp-up of industrial supplies had begun in the UK, plus tons of material shipped into Britain from America across the North Atlantic Ocean. Earlier Allied strategic bombing of Germany, begun in 1942, had weakened Germany’s industrial base, also draining some German manpower and resources away from Normandy to home defenses. Allied aerial reconnaissance and intelligence of German coastal defenses also aided invasion planning.

Anthony Richards’ book, “D-Day and Normandy: A Visual History,” Imperial War Museums, 232 pp. Click for copy.

On D-Day, a 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded the amphibious assault. Allied air forces flew over 14,000 missions in support of the landings. Shelling from offshore destroyers had also occurred prior to the landings. In addition, over 18,000 Allied paratroopers were dropped into the invasion zone to provide tactical support for infantry divisions on the beaches.

The Allies used over 5,000 ships and landing craft to bring more than 150,000 troops on five beaches in Normandy. The landing craft – also known as Higgins boats – were dispatched to the beachhead from larger ships offshore. Each boat held 36 men, and about 12,500 of the landing craft were deployed. In all, nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on June 6th, 1944, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August.

Establishing the beachhead was critical and costly, but it was just the first step. In the three months after D-Day, the Allies launched additional offensives inland, facing determined German resistance and counter-offensives. Still, less than a year following the D-Day invasion, on May 7, 1945, Germany would surrender.

The toll of D-Day dead and wounded was horrific for both sides. Casualties were heaviest at Omaha Beach. More than 4,000 Allied troops, half of them American soldiers, lost their lives in the D-Day invasion, and thousands more were wounded. German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000.

A portion of the gravesites at the Normandy American Cemetery near Omaha Beach.

On a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, there is a 172-acre cemetery of white crosses where American service members are buried – the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. It is home to the grave sites of more than 9,300 Americans, most of whom lost their lives on D-Day and ensuing operations. This general area is also where D-Day anniversary commemorations have been held over the decades. In June 2024, at the 80th anniversary, U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders attended the ceremony. In remarks Biden made at Pointe du Hoc during that commemoration, the President said, “…We’re the fortunate heirs of the legacy of these heroes… We must also be the keepers of their mission … the bearers of the flame of freedom that they kept burning bright. That is the truest testimonial to their lives….”

Critical Acclaim

Saving Private Ryan, meanwhile, became one of the 1998’s most successful films, earning critical acclaim and a slew of movie awards. Generally, film critics had positive reviews of the film, placing it high in the pantheon of outstanding WWII films, some marking it as “best ever.” In fact, some 60 film critics at the time named Saving Private Ryan the best picture of the year. Janet Maslin of the New York Times, in her comprehensive July 1998 review, called it “the finest war movie of our time” and a film with “immense dignity.” She also used terms such as “viscerally enthralling” and “soberly magnificent” in praising the film. One review of Saving Private Ryan in Toronto’s Globe and Mail called it “a horror movie based on history, offering some of the most spectacularly brutal, viscerally intense battle scenes ever brought to a Hollywood movie.” Newsweek’s Maitland McDonagh, said the film “raises Hollywood’s depiction of war to a new level,” and Gary Kamiya at Salon.com concluded the film “will forever change the way people imagine the most important event in 20th century history. That is no small achievement.”

July 13, 1998 edition of Newsweek magazine lauding Spielberg’s film with “War-is-Hell” cover treatment.

Opening in July that year, Saving Private Ryan did quite well at the box office. By the end of its theatrical run in the U.S. and Canada, it had earned a total $216.5 million, making it the highest-grossing film of the year. Outside of the U.S. and Canada, Saving Private Ryan earned an estimated $265.3 million, giving it a total worldwide gross of $481.8 million, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 1998, behind Armageddon ($553.7 million).

Adjusted for 2023, Saving Private Ryan’s total theatrical box office gross would be equivalent to about $900 million – this on a 2023-equivalent budget of $122 million–$131 million (i.e., $65–$70 million in 1998 ). To keep the budget low, Spielberg and Hanks initially took minimal upfront salaries in exchange for a guaranteed 17.5 percent of the gross profits, equivalent to 35 cents of every dollar earned. In the end, this pay agreement earned them an estimated $30–$40 million each of the box office.

Nominated for a host of awards across a range of categories at American and other film and theatrical organizations, Saving Private Ryan won awards for Best Drama and Best Director at the 1999 Golden Globe Awards. At the 71st Academy Awards, it won for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing. Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing. It was also nominated in other categories at these and other awards ceremonies. The film’s unexpected Oscar loss to Shakespeare in Love for Best Picture was viewed as one of the biggest upsets in the awards history. A later poll of Academy voters in 2015 suggested that, given another opportunity, they would have voted Saving Private Ryan as Best Picture. A more complete listing of Saving Private Ryan’s film awards and nominations can be found at the film’s Wikipedia page. In 2014, the film was also selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, found to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Spielberg had preceded Saving Private Ryan with his award-inning Holocaust opus, Schindler’s List in 1993, and had also done Empire of the Sun in 1987, films which also involved WWII. But after Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg’s interest in more World War II films would continue, as he and Tom Hanks would partner on three more WWII productions.

Spielberg & Hanks present, “Band of Brothers,” 10-part HBO series. Click for Amazon.

Spielberg, Hanks & Goetzman, “The Pacific,” 10-part HBO series. Click for Amazon.

In 2001, Spielberg and Hanks co-produced Band of Brothers, the popular ten-part HBO miniseries based on Stephen E. Ambrose’s book of the same name. In 2010, Spielberg co-produced the 2010 miniseries, The Pacific, centered on the WWII battles in the Pacific Theater, this time with Hanks and also Gary Goetzman. Most recently, again with Hanks, came a third World War II miniseries in February 2024, Masters of the Air, based on the book by Donald L. Miller. Spielberg has also worked with Clint Eastwood, co-producing 2006’s Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima with Robert Lorenz. Hanks, meanwhile, separately, wrote the screenplay for and starred in the 2020 film, Greyhound, about an American battleship protecting U.S. merchant marine supply fleets menaced by German submarines in the North Atlantic during WWII, based on the 1955 novel The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester.

For another WWII-related story at this website see, “Firebombing Japan: 67 Cities, 1945”. See also, “The Pentagon Papers,” a freedom-of-the-press story involving Vietnam War-era secret documents and other papers, some of which then Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, commissioned for an historic review of that war. A related Steven Spielberg film, The Post, is also part of the Pentagon Papers story.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 10 June 2024
Last Update: 7 June 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jackdoyle.bsky.social
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Spielberg’s D-Day: Saving Private Ryan, 1998,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 10, 20240.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

Stephen Ambrose’s best-selling book, “Band of Brothers... From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest,” w/new forward by Tom Hanks. Click for copy.

Donald Miller’s 2006 book, “Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany.” Click for copy.

John C. McManus’ 2014 book, “The Dead and Those About to Die: D-Day: The Big Red One at Omaha Beach,” 400 pp. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

“The Longest Day” (1962) is another famous American film about D-Day based on the 1959 book by Cornelius Ryan. The 3-hour film was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for 20th Century Fox, and is famous in part for its international cast, which, among others, includes: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, Peter Lawford, Eddie Albert, Rod Steiger, George Segal, Robert Wagner, and Paul Anka. Click for DVD at Amazon.

Cornelius Ryan first published his best-selling book, “The Longest Day” in 1959. He spent three years interviewing hundreds of D-day survivors in the U.S. and Europe and also gleaned information from American, British, and German war documents as well as diaries of the great generals. His book sold million of copies. Click for Amazon.

U.S. Department of Defense, “Remembering D-Day,” Defense.gov (with timeline & interactive map).

“Saving Private Ryan,” Wikipedia.org.

Paul Joyce, “Simple History: The D-Day Landings,” PaulJoyce.co.uk, October 25, 2021.

Stephen Hunter, “Spielberg’s War: It’s Hell,” Washington Post, Friday, July 24, 1998.

Janet Maslin, “’Saving Private Ryan’: A Soberly Magnificent New War Film,” New York Times, July 24, 1998.

Richard Schickel, “Cinema: Steven Spielberg: Reel War,” Time, July 27, 1998.

“User Reviews, Saving Private Ryan” (1998), IMDB.com.

“Saving Private Ryan, Critic Reviews,” MetaCritic.com.

“The 10 Things you Need to Know About D-Day,” IWM.org.uk.

Will Humphries, “D-day Anniversary: British Soldiers Who Gave Their Lives Are Remembered at Last
(at Normandy), The Times (London), June 6 2019.

“Operation Overlord,” Wikipedia.org.

“Remembering D-Day: The 75th Anniversary,” The Duncan Banner / DuncanBanner.com (CNHI Oklahoma), June 6, 2019.

Olivia B. Waxman, “What’s the Most Accurate D-Day Movie? Here’s What 3 Movies Got Right—and Wrong,” Time.com, June 5, 2019, updated: March 30, 2020.

“Normandy Landings,” Wikipedia.org.

John Wrathall, “Horrifyingly Graphic” (Saving Private Ryan reviewed in 1998), Sight and Sound / BFI.org.uk (British Film Institute), September 1998.

Howard Zinn, “Private Ryan Saves War,” The Progressive, October 2, 1998 (also at HowardZinn.org).

“Saving Private Ryan” Symposium The National World War II Museum (film’s 20th anniversary), C-SPAN.org, June 7, 2018.

John Biguenet, “The Profound Contradiction of Saving Private Ryan,” The Atlantic, June 5, 2014.

Chris Vognar, “With ‘Masters of the Air,’ a 10-Year Dream Lifts Off: The Apple TV+ Series from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks Is an Heir to Their World War Ii Epic “Band of Brothers,” Set this Time among a Group of Bomber Pilots,” New York Times, January 26, 2024, updated February. 1, 2024.

“Steven Spielberg,” Wikipedia.org.

Mark Allison, “How Saving Private Ryan’s D-Day Sequence Changed the Way We See War,” BBC.com, June 6, 2024.

C. Todd Lopez, “President Recalls U.S. Military Heroism During WWII at French Ceremony,” DOD News, June 7, 2024.

Tommy Lethbridge, “The Most Realistic D-Day Movie Came Out 23 Years Before Saving Private Ryan,” ScreenRant.com, June 2024.

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Teaser Tag: Toxic Waste History

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Valley of the Drums”
…and Superfund, 1970s-2020s

May 27, 2024 J.D.

The Kentucky dump site wasn’t of much notice until it caught fire in November 1966. It was located in a rural area of Northern Kentucky near the Indiana border, south of Louisville. The fire burned for more than a week, and was close enough to Louisville – about 15 miles away – that toxic smoke from the fire wafted over parts of the city, and that got some attention. On closer inspection it was discovered that the source of the fire was a huge dump on a 23-acre site filled with barrels of various substances and open pits with discarded wastes and drums. Still, the illegal site sat for another decade, without much resolution. But later, tagged with the name, “Valley of the Drums,” it became a powerful visual image that helped push through some needed federal legislation for cleaning up thousands of abandoned toxic waste sties across the U.S. – a program later known as Superfund.

The “Valley of the Drums,” as it appeared in 1979, near Brooks, KY. Tens of thousands of barrels of toxic waste were dumped & stored at the site illegally for years, and it would be included among the nation's top toxic sites, helping to spur the Superfund law in the late 1970s & early 1980s, while an EPA and KY cleanup would later begin there. Photo, The Louisville Courier-Journal.

Before it became known as the “Valley of the Drums,” the land in northern Bullitt County was owned and used by Arthur L. Taylor, an enterprising local entrepreneur of sorts who owned a dump truck, a crane, and some 23 acres of land. Taylor had set up a “drum cleaning” and waste disposal business there. Taylor reportedly was known as a somewhat gruff and feisty fellow, who had tried his hand at horse trading, trucking and hauling, and also as a junk-yard proprietor. He wasn’t always on the best of terms with his neighbors – one recalling how discarded paint ran in a nearby water ditch on his land – a ditch the neighbor had used to water his hogs. After the neighbor found some of his animals with paint on their hides, he fenced off their access to that ditch. However, the larger community beyond Mr. Taylor’s site didn’t notice much of what was going on there.

Kentucky map with location of “Valley of the Drums” site.

Map with site proximity to Louisville.

After a decade of operating the site as a waste disposal and drum recycling business – from 1967 to 1977 — Taylor had accumulated and /or processed tens of thousands of drums there. Some of the drums Taylor received – many still retaining some or all of their contents – had been emptied into open pits, cleaned out, and then re-sold for various uses. Others were stored on the site more or less permanently, while still others were buried. Taylor also ran the site as part junkyard until his death in late 1977. However, Taylor never applied for the required state permits, and Kentucky environmental officials tried to bring legal actions against him, but to no avail. Complaints about the site dated to 1975. Strong odors along the Wilson Creek bed on the site were received from adjacent property owners. Others reported multicolored chemical spills and an oily sheen also on Wilson Creek – part of a larger watershed which eventually went to the Ohio River.

After the state had stopped Taylor from burning solvents at the site, some attention was focused on the pits and trenches where Taylor had buried wastes, chemical liquids, sludges, and crushed drums. At one point, soil from nearby hillsides was later used by the state to cover the pits. By 1978, Kentucky environmental officials had determined that over 100,000 drums of waste had moved through the site – some resold off site, with others stored there, and another 27,000 or so barrels buried. The waste material was spread over 13 acres of the 23-acre site.

Another photo of “The Valley of the Drums” toxic waste site from the late 1970s, before it was named to the National Priority List of clean-up locations under the Superfund law, which it helped instigate, along with Love Canal, New Jersey toxic-waste fires, and numerous other toxic-waste horrors found across the U.S. during the 1970s & early 1980s.

By February 1979, the Valley of the Drums site was the focus of a Washington Post story, which appeared as a delegation of federal officials, members of Congress, and staff were then visiting the Kentucky site. As the Post then reported:

Herblock, the famous cartoonist for the Washington Post, who often held forth on environmental & public health concerns, offered this cartoon on toxic waste on March 21, 1979, as Congress and EPA began their journey on Superfund. Click for his books at Amazon.

“…Steel drums, perhaps as many as 100,000 of them, are piled helter-skelter in Taylor’s field. Many are rusted, dented, buckled, or riddled with gunshot holes. Oozing from them are a variety of unidentifiable fluids whose fumes permeate the air. The drums bear such ominous warnings [on labels] as, ‘Hazardous properties of this product have not been fully evaluated,’ and ‘For laboratory use by qualified investigators only.’

While a portion of the wastes on the Taylor site came from paint waste, scores of drums and barrels from a number of major companies were also found at Taylor’s site, among them: Union Carbide, Ford Motor Co., Cela-nese Polymer Specialties Co., Monsanto, Du Pont, Ashland Chemical Co., Chevron Oil Co., and others.

According to Washington Post reporting at the time, “spokesmen for most of the companies said they have no idea how their drums might have made their way to the dump sites.”

Many companies in those years sought only written statements from haulers certifying they would dispose of the materials legally.

EPA Acts

Meanwhile, back at the Valley of the Drums site, after large quantities of contaminants were washed into the local tributaries and creeks by the spring snow melt, EPA in 1979 responded to Kentucky requests for help, then acting under emergency provisions of the Clean Water Act, with a partial clean-up of the worst of the leaking drums.

Sample of drums found at the A. L. Taylor / “Valley of the Drums” site in the 1970s – these two from Ashland Chemical Co., with labels that indicate possible contents of a corrosive material, muriatic acid. Source: KY DEP.

EPA’s analysis of samples taken at the site and Wilson Creek, found high levels of heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, and some 140 other chemical substances. More than 17,000 drums of industrial waste were also inventoried, many moved away from Wilson Creek. EPA contractors also constructed interceptor trenches and a temporary water treatment system on the site. They also secured leaking drums, while segregating and organizing others drums on site.

Workers at the A.L. Taylor / Valley of the Drums site with protective respirators moving chemical drums in March 1979 to protect a small stream from contamination at the toxic-waste site. Source: The Courier-Journal.

However, workers on the ground at the Taylor site quickly realized that the scope of the problem was far beyond their abilities or resources. There was still more clean-up needed at the site. Nationally, meanwhile, the toxic waste issue was making headlines across the country. The Valley of the Drums site was only one of many hundreds of other toxic waste sites and improper disposal practices

This undated aerial photo of the Valley of the Drums /A. L. Taylor site, appears to have been taken sometime after efforts had begun to organize drums at the site, appearing here to be arranged in rows, perhaps for identification purposes, degree of toxicity, workmen access, and/or later removal. (attributed to Van D. Bucher, Fine Art America).

America, it turned out, had been having a decades-long petrochemical party of sorts, inventing all kinds of synthetic and petroleum-based wonder products since the 1940s without addressing what to do with all left-over and used chemical wastes, much of it toxic and potentially threatening to public health. New chemicals had come in a seemingly non-stop torrent: as of 1978, about 70,000 were being produced at more than 100,000 plants in the U.S. Each year, 300 to 500 new chemical compounds were introduced to commerce. Thousands of older chemicals had never been studied for possible health or environmental effects. America had been having a decades-long petrochemical party, without addressing all left-over chemical wastes. New environmental laws had been enacted in the early- and mid-1970s to deal with air and water pollution, and even the review of new toxic chemicals that would come to market, as well as others for regulating municipal, solid, and hazardous wastes and landfills. But older petrochemical wastes, and abandoned waste sites had been neglected. And in the absence of controls, all kinds of actors and practices filled the void – from dump-site operators like A.L. Taylor, to midnight dumpers, mob-run operations, and in a few cases, purveyors of “dust-control” treatments for rural roads that included waste oil and dioxin concoctions. The Valley of The Drums, it turned out, was only the tip of a much bigger toxic waste iceberg. Through the 1970s, waste-site horror stories began emerging across the country — exploding dumps sites, warehouse fires, underground contamination, rivers of waste, and more. But few would prove more dramatic than that found in the middle of one New York working-class suburb.

Sept 1978. Cover of NY State’s report on the Love Canal toxic waste site, with subtitle, “Public Health Time Bomb,” that says it all. Click for PDF.

Love Canal

In the Niagara Falls area of New York state an old, abandoned canal for a planned model city project from the late-19th century named Love Canal – after its promoter, William T. Love – had become an industrial and municipal dump site.

Later filled-in and covered over, where a school and a residential community had been built, and unbeknownst to the community, all manner of toxic chemicals, including some of the most potent, like dioxin, had been dumped there for decades by the Hooker Chemical Company and others.

Thanks to some 1970s sleuthing by local reporters at The Niagara Gazette — one of whom, Michael Brown, would rise to national notice with a later book on the subject, Laying Waste — it was soon learned that the toxic chemicals in the canal dump were on the move, rising up in the landfill and percolating into the residential basements and beyond.

These chemical exposures were later implicated in miscarriages, birth defects, serious illnesses, and death among some residents. By the spring of 1978, an enraged and determined group of citizens there — predominantly mothers and women concerned about the health of their children and families — would form a vocal and persistent protest movement to bring state and federal action to address the toxic wastes there. Lois Gibbs, a resident and mother, would lead the Love Canal Homeowners’ Association. Her son, Michael, who had attended the school atop Love Canal, developed epilepsy, suffered from asthma, and had a urinary tract infection.

By early August 1978, New York’s State Health Commissioner, Robert Whalen declared a state of emergency at Love Canal. He ordered the closing of one elementary school there, and the evacuation of pregnant women and children under the age of two from the surrounding neighborhood.

Front-page New York Times story on Love Canal of August 2, 1978.

Soon thereafter, President Jimmy Carter approved emergency financial aid for the area so New York would start buying the homes of 236 Love Canal families.

In September 1978, New York issued it’s report, “Love Canal: Public Health Time Bomb.” The report was preceded by news reports, such as that shown at left in the New York Times of August 2, 1978, reporting: “Children and dogs have received chemical burns playing on the canal site, and large numbers of miscarriages and birth defects have been found among residents of the homes along the site.”

There would be much more to come on Love Canal, as it captured national attention for months, and it would figure prominently in the Congressional debate on toxic waste cleanups. But like the Valley of the Drums, Love Canal wasn’t alone.

1977 Jersey Fire

In the mid-1970s, the state of New Jersey was dealing with a mounting municipal and industrial waste problem. A series of toxic waste-site fires and explosions would also occur there in the late-1970s and early 1980s, a few causing injury and death, adding to an increasing perception that chemical wastes, in particular, were out of control.

On December 8th, 1977, a series of chemical reactions ignited a large chemical-waste site and treatment plant in Bridgeport, New Jersey, leaving six dead and hospitalizing 35. News reports, with front page headlines in some local newspapers, noted that the raging fire had propelled waste drums through the air and blanketed the city in a funnel of black smoke that rose hundreds of feet into the sky.

The conflagration included the explosion and rupturing of 14 storage tanks, burning their hazardous contents, including benzene, toluene, and PCBs. The chemicals, stored in the large tanks at the Rollins Environmental Services plant, were industrial waste hydrocarbons brought to the plant from oil refineries and other industries for treatment. The 250-acre Rollins plant treated the wastes by way of incineration.

Early New York Times reporting with AP photo on the December 8, 1977 Rollins Environmental Services waste treatment plant fire and exploding tanks at Bridgeport, NJ that would kill 5 and injure others, also sending a number of firemen to hospitals.

According to some first responders at the scene, the Rollins plant that evening was quite dangerous with many unknowns. “It was just a whole lot of fire, and all that smoke. I had never seen anything like it, and I’m also a volunteer fireman,” said police Sergeant John Keller, in remarks he made to author Michael Brown in his later book, Laying Waste.

Michael Brown's book, “Laying Waste,” released May 1980, helped tell the toxic waste story at Love Canal and beyond. Click for copy.

Keller had been one of the first on the scene at the December 1977 Rollins explosion, and he later told Brown:

“…A lot of firemen got sick. They didn’t even know what they were fighting. Pipelines, storage tanks – the whole place seemed like it was on fire. There were cylinders as big as a freight car flying through the air for a couple of hundred yards. Because of the toxic substances, the chemicals, we had to quarantine the four fire companies after, and impound police cars, and put all our clothes in plastic bags. Thirty or forty firemen went to the hospital. The cloud was like a mushroom, with drums popping all over the place, a very black and high funnel, hundreds of feet into the sky.”

A year earlier in Seveso, Italy, a toxic cloud with dioxins and furans from an explosion at a trichlorophenol plant had terrorized that city and nation; animals had died in its path and many people were sickened. Now, in December 1977, as New Jersey officials pondered the Rollins inferno and warning downwind communities, they did not know the full range of chemicals at the site. However, they did know that combustion of PCBs, known to be at the site, could create dioxins or furans. But after some ten hours or so, the fire died out. Still, the Rollins inferno underscored the dangers facing many communities — and well beyond New Jersey.

Michael Brown’s January 1979 story on toxic waste in The Sunday New York Times Magazine, was among early popularly-written pieces to frame the national dimensions of the problem.

In Congress, meanwhile, one of the first hearings on toxic waste sites came in October 1978, when Rep. Al Gore (D-TN), chaired hearings of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations focusing on Love Canal and wastes in his home state at Toone, TN. Many more such hearings would be held in both the House and Senate, as hazardous and toxic wastes became a central matter for Congress during the next two years, as superfund legislation would be formulated.

By late January 1979, author Michael Brown, who had been a reporter focusing on Love Canal and Hooker Chemical with The Niagara Gazette, published a piece in the Sunday New York Times Magazine titled, “Love Canal, U.S.A.,” the point of which, by its title and six top-of-story photos of other waste sites, was to drive home the fact that uncontrolled toxic waste wasn’t just a Love Canal problem. And while Brown did detail the Love Canal crisis in the piece, he also profiled other chemical horrors in Iowa, Tennessee, New Jersey, Louisiana, California, and Maryland. Brown’s writing on the topic, including a later piece in The Atlantic magazine, plus his book, helped educate the public and advance political support for toxic waste action.

March 1979. Opening screen for ABC TV’s one-hour documentary on toxic waste, “The Killing Ground.”

ABC TV Special

The Killing Ground

In March 1979, ABC-TV aired a documentary film on the growing toxic waste controversy titled, “The Killing Ground.”

In those days, television was still pretty much a three-channel affair with ABC, CBS, and NBC dominating, as cable TV was just beginning. And documentaries were rare for the most part, but given the limited choices, this ABC special likely had a decent share of viewers.

ABC correspondent, Brit Hume, helped produce, narrate, and report the hour-long profile which examined various toxic waste dumps, impacts on public health, and the failures of government and the chemical industry.

Newspaper ad for the March 1979 ABC-TV news special on chemical waste dumps that ran in the New York Times.

On March 29th, 1979, the day of the ABC-TV broadcast, the New York Times did a review of the film, and on that same page of the newspaper, ran a large advertisement for the TV special, as shown at left.

The ad’s accompanying art depicted a graveyard scene with “chemical waste” headstones along with the headline: “The chemical poisons they bury today could bury you tomorrow.”

The ad continued to outline the highlights of the ABC-TV special, describing the waste problem as “an underground time bomb…ticking away all over America,” adding:

“Millions of tons of toxic chemical waste have been buried in over 32,000 sites all over America. But they don’t stay buried forever.

They seep into our rivers and streams making water supplies deadly. They seep above ground, destroying our land and out homes, and poisoning our children.

Learn the shocking facts tonight on ABC News Closeup.”

Screenshot from “The Killing Ground” – 1973 toxic waste inferno in Minnesota; hundreds of 55-gallon barrels exploded during fire.

At the film’s opening, a spectacular 1973 fire at a Shakopee, Minnesota dump site is shown with some 4,000 waste drums, many ablaze and exploding, a few flying through the sky as firemen battle the blaze. Leakage from that site was later found to have poisoned groundwater with arsenic and lead.

Other dump sites are also shown – one in Lowell, MA where the operator went bankrupt, leaving 15,000 barrels of toxic waste behind, leaking and endangering drinking water. Another segment, near Louisville, KY from January 1979, showed barrels of waste floating in a stream, noting that hundreds of toxic barrels had been found there, some containing cancer-causing chemicals

Screenshot from “The Killing Ground” showing a floating barrel of waste in a Kentucky stream where some 600 barrels of toxic waste were found in streams and rivers in January 1979.

“The Killing Ground” also featured a segment on Love Canal and the Hooker Chemical Company’s operations in the Niagara Falls area. Aerial shots of the Love Canal and surrounding neighborhoods are shown as the narration explains how this toxic waste dump became the first time a national public health emergency was declared for a chemical waste disaster.

In one segment, five year-old Mark Dunmire, who lived five blocks from the canal, appears on screen fetching some toys from a chest in the basement. Brit Hume explains in narration that Mark “was born with a heart murmur, a urinary tract obstruction, and a diseased pancreas. He can’t play in his basement anymore; it’s contaminated.”

The Love Canal chemicals, says 5-year-old Mark Dunmire, "are probably what got me sick."

The little boy appears on camera saying that the chemicals “are probably what got me sick,” and that he would have “three operations.” The film then pans to images of other children playing in the community, driving home the point that the working class families who had come to this modest suburban area had done so, in part, for their children.

Three additional Hooker Chemical dumps in the Niagara Falls area are also explored in the film, all larger and containing more wastes than Love Canal, with some holding dangerous chemicals such as chlorobenzene, mirex, lindane, C-56 residues from pesticide production, and dioxin. One Hooker memo is revealed to have cautioned against digging at one Hooker dump near its production plant for fear of chemical reactions, fires, and /or explosions. The Love Canal/Hooker segment also includes angry citizens reacting to state agency findings and inadequate evacuation rulings.

Film screenshot of 1976 aerial surveillance of a line of trucks emptying toxic liquid wastes down a hillside at Kin-Buc landfill.

Turning to New Jersey, “The Killing Ground” uses a dramatic segment on the Kin-Buc landfill near Edison, NJ – and a Freedom-of-Information-Act-acquired 1976 government film – showing toxic chemical waste being dumped at that site.

The segment shows a group of large tanker trucks disgorging their toxic liquid wastes at the dump, seen as dark streams running down a hillside.

In narration, Brit Hume explains that the Kin-Buc landfill repeatedly failed state inspections, had frequent fires, and was closed down in 1976, leaving behind a “a 23 acre mountain of poison and garbage.” But subsequent reports on the site in early 1979 found that the Kin-Buc site was still leaking chemicals into the Raritan River – including PCBs, chloroform, benzene, and mercury.

Elsewhere in the film, Brit Hume and his partner, John Connor, are shown conducting a number of interviews with state officials and others about specific toxic dumps and practices. These include: an accused midnight dumper who describes the nefarious trade; a Louisiana cattle rancher whose land and cattle were contaminated by a neighboring chemical waste handler; and EPA officials who complained of being held back on finding and cleaning up toxic waste dumps. There is also an interesting interview with Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards. That latter segment, in particular, moved New York Times reviewer Tom Buckley to write, in part:

Gov. Edwin Edwards (D-LA), in “The Killing Ground,” speaks of “tradeoffs” made that brought environmental damage.

…Perhaps the most chilling section of “The Killing Ground” is an interview with Gov Edwin Edwards of Louisiana, a state whose vast petrochemical industry seems to be working full-time to despoil the state’s bayous and piney woods.

Speaking of the need for economic development, Governor Edwards acknowledges that to secure it, his and predecessor administrations have made “tradeoffs” with industry “where the environment became either totally or partially damaged, in some instances permanently.” Viewers may find it outrageous that there are giant corporations that still demand or accept such tradeoffs.

Indeed. The ABC-TV special on toxic waste did present some very troubling revelations for its day, and no doubt contributed to the mix of public and political pressures during 1979-1980 on state agencies, Congress, and EPA to take more decisive actions. But the waste issue had been a long-simmering problem, with a considerable share of regulatory neglect.

The Feb 1979 edition of “EPA Journal” featured chemical & hazardous wastes, with stories by EPA officials, Sen. Jennings Randolph, Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, and others.

Waste Policy

In 1976, President Gerald Ford had signed into law the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA, a law prompted by the need to deal with general waste streams and landfills, which were becoming overwhelmed with materials.

The reason for this law, in part – and for at least some of the rising toxic waste volumes and waste abandonment – was ironically, the air and water pollution laws of the early 1970s. Those laws resulted in less burning and/or water disposal of wastes, putting more pressure on existing landfills, and also the “dump-it-anywhere” black arts and waste abandonment.

RCRA, meanwhile, was also supposed to help find hazardous waste sites across the nation and identify potential problems and dangers at landfills, including “imminent hazards” in waste streams and practices. But by the time of the Carter Administration in the late 1970s – EPA, for political, bureaucratic and financial reasons – had been slow to find waste sites, and by some counts, was being discouraged to look for them since they had little money to clean them up.

But Love Canal and related discoveries helped to move things along at a bit more urgent pace, but not immediately. RCRA, in any case, was more about waste going forward in time as opposed to the buried, hidden and abandoned wastes from the past.

June 1979 New York Times story reporting on toxic waste site legislation in Congress.

It soon came to pass that what was needed was a separate pot of money, and a new federal law, to focus solely on abandoned toxic waste sites like the Valley of the Drums, Love Canal, and many more. That federal law would become what was known as “superfund” – also known by its more official legislative name, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or “CERCLA” for short. The legislative battle over superfund would run from about late 1978 through December 1980.

While some Congressional hearings on toxic waste problems and Love Canal had begun in 1978, the fight on superfund began in earnest about March 1979, when Senator Ed Muskie (D-ME) – the earlier champion of federal air and water pollution laws – had made it known that his Environment Committee would seek enactment of a hazardous waste “superfund” financed by industry.

Muskie’s bill would turn out to be the bill preferred by environmentalists. But there would be a long legislative road ahead, as multiple Senate and House committees would be involved, as well as a number of House and Senate members with bills and amendments of their own – before a final superfund bill would finally emerge.

U.S. Congressman John LaFalce (D-NY), for example, whose district included Love Canal, became involved with that fight early on, from the first 1976 local newspaper stories. In the summer of 1977, LaFalce had written to Hooker Chemical asking what was buried there and if it could be dangerous. He also drew press attention with a September 1977 visit to the site, urging state and federal officials to help. His staff later combed through federal environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, and others seeking funding help on Love Canal.

LaFalce and staff were able to find a provision under he 1976 Resources Conservation and Recovery Act that provided some one-time funding help. But much more was needed, not only at Love Canal, but across the country. LaFalce, meanwhile, helped begin some of the first Congressional hearings on Love Canal, and by April 1979, he and Senator Pat Moynihan (D-NY) would introduce respective companion bills on toxic waste in the House and Senate. Other bills would follow.

1979 NY Times story about Hooker Chemical's early knowledges of dangerous chemicals at Love Canal.

One House subcommittee that would become quite active in the superfund debate was the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce.

Both Bob Eckhardt (D-TX), who chaired that subcommittee, and Congressmen Al Gore (D-TN), who led some hearings, would play important roles there.

That subcommittee would conduct more than a dozen hearings on the issue between April and June 1979, and also conduct some of their own research on corporate chemical wastes, revealing new information on toxic waste volumes and their disposal sites.

In April 1979, for example, this subcommittee released information and statements from Hookier Chemical officials, that the company knew about potential public health harms occurring to some children at Love Canal in the late 1950s. And while Hooker notified one school board there, the company was reluctant to make broader public warnings. Also, at earlier hearings, a Hooker Chemical vice president told subcommittee members that it had no legal liability for the Love Canal disaster.

By mid-June 1979, the Carter Administration revealed plans for a proposed $1.63 billion superfund for hazardous waste clean-ups across the country. But that bill — which included oil and chemical spills, plus chemical waste sites — would be tied up in executive branch review for a time. EPA by then had consultant studies that estimated there were as many as 50,000 toxic chemical dump sites throughout the country, with about 34,000 of those possibly holding public health hazards.

Senator Ed Muskie (D-ME) sought legislation with liability & damages provisions to help victims harmed by chemical wastes.

Back in Congress, on July 12th, 1979, Senator Muskie introduced his bill, S. 1480, also led and co-sponsored by Sen. John Culver (D-IA), chairman of the subcommittee. The Muskie-Culver bill, as it came to be known, was ambitious since it also included liability provisions that could require the payment of damages to victims of chemical disasters. On the House side, Rep. James Florio (D-NJ) would also introduce a superfund bill and become a leader in the legislative battle. Hearings on these superfund bills would occur respectively on July 19th and 20th in the Senate, and July 31st in the House.

Not long thereafter, however, momentum on superfund legislation had largely stalled, as Congress and the White House pivoted to energy supply issues. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, and a decline in Middle East oil production, led to long gas lines across the country. New energy initiatives, such as the Energy Mobilization Board, were advanced, some with exemptions from laws like RCRA. Still, despite the energy turmoil, some committee activity on superfund type bills continued, though at a grudging pace. In the House, Florio had trouble with his bill in subcommittee where chemical and energy interests were well-represented and resistant. The Muskie-Culver bill, too, with its expansive liability and damages provisions, was also drawing determined opposition from the chemical industry.

However, the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations had persisted in its efforts to raise the visibility of the toxic waste issue, receiving a share of national headlines in the process. In October 1979, this subcommittee released its formal report on the extensive toxic waste hearings it had conducted, along with a full range of recommendations. The report was quite critical of EPA and Congress, and received front-page coverage in the New York Times. The subcommittee’s report called the nation’s waste problem “an imminent hazard,” singling out industry’s laxity – “not infrequently to the point of criminal negligence.” It found that only 10 percent of the nation’s hazardous wastes generated each year were disposed of in an “environmentally sound manner.” It called out legislative and appropriations failures in Congress and EPA’s missed deadlines and enforcement failures. It recommended that Congress amend the law to give EPA and the Justice Department subpoena powers in toxic waste matters, establish strict liability for hazardous waste generators and their damages, and strengthen criminal penalties with stiff prison sentences for violators.

October 1979 NY Times story on report of the House Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee.

Chemical company waste sites reported in survey by House Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee, NY Times, 2 Nov1979.

Then, on November 1st, 1979, the subcommittee followed up with another report — this one on a survey it had conducted of U.S. chemical companies, asking about their chemical wastes and disposal sites. That report also garnered headlines across the country, as it found 53 major companies had generated 762 million tons of chemical wastes disposed at 3,383 waste sites since 1950. And this list did not include the thousands of smaller companies in the chemical industry or the 16 other industries that also dumped toxic wastes. Still, the subcommittee’s listing of chemical company waste sites — as many as 2,000 then unknown to EPA — was an important finding, helping to spur the superfund debate while prodding EPA to do more on identifying sites across the country.

By 1980, Congress continued work on drafting various “superfund” bills –including one that had dealt with oil and chemical spills. The introduced bills were all aimed, in various ways, at addressing the dangers of spilled, dumped, abandoned, or uncontrolled hazardous wastes principally through a fund — i.e., superfund — to collect taxes, cost recoveries, fines and penalties to finance cleanups. Along the way there were bitter fights over just how to split the costs between taxpayers and the various industries that generate the wastes. Including oil spills and oil wastes was also a point of contention. A blow for environmentalists came in mid-April 1980 when Senator Muskie was nominated by President Carter to become Secretary of State, effectively removing the environmental champion from the superfund battle. Still, with the urging of Republican Senator Robert Stafford, the Muskie-Culver bill, after some adjustments, was later moved to full committee. But other Senate committees would also assert jurisdiction on that bill, making for delay on the Senate side

Part of an April 22, 1980 NY Times photo showing silhouetted fire fighters against a burning inferno and roiling sky at the Chemical Control Co. toxic blaze in Elizabeth, NJ.

But then, as Congress was working on the legislation, there came a reminder of just how dire the situation was. On April 21st, 1980, the Chemical Control Corporation dump in Elizabeth, New Jersey – with some 50,000 barrels of chemicals stored at the site – erupted in an explosion and spectacular 10-hour fire that injured 66 people, most of them firemen battling the blaze.

The initial explosion – which reportedly rattled windows in Manhattan skyscrapers ten miles away – sent a thick black plume of smoke and ash over a 15-mile area as winds dispersed the toxic fumes, raising fears of widespread chemical contamination.

State officials issued an environmental advisory closing schools and urging residents to close all doors and windows and remain indoors. Later favorable winds, averted a planned evacuation of thousands of residents from Elizabeth and Staten Island. Chemicals from the site were also believed to have leached into the Elizabeth River.

But the explosion appeared to have helped spur some in Congress to keep moving on the toxic waste bills, as authors Samuel Epstein, Lester O. Brown and Carol Pope would later note in their 1982 book, Hazardous Waste in America. The Chemical Control incident, they wrote, was “a spectacular confirmation of everything that superfund advocates had said of the dangers of abandoned dump sites.” Indeed, one New York Times story of April 27, 1980 was headlined, “Elizabeth Fire Seen As ‘Prod’ On Superfund.” And about two weeks after the Chemical Control waste site fire, one of the pending superfund bills was moved out of the House Commerce Committee. Still, the chemical waste terrain in Congress was complicated, and since tax and revenue issues were involved, both the Senate Finance and House Ways & Means committees would have a say, so more wrangling was yet to come.

Nor was the Chemical Control fire of late April 1980 the only toxic waste incident in New Jersey to erupt at that time. In fact, a few months later, on July 4th, 1980, an industrial-paint-manufacturing company that stored chemical wastes had a four-alarm blaze that spread toxic fumes over Carlstadt, N.J. Three days after that, storage drums at a chemical disposal plant in Perth Amboy, N.J., erupted in a barrage of explosions and a roaring fire that wiped out seven buildings and 16 businesses in an industrial park. Nearby residences were evacuated for several hours because no one knew how toxic the spreading smoke might be.

Oct 1, 1980. Then U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Congressman John LaFalce in Niagara Falls, New York, with Lois Gibbs – mother, housewife & president of the then Love Canal Homeowners’ Association – at the President’s signing of a second emergency declaration, to help Gibbs’ family and more than 700 others, evacuate their homes around the Love Canal toxic waste dump.

Regarding Love Canal meanwhile, on May 21, 1980, President Carter, from Washington, DC, issued a second emergency declaration adding 350 more acres to the Love Canal Emergency Declaration Area, which enabled more than 700 families in the outer residential rings of the Love Canal area to leave their homes, as evidence continued to emerge that the pollution there was also causing suffering for those families. The home of Lois Gibbs – mother, housewife and president of the Love Canal Homeowners’ Association, who led the ongoing fight there – was one of those located in the outer ring area where she lived with her husband and two young children.

Gibbs and others later attended a gathering of state and federal officials in Niagara Falls, NY on October 1, 1980 where President Carter signed the second emergency declaration for Love Canal. At that gathering, also attended by Governor Carey and other Democrats, including Senator Moynihan, Rep. LaFalce and others, Carter invited Lois Gibbs to the stage (photo above) and commended her for bringing the toxic waste issue to the nation’s attention. “There must never in this country be another Love Canal,” said the President at the signing. He also urged Congress to enact pending Superfund legislation.

“Tumult For Democrats”
1980 Elections

As toxic waste troubles had risen on the political agenda through the late 1970s and during 1980, there were also other major political currents that dominated the scene. Jimmy Carter and the Democrats had a difficult four years leading up to the November 1980 national elections. Energy supply issues, gasoline lines, inflation, and soaring interests rates had become major domestic issues, while Americans hostages in Iran and Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan also dogged Carter through 1979-1980. In his own party, Carter was challenged in a major move by Senator Edward Kennedy, who fought Carter in 34 Democratic primaries, though Carter prevailed in 24 of those, arriving at the August 1980 Democratic Convention in New York with 60 percent of the delegates. Still, Kennedy challenged Carter at the Convention, trying to free Carter-pledged delegates, ultimately failing, as Carter was renominated with 2,129 votes to 1,146 for Kennedy.

Also that summer, there had been a short-lived movement to draft Ed Muskie for President – then Secretary of State and viewed as a favorable alternative to a deadlocked convention. In fact, one poll showed that Muskie would be a more popular alternative to Carter than Kennedy. Muskie was polling even with Reagan at the time, while Carter was seven points behind.

In the end, the Reagan/George H. Bush ticket defeated Carter/Mondale in a landslide, taking the poplar vote and winning the electoral vote, 489-to-49. Republicans also took the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1954.

In Congress, there had been additional queries on the toxic waste issue. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) had asked EPA for an estimate of how many people might be exposed to health risks from toxic waste sites. Environmental officials by then had studied fewer than 1,000 dump sites, but feared that there could be as many as 30,000 sites capable of causing “significant” health problems.

In answer to Kennedy’s query, EPA replied in June 1980 that more than 1,2 million Americans may be exposed to highly or moderately serious health hazards because they lived near 645 toxic waste disposal sites. That alarmed Kennedy, whose Senate Health Subcommittee convened a hearing. Given that EPA had found some 30,000 dump sites, and that many of those sites could pose health problems, Kennedy believed that “millions of Americans” — far more than anyone has estimated — are taking “involuntary health risks every day, simply because of where they live.”

At the hearing, Kennedy heard from two Love Canal residents – Phyllis Whitenight and Barbara Quimby – who testified to the cancer, miscarriage, birth defects, respiratory disease, chromosome breakage, and psychological effects their families had experienced.

Also testifying at Kennedy’s hearings was Dr. David Rall, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, among others, who raised concerns about chemical wastes migrating into underground water aquifers, then the drinking water source for about 40 percent of the American people.

Then came a report from the U.S. Surgeon General.

On September 13, 1980, a UPI news story appearing in the New York Times and elsewhere, reported that the U.S. Surgeon General’s office had told Congress that toxic chemicals were rapidly adding to the nation’s “disease burden.” Julius Richmond, the Surgeon General, told Congress that throughout the 1980s the nation would “confront a series of environmental emergencies” posed by toxic chemicals. His report was supported by a Library of Congress study of 32 major chemical-contamination incidents across the U.S., which also noted that toxic chemicals “are so long lasting and pervasive” that human populations likely “carry some body burden of one or several of them.”

A week later, on September 22, 1980, Time magazine ran a cover story on toxic chemicals, which included a long piece running multiple pages that profiled toxic waste sites and chemically-tainted groundwater in several states, while interviewing various experts and government officials.

September 13, 1980, UPI wire story reporting that the U.S. Surgeon General's office had told Congress that toxic chemicals were rapidly adding to the nation's “disease burden”.

September 22, 1980. Time magazine's cover story appears, titled, “The Poisoning of America: Those Toxic Chemical Wastes”.

In Congress by this time there had been some progress on two superfund bills in the House. Florio’s bill, H.R. 7020, had passed on the House floor by a 351-to-23 vote on September 27, 1980, and a week earlier, a separate bill creating a superfund for oil and chemical spills, H,.R. 85, had also passed. In the Senate, the superfund bill was bottled up in the Finance Committee. In addition, by early November 1980, following national elections, the political scene had taken a major turn to more conservative territory with the rise of Ronald Reagan. The chemical industry was now confident that it could block any Superfund bill that might emerge. In fact, at a National Press Club briefing on November 18, 1980, representatives of the Chemical Manufactures Association (CMA), looking ahead to the new Administration, were urging Congress to avoid issues like superfund (outside the Press Club, meanwhile, a group of demonstrators were chanting: “Hey, hey, CMA. How many drums did you dump today”).

Surprisingly, however, Ronald Reagan had indicated to Republican leader Senator Howard Baker that he would not object to Congress finishing work on a Superfund bill. Congress by then had convened a lame-duck session during which a stripped-down Muskie-Culver bill — a “clean-up only” bill, minus its progressive liability and victim-compensation provisions — was passed in the Senate by a voice vote. On December 3rd, the House then killed both its previously-passed oil-spill and abandoned dump bills, accepting instead the Senate compromise superfund bill. Then, under a suspension of House rules and needing a two-thirds majority, the House passed that bill by a vote of 274-to-94. President Carter then signed that bill into law at the White House on December 11th, 1980.

December 11, 1980. President Carter signing Superfund law at the White House. Among those attending in the first row behind Carter are, L-to-R: Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), Sen. Jennings Randolph (D-WV), Sen. Robert Stafford (R-VT), Sen. George Mitchell (D-ME), Rep. James Florio (D-NJ) [Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ) behind Florio], Sen. John Chafee (D-RI), and others.

Among other provisions, the law required EPA to: create a list of at least 400 “top priority” hazardous waste sites for cleanup (later known at the National Priority List or NPL); establish a $1.6 billion fund (superfund) for hazardous substance cleanup, of which 86 percent would come from taxes on chemical companies producing one or more of 45 listed substances; specified that the fund would pay for 90 percent of cleanup and maintenance costs, loss of natural resources, and health studies; authorized the President to order emergency cleanups; cover a broad spectrum of toxic releases into the environment, e.g., “any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing” of a toxic substance into the environment; required companies to disclose hazardous waste disposal locations and any releases to the government or face penalties; and, imposed fines on facilities that failed to immediately notify federal agencies of hazardous substance releases or that falsified or destroyed required records.

By October 1981, EPA had identified 115 toxic waste sites in the first phase of listings for the National Priority List (NPL) of sites having top priority for scheduled clean-ups, including Love Canal and the Valley of the Drums.

Dec 17, 1982 front-page NYTimes story on contempt charge for EPA’s Gorsuch.

However, the early administration of the Superfund law would have a bumpy few years at the start, not least being the tenure of Ronald Reagan’s EPA Administrator, Anne Gorsuch. By the end of 1982 according to one account, multiple congressional committees were investigating Gorsuch for her indifference to enforcing the cleanup of Superfund sites, and the House voted to hold her in contempt of Congress. She became embroiled in an executive privilege fight over EPA documents after holding back more than $6 million in Federal funds to clean up the Stringfellow Acid Pits toxic waste site near Los Angeles to avoid helping then Democrat Senate candidate and former California Governor, Jerry Brown.

The Reagan White House later abandoned the executive privilege fight, and Gorsuch resigned on March 3, 1983. Her 22 months at EPA were notable for her beliefs that the agency over-regulated business, was too large, and not cost-effective. She had cut EPA’s budget by 22 percent, reduced the number of cases filed against polluters, relaxed Clean Air Act regulations, and facilitated the spraying of restricted-use pesticides. She also cut the total number of agency employees, and hired staff from the industries the agency was supposed to regulate.

In the early 1980s, meanwhile, other toxic “hot spots” around the nation would become newsworthy – among them, notably, was Times Beach, Missouri – where dioxin-tainted oil wastes had been used for dust suppression on rural roads, leading to widespread contamination, evacuation of the town, and relocation of more than 500 residents.

Over the years, the Superfund law would be amended many times. Through the 1980s, most of the funding for Superfund came from a tax on petroleum and chemical manufacturers. However, in 1995, Congress chose not to renew this “polluter pays” tax. For the next 20 years or so, costs were shifted to taxpayers, though Congress was not always willing to increase federal funding to help close the gap. However, by November 2021, the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act reauthorized an excise tax on chemical manufacturers, slated to run for ten years beginning July 2022.

Superfund sites as of October 2013. Red indicates currently on National Priority List, yellow is proposed, green is deleted, usually meaning cleaned up. Click for larger map and list of sites at Wikipedia. See EPA for current & interactive maps.

As of October 2022, EPA has identified 40,000 Superfund sites across the country, of which more than 1,300 are on the NPL. Since 1980, about 450 sites have been cleaned up and removed from the NPL, regarded as no longer threats to public health.

Love Canal was removed from the NPL in 2004. Cleanup there had actually concluded some years earlier. The entire process at Love Canal occurred over 21 years and cost $400 million. In total, 950 families had been evacuated and about 150 acres east of the canal have been sold to commercial developers for light industrial uses.

The two-hour PBS documentary, “Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal,” was released in April 2024. Click for Amazon.

Beyond its impact on environmental law and citizen activism, Love Canal also left its imprint on popular culture.

In 1982, a fictionalized made-for-TV film titled, Lois Gibbs and the Love Canal, starred Marsha Mason in the title role. An award-winning documentary by Lynn Corcoran titled, In Our Own Backyard: The First Love Canal, was released in the U.S. in 1983.

In literature and the popular press, there have been more than dozen books published about or referencing Love Canal in some way, ranging from Lois Gibbs’ first book in 1982, Love Canal My Story, and a later book, Dying From Dioxin, to journalist Keith O’Brien’s 2022 book, Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe. Joyce Carol Oates included the story of Love Canal in her 2004 novel, The Falls, though set in the 1960s. Other books are listed below in Sources.

In popular song, the Punk rock group, Flipper, released “Love Canal,” a 7-inch single in 1982., and later, the 10,000 Maniacs’ song, “Poison in the Well,” appeared on their 1989 album, Blind Man’s Zoo. And most recently in 2024, PBS released a film on Love Canal in its American Experience series titled, Poisoned Ground.

The Valley of the Drums site in Kentucky that helped spur the Superfund law, was also one of the first to get EPA’s attention, with cleanup beginning there in 1983 and ending in 1990 when Kentucky took over the site’s operation and maintenance. However, an environmental audit of the site in 2003 found PCBs in the sediment surrounding the area, and further testing was ordered. In December 2008, EPA inspectors found about four dozen rusted metal drums on land just outside the capped and fenced portion of the site, including a portion of Jefferson Memorial Forest. By December 15, 2008, new cleanup work was being considered at the site. In the early 2020s, the University of Louisville Superfund Research Center has been exploring and monitoring the Valley of the Drums site and surrounding areas for ongoing issues, and documenting its toxic waste history.

For additional environmental history at this website, see the “Environmental History” topics page, which also includes additional story choices profiling oil and/or chemical company environmental and/or public safety history.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 27 May 2024
Last Update: 28 May 2024

Comments to:++ jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Valley of the Drums …and Superfund,
1970s-2020s,”PopHistoryDig.com, May 27, 2024.

____________________________________

Films at Amazon.com…

John Travolta as attorney in 1999 Hollywood film on best-selling book, “A Civil Action,” on toxic waste pollution in Woburn, MA. Click for film.

Marsha Mason stars as Lois Gibbs in 1982 made-for-TV film about the Love Canal crisis. Click for film at Amazon.

“Dark Waters,” the 2019 Hollywood film on Du Pont’s PFAS chemicals, w/ Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway & others. Click for film.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Keith O'Brien’s 2022 book on Love Canal, “Paradise Falls: A Deadly Secret, a Cover-Up, and the Women Who Forged the Modern Environmental Movement,” paperback edition, 496 pp. Cited as “a mighty work of historical journalism”(Boston Globe) and “deeply reported, masterly...” (Publisher’s Weekly). Click for Amazon.

Dan Fagin’s Pulitzer-Prize winning 2013 book on Toms River, NJ, where for years, chemical companies used Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging acid-laced wastewater into the river. The result was a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution. This book tells the whole story. Click for Amazon.

Gregory S. Wilson’s 2023 book, “Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy,” tells the story of mid-1970s pesticide poisoning of workers, the James River & beyond by Allied Chemical Co. contractor, Life Sciences Products, and Allied itself. University of Georgia Press, 252 pp. Click for copy.

Robert Bilott’s 2019 book on Du Pont’s toxic PFAS chemicals, “Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont,” Simon & Schuster, 400 pp. Click for copy.

Robert D. Bullard’s book, “Dumping In Dixie: Race, Class, And Environmental Quality,” 3rd Edition, March 2000, Routledge; 260pp. Click for copy.

Lois Marie Gibbs’ book, “Love Canal and the Birth of the Environmental Health Movement,” 3rd edition, 2010, Island Press, 248 pp. Click for copy.

1995 book by Craig E. Colten & Peter N. Skinner, “The Road to Love Canal: Managing Industrial Waste before EPA,” University of Texas Press, 231 pp. Amazon description notes: “...The authors find that significant information about the hazards of industrial wastes existed before 1970....” Click for copy.

Dennis Love’s 2007 book, “My City Was Gone: One American Town's Toxic Secret. . .,” tells the story of Anniston, Alabama, with history about a Monsanto chemical plant, a federal chemical weapons depot, and a high cancer rate. Harper Perennial, 360 pp. Click for copy.

Ellen Griffith Spears’ 2014 book – “Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town “ – also tells the story of Anniston, AL. University of North Carolina Press; 464 pp. Click for copy.

Mary Bruno’s 2012 book, “An American River: From Paradise to Superfund...,” Traveling New Jersey's Passaic River by kayak. DeWitt Press, 320 pp. Click for Amazon.

Thomas Church & Robert Nakamura’s 1993 book, “Cleaning Up the Mess: Implementation Strategies in Superfund,” explores the powers Congress gave Superfund, offers cases studies and best strategies. The Brookings Institution, 224 pp. Click for copy.

1982 book by Ralph Nader & associates – “Who's Poisoning America: Corporate Polluters and Their Victims in the Chemical Age” – includes seven case studies, among them: Kepone, PBBs, West Valley, PCBs in the Hudson, Love Canal, and more. 369 pp. Click for copy.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “A.I. Taylor (Valley of Drums) Superfund Site,
Brooks, KY, Cleanup Activities,” EPA.gov.

“Valley of the Drums,” BullittCountyHistory .org.

“Valley of the Drums,” John E. Kleber (ed), The Encyclopedia of Louisville, University of Kentucky Press, 2001.

“Valley of the Drums, Historic Photos of Louisville Kentucky and Environs,” Historic Louisville.weebly.com.

John Filiatreau and Margot Hornblower, “Kentucky Hunts Cleanup Funds for Valley of the Drums,” Washington Post, February 4, 1979.

Louisville Courier-Journal, November 25, 1979.

Donald Janson, “2 Killed, 3 Injured in Chemical-Plant Blast in Gloucester County,” New York Times, December 9, 1977, p. 51.

“Four Persons Die in Blaze, Blast at Chemical Plant,” Delaware County Daily Times (Ches-ter, PA), Friday, December 9, 1977, p. 1.

Donald Janson, “Waste Unit Closed After Explosions; Treatment Plant in Bridgeport Still Shut down as Federal and State Experts Study Hazards,” New York Times, December 14, 1977, p. 66.

Donald G. McNeil, Jr., “Upstate Waste Site May Endanger Lives,” New York Times, August 2, 1978, front page.

Editorial, “Time Bomb in Love Canal,” New York Times, August 5, 1978.

To New York Governor Hugh L. Carey and Members of the New York State Legislature, Love Canal Public Health Time Bomb, A Special Report to the Governor and Legislature, September, 1978. 32 pp.

“Love Canal,” Wikipedia.org.

“Public Apathy Toward Chemical Risks is Perilous,” Conservation Foundation Letter, September 1978, p. 1.

Joanne Omang, “A $6 Million Hassle over Spilled Poison; Who’ll Pay for Cleaning Up Yesterday’s Poisons?,” Washington Post, November 25, 1978.

“Those Deadly Dumps,” Washington Post, January 9, 1979.

Michael H. Brown, “Love Canal, U.S.A.,” New York Times Magazine, January 21, 1979.

Sen. Edmund Muskie (D-ME), “Abandoned Chemical Dump Sites Warrant Urgent Attention,” Congressional Record (Senate), January 29, 1979, p.1327.

Bob Cummings, “Dumps—And Drinking Water,” Maine Sunday Telegram, January 29, 1978.

EPA Journal, Volume 5, Number 2, February 1979.

Tom Buckley, “TV: Poisonous Wastes,” New York Times, March 29, 1979, p. C-23.

“The Killing Ground (film),” Wikipedia.org.

“ABC News Close Up: The Killing Ground (1979),” YouTube.com, uploaded by YorkVid, 2016.

Steven R. Weisman, “Hooker Company Knew About Toxic Peril in 1958,” New York Times, April 11, 1979.

Irvin Molotsky, “A Love Canal Warning No One Can Recall,” New York Times, April 14, 1979, p. 22.

Donald G. McNeil, Jr., “Study at Hooker Plant Found ’75 Emissions Dangerous to Health,” New York Times, April 17, 1979, p. 1 (front page).

Testimony of Anne Hillis, Before the Senate Standing Committee on Conservation and Recreation, Assembly Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation, Senate Sub-committee on Toxic Substances & Chemical Waste, Assembly Environmental Conservation Task force on Toxic Substances, at Niagara Falls International Convention Center, Niagara Falls, New York, May 3, 1979.

Bill Richards, “Pesticide Waste Dumping Probed Near Little Rock; U.S. Probing Deadly Wastes Near Little Rock,” Washington Post, May 18, 1979.

Ward Sinclair, “Industry Lobby Loosens Waste Controls,” Washington Post, May 19, 1979.

Edward Walsh, “Carter Asks $1.6 Billion to Clean Up Chemical, Oil Hazards,” Washington Post, June 13, 1979.

“Hazardous Waste Disposal,” Report, Together with Additional and Separate Views, by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, 96th Congress, 1st Session, September 1979, 93 pp.

Aaron Epstein, Knight News Service, (Wash., D.C.), “The Growing Mountains of Chemical Waste,” San Francisco Examiner, October 1979, p. 12

“Waste Disposal Site Survey,” House Committee Report, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, October 1979.

Larry Kramer, “Waste Hazards Rise Laid to EPA Laxity,” Washington Post, October 13, 1979.

Philip Shabecoff, “House Unit Attacks Lag on Toxic Waste,” New York Times, October 14, 1979, p. 1.

Bill Richards, “House Investigation Pinpoints 3, 383 Chemical Dumps,” Washington Post, November 1, 1979.

Irvin Molotsky, “House Panel Releases a List of Sites Used in States to Dump Chemicals; Importance Stressed,” New York Times, November 2, 1979.

Michael H. Brown, “Love Canal and the Poisoning of America,” The Atlantic, December 1979.

Michael Brown, Laying Waste: The Poisoning of America By Toxic Chemicals, New York: Pantheon Books, 1979-1980, 351 pp.

“Portraits in Oversight: Congress and the Love Canal Disaster,” Levin Center / LevinCenter .org.

Sheila Rule, “Fire Breaks Out Amid Chemicals At Site in Jersey,” New York Times, April 22, 1980, p. 27.

“Chemical Control Superfund Site,” Wikipedia.org.

Greg Easterbrook, “Dump Now, Die Later: Disposal of Toxic Wastes” (Review of Laying Waste: the Poisoning of America by Toxic Chemicals, By Michael Brown, Pantheon, 351 pp.) Washington Post, May 18, 1980.

AP, “Drums To Be Moved,” Daily News (Bowling Green, KY), May 30, 1980, p. 3-A.

Victor Cohn, “EPA: 1.2 Million May Be Exposed To Toxic Waste,” Washington Post, June 5, 1980.

Victor Cohn, “Waste Sites May Invade Water Supply, Subcommittee Told,” Washington Post, June 6, 1980.

Les Ledbetter, “Chemical Dump In Elizabeth Hit By Another Fire; 3 Firefighters Treated,” New York Times, June 6, 1980, p. 30.

Editorial, “The Chemicals Question,” Wash-ington Post, June 29, 1980.

Ann Fisher, “The Toxic Waste Dump Problem and a Suggested Insurance Program,” Envi-ronmental Affairs, Vol. 8, 1980.

Richard F. Shepard, “TV: ‘The Killing Ground’ Is Updated,” New York Times, August 21, 1980, p. 74

Marchant Wentworth, “Can Industry Kill Superfund?,” Environmental Action, Vol. 12, No. 3, September 1980, p. 20.

Lois Ember, “Chances Only 50-50 for “Super-fund” Legislation,” Chemical and Engineering News, v58 n39 p29 September 1980.

UPI, “Chemicals Add to ‘Disease Burden’ For Nation, Surgeon General Says; Hearings Open on Waste Fund,” New York Times, September 13, 1980, p. 7.

Reports By U.S. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health; Senators Edmund S. Muskie, John C. Culver, Robert T. Stafford, “Health Effects of Toxic Pollution: A Report from the Surgeon General; And, A Brief Review of Selected Environmental Contam-ination Incidents With a Potential for Health Effects,” GAO/Library of Congress, 1980, 312 pp. (possibly also published as a committee print by the U.S. Senate Environment Committee).

Ed Magnuson (with Peter Stoler/ New York & J. Madeleine Nash /Chicago), “The Poisoning of America,” Time magazine / Time.com (cover story), September. 22, 1980.

Philip Shabecoff, “Congress Set to Debate ‘Superfund’ to Clean Up Hazardous Wastes; Complaints of Exaggeration; Original House Version Favored,” New York Times, September 18, 1980, p. A-24.

Philip Shabecoff, “Waste Cleanup Bill Approved by House; $1.2 Billion ‘Superfund’ Is Voted; Stronger Version in Senate is Stalled in Committee; Compensation for Victims Bipartisan Support in House Spurred by Love Canal Issue,” New York Times, Septem-ber 24, 1980, p. A-16.

“Carter Signs Cleanup Bill On Upstate Toxic Wastes,” New York Times, October 2, 1980, p. M-12.

Editorial, “Save the Superfund,” New York Times, November 22, 1980, p. 22.

Philip Shabecoff, “Compromise on ‘Superfund’; Efforts to Revive Toxic Waste Bill Seen as Omen Of How New Leaders Will Operate in the Capital; News Analysis How the New Order Will Operate Parliamentary Delaying Tactics,” New York Times, November 24, 1980, p. B-9.

Edward C. Burks, “How the Hazardous; Waste Superfund Will Work,” New York Times, December 21, 1980, Section N, Page 14-16

Barnaby J. Feder, “The E.P.A. Gets Tough On Waste,” New York Times, December 22, 1980, pp. 65, 67.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1980/12/22/111328802.html?pageNumber=65

“Superfund,” Wilipedia.org.

“Congress Clears ‘Superfund’ Legislation,” CQ Almanac 1980, 36th ed., pp. 584-93, Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1981.

Senator Robert T. Stafford, “Why Superfund Was Needed,” EPA Journal, June 1981.

“Industrial Accidents in Elizabeth Area,” New York Times, August 1, 1981, Section 2, p. 28.

Press Release, “EPA Schedules Emergency Cleanup at Valley of the Drums” (Superfund Information on the Valley of the Drums), EPA.gov, September 18, 1981.

U.S. General Accounting Office, “Hazardous Waste Sites Pose Investigation, Evaluation, Scientific, And Legal Problems,” GAO.cov, April 24, 1981, 80 pp.

Robin Herman, “Next Door to Danger, a City Copes,” New York Times, August 1, 1981, Section 2, p. 1.

Associated Press, “114 Toxic Waste Sites Listed as Nation’s Most Dangerous,” New York Times, October 24, 1981, front page.

Philip Shabecoff, “45 Toxic Waste Sites Listed as Health Risks,” New York Times, July 24, 1982.

Frank P. Grad, “A Legislative History of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability (“Superfund”) Act of 1980,” Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 1982.

J.P. Sean Maloney, “A Legislative History of Liability Under CERCLA,” Seton Hall Legislative Journal, Vol. 16, 1982, pp. 517-550.

Philip Shabecoff, “House Charges Head of E.P.A. with Contempt,” New York Times, December 17, 1982, p. 1.

James J. Florio, “Toxic Waste and the Future of ‘Superfund’; a Call for More Dollars and Discipline,” New York Times, June 24, 1984, Section 3, p. 2.

Philip Shabecoff, “Lawmakers Agree on Tax Measures for Toxic Wastes,” New York Times, October 3, 1986 (front page).

Louisville Courier-Journal, April 23, 1987.

Mark J. Raabe, “Al Gore, Environmentalist,” Letters to the Editor, Washington Post, December 25, 1999, p. A-40 (Rabe was chief counsel and staff director of the House subcommittee on oversight and investigations from 1979 to 1980).

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Superfund History / Timeline,” EPA.gov.

Keith Schneider, “E.P.A. Superfund at 13: A White Knight Tarnished,” New York Times, September 6, 1993, p. 7.

Rich Newman, “Making Environmental Politics: Women and Love Canal Activism,” Women’s Studies Quarterly (Feminist Press at the City University of New York), Vol. 29, No. 1/2, (Spring – Summer, 2001), pp. 65-84.

Carol M. Browner, Op-Ed, “Polluters Should Have to Pay”(Superfund), New York Times, March 1, 2002.

“Love Canal Declared Clean, Ending Toxic Horror,” New York Times, March 18, 2004.

“After 25 Years of Superfund, America’s Safety Net in Crisis; American Taxpayers Shoulder the Burden As Polluter Pays Fees Eliminated,” Center for Health, Environment & Justice / CHEJ.org, Falls Church, VA, 2005. 91pp.

“Returning to the Valley of the Drums” (photo gallery), Louisville Courier-Journal, Decem-ber 13, 2008.

James Bruggers, “Toxic Legacy Revisited: Valley of the Drums, 30 Years Later; EPA Review Renews Concerns about Superfund’s Poster Child,” Louisville Courier-Journal, December 14, 2008.

Center for Health, Environment & Justice, “Love Canal Chronology,” CHEJ.org, Fact Pack, August 2009, 76 pp.

Congressional Research Service, “Compre-hensive Environmental Response, Compensa-tion, and Liability Act: A Summary of Superfund Cleanup Authorities and Related Provisions of the Act,” CRS Reports.Cong-ress.gov, Updated, June 14, 2012.

U.S. Government Accountability Office(GAO), “Superfund: Trends in Federal Funding and Cleanup of EPA’s Nonfederal National Priorities List Sites,” September 2015.

Bryan Anderson, “Taxpayers Pay Billions for Industrial Contamination Cleanup.” News21/ News21.com, August 14, 2017.

“Toxic America – Cancer, Chemicals and the Fight for Clean Air in Louisiana” (cover story), The Guardian Weekly, May 10, 2019.

EPA Alumni Association, “Superfund: A Half Century of Progress,” EPAalumni.org, April 2020.

Kentucky Energy and Environment, “Looking Back: Valley of the Drums,” YouTube.com, posted August 3, 2021.

Keith O’Brien, “How a Determined Congres-sional Aide Helped Break Open the Biggest Environmental Scandal in U.S. History; Thousands of Niagara Falls Residents Lived in a Toxic Wasteland for Years until a Whistleblower Made a Call,” Politico.com, April 17, 2022 (from Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe, by Keith O’Brien, Pantheon Books).

University of Louisville Superfund Research Center Community Engagement Core, “A.L. Taylor Valley of the Drums Superfund Site: Documenting the History and Status of the Valley of the Drums and Surrounding Areas,” October 11, 2022.

Cameron Kinvig, “Federal Environmental Regulations Affecting Oil and Gas Operations,” LexisNexis.com, August 24, 2023 (exempt & non-exempt oil & gas wastes ).

U.S. EPA, Region 4, Atlanta, Georgia, “Seventh Five-Year Review Report for A.l. Taylor (Valley of the Drums) Superfund Site, Brooks, Bullitt County, Kentucky,” EPA.gov, September 2023, 53pp.

“Love Canal: Timeline and Photos” (Niagara Gazette, Love Canal Timeline), University Libraries, University at Buffalo, Buffalo.edu, January 8, 2024.

James Bruggers (Inside Climate News), “EPA Cleaned Up Valley of The Drums 45 Years Ago, But Left Behind Gully of the Drums,” KentuckyLantern.com, April 3, 2024.

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Environmental History at Amazon.com…

Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” 2015 paperback edition. Click for copy.

PBS 2016 documentary film, “Rachel Carson,” American Experience series, 2 hrs. Click for DVD or Prime Video.

Jack Doyle’s 2004 book, “Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical & The Toxic Century,” 300pp. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Oil/Petrochem History

1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Exxon at Baton Rouge”
Fire & Fume, 1989-2020s

March 23, 2024 J.D.

It was early afternoon on December 24th, 1989. Louisiana governor, Democrat Buddy Roemer, was at the Governor’s Mansion near the capitol building in Baton Rouge when the explosion occurred. “I heard this big blast,” he later recounted. “I was enjoying Christmas Eve with the family…” The blast didn’t break any glass, recalled the Governor, “but it blew open two big garage doors down in the basement, and those doors were locked.” In New Orleans, 75 miles away, a seismograph would record 3.2 on the Richter scale. On later newscasts at the scene, Roemer would be shown making statements about the blast, and that state officials were monitoring the surrounding area.

Dec 25th 1989: Exxon oil refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, still smoking from a major Christmas Eve refinery explosion & fire that killed 2 and injured three, and caused property damage miles away. Photo, Sam Kittner.

The explosion had occurred at the big Exxon oil refinery just north of Baton Rouge. The giant complex was clearly visible from the upper floors of the tall state capitol building built by former Louisiana governor Huey P. Long. The explosion shattered windows in the 32-story building about 1 mile south of the refinery. The governor’s mansion is in the same area. The Exxon complex then, and still today, is huge and sprawling, located on 2,100 acres along the east shore of the Mississippi River.

Exxon Baton Rouge, LA refinery location map.

The Baton Rouge refinery began operating in 1908, then as part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire, a first among other oil and chemical plants that would soon crowd the lower Mississippi creating a major petrochemical corridor.

At the time of the 1989 explosion, the Exxon complex included an extensive tank farm, a web of pipelines, and a major chemical works. Following the Christmas Eve explosion, a major fire soon erupted throughout the complex. There were 16 giant oil storage tanks burning and also a score of ruptured pipelines feeding a spreading ground fire with crude, benzene, gasoline, LPG, and other flammable products.

The refinery at that time was the second largest in the U.S., producing 500,000 barrels-a-day, while the chemical plant produced 350,000 barrels-a-day of petrochemical products.

Running through the Exxon complex then, as a main supply artery, was a three-tiered pipe band carrying some 70 lines, most of them bringing product to and from the docks on the Mississippi River. One of the lines in the top tier of the pipe band delivered natural gas from a well located 57 miles south. These were among the lines that had erupted in the explosion, feeding the ground fire. In all, some 17 lines in the pipe rack were ruptured by the explosion.

A local TV news frame offers another perspective on the 1989 Christmas Eve explosion at Exxon’s refinery, where at one point, 16 oil storage tanks with crude, benzene, gasoline, and other products were ablaze.

Initial reports had at least one worker killed, with several others injured. A plume of smoke rose 500 feet into the air as the fire proceeded to engulf at least five of the big tanks holding more than 4 million gallons of oil. Four hours after the explosion, the flames had spread to additional small storage tanks. Two separator units at the refinery, which separate water from oil, were also burning. The explosion knocked out electric power and telephone service in the area. “I witnessed a 30-foot-tall, 40-foot-diameter slop tank blow completely off its foundation and land in the middle of a pipe band 500 feet away. I’d never seen a sight like that before.”
– Fire Chief, Jerry CraftWindows were shattered up to six miles away. Looters raided stores whose windows were blown out and Governor Roemer activated the National Guard to help police. A four-square-mile area around the plant was closed, as well as a section of Interstate 110, but no evacuations were ordered..

One of the fire chiefs at the scene, Jerry Craft, reported that the emergency was bigger than simply a problem at one refinery unit. “The heat load from all the tank fires and the ground fires was incredible,” he said. “I witnessed a 30-foot-tall, 40-foot-diameter slop tank blow completely off its foundation and land in the middle of a pipe band 500 feet away. I’d never seen a sight like that before.”

At one point, there were 16 storage tanks burning, a number of which were smaller tanks under 60 feet in diameter. Others were twice that size, each capable of holding more than 100,000 barrels of oil or petroleum product. Some of the tanks burned for four days, or until their fuel was exhausted.

1989 WAFB-9 TV news footage of roiling storage tank fires, shot from a helicopter, offering a closer view of part of the refinery inferno that raged following Christmas Eve 1989 blast at Exxon’s Baton Rouge, LA refinery.

Fire chief Jerry Craft and his fellow firefighters soon discovered one of the two fatalities at the scene: a contract worker trapped inside a burning pickup truck. Craft and another firefighter, in an effort to retrieve the driver, tried to open the truck’s doors, “but we couldn’t get him,” he said. “It was an extended cab Ranger and it just collapsed like an accordion. We almost burned the gloves off our hands trying to get him out.”

Governor At Scene

LA Governor, Buddy Roemer, speaking with the press after Dec 24, 1989 explosion at Exxon.

As for the second victim, who had been in a two-story office building destroyed in the blast, the only thing that remained, according to one report, were dentures. The body itself was completely consumed by flames. In addition to the two deaths, seven others were injured

During the blaze, firefighters encountered low water pressure, but city officials arranged for hose hookups to draw water directly from the Mississippi River.

In Baton Rouge, the plate glass fronts of stores on the Riverside Mall, a half-mile street that extends to the state capitol grounds, were blown out.

Early Associated Press reporting on the 1989 explosion & fire at Exxon’s Baton Rouge refinery, where 2 workers would die

Longer view of the Exxon Baton Rouge refinery and Louisiana state capitol building following December 1989 explosion.

Governor Roemer, who had called up 50 National Guardsmen, surveyed the Baton Rouge area by helicopter and landed at the plant site. He told reporters there that state Department of Environ-mental Quality staff members were on the scene and had no evidence of toxic releases from the blast. State Police Hazardous Materials and Tactical units also were on duty inside and outside the plant.

The refinery burned some 15 hours before fire crews were finally able to put them out around 5 a.m. Christmas Day.

After an investigation a year later, it was determined that the explosion and fire were caused by corrosion of a pipeline. In neighborhoods along the southern and eastern boundaries of the refinery, homes were damaged by the explosion, and the incident would generate some 8,000 damage claims by residents.

A “30-years-later” look back at the Christmas Eve explosion by a local TV outlet, concluded in part, that Exxon had learned a great deal from the 1989 incident, and that it’s operations had improved. But during 1989 and early 1990, Exxon had troubles beyond its Baton Rouge explosion, suggesting a possible broader company-wide problem.

New York Times front-page story on the historic March 24th, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound – then the largest oil spill in U.S. waters.

Exxon’s Bad Year

The year 1989 wasn’t exactly a high point for Exxon. On March 24th, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker, shipping out from Alaska and bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef at about midnight, spilling 10.8 million gallons of crude oil in Alaskan coastal waters over the next few days. The spill – one of the worst human-caused environmental disasters in U.S. history – would become the second largest in U.S. waters; after only BP’s May 2010 Deepwater Horizon blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil slick from the grounded tanker spread as far as 500 miles from the crash site and affected 1,300 miles of shoreline. In the years following the Valdez spill, Exxon became known as a no-holds-barred litigator, appealing endlessly to push back verdicts, reduce awards, and wriggle out of timely and meaningful accountability, though it would pay some fines and suffer reputational damage.

However, the same tenacity Exxon used in the courtroom, apparently did not appear to apply to how the company ran its facilities. Neither the Baton Rouge explosion, nor the Exxon Valdez oil spill, were the only incidents Exxon had in 1989. A few weeks before the Exxon Valdez ran aground, half a world away off Oahu, Hawaii, another Exxon tanker, the Exxon Houston,In 1989-90, Exxon also had big spills off Hawaii and at its giant Bayway refinery in New Jersey. after breaking away from its mooring, hit a coral reef on March 4, 1989, and ended up spilling 117,000 gallons of Alaskan crude and bunker fuel oil, forming a two-mile slick that washed up on some Hawaiian beaches.

And continuing into the next year, on January 1 and 2, 1990, an underwater pipeline at Exxon’s giant Bayway refinery in Linden, NJ spilled 567,000 gallons of fuel oil directly into the Arthur Kill, a saltwater channel between New Jersey and Staten Island. According to NOAA, the oil blanketed more than two thousand acres of fish and wildlife habitat, including open water, tidal marshes, and backwater creeks, and over 200 acres of tidal salt marsh on Staten Island and in New Jersey. The oiling also smothered fish, crabs, and clams, and caused massive losses of salt marsh cordgrass in some wetlands. The oil also directly killed an estimated 700 waterbirds. Later in February that year, a barge spilled 25,000 gallons of oil into the Kill Van Kull waterway during a transfer from Exxon’s Bayway refinery, some of which washed up on Fire Island. But was there more to these Exxon spills than just coincidence or bad luck?

Prop-Ups & Job Cuts

Part of a March 16, 1990 Wall Street Journal story on Exxon cost-cutting & incident risks.

Like other companies in the aftermath of the 1986 oil price collapse (and the 1987 stock market dive), Exxon had moved to prop up its profits and stock value by eliminating some operations, streamlining management, and reducing its workforce.

By 1990, according to reporting at the time, Exxon had reduced its workforce by 28 percent, and was still cutting. But in the aftermath of its explosions and spills, some Wall Street analysts were beginning to wonder whether Exxon “may have restructured itself into trouble.”

A former Exxon employee, William Randol, told the Wall Street Journal, for example, “the system (at Exxon) is overworked and undermanned.” Other Exxon executives also confided that certain company operations were then (1990) at least 10 percent short on personnel. “We haven’t learned to play with the thinner bench,” said one.

Another Exxon refining executive, retracing the events surrounding the December 1989 Baton Rouge explosion, wondered what might have been: “If there had been enough manpower to walk those lines during the crisis (when unusual freezing temperatures hit), would the explosion have happened?” One employee in the company’s international group quit his post because he felt overworked, handling multiple jobs. “I couldn’t do my job well anymore, and that bothered me,” he explained. “I made more mistakes in the last two years than through my entire career at Exxon.”

“The heavy workloads stretch across all kinds of operations,” reported Allanna Sullivan of The Wall Street Journal in her 1990 reporting. “Some engineers assigned to maintain catalytic crackers…now tend two units rather than one. Some tankers that sailed with a crew of more than 30 before the 1986 are now sometimes manned by 21 seamen.” Exxon management claimed that gains in automation justified the personnel reductions. But others wondered if the cuts at Exxon and other oil companies may have made things worse when accidents came. By mid-1992, Exxon was among oil companies that had announced further job cuts or early retirements.

1993 Coker Blast

Back in Baton Rouge, meanwhile, the giant Exxon refinery and chemical complex would have additional accidents, chemical releases, and worker injuries. On August 2, 1993, at 4:21 a.m., an explosion and fire at one of the refinery’s coker units, rocked Baton Rouge again. This time, three workers were killed and the explosion and fire sent thick smoke, ash, asbestos particles and other debris into a nearby residential community.

WBRZ TV footage of 1993 fire burning at Exxon’s Baton Rouge refinery following explosion at the East Coker Unit, shown here, lower center-right with some flame visible, which sent heavy smoke & debris into residential area.

Describing the damage to the coker unit and the difficulty in locating the dead workers’ bodies following the explosion, Exxon spokesman, Walt Eldredge explained: “A lot of stuff fell or was deformed by the heat. Some of the normal access ways are not there anymore. There’s a lot of uncertain footing and it’s way up in the air.” Two of the bodies recovered were burned beyond recognition and dental records had to be used to make positive identification.

Early reporting from the Daily Star (Hammond, LA) on refinery explosions & fire at Baton Rouge on Aug 2nd, 1993, would kill 3 workers.

The fire broke out at the refinery’s East Coker Unit – one of three at the refinery – and burned out of control for nearly three hours until its fuel sources were cut off. The coker unit, built in 1963, processed 32,000 barrels of asphalt each day into coke, a solid industrial fuel, and other fuels. The fire and explosion occurred when a carbon steel piping elbow at the coker ruptured.

At the time of the explosion in 1993, this part of the Baton Rouge refinery was located directly across the street from a residential community. According to later-filed court documents, the incident’s off-site effects were described, in part, as follows: “During the two and a half hours the main fire burned, [it] produced a thick smoke plume, which moved in an easterly direction across the community adjacent to the facility… The explosion and fire also released ash and debris. The debris, including asbestos particles, was spewed from the East Coker Unit and scattered about the residential community located across the street from the refinery. The ash and debris landed on the people and property of the community.”

After the fire, Exxon crews in protective gear searched nearby neighborhood bordered by Scenic Highway [including Plank Road, Chippewa Street and Evangeline Street] for debris from the fire, some of which contained asbestos; a small amount of material was found in the area. Litigation following the 1993 explosion, brought by neighboring residents who claimed health effects, would drag out for nearly 30 years, as hearings on some claims continued at least through 2020.

1994 Associated Press story on another of Exxon’s Baton Rouge refinery explosions, this one at a chemical plant.

1994 Explosions

On August 8th, 1994, a three-day fire with a series of initial explosions occurred at an Exxon chemical plant located within the company’s Baton Rouge refinery site. Wit-nesses at the time reported hearing more than three explosions at the plant.

The explosions and resulting fire occurred at a steam-cracking unit where light hydrocarbons and heavy gas oils were converted into ethylene, propylene, and butadiene. An Associated Press news account noted “the explosions occurred in a furnace several stories tall when byproducts from crude oil are heated to extremely high temperatures…”

At the accident scene, the Associated Press also noted that “some workers had to run for their lives” and at least seven were injured while scrambling over a six-foot chain link fence. In all, some 200 people in the plant were evacuated from the area to get away from the fire. Some homes in a nearby residential area were then less than a half-mile from the plant. “It is a very large fire,” said spokeswoman Kay Calhoun at the time. “We have advised residents nearby to take ‘shelter in place’ by covering their windows and doors, and turning off their air conditioners.” A fire department spokeswoman at the time reported that burning petroleum products were “shooting flames into the sky,’’ causing the northbound lanes of Interstate 110 through Baton Rouge to be closed.

During the time the fire was burning, the wind carried the smoke plume to the southwest and across the Mississippi River. Exxon conducted air monitoring both inside and outside the facility, and in the surrounding community during the time of the fire. Hundreds of lawsuits were later filed alleging various health issues and other damages, but through subsequent court actions and appeals, Exxon appears to have prevailed in many of these actions, which were not resolved until about mid-2006.

As later determined, an inappropriate replacement of a failing valve with the wrong kind of valve resulted in increasing instability in the valve. The wrongly replaced valve ultimately failed, allowing hydrocarbon to spray from the tower and ignite.

Dec 1998: Portion of New York Times front-page story on the announcement of the Exxon-Mobil merger.

1998-1999

Merger With Mobil

In December 1998, Exxon, then the world’s largest oil company, announced it would merge with Mobil, itself the second largest U.S. oil company.

The $82 billion deal was completed in late 1999. Exxon, in effect, was then acquiring Mobil. Their combined profits at the time were then about $12 billion annually on more than $203 billion in revenue.

Both companies were formerly part of John D, Rockefeller’s giant Standard Oil Trust, which ruled the oil business and beyond in the early 1900s until broken up in 1910 under anti-trust laws. Thereafter, Exxon and Mobil became sibling stand-alone companies for a time – Exxon, as the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (and latter Esso), and Mobil, formerly the Standard Oil Company of New York, also known as SOCNY.

Credit card mock up showing respective company mascots – here, as if the Exxon Tiger is pursuing Mobil’s Pegasus.

But with the 1999 merger, a sizeable share of the old Standard Oil empire was recreated with the new entity, dubbed “ExxonMobil” – truly a colossus, with wide ranging operations across the U.S. and around the world. The new company then held more energy reserves than Canada, and also had a network of more than 48,000 U.S. service stations.

The Exxon-Mobil merger, however, did not necessarily translate into safer or cleaner operations. Properties such as Mobil’s Torrance, California refinery, which had its own troubled history, would also have continued troubles as part of ExxonMobil, with a major February 2015 explosion there that would later result in the September 2015 sale of that refinery to PBF Energy. Back at Baton Rouge in subsequent years, more troubles would occur at the ExxonMobil refinery there as well.

2001 Overview

The Baton Rouge Complex
1909-2000s

“Over the past century, ExxonMobil Baton Rouge has grown from a small refinery on 225 acres of former cotton fields to a complex of nine facilities in the Baton Rouge area,” wrote the company in 2001, describing “Who We Are” at its website. The description also included how each one of its nine parts came about, the year each was established, and the role each part played in the overall complex.

The refinery, founded in 1909, is the largest component, growing to 2,100 acres on the East bank of the Mississippi River, turning out 500,000 bbls/day of crude then refined into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, aviation fuel, lubricating oil, waxes, solvents, petroleum coke, liquified petroleum gas and chemical feedstocks. Also on the refinery grounds, founded in 1927, is the company’s Process Research Laboratories, which as of 2001, held 2,500 patents contributing to refining advances in fluid catalytic cracking, hydroprocessing, fluid coking, and catalytic reforming.

The Chemical Plant, founded in 1940, and located just north of the refinery on 150 acres, turns out more than 10 billion pound of petrochemical products annually. This modern petrochemical complex uses petroleum feedstock from the refinery to make chemicals shipped out via truck, pipeline and barges to manufacturing customers that make an array of products such as paint, hoses, tires, diapers, and other products. A research center there, Intermediates Technology, was founded in 1976

Generalized Map
ExxonMobil Complex

This somewhat simplified and generalized map shows a “wavy-lined” Mississippi River and some identified roadways running through the Baton Rouge, Louisiana ExxonMobil oil refining and petrochemical complex, along with some of its component refinery, chemical, plastics, finishing, and storage facilities as of 2001 or so. Source: ExxonMobil, “Who We Are,” and “Baton Rouge Complex on Scenic Highway,”2001.

The ExxonMobil Plastic Plant, founded in 1968, is located on 60 acres near Sottlandville and Zachaery, a bit farther north of the refinery. Its production capacity is more than 900 million pounds annually, producing low density polyethylene and numerous specialty polymers, most of which is shipped out by rail. Not far away is the Baton Rouge Resins Finishing plant which “finishes” and packages resins received by pipeline from the chemical plant. As of 2001, more than 225 million pounds of “tackifying resins” were produced there each year. Also in the same area as the plastic and resins finishing plats is the Polyolefins Plant, opened in 1995 with a 1.6 billion-pound capacity, turning out high density polyethylene (HDPE). A 600-million-pound s-per-year polypropylene plant was added there some years later.

Across the Mississippi, on the west bank, is the Port Allen Lubricants Plant, where 80 million gallons annually of engine oil, industrial lubricants, basestocks, process oils, grease and solvents are blended, packaged and shipped annually. Lubricant base oils, for example, are received from the refinery via pipeline, and other operations there – blending, packaging, inventory and scheduling – are coordinated by computer management systems. Also on the west bank is the Anchorage Chemical Terminal, in operation since 1972. This site provides for transportation and storage for other ExxonMobil sites. A river docking system there is designed to load ships of up to 18,000 tons with a 16-slot loading rack, allowing for the transport and storage of propylene and refined and crude butadiene. There is also the Production Gas Plant nearby and the Anchorage Tank Farm.

Also part of the complex as of 2001 were: SeaRiver Maritime, a wholly owned affiliate that provides maritime transport of ExxonMobil products, and ExxonMobil Pipeline that operates in the Baton Rouge area.

Source: ExxonMobil, “Who We Are,” and “Baton Rouge Complex on Scenic Highway,”2001.

2000’s-2020’s

Recent History

What follows below are some findings and reports from government agencies such as EPA at the federal level and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Louisiana (LDEQ), as well as those from Louisiana environmental and community groups, the United Steelworkers union, and general news sources, on incidents that have occurred at the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge refinery and related infrastructure in more recent years.

2005-2014: Accidents. The Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a public interest group based in New Orleans, has complied a 2005-2014 Louisiana Refinery Accident Database using state data for all 17 Louisiana oil refineries, consisting of accidents and pollution by year, with all reported incidents from 2005-2013, plus partial data for 2014. In that compilation, the ExxonMobil refinery at Baton Rouge topped the list with 890 total incidents occurring at that refinery during the 2005-2014 period.

“Common Ground IV” report, by Bucket Brigade & United Steelworkers, using Louisiana DEQ data, shows ExxonMobil Baton Rouge accidents & pollution during 2005-2011, both by cause & refinery unit or function. Click for report.

2010: Pipeline Leak. ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge refinery had eight accidents in 2010 related to leaks from underground pipelines. In January 2010, ExxonMobil discovered a pipe leak of volatile chemicals to the air caused by corrosion. Further investigation determined that the pipe had actually been leaking for more than three months (since October 2009), resulting in more than 5 million pounds of volatile toxic air emissions being released – including flammable gas, propylene and volatile organic compounds. The LDEQ report for this accident indicated that the releases were classified as preventable.

2010: Flash Fire. On April 14, 2010, three workers were injured, one seriously, in a fire at the Baton Rouge refinery. One union worker, at a gas compressor, received second and third degree burns to his face, neck, hands, forearms and upper chest. Two contractors were also injured. All three were admitted to the Baton Rouge General Hospital burn unit. The cause of the incident was not initially reported. There was also a secondary explosion that occurred during a gas test on the equipment at issue, with one worker knocked off his feet, but not injured. Union officials sent a health and safety investigator to look into the incident and OSHA also began a preliminary investigation. The Steelworkers union charged that ExxonMobil, instead of focusing on process safety, based its health and safety program on a behavior-based approach called the Loss Prevention System. This approach, charged the union at the time, shifted attention away from unsafe equipment and hazardous conditions, to a focus on working safely around the hazards. No information was given regarding the root cause of the fire. This was the second of five fires that would occur at the Baton Rouge complex in 2010.

2008-2011: Air Pollution. According to data obtained from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality through a public records request and analyzed and reported by National Public Radio in May 2013, because of accidents and leaks, from 2008 to 2011, the Exxon Mobil Baton Rouge complex released nearly 4 million additional pounds of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, beyond allowable pollutant levels. VOCs can contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone or smog, which causes respiratory problems such as asthma attacks.

Photo of the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge, LA refinery, looking west over Mississippi River and showing portions of Standard Heights residential area in the foreground, increasingly part of a greenbelt program that Exxon initiated to buy out nearby neighbors. Photo, David Hanson, “Neighbors of the Fence,” BitterSoutherner.com, January 19, 2016.

2011: Accidents & Pollution. According to the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and United Steelworkers report on Louisiana refineries in 2011 – Common Ground IV – ExxonMobil reported the most accidents that year: 138 total accidents were reported from Exxon’s refineries at Baton Rouge (98) and Chalmette (40), resulting in a combined 428,000 pounds of pollutants released to air and over 1,274,000 gallons of pollution released to land and water.

2012: Oil Pipeline Spill. In April 2012, a major 22-inch Exxon crude oil pipeline that supplies the Baton Rouge Refinery burst, with initial reports indicting that at least 1,900 barrels of oil (80,000 gallons) had been spilled into watery tributaries in Point Coupee Parish, Louisiana. The North Line crude oil pipeline, owned by Exxon and first built in 1956, has a capacity of 160,000 barrel-per-day and originates in St. James Parish southeast of Baton Rouge. The pipeline provides shippers with access to oil from the giant Louisiana Offshore Oil Port and crude from offshore platforms. It carries crude north to Baton Rouge and a few other plants. Following the spill, clean-up operations commenced and regulators opened an investigation in response to the spill. A 17-foot rupture in the pipeline was discovered in the line about 27 miles west of Baton Rouge, near Torbert, LA, with crude spilling into the surrounding area and into a tributary connected to Bayou Cholpe. Two year later, in August 2014, the U.S. Justice Department and EPA announced that the ExxonMobil Pipeline Company agreed to pay a civil penalty for alleged violation of the Clean Water Act for the spill. Under a consent decree, ExxonMobil agreed to pay $1.4 million to resolve the government’s claim. The federal complaint also reported the spill was at least 2,800 barrels, not 1,900 as originally reported.

2014. Large storage tank at Baton Rouge refinery with painted message: “ExxonMobil and Baton Rouge - Growing Together, Working Together.” Photo, Monique Verdin, Louisiana Weekly / Louisiana Bucket Brigade.

2012: Benzene Leak. On June 14, 2012, a bleeder plug on a tank in the Baton Rouge refinery failed and began leaking naphtha, a substance composed of many chemicals including benzene. After the spill, people living in neighboring communities reported adverse health impacts such as severe headaches and respiratory difficulties. ExxonMobil originally reported to LDEQ that 1,364 pounds of material had leaked. However, several days later, on June 18th, Baton Rouge refinery representatives told the LDEQ that ExxonMobil’s chemical team determined the spill was actually “a level 2 incident,” which means a significant response to the leak was required.

A 2012 edition of Exxon's internal magazine, "The Lamp," offering a story profiling the Baton Rouge refinery.

LDEQ launched an in-depth investigation on June 16, 2012 to determine the actual amounts of chemicals spilled as well as to find out what refinery managers knew and when they knew it. On August 14th, 2012, in its 60-day follow-up report, ExxonMobil sent an official notification to the LDEQ saying that the leak had actually released considerably larger quantities of the chemicals, noting that final calculations provided cumulative emission estimates of: – 31,022 pounds of benzene, 13,081 pounds of toluene, 1,431 pounds of cyclohexane, 2,588 pounds of hexane, and 14,022 pounds of additional volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

July 2012

EPA Inspection

In July 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a surprise inspection of the Baton Rouge refinery to see if the company was complying with the risk management prevention program required under the Clean Air Act. During four days of inspection and photographing, from July 16-July 20, 2012, EPA found some surprising failures and negligence in maintenance and safety procedures. The inspection revealed that Exxon had not examined more than 1,000 underground pipes at the refinery for five years. EPA also reported that emergency and shutdown procedures at the refinery failed to provide needed details for operators. A report on the inspection issued by EPA, later made public under a Freedom of Information Act disclosure, revealed the refinery had heavily corroded pipes and ruptured pipelines; pipes and other equipment that were overdue for internal inspection; and inadequate documentation for emergency and shutdown procedures at the refinery. Exxon’s spokesperson, Charlotte Huffaker, later told the Reuters news agency in an email that Exxon contested the violations, and that EPA withdrew all but two of its findings, which Exxon was said to have resolved.

2011 photo of a portion of the sprawling ExxonMobil complex at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where an extensive complex of pipes, tanks, and stacks need regular maintenance and inspection attention for wear-and-tear.

Still, photos from EPA’s inspection (click here for photos) showed external rust on pipes, tanks and related equipment. The United Steelworkers, reacting to the EPA report at Baton Rouge, issued a February 2013 statement noting that the EPA discoveries there were typical of others it had noted for years at other refineries and chemical plants, but also singled out ExxonMobil at Baton Rouge:

…ExxonMobil’s failure to take appropriate action on items they [EPA] identified as a concern disturbs us. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated issue but an industry-wide problem. When equipment is identified as being outside a safe operating range, it should be replaced or mitigated as soon as possible. To ignore these items should be a criminal offense because the company is knowingly placing workers and the community at risk.

Bob Landry, formerly president of United Steelworkers Local 13-12 and a 36-year employee of the company at Baton Rouge, also found that EPA’s findings were on the mark. Landry, then retired when he spoke with the Huffington Post in July 2013, commented on EPA’s findings of pipeline corrosion. “What’s more important,” he said, “is internal corrosion… “The refinery cut a lot of operations jobs in the 1990s. We thought they cut too many. The plant hasn’t had enough people since….” – Bob Landry, 2013.It’s hard to quantify the extent to which pipes at the Baton Rouge refinery are corroded and thin.”

Landry also noted Exxon job cuts as part of the safety problem. “The refinery cut a lot of operations jobs in the 1990s,” he said, during his 2013 interview. “We thought they cut too many. The plant hasn’t had enough people since. Operations are lean so ExxonMobil can save money.” Landry explained at that time that more contract workers were being hired at the Barton Rouge refinery rather that union workers – workers who are paid less than union workers and are not always as experienced or well-trained as union workers. He also pointed to an earlier May 2011 inspection at the Baton Rouge plant by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that had also found the refinery didn’t have enough workers for an emergency shutdown, but that “ExxonMobil appealed and OSHA dropped the charge.”

2014: LDEQ Action. A 2014 settlement agreement with Louisiana DEQ called for ExxonMobil to pay more than $2.3 million to resolve alleged permit violations over chemical releases and spills at four of its Louisiana facilities. The company agreed to pay a $300,000 civil penalty, fund more than $1 million in “beneficial environmental projects,” and spend at least $1 million on projects designed to prevent and control spills at its Baton Rouge facility. A statement issued by LDEQ said the settlement also addressed a string of alleged violations since 2008 at the Exxon Mobil refinery, a resin finishing plant, and a tank farm in West Baton Rouge Parish.

2016: LEAN Sues. In early November 2016, Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, claiming the chemical plant at the Baton Rouge complex continued to violate the federal Clean Air Act despite a 2014 settlement with the state. The suit alleged that pollution from the plant jeopardized the health of nearby residents of a predominantly black, low-income area. LEAN alleged the Baton Rouge refinery had violated the Clean Air Act by emitting “thousands of pounds of harmful and hazardous air pollutants above permitted limits,” while also failing to properly notify LDEQ.

November 2016

Isobutane Fire

On November 22nd, 2016, an isobutane release that ignited into a giant fireball occurred in the sulfuric acid alkylation unit at ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge refinery. The incident occurred during minor maintenance on a flammable isobutane line which had failed. During removal of an inoperable gearbox on a plug valve, a worker removed critical bolts securing the pressure-retaining component of the valve known as the top-cap. When the worker then attempted to open the plug valve with a pipe wrench, the valve came apart and released isobutane into the unit, forming a flammable vapor cloud. The isobutane reached an ignition source within 30 seconds of the release, causing a giant fireball, severely burning four workers unable to exit the vapor cloud before it ignited.

Nov 22, 2016. Exxon Mobil Baton Rouge refinery security video captured the isobutane release and subsequent fire, shown here after about 35 seconds into the incident. Four workers there were seriously burned. Source: CSB.

Isobutane, the vapor which ignited, is a colorless liquefied petroleum gas created during oil refining and is extremely flammable. The unit where the incident occurred normally mixes isobutane with olefins and a sulfuric acid catalyst to make alkylate, a component for high octane gasoline.

Shortly following the incident, a three-person team from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, commonly known as the Chemical Safety Board, or CSB, was sent to the Baton Rouge refinery to investigate the incident. The CSB is an independent, non-regulatory federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. The agency’s board members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. CSB investigations examine all aspects of chemical accidents, including physical causes such as equipment failure or inadequacies in regulations, industry standards, and safety management systems. It does not issue citations or fines, but makes safety recommendations to companies, industry organizations, labor groups, and regulatory agencies such as OSHA and EPA. Since its creation in 1998, the CSB has consistently turned out reports known for their thoroughness and high quality. In recent years, the agency has also produced excellent video material that cover the details and causes of the accidents it investigates, such as the one below on the ExxonMobil incident at Baton Rouge:

Some months later, in September 2017, the CSB published their final report on the ExxonMobil isobutane release and fire at Baton Rouge. Among their findings were the following:

…The CSB learned that there were long-standing reliability issues with gearboxes used to operate plug valves in the refinery’s alkylation unit….

…..The CSB also learned that 15 (approximately three percent) of the roughly 500 plug valves with manually operated gearboxes in the refinery’s alkylation unit were an older design that… created the potential for incorrect removal of the gearbox, which can have catastrophic consequences…

Cover of the CSB report & safety bulletin on the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge refinery isobutane release & fire. Click for PDF.

The CSB noted that an improved valve design – attaching the gearbox support bracket without connecting to pressure-retaining parts of the valve – allowed for safer gearbox removal.

Among “deficiencies” CSB noted in its report on the Baton Rouge incident were: “failure to identify and address the older model plug valve design and gearbox reliability; no written procedures detailing the steps needed to remove different models of gearboxes from plug valves to manually open or close the valve safely; not training workers to safely remove the various plug valve gearbox models in the alkylation unit and the hazards associated with this type of work; and, an organizational culture that accepted operators removing malfunctioning plug valve gearboxes despite the lack of detailed procedures and training for safe removal.”

The CSB’s public report on the ExxonMobil incident at Baton Rouge, was also a safety bulletin, meant to alert the industry of the equipment/technology vulnerability found with the older gearbox technologies.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administra-tion (OSHA) also investigated the isobutane incident, and in May 2017 issued ExxonMobil nine citations over safety lapses at the plant along with proposed fines totaling $165,000. Exxon was penalized $12,675 for each serious citation, as well as $63,000 for failing to carry out external visual and ultrasonic inspections of piping. As of July 2017, TheAdvocate.com of Baton Rouge was reporting that ExxonMobil was in the process of contesting the OSHA citations.

Other Incidents. During 2017 and 2018 there were also other reported fires, chemical releases, and enforcement actions involving the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge complex. In an October 31, 2017 settlement with the U.S. EPA and Justice Department, ExxonMobil agreed to pay $2.5 million in fines for flaring gases at 8 plants along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana, including its Baton Rouge plant, and also spend $300 million to upgrade its eight petrochemical plants. Some critics felt the fine and settlement agreement was inadequate given the number of plants involved and the frequency of the flaring. ExxonMobil had reported a week earlier that it had earned $11.3 billion in the first nine months of 2017, an 84 percent increase over the same period in the prior year. Other reported incidents included a November 1st, 2017 fire that sent large plume of smoke over Baton Rouge, and another reported on August 23rd, 2018 that was contained by plant emergency workers. The day after that fire, a hydrogen chloride release occurred and workers were told to shelter-in-place.

Decades-Long Litigation

25 Years in Court
Residents Battle Exxon

In 2019, an old, ongoing legal battle between Exxon and Baton Rouge residents over alleged health and community damages from the 1993 Baton Rouge refinery explosion (described earlier above ), took on new life more than 25 years later after a series of appeals and a state Supreme Court ruling that allowed lower-court decisions against Exxon to stand.

Following the 1993 coker explosion and fire that killed three workers and sent heavy smoke and debris into a neighboring community, litigation on behalf of thousands of nearby residents claiming damages was begun. At the time of the explosion, residents were ordered to “shelter in place” and refrain from touching any debris that might have landed on their property. First responders wearing white protective gear came into their communities to conduct testing and retrieve debris, court records indicate. In all, nearly 8,500 residents would initially sue Exxon, contending they suffered damages, claiming “personal injury, past and future pain and suffering, past and future medical expenses, mental anguish and emotional distress, damage to their homes and structures, diminution in the value of their property, other economic damages, loss of society and quality of life, loss of community, and other damages.” Initially, however, the courts dismissed the residents claims, but appeals and other legal avenues would follow.

Exxon, meanwhile, had tried to shift liability for the explosion to the maker of the East Coker unit that had exploded — the Foster Wheeler Corporation. Exxon sought to recover in excess of $50 million in direct damages as well as the costs of cleaning up, rebuilding the East Coker unit, lost profits during cleanup, and loss of business opportunity due to diminished production capacity.

1990s photo of Exxon Baton Rouge refinery with 3 coker units, the size of which – for perspective – can be roughly compared to the small white truck / ambulance in the lower left foreground. Source, The Advocate newspaper.

Foster Wheeler had delivered the East Coker unit to Exxon in 1963, whereupon Exxon became its owner and operator. Coker units, it turns out, are no small piece of industrial engineering, as Exxon described in its court papers. Cokers, in fact, can run to more than 300 feet in height, or about 30 stories. The East Coker Unit, for example, was one of three such units at the Baton Rouge facility. It was a typical four-drum coker unit, which contains approximately forty-one miles of pipe and tubing, and approximately ten thousand connecting elbows.

The specific issue Exxon raised with the Foster Wheeler-made coker unit, however, had come down to one piece of piping made of the wrong material – a section of elbow piping. The elbow at issue was made of carbon steel instead of steel containing chromium and molybdenum, which resists corrosion from sulfur in heavy crude. It was the non-resistant carbon-steel elbow that had ruptured, causing the 1993 explosion. Therefore, Exxon believed, and argued in court, that Foster Wheeler installed the lower-grade elbow that ruptured, and should be the liable party. However, Exxon’s claim did not hold up in court, in part, because more than ten years had passed since the pipe was installed, so the designer was no longer legally liable.

In court, Judge Yvette Alexander in Baton Rouge City Court ruled that Exxon accepted the East Coker Unit without inspection and placed it in operation. “From the testimony of the witnesses and experts used by Exxon and the Plaintiffs, Exxon was aware of their vulnerability as to the carbon steel elbow piping having been installed by the contractor, Foster Wheeler,” she wrote. “Exxon never corrected the serious weakness in the system nor did they require Foster Wheeler to correct it.” And later on appeal, in December 2018, the state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal also noted, that as owner of the East Coker Unit for more than 30 years, Exxon retained “ultimate responsibility” for maintaining the unit and keeping it in a reasonably safe condition. “Despite this,” the appellate court wrote, “Exxon failed to make inspections, repairs, or replacements in a reasonably prudent manner.”

Meanwhile, as the initial lawsuits for damages brought by residents had failed or languished in state and federal courts, the plaintiffs turned to Baton Rouge City Court, which handles small claims. In that court, by 2014, Judge Yvette Alexander in one case, initially awarded damages to six plaintiffs – $7,500 apiece to five of the residents and $4,000 to another. Exxon then appealed. But state District Court affirmed Alexander’s decision and the awards in 2015. On further appeal, the state Supreme Court then sent the case back to the 1st Circuit that same year, and the appeals court returned it to Alexander in 2016 for, among other things, reconsideration of damage amounts. Damage amounts were then reduced in 2017 to $2,500 each for five of the plaintiffs and $1,250 for the sixth plaintiff. Exxon again appealed.As of 2020 or so, it appeared that potentially thousands of residents suing Exxon over the 1993 explosion would still have to come into court, “one by one… and plead their case before a judge and Exxon’s attorneys”… But the 1st Circuit allowed Alexander’s decision to stand, Exxon appealed again, and this time, the state Supreme Court denied Exxon’s appeal.

Baton Rouge attorney, Lewis Unglesby, who represented some of the plaintiffs, would say in 2019 that the case had “gone on for too long,” and was then one of the longest civil cases ever in Baton Rouge. ”We’ve won everywhere,” he would say, citing the list of appeals in the higher courts, “and Exxon ought to be good neighbors and accept their responsibility and resolve this.”

Yet, still, as of early 2020, even with the favorable ruling, it appeared that those now suing Exxon over the 1993 explosion would still have to come into the court, “one by one… and plead their case before a judge and Exxon’s attorneys,” according to Unglesby. At that rate, he believed, with potentially thousands still seeking damages, the 25 year-old case would likely drag on for many more years.

ExxonMobil, meanwhile, released a January 2020 statement regarding the lawsuit, which explained in part: “ExxonMobil respectfully disagrees with the Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision not to allocate liability to another entity or require that damages be in line with prior precedent. This decision gives finality to the 6 plaintiffs whose cases were tried. Any claims of the remaining plaintiffs in the lawsuit remain to be decided upon….”

2020

February Fire

On February 11th, 2020 just before midnight, at approximately 11:30 p.m., an explosion inside ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge refinery turned the night sky a shade of orange and sent a large plume of smoke into the air. The fire burned for about 7 hours, until approximately 6:40 a.m. the following day.

News accounts and images of the blaze were reported by Baton Rouge WAFB-TV, CNN, CBS, as well as other regional TV reporting and various social media video posts. “The images overnight were unbelievable as fire lit up the night sky at the refinery,” said WAFB-TV news reporter, Scottie Hunter, in a February 12, 2020 report. “The massive flames and thick blanket of smoke set off panic across the Capital City. The frightening images were only outdone by the sounds those who live nearby say they heard [one resident noted hearing a series of explosions]… Despite how scary the intense flames looked, nobody was hurt and there was no immediate off-site impact.”

TV news broadcast screen-shot of ExxonMobil Baton Rouge complex ablaze during Feburary11-12, 2020 incident that shook up the city for some 7 hours before it was quelled. While tens of thousands of pounds of chemicals & vapors were released during the fire, ExxonMobil would later report that 98 percent were consumed by the fire.

ExxonMobil later stated that although tens of thousands of pounds of chemicals were released in the fire, 98 percent were consumed in the blaze. Among the chemicals released, which ExxonMobil reported to LDEQ, were the following: 62,093 pounds of flammable vapor (i.e., natural gas, which helped fuel the blaze); 35,290 pounds liquid sulfuric acid; 13,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide; 2,681 pounds of 1,3 butadiene; 33 pounds of benzene (benzene and 1,3 butadiene are known human carcinogens for long-term, chronic exposure and are also highly flammable); and five barrels of oil. All these amounts exceeded the reportable quantity threshold, but ExxonMobil said none of the 126 readings it took detected material escaping the plant. The incident also involved the release of hydrogen sulfide, but that release did not exceed the 100-pound reportable quantity threshold. Later, in restoring the unit where the fire occurred, flaring was necessitated by the “unit upset,” and that resulted in releases of sulfur dioxide that exceeded 500 pounds.

About a week after the fire, Louisiana state Senator, Cleo Fields (D-Baton Rouge), held a community meeting at Star of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Baton Rouge to discuss the February fire. Fields said he was then considering possible legislation “to ensure the safety of the state’s citizens.” During public comment at the meeting, with about 300 in attendance, some residents vented their anger and frustration with Exxon Mobil, pent up for years, over emissions, flares, fires, and safety.

February 2020. Louisiana state Senator, Cleo Fields (D-Baton Rouge), center right, at community meeting he organized at Star of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Baton Rouge to discuss the February fire at the complex. Photo, Julie Dermansky.

Although ExxonMobil had used the company’s automated dialer notification system during the incident, when approximately 1,900 calls went out to the community, some had complained of no notification. Others said they needed more detail about what was happening, and were left with little direction about what to do. The immediate panic of seeing the sky turn orange, said one resident, left many people worrying about whether they needed to get their children or elderly grandparents to safety. “Even if it’s only a possibility that releases will be made into our community,” he offered “then allow us to make a decision.”

ExxonMobil had also reported that chemicals released during the fire had been consumed in the blaze, though a number of community residents disputed that. There were also some reports that ExxonMobil workers at the meeting had been “coached” to say that chemicals had not reached residential areas. Wilma Subra, a scientist and technical consultant to LEAN, and a former MacArthur Fellow who has also served on state and federal advisory bodies, offered testimony during the meeting on chemicals that had migrated into the residential areas, reporting directly from ExxonMobil documents sent to LDEQ.

February 2020. Wilma Subra, a technical advisor to the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, reporting at the community meeting on ExxonMobil data sent to LDEQ on chemical releases from the February fire. Photo, Julie Dermansky.

One ExxonMobil Baton Rouge worker who grew up in the area and whose mother lived near the refinery, said residents needed to know the company was earnestly working for their safety. More critical was a well-known environmental advocate in the region, retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who was cheered for his calls for improved response time, better air monitoring, and legislative help on safety – though stressing the need “to work cooperatively” with the company.

On April 13, 2020, ExxonMobil reported that the February blaze was caused by air getting into a hydrocarbon line in a pipe rack and igniting. The resulting fire caused the pipe to leak, and that leak then affected other lines in the pipe rack. A statement at the time indicated the company would ensure the valves associated with the air getting into the line were locked in a closed position to prevent it from happening again.

Though not initially revealed, the February 2020 fire had been a serious blow to the refinery’s output, as a large crude distillation unit and a coker had been impacted. The source of the fire was a natural gas pipeline near the distillation unit. According to Reuters news reports, the fire ended up idling most of the production units at the refinery – three out of four on site.

The Ongoing Externalities

The foregoing profile of selected incidents at the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge refinery and petrochemical complex over the 1989-2020 period offers only a partial glimpse of this facility and this company’s operations and its periodic troubles. The Baton Rouge complex, of course, is only one of many ExxonMobil operations, and ExxonMobil, one part of the larger oil/petrochemical industry globally. ExxonMobil, however, is not the exception in terms of mishaps and pollution, as other oil/ petrochemical companies have similar records. And while, in recent years, the fossil fuel industry’s role in climate change has become a paramount concern, the “routine,” ongoing, and cumulative worker, community and environmental costs of this industry — that is, its “total incidents profile,” or “externalities” as economists call them — is considerable and mounting.This industry’s “external-costs ledger” is considerable and mounting. From well blow-outs and tanker spills, pipeline leaks and refinery explosions, tanker truck accidents and gas station leaks, to fracking impacts and even the biological intrusions of microplastics — all are part of this industry’s external-costs ledger; costs too often borne by societies everywhere.

Back at Baton Rouge, meanwhile, ExxonMobil in 2023 completed a $230 million refinery upgrade that will, in part, enable it to use a wider range of crude oil, and also began a $500 million expansion of its chemical operations that will double production of polypropylene to 900,000 metric tons per year, aimed at meeting the growing demand for durable, high-performance plastics.

See also at this website, for example, “125 Significant Incidents,” a story profiling oil refinery performance in one year, 2012, as highlighted by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board. Also at this website, the “Environmental History” topics page includes additional story choices profiling oil and/or chemical company environmental and/or public safety history.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: March 23, 2024
Last Update: November 25, 2024

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com
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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Exxon At Baton Rouge: 1989-2020s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, March 23, 2024.

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Kellie Kvasnikoff’s 2007 book includes history on the legal battle over the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Click for copy.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

Steve Coll’s 2012 book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” Penguin Press, 685 pp. Winner of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012. Click for copy.

Steve Early’s 2017 book, “Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City,” a community organizing/ local politics tale in battle with Chevron in Richmond, CA. Beacon Press, 248pp. Click for copy.

U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s report on the horrific & deadly 2005 BP Texas City, TX refinery explosion that killed 15 & injured 180. Click for copy.

Ronnie Green’s 2008 book featuring Louisiana resident Margie Richard’s 15 year fight with Shell Oil’s Norco, LA refinery & chemical plant that polluted her community and sickened its residents, by Amistad publishers, 288pp. Click for copy.

U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s report on a deadly February 1999 refinery fire at Tosco’s Avon Refinery in Martinez, CA that killed 4 workers and critically injured another. Click for copy.

2017 book: “One Minute After Sunrise: The Story of the Standard Oil Refinery Fire of 1955,” 246 pp. Click for copy.

CSB’s report on the July 2001 storage tank explosion at the Motiva oil refinery in Delaware City, DE where one worker was killed and eight others injured. That explosion also released 67 tons of acid vapors into the air and at least 97,000 gallons of sulfuric acid and petroleum products into waterways & the Delaware River, killing thousands of fish. Click for copy.

Related Reading: Scott Cole’s 2018 book, “Fallout,” about a community’s fight with oil industry pollution from a Unocal Oil refinery in California. Click for copy.

U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s investigation and report on the April 2010 explosion and fire at the Tesoro Anacortes, WA refinery that killed 7 people.

Stephen McGinty’s book, “Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster,” about the July 1988 Occidental Petroleum disaster in the North Sea that killed 167 people. Click for copy.

Daniel Yergin’s epic book, “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a book that Business Week called “the best history of oil ever written.” 2009 paperback edition with a new epilogue. Click for copy.

Loren C. Steffy’s 2011 book, “Drowning in Oil: BP & the Reckless Pursuit of Profit,” McGraw-Hill. Click for copy.

Christopher Leonard’s 2019 book, “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America,” Simon & Schuster, 714 pp. Click for copy.

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Chris Dyer (for Dailymail.com and Reuters), “Huge Fireball Erupts over Exxon Oil Refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana after Explosion Sends Flames Shooting into the Night Sky,” DailyMail.com (with series of photos posted to social media), February 12, 2020.

ExxonMobil, Corporate statement, “Exxon Mobil Baton Rouge Refinery Fire Response – February 2020,” updated, February 14, 2020, 2pp.

David J. Mitchell, “ExxonMobil Fire Released Carcinogenic Chemicals, Report Says, But Monitoring Found No Local Risk,” TheAdvocate.com, February 13, 2020.

David J. Mitchell, “ExxonMobil Details Release of Chemicals in Fire but Says 98% Burned Up, Did Not Reach Community,” TheAdvocate.com, February 18, 2020.

Jacqueline Derobertis, “Community Decries ExxonMobil Safety Notification Efforts, De-mands Action and Legislation,” TheAdvocate .com, February 19, 2020.

Kristen Mosbrucker, “Notice Flaring at ExxonMobil? Baton Rouge Refinery to Restore Operations after Fire,” TheAdvocate.com, February 24, 2020.

Julie Dermansky, “Momentum Builds to Monitor Cancer Alley Air Pollution in Real Time After Exxon Refinery Fire in Louisiana,” DeSmog.com, February 24, 2020.

Ellyn Couvillion, “ExxonMobil Says Air in Line Was Cause of February Fire, Steps Taken to Prevent a Repeat,” TheAdvocate.com, April 13, 2020.

WAFB Staff, “ExxonMobil Releases Cause of Fire at Baton Rouge Refinery in February,” WAFB.com (Baton Rouge, LA, TV-9), April 13, 2020.

Jon Skolnik, “ExxonMobil Has Poured Millions into Communities It’s Accused of Poisoning. Now There’s Blowback; the Oil Giant Has Channeled Large Sums to Texas and Louisiana Refinery Towns. Activists Say That’s Not Good Enough,” Salon.com, August 25, 2021.

_______________________________________

Teaser Tag: Football Topics Page

1931-1940, 1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Football History”
Selected Stories: 1950s-2020s

February 4, 2024 J.D.

Super Bowl III

“I Guarantee It”

1969

Joe Namath of NY Jets
predicts Super Bowl win;
helps transform pro football.

Football Turning Point

“Big Game, New Era”

Colts vs. Giants, 1958

With riveting, televised
“Greatest Game,” pro football
moves to Big-Time biz $$.

Football Book & Film

“Flash Boy Lewis”

1989-2014

Includes profile of Michael
Lewis book, The Blind Side,
made into Hollywood film.

Author As QB

“Paper Lion”

George Plimpton

NY patrician takes lumps
as football QB; writes
bestseller that becomes film.

Annals of Sport

“Bednarik-Gifford Lore”

1950s-1960s

The All-Pro careers & historic
clash of Chuck Bednarik
and Frank Gifford.

500-YD Passing Games

“Dutchman’s Big Day”

September 1951

Van Brocklin sets single-
game record; others listed
with 500-yard games.

JFK’s Football Homage

“Roger & The President”

November 1963

1963 Army-Navy game,
JFK’s assassination, and
Roger Staubach’s Life cover.

The Forward Pass

“Slingin’ Sammy”

1930s-1950s

Sammy Baugh helps
modernize pro football
with the forward pass.

Football & Tobacco

“Gifford for Luckies”

1961-1962

NY Giants football star
Frank Gifford gives his
pitch for Lucky Strikes.

Sports Marketing History

“Wheaties & Sport”

1930s

Wheaties only featured a few
football players in the 1930s,
as baseball was its focus.

18 Famous Players

“Big Game, New Era”

Colts vs. Giants, 1958

Sidebar in this story
profiles 18 famous Colts
& Giants from this game.

Celebrity Lifestyle Book

“I Guarantee It”

1960s-1970s

Story includes “lifestyle”
book Namath wrote with
sportscaster Dick Schaap.

Football Newsreel

“Sammy Baugh Video”

1930s-1950s

Video & newsreel clips
highlight Sammy Baugh’s
pro football career.

Celebrities Advertising

“Celebrity Gifford”

1950s-2000s

Pro football star becomes
well-known celebrity
and frequent pitchman.

Namath in Hollywood

“I Guarantee It”

1969

This Joe Namath story
also includes a couple
of his Hollywood films.

Brady-Bündchen History

“The Most Beautiful Girl”

1993-2012

Gisele Bündchen story includes
Tom Brady years & vignette
from 2012 Super Bowl.

Gifford Books

“Celebrity Gifford”

1950s-2010s

Story on Frank Gifford’s
celebrity also includes books
by and about him.

Sammy’s Films

“Slingin’ Sammy”

1930s-1950s

This Sammy Baugh story
includes sidebar on his
“Texas Rangers” films.

Please Support
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Date Posted: February 4, 2024
Last Update: February 4, 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Football History: Selected Stories,
1950s-2020s,” PopHistoryDig.com, February 4, 2024.

________________________________________

Football Books at Amazon.com…

Michael MacCambridge’s 2005 book, “The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation.” Click for copy.

NFL History, Rob Fleder, et al., “NFL 100: A Century of Pro Football,” with Peyton Manning intro. Click for copy.

Ray Walker’s book, “The Ultimate Pittsburgh Steelers Trivia Book,” 2020 edition. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Music & Biography
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/08-When-the-Ship-Comes-In.mp3 5986963 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/05-Like-a-Rolling-Stone.mp3 12443403 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Joan-Baez-Diamonds-Rust.mp3 4582386 audio/mpeg

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990

“Diamonds & Rust”
Joan & Bob, 1960s-1980s

December 19, 2023 J.D.

During the flood of folk and rock music that came in the 1960s, there were also some notable love affairs among the music makers. One of the pairings at the time, cheered by many, was that between Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Both were key troubadours of their day, probing the woes of racial discrimination, social injustice, and the Vietnam War with their songs. Their sound, together and separately, marked the era.

August 1963. Iconic photo of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan singing together taken by photographer Rowland Scherman (rowlandscherman.com) at the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have A Dream Speech.” Baez also sang “We Shall Overcome” separately that day.

For a time, they were the iconic pair of 1960s protest music. Their relationship, however – at least the romantic, happily-ever-after kind – was not to be, although they would have a revived musical performance relationship that would run from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. Aside from their 1960s romance, temporary though it was, each gained some musical inspiration and creativity from the other – and in Dylan’s case, early career-launching exposure by way of Baez stage-sharing and covering and promoting his songs. Baez, for her part, became more political with Dylan’s songwriting. Some of their story follows here.

Joan Before Bob

1962. Joan Baez on the rocky coast at Carmel, CA, near her home at the time. Ralph Crane / LIFE Collection.

In the summer of 1958, Joan Baez was a 17-year old high school graduate, then living in Palo Alto, California.

Joan’s father, Albert Baez, was born in Mexico, grew up in Brooklyn, and turned to the study of mathematics and physics, receiving a PhD at Stanford University in 1950. He would later become a co-inventor of the x-ray microscope. Joan’s mother — Joan Chandos Bridge – was born in Scotland. Both parents came from strong religious backgrounds. The Baez family converted to the Quaker faith, and their three daughters – Pauline, Joan, and Mimi – were raised in a strong moral climate. All three would become political activists and musicians. Her father’s work, meanwhile, as physicist, teacher, and consultant, took the family to various locations around the world – from Paris to Bagdad – and across the U.S..

When Baez was 13, her aunt took her to a concert by folk musician Pete Seeger, and found herself strongly moved by his music, soon practicing his songs. In 1957, Baez bought her first Gibson acoustic guitar and was soon listening to the music of the Kingston Trio and their 1958 hit song, “Tom Dooley.”

1959 album of Harvard Square folk music featuring Joan Baez, Bill Wood & Ted Alevizos. Click for Amazon.

After the family moved to the Boston area in 1958 when her father took a job in Cambridge teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Joan enrolled as a freshman at Boston University. There she entered the School Of Drama, where she fell in with a group of friends who shared a passion for folk music.

Folk music was having something of a revival at the time. Groups such as The Kingston Trio, The Limeliters, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, and others were creating a new phase of popular music, especially on college campuses and at urban coffeehouses.

In 1958, Joan took up a chance to play at open-mic nights at Club 47 in Cambridge, and soon became a local attraction there.

One early collection of folk singers there — “Round Harvard Square,” on the Veritas label, shown at left — said of Baez in its liner notes that within a few months of her arrival in the Boston University area, she had become the most popular performer, adding: “Her unusually expressive voice and intuitive musicianship have immediate impact. This is an undeniable talent….”

Portion of Nov 1961 New York Times review of Joan Baez performance by Robert Shelton.

Baez’s repertoire and earliest records included a mix of traditional ballads and blues, songs by the Carter Family, the Weavers and Woody Guthrie songs, cowboy tunes, ethnic folk songs – much of which included an acknowledgment of the human condition. She soon had a following in the U.S. and abroad.

In the summer of 1959, another folk singer, Bob Gibson, brought Baez on stage at the first Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, where the 18 year-old with her stunning soprano became an instant star.

A number of recording labels tried to sign her after her Newport debut, including Columbia – whose head man at the time was Mitch Miller and album producer John Hammond. Baez, however, was not impressed and feared Columbia was a bit too commercial for her tastes at the time, chose to sign with a small independent label, Vanguard. She recorded her first album for Vanguard in the summer of 1960, when she was 19.

On November 11, 1961, Baez had played her first major New York concert at a sold-out performance at Town Hall. Robert Shelton, music writer for the New York Times reviewing her performance there, noted:: “That superb soprano voice, as lustrous and rich as old gold, flowed purely all evening with a wondrous ease. Her singing unwinding like a spool of satin, had an understated passion…”.

She recorded her first solo LP for Vanguard Records in the summer of 1960, the beginning of a 12-year association and more than a dozen albums with that label. In fact, her first three Vanguard albums – Joan Baez (October 1960), Joan Baez, Vol. 2 ( September1961), and Joan Baez in Concert 1 (September1962) – would all achieve gold record status.

1960: “Joan Baez,” debut album, Vanguard. Click for Amazon.

Sept 1961: “John Baez Vol 2.” Vanguard. Click for Amazon.

Sept 1962: “Joan Baez in Concert, Part 1,” Vanguard. Click for copy.

By late 1962, Time magazine, the popular news weekly read by millions, featured “Folk Singer Joan Baez” on its cover in an artist’s rendition, showing her barefoot and seated with guitar. Time magazine cover treatments for musicians were then a rare honor.

Time’s editors titled their feature piece, “Folk Singing: Sibyl with Guitar,” with Baez as the “sibyl,” a woman in ancient times supposed to utter the oracles and prophecies of a god, or a woman able to foretell the future.

On November 23, 1962, an artist’s rendition of Joan Baez appeared on the cover of Time Magazine – a rare honor then for a young musician.

In its story, Time described Baez’s musical talents as follows:

…Her voice is as clear as air in the autumn, a vibrant, strong, untrained and thrilling soprano. She wears no makeup and her long black hair hangs like a drapery, parted around her long almond face…. The purity of her voice suggests purity of approach. She is only 21 and palpably nubile. But there is little sex in that clear flow of sound. It is haunted and plaintive, a mother’s voice, and it has in it distant reminders of black women wailing in the night, of detached madrigal singers performing calmly at court, and of saddened gypsies trying to charm death into leaving their Spanish caves.

Impresarios everywhere are trying to book her. She has rarely appeared in nightclubs and says she doubts that she will ever sing in one again; she wants to be something more than background noise Her LP albums sell so well that she could hugely enrich herself by recording many more, but she has set a limit of one a year. Most of her concerts are given on college campuses.

The Time piece also covered the folk music scene in some detail — its players, its history, and its politics. The story noted, for example, that Pete Seeger, who Baez saw as a 13 year-old, had appeared before the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee and was cited for contempt, convicted in 1961, but had that charge overturned in May 1962 by the U.S. Court of Appeals. But while his case was under review, Baez dedicated a song to Seeger in every concert she gave. It was a clear example of where the music of Joan Baez would head for the next 60 years – closely allied with social protest and liberal politics.

In his early 1960s performances, Bob Dylan often appeared with cap, harmonica, and guitar.

The Time story also gave some short notice to “a promising young hobo named Bob Dylan.” As the magazine further then described him:

“…He is 21 and comes from Duluth. He dresses in sheepskin and a black corduroy Huck Finn cap, which covers only a small part of his long, tumbling hair. He makes visits to Woody Guthrie’s hospital bed, and he delivers his songs in a studied nasal that has just the right clothespin-on-the-nose honesty to appeal to those who most deeply care. His most celebrated song is Talkin’ New York — about his first visit to the city, during the cold winter of 1961, when he discovered ‘Green Witch Village’.”

Bob Before Joan

Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in Hibbing, Minnesota, began his involvement with music in high school where he performed songs by Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Danny & the Juniors, and others.

In September 1959, Dylan moved to Minneapolis and enrolled at the University of Minnesota.

It was about this time that his focus on music shifted from rock and roll to American folk music, which he found more serious material and captured more of the human condition.

Dylan began to perform in the folk medium at a coffeehouse near the university and also in what was known locally as the Dinkytown folk music circuit. At this point, he began to introduce himself as “Bob Dylan,” though not formally adopting that name until a few years later.

April 1961 Gerdes Folk City poster noting Bob Dylan on the bill.

By May 1960, Dylan dropped out of college after one year. In January 1961, he set his sights on New York City with the aim of performing there and meeting his musical idol, Woody Guthrie, then under hospital care.

By February 1961, Dylan played at clubs around Greenwich Village, befriending and picking up material from other folk singers there – among them, Woody Guthrie protégé, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, who knew and performed Guthrie’s repertoire, and other performers, such as Dave Van Ronk.

After Dylan did well in a show for the New York University folk club on April 5, 1961, he was signed up for a two-week slot to open for the legendary Mississippi bluesman, John Lee Hooker beginning April 11th at Gerdes Folk City. There, Dylan used a series of Guthrie-styled ballads with his own lyrics.

But a few months later, there came a woman in Bob Dylan’s life.

One hot July day in 1961, Bob Dylan met Suze Rotolo at a concert at Riverside Church in New York. At the time of their meeting, Dylan was just another singer at an all-day folk concert at Riverside Church in Manhattan. She was a 17-year-old in a dress with thigh-high slits. Dylan was 20 at the time. “Right from the start I couldn’t take my eyes off her,” Dylan would write in his 2004 memoir, Chronicles: “She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen.” Rotolo, for her part, considered Dylan “oddly old-time looking, charming in a scraggly way.” But according to one source, they were both vibrant and curious, and became inseparable.

Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan, early 1960s.

But Suze Roloto would have no small impact on Dylan’s output, and would be, by some accounts, quite a substantial influence on Dylan. She worked for the Congress for Racial Equality, and her commitment to civil rights was believed an influence on some of Dylan’s songs. Rotolo told Dylan about the brutal 1955 murder of Emmett Till, inspiring Dylan to write his protest song, “The Death of Emmett Till.” Rotolo is also believed to have influenced other songs including “Masters of War” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Her interests in theater and art also exposed Dylan to ideas and artists beyond the world of music. The New York Times later quoted Dylan acknowledging Rotolo’s influence: “She’ll tell you how many nights I stayed up and wrote songs and showed them to her and asked her: ‘Is this right’?” And that Rotolo, because of her parents involvement with unions, “was into this equality-freedom thing long before I was.”

“…He had an incredible ability to see and sponge—there was a genius in that. The ability to create out of everything that’s flying around. To synthesize it. To put it in words and music.”But although she had an influence on Dylan — often cited as the muse for some of his early classics — she clearly saw and acknowledged the genius in his creative abilities, as noted in Robbie Woliver’s book, Hoot! A 25-Year History of the Greenwich Village Music Scene:

“People say I was an influence on him, but we influenced each other. His interests were filtered through me and my interests, like the books I had, were filtered through him … It was always sincere on his part. The guy saw things. He had an incredible ability to see and sponge — there was a genius in that. The ability to create out of everything that’s flying around. To synthesize it. To put it in words and music.”

Among those Dylan had met in the Village music scene was fellow folk performer David Van Ronk, who, with his his wife, Terri Thal, helped Dylan and Suze Rotolo make their way around the Village. Terri Thal, who managed Van Ronk and other folksingers, also lined up some shows for Dylan. When Dylan and Rotolo were living together they often socialized with the Van Ronks at their apartment on 180 Waverly Place.

Bob Dylan's first album of March 1962. Click for copy.

In September 1961, New York Times critic Robert Shelton boosted Dylan’s career with an enthusiastic review of his performance at Gerde’s Folk City, with the headlines: “Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Folk-Song Stylist; 20-Year-Old Singer Is Bright New Face at Gerde’s Club.”

In his review, Shelton wrote, in part: “…His clothes may need a bit of tailoring, but when he works his guitar, harmonica or piano and composes new songs faster than than he can remember them, there is no doubt that he is bursting at the seams with talent.”

At that time, Dylan had also come to the attention album producer John Hammond, who would sign Dylan to Columbia Records. Dylan’s first album with Columbia, Bob Dylan, was released March 19, 1962. It consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel songs, plus two original Dylan compositions. The album sold 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even.

Dylan and Suze Rotolo meanwhile, began living together in January 1962 at an apartment on West 4th street, though her family did not approve. Rotolo, however, went to Italy in 1962 to study art, leaving Dylan lovesick and writing her “stylish, lovelorn letters,” according to one source. He would later say he was then also writing songs about her, like “Bob Dylan’s Blues” and “Down the Highway.” By some accounts, the Rotolo separation is also credited as inspiration for other Dylan love songs, including “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”, “Tomorrow Is a Long Time”, “One Too Many Mornings”, and “Boots of Spanish Leather”.

“The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan” features the famous photo of Dylan and Suze Rotolo taken by CBS photographer, Don Hunstein, in February 1963, a few weeks after Rotolo returned from Italy. The album was released on May 27, 1963. Click for copy.

In August 1962, Dylan took two decisive steps in his career. He changed his name to Bob Dylan, and he signed a management contract with Albert Grossman.

For Dylan’s second album, The Free-wheelin’ Bob Dylan, a famous photograph of Dylan with Suze Rotolo would serve as the album cover. It was taken by CBS staff photographer Don Hunstein in February 1963, a few weeks after Rotolo had returned from Italy, with she and Dylan walking arm-in-arm in New York’s West Village close to the apartment where they lived together at the time.

With the release of Freewheelin` in late May 1963, Dylan had begun to make his name as a singer-songwriter.

As Dylan’s fame rose, however, Rotolo found the relationship increasingly stressful. She also had become pregnant by Dylan in 1963 and had an abortion. In August 1963, she moved out of their apartment in the Village as Dylan began spending more time on the road.

Dylan by this time had begun performing with Joan Baez. By late 1963, Rotolo could no longer ignore the rumors that the Baez-Dylan relationship had become more than professional, and they split up for good, though remained friends for a short time thereafter.

Suze Rotolo’s best-selling book of 2009, “A Freewheelin Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties.” Click for copy.

Dylan later described the break up in the song “Ballad in Plain D, a song which years later, Dylan apologized for and expressed some regret in writing.

It included, for example, some reference to a heated argument between Dylan and Suze’s sister, Carla, who Dylan disliked – “For her parasite sister / I had no respect.”

And on the argument: “Beneath a bare lightbulb the plaster did pound / Her sister and I in a screaming battleground / And she [Suze] in between, the victim of sound / Soon shattered as a child to the shadows.”

Suze, for her part, later offered a very Dylanesque perspective on the song: “People have asked how I felt about those songs that were bitter, like ‘Ballad in Plain D’, since I inspired some of those… yet I never felt hurt by them. I understood what he was doing. It was the end of something and we both were hurt and bitter. His art was his outlet, his exorcism. It was healthy. That was the way he wrote out his life; the loving songs, the cynical songs, the political songs, they are all part of the way he saw his world and lived his life, period.”

In 1967, Rotolo married a film editor she’d met in Italy and they had a son. She also taught at the Parsons School of Design in New York. For years she would not talk about her time with Dylan. However in 2009 she wrote a best-selling book titled, A Freewheelin` Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties, covering her time with Dylan and the Greenwich Village scene. But during the years they were together, Bob Dylan was transformed from an obscure folk singer into an uneasy spokesperson for a generation. Suze Rotolo passed away on February 25, 2011, at the age of 67.

Bob & Joan

A later Penguin paperback edition of Joan Baez’s 1987 memoir, "And A Voice To Sing With." Click for copy.

“I first saw Bob Dylan in 1961 at ”Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village,” wrote Joan Baez in her 1987 book, And A Voice to Sing With. “He was not overly impressive. He looked like an urban hillbilly, with hair short around the ears and curly on top. …When his set was over, he was ushered to my table and the historic event of our meeting was underway….”

Word had it at the time, that the “new kid” at Gerde’s was worth coming out to see, and that he had terrific stuff. However, back in Boston Joan had struck up a relationship with 23 year-old Michael New, of Trinidad-English decent. “I was sure it would only last two weeks as usual,” she said of that relationship at the time. “But then after three weeks there we were, still together. We were passionately, insanely, irrationally in love for the first few months.” Disagreements ensued, however, and her relationship with Michael New would end sometime later.

But on the night of her meeting Dylan at Gerde’s in 1961, Michael was then with her and she felt restrained. “…I wanted the freedom to gush over Bobby and couldn’t under Michael’s suspicious and critical eye. There was no question that this boy was exceptional and that he touched people, but had only just begun to touch me.” In a later interview, she would also tell Rolling Stone of the meeting, “I just thought he was brilliant and superb and so on. And I think shortly after that, he wrote ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’.”

Dylan had actually seen Baez on TV earlier, when he was still in Minnesota – on a 1960 CBS show, Folk Sound USA, where she performed with other artists. “I couldn’t stop looking at her,” he would later write in his book, Chronicles. “She was wicked looking — shiny black hair that hung down over the curve of slender hips, drooping lashes… The sight of her made me high. All that and then there was her voice. A voice that drove out bad spirits. It was like she’d come down from another planet.” She sang “in a voice straight to God,” Dylan wrote, and “was an exceptionally good instrumentalist.”

“However illogical it might have seemed,” Dylan wrote, “something told me that she was my counterpart – that she was the one that my voice could find perfect harmony with. At the time there was nothing but distance and worlds and big divides between her and me. I was still stuck in the boondocks. Yet some strange feeling told me that we would inevitably meet up…”

April-May 1963. Local billing for Bob Dylan’s performances at the Café Yana in Cambridge, MA.

However, it would be at their meeting some years later, in April 1963, that Baez and Dylan would connect in a more lasting way, according to David Hajdu’s 2001 book, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina.

The meeting occurred at a Cambridge apartment on April 21st, 1963, following a Sunday night hootenanny at Club 47 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The club that night was packed, especially since word got out that rising star, Joan Baez would be there.

As was custom at hootenannies, performers took turns on stage, each offering a song or two, Dylan among them. Dylan had been in town playing at the Yana club.

But later that night, following the Club 47 performances, Sally Schoenfeld, a Cambridge singer, along with her roommates, threw an impromptu gathering at their apartment above a dry goods store on Harvard Square. And this is where Dylan and Baez would have one of their first early, longer encounters.

At the Schoenfeld party that night, as he had done once before with Baez at an earlier meeting in Greenwich Village, Dylan asked about Joan’s younger sister, Mimi, which had irked Joan. But he also asked Joan if she wanted to hear a new song he had written. And as he began playing his guitar and singing, “With God On Our Side,” the room then fell silent

David Hajdu’s 2001 book, “Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina.” Click for Amazon.

According to Hajdu’s book, by the end of the song’s nine verses, “Joan Baez was no longer indifferent to Bob Dylan”. She was startled by the music she heard, and “fascinated with the fact that the enigma in the filthy jeans had created it.” As Hajdu’s account continues:

“When I heard him sing ‘With God on Our Side,’ I took him seriously,” said Joan. “I was bowled over. I never thought anything so powerful could come out of that little toad. It was devastating. ‘With God on Our Side’ is a very mature song. It’s a beautiful song. When I hear that, it changed the way I thought of Bob. I realize that he was more mature than I thought. He even looked a little better.”

Dylan also played a few other songs that evening, including “The Death of Emmett Till,” “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” and “Masters of War.” Those songs astounded some of those listening, and according to Hajdu, the songs “seemed to overwhelm Baez.” Hajdu also noted parenthetically:

…In one interview, Baez recalled ‘The Death of Emmett Till,’ not ‘With God on Our Side,’ as the Dylan song that changed her view of him and prompted her to take up protest music; “I was basically a traditional folksinger,” she said. “I was not ‘political’ at that time. When I heard ‘Emmett Till’ I was knocked out. It was my first political song. That song turned me into a political folksinger.” Although the songs varied in separate recollections, the same point remained: one of Dylan’s early protest songs inspired Baez to rethink her career.

And those who knew her would acknowledge that Baez was not easily impressed. Still, she was moved by what Dylan was doing. “It’s fair to say [that] I fell under that spell of his,” said Baez. “Nobody was writing like that. He was writing exactly what I wanted to hear. It was [as if] he was giving voice to the ideas I wanted to express but didn’t know how.”

Photos of April 1963 Club 47 after-party at Sally Schoenfeld’s Cambridge, MA apartment – at left, showing Joan Baez, and at right, Bob Dylan. Photos by Rick Stafford from book “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down”. Click for updated edition.

It was after 2 a.m. when Dylan’s little impromptu concert at the Schoenfeld apartment had ended. Joan had to fly back to California. But again, according to Hajdu:

“…she wanted to hear more of the songs Bob was writing; perhaps he could teach some of them to her at another time. They should get together again, she told him. He was going to be in New York for a while, recording songs for his next album; then he was going to California, supposed to play and Monterey Folk Festival in a few weeks, he said. She should come and hear him. She could sing something with him, if she wanted to. Joan thanked him and said she liked that idea, She lived near Monterrey. In fact, she said, he was welcome to come to her house and visit, while he was in the area. Bob said sure, that sounded cool…

Part of NYTimes story on CBS barring Dylan’s John Birch Society song for the Ed Sullivan TV show.

Dylan would take Baez up on the Monterey Folk Festival invitation. But before he did, he would run into a bit of controversy. On May 12 he was told at a rehearsal for his scheduled Ed Sullivan Show TV appearance in New York, that he could not use the song, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” a satirical song he had planned to use for the scheduled May 12th appearance on the show. The Sullivan Show was then highest-rated variety show in the nation, where the Beatles would appear to great fanfare a year later. Dylan was told by CBS he’d have to sing a different song or change the lyrics. But rather than alter his song or substitute another, Dylan instead decided not to appear and walked out. The episode generated a bit of free news coverage for Dylan.

Meanwhile, when he did get to California six days later to join Joan Baez at the Monterey Folk Festival on May 18th, 1963, it would be his first-ever West Coast performance. At the festival, he performed his John Birch Society song along with “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Masters of War,” concluding with Baez joining him on, “With God on Our Side.” Also appearing at the festival were Peter, Paul & Mary, The Weavers, The Dillards, The Rooftop Singers, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and others.

July 27, 1963. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez finishing their set at the Newport Folk Festival, famously photographed by Rowland Scherman (rowlandscherman.com). Special Collections, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Nine days later, by the end of May 1963, Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan – the one with he and Suze Rotolo on the cover – was released. It would prove to be his breakout album.

Following the murder of Mississippi civil rights worker, Medgar Evers, on June 12th, 1963, Dylan wrote a song about the incident, titled “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” which sought to raise the systemic social and political elements of racism that bred the assassin. And in early July 1963, he performed that song and others at a civil rights gathering on Silas Magee’s farm in Greenwood, Mississippi along with Pete Seeger and others.

But later that month, an important break for Dylan came in July when Baez invited him to join her on stage at the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island (photo above) before a crowd of about 10,000. Dylan performed two duets with Baez there, and would later join her on her August 1963 tour.

Aug 19, 1963. Part of NYTimes story reporting on Baez-Dylan concert.

At Her Concerts

In early August, for example, he performed with her at the Joan Baez Concert at the Camden, New Jersey Music Fair, where he did a short solo set then duets with Baez.

On August 10th Dylan was again her guest at a Joan Baez concert in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Then, in mid-month — on August 13th, 14th, and 16th — Dylan joined Baez again as a guest performer at her concerts in Connecticut and Massachusetts

Also that month, on August 17th, 1963, he appeared as an unannounced guest at a Joan Baez concert at the Forest Hills Music Festival at the Tennis Stadium in Queens, New York, where nearly 15,000 heard Baez and Dylan perform new folk songs.

Reporting on that concert, Robert Shelton of the New York Times noted of Baez:

“With dignified modesty the soprano folk singer devoted more than half of her program to new songs by Bob Dylan, sung either by herself or by the young minstrel-poet in an unannounced appearance.”

During the concert, Baez told her audience: “Bobby Dylan says what a lot of people my age feel, but cannot say.”

By then, she and Dylan had appeared together at least half a dozen times since the Newport Folk Festival.

Robert Sheldon of the Times concluding his report on the Forest Hills concert, noted: “Miss Baez’s ability to hold and move an audience by herself is widely known. To have her so closely align herself with Mr. Dylan’s charismatic poetry resulted in an unforgettable evening.”

August 1963: NYTimes front-page photos and reporting on the “March on Washington” for civil rights.

March on Washington

But there were more memorable Baez-Dylan moments to come that summer, not least, when they both appeared in Washington, D.C. at the famous August 28th, 1963 March on Washington.

At that historic event, a crowd of 200,000 or more converged on the Washington Mall and Lincoln Memorial for a day-long protest and petitioning the federal government for civil rights.

The day’s events included a number of speeches, the most famous of which was the Dr. Martin Luther King “I-Have-A Dream” speech. Protest and folk music was also part of the day’s messaging.

Joan Baez led the crowds in several verses of “We Shall Overcome” and “Oh Freedom,” while Dylan performed “Only a Pawn in Their Game” and “When the Ship Comes In,” the latter on which he was joined by Baez.

Other artists also performed that day. Peter, Paul and Mary sang “If I Had a Hammer” and the Dylan song, “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Odetta sang “I’m On My Way.”

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“Dylan’s Ship Comes In”
August 1963

“When The Ship Comes In”
Bob Dylan, 1963-64

Oh, the time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin’
Like the stillness in the wind
Before the hurricane begins
The hour that the ship comes in

And the sea will split
And the ships will hit
And the sands on the shoreline
will be shaking
Then the tide will sound
And the waves will pound
And the morning will be a-breakin`

Oh, the fishes will laugh
As they swim out of the path
And the seagulls they’ll be smiling
And the rocks on the sand
Will proudly stand
The hour that the ship comes in

And the words that are used
For to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they’re spoken
For the chains of the sea
Will have busted in the night
And will be buried at the bottom
of the ocean

A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

Then the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin’
And the ship’s wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’

Oh, the foes will rise
With the sleep still in their eyes
And they’ll jerk from their beds
and think they’re dreamin’
But they’ll pinch themselves and squeal
And know that it’s for real
The hour when the ship comes in

Then they’ll raise their hands
Sayin’ we’ll meet all your demands
But we’ll shout from the bow
your days are numbered
And like Pharaoh’s tribe
They’ll be drownded in the tide
And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered

It was August 1963 when Bob Dylan wrote the song, “When the Ship Comes In.” The song came about in something of an odd way, but reveals the brilliance of his sometimes fevered writing skill.

At the time, he and Joan Baez were traveling together, and Baez has stated (in the documentary film, No Direction Home) that the song was inspired by a hotel clerk who angered Dylan when they tried to get a room there. The clerk refused them a room because of Dylan’s “unwashed” appearance.

In those days, Dylan was not the most well kempt person of his generation, often acknowledged by Baez, who tried her best to clean him up. With the clerk, however, Baez vouched for Dylan’s good character, and the clerk relented.

Still, Dylan was enraged by the clerk’s charge, but channeled his anger into his pen, as Baez watched in amazement as he poured out the verse, then writing an epic song:

“,,,[H]e wrote a song that was just devastating – ‘The Hour That They Ship Come In.” And I could see him hanging them all. He’d never fess up to that sort of thing, but that’s what it seemed like to me. Working out whatever feelings he had about not being given a room, and a brilliant song – in one night!”

Music Player
“When the Ship Comes In”
Bob Dylan-1963

In the end, the song grew into a sprawling epic allegory about vanquishing the oppressive “powers that be.”

The song’s theme is essentially about people rising up against oppressive forces that are mistreating them. For Dylan, as one source observes, it was “a song of revolution that came out of a personal slight.”

Another believed inspiration, in part, according to Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin, was “Jenny’s Song” (or “Pirate Jenny”) from Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera.

Dylan’s former girlfriend, Suze Rotolo recalls that her interest in Brecht was an influence on Dylan:

“I was working for the Circle-in-the-Square Theater and he came to listen all the time. He was very affected by the song that Lotte Lenya’s known for, ‘Pirate Jenny’.”

“As Pirate Jenny dreams of the destruction of all her enemies by a mysterious ship,” explains biographer Heylin, “so Dylan envisages the neophobes being swept aside in ‘the hour when the ship comes in’.”

Shortly after Dylan wrote the song, he and Baez performed it together at the March on Washington, August 28th, 1963.

Dylan also performed the song later that year at Carnegie Hall on October 26, 1963, and this version would be used in the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese’s 2005 PBS TV documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home.

____________________________________________________

Following the August 1963 March on Washington, one account has it that Dylan, on the trip back to New York, read a news story about the murder of a 51 year-old black bar maid in Maryland who had been beaten by a drunken white restaurant customer. He resolved to write a song about the incident that would later be recorded as, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”

November 1963 album “Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2,” peaked at No. 7 on Billboard chart. Click for Amazon.

Dylan and Baez resumed their music making on October 9th, 1963, when Dylan joined Baez as guest performer at her concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

In November 1963, Baez released her second album of live concert material, Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2, from her concerts of early 1963. It was also the first Baez album to feature Bob Dylan covers – “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” and “With God on Our Side.”

Liner notes with this album included an untitled poem by Bob Dylan, which also appeared elsewhere as “Poem for Joanie.” The Baez album, meanwhile, would peak at No. 7 on the Billboard chart.

Through the remainder of 1963, mid-October through late December 1963, Dylan would have a half dozen or more solo concerts at various locations around the U.S., including the University of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium, Philadelphia’s Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Syracuse University’s Regent Theater, Princeton University, St. Lawrence College, Newark’s Mosque Theater, George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall.

1964

February 1964. Cover of Bob Dylan’s 3rd studio album, “The Times, They Are A Changin`.” Click for copy.

In February 1964, Dylan released his third studio album, The Times Are A-Changin’ – an album that included the title song and others, such as, “Only a Pawn in Their Game” and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”

Also in February 1964, Dylan embarked on a 20-day road trip across the U.S. in a station wagon with a few friends (folk musician Paul Clayton and the journalist Peter Karman), the purpose of which was to find inspiration for new songs. He worked from the back of the station wagon on a portable typewriter, and among songs composed were “Chimes of Freedom” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” airing the former at a Denver concert at the Municipal Auditorium Theater on February 15th It was also on this road trip when Dylan exclaimed about hearing certain Beatles tunes on the car radio while traveling through Colorado, the Beatles then dominating the pop charts, and Dylan much impressed by their “outrageous chords.” He would meet the Beatles later that year.

On February 25th, 1964, Dylan would appear on TV performing “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” on The Steve Allen Show, then a popular weekly variety show. Throughout 1964, meanwhile, Dylan and Baez would occasionally appear together, sometimes as guests of each other’s concerts, as Joan did on February 22nd, 1964 at Dylan’s concert at Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley, CA, or as Dylan did, as a “guest of Joan Baez,” at the Westchester County Center, White Plains, NY on April 19th, 1964. And through that year, each had their own separate concert schedules, with dozens of performances across the U.S., and in Dylan’s case, a few in England.

July 1964. Baez & Dylan at Newport Folk Festival.

By July 24-26, 1964, it was Newport Folk Festival time again, with Dylan now a major performer there, offering new material – “All I Really Wanna Do,” “To Ramona,” “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Chimes Of Freedom.”

At Dylan’s encore on July 26th, he invited Baez to join him for “With God On Our Side.”

While in Newport, at the Viking Motor Inn on July 24th, there was an after-show party with Dylan, Baez, Johnny Cash, June Carter, Jack Elliott, and others.

Reportedly at one point, Dylan and Cash sat on the floor trading songs, with their impromptu performances taped by Baez.

Separately, one series of photos from that same location of Dylan and others, including his manager, Albert Grossman, has Dylan sitting on Joan’s lap while he plays his guitar for a small group of fans. Two of those photos are shown below.

July ‘64. At Viking Motor Inn during Newport Festival, w/Albert Grossman (lower left, glasses), Bob, Joan, others.

...More of the same with Dylan turning toward fans, on Joan’s lap. Photos by David Gahr.

A couple of weeks later, on August 8th, 1964, the album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, was released. That was the same day Dylan joined Baez at her concert at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, Queens, New York.

Sometime that summer, Dylan had invited Joan, Mimi Baez Farina, and Dick Farina to house sit at manager Albert Grossman’s place in Woodstock, New York. Baez was then between tours, and spent some weeks there. A letter from Joan to her mother at the time noted, “…[Y]ou would be pleased to see what fun we have together,” she wrote. “I really love him.”

The Kramer Photos

The first time photographer Daniel Kramer saw Bob Dylan it was on TV when he performed “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” on The Steve Allen Show in February 1964. Kramer at that point had no idea who Dylan was, and didn’t know his name. “…[B]ut I was riveted by the power of the song’s message of social outrage, and to see Dylan reporting like a journalist through his music and lyrics,” Kramer later told Time magazine. “As a photographer,” he said, “that’s someone you want to photograph.”

Kramer then tried to arrange a photo shoot with Dylan, and for six months, got nowhere with his cold calls. But then, on one of his calls, Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, answered the phone and agreed to give Kramer an hour at his house in Woodstock, New York in late August 1964. Kramer then spent the day with Dylan, and later that fall, Dylan invited him to travel by station wagon with him to a Philadelphia concert that October, when the two got to know each other a little better. That led to a year of Kramer following Dylan around the country, and later, a famous book of Dylan photos, A Year and Day. One of the Kramer photos from October 1964 appears below.

October 1964. Dylan and Baez in a famous Daniel Kramer photo taken at the Newark Airport in front of a poster saying, fittingly – for the times and Dylan-Baez songs – “Protest Against The Rising Tide of Conformity.” But the poster is actually an ad promoting Booth’s Gin with the fine print at bottom reading: “Serve Booth’s House of Lords, the non-conformist gin from England.” Behind Joan’s leg, a bottle of the stuff is also shown.

There is another Daniel Kramer photo of the Dylan and Baez at Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center in New York on October 31 1964, taken at a concert after-party. In that photo, partly blurred because of the action, Kramer describes Baez, “in her exuberance, hugging and then lifting Dylan off his feet.” That same moment would also appear in the 2005 documentary film by Martin Scorsese, No Direction Home, with Baez explaining in a voice-over, “I was crazy about him. We were an item and we were having wonderful fun.”

October 31, 1964: During his Halloween concert at New York’s Lincoln Center in Philharmonic Hall (now David Geffen Hall), Dylan brought Joan Baez on stage for three duets. Here they are shown in a sequence of Daniel Kramer photos that night during one performance.

It was also during that fall of 1964 that Baez would recall some of her happier times with Dylan::

…Once he bought me a beautiful coat, a blue green corduroy thing. I wore it with a silk scarf. And I bought him a black jacket and some weird lavender cuff links, and a white shirt. I remember it was winter then, and we were staying at the Earle in the Village. We were leaning out the window one morning and watching the kids. I felt as if I’d been with Bobby for a hundred years and all those kids wandering around out there were our own children, you know…

Portion of news story in the Buffalo Courier-Express on Baez-Dylan concert there of November 1st, 1964.

On the concert scene, meanwhile, the Dylan-Baez joint appearances that fall continued to find receptive audiences. “Baez Joins Dylan and Rafters Ring,” proclaimed the headline of a story in the Buffalo Courier-Express of their November 1st, 1964 performance at the Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, New York. “Applause rose highest for ‘Mister Tambourine Man’ and “Now’s The Time for Your Tears,’ and leaped to its peak at Miss Baez’s entrance,” said that report.

But in 1964, a time when Dylan and Baez were still in a relationship and touring together, Dylan had become romantically involved with Sara Lownds, then married to magazine photographer Hans Lownds. Sara, previously known as Shirley Noznisky, an American actress and model, had changed her name to Sara after her marriage to Hans, with whom she had a child. But the marriage, his third, began to fail and Sara began going out on her own. She drove around town in an MG sports car Hans had given her, and was drawn to the Greenwich Village scene, where sometime in early 1964, she met Dylan. Later that year, Dylan and Sara moved into separate rooms in New York’s Hotel Chelsea to be near one another, along with Sara’s child.

Portion of news story from The Oregonian newspaper on April 23rd, 1964 Baez-Dylan concert in Portland, OR.

1965

In 1965, through late April, Joan Baez was still appearing with Dylan at a number of concerts in the U.S. – Philadelphia, PA; New Haven CT; Pittsburgh, PA; Raleigh, NC; Portland, OR, and Seattle WA. But their love affair was ending by then.

Daniel Kramer had also photographed Dylan and Sara Lownds at Albert Grossman’s cabin in Woodstock, NY in mid-March 1965. Another Kramer photo of Dylan with Grossman’s wife, Sally, appearing in the background, was used for the album cover of Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, released on March 22, 1965.

1967 film, “Don’t Look Back,” which covers Dylan’s 1965 tour of England. Click for film.

A month later, on April 26th, 1965 Dylan arrived in London for his English tour that would include concerts at six English cities, culminating in London on May 9th and 10th with two concerts at Royal Albert Hall.

This tour, and various backroom and rehearsal moments, was famously documented by film maker D. A. Pennebaker in his 1967 documentary, Don’t Look Back.

According to one review, that film, in part, also “painfully shows the end” of the Dylan-Baez union in one unhappy scene where Dylan allows friends to taunt Baez. And during his concert tour, Dylan did not invite Baez to join him on the stage at any of his tour stops.

Baez was quite hurt and disappointed by that and more, and would later tell Rolling Stone in a 1983 interview:

“I just sort of trotted around [on that tour], wondering why Bob wouldn’t invite me on stage, feeling very sorry for myself, getting very neurotic and not having the brains to leave and go home…It was sort of just wasted time.”

Still, at the time, Dylan and Baez were enough of an item together — as well as being the reigning king and queen of folk music — that the press was quite interested. The two were the focus of a press photo session on April 27th, 1965 behind the Savoy Hotel in the Embankment Gardens. A number of photos of Dylan and Baez resulted, shown together, in various shots on and near park benches there.

April 1965: Although their relationship was then ending, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez appeared together in a number of photos taken at a press photo shoot behind London’s Savoy Hotel in the Embankment Gardens area during Dylan’s tour of England.

Dylan, meanwhile, was soon to spend time with Sara Lownds. Following the last of his British concerts on May 10th in London, he and Sara would vacation in Portugal for a couple of weeks before returning home on June 2, 1965.

Back in the U.S. that summer, Dylan made his famous, career-pivoting “electric” rock ‘n roll performance at the July 22-25,1965 Newport Folk Festival – called his “declaration of independence” by some – to the consternation and boos of folk music fans that year. He left the stage after three songs.

Aug 30, 1965. Dylan’s 6th studio album, “Highway 61 Revisited,” a Top-10 performer, was released. Click for copy.

Several days before the Newport Festival, on July 20th, Dylan had released “Like a Rolling Stone,” a six-minute long rock ‘n roll song, which later peaked at No. 2 on the U.S. music charts and would become one of his more famous songs.

Music Player
“Like A Rolling Stone” – 1965

Dylan’s music then was actually heralding the rise of what would become “folk-rock,” as groups like the Byrds had demonstrated in April 1965, taking Dylan’s earlier acoustic-version “Mr. Tambourine Man” to the top of the charts with their electric cover version.

A second 1965 Dylan album, Highway 61 Revisited, his 6th studio album, was released on August 30th and became a Top Ten performer in the U.S. and UK, with mostly rock-‘n-roll type songs, among them, “Like A Rolling Stone,” “Tombstone Blues,” and “Highway 61 Revisited.”

On the concert scene, Dylan continued touring through the remainder of 1965 with dozens of shows, and depending on the location and audience, he would still receive mixed reviews here and there about his move to rock ‘n roll. He and Baez, meanwhile, went their separate ways.

Late 1960s-early 1970s, Woodstock, NY. Bob Dylan and wife Sara with three of their children.

Bob & Sara

Dylan married Sara Lownds on November 22, 1965. Their first child, Jesse Byron Dylan, was born on January 6, 1966.

By 1970, he and Sara would have three more children together: Anna Lea, (July 1967); Samuel Isaac Abram (July 1968); and Jakob Luke (December 1969). Dylan also adopted Sara’s daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Lownds.

Dylan, however, had been involved in a motorcycle accident near Woodstock, New York in July 1966, about month after he released his 7th studio album, Blonde On Blonde. He then went into seclusion for a time thereafter, not appearing in concert for some years. But his songwriting and music making didn’t stop.

In 1967, Dylan recorded over 100 songs at his Woodstock home and in the basement of another nearby house known as “Big Pink” – the place where he and his companion musicians, first known at the Hawks, and later, The Band, did their recording.

More Dylan albums would come as well– in fact, a succession of Top 10 and Top 20 albums were released though the late 1960s and early 1970s – John Wesley Harding (Dec 1967, No. 2), Nashville Skyline (Apr 1969. No. 3), Self Portrait (June 1970, No. 4), New Morning (Oct 1970, No. 7), Pat Garrett & Bill The Kid (July 1973, No. 16), Dylan ( Nov 1973, No. 17), and Planet Waves (Jan. 1974, No.1). In January 1974, Dylan, backed by the Band, embarked on a North American tour of 40 concerts—his first tour in seven years.

October 1965. Joan Baez featured on the cover of her 6th studio album, “Farewell, Angelina,” which takes its name from a Bob Dylan song. Click for copy.

Joan Baez, meanwhile, had continued her music making as well. Her 6th studio album, Farewell, Angelina, which takes its name from a Bob Dylan song, came in October 1965. That album featured the title song and three other Dylan songs, plus others from folk singers such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

This album charted at No. 10. It was followed by two more studio albums: a Christmas album, Noel, released in October 1966, and later, Joan, an August 1967 album that rose to No. 38 on the Billboard chart.

Activist Joan

Baez, already a committed activist on several fronts, also continued what would be a very crowded lifetime of protest appearances, marches, and benefit concerts on behalf of various causes. You name it, she was there – civil rights, the Vietnam War, prison and death penalty reform, environmental causes, farm worker rights, and more.

In 1964, she had withheld 60 percent of her 1963 income tax from the IRS to protest military spending. She also participated in the birth of the Free Speech movement at UC Berkeley in 1964. A year later she co-founded the Institute For The Study of Nonviolence near her home in Carmel Valley, CA. In 1966, she stood with Cesar Chavez and migrant farm workers striking for fair wages. In September 1966, she joined Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead a group of children to a newly integrated school in Grenada, Mississippi. That December she opposed capital punishment during a Christmas vigil at San Quentin. In mid-August 1967, some 30,000 came out to a free concert she gave near the Washington Monument in D.C. to protest the Vietnam War.

1965, Civil Rights march.. James Baldwin, Joan Baez, James Foreman in Montgomery, Alabama during the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march.

In October 1967, Baez, her mother, and nearly 70 other women were arrested for blocking, Armed Forces Induction Center at Oakland, California, trying to prevent the processing of military inductees during the Vietnam War. During her incarceration, she met Vietnam War draft resistor, David Harris. She and Harris later teamed up and announced a nationwide Vietnam War protest tour in early March 1968. Thereafter the couple became involved.

Joan & David

Joan Baez and David Harris were married in New York on March 26th, 1968, beginning their marriage at Struggle Mountain in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains. In May 1968, Harris was tried in federal court in San Francisco for draft evasion, convicted of a felony and sentenced to three years in prison, then appealing his sentence for a year, though unsuccessfully.

Baez book, "Daybreak." Click for copy.

Musically in 1968, Baez released two more albums – Baptism in June, and a two-disc album of Dylan covers that December, Any Day Now, reaching No. 30.

Later in 1968, Baez published her first memoir, Daybreak. She also released an album in June 1969, titled David’s Album, named for her then husband, who favored country music, which this album featured.

On July 15, 1969 federal marshals came to the Harris/Baez home in the Santa Cruz to take Harris to jail to begin serving his sentence for resisting the draft.

Baez would later perform at the famous August 1969, Woodstock rock festival in upstate New York. Then some months pregnant, she did a 14-song set before an early a.m. crowd in the rain.

When the Woodstock documentary film was later released, Baez’s performance electrified audiences as much as any of the featured bands, and it also helped raise her musical and political profile.

A few months following her Woodstock appearance, Joan and David’s son, Gabriel, was born on December 2, 1969.

May 1970 cover story at Look magazine features David Harris, Joan Baez, and their infant son in a story titled “A Family Kept Apart by Conscience.”

In mid-May 1970, Look magazine — one of the popular general interest magazines of that time — featured Joan and David with their infant son in a cover photo and cover story, titled, “A Family Kept Apart by Conscience.”

On March 15, 1971, Baez with her infant son, Gabriel, flew to La Tuna Federal Prison near El Paso, Texas, to welcome David’s release and to signal to the press their continued mutual commitment to the peace movement.

Harris was released from prison after spending 20 months in Federal detention for draft evasion. However, he and Joan separated three months after his release and the couple divorced amicably in 1973. Harris went on to a long career as a distinguished journalist and author, reporting national and international stories.

Baez, meanwhile, had released two more albums in 1970 – One Day At A Time in March and Blessed Are in August, the latter reaching No. 11 on Billboard.

She also had a 1971 singles hit with “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” a song from The Band that went to No.1 for her on the Adult Contemporary chart, and No. 3 on Billboard Hot 100.

“Forever Young,” a song by Bob Dylan recorded in November 1973, which he released in January 1974, was also covered by Joan Baez that year and released as a single, rising to No. 13 for her on the Adult Contemporary chart. Later that year, in April 1974, Baez was featured on the cover of People magazine with the story tagline: “Joan Baez: New Life, New Songs, New Causes.”

Then came the phone call in 1974.

Dylan’s Call

It was Bob Dylan calling from a phone booth somewhere in the Midwest. Baez at the time happened to be at work trying to compose a new song of her own, as Dylan’s call arrived out of the blue.

The call, at least in part, would turn out to be the inspiration for one of her most popular songs, “Diamonds and Rust.” She wrote it in November 1974.

“Diamonds and Rust”
Joan Baez, 1975

Well I’ll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that’s not unusual
It’s just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I’d known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall

As I remember your eyes
Were bluer than robin’s eggs
My poetry was lousy you said
Where are you calling from?
A booth in the midwest
Ten years ago
I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust

Well you burst on the scene
Already a legend
The unwashed phenomenon
The original vagabond
You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you unharmed

Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you’re smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

Now you’re telling me
You’re not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It’s all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you’re offering me diamonds and rust
I’ve already paid

In later interview with music writer Mike Ragogna, Baez admitted that the character in the song is Dylan:

MR: ‘Diamonds and Rust’ was another magic moment. You’ve said when you began writing the song, it started as something else until Dylan phoned you. Then it became about him. That must have been one helluva call.

JB: He read me the entire lyrics to ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’[a Dylan song] that he’d just finished from a phone booth in the Midwest.

MR: What was the song [you were then writing] about originally?

JB: I don’t remember what I’d been writing about, but it had nothing to do with what it ended up as.

The resulting song that Baez crafted, captures the moment when former lover, Dylan, after about a decade absent, begins to come back into her life again, hearing a troubled voice on the line, even as she flashes to the past in remembrance.

But Baez, as songwriter and aroused narrator, is wary, though she travels down memory lane quite willingly and wistfully. The allure is still there, and the song becomes both a look back in time, and seemingly “not-going-there-again” answer to what appears to have been a Dylan query – or at least a reaching out of a personal kind.

Music Player
“Diamonds & Rust” – 1975

As she builds the song, Baez remembers all the details of their time together – from his Robin-egg blue eyes to cufflinks she bought him a decade ago. She also describes his early days and rise to prominence – and her meeting the “unwashed phenomenon” and “original vagabond” – the guy who told her that her poetry was lousy, but needfully, became her lover. He found safe harbor there; a “Madonna” to comfort him and more – “the girl on the half-shell,” as she put it.

The imagery she uses of their time together is visceral and moving – their winter breathes forming white clouds in the cold air of Washington Square, mingling and joining there: “Speaking strictly for me we both could have died then and there.” Pretty powerful, that!

But alas, as a decade before, she sees this clever wordsmith and lover of old being as vague as ever, and despite her knowledge of his elusive, wordy charms, she is tempted once again, knowing full well it could again lead to a fall. Still, at the end, the ball seems to be in his court?

When Dylan placed the surprise call to Baez in 1974, it came at a time when his marriage to Sara was reportedly on the rocks, and that he was possibly looking to rekindle his relationship with Baez.

Sara, however, is believed to have been the inspiration for a number of Dylan songs created during the 1960s and ’70s, among them: “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” from the 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde; “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” from early 1965; “She Belongs to Me,” from 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home, and “Sara,” from the 1976 album, Desire. But Dylan’s 1975 album, Blood on the Tracks, has been cited by some, at least in part, as describing the dissolving marriage between Bob and Sara Dylan. They divorced in 1977.

In 1973, Bob and Sara Dylan had sold their Woodstock home, then buying property in Malibu, California on Point Dume peninsula where they began building a large home, with continuing re-modelling as they lived there bringing some marital tensions. In April 1974, Dylan was then taking art classes in New York, as he and Sara also retained a house in Manhattan. But Dylan’s art lessons reportedly caused problems in the marriage.

Musically, meanwhile, Dylan was planning a new tour – a tour which Joan Baez would later join.

One of the early poster ad formats for the Rolling Thunder Revue.

Rolling Thunder

In the summer of 1975, Dylan had been thinking about a concert tour that would play smaller venues, and smaller towns and cities, where he could be closer to his audience, or as he put it, to “play for the people.”

Thus was born the Rolling Thunder Revue, a tour that would have 57 concerts in two legs—first in the American northeast and Canada in the fall of 1975, and a second leg in the American South and southwest in the spring of 1976.

Joan Baez appears to have joined the tour early on, becoming a key member and receiving top billing on some concert posters and advertising. One Wikipedia.org account, summarizing part of one of the early Rolling Thunder shows, noted:

…Dylan and Baez often opened the second half of the show duetting in the dark on ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’ Then Baez would take center stage with a dynamic six-song set, followed by a solo set from Dylan. He was joined by the band for a few numbers, until the finale song, Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ featuring everyone on stage…

1975. Joan Baez and Bob Dylan (in white face makeup) during Rolling Thunder Revue concert at Harvard Square Theater, Cambridge, MA, November 19, 1975. Photo, Peter Simon.

In the end, the Rolling Thunder Revue would include numerous well-known performers and backing musicians, among them: Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Ronee Blakely and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, violinist Scarlet Rivera, bassist Rob Stoner, and drummer Howie Wyeth, plus Mick Ronson on guitar, and others. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was also there, as was Dylan’s wife, Sara, for a portion of the tour, having a staring role in the film Dylan was making of the tour, Renaldo and Clara. Sara appeared in many scenes, playing Clara to Dylan’s Renaldo, along with Baez who played The Woman in White. Some have reported that the Dylan movie was, in part, an attempted tribute to Sara.

Mid-1970s. An interesting moment of some apparent humor between Joan Baez and Bob Dylan during Rolling Thunder Revue tour of 1975. Photo, Ken Regan.

In addition to the Dylan film, a later documentary was also made – released as a 2019 Netflix film, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. The film, called a “pseudo-documentary,” is composed of both fictional and non-fictional material covering the 1975 portion of the tour.

January 15, 1976 edition of Rolling Stone magazine did a cover feature on the Rolling Thunder tour with a cover photo of Baez and Dylan.

But for Baez, who showed another, looser side of herself on that tour – a tour characterized as “carnival” by some, though musically positive and creative — there was still in the air a bit of the bad vibes from Dylan’s decade-old 1965 English-tour, feeling like an outsider on occasion, not being into drugs as others were.

Among the the high points of the tour itself, however, was a Madison Square Garden benefit concert on December 8, 1975 in New York for wrongly-convicted boxer, Rubin Hurricane Carter (Dylan’s November 1975 song, “Hurricane,” had become a Top 40 hit). At that date, in addition to the tour’s traveling entourage of performers, special quests included: Muhammad Ali, Coretta Scott King, Roberta Flack, Robbie Robertson, Bill Franklin and John J. Hooker, plus a “vocal appearance” by Rubin Hurricane Carter.

The January 15, 1976 edition of Rolling Stone magazine did a cover feature on the Rolling Thunder tour with a cover photo of Baez and Dylan together in winter coats and hats, with story taglines: “Rolling Zeus? Dylan, Baez & The Whole Dharma Carnival on a Voyage to Reclaim America,” by Nat Hentoff, “Plus Nine Poems by Alan Ginsberg,” and a related “Hurricane Carter” story.

In 1982, Dylan and Baez performed together at the Peace Sunday anti-nuke concert at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena California on June 6, 1982. Some 85,000 people attended the all-day concert calling for nuclear disarmament. Among the stars performing during the 10-hour concert were: Stevie Wonder, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Dan Fogelberg, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Gary U.S. Bonds, Gil Scott-Heron, Donovan, and Tierra. Baez, herself a surprise guest at the concert, paused midway during her 20-minute set at dusk to introduce her surprise guest, Bob Dylan, as the two then performed together.

June 1982. Two photos of Dylan and Baez performing at the “Peace Sunday” nuclear disarmament concert in Pasadena, CA, where Baez in the first photo is shown playfully grabbing a handful of Dylan’s hair. The concert, with multiple acts, was attended by 85,000 that day.

Baez and Dylan would again tour together briefly in Europe in the late spring of 1984, a twenty-seven date European tour with Santana. But Baez withdrew from that tour after not getting the singing time she believed was promised her, culminating in a somewhat awkward goodbye scene in Dylan’s dressing room. In that scene, recounted in her 1997 book and a Rolling Stone story, Dylan is reported to have run his hand under her skirt and up her thigh as they spoke, complimenting her “great legs,” prompting Joan to remove his hand, then kissing his head and taking her leave. At that point in their respective careers, they each had 30 more years ahead of them, which they each pursued separately in their own unique ways.

Yet some years later, in the 2023 documentary, Joan Baez: I Am a Noise, she explains being swept up by Dylan and the social fervor of the early 1960s, though hurtfully wounded in the end: “I was just stoned on that talent… I was just there riding the wave with him. I think Dylan broke my heart because it was so shattering. That, I admit.”

Portrait painting of Bob Dylan by Joan Baez in 2018, titled, “Baby Blue.” Click for her portrait paintings.

But for Baez, who turned to painting in her later years – producing quite good portraits of fellow musicians that are now sold by various studios – a couple of Dylan portraits appear to have helped her exorcize old Dylan demons. As she put it in one 2023 interview….

…I was doing his portrait one day in my art studio. And it was a portrait of him when he was very young. And I put on his music, and all of that resentment, all of that bullshit, just drained away, it drained away. And I wrote him a letter and told him so. And that was it. I didn’t put a return address or an email or anything that was in any way trying to get something out of him. I just wanted him to know how much he meant to me. How much his music had meant to me. And I may never see him again, and that’s okay too.

Legacies

The Baez and Dylan legacies, in any case, remain large and lasting. Each of them continued recording and performing through the 2010s. And over their 50-plus years of making music – and/or “good trouble” – they would each collect a long and impressive list of both music awards and other honors. Among these, for example, is the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to Dylan by President Obama in 2012, and the Noble Prize for literature in 2016. Also that year, a vast archive of Dylan material and artifacts were purchased for an estimated $20 million by the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a Bob Dylan Center and the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies now operate, the latter at the University of Tulsa.

2021. Joan Baez in her art studio.

Baez, for her part, has received all manner of recognition for her peace, civil rights, humanitarian, and environmental works, including awards from the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International, as well as the Woody Guthrie Prize and the John Steinbeck Award. Her legacy of nonviolent political action is marked by her appearance and association throughout her life with leaders of conscience such as: Dr. Martin Luther King, Ceasar Chavez, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, and Nelson Mandela, as well as her gutsy visits to dangerous places, including North Vietnam during the war (1972); Northern Ireland (1978); Brazil, Chile and Argentina (1981); Israel and Palestine (1988); and war-torn Sarajavo (1993).

Both Baez and Dylan, of course, have also sold millions of recordings worldwide, won various Grammy awards, music Hall of Fame honors, and Lifetime Achievement awards, with some of their works selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry. Both of their careers have also been celebrated at Kennedy Center honors.

In addition, there is a considerable list of books and documentaries about each of their respective lives and careers, some of which are listed or shown below in “Sources.”

See also at this website these other Dylan-related stories: “Only A Pawn in Their Game,” “Dylan’s Hard Rain,” and “Music Rights Deals, 2020s.” Additional story choices on Music or Politics can be found at those respective topics pages.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find her, please make a donation to help support the research, writing. and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 19 December 2023
Last Update: 10 March 2024

Comments to:+ jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Diamonds & Rust: Joan & Bob, 1960s-1980s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, December 19, 2023.

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Daniel Kramer photos, “Bob Dylan: A Year and A Day,” Taschen. Click for Amazon.

“Bob Dylan’s American Journey, 1956-1966.” Promo CD, SonyBMG w/10 songs. Click for CD.

3-disc set, “Joan Baez: The Complete Gold Castle Masters.” Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Joan Baez's 1975 album, "Diamonds & Rust," includes the hit single of that name and others. Click for Amazon.

2019 film, “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.” Click for Criterion edition.

Elizabeth Thomson/s 2020 biography, “Joan Baez: The Last Leaf,” Palazzo Editions, 224 pp. Click for Amazon.

2005: Paperback edition of Bob Dylan’s memoir, “Chronicles,” Vol. 1, published by Simon & Schuster. Click for Amazon.

2009 PBS documentary, “Joan Baez - How Sweet The Sound.” Click for this & other Baez docs & videos at Amazon.

“Live at The Gaslight 1962" is a CD with 10 songs from Bob Dylan performances at the Gaslight cafe in New York's Greenwich Village; Columbia Records, 2005. Click for CD.

“Joan Baez - Greatest Hits,” digitally remastered. Twenty songs. Click for Amazon.

The Original Mono Recordings box set of Dylan's first 8 studio albums in mono on 9 CDs, released in October 2010 on Legacy Recordings with 56-page booklet. Click for CD.

“Baez Sings Dylan” – CD or digital – twenty songs. Click for Amazon.

Clinton Heylin’s “Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973,” Chicago Review Press, 2009. Click for book.

Markus Jaeger’s 2021 book, “Popular Is Not Enough: The Political Voice Of Joan Baez: A Case Study In The Biographical Method,” ibidem Press, 242 pp. Click for Amazon.

“Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” from 1999. Reissued & remastered in 2006. Click for copy.

Popular, deluxe two CD edition of “Joan Baez 75th Birthday Celebration” from 2016 performance. Click for CD or digital.

Howard Sounes biography, “Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan,” updated edition, 2021. Penguin edition shown. Click for Amazon.

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Robert Shelton, “Joan Baez Sings in Folk Program; Soprano and Guitarist Gives Second Major Concert,” New York Times, May 19, 1962, p. 18.

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“Folk Singing: Sibyl With Guitar”(cover story), Time, November 23, 1962.

Patrick Murfin, “Joan Baez — Our Lady of Perpetual Prophesy With Murfin Reminis-cence,” PatrickMurfin.blogspot.com, Janu-ary 9, 2020.

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“Bob Dylan’s New York, 1961,” Gotham Center.org, Excerpted from Stephen Petrus book, Folk City: New York and the American Folk Music Revival, Oxford University Press.

Michael Pollak, “Bob Dylan’s Quiet Debut in New York City,” NYTimes.com, July 3, 2015.

Robert Shelton, “Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Folk-Song Stylist,” New York Times, Sep-tember 29,1961.

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Margot Adler, “Suze Rotolo, Dylan’s Cover Girl, Has Died,” All Things Considered / NPR.org, March 1, 20114.

“Remembering Suze Rotolo, Dylan’s ‘Free-wheeling’ Muse,” Fresh Air/NPR.org, March 1, 2011.

Robert Shelton, “Bob Dylan Sings His Compositions; Folk Musician, 21, Displays Originality at Town Hall,” New York Times, April 13,1963, p. 11.

Val Adams, “Satire on Birch Society Barred From Ed Sullivan’s TV Show,” New York Times, May 14, 1963, p. 79.

Robert Shelton, “Joan Baez Sings at Forest Hills; 14,700 Hear Her and Bob Dylan in Folk Concert New Songs in Repertory,” New York Times, August 19, 1963, p. 21..

“The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” Wikipedia .org.

Rowland Scherman, “Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on Porch #1 After Finishing Their Set, Newport Folk Festival….” Newport, RI, July 27, 1963, Special Collections, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Libraries, and RowlandScherman.com.

“Bob Dylan and Joan Baez 1963 March on Washington,” YouTube.com, anblog21, Nov 29, 2011.

Olof Björner, “Before The Hurricane Begins; Bob Dylan 1963. A Summary of Recording & Concert Activities, Releases, Tapes & Books,” BJorner.com.

“Another Side of Bob Dylan” (album), Wikipedia.org.

Olof Björner, “Still on the Road / 1964 Con-certs, Interviews and Recording Sessions,” BJorner.com.

“When the Ship Comes In,” Wikipedia.org.

Frank Reagan, “2 Folksingers Entertain At White Plains,” The Daily News (Tarrytown, NY), April 20, 1964.

“Baez Joins Dylan and Rafters Ring,” Buffalo Courier-Express (Buffalo, NY), November 2, 1964, p. 8.

“Folk Singer Bob Dylan To Perform in San Jose,” Santa Cruz Sentinel (Santa Cruz, CA), November 4, 1964.

Joe Harrand, “Bob Dylan Songs Don’t Entertain,” The Capital Times (Madison, WI), November 20, 1964.

“List of Bob Dylan Concert Tours,” Wiki-pedia.org.

“Bob Dylan Concerts 1960s,” Fandom.com.

“Words Fill My Head; Album Liner Notes,” BJorner.com.

“The Farina Files, Timeline,” Nebula5.org.

Bob Dylan Concerts, 1964,” SetList.fm.

Berserk Research, “Bob Dylan’s 1965 Appear-ances: A Documentation” (PDF file), Bob Dylan-ComeWritersAndCritics.com, 2022.

“Sara Dylan,” Wikipedia.org.

Jack Berry, “Baez, Dylan Inspire 3,500 Portland Fans,” The Oregonian, April 24, 1965 (April 23rd concert, Public Auditorium, Portland, Oregon).

Nora Ephron, “Hush! Bob Dylan Is Wed,” New York Post, February 1966.

Phillis Funke, “Folk Rock Review: Join The Dylan Rebellion – It’s Pallid,” Louisville Courier-Journal, February 6, 1966.

Jules Siegel, “Bob Dylan: ‘Well, What Have We Here?’,” The Saturday Evening Post, July 30, 1966.

“David Harris & Joan Baez, 1967-2014,” The Bob Fitch Photography Archive: Movements for Change, Stanford Libraries / Stanford .edu.

B. Drummond Ayres, Jr. “30,000 in Capital at Free Concert by Joan Baez; Folk Singer Chides D.A.R., Which Protested U.S. Site,” New York Times, August 15, 1967, p. 33.

Alfred G. Aronowitz, “Enter the King, Bob Dylan” Saturday Evening Post, November 2,1968.

Richard Goldstein, “Is the Image Real?,” Review of Daybreak by Joan Baez (Dial Press, New York. 159 pp), The New York Times Book Review, September 8, 1968, p. 64.

William Hedgepeth, Jim Marshall (photog-rapher), “Joan Baez & David Harris: A Family Kept Apart by Conscience“(cover), Look (magazine), May 5, 1970.

Anthony Scaduto, Bob Dylan. An Intimate Biography, New American Library, 1973.

Joan Baez & Bob Dylan (cover), Rolling Stone, January 15, 1976.

Joyce Maynard, “Old Baez Image Is Slow to Fade,” New York Times, September 8, 1976, p. 40.

“The Berman Collection: High-Quality Scans of Papers Chronicling Bob Dylan’s Early Years” (1963-1979), WordPress.com.

Kurt Loder, “Joan Baez: The Rolling Stone Interview; Old Folk at Home,” Rolling Stone.com, April 14, 1983.

Robert Shelton, No Direction Home. The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, New American Library, 1986.

Barbara Goldsmith, “Life on Struggle Mountain,” (Book Review, Joan Baez book, A Voice To Sign With: A Memoir, 378 pp. New York: Summit Books), The New York Times Book Review, June 21, 1987, p. 30

Colman McCarthy, “The Clear Voice of Joan Baez,” WashingtonPost.com, June 7, 1987.

James Gavin, Pop Music. “Joan Baez, the First Lady of Folk,” New York Times, Sunday, November 29, 1992, Arts & Leisure Section, p. 25.

Eric Von Schmidt and Jim Rooney, Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years. Amherst, Mass: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994. Click for book on Amazon.

Clinton Heylin, A Life In Stolen Moments. Bob Dylan Day By Day 1941-1995, Schirmer Books 1996, 404 pp. Click for Amazon.

Janet Maslin, Books of the Times, “Protest and Soap Opera for 4 Singers of the 60’s.” Review of David Hajdu’s 2001 Book, Positively Fourth Street The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña, New York Times, May 17, 2001.

Howard Sounes, Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan, updated, 2001. Double-day, 608 pp. Click for Amazon.

Clinton Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited, 2003, Harper Enter-tainment, 816 pp. Click for Amazon.

Peter Howell, “Joan Baez Gets Her Apology,” TheStar.com / Toronto Star, September 21, 2009.

Arthur Levy, “Fifty Years of Joan Baez,” September 24, 2009,” PBS.org /American Masters.

Stephen Pate, “Joan Baez Beautiful Obses-sion Haunts Diamonds and Rust; The Folk Music Queen Joan Baez Tells Her Bob Dylan Story in a Song and PBS Special,” NJNnetwork.com, September 25, 2009.

Bob Dylan & Joan Baez – 2009 Documen-tary,” YouTube.com.

Mike Ragogna, Contributor, “How Sweet The Sound: An Interview With Joan Baez,” HuffPost.com, Mar 18, 2010.

Andy Greene, “Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan’s Girlfriend and the Muse Behind Many of His Greatest Songs, Dead at 67,” Rolling Stone.com, February 27, 2011.

Phil Bicker, “A Year and a Day with Bob Dylan,” Time.com, March 19, 2012.

Sam Tanenhaus, “A Dylan Insider’s Back Pages,” New York Times, August 7, 2014.

Rick Sebak, “Joan Baez’s Night of Music and Peace,” PittsburghMagazine.com, August 20, 2014.

“Joan Baez – In Pictures; For More than Half a Century, Joan Baez Has Been Music’s Most Outspoken Activist. Ahead of Her European Tour We Look Back on a Life of Performance and Protest,” TheGuardian .com, August 30, 2014.

Lily Rothman, “Library of Congress Selects Joan Baez Album for Preservation,” Time.com, March 25, 2015.

Mark Bulik, “1961: Bob Dylan Takes the Stage,” New York Times, September 2, 2015.

Ben Sisario, “Bob Dylan’s Secret Archive,” NYTimes.com, March 2, 2016.

Stephen Raskauskas, “Joan Baez Talks Trump, Taxes, and Dylan,” WFMT.com, October 27, 2016.

Barney Hoskyns, Small Town Talk: Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix & Friends in the Wild Years of Woodstock. Da Capo Press. 2016. Click for Amazon.

David Browne, “Joan Baez’s Fighting Side: The Life and Times of a Secret Badass. The Sixties Icon Helped Invent the Idea of the Protest Singer – More than Five Decades Later, She’s Still at It,” RollingStone.com, April 5, 2017.

Kyle Almond, “A Year – And a Day – With Bob Dylan,” Photographs by Daniel Kramer, CNN.com, January 2019.

Andy Greene, “Flashback: Bob Dylan and Joan Baez Duet for the Last Time; Watch the Sixties Duo Perform ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ on Their Ill-Fated 1984 Tour,” RollingStone .com, May 2, 2019.

Patrick Ryan, “Netflix Documentary ‘Rolling Thunder Revue’ Gives Intimate Look at Bob Dylan and Joan Baez’s Relationship,” USAToday.com, June 10, 2019.

“Fifty Years of Joan Baez,” PBS.org/WNET/ American Masters.

“Diamonds & Rust (song),” Wikipedia.org

Jeff Tamarkin, “Joan Baez’s ‘Diamonds & Rust’ — Reflections on an Old Friend Named Bob,” BestClassicBands.com, October 29, 2020.

Andy Greene, “Flashback: Joan Baez and Marianne Faithfull Sing ‘As Tears Go By’ in Bob Dylan’s Hotel Room…,” RollingStone .com, January 27, 2021.

Clinton Heylin, The Double Life of Bob Dylan A Restless, Hungry Feeling, 1941-1966, Little, Brown, 2021, 704 pp.

“Rolling Thunder Revue,” Wikipedia.org.

Mimi Haddon, “Matrices of ‘Love and Theft’: Joan Baez Imitates Bob Dylan,” Twentieth-Century Music, Volume 18, Issue 2, June 2021, pp. 249-279, Cambridge University Press

Karen Heller, “Listening to Her Older Records, Joan Baez Hears Perfection in an ‘Unsurpassable’ Voice; The Kennedy Center Honoree Redefined Folk Music and Showed up Wherever Her Songs and Courage Were Needed,” WashingtonPost.com, May 12, 2021.

“The 80 Greatest Dylan Covers of All Time; From Hendrix, Baez, and The Byrds to Cher, Adele, and the Roots…,” RollingStone.com. May 28, 2021.

Colman McCarthy, “Joan Baez, Singer and Peacemaker, Finally Honored by Kennedy Center,” NCRonline.org (National Catholic Register), June 5, 2021.

Annie Gowen, “At 80, Bob Dylan Finally Gets a Museum,” WashingtonPost.com, May 6, 2022.

Skyler Caruso, “Bob Dylan’s Life in Photos. Recognized as a Legacy Writer, a Folk Protest Hero and a Voice of a Generation, Singer-Songwriter Bob Dylan Has Solidified His Status as a Cultural and Musical Icon since the 1960s….,” People.com, updated, December 8, 2022.

Nick Vivarelli, “Joan Baez on Visual Memoir Doc ‘I Am a Noise’ in Which She Reveals Abuse From Her Father and Talks Heartbreak by Bob Dylan,” Variety.com, February 17, 2023.

Martin Kielty, “How Joan Baez Got Over Her Resentment for Bob Dylan,” UltimateClassic Rock.com February 18, 2023.

Scott Roxborough, “Berlin: Joan Baez on Bob Dylan, Childhood Abuse and Hanging Up Her Guitar,” HollywoodReporter.com, February 24, 2023.

Ryan H. Walsh, “60 Years Ago, Bob Dylan’s Boston Debut Was a Freewheelin’ Good Time Weeks Before the Release of His Seismic ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,’ The Singer Performed Stunning New Originals at a Tiny Kenmore Square Cafe,” Boston Globe, April 19, 2023.

Ryan Walsh, “Bob Dylan in Boston 1963”(parts 1 & 2), RyanHamiltonWalsh .Tumblr.com.

Ilana Kaplan, “Joan Baez Reveals How She Found ‘Total Forgiveness’ for Bob Dylan Years After Breakup,” People.com, October 4, 2023.

Elizabeth Sandifer, “…The Case for Joan Baez,” EruditorumPress.com, October 16, 2023.

“Latest News,” JoanBaez.com.

Sarah M. Seltzer, “Joan Baez Looks Back, I Am a Noise, A Career-Spanning Documentary, Makes it Clear That the Folk Singer Was One of the Most Important Political Musicians of Her Generation,” TheNation.com, December 14, 2023.

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Martin Scorsese’s 2005 documentary, “No Direction Home.” Click for Amazon.

2023 PBS documentary on Joan Baez, “I Am a Noise.” Click for Amazon.

Film - Bob Dylan at Newport, 1963-1965. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Publishing & Politics

1900-1910, 1911-1920, 1921-1930, 1931-1940, 1941-1950, 1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980

“The Pasternak Saga”
…and Zhivago Chronicles

November 9, 2023 J.D.

Sept 1958. Boris Pasternak, at his home in Peredelkino, Russia, working in his garden, as photographed by American, Jerry Cook for Life magazine, shortly before his Nobel Prize nomination.

Boris Pasternak, in addition to being the renowned author of the famous Russian novel, Doctor Zhivago, was also a person of intrigue in his own life, which brought weight not only to the 1957 book, his Nobel Prize, and later, the award-winning 1965 Hollywood film, but also made him a figure in the Cold War politics of the 1950s-1960s period and beyond.

Doctor Zhivago was published in 1957, but not in Russia, where it was banned for 30 years. It’s first publication in the West was not without considerable travail and courage on Pasternak’s part, given the book’s pro-individual and anti-totalitarian sentiments.

Pasternak loved his country dearly, but what he lived through and witnessed in his homeland by way of revolts, revolution, war, famine, collectivization, soviet purges, censorship, and dictatorial rule over half a century made him a staunch and unrelenting voice for freedom and the individual. And this eventually marked him as an enemy of the state, especially after his recognition in the West.

His Doctor Zhivago novel, first published in Italy and Europe, and then America, came some years after his earlier work as a poet and translator. But with its circulation and best-seller reception outside of Russia, it soon created its very own firestorm. First, some biography and background.

Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow in 1890 into a wealthy Jewish family. His father, Leonid Pasternak, was a Post-Impressionist painter and professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Some of Leonid’s illustrations appeared in Tolstoy’s 1899 novel, Resurrection. Pasternak’s mother, Rosa Kaufman, was a concert pianist and the daughter of an Odessa industrialist. Pasternak had a younger brother and two sisters, and his younger years appear to have been a good and fruitful time.

1908 - Boris Pasternak, school photo.

Regular visitors to the Pasternak home included, among others: Sergei Rachmaninoff (pianist & composer), Lev Shestov (religious philosopher), Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian poet & novelist), and Lev Tolstoy (author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina).

Pasternak, under early influence of his mother and Russian composer and pianist, Alexander Scriabin, considered a career in music, and was briefly a student at the Moscow Conservatory. However, in 1910, at the age of 20, he abruptly left for the German University of Marburg, where he would study philosophy.

In his early love life, he first fell for his cousin, Olga Freidenberg, who he’d grown up with. The two reunited in 1910, but they were never lovers. They did share a lifetime of letters, however, later published in a 1982 book. In 1912, he met Ida Wissotzkaya, from a wealthy Moscow Jewish family who then owned the world’s largest tea company. Pasternak had proposed marriage to Ida, but her family thought Pasternak a young man of poor prospects, persuading her to turn him down. A later poem, “Marburg,” recounted the rejection. But the thought of Ida would stay with him for years.

1989 edition of Boris Pasternak’s “My Sister-Life” (1922), regarded as “one of the world’s great love poems.” Univ of Minnesota Press, 103 pp. Click for recent edition at Amazon.

By 1914, Pasternak returned to Moscow, having finally decided on a career in literature, publishing his first book of poems, mostly unnoticed.

During World War I, he was physically disqualified for military service, having been injured in a horseback-riding accident. But during the war, at age 23, he worked for a time at a chemical factory in the Urals near Perm, Russia, during which he began gathering material he would later use in Doctor Zhivago.

In 1917, another failed love would help inspire one of Pasternak’s first popular books of poetry, My Sister, Life, which he wrote that summer but published later.

After the October Revolution of 1917, unlike his family and many of his closest friends, Pasternak chose not to leave Russia. In fact, he stayed in Moscow, and by doing so, according to one account, “was able to see the deprivations and hardships that ordinary people had to suffer under the new Red Terror.”

Max Hayward, British lecturer and famous translator of Russian literature, including Pasternak’s Zhivago, described Pasternak during those post-Revolution years as follows:

Pasternak remained in Moscow throughout the Civil War (1918–1920), making no attempt to escape abroad or to the White-occupied south, as a number of other Russian writers did at the time. No doubt, like Yuri Zhivago, he was momentarily impressed by the “splendid surgery” of the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, but – again to judge by the evidence of the novel, and despite a personal admiration for Vladimir Lenin, whom he saw at the 9th Congress of Soviets in 1921 – he soon began to harbor profound doubts about the claims and credentials of the regime,“…[L]ike Yuri Zhivago, he was momentarily impress-ed by the ‘splendid surgery’ of the Bolshevik sei-zure of power in 1917, but… he soon began to harbor profound doubts about the claims and credentials of the regime, not to mention its style of rule…” not to mention its style of rule. The terrible shortages of food and fuel, and the depredations of the Red Terror, made life very precarious in those years, particularly for the “bourgeois” intelligentsia ….

In a letter written to Pasternak from abroad in the twenties, Marina Tsvetayeva reminded him of how she had run into him in the street in 1919 as he was on the way to sell some valuable books from his library in order to buy bread. He continued to write original work and to translate, but after about the middle of 1918 it became almost impossible to publish. The only way to make one’s work known was to declaim it in the several ‘literary’ cafes which then sprang up, or – anticipating samizdat [underground publication] – to circulate it in manuscript. It was in this way that My Sister, Life first became available to a wider audience.

By 1918, Russia’s involvement in WWI ended, and its internal civil war had begun. In July that year, Czar Nicolas II and his family were assassinated. The Russian famine of 1921-22, which came with the disruptions of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, killed an estimated 5 million people, with some reports of cannibalism.

Later photo of Pasternak with first wife, Evgenia, and son, Yvgeny.

In 1922, when Pasternak’s My Sister, Life was finally published, it revolutionized Russian poetry. Regarded today as one of the world’s great love poems, My Sister – Life. (written in the summer of 1917), focuses on his personal journeys and his loves, but according to one review, is also “permeated by the tension and promise of the impending October Revolution.” It made Pasternak the model for younger poets, and also influenced established Russian poets. That year, he also married Evgenia Lurye, a painter and student at the Art Institute, and they had a son, Yvgeny.

Pasternak had also published other work by then, including his first prose work, The Childhood of Luvers, a depiction of a young girl on the threshold of womanhood, and Themes and Variations, in 1923.

In January 1924, Lenin died and Joseph Stalin assumed leadership over the country and would begin consolidating his power. The government by then controlled most publishing, and Pasternak was feeling increasing pressure to conform to Party ideals in his work. That year, however, he published Sublime Malady, which portrayed the earlier 1905 Russian revolt as he saw it.

1924. Boris Pasternak (second from left) with friends including Lilya Brik, Sergei Eisenstein (third from left) and Vladimir Mayakovsky (center). On the far left, Japanese writer Tomizi Tamiji Naito (1885-1965). From the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1924

In 1925, Pasternak published Aerial Ways, a collection of four short stories. The earlier Russian Revolt of 1905 was again a subject of continuing interest to Pasternak, as he used it in two published poems in 1927 – Lieutenant Schmidt, a sorrowful treatment for the fate of Lieutenant Schmidt, the leader of a mutiny at Sevastopol, and The Year 1905, described by one account as “a powerful but diffuse poem” on events related to the 1905 revolt.

By 1927, Pasternak was at odds with the views of some his close friends, including Vladimir Mayakovsky, when they advocated the subordination of the arts to the needs of the Communist Party.

Later 1959 paperback edition of Pasternak’s 1931 work, “Safe Conduct,” autobiography with poems & short stories. Click for Amazon.

But after Stalin took over the government in 1928, Pasternak muted his production somewhat. However, in 1931, Safe Conduct appeared, described in one account as “a reticent autobiography.” Also autobiographical was an earlier 1929 novella titled, The Last Summer.

In the early 1930s, Pasternak was also purposely reshaping his style to make his works more accessible to the general public, printing in 1932, for example, a new collection of poems titled, The Second Birth.

In 1932, Pasternak fell in love with Zinaida Neuhaus, the wife of the Russian pianist Heinrich Neuhaus. They both then divorced their respective partners, married two years later, and would have a son, Leonid.

The Stalin Cult

Meanwhile, as Joseph Stalin rose in stature in the Soviet government, a personality cult emerged around him in Russian society (from 1929 through the rest of Stalin’s rule, the Soviet press presented Stalin as an all-powerful, all-knowing leader, with his name and image appearing everywhere), and some writers and poets initially praised him.

Pasternak, too, was initially supportive of Stalin, as the two entered into a bit of dialogue.

Pasternak wrote several letters to the Soviet leader, including a private letter in 1932 to offer his condolences at the death of Stalin’s second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva.

Joseph Stalin, official portrait, 1942.

However, in May 1934, Pasternak became embroiled in a telephone call with Stalin after a friend of his, fellow writer Osip Mandelstam, was arrested. A month earlier, in April 1934, Mandelstam had recited his critical “Stalin Epigram” to Pasternak. After listening, Pasternak told Mandelstam: “I didn’t hear this, you didn’t recite it to me, because, you know, very strange and terrible things are happening now: they’ve begun to pick people up. I’m afraid the walls have ears and perhaps even these benches on the boulevard here may be able to listen and tell tales. So let’s make out that I heard nothing.”

On the night of May 14th 1934, Mandelstam was arrested at his home. Learning of the arrest, Pasternak then went to the offices of the Russian newspaper, Izvestia, and urged Nikolai Bukharin, a prominent politician, author, and party official, to intercede on Mandelstam’s behalf. Soon after his meeting with Bukharin, the telephone rang in Pasternak’s Moscow apartment, and at the other end of the line was Joseph Stalin himself, which caught Pasternak somewhat off guard, with Stalin asking him what was being said about Mandelstam’s arrest, and taunting Pasternak about his personal loyalty to a friend – with Stalin then hanging up.

In the fall of 1935, Pasternak would address another letter to Stalin, asking him to free the husband (Nikolai Punin) and son, (Lev Gumilyov) of famous Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova, who were accused of terrorist activities. Stalin released them at the time (although both would later spend many years in the Gulag, where Punin died), bringing a thank you letter from Pasternak along with a collection of Georgian poets’ translations he had made (Stalin had dabbled in poetry himself as a younger man).

For more on Stalin & the arts see, Andy McSmith’s 2015 book, “Fear and the Muse Kept Watch: The Russian Masters from Akhmatova and Pasternak to Shostakovich and Eisenstein Under Stalin.” The New Press, 416 pp. Click for Amazon.

And in late 1936 – a time when the Stalin Constitution was adopted, believed by many to signify the end of wholesale repression – Pasternak devoted a poem to Stalin, published in Izvestia. But as Stalin’s intentions and horrors began to emerge more clearly — especially the onset of systematic killing or purges, and imprisonment of those critical of, or suspected as a threats to, the Stalin regime — Pasternak soon changed his views.

The Great Purge

During a 1937 Soviet “show trial” of two suspect military generals, the Union of Soviet Writers requested all of its members to add their names to a statement supporting the death penalty for the defendants. Pasternak refused to sign, even after Union leadership had visited and threatened him. Pasternak then appealed directly to Stalin, describing his family’s strong Tolstoyan (Christian) convictions, and that he could not stand as a self-appointed judge of life and death. And for this, Pasternak was certain he would be arrested. Instead, Stalin is said to have crossed Pasternak’s name off an execution list, reportedly declaring, “Do not touch this cloud dweller,” or, in another translation, “Leave that holy fool alone!”

The total estimate of deaths brought about by Soviet repression during the Great Purge (roughly 1936-1940) ranges from 950,000 to 1.2 million, which includes executions, deaths in detention and those who died shortly after being released from the Gulag,

As for Pasternak, little original poetry or prose was produced in the late 1930s, as he turned his attention to translations. In the press, meanwhile, Pasternak received increasing criticism.

World War II

1943. Pasternak, left, on a writers’ delegation to the Orel battlefield front during WWII with a war correspondent.

During World War II, on June 22 1941, Germany’s Adolf Hitler launched an invasion of the Soviet Union. The invasion included one of the largest armies in history, estimated at some three million Axis soldiers by one count. The invasion resulted in some of the largest and fiercest battles of the war, including the Battle for Moscow (Sept 1941-Jan 1942) and the Siege of Leningrad (Aug 1942 – Feb 1943).

When Germany began bombing Moscow, Pasternak served as a fire warden on the roof of the writer’s building, and according to later accounts, repeatedly helped dispose of German bombs which fell there. Pasternak, family members, and some fellow writers, were later evacuated from Moscow.

Boris Pasternak in his study, early 1950s.

In 1943, Pasternak was granted permission to visit soldiers at the front, and he wanted to go to the most dangerous places. He read his poetry and talked extensively with the active and injured soldiers there. At war’s end, however, Russia was left in a bad way, as famine, typhus epidemics and purges followed.

Of the war’s aftermath, Pasternak later said:

“If, in a bad dream, we had seen all the horrors in store for us after the war, we should not have been sorry to see Stalin fall, together with Hitler. Then, an end to the war in favor of our allies, civilized countries with democratic traditions, would have meant a hundred times less suffering for our people than that which Stalin again inflicted on it after his victory.”

By 1943 Pasternak and wife Zinaida had returned to Moscow. That year, Early Trains, a collection of earlier poems was published, and later, another collection in 1945. But during the mid-1940s, Pasternak was working mainly on Shakespeare translations – among them, “Antony & Cleopatra,” “Romeo & Juliet,” “1-2 Henry IV” and “Othello.”

Olga, Boris & Zhivago

In 1946 Pasternak, then in his mid-50s, met and fell in love with Olga Ivinskaya, a 34 year-old single mother and editorial assistant for the Soviet monthly periodical, Novy Mir. They began an affair a year later in 1947. Ivinskaya is thought to be the inspiration for Lara in Doctor Zhivago. Pasternak had started work on Zhivago years earlier, but mostly in fragments.

Boris Pasternak with Olga Ivinskaya, who became his life-long lover in 1947, and is believed to have been the inspiration and model for the Lara character in his famous novel, “Doctor Zhivago.” Photo is believed to be from late 1950s.

Although his relationship with Olga Ivinskaya would last for the remainder of Pasternak’s life, he never formally left his second wife, Zinaida.

In Russia, meanwhile, by 1946 communist rule had moved to bring the arts more completely under Party control, and away from Western influence. That year, the Zhdanov Doctrine was put into effect, developed by Central Committee secretary, Andrei Zhdanov, whereby Soviet artists, writers and intelligentsia had to conform to the party line in their creative works. Artists who failed to do so risked persecution – termed “Zhdanov repression” by some. The policy remained in effect until the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. But in 1946, Akhmatova ans Zoshchenko, a satirist, was accused of “bourgeois individualism” by the Central Committee of Communist Party, and Pasternak refused to condemn him. Pasternak was also named in a critical speech by Fadeyev, Secretary of Writers’ Union. However, Pasternak by this date was getting notice for his work abroad. Still, at home, during 1947-1949, Pasternak continued to be attacked by the Writer’s Union.

In 2017, Anna Pasternak, great niece of Boris, published “Lara,” which covers the affair between her uncle and Olga Ivinskaya, the inspiration for the Lara character in “Doctor Zhivago.” Click for copy.

Pasternak by this time had begun to work in earnest on his story of Doctor Zhivago, which he had begun in earlier years. He would not publish other work for fear of government disapproval. He generally sought to stay clear of Soviet authorities. But Olga, his lover, was arrested in 1949 for having “engaged in anti-Soviet discourse” with Pasternak.

Ivinskaya was sentenced to five years in prison in what was seen as an attempt by the government to pressure Pasternak to give up his writing critical of the Soviet system.

Pasternak, in a later correspondence to a friend, noted Olga’s sacrifice on his behalf: “She was put in jail on my account, as the person considered by the secret police to be closest to me, and they hoped that by means of a grueling interrogation and threats they could extract enough evidence from her to put me on trial. I owe my life, and the fact that they did not touch me in those years, to her heroism and endurance.”

Olga had refused to incriminate Pasternak, and when arrested, she was pregnant with his child, though miscarried while in prison.

Stalin died in 1953 at which time Olga Ivinskaya was still in a gulag while Pasternak remained in Moscow. She was released shortly after Stalin’s death and the relationship between she and Pasternak then continued.

In 1956, during Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization “thaw,” Pasternak submitted his manuscript of Doctor Zhivago to Novy Mir for publication, and it appeared the book was on track to be published in Russia. But at the time, Soviet party politics and philosophy were in flux, as Khrushchev had differences with Stalinism, and this, among other factors, caused the Russian version of Zhivago to be stopped. Novy Mir later rejected the manuscript, demanding extensive revision and cutting due to its “spirit. . .of non-acceptance of the socialist revolution,” as well as Pasternak’s criticisms of Stalinism, Collectivization, the Great Purge, and the Gulag. But in the interim, another opportunity had presented itself.

The Italian Option

Cover of November 1957 Italian version of “Doctor Zhivago” published by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, the first to publish the book. Click for U.S. Pantheon edition w/similar cover.

In March 1956, the Italian Communist Party sent journalist Sergio D’Angelo to work in the Soviet Union. D’Angelo also had a commission from Milan publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, to find new works of Soviet literature that might appeal to Western audiences.

Upon learning of Doctor Zhivago‘s existence, D’Angelo traveled to Peredelkino to meet with Pasternak and offered to submit Pasternak’s Zhivago novel to Feltrinelli for publishing in Italy. By one account, Pasternak was at first stunned by the offer, then emerged from his study with a copy of the manuscript for D’Angelo.

Pasternak knew he was taking a risk in doing so, reportedly saying to D’Angelo at the time, “You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.” And with that, the Zhivago manuscript was then smuggled out of Russia to Italy.

In June 1956, Pasternak signed a contract with Feltrinelli for the Italian publication of Zhivago. In September, Novy Mir refused publication of Doctor Zhivago.

According to one account, the Soviet government then forced Pasternak to cable the Italian publisher to withdraw the manuscript, but Pasternak also sent separate, secret letters advising Feltrinelli to ignore the telegrams. Despite the Soviet objections, plus appeals to the Italian publisher by the Union of Soviet Writers to prevent its publication, Feltrinelli went ahead with his plans and published an Italian translation of Doctor Zhivago in November 1957 (and for this, he was ousted from the Italian Communist party). He also had obtained translation rights for 18 other languages. A French translation was published in June 1958. Then came English translations in September 1958. In the U.S., Pantheon Books in New York would publish Doctor Zhivago in hardback edition that fall.

Pasternak News

But in advance of the U.S. publication, there had been running New York Times stories and other news reporting on the perils that Boris Pasternak and his Doctor Zhivago novel were facing in Russia. These stories began appearing in late November 1957 and continued through Doctor Zhivago’s U.S. publication, Pasternak’s Nobel Prize nomination of October 1958, and the controversy that followed, as Soviet authorities moved to discredit the book and author.

September 7th, 1958. The New York Times Book Review put the review of the first U.S. edition of “Doctor Zhivago” on its front page.

The first stories in the West on Pasternak were about the Italian version being published – and not a Russian version – and what the Soviets had done to try and stop it.

On November 21, 1957, the New York Times ran a story on page 15 with this headline: “New Soviet Novel Appears in West; Italy Publishing Pasternak Work That Moscow Tried to Hold Up for Revision.”

About a month later, on December 17, 1957, a Max Frankel story in the New York Times, based on an interview with Pasternak, ran on page 22 with this headline: “Russian Regrets Storm Over Book; Pasternak, Interview, Says Novel Barred by Moscow Reflects Trend of Times.”

Then in the following year, came the first reviews of the book’s publication in the U.S., which sent the Soviet establishment into a campaign to discredit the book and author.

On September 7, 1958, The New York Times Book Review featured a review of Doctor Zhivago on its front page along with a photo of Pasternak, using the headlines: “But Man’s Free Spirit Still Abides” and, “Out of Russian Comes A New Novel That Defies The Totalitarian’s Way.”

The review, by literary critic Marc Slonim, was highly praiseworthy, noting . “..It is easy to predict that Boris Pasternak’s book, one of the most significant of our time and a literary event of the first order, will have a brilliant future…”

Oct 24 1958 New York Times front-page story: “Nobel Prize Goes to Pasternak; Russian's 'Zhivago' Still Unpublished in Soviet Union.”

Then, about a month later, on October 24, 1958, it was announced that Pasternak had won the Noble Prize for literature. The citation credited Pasternak’s contribution to Russian lyric poetry and for his role in “continuing the great Russian epic tradition.”

On October 25th, 1958, Pasternak sent a telegram replying to the Swedish Academy: “Infinitely grateful, touched, proud, surprised, overwhelmed.”

But not long thereafter, Soviet authorities soon went into attack mode on Pasternak and his novel.

A day later, a New York Times front-page story used the headline, “Soviet Calls Nobel Award To Pasternak a Hostile Act,” while also noting the book had not been published in Russia.

An editorial in Pravda of October 25th, 1958 assailed Pasternak, calling him a “malevolent Philistine,” a “libeler” and “an extraneous smudge in our Socialist country.” In the same piece, his novel was dismissed as “malicious,” a “low-grade reactionary hackwork” and “political slander.”

The next day, other Soviet newspapers also began denouncing Pasternak, calling his book an “artistically squalid, malicious work replete with hatred of Socialism.”

Oct 27, 1958 story in Life magazine on Pasternak in front of his home with headline, “A Brave, Defiant Russian Writer.” Jerry Cook, photo. Filed before Nobel news.

In the U.S., meanwhile, Life magazine – one of the largest circulation popular magazines in the nation – ran a short praiseworthy piece on October 27th, 1958 with a photo of Pasternak working in his garden (which also appears at the top of this story) with the headline “A Brave, Defiant Russian Writer” (that story had been filed before Pasternak was named a Noble Prize winner).

The Life story noted, in part, “it is a minor miracle” that Pasternak “has been left free to dig in his garden,” as his “remarkable novel, critical of totalitarianism, contains such heresies as ‘I don’t know a movement more self-centered and further removed from the facts than Marxism’.”

Back in Russia, meanwhile, the attacks on Pasternak continued. By October 28th, 1958, the Soviet Writers Union had moved to expel Pasternak, calling him “a pawn in the Cold War.”

A day later Pasternak wrote to the Noble committee in Sweden saying he could not accept the Nobel Prize. In this second telegram to the Nobel Committee, he wrote: “In view of the meaning given the award by the society in which I live, I must renounce this undeserved distinction which has been conferred on me. Please do not take my voluntary renunciation amiss.”

A subsequent announcement by the Swedish Academy noted: “This refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award. There remains only for the Academy, however, to announce with regret that the presentation of the Prize cannot take place.”

The Soviets interpreted the award as being given expressly for Doctor Zhivago, which by then, they had banned due to its “spirit. . . of non-acceptance of the socialist revolution.”

Front-page New York Times story of November 2, 1958 reporting on Pasternak’s letter to Nikita Khrushchev.

The attacks on Pasternak continued in Russia. “Young Communist Head Insists Writer Go to ‘Capitalist Paradise’; Pasternak Urged to Leave Soviet,” read part of the headlines from a New York Times story on November 1958.

The Moscow section of the Soviet Union of Writers had then petitioned the Government to strip “the traitor Pasternak” of his citizenship and expel him from the country. This appeared to be part pf a determined campaign designed to drive Pasternak from his native land.

Pasternak, meanwhile, loved his country dearly and wanted to stay in his homeland. On November 1st, 1958 he wrote to Khrushchev seeking to remain in the Soviet Union, “Leaving the motherland will equal death for me,” he wrote. In his letter, he admitted that he had made errors, but….

Doctor Zhivago, meanwhile, reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in November 1958.

A few days later on November 3, 1958, it was reported that that Pasternak was ill, according to his wife, and that he needed to rest and be free of interviews.

However, on November 6, 1958, in a letter to Pravda that sounded like it was written by Soviet authorities, Pasternak issued a public apology saying that he erred in hailing the “political” Nobel Prize, regretted the effect his book was having, and had been “mistaken” in his earlier welcoming of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Nov 9, 1958. Boris Pasternak featured on the cover of New York Times Magazine for story, “Nikita Khrushchev and 'Doctor Zhivago’.”

More Notice

But in the West, largely because he had been singled out for the Nobel Prize, Pasternak and his book continued to receive high praise and visibility. And for sure, aside from Pasternak’s talents and deserved kudos, the whole affair was tangled up with Cold War politics.

The New York Times Magazine, of November 9th, 1958 featured Pasternak on its cover seated at a table at his home, with a feature story by historian, James Billington.

That story included the tagline: “Nikita Khrushchev and ‘Doctor Zhivago’. The Paster-nak Case Underlines Moscow’s Dilemma: To Give Intellectuals Freedom to Produce What the Regime Needs — And Yet to Keep Them on a Strong Leash.” In that piece, Billington would further explain:

…The current Soviet campaign to humiliate and defame Boris Pasternak is only the latest and most dramatic illustration of the continuing tension between the Soviet regime and its intellectuals. Whatever Khrushchev’s successes in material construction and foreign policy, he has not yet found a formula for dealing with this troublesome element in Soviet society….

In the publishing trade press, meanwhile, Pasternak and Doctor Zhivago were featured on the November 24th, 1958 front cover of Publisher’s Weekly – a key player in the publishing world.

Nov 24, 1958. Front cover of Publisher’s Weekly features Pasternak & ‘Zhivago’ in pitch by publisher, Pantheon Books.

The cover treatment for that issue was actually an advertisement by Pantheon Books, the publisher of Doctor Zhivago, that read: “The Entire World Is Talking about Boris Pasternak and his Nobel Prize Novel Doctor Zhivago.” The cover story inside the magazine detailed Pantheon’s planned $25,000 ad campaign for the book (about $260,000 in today’s money) over the next three months, targeting news media in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other metro areas.

Kirkus Reviews, another trade publishing bellwether, in an earlier August 15th, 1958 review, called the book, “Absolutely a must for the literati.” And the Saturday Review of September 6th, 1958 spared no adjectives in its praiseworthy review: “Like all great works, ‘Doctor Zhivago’ stands alone, unique in concept, poetic in execution, devastating in power, suffused in delicately mystical philosophy, deeply tender in romance, nakedly surgical in its dissection of political folly, and honest in its conviction that man is a simple, if noble, figure in a complex cosmos.”

Notable literary critic and author, Edmund Wilson, in his November 1958 review of the book for The New Yorker, while noting some stylistic issues, nonetheless praised the novel as “one of the very great books of our time,” concluding: “Doctor Zhivago’ will, I believe, come to stand as one of the great events in man’s literary and moral history.”

In Sweden, meanwhile, on December 10th, 1958, at the Nobel Prize awards ceremony at Stockholm’s concert hall, Boris Pasternak, although absent, was honored nonetheless, along with seven other laureates who attended the ceremony, with officials reiterating that Pasternak’s award was still valid. As the New York Times reported: “Pasternak’s $41,420 award, his heavy gold medal and leather-bound scroll are being held in trust for him in case he may some day have a chance to accept them.”

“Doctor Zhivago” author, Boris Pasternak, on Time’s cover, December 15, 1958.

Then, several days later, Time magazine featured Pasternak on the cover of its December 15th edition with a long story on his life, literary career, and Doctor Zhivago — which it called “one of this century’s remarkable novels” – described further as:

… a historical novel of ‘Russia’s terrible years,’ bearing witness to the sufferings of the Russian people. It is also a novel of Christian humanism that opposes the materialism of both East and West, affirms the sanctity of every man’s soul under God. It is a novel in praise of the continuity of life, which for Pasternak means resurrection. It is, finally, a novel dedicated to the primacy of the individual and his private life in defiance of superstates, of groupthink, of social and ideological regimentation…

Pasternak’s novel, said Time, “flatly pits the individual against ‘adjustment to the group,’ the soul’s need against economic need, the organic against the mechanical.”

As for the novel’s construction, there were some shortcomings, according to Time, in both style and structure.

But “what raises Zhivago above technically better-made novels,” said Time, “is that it is charged with moral passion” And of Pasternak himself, Time concluded, his “undiminished confidence in the future of humanity is perhaps his greatest gift of all.”

Book sales, meanwhile, according to Publisher’s Weekly data as of December 29th, 1958, was one indication of Pasternak’s appeal. Doctor Zhivago in the preceding week was selling an average of 10,000 copies per day. The book had risen to No. 1 on the Publisher’s Weekly bestsellers chart as of November 24th, 1958. And it would stay there for next five months or more.

Boris Pasternak’s “I Remember: Sketch for an Autobio-graphy,” Pantheon, 1959. Click for Amazon.

In 1959, Pasternak returned to his writing, publishing When the Weather Clears, and a second autobiographical work, titled, An Essay in Autobiography, published by Pantheon as, I Remember: Sketch for An Autobiography.

However, on February 11th, 1959, a poem by Pasternak titled, “The Nobel Prize,” was published in London’s Daily Mail newspaper, which angered Soviet authorities. Shortly afterward, in a mid-February 1959 interview, Pasternak made some remarks about his novel, Doctor Zhivago, noting that he would not retract a single word of the best-selling book, and that he was “grateful in my heart that the world is reading it.” These views came from an interview he had at Peredelkino with Scripps-Howard reporter, Henry Taylor, and were printed in the New York World-Telegram & Sun. In that interview, Pasternak also explained: “Doctor Zhivago was not a political book. But in the eyes of the Soviet state, a nonpolitical book becomes negatively political. It is charged that the Nobel Committee made a political decision. But I honestly believe they were judging the work of a man’s life.”

A few weeks later, on March 14, 1959, Pasternak was interrogated by R. Rudenko, the Public Prosecutor of the Soviet Union, and was accused of crimes against the state.

Pasternak’s personal health by this time wasn’t the best. He had suffered a heart attack in October 1952, and was in the hospital for three months until January 1953. In March 1957 he was hospitalized again, and a third time during February-April 1958.

Journalists from the West, meanwhile, would occasionally set out for Peredelkino to interview Pasternak. Among those who managed to see him was Jahn Robbins, a journalist of the Quaker persuasion, who was surprised to land a four-hour session with Pasternak in September 1959, during which the author and poet held forth on religion, worker dignity, patriotism, and more. One comment Pasternak left with Robbins was the following observation about those reading his book:While Soviet authorities sought to ignore the death of Boris Pasternak and discouraged notice of his funeral, some 1,500 admirers still came to Peredelkino to pay their respects and read his poetry. “Do people buy Doctor Zhivago because it is a good book or only because they think it is anti-Communist?,” he asked, then adding quickly, “No one has understood Dr. Zhivago [the character]. He is a literary victim of the cold war. Every country, whether Communist or not communist, has its quota of Dr. Zhivagos.” Then he said, as if admonishing all those possibly missing that point, “Read it again and try to see it that way.”

In February 1960, Boris Pasternak celebrated his 70th birthday, with letters and congratulation from all over the world. However, in April that year, he became ill with cancer and died at his home in Peredelkino on May 30th, 1960.

Although announcement of his death was low-keyed by Soviet authorities, word got out about his funeral in Moscow’s underground press, and thousands showed up at Peredelkino for his funeral, where some in attendance read his poetry or otherwise made statements about the importance of his works.

The scene at his funeral, in fact, was similar, in part, to that portrayed for Yuri Zhivago in the 1965 “Doctor Zhivago” Hollywood film — a scene in which long lines of admirers were shown filing past his gravesite. In fact, the Oscar- and award-winning “Doctor Zhivago” film – starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, directed by David Lean – in addition to being a worldwide box-office success, helped renew interest in both the Doctor Zhivago novel and Boris Pasternak through the 1960s and beyond (see Doctor Zhivago film story at this website for more on the film). The film also helped sell more Doctor Zhivago novels and other Pasternak works. Even through the early 2000s, paperback editions of the Doctor Zhivago novel used screen shots or poster art from the 1965 film as the book’s cover.

1972 Fontana paperback cover for Doctor Zhivago uses Moscow massacre scene from 1965 Zhivago film.

2008 Penguin paperback cover for Doctor Zhivago uses Omar Sharif-Julie Christie scene from 1965 film.

Continuing Story

April 16th, 1977. New York Times.

The Pasternak and Doctor Zhivago stories, however, would not die with Pasternak’s passing in 1960, as both would continue to surface in the press and media over the next 60 years – sometimes in surprising ways.

In April 1977, for example, Russia’s Foreign Ministry lodged a protest with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow over private showings of the films “Dr. Zhivago” and “The Girl From Petrovka” in the apartments of American diplomats, which also included some Soviet citizens.

The film showings were described as “frankly provocative and not helpful to Soviet-American relations” in a protest note handed to William Brown, political counselor at the embassy. The Soviet Foreign Ministry charged that the films “crudely falsify Soviet history and represent the life of the Soviet people in a tendentious and slanderous manner.”

As of 1977, there were more than 5 million total copies of Doctor Zhivago sold throughout the world, though still not published in Russia. Nor was the 1965 “Doctor Zhivago” Hollywood film publicly shown in Russia, banned in theaters there until 1994.

In early 1978, a major Pasternak-Zhivago story emerged with the memoir of Pasternak’s lover, Olga Ivinskaya, the model for Zhivago’s Lara.

Paperback edition of Olga Ivinskaya’s 1978 book, “A Captive of Time : My Years with Pasternak.” Click for Amazon.

In February that year, her book, A Captive of Time: My Years With Pasternak, was published. That book, like Pasternak’s Zhivago, was also not published in the Soviet Union.

Ivinskaya, in fact, had been arrested for a second time shortly after Pasternak’s death in 1960, her apartment ransacked, and her Pasternak letters and other materials confiscated.

This time, she was arrested on a trumped-up charge of currency speculation, sentenced in November 1960 to eight years in a Siberian labor camp, and treated harshly there.

Shortly before his death, Pasternak had arranged with the Italian publisher of Doctor Zhivago to send some of the book’s royalties to Ivinskaya to help with her support and that of her daughter, Irina.

Soviet authorities cited this transfer as a violation of law and sentenced both Ivinskaya and Irina, to prison. Ivinskaya’s health deteriorated during her time in the Gulag, and her imprisonment became a matter of protest in the West, with appeals from Eleanor Roosevelt, Nehru, Bertrand Russell and others – appeals unanswered by Soviet authorities.

However, some years later, in November 1964, Ivinskaya was released after serving four years of her sentence. Her daughter, Irina, released earlier, in June 1962, having served half of a three-year term.

Still, Ivinskaya would not be fully “rehabilitated” in Soviet terms, until Mikhail Gorbachev’s more liberal administration emerged in 1988

But for years after her release from the Gulag, Ivinskaya would continue to battle with Soviet authorities over her confiscated letters and papers. She would also be blocked in some of these fights by other Pasternak heirs, with some of those battles in protracted court proceedings. But her 1978 book, at least, helped tell her story — as well as revealing and/or corroborating details about Pasternak.

Ivinskaya began work on her book after release from the Gulag in the mid-1960s, completing it in 1972. It was published in London by Collins and Harvill Press in 1978 and also by Doubleday in the U.S..

Olga Ivinskaya’s 1978 book, “A Captive in Time: My Years With Boris Pasternak,” NYT Book Review, p. 1.

“A Captive in Time,” says the publisher, “apart from giving an intimate picture of Pasternak in his later years, will bring home to readers in the West, as very few other books have done, what it was like to live in Moscow during the final demented stages of Stalin’s rule, and then in the anxious, uncertain times that followed under his successor, Nikita Khrushchev. We learn many intriguing new details about Pasternak’s attitude to Stalin and to the Soviet regime…. [and] the story of the origins of Doctor Zhivago, of the motives which impelled Pasternak to write it” and publish it in the West.

And Ivinskaya was there for all of it – helping prepare the manuscript, dealing with publishers, the Soviet authorities, and the outside world, continuing through the Nobel Prize controversy and Pasternak’s death.

Her book received front-page treatment at The New York Times Book Review; featured on the cover of the February 5th, 1978 edition, with a long review titled “Lara and Zhivago” by noted author Irving Howe. Howe called the book, “at once a touching story of human loyalties, [and] still another harrowing account of literary martyrdom in the total state…” At the end of his review, which is also, in part, a review of the merits and flaws of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Howe says of Ivinskaya: “When he made this woman the model of Lara, Pasternak knew what he was doing, for he meant to celebrate the indestructibility of good feeling, of friendship and affection, as against the death-claw of the total state…”. In September 1995, Olga Ivinskaya died in Moscow at age 83.

The 1980s

October 1981. “Boris Pasternak: His Life and Art,” a biography by Guy de Mallac, University of Oklahoma Press, Click for copy.

Additional publishing and reporting on Pasternak’s life and works would continue to appear in the 1980s. Among these, in October 1981, was, Boris Pasternak: His Life and Art, a biography published by Guy de Mallac, a professor of Russian at the University of California at Irvine.

According to the book’s publisher: “De Mallac has carefully pieced together a coherent narrative of the whole of Pasternak’s life, based on the internal evidence of his works, obscure published and unpublished materials, and the personal recollections of Pasternak’s surviving relatives and friends in Russia and the West.”

“…. For the scholar, this volume offers much new insights into Pasternak the man and artist; for the student of Russian literature, the most thoroughgoing critical examination available; and for the general reader, the panorama not only of Pasternak’s life but also of literary and historical twentieth century Russia…”

Another revealing book on the life and writing of Boris Pasternak appearing in the early 1980s came with the publication of The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg 1910-1954. Compiled and edited and translated by Elliott Mossman (with Margaret Wettlin) it was published in 1982 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

1982, “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg 1910-1954,” compiled and edited, by Elliott Mossman. Click for Amazon.

As mentioned earlier in this story, Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg were “love cousins” in their early years, though never lovers, but maintained contact with one another throughout their lives. One result was copious letter-writing between the two over 40 years; letters saved by Olga, and in this 365-page compilation, also buttressed by her own journal and memories of the times.

Their correspondence began in the spring of 1910, when they were 20, and continued for over 40 years, with their letters, “helping, encouraging and inspiring each other…”

In her June 1982 review of the book, which appeared on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, Helen Muchnic, professor emeritus of Russian literature at Smith College and author of From Gorky to Pasternak, called the collection, “a historical and literary document of the first importance.”

Like Pasternak, Olga Freidenberg became critical of the Russian government. “’In our country,” she would write at one point, “Marxism is neither a philosophy nor a scientific method. It is a bludgeon. It falls into the category of police power.” In her career, Freidenberg entered the University of St. Petersburg and became a scholar in the fields of semantics, folklore and Greek literature. By 1932 she organized the newly-formed Leningrad Institute of Philosophy, Language, Literature and History; obtained a doctoral degree, lectured, and had devoted students.

Gorbachev Reforms

In Russia, meanwhile, by 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev had become First Secretary of The Communist Party and a move toward a more liberal Soviet Union was soon to come, with new freedoms and greater openness in government affairs, the press, political debate, and Soviet culture – including, it turned out, for Boris Pasternak and Doctor Zhivago.

Part of a February 13, 1987 story in the New York Times on a “Pasternak commission” in the Soviet Union then working to reinstate Pasternak’s standing and works in his homeland, including the publication of “Doctor Zhivago” in Russia the following year, plus a proposal to establish a Pasternak museum at his former home at Peredelkino.

In 1987 the Union of Soviet Writers posthumously reinstated Boris Pasternak, a move that gave his works a legitimacy they had lacked in his homeland since his expulsion from the writers’ union in 1958. The reinstatement also made possible the first Soviet publication of Doctor Zhivago – initially serialized in Novyi Mir, the literary monthly. The first 102-page installment from the novel appeared in its January 1988 edition. Additionally, a six-volume edition of Pasternak’s complete works was also slated to appear by 1990 in time for the 100th anniversary of his birth year. Also arriving in 1990 were new biographies on Pasternak.

Evgeny Pasternak’s 1990 book on his father, “Boris Pasternak: The Tragic Years, 1930-60.” Click for copy.

Pasternak’s son from his first marriage to Evgenia Lurye – Evgeny Pasternak – published a biography of his father in early 1990 titled, Boris Pasternak: The Tragic Years, 1930-60.

Evgeny had begun work on his father’s literary estate in the 1960s, and since 1975, with an appointment as a Research Fellow at the Institute of World Literature in Moscow, he devoted himself full time to that work.

“…Drawing on previously unpublished correspondence and including a considerable number of unpublished poems and early drafts,” noted the book’s publisher, “Evgeny Pasternak’s memoir gives us a clear idea of how, and at what cost, Pasternak survived these tragic years.”

In one review, Pasternak scholar Christopher Barnes noted, “,,,Evgney Paster-nak’s meticulously documented account is remarkable for its sobriety and objective stance.”

Gordon McVay, in another review, added: “Evgeny Pasternak never conceals the awfulness of the era, and the signified heroism of his father’s quest to preserve personal, artistic, and spiritual integrity in a sea of mistrust, conformity and oppression.” The Pasternak poetry included in the book was translated by Ann Pasternak Slater and Craig Raine Pasternak.

Peter Levi’s 1991 book, “Boris Pasternak: A Biography,” among a number of books & commentaries appearing on Pasternak at centennial of his birth year. Click for copy.

A number of other books, essays, and commentaries on Pasternak appeared leading up to and around his centennial year in the 1989-1991 time frame.

In 1989, Christopher Barnes published Boris Pasternak: A Literary Biography, Volume I: 1890-1928 (Cambridge University Press, 507 pp).

In April 1990, Lazar Fleishman, a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Stanford University and long-time Pasternak scholar, published, Boris Pasternak: The Poet and His Politics (Harvard University Press, 359 pp).

And in early 1991, Peter Levi, a British poet, archaeologist, travel writer, biographer, reviewer and critic, and former professor of poetry at the University of Oxford, published, Boris Pasternak: A Biography (Hutchinson, 310 pp).

In early February 1990, Pasternak’s former home in Peredelkino, where he wrote some of his most famous works, was opened as a museum.

Also in 1990, came a 90-minute British-Soviet TV production titled “Pasternak,” by Russian-borne, New York writer and director, Andrei Nekrasov. Pasternak’s life is traced through archival films and dramatizations, using Soviet actors, combined with scenes from the 1965 “Doctor Zhivago” film. “Pasternak” aired on U.S. television in May 1990.

Soviet Archives

From the late 1990s through mid-2000s, there came new reports on Pasternak-related history from the Soviet archives and newly-released letters and memos from the Communist Party’s Central Committee.

William Taubman’s book, “Khrushchev, The Man and His Era.” Elsewhere, Khrushchev reportedly said in an audio diary he felt “sorry” that he didn’t support Pasternak. “I regret that I had a hand in banning his book and that I supported the hard-liners...” Click for Taubman book.

In November 1997 there were allegations that Pasternak’s lover, Olga Ivinskaya, had betrayed Pasternak in 1961 while imprisoned in the gulag labor camps.

A Moscow newspaper had published extracts from a 1961 letter she supposedly wrote of her own volition to Nikita Khrushchev seeking her freedom, in which she recounted incidents of working with the Central Committee trying to delay publication of Doctor Zhivago in the West, writing statements for Pasternak in turning down the Nobel Prize, and dissuading him from leaving the Soviet Union.

Reportedly, it was quite common for prisoners in the gulag to write almost anything to gain their freedom, especially when tortured and/ or isolated while in prison.

And while there were those inclined to believe the reports of Ivinskaya’s alleged betrayal, others, such as Yvgeny Pasternak, son of Boris Pasternak and first wife, Evgenia Lurye, did not believe the allegations.

“It’s not true that she was disloyal,” Yvgeny said after the story broke. “If she wanted to betray him, she could have done it many times before, when Stalin was still alive, for instance. Many people wrote such letters…”

Other information that surfaced from Soviet-era documents in 2001 showed that even Pasternak’s unpublished manuscript for Zhivago in the mid-1950s had drawn fire from party officials. “Boris Pasternak’s novel is a malicious libel of the USSR,” wrote Soviet Foreign Minister Dmitry Shepilov in an August 1956 memo to members of the Central Committee. And one KGB memo on Pasternak;s writing noted, “a typical feature of his work is estrangement from Soviet life and a celebration of individualism.”

However, not all the revelations were negative. In late 2006, came reports that Nikita Khrushchev, who had secretly recorded his memoirs in an audio diary, had expressed remorse at the way he had treated Pasternak. “… I feel sorry that I didn’t support Pasternak,” he is alleged to have recorded in that diary. “I regret that I had a hand in banning his book and that I supported the hard-liners. We should have given the readers the opportunity to reach their own verdict. I am truly sorry for the way I behaved toward Pasternak. My only excuse is that I didn’t read the book.“

But then came the CIA revelations.

Cover used for early editions of “The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, The CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book,” by Peter Finn & Petra Couvée. Click for copy.

The CIA & Zhivago

In January 2007, Peter Finn of the Washington Post reported that a Russian historian – Ivan Tolstoy, grandson of an acclaimed Soviet-era novelist, Alexei Tolstoy – was about to publish a book with the title, “The Laundered Novel,” in which he would claim that in 1958 the CIA was a covert financier of a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago, used, among other purposes, to help Pasternak secure the Nobel Prize that year (there would be no evidence of that, however). Tolstoy had previewed his book during a Moscow lecture, and it would be published in 2009.

Back in Washington, meanwhile, Peter Finn at the Washington Post began his own investigation into the alleged CIA connection to Doctor Zhivago, emerging some years later in 2014 with his own book, co-authored with Petra Couvée, a writer and translator who taught at Saint Petersburg State University in Russia. That book, published by Pantheon in July 2014 was titled, The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, The CIA, and The Battle Over a Forbidden Book.

As Finn and Couvée would later explain in reporting ahead of their book’s release, a secret package from British intelligence had arrived at CIA headquarters in January 1958 bearing two rolls of film. What the film bore were Russian-language pages of Doctor Zhivago, then banned by Soviet authorities. The Brits suggested the CIA might do some creative things with this novel behind the Iron Curtain. The CIA was soon “all in,” as they say – then no stranger to the use of literature in the propaganda wars. In fact, during the Cold War, as many as 10 million books and magazines – some contested and/or banned – were secretly distributed by the CIA behind the Iron Curtain as part of political warfare campaigns. But the Doctor Zhivago book would soon prove to be a special case.

“This book has great propaganda value,” an internal CIA memo explained, “not only for its intrinsic message and thought-provoking nature, but also for the circumstances of its publication: we have the opportunity to make Soviet citizens wonder what is wrong with their government, when a fine literary work by the man acknowledged to be the greatest living Russian writer is not even available in his own country in his own language for his own people to read.”

And with that, off went the CIA crew to do their nefarious deeds on behalf of the greater good – or rather, to simply make the powerful novel extolling life, liberty and personal freedoms available to Russian citizens to read in their own language, also absorbing its anti-Soviet sentiments.

Later paperback edition of “The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, The CIA, and The Battle Over a Forbidden Book” (368 pp), by Peter Finn and Petra Couvée, first published in 2014. Click for copy.

The CIA – careful to distance itself from any connection to the project – first arranged for a publisher in the Netherlands to bring out a Russian-language version of Zhivago which was smuggled into the first postwar world’s fair, the 1958 Universal and International Exposition in Brussels. Copies of the book, wrapped in a plain covers, were placed at the Vatican Pavilion where visiting Russians soon found them. This became a successful venture, though small in numbers, but had also run into some legal issues with the Italian publisher of Zhivago, Feltrinelli. But then came the Nobel Prize award for Pasternak in October 1958 and the resulting Soviet firestorm. That helped re-energize the CIA effort.

CIA officials believed there was “tremendous demand” for copies of the book among Russian students and intellectuals and authorized another venture. This time, an in-house printing of “miniature” pocket-size editions of Doctor Zhivago in Washington, D.C. was approved, also rendering the novel in thinner volume 1 and 2 versions, easier for reader smuggling into the homeland. These editions used a fictitious Paris printer on title pages.

“By July 1959,” reported Finn and Couvée, “at least 9,000 copies of a miniature edition of Doctor Zhivago had been printed in a one and two volume series.” As Finn and Couvée further explained:

…Two thousand copies of this edition were also set aside for dissemination to Soviet and Eastern European students at the 1959 World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace and Friendship, which was to be held in Vienna.

There was a significant effort to distribute books in Vienna — about 30,000 in 14 languages, including, 1984, Animal Farm, The God That Failed and Doctor Zhivago. Apart from a Russian edition, plans also called for Doctor Zhivago to be distributed in Polish, German, Czech, Hungarian and Chinese at the festival.

…When a Soviet convoy of buses arrived in sweltering Vienna, crowds of Russian emigres swarmed them and tossed copies of the CIA’s miniature edition through the open windows.

Paolo Mancosu’s October 2013 book, “Inside the Zhivago Storm. The Editorial Adventures of Pasternak's Masterpiece” (Feltrinelli, 416 pp). Click for copy.

The Finn & Couvée book wasn’t the only published work to delve into the twists and turns of the Pasternak-Zhivago story.

In October 2013, Paolo Mancosu, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, then working with Italian publisher Feltrinelli, and accessing the publisher’s archive on the Doctor Zhivago novel, published, Inside the Zhivago Storm. The Editorial Adventures of Pasternak’s Masterpiece (an English and Italian edition, Feltrinelli, 416 pp.). This volume also delves into the hidden roles of the KGB and the CIA.

Mancosu would also publish two subsequent works on the Pasternak-Zhivago story.

In September 2016, Mancosu published, Zhivago’s Secret Journey: From Typescript to Book (Hoover Institution Press, 304 pp), which also uses declassified CIA documents in part of its story.

That volume was followed by another in March 2019 — Moscow Has Ears Every-where: New Investigations on Pasternak and Ivinskaya (Hoover Institution Press, 396 pp).

During the mid and late 2010s, there had also been other books on Pasternak, and at least one hour-long documentary BBC film titled, “The Real Doctor Zhivago,” focused on Pasternak’s career. That film aired on BBC in October 2017, was narrated by Stephen Smith, and also followed the making of Pasternak’s novel, including its use by the CIA during the Cold War.

But in 2019, a new literary twist would arrive in the Pasternak-Zhivago publishing world in the form of a fictional treatment – and more on point, as a historical spy novel.

Original cover art for first edition of Lara Prescott’s “The Secrets We Kept,” 2019 Knopf hardback. Click for copy.

The Prescott Novel

Lara Prescott – who ironically was named Lara for her mother’s fondness for the Lara character in the 1965 Zhivago film – had been a young writer engaged in Washington, DC- based progressive politics, but gave that up to pursue and obtain a Masters in Fine Arts degree at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.

In 2014, her father sent her the Peter Finn / Petra Couvée Washington Post story noted above on the CIA’s use of the Doctor Zhivago novel in the propaganda wars. And soon, Prescott was consumed by the story, delving into the original CIA documents, and musing about the redacted portions. That’s when she began thinking about “filling in” those redactions with her own creations.

And before long, coupled with an interest in the history and female characters of the CIA’s secretarial pool following WWII, she would — after some fits and starts, revisions, and “sticking-to-it writing” – soon produce a spy novel revolving around the CIA’s Doctor Zhivago doings in Russia with its own unique internal love story.

By 2018, Prescott had an agent, a manuscript, and a plan to maybe land a $100,000 book deal, an amount, she then figured, that might provide enough income for about three years of full-time writing. But soon, more than a few publishers began calling, and the book went to auction. A bidding war ensued, with 20 publishers interested. In the end, Prescott settled on Alfred Knopf to publish her novel in a $2 million deal.

“The Secrets We Kept,” UK paperback edition. Click for copy.

Prescott’s story puts women at the center of her novel, including Olga, the real-life mistress of Boris Pasternak, whose devotion to the married author sent her twice to the gulag.

But the “stars” of the spycraft portion of Prescott’s novel are Irina Drozdova, a Russian immigrant recruited from the CIA typing pool, and Sally Forrester, a veteran who takes the novice under her wing and trains her. Their mission is to first smuggle Pasternak’s Zhivago out of the USSR in order to publish it, and then disseminate the banned book back into the Soviet Union for public consumption. Along the way there is intrigue, risk, and love.

Prescott’s book became a best seller in 2019, receiving rave reviews.

The Los Angeles Review of Books compared it to classic Russian literature, noting: “Lara Prescott’s debut follows in the footsteps of classic Russian novels by being an epic love story that is both brilliant and bleak, one that is wound into the fabric of tragic, true history…”

The New York Times called it a “gorgeous and romantic feast of a novel” and Vogue praised it “a stunning spycraft debut.”

Michael Thomas Barry in his review of the book for the New York Journal of Books noted: “The Secrets We Kept is a remarkable debut novel and Prescott’s fictionalized interpretation of the Soviet Union’s suppression and the CIA’s covert distribution of Doctor Zhivago is meticulously researched…”

In 2019, Prescott had a lawsuit filed against her by Anna Pasternak, niece of Boris Pasternak and author of the non-fiction book, Lara: The Untold Love Story and the Inspiration for Doctor Zhivago. She claimed The Secrets We Kept had infringed on her book and that Prescott had copied material from her book. But in 2022, Anna Pasternak lost that case, with the high court in London finding no grounds for the suit and that nothing had been copied from The Secrets We Kept.

Prescott’s book, meanwhile, has been printed in 30 countries and also had its film rights sold early on. A feature film was reported to be in production by the Ink Factory and producer Marc Platt, whose earlier films included La La Land, Bridge of Spies, and Legally Blonde.

October 1958. Russian writer and poet, Boris Pasternak, near his home in the countryside outside Moscow. Harold K. Milks / Associated Press

Legacy & Future

The intertwined Boris Pasternak/ Doctor Zhivago stories have had long shelf lives, now stretching well over a century from Pasternak’s 1890 birth year. These are classic and epic stories, burnished not only by government repression, Nobel Prize distinction, and political warfare, but also continued publishing, scholarly inquiry, and cultural embedding in film, music, and television.

Certainly contributing to the lasting effects of the Pasternak/Zhivago stories is the humanism, integrity, and true grit of the characters involved — fictional and otherwise — as well as the love stories. Russian writers since Tolstoy, it appears, have been especially good at capturing these elements, and new writers will likely emerge in that tradition as Russia continues to struggle with its identity and politics in present times, bringing new works of humanism that illuminate and offer hope for a better world.

See also at this website the companion “Doctor Zhivago” story on the classic 1965 Hollywood film starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie. That story includes numerous screenshots from the film with running narrative, soundtrack samples, reviews, critic quotes, director and screenwriter comment, global box-office returns, awards received, and more. For additional stories on Publishing and/or Politics, see those respective category links. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle.

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Date Posted: 9 November 2023
Last Update: 9 November 2023

Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Pasternak Saga …and Zhivago Chronicles,”
PopHistoryDig.com, November 9, 2023.

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Film Choices at Amazon.com…

Special 2010 Blu-ray anniversary edition of 1965 Hollywood film, “Doctor Zhivago”. Click for Amazon.

Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton star in 1981 drama about journalist & Russian Revolution. Click for film.

2002 British TV miniseries with Keira Knightley that aired on U.S. PBS. Click for film.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Anne Applebaum’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2003 book, “Gulag: A History,” Doubleday, 720 pp. Click for copy.

“Boris Pasternak: Family Correspondence, 1921-1960,” by Maya Slater (editor), Nicolas Pasternak Slater (translator), Hoover Institution Press, Illustrated, 474 pp. Click for copy.

Helen Muchnic’s 1961 book, “From Gorky to Pasternak: Six Writers in Soviet Russia,” Random House, 438 pp. Click for Amazon.

Robert Conquest’s 1973 book, “The Great Terror; Stalin's Purge of the Thirties,” Macmillan,844 pp. Click for Amazon.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous 1962 book, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” Penguin paperback (2009), 208 pp. Click for copy.

Anne Applebaum’s 2017 book, “Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine,” Doubleday; Anchor paperback (2018), 608 pp. Click for Amazon.

Selection of poems from Russian authors, “Four of Us: Pasternak, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva,” 2015 edition, 108 pp. Click for copy.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Prize-winning, “The Gulag Archipelago” (Book 1 of 3; also available as abridged edition). First published in 1973-74. “Best nonfiction book of the 20th Century.” -Time. Click for Amazon.

“The Greatest Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy.” A Complete Collection of Thirty-Five Best-Loved Stories, 2019 paperback. Click for Amazon.

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James H. Billington, “Nikita Khrushchev and ‘Doctor Zhivago’.The Pasternak Case Underlines Moscow’s Dilemma: To Give Intellectuals Freedom to Produce What the Regime Needs — and Yet to Keep Them on a Strong Leash,” New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1958, pp. 290, 354-358

Associated Press, “Pasternak Cited at Nobel Session; Prize to Soviet Writer Still Valid, Official Declares at Presentation Ceremony 7 Winners Get Awards 3 U. S. Scientists, Briton, 3 Russians Honored Before 2,000 in Stockholm,” New York Times, December 11, 1958, p. 15.

“The Passion of Yuri Zhivago,” Time (cover story), Monday, December 15, 1958.

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Jahn Robbins, “Boris Pasternak’s Last Message To The World,,” This Week Magazine (nationally-syndicated Sunday supplement), August 7, 1960, pp. 4-5, 12.

Harrison E. Salisbury, “Pasternak Letter, Citing Illness, Rebuts Charge Against Friend; 1959 Note to German Indicates Author, Sensing Early Death, Originated Idea of Sending Funds to Mme. Ivinskaya,” New York Times, February 4, 1961, p. 5.

Edwin McDowell, Publishing, “A Full-Scale Biography of Pasternak,” New York Times, November 6, 1981.

“In Soviet Literary Life The Hazards Endure,” New York Times Book Review, June 21, 1964, pp. 4-5, 22.

“Pasternak Aide Freed in Soviet,” New York Times, November 2, 1964.

David K. Shipler, “Moscow Protests Viewing of ‘Zhivago’; Film and Another Shown Privately by American Diplomats Are Described as Slanderous,” New York Times, April 16, 1977.

“The Unpublished Letters of Boris Pasternak”(edited and translated by Elliott Mossman), New York Times Magazine, January 1, 1978.

Irving Howe, “Lara and Zhivago” (Review, Olga Ivinskaya, A Captive of Time: My Years With Pasternak), New York Times Book Review, February 5, 1978, p. 1.

Helen Muchnic, “Two Lives Caught in History,” (Review: The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg 1910-1954), New York Times Book Review, June 27, 1982.

E. Wasiolek, Review, Boris Pasternak: His Life and Art, by Guy de Mallac, Modern Philology, Vol. 80, Nor 4, University of Chicago Press, May 1983.

Felicity Barringer, “‘Doctor Zhivago’ to See Print in Soviet in `88,” New York Times, February 13, 1987.

Associated Press, “’Zhivago’ [the book] Appears in Russia,” New York Times, January 14, 1988.

David Remnick, “The Pasternak Attack,” Washington Post, March 9, 1988.

John J. O’Connor, Review/Television, “Merging Zhivago With His Creator,” New York Times, May 31, 1990, p. C-20 (re: “Pasternak,” TV film by Director, Andrey Nekrasov).

Neil Cornwell, “Centennial Publications on Pasternak: A Review Article,” The Modern Language Review, Vol. 86, No. 3, July 1991, pp. 645-650.

“Olga Ivinskaya, 83, Pasternak Muse for ‘Zhivago’,” New York Times, September 13, 1995, p, B-8.

Jeanne Vronskaya, “Obituary: Olga Ivinskaya,” Independent.co.uk, September 13, 1995.

Alessandra Stanley, “Model for Dr. Zhivago’s Lara Betrayed Pasternak to K.G.B..” New York Times, November 27, 1997, p. 1.

Daniel Williams, “Pasternak’s ‘Lara’ Lives on in Court Case,” Washington Post, February 1, 1998.

“Olga Ivinskaya,” Wikipedia.org.

Denis Kozlov, “‘I Have Not Read, But I Will Say,’ Soviet Literary Audiences and Changing Ideas of Social Membership, 1958-66,” Kritika, Vol. 7, Issue 3, Summer 2006.

Rob Rand, “Pasternak’s Funeral: A Poetic Protest,” NPR.org/Weekend Edition, Sunday, November 5, 2006.

Peter Finn, “The Plot Thickens A New Book Promises an Intriguing ‘Twist to the Epic Tale of ‘Doctor Zhivago’,” Washington Post, January 26, 2007.

Peter Finn and Petra Couvée, “During Cold War, CIA Used ‘Doctor Zhivago’ as a Tool to Undermine Soviet Union,” WashingtonPost .com, April 5, 2014.

Jeffrey Brown, “Why ‘Doctor Zhivago’ Was Dangerous,” PBS.org/NewsHour, July 8, 2014.

Michael Kimmage. “How the CIA Stole ‘Dr. Zhivago’. The Novel Stood in Subtle Opposition to Much That Soviet Life Tried to Destroy,” The New Republic, June 21, 2014.

Beth Ann Reimel, “Pasternak, Boris: Doctor Zhivago,” 20th Century American Bestsellers, University of Virginia. (John Unsworth, Department of English), 2016.

“New BBC Documentary Explores the Fascinating Story Behind ‘Doctor Zhivago’,” BritishPeriodDramas.com, October 12, 2017.

Elizabeth Kiem, “The Other Zhivago Affair: Anna Pasternak Rights an Ancestral Wrong, But Can’t Help Playing Matchmaker . . .” (re: book, Lara), Medium.com, January 24, 2017.

Quintus Curtius, “A Phone Call With Stalin,” QCurtius.com, November 18, 2017.

Sam Tanenhaus “Three Blockbuster Novels From the 1950s, and Their Remarkable Afterlife,” NYTimes.com, September 12, 2018.

Tina Jordan, “The ‘Doctor Zhivago’ Nobel Dust-Up,” NYTimes.com, October 24, 2018.

Leah Greenblatt, “The Secrets We Kept Is a Crackling, Female-Centered Spy Thriller Rooted in Real Life,” EW.com /Entertain-ment Weekly, August 28, 2019.

Caryn James, “Reimagining the True-Life Intrigue Behind ‘Doctor Zhivago,’ In ‘The Secrets We Kept,’ First-time Novelist Lara Prescott Uses Fiction to Fill in the Blanks in Real-Life Events—Inspired by a Trove of CIA Documents,” Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2019.

Janet Maslin, “A Debut Novel Reimagines the C.I.A.’s Efforts to Promote ‘Doctor Zhivago’,” NYTimes.com, September 2, 2019.

Valeria Paikova, “How Major Russian Poets Tried to Communicate with Stalin,” Russia Beyond/RBTH.com, October 15, 2021.

Haroon Siddique, “Descendant of Doctor Zhivago Author Loses Copyright Court Case; Anna Pasternak Alleged Lara Prescott Copied Elements of Her Book about Her Great Uncle Boris’s Lover,” TheGuardian.com, October 25, 2022.

Rebecca Abrams, “A Dictator Calls — What Did Stalin Really Say on the Phone? Ismail Kadare Digs Deep into a Fabled Telephone Conversation That May Have Sealed the Fate of a Dissident Russian Poet,” (review of A Dictator Calls, by Ismail Kadare), Financial
Times, September 8, 2023.

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Teaser Tag: Book, Film, Music, Politics
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/02-Doctor-Zhivago-Main-Title.mp3 5583544 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/14-Lara-Says-Goodbye-to-Yuri-Laras-Theme-Explicit.mp3 2785675 audio/mpeg

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 2001-Today

“Doctor Zhivago”
1950s-2010s

October 7, 2023 J.D.

Doctor Zhivago is the name of a famous Russian novel and an equally famous Hollywood film based on it — an epic love story cast in a time of war and upheaval during World War I and the Russian Revolution. The novel was completed in 1957 by Noble Prize-winning Russian author and poet, Boris Pasternak. While immensely popular in the West, the politically-sensitive book was banned in the Soviet Union for decades, smuggled out of Russia in 1957 and first published in Italian, followed by English editions in 1958. It became an international best seller and is ranked among the greatest works of fiction of all time.

U.S. edition of “Doctor Zhivago” (Pantheon, 1958), preceded by Italian edition in 1957. Click for copy.

Boris Pasternak (1890-1960), in a 1958 photo at Peredelkino, Russia, where he lived southwest of Moscow.

Pasternak and Doctor Zhivago became caught up in Cold War politics. He was announced winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature in late October 1958, but did not officially accept the award for fear of Soviet reprisals (decades later, in 1989, Pasternak’s son, Yevgeny, accepted the award on behalf of his father). Pasternak’s story, wrapped up in Cold War intrigue (including CIA doings and years of repression at home), is itself the subject of separate books, along with his interesting career, love life, and one long-standing love affair that fueled Doctor Zhivago and more. He remains lauded as a seminal Russian writer, poet and national hero. Doctor Zhivago, meanwhile, in 2003, became part of Russian school curriculum.

1965 film poster for Doctor Zhivago - “A Love Caught in the Fire of Revolution” – showing Zhivago with lover Lara, and over his shoulder, his wife, Tonya. Click for Amazon poster page.

The 1965 Doctor Zhivago Hollywood film, directed by David Lean, also has a prominent legacy. It was one of the biggest and most successful films of the year and remains a much-loved classic to this day. Its all-star cast included Julie Christie, Omar Sharif, Geraldine Chaplin, Alec Guiness, Rod Steiger and others.

The film was nominated for ten Oscars, wining in five categories: Best Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, Zhivago lost out in those categories that year to The Sound of Music.

At the Golden Globe Awards, however, Zhivago took five awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Omar Sharif.

At its release in 1965, Doctor Zhivago became the second highest grossing film that year. And into the 2010s, when adjusted for inflation, Doctor Zhivago remains among the top grossing films of all time in the U.S. and worldwide, accounting respectively, for $1.1 billion and $2.1 billion in ticket sales. It is also ranked among the most popular and /or highest grossing films in Australia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK.

What follows here is primarily a recounting of the film story, offered with the aid of screenshots from the film.

The film and story are set in Russia during 1913–1922, including a turbulent time of upheaval and change, from the period prior to World War I when Czars still ruled, and spanning the Russian Revolution of 1917 and civil war that followed when White and Red Russian partisans clashed for power. But Doctor Zhivago, at its core, is a love story told against this epic background. The politics are secondary and backdrop, though do receive a few pointed barbs here and there. The story centers on the life of surgeon-poet, Yuri Zhivago, played memorably by Omar Sharif.

Orphaned as a young boy, Yuri is raised in Moscow and becomes a doctor, though he also becomes a successful poet, which is his passion. As a young doctor, he marries Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin), an upper class girl he has known since childhood and who he dutifully loves. But as war and political upheaval begin, the life of Zhivago and his adopted family is upended. He is drafted by the Army to attend wounded soldiers at the front. In this service, he is assisted by a beautiful nurse, Lara (Julie Christie), who he has seen briefly a couple of times earlier in Moscow. More on those later.

Album cover for “Doctor Zhivago” soundtrack, showing Zhivago with wife Tonya at left, and lover Lara, at right. Click for copy.

But it is Zhivago’s love for Lara, and she for him – and the struggles that beset their union – that becomes the central thread of the film. Zhivago is torn by all his loves – each of different kind – for Lara, Tonya, and his poetry.

Music Player

Doctor Zhivago Soundtrack
“Main Title” – 1965

Powerfully complimenting the film throughout is the award-winning soundtrack by Maurice Jarre (sample “Main Title” above), and the especially evocative “Lara’s Theme,” a recurring motif of possibility, longing, and reunion that is heard throughout the film, often in fragments, but signals the love and struggles of Zhivago and Lara.

David Lean’s film, meanwhile, captures much of the drama – and the expansive and humbling Russian landscape – often through the eyes of Zhivago. But at the outset, the film uses flashback framing to set the story, via Zhivago’s half-brother, Yevgraf Zhivago (Alec Guinness). Yevgraf becomes a Communist Party regular in the course of the story, but he periodically advises and helps Yuri to stay on the right side of party expectations …Poetry, you see, has fallen out of favor, among other things.

In an early scene setting up the flash back for the Zhivago story, half brother Yevgraf shows suspected daughter of Yuri and Lara a copy of Yuri’s book, “Poems for Lara.”

As the film opens with its flashback set up, sometime in a more modern Russia of the early-to-mid 1940s or so under Communist rule, half-brother Yevgraf, now a Lieutenant General, is seeking to learn if a young Russian female worker at a hydroelectric complex, is the love child of Zhivago and Lara.

It is here that the movie’s central story begins as Yevgraf starts to tell the young women the tale of her father, Doctor Zhivago.

That story then opens with an expansive view of the Russian countryside, during a funeral scene, as Yuri Zhivago, then a young boy, has lost his mother. Against a backdrop of looming snow-covered mountains and an expansive plain, a distant, barely-visible crowd of people is seen, until the camera cuts to a close-up revealing a group of mourners in a funeral procession.

With the hulking backdrop of snow-covered mountains, a barely visible funeral procession (tiny black figures, lower left), makes its way across an expansive plain to a cemetery where the mother of young Yuri Zhivago will be buried.

At the cemetery, young Yuri Zhivago is holding a bouquet of blue flowers as his mother’s casket is nailed shut and lowered into the grave. A mournful Russian dirge is backing the scene, as wintry winds howl, and young Yuri Zhivago takes in the scene. It is one of the first such scenes where viewers experience Yuri’s sensitivity to the natural world, with the camera serving as Yuri’s eyes, pans to a nearby tree, its leaves whipped by the wind, suggesting the poet-in-the-boy is stirring even then.

Young Yuri Zhivago, with flowers at left, at the grave site of his mother as services are performed.

The orphaned Yuri will be taken in by friends of his mother, the Gromekos, an upper class family with a home in Moscow and a country estate near the Ural Mountains. The Gromekos have a daughter, Tonya, who is the same age as Yuri, and who he will later marry. They have all attended the funeral and will stay at the Monastery that evening.

Tonya, at left, with her parents, the Gromekos, putting Yuri to bed, still at the funeral site, before heading back to their home in Moscow where Yuri will live with them – here presenting Yuri with his mother’s balalaika.

The night of funeral, as Yuri is put to bed, he is told by Mrs. Gromyko that his mother was a very good player of the balalaika, a three-string, guitar-like Russian instrument with a triangular wooden base used in Russian folk and dance music. Yuri is given his mother’s instrument, as the sound of the balalaika is heard repeatedly throughout the film. Yuri will live with the Gromekos in Moscow.

Young medical doctor, Yuri Zhivago in Moscow, examining a slide specimen at a medical bench with microscope.

Tonya Gromeko (Geraldine Chaplin), who has grown up with Zhivago, has become a beautiful woman and will become engaged to him after schooling in Paris.

Victor Komarovsky (Rod Steiger), a well-off aristocrat, is something of a lout, and becomes a nemesis to Lara and Zhivago.

Lara Antipova (Julie Christie), 17, at her mother’s dress shop in Moscow -- before travails that soon beset her.

Early in the film, Yuri Zhivago (left), runs from his lab to catch a trolley, taking a seat behind Lara, who he has not yet met – their paths here crossing anonymously, an irony that emerges years later.

Upon leaving the trolley, Lara finds boyfriend Pasha passing out political leaflets, to her dismay.

Victor’s lover, Amelia, Lara’s mother, is ill, unable to keep a dinner date with him, urging him to take Lara in her place.

Victor Komarovsky begins his affair with young Lara after taking her out for dinner and dancing.

The Czar’s cavalry run down and slaughter street protestors, as Zhivago happens to witness the horror from a balcony.

Pasha, with his face sliced, has come to Lara after the protest carnage on the Moscow streets.

Yuri Zhivago, entering the Moscow town home of the Gromekos where he grew up, meeting Anna Gromeko, who has mail for him.

The Gromekos and Zhivago greet Tonya who has arrived in Moscow by train from Paris.

Tonya shares rave reviews of Zhivago's poetry from Paris.

Komarovsky, in his secret affair with Lara, dresses her in clothes of his liking, takes her dancing, and plies her with food and drink.

Zhivago and his medical mentor, help save Lara’s mother, Amelia, after suicide attempt.

At restaurant meeting with Victor, Pasha asserts himself as capable of marriage to Lara, while Victor does not then confront him.

Later, at dress shop, Victor & Lara argue over Pasha, slapping each other, with Victor then forcing himself on Lara.

Tonya and Zhivago at the Christmas party in Moscow where an announcement of their engagement is expected.

Lara, with gun, shoots at Komarovsky during Christmas party as he is playing cards in the rear of the hall.

Victor, rising from his card game, discovering he has been shot, but only slightly wounded.

As Zhivago is dressing Komarovsky’s arm wound, the two have a somewhat testy exchange about Lara.

Fast forward some years later, and Yuri is now about to become a young doctor, being urged by his mentor at medical school to pursue research. He is also a nationally recognized and published poet at this time.

In this scene, Zhivago’s medical professor engages Yuri in conversation as he is peering into a microscope, marveling at all the “pretty things” he is seeing:

Professor: “What will you do next year, Zhivago?”

Zhivago: “I thought of General Practice.”

Professor: “Well think of doing pure research. It’s exciting. Important. Can be beautiful.”

Zhivago: “General Practice.”

Professor: “Life… He wants to see life…. Well, you’ll find that pretty creatures [like those Zhivago marvels at under the microscope] do ugly things to people.”

Zhivago’s childhood companion, Tonya, is off in Paris at a private school, and has become a beautiful young woman. She is expected to return to Moscow after her schooling.

Also in Moscow is teenager Lara Antipova, daughter of dressmaker and single mother, Amelia. Lara works as a seamstress at her mother’s dress shop, where she will confront some difficult days ahead.

Her mother’s lover and business advisor is Victor Komarovsky, played by Rod Steiger. Komarovsky, a well-off aristocrat, is something of a lout, who can be ruthless in his dealings. In fact, Komarovsky has some history with the Zhivagos, it seems, having had a hand in cheating Yuri out of an inheritance.

Komarovsky also becomes interested in young Lara. More on that in a moment.

Lara’s boyfriend and future husband is “Pasha,” a young political idealist and revolutionary, played by Tom Courtenay.

Early on in the film, there is a scene that opens with Yuri Zhivago boarding a Moscow trolley and coincidentally taking a seat behind Lara, who is then unknown to him. A few stops later, as Lara moves to exit the trolley, she brushes by Zhivago.

Lara & Pasha

After her exit from the trolley, and walking a few blocks, she discovers her boyfriend, Pasha, passing out political leaflets to passers-by. As police move in to arrest him, Lara intercedes, calling him her brother and taking him away.

As they walk some distance away toward Lara’s destination, Pasha pulls out some more leaflets from his pockets and continues to hand them out to the throng of passers-by coming home from work. She scolds Pasha for his activism, worried for his safety:

Lara: Pasha, please.

Pasha: It’s got to be done.

Lara: Pasha, why has it got to be done?

Pasha: For them. For the Revolution.

Lara: Pasha, they don’t want a revolution.

Pasha: They do. They don’t know it yet,
but that’s what they want.

Passer By: Give me some of those, comrade [re: leaflets].

Lara: Pasha? Are you a Bolshevik?

Pasha: No, the Bolsheviks don’t like me,
and I don’t like them.

Pasha: They don’t know right from wrong.

Lara: Pasha Antipov, you’re an awful prig – a self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others.

Lara: People gossip round here.

Pasha: It’s the system, Lara.

Pasha later tells Lara that people will be different after the Revolution. And he asks Lara if she will come to an evening march planned by Pasha and his activists. No, she won’t attend, she explains, saying she must focus on her school work “I’ve got exams to take, Pasha. I’ve got to get my scholarship.”

Victor & Lara

Some nights later, Victor Komarovsky, comes to Amelia’s dress shop expecting to take Amelia out for night of dinner and dancing, However, Amelia is ill, running a fever, and she urges Victor to take young Lara in her place, which he does.

At the restaurant, Victor is recognized by the patrons, as he and young Lara are shown to their table. They order their meal and Victor then takes Lara to the dance floor.

A bit later there, a commotion is caused by some demonstrators in the street, to which Victor scoffs at and exclaims: “No doubt they’ll sing in tune after the revolution” — which brings laughter from those in the restaurant as the evening’s activities resume.

Later that night, traveling by horse-drawn sleigh across the city, Victor takes Lara to his home and seduces her before returning her to her mother’s home.

Street Slaughter

Meanwhile, that same night, the group of socialist demonstrators that Victor had scoffed at in the restaurant, had assembled on the streets to continue their rally. With a band and banners in protest of the Czarist regime, they continued their march trough the streets of Moscow. However, at the opposite end of one street, was the Czar’s cavalry laying in wait.

As the protestors, led by Lara’s boyfriend, Pasha, made their way down the street, the Cossacks on horseback came charging full bore through the crowd, swinging their sabres at will. The protestors are slaughtered by the dozens, leaving pools of blood in the snow as the Cossacks conclude their handiwork.

Zhivago Shaken

Yuri Zhivago, who happened to have come to the street-side balcony of his home when he heard the demonstrators’ music, witnesses the entire event, and is visibly shaken by the killing and mayhem.

He then goes down into the street and begins to care for the wounded. As soldiers are loading bodies into wooden wagons, Zhivago is told by a soldier on horseback he should get off the street and go back to his home. But Yuri is boiling mad with barely-contained anger and is saved from a confrontation by his uncle Gromeko (Ralph Richardson) who takes him off the street, reminding him that Tonya will be arriving the next day from Paris.

Pasha Wounded

Lara’s boyfriend, Pasha has been wounded in the street battle, his face sliced on one side by a Cossack sabre. He has come to Lara after the battle, and she says he should go to the hospital, but Pasha is afraid to go there, fearing arrest. He asks for iodine and treats the wound himself.

“There were women and children,” he explains to Lara, “and they rode them down. Starving women, asking for bread.”

Pasha had also picked up a dropped hand gun off the street during the battle. He asks Lara to hide the gun and keep it for him. Lara is horrified but hides the gun away in a drawer.

Some days later, on the other side of town, Yuri Zhivago is nearing the end of his medical studies.

Russian Comfort

Although the seeds of Russian discontent are stirring as Pasha and the demonstrators make plain, it is still a few years before World War I and the Russian Revolution at this point.

Life for the upper classes in Czarist Russia is quite good and comfortable – as it has been for the Gromekos in Moscow and Yuri Zhivago growing up there.

One scene from the film has Zhivago arriving at the Gromeko’s fashionable town home in Moscow where he has lived, meeting Anna Gromeko. That afternoon, she has a letter for him from Tonya, then in Paris, but soon to be back in Moscow.

When Tonya arrives to return to the Gromeko household from Paris, she is met at the rail station by her parents, Alexander and Anna Gromeko, along with Zhivago. It is 1913.

Tonya and Zhivago are excited to see one another, as they are expected to marry. Tonya tells Yuri that his poetry is famous in Paris, and has brought him a publication with the news on his work.

The affair between Victor Komarovsky and Lara, meanwhile, continues in secret. Victor has Lara coming to private rooms where they meet. He insists she wear clothing he buys for her, and plies her with food and drink. But Lara feels trapped.

Suicide Call

The following winter, as Zhivago and Tonya attend a music recital, Yuri’s medical school mentor and doctor, also at the recital, is summoned on a medical emergency to treat a woman who has attempted suicide. Zhivago goes with him to assist.

Turns out the victim is Lara’s mother, Amelia, who has learned of her daughter’s affair with Komarovsky. The senior doctor is a friend of Komarovsky’s.

Komarovsky, cad that he is, does not want to loose Amelia to suicide over his affair with Lara. The two doctors manage to save her.

But it is here where Zhivago first sees Lara, as he wanders through the house, and through a window to another room, observes she and Komarovsky having a conversation about her mother’s condition and that she has learned of their affair.

Victor Meets Pasha

Lara, however, is trying to free herself from Komarovsky, and has asked him to meet with she and Pasha at a local restaurant, and hear of their plans to marry.

The meeting is tense with Pasha asserting himself and his experience. He is 26, and believes himself capable of marriage.

Komarovsky does not argue with Pasha at the restaurant, but later, at the dress shop, attempts to dissuade Lara from marrying Pasha:

Komarovsky: Lara, I am determined to save you from a dreadful error. There are two kinds of men, and only two, and that young man is one kind. He is high-minded. He is pure. He is the kind of man that the world pretends to look up to and in fact despises. He is the kind of man who breeds unhappiness; particularly in women. Now, do you understand?

Lara: No.

Komarovsky: I think you do. There’s another kind. Not high-minded. Not pure. But alive. Now that your taste at this time should incline towards the juvenile is understandable. But for you to marry that boy would be a disaster. Because there’s two kinds of women… [Lara covers her ears, but he forces her arms down]

Komarovsky: There are two kinds of women and you – as we well know – are not the first kind. [Lara slaps him, and he slaps her back].

Komarovsky: You, my dear, are a slut.

Lara: I am not!

Komarovsky: We’ll see.

Komarovsky: Who are you to refuse my sugar? Who are you to refuse me anything?

…And Victor then proceeds to rape her.

Revenge Plan

Humiliated, Lara plans to take revenge on Victor. At first, she plans to take the gun Pasha asked her to keep for him and use it to shoot Victor at his home.

One cold winter evening, she sets out to do the deed, heading to Victor’s residence, only to discover Victor has gone to a Christmas party that evening, where she goes next.

Along the way, Pasha sees Lara on the street and insists on knowing where she is going, but Lara tells him he should read the letter she has left for him, which explains the whole story, including her affair with Komarovsky.

But Lara continues to make her way to the Christmas party, despite Pasha’s queries, though Pasha lingers on the street suspecting something.

At the party, there is much frivolity, with Christmas-tree candle-lighting, music, and dancing. The engagement announcement of Zhivago and Tonya is also expected that evening.

Shooting Victor

Having entered the elegant gathering, Lara makes her way through the crowd of party goers, moving toward the back of the hall where a card game is in progress. Komarovsky is there with cigar and drink in hand. Lara moves closer, draws the gun and aims at Komarovsky, and shoots. All the festivity stops instantly with the sound of the gunshot, amid some screams. Lara’s shot, however, has only slightly wounded Victor, hitting his arm.

Zhivago and Tonya witness the incident, as Zhivago is privately quite taken with Lara’s courage. Some in the crowd call for the police, but Komarovsky insists no action be taken against Lara.

At about that time, Pasha, who followed Lara to the party, comes into the hall. As he moves to retrieve Lara from the scene, the crowd makes way for him, then escorting Lara out of the hall.

Komarovsky, meanwhile, is treated for his wound by Zhivago, during which the two have this exchange:

Zhivago: What happens to a girl like that, when a man like you is finished with her?

Komarovsky: You interested?

Zhivago: [abruptly removing the cigar from Victor’s mouth, tossing it into the toilet]. You shouldn’t smoke. You’ve had a shock.

Komarovsky: I give her to you, Yuri Andreevich. Wedding present.

Few Years Later

Flash forward a few years later. Yuri and Tonya are married in Moscow and have a young son. Pasha and Lara have left Moscow for the countryside. Although devastated by Lara’s admission of her affair with Komarovsky, Pasha married Lara, and they have a daughter, Katya. Pasha soon enlists to fight for the Russian Army, but later is said to be missing in action or possibly dead. Lara enlists as a nurse to treat soldiers in an attempt to find Pasha.

Lara and Pasha, now married, are shown here with their daughter, living in the country. On one visit to town, shown here, Pasha meets with a recruiter and joins the army. However, later, he would go missing in action.

In 1914, World War I erupts and Yuri is posted to a field unit of the Russian Army near Ukraine After one bloody insurrection and roadside battle scene, with dead and wounded strewn about, he happens to find Lara at the scene and recruits her to assist him in treating the wounded. Together, they then help run a field hospital for six months.

On the back of their hospital wagon, on a makeshift operating surface, Zhivago is at work on a wounded soldier as nurse Lara assists in dabbing the wound with swab.

Dr. Zhivago and nurse Lara on their hospital wagon.

While working together, Lara says to Yuri that he often looks at her as though he knew her. And he admits, yes, he had seen her four years earlier at a Christmas Eve party in Moscow, the night she shot Victor Koma-rovsky. “No wonder you look at me,” she says.

But Yuri also adds that the young man who escorted her out of the hall that night, her future husband, Pasha, now missing in action, had shown “a lot of courage. He made the rest of us look very feeble. As a matter of fact, I thought you both did.”

Of Komarovsky, Yuri says, “good man to shoot at.”

World War I for the Russians had begun to wind down in 1916. But by the summer of 1917, the October Russian Revolution has begun, changing the entire political landscape. Yuri and Lara, meanwhile, continued their medical work by order of the Provisional Government.

One day at the field hospital, news circulars report that Lenin has arrived in Moscow, the Tsar is in prison, and that civil war – the Revolution – has begun. “No more Tsars!...Only workers in a workers state!,” says one soldier.

Having worked together for six months in an old country estate converted to a hospital, Yuri and Lara are the last to leave the now empty facility. They are clearly in love with each other, but have managed to keep their passions suppressed.

As the fighting winds down, and the field hospital empties of its wounded, Yuri and Lara talk of their respective departures, as Lara resists Yuri pressing her about their, so far, repressed love for each other.

Yuri in one scene, as Lara works on some ironing, presses Lara for what has grown between them, Lara is set to rejoin her young daughter in the town of Gradov, where she and Pasha had initially settled. Yuri worries about who will take care of Lara, but says he would be jealous of any caretaker. Zhivago then moves closer to Lara, but she resists, telling Yuri they have done nothing that would violate his marriage to Tonya, and so should remain that way…

Lara: “…Zhivago, don’t…My dear, don’t – please (as she burns her ironing)….Now, look what you’ve made me do. Yuri, we’ve been together six months on the road, in here, and we haven’t done anything you have to lie about to Tonya. I don’t want you to have to lie about me. You understand that, Yuri? You understand everything…”

Closing of film scene after Lara has left Zhivago and the field hospital.

Soon after, as the field hospital closes, and the last of the patients and soldiers take their leave, Lara says a simple “goodbye, Zhivago,” and boards the troop wagon to join her young daughter in Gradov.

Music Player
“Lara Leaves Yuri”
Doctor Zhivago Soundtrack

In the moment, Yuri’s eyes fill, and “Lara’s Theme” is heard in the film score, as the scene fades into the back rooms of the now empty hospital, passing a vase of wilting sunflowers Lara had set.

Back to Moscow

Back in Moscow, Yuri’s wife, Tonya has been living in the family home with their young son and her father, Alexander Gromeko. The letters home from Yuri were not always regular, and she is now looking forward to their reunion, having received word of his return. In the film, she is shown in one scene on the balcony of their home looking out over the Moscow streets, as Yuri approaches from afar. During his time away, however, radical change has occurred throughout Russia — including at the family home in Moscow — as Yuri soon discovers.

Tonya, anticipating Yuri’s homecoming after the war, looks out from the balcony of her home over the streets of Moscow, and she will soon become excited seeing Yuri approaching in the distance.

When Yuri arrives at the once-elegant home in Moscow where he was raised, Tonya introduces him to “Comrade Yelkin, our local delegate. He lives here.” In fact, 13 families now live there. Next is “Comrade Kaprugina is the Chairman of the Residents’ Committee,” who asks for Yuri’s discharge papers. He learns his former hospital, Holy Cross, has been renamed, “The Second Reformed Hospital.” Yuri quips: “Good. It needed reforming.” In the course of conversation about his return to medical work, he notes there’s typhus in the city, to which one comrade replies, “You’ve been listening to rumormongers. There is no typhus in our city.”

As Yuri enters the once-elegant Gromeko home in Moscow where he was raised, he is introduced to local party officials and learns from Tonya that the home is now divided into units for 13 families.

Collectivization has begun, but Moscow is in trouble, with virtually no food supplies or heating fuel, as an unforgiving Russian winter approaches. One night, in fact, Yuri is driven to steal some fence boards for needed fuel at home, but is observed in the theft by Yevgraf, his half brother, who is now a party official. Yevgraf does not arrest Yuri, but follows him home, where the two connect and reunite as family.

Half-brother Yevgraf with Yuri at home after fence-wood pilfering, arranges for Yuri & family to leave Moscow.

But Yevgraf has a warning for Yuri, as the published poet has fallen out of favor. He tells him that the Party leaders are watching, putting his life and his family members in danger.

Yevgraf urges Yuri to leave Moscow, and secures fake papers for the family to leave for the Gromeko country home, Varykino, in the Ural Mountains. A long train ride in a very crowded and dirty box car ensues with a few armed guards and one unhappy prisoner.

Along the way, as the train slows through a burned-out village, with dead cattle strewn about, a woman with child in her arms runs along side the slowed train and hands her infant to Yuri and others standing at the box car’s door, but the child is dead. Yuri and others manage to pull the woman onto the moving train, and she later explains that the local devastation is the handiwork of one ruthless Bolshevik commander known as Strelnikov, who has unfairly punished the entire village for alleged crimes.

Train w/Yuri & family slows through one village attacked by partisans; villagers seeking help.

One woman runs along side of the slowed train, handing an infant to Yuri, later pulled aboard.

Later in the trip, their train stops due to civil war activity in the area. Yuri hears the sound a waterfall in the distance and wanders off into the woods and away from his train, as strains of “Lara’s Theme” are heard. Then he suddenly comes to a cut in the terrain and there, on another rail siding, is Strelnikov’s hulking armored train. He is apprehended by guards who suspect him an assassin. They take him to Strelnikov’s private car to be interrogated.

As his own train has stopped on another siding, Yuri Zhivago has wandered off through the woods hearing a waterfall, then stumbles upon an opening where Bolshevik commander Strelnikov’s armored train is parked, and is apprehended by guards suspecting him an assassin,

Bolshevik Commander General Strelnikov (a.k.a. Pasha), amid some flying snowflakes.

Surprisingly, the general turns out to be none other than Pasha, the thought-to-be missing-in action or dead soldier-husband of Lara.

In his commander’s car, Strelnikov dismisses his guards, and begins a conversation with Zhivago, having inspected his personal papers. He asks if he is the poet Zhivago, which Yuri acknowledges he is. At first, Strelnikov compliments Yuri on his poetry of old, then lectures him: “I used to admire your poetry…. I shouldn’t admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don’t you agree? Feelings, insights, affections. It’s suddenly trivial, now. …You don’t agree. …You’re wrong. The personal life is dead in Russia. History has killed it.”

They soon discover they have seen each other before, six years earlier at the Christmas Eve party where Komarovsky was shot by Lara and Pasha escorted her from the hall.

Zhivago explains that he and Lara were recently a medical team on the war front. “If she’s with you, I’m sure she’d vouch for me,” Zhivago says. But Strelnikov explains he hasn’t seen his wife since the war. He says she is now in Yuriatin, to Yuri’s surprise, as Strelnikov adds, with seeming indifference to his marriage to Lara: “The private life is dead… for a man with any manhood.” Yuri then quips, “We saw a sample of your manhood on the way, a place called Mink.” [i.e., the burned village].

Yuri Zhivago is questioned by Bolshevik Commander Strelnikov in his private rail car, and he realizes Zhivago has seen him before, and charges that poetry and affections are now trivial and that the “personal life” is dead in Russia.

Strelnikov: They’d been selling horses to the Whites.

Zhivago: No. It seems you burnt the wrong village.

Strelnikov: They always say that, and what does it matter? A village betrays us, a village is burnt. The point made.

Zhivago: Your point, their village.

Suspicions that Yuri was an assassin or spy are dismissed by Strelnikov, and he releases Yuri, who runs back to his own train that has nearly left without him. As their journey proceeds, they soon arrive at Yuriatin, and then by horse-drawn carriage, to the Gromeko summer home at Varyikino

Varykino

When they arrive at the family summer house at Varykino it is late winter/ early spring. The main house, they find, is locked and boarded up; under seal of the local communist authorities. Alexander Gromeko, the owner, is angry and about to break down the door. Occupying it, however, would be a crime and would risk their arrest. But also on the estate is a small gardener’s cottage nearby, and they make their way there to see if it’s open.

Finding Varykino boarded up and under communist seal, Yuri, Tonya, their son Sasha, and Alexander Gromeko, with porter, make their way to caretakers’ cottage, also on the estate.

After a quick inspection of the cottage, they find it open and livable and settle in for what is expected to be a multi-year stay, later managing a vegetable garden there for food. Their squatter’s residence at this location is nearly invisible. That summer, however, they learn of news that the Czar and his family have been executed. The family remains in the cottage through that winter and into the spring.

Yuri Zhivago and his extended family, settle in at the gardener’s cottage at Verykino, later shown here with Tonya tending a vegetable garden.

Life in their rural hideaway is simple and calm – perhaps too calm for Yuri, although he is shown time and again discovering meaning and purpose in the everyday world around him, as in one scene where he is taken with the formation of ice crystals on a window pane.

At Varykino, in winter’s doldrums, Yuri finds wonder in a window pane’s ice crystals.

...But soon, the rising biology of spring at Varykino stirs the soul of Yuri Zhivago...

But one day, moved by his restlessness, and the encouragement of Tonya, he rides by horseback into the town of Yuriatin with plans to visit the library there that his step-father, Alexander Gromeko, has recommended. In Yuriatin, Zhivago finds Lara working in the library, who is quite astonished to see him. “Zhivago! What are you doing here?” The two then take a long walk through the war-scarred town as he explains the trip he and family have made from Moscow, that they are living at Varykino, and that he has also met Strelnikov.

On his trip to Yuriatin, Zhivago finds Lara at the local library, where she is surprised to see him, as the two reunite, walk through town, and catch-up on their respective lives.

Lara has lived in Yuriatin for about a year, having returned there in search of her husband, Pasha, now known as Strelnikov. As their walk through town continued, they end up at Lara’s apartment where Yuri appreciatively takes in Lara’s living space and her domestic touches. She lives there alone with her young daughter, Katya, who Lara says is currently in school. Whereupon, the two embrace, kiss passionately, and move to Lara’s bedroom to consummate their long-delayed love affair as “Lara’s Theme” permeates the scene.

Zhivago and Lara, arrive at Lara’s apartment in Yuriatin, where they soon embrace...

... and move to Lara’s bedroom where they begin their long-delayed love affair.

Yuri Zhivago then begins something of a double life for some months, trying to be true to both his loves, periodically leaving Tonya and his home life back in Varykino to visit Lara in Yuriatin. But with Tonya pregnant, Yuri struggles with his infidelity.

Back at Varykino, with Tonya pregnant, Zhivago struggles with his infidelity.

Guilt soon gets the better of Zhivago, and he vows to himself that he must end his affair with Lara. On his next visit to Yuriatin, and at Lara’s apartment, there is tortured scene, with Lara crying as Yuri tells her their affair must end, and this will be the last time they will see each other. On the horseback ride back to Tonya and Varykino after leaving Lara, Zhivago slows his horse down to a near stop on a dirt road in the middle of a forest, rethinking what he has just done with Lara, feeling sad and torn between his two loves.

On the road back to Varykino, as he has slowed his horse in thoughts of Lara, Yuri is surrounded by soldiers.

Captured by Red Army partisans, he is told that he is now conscripted to serve as their doctor.

And just then, on a this remote forest road, he is surrounded by local partisans on horseback who take him prisoner, with their commander explaining they have been watching him and know all about his affair in Yuriatin and his residence at Varykino. They are in need of a doctor, he is told, and so, they are conscripting him for involuntary service in their cause. For the next two years, Zhivago rides with these partisans, attends to their wounded, and once again, witnesses the horrors of war close up.

Sometime later, after his capture, on one of the army’s long and weary treks, Yuri slowly but deliberately drifts away from the unit on horseback, and then escapes ( at that point, he is regarded as a deserter by the Red Army). He later loses his horse, but continues his trek on foot over the unforgiving snow-covered landscape, following old roads and telegraph lines trying to get back to Varykino and Yuriatin.

After escaping the Red Partisans, Zhivago loses his horse makes a long journey on foot back to Yuriatin.

Yuri eventually makes his way hundreds of miles back to Yuriatin. Arriving at Lara’s apartment alone after his ordeal, frostbitten and dehydrated, he is horrified at seeing himself ravaged and emaciated in a mirror there.

On his way, through one blizzard, he begins hallucinating and believes he sees his family, Tonya and Sasha, ahead as distant figures. He starts following and calling to them, but upon reaching them, discovers it is another family, whom he has scared. He eventually makes his way back to Lara’s apartment in Yuriatin, remembering where she had hid the key. Inside, he sees himself in a mirror, and is horrified by his ravaged and emaciated appearance. Lara, hearing he was sighted in the area, had gone to Verykino looking for him, returns to her apartment to find him and begins nursing him back to health.

After his ordeal and arrival at Lara's apartment, she helps nurse him back to health.

At Lara’s, with her care and feeding, there is a long period of recovery for Zhivago, having suffered from severe frostbite, as he slowly begins walking again. During his recovery, Lara has explained to him that Tonya had contacted her while searching for him, leaving his belongings with her. Tonya also sent Lara a sealed letter for Yuri, which Lara gives to Yuri during his recovery, then learning that Tonya had given birth to their daughter, and that she, her father, and the two children were now in Paris.

At Lara's apartment during his recovery, Zhivago reads the letter Tonya has sent him via Lara, then learning about his second child and his family now in Paris.

Zhivago and Lara, meanwhile, continue their relationship in Yuriatin until – above all unexpected intrusions – none other than Victor Komarovsky arrives at their door on a cold snowy night.

None other than Victor Komarovsky arrives at Lara's apartment door one cold winter night to tell then they are in danger and to make the couple an offer of safety in the East.

Komarovsky explains that they are in danger, and that he has come to offer them help and a safe haven in the east. Cheka agents have been watching them due to Lara’s marriage to Strelnikov, Yuri’s desertion from his Red Army captors, and his counter-revolutionary poetry.

Komarovsky: Yuri Andreyevich, you spent two years with the Partisan’s 5th Division. You have no discharge, so you are a deserter. Your family in Paris is involved in a dangerous émigré organization. Now, all these are technicalities. But your style of life…everything you say, your published writings, are all flagrantly subversive. Your days are numbered…unless I help you. Do you want my help?

Zhivago: No.

Komarovsky continues to explain that he has been appointed as an official to the Far Eastern Republic, and offers to take them with him. “…You come with me as far as the Pacific Coast. From there you can go where you like. To Paris, or not….” They decline his offer again. But Komarovsky persists, angering Zhivago who proceeds to throw him out of the apartment, down the steps, and into the snow. Komarovsky yells recriminations back at Zhivago in an angry tirade: “I came to you in good faith….Stay here then, and get your desserts! Your desserts, do you hear me? Do you think you’re immaculate? You’re not immaculate!…I know you! Do you hear me?! We’re all made of the same clay, you know! Clay! Clay!…”

Realizing they are in danger now – and as Komarovsky has said, their days are numbered – they know if they attempt to flee by train they will be instantly arrested. So they opt, instead, to hide out at Varykino, together, with young Katya.

Lara, Zhivago and Katya arriving by horse-drawn sleigh at snow-covered Gromeko house at Varykino to hide out from the Red Army for as long as they can.

Even if they stay at Varykino for only a short time before they are found, Lara and Zhivago believe the time spent together will be worth it. So they make their way there by horse-drawn sleigh and occupy a small portion of the old great house – which now, in the dead of winter, has the look of a frozen ice palace inside and out. They stay there through most of the remaining winter.

Lara and Zhivago entering the frozen interior of the Gromeko home at Varykino, which has taken on the look of a winter-wonderland ice palace.

During their stay at Varykino, Zhivago sometimes works on his poetry at night, amid howling wolves, which frighten Lara. But Zhivago does complete one set of poems – these dedicated to and about Lara – which she finds one morning; poems, when published, will become famous for Zhivago, though banned by the party as subversive.

Yuri Zhivago, working on his poetry at night during his and Lara’s hide out at Varykino.

Lara discovering a poem from Zhivago about her one morning at Varykino – of a later-to-be famous collection,

Komarovsky, now the Minister of Justice, soon finds Lara and Zhivago at Varykino, arriving one day by horse-drawn sleigh with armed guards. He once again makes his offer of help – now to leave Russia with him on his special train at Yuriatin heading for Mongolia. But once again, they refuse. Komarovsky then takes Zhivago aside for a private conversation.

Komarovsky finds Lara and Zhivago at Varykino and offers them passage on his train East, but they resist, at which point Komarovsky takes Zhivago aside to detail the dangers that Lara & Katya now face if they stay.

Komarovsky explains that Strelnikov was captured only five miles from there, and during interrogation, “insisted they call him Pavel Antipov (i.e. Pasha)… and refused to answer to the name of ‘Strelnikov’ On his way to execution, he took a pistol from one of the guards and blew his own brains out.” Now, he says, they will be coming for Lara.

Komarovsky: …But don’t you see her position? She’s served her purpose (re: as lure for Strelnikov). These men who came today as an escort will come for her and the child tomorrow as a firing squad….But if you’re not coming with me, she’s not coming with me. So are you coming with me? Do you accept the protection of this ignoble Caliban on any terms he makes? Or is your delicacy so exorbitant…that you would sacrifice a woman and a child to it?

Yuri gives Lara his mother’s balalaika, as she prepares to depart on Komarovsky’s sleigh, suspecting Yuri’s plan.

And with that, Zhivago acquiesces, soon loading their luggage onto the sleigh and helping Lara take a seat there.

Yuri also gives Lara his mother’s balalaika, a sign to Lara that Yuri may not be coming, as they exchange glances.

In the sleigh, there are only enough additional seats for Lara and Katya. Zhivago says he will follow later with their own sleigh, meeting them in Yuriatin where the train is waiting.

However, Zhivago cannot leave his homeland, and will not join them on the train waiting at Yuriatin.

As Komarovsky’s sleigh and armed guards pull away from Vayrykino with Lara & Katya aboard, Zhivago has promised to follow later with their sleigh – but Lara, looking back, already knows that Yuri is not coming.

As Komarovsky’s sleigh, with Lara and Katya aboard, pulls away, Zhivago waves goodbye, then quickly rushes to an upstairs window high atop Varykino, frantically rubbing off the window frost, then breaking out the glass, to get a final glimpse of Lara leaving as their sleigh disappears over the far horizon.

Yuri Zhivago is devastated as Lara pulls away from Varykino on Komarovsky’s sleigh, but knows it is the best option for the safety of Lara and Katya – though for himself, he cannot leave his homeland.

Lara and Komarovsky wait for Yuri on the train at the Yuriatin station, but he does not arrive, as Komarovsky quips to Lara: “Well, I’m afraid that’s it, my dear. Your young man’s not coming,” to which Lara replies: “You fool. Did you really think he would come with you?” The train leaves, and Lara also announces to Komarovsky that she is pregnant with Yuri’s child.

Eight Years Later

Yuri Zhivago, some time later, made his way back to Moscow, where he was found by his half brother Yevgraf in poor condition and without work. Yevgraf helps him get his old job back at the hospital, but he was not in the best of health. Then one day while riding on a streetcar, Yuri believes he sees Lara walking on the street just below his streetcar window.

Yuri Zhivago, 8 years later, riding on a Moscow streetcar, gazing out the window...

...when he believes he sees Lara walking on the street, just outside the streetcar...

He attempts to get her attention at the streetcar window, but failing that, desperately makes his way through the crowded car to exit, reaching the street not long after she has gone by, maybe 20-to-30 yards ahead of him.

Having exited the streetcar, Zhivago then tries to run after Lara, just ahead, attempting to catch up to her...

But as he attempts to run and call after her, he grabs at his chest, has a heart attack, and falls dead on the street.

But as he tries to call to her and run after her, not far away, he grasps at his chest and collapses on the street. Lara has seen none of this, continuing her walk and disappearing around the corner, as passer-bys on the street rush to help the fallen Zhivago, now dead of a heart attack.

At the cemetery, a steady line of mourners & admirers attend the burial service for Zhivago, surprising half-brother Yevgraf (standing at center red collar), not realizing the popular appeal of his brother’s poetry.

Later, at a graveyard memorial service for Zhivago, large numbers of people are shown filing past his gravesite where his half brother, Yevgraf, stands in silence. The large turn out of admirers surprises Yevgraf, not realizing the wide appeal of his brother’s poetry.

At Zhivago’s burial, Lara meets Zhivago’s half brother, Yevgraf, for the first time, seeking his help to find her missing daughter lost during the Far East civil war.

One of those who come to the graveyard memorial is Lara, who meets with Yevgraf and asks his help in trying to find her missing daughter, Tonya, who was lost somewhere near Mongolia during the far east civil war. Yevgraf and Lara then search Moscow’s orphanages, but Tonya is not found. Yevgraf loses contact with Lara, and assumes she “vanished…in one of the labor camps” or passed away.

Yevgfraf with Lara (far left) visiting one of the orphanages attempting to find her and Zhivago’s missing daughter. But their search is not successful.

Yevgraf concluding his session years later with the believed-to- be missing daughter of Lara and Zhivago.

The story of Dr Zhivago then returns to its beginning flash-back framing at the hydro-electric complex years later where Yevgraf concludes his telling of the Doctor Zhivago story for the suspected and now grown daughter of Lara and Zhivago. On her departure Yevgraf notices that she carries a balalaika over her shoulder, and is told she is a good player, which suggests to him another possible connection to Zhivago and that he may well have found his niece.

Cover of 32-page MGM press booklet on “Doctor Zhivago” film, 1966. Cover shows scene from film of Russian partisans on horseback assembling in forest, early morning.

Reaction & Legacy

As noted at the beginning of this story, the 1965 MGM film, Doctor Zhivago, became one of the most popular and top grossing films of the 20th century ($2 billion & still counting). And it remains to this day, in the 2020s, a much loved film around the world. But at the time of its initial release, the film did have its critics – some unsparing in their views.

Bosley Crowther, for the New York Times, in a December 23, 1965 review, charged that “Mr. Bolt [screenwriter] reduced the vast upheaval of the Russian Revolution to the banalities of a doomed romance.” Brendan Gill of The New Yorker in January 1966 called the film “a grievous disappointment…” and lamenting what he found as a lack of movement, also cited it as, “one of the stillest motion pictures of all time….” Film critic David Thomson, wrote in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: “Zhivago is a syrupy romance, without poetry or plausibility.” Pauline Kael also panned the film in April 1966 for McCall’s, writing at one point: “Neither the contemplative Zhivago nor the flux of events is intelligible, and what is worse, they seem unrelated to each other… It’s stately, respectable, and dead.” Another reviewer for The Monthly Film Bulletin noted in June 1966 “the spirit of the novel has been lost.”

But the film also brought solid praise in other early reviews. In December 1965, Time magazine called the film “literate, old- fashioned, soul-filling and thoroughly romantic.” Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times described the film “as throat-catchingly magnificent as the screen could be, the apotheosis of the cinema as art…” And Clifford Terry of the Chicago Tribune wrote that David Lean and screenwriter Robert Bolt “have fashioned out of a rambling book, a well controlled film highlighted by excellent acting and brilliant production.”

James Powers, writing for The Hollywood Reporter in December 1965, described the film this way: “Zhivago is a story about the clash between man and the state, the imperishable, resilient individual refusing to be patterned or flattened.” Life magazine’s film critic, Richard Schickel, had a detailed full-page review of the film in January 1966, calling it “a work of serious genuine art” (more on that review below).

January 1966. “Doctor Zhivago” received a generous 12-page photo spread in Life magazine editions, with Julie Christie featured on the cover of its international edition.

Life magazine, in fact, with both its domestic and international editions of January 1966 gave the film generous promotional coverage, featuring a 12-page spread of photos and commentary in both editions, and putting Julie Christie on the cover of its international edition.

The review of the film by Richard Schickel at Life was also revealing of the film’s powerful cinematography and its messages:

The most important thing one carries away from David Lean’s movie version of Doctor Zhivago is a series of visual impressions – of the vastness of the Russian landscape, of the hugeness and, therefore, the uncontrollability of the forces necessary to effect revolutionary change within such a landscape, of the puniness of man when he measures himself against this scale, and finally, and most important, the nobility and the sadness of the luckless individual who would, contrary to Tolstoy’s advice, set himself in opposition to the gigantic historical pressures generated in this almost immeasurable caldron.

Schickel also addressed criticisms that the film gave short shrift to the Russian Revo-lution:

…It is true that his principal characters do not confront the great historical events of the period directly, but to have done so would have been to falsify Pasternak, who was similarly reticent;… The whole point is that in the revolutionary situation Pasternak’s characters must all remain on the margin, doomed by Marxist historical science – not to mention the raw psychology of revolution – to the junk heap of history. It is artistically essential that they be unable to participate in, shape or even fully understand the events that are transforming their lives. The compassion one comes to feel for them is based on their stubborn humanity. They accept their fate, they try to keep going, they even manage to be perversely cheerful on occasion, though it is becoming increasingly clear to them that what they are undergoing is not just a passing storm but a total and irrevocable change in the climate.

25 December 1965. Omar Sharif on the cover of “Saturday Review,” with story by film critic, Hollis Alpert.

As popular film critic Roger Ebert later put it in a 1995, 30th anniversary review, the film was “an example of superb old-style craftsmanship at the service of a soppy romantic vision,” and that “the story, especially as it has been simplified by Lean and his screenwriter, Robert Bolt, seems political in the same sense Gone with the Wind is political, as spectacle and backdrop, without ideology,” concluding that the political content is treated mostly as a “sideshow.”

And that’s OK – or it least it should be.

To show love and emotion and “the personal life” surviving in spite of repressive politics and the chaos of war and revolution is a good thing, no?

A world with a perfect politics made of a repressive ideological order without emotion and culture is not a world most of us would want to live in.

Again, as Robert Ebert put it: “‘Doctor Zhivago’ believes that history should have a lot of room for personal feelings – that the problems of its little people do amount to more than a hill of beans [paraphrasing Casablanca]- and that’s perhaps why the Russians [i.e, Soviet government] didn’t like Pasternak: He argued for the individual over the state, the heart over the mind.”

David Lean, in fact, had stated at the outset, that his intention in making the film was to craft Zhivago as an epic with a love story at its center. The plan was to minimize the role of the Russian Revolution and maximize the character of Lara. Lean by that time was already an Oscar winning director for other epic films, such as Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Those films won 14 Academy Awards between them including Best Picture and Best Director for both. In Zhivago, Lean wanted to tell this story with a love affair at its core, something he hadn’t done in his earlier two epics.

Director David Lean, left, during film production with his leading actor, Omar Sharif, who played Dr. Yuri Zhivago in the 1965 award-winning film, “Doctor Zhivago.” Atlantic Monthly, August 1965.

As Lean explained in an August 1965 interview with The Atlantic Monthly while making the film:

Making movies is a kind of falling in love. It’s almost entirely emotional. For instance, when I read Zhivago my common sense told me that it [making a film about it] was a terribly difficult thing to undertake, but I was so moved by the book that I thought all this must make a marvelous movie. I’ve done two films now with no women in them [Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai], and I like love stories very much. I found this a superb love story. God knows how I’m going to do it, but if we’re clever enough, it’ll come out.

And indeed, it did. Lean was quick to credit his screenwriter, Robert Bolt, as a key player in crafting the film, as Pasternak’s book provided intriguing but difficult terrain, often with incomplete information on character behavior. Bolt explained some of his work on the screenplay in the Atlantic Monthly of August 1965:

Screenwriter Robert Bolt had no small task, dealing with the lengthy & complicated Boris Pasternak novel from which the film was adapted. Atlantic Monthly, 1965.

…What fascinated me about Yuri [Zhivago] was that his actions are in fact very reprehensible. He has sins of omission and commission, mostly omission, and yet you feel not merely that he could do no other, but that in some way he was right and that the only thing under these circumstances that a man of his supcrcultivated sensibilities could have done was go with the tide wherever it took him. All the characters are peccable, and yet there is the strong feeling not merely that they could have done no other but that they reacted in these very ordinary and unheroic ways with a kind of special intensity. They were ordinary people raised several notches, and this, of course, is difficult to get across dramatically.

The way to make a man have stature dramatically is to make him do things which have great stature. The whole point about this book is that Yuri does nothing that has great stature except write poetry; and how to make the writing of a poem, particularly if the poems are like Pasternak’s, seem to a cinema audience a heroic justification of what looks like a rather useless sort of life was a very considerable problem.

We did it by calculating as carefully as we could the climax of his relationship with Lara. Everything is knotted together in the desperate situation at Varykino, where the revolution is closing in on them, where the natural conditions, the fearful cold, are closing in on them. What they are doing is in practical terms nonsense, if not indeed highly irresponsible. The only justification of it is the intensity of their love for each other. We hope we have shown by this time in the film that they are unusually mature people. We are hoping that the audience will now assume that this is a kind of Tristan and Iseult situation [famous 12th century love affair], a great grand passion. And then we have tried to arrange the actual sequence so that the climax of it shall be the writing of Zhivago’s poetry. And in that way we hope to make the poetry the crown of the film….

45th Anniversary Blu-ray edition of Doctor Zhivago released, May 2010 ( 3-disc set w/ book). Click for Amazon.

Along the way, Zhivago the romantic and humanist is shown through Lean’s camera and visual touches as a person who finds awe, beauty and promise all around him in his daily life, whether the tiny wonders of biology under a microscope, ice crystals on a window pane, the rising daffodils of Spring, shafts of sunlight in a forest, or the searching blue eyes of his lover, Lara. Those visual moments in the film carry emotional and optimistic heft, suggesting an irrepressible humanity and a joy in living – all surviving despite the political swirl. For these and other reasons, Doctor Zhivago remains a classic film for the ages.

True, some of the Doctor Zhivago’s touches seem overdone by today’s standards – perhaps a little too much of “Lara’s Theme,” for example, as lovely as that tune is. Yet over time, the film has held up quite well, as later reviews seem to validate.

In one “30-years-later” Chicago Tribune review on the then-restored Zhivago film headlined, “`Doctor Zhivago’ Grows Grander With Time,” film critic Michael Wilmington described the film in glowing terms as: “a magnificent prolonged tease,” “lush and tempestuous,” “visually ravishing,” and “inimitable.” And nearly 20 years after that, film director Paul Greengrass (e.g., Jason Bourne film series, Bloody Sunday, Captain Phillips, United 93), then delivering the BAFTA David Lean Lecture in March 2014, called Zhivago “one of the great masterpieces of cinema.”

At Varykino, Lara asks Yuri: “Wouldn’t it have been lovely if we had met before?” -- and they almost did, years earlier on a streetcar. (see earlier photo near top).

Sadly though, epics like Doctor Zhivago are not frequently found in today’s cinema. But surely that genre can rise again. Zhivago-styled epics, cast in modern contexts, are needed in the 2020s and beyond. The subject matter is certainly there, with a variety of backdrops available to frame any number of “love-in-the-throes-of” epics – whether civil rights, environmental battles, political skullduggery, technological oppression, space exploration, entertainer/ sports biographical struggles, etc.,. Hopefully, there will be film-makers out there who will use the lessons of Doctor Zhivago to fashion new epic cinema in the years ahead.

See also at this website, a detailed companion story to this one at: “The Pasternak Saga…and Zhivago Chronicles,” which cover the life and career of Doctor Zhivago author, Boris Pasternak, including his battles with Soviet authorities over his writing, their refusal to publish Doctor Zhivago, his Nobel prize controversy, his love affair that inspired the Lara character in Doctor Zhivago, and the CIA’s involvement with the Zhivago novel as Cold War propaganda.

Additionally, other stories of interest a this website may include the following: “Linda & Jerry, 1971-1983,” on the respective careers of, and relationship between, California Governor Jerry Brown and rock star Linda Ronstadt; “The Love Story Saga, 1970-1977,” on the book and film of that era that became a publishing and box-office hit; and, “Of Bridges & Lovers,” an account of the 1992 book and the Clint Eastwood / Meryl Streep 1995 film, Bridges of Madison County. Other story choices on film-related topics can be found at the “Film & Hollywood” category page.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 7 October 2023
Last Update: 11 November 2023

Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Doctor Zhivago: 1950s-2010s,
PopHistoryDig.com, October 7, 2023.

__________________________________

Other Film Choices at Amazon.com…

1942 classic love story in a time of war starring Humphrey Bogart & Ingrid Bergman. Click for film.

Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton star in 1981 drama about journalist & Russian Revolution. Click for film.

2002 British TV miniseries with Keira Knightley that aired on U.S. PBS. Click for film.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Ian Christie’s 2015 book on the film's production history, reception over fifty years, and enduring influence on film & culture. British Film Institute, 100 pp. Click for copy.

Robert Bolt’s 1965 book, “Doctor Zhivago;: The Screenplay,” Random House. 224 pp. Click for Amazon.

Gene D. Phillips’ 2006 book, “Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean,” University of Kentucky Press, 592 pp. Click for Amazon.

Boris Pasternak, “I Remember: Sketches for An Autobiography,” 1959-1960 editions, Click for Amazon.

Boris Pasternak: “The Poems of Doctor Zhivago,” University of Michigan. Click for Amazon.

“Doctor Zhivago (novel),” Wikipedia.org.

“Doctor Zhivago (film),” Wikipedia.org.

R. S. Stewart, “Dr. Zhivago: The Making of a Movie,” The Atlantic Monthly, August 1965, pp, 58-64.

“David Lean,” Wikipedia.org.

Bosley Crowther “David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago Has Premiere; Adaptation of Pasternak Novel at the Capitol; Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in Leads,” New York Times, December 23, 1965, p. 21.

Hollis Alpert, “Omar Sharif As Dr. Zhivago,” The Saturday Review, December 25, 1965, p. 20.

MGM, David Lean’s Film of Doctor Zhivago, program booklet, 1965, 36 pp.

Robert Bolt, Doctor Zhivago: The Screenplay, 1965, Random House, 224 pp. Click for copy.

“Doctor Zhivago Film Script,” DailyScript .com.

James Powers, “Doctor Zhivago,” Hollywood Reporter, December 23, 1965.

Brendan Gill, “The Current Cinema,” The New Yorker, January 1, 1966. p. 46.

Bosley Crowther, “Gone With the Purga; Re ‘Dr. Zhivago’” [re:‘Zhivago’ vs. ‘Gone With The Wind’], New York Times, January 9, 1966, Section 2, p. 1.

Arthur Knight, “Lean Pickings” (Review, Doctor Zhivago), The Saturday Review, January 15, 1966, p. 43.

Richard Schickel, “Epic Beauty and Terror: David Lean Makes a Long and Magnificent Film of Dr. Zhivago;,” Life, January 21, 1966, p. 48 (12-page spread w/photos).

Richard Schickel, “A Work of Serious, Genuine Art,” Life, January 21, 1966, p. 62-A.

Pauline Kael, “At The Movies with Pauline Kael,” McCall’s, April 1966, p. 36.

“Film Chronicle,” Commentary, May 1966, pp. 73-76.

Francis Russell, “’Zhivago’ Reduced to an Epic” (Review, Doctor Zhivago), National Review, May 31, 1966, pp. 542-543.

Michael Wilmington, “`Doctor Zhivago’ Grows Grander with Time,” Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1995.

Roger Ebert, “Doctor Zhivago,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 17, 1995.

“Doctor Zhivago,” Plot Summary & Synopsis, IMDB.com.

Chris Hicks, “Film Review: Doctor Zhivago,” Deseret News, December 29, 1995.

Scott Rosenberg, “The Story of Love, History and the Doctor,” San Francisco Examiner /SFgate.com, April 7, 1995 / Updated: February 8, 2012.

“Doctor Zhivago Reviews: Top Critics,” RottenTomatoes.com.

“Doctor Zhivago Burial Scene,” YouTube.com, posted, August 14, 2014.

“Do People Improve With Age?” [Zhivago film clip], Turner Classic Movies, TCM.com.

Doctor Zhivago (1965): “Take Him Inside” [film clip, Yuri observes street slaughter], TCM.com.

Oscar Manheim,“ Lara Shoots Komarovsky, Doctor Zhivago 1965,” YouTube.com,June 29, 2016.

“Doctor Zhivago (1965): ‘An Extraordinary Girl’” [film clip, shoots Victor], TCM.com.

Jaewook Ahn, “Doctor Zhivago: Scene 7/17 Lara Leaves Zhivago In Field Hospital,” YouTube.com, May 24, 2019.

“Lara’s Theme,” Wikipedia.org.

Jaewook Ahn, “Doctor Zhivago: Scene 8/17 Returns Home,” YouTube.com, May 24, 2019.

“Doctor Zhivago (1965): Will There Be Wolves In The Forest?” [film clip], TCM.com.

Lillian KM, “Strelnikov and Zhivago,” YouTube .com, February 26, 2014.

“Dr Zhivago in Varykino [actually, Uriatan library], YouTube.com, January 14, 2012.

Rui Garcês, “Doctor Zhivago (1965) – Yuri and Lara (HD Tribute),” YouTube.com, September 2017.

Tim Dirks, “Greatest Film Scenes and Moments: Doctor Zhivago (1965),” FilmSite .org.

Frank Miller, “The Big Idea Behind Doctor Zhivago,” TCM.com, July 26, 2004.

“Paul Greengrass: David Lean Lecture,” BAFTA.com, March 18, 2014.

BFI, “Doctor Zhivago” (new trailer 2015), YouTube.com.

Peter Bradshaw, “Doctor Zhivago Review – Vehement Storytelling Still Conjures Great Romance; With Real Contemporary Relevance,” The Guardian.com, November 26, 2015.

Paul Batters, “Dr Zhivago (1965): David Lean’s Masterpiece Of Love And Tragedy,” Silver Screen Classics, July 22, 2018.

Roderick Heath. “Doctor Zhivago (1965),” FilmFreedonia.com, September 25, 2018.

“Doctor Zhivago,” American Film Institute (AFI Catalog), AFI.com.

“Doctor Zhivago (1965),” IMDB.com.

“Doctor Zhivago (1965),” Critic Reviews, IMDB.com

“Doctor Zhivago (1965-66),” PeterViney.com

Lily Rothman, “How Hollywood Turned the Epic Book Doctor Zhivago Into a Movie
Doctor Zhivago,” Time.com, December 22, 2015.

“Doctor Zhivago (TV series),” Wikipedia.org.

“Doctor Zhivago: Anniversary Edition DVD Review,” DVdizzy.com, 2010.

Alain Silver, “David Lean, Great Directors,” SensesOfCinema.com, Issue 30, February 2004.

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More Film Choices at Amazon.com…

“Reilly Ace of Spies,” excellent TV miniseries w/Sam Neill w/Russian episodes; ran on PBS. Click for series.

David Lean’s 1962 Oscar winning, “Lawrence of Arabia” starring Peter O’Toole. Click for film.

“Titanic,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Winner of 11 Oscars. Click for film.

Teaser Tag: Rock Music History
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/The-moody-blues-Knights-In-White-Satin-Long-Version.mp3 18362368 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Moody-Blues-Tuesday-Afternoon.mp3 4687038 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“The Moody Blues”
Breakout Music: 1967-1972

September 7, 2023 J.D.

In 2009, a Visa credit card TV ad used portions of a memorable 1967 Moody Blues tune that was paired nicely with some magical footage of sea creatures, as shown below. The ad, titled “Aquarium,” was done for Visa, and features a wide-eyed little girl with her father enraptured by what she is discovering in the colorful sea world before her. A Morgan Freeman voice-over makes the pitch for Visa. But in this ad, it is the Moody Blues song, “Tuesday Afternoon” – especially the song’s opening, other-worldly instrumental riff — combined with the colorful, floating sea creatures, that gives the scene a kind of mystical, even psychedelic quality.

The stunning photography of the sea creatures and their colorful underwater world in this ad, backed by the Moody Blues tune, provides a near “perfect fit” between image and music. And for aging Baby Boomers who may have come upon this ad by chance, or heard a slice of that opening riff, some old 1960s’ musical memory cells likely fired up. And those cells, upon awakening, might well have thought: …And for Baby Boomers who may have heard a slice of that opening riff, some old 1960s’ musical memory cells likely fired up…“Yeah, that’s the Moody Blues from the 1960s; that was pretty good music!.”

Indeed it was.

In fact, the Moody Blues, at the time “Tuesday Afternoon” was created, were in a new phase of their career that offered a new sound. But before getting to that point, they had a bit of a hard road to travel.

The Moody Blues were an R & B band founded in Birmingham, England in 1964. They had taken the name “Moody Blues” in part because their early music was blues-infused and also because member Mike Pinder’s favorite song was Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo.” The band had early success in 1964 with an R&B tune, “Go Now” (No. 1 UK, No. 10 U.S.). But little else of note followed for the group, as hard times rolled in with little money and few prospects. Two key members of the group also departed, and a new lineup emerged. By 1966, the new Moody Blues consisted of: Justin Hayward, vocals and guitar; John Lodge, bass, guitar, vocals; Ray Thomas, flute, percussion, harmonica, vocals; Mike Pinder, keyboards, vocals; and Graeme Edge, drums, percussion, vocals.

Appropriate 1960s artwork graces cover of Moody Blues’ ‘Days of Future Passed’ 1967 album, which first included the longer versions of both “Nights in White Satin” and “Tuesday Afternoon,” plus “Deramic sound.”. Click for album or singles.

In September 1967, then in debt to their record label, Decca/Deram of London, the Moody Blues were asked to record an adaptation of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 as a demonstration album to promote and showcase the company’s new “stereo sound” format. Doing so, would wipe out the band’s debt. However, Peter Knight, a composer who had been assigned to arrange and conduct the orchestral interludes on the recording, came to see the group play their own material ahead of time. Knight liked what he heard and decided to work on an album of Moody Blues music rather than the Dvorák assignment.

And so, an album of the Moody Blues’ new materiel was undertaken, without Decca/Deram executives finding out until after the album was finished. That album became Days of Future Passed, which features orchestral/psychedelic rock ballads by Hayward, Pinder, Lodge, and Thomas with orchestral interludes by the London Festival Orchestra, Decca’s house orchestra, then consisting largely of session musicians. The album – regarded as one of the first “concept albums” – features a suite of songs organized around a day in the life of an everyday man – morning, afternoon, evening, night. It would also become one of the first “progressive rock” / “orchestral rock” albums of that era, bringing a new sound that would enthrall listeners and influence other musicians. Two songs would stand out, both written by singer-guitarist Justin Hayward – “Tuesday Afternoon” and “Nights in White Satin.”

“Nights in White Satin”
Moody Blues – 1967

Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I’ve written
Never meaning to send

Beauty I’d always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can’t say anymore

‘Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh, how I love you

Gazing at people
Some hand in hand
Just what I’m going through
They can’t understand

Some try to tell me
Thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be
You will be in the end

And I love you
Yes I love you
Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you

Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I’ve written
Never meaning to send

Beauty I’d always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can’t say anymore

Yes I love you
Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you
Yes I love you

Yes I love you
Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you

Late Lament
[spoken word section]
G. Edge, verse, M. Pinder, vocal

Breathe deep the gathering gloom
Watch lights fade from every room
Bed sitter people look back and lament
Another days useless energy spent

Impassioned lovers wrestle as one
Lonely man cries for love and has none
New mother picks up and suckles her son
Senior citizens wish they were young

Cold hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is gray and yellow white
But we decide which is right
…And which is an illusion

[ ending orchestral flourish ]

Keyboardist Mike Pinder had written a song, “Dawn Is a Feeling” which became the starting point. Justin Hayward, meanwhile, then 19, would write what would become “Nights in White Satin,” first featured as “The Night,” near the end of the concept album. Hayward would also write what was first titled, “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday).” Those two songs, in particular, would become big hits that helped carry the album for many years.

Music Player
“Nights in White Satin” – 1967
The Moody Blues

Hayward at the time was between love interests, having ended one relationship and begun another. His earlier girlfriend, in fact, had given him a gift of satin bed sheets.

As Hayward would later explain in a Rolling Stone interview: “I was sharing a flat with Graeme [Edge] and two girls that we just met. The four of us were living together in two rooms… I remember coming back from a gig and sitting on the side of the bed and just writing the two verses to “Nights.” It was quite emotional. It was a whole series of random thoughts that were on my mind. I was at the end of one big love affair and at the beginning of another…”.

Recording sessions for the album took place at Decca Studios in London, between May and November 1967. The album, which featured songs for the morning, afternoon, twilight, and evening included songs reflecting that progression by Lodge and Thomas in addition to those of Pinder and Hayward.

Days of Future Passed, and the “Nights in White Satin” single, were both released in the UK in November 1967. And at first, neither set the world on fire. The single, on the Deram label, did make it to the top 50 on the UK singles chart by January 1968, edging up to No 35, and reaching No.19 by February 20, 1968. It did better elsewhere in Europe in 1968, hitting No.1 in Holland, and reaching the Top 10 in Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. It was the Moodies’ first significant chart achievement since 1964’s “Go Now.”

But in the U.S., where the single was released some months later, in April 1968, it was barely noticed, only reaching No. 103. But that would change in subsequent rounds.

In fact, it wasn’t until 1972, after their Seventh Sojourn album was out, that “Nights in White Satin” began to take off in the U.S., as Graeme Edge would explain to Rolling Stone in 2018:

…There used to be things [in the radio business] called regional breakouts. Instead of the big conglomerate radio stations like now, there were these FM guys and they had their own playlists. DJs were stars in those days and they prided themselves on discovering new talent. We had a regional breakout [ for “Nights in White Satin”] in Seattle. I think after the breakout started happening, there was a decision to re-promote it in other areas. It spread from Seattle down to San Francisco and down to L.A.. It was going great everywhere, slowly going up the charts again until in the end it got to Number Two. But it sold a hell of a lot of records because it took so long to get up there.”

The “progressive” FM radio DJs, at that time, would play longer songs and even entire albums without interruption, which as Edge notes, helped boost “Nights in White Satin,” which ran for 5:38 (and more than 7 minutes with the spoken word addition), and album sides more than 20 minutes.

In the same Rolling Stone interview, Justin Hayward added: “[The label] put all their promotion behind Seventh Sojourn and none behind ‘Nights,’ and it kind of backfired on them a bit. In ’72 it just grew and grew and grew and in the end everybody at the record company just had to hold up their hands and go, “OK, let it go.” It was wonderful, it [i.e., “Nights”] was all by itself. There was no promotion involved at all.”

The Moody Blues in the costume garb of the late 1960s – from left: Ray Thomas, Mike Pinder, John Lodge, Graeme Edge, and Justin Hayward -- as they appeared on the record sleeve for “Nights in White Satin” single. Click for Amazon page.

In the end, “Nights in White Satin” would chart three different times in the U.K. – when first released in 1967 at No. 19; then to No. 9 in 1972; and finally, again in 1979 to No.14. It would also do well in the U.S. in 1972, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on Cash Box, selling several million copies in the process. And later it would be used in the soundtracks of popular films, such as A Bronx Tale (1993) and Casino (1995), also covered by various artists, ranging from Giorgio Moroder and Tori Amos to Ramsey Lewis and Celtic Thunder.

45 rpm recording of “Nights In White Satin.” Click for digital.

And years later, through the 2000s and 2010s, “Nights in White Satin” continued to resonate with music fans around the world. Comments found at any of the YouTube offerings of the song, at Lost.fm, or other music websites, provide ample evidence of how the song, and the group generally, is revered among listeners for all sorts of reasons. “Nights in White Satin” would become the group’s signature song.

As for the album, Days of Future Passed, it rose to No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and became the group’s breakthrough album of that time. According to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Days of Future Passed “remained on the Billboard album charts for… five years” and would influence subsequent groups such as Yes, Genesis, and ELO. Critics have called it “a landmark album in the development of symphonic rock” that had an impact throughout the industry.

But another single coming out of that same album, released later than “Nights in White Satin,” also became a well-known Moody Blues hit – “Tuesday Afternoon” – also written and sung by Justin Hayward.

Tuesday Afternoon

Portion of the 45 rpm record sleeve for Moody Blues’ 1968 hit single, “Tuesday Afternoon.” Click for single.

Given the “day-in-the-life” theme of Days of Future Passed, this song was originally titled “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday)” on the album, with the narrator singing about what he sees and feels that afternoon.

Music Player
“Tuesday Afternoon,” 1967-68

The unique opening instrumental sound of “Tuesday Afternoon” – used to good effect in the 2009 aquarium TV ad shown above – is a pleasing, but unique rolling instrumental sound (almost as if under water) which derives from the Mellotron, a keyboard instrument capable of duplicating the sound of various orchestral instruments, including violins, flutes, cellos, and even choirs. The Mellotron keyboard triggers taped loops of a chosen instrument recorded at different pitches. In “Tuesday Afternoon,” the recorded loops are strings, and according to one source, the strange and unique quality of the sound comes from the warble in the tape loops as they are played back. The Moodies were one of the first groups to use a Mellotron in their music, and it became a signature part of their sound in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In the U.K., “Tuesday Afternoon” wasn’t released as a single at the time of the album’s release in 1967, and it would not appear on the UK singles charts. But in America and Canada, when it came out as a single in 1968, it received solid airplay. On the Billboard Hot 100, it rose to No. 24 and in Canada, to No. 12. It did better in selected cities, according to Vancouver Pop Music – No. 1 in Bakersfield (CA) and Dayton (OH); No. 2 in Boston and Pueblo (CO), No. 3 in Vancouver (BC) and Providence (RI); No. 4 in San Bernardino (CA) and Miami, Los Angeles and San Diego; No.5 in Cincinnati (OH) and Ann Arbor (MI), No. 6 in Edmonton (AB), Fort Lauderdale (FL) and Tucson (AZ), No. 7 in San Francisco, Chicago, Winnipeg (MB) and Columbus (OH); No. 8 in Minneapolis/St. Paul; and No. 9 in Worcester (MA), Indianapolis (IN), Houston and San Jose (CA).

“Tuesday Afternoon”
Moody Blues – 1967-68

Tuesday afternoon
I’m just beginning to see
Now I’m on my way
It doesn’t matter to me
Chasing the clouds away

Something calls to me
The trees are drawing me near
I’ve got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear
Explain it all with a sigh

I’m looking at myself,
reflections of my mind
It’s just the kind of day
to leave myself behind

So gently swaying through
the fairy-land of love
If you’ll just come with me
and see the beauty of…

Tuesday afternoon
Tuesday afternoon

Tuesday afternoon
I’m just beginning to see
Now I’m on my way
It doesn’t matter to me
Chasing the clouds away

Something calls to me
The trees are drawing me near
I’ve got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear
Explain it all with a sigh

[…flute-led, orchestral ending ]

Justin Hayward has stated that as the album Days of Future Passed was going into production, he wrote “Tuesday Afternoon” while visiting Lypiatt Park, in western England – a park he had visited as a child; a place with an old Tudor manor house, rolling green hills, and large trees. The visit helped inspire Hayward with the verse, and over the years, it has been subject to many interpretations.

“Tuesday Afternoon” evokes an awakening of sorts in the narrator/visitor; a feeling that he is “in the moment” of an outdoor experience and having a bit of an epiphany – about his life, the passing of time, his relation to people, nature, and the rest of the world. Says he: “I’m just beginning to see / Now I’m on my way.”

One reviewer, Ray McCinnis of Vancouver Signature Sounds, suggests this visitor’s Tuesday afternoon has become “a time of deeper clarity and vision;” a time in which “new priorities emerge.” Among his new outlook, is a new relationship with nature: “The trees are drawing me near / I’ve got to find out why.” McGinnis also suggests that “clouds” are a metaphor for the obstacles that have blocked the narrator’s seeing things clearly in his life so far, thus this day’s epiphany helps with “chasing the clouds away.”

This song also contrasts with the previous track and set up at the end of the album’s Side One, “Lunch Break: Peak Hour,” which focuses on life’s problems and the rat race. Tuesday in the park, by contrast, put things in perspective, helping to leave one’s troubles behind, and appreciate the beauty and grace of the natural world – “the kind of day to leave myself behind.”

All in all it’s a song that seems a call to the rejuvenating qualities of the natural world and an appreciation of its beauty – available, for those who look, any day of the week.

Meanwhile, for many Moody Blues fans, the song holds a special place among their favorites, and for some, memorable associations from when they first heard it. Here’s a response to the song from one YouTube listener from 2012, posting as “J Wilman”:

…One morning back in 1977 while driving across the Oakland Bay Bridge, heading into San Francisco for work, this song came on the radio. The sun had just started to rise and reflected off the windows in the skyscrapers. Crystal clear day, not a cloud in the sky. Then it hit me. It was a Tuesday. Not afternoon yet, but definitely a Tuesday. I can’t begin to describe the feeling that came over me. Kind of a rush at first, and then for whatever reason, I became extremely melancholy. 35+ years later, the memory is as fresh as if it had just happened yesterday. Such a beautiful song!

“…I always heard a message of life-affirming hope in their music, and that helped me get through some hard times….”Another YouTube listener of the song, Walter Taylor, wrote as follows: “These guys are musical treasures that enriched my life. Now 69, I always heard a message of life-affirming hope in their music and that helped me get through some hard times. Now I can kick back to let the memories and melodies soothe my brain…” David from Deerfield Beach, Fl, posted comments at SongFacts.com on the song and Moody Blues music generally, noting in part: “…Living up to their name, they were sometimes haunting, deep, dark & melancholy, but in a beautiful, uplifting way. The orchestration had a rich, soothing sound…”. Other random comments on the song from YouTube listeners, include: “…Another timeless classic from the Moody Blues”; “,,,,[M]akes my heart ache with nostalgia”; “…I’m 65 now and I’ll never forget this song”; “…Pure magic …” On several of the online video postings of this song, there are thousands of similar comments.

Meanwhile, some professionals have also had high praise for “Tuesday Afternoon.” In June 2022, Brian Kachejian, a music critic with Classic Rock History, rated “Tuesday Afternoon” as the Moody Blues’ greatest song, noting that “Justin Hayward’s beautiful lyrics and melody, combined with John Lodges’ guitar work and Mike Pinder’s Mellotron, presented Moody Blues fans with the group’s grandest work and quite simply, the finest recording of the band’s long career.” Nick DeRiso, a music critic with Ultimate Classic Rock, rating the top 10 Moody Blues songs, in 2013, placed “Tuesday Afternoon” as their 4th greatest song.

Not all critics have loved them, however, some offering high disdain for what they believed were “over–the-top” sentiments and pretentious “messages-from-on-high” with poetry and spoken-word intrusions. But as the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock n Roll has noted, “the Moody Blues have proved impervious to the long prevalent critical view that their music is bombastic and pretentious.”

1967-1972

Their “Second Act”

In any case, 1967-1968, with Days of Future Passed and its hit songs, was a key turning point for the Moody Blues. They were just beginning their “second act” period from their “Go Now” days of 1964. Now they were marked as innovators and leaders in what would be variously called “progressive” and “orchestral” rock. The late 1960s, generally, was a heady time for rock `n roll, as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Doors, Jim Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, Cream, were all producing innovative music and new albums of one kind or another. And through the 1970s the Moody Blues continued to turn out new albums at a rate of about one every year between 1968 and 1972..

The Moody Blues
Popular Albums – 1967-78
(click titles for Amazon)

Days of Future Passed
1967: #3 US; #3 CA; #27 UK
In Search of the Lost Chord
1968: #5 UK; #23 US; #37 CA
On the Threshold of a Dream
1969: #1 UK; #20 US; #26 CA
To Our Children’s Children’s Children
1969: #2 UK; #11 CA; #14 US)
A Question of Balance
1970: #1 UK; #3 US; #3 CA
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
1971: #1 UK; #2 US; #2 CA
Seventh Sojourn
1972: #1 US; #1 CA; #5 UK
Octave
1978: (#6 UK; #9 CA; #13 US

Their 1968 album, In Search of the Lost Chord, included “Legend of a Mind,” a song written by Ray Thomas about LSD guru Timothy Leary. Hayward’s “Voices in the Sky” charted as a single in the UK (No. 27), as did John Lodge’s “Ride My See-Saw” (No. 42, No. 15 in France).

Two more albums came in 1969. The first, On the Threshold of a Dream, became their first No. 1 album in the UK, and their second that year, To Our Children’s Children’s Children, was a concept album inspired by the first Moon landing.

A Question of Balance arrived in 1970, and topped the UK charts at No. 1, while hitting No. 3 in the U.S. as the band’s following increased there. Justin Hayward’s “Question” was the lead single from this album, reaching No. 2 in the UK. Pinder’s “Melancholy Man” would also be released as a single in France, reaching No. 1 there. By this time, the Moodies were receiving top billing, performing, for example, at both the 1969 and 1970 Isle of Wight festivals.

Their 1971 album, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, became the band’s second consecutive, and third overall, No. 1 album in the UK and also reached No. 2 in the U.S., their highest posting there. Included was Hayward’s “The Story in Your Eyes,” a single from that album, hit No. 23 in the U.S. In 1972, Seventh Sojourn became their first album to reach No. 1 in the U. S., also reaching No. 5 in the UK. John Lodge’s songs, “Isn’t Life Strange” and “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock `n Roll Band),” became successful singles from Seventh Sojourn, both reaching the Top 40 in the UK and the U.S.

Following Seventh Sojourn, a pause came for the group, resulting in about a three-year hiatus, a time when each of its members also tried solo work and/or collaborative projects. In 1978 the Moody Blues regrouped for their Octave album, which did well, including the single, “Steppin’ in a Slide Zone,” hit No.39. A subsequent U.S. tour followed, but Pinder, then involved with family, did not tour and would later leave the group and was replaced.

Rock Hall of Fame
April 2018

The Moody Blues were inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. As their induction essay and career profile explained, in part:

“…[T]his British quintet pondered the riddles of existence with thought-provoking lyrics and bracing, adventurous music…Their vast body of songs offered a counterpoint of hopefulness and idealism to darker currents of a warring and polluted planet. Few artists of their stature devoted themselves so assiduously to shining the light of love on a fraught, despairing world. But they also set rock on a boldly progressive course, infusing it with symphonic grandeur and experimental reach.”

But the Moody Blues were not finished after their run of albums and touring in the 1970s. There would, in fact, be a ”third act” and a new round of success that would follow for this group in the mid-1980s. More on that period may appear in a future story at this site. Stay tuned.

For now, there are two other stories at this website that include Moody Blues content and music. “Legend of a Mind” uses the 1968 Moody Blues song of that name as intro to a longer story about its subject, Timothy Leary, and his role in the 1960s as an LSD/counterculture proponent. And “The Story in Your Eyes” is a 1971 Justin Hayward tune that has, in part, an environmental and “fate-of-the-planet” message. Additional story choices in music can be found at the “Annals of Music” category page.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 7 September 2023
Last Update: 17 January 2024

Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Moody Blues: Breakout Music,
1967-1972,” PopHistoryDig.com, September 7, 2023.

____________________________________

The Moody Blues at Amazon.com…

“The Very Best Of The Moody Blues” album. Click for Amazon.

All-the-songs book, “...Every Album, Every Song.” Click for Amazon.

“The Moody Blues: 5 Classic Albums.” Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Marc Cushman’s 2018 book, “Long Distance Voyagers: The Story of The Moody Blues, Volume 1 (1965 - 1979),” Jacobs Brown Press, 810 pp. Click for Amazon.

2002 DVD - “The Moody Blues - A Night at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.” Taped in Colorado's outdoor Red Rocks amphitheater in 1992; 1 hr/35 min, 20 songs. Click for an “Amazon’s choice” selection.

Christie Grayson’s 2018 book, “Wildest Dreams: A Biography of The Moody Blues,” 506 pp. Click for Amazon.

“VISA Aquarium by Velvet,” (TBWA/Chiat/ Day), IdN Magazine, YouTube .com, March 25 2009.

VISA “Aquarium” (director’s cut), Velvet.de.

“The Moody Blues,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 665-667.

Ailsa Chang, Host, “‘On ‘Mellotron Variations,’ A 1960s-Era Instrument Makes A Comeback,” National Public Radio / NPR.org, November 5, 2019.

Barbara Rowes, “A Requiem for the Moody Blues And the Days of Future Passed,” New York Times, Sunday, November 24, 1974, Section: RC, p. 505.

Robert Palmer, “Moody Blues Off Record,” New York Times, November 29, 1978.

“The Moody Blues,” Last.FM.

“The Moody Blues,” Wikipedia.org.

“Nights In White Satin,” The Moody Blues, Posted by Universal Music Group, YouTube .com, October 30, 2018.

“Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues,” SongFacts.com.

“Tuesday Afternoon,” SongFacts.com.
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-moody-blues/tuesday-afternoon

Jordan Runtagh, “The Moody Blues’ ‘Nights in White Satin’: An Oral History. Band members Look Back at the Creation and Reception of Their Unlikely 1967 Symphonic-Rock Smash,” RollingStone.com, April 9, 2018.

Stephen Holden, “Rock: The Moody Blues,” New York Times, October 9, 1986, p, C-15.

Rob Jones, “The Moody Blues Play ‘Tuesday Afternoon’;” TheDeleteBin.com, March 3, 2011.

“If You Like the Moody Blues, Try Alt-J,” NewYorkTimes.com, January 16, 2013.

Nick DeRiso,”Top 10 Moody Blues Songs,” UltimateClassicRock.com, August 31, 2013.

Scott Mervis, “Denny Laine Talks Wings, Moody Blues, ‘Band on the Run’ Tour,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 3, 2017.

Phil Bausch, “The Moody Blues…Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” OnTheRecords.net, October 7, 2017 (updated, December 13, 2017).

Andy Greene, “Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward on Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Honor: ‘It’s Amazing!’,” Rolling Stone, December 13, 2017.

“Moody Blues, Induction, 33rd Annual Induction Ceremony, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” RockHall.com, April 14, 2018.

Ray McGinnis, “#441: Tuesday Afternoon by the Moody Blues,” VancouverSignature Sounds.com, May 29, 2020.

Parke Puterbaugh / HOF Essay, “The Moody Blues: Avatars and Copilots of What Might Be Called Rocks’ Enlightenment, The Innovative Band Fused It’s Sound With Symphonic Grandeur and Experimental Reach,” Rock & Roll Hall of Fame / RockHall.com, 2018.

“Inductee Insights: The Moody Blues,” The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame / RockHall.com, July 22 2020.

“The Moody Blues’ Most Iconic Album Hits a Milestone,” GoldmineMag.com, September 5, 2017.

Michael Hann, “How the Moody Blues’ Nights in White Satin Became a Standard,” Financial Times, April 9, 2018.

Brian Kachejian, “Top 10 Moody Blues Songs,” ClassicRockHistory.com, June 2022.

Paul Sexton, “‘Nights In White Satin’: The Story Of The Moody Blues’ Epic Signature; It Was No Instant Success, But Gradually, the Group’s New Marriage of Pop and Orchestral Ingredients Began to Turn Heads,” UDiscover Music.com, November 10, 2022.

Teaser Tag: The Entertainment Economy
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/05-Like-a-Rolling-Stone.mp3 12443403 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Stevie-Nix-Just-Like-The-White-Winged-Dove.mp3 5257588 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/06-Old-Man.mp3 6756531 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Beach-Boys-Dont-Worry-Baby.mp3 4044928 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Linda-Ronstadt-Long-Long-Time.mp3 7397333 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/01-The-Sound-of-Silence-Electric-Version.mp3 6608984 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Simply-the-Best.mp3 4010362 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bruce-Springsteen-Secret-Garden.mp3 10720955 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/01-Space-Oddity-1999-Remaster.mp3 10579235 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Sting-If-I-Ever-Lose-My-Faith-in-You.mp3 4362603 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Music Rights Deals”
Selected Artists: 2020s

August 29, 2023 J.D.

If ever there had been any doubt about the economic value of popular music, just consider some of the blockbuster music rights deals made in recent years by the likes of Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Paul Simon, Sting and Bruce Springsteen. These rock stars, and dozens of others, some in the later years of their careers, have made mega-million dollar deals with music, entertainment and investment companies that believe there is still a lot more gold in the songs of these artists – and in some cases, big bucks for many years to come.

December 8, 2020. Bob Dylan’s music deal to sell his song catalog to Sony/ Universal, received front-page treatment at “The Wall Street Journal” with photos & headline, “Dylan Sells a Lifetime’s Worth of Songs for a Fortune.” Details weren’t disclosed at the time, but some later estimates placed the deal’s value in the $300-$400 million range.

December 2020

Bob Dylan

In early December 2020, it was announced that folk-rock giant, Bob Dylan, then 79, with nearly seven decades of music to his credit, agreed to make a deal with the Universal Music Group – a division of the French media conglomerate Vivendi – for 100 per cent control of his catalog of 600-plus songs. With Dylan’s catalog, Universal became the owner the publishing rights, each song’s copyright, and the income each song generates. The deal was estimated to have a value in the $300-to-$400 million range, making it one of the biggest and most valuable deals in music history.

Dylan's 6th studio album, “Highway 61 Revisited,” (August 1965), included “Like a Rolling Stone..” Click for copy.

Dylan’s songwriting dates to the 1960s, when songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963) and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. Others, such as “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”(1963), “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965), “Lay Lady Lay” (1969), “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” (1973) and “Tangled Up In Blue” (1975), are among a few of his more notable singles over the years.

Music Player
“Like A Rolling Stone” – 1965

“Like a Rolling Stone,” for example, was a No. 1 hit in the UK and No 2 in the U.S., and is considered one of most influential compositions in post-WWII popular music. Rolling Stone listed it at No. 1 on their 2004 and 2010 listings of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” The song was first released in July 1965 and also appeared on Dylan’s 6th studio album, Highway 61 Revisited (August 1965). The song has also been covered by many artists. At one auction in 2014, Dylan’s handwritten lyrics to the song brought $2 million, a world record at that time for a popular music manuscript.

Dylan’s December 2020 deal with Universal includes songs dating from his earliest hits to his latest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). The deal also includes shares of songs co-written by Dylan, or songs for which Dylan had publishing rights, like the Band’s 1968 classic “The Weight,” However, any music Dylan writes in the future is not part of the deal, and would remain his.

Bob Dylan is unique among modern singer-songwriters for his Nobel Prize, awarded the honor for literature in October 2016 – “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Dylan also won a special Pulitzer Prize in 2008 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Other honors include Grammy, Academy, and Golden Globe awards. He has also been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. By some counts he has sold more than 145 million recordings worldwide, with an impressive output of 40 studio albums, 96 singles, and a host other albums, EPs, videos, soundtracks, and bootleg material.

Philippe Margotin & Jean-Michel Guesdon's 2022 book, "Bob Dylan All The Songs: The Story Behind Every Track" (expanded edition), 736 pp. Click for copy.

The transfer of Dylan’s catalog to Universal means that Universal will collect royalties any time Dylan’s music is sold, streamed, broadcast or featured in other media, such as films, TV shows, TV ads, or Spotify streams. But with Dylan’s songs there is another income stream from cover versions of his songs – estimated to be in excess of 6,000 – by artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Guns N’ Roses, Stevie Wonder and others – covers which also provide a royalty ever time those versions are played. As for film uses, for example, the Internet Movie Database lists more than 800 soundtrack credits for Dylan, among them, “Easy Rider,” “Forrest Gump,” “Dazed and Confused,” and others.

But at the time of his December 2020 deal with Universal, Dylan still held another part of his musical legacy – his master recordings – which he later sold in a January 2022 deal with Sony, which reportedly paid $200 million – coupled with the earlier deal, possibly put Dylan in the $600 million neighborhood for the legacy rights to his music.

Dylan, however, isn’t the only popular musician who has sold his music rights in recent years. There have been dozens of others, in fact, if not hundreds, doing so by now. What follows below are some short profiles, with song samples, of some popular artists who have sold all or parts of their music catalogs and/or related rights for hefty sums in the 2020s.

November-December 2020

Cover of Stephen Davis's 2018 book, "Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks," St. Martin's Press, 352 pp. Click for copy.

Stevie Nicks

In early December 2020 it was reported that Stevie Nicks, known for her songs with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist, made a $100 million deal to sell 80 percent of her catalog to Primary Wave, according to the Wall Street Journal. The deal, negotiated in November 2020, includes several of Nicks’s biggest hits as a solo artist and member of Fleetwood Mac, among them: “Landslide,” “Rhi-annon,” “Dreams,” and “Edge of Seventeen.” Nicks was 73 at the time of the deal.

Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975, helping the band to become one of the best-selling music acts of all time with over 120 million records sold worldwide.

Rumours (1977), the band’s second album with Nicks, became a top-selling album worldwide, certified at 20× platinum in the U.S.

In 1981, while remaining a member of Fleetwood Mac, Nicks began her solo career, releasing the studio album Bella Donna, which topped the Billboard 200 with sales that reached multi-platinum status. She released eight solo studio albums and seven studio albums with Fleetwood Mac, selling a total of 65 million copies in the U.S. alone.

“Edge of Seventeen,” from her debut solo studio album, Bella Donna (1981), was released as the third single from the album on February 4, 1982. On the Billboard Hot 100, the song peaked at No. 11, and would later be listed at No. 217 on Rolling Stone‘s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” in 2021. It would become one of Nicks’ most enduring and recognizable songs. In fact, one report on the song’s streaming prowess noted that as of mid-July 2023, the song had nearly 370 million streams, accumulating at a clip of about 200,000 a day.

Nicks & Mick Fleetwood on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” album of 1977. Nicks sang on, and helped write, several of the album’s hit songs, including, “Dreams.” Click for copy.

Nicks wrote “Edge of Seventeen” following the death of her uncle John and the murder of John Lennon. “The white-winged dove in the song is a spirit that is leaving a body, and I felt a great loss at how both Johns were taken,” she recalled in 1981, according to American Song-writers.com. Though the song stems from sadness, Nicks also wanted it to have the energy of “moving on.”

Music Player
“Edge of Seventeen” – 1981

She is the first woman to have been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: first as a member of Fleetwood Mac in 1998 and then as a solo artist in 2019.

Nick’s music rights deal came shortly after her 1977 song “Dreams” from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album, began charting on Billboard in October 2020 for the first time in 40 years. That occurred when a viral Tik Tok video began boosting the song. It featured a man skateboarding and chugging a bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice while listening to the tune. That October the song posted a stellar week of streams and digital sales in the U.S., bringing it to more than a half-billion plays on Spotify alone. Rumours also rose in popularity and hit the top 10 chart for 2020, 43 years after its release – all testament to the lasting power and financial potential of classic rock music.

Her Fleetwood Mac songs “Landslide,” “Rhiannon” and “Dreams,” the last of which was the band’s only No. 1 U.S. hit, together with her solo hit, “Edge of Seventeen,” have all been included in Rolling Stone‘s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

January 2021

Neil Young

Album cover for “Neil Young Greatest Hits..” Includes 16 songs spanning his career since 1969. Click for Amazon,

Neil Young, the Canadian signer-songwriter whose works, like Dylan, have spanned nearly six decades, sold half of his career music rights catalog in January 2021 for an estimated $150 million to the Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a British investment company. The purchase reportedly included some 1,180 of Young’s songs.

Music Player
“Old Man” – Neil Young
Harvest album (1972)

Among some of Neil Young’s more notable songs for example, are: “Sugar Mountain” (1969), “Cowgirl in the Sand” (1969),. “Down By the River” (1969), “After The Gold Rush” (1970), “Cinnamon Girl” (1970), “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (1970), “Southern Man”(1970), “Heart of Gold” (1971), “Old Man” (1972), “Rockin’ in the Free World” (1989), and others. Two of his 40+ studio albums – After The Gold Rush and Harvest – were particularly popular in the early 1970s, and he would have other Top Ten performers through the 1990s and beyond.

Jimmy McDonough’s 2002 book, “Shakey: Neil Young's Biography,” Random House, 800pp. Click for copy.

Young is also known for his time with, and songwriting for, groups such as the Buffalo Springfield (1966-1968), where he was a founding member and wrote, among others, “Expecting to Fly.” He was also a part of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (CSN&Y) in the 1960s and 1970s, where he wrote the memorable song “Ohio,” following the Kent State massacre in May 1970. Young appeared on three CSN&Y studio albums as well as touring with them off and on for over five decades.

In addition to his many studio albums, Young has also issued a dozen live and compilation albums as a solo artist, as well as with Crazy Horse and other band configurations.

After the Gold Rush, Harvest, Déjà Vu, and “Ohio” have all been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. And Young himself has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, both as a solo artist and a member of Buffalo Springfield.

See also at this website, “Four Dead in O-hi-o: Kent State, 1970”, featuring the story of the campus shootings at Kent State during student protests there (with 2 songs), and a second story, “Crosby, Stills & Nash: 1960s & Beyond,” covering that group’s history with Young, plus selected songs and books. Neil Young’s “Philadelphia” is included in the “Streets of Philadelphia” story.

February 2021

The Beach Boys

Steven Gaines 1995 book, “Heroes And Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys,” Da Capo Press, 416 pp. Click for copy.

In February 2021, the surviving members of the Beach Boys – Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, and the Carl Wilson estate – made a music rights deal with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group for a controlling interest in their intellectual property. That deal is believed to be valued in the $100-$200 million range.

Music Player
“Don’t Worry Baby”-1964

The Beach Boys came on the music scene in 1961, and became one of America’s most famous groups through the 1960s and beyond, noted for their gorgeous harmonies and notable arrangements, as in the song sample above.

In the early 1960s, the Beach Boys made good use of a popular, teen-appealing formula of songs featuring either surfing, cars, and/or girls – all framed against a California backdrop. Their first big Top Ten hit was 1963’s “Surfin USA,” followed by others, such as: “Surfer Girl” (1963), “I Get Around” (1964), “Help Me Rhonda” (1964), and “California Girls” (1965).

They became the quintessential American rock band, and for a time, their music became a familiar part of U.S. 4th-of-July Independence Day concert celebrations. But as the group matured in musical style, their initial surf-rock focus was broadened to include other themes and often new and compelling arrangements, produced by Brian Wilson.

“The Beach Boys…are not just a band. They’re a lifestyle. They’re a consumer brand. And they’ve never really exploited that.”The Beach Boys would become one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful bands of all time, selling over 100 million records worldwide. Between the 1960s and 2020s, they had 37 songs reach the U,S. Top 40 music chart – the most by an American band – with four topping the Billboard Hot 100. Overall, the group has released 29 studio albums, 11 live albums, 56 compilation albums, 1 remix album, and 75 singles.

In the mid-1960s, they became the American answer to the Beatles, as the two groups sparred with rival hit albums, pushing the bounds of musical innovation. Among these was their 1966 album, Pet Sounds (1966) with its “God Only Knows” single — plus a later single, “Good Vibrations” — all of which helped raise Brian’s and the group’s prestige as rock innovators.

The Beach Boys: The Platinum Collection, Sounds of Summer Edition. Click for Amazon.

The 2021 music rights deal made with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group includes the Beach Boys’ master recordings, a portion of their publishing, the Beach Boys brand and copyright, photos, interviews, and all memorabilia. Iconic Artists’ CEO, Olivier Chastan, told Rolling Stone: “The Beach Boys, in a sense, are not just a band. They’re a lifestyle. They’re a consumer brand. And they’ve never really exploited that.”

Chastan also explained that Iconic Artists was keen to explore new technological avenues with the Beach Boys material, and that fans might expect to see new applications. “That includes VR, AR, 3D, CGI, natural language processing, et cetera,” he said. “That, to me, is probably the most interesting aspect of what’s going to transform our business. In five years, I could send you a text and say, ‘At 2 p.m., let’s put our Oculus Rift glasses on, and let’s go see the Beach Boys record ‘Good Vibrations’ at Western Recorders.’”

Old timers, however, will likely remain content just listening to the boys’ ageless 1960s harmonies, via vinyl, CD, or streaming.

See also at this website, three more detailed stories on Beach Boys history, which are as follows: “Early Beach Boys, 1962-1966,” recounting their early rise, recording and touring history, list of Top 40 hits, selected albums, TV appearances and more; “Early Beach Boys, Pt.2,” incorporating six full songs from 1963-1966 with historical narrative for each; and, “Love & Mercy,” a story on the 2015 Hollywood film of that name about Brian Wilson, his musical genius, troubled soul, and love story with his second wife.

“Just One Look: The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt”(2015), is a two-disc set with 30 of her songs. Click for Amazon.

March 2021

Linda Ronstadt

In March 2021, Linda Ronstadt made a music rights and promotion deal with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists valued at a minimum of $50 million.

Ronstadt, one of the best-selling artists of all time, is not a songwriter, so her deal is somewhat different from others involving intellectual property and/or publishing rights.

The arrangement with Iconic is one that includes name and likeness to promote her masters. It’s more a partnership with Ronstadt with the goal of preserving her legacy in the digital era — including working with streaming services and social media, rolling out reissues, focusing on anniversaries, and more.

Poster for the highly-regarded documentary, “The Sound of My Voice,” which aired on CNN, Jan 1, 2020. Click for film.

Linda Ronstadt, born in Tucson, Arizona, arrived in Los Angeles in 1964 at age 18, where she helped form the Stone Poneys, scoring a Top 20 hit in 1967-68 with the Ronstadt-led “Different Drum.” As a solo act, she struggled for a time, but in 1970, “Long, Long Time” rose to No. 25 on the pop chart, belying that song’s superb No. 1 quality.

Music Player
“Long Long Time” – Linda Ronstadt

By 1975, she had three Top Ten hits – “You’re No Good” (No. 1), “When Will I Be Loved” (No. 2). and “Heat Wave” (No. 5). In 1977, “Blue Bayou” and “It’s So Easy” rose respectively, to No. 3 and No. 5. “Faithless Love” is another well known Ronstadt song, as well as her cover of the Eagles tune, “Desperado.”

Heart Like a Wheel, her big No. 1 breakthrough album of late 1974, which included the hit singles “You’re No Good,” and “When Will I Be Loved,” among others, would sell more then 2 million U.S. copies, and remain in the Top 40 on the Billboard albums chart for ten weeks through early 1975. During her career, she released over 45 albums, 30 of those studio productions. Among her singles, 38 charted on Billboard’s pop chart – 21 in the Top 40 and ten in the Top 10. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Award.

The range of her vocal abilities, in addition to her own hit songs, is found in her covers of American Songbook tunes, Motown songs, Buddy Holly and Everly Brothers tunes, her “trio” albums with Dolly Parton and Emmy Lou Harris, and her Mexican-American, Spanish-language albums.

Linda Ronstadt’s autobiography, “Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir” (2013), debuted as a New York Times best seller. Click for copy at Amazon.

During her career, she sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide and also became one of the top-grossing concert performers. She also played a key role in the rise of The Eagles rock band, having hired Don Henley, Glenn Frey and others for her backing band in the early 1970s, performing with them and other Eagles on numerous tours together, contributing significantly to Southern California music at that time.

In August 2013, Ronstadt revealed she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, leaving her unable to sing.

Her autobiography, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, was released in September 2013 when it debuted in the Top 10 on the New York Times best sellers list. In April 2014, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

A well-regarded documentary on her career, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, had a CNN broadcast premiere on January 1, 2020, and would win a Grammy in 2021 for Best Music Film.

Also at this website, see “Linda & Jerry: 1971-1983,” which profiles much of her musical career, juxtaposed in a narrative chronology along with that of California politician, governor and Democrat presidential candidate, Jerry Brown, with whom she became involved during that time.

March 2021

Paul Simon on the cover of Robert Hilburn’s 2018 biography, “Paul Simon, The Life.” Click for Amazon.

Paul Simon

In March 2021, singer-songwriter, Paul Simon, concluded a major music rights deal with Sony Music Publishing.

In the deal, Simon’s song catalog – consisting of hundreds of songs, many of them classics – was sold to Sony for approximately $250 million. Sony acquired the rights to memorable songs of the 1960s and beyond, such as: “The Sound of Silence,“ “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Grace-land,” “The Boxer,” and others.

Music Player
“The Sound of Silence”-1965-66
(Simon & Garfunkel)

In 2013, “The Sound of Silence,” for example, was added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.”

A winner of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007, Paul Simon has been a songwriting tour de force throughout his music career, first in his partnership with boyhood friend, Art Garfunkel (Simon & Garfunkel, 1962-1970), and since then, with his prolific solo career that has continued through the early 2020s. To his credit are 16 Grammy Awards, including three Album-of-the-Year awards – Bridge over Troubled Water (1971, with Garfunkel), Still Crazy After All These Years (1976), and Graceland (1987).

Simon wrote most of the Simon & Garfunkel hits – among them, “Homeward Bound” (1966), “I Am a Rock” (1966), “The Boxer” (1969), “Cecilia” (1970), and “The Only Living Boy in New York” (1970). Simon & Garfunkel albums in those years included: Sounds of Silence (1966), Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966), Bookends (1968), and their last album, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970), which was then the best-selling album of all time with 25 million sold worldwide.

Music for “The Graduate” brought more listeners to the Simon & Garfunkel sound. Click for Amazon.

No. 1 “Bridge Over Troubled Water” of 1970 was the duo’s last studio album. Click for copy.

“Graceland,” Paul Simon’s popular No. 1 solo album of 1987 explored new genres. Click for Amazon.

Simon also wrote and/or arranged several songs used in the soundtrack for the famous Mike Nichols / Dustin Hoffman film classic of 1967-68, The Graduate, including: “The Sound of Silence,” “Mrs. Robinson”(1968 “Record of the Year” Grammy award), “April Comes She Will” (from 1966), and “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” (partially). The Graduate film and music at the time provided a big boost to Simon & Garfunkel sales. The album had a total of nine weeks at No 1 on the Billboard albums chart during the spring of 1968. To date, at least 100 million of Simon & Garfunkel recordings have been sold worldwide. But that’s only part of the Paul Simon legacy.

Following the Simon & Garfunkel years, Simon went on to have a lauded solo career, crafting a range of music that wove in many different influences. He continued to turn out hits, among them: “Mother and Child Reunion,” “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” “Kodachrome,” “Loves Me Like a Rock,” “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” “Slip Slidin’ Away,” “You Can Call Me Al,” and “Graceland.” He released 14 solo albums, including chart-toppers like Rhythm Of the Saints and Graceland, the latter of which joined the Sounds of Silence album in the National Recording Registry.

“The Essential Paul Simon” collection includes 36 of Simon’s best songs. Click for this “Amazon's Choice”.

Paul Simon’s music will undoubtedly continue to generate new listeners in the years to come – and revenue for its new owners. In 2020, Billboard estimated that Simon’s recorded music catalog that year generated $945,000 in music publishing performance and mechanical revenue from streams, sales and radio play (not including what are known as synchronization uses and other kinds of performance revenue). Simon’s last tour, in 2018, grossed more than $31 million, according to data from Pollstar.

In terms of music streaming, while not drawing top numbers like Beyoncé or Harry Styles at 30 million monthly streams on Spotify, according to Forbes magazine as of April 2021, Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel tunes were selected by nearly 18 million monthly listeners on Spotify, while Bob Dylan was drawing about 10 million a month. With streaming, slow and steady may take the prize in the long run – at least for the more patient investors. Simon’s music has also been used variously in advertising. In recent years, for example, “Homeward Bound” was featured in an ad for the Coldwell Banker real estate firm, while “The Sound of Silence” was used as backing music for a Volkswagen spot.

“The Best of Simon & Garfunkel,” remastered, Columbia/ Legacy, 2006. Includes 20 songs. Click for Amazon.

In June 2023, Paul Simon added to his music rights deal-making with a smaller sale he made to BMG, selling a “substantial share” of his royalty rights to Simon & Garfunkel tunes ( along with a type of public performance royalty called neighboring rights). That deal was said to be in the “eight figures” range. As Rolling Stone explained the latest Simon deal:

…When buying rights to royalties, a buyer is only acquiring the passive income from a song’s sales and streams without the copyright control.

The [Simon] deal reflects the number of different ways artists with iconic catalogs like Simon can monetize or sell their music rights. Simon is choosing to forego his earnings and take a check right away. BMG is taking on the risk and betting that the music will earn more than what they paid. But rather than work the catalog themselves, the company is putting its faith purely in Simon and Garfunkel’s growth on its own.

No doubt, in the years ahead, those classic tunes will prove their worth.

October 2021

Tina Turner

Tina Tuner during a February 1997 appearance on CNN’s “Larry King Live” talk show. Click for 2021 HBO documentary, “Tina.”

In October 2021, Tina Turner sold her song catalog and music rights to German music company BMG, in a deal reportedly worth more than $300 million. Turner was 81 at the time of the deal, which includes all of her recordings, writings, name and likeness, spanning across the work of ten studio albums, soundtracks, and other compilations.

Among her most famous songs as a solo artist, for example, are: “What’s Love Got To do With It?”(1984), “Better Be Good to Me” (1984), “Private Dancer” (1984), “We Don’t Need Another Hero” (1985), “Typical Male” (1986). “[Simply] The Best” (1989), “I Don’t Wanna Fight” (1993), and “GoldenEye (1995).”

But Tina Tuner’s story is distinguished by her amazing “second act” – her 1980s comeback after some rough years in an abusive marriage with her husband and musical partner Ike Turner, with whom she began recording and performing in the late 1950s. Later known as the Ike & Tina Turner Review, they had their own string of R&B and rock hits, including: “A Fool in Love” (1960), “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” (1961), “River Deep – Mountain High” (1966), “Proud Mary” (1971), “Nutbush City Limits” (1973), and others. But after Tina’s split from Ike in 1976 — and legally reclaiming her stage name — she managed, after some struggle and hard times, to mount a solo career and amazing comeback.

Poster for Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Tour” of 1984 featuring her “Private Dancer” album. Click for album.

At age 44, with the release of her fifth studio album in 1984, Private Dancer, she had a solo breakout that featured hits such as “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” and “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” Private Dancer became a multi-platinum success and “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” won the Grammy for Record of the Year and also hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Music Player
“Simply The Best”-Tina Turner

Her career was also boosted as her life story emerged and details of her ordeal with Ike Turner became public with the 1986 book, I, Tina, followed by the 1993 Hollywood film, What’s Love Got To Do with It?

From the mid-1980s through the 1990s and beyond, Tina Turner became one of the biggest stars on the planet, selling out giant stadiums from New York to Rio to Amsterdam and more. During her Break Every Rule World Tour in 1988, she set a then-Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience for a solo performer – 180,000 – at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Eight years later, her Wildest Dreams World Tour, which began in the spring of 1996, continued for 16 months and included more than 250 concert dates in Europe, North America and Australasia. Known for her energetic concert performances – and according to one account in People magazine, the person who “taught Mick Jagger how to dance” – few fans were ever disappointed at a Tina Turner concert.

Tina Turner’s 2018 book, “My Love Story,” adding more detail to her life’s story. A NY Times bestseller. Click for copy.

Turner has 12 Grammy Awards to her credit and has sold 100-to-150 million records worldwide. Private Dancer remains her career’s biggest seller with 12 million copies sold worldwide. She is also among the best-selling female artists in the UK and Germany.

In the UK, in fact, she was the first artist to have a top 40 hit in seven consecutive decades. Rolling Stone has ranked her among the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time; she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice – with Ike Turner in 1991 and as a solo artist in 2021. She was also a 2005 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. In 2020, Private Dancer was added to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress.

Of the deal she made with BMG for her music rights, she said: “The protection of my life’s work, my musical inheritance, is something personal. I am confident that with BMG and Warner Music my work is in professional and reliable hands.”

After some illnesses in her later years, Tina Turner passed away in May 2023 at her home in Switzerland. She was 83. See also at this website, “Rocker Supreme: 1958-2007,” a more detailed history on Tina Turner’s career, albums, world tours, comeback, and legacy.

December 2021

Bruce Springsteen

Popular 1995 collection of Bruce Springsteen hits, plus unreleased tracks – includes: 'Born to Run', 'Dancing in the Dark', 'Hungry Heart' & more. Click for Amazon.

In December 2021, Bruce Springsteen made a blockbuster music rights deal with Sony worth an estimated $550 million. Sony acquired his entire body of work — recordings and songwriting, encompassing some 300 songs, dozens of albums, videos, and more.

Music Player
“Secret Garden”- Bruce Springsteen

Springsteen, the famous New Jersey-bred rocker, is perhaps best known for his rousing classic blue-collar songs such as, “Born to Run” (1975), “Dancing in the Dark” (1984), “Born in the U.S.A.” (1984), “I’m On Fire” (1984), “Glory Days” (1985) and others. Yet he has also turned out a number of moving ballads and love songs during his career.

Among these, for example, are: “Secret Garden” (1995), sampled above, and made famous in the 1996 Tom Cruise/Renée Zellweger film, Jerry Maguire, and perhaps most powerfully, “The Streets of Philadelphia” (1994), his Oscar- and Grammy-winning song used in the 1994 Tom Hanks/Denzel Washington AIDs-related film, Philadelphia.

Bruce Springsteen is sometimes described as “an originator of heartland rock,” using socially-conscious lyrics in his music to tell stories about working-class American life. His breakout year came in 1975 with his Born to Run album, the year when Time and Newsweek both featured him on their covers in the third week of October. Springsteen has had eleven No. 1 albums in both the U.S and he U.K. Rolling Stone has ranked him at No. 23 on their “Greatest Artists of All Time” list, calling him “the embodiment of rock & roll.” The E Street Band has been Springsteen’s primary backing band since 1972 and has appeared on a majority of his studio albums and live releases.

Springsteen’s blockbuster 1984 album, “Born in the U.S.A.,” hit No. 1, produced seven Top 10 singles, and remained on the charts for more than 2 years. Click for Amazon.

His blockbuster 1984 album, Born in the U.S.A., launched Springsteen into superstardom, hitting No. 1 and producing seven Top 10 singles for 1984-85, including: “Dancing in the Dark,” “Cover Me,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” “I’m On Fire,” “Glory Days,” “I’m Goin’ Down,” and “My Hometown.”

Born in he U.S.A. remained in the Top Ten on the albums chart for more than two years. It was the best-selling album of 1985 in U.S. – with 15 million copies sold there and 30 million worldwide.

Overall, Springsteen has released 21 studio albums, 23 live albums, 8 compilation albums 77 singles, 66 music videos – and more, including assorted extended plays, box sets, soundtracks, and home videos. He has sold more than 71 million albums in the U.S. and over 140 million worldwide.

He has earned numerous awards, including 20 Grammys, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Special Tony Award. In 1999, he was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2009, he received Kennedy Center Honors. President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and in 2023, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Joe Biden.

Bruce Springsteen’s 2016 book, “Born to Run,” 528 pp. Simon & Schuster. Click for this “editor’s pick” at Amazon.

According to the New York Times, Spring-steen essentially made two music rights deals with Sony: one, for his master recordings – the sounds of his music as captured on albums and singles – and another, for his music publishing or songwriting rights, consisting of the words, melodies and structures of the songs he wrote. With both sets of rights, according to the Times, “Sony will have full control over the future use and earnings of Springsteen’s music and lyrics,” excepting any restrictive covenants Springsteen may have negotiated in the deal.

Throughout his career, Springsteen consistently refused to license his music generally for TV ads, especially wary of possible misuse and/or misrepresentation. He did make one exception, however, when he appeared in a February 2021 Jeep ad during the Super Bowl to offer a message on the need for “common ground” in America.

Springsteen’s work has generally been infused with his personal politics and a helping perspective, often donating to various social causes at concert locations.

Estimates by Billboard have noted that Springsteen’s recordings and songwriting in recent years have earned about $17 million a year, after costs. His most recent albums are: Letter to You (2020) and Only The Strong Survive (2022).

On Spotify, as of August 2023, Springsteen’s songs were being streamed by about 16.5 million listeners a month. No doubt, as Sony’s $550 million investment suggests, Bruce Springsteen’s music will continue to do well for many years to come.

“Bruce Springsteen: All The Songs” book. 672 pp, illustrated. Click for Amazon.

Also at this website, see four other stories featuring or including Bruce Springsteen music or related content, among them:

“Barack & Bruce: 2008-2012,” focusing primarily on Springsteen’s involvement in Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns;

“Reagan & Springsteen: 1984,” story of how Ronald Reagan tried to use a reference to Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” song during his presidential campaign (includes a George Will column);

“Streets of Philadelphia: 1993-1994,” a story about the 1994 AIDs-related Hollywood film, Philadelphia, that includes Springsteen’s emotionally-powerful and Oscar/Grammy/Golden Globe/MTV-winning song, “Streets of Philadel-phia;” and,

“Steinbeck to Springsteen: 1939-2006,” about the famous John Steinbeck book of 1939, The Grapes of Wrath, on Depression-era migrants that includes Springsteen’s 1995 song and album, The Ghost of Tom Joad.

January 2022

David Bowie

In January 2022, David Bowie’s entire catalog of more than 400 songs was sold to Warner-Chappell for an estimated $250 million. The deal came six years after his death from liver cancer at age 69 in 2016. Warner-Chappell now owns hundreds of Bowie’s hit recordings, such as: “Space Oddity”(1969), “Changes” (1972), “Rebel Rebel” (1974), “Fame” (1975), “Golden Years” (1975), “Heroes”(1977),“Let’s Dance”(1983), “Ziggy Stardust” (1972), as well as collaborations, such as that with Queen on “Under Pressure” (1981). The deal also includes songs he made for soundtracks or other projects,

Photo of David Bowie (1947-2016) that appeared with his New York Times obituary, January 11, 2016. It was taken at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 1983. Photo, Ralph Gatti. Click for David Bowie photos, posters at Amazon.

During his lifetime, Bowie’s record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. In the UK, he released eleven No.1 albums and was awarded ten platinum, eleven gold, and eight silver album certifications. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Rolling Stone ranks him among the greatest artists in history.

At his passing in January 2016, Jon Parles of the New York Times described David Bowie as, “the infinitely changeable, fiercely forward-looking songwriter who taught generations of musicians about the power of drama, images and personas.” His works ranged across a wide field of styles and musical genres, often taking on personalities, experimental fashion, and appearances to fit his messaging.

Dylan Jones 2018 paperback, “David Bowie: The Oral History.” Click for Amazon “editor’s pick,” biographies.

Associated Press noted: “As a performer, Bowie had unpredictable range of styles, melding European jadedness with American rhythms and his ever-changing personas and wardrobes. The gaunt and erudite Bowie brought an open theatricality and androgyny to popular music that changed the very meaning of being a rock star…”.

Among his musical adventures and portrayed characters were those related to outer space and space travel. Consider, for example, his major 1969 hit song, “Space Oddity.”

Music Player
“Space Oddity” – 1969
(sound begins slowly)

“Space Oddity” was inspired, in part, by Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Bowie had seen. Bowie’s song is a tale about a fictional astronaut named Major Tom, and is also said to have been influenced by Bowie’s state of mind at the time and his career struggles.

In any case, “Space Oddity” was rush-released in July 1969 as a single to capitalize on the U.S. Apollo 11 Moon landing mission, which occurred over eight days, July 16th-24th. “Space Oddity” hit the airwaves 5 days prior to the Apollo launch, and British television used it as background music during coverage of the landing until the BBC realized some of Major Tom’s troubles in the lyrics, and ceased playing it until the Apollo 11 crew safely returned home. Still, in later years, it became one of Bowie’s seminal hits. A 1972 reissue of “Space Oddity” by RCA Records was Bowie’s first U.S. hit and was promoted with a new music video. A November 1975 reissue of the song as part of a maxi-single, became Bowie’s first UK No. 1 single.

But the space theme and alien space visitors would serve as important expressive vehicles for Bowie in later songs, including, most importantly, the song “Ziggy Stardust” and its parent album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). As Wikipedia has noted:

David Bowie;s famous 1972 album, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” Click for copy.

“Ziggy Stardust is an androgynous, alien rock star who came to Earth before an impending apocalyptic disaster to deliver a message of hope. After accumulating a large following of fans and being worshiped as a messiah, Ziggy eventually dies as a victim of his own fame and excess. The character was meant to symbolize an over-the-top, sexually liberated rock star and serve as a commentary on a society in which celebrities are worshiped.”

“Ziggy Stardust’s exuberant fashion made the character and Bowie himself staples in the glam rock repertoire well into the 1970s, defining what the genre would become. The success of the character and its iconic look flung Bowie into international superstardom.”

Bowie also starred in the 1976 film, The Man Who Fell to Earth. Other space references in Bowie’s work appear in the popular 1972 song “Starman,” and another revisiting Major Tom in “Ashes to Ashes” (1980). Given the space exploration yet to come, plus the activities of billionaire space entrepreneurs – e.g., Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson – David Bowie’s space music and themes, in one form or another, are likely to be heard quite often in the future. And of course, there’s a lot more to Bowie’s catalog that space music.

“Moonage Daydream,” a 2022 documentary film about David Bowie, was released in September 2022 and appeared on HBO in 2023, Click for Amazon.

Throughout his lifetime, Bowie sold roughly 140 million records worldwide. In 2012, he was ranked ninth best selling singles artist in UK with more than 10 million sold at that time, and as of January 2016, more than 12 million sold in Britain. Since his death, more than 5 million of his singles and albums have been sold. A number of his songs and albums are also ranked on Rolling Stone “500 best” lists. As of 2022, Bowie was also the best-selling vinyl artist of the 21st century.

During his career, David Bowie released 128 singles, 26 studio albums, 9 live albums, 2 soundtrack albums, 26 compilation albums, 8 extended plays, 28 video albums, 72 music videos. With his passing since 2016, additional albums and box sets have been released. As of August 2023, David Bowie’s music on Spotify had more then 16.5 million listeners monthly.

Clearly, the new owners of David Bowie’s musical legacy will have ample material to exploit for new and future projects.

In making the deal with Bowie’s estate, Warner-Chappell’s Carianne Marshall noted: “This fantastic pact with the David Bowie estate opens up a universe of opportunities to take his extraordinary music into dynamic new places. This isn’t merely a catalog, but a living, breathing collection of timeless songs that are as powerful and resonant today as they were when they were first written. We were pleased that the estate felt that Warner-Chappell has the knowledge, experience, and resources to take the reins and continue to promote a collection of this stature. All of our global leaders and departments are incredibly excited and primed to get to work with these brilliant songs across multiple avenues and platforms….”

Previously, in September 2021, Warner had signed a global deal with Bowie’s estate to bring his vast recorded-music catalog from 1968 through 2016 under the company’s umbrella – including Bowie albums from 2000 through 2016 which were originally released via Sony Music.

February 2022

Sting’s Music

April 2018. Sting performing at Queen’s 92nd birthday at Royal Albert Hall in London. Click for Sting biography.

In February 2022, British singer-songwriter Sting, sold his entire catalog to Universal Music for an estimated $300 million. Sting’s deal covers his entire output as a songwriter, both the copyrights for his songs and his royalties as a songwriter.

“It is absolutely essential to me that my career’s body of work have a home where it is valued and respected,” Sting said at the time of the deal. “Not only to connect with longtime fans in new ways but also to introduce my songs to new audiences, musicians, and generations.”

Music Player
“If Ever I Lose My Faith in You”
Sting – 1993

Sting was formerly frontman, song-writer, and bassist with the group Police from 1977-1986, helping that group score five UK chart-topping albums, win six Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and more. Then as a solo performer between 1985 and 2021, he would continue his career with more popular music. More on that in a moment.

Among top hits he wrote with the Police, for example, are: “Message in a Bottle” (1979), “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (1981), “Every Breath You Take” (1983) and “Roxanne” hit on 1979 reissue). “Every Breath You Take” and “Roxanne” appear on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The Police, meanwhile, sold more than 75 million recordings worldwide. A Police reunion tour in 2007 was the highest-grossing tour that year. In 2019, Sting received a BMI Award for “Every Breath You Take” becoming the most-played song in radio history, replacing the former leader, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” by the Righteous Brothers from 1965.

As a solo performer between 1985 and 2021, Sting released 15 albums, many of which were million sellers and Top Ten U.S. and/or UK performers, among them: The Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985), Soul Cages (1991), Ten Summoner’s Tales (1993), Nothing Like The Sun (1997) and Sacred Love (2003). His most recent album, The Bridge, was released in November 2021.

Sting’s compilation album of 1994, “Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984-1994,” a Top Ten performer in the U.S. and all across Europe. Click for Amazon.

Among his solo hit singles have been: “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” (1985), “We’ll Be Together” (1987), “All This Time” (1991), “If Ever I Lose My Faith in You” (1993), “Fields of Gold” (1993), “When We Dance” (1994), “This Cowboy Song” (1995), “Brand New Day” (1999), and others.

Sting has established himself as an artist pushing out the boundaries of pop music, incorporating elements of jazz, classical, and world music into his writing and songs, and collaborating with other artists, for example, on North African raï music and Jamaican reggae. He has also appeared in various films, written stage productions, and with his wife, Trudie Styler, plus his own activism, used his celebrity to help advance various social, humanitarian, and environmental causes.

Sting has won numerous music, performance and honorary awards in both the UK and the U.S. As a solo musician and a member of the Police, Sting has collected 17 Grammy Awards. In 2002, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has also won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and four Oscar nominations for Best Original Song. In addition, he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (2000); was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to music (2003); received a French award for cultural enrichment (2007); and was lauded at the White House as a Kennedy Center honoree (2014).

February 2022 Wall Street Journal story by Anne Steele reporting on Sting’s sale of his catalog to Universal Music with photo of Sting performing. The deal, covering more than 600 of his songs, was estimated at $300 million.

Sting’s music rights deal with Universal covers both the copyrights for his songs — of which there are more than 600 — and his royalties as a songwriter, which means Universal will receive all future music publishing income from his work in the catalog.

One indication that Sting’s music will continue to generate good economic returns for Universal in the future is its use by other artists. His songs have already been covered by many artists, among them: George Michael, Johnny Cash, Herbie Hancock, Isaac Hayes, Eva Cassidy, Violet Femmes, Gloria Gaynor, Shirley Bassey, and Fall Out Boy. His works have also been sampled widely, including by newer artists, among them: Nas, The Roots, 2Pac, RZA, Kygo & Avicii, Black Eyed Peas, Craig David, French Montana, Talib Kweli, Fugees and Cam’ron.

“The Very Best of Sting & The Police”( 2002), with 18 tracks. Click for Amazon.

In fact, Universal illustrated this potential in its press release on the deal, using another example: “In 2018, Sting’s ‘Shape Of My Heart’ was used in [American rapper] Juice WRLD’s “Lucid Dreams” which became one of the biggest records of the year. The song peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has since received more than 1.8 billion streams on Spotify…”

Translation: every stream or radio play of a Sting sample or cover will now mean income for Universal.

In March 2022, Sting resumed his “My Songs” world tour and as of June 2022 was scheduled to begin a residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. On the basis of his music rights deal with Universal, plus his Los Vegas performance residency, he is now one of the ten wealthiest people in the British music industry.

Two additional stories on Sting’s music at this website include: “Sting: ‘Russians’, 1985,” a profile of his “cold war” song that calls out all sides – Khrushchev, Oppenheimer, Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative, etc., and, “Sting & Jaguar, 1999-2001,” on how Sting and Jaguar teamed up to help promote a new song and new music with Algerian raï singer, Cheb Mami on “Desert Rose.”

Music Rights Boom

The music stars profiled above with their mega-million music rights deals, are not the only artists who have been selling all or parts of their music output.

Among other deals announced in recent years – with estimated or rumored values attached – include, for example: Alice in Chains (in part, $50 million), James Brown ($90 million), Gerry Beckley & Dewey Bunnell w/America ($40 million), Phil Collins/Genesis ($300 million), Bing Crosby estate ($50 million), Gerry Goffin ($20 million), David Guetta ($100 million), Imagine Dragons ($100 million), Huey Lewis & the News ($20 million), Motley Crue ($90 million), Jeff Porcaro w/Toto ($30 million), Joey Ramone ($10 million), Red Hot Chili Peppers ($140-$150 million), Sun Records (including Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis masters) $30 million, Justin Timberlake ($100 million), and Luther Vandross ($40 million). A partial list of other artists — including some songwriters and producers — who have also sold all or parts of their music rights, is shown below right.

Music Deals
Other Artists / Groups Selling All
or Parts of Their Catalogs

Aerosmith
Air Supply
Blondie
Lindsey Buckingham
Ray Charles estate
Kenney Chesney
Chuck D
Leonard Cohen
David Crosby
Culture Club
Def Leppard
Devo
Neil Diamond
Mick Fleetwood
Peter Frampton
The Hollies
John Lee Hooker
Whitney Houston
Chrissie Hynde
Chris Issak
Jean-Michel Jarre
The Killers
John Legend
Patrick Leonard
Barry Manilow
Christine McVie
Bob Marley
Massive Attack
Harry Nilsson
The O’Jays
Primal Scream
Prince’s estate
Robbie Robertson
Ed Roland
Bob Rock
Leon Russell
Carole Bayer Sager
Richie Sambora
Shakria
Silverchair
Simple Minds
Dave Stewart
Glenn Tipton
Travis Tritt
KT Tunstall
Keith Urban
Andrew Watters
The Weeknd
Nancy Wilson
Yes
ZZ Top
_________________
Not a complete list

A contributing factor for some artists selling all or parts of their catalogs or other rights in recent years had been the Covid pandemic and the closing of performance venues during 2020-2021, resulting in a major hit on artist income from touring revenue. But the larger power now, it seems, is streaming.

The age of streaming has vastly improved the asset value of music. The industry has had a major turnaround since the days of the on-line free-for-all, when songs were downloaded and shared and traded for free, when a kind of technological anarchy reigned, depressing artist and recoding industry income. A December 2021 New York Times story described the turnaround and rising economic value the music business:

…Streaming and the global growth of subscription services like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube have turned the industry’s fortunes around. One result is a spike in the pricing of catalogs of music rights to both recordings and to the songs themselves.

New investors, including private equity firms, have poured billions of dollars into the market, viewing music royalties as a kind of safe commodity — an investment, somewhat like real estate, with predictable rates of return and relatively low risk.

For major music conglomerates like Sony and Universal, which bought Dylan’s songs, such deals help them consolidate power and gain negotiating leverage with streaming services and other tech companies, like social-media, exercise services or gaming platforms, that often make blanket deals to use music.

Surveying the field of eligible candidates, economist Barry M. Massarsky, who specializes in calculating the value of music catalogs on behalf of investors, told the New York Times in December 2021. “In the last year alone, we did 300 valuations worth over $6.5 billion.”

In 2022, according to Graphic News, Goldman Sachs predicted that revenue in the global music industry would grow at a compound annual rate of 12 per cent between 2021 and 2030, with revenues hitting more than $150 billion.

In addition to the artist deals already mentioned or listed at right, more of the same has continued in 2023 with music rights sold by other prominent artists.

In January 2023, Justin Bieber sold the rights to his back catalog to Hipgnosis-Blackstone in a deal reportedly worth $200 million that will exploit the value of the songs’ revenue from global streaming and more. Hipgnosis will control Bieber’s entire portfolio released before 2022, which includes some 290 tracks. Hipgnosis and U.S. private equity group Blackstone will receive a payment every time a Bieber song is played publicly or streamed. Merck Mercuriadis, the founder of Hipgnosis Song Management, quoted in a January 2023 Graphic News.com story, said hit songs now can be “more valuable than gold or oil.”

Also in 2023, Dr. Dre, made a deal with Universal Music Group & Shamrock Holdings for artist and writer royalties valued at $200 million; Metro Boomin, an American record producer, record executive, and DJ working in hip hop and other genres made a $70 million deal with Shamrock Capital for a portion of his publishing catalog; and Sarah McLachlan made an April 2023 deal for an undisclosed amount with Primary Wave for a majority stake in her recorded catalog.

Kilometre Music Group, a Canadian music rights management group, is targeting younger stars with more recent hits. “We have 56 songs by The Weeknd, 31 by Drake, 26 songs by Post Malone and 12 by Bieber,” explained Rodney Murphy of Kilometre to Billboard in October 2021. “We believe it’s worth investing in those songs because those are going to be the biggest catalog songs of the future. We’re in the business of nostalgia and legacy lifelong copyrights and believe that these are the ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ and The Beatles and Michael Jackson catalog songs of tomorrow.”

Big labels and upstart investment firms are buying up other music companies that already hold catalog collections.And then there are the merger and acquisition deals in the music investing business, where both big labels and upstart investment firms are buying up other music companies that already hold catalog collections.

The Warner Music Group, for example, shelled out roughly $400 million in December 2021 to acquire independent label 300 Entertainment, home to artists such as Megan Thee Stallion and Mary J. Blige. Six months earlier, in July 2021, the Warner group also acquired 12Tone Music, which includes American rapper, songwriter and producer Anderson .Paak, and also country powerhouse, Dolly Parton, among its artists.

The Hipgnosis Songs Fund, mentioned earlier, has been moving at warp speed in recent years, making some very major deals. Founded in 2018, it is now a publicly-traded company on the London Stock Exchange. In November 2020, Hipgnosis acquired 42 catalogs from Kobalt Music Group, comprising 1,500 songwriters and 33,000 songs, for $322.9 million. Among the songs acquired in that deal, for example, were those from Nettwerk, 50 Cent, Skrillex, The B-52s, Enrique Iglesias, and Steve Winwood. As of December 2021, the Hipgnosis catalog haul had grown to 65,000 songs worth $2.55 billion. Among the many songs it now holds, for example, are any number of top performers, such as Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” and “Uptown Funk,” by British producer Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars.

Canadian rapper Drake made a “360 deal” – i.e., recordings, publishing, merchandise, media projects, etc. – said to be worth $400 million. Click for Amazon page.

Taylor Swift’s experience w/ sell-off of her master recordings helped spotlight the issue for reform & other artists, as she moved to re-record lost songs. Click for Amazon page.

Canadian rapper, Drake, reportedly made a deal with Universal that was negotiated in 2021 and surfaced in 2022, said to be worth $400 million. According to Variety, Drake’s Universal deal was called “Lebron-sized” (a reference to professional basketball superstar, LeBron James) because of its value and its scope – encompassing “recordings, publishing, merchandise, and visual media projects.”

Not a legacy deal like those of other artists nearing the end of their careers, Drake’s deal is one of an active artist with years of current production still ahead of him. Some call this kind of deal, a “360 deal” – i.e., when a record label can take a portion of every form of income that an artist may make off of his or her music. While recent music rights deals have resulted in seemingly happy and satisfied parties on all sides, that is not always the case. The rise of the 360 deal, say industry insiders, correlates directly with the rise of digital music.

While recent music rights deals have resulted in seemingly happy and satisfied parties on all sides, that is not always the case. Artists including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the past, and even Taylor Swift more recently, have had unhappy experiences with labels, managers and/or investors who have taken advantage of, or otherwise made self-serving or exploitive deals with artists’ music rights – deals that often cost those artists big time. Swift’s troubles of 2019-2020, in particular, helped bring an important spotlight on the issue of artists’ rights, intellectual property and ethics in the music industry.

In any case, it appears there will be many more music rights deals ahead, as the world of music economics continues to change and consolidate, with both major music companies and new investors accounting for a growing share of music wealth and music ownership worldwide – becoming an entertainment power center all its own.

Other stories at this website for music and music history can be found at the “Annals of Music” category page, and for business, at the “Business & Society” page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 29 August 2023
Last Update: 26 March 2024

Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Music Rights Deals: Selected Artists,
2020s” PopHistoryDig.com, August 29, 2023.

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Music at Amazon.com…

“Best of Bowie” album, w/20 of his songs; an “Amazon’s choice” rating. Click for CD or digital.

Drake’s 2011 album, “Take Care,” deluxe edition w/17 tracks & collaborations. Click for Amazon.

“Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” – certified 5X platinum; his best-selling album in the U. S. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Michael D. Smith & Rahul Telang’s book, “Streaming, Sharing, Stealing: Big Data and the Future of Entertainment,” MIT Press, 232pp. Click for Amazon.

Bob Dylan’s best-selling, “Chronicles: Volume One,” 2005 paperback, Simon & Schuster, 320pp. Click for Amazon.

2012 book by Ken Caillat & Steve Stiefel, “Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album,” Trade Paper Press, 384 pp. Click for Amazon,

Beach Boys’ studio wunderkind & songwriting genius, Brian Wilson’s 2016 book (w/ Ben Geenman), “I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir,” Da Capo Press, 336 pp. Click for Amazon.

Neil Young’s memoir/autobiography, “Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream,” 2013 paperback edition, illustrated, 512pp. One reviewer called it “hilarious, poignant;” another, “you don’t want it to end.” A NY Times bestseller. Click for Amazon.

John O'Connell’s 2019 book, “Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books That Changed David Bowie's Life,” Gallery Books, 320 pp. (see also audio & CD editions). Click for Amazon.

Tina Turner's “All the Best” album – a greatest hits compilation released in the U.K. as a two-disc set in November 2004, followed by a February 2005 release in the U.S. and abridged single-disc version in October 2005. Click for Amazon.

Daniel J. Levitin’s best-selling book, “This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession” 2007 paperback edition, Plume/Penguin 322pp. Click for Amazon.

Ben Sisario, “Bob Dylan Sells His Songwriting Catalog in Blockbuster Deal; Universal Music Purchased His Entire Songwriting Catalog of More than 600 Songs in What May Be the Biggest Acquisition Ever of a Single Act’s Publishing Rights,” New York Times, December 7, 2020.

Jemima McEvoy, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’: Bob Dylan Sells Songwriting Catalog To Universal Music Group,” Forbes.com, December 7, 2020,

Daniel Arkin, “Why Buying Bob Dylan’s Songwriting Catalog Is a Boon for Universal Music Group. Bob Dylan’s Songs Defined an American Era. The Revenues from His Music Are Still Pouring In, Experts Explain,” NBCNews.com, December 7, 2020.

“What Bob Dylan Selling His Music Catalog Does and Doesn’t Mean; Universal Music Publishing Group Is Getting Control of Dylan’s Songwriter Income — But it Doesn’t Take over Recording Rights or Future Songs,” Rolling Stone.com, December 7, 2020.

“Dylan Sells Lifetime’s Worth of Songs for A Fortune” (front-page headline w/photos), Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2020, p. 1, and, Anne Steele, “Dylan Sells Catalog to Universal; Deal Is Likely Worth Hundreds of Millions of Dollars, Rivaling Only The Beatles’ Music,” Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2020, Business & Finance, p. B-1.

“Like a Rolling Stone,” Wikipedia.org

Hannah Karp, Robert Levine, “Sony Music Bought Bob Dylan’s Master Recordings, Now Worth More Than $200 Million…,” Billboard.com, January 24, 2022.

Ben Sisario, Alexandra Alter and Sewell Chan, “Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize, Redefining Boundaries of Literature,” NYTimes.com, October 13, 2016.

Ethan Millman, “Stevie Nicks Sells a Share of Her Publishing Rights for $100 Million; Nicks Joins a Number of Major Artists Who’ve Sold Their Catalog Rights to Investors and Talent Management Companies this Year,” Rolling Stone, December 4, 2020.

Cathy Applefeld Olson, “Stevie Nicks Sells Majority Stake In Songwriting Catalog,” Forbes.com, December 4, 2020.

Nate Day, Fox Business, “Stevie Nicks in $100M Publishing Rights Deal With Primary Wave Music,” NYpost.com, December 5, 2020.

“Edge of Seventeen,” Wikipedia.org.

Alex Hopper, “Top 10 Stevie Nicks Songs,” AmericanSongwriter.com, 2023.

Tina Benitez-Eves, “Behind the Meaning, and The “Two Johns” That Inspired the 1981 Stevie Nicks Hit “Edge of Seventeen’,” American Songwriter.com, 2022.

Alan Cross, “Why Are So Many Artists Selling off Their Song Catalogues to Faceless Companies?,” GlobalNews.CA, November 22, 2020.

Ben Sisario, “This Man Is Betting $1.7 Billion on the Rights to Your Favorite Songs,” NYTimes.com, December 18, 2020, updated, December 23, 2020.

Nick Reilly, “Neil Young Sells Half of His Song Catalogue for Around $150 Million: The Rights Have Been Purchased by Hipgnosis Songs Fund in a Landmark New Deal,” NME.com, January 6, 2021.

Bob Gersztyn, “Top 10 Neil Young Songs,” BluesRockReview.com, January 13, 2022.

Rhian Daly, “The Beach Boys Sell the Rights to Their Intellectual Property Artists Including Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Stevie Nicks Have Previously Sold the Rights to Their Cata-logues,” NME.com, February 18, 2021.

Patrick Doyle, “Inside the Ambitious Plan to Monetize the Beach Boys’ Legacy; Brian Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine on Why They’ve Sold a Controlling Interest in Their Intellectual Property to a New Company Led by Irving Azoff…,” Rolling Stone, February 18, 2021.

“The Beach Boys Discography,” Wikipedia .org.

Angie Martoccio, “Linda Ronstadt Sells Catalog to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group,” RollingStone.com, March 22, 2021.

Ed Masley (Arizona Republic), “Linda Ronstadt’s 25 Greatest Songs of All Time, Ranked,” AZcentral.com, July 11, 2022.

“Linda Ronstadt Discography,” Wikipedia .org.

Geoff Mayfield, “The Ins-and-Outs of Music Catalog Sales and the Behind-the-Scenes Players Advising Songwriters Who Cash Out,” Variety.com, April 8, 2021.

Melinda Newman, “Paul Simon Sells Song Catalog to Sony Music Publishing,” Billboard.com, March 31, 2021.

Ariel Shapiro, “Inside Paul Simon’s Catalog Sale: At $250 Million, It’s One Of Music’s Biggest,” Forbes.com, April 30, 2021.

Andy Lewis, “Song Catalogs Are Selling for Big Bucks, But Will the Trend End on a Bum Note?,” LAmag.com, June 14, 2021.

Jem Aswad, “Paul Simon Sells ‘Substantial Stake’ of Music Catalog to BMG,” Variety.com, June 22, 2023.

Ethan Millman, “Paul Simon Sells Off Rights to Simon and Garfunkel Royalties; a Source Familiar with the Matter Says the BMG Deal Was Worth Eight Figures,” RollingStone.com, June 22, 2023.

“Simon & Garfunkel Discography,” Wikipe-dia.org.

Tim Ingham, “Aerosmith Hands Entire Catalog to Universal Music Group,” Rolling Stone.com, August 23, 2021.

Elise Brisco, “Tina Turner Sells Extensive Music Catalog to BMG Music Company in New Deal,” USAToday.com, October 7, 2021.

“Tina Turner,” Wikipedia.org.

“Tina Turner Discography,” Wikipedia.org.

Ben Sisario, “Bruce Springsteen Sells Music Catalog in Massive Deal…For an Estimated $550 million,” NYTimes.com, December 15, 2021.

Ben Sisario, “A $550 Million Springsteen Deal? It’s Glory Days for Catalog Sales; Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Tina Turner and Others Have All Sold Rights to Their Music for Eye-popping Prices. Here’s Why,” NYTimes.com, December 20, 2021.

“Bruce Springsteen Discography,” Wikipedia .org.

“The 100 Greatest Bruce Springsteen Songs; An Expert Panel of Writers and Artists Pick Springsteen’s Best Songs, From ‘Rosalita’ to ‘Wrecking Ball’,” RollingStone.com, December 11, 2018.

Marisa Dellatto, “David Bowie’s Music Catalog Reportedly Sold For $250 Million,” Forbes.com, January 3, 2022,

Jon Pareles, “David Bowie Dies at 69; Star Transcended Music, Art and Fashion,” NYTimes.com, January 11, 2016.

Jem Aswad, “David Bowie’s Estate Sells His Publishing Catalog to Warner Chappell,” Variety.com, January 3, 2022.

Robert Levine, “David Bowie’s Estate Sells Publishing Catalog to Warner Chappell; The Deal Includes Every Song That Bowie Wrote,” Billboard.com, January 3, 2022.

Chloe Melas, “Why Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks and More Artists Have Sold Their Music Catalogs,” CNN.com, January 25, 2022.

Press Release, “Universal Music Publishing Group Acquires Sting’s Song Catalog,” UniversalMusic.com, February 10, 2022.
https://www.universalmusic.com/universal-music-publishing-group-acquires-stings-song-catalog/

Daniel Kreps, “Sting Sells the Police, Solo Songwriting Catalog for Estimated $250 MiIllion,” Rolling Stone.com, February 10, 2022.

Ben Sisario, “Sting Sells His Songwriting Catalog for an Estimated $300 Million,” NYTimes.com, February 10, 2022.

Anne Steele, “Sting Sells Songwriting Catalog to Universal Music,” Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2022, p. B-4.

“Sting (musician),” Wikipedia.org.

“Sting Discography,” Wikipedia.org.

Ellie Harrison, “Paul McCartney Tops the List of UK’s Richest Musicians; Sting Had the Biggest Increase in Wealth Since Last Year, Thanks Mostly to His Las Vegas Residency,” Independent.co.uk, May 20, 2022.

Amy McCarthy, “Musical Artists Whose Publishing Catalogs Have Commanded Big Bucks,” YardBarker.com, updated, February 9, 2023.

Alan Cross, “Here’s a Running List of Artists Who Have Sold Some or All of Their Song Catalogues to a New Breed of Company,” aJournalofMusicalThings.com, March 3, 2023.

L.B. Cantrell, “Veteran Attorney Jess L. Rosen Talks Catalog Sales: A Rising Trend in the Music Business,” MusicRow.com, October/ November 2022.

Duncan Mil, “Superstar Music Publishing Deals,” GraphicNews.com, January 25, 2023.

Shirley Halperin, “Drake Strikes Massive, Multi-Faceted Deal With Universal Music Group,” Variety.com, May 3, 2022.

Karen Bliss, “…Canadian Music Rights Management Company Kilometre Music Group Has Closed Two Song Catalog Deals with Copyrights to 383 Songs from Drake and Other Hitmakers,” Billboard.com, October 6, 2021.

“Primary Wave Acquires Bing Crosby Catalog for $50 Million,” New York Daily News, October 2021.

“Taylor Swift Masters Controversy,” Wikipe-dia.org.

_______________________________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

“All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release,” every album, every song, 1963-1970. Click for Amazon.

Glenn C. Altschuler’s “All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America,” Oxford University Press, 240 pp. Click for Amazon.

“The Rolling Stones All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track” (2022 expanded ed.). 340 songs, 760pp. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Business & The Environment

1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Applause for Du Pont?”
An Environmental Critique

June 7, 2023 J.D.

In 1990, Du Pont, one of the world’s largest chemical companies, began running a TV ad featuring a series of beautifully-photographed sea lions, otters, dolphins, penguins, and flamingoes choreographed to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, all cast in natural settings. The ad, shown below, appeared to depict marine mammals and wildlife “celebrating” Du Pont’s news about its then proposed double-hulled oil tankers for its Conoco oil subsidiary. Titled “Applause,” the ad, with its flipper-clapping seals, jumping dolphins, and barking sea lions, offered seeming approval of Du Pont’s promised protection from oil spills. The ad ran repeatedly from 1990 through 1992, along with a similar print ad. But Du Pont’s ad came at a notable time in the nation’s environmental history and generated a bit of controversy, given the company’s history of pollution and chemical troubles.

In Washington, D.C,, meanwhile, Friends of the Earth, a national environmental group, was not amused, and decided to produce a critique of the ad and the company’s environmental record. More on that report and its media coverage a bit later. First, a quick recap of the ad’s message.

At its opening, the viewer is looking out over a coastal shoreline to the far horizon where ocean meets sky, and there, barely visible in the late afternoon light, is a distant sliver of an oil tanker on the water. “Recently,” begins the narrator as a lone sea lion on a rocky shore looks out on the ocean, “Du Pont announced that its energy unit, Conoco, would pioneer the use of new double-hulled oil tankers in order to safeguard the environment.”

Then comes the feel-good Beethoven score backing the sequence of frolicking water fowl and marine mammals – floating ducks flapping their wings, a sea otter swimming playfully on its back, sea lions clapping their flippers, etc. “The response…,” continues the narrator as a pair of Whopping Cranes join the celebration, “has been overwhelmingly positive.” Some approving dolphins then flash to view. Ode to Joy revs up once again behind more shots of sea lions, penguins, flamingos on the wing, and jumping dolphins.

A group of barking and “clapping” sea lions join in the celebration near the end of Du Pont’s “Applause” TV ad.

At the end, a group of about 15 sea lions are shown at sunset perched on coastal rocks barking and “clapping” approvingly as the narrator intones the closing tag line: “Du Pont: Better Things for Better Living.”

Save for this ending, the ad could almost pass for a piece by the Audubon Society or World Wildlife Fund. And that’s the point. Known in the ad trade as a “corporate” piece, Du Pont was trying to drape itself with environmental imagery; trying to create an environmentally-positive corporate image.

Du Pont by then, was a corporate colossus, a giant chemical and oil company, having acquired Conoco a decade earlier. Here’s some history on that deal and how Du Pont also began to shape a new environmental image for itself.

Aug 1981 front-page New York Times story on Du Pont acquisition of Conoco for .57 billion.

The 1980s

Du Pont-Conoco Deal

In August 1981, about a decade before Du Pont’s cleaver TV ad appeared, Du Pont had acquired the Conoco oil company – formerly known at the Continental Oil Company – for $7.57 billion. Conoco at the time was the nation’s ninth-largest oil company and its second-largest coal producer (having itself acquired Consolidated Coal Co. in 1966).

The Conoco deal made Du Pont the seventh- largest industrial corporation in the U.S., just behind Ford Motor Company. This deal occurred in the heady days of 1980s merger mania and corporate raiders, as Conoco was then besieged by other corporate giants– Seagram, Texaco, and Mobil, among them. Du Pont was seen as a friendlier potential partner, or in the parlance of the corporate takeover frenzy, a “White Knight”.

A silver lining for Du Pont was that it now had an in-house supply of oil, thought to be an advantage for a chemical maker whose products used hydrocarbons as their raw material. In any case, Du Pont was now a major oil company and a major chemical company. It now owned, oil wells, gas stations, oil refineries, and oil tankers.

Exxon Spill. But in the years that followed, operating oil tankers on the high seas came in for some intense scrutiny, especially after the Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, spilling 11 million gallons of crude, badly fouling Alaska’s environment, wildlife, and salmon fisheries. Eventually 1,300 miles of coastline were hit by the spill.

The Exxon spill was then the largest in U.S. history, and touched off a round of public outrage, renewed environmental fervor, and calls for tougher regulation. For weeks and weeks, the spill and its difficult clean-up was an ongoing news story, with indelible images of oil soaked sea otters, seals, and seabirds, while an army of yellow-clad workers did their best trying to clean up the oil along rugged Alaskan coastlines. The Exxon Valdez tanker was a single-hull vessel, and a U.S. Coast Guard study at the time had found the spillage would have been reduced 25-to- 60 percent if it had a double hull. Exxon, meanwhile, would become engaged in protracted litigation on a number of fronts; court battles that would go on for years.

1989. For weeks and weeks, following the Exxon Valdez supertanker spill, an army of workers clad in yellow and red protective gear, did their best trying to clean up the oil along rugged Alaskan coastlines.

But in 1989-90, especially given the spill and the upcoming 20th anniversary of Earth Day that April, oil and the environment were uppermost in the national mind. A group of investors and environmental leaders would soon form an alliance and put forward a corporate code of conduct called “The Valdez Principles,” challenging corporate leaders to commit to improved environmental performance (though not released until September 1989). Du Pont, it turned out, was already thinking along those lines – at least in part.

The Woolard Speeches

Corporate Environmentalism

On the heels of the Exxon Valdez spill and the approaching Earth Day 1990 celebration, Du Pont began to attempt an environmental makeover – at least in principle. On May 4th, 1989, less than two months after the grounding of Exxon’s tanker, incoming Du Pont CEO, Edgar Woolard, delivered an address to the American Chamber of Commerce meeting in London. The topic of Woolard’s speech: “Corporate Environmentalism,” a concept he is credited with inventing.

Ed Woolard, Du Pont Chairman & CEO, circa early 1990s.

“I’m calling for corporate environmentalism,” he told his audience in London that day, “– which I define as an attitude and a performance commitment that place corporate environmental stewardship fully in line with public desires and expectations.” Woolard cited public opinion polling showing high concern over pollution.

“Environmentalism is the mainstream,” he said. “…Our continued existence as a leading manufacturer requires that we excel in environmental performance and that we enjoy the non-objection –indeed even the support — of the people and governments in the societies where we operate….”

Du Pont and Woolard were trying to stake their claim to the moral high ground of environmental protection, stating that they would move in a progressive direction with pro-active, pro-environment policy. And through 1989 and 1990, Woolard would continue to deliver variations of his corporate environmentalist pledge. In December 1989, he spoke at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. and in late January he addressed the National Wildlife Federation’s “Synergy ’90” conference, also in Washington.

At an October 8th, 1990 meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry in Monte Carlo, Woolard stated: “The future of the chemical industry will be directly shaped — and indeed may ultimately be determined — by environmental issues.” There, he also warned his business colleagues, noting that “society won’t tolerate” companies that “drag their heels indefinitely on environmental problems…” And at the Detroit Economic Club in November 1990, he advised his listeners that the environmental impact of their product or service – as it is produced, while it is used, and after its useful life is over – had to be “thought out before the first sale is even made.” Companies that do well addressing environmental problems with real commitment, he suggested, could also gain a competitive advantage. Elsewhere in Du Pont, its oil subsidiary, Conoco, was also touting the new environmental line.

Double-Hulled Ships

Pamphlet with April 1990 remarks of Conoco’s CEO outlining company’s environmental initiatives, including plan for double hulls on its oil tankers.

Conoco’s Tankers

In advance of Earth Day 1990 that April, Conoco CEO, Constantine Nicandros, was putting together a major speech to announce Conoco’s environmental policies, which would be much in line with Du Pont’s, of course, but would also include one special item on oil tankers.

Conoco officials knew that a high percentage of tanker accidents involved side collisions or groundings — accidents in which double hulls could help reduce or prevent oil spillage. And given the fact that the public was then quite concerned about tanker safety in the aftermath of the Exxon spill, Conoco decided to investigate pricing and solicit bids for both double and single hull construction.

Conoco discovered that double-hull construction was only 15 percent more than single-hull construction. And as Robert Walker, Conoco’s Vice President for Supply and Transportation would put it, “anytime you can take care of 80 percent of a potential liability for 15 percent more cost, it’s well worth it… It didn’t make any sense for us not to do it.”

So, about a week before Earth Day, on April, 10th, 1990, Conoco announced it had placed orders for two of its crude oil tankers to be built with double hulls. The announcement came in the speech by CEO, Constantine Nicandros at a news conference in Houston, Texas. As he outlined a list of the company’s nine environmental initiatives, the third item on the list was to “construct only double-hulled tankers in the future,” noting the company had already placed orders for two such ships. The improved construction would give the tankers double sides and double bottoms — inner and outer steel plates, with a space in between them — a design that would absorb the impact of certain kinds of accidents and groundings and help prevent or limit oil spills.

Single-vs. Double-Hull Tankers

Conoco’s announcement, meanwhile, made big news. The New York Times ran its story of April 11, 1989 on its front page with the headline, “Breaking Oil Industry Ranks, Conoco Buys 2-Hulled Ships.” The Seattle Times also noted in its reporting on the Conoco announcement, that its U.S. Senator, Democrat Brock Adams, then pushing for a law requiring double hulls on all U.S. tankers, hailed the announcement as a major breakthrough. “This shows a break in the oil-company ranks,” Adams said on hearing the news. “Conoco is to be commended as a good corporate citizen.”

April 11, 1990, New York times front-page story on Conoco's double hull order.

Conoco’s move to double-hull two of its tankers came in advance of final federal oil spill legislation, which was then in House-Senate Conference and contained differing provisions for double hulls. The House bill at the time required that new tankers and large barges coming into domestic ports have double hulls. It also required that existing vessels be refitted with double bottoms over seven years and double hulls over 15 years. The Senate version left the decision on whether to require double hulls to the Secretary of Transportation.

The Conoco double-hull announcement also preceded a National Academy of Sciences study which planned to examine the economic cost/benefit of double hulls and double bottoms. Conoco’s tanker traffic was then running primarily in the Gulf of Mexico between its production fields in South America to its refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Genesis of The Ad

Back in Wilmington, meanwhile, Du Pont public relations people saw the media attention the double-hull decision was getting and soon set the wheels in motion for developing a Du Pont TV advertisement to tout the decision. They asked their New York ad agency, BBDO,– Batten Barton Durstine & Osborn – to work up some material for a possible Du Pont double-hull TV ad.

BBDO storyboard showing wildlife shots for proposed Du Pont ad.

BBDO had been Du Pont’s ad agency since 1936, and had produced other successful Du Pont ads, including one for Stainmaster carpets, as well as those for other clients, including, some top-rated Pepsi ads. In any case, over the summer of 1990, BBDO prepared three proposed spots for Du Pont to use in announcing its double-hull tanker policy: a “Lee Iacocca type” featuring Du Pont CEO Edgar Woolard walking around the innards of a double-hull tanker explaining what it was all about; a second, using a “how-it-works,” nuts-and-bolts approach with clever photography exploring the engineering virtues of double-hulls; and finally, the precursor of “Applause,” featuring seals, dolphins and other wildlife. The storyboard that BBDO had worked up for the wildlife version appears at right, with a brief bit of voice-over narrative shown below a few frames. But in the filmed edition, the music and wildlife became the “stars”.

Lee Tashjian, then Du Pont’s Vice President for Public Affairs, would recall that the moment he saw the wildlife version, he “knew it was the one we wanted.” Still, “Applause” was pre-tested at shopping malls in a number of cities across the country, along with another proposed spot on the company’s plastics recycling program.

In the testing, “Applause” scored very high in terms of the favorable attitude toward the company,” reported Lee Tashjian. Normally, when 50 percent of a test audience comes away with a “highly favorable” rating of a spot, that is considered very good. “Applause” brought the house down; three-quarters liked it; 25 percent liked it a lot, and only a few disliked it. More than half indicated the commercial improved their opinion of Du Pont, which was “quite outstanding,” according to Tashjian. In fact, some of the viewers indicated the ad made them “feel better about the company” — which is exactly what the public relations people were looking for.

One of the opening frames from Du Pont’s 1990 “Applause” TV ad, with a barely visible oil tanker on the horizon.

“Applause” debuted on national television in September 1990, and would continue running for about two years, at least through November 1992, appearing on evening and morning news shows, in particular, among them: The NBC Nightly News, The CBS Evening News, ABC’s Nightline with Ted Koppel, and also the Sunday morning news shows and others. The ad also ran during the baseball World Series in October 1991. Millions of people viewed the ad over those two years, some multiple times. The ad would later win an “ADDY award”, presented by the Advertising Women of New York for commercial ads judged to be the best produced by New York ad agencies. “Applause” would also become a finalist for a CLIO award, the advertising industry’s equivalent of an Oscar.

“Estimates indicate,” claims Du Pont in this 1991 print ad, that double-hulled oil tankers “could eliminate or significantly reduce oil sills, saving thousands of sea birds, otters, seal lions, dolphins and other sea life.”

In 1991, Du Pont also ran a print version of the “Applause” ad for magazines, shown at right. In this ad, the opening tagline reads: “A Few Compelling Reasons For Double-Hulled Oil Tankers,” and is flanked by three large, color photos of wildlife and marine mammals, centered on a white seal pup.

The text in this ad, like the TV ad, first explains that Du Pont’s Conoco unit has announced it would “pioneer the use of new double-hulled tankers to help safeguard the environment.” Then it adds some economics about the new tankers: “Estimates indicate that they’ll cost 50 million dollars each – about 15% more than conventional oil tankers. And they’ll carry about 10% less oil.”

And finally, there is a generic claim about wildlife saved: “But estimates also indicate they could eliminate or significantly reduce the damage from oil spills, saving thousands of sea birds, otters, sea lions, dolphins and other sea life” (emphasis added). The ad’s conclusion – in this case, without the sound effects of the TV ad’s barking sea lions and the Beethoven score – “The response has been overwhelmingly positive.”

But for Friends of the Earth, the Du Pont advertising was viewed as both misleading and a major diversion from Du Pont’s actual environmental record — particularly on pollution, toxic waste, and stratospheric ozone damage. So the group soon decided to prepare a critique of the ad and company, including the Woolard speeches. At the time, Friends of Earth (which had recently merged with the Environmental Policy Institute and The Oceanic Society), was already engaged with Du Pont in the shareholder arena, working with an individual stockholder who agreed to propose a March 1991 shareholder resolution calling on Du Pont to adopt a 1995 phase-out of ozone-degrading CFCs. Du Pont was then the largest producer of those chemicals, and viewed as dragging their feet on a phase out. Du Pont fought the proposed resolution from shareholder Amelia Roosevelt. Friends of the Earth, supporting Roosevelt, backed litigation to have the resolution offered, but that issue then went to the courts.

Meanwhile, in the late spring of 1991, with the backing of Friends of the Earth President, Mike Clark and VP’s Brent Blackwelder and Jim Lyon, work began on a report focused on the “Applause” TV ad and Du Pont’s environmental record. FOE’s corporate analyst, Jack Doyle, would research and write the report with the help of other staff experts, including, in particular, Liz Cook on ozone policy and Tom Bethell for editing and publishing. Doyle and Cook would also continue work on the shareholder resolution and later met with Du Pont officials on that issue.

Ad Critique & Report

Hold The Applause!

By mid-August 1991, a 112-page monograph titled, Hold the Applause! A Case Study of Corporate Environmentalism as Practiced at Du Pont, was prepared by Friends of the Earth, using the color version of the BBDO storyboard as the report’s cover. The carefully-written report — with 12 sections and nearly 250 endnotes — was released at a press conference held at the National Press Club in Washington on August 27th, 1991, where FOE’s Blackwelder and Doyle introduced the report, made opening statements, and took questions.

Friends of the Earth’s report on Du Pont by Jack Doyle, “Hold The Applause!”, a 112-page critique of the company's TV ad and environmental record. The report was released on August 27th, 1991 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Click for copy.

As introduction, the report gave a narrative description of the ad for readers, as well as the recent history of environmental speech-making by Du Pont’s Woolard. Then it took the company to task for what it said and did not say in the “Applause” TV ad.

None of Conoco’s oil tankers at the time the ad was running had double hulls. The two 95,000-ton tankers then ordered from South Korea’s Samsung Group would not be in the water for nearly two years (until March 1992 at the earliest). But the ad did not state that. Nor did the ad mention that Conoco’s “petroleum fleet” was then one of the smallest in the oil industry at a total of six vessels, especially when compared to Exxon’s 170 or Shell’s 150 tankers. The remaining four Conoco tankers were not then scheduled to be double hulled until the year 2000, then nearly a decade away.

“Clapping” sea lions from Du Pont's “Applause” TV ad of 1990-92, though not found in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Du Pont ad also failed to explain that Conoco’s two new double-hulled vessels to come would operate primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. No penguins are found in the Gulf of Mexico, nor, for that matter, seals, sea otters, or sea lions, each of which were depicted in the TV ad. But the “Applause” ad seemed to suggest that all of these species would be protected by Conoco’s double-hulled tankers — a claim specifically stated in the company’s print version of the ad.

Du Pont also claimed that Conoco would “pioneer” the use of double hulls. However, putting double hulls on tankers wasn’t a new idea. In fact, double hulls had by that point been used on tankers transporting other hazardous chemicals for more than 20 years. In the U.S. maritime fleet of ships used to transport other chemicals, at least 40 of 150 tankers then had double hulls or double bottoms. In fact, even in the petroleum industry, there had been double-hull tankers in use for transporting oil prior to Conoco’s announcement. Conoco, however, claimed the first such “modern” tankers. Still, Conoco wasn’t “pioneering” the use of double-hull tankers.

Conoco also then owned and operated two “commercial trade” supertankers that transported oil for others under contract, but these were not double hulled, nor were they then part of Conoco’s plan for outfitting tankers with double hulls.

Du Pont’s Pollution

But perhaps the hardest hitting parts of the Friends of the Earth report were the sections that honed in on Du Pont’s pollution, ozone damage, and toxic wastes. Using the company’s then most recently reported air and water pollution data to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), Du Pont in 1989, was the nation’s single largest corporate polluter. In that year, Du Pont and its subsidiaries reported 348 million pounds of pollutants discharged to land, air and water. And in 1989, Du Pont’s total discharge was approximately 10 million pounds more than it was in 1988.

Hold The Applause!
Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Cue The Seals
Oil tankers get the Madison Ave treatment.
2. How Much Pollution?
Why Du Pont is Corporate Polluter No. 1
3. Shifting The Load
…Because you can’t just dump it in the creek
4. Communities on Edge
It’s no picnic living next to a Du Pont plant.
5. Heavy Metal
Who’s to blame for adding lead to the world’s diet?
6. The Ozone Game
Du Pont … stays a step ahead of the sheriff
7. Hot Spots
Fifteen uneasy places
8. Dumping, Drilling, Mining & Spraying
Trouble…at sea, under foot, on the farm
9. The Toxic Workplace
Your job or your life
10. The Artful Dodger
Practicing the fine art of damage control
11. “New & Improved” Du Pont?
Have they changed the product or just the package
12. Recommendations
20 ways for Du Pont to befriend the Earth
_______________
Tables, Notes, Acknowledgments

So, as the report was introduced at the National Press Club, FOE’s acting president, Brent Blackwelder and senor analyst Jack Doyle, contrasted Du Pont’s pollution numbers with the imagery put forward in the Applause ad. “The net effect of this ad,” said Blackwelder, “is to mislead the public about Du Pont’s role in the environment.” Doyle took it one step farther: “Using seal pups and dolphins to gloss over” the company’s pollution was “disingenuous and misleading.”

Du Pont’s toxic releases, in fact, totaled more than the combined releases of Allied Chemical, Ford Motor, and Union Carbide put together. Du Pont had 14 times more pollution and waste than Dow Chemical, 20 times that of Chrysler, and 30 times that of Mobil — companies that also ranked among 1989’s top U.S. polluters.

Hold the Applause! noted that Du Pont’s TRI data – large as it was – offered an incomplete picture of Du Pont’s pollution, since only 321 of the roughly 60,000 chemicals then in use were covered. Nor were Du Pont’s numbers independently audited.

In addition, Du Pont was then disposing its toxic pollutants and chemical wastes using somewhat less-visible deep-well injection and high-temperature incineration – techniques not as well understood or as strictly regulated as other methods of disposal. Du Pont operated 39 Class I hazardous waste wells in the U.S. receiving some 30 different kinds of chemicals – 254.9 million pounds in total – much of it acutely toxic. A Du Pont hazardous waste incinerator, not far from New Orleans, was then burning some 21.9 million pounds of wastes a year from 32 Du Pont facilities in 17 states and Puerto Rico.

But Du Pont’s pollution numbers in the Toxic Release Inventory, were only part of Friends of the Earth’s review of Du Pont’s environmental performance history.

1986 NY Times story on ozone degradation, first theorized in 1974, implicating CFCs & Du Pont.

Du Pont in the early 1990s was also the world’s leading producer of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – the group of chemicals then responsible for the “ozone hole” – the thinning of earth’s protective ozone layer and one of the world’s most dire problems at the time. “The Ozone Game” chapter in Hold The Applause! laid out a thorough but compressed history and timeline of Du Pont’s role in the regulatory and scientific fights around that issue (more detail on ozone later).

Data from EPA in the report also showed 50 toxic waste sites in 24 states in which Du Pont and/or Conoco were listed as a “potentially responsible parties” for Superfund clean-ups. Du Pont and/or Conoco facilities were also found polluting local communities — titanium tetrachloride releases from a Du Pont plant at DeLisle, Mississippi, and sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide from Conoco’s Westlake Refinery at Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Du Pont’s Atlantic Ocean dumping of iron acid wastes from titanium dioxide manufacturing for nearly 20 years (1968-1987) was also documented. Those wastes, which accumulate in sediment where bottom-feeding fish live, contained heavy metals which can cause reproductive problems in fish. Longwall mining by Du Pont’s Consolidation Coal unit in southwestern Pennsylvania was causing surface subsidence beneath farms, homes, parks, streams, roads, and at least one cemetery. Du Pont pesticides benomyl, cyanazine, and its versions of atrazine and synthetic pyrethroids, were then implicated in environmental, public health, and agricultural production problems. And in agricultural biotechnology, the report noted that since 1987, Du Pont had been field testing experimental crops that were genetically engineered to tolerate a new class of chemical herbicides known as the sulfonylureas, a development that Friends of the Earth believed would extend the pesticide era rather than end it.

The “Hot Spots” chapter in Hold The Applause! noted 15 locations – in 13 states plus Mexico and Ecuador – where Du Pont and/or Conoco then had ongoing environmental and/or legal issues, among them: charges of mismanagement and contamination at the Savannah River nuclear weapons complex in South Carolina that Du Pont managed for 30 years; leaking underground gasoline storage tanks at more than 25 Conoco locations in California; lawsuits in North Carolina alleging toxic air, land, and groundwater pollution from a Dacron polyester plant; Conoco oil refinery pollution at Ponca City, Oklahoma and Billings, Montana; and other issues at the Stevens landfill in Bedford, Michigan and dichloromethane emissions at a Towanda, Pennsylvania circuit board plant.

Sample headlines from a 1991 news story about lawsuits filed against Du Pont in North Carolina that alleged pollution from the company’s Dacron polyester plant in Lenoir County, NC. Source: The News-Journal, Wilmington, DE, May 8, 1991, p. D-3.

In the workplace, Du Pont was found to have concealed and withheld asbestos-related disease information during the 1960s for some workers at two of its New Jersey plants, while its Consolidated Coal subsidiary was among companies cited by the U.S. Labor Department for allegedly tampering with coal-dust samples used to protect miners from black-lung disease. And CFC-113, it was learned, posed possible dangers to workers in the electronics industry where the chemical was used as a solvent. Du Pont was also exporting lead additives at the time, containing tetraethyl lead, a known brain toxin to children, even though lead in gasoline was then being phased out in the U.S.

In its political and legislative battles, whether in Washington or various states, Hold The Applause! found Du Pont’s money and muscle at work blocking or weakening environmental laws — from lobbying to weaken the 1980 Superfund law to helping defeat California’s 1990 “Big Green” ballot initiative.

Hold the Applause! also noted that during a 28-month period between March 1989 and June 1991 – approximately the same period when Du Pont and Ed Woolard were touting the company’s new environmental commitments – Du Pont paid out an average of nearly $1 million a month in legal fines, penalties and lawsuit settlements for various environmental, public health and worker safety infractions.

An artist's illustration of some famous Du Pont synthetic fibers & tradenames.

“Green R&D?”

However, Hold The Applause! did recognize and acknowledge Du Pont’s prowess as a prolific inventor and economic power.

The company’s long parade of new wonder products and tradenames made it an economic powerhouse for decades – Nylon, Orlon, Dacron, Lycra, Mylar, Freon, Teflon, Kevlar, Tyvek and more – all “better things for better living.”

Yet some of these “wonder products” were only “wonderful” until the downsides were discovered, sometimes 30-to-40 years later.

For too many years and too many products, Du Pont’s inventive process was not always guided by precaution. The operative paradigm seemed to be “invent-first–and-ask-questions-later.” As Hold The Applause! offered in its final chapter:

…If Du Pont is to make a meaningful contribution toward ameliorating the world’s present polluted condition, it will do so by revolutionizing the research and development process…

One of the reasons why the planet is in trouble today is that when companies such as Du Pont began to put Freon to work, invented nylon, or moved polymer technology forward, there was no corollary environmental science process alongside the R & D effort. There was no institutional mechanism that put products and new manufacturing designs through a gauntlet of environmental checks and tests….

…Corporations such as Du Pont need to fully incorporate biological, public health, product life-cycle, and energy-cost screens into their R& D processes early on, making these considerations as contemporaneous and as important as the hardware, chemistry, and physics of innovation… The challenge to Du Pont and the chemical industry… is simple enough: Do no harm.

August 28, 1991 story appearing in the Washington Post on Friends of the Earth's Du Pont report, “Hold The Applause!”.

Report Reaction

Press coverage on Hold The Applause! included stories that appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Reuters, The News-Journal (Wilmington, DE), Congressional Quarterly, Washington Times, Advertising Age, and others.

The report also prompted at least one editorial, that from the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 30, 1991, noting in part:

“…We recognize that advertisers have a great deal of license to present themselves in the best possible light. But enlisting a host of lovable sea animals in the promotion of a company that remains one of the nation’s most prodigious producers of environmentally dangerous chemicals seems a bit much…”

August 28, 1991. Story appearing in the News Journal of Wilmington, DE on Friends of the Earth's Du Pont report.

There was also some TV coverage — CNN, NBC Nightly News, CNBC, and the Nightly Business Report ran short segments on the report, with either Friends of the Earth’s Blackwelder or Doyle appearing briefly on camera in those segments. A BBC radio show also covered the report in the U.K., and newspaper coverage appeared in India in one area where Du Pont was proposing a new nylon plant.

Du Pont: “Unfair!”. Du Pont officials, for their part, believed they were being unfairly targeted by the Friends of the Earth report, and that what was revealed was nothing new. “I think the fact that we are a big company, that we are visible and we have tried to provide some leadership … I think that we become an easy target,” said Du Pont spokesman John McAllister in comments to the Philadelphia Inquirer upon the release of the report.

B. W. Karth, Du Pont VP for safety, health and the environment, said the report contained nothing new: “It seems to be a rehash of several of Du Pont’s most serious environmental challenges – all of which we are working diligently to resolve.” Karth also told the National Environmental Digest in September 2, 1991 that the report’s use of the “biggest polluter” tag was not a fair charge, because the largest part of Du Pont’s releases were “hazardous materials disposed of by EPA-approved underground injection,” comprising more than two thirds of Du Pont’s total reportable releases. Karth also claimed that total releases had been cut by 30 percent for the next reporting year, but a July 1991 Wall Street Journal story noted that sizeable reductions in some categories of Du Pont waste for that year were due to EPA reclassifications of certain wastes that didn’t have to be reported, rather than being actual reductions

A copy of Hold the Aplause! had been sent to Du Pont CEO Ed Woolard by Friends of the Earth’s Brent Blackwelder a few days prior to the release of the report at the National Press Club. In his letter to Woolard, Blackwelder noted, “…In the report, we have made 20 recommendations we believe will improve the environmental performance of the Du Pont Company, and we will be pleased to discuss these or any other aspects of the study with you or your staff.” Friends of the Earth also sent the report to major Du Pont shareholders — among them, large pension funds, several universities, and the Ford Foun-dation.

Du Pont officials, including Ed Woolard, would later meet with FOE staff on the ozone issue in early September 1992, but not on Hold The Applause! per se. FOE did receive a courtesy response from Du Pont on the report, but no detailed rebuttal or point-by-point response was received.

Friends of the Earth, meanwhile, would continue pushing Hold The Applause! to the media, its activist network, and selected Du Pont shareholders. A few weeks after the report was released at the National Press Club, Friends of the Earth sent the report to 17 major Du Pont institutional shareholders on September 6, 1991 – among them, major pension funds, several universities, and the Ford Foundation, urging them to back the report’s recommendations. At the time, these shareholders accounted for more than 190 million shares of Du Pont stock, or about 28 percent. Around this date as well, Friends of the Earth send another mailing on the availability of the report to its network of citizen activists, urging them to write to Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Du Pont’s advertising and environmental claims.

“Du Pont’s Ozone Hole?”

Front-page Washington Post ozone story, Feb 4, 1992.

Some months later, in early February 1992, after national news reports on a worsening ozone situation appeared, Friends of the Earth again alerted the press to a specific section of Hold The Applause!, this time focusing on the report’s ozone chapter, which the FOE press release noted had been “glossed over last fall when the report’s other findings received more attention…”

The header on the FOE press release read: “Du Pont’s Ozone Hole? One Company’s Tactics in Prolonging Global Ozone Depletion.” On the ozone issue, in fact, the Friends of the Earth report, offered a pretty solid timeline and overview of Du Pont’s CFCs business history and its political maneuvering during the ozone policy debates from 1974 through 1991. A bit of that history follows here.

Du Pont began marketing CFCs in 1931 under the trade name Freon, and it soon became the world leader in fluorocarbon chemistry, producing hundreds of compounds used in aerosol spray canisters, insulating foams, solvent cleaning agents, industrial and commercial chillers, and automobile air conditioners. For more than 40 years, Du Pont enjoyed a near monopoly position on many CFC lines, accounting for half of the U.S. CFC market and, at times, more than a fourth of the global market.

All that began to change in 1974, after scientists first theorized that the chlorine in CFCs was destroying the ozone. Du Pont would soon tell Congress it would study the problem, but stated there was no evidence of an ozone hazard, and pledged to stop CFC production if evidence was found. During the regulatory and scientific debates that followed, Du Pont played a prominent role, routinely challenging scientific findings, arguing for “further study,” and orchestrating a political base to forestall regulation.

Du Pont’s “Freon-12” refrigerant (1980s), also known as “R-12” or”CFC-12”.

Du Pont opposed the move to ban non-essential aerosol CFC sprays in the 1970s. Typical among the company’s response were 1975 double-page newspaper and magazine ads warning that “to act without the facts — whether it be to alarm consumers, or to enact restrictive legislation –is irresponsible.” Du Pont also criticized a 1975 White House Task Force for “proposing restrictions before scientific evidence is available.” Still, by 1978, aerosol sprays were banned in the U.S., causing a sharp decline in CFC demand, hitting Du Pont and other producers hard. Yet Du Pont continued selling CFC aerosols in the world market, and also continued selling CFCs for non-aerosol uses, markets that would continue to grow.

In 1979, when the National Academy of Sciences reported that continued use of CFCs would lead to 16.5 per cent ozone loss, Du Pont’s reaction was that “no ozone depletion has ever been detected” and that “all ozone depletion figures to date are based on a series of uncertain projections.”

In April 1980 EPA announced its intention to freeze U.S. CFC production at 1979 levels. Du Pont then, by the summer of 1980, used its business base of hundreds of small companies that purchased Du Pont fluorocarbons, to help form the Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy, a lobby that became an effective force against CFC regulation. Du Pont also began to push for an “international scientific consensus” on CFC regulation as a way to buy time and slow any new regulation.

In any case, by 1981, with the Reagan administration now in Washington, any unilateral U.S. regulatory action on CFCs was slowed to a crawl. And while Du Pont had previously begun research on CFC alternatives as a hedge against changing markets, after Reagan was elected, Du Pont’s alternatives research in the 1981-1985 nearly vanished completely. CFC markets, meanwhile – for refrigerants, cleaning agents, and foam insulation – continued to grow globally through the mid-1980s, helping to offset declines that had come with the 1978 aerosol ban.

New York Times of November 7, 1985, first to use term “ozone hole” in reporting to describe Antarctica ozone damage..

Meanwhile, scientific field research on ozone degradation during the 1983-1985 period had found that dramatic ozone losses had occurred over Antarctica.

These findings began to appear in the popular press, with first mention of an “ozone hole” appearing in a New York Times report of November 7th, 1985, accompanied by a black-and-white NASA image with data showing the losses.

Beyond the New York Times, later TV news broadcasts using the color version of the NASA data depicting the “ozone hole,” were seen by millions, bringing the issue fully into the mainstream. The argument that evidence was lacking could no longer stand.

Still, Du Pont in 1985 expanded its CFC production in Japan to reduce costs of exports from the U.S. The following year, EPA Administrator Lee Thomas stated that “empirical verification” of depletion was not a precondition for action to protect ozone. In 1986 Du Pont said it would support limits on CFC growth with global regulation and also resumed its research on CFC substitutes.

In May 1987, Du Pont told the U.S. Senate: “we believe that there is no imminent crisis that demands unilateral regulation,” though previously saying that any regulatory action on CFCs had to be international. At this date, 11 Du Pont plants were producing CFCs. By late 1987, as the international community began negotiations on what would become the Montreal Protocol to regulate CFCs, some Du Pont officials were saying: “We now see the ozone-CFC regulatory situation as a marketing opportunity for substitutes.”

Magazine covers of NASA data & global image showing Antarctica “ozone hole” helped advance popular understanding and concern for protecting the ozone layer. 2 Nov 1987.

Time magazine cover story of October 1987 -- “The Heat is On” -- featuring both the changing global climate and then worsening ozone depletion problem.

Du Pont would support the Montreal Protocol, which called for global CFC production to be cut in half by mid-1999. But then, in March 1988– prompted in part by new scientific revelations that ozone depletion was worse than formerly believed, and coupled with a testy exchange of letters between Du Pont and three U.S. Senators that had received press attention — Du Pont stunned competitors and the environmental community by announcing it would stop producing CFCs. The announcement made front-page headlines and brought praise from all quarters.

But what was not generally known when Du Pont made its much-praised phaseout announcement, was that the company’s CFC business had been in decline, and was not producing the profits it once did. Shortly after it made its CFC phaseout announcement, Du Pont began moving quickly to develop and market CFC substitutes with emphasis on HCFCs and HFCs. And by September 1988 or so, Du Pont had filed for U.S. and other patents on many of its HCFC and HFC product lines.

By August 1990, Sharon Roan’s widely praised book, “Ozone Crisis: The 15-Year Evolution of a Sudden Global Emergency,” was published, and included an excellent timeline of events which also structured her narrative. Click for copy.

An emerging problem, however, was that HCFCs and HFCs were environmentally damaging. HCFCs contain chlorine and degrade ozone, although at much lower rates than CFCs. The HCFCs also had heat-trapping properties, adding to global warming. The HFCs, on the other hand, did not degrade ozone, but some did contribute to global warming. Du Pont would take the position that the damaging effects of the substitutes were so low that they could serve as interim or “bridging” chemicals until safer new ones could be developed

Du Pont was cited in the New York Times in January 1990 advocating the use of HCFCs and HFCs “until sometime between 2030 and 2050.” But other scientific and environmental interests, including Friends of the Earth and the Natural Resources Defense Council, had begun agitating for restrictions on the substitutes. Proposals for regulating and phasing out HCFCs were then put before both the U.S. Congress and the parties to the Montreal Protocol, but limitations would not take hold for years. For the time being, at least, Du Pont had essentially outflanked the opposition on regulating the new CFC substitutes by way of its own multi-million dollar production plant commitments to produce those substitutes plus major buyer contracts to purchase them.

The Montreal Protocol had actually worked to Du Pont’s advantage. First, it gave a boost to the declining CFC business by imposing production limits that pushed up prices for Du Pont’s and other CFCs. Second, the Protocol specifically approved the substitute HCFCs and HFCs that Du Pont had developed, giving them – at least initially – both environmental acceptability and a guaranteed market.

In the end, Du Pont’s dominant market position, its political activity, and its quick capitalization of the CFC substitutes kept it one step ahead of the regulatory process and well on top of the market. It had masterfully played the regulatory and public relations arenas, while simultaneously securing business support and contractual commitments to solidify its market position with the new HCFCs and HFCs. By early 1991, it would begin marketing some of its new CFC substitutes under the Suva trade name.

“The Penguin Ad”
Du Pont’s SUVA Icon

Rough copy of January 22, 1991 full-page Du Pont ad in the Wall Street Journal touting its Suva refrigerants.

In addition to its “Applause” TV and print ads, Du Pont would also use wildlife imagery in other corporate advertising and messaging. A favorite wildlife icon for the company would become the black and white penguin, used by the company in its SUVA advertising – the Du Pont trade name for its CFC replacements.(HFCs & HCFCs).

On January 22, 1991, Du Pont began running a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal and other publications featuring a lone penguin standing on a floating block of ice, looking a bit forlorn and peering off toward the open sky (rough copy at right).

A brief tagline in the center of the ad, running vertically down the page asks the question: “What on earth is the future of refrigerants?” The answer, “Du Pont’s Suva refrigerants,” the company explains at the bottom of the ad. “Alternatives to CFCs that are environmentally enlightened. Practical. And available starting today.”

The day before the ad appeared, on January 21st, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, Du Pont’s Vice Chairman, E. P. Blanchard kicked off Du Pont’s the new line of commercially available refrigerants at a press conference, calling them “the fist commercially available family of environmentally acceptable refrigerants.”

A similar 1991 print ad also mentioning the new Suva refrigerants would also use the penguin on the floating ice block, but this ad was used to tout the company’s research lab in New Jersey using the headline: “Innovations From Du Pont’s Jackson Lab to Protect Our World.” The message in that ad included the following:

A 1991 Du Pont magazine ad touting Suva refrigerants and environmental advances at Du Pont’s Jackson Labs.

“Since chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants were identified as a possible contributor to the ‘ozone hole,’ Du Pont has developed and is commercially producing a line of environmentally acceptable refrigerants named Suva. The company’s Jackson Research Laboratory at Chambers Words in Deepwater, N.J., led the development of new products whose potential to deplete the ozone layer is reduced by 90% to 100%.

“The team of Jackson Lab scientists also has found a way to cut organic and solid waste dramatically at a new Du Pont flouromatics facility. Flouromatics are used to make pharmaceutical and other vital products.

“And the lab has just formed a center to develop advanced technology for waste treatment and remediation. This technology will provide environmentally safe and cost effective ways to manage waste at Du Pont operations and others businesses in and around New Jersey.

These and other advances by Jackson Lab scientists typify Du Pont’s dedication to research to make our wold better. / Du Pont. Better Things For Better Living.”

In its description, and at its August 1991 New York City press conference, Du Pont used the phrase “environmentally acceptable refrigerants” to describe it new line of CFC replacements, not “environmentally safe.” The black and white penguin, meanwhile, would also appear on individual Suva products such as cans and canisters of the chemical, related product items, and promotional paraphernalia.

Hold The Applause!, meanwhile, offered a snapshot of Du Pont in the early 1990s, and some of the problems and changes it was then experiencing, as well as the company’s proposed leadership philosophy (i.e. “corporate environmentalism”) and attempts to change the way it dealt with pollution and toxic waste. By 1999, Du Pont would sell off Conoco and exit the oil business, and no longer had to concern itself with oil tankers at sea. But it would be Du Pont’s chemistry that continued to haunt the company, as its odyssey with CFCs and ozone had shown in the mid-1970s-early 1990s.

In recent years, however, Du Pont has confronted another chemical legacy with environmental and public health liabilities so large they may be litigated for decades to come. That tale deserves some brief mention next.

1960s ad for “Happy Pan,” a cast iron skillet sealed with Du Pont’s Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene).

The “PFAS” Saga

Since the 1950s, Du Pont has been involved with a group of chemicals known in various shorthand forms and chemical abbreviations as: PFOA, PFAS, PFOS, and C-8. PFOA – perfluorooctanoic acid – is one of many synthetic organofluorine compounds collectively known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). These chemicals have been used in industrial quantities since the 1940s to make a wide array of products and treatments. PFAS chemicals are found in consumer and household products, such as non-stick cookware, stain resistant furniture and carpets, wrinkle free and water repellant clothing, cosmetics, lubricants, paint, pizza boxes, popcorn bags, and many other products. PFAS chemicals are now ubiquitous in the environment, have been found in the blood of humans and wildlife everywhere, and with certain exposures, can pose serious health threats.

And it turns out, Du Pont in particular, for decades, withheld information about the chemicals’ health dangers to workers, nearby plant communities, and public health. An abbreviated timeline of some of the events surrounding the Du Pont PFAS saga follows.

In 1938, a DuPont scientist in New Jersey had accidentally discovered polytetrafluoroethylene, a PFAS chemical later named Teflon.

In 1947, the 3-M Company – formerly known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing — began producing PFOA for its Scotchguard product.

Map of the Mid-Ohio River Valley area, showing location of Du Pont's Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, WV. Source: WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, OH.

By 1948, DuPont was producing over two million pounds (900 tons) of Teflon-brand polytetra-fluoroethylene per year at its Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia.

In 1951, DuPont began purchasing PFOA from 3M for use in the manufacturing of Teflon at its Washington Works plant. DuPont internally referred to PFOA as C-8.

In the early 1990s, Wilbur Tennant, a cattle farmer near Parkersburg, West Virginia, began recording ill effects in his cows, many dying and with gruesome effects on various internal organs. Tennant suspected the cause was related to an adjacent 66-acre Du Pont landfill, opened in the 1980s, where Du Pont PFOA factory wastes were dumped, infiltrating a local stream that flowed through Tennants’ farm and suspected of poisoning his cattle.

In 1998, Tennant brought his complaint to lawyer Robert Bilott, in Cincinnati, Ohio, who by the fall of 2000, won a court order forcing Du Pont to share all documents related to PFOA. This included some 110,000 pages of internal Du Pont documents, the contents of which soon stunned Bilott. What he found was an incredible story of confidential studies and reports by Du Pont scientists over decades, indicating chemical dangers, but never publicly revealed. It was largely through these findings that a decades-long series of court battles and regulatory change began, continuing to this day, exposing the toxic effects of PFAS chemicals. (See, for example: Nathaniel Rich, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” New York Times Magazine, January 6, 2016).

Attorney Rob Bilott, in later 2016 New York Times Magazine story about his Du Pont investigation -- shown here on land owned by his client, Wilbur Tennant near Parkersburg, WV. Photo, Bryan Schutmaat for The New York Times. Click for story.

As later noted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) of Washington D.C. (after Du Pont and 3-M data began to surface in news reports and litigation):

“As far back as 1950, studies conducted by 3M showed that the family of toxic fluorinated chemicals now known as PFAS could build up in our blood. By the 1960s, animal studies conducted by 3M and DuPont revealed that PFAS chemicals could pose health risks. But the companies kept the studies secret from their employees and the public for decades.”

Source: Sample table from the research and reporting of the Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C.

(See for example, a 1950-2000 timeline complied by EWG of scientific findings with links to dozens of the actual internal memos, studies, and reports that document the various ill-effects and health dangers of PFAS chemicals discovered by 3M and Du Pont scientists, but withheld from regulators, workers, and the public).

Attorney Rob Bilott.

Meanwhile, back in 2001, the Wilbur Tennant lawsuit brought by Robert Bilott was settled for an undisclosed sum. However, on the basis of the thousands of pages of Du Pont documents he had reviewed, Bilott compiled a 972-page submission in March 2001 which he then sent to various regulatory authorities, including EPA and DOJ, demanding “immediate action…to regulate PFOA and provide clean water to those living near” Du Pont’s Washington Works plant.

The Du Pont information Bilott had assembled on PFOA led to a further class action he filed in 2001 on behalf of 80,000 people living in areas whereby PFOA had leaked into the water supply. This suit would be settled later.

In 2002, because of an EPA-encouraged 3M phaseout of PFOA, DuPont built its own plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina to continue to produce the chemical, which Du Pont called C-8.

Between 2000 and 2003, various newspaper reporters from the New York Times, The Marietta Times and Columbus Dispatch in Ohio, Charleston Gazette in West Virginia – all played key roles in advancing and uncovering various parts of the early PFAS story, as did other subsequent reporting at the Washington Post, USA Today, ABC News, The News-Journal of Wilmington, DE, and the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C.

A sampling of news headlines on Du Pont's Teflon troubles from the 2003-2009 period compiled by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) of Washington, D,C.

In 2004, back in Parkersburg, WV, it was revealed that between 1951 and 2003, more than 1.7 million pounds of C-8 had been “dumped, poured and released” into the environment from Du Pont’s Washington Works plant.

In 2005, the earlier 2001 class action suit brought by Bilott was settled, with Du Pont agreeing to provide up to $235 million for medical monitoring for over 70,000 people living in six water districts around the Du Pont plant in Parkersburg.

In 2005 the EPA fined Du Pont a record $16.5 million over its decades-long cover-up of the health hazards of C8, also known as PFOA.

Callie Lyons’ 2007 book on “the hidden dangers of C-8”, one of the first on the PFAS issue. Click for copy.

In 2006, EPA brokered a voluntary agreement with Du Pont and eight other major companies to phase out the use of PFOS and PFOA in the U.S.

In March 2007, Ohio reporter, Callie Lyons, published the first book on PFAS chemicals, Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof, and Lethal: The Hidden Dangers of C-8.

In 2009, Du Pont began making Teflon with a new chemical, called GenX.

By 2014, EPA had described the chemicals as “emergent contaminants,” noting:

“PFOA and PFOS are extremely persistent in the environment and resistant to typical environmental degradation processes. [They] are widely distributed across the higher trophic levels and are found in soil, air and groundwater at sites across the United States. The toxicity, mobility and bioaccumulation potential of PFOS and PFOA pose potential adverse effects for the environment and human health.”

In July 2015, DuPont began spinning off major parts of it business into a new publicly traded company named Chemours Company. Chemours would assume major parts of Du Pont’s operations in three segments: Titanium Technologies (titanium dioxide); Fluoroproducts (refrigerants and industrial fluoropolymer resins and derivatives including Freon, Teflon, Viton, Nafion, ECCtreme ECA and Krytox); and Chemical Solutions (cyanide, sulfuric acid, aniline, methylamines, and reactive metals). Chemours also became responsible for the cleanup of 171 former Du Pont waste sites, and would also assume various liabilities arising from DuPont lawsuits. Litigation between Du Pont and Chemours would ensue over these liabilities until a later agreement was reached on sharing liability and judgment costs.

In February 2017, the earlier 2001 class-action suit that Rob Bilott had filed against Du Pont on behalf of the Parkersburg area residents, resulted in Du Pont agreeing to pay $671 million to settle about 3,550 personal injury claims involving a leak of PFOA used to make Teflon at the Washington Works plant. Du Pont denied any wrongdoing.

In March 2017, an investigative documentary about Du Pont and PFOA titled, “The Devil We Know: The Chemistry of a Cover Up,” began airing on American TV. Click for video or DVD.

In March 2017, an investigative documentary about Du Pont and PFOA titled, The Devil We Know: The Chemistry of a Cover Up, began airing on TV. In late March 2017, it aired as part of the “Parched” series on the National Geographic channel, using the title, Toxic Waters. The film focused on Parkersburg and Du Pont’s Washington Works Teflon plant, featuring personal stories, including the Wilbur Tennant tale about his cattle, but also accounts from workers about health and birth defects issues believed connected to chemical exposures.

In November 2018, an EPA draft assessment reported that “animal studies showing effects on the kidneys, liver, immune system and more from GenX,” a chemical initially developed by Du Pont in 2009 as a replacement for PFOA/C-8, but later shown to cause many of the same health problems.

GenX had been used – first by Du Pont and then the Chemours spin-off – at the Fayetteville, North Carolina plant.

In 2012, EPA first announced the discovery of GenX in North Carolina’s Cape Fear river, and by 2014, had discovered 11 additional PFAS substances in the river. Two years later, GenX and other PFASs were found in Wilmington, NC-area drinking water sourced from the Cape Fear river.

In September 2017, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality ordered Chemours to halt discharges of all fluorinated compounds into the river. Since then, other litigation over the chemical in North Carolina and beyond, involving both Chemours and Du Pont, has ensued.

In May 2019, the state of New Hampshire filed a lawsuit against Du Pont, 3M, and other companies, for their roles in the crisis over PFAS-related drinking water contamination in the U. S. resulting from the manufacture and use of more than 4,000 perfluorinated chemicals.

In October 2019, a book written by attorney Robert Bilott, titled, Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont, appeared. A month later, Dark Waters, a November 2019 Hollywood was released based on attorney Rob Bilott’s litigation with Du Pont and the profile of him that had appeared in New York Times Magazine.

Cover of paperback edition of attorney Robert Bilott’s 2019 book on the Du Pont PFOA saga, “Exposure,” Simon & Schuster, 400pp. Click for copy.

DVD cover for “Dark Waters,” the 2019 Hollywood film on the Du Pont PFOA saga, staring Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins and Bill Pullman. Click for film.

In March 2021, EPA announced that it would develop national drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS. Later that month, EPA also announced plans to revise wastewater standards (effluent guidelines) for manufacturers of PFAS chemicals.

In July 2021, Maine became the first U.S. state to ban PFAS compounds in all products by 2030, except for instances deemed “currently unavoidable.” And since then, at least 10 states — and numerous local jurisdictions — have brought PFAS-related lawsuits against Du Pont, 3-M, Chemours and other companies. Recently, for example, on May 25th, 2023, Rhode Island’s Attorney General, Peter Neronha, filed a lawsuit against a list of PFAS manufacturers – including 3M and Du Pont – charging they have caused significant harm to the state’s residents and natural resources. Neronha faulted the companies for engaging in what he described as “a massive and widespread campaign to knowingly deceive the public,” moving assets to avoid paying for damages, and manufacturing, marketing and selling hazardous chemicals for decades while knowing the risks.

On June 2, 2023, Chemours, DuPont and Corteva (another Du Pont spin-off), in a legal settlement, announced an agreement in principle to set up a $1.19 billion fund to help remove toxic PFAS chemicals from public drinking water systems. The deal, the result of a consolidation of cases before a federal Judge in Charleston, S.C., still requires judicial approval, but would resolve a number of lawsuits involving water systems that already had detectable levels of PFAS contamination, as well as those required by EPA to monitor for PFAS contamination. As many as 200 million Americans are currently believed to be exposed to PFAS in their tap water. And PFAS-related litigation has already involved more than 4,000 cases filed in federal courts across the country, with more on the way. Du Pont and its spin-offs, it appears, will be dealing with the PFAS saga for some time to come.

In 1935, Du Pont adopted the slogan, “Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry,” dropping “through chemistry” in 1982 -- adopting a new slogan in 1999, “The Miracles of Science”.

Du Pont’s chemistry, meanwhile, despite the company’s long-standing slogan, “better things for better living,” has too often missed that mark, with a number of its chemicals yielding great harms, whether found in the ocean, atmosphere, drinking water systems, or the human blood stream.

Additional stories at this website on business and the environment can be found at the Environmental History topics page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 7 June 2023
Last Update: 17 June 2023

Comments to:jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Applause For Du Pont? An Environmental
Critique,”PopHistoryDig.com, June 7, 2023.

_______________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

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Remarks by E.S. Woolard, Jr., Chairman, Du Pont, At the Detroit Economic Club, Detroit, Michigan, November 19, 1990.

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David Rotman, “Growing Ozone Damage Adds to CFC Worries,” Chemical Week, April 17, 1991, p. 9.

News Release, Friends of the Earth, Washing-ton, DC, Press Conference before Du Pont Shareholders Meeting, Wilmington, DE, April 24, 1991, “Friends of the Earth Calls Du Pont’s Ozone Policy Dangerous,” Remarks by Liz Cook, Ozone Campaign Director, Friends of the Earth.

Michael S, Clark, President, Friends of the Earth, Letter to William K. Reilly, Administrator, U.S Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., April 24, 1991, 2pp (ozone policy).

Bob Bauers, “Du Pont Co.’s Annual Meeting Becomes Environmental Forum,” The News-Journal (Wilmington, DE), April 25, 1991, p. 1.

Liz Cook, “CFC Substitute Turns Out To Do More Harm,” Atmosphere, A Publication of Friends of Earth International, Ozone and Climate Protection, Washington, D.C., Vol. III, No.4, June 1991, p. 6.

“To Corporate Leaders: ‘We Will Be Watching’,” Statement of Brent Blackwelder, Acting President, Friends of the Earth, National Press Club, Washington, D.C., August 27, 1991 (release of Friends of the Earth report, Hold The Applause!), 2 pp.

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Jack Doyle, Hold The Applause! A Case Study of Corporate Environmentalism as Practiced at Du Pont, Friends of the Earth, Washington, D.C., 112pp, August 1991.

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Jack Doyle, Friends of the Earth, Telephone Conversation with Jack Malloy, Senior V.P. & Special Counsel to Ed Woolard, Du Pont, September 2, 1992.

Brent Blackwelder, Acting President, Friends of the Earth with Jack Doyle and Liz Cook, Meeting with Du Pont’s CEO Ed Woolard and Jack Malloy, Senior V.P. & Special Counsel to Ed Woolard, at Du Pont Offices, Mills Building, 1701 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, D.C., September 4, 1992.

Peter Applebome, “Du Pont Settles Growers’ Suits Over Fungicide [Benlate]; Agrees To Pay $4 illion as Jury Deliberates,” New York Times, August 13, 1993, p. A-10.

Carol Kaesuk Yoon, “Thinning Ozone Layer Implicated in Decline Of Frogs and Toads,” New York Times, March 1, 1994, p. C-4.

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Bruce Watson, “The Troubling Evolution of Corporate Greenwashing,” TheGuardian.com, August 20, 2016.

Adam Rome, “Du Pont and the Limits of Corporate Environmentalism,” Business History Review, Vol. 93 , Issue 1: Business and the Environment Revisited, Spring 2019, pp. 75-99.

Marina Vassilopoulos, “An In-Depth Look At Greenwashing… And Its Consequences,” UnsustainableMagazine.com, October 22, 2022.

Philip Shabecoff, “Du Pont to Halt Chemicals That Peril Ozone,” New York Times, March 25, 1988, p. 1.

Sarah V. Poor, Alister R. Olson, Michael P. Clough, and Benjamin C. Herman, Spotting Pseudoscience, “Ozone Depletion: Fabricating a Hole in the Scientific Evidence,” Story BehindTheScience.org.

B. Smith, “Ethics of Du Pont’s CFC Strategy 1975–1995,” Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 17, No. 5, April 1998, pp. 557–568.

R. P. Mullin, “What Can Be Learned from Du Pont and the Freon Ban: a Case Study,” Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 40, No. 3, 2002, pp. 207-218.

J. Maxwell and F. Briscoe, “There’s Money in The Air: The CFC Ban and Du Pont’s Regulatory Strategy,” Business Strategy and the Environment, 6(5), 1997, pp. 276-286.

Megan Nielson, “Honesty and Integrity in PR – Lessons from Du Pont,” CommuniquePR .com, August 19, 2021.

PFAS-Related

“Perfluorooctanoic Acid,” Wikipedia.org.

“Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances,” Wiki-pedia.org.

“Timeline of Events Related to Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances,” Wikipedia.org.

“Du Pont Hid Teflon Pollution For Decades,” EWG.com (Environmental Working Group, Washington, DC), December 13, 2002.

“Robert Bilott,” Wikipedia.org.

Callie Lyons, “Examining the Water We Drink: Concerns About C8 Linger,” The Marietta Times, (Ohio), September 27, 2003.

Sharon Lerner, “The Teflon Toxin: Du Pont and the Chemistry of Deception,” TheInter-cept.com, August 11, 2015.

Mariah Blake, “Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia,” HuffingtonPost .com, August 27, 2015.

“GenX,” Wikipedia.org.

Ken Otterbourg, “Teflon’s River of Fear: Chemical Giant Chemours Is Facing off Against Residents of North Carolina in a Battle over a Potentially Harmful Compound Used to Make Nonstick Pans,” Fortune.com, May 24, 2018.

DuPont Lawsuits (re PFOA pollution in USA), Business-HumanRights.org.

Bill Walker, “EWG and Toxic Fluorinated Chemicals: 20 Years in the Fight Against PFAS,” EWG.com, July 24, 2019.

Bill Walker, “Groundbreaking Reporting Helped Bring ‘Dark Waters’ to Light,” EWG.com, December 6, 2019.

Randall Chase, “DuPont, Chemours Reach Pact Over Liability for ‘Forever Chemicals’ PFAs Pollution,” InsuranceJournal.com, January 25, 2021.

David Gelles and Emily Steel, “How Chemical Companies Avoid Paying for Pollution; Du Pont Factories Pumped Dangerous Substances into the Environment. The Company and its Offspring Have Gone to Great Lengths to Dodge Responsibility,” New York Times, October 20, 2021.

Ry Rivard and Jordan Wolman, “‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere; The Battle Over Who Pays to Clean Them Up Is Just Getting Started…,” Politico.com, September 13, 2022.

Associated Press, “Rhode Island Attorney General Sues Manufacturers of ‘Forever Chemicals’,” PBS.org, May 25, 2023.

Ben Casselman, Ivan Penn and Matthew Goldstein, “Three ‘Forever Chemicals’ Makers Settle Public Water Lawsuits; The $1.19 Billion Agreement, Announced by Chemours, Dupont and Corteva, Wouldn’t Resolve All the Claims Against Them,” New York Times, June 2, 2023.
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Teaser Tag: Toxic Train History

1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Toxic Train Wreck”
Mississauga: 1979

March 9, 2023 J.D.

Front page of “The Toronto Sun” for November 12, 1979, with headline, photo & caption describing the fiery train wreck, toxic gas dangers, and major evacuation at Mississauga, Ontario.

It was early afternoon on Saturday, November 10, 1979, when Canadian Pacific Railway freight train No. 54 began its journey from Windsor, Ontario to Toronto, a few hours north. But along the way, train No. 54 had a couple of scheduled stops to make.

First, in Chatham, Ontario it stopped to pick up additional rail cars from another train coming in from Sarnia, Ontario, a major oil and petrochemical center, with refineries and chemical plants.

Tank cars added to train No. 54 that afternoon from chemical plants were carrying caustic soda, propane, chlorine, styrene, and toluene. Among the additional cars from Sarnia were two chlorine tankers from Dow Chemical’s plant there. The train was now 106 cars long.

Train No, 54 left Chatham about 6 p.m. and headed northeast to its next stop at London, Ontario where it made a crew change.

Thereafter, as the train resumed its run toward Toronto, unbeknownst to anyone on the train, one of its cars was having a problem.

As the train rumbled past Milton, still southwest of Toronto by some 40 kilometers and traveling at about 60 miles per hour, friction had built up in an axle wheel-bearing on Car 33. It was one of the train’s older cars — an old-fashioned type needing manual lubrication for its axle box.Car 33 sent its glowing hot wheels flying off the train and crashing through a fence, landing in the backyard of a nearby home. Newer, more modern cars had roller bearings.

Friction and heat continued to build as the train moved down the line. Residents living near the tracks later reported seeing smoke and sparks coming from the middle section of the train. Further on, others would later report that part of the train appeared to be on fire. As the train continued on its journey, the axle heat built up to the point where the axle on Car 33 broke off. Then the car started to break apart. At the Burnhamthorpe Road crossing, Car 33 sent its glowing hot wheels flying off the train and crashing through a fence, landing in the backyard of a nearby home.…The damaged tank car, with its dangling undercarriage, left the tracks; 23 other cars followed, causing a deafening crash as explosions and fireballs lit up the sky… It was now nearing midnight as the train – still on the tracks – approached Mississauga, a Toronto suburb of about 300,000 people.

The train sped past an area of apartment buildings and suburban homes, now carrying the dangling and damaged undercarriage of Car 33. Just past a light industrial area, at the Mavis Road crossing, the damaged tank car with its dangling undercarriage, left the tracks. Twenty-three other cars followed it off the tracks, causing a deafening crash and metal-on-metal grinding sound as the iron and steel cars collided and twisted into a tangled pile. At that point, some propane cars burst into flames. Other tankers began spilling their chemical contents, initially styrene and toluene. Within seconds, the leaked liquids and vapors ignited, causing a massive explosion and fireball.

Photo of one of the explosions at Mississauga, Ontario, following November 1979 train derailment of Canadian Pacific Railway freight train with 106 cars, a number of which carried toxic and volatile chemicals.

Yellow-orange flames leapt to 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) in the sky and could be seen 100 kilometers away. Soon the fire was being fed by the contents of the other wrecked tank cars, with more in danger—eleven held propane, four had caustic soda, three contained styrene, three more held toluene, two box cars were filled with fiberglass insulation, and one contained chlorine. An undamaged portion of the train, still on the track, had been uncoupled with the heroic efforts of 27 year-old trainman, Larry Krupa, who braved fire and explosion to reach undamaged car No. 32 to close an air brake angle spigot that enabled the release of 26 cars from the wreck, as that section of the train then pulled forward, away from the derailment and fire.

Rising fireball from a burning Canadian Pacific rail car in Mississauga, Ontario after derailment in November 1979.

The sleeping town of Mississauga, meanwhile, began to rouse, as police and fire department switchboards lit up with a flood of phone calls. Within minutes, firefighters arrived at the scene while police set up roadblocks.

But just as firefighters were about to begin their battle—now early Sunday morning—a violent explosion occurred as another of the propane tank cars blew up.

The blast knocked police, firefighters, and onlookers to the ground, showering the surrounding area with chunks of metal.

Windows were shattered throughout the area, and three greenhouses and a municipal recreational building were destroyed. Near the explosion, a green haze was seen drifting in the air.

Minutes later, a second explosion occurred. In another propane car, a “bleve” occurred—a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion—hurling the tank car into the air, spewing fire as it went, finally tumbling into a cleared field more than 600 meters away. Five minutes later, another bleve occurred, sending one end of the propane tank car about 65 meters away.

Emergency authorities and public officials from several governmental levels were being summoned to the scene by this time, as police and fire officials tried to acquire the train’s cargo manifest and emergency procedures. However, the main manifest was in the front part of the train which by then had moved on to Cooksville, about six kilometers away.

About an hour later, around 1:30 a.m., a readable copy of the manifest was delivered to emergency officials. Checking the serial numbers of derailed cars, they soon determined the cars held a mixed cargo of dangerous chemicals, including chlorine, posing a possible poison gas threat.

Scene at Mississauga train derailment, November 1979. General view of burning tanking cars from about a half mile away. Frank Lennon/Toronto Star

Chlorine, a deadly chemical, forms a greenish-yellow cloud when released and hovers close to the ground. A chlorine cloud will follow the terrain as it drifts and disperses—a feature that made it an ideal weapon in the trench warfare of WWI. Once chlorine gas is breathed, it saps the fluids in the linings of lungs and blood, and starts a chain reaction that ends with slow suffocation. At the wreck site, a chlorine tanker was close to a filled propane tanker, in danger of exploding, but the ongoing fire prevented an initial assessment. However, it was later determined that the chlorine tanker had been punctured and was leaking.

In Mississauga, meanwhile, the fire chief ordered 3,500 residents living closest to the derailment to evacuate. Police officers using loud bullhorns and knocking on doors alerted sleepy residents. Later, as winds shifted and more information about the train’s cargo became known, the area of evacuation was expanded. Shortly after 2 a.m., Metropolitan Toronto Police sent sound trucks to alert residents of the broader evacuation. The local Canadian Red Cross began setting up resident evacuation centers—one at Square One, a large covered shopping center about 2.5 kilometers from the derailment. Calls went out for ambulances in the surrounding area and buses were also summoned from the Toronto, Oakville, and Mississauga transit authorities.

Looking down roadway at Mississauga, Ontario into the train wreck scene where derailed chemical tankers and other Canadian Pacific rail cars were blazing as firefighters did their best to quell multiple infernos

A team of experts from Dow Chemical at Sarnia, owners of the chlorine tank car, arrived on the scene armed with specialized equipment to execute something called CHLOREP, the chlorine emergency plan. Dow’s Stu Greenwood headed up this effort. But it was soon determined that it would be impossible to seal the leaking chlorine tanker until the propane fires from other tank cars had burnt themselves out. Firefighters, using some 4,000 meters of hose, had nearly a dozen major streams of water trained on the wreck site. Most were aimed at cooling the unexploded chemical tankers, while allowing a controlled burn of escaping gases.

An aerial view of the November 1979 Canadian Pacific derailment at Mississauga, Ontario, at the Mavis Road cross-street, showing the conflagration of various piled-up tanker cars on fire (white color) as numerous streams of firefighting water poured on the blazing tank cars.

More evacuations were ordered as winds changed. At about 5 a.m., the Solicitor General of the Ontario Cabinet was notified. As dawn broke, emergency officials and the town’s mayor met to consider their options. Again, the evacuation zone was expanded, including a decision to evacuate Mississauga General Hospital and two adjacent nursing homes. By early afternoon, the evacuation zone now extended beyond the Square One shopping center, the site of the first evacuation center. Evacuees there were transferred to other centers. A mass exodus of residents was now underway—some with packed luggage, others abandoning Sunday dinners about to be served.

During the evacuation of Mississauga, Ontario residents away from the chemical train wreck, auxiliary policeman Neil Porter, wearing gas mask, directs traffic at the intersection of highway routes 10 and 5. Toronto Star file photo.

At the day’s end, at least 218,000 residents had left their homes. Others put the number closer to 300,000. “The southern part of Mississauga, Canada’s ninth largest city with a population of 284,000, was a virtual ghost town,” reported one later account in, Derailment: The Mississauga Miracle. It remained the largest peacetime evacuation in North America until Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

By 10 a.m. Monday, November 12th, at least three propane cars were still burning. Officials feared that one might explode during rush hour, or that chlorine might waft over the area’s highways, trapping thousands of commuters in their cars. The Queen Elizabeth Way, the busiest stretch of highway in Canada, which runs through the central part of Mississauga, was closed at its eastern and western entrances to the town. Commuter traffic to Toronto was rerouted around the evacuated area, causing massive traffic jams.

The Queen Elizabeth Way, the busiest stretch of highway in Canada, which runs through the central part of Mississauga, was closed at its eastern and western entrances to the town. Commuter traffic to Toronto was rerouted around the evacuated area, causing massive traffic jams.

Back at the burning train wreck, a manufacturer of railway tank cars had prepared a steel patch to cover a one-meter hole in Dow’s chlorine tanker car. Some chlorine had already escaped, but officials assumed there was more remaining. Dow Chemical computers were enlisted to run scenarios of possible movements of leaking chlorine in the area to help emergency responders. “We have 90 tons of chlorine slowly leaking out,” explained police chief, Doug Burrows. “We have to know where it could go under different weather conditions. We have to know about every possible circumstance …” Railway crews, meanwhile, carefully removed box cars and tankers from the area which had not derailed, and attempted to clear debris at the accident site without disturbing the piled-up chlorine and propane tank cars.

At the November 1979 scene of the Mississauga train derailment, water streams continue to soak the still-burning rail cars as firefighters wearing breathing equipment head for work on the wreckage. Jack Dobson / The Globe and Mail

Staff of the Ontario Ministries of the Environment and Labor monitored the air and found a few pockets of chlorine gas in low-lying areas, but no significant hazard for the general area. Police patrolled deserted streets for looting and checked all vehicles entering the area. Public safety officials would not consider lifting the evacuation order and giving the all-clear signal until all the fires were out and the chlorine danger had ended.

The November 13th, 1979 edition of the New York Times ran a front-page story on the Mississauga train wreck w/ headline, “Chlorine Gas From Derailed Train Forces 250,000 to Flee in Ontario.”

By November 13th, 1979, the Mississauga disaster was major news across North America. A front-page story at the New York Times, with a photo of a Mississauga policeman with gas mask directing evacuation traffic, ran atop the left column sharing space with a Jimmy Carter headline about the Iranian hostage crisis. “Chlorine Gas From Derailed Train Forces 250,000 to Flee in Ontario,” said the headline of the Mississauga story. That story, filed the day before by reporter Andrew Malcolm, noted in part:

“…Firemen wearing gas masks pumped 5,000 gallons of water a minute onto the flaming wreckage of a 106-car Canadian Pacific train that jumped the tracks in this suburb of Toronto early yesterday morning, setting off a chain of rumbling blasts that sent parts of tanker cars flying almost half a mile…”

Back in Mississauga, November 13th was day four of the ordeal. One of the last big propane fires went out at about 2:30 a.m. and the focus moved to patching the chlorine tanker. By late morning that day, some evacuated hospital patients were being returned to their hospitals just outside the evacuated areas, but the city’s hospital remained closed. By late afternoon, the evacuation zone was reduced to a smaller area after air sampling indicated no hazard, allowing 144,000 residents to return home.

However, closer to the derailment, the evacuation order stayed in force, as there was still concern about chlorine. Workers had been hampered in completely sealing the leaking chlorine tanker, which was still blocked by another car. With an incomplete seal, some chlorine continued to escape. Other tankers, however, were being drained of their contents and hauled away, even as one propane tanker flared up again.

On day five, pockets of chlorine gas monitored in the evacuation zone still presented a health hazard.On day five, November 14th, workmen made a risky maneuver lifting and draining a half-empty propane tanker to get at the problem chlorine tanker, gambling that the propane tanker would not explode. Elsewhere on the site that day, a large white cloud of chlorine and water vapor rose from debris. Pockets of chlorine gas monitored in the evacuation zone still presented a health hazard for young children, the elderly, and those with respiratory problems – and also first responders. Eight firefighters walked into a pocket of chlorine gas that day near the wrecked tank cars and were admitted to the hospital.

Some years later, Barry King, a police inspector and command post co-ordinator at the time of the derailment, recalled an encounter he and one firefighter had with the leaking chlorine tanker: “I went down with one firefighter near the train, and this puff of chlorine gas waved over toward us. It just looked like a funny little cloud. He [ the firefighter] got a real dose of it and down he went. I don’t believe he ever went back to work. I had a tenth of what he had, but it was just enough to sear me. I was coughing up green phlegm the whole week. Doctors told me I would start feeling the effects of the chlorine when I got older. I started feeling it around 51. …Now I can only walk my dogs past three or four houses before I have to sit down.”

Back in 1979 at the derailment scene, frustration had grown among some evacuated residents, as a 25-square-kilometer area remained closed. Traffic was still barred at two entrances to the Queen Elizabeth Way.

On day six, November 15th, crews worked through the night and early morning, as 20- to-30 kilos of chlorine per hour continued to escape. The steel patch could not be fitted tightly over the rupture. A neoprene air bag was jerry-rigged over the opening which all but completely sealed the tanker, and officials announced there was little leakage. But that did not end the ordeal.

November 1979. A group of workers at the Mississauga, Ontario derailment site.

Between 7.5 and 10 tons of liquid chlorine still remained in the Dow Chemical tank car. Most of the tanker’s 90 tons of chlorine had been sucked up into the original fire ball at the wreck, with the resulting chlorine gas dispersed over Lake Ontario, according to officials.

Still remaining inside the tanker, however, was a slushy ice mixture of chlorine and water that had built up on its walls from the water poured on by the fire hoses. Scientists worried that this layer of ice might break up and fall into the liquid chlorine, exposing it to the air. This complication delayed the clean-up operation, as it was decided that pumping would not start until favorable winds prevailed. That occurred about 11 p.m. Still, the remaining 72,000 evacuated residents could not return to their homes that night since the chlorine had not been removed.

The Toronto Sun of November 19, 1979 reporting on the difficult week Mississauga had with the toxic derailment.

On day seven, Friday, November 16th, the problem involving the layer of ice was resolved, and by noon most of the chlorine had been pumped into trucks and shipped safely away. By 3 p.m., after tests showed that no dangerous pockets of chlorine were detected in the area, 37,000 of the remaining 72,000 evacuated residents were permitted to return home. However, the 35,000 residents living closest to the derailment and the first to evacuate, waited another four hours.

By 7:45 p.m. that evening – Friday, November 16th, 1979 – the city was reopened and police removed the remaining road blocks. Only the derailment site remained off-limits, as there was still wreckage to clean up and one remaining chlorine tank car to deal with. By late evening, the last evacuation center was closed and by midnight, police at the site finished their duties.

During the following week, the remaining chlorine tanker was finally emptied and the last pieces of emergency and fire equipment were removed from the scene. But officials continued to warn the public to avoid the derailment site because of dangerous chemicals that had soaked into the ground there. The clean-up of the wreckage at the site, and of contaminated soils there, would continue for another month or more.

In the aftermath of the accident, it was clear to many Canadians that Mississauga—and nearby Toronto—had dodged a major catastrophe.

The derailment occurred just after the train had passed through one of the most concentrated residential areas of Mississauga. The chemically-laden tank cars just happened to leave the tracks at one of the few places where a large area of undeveloped land existed—one of the few such places in all of greater Toronto.“We were lucky. . . . If the derailment had happened in metro Toronto just 20 miles up the tracks, we’d have had it. Thousands would have died.” And because of the propane explosions at the scene, much of the escaping chlorine was taken up into the fire and into the atmosphere rather than released as a toxic gas along the ground. There were also no fatalities.

Dr. Martin Dobkin, former emergency room physician at Mississauga Hospital, noted in a later interview, that the emergency staff at the time of the accident had been expecting the worst, given that chlorine was involved: “We were expecting dozens and dozens and dozens of mass casualties,” he explained, as he and other hospital staff were then preparing for emergency care following the derailment. But those casualties never came. However, some first responders and others dealing with the fires and wreckage would have delayed health problems some years later.

Toronto Star newspaper photo showing fireman Colin Cyr – after the fires were out and site clean-up began – examining gaping hole in the chlorine tanker that had forced the mass evacuation of Mississauga following the November 1979 derailment of Canadian Pacific freight train No. 54.

“We were lucky we escaped that one,” said Harold Morrison, reflecting on the disaster in in November 1984. Morrison was chairman of the Metro Toronto Residents Action Committee that formed shortly after the incident. “If the derailment had happened in metro Toronto just 20 miles up the tracks,” he explained, “we’d have had it. Thousands would have died.” Indeed, luck had played a key role. But the Mississauga accident had changed the political and industrial landscape in many ways – not least in terms of chemical hazards and public safety.

Chemical Dangers

Cover of “Report of the Mississauga Railway Accident Inquiry,” by Canadian Supreme Court Judge, Samuel Grange, heard from 169 witnesses over four months and issued a long list of recommendations. Dec 1980, 213 pp. Click for PDF.

In the post-mortem at Mississauga, the finger of blame was initially waved at the railroads, and new safety legislation was introduced in the Ontario parliament. An inquiry was ordered and Canadian Supreme Court Judge Samuel Grange headed an investigation that heard 160 witnesses over more than four months, reporting some time later with a long list of recommendations. His 213-page report, was released in December 1980.

Among the called-for changes were technical improvements, such as the use of roller bearing-equipped rail cars, and other more commonsense approaches, such as lowering train speed limits in populated areas. The disaster also sparked changes for tightening rules on transporting dangerous cargoes, setting a minimum number of crew members on such trains, and standardizing hot box detectors and roller bearings.

In the Canadian chemical industry, meanwhile, there were those who knew the Mississauga incident had touched a nerve about the movement of dangerous chemicals—chlorine in particular. Even as the incident unfolded, newspaper stories and editorials appeared with headlines such as “Railway Roulette,” “How Safe is The Freight,” and “The Road to Asphyxia.” People began asking questions about rail safety and chemical safety, and there were calls to ban the transport of hazardous chemicals—especially through highly populated areas.

According to Jean M. Belanger, who was president of the Canadian Chemical Producers Association in the early 1980s, the Mississauga train wreck and evacuation catalyzed the effort to advance a set of environmental and safety principles within the chemical industry, later known as “Responsible Care,” which later also took hold in the U.S. Earlier attempts to adopt a set of chemical industry safety principles in Canada had failed.

“In 1979, environmental awareness among companies was only starting,” explained Belanger. “Regulations were causing concerns to the degree they would limit flexibility of companies to do business. . . ” But then, a few accidents occurred. “For Canada it was the Mississauga train derailment. . . ,” said Belanger. “It put the spotlight on chemicals: Are they creating more problems than they are solving? That gave spirit to start the movement that became Responsible Care. . . . ” In the U.S., the Responsible Care process was catalyzed by the 1984 Union Carbide gas release disaster in Bhopal, India. But years after Responsible Care had become a well-established mantra of Canadian and U.S. chemical officials – and regarded as ineffective by critics – toxic spills and chemical releases, including those involving rail operations, would continue to occur.

This July 1980 U.S government report – “Major Railroad Accidents Involving Hazardous Materials Release” – lists some 75 such incidents that occurred in the 1969-1978 period. Click for PDF.

Long History

There is, in fact, a long history of rail accidents involving toxic and hazardous material in the U.S. and Canada. One 1980 U.S government report – “Major Railroad Accidents Involving Hazardous Materials Release” – lists some 75 such incidents that occurred in the 1969-1978 period.

Derailments releasing hazardous materials continued through the 1980s, as one New York Times story of August 1989 appeared with the headline: “Chemicals on Rails: A Growing Peril.” That story listed dozens of such incidents across the U.S. (story w/graphic shown below).

Among the toxic chemical derailments noted, for example, was one that occurred on February 2, 1989 in Helena, Montana, and another on February 29, 1989 in Akron, Ohio. Both resulted in the evacuation of thousands of residents.

In the Montana case, a 49-car train operated by the Montana Rail Link became an “out-of-control runaway” that collided with a standing three-unit locomotive, derailing 28 cars, puncturing at least 2 of the derailed cars. One of those cars contained isopropyl alcohol and acetone and the other, hydrogen peroxide, which exploded minutes after the collision. According to the Times, “pieces of wreckage were hurled a quarter of a mile, and windows three miles away were shattered by the explosion. Fifteen people were injured, power in the area was temporarily lost, and 3,500 people had to be evacuated in temperatures of 27 degrees below zero.”

In the Ohio accident, a 21-car CSX train, including nine tank cars containing the highly flammable chemical butane, jumped the tracks, with 2 tankers breached, releasing butane and starting a fire that spread to an adjacent chemical plant owned by the B. F. Goodrich Company.

In Freeland, Michigan, on July 22, 1989, a CSX train carrying chemicals to a Dow Corning plant, on a regular run from Port Huron to Midland, derailed. Initially, at least 3,000 people were forced to evacuate from a 15-square-mile zone around the derailment. A chemical fire in a derailed tanker car burned into a fifth day. The “all clear” wouldn’t come until the chemical chlorosilene in the derailed tanker had burned off and two other derailed cars with toxic plastic ingredients were removed.

New York Times story of August 1989 included graphic – “Toxic Accidents on Railroads” -- listing for 1987, states with 10 or more rail accidents involving hazardous materials (number in parentheses), ranked by number of accidents per 1,000 miles of track.

Continuing through the 1990s and early 2000s, chlorine releases were among toxic releases that occurred with rail accidents in those years. On April 11, 1996, for example, a Montana Rail Link freight train derailed 2 miles west of Alberton, Montana, and released 64.8 tons of liquid chlorine. The chlorine quickly evaporated, forming a gas cloud that drifted toward the town of Alberton, forcing an evacuation. That story is covered in a Kindle book under the tile, Alberton Montana: Anatomy of a Toxic Train Wreck, and also as a two-part print edition titled, Gassed: The True Story of a Toxic Train Derailment. In 2005, more than 100,000 pounds of chlorine gas was released in South Carolina when 18 cars derailed. That crash killed nine people and exposed more than a thousand others, sending hundreds to hospitals with lung injuries.

OIL/CHEM TRAIN WRECKS
Selected Cases, 2013-2023
(not a complete list)

July 6, 2013 / Lac-Megantic, Quebec
Runaway train w/ Bakken crude derails &
explodes in town center, killing 47

December 30, 2013 / Cassleton, ND
Derailment & collision w/crude oil train brings
explosion, fireball & evacuation of 1,400

January 7, 2014 / Plaster Rock, N.B.
Canadian National Railway train with
propane & crude derails and catches fire.

February 13, 2014 / Vandergrift, PA
120-car Norfolk Southern train w/ heavy
Canadian crude derails w/ major oil spill

February 16, 2015 / Mt. Carbon, WV
CSX oil train w/107 tank cars derails
w/fire & leaking oil for several days

March 5, 2015 / Galena, IL
BNSF oil train derails; 21 of 105 cars
w/Bakken crude derail & burn for days

March 7, 2015 / Gogama, Ontario
Canadian National Railway crude oil train
derails w/ massive fire & oil in waterways

May 6, 2015 / Heimdal, ND
Oil train derails, erupts into flames,
forcing evacuation of a small town

June 3, 2016 / Mosier, OR
16 Union Pacific cars derail w/ Bakken crude;
explosions, fire, river pollution, I-84 closed

April 2017, Money, MS
Train collision w/10-12 derailed cars;
crude oil tank cars catch fire.

June 22, 2018 / Doon, IA
35 tank cars derail, 10 release crude
(160,000 gal); some to Little Rock River

December 22, 2020, Custer, WA
3 of 10 derailed cars of North Dakota train
leaks crude & catches fire; burns for hours.

February 3, 2023 / E. Palestine, OH
Norfolk Southern train derailment w/ hazardous
chems released, controlled burn & evacuation.

Among more recent U.S. and Canadian rail disasters involving oil, chemical, or other hazardous materials occurring during the 2013-2023 period, are those listed in the sidebar at right, here offered as samples and not a complete list.

Of these, the February 3rd, 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio near the western border of Pennsylvania, has garnered much public and media attention. Some 51 cars derailed there, 49 of which ended up in a derailment pile, which then caught fire and burned for several days. Of the 51 derailed cars, 11 of them were tank cars which dumped 100,000 gallons of hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, benzene residue, and butyl acrylate. A controlled burn and evacuations of nearly 3,000 local residents followed.

This derailment, however, became something of a major political and media event, with an ongoing NTSB investigation, state and federal environmental involvement, and proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress to address rail safety shortcomings. It is likely to remain a continuing story for some time to come, raising the focus on rail safety and the movement of toxic and hazardous materials through towns and cities.

Chem Cargoes

The U.S. has about 140,000 miles of rail lines used for freight cars, which are owned and maintained by private organizations. Each year, nearly a billion tons of hazardous materials are shipped by rail, according to the American Chemistry Council.

Hazardous materials, or “hazmat,” are defined by the federal government as “substances or chemicals that pose a health hazard, a physical hazard, or harm to the environment,” such as unrefined oil, liquid natural gas and industrial manufacturing chemicals. In 2021 freight trains moved more than 2 million carloads of all chemicals, the vast majority of which occurred without incident. However, when it comes to toxic and hazardous substances even a few derailments in the right places can present serious dangers to public health and safety.

According to 2023 reporting by CNN, the Federal Rail Administration provided data that showed 149 rail incidents occurred in the last decade involving the release of hazardous materials from moving trains. This data, it was noted, is self-reported by the train companies.

Other 2023 reporting by USA Today, analyzing 10 years of federal rail incident reports, found over 5,000 incidents of hazardous materials spilling or leaking from trains that were either in transit or sitting in rail yards. In 2022, according to USA Today, rail companies reported 337 spills or leaks of hazardous materials – 32 of which were classified as “serious.” And while trucks transporting chemicals on the nation’s highways have numerically more accidents than do railroads, the volume carried by rail makes them potentially more serious when they do occur.

Still other 2023 reporting at TheHill.com, has noted that the kind of cargo railroads may be carrying more of in the near future could mean increased rail traffic and possibly more serious rail accidents ahead – especially given possible growth in certain sectors, such as: fracked oil (the 2010s’ oil boom saw more oil train accidents) and fracked methane used in making plastics and also for LNG – liquified natural gas – an expanding export market; as well as more vinyl chloride also for expanding U.S. and global plastics production; and finally, more bio-fuels production and transport of ethanol and bio-diesel.

Railroad Power

In the U.S., meanwhile, railroad companies have historically been among the nation’s most powerful corporations, some reaping huge wealth and economic advantage from historic government land grants and mineral rights during their 19th century build-out in the west. True, the rail companies remain an important and essential force in moving goods and raw materials that keep America’s economy humming – all to the good. Still, rail power – like so much corporate power in America – has become concentrated in a handful of companies, as the graphic below illustrates. And such power typically results in further economic advantage and political leverage.

Map showing rail company service area by color, with pie chart showing 2018 operating revenue ($ billions) for the each rail company: BNSF ($23.4 bn); Union Pacific ($22.8); CSX ($12.3 bn), and Norfolk Southern ($11.5 bn). American Prospect / Feb 2022.

At the very least, given the continuing litany of rail accidents in the U.S. over the last 50 years or more, tougher oversight and regulation are needed, aimed principally at improved safety performance and environmental protection. Railroad labor unions have recommended obvious safety measures such as increasing the number of crew members on each train, limiting train length, improvements to safety monitoring systems, increasing time and staff for railcar inspections, and modernizing braking systems. Beyond these, perhaps “citizen suit” provisions should also be added to the regulatory mix, affording a measure of community control and citizen watch-dogging over the railroads that run through numerous American towns and cities. And for very bad actors – those causing repeated harms to society – revoking the corporate charter to do business should also be an option.

For additional stories at this website on oil and chemical disasters see the “Environmental History” topics page, and generally the Home Page for other stories. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 9 March 2023
Last Update: 10 March 2023

Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Toxic Train Wreck: Mississauga, 1979”
PopHistoryDig.com, March 9, 2023.

____________________________________

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Ben Cohen, “On the 40th Anniversary of the Mississauga Miracle, We Talk to Those Who Fought, Fled and Reported on the Fiery Derailment,” TheGlobeandMail.com, Novem-ber 8, 2019.

Trillium Health Partners, “Mississauga Miracle: 40 Years Later,” YouTube.com, 3:53 minutes, November 10, 2019.

Sahar Fatima, “How Planning and Bravery Amid Massive Explosions Led to the ‘Mississauga Miracle’ Forty Years Ago. A Mississauga Train Derailed, Causing a Massive Crash and Several Explosions, and Released Clouds of Deadly Chemicals,” Toronto Star, Sunday, November 10, 2019, updated March 3, 2020.

Zane Gustafson & Eric de Place, “A Timeline of Oil Train Derailments In Pictures. Since 2013, North America Has Seen at Least 21 Oil Train Accidents—And Counting,” Sightline.org, February 26, 2021.

Jon Hurdle, “Towns Join Push to Block ‘Bomb Trains’; Activists Want Permit Pulled That Allows Trains to Transport Liquefied Natural Gas to Gibbstown,” NJspotlightNews.org, November 23, 2021.

Jayme Fraser, Tami Abdollah, “How Often Do Train Wrecks Spill Hazardous Chemicals into Neighborhoods? Here’s What Data Shows,” USAToday.com, February 9, 2023.

Ella Nilsen, “6 Key Things to Know after the Toxic Train Derailment in Ohio,” CNN.com, February 15, 2023.

David Sirota, Rebecca Burns, Julia Rock and Matthew Cunningham-Cook, “Opinion: Over 1,000 Trains Derail Every Year in America. Let’s Bring That Number Down,” NewYork Times.com, February 17, 2023.

Saul Elbein, “Four Rail-Borne Risks Moving Through American Communities,” TheHill .com, February 18, 2023.

_________________________________________

Teaser Tag: Oil Industry History

2001-Today

“125 Significant Incidents”
U.S. Refineries, 2012

February 8, 2023 J.D.

On August 6th, 2012, a major explosion and fire occurred at the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, California. It was one of 124 other “significant” U.S. oil refinery incidents that occurred that year, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, commonly known as the Chemical Safety Board, or CSB. In the Chevron case, a pipe in one of the refinery’s crude oil processing units had ruptured and released flammable hydrocarbon fluids, some of which formed a large vapor cloud. That cloud, surrounding 19 Chevron employees then at the scene, soon found an ignition source causing a massive explosion. Amazingly, all 19 employees escaped, narrowly avoiding serious injury or death. However, the ignition of the vapor cloud, and the subsequent burning of the hydrocarbon fluid, resulted in a major refinery fire (photo below). A large plume of particulates and vapor from the incident traveled off site and through the Richmond community. Approximately 15,000 people from the surrounding area sought medical treatment due to the release.

Photo of the raging inferno at the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, California, August 2012. Note group of firefighters at bottom of photo for scale comparison. Photo from CSB’s subsequent 2014 report.

An investigation of the Chevron refinery incident by the CSB, found that the ruptured pipeline had failed due to corrosion, and that Chevron, over a ten-year period, had failed to effectively apply safer design principles and upgrade the piping in its crude oil processing unit. The CSB also prepared an animated video, available on line, detailing and explaining the incident.

The CSB is an independent U.S. federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the agency’s board members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the U. S. Senate. The CSB conducts investigations of accidents in the oil and petrochemical sectors and reports to the public about those incidents, offering analysis of the causes, making recommendations for corrective action and regulatory improvements. Since its creation in 1998, the CSB has consistently turned out reports known for their thoroughness and high quality. In recent years, the agency has also produced excellent video material that cover the details and causes of the accidents it investigates. See their website, CSB.gov, for more information.

2012 Incidents List

The CSB report on the Chevron refinery explosion & fire included the “125 significant incidents” list. Click for PDF.

Included in the CSB’s May 2014 report on the Chevron accident, the cover of which is shown at left, was the CSB’s continuing concern about the high frequency of incidents at U.S. oil refineries – i.e., fires, explosions, chemical releases, worker injuries, etc.,. As an example of this concern, the CSB saw fit to call out the industry on the worrisome trend by publicly listing in their 2014 report, the 125 “significant oil refinery incidents” that had occurred during the 2012 calendar year. The incidents were listed by refinery and location in a separate “Appendix A.” Noted the CSB on this listing:

“These incidents were reported to the Department of Energy and/or the National Response Center and examined by the CSB’s Incident Screening Department. The CSB believes that incidents that result in disruptions to the national energy supply, serious injuries, or receive high media attention are all significant.”

What follows below is the same CSB listing of U.S. oil refinery incidents, large and small, that occurred in calendar year 2012. This listing, however, is offered here in a somewhat different format, although including the short CSB notations used for each incident. This listing is offered separately simply to help give the issue of oil and petrochemical dangers broader public exposure, and to help educate the public about the history and frequency of these incidents, their locations, and their continuing occurrence.

The photos, graphics and other illustrations that appear in the right-hand column of the listing below are provided by the PopHistoryDig.com, primarily as visual aides. They are not necessarily those of the listed 2012 incidents, though some are, as their captions will explain. Others are from earlier and/or later incidents that have occurred at or near some of the same refineries cited; and others are simply generic industry photos used for illustration purposes, along with other related books, reports, maps and/or other graphics. The visuals are included here as additional information that may be of value for public education purposes.

_________________________________________

U.S. Refinery Incidents, 2012
CSB List w/CSB Annotations & Additional Information

Generic photo of storage tank/oil refinery scene.

2005 file photo of oil refinery and tank farms at Wood River/Roxana, Illinois. Photo, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Previous incident - Feb 18, 2008 – explosion & fire at Alon Refinery, Big Spring, TX. EPA photo.

2013 photo - Tesoro tank farm, Utah.

Later incident; April 26, 2018, at Husky Energy refinery, Superior, WI. Bob King | Duluth News Tribune.

Feb 17, 2012. Firefighters battle blaze at BP’s Cherry Point, WA refinery. AP/Bellingham Herald, P. Dwyer.

Feb 23, 2012. Tank failure (center) at PBF Energy refinery, Paulsboro, NJ. Photo, Sky Truth.

March 2018. Massive flare at ExxonMobil refinery, Chalmette, LA. Flares are used for refinery safety, but also pollute.

August 2007. Earlier fire at Chevron’s Pascagoula, MS. refinery. Photo, Christy Pritchett, Press-Register.

2012. “East Bay Times” map shows ConocoPhillips refinery at Rodeo, CA & 4 others in San Francisco area.

Andrew Higgins 2008 book on the earlier 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 workers and injured another 180. Click for copy at Amazon.com.

Portion of the grounds at Sinclair Oil refinery in Sinclair, Wyoming, where workers were burned/injured in successive fires, 4 injured on May 8 and 2 on May 28, 2012.

2013 United Steelworkers' report, “A Risk Too Great: Hydro-fluoric Acid in U.S. Refineries,” cover w/ film strips of 2009 incident at Citgo’s Corpus Christi, TX refinery. Click for PDF.

February 2019. PBF Energy’s Delaware City, DE refinery during a later fire at the complex.

ExxonMobil had a June 2012 fire at its Torrance, CA refinery, plus prior & later incidents, including this 2015 explosion that led to ExxonMobil selling the refinery.

CSB report on earlier 2007 LPG fire at the Valero Refinery in McKee, TX, injuring 4, causing a refinery evacuation & extended shutdown. Click for copy.

1955. Oil refinery at Whiting, IN, near Chicago, has a long history of incidents, here showing proximity of residential area near refinery during Aug 1955 explosion & fire that burned for 8 days. Click for separate story.

August 2012. Map showing Holly Oil Refinery area at Woods Cross, UT (green) and impacted area (red) of oil spray released from storage tank.

2019. Later WXYZ-TV 6 news report of oil vapor leak from Marathon oil refinery in Detroit, MI.

File photo. Aerial view of the Placid Refinery at Port Allen, LA, on the west bank of the Mississippi River, where a hydrogen fluoride releases occurred, Oct 1, 2012.

Sept 2012. TV news reporting on second death of worker at CVR Energy refinery at Wynnewood, Oklahoma.

Chicago Tribune file photo of a portion of ExxonMobil refinery at Joliet, IL – where on Oct 19, 2012, oil and gasoline spewed into the air and neighboring area for a half hour or more, shutting down one highway.

Dec 2012. Local TV news screenshot of early reporting on worker death at Valero Refinery, Memphis, TN.

2014. Large storage tank at ExxonMobil refinery with painted message: “ExxonMobil and Baton Rouge - Growing Together, Working Together.” Click for Exxon-Mobil story. Photo, Monique Verdin, Louisiana Weekly / Louisiana Bucket Brigade.

7 Dec 2021. Later flaring at Shell Deer Park, TX plant, near Houston. Flares are used to burn off chemicals to relieve pressure, sometimes caused by power outages. But flares also release hydrocarbon pollution.

Map showing location of oil refinery at Anacortes, WA where a Shell Oil refinery in 2007 had a storage tank fire that injured three. In 2012, Shell was listed by CSB for hydrocarbon emissions at that location.

January 11, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery
Beaumont, TX / “tank failure”

January 22, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery
St. Paul, MN / “vessel pressure excursion”

January 26, 2012
No. Tier Energy Refinery
St. Paul, MN / “hydrogen sulfide release
from mechanical integrity failure”

January 27, 2012
ConocoPhillips Refinery
Wood River, IL / “sulfuric acid release
from mechanical integrity failure”

January 31, 2012
Marathon Refinery
Garyville, LA / “hydrogen sulfide release
from mechanical integrity failure”

January 31, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “hydrocarbon & hydrogen
fluoride release…mechanical integrity failure”

February 1, 2012
Alon Refinery
Big Spring, TX / “sulfur dioxide and hydrogen
sulfide release… vessel pressure excursion”

February 1, 2012
ConocoPhillips Refinery
Belle Chasse, LA / “hydrocarbon release
from a vessel pressure excursion.”

February 16, 2012
Husky Energy Refinery
Lima, OH / “benzene release from
a mechanical integrity failure”

February 17, 2012
Tesoro Refinery
Salt Lake City, UT / “refinery fire”

February 17, 2012
BP Refinery
Cherry Point, WA / “refinery fire”

February 22, 2012
Shell Refinery
Deer Park, TX / “tank failure”

February 23, 2012
Paulsboro Refinery (PBF Energy)
Paulsboro, NJ / “tank failure”

February 24, 2012
Citgo Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “refinery fire”

February 28, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery
Rosemount, MN / “hydrogen sulfide release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

February 28, 2012
Motiva Refinery
St. Charles, LA / “vessel pressure excursion”

February 28, 2012
Chalmette Refinery (ExxonMobil)
Chalmette, LA / “benzene release from
a mechanical integrity failure”

March 4, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery
North Pole, AK / “crude oil release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

March 6, 2012
Citgo Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “hydrogen fluoride
release…mechanical integrity failure”

March 6, 2012
Valero Refinery
Memphis, TN / “worker fatally injured,
and 2 other workers burned”

March 7, 2012
Tesoro Refinery
Martinez, CA /
“fire during a hot work activity”

March 8, 2012
Chevron Refinery
Pascagoula, MS / “benzene release from
a mechanical integrity failure”

March 13, 2012
Chevron Refinery
Pascagoula, MS / “heavy oil release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

March 14, 2012
Marathon Refinery
Texas City, TX / “benzene release from
a mechanical integrity failure”

March 16, 2012
PBF Energy Refinery
Delaware City, DE / “refinery fire”

March 19, 2012
Chevron Refinery
Pascagoula, MS / “hydrocarbon release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

March 23, 2012
Tesoro Refinery
Anacortes, WA / “hydrocarbon release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

March 24, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery
Baytown, TX / “hydrocarbon release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

March 25, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery
Billings, MT / “refinery fire”

March 27, 2012
BP Refinery
Texas City, TX “hydrogen fluoride
release…mechanical integrity failure”

April 11, 2012
Total Refinery
Port Arthur, TX / “hydrocarbon release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

April 13, 2012
ConocoPhillips Refinery
Rodeo, CA / “refinery fire”

April 16, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “hydrocarbon release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

April 17, 2012
Citgo Refinery
Lemont, IL / “crane fell over and
damaged utility piping”

April 19, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “hydrocarbon release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

April 20, 2012
BP Refinery
Texas City, TX / “refinery fire”

April 24, 2012
ConocoPhillips Refinery
Sweeny, TX / “hydrocarbon release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

May 8, 2012
Sunoco Refinery
Philadelphia, PA / “refinery fire”

May 8, 2012
Sinclair Refinery
Sinclair, WY / “4 workers injured in fire”

May 8, 2012
LyondellBasell Refinery
Houston, TX / “hydrocarbon release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

May 9, 2012
Sunoco Refinery
Philadelphia, PA / “refinery fire”

May 11, 2012
CVR Energy Refinery
Wynnewood, OK / “hydrogen sulfide
release….mechanical integrity failure”

May 12, 2012
Motiva Refinery
Port Arthur, TX / “refinery fire”

May 15, 2012
Citgo Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “hydrogen fluoride
release….mechanical integrity failure”

May 17, 2012
Shell Refinery
Deer Park , TX / “hydrogen sulfide
release…mechanical integrity failure”

May 21, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “benzene & hydrogen
sulfide release…mechanical integrity failure”

May 24, 2012
Montana Refining Co. Refinery
Great Falls, MT / “refinery fire”

May 25, 2012
Valero Refinery
Memphis, TN / “hydrocarbon release from
a mechanical integrity failure”

May 28, 2012
Sinclair Refinery
Sinclair, WY / “2 workers injured from a fire”

May 29, 2012
PBF Energy Refinery
Delaware City, DE / “propylene release from
overpressure event”

May 31, 2012
Valero Refinery
Houston, TX / “hydrocarbon release from
a mechanical integrity failure”

June 7, 2012
Shell Refinery
Deer Park, TX / “hydrogen and hydrocarbon
release due to loss-of-containment event”

June 7, 2012
Motiva Refinery
Norco, LA / ”hydrogen sulfide and
hydrocarbon release due to flare failure”

June 9, 2012
Motiva Refinery
Port Arthur, TX / “refinery fire”

June 9, 2012
BP Refinery
Texas City, TX / “hydrocarbon release due
to a mechanical integrity failure”

June 11, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery
Torrance, CA / “refinery fire”

June 13, 2012
Total Refinery
Port Arthur, TX / “refinery fire”

June 15, 2012
ConocoPhillips Refinery
Rodeo, CA / “hydrogen sulfide release
from a tank failure”

June 20, 2012
Shell Refinery
Deer Park, Texas / “hydrocarbon release”

June 21, 2012
BP Refinery
Whiting, IN / “refinery fire”

June 23, 2012
Valero Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “hydrocarbon release
due to a mechanical integrity failure”

June 25, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery
Baton Rouge, LA / “benzene release due
to a mechanical integrity failure”

June 28, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery
Baytown, TX / “benzene release due to
a mechanical integrity failure”

June 28, 2012
Valero Refinery
McKee, TX / “propane release due to
a mechanical integrity failure”

July 2, 2012
Chevron Refinery
El Segundo, CA / “sulfuric acid release
due to a mechanical integrity failure”

July 14, 2012
Phillips 66 Refinery
Westlake, LA / “hydrocarbon release due to
a mechanical integrity failure”

July 16, 2012
Citgo Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “refinery fire”

July 22, 2012
Valero Refinery / Meraux, LA
“refinery fire”

July 22, 2012
Sunoco Point Breeze Refinery
Philadelphia, PA / “sulfuric acid release due
to a mechanical integrity failure”

July 23, 2012
BP Refinery
Whiting, IN / “refinery fire”

July 24, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery /Corpus Christi, TX
“hydrocarbon and hydrogen fluoride release
due to mechanical integrity failure”

August 2, 2012
Holly Frontier Refinery
Tulsa, OK / “refinery fire”

August 2, 2012
Chevron Refinery
Richmond, CA / “8,614 lbs of hydrogen sulfide
released…due to a mechanical integrity failure
on a compressor suction line”

August 5, 2012
Valero Refinery
Texas City, TX “hydrogen sulfide release
from an over-pressure event”

August 5, 2012
Sinclair Refinery
Sinclair, WY / “refinery fire”

August 6, 2012
Chevron Refinery
Richmond, CA / “refinery fire”

August 13, 2012
Shell Refinery
Martinez, CA / “refinery fire”

August 14, 2012
Shell Refinery
Martinez, CA / “hydrogen sulfide release
from a mechanical integrity failure”

August 14, 2012
BP Refinery / Whiting, IN
“2 workers injured in refinery fire”

August 22, 2012
Phillips 66 Refinery
Wood River, IL / “hydrogen sulfide release
due to a mechanical integrity failure”

August 24, 2012]
Sinclair Refinery
Sinclair, WY / “refinery fire”

August 25, 2012
LyondellBasell Refinery
Houston, TX / “hydrocarbon release due
to a mechanical integrity failure”

August 26, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery
Corpus Christi, TX / “hydrocarbon release
due to a mechanical integrity failure”

August 29, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery / Beaumont, TX
“hydrogen sulfide & propylene release
due to a mechanical integrity failure”

August 29, 2012
Phillips 66 Refinery
Rodeo, CA / “refinery fire”

August 30, 2012
Holly Refinery / Woods Cross, UT
“high pressure excursion in a vessel
resulted in a hydrocarbon release with
offsite consequences”

September 5, 2012
Marathon Refinery / Detroit, MI
“worker injured following a fire”

September 8, 2012
Marathon Refinery / Detroit, MI
“chemical release with offsite consequences”

September 10, 2012
Tesoro Refinery / Martinez, CA
“sulfuric acid release due to a
mechanical integrity failure”

September 11, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery / Baytown, TX
“carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide
release due to a mechanical integrity failure”

September 11, 2012
Marathon Refinery / Garyville, LA
“hydrogen sulfide release due to a
mechanical integrity failure”

September 14, 2012
Chevron Refinery / Pascagoula, MS
“hydrocarbon release due to a
mechanical integrity failure “

September 15, 2012
Tesoro Refinery / Martinez, CA
unspecified leak at refinery

September 21, 2012
PBF Energy Refinery / Delaware City, DE
“hydrocarbon release due to a
mechanical integrity failure”

September 24, 2012
Motiva Refinery / Norco, LA
“hydrogen sulfide release due to a
mechanical integrity failure”

September 28, 2012
CVR Energy Refinery / Wynnewood, OK
“1 worker killed and another worker
injured [later died] from explosion”

October 1, 2012
Motiva Refinery / Convent, LA
“refinery fire”

October 1, 2012
Placid Refinery / Port Allen, LA
“hydrogen fluoride release”

October 1, 2012
Valero Refinery / Port Arthur, TX
“hydrogen sulfide release from a
high pressure excursion”

October 3, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery / Baytown, TX
“refinery fire”

October 3, 2012
Hess Corp. Refinery / Port Reading, NJ
“vapor cloud release ”

October 8, 2012
Phillips 66 Refinery / Rodeo, CA
“hydrocarbon release due to a
mechanical integrity failure”

October 9, 2012
Citgo Refinery / Corpus Christi, TX
“refinery fire”

October 17, 2012
Kern Oil Refinery / Bakersfield, CA
“vapor cloud release with offsite impact”

October 19, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery / Joliet, IL
“hydrocarbon and hydrogen sulfide release
from a pressure excursion”

October 22, 2012
Citgo Refinery / Sulfur, LA
“hydrocarbon release due to a
mechanical integrity failure”

October 23, 2012
Chalmette Refinery / Chalmette, LA
“hydrogen sulfide release”

October 21, 2012
Tesoro Refinery / Martinez, CA
“refinery fire”

October 30, 2012
BP Refinery / Texas City, TX
“refinery fire”

November 3, 2012
Valero Refinery / Port Arthur, TX
“refinery fire”

November 8, 2012
Shell Refinery / Deer Park, TX
“benzene release due to a mechanical
integrity failure”

November 8, 2012
Tesoro Refinery / Martinez, CA
“vapor release”

November 24, 2012
Shell Refinery / Martinez, CA
“hydrogen sulfide release due to
a mechanical integrity failure or
a high pressure excursion”

November 27, 2012
Northern Tier Energy / St. Paul Park, MN
“hydrogen sulfide and hydrocarbon release”

December 1, 2012
ExxonMobil Refinery / Baton Rouge, LA
“benzene release due to a mechanical
integrity failure”

December 3, 2012
Valero Refinery / Memphis, TN
“hydrogen fluoride release killed
1 worker, injured 2 other workers
and 7 emergency responders”

December 5, 2012
Flint Hills Refinery / Corpus Christi, TX
‘hydrocarbon release due to a
mechanical integrity failure”

December 8, 2012
Motiva Refinery / Port Arthur, TX
“hydrogen sulfide release”

December 11, 2012
Phillips 66 Refinery / Wood River, IL
“refinery fire”

December 11, 2012
Alon Refinery / Big Spring, TX
“benzene release due to a mechanical
integrity failure”

December 11, 2012
Shell Refinery / Deer Park, TX
“hydrocarbon release due to a
mechanical integrity failure”

December 12, 2012
Shell Refinery / Anacortes, WA
“hydrocarbon release”

December 14, 2012
PBF Energy Refinery / Paulsboro, NJ
“hydrogen sulfide release due to a
pressure excursion”

December 15, 2012
Marathon Refinery / Garyville, LA
“hydrocarbon & hydrogen sulfide release
due to a mechanical integrity failure”

December 17, 2012
Motiva Refinery / Port Arthur, TX
“refinery fire”
_________________________________

CSB note: Incidents of hydrocarbon leaks into a cooling tower or releases to a flare system are not included in the above list.

Source: Appendix A: “Significant Petroleum Refinery Incidents in 2012” (pp. 98-102), U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), Chevron Richmond / Refinery Regulatory Report, May 2014.

_________________________________________

Afterword

For more than 100 years now, incidents like those listed above have been occurring throughout the oil refining sector in the U.S. and elsewhere. Beyond refineries, there are also drilling incidents, pipeline fires and spills, tank farm leaks, toxic emissions, offshore spills, river pollution, and/or various oilfield and refinery toxic waste issues. These are all part of the high price paid in environmental damage, worker deaths and injuries, and fenceline community impacts that occur on a near-daily basis from the fossil fuels and petrochemical industries.

While the fossil fuels role in climate change is obviously a central concern, the day-to-day operational impacts of oil, gas and petrochemical facilities – including leaks, spills, explosions, fires, emissions, venting, and flaring at those facilities – should not be overlooked or neglected by state and federal regulators. When added up on an annual and decades-long basis, these “chronic problems” comprise a major source of environmental damage, worker dangers, threats to public health and safety, and often, energy waste and inefficiency as well.

Graphic from the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram." Sources: EPA, American Petroleum Institute, and U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Circa, 2012.

For the last two decades or more, some industry safety experts, labor unions, environmental activists, and community groups have argued for an “inherently safe” refining industry, meaning a better use of technology, facility design, maintenance, and operating standards that eliminate the possibility of plant incidents and toxic releases. As of this writing, however, only marginal progress in achieving that important and worthwhile goal has occurred. In the meantime, oil refining incidents such as those listed here for 2012, continue to occur in the 2020s.

For additional oil industry history at this website see any of the following:

“Beyond Texas City” – a 2007 report and survey by the United Steelworkers union, prompted by the 2005 BP Texas City refinery disaster, found continuing dangerous conditions throughout the unionized refineries they surveyed at that time. Click for PDF.

“Burning Philadelphia,” a story about the 1975 Gulf Oil Co. refinery fire in that city;

“Santa Barbara Oil Spill” about the 1969 Union Oil offshore oil well blow-out and pollution of California’s coastline;

“Texas City Disaster,” about BP’s 2005 Texas City, TX oil refinery explosion and fire that killed 15 workers and injured another 180;

“Barge Explodes in NY,” about a Bouchard gasoline transport barge docked at an ExxonMobil depot that exploded into a giant fireball in 2003, polluting waterways, shutting down water traffic, and shaking up Manhattan and beyond;

“Inferno at Whiting: 1955,” about an eight-day catastrophic Standard Oil/Amoco oil refinery explosion and fire near Chicago;

“Pipeline Fireball,” about a tragic 1999 gasoline pipeline explosion and inferno that ripped through an urban park and local creeks in Bellingham, WA, killing 4 boys and terrorizing local residents; and,

“Deepwater Horizon, Film & Spill,” a story about the making of the 2016 Hollywood film on the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster, plus a recap of the politics, media coverage, and corporate maneuvering during the actual BP oil spill.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
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____________________________________

Date Posted: 8 February 2023
Last Update: 8 February 2023

Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “125 Significant Incidents: U.S. Oil
Refineries,” PopHistoryDig.com, February 8, 2023.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s report on the horrific & deadly 2005 BP Texas City, TX refinery explosion that killed 15 & injured 180. Click for copy.

U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s report on a deadly February 1999 refinery fire at Tosco’s Avon Refinery in Martinez, CA that killed 4 workers and critically injured another. Click for copy.

2017 book: “One Minute After Sunrise: The Story of the Standard Oil Refinery Fire of 1955,” 246 pp. Click for copy.

Related Reading: Scott Cole’s 2018 book, “Fallout,” about a community’s fight with oil industry pollution from a Unocal Oil refinery in California. Click for copy.

U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s investigation and report on the April 2010 explosion and fire at the Tesoro Anacortes, WA refinery that killed 7 people.

Stephen McGinty’s book, “Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster,” about the July 1988 Occidental Petroleum disaster in the North Sea that killed 167 people. Click for copy.

Rachel Maddow’s 2019 book, “Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth,” 432 pp. Crown Books, 8,014 ratings on Amazon. Click for copy.

Loren C. Steffy’s 2011 book, “Drowning in Oil: BP & the Reckless Pursuit of Profit,” McGraw-Hill. Click for copy.

Jane Mayer’s 2016 book, “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,” Doubleday, 416 pp. Click for copy.

Christopher Leonard’s 2019 book, “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America,” Simon & Schuster, 714 pp. Click for copy.

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), “Interim Investigation Report, Chevron Richmond Refinery Fire,” CSB.gov, Washington, DC, April 2013.

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), “Regulatory Report / Chevron Richmond Refinery Pipe Rupture and Fire,” Chevron Richmond Refinery, #4 Crude Unit, Richmond, California, August 6,2012 and Appendix A: Significant Petroleum Refinery Incidents in 2012, pp. 98-102, No.2012-03-I-CA, May 2014,

CSB, “Animation of Fire at Chevron’s Rich-mond Refinery, August 6, 2012,” YouTube .com, posted, April 2013.

Jaxon Van Derbeken, “Chevron Ignored Risk in ’11, Workers Say; Richmond; They Warned of Corrosion After ’11 Fire, Papers Show,” SFGate.com / San Francisco Chronicle, Octo-ber 13, 2012.

“Fire at Exxon’s Beaumont, Texas, Refinery Injures 12 Workers,” Reuters.com, April 17, 2013.

Erwin Seba, “U.S. EPA Cites Chevron for Environmental Violations from 2012 Fire,” Reuters.com, December 17, 2013.

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, “CSB Releases Board Approved Regulatory Report on Chevron Refinery Fire – Proposes a More Rigorous Refinery Industry Regulatory System in California,” CSB.gov, Washington, DC, November 10, 2014.

Terry Hillig, “Roxana Lawsuit Alleges Pollution From Refinery,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 21, 2012.

Steve Mason, EPA Region 6 Emergency Readiness Team, Response & Prevention Branch, Dallas, Texas 75202, “Alon Refinery Fire, Big Spring, Texas, Final Report,” May 1, 2008.

Bill Rigby, Erwin Seba. “Five Dead in Tesoro Anacortes Refinery Fire,” Reuters.com, April 2, 2010.

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Reuters News, “Six Injured in Fire at Phillips 66 Texas Refinery Tank Farm,” Reuters.com, January 17, 2023.

Teaser Tag: Music, Politics, Culture
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Randy-Newman-Political-Science-Lets-drop-the-big-one-now.mp3 2928640 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Randy-Newman-Louisiana-1927.mp3 2855635 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Randy-Newman-Kingfish-2002-Remaster.mp3 5261078 audio/mpeg

1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Political Science”
Randy Newman Music

January 30, 2023 J.D.

One of the songs from Randy Newman’s 1972 album. “Sail Away,” is titled “Political Science.” Click for CD, digital or vinyl.

Back in the early 1970s, singer-songwriter Randy Newman was having a good time with his music, penning two albums that included sometimes comically-pointed lyrics and satire aimed at politics, racism, religion, southern culture, and more.

Music Player
“Political Science”
Randy Newman – 1972

[see lyrics below]

Among this work were two albums in particular, Sail Away of 1972, followed two years later by Good Old Boys. One of the songs from Sail Away is titled “Political Science,” and is the focus of this story.

“Political Science” takes aim at a Cold War terror in a comical way, using extreme American nationalist sentiment in jingoist form – calling for the use of “the big one,” the atomic bomb – on all those “undeserving and ungrateful” nations.

As the narrator sings his tune, he uses the voice of a somewhat frustrated “everyman” character – an Archie Bunker-type patriot who finds an ungrateful world of nations out there who don’t appreciate America’s generosity and Cold War restraint. And hey, we give them money, but what do we get in return – not a damn thing! They don’t respect us! “To heck with that,” he more or less concludes. “Let’s pulverize them!”

The Archie Bunker-type super-patriot who inhabits Randy Newman's song as narrator, concludes that "dropping the big one" is the best way to deal with all those ungrateful nations who don't respect us !

In making his case, the narrator explains, that each of the target nations he ticks off have drawbacks anyway, which he proceeds to list: “Asia’s crowded… Europe’s too old…Africa’s far too hot…And Canada’s too cold …” And one continent even “stole our name” – South America!

“Political Science”
Randy Newman
1972

No one likes us
I don’t know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try

But all around
Even our old friends put us down
Let’s drop the big one
And see what happens

We give them money
But are they grateful
No, they’re spiteful
And they’re hateful

They don’t respect us
So let’s surprise them
We’ll drop the big one
And pulverize them

Asia’s crowded
And Europe’s too old
Africa’s far too hot
And Canada’s too cold

And South America stole our name
Let’s drop the big one
There’ll be no one left to blame us

We’ll save Australia
Don’t want to hurt no kangaroo
We’ll build an all-American
amusement park there
They’ve got surfing, too

Boom goes London
And boom Paris
More room for you
And more room for me

And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it’ll be
We’ll set everybody free

You’ll have Japanese kimonos, baby
There’ll be Italian shoes for me
They all hate us anyhow
So let’s drop the big one now
Let’s drop the big one now

Still, the mad-bombing narrator moves to spare Australia – “Don’t want to hurt no Kangaroo.” And besides, we could build an all- American amusement park there – surfing included !

But Paris and London aren’t spared, as he sings: “Boom goes London, And boom Paris [Pa-ree]; More room for you. And more room for me.”

In the end, after the bombing, “every city, the whole world round, will just be another American town.” How peaceful it will be, he concludes. “We’ll set everybody free.”

Then he posits material gain for future shoppers and travelers in this America-made-safe world, presuming, perhaps, that a material-sparing neutron bomb has been used in some locations. “You’ll have Japanese kimonos, baby; there’ll be Italian shows for me!”

Newman’s “Political Science” song, along with the Sail Away album – while not chart-busting top hits (Sail Away hit No. 163 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and No. 42 in Australia) – have been lauded over the years as important music and commentary.

In 2011, Conor Friedersdorf, writing for The Atlantic, nominated “Political Science “ as one of 11 songs that he believed belong in the Hall of Fame for Political Songs, adding: “We’ll know we’re in trouble if a presidential candidate tries to use this as his campaign song without irony.” Well, in fact, over the years, the comic irony of the song has faded, as all-to-real political science emerged.

Satire-to-Prophecy?

Newman wrote “Political Science” well before a more belligerent tone about nuclear weapons began finding its way into subsequent American political administrations and policy circles. Later American military interventions abroad also arrived.

During the Reagan years of the 1980s there was talk of “a winnable nuclear war” among some Reagan aides. Concerns also emerged about plans at the time to deploy medium-range American-made nuclear missiles in Europe increasing speculation that a nuclear war could erupt on the Continent, leaving the U. S. unscathed.

And in the early 2000s, following the 9/11 attacks, “Political Science” took on a whole new meaning, with the War in Iraq.

In 2002, as some Western European countries opposed U.S. invasion plans, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a news briefing he thought of Germany and France as “old Europe,” which struck Newman when he heard it, hinting at some of the song’s lyrics.

In October 2003, a review of Newman’s work in The Guardian, noted: “It is more than 30 years since Randy Newman wrote Political Science. Yet in the past few weeks the song has been quoted everywhere from Baghdad to London to Washington as a musical interpretation of American foreign policy, a satirical masterpiece and a dire warning of plans for global annihilation….Last month [Sept 2003], an imam at a mosque in Baghdad quoted the song as evidence of American intentions.”

Other newspaper columnists writing on European and American foreign policy differences and other matters in that period, such as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, and British correspondent, Miles Kington, also cited Newman verses from the song in their stories. Kingston, in fact, after George W. Bush proclaimed the allies had prevailed in Iraq, suggested Bush study the lines of “Political Science,” some of which he reprinted in the column.

Donald Trump was certainly not in the picture when Randy Newman first penned “Political Science” in 1970, but his rhetoric, tweets, and bellicose threats during his campaigns and Presidency, have turned the satire on its head.

By the time Donald Trump began his run for the White House, and during his time in office, Newman’s song again came a little too close to reality, as Trump’s speeches and tweets played fast and loose with American might and/or nuclear Armageddon, whether in the form of his NATO rants and bullying, or threats of “fire and fury” for North Korea. And in the more recent times of the early 2020s, there has been talk of tactical nuclear weapons use in the war in Ukraine, though now by Russia’s president-madman and Trump pal, Vladimir Putin.

Prolific Career

Randy Newman, of course, bears none of the real world nuclear madness; he is only the messenger. And while the satirical tunes in Sail Away and Good Old Boys are good starting points for those who may not know of Newman’s earlier music, there is a lot more to know about Randy Newman’s career. His song-writing bona fides date to the 1960s, with hit songs for a range of singers and groups, such as the Fleetwoods, Cilla Black, Gene Pitney and others. In addition, Ray Charles, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Ann Wilson, Dave Matthews, Jerry Butler, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, and the O’Jays are among those who have covered his songs. In 1970, Harry Nilsson recorded an entire album of Newman compositions, Nilsson Sings Newman, in which Newman played piano. The group, Three Dog Night made a huge 1970 No. 1 hit of his “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” Newman’s album, 12 Songs, of 1970, was lauded as the 6th best album of the seventies according to the well-regarded Rolling Stone critic, Robert Christgau.

Randy Newman, circa 2017, around the time he was promoting his “Dark Matter” album. Photo, Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP.

Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer, work for which he has become quite famous, in some ways eclipsing his earlier singing career. He has composed music for nine Disney-Pixar animated films, including all four Toy Story films (1995–2019), A Bug’s Life (1998), both Monsters, Inc. films (2001, 2013), and two Cars films (2006, 2017), as well as Disney’s James and the Giant Peach (1996) and The Princess and the Frog (2009). Other film scores by Newman, some dating to earlier years, include Cold Turkey (1971), Ragtime (1981), The Natural (1984), Awakenings (1990), Pleasantville (1998), Meet the Parents (2000), Seabiscuit (2003), and Marriage Story (2019).

For his film composing, Newman has received 22 Academy Award nominations in the Best Original Score and Best Original Song categories and has won twice in the latter category. He has also won three Emmys and seven Grammy Awards. In 2002, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2013, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“Studio Albums”
Randy Newman, 1968-2017

Randy Newman
June 1968
12 Songs
April 1970
Sail Away
May 1972
Good Old Boys
Sept 1974
Little Criminals
Sept 1977
Born Again
August 1979
Trouble in Paradise
January1983
Land of Dreams
Sept 1988
Bad Love
June 1999
Harps and Angels
August 2008
Dark Matter
August 2017
____________________________
See also The Randy Newman
Songbook albums, Vols. 1-3.

At the latter Rock Hall induction, Newman was lauded by his friend, Don Henley of the Eagles, who delivered a generous and glowing tribute, noting that Newman’s studio albums constituted “an extraordinary body of work” – songwriting and musicianship, said Henley – “of tremendous scope and skillfulness.” And Henley added:

…No one has written more beautifully about love and loss; no one has written more bravely about racism and religion and politics and war; no one has written with more humor and wit about lust and greed and fame and the family dynamic… And yet, the general public all too often knows Randy only as the guy who wrote that song about short people and that ‘I Love L.A.” thing…

In recent years, Newman has returned to studio recordings with later albums. All told, Randy Newman has released 11 solo studio albums, 2 live albums, 6 compilation albums, two extended plays (EPs), 15 singles, 1 musical, and 23 soundtrack albums.

In 2020, the album Sail Away was ranked No. 268 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” Some regard that album and 1974’s Good Old Boys – reaching No. 36 on the Billboard 200 albums chart at the time – among his best in the realm of satire.

Sail Away’s title track – a satirical treatment of African slaves being enticed to an American “promised land” – also appears on Rolling Stone‘s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” That song, along with “Political Science,” was released as an A-side single in 1972, but did not chart.

Of other albums, Little Criminals in 1977, rose to No. 9 on the Billboard 200, also achieving Gold sales status and reaching No. 3 in the Netherlands. His albums after that all charted, with varying performance depending on country. In 2008, Harps and Angels hit No. 30 on the Billboard chart, equaling that or better on several European charts.

A number of Newman’s songs have held up very well with time. His piano ballads can be especially penetrating and haunting, as in “Baltimore,” on the 1977 Little Criminals album, or sympathetic-sounding, as in a working-man ode that is “Birmingham” on Good Old Boys.

A younger Randy Newman at the piano, circa 1970s.

Other songs have become painfully relevant in rediscovery, as with “Louisiana” from Good Old Boys, about Mississippi River floods of 1927, resurrected in 2005 with the Louisiana devastation from Hurricane Katrina – with no small political poignancy made for both eras.

Music Player
“Louisiana”
Randy Newman – 1974

Randy Newman has also had his share of controversy, with songs such as “Short People” (a No. 2 hit and a Gold record) from Little Criminals, or “Rednecks” on 1974’s Good Old Boys, which in the latter case dealt with racial bigotry in the north and south, and which Newman has argued that his choice of language – use of the “n” word in that song – was aimed at authentically conveying character and culture.

Others songs, such as 1988’s “It’s Money That Matters,” have also had worthy subjects, in this case, lamenting both poverty and consumerism. And 1999’s “The Great Nations of Europe,” from the Bad Love album — though not as easy listening as some of his more popular tunes — excoriates the 16th century European colonialists and conquistadors in the Americas, noting in part: “… So they looked to the mighty ocean and took to the western sea / The great nations of Europe in the 16th century / Hide your wives and daughters / Hide the groceries, too / The great nations of Europe coming through” – including Columbus, Balboa, et.al., and their share of Indian genocide.

1981 paperback edition of T. Harry Williams’ biography, “Huey Long,” which was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Click for copy.

Or consider the laudatory “Kingfish” from Good Old Boys that sings the praises of Louisiana’s beloved 1930s Democrat and populist, Huey Long, with lyrics such as: “…Who took on the Standard Oil men and whipped their ass, just like he’d promised he’d do? / Ain’t no Standard Oil men gonna’ run this state, gonna` be run by little folks like me and you.”

Music Player
“Kingfish”
Randy Newman – 1974

Newman’s songs make you want to learn more about the subjects he offers. Still, these are only a few of his treasures, as there is much more to glean from the Randy Newman songbook. And he’s not done yet.

In fact, for one of his more recent albums, Dark Matter (2017), Newman was considering a song about Donald Trump. The satire this time was to be aimed at Trump’s braggadocio regarding his male endowment. But to his credit, Newman decided not to include it. “I did write about him. But the language was too vulgar… I just didn’t want to add to the problem of how ugly the conversation we’re all having is, so I didn’t put it out.”

See also at this website, “Burn On, Big River,” a story about the pollution of Ohio’s Cuyahoga River, with an introduction in song by way of Randy Newman’s ode about that river – also from the Sail Away album. Another story at this website on nuclear weapons-related history and politics can be found at “Russians,” a song by Sting that includes history on nuclear bomb designer Robert Oppenheimer, Russian political leader Nikita Khrushchev, Ronald Reagan, the global Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1990s, and more… For additional stories on “Music” or “Politics” at this website, see those respective category pages.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 30 January 2023
Last Update: 30 January 2023

Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Political Science: Randy Newman Music,”
PopHistoryDig.com, January 30, 2023.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

An Original Album Series of Randy Newman's music, rated an "Amazon' Choice." Click for CD.

Caroline & David Stafford’s 2016 book, “Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong: The Life and Music of Randy Newman,” Omnibus Press, 288pp. Click for copy.

Randy Newman's 2017 album, "Dark Matter." Click for CD, digital or vinyl.

"The Best of Randy Newman" - Greatest Hits, Rhino/Warner. Click for CD.

“Sail Away (Randy Newman album),” Wiki-pedia.org.

John Rockwell, The Pop Life: “Randy Newman Views Land of Stephen Foster,” New York Times, September 20, 1974.

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Duncan Campbell, “`I Don’t Care About Anyone’s Feelings’; Randy Newman Would Sell His Soul for a Song – If He Believed He Had a Soul. Duncan Campbell Meets the U.S. Singer-Songwriter,” TheGuardian.com, Octo-ber 2,2003.

“Political Science, Randy Newman,” Song Meanings.com, Comment by pconl, March 24, 2008.

“Randy Newman – Political Science (Let’s Drop the Big One Now),” YouTube.com, posted by Joe Ramen, October 21, 2008.

Conor Friedersdorf, “11 Tracks That Belong in the Hall of Fame for Political Songs,” TheAtlantic.com, October 27, 2011.

“Song of the Day #1,430: ‘Political Science’ – Randy Newman,” MeetInMontauk.com, June 11, 2012.

Randy Newman, Induction, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” RockHall.com, April 2013 (induction speech by Don Henley).

Bud Scoppa, “Randy Newman: ‘I Always Wrote Slightly Off-The-Wall Things’,” Rock Hall.com / Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 2013.

Kevin Courrier, “A Drama of History: The 40th Anniversary of Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys,” CriticsAtLarge.ca, September 13, 2014.

Library of Congress, “A Conversation with Randy Newman,” YouTube.com, September 29, 2014.

David Marchese, “Randy Newman on Trump, Putin, and His New Album,” Vulture.com, July 19, 2017.

Steven Wine, Associated Press, “Randy Newman at Top of His Game on New Album, ‘Dark Matter’,” FayObserver,com / The Fay-etteville Observer, August 7, 2017.

Conor Friedersdorf, “The Dark Matter of America’s Foremost Musical Satirist; Randy Newman Has Done as Much as Any Songwriter to Anticipate the Tragicomic Place Where the Country Finds Itself. And His Best Work May Still Be Ahead,” TheAtlantic.com, August 16, 2017.

Bo Emerson, “Randy Newman’s ‘Dark’ and Light Side,” AJC.com / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 15, 2017.

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Lawrence Donegan, “Randy Newman: ‘I’ve Written a Song about Trump and Ivanka – But it Needs a Little Work’. The Great Songwriter Talks about Politics, Toy Story and the Smiths – And Why He’s Never Enjoyed the Writing Process,” TheGuardian.com, January 21, 2018.

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David Axe, “Donald Trump Is A Nuclear President — His Legacy Is More Nukes, Fewer Controls,” Forbes.com, December 24, 2020.

Elle Hunt, “Randy Newman’s 20 Greatest Songs – Ranked! As Trouble in Paradise – Which Gave the World ‘I Love LA’ – Turns 40, We Celebrate the Satirical Singer-Songwriter’s Best Work,” TheGuardian.com, January 5, 2023.

Teaser Tag: Football, Politics, Culture

1961-1970

“Roger & The President”
November 1963

December 9, 2022 J.D.

The originally-planned Nov. 29th, 1963 cover of Life magazine with Navy QB, Roger Staubach, later supplanted by JFK cover following President’s assassination (see below).

It was November 1963, and one of the nation’s most popular magazines, Life, was planning to run a cover story featuring a U.S. Naval Academy football star, quarterback sensation Roger Staubach.

Staubach, then a junior at the Academy, was wowing the country with his football heroics that fall. Navy had gone 8-1 over its first nine games, and Staubach was seen as the leader in the Heisman Trophy race – the coveted annual award for the nation’s most outstanding college football player.

In mid-October 1963, Staubach had already appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a story featuring college quarterbacks. But by appearing on the Life cover– then scheduled for later November – Staubach would help bolster his chances for winning the Heisman, as voting would occur around that time.

Time, meanwhile, in its earlier reporting on the Navy QB had offered glowing reviews after seeing him in action against Southern Methodist University (SMU): “Quarterback Staubach put on a show that even the most jaded pro-football fan would find breathtaking to behold.”

Staubach had become a talented and elusive runner, as well as an effective passer, confounding defenders with his adept scrambling, while compiling an impressive record of completed passes, often for touchdowns.

In 1962, as a sophomore, Staubach became a starter in the fourth game, and later, in that year’s Army-Navy game, he ran for two touchdowns and threw for two more in Navy’s 34-14 rout of Army. In some ways, that was the game that put Staubach on the map as it were, made him a rising star. Army Coach Paul Dietzel had high praise for the Navy QB: “Staubach is head and shoulders above all the other quarterbacks,” he said. “He’s a beautiful, unbelievable passer; he’s a scrambler and has great split vision; he can run, and that makes it impossible to defend against him and he’s a tremendous inspirational leader.”

Roger Staubach of Navy had already appeared on Time magazine cover, October 18, 1963.

Life magazine, meanwhile, had planned to use the Staubach cover shown above with a feature story on him for its November 29th, 1963 edition. That edition was planned to arrive in advance of the annual Army-Navy game, then scheduled for November 30th, 1963. “We were really excited about it,” said Budd Thalman, of the forthcoming Life magazine spread. Thalman was then the Naval Academy’s Sports Information Director.

The editors at Life had worked up the expected cover layout and taglines – one of the latter appearing below the photo of Staubach, shown on the move with the ball, stated: “Navy’s Staubach: The Greatest College Quarterback.” Another, listed in a left-hand column of other story taglines, offered a warning for his upcoming opponent: “Army Watch Out! Here He Comes, The Houdini of The Backfield” – alluding to Staubach’s scrambling ability and winning ways.

Earlier in November that year, Navy’s public relations guy, Thalman, had squired a Life photographer around the Naval Academy campus at Annapolis, Maryland. And a few days before the planned issue with Staubach was to hit newsstands, Life sent Thalman three unstapled copies. The covers of those pre-publication samples were stamped “First run copy. Not completely made ready.” But in fact, the Staubach cover never made it to the newsstands, as tragedy gripped the nation on November 22nd, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. On that fateful day, there were 7 million copies of Life magazine with Staubach on the cover coming off the presses. Staubach, in fact, had received a copy just hours before Kennedy was killed. But all of those copies were scrapped when the tragic news broke that Kennedy had been shot.

After the assassination of President Kennedy on Nov 22, 1963, the Roger Staubach cover for Life was cancelled and replaced with one honoring the slain president, which appeared on November 29, 1963.

Life magazine management put an immediate hold on the trucks that were set to deliver the magazines to newsstands across the country. When it was announced that President Kennedy had died, the company recalled all of the magazines and worked feverishly to add a new cover story – one with a JFK tribute and assassination-related news.

On November 25th, 1963, a stunned nation watched the solemn state funeral as President John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Army-Navy game, meanwhile, had been postponed, and there was some thought of possibly cancelling the game altogether, given the national tragedy. However, shortly after the assassination, JFK’s wife and first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, urged the military academies to play the Army-Navy game. The Kennedy family also requested the game be played.

The Pentagon, in an official statement, announced Army-Navy would be pushed back a week to honor Kennedy’s memory.

JFK was a Navy man himself, known for his WWII heroics after the Patrol Torpedo boat he commanded – PT 109 – was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the Pacific Ocean, saving several crew members in the aftermath and awarded commendations for his actions.

But Kennedy was also an avid football fan and an especially big fan of the Army-Navy game. During his brief presidency, he had attended two previous Army-Navy games – once in 1961 and again in 1962 – officiating at the coin toss in both games. In fact, earlier in 1962, Kennedy, on his way to vacation at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, visited briefly with Navy team members during their preseason training camp. “We met him when he would go up to … [Massachusetts],” Staubach would later explain of visiting with JFK. “We used to train at Quonset Point [Naval Station, Rhode Island] and he would come up [to Hyannis Port] in the helicopter…”

President John F. Kennedy, making coin toss, at earlier Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, PA, as representative from Army and Navy teams and others look on. Photo, Philadelphia Inquirer.

One of Navy’s previous stars, in fact, halfback and Heisman Trophy winner, Joe Bellino, had come to the White House for a brief session with President Kennedy. The President, along with his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, had attended the 1962 Army-Navy game, spending half of the time seated on the Army side, and half on Navy’s side.

President John F. Kennedy at the 1962 Army-Navy game, seated next to some Navy brass, along with his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, seated further down the row. The president spent one half on the Navy side and one half on the Army side. AP photo.

In 1963, just prior to his assassination, Kennedy was looking forward to watching the Midshipmen take on the Cadets at the annual Army-Navy game. “I hope to be on the winning side when the game ends,” he telegrammed the Navy coach on November 20th. Two days later, the president was assassinated in Dallas.

Given the intercession of Jackie Kennedy and the Kennedy family, the reset Army-Navy Game of 1963 was scheduled for December 7, 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also coinciding on that date with the 22nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day.

The Army-Navy game was a very popular national event, a rivalry game played sine 1890, with only a few cancellations, typically in time of war. TV coverage of the game began in the 1950s, and as of 1963, Army had won 30 times, Navy 28, with five ties. The Army-Navy game at that time was also “the national game.” Back in the 1950 and 1960s there was no Super Bowl; this was the big national game of the year, and so, quite a big deal in those years, commanding a large nationwide TV audience.

December 2, 1963, Navy midshipman and team quarterback, Roger Staubach, in his formal Navy attire, on Sports Illustrated cover.

Several days prior to the 1963 game, Sports Illustrated published its December 2, 1963 edition, which had as its cover an artist’s rendition of Roger Staubach dressed in his midshipmen uniform. The editors also included a long editorial in that issue honoring President Kennedy for his long-standing interest in sport.

A feature story on Stauback and the upcoming Army- Navy game covered some of the history of the game, but was quite flattering of Staubach. The story by Dan Jenkins, was titled, “A Setting For Greatness in Philadelphia,” and included a sub-heading paragraph that noted: “The Army and the Navy have met on the football field 63 times in the last 73 years. Seldom has either service possessed a star of greater magnitude than Navy’s Roger Staubach…”

Stauback, observed Jenkins, “is truly a dazzling athlete. With long, powerful strides, Staubach rolls out with deceptive speed. He throws on the run, or backing up. Trapped, he has a startling quickness and mysterious sense of the profitable direction… And it is when Staubach gets into trouble that he is at his very best. Never easy to pull down, he throws with tacklers tearing off pieces of his jersey or clawing at his legs, or he runs… He is, in the final sense, that splendid combination of runner-passer who can invest every play with unbearable excitement.”

The 1963 Game

The December 7th, 1963 game drew a capacity crowd of 102,000 to Philadelphia’s Municipal Stadium, which was later renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium – the long-standing “neutral” location that hosted some 41 annual Army–Navy games between 1936 and 1979. Before the start of the 1963 game, Navy’s coach, Wayne Hardin, brought the team together in the locker room to reveal that Roger Staubach had been awarded the Heisman Trophy. He became the fourth non-senior to win the award after accounting for 15 touchdowns and completing 107 of 161 passes for 1,474 yards and rushing for 418 yards.

Navy had won the last four Army-Navy games, and as a bit of added hype in the contest, and a pointed jab at Army, Navy had the phrase “Drive for Five” lettered across the back shoulder section of all the Navy players’ uniforms, meaning they were out to make it five wins in row over Army.

Photo of early play in 1963 Army-Navy game shows Navy QB, Rollie Stichweh on the move as Navy defenders zero in on him, with their “Drive-For-Five” jersey labeling added as extra incentive and taunt at Army players.

In the 1963 game, Staubach played a more workman-like role at QB than the scrambling star that he was, though leading the nationally-ranked No. 2 Navy team (8 and 1) in their battle with the Cadets of West Point. Army, for its part, was also nationally ranked in the Top Ten, then at 7 and 2. But it was Army’s quarterback, Rollie Stichweh, a converted halfback, who would steal the show in some ways, especially in the fourth quarter. Stichweh, in fact, led off the game with a touchdown drive, as he marched Army down field for 65 yards in eleven plays, taking the ball in for a score himself from the ten yard-line. Score: Army 7, Navy 0.

Army’s QB, Rollie Stichweh, was upended by Navy defenders Ed Orr and Johnny Sai, right, while scoring a first-quarter touchdown.

But then Navy’s Staubach went to work, using his fullback Pat Donnelly on running plays while throwing a few passes to keep the defense guessing. In the second quarter, about 10 minutes in, Staubach brought Navy to the 2-yard line, where he then sent the 200-pound Donnelly in for a touchdown, followed by the extra point kick. Score: Navy 7- Army 7, where it remained at the end of the first half.

Roger Staubach (No. 12, center) at work during the 1963 Army-Navy game, where he relied on his fullback, Pat Donnelly, for ground gains and three touchdowns.

Then in the third quarter with Staubach passing and Donnelly running, Navy went 90 yards to take the lead, 14-to-7. Later, with Navy threatening again on the 7 yard line, Army made a tough stand, holding the Middies on fourth down and inches. Yet in subsequent play, Army hurt itself with two 15-yard penalties for roughing, which helped Navy keep the momentum leading to another touchdown by fullback Donnelly. So, by the fourth quarter, with ten minutes left to play, it was Navy 21, Army 7, which put Army in a pretty deep hole.

But then came an exciting Army comeback. Stichweh sent halfback Kenny Wai off tackle for a good gain. Then Stichweh himself ran wide for another gain, and then again from short yardage, jumping into the air and the end zone for a score. With 6:19 left in the fourth quarter, it was now Navy 21- Army 13.

Army QB, Rollie Stichweh (No. 16), on one of his runs in the fourth quarter, leading to a touchdown and later 2-point conversion bringing Army to within one score of tying Navy with minutes to go.

After the Navy touchdown, Stichweh surprised Navy at the extra point attempt by going for the two-point conversion, running left for the score, making it 21-to-15. Now another Army touchdown would tie the game, and an extra point would win it. So at the kickooff, Army gambled and tried an onside kick and it worked, with Stichweh — seemingly all over the field that day — recovering the ball on Navy’s 49 yard-line.

Now late in the fourth quarter, there were six minutes on the clock, enough to go 49 yards for a score. But Army had no time-outs left, and Stichweh was more of a runner than a throwing QB. Still, he moved Army down the field.

With 1:38 left on the clock, a pass completion by Stichweh gave Army a first down on Navy’s seven-yard line. The excitement generated by Army’s comeback drive brought a crush of fans out of their stadium seats down to the field, gathering along the sidelines and at the back of the end zone. The noise of the crowd, plus the yelling from the sideline fans, made it impossible for Army’s players to hear Stichweh calling the offensive signals. “You feel things closing in, and the noise level is nothing I have heard up to that point or since,” Stichweh would later recall.

With the clock ticking down, Army QB Rollie Sitchweh sends his halfback, Ken Waldrop (42) on a running play up the middle and he makes it to the 2 yard-line, just short of the goal line. But with crowd noise and no help from officials, the Cadets are having difficulty, and they can’t get off another play (AP photo).

By the time Army made it to the Navy four yard-line, there was less than a minute on the clock. The crowd roar again made it impossible for Army’s players to hear Stichweh. The referee called time-out. But Army had lost 20 seconds. Stichweh then sent halfback Waldrop to the two yard line.

With less than 20 seconds remaining in the 1963 Army-Navy game, Army’s QB, Rollie Stichweh (No. 16) and team line up on the 2 yard-line, but with crowd noise and no help from officials, the Cadets are having difficulty hearing the signals, and they can’t get off another play.

Now there were 16 seconds left. Army quickly lined up again, but the crowd noise was impossible. Stichweh expected officials to call a timeout again, but that call did not come, preventing him from calling a play as time expired. Navy held on for the win at 21–15.

Sports Illustrated photo captures the end of the 1963 Army-Navy game, as referee at far right signals game’s end as No. 60, Army guard Dick Nowak looks on in disbelief, while Navy’s Captain, Tom Lynch, No 51 celebrates Navy win, 21-15.

Sports Illustrated would call it “Army’s Big Goof,” and Stichweh would later say the failure was his for not managing the time better. Still, it was a memorable game and Navy knew it was lucky to get away with the win. Navy coach Hardin played it low-key: “I feel awful humble,” he said after the game to reporters. “You just can’t crow over a game like this.”

But the victory for Navy clinched a Cotton Bowl invitation and a national championship showdown with the No. 1 ranked University of Texas. However, in the Cotton Bowl classic, played in Dallas, Texas on January 1, 1964 before a crowd of 73,000, Navy lost to Texas, 28-6. Navy didn’t score until the fourth quarter, on a two-yard touchdown run by Staubach, who had gone 22-for-34 passing with 228 yards. Staubach was also a first-team All-American that year and recipient of both the Heisman Trophy and equally prestigious Maxwell Trophy.

Game in Homage

The 1963 Army-Navy game, in any event, was a game that honored JFK, as Staubach would later say: “…Obviously, the game was played on his behalf, and it was very emotional — heck of a game actually. The Army quarterback, Rollie Stichweh, was fantastic. We’ve become good friends. Rollie and I talked about that game and what it meant to the country, just to see the servicemen and women at the game. Honoring the president at our game is what took place. That’s why it was such a big deal, the ’63 game. The family asked the game to be played on his behalf, so it was a special game….”The 1963 Army-Navy game was also a moment of national healing; a time when the nation came together around a sporting event, steadying the ship of state, saying in a kind of collective national voice, “things will be all right; we can weather this.”

Army’s Stichweh, too, recalled it as a special game: “The emotions really came out at the game. We had over 100,000 people there and everybody knew it was more than a football game. It was a testimony to the President of the United States and his family. The feeling was just different than any other game I ever played in.” Following the game, days later, Secretary of the Army, Cyrus Vance, sent Navy Captain, Tom Lynch, a letter containing the silver dollar President Kennedy would have used for the coin toss at the start of the game.

The 1963 Army-Navy game was more that just a football game. It was also a moment of national healing; when the nation came together around a sporting event, steadying the ship of state, and saying in a kind of collective national voice, “things will be all right; we can weather this.” And in subsequent bad times, as well, there have also been similar occurrences of American sporting events lifting or comforting the nation after adversity or sorrow of one kind or another – as in the New York Yankees-Arizona Diamondbacks World Series games of September-October 2001 played in New York City following the World Trade Center bombings of 9-11; or in September 2006, some months following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, when the New Orleans Saints football team returned to the restored New Orleans Superdome that had been the scene of much sorrow and destruction, lifting that city and nation; and also in April 2013 at the Boston Red Sox baseball game played at Fenway Park following the Boston Marathon bombings, signaling the resilience of that city and nation.

Legacy

The 1963 Army-Navy game also garnered subsequent media attention in later years. One book written on the 1963 game by Boston Herald sports reporter, Michael Connelly, titled, The President’s Team: The 1963 Army-Navy Game & The Assassination of JFK, was published in 2009, with a forward by then Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy. In addition to the book, in November 2013, CBS-TV aired a 50th anniversary documentary film on the game, “Marching On: 1963 Army-Navy Remembered.”

Boston Herald sports reporter Michael Connelly’s 2009 book, “The President’s Team,” 304pp. Click for copy.

A poster for the 2013 CBS-TV documentary special, “Marching On: 1963 Army-Navy Remembered”.

Another film on the 1963 game was said to be in production by Michael Meredith, son of Dallas Cowboys football legend and broadcaster, Don Meredith. That project, with the working title, “The President’s Team” — was planned to focus on the 1963 Navy team and the brotherhood formed among its members, with Staubach as a central figure.

Historian Nicolaus Mills’ 2014 book, “Every Army Man is With You,” features Army players who won the 1964 Army-Navy game and served in Vietnam. Click for copy.

1964 Game

In 1964, with Stichweh and Staubach as seniors, the teams would meet again in the 1964 Army-Navy game. That game was a key test for Army, now facing the Heisman-winning Staubach for a third time, and having lost to Navy five years in a row. Staubach had had a rough 1964 season, sustaining a foot injury that cost him half the season, though he played in the Army-Navy game.

But in this game, with five of its starters playing offense and defense, Army rallied to an 11-8 triumph over Navy, receiving national news coverage. In that game, Calvin Huey of Navy became the first African-American to play in the series.

In later years, seven of Army’s players from the 1964 game were featured in the 2014 book, Every Army Man Is With You, by Nicolaus Mills, which chronicles the Army teammates’ story as they went from West Point and the football field, to Vietnam, and back home again. Stichweh served five years in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He was later inducted into the Army Sports Hall of Fame in 2012, with Staubach attending. The two former rivals remained friends throughout their subsequent careers. Stichweh had a successful career in business management and married his wife Carole, having three children and nine grandchildren.

Staubach & Cowboys

As for Staubach, the Naval Academy retired his jersey, No. 12, during his graduation ceremony after his senior season. Staubach finished his Academy sports career as captain of the school’s 1965 baseball team. In 1981, he was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, and in 2007, ranked No. 9 on ESPN’s Top 25 Players In College Football History list.

After graduation Staubach served in the U.S. Navy, including a tour of duty in Vietnam. In 1969, following his military service, he joined the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys pro football team which had drafted him in 1965. He would play with Dallas during all 11 seasons of his pro career. He led the Cowboys to the Super Bowl five times, four as the starting quarterback, including victories in Super Bowl VI and Super Bowl XII. He was named Most Valuable Player for Super Bowl VI, and became the first of four players to win both the Heisman Trophy and Super Bowl MVP.

Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys, continuing his scrambling ways in his pro career, shown here alluding the grasp of a Denver Bronco’s defensive lineman sometime in the 1970s.

Staubach retired from pro football in March 1980 with the highest career passer rating in NFL history at the time, 83.4, and was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. He recorded the highest passer rating in the NFL in four seasons (1971, 1973, 1978, 1979) and led the league with 23 touchdown passes in 1973. Overall, Staubach finished his 11 NFL seasons with 1,685 completions for 22,700 yards and 153 touchdowns, with 109 interceptions. He also gained 2,264 rushing yards and scored 21 touchdowns on 410 carries. For regular-season games, he had a .750 winning percentage. He was an All-NFC choice five times and selected to play in six Pro Bowls (1971, 1975–1979).

Carlton Stowers’ book, “Staubach: Portrait of the Brightest Star.” Click for copy

In 2010, Staubach was named the No. 1 Dallas Cowboy of all time according to a poll conducted by the Dallas Morning News. In November 2018, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House.

Roger Staubach married his wife Marianne in September 1965 and together they had five children As of 2017, they also counted 15 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

In his non-football professional life, aside from brief sportscasting and celebrity advertising, Staubach built a successful real estate business in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, which he later sold to the global real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle in 2008 for $613 million.

For additional football and other sports stories at this website see the “Football History” topics page or the “Annals of Sport” category page. Additional stories on JFK and other Kennedys can be found at the “Kennedy History” topics page and the “Politics” category page.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 9 December 2022
Last Update: 9 December 2022

Comments to:++jackdoyle47@gmail.com
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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Roger & The President: November 1963,”
PopHistoryDig.com, December 9, 2022.

______________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Barry Wilner & Ken Rappoport’s 2005 book, “Gridiron Glory: The Story of the Army-Navy Football Rivalry,” Taylor Trade Publishing, 240 pp. Click for copy.

John Feinstein’s 1996 book, “A Civil War: Army vs. Navy: A Year Inside College Football's Purest Rivalry,” Little, Brown, 412 pp. Click for copy.

Randy Roberts’ 2011 book, “A Team for America: The Army-Navy Game That Rallied a Nation,” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 288 pp. Click for copy.

“Army–Navy Game,” Wikipedia.org.

“1963 Navy Midshipmen Football Team,” Wik-ipedia.org.

“1963 Army Cadets Football Team,” Wikipedia .org.

“College Football: Jolly Roger,” Time, October 18, 1963.

Leonard Koppett, “Army-Navy Game Postponed to Dec. 7; Usual Ceremonies Will Be Eliminated; Decision Is Made by the Pentagon; Possible Cancellation Plans Are Dropped at Request of Kennedy’s Family; Presidents Frequently There; Preparations in Progress,” New York Times, November 27, 1963, p. 44.

United Press International, “Staubach to Get Heisman Trophy; Navy’s Quarterback Named for Highest Award in Football; Best Passing Percentage; What’ll He Do? Second Time Around,” New York Times, November 27, 1963, p. 44.

John Kelly, “Near the Anniversary of JFK’s Death, the Most Famous Magazine Cover That Never Was,” Washington Post, November 20, 2013.

“The President Who Loved Sport,” Sports Illustrated, December 2, 1963, pp. 20-21.

Dan Jenkins, “A Setting For Greatness in Philadelphia,” Sports Illustrated, December 2, 1963, pp, 32-34, 37.

“Army’s Future is Still Ahead,” Sports Illus-trated, December 2, 1963, p. 34.

Red Smith, “Five for Navy, 21-15,” The New York Herald Tribune, December 1963.

Sandy Grady, “Dietzel’s New Bandit-Stichweh; Rollie the Robber Baron Almost Heisted Victory,” Philadelphia Bulletin, December 1963.

“College Football: I Feel Awful Humble,” Time, December 13, 1963.

Dan Jenkins, “Two Yards and The Clock; They Were All That Stood Between Army and the Upset of the Year But Navy and Confusion Won Out,” Sports Illustrated, December 16, 1963.

“Army-Navy Classic: When Staubach Hung His Jolly Roger on Army’s Chinese Bandits; The Day The Unsung Navy Sophomore, Roger Staubach, Turned Into a Star Back at Army’s Expense,” Great Moments in Sports (magazine), December 1963, pp. 29-33.

George Vecsey, “Friendships Wrapped in the Army-Navy Rivalry,” New York Times, September 26, 2012.

“Marching On: 1963 Army-Navy Remem-bered,” Vimeo.com (7:39 video re: JFK and Army-Navy game).

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Teaser Tag: Petrochem Pollution

2001-Today

“Nurdle Apocalypse”
Plastic On The Loose

November 3, 2022 J.D.

A nurdle is a piece of plastic – a tiny piece, about the size of a lentil. Nurdles are made by petrochemical companies such as Dow, ExxonMobil, Chevron Phillips, Shell and Formosa. They are, in fact, the starting point in the plastics-making process – also known as “pre-production pellets” or “resin.” They can be made of polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride and other plastics. They are often opaque or white, but can also be made in colors. Nurdles are a kind of “synthetic ore,” not mined, but manufactured in petrochemical processes, made from oil and natural gas. They are the beginning ingredients that feed the plastics industrial complex worldwide.

A tiny crab trying to make its way on a Sri Lankan beach polluted in May 2021 with pre-production plastic pellets known as nurdles that washed ashore on miles of coastline from an offshore burning and sinking container ship, the MV X-Press Pearl. Details later below. (Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press & Washington Post).

Every year, gazillions of nurdles are produced and shipped to factories and fabricators across the U.S. and around the world, where they are melted and poured into molds that churn out water bottles, computer casings, water pipes, steering wheels, and more. But one big problem with nurdles is that when they get loose in the environment, it’s a little like herding cats — and worse. For nurdles are light and buoyant, can be blown by the wind, and often float in water. And yes, they do get loose, and the record so far has not been good.

Nurdles often appear as opaque or white pellets, each the size of a lentil, looking like fish eggs.

Plastics factory in New Jersey with worker walking amid large containers of blue-colored plastic nurdles. Laura Sullivan/NPR.

Sri Lankan Spill. In May 2021, one of the largest nurdle spills at sea occurred off Colombo, Sri Lanka, when the container ship, X-Press Pearl caught fire and partially sank near Colombo harbor. Among the ship’s 1,377 containers were 422 holding nurdles, which spilled and dispersed over 300 kilometers (186 miles) of the Sri Lankan coastline. “It’s an environmental disaster,” Sri Lankan marine biologist Asha de Vos told The Washington Post at the time of the spill. She was worried that currents might carry the plastic pellets as far as the other side of the island nation, killing wildlife and damaging sensitive ecosystems. “It was basically [plastic] snow on our beaches,” she explained of the immediate impact, with photos showing piles of the tiny white pellets (some burnt and darkened by the ship’s fire) stretching for miles along the coastline. The incoming nurdles accumulated as much as 2 meters thick (about 2 yards) in some places.

Map of Sri Lanka, off India, showing location where ‘X-Press Pearl’ spilled billions of nurdles.

Photo showing piles of spilled nurdles along Sri Lankan coast-line in 2021, where attempted clean-up went on for months.

A dead fish that had washed ashore from the Sri Lankan spill was photographed with a mouth full of nurdles – no doubt, one of many meeting similar fates. It was also reported that some 470 turtles, 46 dolphins, and eight whales that had washed ashore also had nurdles in their bodies. For the local population, some 20,000 families had to stop fishing. About 1,680 tons of nurdles were released into the ocean with the Sri Lankan spill, and some also made landfall across Indian Ocean coastlines, from Indonesia and Malaysia to Somalia. The clean up – at least of those nurdles that could be seen on the beaches – went on for months. Others are buried in the sand, with still others floating or submerged at sea, and for a time following the spill, deposited on shorelines at regular intervals with each incoming tide. The Colombo-based Center for Environmental Justice later estimated that as many as 70 billion nurdles were spilled. As of this writing, it’s the largest plastic spill in history, according to a United Nations report.

The Sri Lankan spill, however, wasn’t the only such incident. In fact, nurdle spills at sea have been occurring for decades, many unreported. Of documented spills in recent years, there have been several releasing large quantities of nurdles.

Volunteer working to clean up plastic nurdles deposited in a rocky coastal area of southern Hong Kong following a major spill of the plastic pellets from a container vessel during a July 2012 typhoon. Tyrone Siu /Reuters.

2012, Hong Kong. A nurdle spill occurred off Hong Kong during a storm on July 24, 2012, when 150 tons of nurdles from shipping containers owned by Chinese oil giant, Sinopec, were released into the sea. During Typhoon Vicente, a container ship lost seven 40-foot containers in the waters south of Hong Kong. Six of the containers contained bags of plastic pellets. The polluting pellets swamped beaches, clogged shore grasses, and piled up along rocky coasts, making for a difficult clean up. In any case, the plastic pellets washed up on a number of southern Hong Kong beaches and islands, among them, Shek O, Cheung Chau, Ma Wan, and Lamma Island.

Because Hong Kong is made up of more than 200 islands it was hard to know how bad the spill actually was.Tracey Read, a local cleanup volunteer at the Hong Kong scene, told Plastics Today: “The initial spill looked like snow on several beaches and in quite a few areas the pellets were knee deep.” Some of the nurdles in that spill are believed to have disrupted marine life in the area, also credited with killing stocks of fish at fish farms. The pellets were also found in the guts of fish and locals became reluctant to eat seafood. Because Hong Kong is made up of more than 200 islands it was hard to know how bad the spill actually was.

According to some reports, the plastic pellets in the Hong Kong spill once covered Sham Wan of Lamma Island, a spawning area for endangered green sea turtles, where tourists are forbidden during the spawning season. The Hong Kong nurdle spill occurred during the turtles’ spawning months and Sham Wan was reportedly covered by a foot of plastic pellets for a time.

Sinopec, meanwhile, initially set aside $1.28 million to help with the clean up. More than a month following the spill, incoming tides bearing nurdles left repeated deposits of pellet lines on beaches. Half a year later, plastic pellets were still found at Ngong Chong Beach on Po Toi Island. And even six years later, mounds of the pellets were still being found on some of the Hong Kong islands.

In 2011-2012, the M.V. Rena cargo ship lost hundreds of containers when it ran aground and later broke apart off the coast of New Zealand. While a fuel oil spill and other toxic cargo were major concerns in this accident, the ship also reportedly lost four containers of plastic nurdles. Nine years later, in 2020, residents were reporting nurdles on local beaches.

2011-2012, New Zealand. In early October 2011, the container vessel M.V. Rena lost an estimated 900 containers of various products and substances when it ran aground and later broke up off the coast of New Zealand after striking Astrolabe Reef 12 nautical miles off Tauranga. While a major spill of fuel oil and the loss of some containers with toxic substances became major concerns in this accident, a reported four of the lost containers held plastic nurdles. Over time, much of the shipwreck’s resulting shoreline debris was cleaned up. However, some nine years later, in 2020, plastic beads were found washing ashore on the Coromandel and Waihi beaches of New Zealand, in the same areas where shipwreck debris had washed up at the time of the initial grounding. Some reporting indicated that at least one container of nurdles – and perhaps as many as four – were lost in the accident or remained missing. Meanwhile, as of June 2021, nearly ten years after the accident, an investigation had been launched into whether plastic beads then washing up on Tairua Beach were from the wreck of the M.V. Rena.

2017 & 2020, South Africa. Nurdle spills have also been reported in the sea lanes along South African shores and port areas over the last several years. In October 2017, a freak hurricane ripped ships from their moorings in the port of Durban, South Africa, causing chaos there. Two vessels belonging to Mediterranean Shipping Company collided and cargo containers holding 49 tons of nurdles went into the sea. Two nurdle-filled containers from the MSC Susanna were among those spilled, remaining submerged for a time in the harbor. Five days after the storm, local residents noticed that millions of plastic nurdles were washing up on beaches. Reports noted that nurdles had moved as far north as the border with Mozambique, and as far south as Cape Town. Between 1,200 km to 2,000 km (roughly, 745-to-1,240 miles) of coastline were polluted with pellets from this spill.

Adapted portion of larger 2018 South African graphic, “What Are Nurdles?,” illustrating 2017 Durban spill and clean-up progress at that time. Source: SA Association for Marine Biological Research, News 24/Rudi Louw.

As reported elsewhere with attempted nurdle coastline clean-ups, South African efforts were frustrated by repeated tidal deposits of the pellets. Meanwhile, by the time the South African authorities began their cleanup attempts, some of the spilled nurdles had already begun making their way to Australia, and were estimated to arrive there about 450 days later. Some nine months after the South Africa clean up had begun, less than 20 percent of the nurdles had been recovered. News videos of the clean-up there illustrate the difficulty of completely removing the pellets even on accessible beaches, let alone those with more rugged terrain, grasses, and other obstacles.

In 2020, another South African nurdle spill occurred off the coast of Plettenburg Bay. That spill was believed to have come from containership CSAV Trancura (photo below), while that vessel was proceeding to Singapore on or about August 21st, 2020. When later docked at Coega, Eastern Cape, South Africa, it was observed that part of the container stack on this ship had collapsed, suggesting that a number of containers may have been lost overboard.

The CSAV Trancura container ship, the suspected source of an August 2020 South African nurdle spill. (Photo: Hans Schaefer / MarineTraffic.com).

2019 & 2020, North Sea. The cargo ship MSC Zoe lost 350 containers to the North Sea in a January 2019 storm, some of which were full of plastic nurdles. More than a year later, millions of the pellets continued to wash up on the beaches of the Dutch Wadden Sea island of Schiermonnikoog. In February 2020, the cargo ship Trans Carrier – transporting nurdles from Rotterdam, Netherlands to a Norwegian plastic pipe manufacturer in Tananger – spilled more than 13 tons of nurdles into the German Bight area of the North Sea, which were then dispersed along the coastlines of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. These nurdles were produced by INEOS, the chemical company in Antwerp that imports U.S. ethane made from shale gas to produce the plastic pellets.

A portion of the millions of plastic nurdles that washed ashore on the coast of Norway, following a February 2020 North Sea spill. These nurdles, from that spill, were photographed at Oslofjord, Norway. Photo, Plastic Soup Foundation.

Nurdle spills are occurring everywhere, it turns out – on land and at sea. It’s likely that nurdles have been on the loose for decades, probably since the start of the modern plastics era.

In 1971, researchers collected plastic pellets in an area of the North Atlantic called the Sargasso Sea by towing fine mesh nets through the water. Fifteen years later, Woods Hole researchers returned to the area and found that pellet concentrations had nearly doubled. Plastic pellets were found on New Zealand beaches in 1977. In 1993, the U.S. EPA reported widespread distribution of nurdles – among the most commonly found items in 13 of 14 U.S. harbors then sampled. There have also been a variety of nurdle spills in the U.S., some inland at transport and factory locations, and others from spills and releases into creeks, streams, rivers, estuaries and bays. Some of these are offered later below.

Cover of a 1993 EPA summary document from a more detailed study of plastic pellets in the environment. Click for PDF.

In February 2019, FIDRA, an environmental group based in Scotland, reported nurdle pollution in 28 of the 32 countries they surveyed, from Ecuador to South Africa. It is estimated that more than 250,000 tons of nurdles enter the ocean every year.

Nurdle losses, leakage, and spills can occur at any point in the plastics-making process. Nurdles that fall on the factory floor or on the ground at loading docks and transportation hubs, are considered contaminated and are thrown out or washed into sewer drains. Nurdles are shipped extensively by rail and truck on land, by river barges, and handled or re-packaged at ports for international shipping for export by container vessel – and they can and do spill at all of these junctures, fouling streams, rivers, bays, and the oceans. Due to their small size and buoyancy, pellets lost on land often find their way to various water bodies through runoff. In 2005, one study of 10 facilities that handled pellets in California found that during heavy rainstorms pellets washed away from every single facility. In Sweden, at one production facility, it was estimated that between 3 million and 36 million pellets entered the environment each year. There is no standardized reporting of such spillage, however, and no real regulation.

As for shipment on the high seas, there have been attempts in Europe, but little progress to date, to tighten international maritime and shipping standards for handling and packaging nurdles. Since 1991, petrochem producers have pushed a voluntary program called “Operation Clean Sweep,” aimed at implementing good housekeeping and pellet containment practices, with the goal of achieving “zero pellet, flake, and powder discharge.” But not all producers are engaged in the voluntary program. In fact, by one count of plastic handlers and producers in Europe as of October 2020, of 60,000 facilities, only 500 were then pledged to Operation Clean Sweep. Nor does “pledging” mean zero discharge.

In many cases of nurdle spills in the U.S., clean-ups and/or prosecutions are not triggered by environmental laws since nurdles are not, by themselves, toxic or hazardous. However, in a few recent cases, as will be shown later below, the U.S. Clean Water Act has been used both in regulation and litigation to bring some accountability to nurdle polluters. In 2022, legislation was introduced the U. S. Congress under the title, “The Plastic Pellets Free Waters Act,” that would direct EPA to bar the discharge of plastic pellets into waterways, storm drains or sewers from any point source “that makes, uses, packages, or transports those plastic pellets and other pre-production plastic materials.” As of this writing, however, the House and Senate bills have made little progress.

Adapted portion of larger 2018 South African graphic, “What Are Nurdles?” Source: SA Association for Marine Biological Research, News 24 / Rudi Louw.

Most problematic – especially for birds, fish, marine mammals and food chains to humans — is the fact that nurdles can absorb a range of toxic chemicals already in the environment, including long-banned substances such as PCBs and DDT that are still out there. In its 1993 report, “Plastic Pellets in the Aquatic Environment,” EPA listed about 80 species of shorebirds that were known at that time to be eating nurdles, as well as sea turtles, fish, and potentially baleen whales. And with time in the environment, the already tiny nurdles can weather and break down into even smaller microplastics, enduring for decades.

The nurdle problem so far has received its most extensive exposure and documentation from citizen action in Europe and the United States (with related media coverage) – activism that has spread throughout the world. In Europe, FIDRA, an NGO based in East Lothian, Scotland that works to reduce plastic waste and chemical pollution, has led citizen groups throughout the world to track the nurdle problem, sponsoring an annual nurdle count and reporting “hot spots” and updates at its website. In the U.S., a Texas scientist, Jace Tunnell, Director of the Mission Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, founded “The Nurdle Patrol” in 2019 which has spurred voluntary citizen counts, nurdle spill reporting, and data collection throughout the U.S. and beyond. There has also been some litigation in the U.S. in recent years – including one case in Texas brought by long-time activist, Diane Wilson and others, resulting in a $50 million verdict against Formosa Plastics for its nurdle pollution. More detail on these and other stories follow below.

May 26, 2022

Pittsburgh Train Spill

A Norfolk Southern train derailment just north of Pittsburgh, PA on May 26, 2022, in addition to sending 3,000 gallons of petroleum distillates spilling into Guy’s Run creek and the Allegheny River, also spilled plastic nurdles into those waters. Some17 train cars and two engines derailed after a collision with a dump truck carrying stone. Nine of the rail cars were reported to have gone down an embankment there, some lading in the Guy’s Run creek, not far from its juncture with the Allegheny River. One or more of the rail cars carried plastic pellets. It was reported that some unstated quantity of pellets escaped the rail cars, and were seen in the creek. Booms were deployed on the creek in attempt to prevent the pellets from reaching the river. Later citizen reporting in early June 2022, along with photos from Three Rivers Waterkeeper, indicated that “millions of nurdles” from this spill did make their way into Guy’s Run and likely, the Allegheny River as well. Some quantity of the pellets were cleaned up and hauled away, but others were released into the environment. North of Pittsburgh, meanwhile, a new Shell Oil plastics complex will soon be turning out billions of nurdles every year, shipping them all across the country and beyond.

Screenshot from KDKA-TV report, showing aerial view of May 2022 train derailment just north of Pittsburgh, with several rail cars in Guy’s Run creek near its junction with the Allegheny River. The “white-ish color” visible in the creek is actually millions of floating plastic nurdles – some of which were cleaned up, bagged, and hauled away.

Train spills of nurdles, it turns out, occur with some frequency, as do more “routine” spills and operational accidents at rail yards. Nurdles are shipped by rail in hopper cars throughout North America. A single car can contain millions of these microplastics. One report online of U.S. rail-related nurdle spills using National Response Center reporting has noted more than 80 such incidents in at least two dozen states since 2010. Jace Tunnel, founder of The Nurdle Patrol, has conducted surveys at over 80 railroads across the United States and found nurdle releases at over 90 percent of them. A few examples of other reported train spills follow.

Iowa. In November 2021, a Union Pacific train in Iowa derailed about one mile east of Carlisle, Iowa. The accident occurred where the railroad crosses the Middle River. One of the rail cars went down the riverbank and leaked polyethylene pellets into the river, which is a tributary of the Des Moines River. Union Pacific put a boom in the river attempting to prevent the pellets from moving downstream, though some pellets got through. A few days later, another boom was placed in the river attempting to catch more of the pellets.

Septembr 4, 2021 This aerial photo, which appeared online, shows the derailment of four cars near Raceland, Louisiana with some spillage of plastic pellets, seen in white, some of which may have infiltrated nearby canal/waterway that is possibly connected to the Lake Boeuf Wildlife Management Area.

Louisiana. A derailment of four train cars near Raceland, Louisiana occurred on September 4th, 2021 with some spillage of plastic pellets, according to National Response Center (NRC) reporting and aerial photographs. The release of plastic by the NRC is considered a “railroad non-release,” but still recorded. At this accident scene, there appears to be a canal or waterway near the spillage that is possibly connected to the Lake Boeuf Wildlife Management Area.

Texas. In January 2021, two trains collided in Jackson County, Texas – one operated by Formosa Plastics Corp. and one Union Pacific – resulting in spill of diesel fuel, oils, and plastic pellets. It was reported that a couple of the cars were laying on local roadways, which were closed for a time. No injuries were reported and clean-up teams were sent to the site.

April 25th, 2013. Derailment at Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad’s Gambrinus Yard in Canton, Ohio. caused three hopper rail cars to spill plastic pellets in a train yard. Photo shows two of the cars on their side with visible spills of white pellets.

Ohio. A train derailment on April 25th, 2013 caused three hopper rail cars to spill plastic pellets in a train yard at the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad’s Gambrinus Yard in Canton, Ohio. Photos showed two of the cars on their side with visible spills of pellets. The cause of the mishap was not specified and clean-up crews were sent to the site. According to the company’s website: “The Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway Company handles thousands of carloads of chemicals, plastic resins, and related products every year for 25+ shippers and receivers. Northeast Ohio in particular is a frequent destination for many polymer shipments for molding companies, blenders, packagers and transload operations. Shipments in covered hoppers include ABS plastics, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and polyvinyl chloride.”

Texas. Nurdles were spilled at the site of a Union Pacific derailment near Algoa, Texas in August 2009, when twelve of the train’s 80 cars left the tracks, some spilling the plastic pellets there, entailing a local cleanup.

Chuck Hutterli of Nipigon, Ontario (shown at left) has been cleaning up recurring tidal deposits of white nurdle pellets off the Lake Superior beach near his home for more than a decade, not far from where a 2008 Canadian Pacific train derailment spilled them into Lake Superior. “Yep, they’re still coming,” said Hutterli in 2021 of the nurdle beach deposits [especially after windstorms]. “It’s aggravating as hell.” (Courtesy photo / MLive.com)

Ontario, Lake Superior. On January 21, 2008, a Canadian Pacific train was traveling along Lake Superior in Southern Ontario. As the train passed through Cavers Cove, near Rossport, fourteen cars derailed, including four filled with polyethylene pellets, which reportedly plunged into deep water off a nearshore cliff. The plastic pellets were swept into Lake Superior and carried along by wind, waves and currents. Canadian Pacific cleaned up some of the spill in February of 2008 and in several subsequent cleanups, and reported spending over a million dollars in the process. However, a significant portion of the nurdles were already taken up by the lake immediately following the spill and remain heavily concentrated near the site of the spill, and have also dispersed across much of eastern Lake Superior. For more than decade now, some of the nurdles from this spill continue to appear on Lake Superior beaches in Canada and the United States.

August 2, 2020

Mississippi River Spill

On August 2nd, 2020, as sudden winds rose on the Mississippi River, four shipping containers were knocked off the container ship, Bianca, then docked at the Napoleon Avenue wharf at the Port of New Orleans. Three of the containers were retrieved. But the fourth container, containing numerous 55-pound bags of Dow Chemical polyethylene nurdles, fell into the Mississippi River. The container with the Dow bags was retrieved from the river a few days later, but an undetermined number of nurdles – likely, tens of millions or more – were released into the environment. CMA CGM , the shipping company for the Bianca, briefly started a clean-up three weeks after the spill that was halted due to storm threats. In the meantime, spilled nurdles were pushed upstream and downstream, and in subsequent weeks, were evident in deposits along both banks of the Mississippi as well as further south into the Delta, and likely, the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.

August 2020. Nurdle deposits along New Orleans waterfront following spill on Mississippi River. Photo, Liz Marchio, NOLA.com.

August 2020. A 55 lb bag of Dow Chemical polyethylene nurdles beneath New Orleans wharf following spill. Photo, Julie Dermansky for DeSmog.com.

Following the Mississippi River nurdle spill, Mark Benfield, a professor at LSU, along with Dr. Liz Marchio, a local scientist, became involved in documenting the spill and collecting samples. Benfield estimated that each 55-pound Dow Chemical sack contains roughly 753,000 nurdles. A forty-foot long shipping container, like the one that fell into the river, could hold more than 745 million nurdles. One bag of Dow polyethylene nurdles, as shown above and below, was found beneath a wharf in the New Orleans French Quarter.

Close-up photo of a portion of a bag of Dow polyethylene nurdles that was found beneath a wharf in the French Quarter of the Port of New Orleans following a container spill on the Mississippi River in August 2020.

“Some of the chemical compounds used to make the nurdles could be soluble in the river water,” according to Wilma Subra, technical advisor for the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. After reviewing the contents listed by Dow Chemical, she explained: “The polymerized material can be eaten by fish and birds, cause damage to aquatic organisms that can be eaten by other organisms, including humans. Residual chemicals can end up in the water that the water treatment system doesn’t remove.” Downstream residents, then, whose water begins with Mississippi River intakes, might be at risk.

Mark Benfield of LSU holds partially-damaged bag of Dow Chemical nurdles spilled from container ship into the Mississippi River during August 2020 storm that struck docked ship in New Orleans. The bag was retrieved from a wharf area following the spill. He and associates are helping to document nurdle spills. Photo, Neel Dhanesha/Vox.

Benfield, at one point, described the Mississippi River mess as “a nurdle apocalypse” — a term appropriate for the larger world-wide assault that’s been going on as well. He has also expressed the injustice of such spills. “If I went to the river and tossed in hundreds of plastic bags, I’d be in trouble,” Benfield noted in an interview with Vox.com. Under Louisiana law, he might be fined between $500 and $1,000 for the offense, plus serving a few hours in a litter abatement program. “But because (the nurdles) are so small,” he continued, “the companies get away with it.”

2019-2021

Port of Charleston

In July 2019, Charleston, South Carolina environmental lawyer, Andrew Wunderley, also executive director of the Charleston Waterkeeper and the Coastal Conservation League, was alerted by some beachcombers of small plastic particles on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, a 2.5 mile-long barrier island along the Atlantic coast just off Charleston Harbor. Wunderley and others soon discovered extensive nurdle pollution there and other onshore areas and marshes around Charleston Harbor. After the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control investigated the nurdle pollution, but took no action, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed a federal lawsuit in March 2020 under the Clean Water Act on behalf of the Charleston Waterkeeper and the Coastal Conservation League.

General reference map showing the location of Charleston, South Carolina, Charleston Harbor, Sullivan’s Island and the Atlantic Ocean.

The target of the lawsuit was a shipping company, Frontier Logistics, then operating a plastic pellet packaging facility at Union Pier in downtown Charleston, believed to be the suspected source of the at least some of the nurdles found on Sullivan’s Island and around Charleston Harbor. The company received quantities of plastic nurdles by rail from Gulf Coast petrochemical companies and re-packaged them for export from the Port of Charleston.

Meanwhile, Andrew Wunderley and others had combed beaches and slogged through marshes for months on Sullivan’s Island and around Charleston Harbor to meticulously document the nurdle pollution.

Audubon magazine photo of Charleston Waterkeeper, Andrew Wunderly, who along with Cheryl Carmack, have collected, documented, and archived nurdles they have found in the Charleston area. Photo, Justin Cook / Audubon Magazine, Summer 2020.

“We have evidence that leads us to believe Frontier’s plastic pellets continue to spill into our harbor,” Wunderley told the Charleston Post and Courier at one point. “We find pellets everywhere we look, from Capers Island to Waterfront Park downtown. And, at the sites we sample week after week, we continue to find consistently high numbers of pellets.”

In March 2021, Frontier agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle the lawsuit. Separately, the company had also moved to a new, larger facility in North Charleston. Frontier also agreed to allow an independent auditor, accompanied by a nurdle-pollution expert, to visit its new facility to make recommendations on preventing the plastic pellets from getting into the environment.

Map showing some of the locations where Andrew Wunderley and others had combed beaches and marshes in the Charleston Harbor area documenting nurdle pollution. Source: SC Waterkeeper & SELC.

Charleston, it turns out, has several companies that offer nurdle packaging and shipping services for the plastics industry, which in recent years has grown, given the port of Charleston’s increasing appeal for export shipping. A new company in the area, A&R Logistics, located just north of Charleston along Highway 52, opened in September 2020. Two huge warehouses there take trainloads of incoming plastic pellets and then packages them for export to foreign countries through the Port of Charleston.

New A&R Logistics warehouse, located just north of Charleston, SC, opened in September 2020. The company bags plastic pellets shipped to it in volume by rail to prepare them for export to foreign markets through the Port of Charleston. Photo provided to PostandCourier.com / A&R Logistics

In recent years, according to the South Carolina Ports Authority, Charleston has been moving to increase its share of plastic resin exports, expecting to grow from about 800 forty-foot shipping containers per month to more than 2,000 containers per month. Charleston’s primary market for the plastic pellet shipments is Europe, followed by Latin America and Southeast Asia via Suez Canal.

Photo of shipping container cranes and equipment at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina.

April 2018

Pennsylvania Truck Spill

In early April 2018, thousands of pounds of nurdles wound up in a stream in Northeast Pennsylvania near Tannersville after a semi-truck carrying them crashed along a highway. Some 50,000 pounds of blue-colored, recycled plastic pellets were in transit in the truck then traveling in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. According to a state police report, the truck driver had swerved to avoid slowed traffic as he drove along Interstate 80, and then collided with a minivan, causing a chain-reaction crash. The truck then swerved again, going through a guardrail and down a steep embankment. The truck fell 250 feet down the embankment, turned over on its side, and then dumped between 25,000 and 27,000 pounds of the plastic pellets into Sand Spring Run, according to Eric Weredyk, a Pennsylvania conservation officer in charge of the response. The pellets, he told The Morning Call newspaper of Allentown, PA, “were pouring out the back of the truck like water.”

April 2018. View of plastic pellets spilled into creek in Monroe County, PA after a truck crash on I-80. The spilled pellets, shown here in a snowy creek scene, soon floated downstream from Sand Spring Run crash site to Pocono Creek more than three miles downstream. Photo, Morning Call newspaper and Bob Heil, Broadhead Water Association.

Not only were the pellets in Sand Spring Run, at the crash site, but soon made their way downstream to Pocono Creek. Eventually, if not corralled, they would reach the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. As noted in The Morning Call news account of the spill, “cleaning them up won’t be easy — the pieces are small, the water is fast and the crash site is hard to reach.” A few weeks later, along Pocono Creek, citizen volunteers were being sought by conservation groups to help clean up the pellets.

Photo from LehighValleyLive.com shows Todd Burns, president of the Brodhead Chapter of Trout Unlimited, examining trapped plastic pellets on April 6, 2018, along Pocono Creek, washed downstream from the earlier truck spill.

2019, Canada

Vancouver Island Nurdles

In October 2019, the Surfrider Foundation of Canada reported that after a three-year study it had found that thousands of plastic pellets – linked to Vancouver, British Columbia plastic manufacturers – were getting into storm drains which then flowed into the Fraser River and Salish Sea. The organization said its investigation found hundreds of thousands of the pellets clustered around a dozen metro Vancouver plastic industry sites – which the group called, “a widespread problem that must be addressed by both industry and the province.” The Surfrider’s study suggested the nurdles had made it as far as the west coast of Vancouver Island, with high concentrations of the pellets reported on the Sunshine Coast, Gulf Islands and Fraser estuary. In February 2020, the Surfriders were asking the government to take action on the problem. Amine Korch, chair of the Vancouver chapter of Surfrider noted, “…We have reports of people fishing in the Fraser River and the salmon that they find… [have] a bunch of pellets inside.”

This map shows Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, just off the Northwest corner of the United States north of Seattle, WA. It is a screen shot from a 2019 Canadian television news report on nurdle pollution in the waters off and around Vancouver city, BC, the Fraser River, Salish Sea, and Vancouver Island. Source, Global News, Canada.

2009-2017

California Plastics Plants

In California, state and federal regulators have been active in some parts of the state with inspections and enforcement action at various plastics production companies, where they have discovered nurdle spills and/or poor containment practices, citing violations, imposing fines, and issuing abatement orders. As of January 2008, California Assembly Bill 258, became law and is now part of the California Water Code, known as the “Preproduction Plastic Debris Program.” It applies to all California facilities that manufacture, handle or transport preproduction plastic, including manufacturers, transporters, warehousers, processors, and recyclers.

In the San Francisco Bay area, surprise inspections during October 2009 at four plastic manufacturers resulted in the discovery of nurdle discharges at those facilities, often at rail unloading sites and other plant locations. Some of the nurdle pollution ended up in endangered species habitat at Oyster Bay, on the eastern end of San Francisco Bay. Notices of the violations were sent out to the companies, some with attached photos of nurdle spills at those facilities.

Photo of nurdles on the ground at rail docking area of Metro Poly Corp of San Leandro, CA. One of more than a dozen photos of nurdle spills taken by the San Francisco Bay Area Water Board at Metro Poly during 2009-2010 inspections. Metro Poly later complied with abatement order adding multiple containment improvements.

A cleanup and abatement order involving several of the charged companies was also issued by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Board for the Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline park in San Leandro, located along the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. And by October 2011, the State Water Board, San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the U.S. EPA collaborated on a joint enforcement action that required multiple industrial plastic businesses to carry out an environmental clean-up of pre-production plastics discharged into Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline in San Leandro. That action required the responsible parties to cleanup and abate their production sites, surrounding wetlands, and related waterways where pellets were being discharged. The Oyster Bay cleanup was paid for by the four companies responsible for the plastic discharges.

EPA inspections and enforcement actions for nurdle releases have also occurred in Southern California. In December 2015, EPA found violations at two plastics facilities releasing pellets through storm drains that discharge to the Tujunga Wash, which flows into the Los Angeles River. Cleanup orders and fines were issued to Western States Packaging of Pacoima and Direct Pack of Sun Valley.

The visible “white-ish” discharge shown here from storm- water runoff in California, is actually, on closer inspection, a few thousand or so plastic nurdles. Photo, California EPA / State Water Resources Control Board.

Western States Packaging uses nurdles as raw material to manufacture food-grade plastic bags. EPA’s inspectors found this facility was not operating with the proper stormwater permit. EPA found spilled plastic pellets on paved surfaces throughout the facility that lacked proper control measures. Western States agreed to pay a $25,000 penalty. Direct Pack uses nurdles to manufacture plastic packaging products. This facility was discharging industrial wastewater without the proper permit. An inspection found that the facility did not use proper capture devices and did not have containment systems to prevent releases to local waterways, among other deficiencies. Direct Pack’s penalty was $42,900.

“The Los Angeles River provides vital habitat to birds, fish and other organisms that depend on the river for survival,” said Alexis Strauss, EPA’s Acting Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “It is essential that manufacturers take proper steps to prevent nurdles from polluting surrounding waterways and harming local wildlife.”

In 2016, during inspections at two other California facilities – Modern Concepts of Compton CA and Double R. Trading at City of Industry – EPA found inadequate containment measures that allowed plastic materials, including nurdles, to enter local waterways.

2005 photo of Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and working to stop nurdle spills, is shown here with nurdles on the ground at a railroad /trans shipment area near a plastics manufacturing plant in the town of Vernon, CA, south of Los Angeles. Moore is also author of the 2011 book, “Plastic Ocean”. Photo, Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times.

Modern Concepts stores pre-production nurdles at its facility as part of its plastic products manufacturing process. EPA’s inspectors observed spilled plastic pellets on paved surfaces throughout the facility, which is located near Compton Creek, a tributary of the Los Angeles River. EPA also found the facility lacked pollution prevention equipment and used inadequate cardboard storage boxes, which exposed the pellets to rain and wind.

Double R. Trading Inc. operates a recycling plant that grinds plastic material into flakes that are ultimately exported to China. EPA inspectors discovered that the facility, when it was operating in Compton before moving to City of Industry, was discharging industrial stormwater into Dominguez Channel without a required permit. EPA inspectors observed large amounts of exposed plastic materials and fragments spilled on paved surfaces throughout the facility. The inspection found that the facility did not have necessary containment systems to trap plastic material and prevent releases to a waterway that flows into the Port of Los Angeles. Both companies cited by EPA in 2016 corrected their violations.

Since 2016, EPA and the California’s regional water boards have continued to cite plastics producers and processors for nurdle pollution. However, there are approximately 2,700 plastics facilities of one kind or another in the state of California that use or handle pre-production plastic nurdles, and it’s highly likely that many of them – and thousands more such facilities across the U.S. – are also losing nurdles to the environment.

Citizen Activists

Diane Wilson’s book, “An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas,” 2006 paperback edition, 392 pp. Click for copy.

Diane Wilson began focusing on nurdle pollution in 2012. A former fisherwoman and shrimp boat captain, whose family worked the creeks and bays of the Texas Gulf Coast for years, Wilson became an activist in 1989 when she discovered that the Texas petrochemical industry was poisoning the waters and sea life around her coastal environment.

Among her targets then and now was Formosa Plastics, the world’s sixth largest petrochemical company, which operates a sprawling 2,500-acre complex at Point Comfort, Texas. Formosa’s plant is in the middle of a rich biota of creeks, rivers, bays and wetlands that is the Texas Gulf Coast, between Galveston and Corpus Christi.

When Wilson learned from a former Formosa employee that the plant was losing lots of nurdles to the waterways and wetlands around the plant – notably Cox Creek and Lavaca Bay – she and a few others began collecting and documenting the plastic pollution. They found pellets everywhere they looked, and proceeded to catalogue their findings by place and date, storing them in Ziploc bags. In some spots, near discharge outlets and certain marshy areas, nurdle deposits were as much as five inches deep. After three years, Wilson and colleagues had collected more than 2,400 samples of Formosa’s pellet and powder pollution.

Wilson had also prodded Texas regulators to move on Formosa, and after a 2016 investigation, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found the company’s pellets in Cox Creek and Lavaca Bay and later fined the company $122,000. But in Wilson’s view, state fines were really not much of a deterrent for Formosa – more a cost of doing business. She believed more action was needed. That’s when the Waterkeeper v. Formosa lawsuit was started. Wilson had teamed up with the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper, a group she led, and also had legal help from Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represented the group.

For Diane Wilson, the battle with Formosa is personal. At one point she had told reporters she had a personal passion for Lavaca Bay: “To me it’s alive,” she said to a reporter with The Victoria Advocate. “It’s like a family member,” she said. “Formosa generally gets everything they want,” she explained. “…They’re not going to get the [bay]; …I drew a line, they’re not getting that bay.”

In July 2017, Wilson and team sued Formosa in Federal court under the citizen suit provision of the Clean Water Act. When the trial began in March 25, 2019 at the federal courthouse in Victoria, Texas, Wilson and team submitted their considerable haul of documented nurdle pollution – thirty plastic bins containing an estimated 26 million nurdles – which were stored in the courthouse basement for use during the trial.

Aerial photo of Texas Gulf Coast area showing location of Formosa Plastics’ 2,500-acre petrochem complex and areas polluted by the company’s pre-production plastic pellets, including Cox Creek and Lavaca Bay. Just beyond Matagorda Bay and Port O’Conner, to the right, is the Gulf of Mexico. Source: CrossroadsToday.com, Victoria, TX.

By late June 2019, U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt ruled against Formosa, calling the company a “serial offender,” noting the company’s consistent violation of state-issued permits and federal laws. He was also moved by the evidence Wilson and team had brought to his courtroom. “These witnesses provided detailed, credible testimony regarding plastics discharged by Formosa, as well as photographs, videos, and 30 containers containing 2,428 samples… of plastic pellets,” he wrote in his opinion. The company’s illegal discharges, he noted, were “extensive, historical, and repetitive,” and that Formosa had violated the Clean Water Act by discharging plastic pellets and PVC powder into Lavaca Bay and Cox Creek. Hoyt found there were 736 days of illegal releases at one of Formosa’s water discharges and a total of 1,149 at eight others.

January 2020. Diane Wilson in her kayak, checking out the waters near Formosa’s plant for pellet pollution.

One Texas A&M scientist estimated that from 2017 to February 2019, Formosa’s plastic pollution of the environment ranged between 7.6 billion to 75 billion individual pellets. In fact, during the trial, one of the company’s lawyers noted that, “Formosa makes one trillion pellets every day.”

In the “penalty phase” of the Formosa trial, in October 2019, the plaintiffs had sought the maximum fine of $166 million. The company’s profits were then running at about $900 million a year. In the end, Formosa agreed to pay $50 million over five years. It was largest Clean Water Act citizen suit settlement filed by private individuals. The money was placed in a trust to help fund local conservation projects and scientific research. Formosa was required to comply with a “zero discharge” of plastic pollutants in the future and cleanup its existing pellet pollution. The settlement agreement also provided for ongoing oversight with a remediation consultant, engineer, and trustee, as well as fines for any continued nurdle pollution. Wilson and team have continued to monitor Formosa’s performance, and during early 2022, they found continued nurdle pollution from Formosa, which by then had cost the company nearly $4 million in new fines under terms of the agreement. An independent monitor tracks new spills, and the company will be working over the next few years to clean up its past pellet spills along Cox Creek and Port Lavaca Bay.

Wilson, meanwhile, was also contacted about reports that a ChevronPhillips plastics plant, not far from Point Comfort in Sweeney, Texas had also been releasing nurdles to the environment. Company officials there denied there was any such pollution. But Wilson, visiting the area with reporters and venturing into the wetlands and a discharge area near that plant, found pellets there as well. A spokesman for ChevronPhillips said those pellets were from a one-time storm incident that had since been corrected.

The Nurdle Patrol

Jace Tunnell, founder of The Nurdle Patrol, is a marine biologist and director of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve at Port Aransas, TX.

In September 2018, Jace Tunnell, a marine biologist at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, Texas, was visiting a beach on North Padre Island off Corpus Christi, when he discovered thousands of plastic pellets washed up along the shoreline. “[W]e actually estimated that there was 300,000 to 1,000,000 pellets per mile for at least a 30 mile range,” he would later recall of that first encounter with wayward nurdles – which had come, he believed, from an unkown major spill. That’s when he began thinking about the need to report and document what he had found, and what later led to his idea for “The Nurdle Patrol,” a voluntary citizen reporting system. The idea was simple: volunteers would spend 10 minutes collecting the pellets and count how many they found, giving researchers a rough estimate of the density of the plastic pollution in particular areas. A Facebook page was also created soliciting volunteers. Initially, the first focus was the Texas Gulf coast. There are 46 companies in Texas that manufacture plastic resins and/or produce plastic materials, and many of those firms operate on or near the Texas coast.

The Nurdle Patrol quickly grew beyond Texas, with volunteers in Mississippi, Florida, and Mexico participating. Tunnel’s email box was overwhelmed with 300-to-500 incoming submissions per month. By 2019, The Nurdle Patrol was a going concern, with its own website and reporting coming in from all over the U.S. and beyond. A map was created as well, displaying all the reporting locations in the U.S. and Gulf of Mexico region.

Nurdle Patrol, sample results plotted on map for Gulf Coast states. Click for current U.S. map at Nurdle Patrol website.

Jace Tunnell, meanwhile, was soon giving talks all around the country on the Nurdle Patrol, what it was finding, and what it hoped to achieve. Among the possibilities for Nurdle Patrol data, for example, is to link nurdles and nurdle spills to their manufacturers. Another is to push nurdle regulation, a need Tunnell discovered at his first encounter with the pellet problem on the beaches of Corpus Christi, when neither the U.S. Coast Guard nor the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality would do anything about the nurdle spill.

Jace Tunnell, who often patrols for wayward nurdles himself, is shown here in 2019, photographing nurdles being covered by wind-blown sand on a beach at Mustang Island, Texas. Photo, Jamie Smith Hopkins / The Center for Public Integrity.

Jace Tunnell and Diane Wilson aren’t alone these days. As mentioned earlier, citizen reporting of nurdle pollution is also a worldwide activity, with several environmental, NGO, foundation, and scientific organizations now involved in reporting and documenting nurdle pollution and/or related research. Some have also taken the fight to the investment arena. As You Sow, an environmental group, filed corporate shareholder resolutions in 2019 at ExxonMobil, ChevronPhillips, and Dow Chemical calling on those companies to disclose to shareholders when, where, and how much plastic pellets they have spilled each year and what they are doing to prevent such spills. And while there are new laws in a few places like California aimed at nurdle pollution and single-use plastic, and others in recent years that have phased out the use of micro beads in certain products, there is much more to do in bringing the global plastics behemoth to account.

More Plastic

Expansionist Binge

Nurdle pollution – and the larger plastics problem – will not likely end anytime soon. In fact, it may get worse before it gets better. Since about 2010, the plastics industry has been on an expansionist binge, driven in part by the cheap fracking gas that begins the plastics-making process. Oil and chemical companies, also seeing their traditional businesses potentially circumscribed in the future by climate change restrictions and new solar, wind, and electric car technologies, have embarked on a major plastics and petrochem building boom as a new growth strategy. Since 2010, oil and petrochemical companies have invested $200 billion in more than 300 plastic and other chemical projects in the U.S.

A general look at the steep rise of projected global plastic production in recent years, with share by region.

Among these, for example, is what is said to be the world’s largest ethylene cracker, recently opened on 1,300 acres by ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia Basic Industries(SABIC) in South Texas near Portland.

In Louisiana in early 2019, South African company Sasol Ltd. opened the first of seven new virgin plastic plants planned for its Lake Charles complex.

In St. James Parish, Louisiana, along the Mississippi River north of New Orleans, Formosa is proposing a 2,400-acre, $9.4 billion plastics complex that is currently being fought by local community activists and environmental groups.

And in Pennsylvania, a giant new ethane cracker built by Shell Oil just north of Pittsburgh is slated to come on line in late 2022. That plant will turn out the equivalent of 80 trillion nurdles per year for plastic makers all across the country. And there are other new plants and expansions to come in the build-out now underway.

In recent years, 35-to-40 percent of North American plastic resin production has been exported, and that share is slated to rise in the years ahead. That means more truck and rail trans-shipments of nurdles will crisscross the country to American ports, including those at Houston, TX; New Orleans, LA: Long Beach, CA; Savannah, GE; Charleston, SC; and New York, NY. Thousands of 20- and 40-foot containers full of nurdles will be packed onto large ocean-going container vessels destined for overseas plastics producers.

Beyond the U.S., plastics plants in Scotland and Belgium will be expanded in those petrochemical hubs as well. In January 2019, Ineos, a Swiss-registered chemical giant, chose Antwerp as the site for two new plants: an ethane cracker to make ethylene, and another to convert propane into propylene. That investment will boost Antwerp’s position as the second-largest petrochemical hub in the world after Houston.

Plastic pellets inside a dead fish washed ashore after Sri Lankan spill, 2021. Photo, Saman Abesiriwardana/Pacific Press & The Guardian.

And while the oil and petrochemical industry will point to Operation Clean Sweep and other such voluntary commitments to achieve “zero discharge” of their pre-production plastic, it is highly likely that “the nurdle apocalypse” – consisting of the pre-plastic mess already in the environment, plus new spills and leaks ahead – will be with us yet for many years to come.

See also at this website, “Plastic Infernos: A Short History” (plastic implicated in spread & severity of deadly fires); “Petrochem Peril: Shell Cracker History” (Shell Oil plastics plant & related infrastructure in Pennsylvania); “Phillips Explo-sion, 1989” (Phillips Petroleum plastics plant, Pasadena, TX); “Shell Plant Explodes, 1994” (Shell Oil plastics plant, Belpre, OH); and, “Environmental History: Selected Stories” (topics page with more than a dozen story choices).

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 3 November 2022
Last Update: 25 June 2023

Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Nurdle Apocalypse: Plastic on the Loose,”
PopHistoryDig.com, November 3, 2022.

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“San Francisco Bay Water Board Focus on Pre-Production Plastics (commonly known as ‘nurdles’),” Waterboards.CA.gov / San Fran-cisco Bay, last updated, August 28, 2017.

News Release, EPA, Region 9, “U.S. EPA Requires Two Los Angeles Area Plastics Manufacturers to Protect Local Waterways,” EPA.gov, May 16, 2018.

Amy Westervelt, “It’s Taken Seven Years, but California Is Finally Cleaning up Microbead Pollution; Nonprofits Are Using the State’s New Stormwater Requirements to Sue Plastic Manufacturers for Polluting Waterways — and They’re Winning,” TheGuardian.com, March, 27, 2015.

“Diane Wilson,” Wikipedia.org.

“Formosa Plastics Corp,” Wikipedia.org.

Myron Levin / FairWarning, “Tenacious Citi-zens Take on the Plastics Industry over an Insidious Pollutant,” InvestigativeReporting Workshop.org, September 17, 2020.

Marissa Luck, “Formosa’s Texas Plant Fined $122,000 for Plastic Pellet Spill,” Houston Chronicle / Chron.com, January 17, 2019.

Lily Moore-Eissenberg, “Nurdles All the Way Down; How Texans Are Taking on Plastic Pollution—One Piece at a Time,” Texas Monthly, October 2019.

Amber Joseph, “Residents Sue Formosa Plastics for Polluting Lavaca Bay; Seeking $57 Million in Penalties for Breaking Environmental Laws,” CrossroadsToday.com, August 4, 2017, updated, February 5, 2021.

Julie Dermansky, “Activists Find Evidence of Formosa Plant in Texas Still Releasing Plastic Pollution Despite $50 Million Settlement,” DeSmog.com, January 18, 2020.

Beth Gardiner, “How a Dramatic Win in Plastic Waste Case May Curb Ocean Pollution,” NationalGeographic.com, Febru-ary 22, 2022.

Final Consent Decree, Cause No. 6:17-CV-00047, re: San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper and S. Diane Wilson, vs. Formosa Plastics Corp., Texas and Formosa Plastics Corp., U.S.A., in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, Victoria Division, December 9, 2019.

“Archiving Formosa Plastics,” Disaster-STS-Network.org.

Leo Bertucci, “First Phase of $50 Million Formosa Pellet Cleanup to Start This Month,” Victoria Advocate.com, October 6, 2022.

Jace Tunnell, Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, “Hurdles with Nurdles: Gulf-Wide Citizen Science Project,” April 17, 2019.

NOAA Ocean Podcast: Episode 31, “The Nurdle Patrol: Citizen Scientists Fight Pollution, One Pellet at a Time,” National Ocean Service / NOAA.gov / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, January 2020.

Callie Rainosek, “Jace Tunnell: Father, Scientist, Conservationist, and Nurdle Enthusiast,” TexasSeaGrant.org.

Xiangtao Jiang, Kaijun Lu, Jace Tunnell, and Zhanfei Liu, University of Texas Marine Science Institute, “Mapping Distribution and Chemical Levels of Nurdles in the Coastal Bend,” Final Report, August 2021, Submitted to: Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, Corpus Christi, Texas.

Melanie Quan, “Analysis of Plastic Pellet Distribution Using Citizen Science Nurdle Patrol Data and Batch Identification to Differentiate Spills Within Samples” (under the direction of Colleen Johnson, Project Scientist, EarthCon Consultants, Inc.; Jace Tunnell, Reserve Director, University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Research Science Institute), July 27, 2020.

Sally Palmer, “Nurdle Patrol Expands its Citizen Scientist Effort to Fight Plastic Pollution on Beaches,” UTexas.edu, September 29, 2021.

Graysen Golter, “Scientist’s ‘Plastic Patrol’ Expands Reached to Mexico,” Port Aransas South Jetty /portasouthjetty.com, January 5, 2022.

Center for International Environmental Law, “Fueling Plastics: How Fracked Gas, Cheap Oil, and Unburnable Coal are Driving the Plastics Boom,” CIEL.org, September 2017.

Jamie Smith Hopkins, “As the World Grapples with Plastic, the U.S. Makes More of it — A Lot More,” PublicIntegrity.org, June 13, 2019.

Zoë Schlanger, Justin Cook, and Katie Peek, “A New Plastic Wave Is Coming to Our Shores; A Glut of Natural Gas Has Led to a U.S. Production Surge in Tiny Plastic Pellets, Called Nurdles, That Are Washing up on Coasts by the Millions,” Audubon Magazine, Summer 2020.

Sharon Kelly, “Why Plans to Turn America’s Rust Belt into a New Plastics Belt Are Bad News for the Climate” [part of series: “Fracking for Plastics”], DeSmog.com, October 28, 2018.

Bill Mongelluzzo, “Long-Awaited U.S. Resin Boom Seen Emerging,” JOC.com / Journal of Commerce, January 2, 2019.

CIEL, et. al, Plastic & Climate: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, CIEL.org, May 2019.

Bill Mongelluzzo, “US Resin Exports Rocketing as New Plants Come Online,” October 24, 2019.

C.J. Moore, G.L. Lattin, A.F. Zellers, “Measuring the Effectiveness of Voluntary Plastic Industry Efforts: Algalita Marine Research Foundation’s Analysis of Operation Clean Sweep,” 2005, Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Long Beach, CA.

Aria Bendix, “Tiny Pellets Called ‘Nurdles’ Are Leeching into the Ocean. A New Shell Plant Could Produce 80 Trillion of Them a Year,” BusinessInsider.com, August 21, 2019.

Eline Schaart, “Antwerp’s Big Nurdle Battle; The Tiny Plastic Pellets Have Put a Major Chemicals Company on a Collision Course with Local Campaigners,” Politico.eu, February 3, 2020.

Chris Dupin, “Program to Prevent Plastic Pellet Pollution Criticized as Ineffective; There Should Be Individual Corporate Responsibility for Spills of Plastic Pellets, Says the Environmental Group, As You Sow,” American Shipper / FreightWaves.com, January 1, 2020.

Chelsea Rochman, University of Toronto, “Plastic Pellets Spell Big Problems for Our Ocean; Zero Pellet Loss Should Be the Rule, Not the Exception,” OceanConservancy.org, October 2, 2020.

Laura Sullivan, “Big Oil Evaded Regulation And Plastic Pellets Kept Spilling,” NPR News / IdeaStream.org, December 22, 2020.

Teaser Tag: Corporate History

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 2001-Today

“Doing Great Things?”
Dow Chemical, 1960s-2020s

August 22, 2022 J.D.

In the mid-1980s, Dow Chemical, then one of the world’s largest chemical companies, was in the midst of a public advertising campaign designed to enhance its corporate image. Dow had been through a rough patch of bad press and corporate troubles stretching from the mid-1960s through the early-1980s — including the likes of napalm, Agent Orange, and dioxin pollution — which had tarnished its reputation. So after a time of corporate introspection and “let’s-make-a-change” agreement, a $50 million-plus public relations and advertising campaign was fashioned to fix the bad optics. More on the history of Dow’s troubles, past and present, in a moment. But first, a few sample TV ads from Dow’s mid-1980s corporate makeover campaign.

In this ad, the young woman in cap and gown, shown waiting to receive her diploma, recalls how “Mom made me clean my plate ’cause there were places where kids were starving.” But now, as a college graduate, she was “about to walk into a Dow laboratory to work on new ways to help grow more and better grain for those kids who so desperately need it.” She leaves the stage with big smile and the look of determination, having already remarked, “can’t wait” to get into her work, as the chorus chimes in, “Dow Lets You Do Great Things.”

A similar college-grad TV ad with a somewhat different message, shows the young woman in cap in gown, this one saying: “I’m about to join a company that’s committed itself to helping people and preserving wildlife… and to finding new ways to protect the earth” Cue the music: “Yes, you can make a difference…” Cut to graduate with her diploma in hand, again saying, “I can’t wait.” as the chorus rises with the theme, …“`cause Dow, Lets You Do Great Things.”

Portion of a story board showing sequence of one of Dow’s “college grad” TV ads, this one focused on the grad choosing “wildlife and the environment” as her career choice at Dow.

Other ads in the series also depicted young people making career choices with Dow, ads which also trumpeted the presumably good ends to which Dow research and Dow businesses were engaged. A TV ad of this variety, shows a young couple on a campus-like setting walking together and talking about the guy’s career options after a Dow job interview. As they walk away in a brief rain shower, he tells his partner, who asks what job he’s decided to take, that he intends “to go with that subsidiary of Dow,” adding: “I could actually be helping high-risk heart patients.” Cue the music: “Dow Lets You Do Great Things,” as the rain stops and the sun comes out.

One of Dow Chemical's mid-1980s ads appearing in print.

Print ads in the same “Dow-Lets-You-Do-Great-Things” genre, similar to the one at right, also appeared in newspaper and magazines such as, USA Today, Time, Newsweek, Business Week, and U.S. News & World Report.

In this Dow ad, a college student at his desk in a dormitory room, writing home to his father explains: “Dear Dad… Just got back from my Dow interview. It sounds like my kind of research. Finding new ways to grow more food. Ways to cure sick people. I’m going to go for it, Dad. And I’m going to try to make you proud. Love David.”

In any case, by the mid-1980s, and after some years of bad press, Dow needed an image makeover. It was also becoming somewhat more of a consumer products company, putting itself more directly in the public eye. So it embarked on this multi-million dollar public relations campaign, using the upbeat theme “Dow Lets You Do Great Things,” to help turn things around.

Yet the imagery of happy college students lining up to take Dow jobs to help further the company’s business interests around the world wasn’t exactly how Dow was perceived during its more turbulent times.

Robert Neer’s 2013 book, “Napalm: An American Biography,” Belknap Press (Harvard University imprint), 352pp. Click for copy.

1960s

Dow & Napalm

In 1965, Dow Chemical Co. was awarded a contract from the federal government to produce napalm for the U.S. military in the Vietnam War. Napalm is a jellied, lava-like incendiary bomb capable of especially horrific effects on people and the environment. During combustion, napalm sucks oxygen out of the air, generates large amounts of carbon monoxide, and can also cause firestorms. In the bombing area the air can become 20 percent or more carbon monoxide, as napalm partially combusts the oxygen, turning CO-2 (carbon dioxide) into CO (carbon monoxide). Burning at very high temperatures, it also adheres or sticks to its targets, burning through human skin to the bone, leaving disfigurement for those who survive being hit by napalm.

Napalm had previously been used in WWII and in Korea. But in the lush, vegetative regions of Vietnam, napalm was seen as an important military asset. General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained that it helped penetrate dug-in Viet Cong and North Vietnamese positions, as the burning incendiary flowed into foxholes, tunnels, bunkers, drainage and irrigation ditches, and other improvised troop shelters. By comparison, Wheeler explained, conventional bombs were not as effective: “Napalm, by nature of its splashing and spreading, can get into such defensive positions. It’s also especially effective against antiaircraft positions, because normally the enemy digs a hole – …and puts his machine gun in that hole…. The napalm splashes in and incapacitates the crew and sometimes destroys the weapon.”

1960s photo of a napalm bombing in South Vietnam, showing its “splash-and-spread” effects.

The napalm bomb canisters, unlike conventional bombs, tumbled in delivery, helping facilitate the spread of their incendiary product across the landscape.

For Dow Chemical, from a production standpoint, napalm was relatively easy to make – mixing gasoline, benzene, and polystyrene. With a small group of workers, Dow set up a modest production operation at its Torrance, California plastics plant combining the three chemical ingredients, and proceeded to fulfill its napalm contracts over the next four years. Napalm was not a big business for Dow, and according to one estimate, the company never made more than $5 million worth (or about $45 million in 2022) in any one year. Yet it became an infamous product for Dow. As reports of its use in the war reached the American public, however, the company was thrust into the public limelight as never before.

Napalm became a focus of 1960s anti-war activists, and Dow was cast as a government handmaiden in the war and a target of protest. One of the first protests aimed at Dow, occurred in late May 1966 at the company’s New York city headquarters at Rockefeller Center. A Sunday, May 29, 1966 headline in the New York Times, noted: “Dow Chemical Office Picketed For Its Manufacture of Napalm.” Peace groups, including some 75 protestors from Citizens’ Campaign Against Napalm and Women Strike for Peace, handed out leaflets on the street. In their street taunts and protest literature, the demonstrators charged, “Napalm Burns Babies!” and other such slogans. They called on consumers to boycott Dow products such as Saran Wrap. Also in late May 1966 on the West Coast, a small group of protesters picketed Dow’s production plant in Torrance, California, calling on Dow to stop production.

May 1966. New York Times reporting on one of the early Dow protests over its napalm production.

Napalm’s impacts in Vietnam by then were beginning to appear in some corners of the media. In August 1966, Ramparts magazine ran one of the first national articles denouncing the U.S. use of napalm, and a January 1967 photo-essay, also in Ramparts, included some 20 photographs of Vietnamese children burned and injured by U.S. attacks.

Also in January 1967, Dr. Richard E. Perry, an American physician, wrote about napalm on his return from Vietnam in Redbook magazine, read largely by women: “I have been an orthopedic surgeon for a good number of years, with rather a wide range of medical experience. But nothing could have prepared me for my encounters with Vietnamese women and children burned by napalm. It was shocking and sickening, even for a physician, to see and smell the blackened flesh.” By then, the American public began to see images of the civilian casualties caused by napalm bombs on TV news reports.

1960s

College Protests

February 1967. Protester at Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL) objecting to Dow recruitment on campus. NIU.edu

But a major battleground for Dow over napalm became American college campuses. Between 1966 and 1970, Dow was the focal point of more than 200 major anti-war demonstrations at American colleges and universities, with protests often aimed at Dow recruiters who visited campuses to sign up new employees, a traditional practice many companies then used.

Some of the first anti-Dow college demonstrations occurred in October 1966 at the Berkeley campus of the University of California and also at Wayne State University in Michigan.

In February 1967, when recruiters from Dow Chemical arrived at the Northern Illinois University Placement Office in DeKalb, Illinois, they were greeted by student demonstrators such as the one shown at right bearing protest signs with messages like “Dow Sells Death for Dollars.”

There were also pro-war demonstrations at Northern Illinois and other universities during those years, as well as some demonstrations favoring Dow recruitment on campus. But throughout the 1960s, the anti-war demonstrations would grow in numbers and frequency.

One major anti-Dow student protest that turned violent occurred at the University of Wisconsin’s main campus at Madison on October 18, 1967. Student protesters there tried to block Dow recruiters on campus, first as a peaceful sit-in, with hundreds of students filling a campus hall where Dow recruiters were scheduled to conduct interviews. But when the demonstrators failed to disperse, local police were called in and rioting erupted. As the officers forced protesters into an outdoor plaza tear gas was used.

Wisconsin State Journal of Oct 19,1967chronicles campus protest at the University of Wisconsin with headlines & first photo caption noting: “Anti-Dow protesters fall back in the face of charging policemen wielding nightsticks outside UW Commerce Building.”

The Wisconsin State Journal of October 19,1967, shown above, chronicled the protest with a front-page headline, “76 Hurt in UW Rioting; Campus Strike Results.” A photo below the headline showing the confrontation between police and students, noted: “Anti-Dow protesters fall back in the face of charging policemen wielding nightsticks outside UW Commerce Building.” In the end, 47 students and 19 police officers were sent to the hospital. That evening at a mass meeting, students agreed to boycott classes.

David Maraniss’ 2003 book, “They Marched into Sunlight.” Click for copy.

One of the UW students at the protest was then freshman, David Maraniss, who would later become a Washington Post reporter and author of the 2003 book, They Marched Into Sunlight: War And Peace. America and Vietnam, October 1967 (also a source for a PBS documentary). His book juxtaposed the history of one military action then occurring in Vietnam with student protests occurring at the same time back home in Madison.

Television news images of the violent confrontation at the University of Wisconsin were broadcast coast to coast, and by one account they triggered nearly 2,000 newspaper articles and editorials about Dow and napalm. The Wisconsin eruption also inspired the spread of Dow protests to other campuses.

Some activist faculty, such as Boston University historian, Howard Zinn, were also speaking out about the war. Zinn wrote a November 1967 article in The Spectator magazine titled, “Dow Shall Not Kill,” applauding efforts of student protestors to halt Dow recruitment on campuses, actions he lauded as justified civil disobedience against an unjust war.

One week after the Wisconsin protest, on October 25, 1967, a Dow recruiter at Harvard University was blocked, confronted, and questioned by protesting students before leaving the campus some hours later, while a parallel demonstration a few blocks away at Harvard Square sponsored by SDS and other groups, handed out leaflets with photos of napalmed-burned children urging readers “Don’t Buy Dow Products.”

AP photo from Indianapolis Star story of Oct. 31, 1967, showing student protesters attempting to “sit-in” at a Dow Chemical recruitment session at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

“Dow Protest Becomes Riot; Police Use Gas, Clubs on Crowd,” Spartan Daily (San Jose State College, CA), Nov. 21, 1967, p. 1.

Nov. 30, 1967. New York University newspaper reporting that Dow would call off it recruitment after student pickets.

Other campus protests over Dow and napalm in late 1967 occurred at colleges and universities all across the country – some requiring police actions, arrests, and/or later court cases.

On October 31, 1967, some 35 student protesters attempting a sit-in at a Dow recruitment session at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana were arrested.

On the West Coast, at San Jose State College, San Jose, California, a November 20th, 1967 Dow protest rally got out of hand as police used tear gas and clubs on demonstrators there, as reported by the college newspaper, The Spartan Daily.

On November 30, 1967, Dow called off its recruiting at New York University in New York city after some 250 students picketed two sites, as reported by NYU’s newspaper, Washington Square Journal.

At the University of Iowa in early December 1967 student protests were front-page news in the local and university newspapers: “Anti-Dow Rally Erupts at UI,” Iowa City Press-Citizen, Decem-ber 5, 1967. p. 1, and, “Protestors Lead Cops on Wild Race to the Tune of ‘Dow Must Go Now’,” The Daily Iowan, December 6, 1967, p. 1.

Among some of the anti-Dow and napalm protest placards appearing at the University of Iowa demonstrations were the following: “Napalm is Immoral,” “No to Napalm,” “Napalm is a Crime Against Humanity,” “Stop Dow Now,” and others – plus one guy cloaked in Grim Reaper garb with the message, “I Am Dow’s Only Recruit.”

Also on December 6th, 1967 at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, 150 students sat-in at the Administration Building to protest Dow recruiting on campus, while another 500 picketed outside. The university later agreed to the student demands, barring Dow recruiters from campus.

Additional student protests in 1967 over Dow’s production of napalm and/or its recruiters on campus occurred at the University of Maine, Marquette Univer-sity, UCLA, Northeastern University, the University of Chicago, Boston University, the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, and others. By the fall of 1967, the Dow protests were occurring so frequently — 133 campus demonstrations aimed at Dow recruiters in 1967 — that the company began publishing a newsletter titled “Napalm News” for key managers and campus recruiters to keep them informed of where protests might be expected. But 1967 was only the beginning.

Protest sign at December 6th, 1967 demonstration at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.

Through 1968 the campus protests over Dow continued. In Ohio, Oberlin College students petitioned the Board of Trustees to liquidate the college’s investments in Dow due to war profiteering. Student demonstrators at Holy Cross condemned Dow for the “immoral production of napalm.”

Anti-Dow demonstrations over napalm were also held in 1968 at University of Wisconsin campuses in River Falls and La Crosse, Wisconsin.

On February 22nd, 1968, students, faculty and a Dow representative participated in an open forum at the University of Michigan on the moral responsibilities of napalm production.

On March 6th, 1968 more than 500 New York University students demonstrated against the reappearance of Dow recruiters on campus.

At Syracuse University in New York on March 12th, 1968, more than 100 students barricaded the administration building with benches, rope and wire to protest Dow recruitment on campus.

In the Spring of 1968, students at Stanford University organized a sit-in with demands that the college change recruitment policy to disallow Dow recruiters, later adopted when Stanford’s faculty voted not to support the administration.

On May 8th, 1968, over 400 protestors, including hundreds of students, protested Dow’s manufacture of napalm at the company’s annual shareholder’s meeting in Midland, Michigan.

In November 1968, students at Notre Dame organized a large-scale demonstration during several days of Dow recruitment interviews.

Photograph of a 1969 anti-Dow Chemical Company protest at the University of Michigan.

The following year, in February 1969, students at Rutgers University held a sit-in at the Newark, NJ campus in protest against university complicity with Dow and the war effort. At Duke University that same month, a Dow recruiter had been on campus but refused to answer questions about its production of napalm, resulting in a protest there. Also in 1969, students at the University of Washington occupied the Loew Hall Placement Center to block recruitment interviews by Dow, and at the University of Manitoba in Canada, students placed chains and locks across the doors for their “sit in” blocking Dow recruiters. Students and some faculty at the University of Saskatchewan also picketed Dow at the school’s placement office that year.

At Duke University in February 1969, a Dow recruiter had been on campus but refused to answer questions about its production of napalm, resulting in a protest there. Duke University Archives photo.

However, not all the Dow protests came from college students. In one notable Washington, D.C. protest, a number of clergy were involved. In late March 1969, a group of nine religious- affiliated protesters – later dubbed “the D.C. nine” – broke into the Washington offices of Dow Chemical, poured blood on furniture and records, and threw files out of a fourth floor window. Eight of the protesters were Catholics – three priests, two Jesuit candidates not yet ordained, a former priest, a nun, and a former nun.

Photograph of “the D.C. nine” religious-affiliated protesters who raided Dow’s D.C. office in March 1969, reported by Patrick McGrath, “Dow Office Attacked, Files Scattered,” National Catholic Reporter, April 2, 1969.

Dow’s shareholder meeting of May 7th, 1969 in Midland, Michigan was also the scene of 250 protestors, including students and religious leaders objecting to the company’s continued production of napalm. On November 18, 1969, police in riot gear broke up a peaceful protest against Dow recruiters at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. A group of protesting students there – named the “Notre Dame Ten” – were suspended and expelled, with at least one faculty member resigning in protest.

By mid-November 1969, however, it was reported that Dow had stopped producing napalm for the government, as it was underbid by another company – although Dow officials at the time indicated they would bid again in the next contract round. But Dow never did produce napalm again for the U.S, military.

Perhaps the most significant legacy of Dow’s napalm association was that it pushed the company into the national limelight. At the outset of the 1960s, Dow was well known in its home state, Michigan, but it was fairly obscure elsewhere. Napalm and Vietnam changed that, making Dow “a household word” – and not in a good way – though some at Dow laid claim to the marketing maxim of “any notice is good notice.” While Dow stopped making napalm in 1969, it continued to be associated with napalm through the late 1980s. Nor did its exit from napalm production end Dow’s association with the Vietnam War. For Dow was also supplying another product to the U.S. military during the Vietnam War – a products known as Agent Orange.

Agent Orange

1962. Herbicidal defoliants being sprayed by U.S. military in Vietnam via “Operation Ranch Hand.” AP photo.

From late 1961 to 1970, the U.S. military in Vietnam undertook a massive chemical spraying campaign to defoliate Vietnam’s forests to expose enemy positions, supply lines, and equipment. The chemical most extensively used was called “Agent Orange,” owing to the orange band on the drums the powerful defoliant was shipped in. The main ingredients in Agent Orange were two long-standing but suspect agricultural herbicides – 2,4,5-T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid) and 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid).

Dow Chemical became the largest of nine government contractors supplying the Agent Orange herbicide for the war. Dow eventually supplied an estimated one-third of the nearly 13 million gallons of Agent Orange the government used in Vietnam. By the mid-1960s, the Agent Orange concoction of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (both of which were then used separately in U.S. agriculture, utility corridors, and other applications) was being dumped by the planeload over thousands of acres in Vietnam. Yet, even as the U.S. military was beginning its Vietnam spraying in the early 1960s, back home, Rachel Carson was raising a lone voice of warning about pesticide toxicity with her 1962 book Silent Spring. Noting that 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T had become widely used agricultural herbicides, she reported that some early lab results indicated that negative health-effects were then beginning to appear. But also, as later learned, a trace lethal by-product, dioxin, was formed in the making of Agent Orange (which also occurs in the making of other chlorinated compounds), and it would be this contaminant that would become the major health-effects bad actor.

Peter Sills’ 2014 book, “Toxic War: The Story of Agent Orange,” Vanderbilt University Press, 296 pp. Click for copy.

Agent Orange, in any case, was not the lightening rod that napalm was in inspiring campus demonstrations against Dow (although some college protest materials as early as 1966 had listed Dow’s herbicidal products taking a toll on Vietnam). Instead, Agent Orange had more of a “slow burn” on Dow’s reputation, as its revealed effects did not begin to receive prime-time attention until Vietnam vets began returning home, developing delayed maladies and health effects some years later, into the 1970s and 1980s.

Agent Orange, in fact, and the chemicals that comprised that mixture, along with dioxin, would generate decades of health effects controversy, numerous studies, warring scientists, Congressional hearings, lawsuits, some settlements, and continued fighting, not only in the U.S. and Vietnam, but also in New Zealand where the herbicides were produced by a Dow joint venture. One consolidated class action lawsuit brought on behalf of thousands of U.S. veterans against Dow and the six other manufacturers of Agent Orange was settled out-of-court in 1984 for $180 million dollars – over the objections of many Vietnam vets who felt betrayed, as the settlement fund expired in 1994. In 2004, Vietnamese citizens filed a multi-billion dollar class action suit against the chemical companies alleging that Agent Orange constituted chemical warfare under international law. That case was thrown out, with the court finding the chemicals had been intended for foliage, not humans, and so it wasn’t chemical warfare. Appeals all the way to the Supreme Court did not reverse the ruling (the Agent Orange story is a long and convoluted one, with numerous books on the subject, such as the one above and others noted in Sources below).

The lingering legacies of napalm and Agent Orange, plus the ongoing controversies, court challenges and EPA actions over the safety and continued use of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T as agricultural herbicides, kept Dow Chemical in the news through the 1970s and 1980s. But Dow had other problems as well, some of which were first more local and regional, though in some cases, escalating to the national level as well – all of which figured into its corporate image problem. More on these in a moment.

Fonda At CMU

“Jane Fonda Rowe”
College Speech: 1977

On October 10,1977, as the Dow Chemical Company was still in the midst of its toxic chemical troubles and corporate reputation problems, controversial activist and Hollywood actress, Jane Fonda, gave a speech at Central Michigan University (CMU) in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, about 30 miles from Dow headquarters at Midland.

‘Central Michigan Life’ student newspaper reporting on Jane Fonda’s October 1977 speech at Central Michigan University.

Fonda was an invited speaker at the university, part of “October as Women’s Month,” and sponsored by the university’s Association for Women Students and the Women’s Health and Information Project.

At the time, Fonda – then a widely known and controversial anti-war activist – was on a speaking tour helping to promote and raise funds for an organization she and her then husband, fellow activist and California politician, Tom Hayden, had created, the Campaign for Economic Democracy.

Speaking before a capacity crowd at CMU’s Warriner Auditorium, Fonda offered that “the American people have many rights except the right of economic democracy.” The economy, she explained, was being monopolized by a very few giant corporations. “We have a new body of rulers,” she said, “whose names you don’t know and whose faces you don’t recognize, but who control your life.” These corporate powers, she explained, were a threat to free enterprise. Among other things, they have learned to manipulate the tax laws, not paying their fair share, and leaving the middle class to pay the burden. And one of the threatening economic giants monopolizing the American economy, she said, was the Dow Chemical Company. Well, that charge did not go down well in Midland, Michigan.

Two days later, Paul Oreffice, then president of Dow Chemical, immediately fired off an angry letter to Dr. Harold Abel, president of CMU after reading a newspaper story about Fonda’s visit and speech. Oreffice was a no-nonsense corporate manager known for his feisty stands defending his company, and on this occasion, he went right after Fonda and his company’s financial support of CMU:

Paul Oreffice, Dow President.

…Yesterday’s paper carried a front page story reporting that Jane Fonda was paid a fee of $3,500 to spread her venom against free enterprise to the student body at your University. Of course, it is your prerogative to have an avowed communist sympathizer like Jane Fonda, or anyone else to speak at your University, and you can pay them whatever you please. I have absolutely no argument with that. While inviting Ms. Fonda to your campus is your prerogative, I consider it our prerogative and obligation to make certain our funds are .never used to support people intent upon destruction of freedom. Therefore, effective immediately, support of any kind from the Dow Chemical Co. to Central Michigan University has been stopped, and will not be resumed until we are convinced our dollars are not expended in supporting those who would destroy us.

In addition, resumption of any Dow aid to Central Michigan is contingent on balancing the scales of what your students hear. I am open to an invitation to give a speech to a group of students similar to the one Ms. Fonda addressed for the same fee. This fee will be donated to a non-profit organization which supports the free enterprise system.
++++++++++ –Yours very truly, Paul F. Oreffice President, Dow Chemical U.S.A.

In subsequent reporting in CMU’s newspaper, Fonda, referring to the Dow letter, expressed her own outrage: “They accused me of being a communist sympathizer. This is a resurrection of McCarthy type red-baiting—if you don’t agree with what someone says you call them a Communist.”… “I am not against business, I am a businesswoman. I am not against profit, I make a profit. I am against corporate irresponsibility and greed..” Fonda was paid $3,500 for her speech, which she donated to Campaign for Economic Democracy.

1979. Fonda w/Oscar. Click for her story.

The Fonda-Oreffice flap, meanwhile, went on for the next few months, with news stories and editorials appearing all across the country. Among those who noticed was Washington Post columnist, George Will, who wrote a November 3rd, 1977 column titled, “The Incandescent Fonda”:

…although Fonda fancies herself bold beyond belief, in this instance, as in most, her behavior was conventional…. But Dow’s behavior was unconventional. It is, alas, unusual for the business community to balk at subsidizing those who detest it… Capitalism inevitably nourishes a hostile class, but there is an optional dimension of the process. American business has been generous with gifts to universities, but too indiscriminate. Dow has given the business community a timely sample of appropriate discrimination.

For a time, there was some reporting in the CMU student paper about the possibility of an Oreffice-Fonda debate at CMU — which Fonda welcomed and at no fee — but that never came to pass. Oreffice and CMU did later smooth things out, and Dow’s support continued.

For more on Jane Fonda’s career at this website – her movies, politics, fitness business & videos – see “Fonda Fitness Boom: 1980s & Beyond.” A book by Paul Oreffice, Only In America, is available at Amazon.com.

EPA, Dioxin, etc.

In addition to the “Fonda flap”, there was also a run-in with EPA when the agency decided in February 1978 to approve some fly-over surveillance of Dow Chemical plants in Midland to check the company’s compliance with the Clean Air Act. But within days of the EPA overflights, Dow sued the EPA charging that the EPA flights violated the company’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights – the former prohibiting unreasonable searches, and the latter, prohibiting the taking of property without due process. Dow also charged that its trade secrets could be compromised, as anyone making a Freedom of Information Act request could use the photographs to obtain technical information. In 1982, a U.S. District Court Judge found that EPA had violated Dow’s fourth amendment rights and had exceeded its statutory authority, and prohibited EPA from further aerial surveillance. But EPA appealed the case, and it was reversed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in EPA’s favor by a 2-1 vote. Dow then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but EPA’s position was again upheld by a 5-4 vote in 1986.

Map of Michigan & Great Lakes area, showing Dow hometown of Midland and Tittabawassee & Saginaw Rivers, found to have been fouled by Dow wastes and dioxin pollution.

Other problems and controversies also continued for Dow through the late-1970s and into the early- and mid-1980s – issues that kept Dow in the news, continuing to foul its image. Among these were a dioxin controversy in Michigan, the company’s role in altering an EPA Great Lakes report on dioxin, and the surfacing of older materials indicating that Dow and the government knew more about dioxin than they were telling the public.

In Midland, Michigan, Dow’s hometown, where the company also had production facilities, there had been long running controversies dating to the 1950s, over the company’s brine well wastes, and later other Dow chemical plant pollution of the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers. By 1976-78, dioxin – then being found in Dow wastewater discharges from its plants – had also been found in river sediment and fish.

Then it was revealed in March 1983 that Dow had been given an EPA draft study written by EPA’s Chicago office considering dioxin concerns in the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers and the possibility of broader fish consumption bans in the Great Lakes region. The study had been given to Dow by EPA’s assistant administrator in Washington with the Chicago staff instructed to take comments from Dow. According to one EPA participant in a telephone conference call on the report, Dow made clear “what lines and what sections are acceptable to the company and what should be preferably deleted.” In the final report, all mention of Dow as a source of dioxin — and in fact, all reference to Dow — was deleted. The recommendation to prohibit public consumption of fish was also removed, as were the assessments of the human health hazard posed by dioxin in the Great Lakes. The special editing opportunity given Dow in the Great Lakes dioxin study soon became the subject of Congressional hearings in mid-1983, during which the whole episode made front-page news, resulting in the dismissal of the EPA assistant administrator while drawing more attention to Dow and dioxin.

On top of this, also by June 1983, what came to be known as the “Agent Orange papers” were released, revealing that Dow had known about dioxin’s toxicity since 1965. The company had also been engaged in a long running regulatory and legal battle with EPA over the agricultural herbicide 2,4,5-T.

A sampling of newspaper headlines Dow faced on dioxin & other issues in the early 1980s.

The company’s continuing environmental struggles and bad press meant that its corporate name wasn’t winning any popularity contests. So, after a period of some considerable internal Dow soul-searching, a new commitment emerged to put the company on better footing. In the mid-1980s, a Dow task force surveyed employees, managers, directors, government officials, and outsiders about how Dow was then perceived by the outside world. The results were not good: “The current reputation of Dow with its many publics may be at an all-time low,” explained the internal report. “We are viewed as tough, arrogant, secretive, uncooperative and insensitive.”

“We are viewed as tough, arrogant, secretive, uncooperative and insensitive.”
–Dow Survey Report “It was a very difficult time,” later recalled Richard K. Long, Dow’s manager of external communications. “We got accused of things that we felt were inaccurate.” Even some of Dow’s employees at the time viewed the company as arrogant and secretive.” Management began to look at ways in which the company could change perceptions of several key audiences, Long explained.

Keith R. McKennon, president of Dow Chemical USA, would later tell the New York Times: “We had been a proud group who felt that people who knew nothing were telling us what to do. It took us a long time to realize that regulators, legislators, even environmentalists had a right to ask questions.”

”…It took us a long time to realize that regulators, legislators, even environmentalists had a right to ask questions.”
– Keith McKennon So, among other things, in 1985, the company jettisoned its once proud slogan of, “Common Sense – Uncommon Chemistry,” and began a series of upbeat television advertisements built around the theme, “Dow Lets You Do Great Things.” It was Dow’s attempt to both boost internal company morale and woo back the public.

Dow’s intent was to use positive and buoyant themes – which according to Richard F. Dalton, a Dow communications manager – were intended to connect the company to the optimistic attitudes of the 1980s. “Those are the kind of positive feelings we are trying to generate toward Dow,” he explained to Chemical Week in October 1985. “We want the public to see that we’re not a bunch of ogres.”

First TV Ads

Print version of early Dow TV ad of college grad coming to Dow “to help make more and better grain”.

The campaign first ran its TV ads in five Dow plant cities in the spring of 1985. After six weeks of measurements of before-and-after public attitudes in those locations, favorable impressions of Dow had more than doubled. By late September 1985, at the campaign’s national rollout, almost 90 million people would be viewing the ads.

In 1985, Dow spent about $7 million for producing the ads and for air time, but planned a much bigger commitment of $40 million over the next four years for the total campaign, which would also include other outreach and “good cause” undertakings involving social issues or humanitarian causes not connected to the company’s business.

The early press reviews of the Dow make-over were somewhat skeptical, and in a few cases, dismissive and critical. Chicago Tribune columnist, Clarence Page, wrote in December 8, 1985: “If they ever give out prizes for cornball promotions of controversial companies, I have a nomination that should win hands down…” Page wasn’t convinced the ads would do much to woo young people of those times, nor older audiences who still had differences with Dow over Vietnam.

A Fortune magazine story of May 12, 1986 by Faye Rice was headlined, “Dow Chemical: From Napalm to Nice Guy.” In her story she wrote: “The second-largest U.S. chemical company after Du Pont is spending big money and much effort to change its image from combative and arrogant to warm and cuddly.”

Dow, on the other had, was quite pleased with the campaign and what it was finding. Dow’s testing of viewer responses in 1985 showed the ads be effective in “making Dow a highly regarded company among its key publics,” explained Dow’s communications specialist, Richard Dalton.

Back in Midland, however, some long time environmental activists such as Diane Hebert, remained skeptical. “I’m not convinced that there really is a new Dow,” she said.

Politics, Too

But Dow had other audiences in mind, too. “We found that if we were perceived as not running our business in the public interest,” explained Dow chairman Robert W. Lundeen to New York Times reporter Phil Shabecoff in January 1985, “the public will get back at us with restrictive regulations and laws. That is not good for business.” Dow was then selling about $1 billion worth of products directly to consumers. “Our reputation has a real dollar sign on it,” added Lundeen.

Two years later, Dow’s Richard Long, then the company’s public affairs manager in Washington, put more of a political fine point on the same observation. “We had made a lot of enemies who could influence our future. We recognized we had to clean up our act.”

By November 1987, Wall Street Journal reporter, John Bussey, summed up Dow’s PR push and its broader dimensions as follows: “[T]he company is seeking nothing less than public redemption through an extraordinary image-makeover campaign. The ingredients: a schmaltzy $60 million advertising effort; a performance review system that takes into account a manager’s public relations skills; the sharing of more information with regulators; support for legislation that is pleasing even to environmentalists; and, not surprisingly, extra effort to cozy up to the media.” The New York Times also did a focus piece on Dow in November 1987.

November 1987. Portion of a full-page treatment on Dow Chemical in the New York Times showing a photo of a Dow campus protest in 1967, but focusing on the company's new “softer” corporate image, its businesses, and executive changes.

As for the impact of Dow’s TV ads, famous Madison Avenue adman, Bill Backer — who wrote memorable and effective Coca Cola jingles and slogans, such as, “Things Go Better With Coca-Cola”, “It’s The Real Thing,” and “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” – told the New York Times in 1989 he thought Dow’s “great things” ad was in the spirit of those upbeat Coke ads that he had done. “After all,” he told the Times, referring to the Dow jingle, “the music almost makes you forget that these are the people who made Agent Orange.” Almost. Vietnam veterans, for one, have not forgotten, as any research online will show.

In any case, the Dow “Great Things” campaign was working at its launch in the mid-1980s, and the company kept it and related PR materials running through the late 1980s and beyond – although with new tweaks and varying subject lines, as shown in the examples below.

This 1987 ad sings the praises of a Dow science museum for kids in Lansing, Michigan.

This 1988 ad profiles a Dow scientist who helped produce a synthetic fabric for safer surgery.

Dow saw changing times even as its new PR campaign was singing its praises. New issues were emerging. Chemical plant safety came under new scrutiny following Union Carbide’s horrendous toxic gas leak catastrophe at Bhopal, India in 1984. And by 1987, EPA had rolled out the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), requiring more public pollution reporting by businesses across the U.S. Renewed environmental fervor continued through the 1990s following the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, Earth Day 1990, and updates of environmental laws in Congress. And in more recent years, climate change, plastic pollution, and green energy initiatives have become central concerns.

Changing Image

Dow, of course, has changed with the times, and among other things, became more sophisticated with its advertising and public relations strategies. Take, for example, one of its more recent advertising campaigns, “The Human Element,” fashioned in 2006.

This ad – with Ken Burns-like music, style, and narration cadence – makes its play off the Periodic Table of Elements, running through some of the basic elemental combinations of life, but adding that it is the “human element” that is the most important element; the ingredient that makes all the chemical wizardry possible in the first place. The ads in this series are clearly offering a “softer sell,” more of a celebration of human potential – and of course, implied but not said, Dow’s people applying the human element to make all good things possible. Only Dow’s red diamond logo appears at the end. Still, there’s a little bit of the “all-powerful Dow” suggested in some of this ad’s later renditions — bestowing its gifts and talents on a needy world.

This particular campaign – which had something north of $40 million to spend – also ran print ads in daily newspapers and magazines, including Business Week, The Economist, Newsweek, Scientific American and Time – with some of the magazine spreads beginning at the inside cover and running for six consecutive pages. By 2014 the campaign was tweaked a bit as the “Human Element at Work,” highlighting how Dow’s people and products were improving the human condition. Yes, the world needs Dow.

But beyond the more genteel messaging of Dow’s later ad campaigns, it is important to remember that this company is a very powerful entity capable of wide-ranging impacts – good and not so good – on business, society and the environment.

Dow Chemical Today

Dow Chemical today – in the early 2020s – is a gigantic enterprise, among the top three chemical companies globally, having a presence in 160 countries with some 54,000 employees. Among its manufactures are plastics, chemicals, and agricultural products. As of 2021, annual revenue at the company was running at about $55 billion annually with $6 billion in profit.

In recent years Dow has grown by leaps and bounds, acquiring several other large chemical companies, among them: Union Carbide (1999), Rhom & Hass (2008), and DuPont (2017) – although in the last case, a “de-merger” of Dow and DuPont occurred in 2019 when Dow once again became its own entity. There have also been other combinations, joint ventures and investments that have placed Dow at or near the top of key markets. In January 2017, Dow reached a deal to acquire Corning’s part of the former Dow-Corning joint venture, and is now Dow Silicones Corporation, the largest silicone product producer in the world. Another deal in chlorine with Olin Corp. in 2015 made that venture the global leader in chlorine production (Dow is 50.5% owner). Dow then became one of Olin’s largest U.S. chlorine customers, while retaining its chlorine assets in Europe and Brazil. Dow also agreed to supply Olin with ethylene for 20 years.

Dow has certainly changed with the times since the 1960s. And true to its mid-1980s TV slogan, Dow, admittedly, has done some great things, not least its continuing contributions to the national economy through its research and innovation. The company has also, on occasion, demonstrated exemplary corporate generosity, social beneficence, and environmental leadership, receiving national and international recognition and awards for its corporate and employee contributions. But make no mistake, Dow Chemical is fully capable of playing political hardball, as its lobbying expenditures of recent years, shown below, illustrate.

Annual lobbying expenditures of the Dow Chemical Company, 1999-2016, as reported in this chart by the New York Times.

And for some, it is the company’s historic performance – it’s corporate résumé, as it might be called – that is still a factor, as well as the kind of chemistry Dow continues to pursue and embed throughout the world. Over its 100 year-plus history, Dow’s primary businesses, its partnerships, and its joint ventures, have had their share of health, safety, and environmental issues.

In its primary chemical businesses, Dow has worked in a particularly active region of the Periodic Table of Elements where carbon-based substances containing chlorine, fluorine, bromine, and iodine have been concocted by the thousands. Organochlorine compounds alone, for example, those combining hydrogen, carbon, and chlorine, number in the thousands, and Dow, for most of its 100-plus years, has been a major organochlorine producer and key purveyor of chlorine throughout the global economy. Chlorine, perhaps, might have been explored a bit more in the company’s “Human Element” ad campaign.

Chlorine, in fact, is used in about 60 percent of modern chemical products. About one third of all U.S. chlorine is used to make plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), found in shoe soles, shower curtains, automobile components and vinyl siding. Chlorine also plays a major role in synthesizing thousands of commercial chemicals such as carbon tetrachloride found in no-stick frying pans, and chlorosilanes used in making semiconductor components or chlorinated solvents.

For most of its history, Dow Chemical has operated within the realm of chlorine, in one way or another.

Yet, the very qualities that have made chlorine an industrial wunderkind in plastics, pesticides, solvents, and more, also make it problematic in the environment, in the workplace, and for public health. Chlorinated chemicals are often persistent in the environment, bioaccummulative, and can be magnified in food chains. Early on, some Dow chemicals made with chlorophenol and sold as Dowicide wood preservatives in the mid 1930s exhibited exposure issues when Mississippi lumberman and Dow production workers in Midland began to have rashes, urinary, and/or other problems (also an early indication, though not always realized, of the embedded dioxin problem).

Joe Thornton’s 2000 book on the role of chlorine in modern chemistry. Click for copy.

Dow also had early knowledge of potential health effects from a number of its chemicals—pesticides such as 2,4,5-T, DBCP, and chlorpyrifos (Dursban); plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and its precursor/feedstock chemicals, ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride monomer; plastic ingredient chemical, bisphenol-A; silicone and silicone ingredients; benzene and epichlorohydrin in the workplace; and others. But Dow’s findings on these chemicals weren’t always shared promptly, and in fact, in some cases, were held back.

And in the absence of complete and perfect evidence that a chemical was harmful, but suspected as such, or even shown fairly strongly to pose a risk — as in the case of 2,4,5-T — Dow would push out the legal appeals process or stretch out regulatory timetables as far as possible to gain more marketing time. Dow, in these instances, showed itself as a company willing to use its legal powers to the limit, or to make a point, and spared no expense in appeals, public relations, and/or lobbying to wear down or out-last regulators or plaintiffs. All this, of course, within their legal rights.

In some of the company’s businesses and partnerships, Dow historically has also had problems – from radioactive waste at a Dow-managed nuclear bomb trigger plant at Rocky Flats, Colorado (1951-1975) and suspected birth-defects linked to a morning sickness drug, Bendictin, sold by its Dow-Merrell pharmaceutical unit in the early 1980s, to health effects of DowCorning silicone breast implants in women (1980s-1990s), or various worker health and safety issues over the years related to on-the-job toxic chemical exposures.

Cathy Trost’s 1984 book, “Elements of Risk,” an excellent history of Dow up to that time (Times Books, 337pp). Click for copy.

Yet all of Dow’s past troubles, company spokespersons will say today, are now in the rear-view mirror and long gone. Dow Chemical is now in the 21st century. And indeed, some analysts find Dow to be a “new” company – or at least a company with some new values. Jeff Green, writing in BloombergBusinessWeek in March 2019, has noted:

…Dow — whose legacy includes making napalm during the Vietnam War and much of the plastic waste polluting the world’s oceans today—is also, somewhat improbably, woke. The company has scored a perfect 100 on Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index every year since 2005, meaning it meets every requirement for an LGBT-friendly workforce. These include having policies protecting employees from discrimination, benefits for domestic partners, coverage of the health needs of transgender employees, and a track record of advocating publicly for LGBT causes…

Laudable as such changes may be, the proof of other important improvements at Dow will need to come in its on-the-ground performance at production facilities and how it deals with its legacy costs. Chief among the latter are its dioxin-related clean-up challenges. On November 15, 2007, for example, EPA and Dow Chemical signed a consent order to begin an emergency cleanup of a previously unknown dioxin hot spot on the Saginaw River. Under earlier June 2007 EPA orders, Dow had been removing three dioxin hot spots from the Tittabawassee River. The new hot spot location was a half-mile below the confluence of the Tittabawassee and Shiawassee Rivers. “The extremely high level of dioxin found in the Saginaw River,” said regional EPA administrator, Mary A. Gade at the time of the consent order, warranted the immediate action. Dow discovered and reported the latest hot spot during sampling done under its September 2007 work plan. As EPA explained in its announcement, “Dow’s Midland facility is a 1,900-acre chemical manufacturing location. Dioxins and furans come from the production of chlorine-based products. Past waste disposal practices, fugitive emissions and incineration at Dow resulted in dioxin and furan contamination both on- and off-site.” So the dioxin cleanups in Michigan will continue for some time. Dow also has acquired legacy and environmental clean-up costs with its Rohm & Hass and Union Carbide subsidiaries.

In addition, over the last decade or so, there have been ongoing issues of spills, fires, flaring, worker and community risks, Superfund clean-ups, and other issues at Dow locations. From the year 2010 through the early 2020s, for example, Dow facilities in the U.S. have had numerous incidents, with fines, penalties and settlements in the tens of millions of dollars. Among some of these are the following:

Cover of “The Dow Sustainability Report,” 2009 Global Reporting Initiative. Dow has pledged to improve its performance.

Texas Air Quality Fine. In August 2010, Dow Chemical agreed to pay a $542,251 fine for multiple air quality violations at its Rohm & Haas plant at Deer Park, Texas. According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Dow’s plant failed to prevent unauthorized emissions on specific dates in 2008 and early 2009, including 325,498 pounds of propylene, 23,834 pounds of butyl acrylate, 17,131 pounds of propane, 246 pounds of sulfur dioxide, 184 pounds of volatile organic compounds, 30 pounds of acrylic acid, among other hazardous pollutants.

TRI Reporting. For the year 2010, Dow Chemical ranked as the nation’s second-largest toxic waste producer in pollution reporting required under the U.S. Toxic Releases Inventory (TRI), with more than 600 million tons reported.

Midland Pollution Charges. In late July 2011, EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Dow agreed to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty to settle alleged violations of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) at its chemical manufacturing and research complex in Midland, Michigan. A 24-count complaint had been filed for alleged environmental violations related to its chemical, pharmaceutical and pesticide manufacturing.

Bristol Plant Blaze. On May 21, 2012, a three-alarm fire at Dow Chemical’s Bristol, PA plant caused two tanks to release chemicals to the air. The chemicals released were ethyl acrylate and butyl acrylate, according to Bucks County officials. Dow officials reported at the time that the material was contained, but as the cleanup moved forward chemical odors might still be a factor in the region. Area residents were advised that the chemicals could cause minor throat or eye irritation, headaches and nausea, but that such symptoms would lessen as the air cleared.

Dow acquired Rohm & Haas in 2008.

Chemically-Scalded Worker Dies. On July 17, 2012 an explosion occurred in an ammonia recycling unit at the Rohm & Hass plant in Deer Park, Texas. A worker there, charged with changing filters in the unit, was sent flying in the explosion and was also scalded with a spray of chemicals and hot water which burned through his clothes and through his skin, resulting later in his death at the hospital. In January 2013, six months after the worker died, OSHA investigators found seven violations at the Dow Rohm & Haas plant, and fined Dow $33,000 for the working conditions surrounding the explosion. OSHA later dropped one of the fines, bringing the total penalty to $23,000, which Dow paid in April 2013.

Lab Worker Killed. On October 11, 2013, a 51-year-old lab worker at Dow Chemical’s Rohm & Haas Electronic Materials plant in North Andover, MA was killed by an explosion when a volatile chemical – trimethylindium, classified as “pyrophoric,” meaning it can spontaneously catch fire – was accidentally exposed to air in the lab. Local authorities believed it was either a malfunction of the container or human error that caused the accident. At the time, local authorities and OSHA were investigating, and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board had also requested information on the incident. Less than three years later, on January 7, 2016, another explosion at this same plant occurred, seriously injuring four workers. In that case, OSHA fined Rohm & Haas $129,000 for serious infractions, but after the company contested the penalties, two of the serious violations were dropped and the fine reduced to $71,000. The company vowed to stop using pyrophoric chemicals in all U.S. operations. The Boston Business Journal at the time reported that Dow planned to close the North Andover plant in 2016, and move the work to South Korea.

Dow managed the Rocky Flats nuclear facility from 1951 to 1975.

Rocky Flats Damages. On May 19, 2016, a $375 million settlement was reached over claims by more than 15,000 nearby homeowners that plutonium releases from the Rocky Flats (Colorado) Nuclear Weapons Plant had risked their health and devalued their property. The plant was managed by Dow Chemical and later Rockwell International. The settlement ended a 26-year legal battle between residents and the two corporations. According to the Denver Post, Dow spokeswoman, Rachelle Schikorra, said Dow’s share of the settlement was $131.25 million. “The U.S. Department of Energy authorized the settlement, and Dow fully expects to be indemnified for the full cost of the settlement,” she said. “This settlement resolves 26 years of litigation, and Dow believes this settlement is the right decision for the company and its shareholders.”

Kentucky Air Pollution. On August 17, 2016, Dow Corning received notification from the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection (KDEP) of their intent to assess a civil penalty in excess of $100,000 for alleged air violations at Dow Corning’s Carrollton, Kentucky, manufacturing facility (discussions between Dow Corning and the KDEP were ongoing, and final resolution is unclear).

Dow Silicones Pollution. In June 2019, Dow agreed to a consent decree, pay a penalty of $4.55 million, implement a series of measures to reduce pollutant emissions, and spend $1.6 million to support environmental projects in the community. In March 2012 and April 2015 EPA identified alleged emissions and pollution violations at Dow Silicones Corp.’s chemical manufacturing facility in Midland, MI. Dow was charged with violating the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Water Act, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. According to the Justice Department, Dow failed to monitor and repair leaks of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as toluene, and also failed to properly operate the facility’s thermal oxidizer for controlling hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), such as benzene, resulting in excess emissions. Dow also allegedly failed to identify hazardous waste streams and properly manage and monitor stormwater, which may have allowed the discharge of hydrochloric acid, benzene, and heavy metals, including arsenic, known to be harmful to aquatic species, into the Lingle Drain and Tittabawassee River. Dow agreed to take actions to achieve annual emission reductions of 218 tons of HAPs and 43.53 tons of VOCs, as well as three tons of nitrogen and zinc.

1975 product label for Dow brand, ”Fumazone,” a DBCP pesticide that was banned in the U.S. in 1977.

DBCP & Ag Workers. Central American agricultural workers, many who labored on banana and pineapple plantations, were exposed in the 1970s and early 1980s to the toxic pesticide DBCP, with a number of them sterilized. In September 2019, they brought their troubled litigation against Dow and other companies to France after being stymied elsewhere. DBCP (dibromochloropropane), an active ingredient in the pesticides such as Nemagon (Shell) and Fumazone (Dow), was banned in most of the U.S. in 1977 after it was found to have caused sterility among thousands of American male workers at Dow, Shell and Occidental plants. However, food companies, such as Dole, continued to use the DBCP pesticides through the early 1980s at banana and pineapple plantations in countries with lower environmental standards. Previously, Nicara-guan courts had awarded damages to the farmworkers in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but these damages were never paid by the companies. The farmworkers since have brought their case to France where Dow and other defendants have assets. Dow has stated that the Nicaraguan courts hadn’t given it and other defendants a fair trial. “Courts confronted with these Nicaraguan judgments have unanimously held them to be unenforceable,” said a Dow statement. “We are confident that French courts will conclude the same.”

Tank Explosion. On November 3, 2019, a tank at a glycol processing unit at Dow’s Plaquemine, LA plant exploded with a loud boom, shaking homes and rattling windows nearby. The tank contained water and small levels of sulphuric acid, ethylene oxide and nitrogen, which are used for a variety of manufacturing purposes. Following the blast, Dow said the incident was caused by a ruptured vessel and no injuries were reported. OSHA opened an investigation a day after an explosion, and on April 24, 2020, cited Dow for several serious safety violations. In May 2020, OSHA announced a fine of $53,976 for the explosion, but Dow was then appealing the citations.

Map used by WDSU-TV (New Orleans, LA) for November 3, 2019 news story, “Explosion Confirmed at Dow Manufacturing Plant Near Plaquemine” (Iberville Parish).

Toxic Air & Water Rank. Based on 2019 data, the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, ranked Dow Chemical at No. 2 on its list of “Toxic 100 Water Polluters Index” and No. 6 on its list of “Toxic 100 Air Polluters Index.”

Natural Resource Damages. Under a November 2019 settlement announced by the United States, the State of Michigan and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, Dow Chemical will implement and fund an estimated $77 million in natural resource restoration projects intended to compensate the public for injuries to natural resources caused by the release of hazardous substances from Dow’s Midland, Michigan facility. According to a complaint filed on behalf of federal, state and tribal natural resource trustees, Dow’s release of dioxin-related compounds and other hazardous substances damaged natural resources. The complaint, filed under a Superfund natural resources damage claim, alleges that hazardous substances from Dow’s facility adversely affected fish, invertebrates, birds and mammals, contributed to the adoption of health advisories to limit consumption of certain wild game and fish, and resulted in soil contact advisories in certain areas including some public parks. The settlement requires Dow to implement and fund natural resources restoration projects that will benefit fish and wildlife and provide increased outdoor recreation opportunities for the American public.

Texas Superfund Site. In December 2020, it was announced by EPA that Dow and other companies will pay nearly $2 million to clean up the Gulfco Marine Maintenance Superfund Site in Freeport, Texas, according to the agency’s complaint and proposed consent decree, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Photo shows earlier flaring at Dow’s Plaquemine, LA plant, July 8, 2012 (Louisiana Environmental Action Network ).

Illegal Flaring. In January 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice, EPA, and the Louisiana DEQ charged Dow and two of its subsidiaries – Performance Materials and Union Carbide – with Clean Air Act violations at four locations in Louisiana and Texas for thousands of tons of pollution emitted in flares. The Dow group of plants were charged with operating 26 flares in a way that made them less efficient at destroying harmful chemical pollutants for more than a decade. This led to releases of VOCs and toxic air pollutants, including benzene, a human carcinogen. Under a settlement with regulators, Dow and its subsidiaries agreed to pay $3 million in civil penalties and conduct fence-line air monitoring for benzene, a human carcinogen, with results available to the public online, among other requirements. The Dow companies also agreed to spend $294 million on new pollution controls. In Louisiana, the settlement covers the operation of six flares at Dow’s Plaquemine complex near Baton Rouge and eight flares at Union Carbide’s plant in Hahnville, LA outside New Orleans. The other flares are at Dow’s Freeport, Texas plant and the Sabine River Works in Orange, Texas. EPA and DOJ estimated that the new pollution controls will reduce harmful VOCs by 5,689 tons per year; toxic air pollutants, including benzene, by 480 tons per year; ozone-forming nitrogen oxides by 127 tons per year; and particulate matter by an unspecified amount. VOCs and nitrogen oxides help form harmful smog and ground-level ozone that can lead to long-term respiratory damage. Particulates can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause severe respiratory damage. The improvements will also cut hundreds of thousands of tons per year of greenhouse gases

An aerial view of the Dow Chemical complex at Plaquemine, Louisiana, located along the Mississippi River some 15 miles south of Baton Rouge.

Chlorpyrifos Lawsuits. On July 12, 2021, lawsuits were filed in four California counties seeking potential class-action damages from Dow Chemical and its successor company over a widely used insecticide containing the chemical, chlorpyrifos. Chlorpyrifos was patented by Dow in 1966, and for more than 50 years it has been used widely in agriculture on millions of acres in the U.S. and around the world. It has also been used extensively on golf courses, buildings (termite control), and other applications. Over the last decade or more, there has ben a running regulatory and legal battle over banning and restricting the chemical over its alleged health effects, especially in children. As of August 18, 2021, EPA announced a ban on the use of chlorpyrifos on food crops. In California, meanwhile, litigation has begun seeking health-effects damages. According to October 2020 reporting by Bloomberg Law.com, “dozens of chlorpyrifos lawsuits” can be expected in California. All of the suits vary to some degree, but many center on a finding that chlorpyrifos degrades into an analog that is 1,000 times more toxic than its parent – a residue that has a durable tenacity, and can cling to walls, furniture, car dashboards, toys and more. A variety of childhood developmental health issues have been associated with chlorpyrifos including: autism, obesity, vision problems, and brain damage, some beginning with exposures in pregnancy.

Evacuation Order. On July 21, 2021, the Office of Emergency Management at La Porte, Texas issued an evacuation order for anyone living within a half-mile radius of the Dow Chemical plant on Bay Area Blvd in La Porte. At issue was a chemical tanker truck at the facility leaking a chemical, hydroxyethyl acrylate. The truck’s tank body was docked in a parking area with others at Dow Chemical’s La Porte plant, shown in the news photo below being sprayed with water.

News photo from July 21, 2021, showing tank truck area at Dow Chemical’s LaPorte, TX chemical works and tanker units being sprayed with water, as one was leaking at the time, with fears of possible fire and/or explosion.

The evacuation order was issued in the event the materials inside the tank caused a fire or explosion, possibly spreading to other areas of the complex. Two other truck tanks holding chemicals were then near the problem tanker. One held the same product, hydroxyethyl acrylate, and another contained methyl methacrylate. Some rail cars in the area are also shown the photo. Two other production facilities also within a half-mile of the Dow plant were also of some concern. Fortunately, there was no major incident, and the evacuation and a shelter-in-place orders were later lifted.

California Sues. In October 2021, The California attorney general filed a civil lawsuit against Dow and other companies at Dow’s Pittsburg, CA production site to stop the dumping and release of toxic materials into the environment and nearby communities. The Dow plant, located 40 miles northeast of San Francisco along the New York Slough, manufactures fertilizers, insecticides, and other products in an area with 70,000 residents. The Pittsburg plant, operating since 1939 on a 1,000 acre site, is less than a mile from the Corteva Wetlands and not far from the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, whose waters eventually reach San Francisco Bay. In the complaint the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), names Dow Chemical, Dow Agrosciences, Corteva Agrisciences, and others. Among the charges are more than 1,000 instances of illegal treatment of wastewater with hazardous levels of toxic and corrosive chemicals during 2016, 2017, and 2020 without DTSC authorization. The charges also include operating numerous tanks that were either open or had open vents which could lead to uncontrolled emissions of toxic chemicals. The court has the authority to impose civil penalties of up to $25,000 per day per violation for violations which occurred prior to January 1, 2018, and up to $70,000 per day per violation for violations occurring on or after January 1, 2018.

The Dow Chemical Pittsburgh, CA plant site is located along the New York Slough, not far from the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, whose waters eventually reach San Francisco Bay. Map source, San Francisco Chronicle.

The Pittsburg plant has also had previous and ongoing problems, including groundwater contamination with earlier litigation in June 2002 involving an underground plume of chemical contaminants that included chlorinated solvents and suspected carcinogens such as perchloroethylene, carbon tetrachloride, methylene chloride, and trichloroethylene. In 2015, Contra Costa County health officials issued public alerts to residents in Pittsburg and Antioch after thousands of pounds of chemicals were released from the plant. And in 2018, four Dow employees at the Pittsburg location were hospitalized after being exposed to chlorine gas that had leaked inside the facility.

Chlorine Release. On April 18, 2022, a fire began in a compressor unit that converts gas to liquid at an Olin Chemicals operation located inside the Dow Chemical facility at Plaquemine, Louisiana, 15 miles south of Baton Rouge. Chlorine was then released from what appeared to be a rupture of chlorine equipment. A huge cloud resulted and moved slowly over the facility. Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi said the leak started around 8:40 p.m. which prompted local authorities to issue a shelter-in-place order for nearby residents to stay indoors, not use air conditioning, and close all windows and doors. The leak occurred less than one-quarter of a mile from subdivisions in the north Plaquemine area. A Baton Rouge TV station reported that 23 residents were taken to Ochsner Medical Center near Plaquemine. None of the residents were hospitalized, according to Iberville Parish Emergency Management Director, Clint Moore.“They weren’t necessarily hospitalized, and to my knowledge, none were actually admitted,” he said. “They were brought there as precautionary measure.” Iberville Parish President, J. Mitchell Ourso, who issued a shelter-in-place order, said the smell of chlorine was reported in the air several miles from the facility. A photo from the scene showed a large plume of smoke billowing from the site.

April 18, 2022. Photo of smoke cloud from Olin fire & chlorine release at Dow’s Plaquemine, LA chemical complex on the west bank of the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, LA Photo: Rodney Waldroup

During the incident, officials shut down route LA-1 in both directions near the scene. The shelter-in-place ended about 12:30 a.m. It lasted approximately 3 ½ hours. Iberville Parish President Ourso, who issued a shelter-in-place order, later noted: “It could’ve been so much worse… Nobody got hurt in the complex and nobody was overcome here in the public.” A statement issued from Olin at the time of the incident noted that “monitoring confirms there is no risk of offsite exposure” and that “no injuries have been reported…” However, in early May 2022, an Iberville Parish resident who was hospitalized with severe chemical exposure reactions from the chlorine gas leak filed an injury lawsuit against the owners and operators of the Olin chlor-alkali plant at the Dow Chemical facility.

A New Dow?

Dow Chemical, it seems, is still dealing with a considerable roster of legacy issues, as well as ongoing environmental, worker safety, and public health concerns. Hopefully, there are better days ahead for the Dow Chemical Company. Or, as its advertising of old so optimistically offered, only “great things” ahead – benign, safe, and non-toxic things – in all of its ventures.

Other stories at this website with related or similar content include, “Power in the Pen,” the story of Rachel Carson’s 1962 best-selling book, Silent Spring, which rocked the chemical industry and helped spur the modern day environmental movement. See also, “…A Richer Harvest,” a story profiling Union Carbide pesticide advertising in the 1960s, which also tells a larger story about toxic chemicals and the horrific 1984 Bhopal, India toxic gas catastrophe, as well as related leaks in West Virginia. And finally, the “Environmental History” topics page includes additional stories on air pollution, oil spills, river pollution, industrial accidents, strip mining, and other issues.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website and its continued publication. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 21 August 2022
Last Update: 7 March 2025

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Doing Great Things? – Dow Chemical,
1960s-2020s” PopHistoryDig.com, August 21, 2022.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

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Teaser Tag: Topics Page

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Coal History”
Selected Stories: 1950s-2010s

June 4, 2022 J.D.

Strip Mining History

“Giant Shovel on I-70″

Ohio Fight: 1973

Shovel’s highway crossing
spurs activist organizing
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Kentucky Activist

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1950s-1980s

Harry Caudill, author,
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fought for Appalachia.

Towns Wiped Out

“Buffalo Creek Disaster”

Coal Dams Fail: 1972

125 dead, 4,000 homeless
after coal-waste tsunami
crashes through valley.

Coal & Politics

“Kennedy Coal History”

Bobby & Ted: 1968-2008

RFK called out Appalachian
coal interests; Ted focused
on deep mine safety.

Sexy Coal Hype

“G.E.’s Hot Coal Ad”

2005

General Electric’s ‘hot’
TV ad casts coal mining
in an unreal light.

Strip Mining Politics

“Ford Helps Strippers”

…With 2 Vetoes, 1974-75

President Gerald Ford vetoes
strip mine bills; Congress
& activists fight back.

Annals of Music

“Sixteen Tons”

1955-1956

Tennessee Ernie Ford’s hit
song invokes hard lives
of coal miners.

Video / TV Ad

“G.E.’s Sexy Miners”

2005 Coal Ad

General Electric’s ‘hot’ TV
ad gives coal mining a look
that’s not exactly real.

Big Coal vs. Small Town

“Paradise”

1971-John Prine

A country song about
strip mining, coal power,
& demise of Paradise, KY.

Strip Mining Foe

“Harry Caudill”

1950s-1980s

Best-selling “Night Comes
To The Cumberlands” brought
focus on Appalachia.

Coal & Politics

“JFK & West Virginia”

Road to The White House

JFK campaigns in WV coal
country; daughter Caroline
later studies coal camps.

Coal & Politics

“Kennedy Coal History”

Bobby & Ted: 1968-2008

Part II of this story covers
Ted Kennedy’s fight for
deep-mine coal safety.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

Date Posted: June 4, 2022
Last Update: November 20, 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Coal History: Selected Stories,
1950s-2010s,” PopHistoryDig.com, June 4, 2022

________________________________________

Books on Coal & Strip Mining at Amazon.com…

Chad Montrie’s history of strip mining fight in Appalachia (2003), UNC press, 272 pp. Click for Amazon.

K. Ross Toole ‘s “The Rape of the Great Plains” (1976). Little, Brown & Co., 271 pp. Click for Amazon.

Harry M. Caudill’s classic 1960s book, “Night Comes to the Cumberlands,” 2001 edition. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Corporate Satire

1971-1980, 2001-Today

“A Dominion of Dollars”
Network: 1976

June 2, 2022 J.D.

Poster for the 1976 film “Network,” using scene from famous “corporate cosmology” rant by network executive.

In late 1976, a Hollywood film satire about television and its power came to theaters across America. The film – “Network” – was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. It portrayed a fictional television network, UBS, and its struggle with poor ratings. Among its stars were Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight.

“Network” received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise for the performances of its actors. It received 10 Oscar nominations, including “Best Picture” (though losing to “Rocky”). The film was a commercial success and won four Academy Awards – Best Actor (Finch), Best Actress (Dunaway), Best Supporting Actress (Straight), and Best Original Screenplay (Chayefsky).

In 2000, the U.S. Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry for its cultural significance.

But apart from the kudos, among its most enduring and memorable scenes – and there are several – is one in which an imposing corporate executive, Arthur Jensen, played impressively by Ned Beatty, proceeds to lecture and excoriate recently rising network news star, Howard Beale, who has riled up the nation with his populist rantings. But before sharing that scene and its articulate, instructive speech, a bit of background is in order.

Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch, is the longtime anchor of the Evening News show for the UBS TV network. Described as “the grand old man of news,” Beale, for many years, was a network stalwart with high ratings and good audience share. But in later years, his fortunes began to decline, and his ratings fell. His wife also died, and he became depressed and drank heavily as his audience share continued to slide.

Howard Beale ( Peter Finch ), “grand old man of news” at UBS-TV, shown at his news desk in a more sedate pose than his later “angry man” broadcasts. Still, during this broadcast he tells his audience he is bing fired for low ratings and on his next broadcast he will “blow his brains out” on live TV.

At the outset of the film, Beale has learned from his friend and direct boss – news division president, Max Schumacher, played by William Holden – that he will soon be fired because of his poor ratings. The two friends then proceed to get drunk, reliving their glory days as upcoming newsmen, and lamenting the state of their industry. Beale, however, on his next nightly news broadcast, announces to the world he will commit suicide on the air during an upcoming broadcast.

In the control room, pandemonium ensues as the staff can’t believe what they’ve heard. In the front office too, executives are scrambling, as phones erupt and the other three networks are all broadcasting live about “what Howard Beale has said.” UBS then fires Beale, but Max Schumacher intervenes on his behalf and Beale agrees to apologize on air, and is given another chance. But during his next broadcast, Beale proceeds to launch into another tirade, charging among other things, that life is “bullshit.”

This outburst, however, causes Beale’s newscast’s ratings to spike, and that catches the notice of the UBS front office, and in particular, programming chief Diana Christensen, a role played with obsessive passion by Faye Dunaway. Christensen is an aggressive, “anything-for-ratings” power player at UBS.

Diana Christiansen, the hard-charging, no-nonsense director of programming at UBS-TV, played by Faye Dunaway, sees a ratings gold mine in the “angry man” tirades of newsman, Howard Beale.

Beale’s being fired for his rant had made headline news, as the story appeared on the front pages of New York’s biggest newspapers – and Diana noticed. Having collected the morning papers on her way to the office, she muses out loud to her secretary as she pages through the paper, perusing the news stories of the day:

Diana Christensen (Dunaway) with “Daily News” front page on Beale with sub-head: “Obscenities Provoke Record Calls,” which she uses to lobby Frank Hackett (Duvall).

“The Arabs have decided to jack up the price of oil another twenty per cent, and the C.I.A. has been caught opening Senator Humphrey’s mail, there’s a civil war in Angola, another one in Beirut, New York City’s facing default, they’ve finally caught up with Patricia Hearst — and [as she holds out a copy of the newspaper] — the whole front page of the Daily News is Howard Beale” (large photo of Beale with giant headline). She also notes that the New York Times had a two-column front page story on Beale as well.

She then arranges to have a short meeting with UBS executive Frank Hackett and begins by hyping the overnight ratings that Beale’s show has garnered:

Diana Christensen: Did you see the overnights on the Network News? It has an 8 in New York and a 9 in L.A. and a 27 share in both cities. Last night, Howard Beale went on the air and yelled bullshit for two minutes, and I can tell you right now that tonight’s show will get a 30 share at least. I think we’ve lucked into something.

Frank Hackett: Oh, for God’s sakes, are you suggesting we put that lunatic back on the air yelling bullshit?

Diana Christensen: Yes, I think we should put Beale back on the air tonight and keep him on.

Diana Christensen: Did you see the news this morning? Did you see the [New York] Times? We got press coverage on this you couldn’t buy for a million dollars. Frank, that dumb show jumped five rating points in one night. Tonight’s show is gonna be at least fifteen. We’ve just increased our audience by twenty or thirty million people in one night! And you’re not going to to get something like this in your lap for the rest of your days and you can’t just piss it away. Howard Beale went up there last night and said what every American feels, that he’s tired of all the bullshit! He’s articulating the popular rage! I want that show, Frank. I can turn that show into the biggest smash on television.

Frank Hackett: What do you mean you want that show? It’s a News show. It’s not your department.

Diana applying the "full court press" to UBS executive Frank Hackett to keep Howard Beale on the air, calling him a "latter day prophet" who is "articulating the popular rage". Diana also wants Frank to move Beale's show from News to Entertainment.

Diana Christensen: I see Howard Beale as a latter day prophet. A magnificent messianic figure in vain against the hypocrisies of our times! A strip Savonarola, Monday through Friday, that I tell you Frank will just go through the roof! And, I’m talking about a six dollar cost per thousand show. I’m talking about a hundred, a hundred and thirty thousand dollar minutes and you ought to figure out the revenues of a strip show that sells for a hundred thousand bucks a minute! One show like that could pull this whole Network right out of the hole. Now, Frank, it’s being handed to us on a plate, let’s not blow it.

Frank Hackett: …Let me think it over.

Diana Christensen: Frank, let’s not go to committee about this. It’s twenty after ten, and we want Beale in that studio by half-past six. We don’t want to lose the momentum —

Frank Hackett: For God’s sakes, Diana, we’re talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television. I’d like to talk to Legal Affairs at least… And Standards and Practices…. I’m the one whose ass is going on the line….

Frank says he’ll think about it, but Diana has essentially sold him on the idea, and he decides to go with it. The network will exploit Beale’s sudden popularity and keep him broadcasting.

“Mad As Hell”

Howard Beale on UBS-TV, as he begins to become “the mad prophet of the air waves,” with a national following.

Sleeping one night at Max’s apartment to avoid the press, Howard Beale awakens early the next morning muttering to himself. It’s raining outside, so he puts a raincoat on over his pajamas and leaves the apartment, spending the day walking around the city.

Back at the studio, there is disagreement over Howard’s emotional state, but the network keeps him on the air. That evening, minutes before his show begins, Beale walks into the studio soaking wet, still in overcoat and pajamas. On the air, he complains to his audience about the ills of society:

…We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’

Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! … I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. (shouting) You’ve got to say: ‘I’m a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!’

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’

Diana Christiansen, monitoring the broadcast, receives calls from UBS affiliates around the country, reporting that people are doing exactly what Beale has asked them to do. She is ecstatic. In New York, too, similar reports are coming in. Now billed as “the mad prophet of the airwaves,” Howard Beale skyrockets in the ratings. His passionate on-air rantings have galvanized the nation. And along the way, he makes some salient observations:

“…[L]ess than three percent of you people read books! …Less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube….”

“…Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business!…”

The Howard Beale Show later loses some of its appeal, but Diana revs it up by adding more entertainment content, though the Howard Beale segment is still the main draw.

Howard Beale holding forth on his show, now cast in more of an “entertainment” format, with Beale roaming the stage and walking the aisles, visiting his live audience as he makes his pronouncements.

The Arab Deal

Beale later discovers some internal business news about the UBS network that fuels more of his on-air outrage. He has learned that Communications Corporation of America (CCA), the conglomerate that owns UBS, will be taken over by a giant Saudi Arabian conglomerate. Beale then uses his broadcast perch to rail against the takeover, urging viewers to send telegrams to the White House to stop the deal. Here’s part of what he says (for context, this was the mid-1970s, during the time of the Arab oil embargo when huge amounts of money had moved their way):

“…The Arabs are simply buying us. There’s only one thing that can stop them. You! You!…”…We all know that the Arabs control sixteen billion dollars in this country. They own a chunk of Fifth Avenue, twenty downtown pieces of Boston, a part of the port of New Orleans, an industrial park in Salt Lake City. They own big hunks of the Atlanta Hilton, the Arizona Land and Cattle Company, the Security National Bank in California, the Bank of the Commonwealth in Detroit. They control ARAMCO, so that puts them into Exxon, Texaco, and Mobil Oil. They’re all over – New Jersey, Louisville, St. Louis Missouri. And that’s only what we know about! There’s a hell of a lot more we don’t know about because all of the those Arab petro-dollars are washed through Switzerland and Canada and the biggest banks in this country.

For example, what we don’t know about is this CCA deal and all the other CCA deals. Right now, the Arabs have screwed us out of enough American dollars to come right back and with our own money, buy General Motors, IBM, ITT, AT&T, DuPont, US Steel, and twenty other American companies. Hell, they already own half of England.

“…By midnight tonight, I want a million telegrams in the White House. I want them wading knee-deep in telegrams at the White House….”So listen to me. Listen to me, god-dammit! The Arabs are simply buying us. There’s only one thing that can stop them. You! You! So, I want you to get up now. I want you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the phone. I want you to get up from your chairs, go to the phone, get in your cars, drive into the Western Union offices in town. I want you to send a telegram to the White House. By midnight tonight, I want a million telegrams in the White House. I want them wading knee-deep in telegrams at the White House. I want you to get up right now and write a telegram to President Ford saying: ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore! I don’t want the banks selling my country to the Arabs! I want the CCA deal stopped now!’ I want the CCA deal stopped now.

At CCA headquarters in New York, CCA Chairman Arthur Jensen escorts Howard Beale into the boardroom for a little chat.

The East Coast broadcast of Beale’s show alone is quite effective as a flood of calls and telegrams soon reach the White House. UBS TV executives meanwhile are in Los Angeles when they get word of Beale’s latest rant – just then being broadcast there three hours later. They are apoplectic over Beale’s charge, as they know the Arab deal is crucial to the survival of UBS.

In New York

Back East, at CCA headquarters, Beale’s rant has also caused a furor, and a call from the Chairman’s office goes out to Frank Hackett. He is told to bring Howard Beale to New York City the next day for a 10 a.m. meeting with CCA chairman, Arthur Jensen. Jensen is played memorably by Ned Beatty.

As Hackett and Beale arrive at corporate headquarters the next morning, it appears the meeting between Beale and Jensen will be cordial, as Jensen, making business small-talk with Beale, courteously escorts him into a large CCA boardroom for a private discussion.

Beale is seated at one end of the long boardroom table lined with green-shaded banker’s lamps on each side. Jensen then draws the floor-to-ceiling drapes over a window to darken the room. He then takes a standing position at the opposite end of the long boardroom table.

In New York, Howard Beale is seated at the far end of CCA boardroom table, as CCA Chairman, Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) begins to excoriate and instruct Beale, charging that he has “meddled with the primal forces of nature” -- meaning money and business.

Jensen then, in a bellicose opening, proceeds to set Beale right about the way things are, instructing him on the ruling “corporate cosmology,” and why he must adopt this credo as his new TV message. Here’s Jensen’s remarks to a shaken Beale (speech appears in full below film clip):

Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it!! Is that clear?!

You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars.“…There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.” Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.

It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state — Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

Jensen describes, “one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work… [and] in which all men will hold a share of stock – all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.”We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality — one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Beale: But why me?

Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

Beale: I have seen the face of God.

Cover of “Network” DVD. Click for copy or Amazon video.

Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

Beale then proceeds that evening on his show to preach the corporate cosmology of Arthur Jensen. He will no longer rail about corporate power or takeover deals.

There is a lot more to ponder in “Network” and its prescient moments, as Paddy Chayefsky certainly intended. But the “corporate cosmology” lecture stands out as a fine bit of truth-telling satire about the ways of the world – then and now.

In June 2021, at Ned Beatty’s death, Washington Post columnist James Hohmann wrote of the speech; “More than four decades later, it remains one of the greatest and most resonant monologues in the history of American cinema.”

As for Howard Beale, his show devolved into a more depressing message of democracy’s decline and the end of the individual — a “problem” for the network with declining ratings, though dealt with by way of an on-air, network-sanctioned assassination of Beale by extremists – resulting, of course, in high ratings.

Additional story choices at this website with media- and film-related content can be found at these category pages: “T.V. & Culture,” “Business & Society,” and “Film & Hollywood.”

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you, – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 2 June 2020
Last Update: 14 January 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “A Dominion of Dollars, Network: 1976,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 2, 2020.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

Steve Kornacki’s 2018 book, “The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism.” Click for copy.

“The Entertainment Economy: How Mega-Media Forces Are Transforming Our Lives.” Click for copy.

“Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and The Fracturing of America,” Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Kindle edition of Shaun Considine’s 1994 book on Paddy Chayefsky. Also in paper. Click for Amazon.

Dave Itzkoff,’s 2014 book, “Mad as Hell: The Making of `Network' and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies.” Times Books/Henry Holt & Co., 304 pp. Click for book at Amazon.

“Network (1976 film),” Wikipedia.org.

Vincent Canby, “Chayefsky’s ‘Network’ Bites Hard As a Film Satire of TV Industry,” New York Times, November 15, 1976.

Roger Ebert, Film Review, “Network,” Roger Ebert.com, 1976.

“Network (1976),” American Film Institute/ AFI.com.

Tom Shales, “’Network’: The Prophetic Con-niption,” Washington Post, October 4, 1978.

“Best Film Speeches and Monologues,” Film Site.org.

“Network (1976),” Internet Archive/Archive .net.

“Network (1976)/Peter Finch: Howard Beale,” IMDB.com.

Shaun Considine, Mad as Hell: The Life and Work of Paddy Chayefsky, 1994, Random House, 426 pp. Click for book at Amazon.

“Network, 1976: Journalists in the Movies,” Washington Post, 1996.

James Trier, “Network: Still ‘Mad as Hell’ After 30 Years,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Vol. 50, No. 3, November 2006), pp. 232-236.

Dave Itzkoff, “Notes of a Screenwriter, Mad as Hell,” New York Times, May 19, 2011.

Emma Nolan, “Ned Beatty Lied ‘Like a Snake’ to Get Oscar-Nominated Role in ‘Network’, Newsweek.com, June 14, 2021.

Rob Lowe, “Anchorman,” New York Times, February 13, 2014.

Dan Zak, “Still Mad as Hell after All These Years,” Washington Post, February 18, 2014.

Dave Itzkoff, Mad as Hell: The Making of ‘Network’ and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies, 2014, Times Books/Henry Holt & Co., 304 pp. Click for book at Amazon.

Abby McGanney Nolan, “Mad As Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies” ( by Dave Itzkoff), Opinion/Book Review, Washington Post, February 28, 2014.

Tanya Gold, “Death by Television. Tanya Gold Hails Paddy Chayefsky’s Cult Satire ‘Network’, Celebrating its 40th Birthday this Month, And its Uncannily Prophetic Vision of a World Dictated by TV,” Spectator.co,uk, November 12, 2016.

“Network (1976),” OldMoviesAreGreat.Word Press.com, January 29, 2017.

Sam Hedrin (adapter), Paddy Chayefsky (author), Network (paperback), November 1976. Click for book at Amazon.

James Hohmann, “Six Minutes From a 1976 Film, Still Relevant Today,” Washington Post, June 16, 2021.

_______________________________________

Teaser Tag: Topics Page

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Richard Nixon History”
Selected Stories: 1950s-1970s

April 26, 2022 J.D.

Republican Crisis

“Nixon’s Checkers Speech”

September 1952

Endangered VP candidate,
Richard Nixon, discovers
the “magic” of television.

Post Watergate

“The Frost-Nixon Biz”

1977-2009

The multi-media cottage
industry that followed
the Frost/Nixon interviews.

Politics & Celebrity

“1968 Presidential Race”

Republicans

Celebrity support — from John
Wayne to Billy Graham —
helped Nixon win in ’68.

On Nixon’s List

“Enemy of the President”

1970s

Cartoonist Paul Conrad
draws the ire
of Richard Nixon.

Music & Republican Wrath

“White Rabbit”

Grace Slick: 1960s

Jefferson Airplane song
drew political fire from
Nixon-Agnew-Linkletter.

Politics & Protest

“Four Dead in O-hi-o”

1970

Kent State tragedy
comes with Nixon’s
Cambodia incursion.

Kennedy vs. Nixon

“JFK’s 1960 Campaign”

Primaries & Fall Election

While the focus here
is JFK, Richard Nixon
was his main opponent.

Politics & Publishing

“The Pentagon Papers”

1967-2018

A ‘freedom-of-the-press’
story & the beginning of
Richard Nixon’s downfall.

Nixon & The Environment

“Santa Barbara Oil Spill”

Union Oil: 1969

Oil blowout generates
pressure on Nixon
for ban & tougher regs.

Nixon & The Environment

“Burn On, Big River…”

Cuyahoga Fire: 1969

River’s burning spurs
Congress, Nixon and
Earth Day 1970.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

Date Posted: 16 March 2019
Last Update: 24 March 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Nixon-Related Stories, Topics Page:
1950s-2000s,” PopHistoryDig.com, March 16, 2019.

____________________________________

Nixon History & Watergate at Amazon.com…

Rick Perlstein’s 2008 book, “Nixon-land: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America,” 896 pp, Scribner. Click for copy.

Evan Thomas, “Being Nixon: A Man Divided,” 2016, Amazon Editors’ Pick, NY Times Bestseller, 640 pp. Click for copy at Amazon.

Stanley I. Kutler’s 2009 book, “Watergate: A Brief History with Documents,” Wiley-Blackwell; 2nd edition, 232 pp. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Environmental History

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Ford Helps Strippers”
…With Two Vetoes: 1974-75

April 14, 2022 J.D.

June 1, 1975. Washington Post / Herblock cartoon, “Rip-Off,” with pointed message about strip mining lobby in Congress during legislative battle to enact strip mining controls.

In 1974 and 1975, President Gerald Ford would play a crucial role in blocking U.S. environmental legislation for regulating surface coal mining, also known as “strip mining.”

Ford would veto two successive strip mining reclamation bills sent to him by the U.S. Congress – one in December 1974 and another in May 1975 – bills that had gone through months of arduous debate and years of grass roots political activity.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, would mark the latter Ford veto in June 1975 with a political cartoon from its famous lampooner, “Herblock” (Herbert Block), shown at right.

In the cartoon, Herblock attacks strip mining interests by depicting a man, representing the strip mine lobby, literally peeling off the Earth’s crust across America, with an “O.K” note from “Gerald Ford” sticking out of his pocket.

Herblock’s message is clear: the President was then in the pocket of the coal interests and their lobbyists.

More on the Ford vetoes and coal-industry lobbying tactics a bit later – including a famous “protest convoy” of 400-plus coal trucks that barreled through Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1975 seeking to block the needed law. But first, some background.

“Rape & Scrape”

By the 1970s, surface coal mining in America was occurring in 26 states. The practice – then poorly regulated in most states, if at all – had been ravaging the nation’s land and waters for decades. In Appalachia, mountainsides were ringed with thousands of miles of scars from contour stripping. Some 20,000 miles of unreclaimed and dangerous “highwall” cuts from contour mining were found in Appalachia alone. Surface mining in some locations had snaked around hillsides as far as the eye could see (photo below). In the process, mine spoil was simply pushed “over the side” — down mountain slopes — silting up and polluting streams below. Thousands of miles of creeks and streams suffered ill effects: some filled with sediment, others acidified from mine spoil seepage, many devoid of fish and other aquatic life.

1967. Aerial view of contour strip mining's handiwork in Eastern Kentucky, with gouged-out mountainside scars running for miles to the far horizon. Source: “These Murdered Mountains,” Life, January 12, 1968, photo by Bob Gomel.

Landslides from contour strip mining sometimes wiped out down-valley homes. Flooding of the narrow bottom lands was often made worse by the strip-mined, denuded hillsides. Blasting at mine sites would sometimes crack the walls of nearby homes or knock them off their foundations. Local roads were also torn up, forests clear cut, and wildlife habitat ruined.

Photo from 1968 U.S. Interior Dept, Fish & Wildlife Service study of strip mine “highwall” left after mining. The original caption read: “Access to more than 400,000 acres of wildlife habitat is impaired by highwalls in West Virginia. This unscalable highwall is in Randolph County”.

In the flat-to-rolling lands of the Midwest – especially Illinois and Indiana – millions of acres of fertile agricultural land were underlain with strippable coal, prompting concerns that even if these lands were reclaimed after mining, they would never again be as productive for row-crop farming.

This giant strip mine shovel began work in 1962 at the Sinclair Mine in western Kentucky for Peabody Coal Company. Note small pick-up truck and bulldozer, lower right, dwarfed by the gigantic shovel.

Also within the coal industry at the time, was a changing investment and economic development – something called “the East-West shift” – meaning a movement away from high-cost, deep-mineable, union-dug coal in the East, to large-tracts of federally-leased coal lands in the West with thick seams that could be dug more cheaply with surface- and open-pit-mines, giant machines, and non-union labor. Eastern deep-mined coal, however, was more energy dense (more BTUs), and on that basis, when burned, less polluting. Deep-mined Eastern coal also offered longer-term local investment, more jobs, and community stability. Still, the coal industry was being lured West, but regardless of location, would fight to keep any new regulation at bay.

This U.S. Geological Survey map of U.S. coal fields provides a generalized look at where the nation’s coal reserves are located, color coded by grade and type of coal, with 26 states having at least some coal and mining activity.

In the Montana/Wyoming/North Dakota area on the above map — and in particular, the blue-gray areas straddling those three states – is known geologically as the Fort Union Formation, which holds enormous quantities of coal. In the early 1970s, the coal within “strippable reach” in this formation was estimated at about 100-billion tons, or roughly, 40 per cent of the country’s “known reserves” at the time. Coal in the western North Dakota portion of the Fort Union formation, shown in gray on the map, is lignite, where extensive strip mining would also occur, as shown in the photo below.

Extensive strip mining operation in the lignite coalfields of western North Dakota, showing extraction at uncovered coal seam, as well as spoil piles of removed overburden. Photo is likely from 1960s-1970s era.

Coal in the Powder River Basin portion of the Fort Union Formation – the blue area on the above map shared by eastern Montana and northeast Wyoming – includes quite large deposits of strippable coal, with dozens of long-running seams, some as thick as 100 feet or more.

The federal government, coal and utility companies meanwhile, eyeing the Fort Union cache, had offered some grandiose visions of what might happen in that region by way of industrial and electric power development. The “North Central Power Study” of 1971, for example, written jointly by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and 35 major utilities, came like a bolt of lightening to Northern Great Plains ranchers. It proposed 42 coal-burning “mine-mouth” power plants that would export electricity by high-voltage transmission lines to other areas. Twenty-one of the plants would be in Montana fueled by big strip mines. It also projected using 2.6 million acre-feet of water annually from western rivers such at the Yellowstone for power plant cooling and coal cleaning. The impacts of such a plan, if implemented – with assorted rail spurs, pipelines, and power lines – would be massive. Rancher-based citizen groups, such as the Northern Plans Resources Council in Montana, soon formed in response.

By the time of the North Central Power Study in late 1971, ranchers in Montana were making it known where they stood on plans to strip mine and industrialize their region, calling it a “national sacrifice area” with protest signs like this one in Montana.

More than a million acres of western federal and Native American coal lands were already under lease by 1971, with another million acres under prospecting permits. In the East as well, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), since the 1960s, had spurred new strip mining throughout Appalachia by offering long-term contracts to coal operators. Giant shovels in the East had already been tearing up the land in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, southwest Virginia and Tennessee for decades.‘Uppity’ Appalachian land- owners who objected to coal claims, or tried to defend their property – some in armed stand-offs – were sometimes met with beatings, arson, and/or jail time.

In some coal states, most notably Kentucky, the “broad form deed” was in use, a nefarious property document, that gave mineral owners the right to run roughshod over the surface owner to get to the coal. “Uppity” Appalachian landowners and activists who objected or tried to defend their property – some in armed stand-offs – were sometimes met with beatings, arson, and/or jail time.

In Western states too, “split estate” ownership between mineral owner and surface owner was also a volatile issue – in part due to a complicated history of land ownership, including: Native American tribal lands, government-owned lands, and railroad land grants (the latter making Northern Pacific heir, Burlington Northern, the nation’s largest corporate owner of coal resources in the early 1970s). Surface owners – ranchers in particular — wanted the right to “written consent” before near-surface coal lands could be mined or leased for mining. In addition, ranching operations were often dependent on alluvial valley aquifers, water-bearing sub-surface strata that often ran through, or were coincident with, thick, strippable coal seams in many of the coal-bearing western states, which if mined would alter hydrological systems. Scant rainfall in the West would also make post-mining reclamation challenging to say the least. Re-establishing the preferred native grasslands on the plains following strip mining was not a likely prospect.

Large scale strip mining had begun at Colstrip, Montana in the late 1960s. This EPA photo shows a Peabody Coal Company strip mine operation, and aftereffects, at Colstrip in 1973.

Large-scale strip mining and coal-fired power development was also under way in the “Four Corners” region of the U.S. Southwest, where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah intersect. Six huge coal-burning electric power plants were then being planned for the area, two of which were then on-line, with the others scheduled for 1974-1980. About half of the power would be sent to Southern California. The Four Corners projects were begun by a consortium of 23 power companies. As much as 40,000 megawatts of coal-fire generating capacity was seen as possible by 1985. The two existing plants then used strip-mined coal, also projected to feed future plants. Peabody Coal Company then held a lease on more than 60,000 total acres of lands either jointly or separately owned by Navaho and Hopi Indians, all on sacred Black Mesa lands. Some 337 million tons of bituminous coal was then estimated to exist there over about 100 square miles.

Map shows general location of two Peabody strip mines on Navajo-Hopi lands at Black Mesa in northwest Arizona, which opened in 1970 and 1973, exporting coal via slurry pipeline in one case for electric power production in Nevada.

A Peabody subsidiary began strip mining on the Black Mesa in the mid-1960s. Peabody later developed two large strip mines there – the Black Mesa mine on 20,775 acres, opened in 1970 (supplying the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada via a 275-mile coal slurry pipeline), and the Kayenta mine, on 44,073 acres, opened in 1973. Peabody’s lease came through tribal councils, not always representing majority Indian views. And like the Northern Great Plains, the Four Corners energy development plans aroused controversy over water resources, air pollution and land use.

Another huge problem in many of the Eastern coal states, but not limited to them, were abandoned mines – of both the surface and underground or “deep-mine” variety – where no reclamation had occurred, with old sites left to fester with acid-mine drainage that would pollute for years. The federal bills included proposals for a small tax on coal to help pay for an Abandoned Mined Lands Fund that would establish a national program to begin reclaiming thousands of these sites.

All of these issues, and others outlined above, would figure into citizen calls for action at the federal level, fueling subsequent Congressional debate through the early and mid-1970s.

Citizen Action

Chad Montrie's history of citizen opposition to strip mining in Appalachia, University of North Carolina Press, 245 pp. Click for copy.

Over the years, from the 1940s through the 1970s, farmers, coalfield citizens, and some legislators had been fighting strip mining at the state and local levels, seeking bans and restrictions, but typically winning only weak regulatory laws and very little real reclamation.

Still, there is a very rich, decades-long history of citizen action and protest – whether in Appalachia, the Midwest, Northern Plains, or Native American land – that figures prominently in the crafting of strip mine regulation. Only a portion of that history is offered here to provide some context, and a fuller account is covered elsewhere (see, for example, any number of books and articles on the subject, some of which are listed below in Sources, and for Appalachia as one example, see Chad Montrie’s To Save The Land and People, which covers the activism, protests and politics from that region that fed into the Congressional battles of the 1970s).

Federal bills to deal with strip mining had been introduced in Congress as early as 1940 – with Republican Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, who saw his state’s agricultural lands being torn up, introducing the first such bill. That bill required operators to post a bond until the mined land was reclaimed. But neither Dirksen’s, nor any of the 40 or more other bills introduced between then and 1970 made much progress. Indeed, the first Congressional hearings on the matter weren’t held until 1968.

However, by the time of Earth Day 1970, when national environmental concerns began to rise, a new nationwide political coalition formed to push for a federal strip mine law. Appalachian activists, Midwest farmers, Northern Plains ranchers, and Native Americans joined with national environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club and the Environmental Policy Center (EPC) in Washington, to lobby Congress, forming the Coalition Against Strip Mining, led by Louise Dunlap of EPC.

Ravaged landscape in Southeast Ohio with meandering highwall following strip mining there. 1974 photo, EPA/Erik Colonius.

Historically, dating to the 1950s, the sentiment in the coal fields among Appalachian activists, had been toward prohibiting strip mining – stopping it completely. Whitesburg, Kentucky lawyer, legislator, and soon-to-be-famous author, Harry Caudill – for Night Comes To the Cumberlands of 1963 – introduced the first bill to ban strip mining in the Kentucky legislature in 1961. It went nowhere, however. He later tried for a ban on steep slopes, which also failed. Another book by Caudill, My Land Is Dying, also called for a ban on strip mining.

In West Virginia, John D. “Jay” Rockefeller, great-grandson of the famous Standard Oil tycoon, would also oppose strip mining. He had come to the state in 1964 as a VISTA social worker, was elected to the state House of Delegates in 1966 and then West Virginia Secretary of State in 1968. Rockefeller, along with activist Richard Cartwright Austin and state senator Simon Galperin helped create Citizens to Abolish Strip Mining (CASM), which Austin headed, Rockefeller funded, and Galperin worked in the West Virginia Senate to advance a strip mine abolition bill, introduced in January 1971. Rockefeller, for his part, had called a press conference in December 1970 as Secretary of State saying he would seek a bill to ban strip mining in West Virginia, testified in the legislature in support of the bill, which after being reworked and weakened in the legislative process, emerged in March 1971 as a temporary moratorium measure applying only to counties without coal reserves or where not active mining was then occurring. Still, the very fact that a strip mine prohibition was even debated at all in a state like West Virginia – then among the nation’s top coal producers — was something of a victory for its backers. Rockefeller continued to advocate for a strip mine ban in the state during his 1972 run for Governor.

“Must Be Abolished”
Jay Rockefeller: 1972

Dec 30, 1970 NY Times story on John D. Rockefeller’s call to abolish strip mining in West Virginia.

In January 1972, Democrat John D. “Jay” Rockefeller of West Virginia, then running for Governor, gave a speech at Morris Harvey College in which he called for abolishing strip mining in West Virginia. Below are some excerpts of that speech, taken from Shirley Stewart Burns’ book, Bringing Down The Mountains.

…Government has turned its back on the many West Virginians who have borne out of their own property and out of their own pocketbooks the destructive impact of stripping. We hear that our Governor once claimed to have wept as he flew over the strip mine devastation of this state. Now it’s the people who weep.

They weep because of the devastation of our mountains, because of the disaster of giant high walls, acid-laden benches, and bare, precipitous outslopes which support no vegetation at all but erode thousands of tons of mud and rocks into the streams and rivers below.

Strip-mining must be abolished because of its effect on those who have given most to the cause – the many West Virginians who have suffered actual destruction of their homes; those who have put up with flooding, mud slides, cracked foundations, destruction of neighborhoods, decreases in property values, the loss of fishing and hunting, and the beauty of the hills. And we are not alone in our feeling.

West Virginians love their hills. We identify ourselves with our hills, and are not about to let our hills be torn aside and demolished so that a small fraction of the coal beneath them can be taken away. And we can make a difference.

But if we are to communicate as an abolition movement, we have to stretch ourselves further. It’s not enough just to be against strip-mining. In the emotion of seeing a newly clobbered hill, it’s easy to forget the largest justification for abolition. The strongest arguments, other than environmental ones, can be made for abolition on economic terms. And we have to manifest concern for new industries and jobs in West Virginia….

The overwhelming percentage of our coal can only be obtained by deep mining. . . And we know that when the industry is cured of its binge of exploitation stripping, and returns to real mining, there will be more jobs for West Virginians – jobs that contribute to our prosperity without destroying the communities and counties in which they are located.

We can be a powerful force toward both halting the destruction of our state and also toward coming up with economically sound alternatives that will demonstrate best to all people that we have the long-term economic interests of the state at heart.

Rockefeller won the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1972, but was defeated in the general election by the Republican incumbent, Governor Arch Moore. His abolition measure had brought new visibility and attention to the issue, but Rockefeller believed it cost him the election, and thereafter would not oppose strip mining again. In 1976 he was elected Governor of West Virginia, re-elected in 1980, and then became U.S. Senator in 1984, serving in that post to January 2015.

Congressman Ken Hechler (D-WV).

In Congress, 1971-72

In Congress, meanwhile, over a dozen strip mine bills were introduced in 1971, including one by the Nixon Administration. But it would be the bill introduced by Rep. Ken Hechler (D-WV) that would receive the most attention. Hechler’s bill, H.R. 4556, proposed to prohibit new strip mining and phase out all surface coal mining in six months.

Hechler would later enlist 87 cosponsors on his bill, and by May 1971, a companion bill, S. 1498, was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senators Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) and George McGovern (D-SD).

During hearings held on those bills and others, there was passionate support for Hechler’s bill to ban strip mining from many Appalachian activists and other citizen groups.

April 1971 NY Times news clip.

National environmental and conservation organizations also supported a strip mine ban – including Friends of the Earth, Sierra Clubs, Wilderness Society, National Wildlife Federation, Conservation Foundation, Izaak Walton League, National Audubon Society, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. But at the same time, these groups also signaled support for a regulatory approach to strip mining — if it came to that, albeit with strict reclamation standards.

But in the end, as in Kentucky and West Virginia, there would be no quarter in Congress for banning or phasing out strip mining, as the oil/coal/utility axis was just too powerful.

From the coal industry, came a statement from Carl E. Bagge, president of the National Coal Association, charging that abolitionist efforts were “utterly ridiculous,” and would deny electric companies one-third of coal deliveries then coming from strip mines. Such restrictions, he said, would make electric power “brownouts and even blackouts inevitable in many heavily populated areas.”

Still, the fear of a national groundswell for prohibiting strip mining had made mining and energy interests somewhat more receptive to strip mine regulation – but certainly, the weakest possible regulation they could get. Yet even some Nixon Administration officials would concede of strip mine problems.

During two days of Senate hearings on the strip mine bills in November 1971, run by Senator Frank E. Moss, Democrat of Utah, some Nixon Administration officials, while not supporting strip mine prohibitions, did offer some situations for restrictions where the environment would be permanently impaired or unable to meet certain standards. Russell E. Train, chairman of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, noted in one exchange: “Under some circumstances, [where] the damage from mining could not be repaired … Under those particular circumstances, it would be quite expected that mining could not be undertaken.” In another exchange between Senator Clifford P. Hansen (R-WY) and John R. Quarles Jr., of the EPA, Hansen asked: “Is it feasible at a given site to carry out mining activities without violating water quality standards or unduly impairing other important environmental values?” Quarles replied, “If not [i.e., unable to mine without violating standards], mining should be prohibited.” Yet, without exception, Nixon officials and those who testified for the mining industry in the Senate, and earlier in the House, strongly opposed as “unrealistic” and “potentially disastrous to the national economy” any flat prohibitions on strip mining.

Appalachian activists, however, were clear about where they stood. Jim Branscome, who headed the Save Our Kentucky citizens group and also spoke for the broader Appalachian Coalition, had testified in support of banning strip mining. Branscome, in fact, warned Congress that strip mining in Appalachia – and the apparent lack of control over it, despite appeals to local courts and state legislature — was creating a revolutionary fervor among coalfield residents, to the point of direct action against local mines and even taking up arms. Branscome also noted that perhaps even more important than strip mining’s environmental destruction, was its economic and social impacts on local residents and communities; its affront to human welfare and property rights. Later that year, on December 21, 1971, Branscome would also publish a long article on Appalachia strip mining for the Sunday New York Times Magazine – a story that was featured on the magazine’s cover, helping elevate the issue nationally.

December 12, 1971 cover of NY Times Magazine feature story on surface coal mining, showing aerial photo of “windrows” of huge spoil-piles left after power-shovel stripping in Kentucky. The Times story was written by journalist/activist James Branscome of Save Our Kentucky citizens group.

As Congress was considering the various strip mine bills, tragedy struck the coalfields in late February 1972 when a series of mountain-side coal waste dams failed at Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, killing 125 people. Congressman Ken Hechler, visiting the disaster scene that February, noted: “As I looked through Buffalo Creek valley yesterday, it struck me again that the entire valley is honeycombed with strip mines and the waste from deep mines so that the soil can no longer hold the [rain] water.” A citizens’ report on the Buffalo Creek disaster also noted that strip and augur mining above the coal dam had likely contributed to its over-filling. Unable to win an outright ban on strip mining, some sought a prohibition on “steep slopes.”The disaster helped raise public concern about coal mine safety, and also spurred some Congressional support for strip mine controls.

Still, Ken Hechler and supporters, not able to win a prohibition measure in Congress, were trying for a bill that would include a prohibition on strip mining steep slopes – those greater than 14 degrees. A New York Times editorial of August 1972, supporting such a measure, noted: “an effective bill will have to ban, within the shortest possible time, all surface mining on mountain slopes, where the greatest harm is done with the least chance of genuine reclamation.” But even the “steep slopes” ban could not gain traction in Congress, and instead certain regulatory requirements for handling overburden and spoil on such slopes would be added later. Hechler and others also sought, unsuccessfully, to designate EPA as the administrator rather than the Department of the Interior, the latter seen as too closely tied to mining and energy interests.

In the end, for 1972, a regulatory bill was passed out of the House Interior Committee, and approved by the full House on October 12. On the Senate side, a much broader bill was introduced by Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA), which covered all minerals and not just coal. That bill was voted out by the Senate Interior Committee on September 1972, but never made it to the Senate floor before Congress adjourned. So, no strip mine bill emerged from the 92nd Congress.

In Congress, 1973

President Richard Nixon, who would soon be dogged by the Watergate scandal (see sidebar, later below), had been reelected in November 1972, and his administration had sent a strip mining bill to Congress in early 1973. Although redrafted a few times in attempts to make it more palatable, the Nixon bill lacked key provisions – such as that for eliminating final cut “highwalls,” and it also had no program for cleaning up the tens of thousands of acres of abandoned, unreclaimed strip mine sites. The Democrat-controlled House and Senate committees would fashion the bills that were later advanced by Congress.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader (1961-1977), Senator Mike Mansfield (D-MT).

The Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee held hearings March 13–17, 1973 on six bills offered to regulate surface mining, including one from committee chairman, Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA), S. 425.

Among Senators commenting at the time was Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) who told the committee: “We (of Montana) are not interested in becoming another Appalachia … [W]e are not going to stand by and let the large fuel corporations dig up eastern Montana until the reserves are exhausted.” As Senate leader, Mansfield vowed to press for “speedy passage” of a strong strip mining bill, adding at one point, that “a moratorium may be the answer” until a law and regulations were in place.

Edwin R. Phelps, president, Peabody Coal Company, declared that “the public interest includes not only reclamation but the right of interstate commerce to use” coal. Any undue restrictions on strip mining, he said, that would inhibit the development of this resource, would represent “economic waste of the grossest sort…”

The American Mining Congress spokesman was particularly concerned with a provision requiring coal mining operators to restore land after mining to “the approximate original contour” with “all highwalls, spoil piles, and depressions eliminated.” The provision was added in an amendment by Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D Wis.). Minimum federal standards for mining and reclamation were also part of Senate bill, S-425.

Senator Lee Metcalf (D-MT), a subcommittee chairman, who had his own bill, presided over most of the ten days of Senate Interior Committee “mark up” of S. 425, combining it with elements of his own bill, and changing the bill’s focus from “all minerals” to coal only.

Louise Dunlap of the Environmental Policy Center was a key lobbyist for citizen groups.

Sentiment among a number of Appalachian groups during 1973 was still strongly in favor of a general strip mining ban. Others hedged their bets. Testimony and messaging by the Coalition Against Strip Mining — led by Environmental Policy Center lobbyist, Louise Dunlap — supported a phase out, while also supporting a strong regulatory bill. Among provisions advocated for the latter bill were: a steep slope prohibition (slopes exceeding 14 degrees); surface owner consent; public hearings prior to permits being issued; and a “citizen suits” provision, giving citizens the option to bring legal action for failed enforcement.

On the House side, two Interior subcommittees — the Environment Subcommittee (chaired by Rep. Morris Udall (D-Az) and the Mines and Mining subcommittee (chaired by Rep. Patsy Mink D-HI) held joint hearings during April and May 1973 on more than a dozen strip mine bills that had been introduced, including H.R. 1000 by Ken Hechler, to phase out strip mining. In mid-1973, some House members also visited strip mine operations at eastern and western locations.

Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI), chair of Interior Mines & Mining Subcommittee.

By November 12, 1973, a combination of bills, including one from the previous Congress by Rep. John Saylor (R-PA), was used to fashion a new bill, H.R. 11500, that would emerge from the two Interior subcommittees as the primary House bill after 29 days of mark up. However, the bill then faced lengthy delays in the full House Interior Committee.

In the Senate, S. 425 had been reported out of committee on September 21, 1973. Neither environmentalists nor the mining industry liked what they saw in that bill. When it reached the full Senate for two days of floor debate, October 8th and 9th, an amendment by Senator Mike Mansfield was offered to prohibit strip mining, but not deep mining, on federal coal lands where the government did not own the surface. Mansfield’s amendment passed by a 53-to-33 vote, but would later be removed in conference committee.

On October 9, 1973, the final senate bill passed by an overwhelming 82-to-8 vote, while withstanding an attempt to knock out the “approximate original contour” requirement — the bill’s central reclamation feature. Among the bill’s other provisions was one that would prohibit surface coal mining where reclamation was not feasible. States would have six months to develop strip mine regulations in accord with the bill, or have federal standards imposed. And $100-million was included for the reclamation of lands already stripped and $5-million a year in grants was set aside to help states developing their regulatory plans. But just as some progress was being made with strip mine legislation, a major new wrinkle in the energy-environment equation emerged: an Arab oil embargo.

“Two Upheavals”
1972-74: Watergate & Energy

As the strip mining legislation was being considered in Congress during 1972-74, two major national political upheavals were occurring – Watergate and the energy crisis. The first brought high political drama and a Presidential crisis to Capitol Hill and nation, and the second rattled national energy policy and brought economic travail. In retrospect, it’s a wonder anything of substance was able to move through Congress amidst these major calamities.

August 9, 1974. Famous farewell moment from Richard Nixon at helicopter door upon his departure from the White House following his resignation from office.

Washington Post reporting of a June 1972 burglary at Democratic campaign headquarters in the Watergate office and hotel complex in Washington, DC, documented the beginnings of the Watergate scandal that soon mushroomed into a much bigger affair of Nixon campaign operatives, hush money, cover ups, a “must-see-TV” Congressional investigation of White House scheming, Nixon battling special prosecutors, a Supreme Court decision on White House tapes, impeachment proceedings, Nixon’s August 1974 resignation from office and departure by helicopter, culminating with Gerald Ford (who had earlier replaced vice President Spiro Agnew, removed for another scandal) assuming the Presidency of the United States on August 8th, 1974.

1973. Gas station attendant bringing the bad news to would-be patrons following the Arab oil embargo.

The other crisis, overlapping with Watergate in part, began on October 19, 1973, in retaliation for American assistance to Israel in the Yom Kippur War, when the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) instituted an oil embargo on the U.S. and other nations supporting Israel.

In the U.S., between 1970 and 1973, imports of crude oil had nearly doubled, reaching 6.2 million barrels per day in 1973, making the nation vulnerable to supply disruptions. With the Arab oil embargo, a U.S. “energy crisis” soon ensued. Long lines of cars began appearing at gasoline stations as supplies became limited or ran out. “No gas” signs appeared, then gasoline was rationed. “Gas guzzler” automobiles stopped selling, Detroit was staggered, speed limit restrictions were imposed, calls for energy conservation abounded, as ill effects rippled through the stock market and broader economy.

About a month later, on November 7th,1973, the Nixon Administration then called for a national “Project Independence” energy initiative in reaction to the OPEC oil embargo, invoking the Manhattan Project, with the goal of achieving U.S. energy self-sufficiency by 1980 through a national commitment to energy conservation and alternative energy development. Coal development and nuclear energy became major parts of that plan, later unveiled by Henry Kissinger on February 11, 1974.

AEP’s cartoon-styled logo and slogan that ran with many of its 1974 ads pushing coal development.

Coal was then touted as “America’s” energy answer to Arab oil, popularized in part by the American Electric Power Company and their full-page newspaper and magazine ad campaign pushing coal development with the punchline /slogan: “America Has More Coal Than the Middle East Has Oil. Let’s Dig It.” New coal programs of all kinds were soon being advocated – including converting oil power plants to coal, building coal gasification and coal liquefaction plants, moving coal via slurry pipelines, and of course, mining more coal by whatever means. All of this brought attention to the strip mine regulatory fight, seen by some as a needless restraint on energy development.

Back in Congress…

Back in Congress, meanwhile, the House Interior committee began its mark up of H.R. 11500 in February 1974, beating back one attempt to substitute a weaker version by Rep. Craig Hosmer (R-CA). The committee conducted some 19 days of mark-up before voting the bill out on May 14, 1974.

During House floor debate of July 1974, Patsy T. Mink (D Hawaii), chair of the Mines & Mining Subcommittee said there was “absolutely no merit” to the coal industry’s “scare tactic” that the bill would “shut down coal mines and reduce production to a point electric power blackouts.” She contended that HR 11500 was similar to stiff surface mining laws in Ohio and Pennsylvania where coal production had actually increased and miners had not been thrown out of work.

1974 portrait of President Gerald R. Ford.

Rep. Sam Steiger (R-Ariz.), an Interior Committee member, charged that H.R. 11500 was so vague and complicated, that “there is opportunity for litigation on every page. Any crazy who wants to file against an on-going mine or proposed mine is going to be able to find something the company has not done under this bill.” In any case, the bill still had solid support, and the House passed H.R. 11500 on July 25, 1974 by a 291–81 vote.

By August 9, 1974 Gerald R. Ford was President of the United States, having assumed the Presidency with Richard Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal.

In Congress, the House and Senate versions of the strip mine bills were similar in their major provisions but contained several important differences, and these would be worked over during the House-Senate conference on the bills. The conference committee met 20 times between August 1st and December 3rd, 1974 when agreement was finally reached. Full House approval of the conference report followed on December 13th, with Senate approving final passage on December 16, 1974. “The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act” was then sent to the White House for the President’s signature.

Dec 1974 New York Times reporting on President Ford’s vetoes.

Ford’s 1st Veto

President Ford had made it known he would veto any strip mine bill that came to him. His energy advisers had prevailed internally, concerned that strip mine reclamation rules would curtail coal production at a time when the nation was still in throes of an energy supply crisis, given its continued dependence on oil imports.

“We are engaged in a major review of national energy polices,” Ford wrote in his memorandum of disapproval for the strip mine bill. “Unnecessary restrictions on coal production would limit our nation’s freedom to adopt the best energy options.” The strip mine bill, he said, would increase U.S. dependence on expensive foreign oil.

Still, there had been some support within the Ford Administration for strip mine regulation. Interior Secretary, Rogers Morton, and EPA’s Russell Train, had recommended the President sign the bill, with Morton predicting Congress would pass an even more restrictive bill the following year. Environmentalists had also made some appeals to then Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who had expressed concern about strip mining impacts in the West.

Nevertheless, by the time the bill reached the White House, President Ford simply ignored it, allowing a “pocket veto” to occur on December 30, 1974, as Congress by then had adjourned. And so, there would be no opportunity for Congress to attempt a veto override. While Congress is in session, the Constitution gives the president 10 days to sign or return legislation to Congress. If Congress adjourns during the 10-day period, and the president does not sign the bill, a “pocket veto” occurs.

In any case, what would have been “the preeminent environmental legislation of the 93rd Congress” according to Congressional Quarterly, was stopped in its tracks with Ford’s pocket veto. Now, the whole legislative process around the strip mining legislation would have to begin anew in the next session of Congress, beginning in 1975.

In Congress, 1975

Morris “Mo” Udall (D-AZ), a 1976 presidential candidate, would become a leader on strip mine bills.

In early 1975, members of Congress who had worked on past strip mine bills, and who were convinced of the need for such regulation, were not deterred by President Ford’s veto. Rep Morris Udall, for one, who helped shepherd the bill in the last Congress, told reporters just after New Years day 1975, that he planned to introduce a bill within a week or so. Udall, by then a candidate for his party’s 1976 presidential nomination, said it was his intention “to move very quickly in 1975,” believing Congress could “get a good, strong, but balanced and reasonable strip mining bill.”

In fact, in both the House and Senate, the previous bill that was pocket-vetoed by Ford became the starting point for new bills in each chamber. And to save time, the full committees took up the bills directly, by-passing subcommittees and only holding hearings for Ford Administration officials.

In early February 1975, President Ford had sent his bill to Congress along with a letter indicating certain “critical” and “other important” changes his administration sought in the previously vetoed bill. The House had three days of mark-up in late February 1975 during which some, but not all, of the Administration’s suggested changes were incorporated into their new bill, H.R. 25. That bill then went to the House for three days of debate, during which 42 amendments were considered and 22 adopted. A “steep slopes” prohibition measure modeled on an earlier Ken Hechler bill, to prohibit new mining permits on slopes greater than 20 degrees, was offered by Gladys Spellman (D-MD) on March 17, 1975, but defeated by a 262-to-136 vote. The full house then adopted H.R. 25 the next day on a vote of 333-to-86, with 96 Republicans in favor.

Sen. Henry Jackson (D-WA), also an announced presidential candidate for 1976, was sponsor of S.7.

The Senate Interior Committee, with their bill, S. 7, held a February 19, 1975 meeting with Ford Adminis-tration officials to hear their views, then marked up their bill the next week, adding some of the Administration’s suggestions. S.7 was then voted out of committee on February 27, 1975 and soon began full Senate consideration. On March 11th, Senator Mansfield’s (D-MT) amendment prohibiting strip mining on privately-owned surface over federally- owned coal, lost on a 56-to-39 vote. And a measure similar to the Spellman amendment in the House was offered by Senator Charles Mathias (D-MD) on March 12, but was defeated by a 64-to-28 vote. The full Senate that day then adopted S.7 by a vote of 84-to-13, with 26 Republicans in favor.

Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA), Interior Committee chairman and chief sponsor of S. 7, would later call the bill “firm but fair,” denying assertions by the Ford Administration and the coal industry that it would significantly reduce coal production.

Even though the House and Senate had started with similar bills, there were still some 67 differences between H.R. 25 and S.7. These bills then headed to House-Senate conference committee to iron out the differences. It was April 1975. With the likelihood the strip mine bill would soon arrive at the White House, the coal industry decided to turn up the heat.

Coal Truck Protest

A contingent of some 2,000 strip mine workers and more than 400 coal trucks headed for Washington, D.C. in early April 1975. Their intention was to mount a protest at the Capitol to make their views known to lawmakers then writing strip mining legislation. They feared the bills would result in lost jobs and ruined local businesses.

The trucks and the miners came mostly from the coalfields of southwest Virginia and West Virginia, and part of their plan was to lobby their Senators and Representatives.

April 7th, 1975. A reported 30-mile long convoy of protesting coal trucks from southwest Virginia heads for Washington, D.C. via Interstate Highway to protest strip mining legislation in Congress. UPI photo.

One account of the trip to Washington from Southwest Virginia filed by United Press International (UPI) reported the following:

…The trucks looked like they carried an army off to war as they wound through the mountain roads of Appalachia. Hundreds of people lined the shoulders [of roads in local towns], holding signs and calling out encouragement. Two young girls stood on the crest of a hill holding a poster which read, “Good Luck in Washington, Coal Miners. We’re All Behind You.” A Wise County policemen held up a clenched fist. An old man flashed a “v-for-victory” sign with his fingers. “Give ’em what for,” shouted a woman. The caravan of coal operators, truckers and miners left for the nation’s capital Monday [April 7, 1975] in an effort to save their jobs and, possibly their counties’ economic well-being. They are in Washington…to protest the proposed federal strip mining law to overhaul and toughen reclamation regulations, particularly for coal scraped out of steep hills….Several store windows supported the strike with posters. “We’ve Got Coal, Let Us Mine It,” read a sign at the Corner Restaurant. Nick Voni, the owner, watched as the convoy passed. “Most of my business comes from coal workers,” he said. “If they go so do most of the little profit I now make”…

Coal truck departing for D.C. with home-made message.

As the truck convoy traveled through towns, they heard calls of support and honking horns along the way. Wayne Counts, an independent trucker and coal operator in the convoy was buoyed by the local support. “Now we gotta convince Washington,” he said. In addition to the truckers, hundreds of others came on chartered busses or other vehicles.

The convoy, which began in southwestern Virginia with about 400 trucks, soon added others along they way from neighboring states, including West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

By the time they arrived in the Washington metro area on April 7, 1975, there were more than 400 coal trucks. Since the planned rally was scheduled for April 8th, they parked their rigs for the night in Alexandria, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, with drivers and other demonstrators then shuttled by bus to hotels in Washington.

According to spokespersons for the two organizations representing the protest – the Appalachian Organization of Surface Miners and Truckers, and the Virginia Surface Mine Reclamation Association – they had petitions with 15,000 signatures urging President Ford to veto any strip mine bill that emerged from the Senate-House conference.

Once in D.C., the plan for the caravan was to form long lines of the large coal trucks that would move down Independence Avenue toward the Capitol, and also along Constitution Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. Others on foot at the Capitol would assemble into smaller groups of four or five to lobby members of Congress to oppose the strip mine bills then heading for House-Senate conference.

April 9, 1975. New York Times story on the “coal truck” protest in Washington, DC over then-pending strip mine bill in Congress, with one truck shown in foreground carrying sign, “Without Coal Nothing Will Roll.”

A number of the coal trucks on parade were emblazoned with home-made placards that read, “We Dig Coal,” “Coal Is Beautiful,” and “You Choose: Coal or Cold”. Others singled out the pending bills in Congress with messages such as: “Harlan Opposes S-7 HR 25,” “Let’s Kill S.7 and H.R. 25 on the Hill”, “Stop S.7”, and “Veto S-7, HR-25.”

Some of the protestors erroneously believed the legislation held provisions to ban strip mining on slopes of 20 percent or more. Such measures, they charged, would shut down up to 85 per cent of the strip mines in the mountainous areas of Southwest Virginia in Wise County, and most of the surface mines in nearby states. Wise County officials believed passage of a strip mine bill would spell ruin for their economy, closing stores and raising unemployment.

John Seiberling (D-OH), an Interior Commit-tee member, helped move strip mine bills.

As the convoy rolled through the city after the morning rush hour, other demonstrators picketed the White House on foot along Pennsylvania Avenue. Hundreds of others worked the corridors of the House and Senate office buildings on Capitol Hill seeking out members targeted for lobbying by protest leaders.

Congressman Morris Udall called the protesters’ job fears the result of “a mischievous and purposeful effort by a misguided segment of the coal industry to mislead and foster fear among workers and their families.” Speaking to newsmen in his office at one point as the sound of blaring truck air horns could be heard from the truck protest on the nearby streets, he also said: “the sincere miners who are here have been misguided by a segment of the industry with a hell-be-damned attitude. They’re confused and mis-led people. . . . It’s a power play, nothing new in their presentation. They are people who want to keep on doing what they have done for 50 years,” which he called “raping the landscape.” The nation “has had it with them,” he said.

A few newspaper reporters who had been following the legislation in Congress, among them, Ward Sinclair of the Louisville Courier Journal and Ernest Furgurson of The Washington Star, detailed in their follow-up stories how the protesting miners were mis-informed about the contents of the strip mine legislation which was then headed for House-Senate conference.

Veto No. 2

May 20, 1975. NY Times story on President Gerald Ford's 2nd veto of strip mine bill.

Back in Congress, meanwhile, work continued toward passage of the strip mine bill, as the House-Senate Conference met five times between April 16th and 19th. The Senate agreed to the conference report on H.R. 25, the final bill, by voice vote on May 5th, and the House approved it on May 7th, 1975 by a vote of 293-to-115, with 77 Republicans in favor. The bill was then sent to the President.

On May 20th, 1975, Gerald Ford vetoed H.R. 25, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1975, despite an overwhelmingly pro-environment vote in the House of Representatives. Ford argued that jobs would be lost, utility bills would rise, Americans would be more dependent on foreign oil, and coal production would be unnecessarily reduced. Now, however, a showdown would come between the President and Congress, as an attempt to override his veto would now be attempted.

Margins in both the House and Senate on previous votes on the bill and related amendments suggested there would be a two-thirds majority needed to override Ford’s veto. The House had voted 293-to-115 on final passage – 21 votes more than two-thirds. The Senate’s earlier vote on S. 7 had been 84-to-13. If those margins held, Congress would win. And so, a major lobbying battle ensued through early-and-mid June 1975, including an unusual joint House-Senate “veto justification” hearing by Udall and Jackson on June 3rd, 1975 attempting to pin down suspect data about job loss and reduced coal production used by the Ford Administration to justify the veto.

In its veto message, the Ford Administration claimed that 36,000 miners would be thrown out of work, electric bills for millions of consumers would rise, and as much as 162 million tons a year in coal production would be lost. At its joint hearing, the Democrats charged “funny numbers,” not being able to get satisfactory answers about sources or back up. Both Udall and Jackson issued statements attacking the data projections used in the Administration’s veto message. At the packed joint hearing on June 3rd, Udall accused Administration officials of “misleading” the President with knowingly “false and phony” estimates of the energy and economic impacts, and of manufacturing “false computations and statistics, in collusion with irresponsible coal interests and the electric utility industry.”Udall accused Administra-tion officials of “misleading” the President with knowingly “false and pho-ny” estimates. Those charges were denied by the officials during questioning by Republican committee members. Still, the dramatic hearing wasn’t enough to convince Congress to override Ford’s veto. On June 10th, 1975, the House failed to override Ford’s veto by a vote of 278-to-143, falling short by just three votes.

Later, however, two newspaper reporters then covering the strip mine legislation and the veto justification hearings — Ward Sinclair of the Louisville Courier-Journal and Stephen Nordlinger of The Baltimore Sun — conducted a joint three-week investigation of the data used by the Ford Administration for the veto, finding it full of contradictions, discrepancies, guess-work, and in fact, being quite “sloppy.” The reporters filed detailed stories in their respective newspapers on what they found on June 30, 1975 (Interestingly, two years later, Sinclair and Nordlinger were asked to testify and recount their investigations on the Ford strip-mine veto data before a Senate Interior Committee then considering legislation to create the Federal Energy Information Agency).

In any case, after the House lost the vote on the attempted veto override, Morris Udall told the press: “A large majority of the American people clearly want this bill…This thing isn’t dead. The fight must go on.” Indeed.

Sen. Lee Metcalf (D-MT).

Rep. John Melcher (D-MT).

During June and July 1975 a few determined members of Congress, in league with their coalfield citizen groups and environmental supporters, did not quit on the strip mine bill.

On June 16, 1975, Senator Metcalf (D-MT) announced his intention to attach a good portion of the strip mine bill, including surface owners protection, to the then-pending Federal Coal Leasing Amendments Act of 1975, S. 391 (Metcalf did not include titles for abandoned mine reclamation or state mineral research institutes). On July 31, 1975, just before the August Congressional recess, the Senate voted to approve S. 391 with Metcalf’s provisions, by a vote of 82-to-12.

A day earlier on the House side, John Melcher (D-MT), signaled his intention to do the same thing and more, attaching the entire vetoed strip mine bill, with no titles eliminated, to the House version of the Federal coal leasing bill, HR. 6721. The moves to attach strip mining regulation to the coal leasing bills was a clever strategy, as the Ford Administration wanted the coal leasing measures to pass. Yet, as it turned out, the Democrats were also foiled on this attempt. On November 12, 1975, as the House Interior Committee prepared to vote out their leasing bill, HR 6721, they refused to adopt the Melcher plan.

August 1977 New York Times story on bill signing.

Through much of 1976, there was little definitive movement on strip mine legislation. Twice that year, with a veto by President Ford still likely, the House Rules Committee prevented strip mining legislation from reaching the House floor. However, later that year, as Georgia Governor and Democratic Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter campaigned in Appalachia, he promised that if elected, he would sign strip mining legislation sent to him by Congress.

In November 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected President. And in 1977 — after a repeat of the arduous legislative process in Congress all over again, including hearings, subcommittee and full committee mark-ups, House and Senate floors debates, more amendments, and much lobbying – President Carter, at an August Rose Garden ceremony that included many citizen activists from across the country, signed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act 1977 into law. While the law wasn’t perfect from an environmental and citizen activist perspective — which Carter acknowledged — it did offer a decent starting point.

Still, enactment of the law – also known by its acronym, SMCRA, pronounced “smack-rah” – was just the beginning. Ferocious fights lay ahead over the law’s enforcement, including battles over various exemptions and loopholes in the law, ongoing litigation over the law’s key provisions, and recurring budget, personnel and political battles in managing the law in subsequent administrations and Congress.

This August 2007 joint report on the strip mine law by the Western Organization of Resource Councils and the Natural Resources Defense Council, offered a critical assessment.

Later Years

Over the last several decades, citizen and environmental groups, and public employees administering the law, have all filed critiques and reports on the law’s progress and failures.

In 2017, for example, Tom FitzGerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, one of a number of citizen groups tracking strip mine activities in Appalachia, noted: “…after 40 years of implementation, and fully sixty or more years after grassroots efforts to enact a national program for controlling surface coal mining, the promises made by Congress to the people of the coalfields remain largely unkept.”

And while coal’s role in national and global economies may be contracting with the realities of climate change, there are still ongoing battles every day in America over strip mining control, lack of reclamation, and abandoned mined-land repair.

In retrospect, however, the 1971-1976 era of shaping the strip mine law does offer a classic case study of the legislative and political process – of “how a bill becomes a law” – from grassroots organizing to White House maneuvering, and much more.

For more recent history, see “Sources, Links & Additional Information” below, along with more than a dozen books listed there on coal-mining topics.

Additional stories at this website on the history of coal and coal mining include the following: “Giant Shovel on I-70,” (about strip mining in southeastern Ohio during the 1960s and `70s); “Paradise: 1971″ (about a John Prine song, strip mining in Muhlenberg County, KY, and the demise of a small town); “Mountain Warrior” (profile of Kentucky author and coal-field activist, Harry Caudill, and his life-long critique of Appalachian strip mining); “Kennedy Coal History: Bobby & Ted: 1968-2008”; “Sixteen Tons, 1950s” (the famous Tennessee Ernie Ford song and some coal mining history); and, “G.E.’s Hot Coal Ad, 2005” (a General Electric TV ad that casts coal miners, coal mining, and coal burning in a misguided light).

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. — Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 14 April 2022
Last Update: 14 April 2022
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Ford Helps Strippers: Two Vetoes,
1974-1975,” PopHistoryDig.com, April 14, 2022.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Penny Loeb's 2007 book, "Moving Mountains", about a battle over mountaintop mining in West Virginia. Click for copy.

K. Ross Toole’s 1976 book, “The Rape of the Great Plains,” Little, Brown & Co., 271 pp. Kirkus Reviews called it: “A blistering expose of a national obscenity: the vast strip-mining plans which are just getting underway on the western edge of the Northern Plains...” Click for copy.

2001 edition of Harry Caudill’s 1962 classic, best-selling book on the exploitation of Appalachia, “Night Comes to The Cumberlands.” Click for copy.

Paperback edition of Jeff Goodell’s 2006 book, “Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future,” Mariner Books (2007), 352pp. Click for copy.

Erik Reece’s 2006 book, “Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness - Radical Strip Mining and the Destruction of Appalachia,” 288pp. Click for copy.

Michael Parfit’s 1980 book, “Last Stand at Rosebud Creek: Coal, Power & People,” E.P. Dutton, 304 pp. Parfit interviewed ranchers, miners, Northern Cheyenne, and others involved in the controversy over strip mining and the coal-fired power plant at Colstrip, Montana. Click for copy.

Shirley Stewart Burns’ 2007 book, “Bringing Down The Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal on Southern West Virginia Communities,” 214pp. click for copy.

Gerald Stern's book on the 1972 Buffalo Creek coal dam disaster in West Virginia and resulting lawsuit. Click for copy.

Harry Caudill’s 1983 book, “Theirs Be The Power,” which depicts the exploitation of eastern Kentucky by a group of coal moguls, including Morgan, Rockefeller, Forbes, Mellon, and Delano. University of Illinois Press, 189 pp. Click for copy .

Dana E. Powell’s 2018 book, “Landscapes of Power: Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation,” Duke University Press, 336 pp. Click for copy.

Jeff Biggers’ 2014 book, “Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland,” Southern Illinois University Press, 328 pp. Click for copy.

Judith Nies’ 2014 book, “Unreal City: Las Vegas, Black Mesa, and the Fate of the West,” includes history on the Hopi and Navajo, Black Mesa coal, electric power development, water issues and more. 320 pp. Click for copy.

Michael Shnayerson’s 2008 book, “Coal River: How a Few Brave Americans Took On a Powerful Company - and the Federal Government - to Save The Land They Love.” Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 336 pp. Click for copy.

Mark Squillace, “The Strip Mining Handbook: A Coalfield Citizens’ Guide to Using the Law To Fight Back Against the Ravages of Strip Mining and Underground Mining,” revised edition, 1990, Environmental Policy Institute and Friends of the Earth, Washington, D.C., 150 pp. Click for copy.

Ted Nace’s 2009 book, “Climate Hope: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal.” Story of the activist fight during 2007-2009 to contest DOE’s projection of 151 new coal-fired power plants. CoalSwarm.org publisher, 288 pp. Click for Kindle or paperback.

Herblock (Herbert L. Block), cartoonist, “Rip Off,” Washington Post, June 1, 1975 (also appearing at U.S. Library of Congress exhibit, “Enduring Outrage: Editorial Cartoons by Herblock,” Washington, DC, 2006-2007 (from the Herbert L. Block Collection).

“Governor Requested To Halt Strip Mining,” The Mountain Eagle (Whitesburg, KY), September 1, 1960.

Harry Caudill, “Who Would Wreck a Valley for a Bit of Cheap Fuel,” Mountain Life & Work, Vol. 40, No. 3, Fall 1965 (remarks before White House Conference on Natural Beauty, May 24, 1965).

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Coal Mines Vex Kentuckians; 70 Hold Motorcade, Picket Capitol and See Governor,” New York Times, June 23, 1965.

Jim Morissey, “The TVA – A Ravager?,” The Courier-Journal Magazine (KY), August 13, 1965.

Kyle Vance, “Knott Widow Hauled Off In Clash At Strip Mine” [ re: arrest of 61-year old Mrs. Ollie Combs for protesting a strip mine near her home], The Courier Journal (KY), November 24, 1965, front page (w/photo of Combs being carried off by two officers).

David Nevin, “These Murdered Old Mountains – Kentucky Operators are Violently Defacing the Land and Ruining Lives,” Life, January 12, 1968, Photographs by Bob Gomel, pp. 54-64.

“Northern Plains Resource Council, “History: Industrial-Scale Coal Mining in Ranch Country,” NorthernPlains.org.

Joseph A. Boccardy and Willard M. Spaulding, Jr., “Effects of Surface Mining on Fish and Wildlife in Appalachia,” Special Report, Division of Fishery Services, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, U.S. Department of the Interior, June 8, 1968.

David V. Hawpe, “Massive Earth Slide Cuts Off 19 Homes; Below Mining Site,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), February 18, 1970.

Editorial, “Who Pays For The Damage of Mining?,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), February 19, 1970.

David Ross Stevens, “Conservationists Stage Anti-Strip Mining Rally,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), March 10, 1970.

David Ross Stevens, “Knott Court Calls Strip Mining Public Nuisance,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), May 3, 1970.

Kyle Vance, “Knott County Outlaws Strip Mining As Test of Its Regulatory Powers,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), June 7, 1970, p. 1.

David V. Hawpe, “Local Pressure Mounts for Controls on Strip Mining, Heavy Coal Trucks,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), June 8, 1970.

David Ross Stevens, “Knott County Magistrates to Decide If County Can Outlaw Strip Mining,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), June 8, 1970.

David V. Hawpe, “Leslie County to Use Zoning, Planning to Control Strip Mines,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), June 14, 1970.

David Ross Stevens, “Company Fined for Strip Mining Without Permit,” Louisville Courier-Journal (KY), June 27, 1970.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip-Mining Boom Leaves Wasteland in Its Wake,” New York Times, December 15, 1970.

Ben A. Franklin, “Rockefeller 4th Will Seek State Ban on Strip Mines,” New York Times, December 31, 1970, p. 16.

George Vecsey, “Eastern Kentucky Scarred by Strip Mining, Looks to T.V.A. Suit,” New York Times, March 7, 1971, p. 36.

Ben A. Franklin, “West Virginia Senate Votes Ban On Strip Mining in 36 Counties,” New York Times, March 7, 1971, p. 36.

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“Strip Mining on Trial,” Washington Evening Star, March 20, 1971.

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Ward Sinclair, “Gathering Storm: Federal Strip Mining Curbs Stir Hot Response, Pro and Con,” Louisville Courier-Journal & Times, March 22, 1971.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Mining Foes Gaining Converts,” New York Times, April 25, 1971.

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Homer Bigart, “West Virginia Conserva-tionists Challenging Strip Miners,” New York Times, June 21, 1971, p. 33.

“Peeling Back the Land for Coal,” Newsweek, June 28, 1971, p. 69.

“Congressman-Crusader Gets Tough With Strip Miners,” Kentucky Post, July 13, 1971.

Ben A. Franklin, “Congress Moves to Control Strip Mining,” New York Times, September 19, 1971, p. 64.

William Greenburg, “Some Blame TVA: Strip Mined Poor Look for Villain,” Nashville Tennessean, September 19, 1971.

U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, North Central Power Study; Report of Phase I, 1971.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip-Mining Foe in Hearing Clash; Chairman of House Panel Is Angered by Militant,” New York Times, October 27, 1971, p. 11.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Mine Curb Gaining Support,” New York Times, November. 17, 1971, p. 94.

George Vecsey, “Opponents Move to Curb Appalachia Strip Mining,” New York Times, November 27, 1971, p. 25.

James Branscome, “Appalachia – Like The Flayed Back of A Man,” New York Times Magazine, December 12, 1971.

Peter Borrelli, Richard Cartwright Austin, The Strip Mining of America, 1971, Cornell University, 109 pp.

Ward Sinclair, “Coal’s Congressmen,” The New Republic, January 15, 1972.

“The Way We Were: January 27, 1972,” The Mountain Eagle, January 25, 2012.

Ben A. Franklin, “Ecologists Make Strip-Mine Study,” New York Times, January 30, 1972, p. 59.

Editorial, “Semi-Strip Mining,” New York Times, August 6, 1972.

George Vecsey, “House Unit Maps Strip-Mining Bill; One Coal Group Welcomes Regu-lation Proposals,” New York Times, August 13, 1972, p. 101.

Anthony Ripley, “Strip Mining Bill Dying in Congress,” New York Times, September 27, 1972, p, 18.

*Ben Franklin, “What Price Coal?,” New York Times Magazine, September 29, 1972, pp. 26, 96.

John Walsh, “West Virginia: Strip Mining Issue in Moore-Rockefeller Race,” Science, November 3, 1972, pp. 484-486.

Thomas A. Larsen, “Federal Regulation of Strip Mining,” Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, Volume 2, Issue 3, December 1, 1972.

Congressional Quarterly, “Bills Regulating Strip Mining Die in Senate,” CQ Almanac 1972, Washington, DC, 1973.

John P. Stacks, Stripping — The Surface Mining of America, Sierra Club Books, 1972.

Calvin Kentfield, “New Showdown in the West: ‘We Want That Coal Under Your Soil’…,” New York Times Magazine, January 28, 1973, pp. 12, 30-33.

“Nixon Aides Said to Draft Weaker Strip-Mining Bill,” New York Times, February 15, 1973, p. 1.

Ben A. Franklin, “Revisions in Strip-Mining Bill Appear to Aid Industry,” New York Times, February 18, 1973, p. 73.

Howard K. Smith (anchor), Bill Zimmerman (reporter), “Strip Mining,” ABC Evening News, Tuesday, March 13, 1973.

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“The New Energy Barons: How Big Oil Controls the Coal Industry,” United Mine Workers Journal, July 15–31, 1973, p. 5.

Associated Press, “A Strip Mine Bill Gains in Senate,” New York Times, September 11, 1973, p. 40.

Richard L. Madden, “Senate, 82-8, Votes Tight U.S. Control Over Strip Mining,” New York Times, October 10, 1973, p. 1.

“Strip Mining,” CQ Reseacher / CQpress.com, November 14, 1973.

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Douglas E. Kneeland, “To Ranch in West Or Strip for Coal: A Difficult Choice,” New York Times, February 18, 1974, p. 27.

Laney Hicks, Northern Plains Representative, Sierra Club, “The Future of Energy Devel-opment in Western States,” Energy Conference, North Dakota Academy of Science, April 25-27, 1974.

Gov. Milton Schapp, (Pennsylvania), Letter to the Editor, “Strip Mining: Toward a Strict but Practical Law,” New York Times, May 2, 1974

James P. Sterba, “Reclamation Plan for Strip-Mined Land Stirs Debate,” New York Times, July 3, 1974, p. 39.

Luther J. Carter, “Strip Mining: Congress Moves Toward ‘Tough’ Regulation,” Science, August 9, 1974, pp. 513-514.

EPA, Environmental Protection in Surface Mining of Coal, October 1974.

John L. McCormick, “Facts About Coal,” Environmental Policy Center, Washington, D.C., 1974.

Norman R. Williams, “Displacement of Appalachian Coal by Western Coal,” Memo to Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, 1974.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Mine Curbs Voted In House in Face of Veto,” New York Times, December 14, 1974, p. 61.

Ben A. Franklin, “Senate Sends Strip Mine Bill to Ford; Prompt Action on Veto Threat Urged; Morton Urged to Act,” New York Times, December 17, 1974.

David H. Anderson, “Strip Mining on Reservation Lands: Protecting the Environ-ment and the Rights of Indian Allotment Owners,” 35 Montana Law Review, 1974.

Luther J. Carter, “Strip Mining: A Practical Test for President Ford,” Science, December 27, 1974.

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“Congressional- Strip Mining (2),” Ford LibraryMuseum.gov (White House staff memos, statements and documents, 1974-75).

Congressional Quarterly, “Strip Mining Bill Pocket Vetoed,” CQ Almanac 1974, Washing-ton, DC, 1975.

Ben A. Franklin, “A New Strip Mining Bill Is Forthcoming, Udall Says,” New York Times, January 2, 1975, p. 14.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Mine Curbs Voted by Senate,” New York Times, March 13, 1975, p. 1.

Ben A. Franklin, “Coal Strip Mining in the West Facing Obstacles,” New York Times, March 24, 1975, p. 20.

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Associated Press (Big Stone Gap, VA), “Coal Operators Protesting Strip Mining Legisla-tion,” The Messenger (Madisonville, KY), April 1, 1975, p. 7.

Associated Press, “Businessmen and Mine Protest,” The Bee (Danville, VA), April 4, 1975.

“Strip Mine Control Law Sparks Protest of Area Workers Here,” Raleigh Register (Ral-eigh, WV), April 7, 1975.

UPI, “Truckers Cheered on Protest Road,” The Hopewell News (Hopewell, VA), April 8, 1975, p. 2.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Mine Group to Protest in Capital,” New York Times, April 8, 1975, p. 73.

“Strip Mine Law Protest,” Evening Herald (Pottsville, PA), April 8, 1975, p. 1, w/ photo.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Mine Workers Protest in Capital,” New York Times, April 9, 1975.

“Miles and Miles of Trucks Converge on Washington,” Clinch Valley Times (St. Paul, VA), April 10, 1975, p. 1.

Ward Sinclair, “Mining-Law Protesters [coal truck caravan] Were Misinformed About Provisions,” Louisville Courier Journal, April 11, 1975.

Ernest B. Furgurson, “Miners’ Protest Gulled the Supposedly Skeptical,” Washington Eve-ning Star, April16, 1975.

Ben A. Franklin, “Conferees Adopt Strip-Mine Bill That Both Sides Term Weak,” New York Times, April 30, 1975, p. 14.

Associated Press, “Senate Approves Strip Mining Bill,” New York Times, May 6, 1975, p. 26.

Ben A. Franklin, “Ford Will Repeat Strip Mining Veto,” New York Times, May 20, 1975, p. 1.

Gerald R. Ford (President of the United State, 1974-1977), “Veto of a Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Bill,” Senate.gov, May 20, 1975.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Mining Measure Vetoed; House Override Bid Due Today,” New York Times, May 21, 1975.

Editorial, “Strip Mine Veto,” New York Times, May 21, 1975, p. 42.

Ben A. Franklin, “Democrats Plan Strip Mine Drive,” New York Times, May 25, 1975, p. 27.

Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Strip Mining, Energy and Politics,” Washington Post, May 30, 1975.

Walter Taylor, “50 Defectors Needed for Mining Bill,” Washington Star, June 4, 1975.

Ben A. Franklin, “Foes of Strip Mine Veto Wring Data Concessions,” New York Times, June 4, 1975, p. 20.

Tom Raum, Associated Press, “Opponents Of Strip Mine Veto Vow To Try Once More,” Lewiston Evening Journal (Lewiston-Auburn, ME), June 10, 1975, p. 11.

Ben A. Franklin, “Strip Mine Bill Veto Is Upheld by House On a 3-Vote Margin,” New York Times, June 11, 1975, p. 1.

Ward Sinclair, “Contradictions, Discrepancies Noted – Data Used to Justify Strip-Mine Bill Veto Questioned,” Louisville Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), June 30, 1975.

Stephen E. Nordlinger, “Coal-Veto Data Held Sloppy,” Baltimore Sun, June 30, 1975.

“The Energy Information Act,” Hearings Before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, U.S. Senate…, 1974 (Sinclair & Nord-linger, p. 147).

“Evaluation of the Analysis Supporting President Ford’s Veto of H.R. 25, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1975,” GAO.gov, April 15, 1977.

Editorial, “Strip ‘Mining and Coal Leasing,” Washington Post, October 22, 1975.

Louise C. Dunlap, “An Analysis of the Legisla-tive History of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1975,” Proceedings of 21st Annual Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute, August 1975.

Mike Jacobs, One Time Harvest: Reflections on Coal and Our Future, 1975, Indiana University, 300 pp. (originally published by the North Dakota Farmers Union).

Ben A. Franklin, “House Democrats Renew Drive for Strip-Mine Bill,” New York Times, August 26, 1976, p. 36.

John C. Doyle, Jr., Strip Mining in the Corn Belt. The Destruction of High Capability Agricultural Land for Strip-Minable Coal in Illinois, 1976, Environmental Policy Institute, Washington, DC.

Hon. Patsy Mink, “Reclamation and Rollcalls: The Political Struggle over Stripmining,” Environmental Policy and Law, 1976, Elsevier Science Publishers, pp. 176–180.

Richard Cartwright Austin, Spoil: A Moral Study of Strip Mining for Coal, National Division, Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church, 120 pp., 1976.

Mary Russell, “Urgent Coal Demand vs. Strip-Mine Curbs,” Washington Post, February 15, 1977.

Hon. Morris K. Udall, “The Enactment of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 in Retrospect,” West Virginia Law Review, 1979, Vol 81, No. 4.

Edward Shawn Grandis, “The Federal Strip Mining Act: Environmental Protection Comes to the Coalfields of Virginia,” University of Richmond Law Review, 1979, Volume 13, Issue 3, Article 3.

Louise C. Dunlap and James S. Lyon, “Effectiveness of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act: Reclamation or Regula-tory Subversion?,” West Virginia Law Re-view, 1985-1986.

Michael Lipske, “Cracking Down on Mining Pollution: Environmental Lawyer Thomas Galloway Develops Applicant/Violator System to Find Violators of Mining Law,” National Wildlife, June-July 1995.

Penny Loeb, “Shear Madness,” U.S. News & World Report, August 11, 1997.

Public Employees for Environmental Respon-sibility (PEER), “Empty Promise: Twenty Years of Failure in Federal Strip Mining Regulation – A Special Anniversary Report by the Employees of the Office of Surface Mining,” August 1997.

Michael Shnayerson, “The Rape of Appa-lachia,” Vanity Fair, May 2006.

Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), “Undermined Promise: Reclamation and Enforcement of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act,” August 2007.

“Surface Mining Act,” Hearing Before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, 110th Congress, 1st Session, “To Receive Testimony on the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977: Policy Issues Thirty Years Later,” S. Hrg. 110–298, November 13, 2007 (see, for example, citizen testimony of Cindy Rank).

Teaser Tag: Oil Disaster History

1961-1970

“Torrey Canyon Spill”
Off U.K., 1967

March 15, 2022 J.D.

On March 18, 1967, the oil tanker, Torrey Canyon, one of the world’s early “supertankers”– about three football fields in length and loaded with 121,000 tons of Kuwati crude oil – ran aground in the Atlantic Ocean off Land’s End, at the southwestern tip of England. Over the next 12 days, the entire cargo – estimated between 857,600 and 872,300 barrels – was released into the sea or burned. In spite of a major spill response effort, huge oil slicks formed that polluted British and French coastlines. While one of the first major oil tanker disasters at sea, it occurred at a time when popular environmental consciousness was just beginning to emerge. Still, to this day, the Torrey Canyon oil spill remains the largest in U.K. history.

March 1967. Torrey Canyon, run aground on reef, leaking oil off SW England.

Map showing location of oil spill.

An American story on the spill that appeared in Life magazine on April 14, 1967, would show in one graphic two-page photo (below), how extensive and thick the oil was that was reaching some of the Cornish beaches in England. Also, according to Life, the spill was “threatening even the fresh-water rivers and harbors.” As the Life photos made clear — and others in the British press — the thick deposits of spilled crude would make clean-up a difficult task. But there was much more drama to this disaster at sea as well.

Life magazine story of April 1967 showed thick oil deposits on England’s coastline from tanker spill.

The spill “spread along 120 miles of Cornish coast, smothering and poisoning every living thing in its path”.

Originally built in 1959 at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia with a capacity of 60,000 tons, the Torrey Canyon was later enlarged in Japan, doubling its size to supertanker status. At the time of the spill, it was the 13th largest merchant ship then on the high seas. The ship was owned by American company, Union Oil of California (later responsible for the Santa Barbara oil spill of January 1969). On this trip, the Torrey Canyon was chartered to British Petroleum, whose oil was in its hull.

In February 1967, the Torrey Canyon, with a 36-man Italian crew, had filled its cargo hull with Kuwaiti crude, setting sail from the Middle East on February 19th, 1967 to its destination and delivery point at Milford Haven, Wales, U.K., home to oil refining facilities. Because of its size, the Torrey Canyon could not pass through the Suez Canal, and so its route took it around the southern tip of Africa, then north to the British Isles.

Map showing southwestern tip of England at Land’s End and the offshore Scilly Isles in the Atlantic Ocean.

Under some time pressure for delivery at Milford Haven – to arrive in port by March 18th – the captain of the Torrey Canyon was pushing his ship pretty hard. Because of the size of the ship, and in order to dock in Milford Haven, they had to catch the high tide on the evening of the March 19th or wait six more days.

So, in the course of their travels, as they arrived just south of Land’s End and the Scilly Isles – then off the coast by about 80 miles or so – the captain chose to run a course between Land’s End the Scilly Isles. That area could be tricky for navigation, with known shoals and something of a graveyard for ships venturing there.

As later revealed at a spill inquiry, the captain’s decision to take this route amounted to a short cut, having had the opportunity earlier, to pass west of the Scilly Isles and then travel north-northeast toward Milford Haven.

But the navigational challenge the Torrey Canyon would face, was even narrower than might first seem apparent. For the course the captain took was between the Scilly Isles and the notorious Seven Stones Reef a rocky reef formed by two groups of rocks and is nearly 2 miles long and 1 mile wide (geologically, the reef is believed to have been a now-submerged ancient land bridge that once connected Land’s End with the Scilly Isles).

Atlantic Ocean off Land’s End, showing Scilly Isles and Seven Stones Reef, where the Torrey Canyon grounded.

In any case, the “lane” that the Torrey Canyon supertanker was trying to navigate had little margin for error. On the morning of March 18th, 1967, in full daylight, the Torrey Canyon was moving at a pretty good clip, about 17 knots, through that area. In the tanker’s path, however, were some fishing boats with their nets cast. The captain adjusted the ship’s course a bit to spare the fishermen. But that put his tanker closer to the Seven Stones Reef. Then, at about 8:45 a.m., the giant supertanker ran aground, hitting Pollard’s Rock on the reef. As the tanker grounded, the rocky shoals ripped open a huge gash of about 650 feet on the ship’s side. Crude oil then began to pour out of the ship into the Atlantic Ocean. By evening an eight-mile slick had formed. On the following day it was 20 miles long. It would eventually grow to a size of some 270 square miles.

After the grounding, and over the course of the next several days, unsuccessful attempts were made to tow and float the giant ship off the reef. As a second attempt by the Dutch salvage team was being made to pull the tanker off the rocks, oil vapors from the spill had built up in some segments of the ship. At noon on March 19th, there was an explosion on one part of the ship, with five men injured and two blown into the sea. One died and one was rescued. Initially, the captain and crew of the stricken tanker stayed aboard the vessel during attempts to free it from the reef, but were later taken to safety after those attempts failed.

This photo provides some perspective on how large the Torrey Canyon actually was. It shows a smaller rescue boat on one side of the tanker, boarding crew members from the endangered vessel to take them ashore.

As oil slicks spread away from the wreck, concern on shore in the coastal communities throughout the Cornwall region began to grow. The region was quite popular as a tourist and vacation area, with attractive beaches, coves, and quaint villages. There were fears that the beaches of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset would be hit by the developing oil slicks. There was also concern about the impact on birds, marine life, ocean fisheries, and coastal shellfish (more on these later).

March 20, 1967 headline from “The Guardian” of London: “Race To Keep Tanker’s Oil Clear of Cornish Beaches”.

“The West Briton & Royal Cornwall Gazette” of March 21, 1967 offered front-page stories on the spill.

British newspapers, both in London and locally in Cornwall, carried extensive stories on the spill. The Guardian newspaper in London ran a March 20, 1967 story with the headline, “Race To Keep Tanker’s Oil Clear From Cornish Beaches,” which explored the strategies being employed to contain and disperse the spill. Among the local press, headlines in The West Briton and Royal Cornwall Gazette of March 21, 1967, included the following: “Cornwall All Set for The Battle of the Beaches”; “Troops Stand By To Help”; “‘Build Boom To Save Oysters’”; “On The Oil Patrol – Over a Chocolate Sea”; and, “Spray on Regardless The Navy is Told.” In America, too, the New York Times of March 21, 1967, also reported on the early worries of the spill coming ashore, noted with one headline: “British Rush Steps to Disperse Oil Slick Off Coast,” followed by two sub-heads: “Flow From Grounded Tanker Menaces Vacation Beaches,” and “Chemicals Are Sent by Navy to Avert ‘Ruin’ for Resorts.”

The Torrey Canyon supertanker shown breaking up on the Seven Stones Reef, afterwhich it would release more oil into the sea.

After the attempts to move and/or offload oil from the Torrey Canyon failed, the ship began to break up (photo above). More oil leaked into the ocean. Three major oil slicks formed from the time when the vessel grounded – the first, with about 219,900 barrels; another of 146,600 barrels; and a third of 366,500 barrels after the vessel broke apart on March 26th. Some of the slicks would become quite large, one noted at 35 miles long and 15 miles wide in places, and 10 inches thick.

Map appearing in April 1967 edition of Life magazine showing initial extent of spill (would later reach France), also showing fishing areas of concern (in gray), shellfish areas (o o o) and a few oyster beds (black squares).

On March 28, 1967, the New York Times ran a front-page story on the Torrey Canyon oil spill with photo, this one showing the tanker now split apart in three sections. The headline read: “Oil Slick Sweeps Shores of Britain; Big Tanker Splits.” That story also quoted British Navy Minister, Maurice Foley, then dealing with the pollution from the wreck, as saying: “This is a problem no country in the world has had to face before.”

Dispersants

The spill response effort at first had focused on methods of containment, but containment booms were of little use in rough seas. Then attempts to break up the spill with chemical detergent dispersants became a primary strategy. “Dispersants” are chemical agents that are typically mixtures of solvents, surfactants, and additives. In fact, within the first day of the Torrey Canyon spill, the British government gave the go ahead for the use of chemical dispersants (and detergent mixtures) to help break up and disperse the resulting oil slicks.

March 1967. British military assist in dumping copious quantities of chemical dispersant on Cornwall beach areas hit by crude oil spill coming ashore from Torrey Canyon supertanker, run aground on Seven Stones Reef.

The British Navy assisted with transporting the chemicals to the site of the grounding and another 40 or more vessels were chartered for the spraying operation. The dispersants were also used on oiled beaches. Over 10,000 tons were used in the effort. In some cases, 45-gallon drums were rolled to cliff-top edges and poured at will to ‘treat’ inaccessible coves, or dispensed in steady streams from low-hovering helicopters. These dispersants, however, were “first-generation” and largely toxic, later found to be a major factor in the death of birds and marine life (more on the toll later).

In this case, the detergent/dispersant being used was made by British Petroleum, the owner of the oil being spilled from the Torrey Canyon. The BP dispersant, known as “BP 1002”, was sprayed on the oil slicks by various vessels at sea with the intention of emulsifying and dispersing it.

Use of the dispersants, however, was not without risk. The BP version, for example, by one account, was comprised of about 60%-to-70% aromatic solvents, such as benzene, xylene and toluene. Concentrations of 10 parts per million or less of these detergents were known to be acutely toxic to many marine mammals and plants. Oystermen in some areas moved to prevent the use of the dispersants in oyster bed areas (more on dispersant effects later below).

Burning & Bombing

Meanwhile, back on the reef where the Torrey Canyon was impaled and leaking, more drastic measures were soon applied. It became clear that the wreck could not be floated off the rocks, and its growing oil slicks were not dissipating. The likelihood that onshore winds would bring more oil ashore was also a concern. So the British government – following a brief meeting of UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson and some of his cabinet – decided to set the oil slicks and the wrecked vessel on fire with the goal of burning off the oil and scuttling the ship. The plan was to set the fire by way of aerial bombing. On March 28th, 1967, the Royal Air Force began the mission, as its aircraft started dropping 1,000-pound bombs on the ship to help sink it and make the oil blaze. The bombing strategy made front-page news throughout the UK and also in America.

Portion of the front-page of the March 29th, 1967 New York Times, with headline, “Jets Bomb Grounded Tanker Off Cornwall,” with photo of the bombing, along with two stories about the spill below the photo – “Wide Area Of Ocean Aflame as British Burn Off Oil,” and, “Volunteers Work to Rescue Stranded Ocean Birds”.

The New York Times ran a front-page photo of the bombing and its smoky aftermath on March 29, 1967 with the headline, “Jets Bomb Grounded Tanker Off Cornwall.” Two stories about the bombing and the spill also appeared below the photo – “Wide Area Of Ocean Aflame as British Burn Off Oil,” and, “Volunteers Work to Rescue Stranded Ocean Birds.” In London, The Guardian newspaper also ran a front-page story with a similar photo.

The Guardian newspaper of March 29, 1967 notes possible napalm use on the spill.

In addition to the Blackburn Buccaneer planes that dropped 1,000-lb bombs at the Torrey Canyon wreck site, the Royal Air Force also sent Hawker Hunter jets to drop cans of aviation fuel on the tanker and spill area to make the oil blaze more fiercely.

However despite the direct hits and a towering inferno of flames and smoke as the oil slicks began to burn, the wrecked tanker refused to sink.

In fact, the bombing mission was called off for the day when high spring tides put out the flames.

Early the next morning, naval and salvage experts flew over the site by helicopter to assess the damage and consider next steps. It was later decided to use napalm and oxygen-yielding chlorate bombs to help re-establish and boost the fire at the wreck site.

Further bombing runs by Royal Navy Sea Vixens and Buccaneers as well as more RAF Hunters unleashed napalm – liquified petroleum jelly – to ignite the oil. A Navy helicopter also dropped napalm, sodium chlorate, and aviation fuel to help feed the fire. Bombing continued into the next day before the Torrey Canyon finally sank.

In the end, over three days of bombing, 161,000 pounds of explosives were dropped on the stricken tanker, along with 16 high-powered rockets, 3,200 gallons of napalm, and 9,800 gallons of kerosene.

Onshore, meanwhile, the effects of the spill were mounting in a number of coastal areas. At Porth Navas, local oystermen had teamed up with engineers in an attempt to save four million oysters from oil contamination. They were working to jerry-rig various kinds of booms, air pressure, and water circulation systems that might help protect their oysterbeds from oil encroaching into tidal areas. Extreme tidal differences then occurring were running as much as 17 feet, completely exposing oyster beds at low tide, making them vulnerable to the clinging oil left behind. Oystermen at the mouth of the River Fal near Penryn and Flushing were also experimenting with a boom-and-skirt device that might help protect their beds.

March 30, 1967. New York Times.

Torrey Canyon oil sludge being collected by front-end loader.

Beach communities throughout Cornwall were being hit with major oil pollution on their shores. Among the worst were the beaches of Marazion and Prah Sands, where the oil sludge was up to a foot deep. Front-end loaders and other such heavy-duty equipment were being used on some beaches to scoop up the thick oil sludge. Early reporting had it that up to 70 miles of British beaches were seriously contaminated.

Channel Isles & France

The bombing and burning at the Torrey Canyon wreck site on the Seven Stones Reef did not diminish the oil slicks that had already formed, then coating English beaches and coves in Cornwall and beyond. Through late March and early-to-mid April 1967, the oil was also on the move beyond England, reaching the English Channel and northern France. On April 6th, about nineteen days after the Torrey Canyon had grounded, a huge slick from the spill hit the western shores of Guernsey, an island in the English Channel and quite a popular recreation and tourist destination.

Map showing later stages of Torrey Canyon oil spill, from late March into April 1967, moving into the English Channel, reaching the Channel Islands and north coast of France. Source: The Guardian graphic / Metro France, World Ocean Review.

The first priority on Guernsey island was to get the oil off their beaches. Their plan quickly became one of sucking up the oil – some 3,000 tons of it – into sewage tankers and transporting it to a deep quarry on the island where it would be dumped. Said one, recalling their plan: “…It was, ‘We’ve got to clear our beaches, we’re a tourist destination, right. There’s a quarry, let’s put it there’.” And there is stayed, until 2010 or so, when efforts to clean up that location began.

Photo of quarry on Guernsey island in the English Channel where Torrey Canyon oil spill waste from beach clean-ups was dumped. Photo from 2010, as thereafter clean-up of the waste oil in the quarry was begun.

By April 8th, 1967 the French Navy minesweeper, Betelgeuse, one of many vessels and aircraft then tracking the Torrey Canyon spill, reported that a group of slicks was within five miles of the Brittany coast. Rather than bombing the slick with napalm, or dumping detergents on it, the French used powdered craie de Champagne, a chalky substance which sank the oil more effectively. The French reportedly had more success keeping very large quantities of the offshore oil slicks from reaching their shores. However, there was still an extensive cleanup on French beaches along the northern coast of Brittany. Manual beach recovery operations were organized, and in some locations straw was used to absorb the oil. Still, there was repeated pollution from offshore Torrey Canyon oil on some French shores. In late May 1967, persistent oil slicks off shore would continue to threaten the western shores of Brittany, as offshore winds sent more oil toward the coast. Booms were then erected to protect harbors at Brest, Morgat, Douarnenez and Audierne and nearby beaches. In the end, the French would remove some 4,200 tons of oil waste from their shores. Numerous volunteers and French military were involved in the cleanup. The spill in France also inspired French singer Serge Gainsbourg to write the song, Le Torrey Canyon.

French soldiers were brought in to clean up the oil on the beach at Perros-Guirec, France.

Like Guernsey island, some of the spilled oil from the French coastline was collected and transported to quickly-dug waste pits. And as on Guernsey, it was only decades later – in September 2011 and February 2012, on the Ile d’Er, near Paimpol – that waste pits dug in spring 1967 for Torrey Canyon oil, were finally emptied. Those wastes were burned in a specialized incinerator near Le Havre.

Spill Impacts

In 1967, the Torrey Canyon oil spill was the world’s worst and most costly shipping disaster, and to date, remains the worst oil spill in U.K. history. The Torrey Canyon spill presented a new threat – in terms of scale – never before experienced in that region. Spilled oil in enormous volumes was spread across the coastlines of southwest England, the Channel Islands, and Normandy, France. At least 120 miles of Cornish coast and 50 miles of French coastline were contaminated. As reported in The Guardian of London, parts of Cornwall’s coastline still remained blackened more than 50 years after the spill. Wildlife and ecological impacts were significant as well. Noted the BBC some years later, looking back on the spill: “The effects went on for years, working on organisms from the bottom of the food chain – the plankton and small invertebrates that live in sediments, through mussels and clams on up to fish, birds and mammals.

1967. Thousands of Guillemots were among seabirds killed by the Torrey Canyon oil spill, this one at a rescue station.

Seabirds. At the time of the Torrey Canyon disaster many seabirds were moving through the area on their way to their breeding sites on the coasts of southern England and Brittany. Dead and dying birds washed up on the coastlines of Cornwall, the Channel Islands, and Brittany in France. More than 30,000 birds were killed and tens of thousands more were reported injured. Guillemots, razorbills, puffins, shags, great northern divers, red throated divers, gannets, black-necked grebe, and great skua were just some of the birds affected. Future populations of some species took decades to recover. In June 2010, The Guardian newspaper in London noted: “Forty-three years on, the crude from the Torrey Canyon is still killing wildlife on a daily basis.”

On the impacted Breton coast of France, breeding pairs of birds had returned from their migration to nest just when the spill had occurred. The Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux calculated that there were 450 pairs of razorbills before the spill but only 50 after. For guillemots the number of pairs fell from 270 to 50. It was also estimated by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds that about 85 percent of puffins on the French coast were also killed. Because of their low reproductive rate, it took several decades for that population to recover.

April 1967. Beach and cove at Whitesand Bay, Cornwall where empty detergent drums then still littered the area.

Seals and other marine life were also affected. One account from Life magazine whose reporters visited the scene in the early days of the spill, noted: “…Crabs were washed ashore lifeless. Starfish for some reason came apart at the middle. One beach was littered with thousands of separate starfish limbs, along with thousands of small fish.”

A 1978 study – eleven years after the spill – found that a species of hermit crab had still not reappeared in one area affected by the spill.

Other marine life in the intertidal zone was also affected, such as limpets, sea anemones, sandhoppers, razorshells, mussels, cockles, crabs and seaweed.

Marine biologists knew that oil could kill 30 percent of rock-shore life such as barnacles and limpets, but the oil was only part of the problem.

In 1968, the UK Marine Biological Association released its report, “Torrey Canyon Pollution and Marine Life” (Cambridge University Press, 210pp). Click for copy at Amazon.com.

Dispersants. The Torrey Canyon disaster was one of the first instances where the dangers of chemical dispersant use for spill treatment became apparent. It turned out that the oil/ dispersant mixture was more toxic for the environment than the oil alone.

Post-mortem examination results from some birds reported that their lungs were choked with detergent froth. Other damage to wildlife, fisheries and marine organisms also came from the chemical dispersants.

“The detergents made it look good,” explained Dr. Gerald Boalch, a UK marine biologist during a June 2010 interview with The Guardian newspaper.

“We thought at the time it was doing a good job because the oil was disappearing.” But later lab tests and study revealed the actual effects – “and it was realized that it was making the oil more toxic because it was accessible to organisms”.

At sea, the oil was made soluble by the detergents. “It broke up the oil, which helped the tourism industry…,” Boalch explained, “but the oil sank from the top of the waves to the bottom, breaking into smaller parts and being ingested by marine life.” On shore, the chemicals destroyed lichens and other beach-life, he said.

A Marine Biological Association report in 1968 found that UK’s use of detergents resulted “in the death of a large number of shore organisms of many kinds”. It took 13-15 years for the treated areas to recover, about five times longer than those areas where the oil was dispersed naturally by wind and waves.

In January 1968, two books were published on the Torrey Canyon disaster. Edward Cowan, who earlier had reported on the spill for the New York Times London bureau, published Oil and Water: The Torrey Canyon Disaster (J. B. Lippincott Co., 241 pp). This book was also published in London the following year (as shown below). Another book, also first issued in January 1968, was Richard Petrow’s In The Wake of Torrey Canyon …The Great Oil Disaster – Its Causes, Consequences and Lessons for the Future (David McKay Co. publishers). A British edition of this book used the title, The Black Tide: In The Wake of Torrey Canyon (Hodder & Stoughton, 256 pp).

Edward Cowan’s “Torrey Canyon” book, William Kimber (London), 1969 edition, 241 pp. Click for copy.

Richard Petrow’s 1968 book, “In The Wake of Torrey Canyon,” 256pp. Click for copy.

In February 1968, a short New York Times review of these books together by reporter Richard Shepard praised both works, noting: “Mr. Petrow shines in the colorful personal touches and Mr. Cowan is a brilliant pilot through the tricky channels of the oil business. Their reportages are thorough, neatly written and intelligently interpreted…” An earlier book – The Wreck of the Torrey Canyon – published in October 1967, and shown below, was also written by two reporters and a naturalist involved with the spill.

Damages & Redress

Oct 1967 UK book, “The Wreck of The Torrey Canyon,” by 2 reporters and a naturalist involved with the spill. Click for copy.

By early April 1967, several weeks after the onset of the spill, the British government announced its intention to sue Union Oil of California for the damage done by the Torrey Canyon spill. The French would also sue. Both were seeking compensation for the costs incurred in their respective clean-ups. In addition, Guernsey, BP and several individuals had also begun proceedings against Barracuda.

Yet sorting through the web of the ship’s owners and responsible parties, as well as jurisdictional issues (international waters vs. nation-state) and various other legal matters, would prove a challenging gauntlet.

The Torrey Canyon tanker was nominally owned by Barracuda Tanker Corporation, sometimes billed as a subsidiary of Union Oil Co. – more or less a kind of “shell company.” Barracuda was a creation of Dillon Read & Co., investment bankers in New York. In that creation, Dillon Read used funds provided by Manufacturers Trust. Reportedly, stockholders in Barracuda put up $20,000 and were told they would reap $1 million profit in 20 years, subject only to capital-gains tax.

Barracuda’s official address, meanwhile, was Hamilton, Bermuda. The tanker itself was registered in Liberia – an arrangement also known as “a flag of convenience,” considered a pejorative by some for liability avoidance and “lowest-common-denominator” regulation and taxation. Traditionally, a ship is obliged to follow the law of its flag state, while coastal and port states cannot usually impose their laws on a foreign vessel. By being registered in Liberia, the tanker’s owners could not only escape often stricter legal and environmental standards that might be found in coastal or port nations, but also reduce or escape certain taxes.

New York Times news clip, April 3, 1967.

In any case, in mid-July 1967, four months after the spill, the British Government was able to serve a writ against the ship owners by “arresting” the Torrey Canyon‘s sistership, the Lake Palourde in Singapore. At the time, the British claimed it cost them $8.4 million for their part of the oil spill clean-up, and sought a bond on the sister ship in that amount before it was released. The French also laid their claim on the same ship a bit latter, in April 1968, catching up with the Lake Palourde in Rotterdam.

Union Oil, meanwhile, had filed a defensive legal action in September 1967 in Federal Court in New York to limit their liability. Under a U.S. statue at the time, the owner of a vessel could not be liable for damages more than the ship’s salvage value – which for the wrecked Torrey Canyon now on the ocean bottom at Seven Stones Reef, was zero, save a surviving lifeboat worth $50.

But the Court of Appeals also held that the concept of limited liability was applicable only to the owner – Barracuda – and not the charterer, Union Oil. That’s when Union Oil thought a wiser course of action might be to seek negotiations.

By September 1968, the British were ready to go to trial, but that course had risks as well, involving extremely complex issues of how to estimate damages, which country’s laws would apply, and whether international law made tankers liable for pollution damages.

The British had also charged that laws covering ships like the Torrey Canyon were seriously out of date, and in April 1967 was pushing the multi-nation International Maritime Organization (IMO) – a United Nations agency responsible for regulating shipping – to convene a special session to discuss the legal ramifications of maritime oil spills and new regulation.

New York Times news clip, November 12, 1969.

On the matter of Torrey Canyon spill damages, meanwhile, two years after the legal maneuvering by Britain, France, and Union Oil, the parties began negotiations. By November 1969, the American owners of the Torrey Canyon paid $7.2 million to Britain and France in an out-of-court settlement for oil pollution claims, 70 percent of which was covered by insurance.

Lloyd’s insurance brokers said they believed it was the biggest settlement in marine history for oil claims. Still, the amount was only a portion of all costs related to the Torrey Canyon spill. The two governments had sued the tanker owners for $22 million. But the owners claimed that under maritime law they were liable only for a certain value per ton of the ship’s weight, which would have amounted to $4.2 million.

The settlement amount of $7.2 was split evenly between the two countries, each receiving $3.6 million. The owners also agreed to set aside another $60,000 to compensate any claims from persons not already reimbursed by the governments for their losses. The settlement for the two countries, in any case, was inadequate, representing only a portion of the actual cleanup costs and harms done, and did not include damages to fishermen, resort owners, and other coastal interests – nor adequate in terms of today’s more sophisticated calculations of natural resources damages.

Union Oil, for its part, was also facing other oil spill woes and legal battles for their January 1969 offshore oil rig blow out in the Santa Barbara channel of California.

In the end, the Torrey Canyon accident led to changes in international shipping regulations, brought strict liability to ship owners, and helped pass the 1973 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. But implementing those changes would be another battle, especially for international conventions that required nation-state ratifications that could drag out for years. And subsequent spills on the high seas would often entail their own legal battles and/or corporate and nation-state gaming of laws and international conventions.

Spills Continue

The Torrey Canyon disaster marked the beginning of the “modern era” of oil spills at sea, commencing the “big tanker era,” as well as that of large offshore oil rigs around the world, the latter of which would also have their own share of spills, blowouts, fires and explosions. In fact, about a decade after the Torrey Canyon disaster, nearly in the same general area of the Atlantic Ocean off the English and French coasts, came the sinking of the tanker Amoco Cadiz on March 1978, which spilled 223,000 tons of oil when it ran aground off Brittany. But in fact, legions of spills, large and small, have occurred since the days of the Torrey Canyon, and continue to occur all around the world. The map below, for example, provides a general overview of some of those spills in the 1970-2018 period.

Map shows what is believed to be 90 percent of spills 7 tons or greater. Blue dots = 7 to 700 tons spilled; red dots, spills greater than 700 tons. Source: International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF).

For additional stories at this website under the general topic of “oil and the environment,” see for example: “The Brent Spar Fight: Greenpeace: 1995,” features activist battle and media coverage in the North Sea over controversy for the proposed deep-sea dumping of a huge, floating oil-storage facility; “Deepwater Horizon, Film & Spill,” story about the making of the 2016 Hollywood film on the BP offshore oil rig disaster, plus a recap of the politics, media and corporate maneuvering during the real BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; “Burning Philadelphia,” about the 1975 Gulf Oil Co. refinery fire in that city; “Santa Barbara Oil Spill” covers the 1969 Union Oil offshore oil well blow-out and pollution of California’s coastline; “Texas City Disaster,” about BP’s 2005 Texas City, TX oil refinery explosion and fire that killed 15 workers and injured another 180; “Barge Explodes in NY,” about a gasoline transport barge docked at an ExxonMobil depot that exploded into a giant fireball in 2003, polluting waterways in the New York city area, shutting down water traffic, and shaking up communities for miles around; “Inferno at Whiting: 1955,” about an eight-day catastrophic Standard Oil/Amoco oil refinery explosion and fire near Chicago; “Oil Fouls Montana,” profiles an oil pipeline leak that fouled the Yellowstone River in January 2015; and, “Pipeline Fireball: Bellingham, WA: 1999,” about a tragic gasoline pipeline explosion and inferno that killed 4 boys and terrorized an urban community.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 15 March 2022
Last Update: 27 February 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Torrey Canyon Spill – Off U.K. 1967,”
PopHistoryDig.com, March 15, 2022.

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Books at Amazon.com…

Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” 2013 edition, Penguin Books, 704 pp. Click for copy.

Christopher Leonard’s book, “Koch-land: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America,” 2020 edition. Click for copy.

Gregory Zuckerman’s book, “The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters.” Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Cover of 1999 book by Tony Rice & Paula Owen, “Decommis-sioning The Brent Spar,” depicting scene from the North Sea in June 1995 as Greenpeace activists, in a motorized rubber raft, were attempting to board the Brent Spar oil storage facility – amid water-cannon fire from authorities -- in protest over the Spar’s proposed deep sea disposal. Click for book.

Stephen McGinty’s book, “Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster,” about the July 1988 Occidental Petroleum disaster in the North Sea that killed 167 people. Click for copy.

Dr. Ray Solly’s book, “Supertanker: Living on A Monster VLCC,” 2019, The History Press, 208 pp., 143 ratings on Amazon, Click for copy.

Robert Easton's 1972 book, “Black Tide: The Santa Barbara Oil Spill and Its Consequences,” (Delacorte). Click for copy.

Close crop of cover for Rudolph Chelminski’s 1987 book, “Superwreck: Amoco Cadiz,” on the supertanker oil spill that occurred off France about a decade after the Torrey Canyon spill. William Morrow & Co., 254 pp. Click for copy.

Inside Climate News won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting on the July 2010 Enbridge pipeline oil spill of more than 1 million gallons into the Kalamazoo River of Michigan. Click for their book at Amazaon.com.

Rachel Maddow’s 2019 book, “Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth,” 432 pp. Crown Books, 8,014 ratings on Amazon. Click for copy.

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W. Granger Blair, “British Rush Steps to Disperse Oil Slick Off Coast; Flow From Grounded Tanker Menaces Vacation Beaches; Chemicals Are Sent by Navy to Avert ‘Ruin’ for Resorts,” New York Times, March 21, 1967.

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Anthony Tucker, “Unknown Problems of Major Spillage,” The Guardian, March 28, 1967.

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Wener Bamberger, “Risk of Oil Pollution in Seas is Baffling Problem,” New York Times, March 29, 1967, p. 2.

Anthony Lewis, “Wide Area of Ocean Aflame as British Burn Off Oil,” New York Times, March 29, 1967.

“1967: Bombs Rain Down on Torrey Canyon” (reporting from March 29, 1967), “On This Day” / BBC.co.uk.

“Torrey Canyon Oil Spill,” Wikipedia.org.

“Napalm Used in Bombing,” The Times (London) March 30, 1967, p. 1.

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Edward Cowan, “Oystermen Try to Fend off Oil; Beds in Cornwall Owned by Prince Charles in Peril,” New York Times, March 30, 1967, p. 21

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Associated Press, “Torrey Canyon Oil Sighted Within 5 Miles of Brittany,” New York Times, April 9, 1967, p. 5.

“Britain’s Great Ghastly Ooze,” Newsweek, April 10, 1967, p. 51.

Associated Press, “Torrey Canyon Oil Appears in France,” New York Times, April 10, 1967, p. 70.

“In the Oily Wake of a Tragedy at Sea,” U.S. News & World Report, April 10, 1967, p. 18.

“The Lawyers’ View,” Newsweek, April 10, 1967, pp. 51-52.

Jim Hicks, “Fair England Fouled By Oil: Despite Spectacular Efforts by the RAF to Burn It At Sea, an Oil Slick From a Stricken Tanker Washes Ashore,” Life, April 14, 1967, pp. 26-32.

Jim Hicks, “The Huge Slick, Spreading With Tide and Current,” Life, April 14, 1967, pp. 33-35.

“200 French Boats Are Mobilized To Fight Torrey Canyon Oil Slick,” New York Times, April 14, 1967, p. 8.

“Insurance: In the Wake of The Torrey Canyon,” Time, April 14, 1967.

A. J. O’ Sullivan & Alison J. Richardson, “The Torrey Canyon Disaster and Intertidal Marine Life,” Nature, April 1967.

“Birds, Fish Victims of Black Tide,” Boston Globe, April 17, 1967, p. 3.

John Parrott, “The Oil Ordeal,” Christian Science Monitor, April 18, 1967, p. 9.

“Death by Oil,” Editorial, Boston Globe, April 21, 1967, p. 38.

Edward Cowan, “Britain Begins Legal Action Over Torrey Canyon; Wrecked Tanker and 2 Sister Ships Named in Claim; Law Puts $3,528,000 Limit on Damage in Oil Slick Case…,” New York Times, May 5, 1967, p.16.

“Oil From Torrey Canyon Fouls French Coast Again,” New York Times, May 22, 1967, p. 34.

Robert Rienow and Leona Train Rienow, “The Oil Around Us,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, June 4, 1967, p.13.

Edward Cowan, “Torrey Canyon’s Sister Ship Held in Singapore; Big Tanker Seized in British Suit Against Owners— $8-Million Bail Asked,” New York Times, July 18, 1967.

Crispin Gill, Frank Booker, and Tony Soper, The Wreck of the Torrey Canyon, Devon, England: David & Charles, Ltd., 1967.

Gregory H. Wierzynski, “Tankers Move the Oil That Moves the World,” Fortune, September 1, 1967.

“A Defensive Complaint Is Filed By Owners of Torrey Canyon,” New York Times, September 20, 1967, p. 93.

“Pollution – The Price of Disaster,” Time, November 21, 1967, p. 59.

Alvin Shuster, “Torrey Canyon Report Decries Use of Detergents,” New York Times, March 17, 1968, p. 16.

Philip Howard, “Little Redress For Victims of Oil,” The Times (London), March 28, 1968, p. 8.

Associated Press, “Shipping Notes: Torrey Canyon; Her Sister Ship Arrested Again in Pollution Case,” New York Times, April 3, 1968.

J. Walsh, “Pollution: The Wake of the Torrey Canyon,” Science, April 12, 1968, pp, 167–169.

J. E. Smith (ed), Torrey Canyon Pollution and Marine Life: A Report by the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 210pp.

R. Petrow, In The Wake of The Torrey Canyon, 1968, New York: David Mackay Co, Inc., 1968. First American Edition. 256 pp

Edward Cowan, Oil and Water: The Torrey Canyon Disaster, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1968, first American edition, 241pp.

U.S. Senate, Congressional Record, November 12, 1969.

Anthony Lewis, “Britain and France To Get $7.2-Million In Torrey Oil Spill; Torrey Canyon Suits Settled; 2 Nations to Get $7.2-Million,” New York Times, November 12, 1969, p. 1.

“Firm Pays Two Nations $7.2 Million for Torrey Canyon’s Oil Damage,” Washington Post, November 12, 1969.

Edward B. Garside, “The Wreck of a Tanker,” Book Review, Oil And Water: The Torrey Canyon Disaster, by Edward Cowan, The New York Times Book Review, November 17, 1968, p. 34.

“The Black Tide,” Time, December 26, 1969, p. 29.

Robert W. Deutsch, “Oil On The Water,” The New Republic, February 28, 1970, p. 10.

Stephen Solomon, “Somebody Fouled Up,” The New Republic, October 31, 1970, p. 22,

“Growing Problems of Oil Spills–Reasons and Remedies,” U.S. News & World Report, February 8, 1971, p. 52.

Craig Vance Wilson, “The Impact of the Torrey Canyon Disaster on Technology and National and International Efforts to Deal with Supertanker Generated Oil Pollution: An Impetus for Change?,” The University of Montana, 1973.

U.S. NOAA, Oil Spill Case Histories, 1967-1991 (Seattle, WA), September 1992, Report No. HMRD 92-11.

Robin Perry, Principal, Robin Perry and Associates, Devon, UK, “Protection of Sensitive Coastal Areas in the United Kingdom – From Torrey Canyon to the New Millenium,” #278, 1999 International Oil Spill Conference.

“Torrey Canyon ‘Lessons Learned’,” BBC.co. uk, March 19, 2007.

Grey Hall, “Torrey Canyon Alerted the World to the Dangers That Lay Ahead,” Professional Mariner.com, March 28, 2007.

“Torrey Canyon,” HelstonHistory.co.uk.

“The Torrey Canyon’s Last Voyage,” Splash Maritime.com.au.

Patrick Barkham, “Oil Spills: Legacy of The Torrey Canyon,” TheGuardian.com, June 24, 2010.

“Torrey Canyon Oil in Guernsey Quarry ‘Nearly’ Removed,” BBC.com, November 17, 2010.

Kathryn Morse, “There Will Be Birds: Images of Oil Disasters in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of American History, Volume 99, Issue 1, June 2012, pp. 124–134.

“Torrey Canyon Oil Spill, Unilever 1967,” YouTube.com, Posted by markdcatlin, February 3, 2017.

Peter Geoffrey Wells (Dalhousie University), “The Iconic Torrey Canyon Oil Spill of 1967 – Marking its Legacy,” Marine Pollution Bulletin, February 2017.

Adam Vaughan, “Torrey Canyon Disaster: The UK’s Worst-Ever Oil Spill 50 Years On,” TheGuardian.com, Mar 18, 2017.

Bethan Bell & Mario Cacciottolo, “Torrey Canyon Oil Spill: The Day the Sea Turned Black,” BBC News/BBC.com, March 17, 2017.

“Torrey Canyon – March 18, 1967: The Mother of the Black Tides,” RobinDesBois.org, March 17, 2017.

Alastair Jamieson,“50 Years After Torrey Canyon Oil Spill, a Unique Record of Nature’s Fightback,” NBCnews.com, April 2, 2017.

The Hon. Justice Steven Rares, “Ships That Changed the Law – The Torrey Canyon Disaster,” FedCourt.gov.au, October 5, 2017.

Tom Gainey, “Torrey Canyon Disaster: Cornwall Remembers Devastating Maritime Oil Spill 51 Years On,” CornwallLive.com, March 18, 2018.

Milton D. Ottensoser, “Fifty Years Since the Brussels Conference on Marine Pollution,” N.Y.U. Environmental Law Journal, 2019.

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Teaser Tag: Iconic Love Story

1941-1950, 1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Marilyn & Joe, et al.”
A 70-Year Saga

February 18, 2022 J.D.

March 22, 1999. Newsweek cover story showing 1954 Joe DiMaggio / Marilyn Monroe wedding scene. Published shortly after DiMaggio’s death, it illustrates long-lived media interest & popular appeal of the “Joe & Marilyn” saga. Click for copy.

He was the famous baseball player; she, the beautiful movie star. He played for the New York Yankees; she worked mostly in Hollywood. It was the mid-1950s in America, and these two center-stage stars of their day – Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe – had the nation’s full attention.

It was supposed to be the perfect, all-American, life-long love affair between two of America’s favorite people. Practically the entire nation of that day was taken up with this romance, most cheering that all would be well for Joe and Marilyn.

But alas, it was not to be; as theirs became a star-crossed love affair that ended in divorce. Still, over the years, there was a love and fondness between the two that lingered — and for Joe, the love continued even after Marilyn had tragically and prematurely died in her Hollywood home.

The Joe & Marilyn story, however, did not go away with the 1950s. Rather, it stayed alive, with continuing public interest fueled by periodic media coverage, books, and film — even to this day. In fact, the longevity of the Joe and Marilyn story – and the media’s continuing coverage of it (especially her) – is as much a part of the story as the two principals themselves. But first, some background.

Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio in happy times, in the early thrall of their 1954 marriage.

Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe each rose from humble beginnings. DiMaggio was the son of a San Francisco fisherman, the eighth of nine children born to immigrants from Italy, and he became one of baseball’s most famous and productive players.

Marilyn Monroe, who was first named Norma Jean Mortenson/Baker from southern California, would become one of Hollywood’s most iconic film stars and sex symbols. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage and had an early marriage at the age of 16. While working in a factory as part of the war effort during World War II, she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career. The work led to short-lived film contracts, and later, a full-fledged and famous Hollywood film career. Yet her work with a series of still photographers throughout her career would result in an equally, if not more important, artistic legacy.

In 1952, when DiMaggio first met Marilyn, he had recently retired from professional baseball, having been one of the nation’s most notable sports heroes through the 1940s. But through the 1950s and beyond, he remained much revered for his phenomenal 13-year career with the New York Yankees. What follows below are profiles of both DiMaggio and Monroe, and in order of career, Joe first followed by Marilyn, then their relationship, marriage, divorce, aftermath, and continuing media interest.

Joltin` Joe

Joe DiMaggio made his major league debut with the New York Yankees on May 3rd, 1936, batting ahead of another baseball titan, Lou Gehrig. But DiMaggio soon left his mark on baseball in a big way. His famous 56-game hitting streak – from May 15th through July 16, 1941, still a record today – put him in a category all his own. Beyond that, he had a stellar career: a three-time winner of the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.(1939, 1941, 1947) and selected to the All-Star team every year he played, for 13 years.

Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees, shown here during his prime playing years, exhibiting one of the most productive and near-perfect batting swings in baseball history.

In his defensive play, DiMaggio was also considered a good ballplayer who had deceptive speed, capable of covering lots of ground in centerfield. In 1939, he was dubbed the “Yankee Clipper” by Yankee stadium announcer Arch McDonald, for his speed and range in the outfield, being compared to the then-new and culturally-topical Pan American “Clipper” airliner.

By 1949, DiMaggio would sign a record contract with the Yankees that made him the first baseball player to break $100,000 in earnings, then a huge amount of money for a sports star, equivalent to about $1 million or more in current dollars.

At the time of his retirement in December 1951, DiMaggio had the fifth-most career home runs at 361 and the sixth-highest slugging percentage at .579. During his thirteen year career, the Yankees won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships. DiMaggio is still among a handful of players who compiled at least four seasons of 30-homers and 100-RBIs in their first five years of play. But it is DiMaggio’s famous 56-game hitting streak is considered one of baseball’s most remarkable records and amazing feats; one that has stood the test of time for more than 80 years, with few players able to reach even 30- or 40-consecutive game hitting streaks. The closest anyone has ever come to equaling DiMaggio since 1941 was Pete Rose, who hit safely in 44 straight games in 1978.

“Joltin’ Joe’s” feat was coined in a 1941 hit song by that name by the Les Brown Orchestra, and celebrated by generations of fans ever since.

DiMaggio, of course, was a sports celebrity of his day, and as such, he was much in the news, appearing on sports and major circulation magazines of the day, including Time, Life, Look and others, and as sampled above, from top to bottom: Life, May 1939; Sport, September 1948; Time, October 1948; Life, August 1949; Sports World, May 1949; Sport, September 1949. But in the early 1950s, Joe DiMaggio was a single man. Earlier in his career, he had married actress Dorothy Arnold in November 1939, and the couple had a son in 1941. However, they divorced in 1944.

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe, meanwhile, had been working in modeling while trying to break into acting. Although she had small parts in several films in the late 1940s, including playing a waitress in the 1947’s Dangerous Years, Monroe didn’t begin to be noticed until 1950 with two films in particular: The Asphalt Jungle, a John Houston film in which Monroe played a gangster’s moll (poster at left came some years later, after Monroe was a bigger star), and All About Eve, which starred Bette Davis and Anne Baxter (click images for Amazon.com pages).

By December 1950, Monroe had secured a seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox, a basic contract that gave her little control. Still, she was on her way with a major film studio.

In 1951, four low-budget films helped bring her more notice: Home Town Story (May), and three comedies – As Young as You Feel (August ), Love Nest (October), and Let’s Make It Legal (November). Although her roles in these films cast her essentially as “a sexy ornament,” according to one account, she did receive some praise for her acting from critics such as Bosley Crowther of the New York Times and Ezra Goodman of the Los Angeles Daily News, the latter describing her in a review of Love Nest as “one of the brightest up-and-coming [actresses]”.

Monroe’s popularity with audiences was also growing: she received several thousand fan letters a week, and was declared “Miss Cheesecake of 1951” by the army newspaper Stars and Stripes, reflecting the preferences of soldiers in the Korean War. In February 1952, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association named Monroe the “best young box office personality”.

In her private life at this point, Monroe had no steady man in her life, but had been dating a number of men in Hollywood, including actors Yul Brynner and Peter Lawford, director Nicholas Ray, and also had a short relationship with director Elia Kazan. But then came Joe DiMaggio.

“Who’s The Girl?”

Marilyn Monroe in 1951 publicity photo posing in a batting stance with Chicago White Sox players Joe Dobson and Gus Zernial.

In 1951, Joe DiMaggio had seen a publicity photograph of Marilyn Monroe posing in a batting stance with Chicago White Sox players Joe Dobson and Gus Zernial. Sometime later, in early 1952, DiMaggio learned that press agent Dave March had set up the photo shoot. DiMaggio contacted March who then helped arrange a blind date for the two stars. Joe and Marilyn were set to meet on March 8th at an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles then called Villa Nova on Sunset Boulevard (which later became The Rainbow Bar & Grill).

Monroe wasn’t at all sure she would be interested in a baseball player, and didn’t know much about baseball, DiMaggio, or how big of star he had been. Still, she agreed to come, but only if Dave March would also be there with his guest.

Marilyn, meanwhile, would receive some insight on exactly who Joe DiMaggio was from her friend, Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky. Skolsky told her that DiMaggio was hugely popular and hugely admired. He was, as Skolsky put it, a really Big Name – a guy with dignity and class who had the public’s respect. Joe DiMaggio, he informed her, was national hero. And for Marilyn Monroe at that stage of her career, that was not a bad thing.

On their dinner date, Monroe, who typically arrived late for most things, was late this time as well, by two hours. She was then involved in the production of a the film Monkey Business, starring Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers. Dave March suggested she was probably held up on the set. March called her from the restaurant, and Marilyn tried to beg off, saying she was worn out from work, but relented under March’s pleadings. At dinner, Joe and Marilyn had few exchanges, and Marilyn was a bit mystified by Joe’s reserved manner and relative quiet. They barely spoke to one another. Their dinner was interrupted for a time by actor Mickey Rooney who pulled up a chair and began talking baseball. A couple of other patrons at the restaurant also recognized DiMaggio, and Marilyn was seeing that this guy had something of a following. But she noticed he was silent as the admirers spouted his statistics. She also observed DiMaggio’s impeccable dress and appearance, which was not like she had expected, thinking he might have been a more flamboyant dresser. Instead, she thought he dressed more like a business man. Joe DiMaggio, in fact, although quiet and somewhat awkward in appearance, still had a presence about him and projected power, or as one friend would note, “he still managed to command the whole room”.

In any case, Marilyn tired of the baseball talk and the evening’s direction; she decided to excuse herself and head for home. Joe then rose as well, asking to see her to the door. As he walked her to her car, he asked for a lift to his hotel and she agreed. Her car was a mess, backseat overflowing with books, scripts, some parking tickets and other material. But as they approached DiMaggio’s hotel, he said he wasn’t interested in turning in just then, and they proceeded to drive around a bit in her car. That’s when Joe began opening up, telling her his whole life story, about his immigrant family, their hard times and modest life, his baseball career, and more. They drove around Beverly Hills that night for about three hours. By the time they arrived at the Beverly Carlton where Marilyn was staying, she invited him in. The next day he phoned her and later sent her a bouquet of roses. When Dave March asked him how the evening went, he reported “pretty damn well.”

Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio at a later 1954 restaurant outing in New York city at the El Morocco. During their courtship, Joe had also brought Marilyn to Toots Shor’s and other famous Manhattan haunts for celebrities of that era.

Around the time she first dated DiMaggio, however, Monroe found herself at the center of a bit of a scandal, as a 1952 calendar was published with some pin-up styled photos of Monroe in the nude (the calendar, reportedly, had sold 6 million copies). The photos were from 1949, and according to one later account in Time magazine, “her bosses at the film studio ‘begged her’ to deny that the woman in the photo was her, but she wouldn’t do so. That turned out to be a move that only increased her star power.” Monroe spoke frankly to a news reporter about what had happened. She explained that she was broke and an aspiring actress at the time in 1949 when she was paid for the photo shoot. Her story received wide notice and it gained her public sympathy. It also didn’t hurt that at the time she was appearing in the news with national hero, Joe DiMaggio. In any case, the revelation of her old calendar photos increased interest in her films, for which by then she was receiving top-billing. It also brought her more media attention.

Marilyn Monroe on the cover of Life magazine, April 7, 1952, with story tagline, “Marilyn Monrore: The Talk of Hollywood,” about her up-and-coming stardom, in photograph taken by Philippe Halsman, remains one of the most famous and collectible covers in the history of the magazine.

In early April 1952, Monroe was featured on the cover of Life magazine as “The Talk of Hollywood.” Life, the popular weekly magazine, was then read by millions; a key chronicler of the American tableau. Life’s story on Monroe described her as an up-and-coming star:

…Every so often, more in hope than conviction, Hollywood announces the advent of a sensational glamour girl, guaranteed to entice people from all lands to the box office. Usually the sensation fizzles. But today the most respected studio seers, in a crescendo of talk unparalleled since the debut of Rita Hayworth, are saying that the genuine article is here at last: a sturdy blonde named Marilyn Monroe.

In addition, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper declared Monroe as the “cheesecake queen” turned “box office smash.” That summer of 1952, to capitalize on the rising public interest in the new actress, Fox studio released three of Monroe’s films — Clash by Night (June 16), We’re Not Married! (July 11th) and, Don’t Bother to Knock (July 18th). Two other films with Monroe, Monkey Business and O. Henry’s Full House, came out later that year, further boosting her career.

Joe DiMaggio, meanwhile, continued his courtship of Monroe during the summer of 1952, as the two began to date more regularly. They had something of a bicoastal relationship at the time – Marilyn in Hollywood and Joe in New York, then as a baseball sportscaster. But by late May 1952, Marilyn came to New York for the filming of Niagara, and would see Joe during that period.

During that summer, however, some red flags were being raised by a few of Monroe’s concerned friends. Joe didn’t really like her career, and thought women should be firmly in the home. DiMaggio was also jealous of the attention she generated from other men. Still, in July 1952, the baseball star took the Hollywood beauty home to San Francisco to meet his family. Once there, Marilyn clearly saw why Joe wanted his wife to be domestically set. In the DiMaggio family, women raised children, cooked and cleaned, and it had always been that way – and that’s what Joe wanted. He had been raised in a home of Sicilian immigrants, with strict Catholic values and a family credo that stressed a strong work ethic and pride in their Italian heritage.

The V-Cut Dress

In September 1952, Marilyn came east for the premiere of Monkey Business, and also to serve as Grand Marshal for the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City. For the latter occasion, she wore a black chiffon dress with a v-shape front, cut to the navel and bare back.

September 1952. Marilyn Monroe in v-cut-to-the navel dress at Miss America Pageant parade in Atlantic City, NJ.

20th Century had promoted Marilyn’s role in the Pageant, so there were ample press there, and a number of photos of her in that dress, some exploiting more revealing perspectives, appeared in newspapers across the country. Joe was not happy about the dress or the publicity and had some pretty harsh words for Marilyn. But she tried to explain that was part of her job; it was publicity and she had to show herself. And the dress had come from the studio.

Still, according to a later book by Ben Cramer, Joe was quite angry, telling her it made her look like a whore. “Show them nothing,” he said to her, and “wear your own goddamn clothes…” She was back in Los Angeles by then, and Joe’s words had come to her over the phone. But once he settled down, he felt bad about his anger and tried recalling her, to no avail. Marilyn wouldn’t answer the phone. So Joe just dropped everything and flew out to Hollywood. He later took her clothes shopping, and they patched things up a bit. But for Marilyn, no doubt, some scars remained. Joe later took her to San Francisco where they would spend time with Joe’s family, which Marilyn enjoyed, as well as when she toured the city with Joe on visits there.

But Joe DiMaggio was a man not at ease with the career of Marilyn Monroe. In fact, at the end of summer of 1952, he had made something of bombshell proposal: that it might be best if Marilyn abandoned her acting career. If it only caused her stress, he is reported to have said, why should she do it?According to Stacy Edwards, a Philadelphia sportswriter who knew DiMaggio quite well, “Joe was sick and tired of Marilyn’s career,” and he wanted to get her out of the movies.

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, co-stars of the film, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” appeared on the cover of Life magazine in May 1953, in advance of the film’s release that July.

“We’ll buy a nice home in San Francisco and just live a simpler life,” DiMaggio was reported to have told Edwards, explaining how he and Marilyn would live. Although Marilyn had professed interest in family and children, there was no way she was going to give up her career.

In fact, by 1953, Marilyn’s career only soared higher, scoring some of her biggest films. She had three hit films that year: Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and How to Marry a Millionaire. Niagara, released in January, sent her into the Hollywood firmament, establishing her as one of the movie industry’s biggest draws. Her sultry sexuality was shocking to some, seductive to others.

In advance of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, slated for July 1953, Monroe and Jane Russell, co-stars of the film, appeared on the cover of the May 25th edition of Life magazine.

In Life’s story, titled “Marilyn Takes Over As Lorelei,” Monroe’s performance as the Lorelei Lee character – from the 1925 comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos – was briefly profiled. The story ran with several photos, noting, in part: “In the new 20th Century Fox version, Marilyn sings and dances with a surprising technical competence… In her biggest number she spurns a whole panel of penniless and prostrate admirers and gives the fallen forms the benefit of her philosophy of life: ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’.”

Marilyn’s “Me Too”

Marilyn Monroe, however, was a woman who knew what was going on, and how the Hollywood system treated women in the business. In 1952-53 she had written a story titled, “Wolves I Have Known,” (as told to journalist Florabel Muir). Marilyn’s story was published in the January 1953 edition of Motion Picture and Television Magazine, which included Marilyn on the cover. Other versions of the story had been published earlier, appearing for a broader public audience in The Daily News newspaper of New York City (see ad below). The article offered her take – from personal experience – on certain types of men, or “wolves” as she called them, that she met in Hollywood while seeking work as an actress.

Jan 1953. Marilyn Monroe on cover of “Motion Picture” magazine for story, “Wolves I Have Known”.

“Daily News” ad for Monroe “Wolves” story, earlier versions of which also ran in September 1952.

In the article, she described how things really worked for young girls in Hollywood at that time trying to break into acting. Or as the Daily News put it in one ad: “…A frank, and revealing story of the trials and tribulations of Marilyn Monroe, of what happens to any girl who’s trying to make good ….and be good … in Hollywood. Marilyn tells you the tricks of the trade used by the Hollywood wolf pack, how and why she posed for that famous calendar shot…and much, much more…”

Marilyn didn’t name names in her piece, but the point was made: young girls with their eyes on Hollywood were often sexually harassed, propositioned, or offered unseemly quid pro quos or ultimatums for screen tests, bit parts, or pie-in-the-sky promises that never panned out. Hollywood then, and still today, noted as the land of the casting couch.

“River of No Return,” not a happy film for Monroe, still became a hit in April 1954. Click for film.

Joe to The Rescue

Around the time Gentlemen Prefer Blondes began appearing in theaters in July 1953, Monroe was working on another film, River of No Return, with co-star Robert Mitchum, a western set in the American Northwest in the 1870s. The film was part of her contract with 20th Century Fox, nearing the end of a seven-year run, during which the studio had capitalized on her growing popularity without giving her added benefits or pay. In fact, for River of No Return, she was paid as a contract player.

River of No Return was directed by Otto Preminger and filmed in the Canadian Rockies. By August 1953, Marilyn was on location in Calgary for the filming, and later in Alberta at the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff National Park, also in the Rockies.

But during the filming, Marilyn, along with her acting coach, Natasha Lyetess, had driven director Preminger into some despair in getting things done. Marilyn had also sustained an ankle injury during one scene, and had to be pulled out of a river at one point.

Unhappy with the film, she telephoned DiMaggio, who was soon on his way to Canada to be at her side. DiMaggio claimed to be on a fishing trip when queried by the press. Marilyn by then was wearing an ankle cast from her injury and was helped around by Joe.

After the filming was completed, Joe and Marilyn took some R&R at the Banff Springs Hotel, where they met up with John Vachon, the staff photographer for Look magazine, who had been sent to the Canadian Rockies on assignment, as a number of actors and celebrities were in the area on other Hollywood film projects in addition to River of No Return. In any case, a number of photos of Joe and Marilyn were taken at that time, including the one shown here below.

August 1953. Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe (with ankle cast) photographed in window seat at the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, by Look magazine photographer, John Vachon.

In Banff, Joe and Marilyn had been talking about their future together and the direction of Marilyn’s career. Joe had a dim view of Hollywood and its culture all along, and believed Marilyn was underpaid and exploited by the studio, as well as some of those around her, including acting coach, Natasha Lyetess. Joe believed Marilyn should play a little more hard ball with the studios, and he would soon play a more prominent role in helping her do that – at least for the next year or so. In August 1953, as their time together in Banff ended, he flew back to L.A. with Marilyn, and then returned to New York, set to play in an Old Timers game at Yankee Stadium.

Poster for 1953's “How to Marry a Millionaire”. Click for film.

By November 1953, Marilyn’s earlier made film, How to Marry a Millionaire was in theaters and was getting decent reviews.

Toward the end of 1953, according to the trade press of that day, Monroe was making more money for her studio than any other actress in Hollywood.

At 20th Century, Darryl Zanuck wanted to put Marilyn in another film, The Girl in The Pink Tights, along with Frank Sinatra. But Marilyn did not like this film, or her casting as another “dumb blonde,” and Joe agreed.

In fact, she and Joe had been discussing her relationship with the studio, and agreed that she should make no more film deals until she received better treatment – better pay, mostly in Joe’s view. Marilyn was more interested, as always, in having more control over role, script and directors.

So, in the latter part of 1953, with Joe’s insistence and support, she would defy the studio and not appear for Girl in the Pink Tights filming. Zanuck was apoplectic, and tried all sorts of maneuvers and threats to have her comply. But with Joe’s backing, she held her ground, although there were some tenuous moments.

She had to return to Los Angeles for some last-minute shooting for River of No Return, and there she began to worry about maybe being shut out of Hollywood if she did not comply. But in the end she did not give in, and by the end of December 1953, she returned to San Francisco where she would spend the holidays with Joe and his family.

Playboy

Dec 1953. First issue of Playboy magazine featured Marilyn Monroe on its cover and inside centerfold – launching Hugh Hefner’s national magazine for men and subsequent business empire of Playboy clubs & culture.

But also that December one of Monroe’s more famous media scores appeared, though not by her design. A smiling and waving Marilyn was featured on the cover of a new magazine titled Playboy, a publication billed as “entertainment for men.” It was the brainchild of a guy named Hugh Hefner.

The Playboy cover image of Monroe was a photograph taken at the Miss America Pageant parade in 1952 in the V-cut dress that DiMaggio had a fit about. But that photo wasn’t the main event. The magazine’s nude centerfold was.

That soon-to-be famous regular feature of the magazine, first called “Sweetheart of The Month,” but soon changed to “Playmate of the Month” – would become the magazine’s main draw for “male entertainment.”

In any case, the featured Monroe nude came from the notorious 1949 photo shoot of Monroe on a background of red velvet by Tom Kelley, mentioned earlier. On the magazine’s cover, Hefner played up the special content with an inset box to the right of Marilyn waving that said: “First Time in Any Magazine the Famous Marilyn Monroe Nude”

Monroe hadn’t consented to Hefner for Playboy’s use of the four-year-old nude photo, nor had Hefner directly paid Monroe any money for the photo’s use. Hefner purchased the rights to Monroe’s nude photos from the Chicago-area company in fall 1953 for a reported $500. But that Playboy edition with centerfold – which quickly sold out – helped launch the new magazine and Hefner’s subsequent business empire of Playboy clubs and culture. True, for Monroe, it also helped advance her image as a leading sex symbol. It is not clear how Joe reacted to Marilyn’s notice with Playboy, though given his earlier concerns, he was likely not happy about it.

Marriage & Honeymoon

Joe and Marilyn had talked about marriage since September 1953. But on New Year’s Eve 1953, Joe made it official and proposed to her and she consented. But Marilyn at the time reportedly made a somewhat macabre request of Joe: if she died before him, would he promise to place flowers at her grave every week? He so promised – and years later would faithfully fulfil the pledge without fail. As a Catholic Joe wanted a church wedding, but with his divorce from his first wife, the Catholic church in San Francisco refused. So they opted instead for what Joe hoped would be a quiet civil ceremony, as wedding plans were kept quiet.

Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio emerging from their civil ceremony marriage in San Francisco, January 14, 1954.

Although their wedding was supposed to be a secret, word was released through 20th Century Fox Studios. On January 14, 1954, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married in short civil ceremony in San Francisco.

When word about the ceremony spread, it created a firestorm of publicity. The couple were mobbed by a crowd of 500 onlookers and reporters. They soon departed the scene in Joe’s dark blue Cadillac to the Clifton Motel in Paso Robles, California. The next two weeks were spent at a mountain hideaway outside of Idyllwild, near Palm Springs, California. But the main part of their honeymoon would be in Japan – the result of some baseball business Joe had previously agreed to.

According to Liesl Bradner, writing a story on the DiMaggio/Monroe trip to Japan for HistoryNet.com, before the marriage, DiMaggio had agreed to accompany an old friend and former minor league coach, Frank “Lefty” O’Doul, to help train Japanese baseball teams in Japan for their up coming season. O’Doul, also a native of San Francisco, had been DiMaggio’s manager with the minor league San Francisco Seals, where DiMaggio had starred before coming to the Yankees. O’Doul, also recently remarried, brought his new wife, Jean, on the trip as well.

On the flight to Tokyo, they traveled in style, on Pan Am’s luxurious Stratocruiser airliner, dubbed “the Flying Hotel,” which featured a spiral staircase, single beds, and dressing rooms. Nine hours into the flight, during a short stopover in Honolulu, an enormous crowd turned out at the airport there on word that DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were aboard. In Tokyo, as well, there were large admiring crowds, turned out more for Monroe than DiMaggio.

But earlier, on their flight into to Tokyo, just as they were making the decent to land, a U.S. Army officer, in the upper echelons of the Far East Command, approached DiMaggio and Monroe at their seats in the cabin to ask a question. “How would you like to visit Korea for a few days and entertain the American troops currently stationed in Seoul as part of the UN occupation force?” DiMaggio at first thought the questioned was directed at him, and he declined. But the Major General was really asking Monroe. And she first asked Joe what he thought and he replied, that it was her choice, but it was also her honeymoon. Nevertheless, Monroe accepted the offer.

Marilyn, accompanied by Jean O’Doul, left for Korea in February of 1954 to entertain the troops. She would do a four-day USO tour performing ten shows for more than 100,000 servicemen. On the tour, Marilyn was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the soldiers and buoyed by their reception. But she reminded everyone she was married, telling a crowd at one point she was sorry Joe couldn’t’ be with her in Korea. Still, she would always mark the trip to Japan and Korea as the moment when she realized that she was truly an international star.

February 1954. Marilyn Monroe, center stage, entertaining U.S. troops in Korea, at one of the ten USO shows she did there during a four-day tour of U.S. troop bases.

Returning to Japan after the four-day Korean tour, she remarked to her new husband: “It was so wonderful Joe, you’ve never heard such cheering!” But to that, Joe is said to have replied, “Oh yes I have.” Joe was realizing what being married to Marilyn Monroe would really be like. The honeymoon was over.

After returning to the U.S., Monroe’s career continued its upward trajectory. She received the “Most Popular Female Star” award from Photoplay magazine. By March 1954, she had the promise of a new contract with Fox Studios, a bonus of $100,000, and a starring role in the proposed film adaptation to come for a Broadway stage play titled, “The Seven Year Itch.” In April 1954, River of No Return in the new CinemaScope format, began appearing in theaters and became popular with audiences. She was also working on other films, including a musical, There’s No Business Like Show Business. But in September 1954, she began filming The Seven Year Itch, playing a woman who becomes the sexual fantasy of her married neighbor, played by Tom Ewell.

Seven Year Itch

“The Seven Year Itch” was shot mostly in Hollywood, but the studio wanted to generate advance publicity for the film by staging one scene with Monroe and Ewell on the streets of New York – a scene with Monroe standing over a subway grate with subway air from below blowing her white dress high up in the air. This scene would become controversial, and a “last straw” of sorts for the controlling and jealous DiMaggio.

The scene was shot on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. The film’s publicity department revealed the time and location of the shooting and throngs of onlookers and photographers showed up. Director Billy Wilder shot over a dozen takes of the scene as the crowd became more boisterous and unruly. The shoot lasted for several hours and attracted nearly 2,000 spectators, by one count.

Marilyn Monroe during filming of the “subway grate scene” for “The Seven Year Itch” film, Sept 1954, New York.

Another in the sequence of photos taken during the filming of the “subway grate scene”.

Among the onlookers, however, was Joe DiMaggio and gossip columnist Walter Winchell, who had encouraged him to come to the scene. As they watched the shootings, DiMaggio grew progressively irate at the sight of his wife being ogled and cheered on by the crowd. Reportedly, after the shoot, there was angry shouting match (and rumored physical abuse) between the couple at the St. Regis Hotel, where they were staying. They later returned to their rented home in Los Angeles, where arguments between the two continued.

The “subway grate scene,” meanwhile, became one of Monroe’s most famous, plastered across newspapers and magazines, and used extensively in advertising to promote the film, including a giant billboard-size likeness of Monroe in the famous pose used above a Lowes theater in Manhattan (photo below). The film would become one of Monroe’s biggest commercial successes at its release (the film’s premiere, however, did not come until June 1st, 1955, Monroe’s 29th birthday).

Huge cut-out figure of Marilyn Monroe in her famous "subway grate" pose is set into position above a Lowes Theater in New York City to promote the 1955 film, The Seven Year Itch, as two workmen observe the scene..

Back in Hollywood, at the home she and Joe shared, there were more arguments between the couple. However, on October 6th, 1954, Monroe — with her attorney standing beside her outside the home — announced to reporters that she intended to file for a divorce from Joe DiMaggio on the grounds of “mental cruelty.” Joe had packed up and departed earlier from their home, heading to San Francisco. A divorce hearing was held some weeks later, on October 27th, 1954 and the final divorce decree would be granted the following year.

October 1954. A tearful Marilyn Monroe in car with her attorney after announcing to the Hollywood press her intention of seeking a divorce from Joe DiMaggio.

Before the divorce was final, however, DiMaggio had hired a private investigator to follow Monroe, as he suspected she was seeing another man. According to one New York Times account, on November 5, 1954, DiMaggio was having dinner in Los Angeles with Frank Sinatra and others when they heard from the investigator that Monroe was with another man at an L.A. apartment complex. DiMaggio, Sinatra, and a couple other men then departed the restaurant and drove to the apartment house where they believed the tryst was in progress. There, reportedly, a door was kicked in, with flash cameras at the ready, only to find an outraged woman resident in her nightgown – a woman who later sued the invaders, gaining an out-of-court settlement.

Oct 5, 1954. Some of the press coverage that followed the “subway grate” photo shoot and resulting separa-tion and later divorce between Joe and Marilyn.

Monroe, meanwhile, won an uncontested divorce from DiMaggio, formally approved on October 31st, 1955. The marriage had lasted only nine months, and its dissolution was no surprise to many who knew the couple.

“I never for a minute believed that she and Joe DiMaggio would last,” Jane Russell is reported to have said. Marilyn and Jane were co-stars in the film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Joe and Marilyn were friends with Jane and her husband, Bob Waterfield, an all-pro quarterback with the Los Angeles Rams. “They were in love, very much so,” said Russell of DiMaggio and Monroe, “but they didn’t understand each other. They came from different universes. That was the tragedy of their relationship. They couldn’t stay together. It was ill fated, written in the stars.”

Not long into the marriage, in fact, Monroe had called an old friend and actor, Brad Dexter, telling him she was extremely unhappy. “I married Joe with love,” she said. “I thought I was going to have a good life… And all the things that are entailed in a good marriage.” But instead, she explained, “I’ve discovered that the man is absolutely obsessed with jealousy and possessiveness… He doesn’t want to know about my business. He doesn’t want to know about my work as an actress. He doesn’t want me to associate with any of my friends. He wants to cut me off completely from my whole world of motion pictures, friends, and creative people that I know.”

She would later tell a judge in a Santa Monica courtroom why her marriage to Joe wasn’t working out. His “cruel indifference,” she said, had driven her to divorce. “Your honor, my husband would get in moods where he wouldn’t speak to me for five to seven days at a time — sometimes longer, ten days. I would ask him what was wrong. He wouldn’t answer, or he would say, ‘Stop nagging me!’ I was permitted to have visitors no more than three times in the nine months we were married. . . ”.

Marilyn’s Redesign

November 1953. Look cover of MM; early example of the 5,000+ photos Milton Greene would shoot of her.

After her split from DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe became focused on improving her film career. And among those who would end up helping her set a new course was a photographer named Milton Greene. Greene’s photographic work of film stars – Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Simmons, and others – had appeared on the covers of major magazines.

In the fall of 1953, Greene had a photo shoot with Marilyn, and the two became fast friends. One of Greene’s shots of Marilyn appeared on Look magazine’s cover of November 1953 (over the years in shoots with MM, Greene would amass some 5,000 photos of her, some quite famous).

Following her separation from DiMaggio, Marilyn was grappling with what to do next, still battling with her studio, and Greene suggested she come East to New York city to pursue her craft. In fact, off and on, for the next two years or so, she would live with Greene, his wife, and their young son in Connecticut. But she and Greene would also create Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP), her own production company, designed to give her more contract leverage with the film studios and better role choices.

By early 1955 MMP had been created, and on April 8,1955, Monroe appeared on the famous Edward R. Murrow TV show, Person to Person – a show filmed at Greene’s home, along with Greene and his wife, Amy, who joined Monroe during the interview. Murrow asked Milton about the new production company he and Marilyn had formed and if they had received any offers. Greene responded that yes, there had been “quite a few” – some from TV, the theater, movies, books, and others. Murrow also asked Marilyn about the company, and she answered she was only interested in making good films, and wanted to try something different. “It’s not that I object to doing musicals and comedies,” she replied, “in fact, I rather enjoy them – but I’d like to do dramatic parts, too.”

Edward R. Murrow in a familiar pose with cigarette as he interviews guests on “Person-to-Person”.

Milton & Amy Greene, along with Marilyn Monroe, during “Person-to-Person” show of April 1955.

The Murrow show was very popular at the time, and Marilyn’s appearance and mention of her production company was a direct shot across the bow of the studio moguls in Hollywood. But initially the press had regarded MMP as something of a joke, believing Monroe could not stand up to the all-powerful Hollywood studio system. But later, her company would produce two films and be credited with helping bring down the studio system. By the end of 1955, Monroe and Fox signed a new seven-year contract. Fox would pay her $400,000 to make four films, and granted her the right to choose her own projects, directors and cinematographers. She would also be free to make one film with MMP for each completed Fox film.

Marilyn Monroe in a 1961 photo at the Actors Studio in New York.

June 1955. Though in divorce proceeding, DiMaggio escorts Monroe to premiere of “Seven Year Itch”.

On the acting front, meanwhile, she had also come to New York to study method acting at the highly regarded Actors Studio, run by Lee Strasberg, whose wife, Paula, became Monroe’s acting coach. Monroe wanted to become a better actor with the goal of getting more meaningful film roles. While Hollywood actors were not always well received at the Actors Studio, Monroe was earnest in wanting to improve her craft, and received praise from her peers.

During her time in New York area, Monroe also became acquainted with its jazz scene. Milton Greene was a good friend of Dizzy Gillespie, and he introduced Monroe to the city’s jazz clubs. In the process, Marilyn would also befriend Ella Fitzgerald. In fact, at one New York club that was refusing to engage Ella as a performer, Monroe called the manager to say if he had Ella perform there, Monroe would come to all her shows, meaning plainly that her star attendance would help fill his club.

In her love life, Monroe had kept a low profile at first following her separation from DiMaggio. However, she dated actor Marlon Brando for a time. But later, it was playwright Arthur Miller who had her full attention. Miller was a noted for popular plays such as All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), and A View from the Bridge (1955). Monroe and Miller had met in 1951, had a brief affair, but remained in contact.

However, one vignette of things to come in the relationship between Marilyn and then former husband, Joe DiMaggio, came when he escorted her to the June 1st, 1955 premiere of The Seven Year Itch, the film with the famous skirt-blowing scene that contributed to the demise of their marriage.

Indeed, at the time of the film’s premiere at the Lowe’s State Theater in Times Square, New York, the divorce proceeding between Joe and Marilyn had not yet been finalized. But according to some accounts, in the years after their separation, she and Joe actually got along better than when they were married. And so, there would be more to come in their evolving friendship over the next several years.

After October 1955, Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe began a more serious relationship, as her divorce from DiMaggio was finalized and Miller had then separated from his wife.

Monroe’s film studio, however, urged her to end the affair with Miller since he was then being investigated by the FBI for allegations of communism and was also subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Monroe refused to end her involvement with Miller. The FBI, meanwhile, opened a file on Monroe.

In early March 1956, now back in Hollywood, Monroe began work on Bus Stop, her first film after studying at the Actors Studio. Her partner in MMP, Milton Greene, had purchased the film rights. Bus Stop is neither a full-fledged comedy nor a musical, but a dramatic story, although Monroe does sing one song.

May 14, 1956. Time magazine's cover story noted that Marilyn Monroe had become “a big business.”

In the Bus Stop story, a naïve rodeo cowboy falls in love with café singer Cherie (Monroe), who tries to run away to Los Angeles. The cowboy tracks her down and forces her to board a bus against her will to his home in Montana to get married. The plot thickens when the bus stops at a diner, is delayed, and everyone there learns of Cherie’s predicament. The film would be released later that year.

In mid-May 1956, Monroe appeared on the cover of Time magazine. In the feature story, Time’s editors covered her biography and rise to fame, writing in part:

…the little girl grew up to be a movie star named Marilyn Monroe, and the dream came true on such a preposterous scale that her new wide world has fallen at her feet. In Hollywood’s pagan pantheon, Marilyn Monroe is the Goddess of Love. Furthermore, she has shown signs of becoming a good actress, and many a once-skeptical professional now thinks she may become an outstanding one.

…[A]nd the poor little waif has become a big business; her last five pictures have grossed more than $50 million. Moreover, there is solid evidence that she knows how to run her business…

Time had also noted that Marilyn was receiving as many as 5,000 letters a week from her fans, some including proposals of marriage.

On June 21, 1956, Arthur Miller was called to testify in Washington D.C. by the House Un-American Activities Committee. At a press conference following that hearing, Miller also made reference to marriage plans with Marilyn Monroe, although he had yet to formally proposed to her, causing a swarm of press to seek her out in New York for comment. Miller had received a citation of contempt from the HUAC committee, but the typical public backlash other HUAC witnesses had experienced, didn’t follow for Miller, which some believe was deflected by way of his involvement with Marilyn Monroe and its positive press. In any event, on June 29, 1956, Monroe and Miller were married in a small ceremony at the home of Miller’s agent in Westchester, New York. At the time, Monroe had just turned 30.

June 29, 1956. Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe at cake cutting on wedding day.

Playwright Arthur Miller and film star Marilyn Monroe in later days of their marriage.

By August 1956, the film Bus Stop was released to theaters and became a critical and commercial success. Monroe’s performance was cheered by The Saturday Review of Literature: “effectively dispels once and for all the notion that she is merely a glamour personality.” And Bosley Crowther of the New York Times proclaimed: “…Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress.” She also won a Golden Globe nomination for the performance.

“Bus Stop,” in theaters by August 1956, brought Monroe positive “real actress” plaudits. Click for film on Amazon.

“The Prince & The Showgirl” of 1957 had produced on-set conflicts between Monroe & Olivier. Click for film.

As Bus Stop was running in theaters, Monroe had begun another MMP film project, The Prince and the Showgirl in England. Monroe’s new husband, Arthur Miller, went with her, and the couple enjoyed some time together there in a somewhat extended honeymoon.

The film, however, was to be directed, co-produced, and co-star, English actor, Laurence Olivier. During production, Monroe and Olivier had their differences. Offended by some of his remarks – e.g., “All you have to do is just be sexy” – Monroe became uncooperative for a time during filming. There were also other difficulties. She and Milton Greene argued over how MMP should be run, but the film was completed on schedule by the end of 1956. The Prince and the Showgirl was released to theaters in the summer of 1957. Though unpopular in America, it did better in Europe, where she was awarded the Italian David di Donatello and the French Crystal Star awards and was nominated for a BAFTA.

After returning from England in late fall 1956, Monroe took an 18-month hiatus to concentrate on family life. For a time, her marriage to Miller seemed a positive development for Monroe. She and Miller split their time between New York city, Connecticut and Long Island. Away from Hollywood, Monroe’s life became more normal; she began cooking, keeping house and giving Miller more attention. By April 1957, however, Marilyn and Milton Greene could not settle their disagreements over MMP, and Monroe bought out his share of the company. Later that year, in August 1957, she had an ectopic/tubal pregnancy that was terminated.

By 1958, Monroe was the main breadwinner in her marriage with Arthur Miller. Not only did she pay alimony to Miller’s first wife, but he reportedly charged her production company for buying and shipping a Jaguar to the United States.

By August 1958, Marilyn Monroe was back at work in Hollywood, as filming began on Some Like it Hot, a comedy with Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis, who play two musicians who disguise themselves by dressing as women and joining an all-female band in order to escape gangsters they witnessed committing murder.

Monroe in scene with cross-dressed Curtis & Lemon in all-girl band from 1959s’ “Some Like it Hot.” Click for film.

During production of this film, however, Monroe tried the patience of director and fellow actors calling for numerous retakes, her bid for acting perfection, borne in part by her insecurities. Director Billy Wilder, to his credit, would later say he tolerated the difficulty of working with Monroe, calling her a first-rate comedienne.

Monroe’s performance as Sugar Kane in the film garnered her a Golden Globe for best actress in musical or comedy. Some Like It Hot is now rated as one of the best comedy films ever made. But during its production, Monroe had her personal trials, hospitalized at one point in mid-September 1958 for “nervous exhaustion” (actually a barbiturate overdose). She had also become pregnant in October 1958, though later had a miscarriage. Still, by November 1958, she finished her work on Some Like it Hot, which reached theaters by April 1959 and became a major box office hit.

By February 1960, Monroe was at work on Let’s Make Love, co-staring French actor, Yves Montand, with whom she would later begin an affair, her marriage to Miller by this time on rocky ground. By June of that year, she would also begin daily sessions with psychoanalyst Ralph Creenson. Let’s Make Love, a musical, was finished by August 1960. Shortly before its release to theaters, Monroe and Montand were featured on the cover of Life magazine in a sensual pose taken from the film. Their affair ended when filming ended, with Montand returning to France.

Then came The Misfits, a film based on Arthur Miller’s screenplay, which was adapted by Miller from his own short story of that name published in the October 1957 edition of Esquire magazine. The adaptation was meant to be a Valentine gift from Miller to Marilyn, but it became more like the death knell for their marriage. The film was directed by John Huston, starring Clark Gable, Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, and others. It told a story about four “misfits” – four people who didn’t fit into society: a divorcée (Monroe), an aging cowboy trying to reclaim his mojo (Gable), a former rodeo star (Clift), and an unemployed mechanic (Wallach) all drifting along in Nevada.

Monroe being toweled off by Arthur Miller on “Let’s Make Love” film set after 6-hr dance rehearsal. Life.

Poster for “The Misfits,” a 1960 John Houston film with Monroe, Clark Gable & others. Click for film.

During filming of The Misfits, Monroe became a problem, as she was taking drugs to help her sleep and more drugs to help her wake up, which caused her to arrive on the set late and then have trouble remembering her lines. Director John Houston would explain some years later: “There was evidence right before me almost every day. She was incapable of rescuing herself or of being rescued by anyone else. And it sometimes affected her work. We had to stop the picture while she went to a hospital for two weeks” (August 1960). Houston would also say he felt “absolutely certain that she was doomed.” Miller was on the movie set with Marilyn in Nevada, and was regularly reworking the screenplay as they went. It wasn’t a happy scene, as their marriage by that point was broken beyond repair. On January 24, 1961, a Mexican divorce was granted Monroe. About a year later, in February 1962, Miller would marry Inge Morath, an Austrian-born photographer who had worked on the set of The Misfits making a record of its filming,

New York Mirror story on a later June 29, 1961 Marilyn Monroe visit to New York hospital – with “Joe at side”.

Joe & Marilyn Redux

Not long after her divorce from Arthur Miller and the release of The Misfits to theaters in early 1961, Marilyn Monroe was admitted to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in New York.

On February 5th, 1961 she was involuntarily committed to Payne Whitney by her psychoanalyst, Marianne Kris. At the time, Kris told her she was going there for some “rest and relaxation.”

But Monroe was terrified of sanitariums because her mother lived in one for most of her life and her grandmother had died in one. Monroe was placed in a single room with padded walls and bars on the window. And in a later letter to her Los Angeles psychiatrist, Ralph Greenson (made public in 2015), she described verbal and mental abuse there by one doctor.

Permitted to make a telephone call at one point, she called ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, then in Florida, who by varying accounts, secured her release from Payne Whitney on February 10, 1961, while also helping arrange her admission to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center where she would have a normal private room where she might have some real rest.

April 1961. Marilyn Monroe & Joe DiMaggio in attendance at Yankee Stadium for opening-day game.

Marilyn was treated at Columbia-Presbyterian for three weeks, with DiMaggio visiting her regularly. She was released in early March.

In late March 1961 she joined DiMaggio in Florida where he was a batting coach for the New York Yankees during spring training. News photos of the pair relaxing in the Florida sun also circulated in some newspapers around this time, as the couple had taken a brief vacation.

On April 11, 1961, Marilyn and Joe attended the opening day baseball game between the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium, where they were photographed in attendance for stories that appeared in the next day’s newspapers

In New York, reporters had staked out her apartment building, as remarriage rumors between she and Joe had circulated, which Marilyn tamped down saying they were “just friends.”

Still, at the 33rd Academy Awards held in Santa Monica, CA on April 17, 1961, MC Bob Hope “dedicated” Best Song nominee – “The Second Time Around” – to Joe and Marilyn.

Back in Hollywood

In 1962, Monroe resumed her career in Hollywood and purchased a home in Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Joe DiMaggio, meanwhile, remained involved with and connected to Monroe during 1962. Even when he wasn’t physically with her, the two remained in contact over the phone. When Marilyn was buying her home in Brentwood in February 1962, DiMaggio loaned her $5,000 to make the down-payment. But she also continued her Hollywood life.

Among Monroe’s assortment of Hollywood friends in the early 1960s were members of the “Rat Pack,” such as Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford. Lawford was then married to Patricia Kennedy, sister of U.S. president, John F. Kennedy (JFK).

Marilyn Monroe, center, at Peter & Pat Lawford’s home in 1960, with Peter Lawford, left, and Frank Sinatra next to Monroe looking at a photographs. May Britt is standing in back shadow, at right. Shirley MacLaine is seated.

At various meetings and social gatherings at the Lawford’s house in Santa Monica – and elsewhere – Monroe had met JFK and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy. Over the years, there have been reports, through various biographies and other accounts, of Monroe having brief affairs with both JFK and RFK in the early 1960s, as well as with Sinatra, earlier, possibly in 1959.

Photo of the same group as above, now showing Patricia Kennedy Lawford standing at left with Sinatra pointing, Peter Lawford at left now seated, and Shirley MacLaine at right, turning toward camera.

One Monroe biographer, Donald Spoto, has written that Monroe and JFK met four times between October 1961 and August 1962, with one intimate encounter at Bing Crosby’s house on March 24, 1962, according to Monroe’s masseur, Ralph Roberts. Another biographer, James Spada, has it that Monroe had “sexual relations with both Bobby and Jack.” Volumes have been written about these encounters, some with questionable credibility and accuracy.

June 22, 1962. Life magazine boasts on cover: “Marilyn Monroe: A Skinny-Dip You’ll Never See on the Screen”.

Last Filming

In the spring and summer of 1962, Monroe was also working on the film, Something’s Got to Give, a remake of an earlier comedy (My Favorite Wife, from 1940). In addition to Monroe, the film was also scheduled to star Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse, and was to be directed by George Cukor for 20th Century Fox.

The film, however, was never finally produced, disrupted in part by shooting delays due largely to Monroe’s personal troubles and absence from the set (missing 12 of 32 filming days). Still, some of the scenes Monroe had shot for the film – including a famous nude swimming pool scene – as well as a number of photographs from the set, were published, some at the time, and others years later, including film footage used in later documentaries.

Life magazine, for one, later ran the cover story shown at left with related photos inside and background on the filming (photos by Lawrence Schiller & William Woodfield).

But part of Monroe’s absence from the filming of Something’s Got To Give (and the studio’s later displeasure with her absence) was due to her attending a birthday gala for then President John F. Kennedy at New York’s Madison Square Garden on May 29, 1962. Monroe had been asked by the White House to attend the JFK gala, and before shooting had begun for Something’s Got to Give, she had notified her producer of the invitation and was cleared to attend.

JFK Gala

Meanwhile, in New York on May 29, 1962, the birthday gala for President John F. Kennedy was a huge affair – also a Democratic fundraising event. More than 15,000 people attended, including all the requisite Washington political VIPs and Hollywood royalty. Monroe would famously sing “Happy Birthday, Mr, President” for JFK on his 45th birthday, and also a few bars of “Thanks for the Memories.” Arriving late at the gala, she was introduced by Peter Lawford, and her singing performance came toward the middle-end of the program, which had included a long list of well-known entertainers.

May 19, 1962. Peter Lawford introducing Marilyn Monroe at JFK’s birthday gala in New York city .

May 19, 1962. Marilyn Monroe sings “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” at JFK gala at Madison Square Garden.

Monroe sang her tribute to President Kennedy in her most breathy, sexiest voice, while wearing a sleek, form-fitting, specially-designed dress for the occasion, made for her by designer Jean Louis. There are a number of photos of Monroe at that event, and also a few of her attending an after-party at the Manhattan residence of Arthur and Mathilde Krim. One of those photos – reportedly the only one with JFK and Monroe in the same frame, taken by Cecil Stoughton – is shown below. It also includes Robert Kennedy and JFK presidential aide and historian, Arthur Schlesinger.

May 19, 1962. Robert F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and John F. Kennedy in rare photo taken at private “after party.” Advisor and historian Arthur Schlesinger, with glasses, is shown at far right holding drink. Photo, Cecil Stoughton.

Schlesinger would later commit one impression of Monroe to his journal, recalling meeting her with the Kennedys at the gala after-party:

“…The image of this exquisite, beguiling and desperate girl will always stay with me. I do not think I have seen anyone so beautiful; I was enchanted by her manner and her wit, at once so masked, so ingenuous and so penetrating. But one felt a terrible unreality about her — as if talking to someone under water. Bobby and I engaged in mock competition for her; she was most agreeable to him and pleasant to me, but one never felt her to be wholly engaged. … She receded into her own glittering mist.”

Marilyn Fired

2001 documentary about Monroe’s last months of her life and her final, aborted feature film, “Something's Got To Give,” which was shut down after she was fired. With interviews, film footage & stills. Click for film.

Back in Hollywood, Monroe’s studio was not happy about her taking leave from the filming of Something’s Got to Give. In fact, on June 8th, 20th Century-Fox fired her for “unjustifiable absences”. The studio then started to line up a new cast. However, the film’s main actor, Dean Martin, had refusal rights on his leading lady, and for him it was Monroe or nobody.

Monroe, meanwhile, had lined up some magazine interviews and photo shoots – with Life, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue magazines. She also had meetings with 20th Century-Fox executives to discuss her contract and Something’s Got To Give. In the end, Fox relented and re-hired her, agreeing to pay her more than her previous salary of $100,000, with the stipulation that she make the current film and another at $500,000 per film, plus a bonus if completed on time. But filming never resumed.

In late July 1962, reportedly – July 28th – there was an incident with an over-medicated Monroe at the Cal-Neva resort at Lake Tahoe (then part-owned by Frank Sinatra), where she had come with the Lawfords to join Sinatra and others for the weekend. But after self-medicating she collapsed and was taken home to L.A. by the Lawfords. Reportedly, Joe DiMaggio was seen at the same resort at the time, though not part of the Sinatra gathering.

On August 4th, 1962, it was reported that Peter Lawford called Monroe, concerned about her health on the heels of the Cal-Neva incident. He found she was still not well and sounded quite depressed. Lawford earlier had been the bearer of unpleasant news for Monroe, telling her that all communication with JFK and Bobby Kennedy was to be cut off. She was also reportedly upset over some things JFK had said to her in private. By all accounts Monroe was in a pretty bad way at the time. In fact, on August 4th she had a spent some hours in sessions with her psychologist.

On August 5th, 1962, just before 4:00 a.m., Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her bed at her Brentwood, Los Angeles home. She was 36 years old. Empty medicine bottles were found next to her bed. A toxicology report later indicated that chloral hydrate and pentobarbital were found in her body. Her death was ruled to be “acute barbiturate poisoning” by Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroners Office and listed as a “probable suicide”. The news rocked the nation, and would be a major story for weeks, with newspaper features, magazine specials, and TV reporting.

NY Daily News of August 6, 1962 announcing death of Marilyn Monroe with 7 pages of stories & pictures.

NY Daily News of August 7, 1962 announcing Joe DiMaggio role in claiming her body & funeral rites.

But it was Joe DiMaggio who claimed her body and helped manage her funeral, barring most of Hollywood from attending. In fact, DiMaggio, according to later biographers, believed that it was the Kennedys and the Hollywood crowd who drove Monroe to her desperate lengths. He still loved her and was devastated. Honoring a request she had made of him back in 1954, DiMaggio faithfully had fresh roses delivered to Monroe’s crypt twice a week until his own death in 1999.

March 8, 1999. NY Daily News back page tribute at Joe DiMaggio's passing.

DiMaggio, for his part, had changed his behavior around Marilyn in their later “just friends” years, trying to win her back, being less possessive and more attentive. And there was speculation they had become a better pair. In fact, shortly before her death there was one report that Joe had proposed re-marriage (on August 1, 1962), and that she had accepted, with a small private ceremony planned at her Brentwood residence for August 8th, 1962 – which turned out to be the day of her funeral. DiMaggio, however, never got over her. He dated other women occasionally, but never remarried. He lived the remainder of his years in the glow of his baseball celebrity and its related business opportunities. He became a TV pitchman for Mr. Coffee coffee-makers, and in 1968 was burnished into popular music with the famous line “where have you gone Joe DiMaggio” from the No. 1 Simon & Garfunkel hit song, “Mrs. Robinson.” Joe DiMaggio died of lung cancer on March 8, 1999. He was 84 years old.

Media, Books, Film

The Joe DiMaggio / Marilyn Monroe story, however, did not end with either Marilyn’s death in 1962 or DiMaggio’s passing in 1999. The publishing world and the media kept their story alive, in one form or another, for decades. Of course, it has been “the Marilyn Monroe story” that is the primary driver of the media’s continued fascination — with DiMaggio as one part of her story. Still, it is the Monroe travail that has been center stage; told and re-told and spun with all manner of twists and turns, and fueled in later years with conspiracy theories about her death. In any case, the parade of magazine stories, books, films, and on-line lore about Marilyn Monroe is seemingly never ending – some by friends who knew her, business associates, fellow actors and directors, celebrity writers, photographers, documentary film producers and more. All have kept her story going in one form or another for more than 70 years and counting.

A sampling of some of these various works, mostly books, is offered here with cover art in the columns at right (click on images for Amazon.com pages). Others appear in the “Sources” section at the end of this story. This sampling, however, is just that, as hundreds of books alone, have been written about Monroe.

Among early reporting, for example, was an August 7, 1964 Life magazine feature story by Claire Boothe Luce (wife of publisher Henry Luce), “Marilyn Monroe: What Really Killed Her,” with Marilyn on the cover.

In 1966, a documentary film titled, The Legend of Marilyn Monroe, appeared, chronicling her life and career, narrated by John Huston, also reissued in later years. By the late 1960s, other books followed: in 1967, Marilyn: An Untold Story by Norman Rosten came out and in 1969, Norma Jean: The life of Marilyn Monroe by Fred Lawrence Guiles was published.

In August 1972, Ms. Magazine story ran with the title, “Ten Years Later: The Real Marilyn Monroe: The Woman Who Died Too Soon.” In 1973, Norman Mailer’s Marilyn: A Biography (paperback edition shown), sparked controversy with its final chapter that claimed Monroe was murdered by agents of the FBI and CIA who resented her affair with Robert F. Kennedy. Mailer’s wasn’t the first conspiracy offering about her death, as a number of others would follow.

In 1977, one of the first books focused on the “Joe & Marilyn” story appeared with Robin Moore and Gene Shoor’s book, Marilyn & Joe DiMaggio. Sportswriter Roger Kahn’s book, Joe & Marilyn: A Memory of Love, published by William Morrow (269 pp.) appeared later in 1986 (paperback edition shown at right).

A decade after her death, in mid October 1972, Newsweek ran a cover with a Marilyn Monroe photo, casting her as a nostalgia figure with a banner that read: “Yearning for The Fifties: The Good Old Days.” Ten years later, in July 1982, at the 20th anniversary of her death, McCall’s magazine put her on the cover along with story taglines: “What She Feared The Most,” and “What She’d Look Like Today.” Life magazine, also commemorating her 20-year passing, put Monroe on its August 1982 cover with story tagline: “The Unseen Marilyn: Never Published Photographs – 20 Years After Her Death.”

In 1985, Anthony Summers’ book, Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, was published. Based on over 600 interviews it became a New York Times bestseller. Its later paperback version is shown at right.

In May 1993, Donald Spoto’s Marilyn Monroe: The Biography, was published by Harper Collins, coming in just under 700 pages and is among the most read Monroe biographies.

Meanwhile, in fiction, Joyce Carol Oates published Blonde, her best-selling 2000 historical novel about Monroe that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In May 2001, the popular novel was adapted into a CBS TV mini-series of the same name with Australian actress Poppy Montgomery cast as Monroe in the lead role. Another film version of Blonde, also based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel, is scheduled for release by Netflix in 2022. Oates’ novel, meanwhile, was reissued in April 2020 in a 20th anniversary edition.

After the death of Joe DiMaggio in 1999, there was Richard Ben Cramer’s best-selling, Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life, published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster. It included quite a bit of Marilyn Monroe narrative.

In September 2006, a Marilyn Monroe autobiography appeared with the tile, My Story, written with Bent Hecht and illustrated with Milton Greene photographs.

In the Sunday supplement world, meanwhile, the July 28th, 2008 edition of Parade magazine ran a cover story entitled, “The Marilyn You Don’t Know” by Liz Smith.

In August 2009, J. Randy Tarabor-relli’s The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe (576 pp.) was published, becoming a New York Times bestseller.

A year later, in October 2010, Monroe’s Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters (from her estate) was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, edited by Bernard Comment. This book had a popular following and was positively received by many readers.

In March 2011, Jerome Charyn’s book, Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil, was published by Yale University Press (192 pp).

My Week with Marilyn is a 2011 film drama starring Michelle Williams as Monroe, along with Kenneth Branagh, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Emma Watson, Judi Dench and others, based on two books by Colin Clark depicting the making of the 1957 film, The Prince and the Showgirl. Released in November 2011 in the U.S. and UK, the film received generally positive reviews, while Williams and Branagh were nominated for Academy Awards.

In July 2012, Lois Banner’s Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox was published by Bloomsbury USA (528 pp). Banner is one of the founders of the field of women’s history.

In November 2012, HBO aired the documentary film, “Love, Marilyn,” which is performed through the readings of Monroe’s personal diaries and letters by more than 20 actors and others – Elizabeth Banks, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Viola Davis, etc – exploring her life and personal thoughts. “…[T]his slick documentary,” said one New York Times review, “is also a respectful love letter to Monroe…”

In May 2015, “The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe” aired as a made-for-TV drama miniseries on the Lifetime channel. Based on J. Randy Taraborrelli’s 2009 bestseller of the same name (listed earlier above), the film starred Kelli Garner, Susan Sarandon, Emily Watson, and others.

Among books by various photographers featuring still photos of Monroe is David Wills’ 2015 book, Marilyn In the Flash: Her Love Affair With The Press, 1945-1962, published by Dey Street Books (256 pp). There are at least 80 other photographers who did work with Monroe, some with their own books.

A 2005 PBS American Masters documentary, “Marilyn Monroe: Still Life,” claims she was the most photographed person in history.

Over the years since her death, a number of popular magazines – Time, Life, Newsweek, Playboy and others – have run various special collections or anniversary editions on Monroe. In April 2016, Vanity Fair turned out one of these special editions for her 90th birthday, “Marilyn Monroe: The Movies, The Myths, The Men.”

In May 2018, Michelle Morgan’s book, The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist was published by Running Press (320 pp). And in August of that year, Charles Casillo’s book, Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon (368 pp), was published by St. Martin’s Press.

Again, the above listing of books, films, and documentaries on Marilyn Monroe — and others appearing below in “Sources” — is only offered as an historic sampling, and does not comprise a complete list. As this is written in early 2022, a four-part CNN documentary, Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, has appeared, and with the 60th anniversary of her death in August 2022, there will likely be more Monroe offerings to come.

“Candle in the Wind” - Fabled legacy, troubled soul. MM in pensive moment captured by Richard Avedon, NY, May 1957.

In any case, Marilyn Monroe has left a legacy in popular culture that few can top. The American Film Institute named her the sixth greatest female screen legend in American film history, and the Smithsonian included her on its list of “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time.”

Variety and VH1 list her in the top ten of 20th century pop culture icons. She has also influenced a range of artists and entertainers, from Andy Warhol to Madonna.

A valuable business asset in life and in death, she has appeared in ads for Chanel, Mercedes-Benz, and Absolut Vodka, among others.

In 2011, Forbes magazine listed her as the third highest-earning dead celebrity, with an income at that time of $27 million. She also appeared on the same Forbes list, 2018-thru-2020.

Wikipedia’s page, “Marilyn Monroe in Pop-ular Culture,” offers an extensive listing of her influence across film, photography, art, music, theater, and more. There are also a number of fan clubs and websites about her.

Yet, despite her cultural renown, Marilyn Monroe was a tortured soul for much of her short life, dealing with a series of troubled relationships and sizeable insecurities while trying to make her way in the often exploitive world of Hollywood entertainment.

Of related possible interest at this website are the following stories: “The Jack Pack, Pt. 2,” mostly about JFK and Rat Pack celebrities, but also includes a section on Marilyn Monroe; “Candle in Wind,” a 1973 hit song by Elton John about Monroe; and the “Rosie The Riveter” story, with sidebar, “Marilyn ‘Rosie’ Monroe,” exploring her time in WWII factory where she was discovered by photographer David Conover.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you.- Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 19 February 2022
Last Update: 30 September 2022
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Marilyn & Joe, et al., A 70 Year Saga,”
PopHistoryDig.com, February 18, 2022.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

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Monroe selected as one of Time magazine’s “100 Women of the Year” project, listing the most influential women of the 20th century – chosen for 1954, with Time noting: “...Monroe was a stunner, but she was also a brilliant actor and comedian who strove to be taken seriously in a world of men who wanted to see her only as an object of desire...” Click for Time’s listing.

Sarah Churchwell’s 2005 book, “The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe,” Metropolitan Books, 384 pp. “Refreshing,” says NY Times, “...Her book has torn away layers of false readings and conspiracy theories.” Richard Schickel, L A Times, adds: “Humane and skeptical . . . Churchwell has written an extremely useful deconstruction of the piffle that has accreted around her subject over the years . . .” Click for copy.

C. David Heymann’s 2014 book, “Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love,” Atria, 448 pp. Click for copy.

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Lily Rothman, “The Best Response Ever to a Celebrity Nude Photo Scandal,” Time.com, September 2, 2014.

Jessica Sager, “The Way They Were: Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio’s 61st Anniversary” (photos), New York Post, January 14, 2015.

Lily Rothman, “How Marilyn Monroe Became a ‘Real Actress’,” Time.com, June 1, 2016.

Sam Gillette, “New Book Reveals Joe DiMaggio’s Torment After Marilyn Monroe’s Death: ‘I Always Knew Who Killed Her’,” People.com, May 9, 2017.

Les Harding, They Knew Marilyn Monroe: Famous Persons in the Life of the Hollywood Icon, McFarland & Co., 2012.

Olivia B. Waxman, “The Story Behind the Only Known Photo of Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy Together,” Time.com, August 3, 2018.

“43 Rare Photos from Marilyn Monroe’s Turbulent Marriages,” ELLE.com. September 16, 2020.

“Marilyn Monroe in Popular Culture,” Wiki-pedia.org.

Dennis Gaffney, “The Breakup With Marilyn,” from, American Experience, “Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life,” PBS.org/WGBH.

Liesl Bradner, “When Marilyn Monroe Interrupted Her Honeymoon to Go to Korea,” HistoryNet.com, Winter 2020.

“Something’s Got to Give,” Wikipedia.org.

Angelica Jade Bastién, “Every Marilyn Monroe Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best,” Vulture .com, August 31, 2017.

Teaser Tag: Elton John History
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Elton-John-The-Greatest-Discovery.mp3 8175350 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Talking-Old-Soldiers.mp3 4954418 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Poignant Elton”
On Birth & Old Age

January 5, 2022 J.D.

Early 1970s photo of Elton John at piano by Chris Walter.

In the repertoire of Elton John/Bernie Taupin songs – and by one count, there have been more than 450 of those – there are a few that focus on themes of life and death; birth and old age. And some of these are offered in a poignant style, typically with basic but elegant piano by John, along with the personal stamp of Bernie Taupin story-lines.

Among this poignant catalog are two from the early 1970s: “The Greatest Discovery,” from John’s second album, Elton John, and “Talking Old Soldiers,” from Tumbleweed Connection, his third album.

“The Greatest Discovery,” found on side two, track No. 8 of the Elton John album, was not released as a single. According to one source, the song was recorded virtually live at Trident Studios in London, with Elton singing at piano and backed by orchestra, which is heard in particular at the song’s opening.

Young boy with newborn infant.

“The Greatest Discovery” was produced by Gus Dudgeon with orchestra arranged by Paul Buckmaster, also featured on a cello solo.

Music Player
“The Greatest Discovery”
Elton John-1970

[see lyrics below]

The lyrics, by Bernie Taupin, are about a young boy discovering the arrival of a new baby brother. Reportedly, the Taupin lyrics tell of his own birth as imagined through the eyes of his older brother.

“The Greatest Discovery”
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
1970

Peering out of tiny eyes
The grubby hands that gripped the rail
Wiped the window clean of frost
As the morning air laid on the latch

A whistle awakened someone there
Next door to the nursery, just down the hall
A strange new sound you never heard before
A strange new sound that makes boys explore

Tread neat so small those little feet
Amid the morning his small heart beats
So much excitement yesterday
That must be rewarded, must be displayed

Large hands lift him through the air
Excited eyes contain him there
The eyes of those he loves and knows
But what’s this extra bed just here

His puzzled head tipped to one side
Amazement swims in those bright green eyes
Glancing down upon this thing
That make strange sounds, strange sounds that sing

In those silent happy seconds
That surround the sound of this event
A parent smile is made in moments
They have made for you a friend

And all you ever learned from them
Until you grew much older
Did not compare with when they said
This is your brand new brother

This is your brand new brother
This is your brand new brother

Songwriters: Elton John / Bernie Taupin

One posting and review of “…Discovery” at TheGreatestSongs.com – ranking it at No. 323 in a listing of 500 top songs – offers the following:

“The Greatest Discovery” …. is a hidden gem that never got much attention… The song is about a young boy who hears strange new sounds in his home and goes exploring to see what they are. He notices an extra bed in his house…what is this? It turns out he has a new baby brother. Getting to know this strange looking new creature is a bizarre and exciting new discovery for the boy.

What makes “The Greatest Discovery” unique is that it is unusual territory for a song—and that is exciting. The song is tender, and imagines the wonder of being a boy and meeting your new brother for the first time. Taupin’s lyrics help provide that feeling of wonder and foreignness that someone new coming into your house must feel like for a child. John’s melody is on point- it is sounds like a journey through the kids’ point of view and he sings it delicately.

There are also a number of postings about the song from listeners and reviewers online, at various YouTube.com offerings and elsewhere.

David Huber, at one of the YouTube airings of this song, added comments in 2018, calling the song a “true masterpiece” and “timeless,” adding: “one of the few songs that moves me deeply every time I hear it. I have 2 sons, 10 and 7, so I can relate to this song with my boys… ‘They have made for you a friend.’ Thank you Elton John for a wonderful song, and music that has spanned a generation.”

“Long Beacher,” also commenting on the song at a YouTube posting in 2017, notes: “This magical musical arrangement still moves me to this very day; after hearing it when I was 9 years old. Now, I have two grandsons…”. Writing his comment in 2018, “Arnie,” also praised the song and the Taupin/John team: “Extraordinary. Elton and Bernie wrote their best songs in the early 70’s and this is one of them.” At SongMeanings.com, one writer noted: “…The song is very poignant both lyrically and musically. Having a 6 and a 2 year old, this takes me back to how excited my oldest was when her little sister was born. I think that some of Elton’s (and Bernie’s) best songs are not the Top 40 hits that everyone knows…”

Beth Leinicke, writing a YouTube comment in early 2021, noted: “These gorgeous lyrics…have never failed to elicit a flood of tears. Elton’s plaintive, beautiful vocals & the orchestral arrangement fit perfectly together…”. And Sheila Ebinger, writing her comment at a YouTube posting in 2015, noted: “I have two sons and bought this album back when I was 11 in 1974. When I was pregnant with my second child I would play this song & sing it to my first son.”

Cover of Elton John’s “Tumbleweed Connection.” Click for album or singles, including “Talking Old Soldiers.”

“…Old Soldiers”

At the other end of the life spectrum, John and Taupin collaborated on “Talking Old Soldiers,” track No. 9 on side 2 of John’s Tumbleweed Connection album. This song was also recorded at Trident Studios in London, produced by Gus Dudgeon.

Music Player
“Talking Old Soldiers”
Elton John-1970

Tumbleweed Connection was released in late October 1970 in the UK, and January 1971 in the U.S., to rave reviews. Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hillburn wrote: “Tumbleweed Connection is that near-perfect album that artists often spend a whole career trying to produce.” None of the album’s songs, however, were released as singles, and some of them – such as “Amoreena,” “Come Down in Time”, “Country Comfort,” and “Burn Down the Mission,” were more popular than, and overshadowed, “Talking Old Soldiers,” making it one of the more obscure Elton John songs. The album as whole, however, did quite well, peaking at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard 200, In the U.S., Tumbleweed Connection was certified gold in March 1971 and platinum in August 1998 by the RIAA.

“Talking Old Soldiers”
Elton John / Bernie Taupin
1970-71

Why hello
Say, can I buy you another glass of beer
Well thanks a lot, that’s kind of you
It’s nice to know you care
These days there’s so much going on
No one seems to want to know
I may be just an old soldier to some
But I know how it feels to grow old

Yeah that’s right
You can see me here most every night
You’ll always see me staring at the wall and the lights
Funny, I remember oh its years ago I’d say
I’d stand at the bar with my friends who’ve passed away
And drink three times the beer that I can drink today
Yes I know how it feels to grow old

I know what they’re saying son
there goes old mad Joe again
Well I maybe mad at that I’ve seen enough
To make a man go out his brain
Well do they know what it’s like
to have a grave yard as a friend
’cause that’s where they are boy – all of them
Don’t seem likely that I’ll get friends like that again

Well its time I’ve moved off
It’s been great just listening to you
And I might even see you
the next time I’m passing through
You’re right there’s so much going on
No one seems to want to know

So keep well, keep well old friend
And have another drink on me
Just ignore all the others
You’ve got your memories
You’ve got your memories

Still, “Talking Old Soldiers” – about a conversation between and old man and a younger passer by in a bar – has its fans. One description of the song at EltonsCafé.net, offered the following: “Elton John doesn’t write much in the minor keys, but when he does the results are often excellent. This one is an all around treat, most notably for the evocative lyrics and Elton’s heart-wrenching vocal. It has definitely achieved cult status among hardcore fans and the occasional live performances of it are eagerly anticipated…”

In a Rolling Stone interview, John explained that “Talking Old Soldiers” was “a very David Ackles-influenced song” – Ackles being a 1960s singer known for his narrative-styled pieces and also a favorite of John’s. Ackles, in fact, was on the bill at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles when Elton made his American debut there on August 25, 1970, and John would later dedicate the Tumbleweed Connection album to Ackles.

“Talking Old Soldiers” tells the story of chance meeting in a bar between a young man and an old war veteran, known locally as “old mad Joe.” The young visitor buys the old man a drink and a conversation begins.

The old man describes his loneliness and his former friends and soldier comrades, who in earlier good times he once drank with at the very same bar. But now, they had all passed away. And so, old Joe now comes to the bar most nights, “staring at the wall and the lights,” with most patrons paying him little attention.

One interpretation, by old Joe himself, suggests he “maybe mad,” as the old veteran appears to be left with some kind of war-borne stress disorder. He says at one point he’s seen enough “to make a man go out his brains.” Now, he says, he knows how it feels to grow old, lashing out at those around him: “Well, do they know what it’s like to have a grave yard as a friend?,” he says to the young man, lamenting the loss of his friends. “Don’t seem likely that I’ll get friends like that again.”

Later, the younger man takes his leave, thanking Old Joe for the conversation and buying him another round. He advises old Joe to “just ignore all the others. You’ve got your memories.”

Various listeners online offered a variety of comment on the song. One at SongMeanings.com, who noted the song was one of his favorites, wrote: “…It has such rich, heart-wrenching lyrics and such a sad, dissonant chord progression that never quits, but just pounds the mood even further into your gut…”.

Album art from “Tumbleweed Connection” depicting Bernie and Elton from the early 1970s, here in grayscale.

One YouTube comment on the song from a 2018 listener noted: “Amazing lyrics from Bernie Taupin. I think this song really captures what combat veterans go thru as they age and their brothers in arms pass away. Bernie was great at putting stories into lyrics.” A military veteran at another YouTube posting offered “R.I.P” sentiments to named fallen “brothers” lost in combat, borrowing a line from the song, “Don’t seem likely I’ll get friends like that again.”

“Elton John” album cover of 1970. Click for album and/or digital singles, including “The Greatest Discovery”.

The Elton John /Bernie Taupin team proved they could range over the human condition in many contexts with their song making, and the two songs described here are testament to that musical insight and talent – providing listeners with moving and thoughtful material.

See also at this website: “Candle in the Wind, 1973-1997,” a Elton John song first written about Marilyn Monroe and later adapted for Princess Diana at her passing; “Border Song,” a Taupin/John tune that was also a hit for Aretha Franklin; and “Elton John’s Decade: The 1970s (w/Bernie),” a longer story covering the Taupin/John musical success through the 1970s and beyond.

In addition, the “Annals of Music” category page offers more stories profiling artists, songs, and other music industry history.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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____________________________________

Date Posted: 5 January 2022
Last Update: 9 April 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Poignant Elton: On Birth & Old Age,”
PopHistoryDig.com, January 5, 2022.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

Elton John’s book, “Me: Elton John.” 2020 edition. Click for copy. Henry Holt & Co., 384 pp. Click for copy.

Bernie Taupin’s 2024 book, “Scatter-shot: Life, Music, Elton & Me,” Hachette, 416 pp. Click for Copy.

“Elton John All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track,” Ollivier & Roubin, 2023. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

2017 Elton John Greatest Hits Collection contains 2 CDs, 34 tracks and 10 pg booklet. Click for copy.

“Elton John (album),” Wikipedia.org.

“#323 The Greatest Discovery- Elton John” / Top 500 Greatest Rock Songs of All-Time, TheGreatestSongs.com.

“Elton John – The Greatest Discovery (Elton John 8 of 13),” YouTube.com, posted by sydlivy, January 12, 2009.

“Elton John – The Greatest Discovery (1970) With Lyrics!,” YouTube.com, posted by Ronnie Fiend, January 22, 2014.

“Tumbleweed Connection,” Wikipedia.org.

“Talking Old Soldiers,” Wikipedia.org.

Nik Cohn, “Recordings,” New York Times, August 22, 1971.

“Elton John, Talking Old Soldiers,” Song Meanings.com.

“Talking Old Soldiers,” EltonsCafe.net.

“Talking Old Soldiers – Elton John (Tumble-weed Connection 9 of 10),” YouTube.com, posted by Nalencer, August 27, 2008.

Peter Herbst, The Rolling Stone Interviews: Talking With The Legends of Rock & Roll, 1967-1980, Paperback, 1989, St. Martin’s Griffin, 436 pp. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Film, Music, Sculpture
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Glory-Theme-Closing-Credits-James-Horner-Movie-Soundtrack-1989-sound-low.mp3 6569984 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Glory-Soundtrack-Preparations-For-Battle.mp3 7216628 audio/mpeg

1981-1990

“Glory & The 54th”
Civil War History

December 10, 2021 J.D.

Film poster for 1989's “Glory.” From top right: Morgan Freeman, as the unit’s sergeant; Denzel Washington as runaway slave who becomes soldier; and Matthew Broderick who plays the youthful Colonel Robert Shaw. Click for film.

“Glory” is the title of an Academy Award winning Civil War film from 1989 that is focused on the story of the all-black Yankee regiment of fighting men – the Massachusetts 54th – commanded by white officer, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick.

Equally important in the film are Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Andre Braugher, each of whom play prominent roles.

The film highlights the racial bigotry and discrimination the 54th faces in its bid to distinguish itself as a battle-worthy fighting force. But what adds to the poignancy and power of this film in the telling of black heroism is its moving musical score.

Music Player
Glory Theme

The music is by James Horner (1953-2015), an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator of film scores, known for the use of choral and electronic elements in his film work. And with the Glory score, Horner created some especially memorable and moving music, making effective use of the Harlem Boys Choir, giving the film a spiritual/hymnal quality at times. One reviewer of the film’s music, Jonathan Broxton, looking back on the film 30 years later, has noted:

…Glory is, in my opinion, one of the most accomplished emotional scores of Horner’s entire career, a bonafide masterpiece that brings the lives and deaths of these men who gave up everything roaring into contemporary relevance. It doesn’t matter that this all happened 100 years or more before we were born; the hopes and fears and unrealized dreams of these men, and the things they stood for, are just as important today as they were in 1863, and Horner’s music plays a major part in allowing us to feel that. The fact that it’s also beautifully written and orchestrated and performed is just icing on the cake….”

Overall, Horner’s music in this film not only supports the unsung story of African American “glory” and heroism in the Civil War – but is also a stand-alone accomplishment, worthy of listening apart from the film, conveying its own emotive powers. In the film, the music is an essential compliment to drawing out its various moments of struggle, pathos, and determination. More on the music a bit later. First, some background and overview on the film story by way of its trailer — and later, a striking piece of sculpture that helped inspire the film.

The casting of the black soldiers for the film is superb, as the story is told partially from their perspective. Morgan Freeman plays a battle-field gravedigger who rises to become Sgt. Major John Rawlins. He is the conscience of the regiment and key aide to Shaw and helps to inspire and unite the troops. Denzel Washington plays a runaway slave who becomes Pvt. Silas Trip, a tough, feisty defender of his race with a keen sense of himself, angry and skeptical. Andre Braugher, making his feature-film debut as Cpl. Thomas Searles, plays a very proper, Boston-born-and-bred young black man who is both an intellectual and boyhood friend of Shaw’s. Thomas sleeps with his glasses on and is nicknamed “Snowflake” by tent-mate Trip, who dislikes him. Jihmi Kennedy plays Pvt. Jupiter Sharts, a country boy who stutters but is a crack shot with a rifle.

A few of the volunteer recruits for the 54th during training. From left: Pvt. Jupiter Sharts (Jihmi Kennedy); Pvt Silas Trip (Denzel Washington), and Sgt, Major John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) who becomes a troop leader.

Based largely on a true account, the creation of the Massachusetts 54th regiment of all black soldiers had the support of the Massachusetts Governor, John Andrew, an abolitionist who believed the regiment would be a step toward a wider acceptance of blacks by whites. Black leader, Frederick Douglass, also supported the formation of the unit, and his two sons volunteered to serve in it. Douglass believed that blacks should be involved in a fight that was, at least in part, for their own freedom. In the film, Douglass appears a couple of times, including once with the governor on the reviewing stand at a military parade.

The young Colonel Robert Shaw (Broderick) at right, in Boston, along with Thomas Searles (Braugher), his boyhood friend, who becomes the 54th’s first volunteer at word of the unit’s forming.

Colonel Shaw, for his part, was raised by abolitionist parents and was a participant in integrated childhood activities, making a lifelong friend in Thomas Searles, who becomes the first to volunteer for service in the 54th.

But Shaw, earlier as a soldier at age 23, experienced the horrors of the Civil War close up during fierce fighting at Antietam, where he was wounded and shaken by what he saw on the battlefield. Still, when offered the command of the 54th by the governor, he becomes determined to succeed.

Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Procla-mation of September 22nd, 1862 (effective January 1, 1863), in addition to freeing all slaves, also stated that blacks would be “received into the armed services of the United States,” which moved Governor Andrew to authorize an all-black regiment.

Still, most military leaders, north and south, did not believe blacks could be made into a reliable fighting force.

In setting out on his task, Shaw enlists his white friend, Major Cabot Forbes, to be his confidant and second in command, played by Cary Elwes in the film. Shaw would also enlist an Irish drill sergeant to help discipline and toughen-up the black recruits, who came from disparate backgrounds. Most of the recruits and volunteers were free blacks from northern states along with some runaway slaves.

Shaw is shown at one point in the film, pushing recruit Jupiter Sharts to load and reload his rifle much quicker, and to do so under pressure, shouting at him while he attempts to muzzle-load his rifle, and firing a pistol behind his head several times, trying to simulate the battle chaos his men will face, insisting on their tough preparation.

Colonel Shaw, with pistol in hand, center, and repeatedly firing it at close range to harass Pvt. Sharts, while yelling at him to quickly re-load his rifle, in an attempt to demonstrate battlefield pressures the soldiers will face. Click for YouTube clip, 2:52.

Shaw, however, has his trials, attempting to bring these men into fighting form while needing to gain their respect. He fights the Army bureaucracy as well as the existing military hierarchy and fellow white officers who regard the all-black regimen as truly second class, and not worth any consideration, militarily or otherwise. Shaw reluctantly has to discipline Pvt. Trip at one point, ordering him to be flogged in front of the troops for an attempted desertion.

Pvt. Trip being tied to a wagon wheel prior to being flogged for alleged desertion, revealing scars from his slave days and earlier whippings. Colonel Shaw later learns the real reason Trip left camp.

Shaw later learns that Trip had left camp to find regular-issue shoes because the men were being denied these supplies by the Army quartermaster. Shaw is outraged, and confronts the racist quartermaster and wins some supplies for his troops, and later uniforms.

Pay, however, is another problem, with Shaw receiving a notice at one point that black soldiers will be paid less than white soldiers. This news is protested strongly by Trip, who instigates a resistance, tearing up his check, which in turn, moves Shaw to do the same, bonding men and officers together at that point, helping to form a cohesive unit. Also helping solidify the regiment, and demonstrating the resolve of it black soldiers, comes when Shaw reads a notice received from the Confederate command stating that all captured black soldiers and their officers would be shot. Shaw then states that any man wishing to leave the regiment would be honorably discharged if they chose to do so. None did.

Denzel Washington character, Pvt. Silas Trip (center), instigating a mass revolt among black soldiers in the 54th regiment upon learning their pay is less than white soldiers. Col. Shaw joins the protest, helping to galvanize & cohere the unit.

The disparate collection of volunteer soldiers soon becomes a capable unit, and at their send off they are put on public display, appearing as a formidable and sharply-dressed regiment on military parade through the streets of Boston, as shown in the film clip below:

Once deployed and heading south, the 54th and Shaw come under the command of General Harker, who pairs the 54th with another regiment of mostly freed slaves commanded by Colonel Montgomery. Coming upon the town of Darien, Georgia, Montgomery orders all the troops, including the 54th, to burn and pillage the town to the horror of Shaw, who refuses, calling the order illegal, but then complies under threat of losing command of the 54th.

Thereafter, Shaw and his unit continue to be consigned to mostly manual labor tasks, though they desperately want to prove themselves in battle. Shaw has tried the legitimate channels to gain combat assignments for this men, but then resorts to threatening higher ups Harker and Montgomery with revelations of their smuggling, looting, and graft unless the 54th is cleared for combat — which they finally receive. On July 16th, 1863, Shaw’s men engage in their first battle on James Island in South Carolina. In a forest, they shoot at the approaching Confederate soldiers, then engage in hand-to-hand combat using bayonets. They rout the rebs initially, but a bloody confrontation follows with some casualties. Soon to come, however, is their biggest challenge.

Later in July 1863, Shaw and his regiment have come to Morris Island, South Carolina, not far from Charleston Harbor. On the beach there, Shaw and officers from other regiments are briefed by General George Crockett Strong about the particulars of the Confederate Fort Wagner, the fortification and stronghold guarding the entrance to the harbor – a fortress the Yanks must take. Amidst the sound of shelling from the Union Navy vessels offshore, then bombarding Ft. Wagner with little effect, General Strong describes what lays ahead.

General George Strong, along with a group of his officers, assemble on the beach for a briefing about plans to take the nearly impenetrable Fort Wagner, shown in the distance, as Yankee ships offshore bombard the fort. A Union land assault is set, with Col. Shaw and the 54th volunteering to lead the charge the following evening.

First, the General ticks off a series of large cannons found at the fort: “Wagner mounts a ten-inch Columbiad, three smoothbore thirty-two pounders, a forty-two pound Carronade, a ten-inch Coast Mortar and four twelve-pound Howitzers…” There is also a garrison of 1,000 soldiers. But that’s not the worst part. The problem, Strong tells his officers, is the approach. “The ocean and the marsh leave only a narrow strip of sand, a natural defile through which we can only send one regiment at a time. Now our best hope is that leading regiment can keep the Rebs occupied long enough for reinforcements to exploit the breach. Needless to say, casualties in the leading regiment may be extreme.”

Col. Shaw, at far left, standing on the beach with other officers, listening to General Strong describe the weaponry, fortifications, and unfavorable geography for any attack on Ft. Wagner, volunteers the 54th to lead the charge.

Before Strong can finish, Col. Shaw calls forth: “General Strong, the 54th Massachusetts requests the honor of leading the attack on Fort Wagner.” Strong worries that Shaw’s men have not slept in two days, but Shaw promises that his soldiers possess the character needed for such a mission. And with that, the deed is set, and Shaw returns to his men.

The night before they go into battle, the 54th gathers around a campfire to sing spirituals. And one by one, some of the men rise to pray, seek God’s blessing on their battle, or offer other testimonials. Pvt Jupiter, Sgt-Major Rawlins, and Trip make speeches. Trip is a reluctant speaker, but does say he considers his fellow soldiers his family and that he loves the 54th. Col. Shaw, meanwhile, has given some personal letters to a newspaper journalist to mail, also urging him to remember what he sees on the battlefield there. By late afternoon the next day, Shaw prepares for the assault, dressing in his best uniform, then walking through the ranks of his men. The troop then begins their march through the coastal dunes to assemble on the beach for their attack on Ft. Wagner. As they go, they are cheered by white Yankee soldiers lining the path through the dunes, heading to their muster point. One yells, “Give ’em hell, 54th!” Here’s a film clip of that sequence:

Shaw, now on horseback on his way to joining his men on the beach, first takes his mount to the ocean’s edge away from the troop for a moment of reflection. In the evening light there, against a beautiful coastal scene, with waves gently rolling in as sea gulls dip-and-rise over the water, Shaw takes stock of the natural beauty; drinking it all in with every possible last morsel of his senses, knowing that certain death awaits him a short while ahead. These are likely his last few moments on earth.

Colonel Shaw, at ocean’s edge, drinking in the beauty of the natural world, knowing this may be among his last moments on earth before leading his regiment and near-certain death in their impossible assault on Fort Wagner.

It is then, during this scene, when Horner’s “Glory theme” rises and sweeps over the moment to musically embed Shaw’s last glimpses of earthly wonderment and natural beauty into our visceral memory. But at the same time, Shaw is surely feeling real fear, doubt, and hesitancy: This is it! There’s no turning back now! And the music helps us feel Shaw’s moments as if our own. It is a powerful and moving scene that is made more so by the haunting music.

Music Player
“Preparations For Battle”
Glory Soundtrack

The viewer-listener by this point has also had a steady course of the “Glory” motif played in different scenes throughout the film, so its effect in the “Shaw-by-the-sea” moment is magnified all the more. Shaw knows, and we all know, what’s about to come next.

Duty and commitment call; beauty and life must ebb away. Shaw then dismounts, sending his horse off up the beach with a smack on its hind quarters. Rejoining his regiment, he asks who among the troop will insure that the flag will be borne should its bearer fall. His boyhood friend, Thomas, steps forward: “I will,” says Thomas. Shaw then gives the order to “fix bayonets,” and then, “quick step,” as he leads the charge on the beach toward Ft. Wagner. This part of the score, at its end, follows the men on their charge, with more militaristic drumming and bombastic, battle-type sounds as the heroes of the 54th make their charge and begin to fall – Shaw, Trip, and others…

Scene from “Glory” showing early charge of the Massachusetts 54th amid exploding shells as they make their way along the beach for their assault on the heavily fortified Ft. Wagner. Here, Thomas and Trip are shown at left.

In the end, the charge of the 54th was not successful, as the film shows, with most of the principals falling. Seeing their Colonel fall, however, the men did rally and managed to breach the fort, whereupon the remaining troops faced another line of cannons and Confederates in their path, leaving viewers to complete the scene as the cannons fire and the film cuts away. An after-battle, next-day scene then shows Confederate soldiers burying the Union dead in an open pit, as the camera shows a dead Colonel Shaw rolling into the pit with his men, and then Trip, rolling in next, landing on top of him.

Although their Ft. Wagner assault did not prevail (though the fort was later taken), word of the 54th Regiment’s heroics encouraged the battle deployment of other black regiments. Over 180,000 African Americans would ultimately volunteer for the Union cause, their contribution cited by President Lincoln as helping turn the tide in the war, playing a key role in the Union’s ultimate victory.

Remembrance & Sculpture

Fortunately for history, there came in later years a series of books, art work, and sculpture commemorating Colonel Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th.

One artist’s rendition, circa 1890, a color lithograph, titled “Storming Fort Wagner,” by the Kurz & Allison Lithography Company, offers one perspective on the battle. It depicts the 54th at the fort, with Colonel Shaw in the vanguard of the attack, showing him being shot at the center of the scene. Also shown here, the black flag bearer at center with Colonel Shaw, was in the real battle, former slave William Harvey Carney, who belatedly in 1900, was the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor for his gallantry that day.

1890 color lithograph, titled “Storming Fort Wagner,” by the Kurz & Allison Lithography Company. Click for print.

Beyond this illustration, however, perhaps the more notable remembrance of the Massachusetts 54th and Colonel Shaw is the 1897 bas-relief sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens located on the Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts, across the street from the Massachusetts State House.

2020 National Park Service photo of The Shaw Memorial at Boston Common. Actual setting includes a larger plaza not shown. The bas-relief sculpture is 11' x 14' and its subject figures are nearly life size. See photos below for more detail.

“The Shaw Memorial,” as it is known in shorthand, made its debut in 1897 with speeches and a dedication ceremony at the Boston Music Hall, on May 31st, 1897. The large monument – which stands 11′ by 14′, with sculptured figures that are nearly life size – has a prominent frieze of Shaw on horseback, accompanied by marching soldiers of the 54th. The sculpture in 2021 underwent a restoration, re-installed at its original location across from the State House. And in the closing credits of Glory, close-up camera shots of the sculpture were shown, highlighting the detailed work on the faces and equipment of the individual soldiers — some of which are shown here later below. In fact, those end-of-film frames of the sculptured African American soldiers in particular, with the backing of Horner’s score, no doubt had an impact on viewing audiences and beyond – perhaps helping to inspire future art and tribute sites.

1897 photo. Dedication of Augustus Saint-Gaudens's memorial to Robert Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th on Boston Common, May 31, 1897. The dedication included a procession led by some of the officers and soldiers who fought with the 54th in 1863. Massachusetts Historical Society photo.

In the memorial sculpture, Saint-Gaudens based the scene on Shaw and the 54th as they marched through Boston in 1863, at their departure for battle and points south. Saint-Gaudens, originally intended the memorial to depict Colonel Shaw alone astride his horse. However, Shaw’s family of abolitionists asked that the artist also depict the men who made possible the fame the Colonel had received.

A closer view of the Shaw Memorial reveals its three-dimensional context and life-like detail of its figures.

The work for Saint-Gaudens turned into a 14-year project, as he labored over details in rendering the final scene, which includes notable and quite amazing detail on the forms and faces of the soldiers, as seen in photos shown here. And since its unveiling in 1897, the sculpture has had a continuing impact on many who have seen it.

Another view of one section of the Shaw Memorial shows the sculptor’s fine detail of his subjects’ faces, dress, and equipment

In fact, some 80 years later, this memorial sculpture would provide at least some of the inspiration for the 1989 film, Glory.

Inspiration

The film’s screenwriter, Kevin Jarre, had been a fan of the Civil War since childhood. But reportedly, one day on the Boston Common, as Jarre explored the Shaw Memorial, he noticed at closer inspection that some of the soldiers in the rendering were black. Few people then, including Jarre, knew that blacks fought in the Civil War. So it occurred to Jarre as he gazed at the memorial, that this was a story that might have wider appeal. And with that, the seeds for Glory were planted, and off he went to do more research.

Jarre had also been a friend of Lincoln Kirstein, who was a big fan of Shaw and the Shaw Memorial, and had written a 1973 monograph, “Lay This Laurel,” about the regiment. Jarre also read the letters of Colonel Robert Shaw and other historical material. All of this figured into Jarre’s becoming committed to writing a screenplay – which he would later say he did in four weeks after holding up in a New York City hotel. “I never thought I could interest anybody in it,” he told the Los Angeles Times of his screenplay in 1990. “A Civil War epic, about black people? But I’d got really attached to the story.”

“Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune,” Shaw letters. Click for copy.

“Lay This Laurel,” book, essay & photos on Shaw Memorial. Click for copy.

“One Gallant Rush” by Peter Burchard, Click for copy.

In the end, Jarre’s screenplay for Glory derived from three sources: 1) the personal letters of Robert Shaw, also published in book form, as Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune; 2.) Lay This Laurel, first published in 1973 as an album of greytone photographs by Richard Benson with the monograph by Lincoln Kirstein; and 3.) One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw & His Brave Black Regiment, a 1965 book by Peter Burchard. In addition to the books, Shelby Foote, noted Civil War historian and star of the Ken Burns epic documentary on the war, was a key consultant to the film.

Making The Film

Getting the screenplay to final film, however, was another story, as it often is. In this case, it took four years for the film to get major studio financing. Hollywood decision makers had rejected the project for years; it wasn’t quite in sync with “the conventional formulas for box-office success,” according to one source. But then came Freddie Fields, a former head of production at MGM/UA Entertainment Company. Fields became quite taken with the story in 1985: “It came as a real surprise to me that black troops fought so heroically in the Civil War, and I thought it could make a moving story that would also be socially and historically significant.” Fields would later say, “Getting this movie made…became a real passion for me.”

Portion of a promotional poster featuring film blurbs.

Glory was finally taken on by Tri-Star Pictures, with Freddie Fields as producer. Principal photography began in early February 1989 in Savannah, Georgia, and filming also occurred in Massachusetts. Glory premiered in limited release in mid-December 1989, and in wide release by mid-February 1990.

At its first release, the film received generally good reviews, some calling it “one of the best movies ever made about the American Civil War” and among “the finest historical dramas.” Richard Schickel of Time praised the movie’s “often awesome imagery and a bravely soaring choral score…” Denzel Washington’s performance as Trip received rave reviews by many, while Matthew Broderick’s Col. Shaw, although an earnest performance, had a mixed reaction.

Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 3.5 rating out of 4, calling it “a strong and valuable film no matter whose eyes it is seen through,” but he did note one recurring problem. “I didn’t understand why [the story] had to be told so often from the point of view of the 54th’s white commanding officer. Why did we see the black troops through his eyes — instead of seeing him through theirs?…” Similarly, in later years, the film has had more scrutiny along these lines, with a number of reviewers critiquing the film’s racial aspects, and that more should have been made of the black soldiers’ perspectives and former lives. For example, Shaw’s letters home received attention in the film, yet none of the black soldier’s characters or back-stories were similarly followed or developed.

Cover art for one of the “Glory” soundtrack packages. Click for CD of the soundtrack at Amazon.com.

Still, in the end, Glory was the first major motion picture to tell the story of black U.S. soldiers fighting for their freedom in the Civil War, and as such it helped open the door to further research and public education on the film and related subject matter.

Glory was nominated for five Academy Awards and won three – Best Supporting Actor for Denzel Washington; Best Cinema-tography (Freddie Francis); and Best Sound (Donald O. Mitchell, Gregg Rudloff, Elliot Tyson, and Russell Williams II).

Sadly, however, James Horner’s film score for Glory was not nominated for an Academy Award, which many fans found puzzling. The score for The Little Mermaid took the prize that year.

However, Horner’s score was nominated for, but did not win, a Golden Globe award. His work on Glory did win a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or Television.

In addition, in one or more film production, directing, and/or acting categories, Glory also received awards from: the Golden Globe Awards, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, the Political Film Society, and the NAACP Image Awards.

VHS, DVD, and BlueRay editions of the film were produced between 1990 and 2008, some as special editions with extra features. The film also spurred sales of the existing books on Shaw and the 54 th Massachusetts regiment. In June 1990, Publishers Weekly reported that sales of both One Gallant Rush by Peter Burchard and Lay This Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein were boosted by the film’s release. An earlier special edition of One Gallant Rush that coincided with the film’s opening, in fact, had sold 40,000 copies by Mach 1990.

The “Glory Effect”

Glory also helped to prompt and/or inspire further inquiries, museum exhibits, additional books, and scholarly papers on the history and role of African Americans in the Civil War, and also some new monuments and sculptures.

The first scholarly collection of the Col. Shaw’s letters, edited by Russell Duncan and mentioned earlier – Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune – was published in 1992. Duncan would follow that volume with a Shaw biography in 1999, Where Death and Glory Meet: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, University of Georgia Press. A number of other books on Shaw, the 54th, and/or African American involvement in the Civil War have been published since the film, some of which are shown or listed below in “Sources.”

“Tell It With Pride: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Shaw Memorial,” illustrated, 2013, Yale University Press, 228pp. Click for copy.

Among museum exhibits in later years, for example, was the “Tell It with Pride” exhibit at the National Gallery of Art exhibit in Washington, D.C. That exhibit ran from September 15, 2013 to January 20, 2014, and was focused on the 54th Massachusetts Regiment and the Shaw Memorial (a special volume on that exhibit was also published by the curators, shown at right). In parts of that exhibit, with various photos and art works focused on the 54th regiment, the Gallery highlighted the contributions of various artists:

“For over a century, the 54th Massachusetts, its famous battle at Fort Wagner, and the Shaw Memorial have remained compelling subjects for artists. Poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Robert Lowell praised the bravery of these soldiers, as did composer Charles Ives. Artists as diverse as Lewis Hine, Richard Benson, Carrie Mae Weems, and William Earle Williams have highlighted the importance of the 54th as a symbol of racial pride, personal sacrifice, and national resilience. These artists’ works illuminate the enduring legacy of the 54th Massachusetts in the American imagination…”

Statues & Monuments

While thousands of Civil War monuments, North and South, were erected following the war, only a handful, like the Shaw Memorial, included any recognition of the service of African Americans. In recent years, there have been new statues and monuments dedicated to African American service in the Civil War. One accounting of such statues and monuments lists more than two dozen in various locations across the U.S. According to that listing – which is an ongoing project – one or more African American Civil War monument or other tribute designation is found in the following states: Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington, DC. And interestingly, the author of that listing has stated: “…[A]t least sixteen of these monuments were erected in the past 20 years [ i.e, from about 1991 or so]. My speculation is that this recent interest in memorializing the USCT [United States Colored Troops] got its impetus from the 1989 movie Glory.” A few random samples follow of both older and more recent African American Civil War monuments and tribute sites.

>Frankfort, KY

Interpretative plaque added to the 1924 Colored Soldiers Monument at Frankfort, KY. Click for readable version.

In July 1924, a modest Colored Soldiers Monument was dedicated at Frankfort, Kentucky’s Green Hill Cemetery. It commemorates the black soldiers from Kentucky who participated in the American Civil War. The monument is a simple 10-foot tall 4-sided limestone pillar set in a concrete base. The front bears the inscription “In Memory of the Colored Soldiers Franklin County, Kentucky Who Fought in the Civil War 1861-1865.” Inscribed around the column are the names of 142 black soldiers that hailed from central Kentucky. In later years an interpretive plaque, shown above, was added at the site telling a more complete story (click on above photo for access to enlarged copy).

>Washington, D.C.

In July 1998, a 9-foot bronze statue of African America Civil War fighters, titled “Spirit of Freedom,” along with a surrounding plaza, was dedicated in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. ( a predominantly black area of the city named after Colonel Robert Shaw). The statue there features three black infantry men and one sailor, as well as other figures cast in relief on the back of the sculpture. The plaza is also filled with engraved lists of those who served.

“Spirit of Freedom” statue in Washington, D.C, dedicated in July 1998, honoring African Americans who served in the Civil War. Part of the inscription reads: “Civil War to Civil Rights and Beyond. This Memorial Is Dedicated to Those Who Served in The African American Units of the Union Army in the Civil War...”

Inscribed at the front base of the statue is the headline, “Civil War to Civil Rights and Beyond,” followed by the inscription: “This Memorial Is Dedicated to Those Who Served in The African American Units of the Union Army in the Civil War. The 209,145 Names Inscribed on These Walls Commemorate Those Fighters of Freedom.” Also inscribed on a granite wall at the memorial is a quote from Frederick Douglass: “Who Would Be Free Themselves Must Strike the Blow. Better Even Die Free than to Live Slaves.”( March 2, 1863). And nearby, across the street, is The African American Civil War Memorial Museum, which recognizes the contributions of the 209,145 members of the United States Colored Troops. The statue was commissioned by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in 1993 and dedicated on July 18, 1998. The overall site was developed by the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum. The site was transferred to the National Park Service (NPS) in October 2004.

>Vicksburg, MS

At the sprawling, 2,500-acre Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi, a monument to black Civil War soldiers was added in 2004. The monument consists of three bronze figures that stand atop a granite base – two black Union soldiers and a common field hand. The field hand and one soldier support between them the second soldier, who is wounded.

African American memorial commemorating the Civil War service of the 1st and 3rd Mississippi Infantry Regiments, “and all Mississippians of African descent who participated in the Vicksburg Campaign” – dedicated in February 2004, added to hundreds of other memorials at the Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi.

According to a National Park Service description, the wounded soldier represents the sacrifice in blood made by black soldiers on the field of battle during the Civil War. The field hand looks behind at a past of slavery, while the first soldier gazes toward a future of freedom made possible on the field of battle. The inscription on the statue’s base states: “Commemorating the service of the 1st and 3d Mississippi Infantry Regiments, African descent and all Mississippians of African descent who participated in the Vicksburg Campaign.” Mississippi provided 17,869 men to the United States Colored Troops.

Oklahoma marker for July 1863 action by 1st Kansas Colored Infantry at Cabin Creek Battlefield near Pensacola, OK.

The Vicksburg National Military Park, established in February 1899, preserves the site of the Civil War Battle of Vicksburg, waged from March 29 to July 4, 1863. The park, flanking the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, also commemorates the greater Vicksburg Campaign.

The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles of trenches and earthworks, a 16-mile tour road, a 12.5-mile walking trail, two antebellum homes, 144 emplaced cannons, the restored gunboat USS Cairo, and Grant’s Canal site. Since 1933, the park has been administered by the National Park Service, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in October 1966. Over half a million visitors come the park every year.

In 1999, former Vicksburg, Mississippi Mayor Robert M. Walker, an African American, proposed placement of a monument in the Vicksburg National Military Park to recognize the contributions of African American soldiers during the Vicksburg campaign of the Civil War.

In 2000 the Mississippi House of Representatives approved funding for a monument to recognize African-American soldiers in the Civil War. With $300,000 in funding from the State of Mississippi, including $25,000 contributed by the City of Vicksburg (60 percent African American), groundbreaking for the monument was held on September 20, 2003, with dedication of the memorial on February 14, 2004.

The above samples of African American Civil War memorials and tribute sites are only a few of the existing sites, as noted in the earlier link to a longer listing. And at this writing, new memorials are also being proposed and developed.

For additional stories at this website on race and civil rights, see the Civil Rights topics page. And for film and film music, see the Film & Hollywood page.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 10 December 2021
Last Update: 26 March 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Glory & The 54th,”
PopHistoryDig.com, December 10, 2021.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Deborah Willis, “The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship” (NYU Series in Social and Cultural Analysis), 2021, NYU Press, 256 pp. Click for copy.

Douglas R Egerton, “Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America,” Illustrated, 2016, Basic Books, 448 pp. Click for copy.

James M. McPherson, “The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union,” 2003, Vintage Books, 366 pp. Click for copy.

Douglas A. Blackmon, “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II,” 2009, Anchor Books, 496 pp. Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, Click for copy.

Clint Smith, “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America,” 2021, Little, Brown & Co., 352 pp. Named a Best Book of 2021 by the New York Times & others. Click for copy.

Glenn Collins, “’Glory’ Resurrects Its Black Heroes,” New York Times, March 26, 1989.

Vincent Canby, Review/Film, “Black Combat Bravery in the Civil War,” New York Times, December 14, 1989, p. C-15.

Richard Bernstein, Film, “Heroes of ‘Glory’ Fought Bigotry Before All Else,” New York Times, December 17, 1989, Section 2, p. 15.

Glenn Collins, “Denzel Washington Takes a Defiant Break From Clean-Cut Roles,” New York Times, December 28, 1989, p. C-13,

Roger Ebert, Film Review, “Glory,” RogerEbert.com, January 12, 1990.

James M. McPherson, “TNR Film Classic: ‘Glory’ (1990),” The New Republic, January 15, 1990.

“Glory (1989),” American Film Institute, AFI Catalog of Feature Films: The First 100 Years 1893–1993, AFI.com.

“Glory (1989 film),” Wikipedia.org.

“Glory (1989),” IMDB.com.

“Negroes Filled Freedom’s Ranks,“ LIFE, November 22, 1968.

“#10 – Glory (1989)”, WarMovieBuff.blogspot .com, December 3, 2013.

Movie Speech, “‘Glory’(1989): General George Strong Discusses the Strategic Importance of Fort Wagner,” AmericanRhetoric.com.

“Monument Honors Black Civil War Soldiers,” CNN.com, July 18, 1998.

Russell Duncan, Where Death and Glory Meet: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, 1999, University of Georgia Press, 208pp. Click for copy

Gary W. Gallagher, Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War, University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Click for copy.

“Glory,” SBIFF.org / Santa Barbara Interna-tional Film Festival.

“Fort Wagner,” Wikipedia.org.

John Smith (ed.), Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era, 2004, University of North Carolina Press, 478pp. Click for copy.

Valerie J. Nelson, “‘Glory’ Screenwriter Kevin Jarre Dies at 56,” Washington Post, April 23, 2011.

“The African American Soldier Memorial in Vicksburg, MS; and an Old (?) ‘Grey Curtain’/NPS Controversy,” Jubilo Emanci-pation Century.WordPress.com, March 23, 2011.

“Monuments to the United States Colored Troops (USCT) [African American Civil War Soldiers]: The List,” JubiloEmancipation Century.WordPress.com, Posted by lunchcountersitin, May 30, 2011.

Matthew W. Hughey, The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption, Temple University Press, 2014. Click for copy.

Jeffrey Peters, Greatest Scenes, “Scene of the Week: Risking All for Glory,” NewsAndTimes .com, August 17, 2017.

Captain Luis F. Emilio, A Brave Black Regiment: The History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865, 2017. Tells the story of the 54th after Ft. Wagner. 204 pp. Click for copy.

Geoff Boucher, “‘Glory’ At 30: Director Edward Zwick Reflects On His Civil War Epic,” Deadline.com, July 2019.

News Release, “The Shaw 54th: Restoring the Memorial and the Dialogue on Race,” National Park Service / NPS.gov, October 9, 2019.

Ella Starkman-Hynes, “Poetry Not Yet Written: Revisiting Glory Thirty Years Later,” JournalofTheCivilWarEra.org, December 10, 2019.

Joshua Meyer, “’Glory’ At 30: Denzel Wash-ington’s 1989 Breakout Film Is Still The Best Civil War Movie Ever Made,” SlashFilm .com, December 20, 2019.

Kevin M. Levin, “Why ‘Glory’ Still Resonates More Than Three Decades Later. Newly Added to Netflix, the Civil War Movie Reminds the Nation That Black Americans Fought for Their Own Emancipation,” SmithsonianMag.com, September 14, 2020.

“The Shaw Memorial,” National Park Service, NPS.gov.

“Shaw Memorial Elms,” Boston Globe/Boston Globe.com.

“The 54th Massachusetts Regiment,” National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

“Tell It with Pride: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Shaw Memorial,” NGA.gov / National Gallery of Art, Exhibit, September 15, 2013 – January 20, 2014, West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 65 and 66. (website includes audio & video resources).

“Shaw Memorial Photos,” CelebrateBoston .com.

“Black Soldiers Monument Returns to Boston Common After $3M Restoration,” NBCboston .com, March 3, 2021 (includes video on Camp Meigs historic site in town of Hyde Park, MA where 54th trained).

“United States Colored Troops,” Wikipedia .org.

“African American Civil War Memorial Museum,” Wikipedia.org.

Associated Press, Mississippi News, “Historic Projects Money Receives House Approval,” Enterprise-Journal (McComb, MS), March 24, 2000, p, 5.

Jonathan Broxton (music review), “GLORY – James Horner,” MovieMusicuk.us, February 12, 2020.

Robert Lowell, For The Union Dead, a book of poems, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in June 1964, with a drawing of the Shaw Memorial on its cover, and including the poem, “For The Union Dead,” inspired in part, by the Shaw memorial and the 54th. Click for copy.

Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (three-volume history published between 1958 and 1974). Click for box set.

Geoffrey C. Ward, Ric Burns & Ken Burns, The Civil War: An Illustrated History (500+ photos), 1990, Knopf, 425 pp (companion volume to PBS TV series). Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Oil Disaster History

1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Pipeline Fireball”
Bellingham, WA: 1999

November 18, 2021 J.D.

Thousands of miles of fossil fuel pipelines of all kinds – crude oil, gasoline, natural gas, and related petrochemicals – crisscross the U.S. and other nations around the world. Sometimes these pipelines leak, explode, or cause raging fires that can endanger public health and safety, pollute the environment, and/or cause millions of dollars in property damage. Such was the case on June 10th, 1999, when a leak of 277,000 gallons of gasoline from an underground pipeline at Bellingham, Washington ignited and caused a massive explosion and fireball that killed three boys, terrorized a city of 75,000, and left a 1.3 mile scorched-earth corridor of environmental devastation. The Seattle Times newspaper ran a front-page story on the calamity, with a large and graphic photo and headline that read, “Everything is Dead,” quoting a local official on the environmental carnage.

June 12, 1999 front-page headline of The Seattle Times exclaims, “Everything is Dead,” referring to the devastation along a charred Whatcom Creek following Olympic Pipeline explosion & fireball that killed 3 boys. Aerial photo shows scorched path of fireball route along creek & through park. Top inset also shows headline of inside story, “Olympic Inspection Raised Questions.”

The explosion and fireball occurred on a beautiful early summer day, finding its ignition source in a most unlikely of places: Whatcom Falls Park, in Bellingham, a popular park where two salmon streams converged – Whatcom and Hanna Creeks. However, slicing through this park, beneath its creeks, was the Olympic Pipeline. This pipeline, on its north-south route, carried hundreds of thousands of gallons of petroleum fuels daily between pumping stations and refineries in northwest Washington state. But on this June afternoon the pipeline had leaked gasoline — enough to form a layer approximately three inches thick on the surface of the creeks over a distance of about 1.3 miles.

Bellingham location in Washington state.

Bellingham, Washington is located on the Pacific Northwest coast at Bellingham Bay, not far from the Canadian border, and about 85 miles north of Seattle. Bellingham is the northernmost medium-sized city in the contiguous United States. It is a popular tourist destination known for its easy access to outdoor recreation in the San Juan Islands and North Cascades, as well as its proximity to Vancouver and Seattle.

Whatcom Falls Park is a large 241-acre public park encompassing the Whatcom Creek gorge, running directly through the heart of the city. It has four sets of waterfalls and several miles of walking trails, and is a hub of outdoor activity connecting and defining several different neighborhoods of Bellingham. Popular activities during warmer weather include swimming, fishing, and strolling along the park’s walking trails

Map showing pipeline routes, where explosion occurred at Bellingham, as well as refinery locations at Cherry Point and Anacortes, pumping locations, and delivery locations.

The Olympic Pipeline system in 1999 consisted of about 400 miles of pipelines transporting refined petroleum product from refineries in northwest Washington State to locations as far south as Portland, Oregon.

One 16-inch-diameter pipeline – the accident pipeline – was moving product from an Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) oil refinery and pumping station near Cherry Point, Washington to a Tosco Company oil storage facility near Renton, Washington, a distance of about 107 miles.

This pipeline and another were operated remotely at a computer-assisted control center located in Renton. At the time of the accident, Olympic was jointly owned by Equilon Pipeline Company LLC (Shell and Texaco), Atlantic Richfield, and GATX Terminal Corporation, with Equilon under contract to manage the operation of the pipeline.

Equilon, in fact, was a new entity, formed by Shell and Texaco in January 1998, with Shell holding a 56- percent ownership stake, and Texaco, 44 percent. Equilon, in effect, brought together Shell and Texaco “downstream” refining and marketing properties in the West and Midwest, which included terminals, refineries, and gas stations. One of the Equilon properties was an oil refinery at Anacortes, WA. At that refinery, in November 1998, six workers were killed in an horrific explosion, for which Equilon was found culpable, fined $4.1 million by the state, and after admitting responsibility for the accident, agreed to a wrongful death settlement of $45 million in a lawsuit brought by the families of the six men killed.

10 year-old, Stephen Tsiorvas.	10 year old, Wade King.
Liam Wood, fly fisherman.	Note: "Gone fishing."

Boys in the Park

As noted earlier, Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham is a popular recreation destination in the Bellingham area, especially in summer. On Thursday, June 11, 1999, two ten-year-old boys, friends Wade King and Stephen Tsiorvas, were having some fun in Whatcom Falls Park, exploring its woods and streams as boys that age love to do. They were passing the afternoon there, sometime after 3:00 p.m. or so.

Also in the park that day was 18 year-old Liam Wood, a soon-to-be grad of Sehome High School. Liam loved fly fishing and had gone to the park, leaving a note at home telling his parents of his whereabouts: “Guys, I’m fishing. Will be back before dark. Homework is done [heart symbol]. Liam.”

Unbeknownst to any of these boys, the leaked gasoline was all around them, as fumes and liquid had infiltrated the streams.

Meanwhile, in the control rooms for the Olympic Pipeline operators, some anomalies were noticed during the 3:00-4:00 p.m. period. Alarms had sounded and pumping at one station had shut down. Something seemed amiss. However, the operators couldn’t quite figure out what the problem was. What had actually happened by about 3:20 p.m. or so – and unknown to anyone at this point – was that a rupture had occurred in the Olympic Pipeline near the waterworks plant at Bellingham adjacent to Whatcom Falls Park. In latter accounting it was learned that malfunctioning pumps and valves in the Olympic system for this line also contributed to the rupture, as pressure within the line had increased during the event as a result of these problems. In any case, at about 3:25 p.m. that afternoon, gasoline began spilling into Hanna Creek just above its confluence with Whatcom Creek and was soon moving into Whatcom Creek as well.

Back at the control center, there was some concern since the pipeline had shut itself down between Cherry Point and Renton. Still, by 4:15 pm or so, gasoline transfer from Cherry Point was restarted. About ten minutes later, approximately 4:24 p.m, a woman driving across Woburn Street bridge at Whatcom Creek called 911 saying she smelled an “incredible odor that made breathing difficult.” Shortly thereafter, a Bellingham resident living near Whatcom Creek also called 911 reporting a strong petroleum odor and a discoloration of the creek.

Map shows Whatcom Falls Park, the North-South route of Olympic Pipeline crossing stream and park (dotted line), the leak/explosion site, and the extent of Whatcom Creek that burned as it flowed in a westerly direction (in red) toward Bellingham proper and Bellingham Bay.

At the control center in Renton at about 4:29 p.m., leak detection software had activated an alarm. An Olympic Pipeline employee in Bellingham called 911 from the Woburn Street bridge, reporting gasoline fumes. He then called the Olympic Pipeline control room in Renton to notify them.

Olympic Pipe Line controllers began closing valves to isolate the rupture. Back in Bellingham, police and fire crews were closing roads around the creek and called in a hazardous materials team to investigate. It was then about 4:34 p.m. Some arriving fireman reported seeing fumes rising from the creek. According to one, “the creek had turned yellow, a ‘river of gasoline’.” By 4:46 radio stations began broadcasting emergency messages, urging people to stay away from the creek. And about ten minutes later, evacuations were called for in areas within 200 feet of the creek. By 4:57 p.m. Olympic controllers called 911 dispatch to report a “possible release of product into Whatcom Creek.”

Meanwhile, back in Whatcom Falls Park, ten year-old explorers, Wade King and Stephen Tsiorvas, had found an old discarded butane cigarette lighter. And as ten year-old boys are want to do, they began playing with it, and flicking it, which shortly became the ignition source for the fumes and leaked gasoline that had been accumulating around them.

June 10, 1999. Smoke from pipeline explosion at Whatcom Creek in Bellingham, WA rises ominously after leaked gasoline ignited, killing three boys. (Bellingham Herald ).

At 5:02 p.m. the leaked gas ignited on Whatcom Creek resulting in a huge explosion with ensuing fireball that rolled along the ground and streambed for more than a mile in a westerly direction toward Bellingham. As it went the fireball incinerated creek bed, nearby vegetation, and practically everything in its path.

June 10, 1999. A somewhat wider area perspective on the huge smoke cloud rising from the Olympic Pipeline explosion at Bellingham, Washington.

A huge billowing smoke cloud rose high into the sky – six miles high, according to one account — and visible for miles. Back along the creek, pockets of gasoline created successive explosions, and emergency crews would continue to fight spot fires for five days following the explosion.

Scene along Whatcom Creek shortly after pipeline explosion.

Portion of scorched-earth path along Whatcom Creek following June 1999 pipeline leak & explosion in Bellingham, WA.

The boys, meanwhile, had jumped into the creek trying to save themselves, but their skin was severely burned, though walking and talking immediately after the accident, and conscious during the ambulance ride to the local hospital.

The two boys were later airlifted to a Seattle hospital burn unit but died the next day.

Liam Wood, the 18-year-old fly fisherman, had drowned after he was overcome by the gasoline vapors while fly-fishing and passed out, falling into the stream where he drowned.

Authorities say that while the younger boys had touched off the inferno, they may have saved countless other lives. The disaster could have been much worse had the gasoline moved further downstream in a westerly direction, toward Bellingham.

But fortunately, the fire and explosions were confined to the park and much of the gasoline had burned up before it could follow the creek through a more populated residential area and possibly into downtown Bellingham and beyond, into Bellingham Bay.

Still, some gasoline had migrated into the city’s sewer system, and for an hour or so, according to some reports, vapors were at explosive levels at some locations. Bellingham police had begun evacuating businesses. And the U. S. Coast Guard, concerned the fuel could ignite dock pilings and vessels, closed Bellingham Bay for a one-mile radius from the mouth of Whatcom Creek.

In the aftermath, the charred scene reminded some of a war zone. “It looked like…they laid down napalm,” said Bellingham police officer Dac Jamison, a Vietnam War vet, describing the blackened park and streambed later.

The burn zone encompassed 26 acres, with the fire destroying 2.5 miles of riparian vegetation along the stream beds, 100,000 fish, and other aquatic organisms and wildlife. The smoke from the blaze had closed Interstate 5 to traffic for several hours the evening of the accident. The explosion and fire also knocked out electric power for hours affecting 4,000 people and crippled Bellingham’s water supply for nearly a week, having damaged part of the city’s water treatment and distribution system.

During the incident, Whatcom County officials implemented a disaster plan with evacuations, also opening an emergency operations center. For nearly two years following the explosion, a 37-mile section of the troubled pipeline would be shut down.

Hearings, Reports, Lawsuits

One of the Congressional hearings held on the Olympic Pipeline disaster, this one by a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee in Washington, D.C. on October 27, 1999. It includes 227 pages of testimony and submissions from more than a dozen witnesses.

Following the Olympic Pipeline explosion, a series of local, state and federal investigations were begun, a new state law was passed, federal legislation was proposed, and various lawsuits and enforcement actions were filed.

On July 28, 1999, the parents of Wade King and Stephen Tsiorvas – the two boys killed in the pipeline inferno — filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in Whatcom County Superior Court naming Olympic Pipe Line, Equilon, and three Olympic employees as defendants.

U.S. Congressional hearings were also held — one in Washington D.C. before a House subcommittee on October 27, 1999, and another by a U.S. Senate committee on March 13, 2000, this one a field hearing held in Bellingham. Both of Washington’s U.S. Senators, some of its U.S. and state representatives, and a number of other witnesses appeared at the hearings or issued statements for the record.

On March 28, 2000, Washington Governor Gary Locke signed into law the Washington Pipeline Safety Act, which included authority for the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission to inspect some 2,500 miles of Washington’s intrastate pipelines and oversee the state’s pipeline-safety program.

Among the first federal agencies to formally report on the Bellingham pipeline explosion was the U.S. Office of Pipeline Safety(OPS), issuing its findings in June 2000. According to OPS, Equilon Enterprises operated the Olympic pipeline in an unsafe manner and violated pipeline safety standards by: failing to take precautions to prevent damage to the pipeline, failing to test safety equipment, and not adequately training employees. For these failures, OPS announced it would seek a record fine of more than $3 million against the Olympic Pipeline Company.

June 3, 2000. Portion of New York Times story on Office of Pipeline Safety report & proposed fine.

A criminal investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency resulted in a seven-count indictment by a federal grand jury in Seattle in September 2001. The indictment charged Olympic Pipe Line, and Equilon Pipeline with five felony violations of the Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Act and two misdemeanor violations of the Clean Water Act. Included in the indictment were three Olympic employees, a vice-president/manager, a supervisor, and the controller at the time of the accident. Under a plea agreement, the companies would pay $112 million to settle all federal criminal fines and most of the civil claims against them.

A November 2001 report and investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on the Olympic Pipe Line explosion, reviewed the line’s history, operation, and technical controls. The NTSB found a series of errors that led to the pipeline rupture, placing most blame on Olympic for inadequately inspecting work around the pipeline, allowing repeated pressure surges on the line, and failing to repair damaged sections. The pipeline had been dinged and dented in 1994 by a construction company during an excavation for a water treatment plant project. And as noted by NTSB, although Olympic had done an analysis of its entire system in 1997 — when it found “anomalies” in the pipeline section that later ruptured – its engineers at the time failed to do a required excavation, nor did the company inform regulators.

By April 10, 2002, the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the King and Tsiorvas families was resolved with an out-of-court settlement. Olympic and Equilon agreed to pay the families of King and Tsiorvas $75 million. The family of Liam Wood reached a separate, undisclosed settlement with the companies.

Cover of the National Transportation Safety Board report on the Bellingham pipeline explosion. Click for copy.

On December 11, 2002, Olympic Pipe Line pleaded guilty in U. S. District Court, Seattle, to one felony count under the Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Act and two Clean Water Act misdemeanors. Equilon Pipeline entered no-contest pleas to the same violations.

Under the plea agreement, the companies agreed to pay a record $112 million to settle all federal criminal fines and most civil claims against them. According to U. S. Attorney John McKay, the pleas marked the first time a pipeline company had been convicted under the 1979 Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Act.

The State of Washington also levied civil penalties – $2.5 million on Olympic Pipe Line and $5 million on Shell. All told, Olympic, Equilon, and their various corporate owners and partners faced settlements totaling more than $187 million.

One positive outcome of Olympic Pipe Line explosion was the creation of the Pipeline Safety Trust, which at the time was one of a few pipeline safety watchdog groups that would work to improve pipeline regulation. On June 18, 2003, U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein ordered that $4 million of the criminal fines imposed on the industry be awarded as an endowment to fund the Pipeline Safety Trust. The judge noted at the time that the award was small and the task formidable – like “Bambi taking on Godzilla.” Still, she encouraged the industry to listen to and work with the Pipeline Safety Trust so tragedies like Bellingham did not happen again.

Since then, the Pipeline Safety Trust, based in Bellingham, has worked effectively with citizen groups, public officials, and the pipeline industry on safety and regulatory issues.

In Washington, D.C., federal reform of pipeline safety law in Congress was sought shortly after the Bellingham explosion of June 1999, followed in August 2000 by an El Paso natural gas pipeline explosion in New Mexico that killed 12 campers – the twin tragedies then providing a powerful impetus for reform. While the Clinton Administration and others in Congress had introduced bills for reform in 1999 and 2000, it would not be until December 2002 that Congress would pass, and President George Bush would sign, the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002 (H.R. 3609). Since then, subsequent amendments to federal law have been made. In 2021, the Biden Administration increased funding for pipeline safety while bringing new regulatory oversight to natural gas gathering lines.

Incidents Continue

Yet, despite improvements to pipeline safety law and regulation, pipeline leaks, spills, and explosions continue to occur. Hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries have resulted from pipeline incidents in the U.S. since 1998.

As reported by Bloomberg.com in November 2016, “over the last thirty years, just under 9,000 significant pipeline-related incidents have taken place nationwide,” according to data from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. And as Bloomberg further reported on the damage involved:

…CityLab mapped out all significant pipeline accidents between 1986 and 2016, based on data compiled by Richard Stover, an environmental advocate and former research astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. According to Stover, these accidents have resulted in 548 deaths, 2,576 injuries, and over $8.5 billion in financial damages.

Bloomberg graphic of “Pipeline-Related Deaths,” 1998-2017, based on data from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Back in Whatcom County, meanwhile, the memory and legacy of the 1999 explosion – or at least the network of fossil fuels-wary citizens and officials that rose in civic leadership around that and related issues, seems to be still at work. In June 2021, the county became the first in the nation to adopt a measure that bans the construction of new refineries, coal-fired power plants and other fossil fuel-related infrastructure. The ordinance also places new restrictions on existing fossil fuel facilities, requiring that any new fossil- related emissions resulting from expansions be offset.

For additional “oil & the environment” stories at this website see any of the following: “Burning Philadelphia,” a story about the 1975 Gulf Oil Co. refinery fire in that city; “Santa Barbara Oil Spill” about the 1969 Union Oil offshore oil well blow-out and pollution of California’s coastline; “Texas City Disaster,” about BP’s 2005 Texas City, TX oil refinery explosion and fire that killed 15 workers and injured another 180; “Barge Explodes in NY,” about a Bouchard gasoline transport barge docked at an ExxonMobil depot that exploded into a giant fireball in 2003, polluting waterways in the New York city area, shutting down water traffic, and shaking up communities for miles around; “Inferno at Whiting: 1955,” about an eight-day catastrophic Standard Oil/Amoco oil refinery explosion and fire near Chicago; “Oil Fouls Montana,” profiling an oil pipeline leak that fouled the Yellowstone River in January 2015; and, “Deepwater Horizon, Film & Spill,” a story about the making of the 2016 Hollywood film on the BP offshore oil rig disaster, plus a recap of the politics, media coverage, and corporate maneuvering during the real BP oil spill in the Gulf.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: November 18, 2021
Last Update: September 16, 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Pipeline Fireball, Bellingham, WA: 1999,”
PopHistoryDig.com, November 18, 2021.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Katherine Wiltenburg Todrys’ 2020 book, “Black Snake: Standing Rock, The Dakota Access Pipeline, and Environmental Justice,” Bison Books, 352 pp. Click for copy.

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Chris Turner’s 2017 book, “The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands,” Simon & Schuster, 368pp. Click for copy.

2012 Report of the U.S. General Accounting Office on “gathering pipelines” – of which there are 200,000 or so, mostly low-pressure lines found in rural areas to “gather” production from oil & gas wells. Until recently, these lines had little or no oversight or regulation, but have had numerous leaks, spills, and other incidents. Click for copy.

Washington Post reporter, Steven Mufson’s 2013 Kindle book, “Keystone XL: Down the Line,” TED Books, 172 equivalent pp. Click for copy.

Nick Estes’ 2019 book, “Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance,” Verso Books, 320 pp. Click for copy.

Samuel Avery’s 2013 book, “The Pipeline and the Paradigm: Keystone XL, Tar Sands, and the Battle to Defuse the Carbon Bomb,” with foreword by Bill McKibben. Ruka Press, 240pp. Click for copy.

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Keiko Morris, Janet Burkitt, Jim Brunner, Jack Broom, “Fire Takes Young Lives — Cause Investigated; Pipeline Has Anacortes Refinery Tie,” Seattle Times, June 11, 1999.

Seattle Times Staff, “‘Everything Is Dead’ — Bellingham Fireball Turned Dreams Of Reviving Salmon Habitat To Ashes — How Gas Leaked and How It Ignited Remain Mystery,” Seattle Times, June 12, 1999. p.1.

B Acohido and E. Sorensen, “Olympic Inspection Raised Questions,” Seattle Times, June 12, 1999.

S. Becker and S. Clark, “Case Study: Pipeline Explosion, Bellingham, Washington, June 10, 1999,” Case Studies of Transportation Accidents Involving Hazardous Materials, Module 9, UA.edu.

Randall Carroll, Fire Chief, City of Bellingham, Washington, “Olympic Pipe Line Pipeline Rupture and Fire,” PowerPoint presentation.

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B. Dudley, “Public Adamant in Call to Improve Pipeline Safety,” Seattle Times. September 9, 1999.

Kim Murphy, “Problems in the Pipelines,” Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1999.

B. Dudley, “Will Impact of Pipeline Burst Hit Home Values?,” Seattle Times. September 19, 1999.

B. Dudley, “Congress to Hold Hearing on Bellingham Pipeline Leak,” Seattle Times. October 8, 1999.

U.S. House of Representative, “The Bellingham, Washington, Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Incident,” Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, Hazardous Materials and Pipeline Transportation, 106th Congress, 1st Session, October 27, 1999, Washington, D.C., 227 pp.

J.V. Grimaldi, “NTSB Ties Rupture to Water-Line Project,” Seattle Times. October 27, 1999.

Associated Press, “Explosion Still Taking Human Toll, Team Is Told,” Seattle Times, November 17, 1999.

S. Miletich, “Olympic Pipe Line Blames Construction Firm for Deadly Rupture,” Seattle Times, February 11, 2000.

U.S. Senate, “June 10, 1999 Olympic Pipe Line Accident,” Field Hearing (Bellingham, WA), Before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, March 13, 2000, 146pp.

“Governor Signs Pipeline Safety Act,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 29, 2000, p. B-2.

“Law Boosts Pipeline Safety in State,” Seattle Times, March 29, 2000.

“RSPA Wants to Fine Olympic Pipeline $3 Million,” Oil & Gas Journal / OGI.com, June 2, 2000.

Associated Press, “Operator of Pipeline Faces a Record Fine,” New York Times, June 3, 2000, p. A-9.

U. S. General Accounting Office (GAO), Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Commerce, House of Representatives, “Pipeline Safety: The Office of Pipeline Safety Is Changing How It Oversees the Pipeline Industry,” May 2000 (includes appendix on the status, at that time, of the investigation of the Bellingham explosion).

“Olympic Pipeline Explosion: A Retrospec-tive,” The Planet, Spring/Summer 2000 (a publication of Huxley College of Environ-mental Studies), 64pp [PDF at: Pipeline Safety Trust /pstrust.org.]

Christian Davenport, “Longhorn Debate Calls Attention to Pipelines,” Austin American-Statesman [re: Texas pipelines], April 16, 2000.

Jim Brunner, “Equilon Settles in ’98 Refinery Blast” (re: 1998 Anacortes refinery explosion that killed 6 workers], Seattle Times, January 20, 2001.

Steven A. Holmes, “Pipeline in Fatal Accident Undergoes a Test Pumping,” New York Times, January 27, 2001, p. A-9.

Associated Press, “Pipeline Lawsuits: Olympic, Equilon Fight Each Other in Court,” KitsapSun.com, July 29, 2001.

Paul Shukovsky, “Criminal Indictments in Deadly Pipeline Explosion,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 13, 2001.

United Press International, “Pipeline Firms Charged in Blast Near Seattle,” UPI.com, September 14, 2001.

Matthew Preusch, National Briefing | North-west: Washington: “U.S. Charges In Blast,” New York Times, September 15, 2001, p. B-4.

Scott Sunde, “Not-Guilty Pleas in Pipeline Blast Case,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sep-tember 28, 2001, p. B-1

Matthew Preusch, National Briefing | North-west: Washington: “Company To Pay $75 Million In Deaths,” New York Times, April 11, 2002, p. A-31.

National Transportation Safety Board, Pipeline Rupture and Subsequent Fire in Bellingham, Washington, June 10, 1999. Pipeline Accident Report, NTSB/PAR-02/02, Washington, D.C., 2002.

Tracy Johnson, “$75 Million Settlement Won’t End Their Fight for Pipeline Safety. Families of 2 Boys Killed in Bellingham Fire Promise to Continue Pushing,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 10, 2002.

“Pipeline Explosion: State Fines Companies for Bellingham Rupture,” KitsapSun.com, June 6th, 2002.

Associated Press, National Briefing | Nort-hwest: Washington: “Blame In Pipeline Blast,” New York Times, October 10, 2002, p. A-27.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “EPA Reaches $100 Million Agreement in Olympic – Shell Pipeline Case (Deal Includes $87 Million in State-of-the-art Pipeline Safety & Spill Prevention Work in Nine States), EPA.gov, December 11, 2002.

Daryl C. McClary, “Olympic Pipe Line Accident in Bellingham Kills Three Youths on June 10, 1999,” HistoryLink.org, June 11, 2003.

Associated Press, “Officials Sentenced in Pipeline Blast,” TDN.com/The Daily News Online, Longview, WA, June 19, 2003.

Carol M. Parker, “Pipeline Industry Meets Grief Unimaginable: Congress Reacts with the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002,” Natural Resources Journal, Winter 2004, Vol. 44, pp.243-282.

Emily Linroth, “Ten Years Later: Whatcom Creek Recovery,” WhatcomWatch.org, June 2009.

“How Bellingham’s Sunny June Day Turned into Fireball,” Bellingham Herald, June 7, 2009.

Kira Millage, “Timeline of Bellingham Pipeline Explosion,” Bellingham Herald, June 7, 2009.

“C-SPAN Cities Tour- Bellingham: The Olympic Pipeline Explosion,” YouTube.com, January 3, 2014 (overview of incident and subsequent regulatory changes, narrated on camera by Carl Weimer, Director of the Pipeline Safety Trust).

Jared Paben, “Whatcom, Hannah Creeks Heal With a Lot of Help After Pipeline Explosion,” Bellingham Herald, June 9, 2009; updated June 6, 2014.

Jim Thomson, Safety In Engineering Ltd., “Refineries and Associated Plant: Three Accident Case Studies,” SafetyInEngineering .com, 2013, 22pp.

Rebecca Craven, Program Director, Pipeline Safety Trust, “Pipeline Safety: Why Local Governments Should Care” (slide show w/ talk at NACO.org webinar), March 27, 2014.

“Whatcom Creek Pipeline Explosion: More Than a Decade of Healing,” Pipeline Safety Trust / PSTrust.org.

Andrew Restuccia and Elana Schor, “’Pipelines Blow up and People Die’. After a Series of Deadly Accidents, Congress Created an Office to Oversee the Nation’s Oil and Gas Pipelines. A Decade Later, It’s Become the Can’t-Do Agency,” Politico.com, April 21, 2015.

George Joseph, “30 Years of Oil and Gas Pipeline Accidents, Mapped. The Sheer Number of Incidents Involving America’s Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Suggests Environmental Concerns Should Go Beyond Standing Rock,” Bloomberg.com, November 30, 2016.

Tyler Kendig, “Pipeline Watchdog: Almost Two Decades after the Olympic Pipeline Explosion in Bellingham, Carl Weimer Continues the Fight to Improve National Pipeline Safety Standards,” ThePlanetMaga-zine.net, June 7, 2017.

Bellingham Herald, “Timeline of the 1999 Pipeline Explosion on Whatcom Creek,” YouTube.com, June 9, 2019.

Oliver Milman, “Washington State County Is First in U.S. to Ban New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure; Whatcom County’s Council Passed Measure That Bans New Refineries, Coal-fired Power Plants and Other Related Infrastructure,” TheGuardian.com, July 28, 2021.

Marianne Lavelle, “An Oil Industry Hub in Washington State Bans New Fossil Fuel Development. The Plan Brings Together Local Stakeholders, Including the Oil Industry, Labor Unions and Environmental Groups,” InsideClimateNews.org, July 29, 2021.

Ysabelle Kempe, “A Pipeline Exploded in Bellingham 22 Years Ago. It’s Still Influencing Federal Policy,” Bellingham Herald, August 22, 2021.

Jack Doyle, Crude Awakening: The Oil Mess in America, Friends of the Earth, Washington, D.C., 1993 (See Chapter 6, “A Crack in the Pipe,” with U.S. pipeline incident history & issues, most in the 1980s-early`90s, some 1960s &`70s). This chapter also included in submitted materials for the congressional hearing record at: ”Colonial Pipeline Rupture,” Before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation, House of Representatives, 103rd Congress, 1st Session, May 18, 1993.

National Wildlife Federation, “Full Oil Incident List: 2000-2010,” Jack Doyle research project for the National Wildlife Federation, Washington, D.C., June 2010.

Teaser Tag: Boxing & Culture

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Ali’s Film History”
Muhammad Ali: 1970-2021

October 19, 2021 J.D.

DVD cover for the epic, four-part 2021 Ken Burns PBS docu-series, “Muhammad Ali.” Click for DVD or video.

In September 2021, a Ken Burns documentary film on Muhammad Ali made its premiere on PBS channels across the U.S. The epic, eight-hour series aired over PBS on four successive evenings in prime-time slots.

Burns is known for his in-depth treatment of subjects ranging from baseball and the Civil War, to Ernest Hemingway and country music. And the “Muhammad Ali” venture is no exception.

The first episode covers Ali’s life from 1942-1964 as a young boxer named Cassius Clay rises up the amateur ranks to win gold at the 1960 Olympics, to when he turns professional, discovering the benefits of self-promotion, then beating Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion.

The second episode features Ali in the 1964-1970 period, joining the Nation of Islam, changing his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, and refusing induction into the U.S. Army for religious reasons. A legal battle ensues that will eventually reach the Supreme Court.

This is the period when Ali is stripped of his boxing title – a champ without a ring for 3 years. Yet, with a couple of favorable local rulings in the late 1960s – one in Georgia and another in New York – Ali manages two return bouts, which he wins, though he is not in top form.

“Ali on Film”
Documentaries & Feature Films
1970-2021

“A.K.A. Cassius Clay”
1970 – Documentary
“The Fighters” / “Ali: The Fighter”
1973-1975 – Documentary
“The Greatest”
1977 – Hollywood film
“Ali: A Living Legend”
1980 – Documentary
“When We Were Kings”
1996 – Documentary
“King of the World”
2000 – ABC-TV Film
“Ali: An American Hero”
2000 – FOX-TV Film
“Ali” (Will Smith film)
2001-2002 – Hollywood film
“Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami”
2008 – Documentary
“Facing Ali”
2009 – Documentary
“Champions Forever”
2009 – Documentary
“Muhammad Ali:
The Man, The Moves, The Mouth”
2012 – Documentary
“When Ali Came to Ireland”
2012 – Documentary
“Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight”
2013 – TV Film
“The Trials of Muhammad Ali”
2013 – Documentary
“I Am Ali”
2014 – Documentary
“Muhammad Ali: A Life”
2016 – Documentary
“What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali”
2019 – Documentary
“Ali & Cavett: Tale of The Tapes”
2018-2020 – HBO Film
“One Night in Miami…”
2020 – Amazon Film
“Blood Brothers:
Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali”
2021 – Netflix Film
“Muhammad Ali”
2021 – PBS Documentary
___________________________
*Not a complete list. Most titles above
found at Amazon as DVDs or video.

The third episode places Ali in his “rivalry years,” 1970-1974, when he and Joe Frazier, his fiercest rival, would have the first two of their three fights. Frazier wins the much-hyped first bout in March 1971, retaining the heavyweight title, and Ali – after a series of other fights – meets Frazier for the second time in January 1974, though Frazier by then had lost the heavyweight title to George Foreman. Ali wins the second fight with Frazier, thus becoming a viable contender to challenge then champ, George Foreman.

Part 4 of the Burns film covers Ali’s life from 1974 through his death in 2016. In October 1974, Ali shocks the world by defeating George Foreman in Africa at the much-hyped “Rumble in the Jungle,” winning back the heavyweight title. Also covered is the third Ali-Frazier fight held in the Philippines in October 1975 — the “Thrilla in Manila” – which Ali wins, besting Frazier in two of their three historic battles.

Although Ali loses and then regains the heavyweight title (for a record 3rd time) in a series of subsequent fights, the Burns film covers Ali’s later damaging bouts and staying in the fight game too long, and the development of his Parkinson’s disease. His post-retirement years after 1981 are also covered, as Ali travels the world spreading his Islamic faith, becoming a symbol of peace, hope and inspiration.

Part of the tag line used with the Ken Burns film is that Ali was “Bigger Than Boxing, Larger Than Life.” And the film lays out exactly why that’s the case.

Burns, for his part, has said: “I am drawn to boxing when the person and the bouts seem to reflect something larger…” And indeed, Muhammad Ali was in a league of his own, both as a superlative athlete and a man of conviction. His story is filled with a lot more than boxing. It is a biography of contradictions about a complicated human being.

And the Burns film covers that – his boasting and continuing dance with the media; his religious convictions; his fight against racism; his battle with the government over the draft; his marriages and his womanizing; his kindness and his cruelties; his compassion and his generosity, and more.

“We think we tell a story in a kind of complete way,” says Burns. And Ali’s daughter, Rasheda Ali, agrees: “This film, it’s the whole picture. It’s the good, the bad, it’s the inspiring, it’s everything.”

Yet, over the last 50 years, there have been numerous films on Muhammad Ali that have come before the Burns film.

In fact, between 1970 and 2020, when all the various versions are considered – documentaries, dramas, fictionalized accounts, and/or compilations – there have been some two dozen or so films that have been made about or with Muhammad Ali.

These films vary in quality and content, for sure, and there is a fair amount of repetition among them. Still, they tell us something of the man and his impact on culture, as well as those making the films. So, before getting into a bit more analysis of the Ken Burns film and its reviews, what follows here is a look back at some the Ali films that have preceded it.

Poster for 1970 film, “a.k.a. Cassius Clay.” Click for poster.

Another promotional poster for the “a.k.a. Cassius Clay” film. Here, Ali is shown boasting his talents to a ringside audience, believed to be after the first Sonny Liston fight. Click for poster.

1970

“a.k.a. Cassius Clay”

One of the first films on Muhammad Ali came in late 1970 – a documentary titled “a. k. a. Cassius Clay.” The film was made during the years Ali was banned from boxing for refusing the U.S. military draft during the Vietnam War and explores Ali’s career in his early years up until 1970.

As Wikipedia has summarized, “a. k. a. Cassius Clay” features “archival footage of people associated with Ali, such as Angelo Dundee, Malcolm X, and Drew Bundini Brown, and clips of his fights with Sonny Liston, Henry Cooper, George Chuvalo and Floyd Patterson. These are intercut with scenes featuring Ali and veteran boxing trainer Cus D’Amato discussing his career and how he would have fared against past champions such as Joe Louis.”

“a. k. a. Cassius Clay” was produced by Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton, who would go on to manage another famous heavyweight, Mike Tyson. The film includes Ali clips from the vast collection of historic fight films compiled by Jacobs and Cayton, some of them familiar, but some quite rare, including some of Ali’s earliest bouts. Among these are Ali’s battles with Henry Cooper, Floyd Patterson, Jerry Quarry and Sonny Liston. Ali is also featured in film clips of his boastful self, proclaiming to be both the greatest and the prettiest fighter ever to enter a boxing ring – an attention-getting tact he adopted in part from “Gorgeous George,” a flamboyant pro wrestler of the late 1950s and early 1960s who adopted a similar style.

“a. k. a. Cassius Clay” is narrated by actor and famous “documentary voice,” Richard Kiley, who receives some notice from New York Times film critic, Roger Greenspun in a November 4, 1970: “It is difficult to imagine a dull movie from this material, and “a. k. a. Cassius Clay” isn’t dull. But it also isn’t as interesting as it might have been with more of Ali and his opponents, more of Malcolm X, more of Cus D’Amato—and rather less of Richard Kiley’s pointedly inconclusive narration….”

Greenspun continues his review in a more charitable vein with the following:

“…in treating the changing styles of a man who is always producing more or less lovely copy for the press, the film does pretty well. And whenever it enters the ring, of necessity, it does very well indeed. I don’t know anything about boxing, and I don’t even know what I like. But I am moved by Muhammad Ali’s supple body and flashing feet…

“…The best things in “a.k.a. Cassius Clay” concern the first Clay-Liston fight, where in the manner, the stance, the mere presence of the two men, a contest as if between two world orders seems to be taking place. Clay is, of course, brash and boastful and victorious. But Sonny Liston, throughout his training, the conferences, above all the prefight medical examination, suggests a grandeur, a kind of desperate invulnerability, like nothing I had seen in a movie before. It is as if the last of the great battleships, knowing its end was near, had transformed all its armament into one superb doomed image of invulnerability.”

David Stubbs, in one review blurb for “a.k.a. Cassius Clay” posted at Amazon.com, notes, in part: “…The principal pleasure is watching Ali in full verbal flow, including his maniacal teasing of Liston that proved to be a psychological knockout blow: ‘The man’s too ugly to be the world champ. The world champ should be pretty, like me!’.”

The one-and-a-half-hour film also addresses Ali’s self-promotion as well as how his much-publicized embrace of Muslim culture and faith altered his career. Among the many celebrities who also appear in this film are the Beatles, Malcolm X, Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson.

Image used on some later-edition versions of “a.k.a. Cassius Clay.” Click for DVD.

Image used on some later editions of “a.k.a. Cassius Clay” in DVD and/or VHS formats.

More than 30 years later, in early 2002, “a.k.a” appears to have received a second round of packaging and promotion when it was released as a DVD, in part for overseas markets, but also available in older formats such as VHS, as well as some streaming services and re-broadcasts on TV as late as 2011. The images above appeared as covers for the “a.k.a. Cassius Clay” film in those various DVD and VHS versions.

1974-75

“The Fight” / “Ali: The Fighter”

In 1971, William Greaves, described in some accounts as a “maverick film maker,” made a low-budget, 114 minute documentary about Muhammad Ali and his opponent, Joe Frazier. This film, first titled “The Fight,” was made ahead of the March 1971 “Fight of the Century” at New York’s Madison Square Garden – the much-touted contest billed, in part, as Ali’s big comeback following his suspension from boxing over his draft battle. Some notices described this film as a “behind-the-scenes documentary chronicling” the Ali-Frazier battle. Released in 1974, this film is also noted by other sources as “The Fighters,” and according to the American Film Institute, was cut to 93 minutes and reissued in 1975 with the title “Ali: The Fighter”. IMDB says that a 1977 version was also used for a network TV premiere, possibly with other cuts. During the film’s 1974 release, however, it received some positive notice, including a January 1974 New York Times review that called it “first-rate,” and a January 23rd, 1974 Variety review that commended the film’s insights into the social, racial and economic issues that surrounded the sport.

IMDB.com has offered this poster as one used for the 1974-75 William Greaves film, “The Fight”.

William Greaves film later issued as “Ali: The Fighter,” and released in DVD format. Click for copy.

In any case, a DVD of the film was later released under the “Ali: The Fighter” title, as shown above right ( Starz / Anchor Bay, 2005). And while the reviews are mixed, it seems that some fight fans find this film valuable. One reviewer at Amazon.com notes: “…There’s some great footage that captures the personalities of both Ali and Frazier. There is also some great training footage of each fighter. The tension of the prefight buildup is captured beautifully. The presentation ends with the actual fight…” But this reviewer also notes that film quality is not so good. Although another review from the Smithsonian adds: “…Greaves shot the match in its entirety from a dizzying array of camera angles, making the director’s cut… both an invaluable historical document as well as a virtuosic piece of filmmaking.”

William Greaves shooting footage for “The Fight,” his film on the March 1971 Ali-Frazier fight. Photo, John D. Kisch,

William Greaves (1926-2014), was a pioneer of African-American filmmaker who produced more than two hundred documentary films, half of which he wrote and directed, He was also a journalist, and the producer and on-air host of public television show, “Black Journal.”

And finally, a later review of the first version of the William Greaves film, “The Fight,” appeared in The New Yorker by Richard Brody on June 13, 2016. That article was titled, “The Muhammad Ali Documentary That Gets to the Existential Heart of Boxing.” Brody offered the film as his personal favorite, calling it “a film of incisive reportorial analysis” for its detailed account of the events around one fight – the March 1971 Al-Frazier fight. “Greaves stages a mighty cinematic coup,” says Brody, by showing the entire Ali-Frazier fight, unadorned by commentary, music, or other add=ons – just the sounds of the audience. Brody wrote his praiseworthy piece on Greaves and his film after Ali had passed away, and when other films about him – but not “The Fight” – were then being re-aired in tribute on TV and cable.

1977

“The Greatest”

Poster for 1977 film about Ali’s life up to the late 1970s, starring himself and Hollywood actors Ernest Borgnine, James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall. Click for Amazon video.

Among the first Hollywood films to focus on Ali was 1977’s “The Greatest,” a biopic on Ali, in which the champ plays himself. The storyline in this case runs through the late 1970s.

The film follows Ali’s life from the 1960 Summer Olympics to his regaining the heavyweight crown from George Foreman in their famous “Rumble in the Jungle” fight in 1974.

The footage of the boxing matches themselves is largely the actual footage from the time involved. The film is based on the 1975 book, The Greatest: My Own Story, written by Ali and Richard Durham and edited by Toni Morrison.

Fresh from his gold medal victory at the Olympic Games, the film has the 18-year-old Cassius Clay ready to seek the heavyweight championship, under the guidance of his trainer, Angelo Dundee, played by Ernest Borgnine. James Earl Jones takes the role of as Malcolm X, while Robert Duvall plays Miami fight promoter, Bill McDonald.

In the film, Clay soon takes the title from Sonny Liston, later converting to the Islam religion and changing his name to Muhammad Ali. When he is suddenly classified 1-A by his local draft board – which had earlier rejected him – Ali refuses induction on religious grounds. He is then stripped of his boxing title. The film later shows him winning his three-and-a-half-year legal battle with the government and returning to the ring to resume his career, taking on opponents in some of the greatest fights of all time.

This film was directed by Tom Gries and Monte Hellman, with writer Ring Lardner, Jr., and producer John Marshall. The film’s soundtrack also included the song “The Greatest Love of All,” written for the film by Michael Masser and Linda Creed, sung by George Benson – a song later covered by Whitney Houston.

Among reviews of this film, Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it a “potent pop biography, lively and entertaining, in which the irrepressible world’s heavyweight boxing champion projects exactly the image he wants us to have.” Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, adding: “As a diverting entertainment, ‘The Greatest’ is more than satisfactory.” David Badder of The Monthly Film Bulletin stated, “‘The Greatest’ delivers exactly what one would expect: a hagiographical account of Ali’s best-known exploits, giving full rein to the inimitable, volatile personality but in the process applying liberal coats of whitewash.” And Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film “a charming curio of a sort Hollywood doesn’t seem to make much anymore.”

1980's “Ali: A Living Legend”, a 1980 film, was produced and narrated by NY TV host, Gil Noble. Click for later DVD.

1980

“Ali: A Living Legend”

A 1980 documentary, “Ali: A Living Legend,” covers two decades of Ali highlights and controversy. The 50-minute film is an early look at Ali’s career as an Olympic fighter through the 1970s, up until his World Championship.

The film was directed by Arnie Nocks and produced, written, and narrated by Gil Noble, a well-known TV personality at New York’s WABC-TV, who hosted a weekly African-American show, “Like It Is.” Noble also created documentaries on W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Jack Johnson, Charlie Parker, and Paul Robeson.

One reviewer of “Ali: A Living Legend” at Amazon noted: “The film shows a bit of wear and tear with age but still is interesting, often funny and inspiring. It’s not a comprehensive look at Ali’s life and career up until 1980, but gives you the highlights. The narrator [Gil Noble] also adds a couple of personal touches about his interviews with Ali…. And there are some very good boxing clips…”.

1996

“When We Were Kings”

Director Leon Cast’s Academy Award winner, “When We Were Kings,” (Ali-Foreman, 1974). Click for DVD.

“When We Were Kings” is a 1996 Academy Award-winning documentary film about the “Rumble in the Jungle,” Ali’s 1974 fight against then undefeated world heavy-weight champion, George Foreman.

The film – set in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) – documents the build-up to what was then touted as the greatest sporting event of the 20th century. It follows the 32-year old Muhammad Ali as he starts training for the bout against Foreman.

“When We Were Kings” won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature of 1996. In addition to footage of the actual Ali-Foreman title fight, which Ali won by knock out in the 8th round, it also offers additional content around later interviews conducted in the 1990s with Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Spike Lee, Malik Bowens, and Thomas Hauser. These interviews describe the historical importance of the fight, their impressions of Ali, and fight itself. Also raised in the interviews was the matter of locating the fight in Zaire and accepting funding from then-dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.

The interviews are accompanied by many news clips and photos that summarize Ali and Foreman’s careers leading up to the fight. There is also archival footage of celebrities, including James Brown, B.B. King, and promoter Don King, in the lead-up to the fight and accompanying “Zaire 74″ music festival. The When We Were Kings Soundtrack has received positive notice at Amazon.com and elsewhere, with buyers noting in particular, the music from “Zaire 74″ festival. A huge collection of the best black musicians from around the world was then included, among them: Bill Withers, BB King, James Brown, The Spinners, the Jazz Crusaders, and others.

“When We Were Kings” is regarded as one of the best boxing documentaries ever made, according to Wikipedia. The film was directed and produced by Leon Gast, who reportedly took 22 years to edit and finance it, but in the end, was rewarded with strong reviews, an Academy Award, and more than $2.7 million in global box office.

Region II DVD cover with actor Terrence Howard as Cassius Clay celebrating victory following first Sonny Liston fight.

January 2000

“King of the World”

“King of the World” is an American television film which aired on January 10, 2000 on the ABC network. It chronicles the early stages of the career of heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay, before he changed his name), who is portrayed by Terrence Howard. It is based upon a 1998 biography by David Remnick, King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero.

In the film, then Cassius Clay, having won the gold medal for boxing in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Clay challenges professional heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston (Steve Harris) for the title. In the film, the media are portrayed as both intrigued and repulsed by Clay’s brash manner.

Despite being the underdog, the 22-year-old Clay shocks the sports world by defeating Liston by technical knockout in their February 1964 bout, becoming heavyweight champion and “king of the world”.

DVDs of this film are available for European and other markets, but not the U.S.

August 2000

“Ali: An American Hero,” aired on Fox-TV in August 2000, with actor David Ramsey as Ali. Click for DVD.

“…An American Hero”

“Ali: An American Hero,” is an American television film produced by Fox Studios. It aired on August 31, 2000 on FOX-TV. The hour-and-a-half film chronicles portions of Ali’s career, portrayed in this film by David Ramsey.

The storyline follows the life of Ali through 1974 when he regained the Heavyweight Championship Title in the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight against George Foreman in Zaire.

Some reviewers at IMDB.com gave the film high marks. “Sherring,” writing in October 2002, gave the film a “10″ rating, noting, in part: “I thought the movie was overall pretty good…. The story flowed fairly well. I viewed the program on BET (a couple of times)…I have an easier time seeing Mr. Ramsey portraying Ali than someone like Will Smith or Terrance Howard… All in all I learned a lot about Mr. Ali from this movie and the complexity of his life…”

However, Phil Gallo, reviewing the film for Variety in August 30, 2000, writes, in part: “…This ‘Ali’ effort gets a steady performance out of David Ramsey as the most famous boxer of all, but there’s no sense of his importance or his inner turmoil…” “Ali: An American Hero” was released on DVD on January 27, 2004.

Poster for 2001 film “Ali,” with Will Smith in the feature role. Click for DVD or streaming.

2001-2002

Will Smith’s “Ali”

In late 2001 came the Will Smith biopic of Muhammed Ali – titled “Ali” – with Smith in the lead role. The two-and-a half hour film, directed by Michael Mann, included supporting cast Mario Van Peebles, Jamie Foxx, and Jon Voight.

The film features Ali’s life in the peak of his career, from 1964 to 1974, from when he captured of the heavyweight title by beating Sonny Liston, to his conversion to Islam, criticism of the Vietnam War, and banishment from boxing, his return to fight Joe Frazier in 1971, and, finally, his reclaiming the title from George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight of 1974. The film also touches on the great social and political upheaval in the U.S. following the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

In the lead up to the film’s release, Smith and the production received a fair amount of press. In January 2002, Time magazine – for its European, Middle East and African editions of January 28 – featured Will Smith in character, along with the real Muhammad Ali, on that edition’s cover. There were also several stories inside that edition on the film, Smith, and Ali.

At its release, the film was well received by some, but not all, critics. Pulitzer prize-winning film critic Rogert Ebert wasn’t happy with the film overall, but he gave Will Smith good marks for his portrayal of Ali. “…[T]he key element of his performance,” wrote Ebert in December 2001, “is in capturing Ali’s enigmatic, improvisational personality. He gets the soft-spoken, kidding quality just right, and we sense Ali as a man who plays a colorful public role while keeping a private reserve…” For Ebert, “Smith is the right actor for Ali, but this is the wrong movie. Smith is sharp, fast, funny, like the Ali of trash-talking fame, but the movie doesn’t unleash that side of him, or his character…” The film, meanwhile, did not reach its box-office expectations. Smith and Jon Voight (who played sportscaster Howard Cosell), were nominated but did not win Oscar acting awards. Still, today, in retrospect, more than two decades later, some reviewers believe the film is “underrated”.

Time cover, January 28, 2002, used in Europe, Middle East and Africa, with Ali and Smith on the cover.

But even at its first release in December 2001, some reviewers found memorable and instructive moments, as Time’s Richard Snickel noted in the opening of his review:

At the height of [Ali’s] 1960s troubles, when as a conscientious objector he has refused induction into the Army, when he’s been stripped of his title and not allowed to fight, someone asks Muhammad Ali if he even knows where Vietnam is. Sure, he replies. “It’s on TV.”

It is a cosmic moment in Ali, Michael Mann’s sober and often stirring film biography, a perfect representation of the instinctive, almost visionary, shrewdness that lay beneath Ali’s doggerel-spewing, hyperkinetic image. Bloodied and staggering under the blows of coarsely baying public opinion, he understood before most of us did that it was another kind of imagery–that selected by the media to symbolize the war to American civilians–that would determine the war’s outcome and his own fate….

The Ali Hollywood film – after getting permission from Ali on his 59th birthday to make the film – had an eight-year sojourn from initial idea to finished product. Filming began in Los Angeles on January 11, 2001 on a $105 million budget. Shooting also took place in New York City, Chicago, Miami and Mozambique.

Prior to making the film, Smith had rejected taking the role of Ali until the man himself requested that Smith accept it. Reportedly, the first thing Ali told him was: “Man, you’re almost pretty enough to play me.” In May 2000, Smith officially signed on with a $20 million salary. Smith spent about one year learning about Ali’s life. There was also extensive boxing training (up to seven hours a day), Islamic studies, and dialect training. Smith at the time, said that his portrayal of Ali was his proudest work to date. When Ali died on June 3, 2016, Smith was chosen to be one of Ali’s pallbearers for the memorial service in Louisville.

2008 DVD cover for “Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami,” a one-hour documentary. Click for copy.

2008

“…Made in Miami”

“Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami” is a 2008 documentary that explores the role that Miami played in the boxing and theatrical evolution of Ali. This film picks after Ali – then Cassius Clay – has won his 1960 Olympic gold medal in Rome.

Early in Ali’s career, his wealthy Kentucky backers were concerned about keeping him out of the clutches of the mob and they also wanted him to have a good trainer. So they arranged for a well-known trainer, Angelo Dundee, to help mentor and train Ali into a championship-caliber fighter.

That’s when Ali came to Miami to train with Dundee at Miami’s Fifth Street Gym. Dundee called the gym “The Theater” and it became one of the locations where Ali honed his boxing skills and also the place where he began to test his “performance art” of boasting and self-promotion, entertaining the press, celebrities, and drop-by visitors.

The PBS film looks at the years Muhammad Ali spent in Miami in the 1960s, his development during that period, and his life in Miami’s black community. It also includes some rare footage and interviews with Dundee, fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco, author Thomas Hauser, journalist David Remnick, and Ali’s Miami neighbors and friends. Ali’s relationship with Malcolm X is also covered as well as his early involvement with the Nation of Islam and its founder, Elijah Muhammad, and his conversion to the Islam faith following his victory over Sonny Liston to win the heavyweight crown in February 1964. The film ends soon after Ali is stripped of his boxing title because of his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War.

DVD cover for 2009 documentary film, “Facing Ali,” interviewing ten of Ali’s opponents. Click for DVD.

2009

“Facing Ali”

“Facing Ali” is a 2009 documentary directed by Pete McCormack about Ali as told from the perspectives of ten of his opponents over the years – George Chuvalo, Sir Henry Cooper, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes (also a former sparring partner), Ron Lyle, Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers, Leon Spinks and Ernie Terrell.

The film runs for more than an hour and a half, and covers the full scope of Ali’s career as told by his opponents – each of whom relay their own bouts with him while also discussing their own lives and careers.

Also covered are Ali’s fights against other opponents; his conversion to Islam; his taking the name Muhammad Ali; and his relationships with the Nation of Islam, its leader, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X. Ali’s refusal to be inducted into the U.S. Army is also part of this story, as well as the New York State Athletic Commission stripping him of his championship title; Ali’s exile from boxing and his ongoing legal battle, up through his reinstatement following June 1970 U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-0 ruling in his favor.

Glowing reviews for “Facing Ali” come from a number of the more than 330 users who rated the film at Amazon.com, where it has also received an “Amazon’s Choice” banner. Production is credited to Canadian producer Derik Murray and his company, Network Entertainment, and to LionsGate Entertainment and Spike Sports in association with Muhammad Ali Enterprises. The film won awards at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle and the Vancouver International Film Festival.

2012 DVD cover for “Champions Forever: The Definitive Edition.” Click for DVD or streaming.

2009

“Champions Forever”

“Champions Forever: The Definitive Edition,” was released as DVD in October 2009. At Amazon.com, it’s description includes the following:

“These are the lost interviews… Filmed at [Ali’s] home in Michigan and during the making of ‘Champions Forever’ – the acclaimed documentary that brought together Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, and Ken Norton for the first and only time… These 1990 interviews with Craig Glazer were placed in a vault and forgotten for nearly 20 years until rediscovered by producers Craig Glazer and Ron Hamady.

In these never before seen conversations, a playful, feisty, and inspiring Ali talks about his place in history, his love for his fellow heavyweight champs…”

As of September 2021, this DVD had received 110 ratings at Amazon.com – one of which notes: “Wonderful candid footage of Muhammad Ali and other champions. I have watched it over and over again. I think I own almost every DVD there is of Ali, but ‘Champions Forever” brings tears to my eyes.”

2012

“Ali: The Man, The Moves, The Mouth”

DVD cover for “Ali: the Man, The Moves, The Mouth,” hosted by Bert Sugar. Click for DVD.

In 2012, a documentary titled, “Ali: The Man, The Moves, The Mouth” was released. The film is narrated by Bert Sugar, noted boxing analyst and sportscaster.

The one-hour film purports to capture Ali’s moves both inside the ring and his boasting outside of it – “and the legend they engendered.”

The film compiles some of Ali’s best moments in the ring, as well as “many of his most outrageous and memorable interviews with reporters and on television.”

Dozens of fight highlights are used, including those from the Ali-Frazier bouts and the George Foreman fight. As of late September 2021, this film had received 102 ratings at Amazon.com.

An earlier edition of this film appears to have been released in 2008 as a book-DVD combination, titled: Ali in Action: The Man, The Moves, The Mouth, with a 160-page illustrated hardback book published by Lyons Press.

The book in this set is written by sportswriter Les Krantz with an introduction by Angelo Dundee. That book-DVD set is described at Goodreads.com as follows:

…Now for the first time ever, sparkling clear sportswriting has been melded with DVD technology to bring together Ali’s brilliant ring moves, his colorful rhetoric, and historic photos of his career. Here you’ll find rare footage of Ali’s famous “Pearls of Wisdom,” as well as highlights of fights such as the “Thrilla in Manila” and the “Rumble in the Jungle” that have generally been blacked out until now. The masterfully composed book contains details and highlights from Ali’s youth and his Olympic gold medal win as Cassius Clay, to his battle against Parkinson’s Disease and carrying the torch at the opening of the 1996 Olympic Games. This is the all-time monument to the 20th century’s greatest athlete, a must-have for sports fans and anyone who wants to remember this legendary champion and American icon.

2012

“When Ali Came To Ireland”

Poster for the 2012 film, “When Ali Came to Ireland,” which chronicles Ali’s visit to Ireland in July 1972 when he fought and defeated American opponent, Alvin Lewis, and also visited with Irish media.

“When Ali Came to Ireland” is a 2012 Irish documentary film directed by Ross Whitaker. It tells the story of how Killorglin-born circus strongman and publican, Michael “Butty” Sugrue, put up £300,000 and persuaded Muhammad Ali to make his first visit to Ireland to fight against American Alvin Lewis in Croke Park on July 19, 1972.

Ali traveled to Ireland with his entourage in advance of the scheduled bout to spend time training for the fight. While there, he was interviewed for RTÉ Television. Ali won the Lewis fight with a technical knockout in the 11th round, but reportedly, Mr. Sugrue lost a lot of money backing the fight. The documentary film was first broadcast on RTÉ One on January 1st, 2013. Ali returned to Ireland twice in later years. In 2003, he took part in the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics in Dublin.

2013

“Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight”

Poster for 2013 film, “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” which covers his military draft legal battle. Click for film.

In 2013, actors Christopher Plummer and Frank Langella starred in a made-for-TV drama titled, “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” a film that chronicles Ali’s legal battle with the federal government over his conscientious objector claim and refusing the military draft. It focuses primarily on the Supreme Court’s deliberations.

The film, based on the actual case, Clay v. the United States of America, premiered on HBO on October 5, 2013.

The film was directed by Stephen Frears (“The Queen,” “High Fidelity”). The screenplay was written by Shawn Slovo based on the 2000 book, Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America, by Howard Bingham and Max Wallace.

Muhammad Ali in 1967 had been convicted in federal court for refusing to be inducted in the military in 1966 (when he was Cassius Clay), and was sentenced to serve five years in prison, but remained free while he appealed his case. It was during this time that he was stripped of his heavyweight title and lost his license to box, suffering more than 3 years in limbo awaiting legal resolution.

His appeal, meanwhile, eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it initially appeared to have no chance of reversal, since 5 of then 8 eligible justices had privately indicated opposition to the appeal, voting 5-3, after its first hearing (the ninth Justice, Thurgood Marshall, had removed himself from the case because he had been U.S. Solicitor General when the case began. Marshall, in fact, played by Danny Glover in the film, wasn’t altogether thrilled with Ali in any case, as Marshall viewed him as a segregationist).

Cover of book by Howard Bingham & Max Wallace that becomes the basis for the 2013 film. Click for copy of book.

The film, however, goes into the back chambers of the court while the final decision is rendered, and it depicts how a change in thinking comes about among a couple of key Justices as they weighed the case.

The court was then in its 1970-71 session, under chief Justice Warren Burger (played in the film by Frank Langella). Burger assigns conservative Justice John Harlan II (played by Christopher Plummer) to write the opinion on what is then expected to be the court’s 5-3 vote denying Ali’s appeal.

Harlan, a conservative, enlists his liberal law clerk Kevin Connolly (a composite character in the film) to help write and research the opinion.

Connolly, however, after reading background on the Black Muslims, comes to the position that Ali’s beliefs did fulfill all the conditions for conscientious objector status – which the Justice Department in earlier oral argument had dismissed.

At first, Justice Harlan does not agree with his young aide, but later reads the clerk’s brief and material on the Black Muslims, and then reverses his earlier vote, now siding with Ali and his appeal. Harlan even incorporates Black Muslim information into his opinion while also finding that the Justice Department had misrepresented Clay’s position. Meanwhile, a draft of Harlan’s opinion then began to circulate among the other Justices.

In their 1979 book on the Supreme Court, The Brethren, Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong include a section on the Clay v. U.S. case, noting some of the internal dynamics at the court when Harlan reversed his vote, especially Chief Justice Warren Burger’s reaction:

1979 Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong book, “The Brethren,” covers “Clay v. U.S,” case. Click for book.

“…[W]hen [Harlan’s] memo suggesting reversal of the conviction was circulated, it exploded in the Court. Burger was beside himself. How could Harlan shift sides without notifying him? He was even more irritated by the incorporation of Black Muslim doctrine in the opinion. The draft said that Black Muslim doctrine teaches ‘that Islam is the religion of peace…. and that war-making is the habit of the race of devils [whites]. . . [and that Islam] forbids its members to carry arms or weapons of any kind.” Harlan had become an apologist for the Black Muslims, Burger told a clerk…..”

Burger and a couple other Justices were also not happy that the government’s misrepresentations would be exposed with Harlan’s opinion. Harlan’s view could also mean that all Black Muslims might then be eligible for conscientious objector status.

Harlan’s switch, however, meant that there would be a 4-4 tie in the Court’s vote. That, however, was no better for Ali since a tie vote would not reverse Ali’s conviction. Harlan then considered trying to persuade another Justice to join him to make it a 5-3 vote in favor of Ali. But that did not occur. However, another course did, one that offered the court a more amenable exit.

In the appeals process that had brought Clay/Ali’s case to the Supreme Court, the state Appeal Board, where Clay had made an appeal, denied his claim, but that Board did not specifically state its reason for the denial. This was later seized upon by Justice Potter Stewart in his review of the case as a Justice Department technical error. And that became a more agreeable basis for the high court in two ways. First, it would not become precedent; and second, it would not broaden the categories under which others might claim to be conscientious objectors.

June 29, 1971, New York’s “Daily News,” on the Supreme Court ruling in Ali’s favor.

In the end, the technical error became the basis for the Supreme Court’s reversal of Ali’s conviction. On June 28, 1971, the Court ruled by a unanimous 8-0 vote, that since the appeal board gave no reason for the denial of the conscientious objector exemption petition by Ali, it was impossible to determine which of the three grounds offered by the Justice Department’s letter the appeal board had actually relied upon to make its ruling. The court’s unsigned opinion also stated that the Justice Department had misled Selective Service by advising them that Ali’s claim as a conscientious objector was neither sincere nor based on religious tenets. The Department, said the court, “was simply wrong as a matter of law in advising that the petitioner’s beliefs were not religiously based and were not sincerely held.”

Ali received the news in Chicago. “I thank Allah,” he said, “and I thank the Supreme Court for recognizing the sincerity of the religious teachings that I’ve accepted.” But Woodward and Armstrong added in their book, “he did not know how close he had come to going to jail.”

The 2013 HBO film, meanwhile, is essentially true to the actual case. And although Ali only appears in news footage, the story is nonetheless an important part of his history. However, since it dwells on the legal details of the appeal and the Supreme Court’s back-chambers process, the film may be a bit too technical and wonky for many viewers. Still, it is a key bit of history in the story of Muhammad Ali and his future following that decision, as well as a glimpse at how America’s legal system worked through an appeal of this kind during a time of high socio-political tension. As of this writing, the film has received 71 ratings at Amazon.com, an “Amazon’s Choice” banner, and a number of praiseworthy user comments at IMDB.com as well.

2013-2014

“The Trials of Muhammad Ali”

2013 documentary film, “The Trials of Muhammad Ali,” directed by Bill Siegel. Click for DVD or streaming.

“The Trials of Muhammad Ali” is a 2013-14 documentary that explores the boxer’s life outside the ring, with special focus on his conversion to Islam and his legal battle with the government for refusing U.S. military service.

The documentary is “no conventional sports documentary,” according to one blurb at Amazon.com. The film investigates Ali’s “extraordinary and often complex life.” Given his “outspoken and passionate beliefs… Ali found himself in the center of America’s controversies over race, religion, and war.”

Louis Farrakhan, Robert Lipsyte, John Carlos and Angelo Dundee are among those interviewed in this film, with archival footage of others, including: Ali, George W. Bush, David Susskind, Lyndon Johnson, Jerry Lewis, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Elijah Muhammad.

The film began showing at various U.S. film festivals in 2013 and had its premier in April 2014. Kartemquin Films is the production company, known for other documentaries, such as, “Hoop Dreams” and “The Interrupters.” Academy Award-nominated Bill Siegel is the director, known for his other work, including, “The Weather Underground.”

“‘The Trials of Muhammad Ali,’ says Amazon.com, “examines how one of the most celebrated sports champions of the 20th century risked his fame and fortune to follow his faith and conscience.” Dave Zirin of The Nation magazine, gives the film a positive blurb that appears on the DVD cover, noting:: “The best Muhammad Ali doc I’ve seen and — dare I say – I’ve seen ‘em all.” The film won an award from the International Documentary Association in 2014 for Best Use of News Footage. As of October 2021, the film had received 63 user ratings at Amazon.com and also an “Amazon’s Choice” banner.

British filmmaker Clare Lewins’ 2014 film, “I Am Ali,” includes use of Ali’s audio journals. Click for DVD or streaming.

2014

“I Am Ali”

“I Am Ali: The Man Behind the Legend – An Intimate Portrait,” is a 2014 documentary directed by filmmaker Clare Lewins made with the help of personal audio recordings Ali made during his career.

Lewins is a British filmmaker who had made an earlier TV program on Ali for the BBC. In that process, she had come to know Ali’s former business manager, Gene Kilroy, who helped her gain access to the boxing world and to Ali’s daughters, Hana Ali (daughter of Ali and Veronice Porche) and “May May” or Maryum Ali (Ali’s eldest daughter from his marriage to Belinda Boyd / Khalilah Ali).

But what Lewins discovered in coming to know the daughters, was that Hana had a collection of recording tapes made by her father of conversations and phone calls he had with family and friends in the 1970s and 1980s. Hana was using these tapes to write her own book about her father (At Home with Muhammad Ali: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Forgiveness), but Lewins eventually was given access to the recordings, and some are used throughout “I Am Ali.” Additionally, interviews with friends, family members, and some boxing rivals, along with archival footage of Ali, are used as well. Notable appearances include George Foreman, Jim Brown, and Mike Tyson. The film is also backed with a generous selection of popular 1970s music, including R&B and soul hits from Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, the Staple Singers and others.

The reviews were generally positive, some acknowledging the film was more about the personal Ali interacting with family than a boxing film. One Chicago Tribune review noted: “At its best, ‘I Am Ali’ offers something the big-budget biopic ‘Ali’ could not: casual intimacy.’ Reviewing the film for National Public Radio, Chris Klimek, wrote: “What distinguishes Lewins’ entertaining-if-not-terribly-revelatory film from the many Ali documentaries that have come before is its focus on this most public of personalities as a friend and father.” The Guardian newspaper of London called the film “warm hearted and respectful” and a “very watchable tribute.” The DVD has 415 user ratings at Amazon.com.

2019

“What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali”

Promotional poster for HBO’s 2-part, 2019 documentary film, “What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali.” Click for film.

This two-part 2019 film explores Ali’s challenges, confrontations, comebacks and triumphs through recordings of his own voice and archival footage, some of it previously unseen.

The film, which aired at Tribeca in late April 2019 premiered on HBO in May 2019, with each segment running about 80 minutes. “What’s My Name” is directed by Antoine Fuqua whose other films have included “Training Day” (2001), “The Equalizer (2014), “The Magnificent Seven”(2016), and others.

“Muhammad Ali had a deep impact on me from an early age,” says Fuqua. “Being given the opportunity to tell his story, both inside and outside the ring, is a privilege and a dream come true.”

Basketball star LeBron James, and sports-marketing businessman Maverick Carter, served as executive producers for the film. “Muhammad Ali transcended sports in a way the world had never seen before,” says executive producer LeBron James in a statement at the film’s website. “It’s an honor to have the opportunity to tell his incredible and important story for the coming generations. He showed us all the courage and conviction it takes to stand up for what you believe in. He changed forever what we expect a champion to be, and I’m grateful that SpringHill gets to be a part of continuing his legacy.”

In his review, Brian Tallerico at RogerEbert.com wrote that the film “offers something even for those of us who know a great deal about the legendary athlete and civil rights leader by doing something incredibly simple: letting Ali tell his own story.” Caryn James of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, “With montages of Ali meeting the Pope and Nelson Mandela, and newspaper headlines about donations to help fight poverty in Africa, ‘What’s My Name’ is undeniably an exercise in image-burnishing (not that Ali’s already heroic image needs it). But this smartly crafted film holds you all the way.” “What’s My Name” was a 2019 Sports Emmy winner for Outstanding Long Documentary. An 18-song instrumental soundtrack for this film was also issued – What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), by Marcelo Zarvos, available in MP3 format at Amazon.com.

2018-2020

“Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes”

A poster for “Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes.” Click for video at Amazon.

Muhammad Ali made numerous appearances on The Dick Cavett Show, a popular TV talk show in the late 1960s through mid-1970s. Cavett’s show was favored by viewers who liked to hear about politics and social issues as well as celebrity banter. In a 2018 New York Times piece, Cavett and his show were described by Alex Williams as follows:

“….For three decades, Mr. Cavett was the thinking person’s Johnny Carson, embodiment of an East Coast sophisticate. He wore smart turtlenecks and double-breasted blazers, had more cultural references than a Google server and laced martini-dry witticisms into lengthy, probing talks with 20th-century luminaries including Bette Davis, James Baldwin, Mick Jagger and Jean-Luc Godard…. ‘The Dick Cavett Show’ was woke some 50 years before the term came into vogue. Viewers tuned in to see Muhammad Ali spout off about the Vietnam War or to see Yoko Ono show her conceptual art in a 90-minute discussion with John Lennon.”

Among guests appearing on his show were the likes of Norman Mailer, Woody Allen, David Bowie, Marlon Brando, and others. Muhammad Ali was a guest on Cavett’s shows more than a dozen times, starting with a 1968 appearance booked less than a year after he had been stripped of his heavyweight boxing title for refusing the U.S. military draft during the Vietnam War.

Rev. Al Sharpton was among those interviewed for the Cavett documentary, and has noted that Cavett “was the whitest of white guys in America. But he gave blacks that had been considered outside of the mainstream — like Ali — a chance to be heard, and a chance to say what they wanted to say unfiltered….” According to Sharpton, Ali “would say things to Cavett about whites that you’d hear on the street corners in Harlem…They seemed to go to the edge of the racial debate [at that time].”

In addition to Sharpton, others interviewed for the “Ali & Cavett” documentary, include: Ali biographer Thomas Hauser, columnist Juan Williams, author Ilyasah Shabazz, and boxing commentator Larry Merchant. These interviews are combined with footage from Ali’s past appearances on Cavett’s show.

Muhammad Ali appearing on “The Dick Cavett Show,” a popular late-night TV talk show, circa, 1960s-1970s.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Cavett’s first encounter with Ali had come in 1963 when he was a writer for “The Jerry Lewis Show,” where he was charged with giving Ali a poem to perform. But earlier that evening, Cavett had seen Ali outside the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard where the young rising boxer had drawn a crowd (by then Ali was17-0 in his early professional bouts, pre-Liston). “It was like seeing a god,” said Cavett. “People were just standing there in awe, just stricken by his presence, and it was really a wonderful thing to see and feel. He had what you call ‘it.’” Cavett and Ali, in fact, developed a lifelong friendship that lasted some 50 years – with Ali staying as a guest at Cavett’s home on occasion, and Cavett going to the champ’s Pennsylvania training camp or joining him on other outings.

“Ali and Cavett: The Tales of the Tapes,” originally aired at SXSW in 2018. By January 2020, Cavett had appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert promoting the film as an HBO special. In June 2020, when the 90 minute documentary was scheduled for use on Sky networks’ documentaries channel, a review in The Independent newspaper of London noted: “While ‘The Tale of the Tapes’ doesn’t teach us much, it underlines Ali’s gift for entertaining and turning sporting achievement into a metaphor for something bigger.”

Poster for 2020 Amazon original film, “One Night in Miami...” Click for Amazon video.

2020

“One Night in Miami…”

“One Night in Miami…” is a 2020 American drama film from Amazon Studios. It is a fictionalized account of a February 1964 meeting of Muhammad Ali and three of his close friends that took place on the night he had won the heavyweight boxing title by defeating Sonny Liston.

Rather than partaking in a wild party after his victory, in this account, Ali (then Cassius Clay), celebrates privately in a Miami hotel room with three close friends: activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke, and American football star Jim Brown.

But their meeting is about more than just celebration.

As one Amazon.com summary of the screenplay describes it: “…[I]n that hotel room… were four men who understood each other and their moment in history in a way that no one else could. With the Civil Rights movement stirring outside, and the melody of A Change is Gonna Come [Sam Cooke hit song] hanging in the air, these men would emerge from that room ready to define a new world.”

In his review at Variety, Owen Gleiberman praised the characters in the film, as well as its parallels to modern day: “One Night in Miami is a casually entrancing debate about power on the part of those who have won it but are still figuring out what to do with it.”

The film was adapted from the award-winning 2013 stage play of the same name, written by Kemp Powers, later released as a short book (see below). Kemp’s writing, for the play and film, won plaudits from a wide range of critics. The film was directed by Regina King making her feature film directorial debut. Cast in the lead roles are: Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X; Eli Goree is Cassius Clay; Aldis Hodge plays Jim Brown, and Leslie Odom Jr. is Sam Cooke.

Amazon Kindle edition of screenplay for “One Night in Miami...,” also available in paperback. Click for Amazon.

Each character in the film is introduced in set-ups that depict family and/or career difficulties, social slights, or racial discrimination, as Jim Brown experiences the latter at a Georgia plantation. Clay is shown in a tough bout with Henry Cooper in London; Sam Cooke has a nightclub performance with an underwhelming white audience.

At the Miami meeting itself, internal criticisms flow among the participants as they grapple with the issues of the day. Malcolm criticizes Cooke’s music as selling out to white audiences, and Clay criticizes Malcolm for planning a split from Elijah Muhammad.

Following their meeting that night, Cassius Clay would change his name to Muhammad Ali; Sam Cooke would debut his hit song, “A Change Is Gonna Come” on The Tonight Show; Jim Brown would leave the NFL to pursue a movie career; and Malcom X’s home would be firebombed after his split with the Nation of Islam and he is later assassinated in New York.

At the 93rd Academy Awards, “One Night in Miami…” earned three nominations: Best Supporting Actor for Odom, Best Adapted Screenplay for Powers, and Best Original Song (“Speak Now”). The film was released in a few theaters on December 25, 2020 before Amazon released it digitally on Prime Video on January 15, 2021. The film is also available in a Criterion Collection edition (after December 7, 2021). At Amazon.com, meanwhile, the film has received more than 3,500 user ratings.

2021

“Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali”

2021 Netflix film: “Blood Brothers Malcom X and Muhammad Ali,” available at Netflix.com.

“Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muham-mad Ali” is a 2021 Netflix documentary based on the 2016 book Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. The book was co-written by Purdue University’s Randy Roberts and Georgia Tech sports history professor Johnny Smith.

In the early 1960s, when Cassius Clay was considered an obnoxious self-promoter by many, Malcolm X, a rising minister for the Nation of Islam, saw potential in Clay beyond the boxer. Eventually, in Ali’s early career, the two formed a close friendship. But few really understood the bond that developed between them.

In her review of the film, Sheila O’Malley at RobertEbert.com, explains: “Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X were two very different men, from two very different places, but they both understood that one of the primary threats to Black Americans was the racist culture’s relentless attack on the mind. They both stood as bold examples of what a free mind looked like, what a free mind could do.”

In the film, each man’s biography is presented separately, telling their respective stories, Malcolm X first, and then Cassius Clay. This gives context to their meeting and friendship. Book authors, Roberts and Smith are also interviewed, helping to frame the story and timeline. There are also on-camera interviews with people who knew Ali or Malcolm X personally, including their adult children. Other comment comes from Cornell West from Harvard, Todd Boyd, professor of media studies at USC, and oral historian Zaheer Ali.

Malcolm-X was a former convict turned intellectual revolutionary who spoke out quite eloquently against the evils of racism and white oppression, becoming a rising minister in the Nation of Islam. When he met the young boxer, Cassius Clay, in 1962, the two were seemingly worlds apart.

2016 book used as basis for the 2021 film. “Blood Brothers,” first published by Basic Books, 400pp. Click for book.

Clay had traveled to a Nation of Islam rally in Detroit in June 1962 where he would hear leader Elijah Muhammad speak for the first time. Earlier that day, he had also met Malcolm X at a Detroit diner, where Malcolm, then knowing nothing about Clay as an up-and-coming heavyweight, sensed a “contagious quality” about him. Clay, for his part, heard Malcolm speak at the rally, and was quite taken with Malcolm’s explosive oratory. “My first impression of Malcolm X,” Ali would later say, “was how could a Black man talk about the government and white people and act so bold and not be shot at? He was fearless. That really attracted me.”

Malcolm, some 17 years older than Clay, became his tutor, schooling him in the tenets of Islam and becoming a primary influence on his conversion to that religion. But during Ali’s early boxing career, his relationship with Malcolm and Islam was kept out of the public limelight for fear it would jeopardize his boxing career. The Nation of Islam was more militant to the racial divide in America than the non-violent methods espoused by Martin Luther King, and quite separatist in outlook. And Ali and Malcolm, espousing the Nation of Islam’s tenets, were initially vilified by many whites and white media.

Beyond Islam, Malcolm and Ali became close friends, involved with one another’s families and developing genuine affection for one another. But there came a time when the two had a bitter parting of the ways, as Malcolm became less and less enamored with the methods and behavior of leader Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. When Malcolm split from the Nation to form his own sect, Ali renounced him. By May 1964, when Malcolm X and Ali crossed paths in Ghana – barely three months after Ali had won the boxing championship and had publicly announced his conversion to Islam with Malcolm X at his side – Ali essentially snubbed his former friend and mentor and would have nothing to do with him thereafter. For Ali, their friendship was over; not even moved after Malcolm was assassinated in 1965. It was a grudge Ali would carry for decades, only regretting many years later how he had treated Malcolm. “Turning my back on Malcolm was one of the mistakes that I regret most in my life,” Ali later wrote. “I wish I’d been able to tell Malcolm I was sorry, that he was right about so many things… He was a visionary — ahead of us all.”

Jonathan Eig, author of 2017 book, “Ali: A Life,” encouraged and shared source material with the Ken Burns Ali film project. His book is an Amazon “editors’ pick.” Click for copy.

2014-2021

Enter Ken Burns

Ken Burns and co-producers – daughter Sarah Burns and husband, David McMahon – began their Muhammad Ali film project in 2014. And despite the fact that there had already been a number of films about the boxer, they discovered, partly through the urging of author Jonathan Eig, that there was still more to tell about Ali and his life. Eig, then working on his book, Ali: A Life, later published in 2017, believed Burns could do a film on Ali that hadn’t been done before, and he would also help them with source material.

As Sarah Burns would later explain in a New York Times story, they realized “just how much there was to this story.” Not just the boxing, she would explain, “but his relationships with Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, his family life, his marriages, his draft resistance and his courage and being willing to go to jail for his convictions, and also his battle with Parkinson’s…[and] his later life, his post-boxing life.”

Along they way, they found some surprises – and a few new troves of Ali information. Unexpectedly, some abandoned film from a failed production company was found in a Pennsylvania archive that was simply labeled “Ali.” Turned out it was some never-seen-before good quality, Technicolor 16-millimeter ringside footage from the “Thrilla in Manila” Ali-Frazier fight. The team also worked through more than 15,000 photos during the project.

They also talked with a range of people in making the film, many of whom appear on camera to good effect – boxer Michael Bentt; sports writer David Kindred; former sparing partner and opponent in the ring, Larry Holmes; sports writer Howard Bryant; pro basketball star and Ali friend, Karreem Abdul-Jbbar; poet and activist Nikki Giovanni; civil rights activist Jesse Jackson; boxing promoter Don King; writer Gay Talese; New Yorker editor and author David Remnick; Todd Boyd, Gerald Early, novelist Walter Mosley; Islam scholar Sherman Jackson; poet Wole Soyinka; and Ali’s grown children, family members, and former wives.

Press notice for “discussion sessions” with Burns team in advance of September 2021 PBS film release.

The film, to its credit, is a “warts-and-all” presentation – showing Ali’s petty and cruel side and his personal failings – his unkind, denigrating treatment of Joe Frazier; his abandonment of friend and mentor Malcolm X; and his philandering behavior. But it also covers Ali’s generosity and help to others and his efforts to live his faith.

Burns and company worked with the full, broad palette that was the unfolding life of Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali – not a one-dimensional character, for sure. And Burns clearly saw this in his subject’s appeal: “Maybe you’ll come for the boxing. Maybe you’ll come for the religion. Maybe you come for the politics or the conflict. But I think you’ll leave with an elevated sense of an amazing American.”

In a 2021 segment on the Bob Costas HBO show, Burns and Ali daughter, Rasheda, appeared to discuss the film, as Costas asked Burns this question:

Bob Costas: “I’ve heard you say that Muhammad Ali is as relevant today as he was then…”

Ken Burns: “Absolutely…. This is a guy who intersects with all the major themes of the last half of the 20th century: the role of sport in society; the role of a black athlete; the nature of black manhood and masculinity; race; civil rights; war; politics; faith; religion; sex – all of these things. We’re grappling with them still today, and he’s there as a kind of beacon, and a guide. And he’s incredibly contradictory at times. He’s an irresistible subject…”

Indeed he is, and the Burns film lays out why — collecting kudos for doing so on the review circuit.

Caroline Framke, writing for Variety.com, lauded the film for “bringing fresh insight to a story so many think they already know. Whether or not you understand the breadth of Ali’s impact going into this series, you should leave it gaining a new appreciation of how he gained and wielded his influence in a way no other athlete had before, or has truly done since.”

Sports Illustrated, in their pre-Sonny Liston-Cassius Clay fight edition of Feb 24, 1964, featured 22 year-old Clay on its cover with an actual pile of real money in front of a bank vault, for an essay Clay would write, using the cover tagline, “My $1,000,000 Getaway” (his projected take in the upcoming fight).

“The Ali Effect”

Despite all the films on Ali — and the epic Ken Burns treatment – there is still more to consider. For one, it might be interesting to have some accounting of his considerable economic impact. From the money he made, yes, but more importantly, to the money he made for others, the business activity generated around his life and brand, and how a global icon like Ali comes to have a national and global economic impact.

In boxing, of course, there are the tens of millions Ali made with his share of the gate receipts generated in each of his fights – variously estimated in the $30-$40 million range. (In 2006, Forbes listed Ali on its Top 100 Celebrities list, citing a net worth of $55 million).

But others around Ali and his fights – investors, sponsors, closed-circuit TV, gambling operations, vendors, the Nation of Islam, and more – also made money, and for some, enormous amounts of money.

The films listed in this story indicate a small portion of the “Ali effect” that has swept across the sports/entertainment economic realm.

Even the Sylvester Stallone/Rocky franchise – now with eight Rocky/Creed films exceeding a $1.5 billion total box office – dates its origin to Ali’s 1975 fight with Chuck Wepner, where Stallone first got the idea for “Rocky 1.” And the Apollo Creed character introduced in that first film is clearly a spin off of early Cassius Clay.

Beyond film, of course, Ali artifacts of every conceivable kind are out there – books, games, posters, toys, clothing, advertising, athletic centers, and more. From the smallest tourist curios and bobblehead type products, to the foundations and charitable funding his name has generated for social change, education, and economic opportunity, there is quite a large economic “Muhammad Ali effect” to consider. Some of this has already been covered in Ali biographies and scholarly works, but a good documentary on this part of his impact might prove to be a worthwhile and enlightening addition.

See also at this website, “Ali-Frazier History,” a detailed story on the much-hyped first March 1971 fight between Ali and Joe Frazier, their two subsequent matches, and their embattled relationship during those years and into retirement. See also the “Annals of Sport” and “Film & Hollywood” category pages for story choices on those topics. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 19 October 2021
Last Update: 19 October 2021
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Ali’s Film History: 1970-2021,”
PopHistoryDig.com, October 19, 2021.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Ben-E.-King-Stand-By-Me-Original1.mp3 2797568 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/There-Goes-My-Baby.mp3 2140694 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/ben-e-king-the-drifters-this-magic-moment.mp3 2448000 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Spanish-Harlem.mp3 4605653 audio/mpeg

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 2001-Today

“Stand By Me”
Ben E. King Music

July 22, 2021 J.D.

Ben E. King’s famous 1961 hit, “Stand By Me,” rose again on the 1987 pop charts after it was used in the soundtrack for the Rob Reiner film of that name. Click for soundtrack or single.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s there came a series of recordings by Ben E. King with the Drifters, and Ben E. King as a solo artist – hit songs that lit up the music charts and became soulful classics that still resonate today. The best known of these is “Stand By Me.”

Music Player
“Stand By Me” – Ben E. King

King recorded “Stand By Me” in 1961 after he had left the Drifters. The song, written by King, along with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, came out of the Brill Building-era of song production, a time when some hits would be generated by songwriters and artists working together, producing some of the best R&B and pop music of those times.

“Stand By Me” rose to No. 1 on the R & B chart and No. 4 on the pop charts in June of 1961. A second round of popularity for the song came more than 25 years later, after King’s version backed the famous 1987 Rob Reiner film by that name, again rising into the Top Ten of the U.S. and most European charts at that time, hitting No. 1 in the U.K. More on the film and the song in a moment. But first, a little history on King and his early success with The Drifters.

Young Ben E. King pictured on CD, “The Rise of Ben E. King, 1959-1963.” Click for CD.

Ben E. King was born in Henderson, North Carolina in 1938, then named Benjamin Earl Nelson. In 1947, at the age of nine, he moved with his family to Harlem, New York. As a boy, he sang in church choirs. In high school he formed a doo-wop group that occasionally performed at the Apollo.

In 1958, still using his birth name, King joined the Five Crowns doo-wop group. The Crowns performed that year at the Apollo Theater on a bill with the original Drifters group and attracted the attention of George Treadwell, who then managed the Drifters and owned the name.

The Apollo appearance proved timely for the Crowns and Treadwell, who had just lost his lead singer from the Drifters to military service. Treadwell then fired the remaining Drifters and hired Ben E. King and the Crowns to replace them as the new Drifters.

(Note: The Drifters’ considerable music history is complex, stretching over many years and numerous personnel, from 1955 when first formed by Clyde McPhatter, continuing through later years with an ever-changing roster of artists).

Record sleeve for later issue of “There Goes My Baby” single, depicting, from left: Charlie Thomas, Ben E. King, Doc Green & Elsbeary Hobbs. Click for digital single.

With the new Drifters of 1958-59, Ben E. King had a string of R&B hits with Atlantic Records. King co-wrote and sang lead on the group’s first Atlantic hit — “There Goes My Baby.”

Music Player
“There Goes My Baby” – 1959
Ben E. King & The Drifters

Released in April 1959, the song reached No, 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart for two weeks in the summer of 1959. This song, and others to follow, were among the first rock and R&B songs of that era to use strings in the instrumentation.

“There Goes My Baby,” is about a relationship gone bad, in which King as narrator offers some self-assessment of his role in its demise, now paying the price of loneliness. I broke her heart, and made her cry / Now I’m alone, so all alone / What can I do, what can I do? Later in the song, there are some interesting flourishes of strings surrounding King’s questions.

King, meanwhile, continued to sing lead on a succession of Drifters’ hits, written and composed by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, one of the songwriting teams at the famed New York Brill Building. Among other Benny King/Drifters hits were: “Save the Last Dance For Me”, “This Magic Moment”, and “I Count the Tears.”

“This Magic Moment”
Ben E. King & The Drifters
1960

This magic moment
So different and so new
Was like any other
Until I kissed you

And then it happened
It took me by surprise
I knew that you felt it too
By the look in your eyes

Sweeter than wine
Softer than a summer night
Everything I want I have
Whenever I hold you tight…

This magic moment
While your lips are close to mine
Will last forever
Forever, till the end of time
(Magic, magic, magic…)

Sweeter than wine
Softer than the summer night
Everything I want I have
Whenever I hold you tight

This magic moment
While your lips are close to mine
Will last forever
Forever, till the end of time.

The Ben E. King / Drifters version of “This Magic Moment,” for example – released in January 1960 – entered the Billboard Hot 100 on February 16th, 1960 and would peak at No. 16 on March 28th, remaining on that chart for 11 weeks. It also hit No. 4 on the R&B charts and spent 11 weeks on that chart. The Drifters then included: Ben E. King, Charlie Thomas, Dock Green, and Elsbeary Hobbs.

Music Player
“This Magic Moment” – 1960
Ben E. King & The Drifters

“This Magic Moment” used strings to good effect, especially at the song’s opening, in a swirling statement of something special to come. And they continue in background throughout the song, punctuated by acoustic guitar during the summer night verse, and complimented by The Drifters’ backing chorus.

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were the producers, bringing in session musicians to polish the production. Among those musicians were: Phil Bodner (sax), Ernie Hayes (piano), Bucky Pizzarell and George Barnes (guitar), George Duvivier (bass), and Shep Sheppard (drums).

The “magic moment,” of course – the song’s central thesis – has to do with young love. Magic is indeed part of what happens in that first flush of new love – a hard thing to articulate and capture, whether in music or in life.

Yet, the people involved in the moment know it when it happens, as King acknowledges: …And then it happened / It took me by surprise / I knew that you felt it too / By the look in your eyes. The moment, as King describes it, is perfect. It’s everything; nothing else is needed. “Sweeter than wine / Softer than a summer night / Everything I want I have / Whenever I hold you tight.”

Atlantic label 45 rpm, “This Magic Moment”. Click for digital.

Can it last forever? Surely it must! And for some it does – in marriages and unions that last for decades. Yet for most, “the moment” is just that; a romantic moment in time shared with another; though still cherished and embedded in the emotional brain — a love moment that brings a good feeling when recalled, endorphins to follow.

For those who fell in love when this song was popular, or had a special moment with a lover, the song can summon a powerful rush of deep-brain memory of time, place, and person — even when heard decades later. Thus, “music and moment” can prove a potent combo, lasting well beyond first encounters.

The song for Baby Boomers has a special pull, as they were impressionable teens in those early- and mid-1960s years. But listeners of all ages are moved by this Ben E. King song. One YouTube respondent from Gen-Z notes: “I was born in 2004 but I am in love with this music.”

In fact, a review of comments at any of several YouTube postings of this song reveal praise and appreciation from a range of listeners: “One of the most romantic songs ever made. Truly timeless,” says one. Another notes: “I walked down the aisle of my wedding to this song as a surprise to my future husband. Everyone thought it was perfect for the occasion.” Big Phil adds, “One of the best songs ever written.” Some reported feeling “chills” with the opening strings. Ronnie notes that in his case, a marriage resulted: “I had a magic moment the first time I kissed the girl who later became my wife of 44 yrs.” Jimmy, on the other hand, acknowledges loss and magic: “I remember my first magic moment. I thought it would last till the end of time. It didn’t. But that moment was magic.” Others are moved by how the song conjures up a more innocent time. Says Steve: “I was 16 when this first came out. I’d love to get back there…” And Bruce of Boomer vintage says: “…Loved it as a kid and still love it at 74.”

Squints image and message for T-shirt from 1993 film, “The Sandlot”. Click for film DVD.

“The Squints Caper”. On a lighter and more comical note, the song is also recalled by some for a memorable scene in the 1993 film, The Sandlot, a coming-of-age story that follows a group pre-teen boys who play sandlot baseball, revealing a warts-and-all cast of characters and experiences during the growing-up years.

“This Magic Moment” is one of a number of excellent 1950s-1960s hit songs used in the soundtrack. It is played during a scene involving the character known as “Squints” (for his glasses), who has a fantasy longing for an older, voluptuous female lifeguard at the local swimming pool named Wendy Peffercorn.

Squints succeeds in getting the attention of Wendy, by way of a daring but faked drowning at the pool, thereby receiving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from Wendy (as “This Magic Moment” plays). But Wendy soon discovers the ruse, calling Squints “a little pervert,” and bans the entire sandlot bunch from the pool thereafter.

Squints, however, is quite pleased with himself for his accomplishment, now elevated in standing among his peers for his daring deed. (T-shirts commemorating the Squints-Wendy event are available at WalMart and Amazon. And oh, yes, according to the film, some years later, Squints and Wendy would marry and have nine kids).

“This Magic Moment” would also become a Top Ten hit for Jay and Americans in March 1969, reaching No. 6 in the U.S. and No. 1 in Canada. But many purists of the 1960s’ era prefer the Ben E. King/Drifter’s version. Ben E. King, meanwhile, would record 13 songs with the Drifters, 11 as the group’s lead singer. But he had his differences with the group and their manager, and decided to leave the group. By May 1960, Ben E. King embarked on a solo career.

King’s Solo Hits

Atlantic album cover for Ben E. King’s 1961 album, “Spanish Harlem,” featuring 12 songs. Click for album.

Remaining with Atlantic Records and its Atco label, King scored his first solo hit in 1961 with the ballad “Spanish Harlem.”

It was written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector and produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Leiber has credited Stoller with the song’s arrangement

Music Player
“Spanish Harlem”- Ben E. King
1960

“Spanish Harlem” was originally released in December 1960 as the B-side of “First Taste of Love.” But “Spanish Harlem” climbed the Billboard charts with an arrangement by Stan Applebaum that featured Spanish guitar, marimba, drum-beats, soprano saxophone, strings, and a male chorus. The song peaked at No. 15 on the R&B chart and No. 10 on the pop chart. It has also been ranked at No. 358 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

In 1961, the single was followed by a stereo album also titled Spanish Harlem with 12 tracks: 1.) Amor, 2.) Sway, 3.) Come Closer To Me, 4.) Perfidia, 5.) Granada, 6.) Sweet And Gentle, 7.) Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps, 8.) Frenesi, 9.) Souvenir Of Mexico, 10.) Besame Mucho, 11.) Love Me, and 12.) Spanish Harlem.

Ben E. King in promo with Atco's 45 rpm single, “Stand By Me.” Click for digital single.

But it was “Stand By Me” that would become King’s defining work.

Stand By Me

“Stand By Me” was the name of a gospel hymn written by the Philadelphia minister Charles Albert Tindley in 1905. His hymn became popular in churches throughout the American South and was recorded by various gospel acts in the 1950s.

One popular adaptation was by The Staple Singers, who recorded it in 1955. It was this version that Ben E. King heard, and wanted The Drifters to record it, but the group’s manager rejected it.

So after King went out on his own, and during the recording session for “Spanish Harlem,” some additional studio time became available. And that’s when “Stand By Me” was created.

King, Leiber and Stoller then worked together to flesh out the melody and complete the lyrics, with Stoller adding the signature bass line at the beginning. King has cited singers Brook Benton, Roy Hamilton, and Sam Cooke as influences for his vocals on the song.

“Stand By Me”
Ben E. King
1961

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we’ll see

No I won’t be afraid, no I won’t be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

So darlin’, darlin’, stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand, stand by me, stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountains should crumble to the sea

I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no I won’t shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

And darlin’, darlin’, stand by me, oh stand by me
Whoa, stand now, stand by me,
stand by me, yeah

And darlin’, darlin’, stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand now, stand by me, stand by me,

Whenever you’re in trouble
won’t you stand by me,
oh now, stand by me

Oh stand by me, stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me

[ fade out…] Whenever you’re in trouble…

“Stand by Me” would ultimately be voted as one of the Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

In one interview, co-writer Mike Stoller has described how the song came together:

… Ben E. had the beginnings of a song—both words and music. He worked on the lyrics together with Jerry, and I added elements to the music, particularly the bass line. To some degree, it’s based on a gospel song called “Lord Stand By Me”. I have a feeling that Jerry and Ben E. were inspired by it. Ben, of course, had a strong background in church music. He’s a 50% writer on the song, and Jerry and I are 25% each.

…When I walked in, Jerry and Ben E. were working on the lyrics to a song. They were at an old oak desk we had in the office. Jerry was sitting behind it, and Benny was sitting on the top. They looked up and said they were writing a song. I said, “Let me hear it.”

… Ben began to sing the song a cappella. I went over to the upright piano and found the chord changes behind the melody he was singing. It was in the key of A. Then I created a bass line. Jerry said, “Man that’s it!” We used my bass pattern for a starting point and, later, we used it as the basis for the string arrangement created by Stanley Applebaum.

Of King’s vocal qualities, Ken Emerson, author of Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era, has noted: “He had a way of retaining a gospel grit in his voice but at the same time had an easy, debonair style that was appealing and ingratiating.”

Listed at No. 72 in Dave Marsh’s 1989 book, The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, Marsh describes the song as follows:

August 3, 1963. Ben E. King performs on stage during Murray The K's Big Holiday Show at the Brooklyn Fox Theater, New York, NY. (Photo, PoPsie Randolph / Michael Ochs Archives).

It’s not hard to see how “Stand By Me” could reenter the Top Ten twenty-five years after it was first made [i.e., after the Riner film]. It’s as timeless as a basic black dress. The theme was provided by gospel, the bass and percussion are Afro-Cuban. But the rifling cellos and soft quartet harmonies, the way the arrangement builds, adding instruments and growing more lush at each stage, is all pure Leiber-Stoller. Typically, it’s also way ahead of its time, prefiguring key aspects of both Leiber-Stoller protégé Phil Spector and Motown’s Holland-Dozier-Holland.

The lyric is so stark it seemed ancient when brand new, especially with King bearing down on the poetic first lines as if the fate of the world depended upon them.

What makes the performance unforgettable, though, is the way that King’s intonation denies his own ritualistic protestations: “I won’t cry, I won’t cry,”… the contradiction couldn’t be more complete. Yet holding back is King’s triumph, for it’s precisely by conveying the boundary between panic and restraint that “Stand By Me” achieves its unique unity of terror and reassurance.

One testament to the long-standing appeal of “Stand By Me” is found at an unadorned YouTube offering of the song by itself, posted in 2009, that has received more than 500 million views (yes, that’s half a billion), with a long list of praiseworthy comments and nostalgic remembrances.

1980s & Beyond

Poster for the Rob Reiner 1986 film “Stand By Me,” depicting the four boys on their travels. Click for film.

“Stand By Me” received its second wind in the 1980s. Stephen King’s 1982 novella, The Body, inspired Rob Reiner’s 1986 Hollywood film, Stand By Me, which uses the Ben E. King song in its soundtrack.

The film is a coming-of-age, comedy-drama-adventure starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell and Kiefer Sutherland.

The story follows four of the pre-teen boys and their predicament after they discover, while hiking, a dead body of a missing boy. The “Stand by Me” connection has to do with friendship and loyalty among the boys during their ordeal.

The use of the Ben E. King song in the soundtrack helped make that song an even bigger hit in 1987, when it topped the UK singles chart and went to No. 9 on the U.S. Billboard chart. The UK revival was also helped when “Stand By Me” was one of several 1960s classics used in TV ads for Levi’s 501 jeans.

In the 1988 Levi’s TV spot, titled “Entrance,” a good looking guy is trying to get past a nightclub bouncer enforcing a “no blue jeans” policy at the doorway. As the guy moves up to the door, he pulls his white sport coat back along the belt line to reveal he is wearing black blue jeans. The bouncer then waves him in as the camera follows him into the club, passing an admiring lady or two as he goes, leaving the rest to viewer imagination. In any case, the Levi’s ad, plus the Rob Reiner film in the late 1980s, helped send “Stand By Me” to the No. 1 spot on the UK music charts and into the Top Ten in five other European countries.

This 1990 album cover by East/West Records, featuring a collection of Ben E. King and The Drifters songs, uses a cover art rendition of a scene from the 1988 Levi’s TV ad, “Entrance,” of the guy in a white sport coat and black jeans making his way to a nightclub. Click for CD or vinyl. For the Levi's ad, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Awfnp7JdE .

In 1999, BMI, the music licensing organization, announced that “Stand By Me” was the fourth-most-recorded song of the 20th century and had been played more than seven million times on radio and television. Rolling Stone ranked “Stand by Me” at No. 122 on its 2004 list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

The royalties for “Stand By Me” were divided among King, Leiber and Stoller, with half going to King, and half shared by Leiber and Stoller. By 2012 “Stand By Me’s” royalties had topped $22.8 million, by one estimate, making it then the sixth highest-earning song as of that time. On another list of “Top Ten” royalty-generating songs in 2017, “Stand By Me” appeared at No. 5.”Fifty-five years after it was written, King’s original version still wields the kind of emotional heft that can reduce people to tears, and get others on their feet at weddings.”

In 2015 King’s original version of “Stand By Me” was inducted by the Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry, as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” with the Library noting that “it was King’s incandescent vocal that made it a classic.” “Stand by Me”, “There Goes My Baby”, “Spanish Harlem”, and “Save the Last Dance for Me” have each been named in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.” Each of those songs has also earned a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

In 2015, The Guardian’s Tim Jonze described “Stand By Me” as follows: “Fifty-five years after it was written, King’s original version still wields the kind of emotional heft that can reduce people to tears, and get others on their feet at weddings.” Indeed, on May 19, 2018 at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the Windsor Castle, before the couple exchanged their vows, Karen Gibson and The Kingdom Choir performed a reported “stirring gospel rendition” of the song, which was chosen by Harry and Meghan. The Choir later that year released their debut album, titled, Stand By Me.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle chose “Stand By Me” to be played at their May 19, 2018 wedding at the Windsor Castle. Before the couple exchanged their vows, Karen Gibson and The Kingdom Choir performed what was reported as “a stirring gospel rendition of the song.” The Choir later that year released their debut album, titled, “Stand By Me”. Click for album.

“Stand By Me” has also had a long cover history, recorded more than 500 times, and by a remarkable range of artists, among them: The Righteous Brothers. John Lennon, Tracy Chapman, Warren Zevon, Florence & The Machine, Mickey Gilley (a 1980 No, 1 Country hit & in film Urban Cowboy), Otis Redding, Prince Royce, and even Muhammad Ali (as Cassius Clay in 1963-64).

Album: “Ben E. King: The Complete Atco/Atlantic Singles, 1960-1966.” Click for digital.

During his career, Ben E. King charted 21 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1961 and 1975, including Top 10s, “Spanish Harlem,” “Stand by Me” and “Supernatural Thing, Part 1”. King continued touring in the U.S. and U.K as late as 2013-2014. He was also active in his charitable foundation, the Stand By Me Foundation, which helped provide educational support to deserving youth.

Ben E. King died in April 2016, having suffered previously from coronary problems. He was 76. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife of 51 years, three children and six grandchildren.

For additional music stories, artist histories, and song profiles at this website see the “Annals of Music” category page. Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 22 July 2021
Last Update: 4 July 2022
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Stand By Me: Ben E. King Music,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 22, 2021.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

Album: “The Very Best of the Drifters,” 50 Greatest Songs on 2 CDs. Click for copy.

The Kingdom Choir album, with 15 songs, including, “Stand By Me”. Click for copy.

“The Best Of The Platters: 20th Century Masters Collection.” Click for CD or digital.

“Ben E. King,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, p. 526.

“Ben E. King,” Wikipedia.org.

“The Drifters,” Wikipedia.org.

“Stand By Me by Ben E. King,” SongFacts .com.

“Stand by Me (Ben E. King song),” Wikipe-dia.org.

“There Goes My Baby (The Drifters song),” Wikipedia.org.

Dave Marsh, The Heart of Rock and Soul, The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, 1989, Da Capo Press, Paperback, 760 pp. Click for copy.

Ken Emerson, Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era, 2005, Viking Press, 320pp. Click for copy.

“This Magic Moment – Ben E King and The Drifters,” YouTube.com, Posted, February 23, 2017.

“Ben E. King – Stand By Me,” YouTube.com, Posted, October 27, 2009.

William Grimes, “Ben E. King, Soulful Singer of ‘Stand by Me,’ Dies at 76,” New York Times, May 1, 2015.

Chris Payne, “’Stand By Me’ Singer Ben E. King Dead at 76,” Billboard, May 1, 2015.

Jason Gross. “’80s Levi’s Jeans Ads That Revived ’60s Music,” RediscoverThe80s.com, April 22, 2013.

“Levi’s 1988 Entrance,” YouTube.com, Posted, August 20, 2013.

Open Your Ears, “Stan Applebaum, the Master of Arranging, Tells His Secrets,” Local802 afm.org, Allegro, Volume 114, No. 12, December 2014.

Tim Jonze, “Ben E King’s ‘Stand By Me’: A Song as Enduring as the Love That Inspired It,” TheGuardian.com, May 1, 2015.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Nick Murray, and Brittany Spanos, “20 Best Covers of Ben E. King’s ‘Stand by Me.’ Hear Classic, Astounding and Unusual Interpretations by Artists Like John Lennon, Tina Turner and Miley Cyrus,” RollingStone.com, May 2, 2015.

“Three Things The Top 10 Royalty Earning Songs of All Time Have In Common,” Royalty News, February 20, 2017.

Paul Zollo, “Behind the Song: ‘Stand By Me’ by Ben. E. King, Leiber & Stoller,” American SongWriter.com, March 16, 2020.

Alex Lubet and Steven Lubet, “The Backstory of the Perfect Royal Wedding Song,” CNN .com, May 22, 2018.

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Teaser Tag: Baseball History

1911-1920, 1921-1930, 1931-1940

“Gehrig vs. Ruth, 1927”
Home Run Race

June 4, 2021 J.D.

In 1927 Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were teammates on the New York Yankees professional baseball team. Ruth by then was the larger-than-life “roaring twenties” sports figure and holder of baseball’s home run record, then at 59, which he had set six years earlier in 1921. Ruth had come to the Yankees from the Boston Red Sox in 1919, where he had starred as a pitcher and hitter from 1914 to 1919, setting the home run record for the first time there in 1919 at 29. No professional player before that time had hit more than 16 home runs in one season – a time known as the “dead ball era,” given the quality of the ball used and rarely replaced; a time when play was focused more on singles hitting and base stealing, nicknamed later as “small ball.” But Babe Ruth would change that.

September 15, 1927. Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees, during a season in which the Yankees won the pennant and the World Series, with Ruth setting the home run record at 60 and the pair accounting for more than 100 home runs between them that year, as well as 338 RBIs and 307 runs scored. World Wide Photos.

When Ruth began play with the Yankees in 1920, the team then shared the Polo Grounds stadium with the New York Giants of the National League. On May 1st that year, Ruth hit his first Yankee home run, a ball that left the Polo Grounds. By year’s end, Ruth had hit a prodigious 54 home runs, nearly doubling the existing record – his own, set the year before. No other player was even a close second to Ruth in 1920, with George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns next highest at 19. The following year, Ruth set the record again, hitting 59, with the two next-best hitters far behind at 24. In a few short years, Babe Ruth had changed baseball, bringing more excitement and drama to the game, making it both more popular and more lucrative, as fans flocked to major league ball parks to see Ruth and “home run baseball.” Through the 1920s Babe Ruth was the Home Run King and the biggest celebrity in sport — and quite an incorrigible, fun-loving, and sometimes controversial character to boot. By 1923 he was holding court and hitting home runs in the new Yankee Stadium, later dubbed “The House That Ruth Built.”

Yankee greats, Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, on the steps of their dugout, 1920s.

Lou Gehrig, by comparison, was a Yankee newcomer, and a more reserved character all around, though loaded with baseball talent. Born to German immigrant parents, Gehrig grew up in New York city, where he played high school baseball. At age 17, in a high school game at Wrigley Field in Chicago, he hit a grand slam home run that left the ball park, an unheard-of feat for a high school athlete. He attended Columbia University for two years, played baseball there, continued to hit some notably long home runs, and signed with the New York Yankees in 1923, starting with their minor league club in Hartford, CT. He joined the Yankee team in 1925 and saw limited play. The following year, 1926, was his breakout season with the Yankees, batting .313 with 47 doubles, an American League-leading 20 triples, 16 home runs, and 112 RBIs.

In 1926, Ruth, for the fifth time, had led the majors in home runs with 47. But in 1927, he vowed to set a new home run record with the goal of eclipsing his earlier record of 59 home runs. The 1927 New York Yankees, meanwhile, were one of the best teams in baseball history, not only benefitting from the services of Ruth and Gehrig, but also a lineup of other superb hitters and pitchers. In fact, the first portion of the Yankee lineup that year came to be known and feared by opposing pitchers as “Murderers’ Row” – Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri.

But Ruth, for his part, started slow in the 1927 season, hitting only one homer in his first 10 games. By the end of June he picked up the pace, ending the month with 25, only to find the 24-year-old Gehrig right there with him. Through July and August 1927, in fact, Gehrig and Ruth were never separated by more than two home runs. By the end of July, Gehrig was one up on Ruth, 35 to 34. Ruth then took the lead by the end of August, besting Gehrig by a count of 43 to 41. Both men homered on September 2, with Gehrig going deep twice, leaving the standings at Ruth 44, Gehrig 43.

Babe Ruth, completing a swing after contact, 1920s.

Lou Gehrig on the move after hitting the ball, 1938.

In early September, however Gehrig began a bit of a home run drought, not hitting one for a stretch of 19 games. Ruth then moved ahead, hitting 12 more, bring his total to 56. He soon matched his previous record of 59, reaching that mark on September 29, 1927 after hitting two homers against the Washington Senators. At that point, two games remained in the regular season. The very next day, on September 30, 1927, Ruth went deep with a homer, setting a new record at 60. It was the seventh time since 1919 that he had set the single-season home run record. On October 1st, the last day of the 1927 season, he had a chance to hit No. 61, but he went 0-for-3 that day. Gehrig, meanwhile, finished 1927 with 47 home runs and an amazing all-around hitting performance – a .373 average with 218 hits, including 101 singles, 52 doubles, 18 triples, and a then-record 175 RBIs. He also had a .474 on-base percentage and .765 slugging.

In any case, most people thought Babe Ruth’s home run mark of 60 that year would stand for the ages and never be broken. But 34 years later, another New York Yankee, Roger Maris – then also in a home run race with teammate Mickey Mantle – would break Ruth’s record hitting 61 home runs.

What follows below in the left-hand column is a look at some of the newspaper and magazine headlines Ruth and/or Gehrig generated during 1927, a share of which tracks their “home run race” in the context of Yankee games from April-though-September 1927. In the right-hand column is a selection of books on Ruth and Gehrig and the 1927 Yankees, along with a few related films.

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Ruth-Gehrig History
1927 Baseball Season & Beyond

Alan D. Gaff’s 2020 book, “Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir,” Simon & Schuster, 240pp. Click for copy.

Leigh Montville’s 2006 book, “The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth,” Doubleday, 400pp. Click for copy.

Harry Frommer’s 2015 paperback, “Five O’Clock Lightning: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and the Greatest Baseball Team in History...,” 292pp. Click for copy.

Jane Leavy’s 2018 book, “The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created,” Harper, 656pp. Click for copy.

Paul Gallico’s 1942 classic, “Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees,” basis for Hollywood film. Kindle edition shown. Click for copy.

Bill Jenkinson’s 2014 book, “Babe Ruth: Against All Odds, World's Mightiest Slugger,” Kindle edition, 269 equivalent pp. Click for copy.

John Eisenberg’s 2017 book, “The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken Jr., and Baseball's Most Historic Record,” Houghton Mifflin, 320 pp. Click for copy.

Dan Joseph’s 2019 book, “Last Ride of the Iron Horse: How Lou Gehrig Fought ALS to Play One Final Championship Season,” Sunbury, 218pp. Click for copy.

Edmund F. Wehrle’s 2018 book, “Breaking Babe Ruth: Baseball's Campaign Against Its Biggest Star,” University of Missouri Press, 302 pp. Click for copy.

Thomas Barthel’s 2018 book, “Babe Ruth and the Creation of the Celebrity Athlete,” McFarland, 286 pp. Click for copy.

Jonathan Eig’s 2006 book, “Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig,” Simon & Schuster, 432 pp. Click for copy.

Jerry Amernic’s 2018 book “Babe Ruth - A Superstar's Legacy,” Worldcraft, 240pp. Click for copy.

Richard Sandomir’s 2017 book, “The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper, and the Making of a Classic,” about the famous baseball player and the Hollywood film made about his life and death. Hachette Books, 304 pp. Click for copy.

“The Pride of the Yankees” (collector's edition) Hollywood film, starring Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright as Lou and Eleanor Gehrig. Click for DVD or video.

Ronald A Mayer’s 2018 book, “The 1932 New York Yankees: The Story of a Legendary Team, a Remarkable Season, and a Wild World Series,” 240pp. Click for copy.

Robert Creamer’s 1992 biography, “Babe: The Legend Comes to Life,” Simon & Schuster, 448 pp. Time magazine called it “one of the best, and least sentimental, books about a great sports figure ever written.” Click for copy.

Stanley Cohen’s 2018 book, “Yankees 1936–39, Baseball's Greatest Dynasty: Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and the Birth of a New Era,” Skyhorse, 316 pp. Click for copy.

“Mighty Bambino, Full of Vim and Vigor, Arrives in Salt Lake for Week’s Stay; Great Crowd Greets Home-Run King Upon Arrival From Coast,” Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT), January 26, 1927, Sports, p.1.

“Trainer for Ruth Named; Arthur McGovern to Help Condition the Babe on the Coast,” New York Times, January 27, 1927, Sports, p.14.

“Babe Ruth Takes to Road; Runs Five Miles at Hollywood in Preparation for 1927 Campaign,” New York Times, February 5, 1927, Sports, p. 10.

“Ruth, 33, Deposits $33,000, Part of Off-Season Earnings,” New York Times, February 9, 1927, Sports, p. 14.

“Ruth Returns $52,000 Contract, Ready to Quit; Ruppert, Unconcerned, Just Says ‘All Right’,” New York Times, February 10, 1927, Sports, p.18.

“Babe Serious About Quitting; Talks of Opening a String of Gymnasiums,” New York Times, February 11, 1927, Sports, p. 25.

“Ruth Gets $210,000 for 3 Years As Yank,” New York Times, March 3, 1927.

Associated Press, “Ruth’s Annual Income Exceeds All Athlete’s Profits, Except Tunney’s,” Bangor Daily Commercial (Bangor, ME), March 3, 1927, p. 1.

“Tennessee House Adjourns To See Babe Ruth Perform,” New York Times, April 8, 1927, Sports, p. 27.

Richards Vidmer, “Yanks Beat Cards by Rally in Tenth; Bunch Three Singles, One by Ruth, Then Win on Gehrig’s Sacrifice, 5 to 4,” New York Times, April 7, 1927, Sports, p. 17.

“$1,000 for Homer Today; If Ruth Hits Circuit Clout Ball Will Be Sold for Charity,” New York Times, April 12, 1927, Sports, p. 30.

James R. Harrison, “Ruth’s Homer Aids in Yankee Victory; His First of Season Opens Attack That Beats Athletics, 6-3… Babe’s Toss Stops Run at the Plate,” New York Times, April 16, 1927, Sports, p.18.

James R. Harrison, “Lazzeri and Gehrig Pummel Athletics; Each Hits Homer with Two on in Accounting for Net Total of Ten Runs; Yankees Triumph, 13 to 6…,” New York Times, April 22, 1927, Sports, P. 14.

Ford C. Frick, “Babe Ruth Checks up on Low Batting Average,” New York Evening Journal, April 23, 1927.

James R. Harrison, “Ruth Hits Homer as Yanks Win, 6-2; His Third Circuit Blow and Second in Two Days Travels 400 Feet Before Disappearing. Durst Routs Senators Triples with Bases Filled Following Babe’s Drive in Sixth — Meusel Also Gets Four-Bagger,” New York Times, April 25, 1927, Sports, p. 28.

Arthur Mann, “Lou Gehrig MVP So Far,” The Evening World (New York), April 29, 1927.

Richards Vidmer, “3 Yank Homers Win as 70,000 Look On; Ruth Gets Two, Pushing Total to Six…,” New York Times, May 2, 1927, Sports, p. 16.

“Younger Set Aids Yanks to Victory; Youthful Zest of Lou Gehrig and Deacon Moore Helps Beat Senators, 6 to 4,” New York Times, May 4, 1927, Sports, p. 21.

“Pennock and Gehrig Raid White Sox, 8-0; Herb Finishes Well, the Five Hits off Him Coming in as Many Innings. Lou’s Homer Clears Bases Delivered in Ninth, it More than Clinches Yanks’ Opener in Western Invasion,” New York Times, May 8, 1927, Sport, P. 1.

“Lou Gehrig’s Drive Yanks’ Life-Saver; His Single in Ninth with Paths Loaded Brings Downfall of Browns, 8-7. Ruth Gets Homer No. 7 Babe’s Only Hit Comes with Two On …,” New York Times, May 11, 1927, Sports, p. 20.

James R. Harrison, “Yankee Siege Guns Subdue Tigers, 6-2; Homer by Gehrig and Timely Single by Ruth Help Win Icy Game,” New York Times, May 17, 1927, Sports, p. 33.

Harold Heffernan, “‘Babe Comes Home’ Babe Ruth, Good Ball Player,” The Detroit News, May 16, 1927 [Ruth in film].

Charles M. Segar, “Errors Costly; Boots by Babe, Koenig Give Senators 3-2 Win,” Daily Mirror (New York), May 24, 1927.

James R. Harrison, “Ruth Hits a Homer but Yanks Lose, 3-2; His Eleventh of Season and Gehrig’s Tenth Wasted as Senators Win,” New York Times, May 24, 1927, Sports, p. 28.

James R. Harrison, “Ruth’s Fourteenth Helps Yanks Divide; Propelled in Eleventh Frame, it Beats Athletics, 6-5…,” New York Times, May 31, 1927, Sports, p. 27.

Charles M. Segar, “Babe’s 14th Homer Earns Yanks Split With A’s; Wins Evening Battle in Eleventh,” Daily Mirror, May 31, 1927.

Monitor, “Ruth’s 17th Homer Wins It In Rain-Soaked Game,” The World (New York), June 6, 1927.

James R. Harrison, “Ruth’s Two Blows Upset Tigers, 5-3; His 17th Homer Gives Yanks Temporary Lead, While His Hit in Eighth Wins Game,” New York Times, June 6, 1927, Sports, p.17.

W.O. McGeehan, “Babe Ruth’s Drawing Power,“ Herald Tribune (New York), June 6, 1927.

James R. Harrison, “Yanks Rise in 7th and Beat White Sox;… Babe Ruth Steals Home; He Also Triples…,” New York Times, June 10, 1927.

“Ruth’s Pen Kept Busy.; Autographs 53 Baseballs for Citizen Training Camps,” New York Times, June 10, 1927, Sports, p. 26.

James R. Harrison, “Babe Hits 2 More as Yanks Win, 6-4; Lifts His Second Longest Homer into Centre Field Bleachers as 30,000 Gasp. Then Drives out No. 20 Dismays Visiting Indians by Getting Two in Row off Garland Buckeye. Luke Sewell Suspicious Inspects Ruth’s Bat after No. 19…,” New York Times, June 12, 1927, Sports, P. 1

Ford C. Frick, “Lindbergh’s Arrival Upstages Game,” New York Evening Journal, June 17, 1927.

James R. Harrison, “Lindbergh Misses Ruth’s 22d Homer; Reaches Stadium After Game Is Over and Yanks Have Beaten Browns, 8-1. Gehrig Helps Hoyt Win Also Gets 4-Bagger in First Frame — Game’s Start Delayed 25 Minutes to Await Air Hero,” New York Times, June 17, 1927, Sports, p. 17.

James R. Harrison, “Yanks Score Twice; Ruth Hits 2 Homers; Circuit Drives in the Fifth and Seventh Upset First Game, 7 to 4, for Red Sox.., Have Won Eight in Row, New York Times, June 23, 1927, Sports, p. 19.

Associated Press, “Gehrig’s Three Homeruns Puts Him Back in Race For Crown; Yanks Hit Hard Pace For League,” The Fargo Forum (Fargo, ND), June 24??, 1927, p. 15.

“Supreme Court Decides Against Sunday Baseball,” The Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia, PA), June 25, 1927.

“Baseball By Electric Lights Proves Success,” The World (New York), June 25, 1927.

“Ruth Wants Tax Cut for Playing Host; Files Appeal Stating He Spent $9,000 Entertaining Writers During 1924,” New York Times, June 26, 1927, Sports, p. 2.

Arthur Mann, “Lou Gehrig, Kid From the Bronx, Presses Ruth for Home Run Honors,” The Evening World (New York), June 28, 1927.

James R. Harrison, “Gehrig Hits Homer, Ties Ruth With 24; His Safety in Fifth Is One of 15 That Yanks Get to Beat Red Sex, 8-2. Babe Back, Gets 4 Hits Makes 3 Singles and Double, Starts 2 Rallies, Drives in a Run Despite Sore Knee…,” New York Times, June 30, 1927, Sports, p. 19.

Associated Press, “Ruth’s Homer Reign Is Menaced by Gehrig,” Baltimore News, July 1, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

James R. Harrison, “Gehrig Gets No. 25, Then Ruth Ties Him; Lou’s Homer Comes in First, Babe’s in Fourth and They Help Beat Red Sox, 13-6….,” New York Times, July 1, 1927, Sports, p. 17.

Ford C. Frick, “Big Stick Is Only Link Between Home-Run Stars” [i.e., Ruth and Gehrig], New York Evening World, July 2, 1927.

Daniel, “Odds Favor Gehrig to Beat Out Ruth in Home Run Derby,” New York World Telegram, July 5, 1927.

David J. Walsh, “Lou Gehrig Jumps Field in Race for Home Run Crown,” Baltimore News, July 6, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

“Gehrig, Rival of Babe Ruth, His Powerful Shoulders and How He Grips His Bat”[w/4 Photos], Baltimore News, July 6, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

Richards Vidmer, “Yanks Break Even as Ruth Hits No. 27…; Lose First Game of Western Tour to Tigers, 11-8, Then Win Final of Twin Bill, 10-8. Babe’s’ Drive a Big Aid Comes in Closing Battle with Two on Base…,” New York Times, July 9, 1927, Sports, p. 8.

Richards Vidmer, “2 Homers for Ruth; Yanks Divide Day; Babe Regains Home Run Lead with 28th and 29th as Tigers Lose, 19-7, Then Win, 14-4…,” New York Times, July 10, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

Richards Vidmer, “Buster [Gehrig nickname] Ties Babe in Home-Run Dash; Gehrig Bats Out 29th Circuit Blow While Yankees Tame Tigers at Detroit, 8-5….,” New York Times, July 12, 1927, Sports, p. 19.

Richards Vidmer, “Babe Lifts No. 30 as Yanks Win, 7-0; Breaks Tie with Gehrig in Home-Run Race at the Indians’ Park. Clout Comes in the Ninth Bambino Awakes after 14 Hitless Trips…,” New York Times, July 13, 1927, Sports, p. 17.

Richards Vidmer, “Yank Rally Beats the Indians, 5 to 3; … Ruth Has a Perfect Day Gets 3 Singles and a Double in Four Tries…,” New York Times, July 14, 1927, Sports, p. 16.

Richards Vidmer, “Gehrig’s Three Hits Win for Yanks,5-2; Scores One Run and Bats in Three Others as Browns Are Downed in Opener. Clinches Victory in 7th; Buster Cracks Double with Bases Filled, Two Men Scoring…,” New York Times, July 17, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

Richards Vidmer, “Gehrig Hits No. 30, Tying Ruth Again; Homer in Eighth Evens Game at Four-all, While Meusel’s Blow Beats Browns, 5-4…,” New York Times, July 18, 1927, Sports, p. 10.

Ford C. Frick, “Lou Regains Batting Form on Diet of Pickled Eels,” New York Evening Journal, July 19, 1927.

Richards Vidmer, “Gehrig Clouts One as Yanks Prevail; Lou Leaves Babe Behind When He Hits Homer No. 31 in Clash with Browns. Hugmen Win by 10 to 6 Beat St. Louis Tenth Time in Row — Sisler Gets Circuit Blow with Bases Full,” New York Times, July 19, 1927, Sports, p. 18.

Richards Vidmer, “Fans Worship Ruth but Forget Gehrig; Though Babe Trails Lou in Home Runs, He Leads Him in Popular Appeal to Crowds…,” New York Times, July 21, 1927, Sports, p. 16.

W. B. Hanna, “Theories of Ruth, Gehrig, Huggins Why More Home Runs Are Being Hit Than Ever Before; Babe Says it’s Because Players Have New Style; Declares ‘Swingin` From Hips’ Produces Results; Gehrig Says Pitching,” New York Herald Tribune, July 24, 1927.

Richards Vidmer, “Ruth Clouts No. 31 to Help Yanks Win; Babe Again Draws Even with Gehrig in Homer Race as Chicago Is Beaten, 3-2,” New York Times, July 25, 1927, Sports, p. 13.

Monitor, “Ruth Ties Gehrig as Yankees Beat White Sox, 3-to-2; Record Crowd Sees Babe Hit Longest In and Out of Park,” The World (New York), July 25, 1927.

Richards Vidmer, “Ruth Hits 2, Gehrig 1 as Yanks Win Two; Hugmen’s Cyclonic Slugging Floors Browns Twice, 15-1 and 12-3. Babe Sets Homer Pace, Boosts Total to 33, Against 32 for Buster, All Three Soaring into Bleachers. Ruth Collects 7 Blows…,” New York Times, July 27, 1927, Sports, p. 18.

Richards Vidmer, “Gehrig and Lazzeri Win for Yankees; Lou Hits His 33d Homer and Ties Ruth…,” New York Times, July 28, 1927, Sports, p. 12.

Joe Williams, “A Close-up of Christy Walsh. The Man Behind Mr. Babe Ruth. About These Literary Athletes,” New York World Telegram, July 29, 1927.

Richards Vidmer, “Ruth Hits His 34th as Yanks Triumph; Babe Passes Gehrig When the Browns Lose 15th Straight to Hugmen — Score, 9-4….,” New York Times, July 29, 1927, Sports, p. 11.

Richards Vidmer, “Gehrig’s 2 Homers Pass Babe for Lead; He Ties Ruth with His 34th at Stadium, Goes Ahead When 35th Hops into Stands…,” New York Times, July 31, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

“Babe’s $50,000 Trust Fund,” New York American, August 9, 1927.

“Cub Fans Scout Yankees as They Trim Sox, 8 to 1,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 17, 1927 (game at Comiskey Park with photo of Ruth crossing home plate after home run; reportedly, first time any player had ever hit a ball out of Comiskey Park).

Richards Vidmer, “Ruth’s 38th Trims White Sox in 11th…Hit Ties Him with Gehrig …Yanks Get One in Fifth and Eighth, Then Win by 3-2,” New York Times, August 18, 1927, Sports, p. 15.

Richards Vidmer, “Gehrig Slams 39th but Yanks Trail, 3-2; Lou Passes Ruth in Home-run Race, Drives in Other Tally, but White Sox Win,” New York Times, August 20, 1927, Sports, p. 11.

Richards Vidmer, “Ruth Crashes 39th as Yanks Fail Again; Babe Evens Homer Count with Gehrig While Indians Trounce Hugmen by 14 to 8… Tribe Amasses 19 Hits …Grant Stills Mighty Yankee Bats…,” New York Times, August 21, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

Sam Greene, “Hit Costs The Babe $300 And Tiger’s A Ball Game…,” The Detroit News, August 27, 1927.

Richards Vidmer, “Ruth Crashes 41st as Yanks Win, 14-4; Babe Also Get a Triple While Browns Lose 16th in Row to the Hugmen,” New York Times, August 28, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

Richards Vidmer, “Gehrig, Hits No. 41 as Yanks Win, 8-3; Drive with Two on Helps Down the Browns for the 18th Straight Time. Ruth Stars in Field Makes Six Brilliant Catches in Left Field — Babe Leads Lou by Only One Homer,” New York Times, August 30, 1927, Sports, p. 16.

Cover Story, Lou Gehrig on cover, “Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth’s Most Sensational Rival,” Baseball Magazine, September 1927.

Paul Gallico, “A Great Moral Lesson” (Ruth-Gehrig race), Daily News (New York), September 3, 1927.

“Yesterday’s Crowd At Fenway Park Another Tribute to Babe Ruth; New England Fans Jam Ball Field To Capacity With Many Turned Down,” Boston Evening Transcript, September 6, 1927.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Bow in 18th, but Split 2 Games; Lose to Red Sox, 12-11, Before 36,000… Gehrig’s 44th Ties Ruth Gets Blow in 1st Game…,” New York Times, September 6, 1927, Sports, p. 28.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Break Even; Ruth Hits 3, Gehrig 1; Hugmen Rout Red Sox, 14 to 2; Then Boston Takes Second Contest, 5 to 2. Babe Equals 1926 Mark His 45th, 46th and 47th Overshadow Buster’s [Gehrig nickname] 45th, Which Put Lou Ahead for Inning. Ruth 7 Behind Record Had 54 at this Stage of Season in 1921…,” New York Times, September 7, 1927.

James R. Harrison, “Does Paul Waner Top Gehrig in Value to His Team? A Fan Asks; Expert Contends That Pittsburgh Star, Who Is Backbone of Team, Has the Edge, as Gehrig Is Only One among a Galaxy of Dangerous Hitters,” New York Times, September 8, 1927, Sports, p. 30.

John Drebinger, “Ruth Hits 48th, 49th as Yanks Sweep On; Babe Increases Margin over Gehrig to Four Homers as Hugmen Win, 12-10,” New York Times, September 8, 1927, Sports, p. 30.

Burt Whitman, “Ruth Hits Two More Homers; Yanks Beat Red Sox, 12-10; Has 49, With 21 games Left in Which to Equal Record of 59,” The Boston Herald, September 8, 1927.

John Drebinger, “Jinx Gets Lazzeri but Yankees Win… Ruth Saves the Game His Fine Sprint and Daring Slide Home after Lazzeri’s Sacrifice Decide… the Browns Again Victims…,” New York Times, September 9, 1927, Sports, p. 20.

“Ruth, in Court, Denies Attack on Artist, 49; Offers Alibi for Night of July 4th, But Decorator is Sure it Was Home Run King…,” New York Herald Tribune, September 13, 1927.

“Babe Ruth Insured for Only $300,000; ‘Talk of $5,000,000 Is Bunk,’ Says Yankees’ Secretary, ‘No Player Worth It’,” New York Times, September 14, 1927, p. 9.

“Ruth is Cleared of Beating Man in Insult Case; Baseball Star’s Alibi Holds Against Artists’ Assault Charge; Leaves The Court on Shoulders of Admirers…,” New York Herald Tribune, September 17, 1927.

“Yanks Annex 100th as Ruth Hits No. 53; Hugmen Trim White Sox, 7 to 2… Babe Three From Record; Had 56 at This Stage of Season in 1921…,” New York Times, September 17, 1927, Sports, p. 9.

W.B. Hanna, “Ruth Hits 55th But Yankees Lose to Tigers… Babe Also Gets Two Singles Off Gibson,” New York Herald Tribune, September 22, 1927.

William J. Slocum, “Yankees Tie Record With 105th Victory; Bambino’s Clout in Final Frame Overcomes Detroit’s Lead…,” New York American, September 23, 1927.

“Ruth’s 56th Homer Wins Game in Ninth; Scores Koenig, Overcomes One-Run Lead and Downs the Tigers by 8 to 7… Gehrig Clips a Mark,” New York Times, September 23, 1927.

“Ruth to Make Tour with Gehrig to Coast; Pair Will Start [Exhibition] Series of Fifteen Games as Soon as World’s Series Is Over,” New York Times, September 27, 1927, Sports, p. 20.

John Drebinger, “Ruth Hits His 57th with Bases Filled; His Smash off Grove in Sixth Proves Winning Margin in Victory over Athletics by 7-4. Still Behind the Record; Three down and Three Games to Play in Drive for Record Sixty — Gehrig Gets 46th,” New York Times, September 28, 1927, Sports, p. 19.

Thomas Holmes, “Ruth On The Verge of a New Record and His Eighth World Series,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 30, 1927.

“Babe Ruth Clouts Two Homers, Tying His Own Record at 59…. Yankees’ Slugger Has 2 More Tilts To Set New Mark; Babe’s Circuit Clouts Aid in New York’s 15-4 Win Over Washington; Second Blow Comes With 3 Men on Base in The 5th,” Public Ledger (Philadelphia, PA), September 30, 1927.

John Drebinger, “Ruth Hits 2, Equals 1921 Homer Record; Slams 58th in First Frame, Then Gets 59th in Fifth With 3 Men on Bases [i.e. grand slam]; Barley Misses Two More; Each a Trifle Short and One Goes For Triple as Fans Shriek With Joy… Win by 15-4 as Babe and His Mates Run Wild and Make 19 Safeties,” New York Times, September 30, 1927.

“Ruth Equals Record; Wham! Wham! The Bam’s A Wow; Babe Spanks Two to Knot Mark of 59,” Los Angles Examiner, September 30, 1927.

“Babe Ruth Hits 60th Home Run; Swat King Sets New World’s Record,” Los Angeles Evening Herald, September 30, 1927, front page.

Cover of Sport magazine, September 1927. Artist’s rendition of Babe Ruth swinging a bat appears on the cover with story inside the magazine titled: “Babe Ruth’s Dramatic History Costs Yanks $132.000.” This edition also includes a photo of Lou Gehrig.

“Home Run Record Falls as Ruth Hits 60th…; 1921 Mark of 59 Beaten; Fans Go Wild as Ruth Pounds Ball into Stands With One On…,” New York Times, October 1, 1927, p. 12.

Fred Lieb, “ Babe Ruth Thrills Nation’s Sports Lovers With His Sixtieth Home Run of Season… Eighth Inning Crash Breaks Deadlock, Giving Yanks 109th Victory; Mighty Slugger Scored Sixteen Homers in Sept.,” New York Evening Post, October 1, 1927.

Paul Gallico, “Babe Carpenters No. 60! Ruth Cracks 1921 Circuit Mark As Senators Are Beaten, 4 to 2. And He Did It!,” Daily News (New York), October 1, 1927.

Associated Press, “Ruth’s Homers Have Totaled 50 Miles; Has Poled 416 Out of Park,” Baltimore News, October 1, 1927, Sports, p. 1.

“Babe Ruth’s Home Run Secrets Solved by Science,” Popular Science Monthly, October 1921.

John Drebinger, “Ruth Is Homerless, but Yanks Win Last; 20,000 Fail to See Babe Do it Again as Senators Lose, 4 to 3. Gehrig Comes Through, Gets No. 47… Southpaws Baffle Ruth; He Strikes Out as Last Act of Regular Season…Yankees Win Pennant,” New York Times, October 2, 1927, Sports, p. 8.

“Out to Get Babe and Lou; Pirate Strategy [in World Series] Will Be to Stop These Two to Whip Yanks,” New York Times, October 4, 1927, Sports, p. 24.

“N.Y. Wins World Series By Beating Pirates 4-3; Wild Pitch in 9thg Inning Gives Yanks 4th Straight Game, Los Angeles Evening Herald, October 8, 1927, p. 1.

“Yanks Win; Take Championship; Babe Ruth Drives Out Home Run In Fifth, Scoring Combs Ahead Of Him; Yankees’ Slugger Comes Through With Second Circuit Clout of the Series,” Scranton Times (Scranton, PA), October 8, 1927, p. 1.

John Drebinger, “Yankees Disperse; Four to Barnstorm; Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri and Dugan Will Appear in Post-season Games. Each Yank to Get $5,702…,” New York Times, October 10, 1927, Sports, p. 18.

Associated Press, “Best-Player Award Goes to Lou Gehrig; Yankee First Baseman Is Voted Most Valuable Performer in American League… For 1927,” New York Times, October 12, 1927, Sports, p. 32.

“Ruth, Gehrig Back; Played in 9 States; Barnstorming Records Fall as Yankee Stars Play Before 220,000 Persons. Babe Crashed 20 Homers Lou Slammed 13, 21 Games Being Started and 13 Finished — 30,000 Gathering in Los Angeles,” New York Times, November 9, 1927, Sports, p. 30.

Associated Press, “Babe Ruth, Weight 222 1/2, Begins Training For New Record Drive; ‘Might Do It,’ He Says,” New York Times, December 28, 1927, Sports, p. 19.

Ruth-Gehrig Careers

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were the talk of baseball all through the 1927 season, each turning in stellar performances beyond their home runs. Ruth, in addition to his record-setting 60 home runs, finished with a .356 batting average and 164 RBIs, while Gehrig complied a .373 average with 47 home runs and a league-leading 175 RBIs.

Some of Ruth’s home run blasts during 1927 were notable for their distance. One at Griffith Park in Washington, D.C. on July 3rd, 1927, soared deep into the centerfield stands and would be the longest ever hit there until surpassed by a Mickey Mantle homer in April 1953. Another Ruth homer on August 16, 1927 – a towering drive to right field at Chicago’s Comiskey Park – was described by New York Times Richards Vidmer as follows: “Upward and onward it soared in the general direction of the stockyards… And the last seen of it, it was sailing serenely over the roof of the double-decked stands with never a hint of slowing up.” During Ruth’s career there would be other famous home-run moments, such as the much-disputed “called shot” homer against the Chicago Cubs during the 1932 World Series. Sportswriter Red Smith would observe of Ruth: “It wasn’t that he hit more home runs than anybody else, he hit them better, higher, farther, with more theatrical timing and a more flamboyant flourish.”

August 11, 1929. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig inspecting retrieved home run ball hit by Ruth that day over the right field fence at Cleveland’s League Park (formerly Dunn Field). It was Ruth’s 500th career home run making him the first ever to reach that mark.

But for Ruth, outside of his record 60 home runs in 1927, that year wasn’t his best statistically. In fact, earlier in his career, in 1921, Ruth put up some very formidable numbers. That year he hit 59 homers, batted .378, and led the league in several other categories, including: runs scored (177), RBIs (171) and walks (144). His slugging percentage that year was .846, just a hair off the .847 posted the prior year, a record that stood until 2001. However, he still holds the career slugging record at .690. Yet it would be his home run performance in 1927 that would become his enduring legacy, as well as his 714 career home run total – until those records were broken decades later, respectively, by Roger Maris in 1961 and Hank Aaron in 1974.

Throughout the 1920s, however, it’s fair to say that Babe Ruth owned the home run category. From 1920-1932, he averaged more than 46 home runs a season. His lifetime statistics also include 2,873 hits, 506 doubles, 2,174 runs, 2,214 RBI, a .342 batting average, a .474 on-base percentage and a .690 slugging percentage. Ruth led the American League in home runs 12 times, in slugging percentage 13 times, base on balls 11 times, on-base percentage 10 times, runs scored eight times, and RBIs five times. Ruth retired in 1935 after a partial season with the Boston Braves, ending his 22-year big league career, disappointed that he never got the call to manage a major league team. Ruth passed away on August 16, 1948 after a battle with cancer. He was 53.

June 15, 1932 Chicago Tribune photo taken at Comiskey Park prior to Yankees’ first at-bat against the White Sox that day, with Ruth and Gehrig both holding bats at Yankees’ dugout. Gehrig and Ruth both had good years in 1932: Ruth hit .341 with 41 homers and 137 RBIs; Gehrig hit .349 with 34 homers and 151 RBIs.

Though Lou Gehrig had begun his prolific career in the shadow of Babe Ruth, by the early 1930s, as Ruth’s career wound down, Gehrig would become the dominant Yankee player, setting his own distinguished records. Gehrig, in fact, had a remarkable career. In 13 consecutive seasons he scored more than 100 runs and tallied at least 100 RBIs in every one of those years. He led the American League in runs scored four times, home runs three times, RBIs five times, and on-base percentage five times. He finished among the league’s top three hitters in batting average seven times, compiling eight seasons of 200 or more hits, and winning the MVP award in 1927 and 1936. He set the American League single-season RBI record in 1931 with 185.

July 4, 1939. Lou Gehrig during farewell ceremony honoring him at Yankee Stadium on his departure from baseball due to the neuromuscular disease, ALS (later named Lou Gehrig’s disease). In his speech, Gehrig noted to fans that they may have read about his bad break, then adding: “...Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for. Thank you”. Gehrig died from ALS in June 1941.

On June 3, 1932, Gehrig hit four home runs in succession during a game against the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park (and nearly a fifth caught at the wall), a one-game feat not then seen in the post-1900 baseball era. In 1934 he took the Triple Crown batting title with a .363 average, 49 home runs, and 166 RBIs. Called the “iron horse” for his durable and consistent play, he set the “consecutive-games-played” record in 1939 after appearing in 2,130 games with the Yankees, a record that stood for 56 years. Were it not for the disease that took him out of baseball at age 36 in April 1939 – the neuromuscular disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, later named “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” – he would undoubtedly have set a few more records. At his death in June 1941, he was just short of his 38th birthday.

For additional stories on baseball history and profiles of players such as: Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, and others, see the “Baseball Stories” topics page.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 4 June 2021
Last Update: 4 June 2021
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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Gehrig vs. Ruth, 1927: Home Run Race,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 4, 2021.

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Baseball Books & Film at Amazon.com…

“Baseball: A Film By Ken Burns,” – the definitive history; fully restored in high definition, 2021, blue-ray or DVD. Click for Amazon.

Ben Lindbergh & Travis Sawchik’s best-selling 2020 book, “The MVP Machine,” building baseball talent. Basic Books, 416 pp. Click for book.

Joe Posnanski’s 2020 best seller, “The Baseball 100,” the 100 greatest players, with foreword by George Will. Simon & Schuster. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

“Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns ,” Special Box Set, 2012. Click for video, DVD or VHS.

Roberta J. Newman’s 2019 book, “Here's the Pitch: The Amazing, True, New, and Improved Story of Baseball and Advertising,” University of Nebraska Press, 352 pp. Click for copy.

“Lou Gehrig,” Wikepedia.org.

“Babe Ruth,” Wikipedia.org.

Babe Ruth with Bob Considine, The Babe Ruth Story, 1948, E P Dutton. Click for copy.

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, (updated edition, including 10th inning), 564 pp. Click for copy.

“Babe Ruth,” Baseball Hall of Fame / Baseball Hall.org.

“Lou Gehrig,” Baseball Hall of Fame / Baseball Hall.org.

“1927 New York Yankees Season,” Wikipedia .org.

Eleanor Gehrig and Joseph Durso, My Luke and I. Mrs Lou Gehrig’s Joyous and Tragic Love for the ‘Iron Man of Baseball’, 1976, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 229 pp. Click for copy.

Ray Robinson, “Ruth and Gehrig: Friction Between Gods,” New York Times, June 2, 1991, Sports, p. 7.

Ray Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, 1990, W. W. Norton, 300 pp. Click for copy.

Marshall Smelser, The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography (paperback edition), 1993, Bison Books, 592 pp. Click for copy.

William Nack, “The Colossus,” Sports Illustrated / SI.com, August 24, 1998.

“1927 Newspapers,” 1927: The Diary of Myles Thomas, ESPN.com.

1927: The Diary of Myles Thomas. In 2016, ESPN announced this project as part a new genre of storytelling known as “real-time historical fiction.” The project includes a historical novel in the form of a ballplayer’s diary, complemented by fact-based content from the 1927 season. Through diary entries and additional material, a “re-living” of the famous Yankees season takes place, along with the broader context of that era, exploring the nexus of baseball, jazz and Prohibition.

Steven Goldman, “75 Years Later, Babe Ruth’s Hug Means Almost as Much as Lou Gehrig’s Speech Comments,” SBNation.com, July 8, 2014.

Wayne Coffey, “Luckiest Man of All; 75 Years Ago, Lou Gehrig Gave Us a Glimpse of Courage in the Face of Death,” Daily News (NY), June 29, 2014.

Glenn Frankel, Book Review, “The Truth Behind the Legend of Lou Gehrig,” Washington Post, September 15, 2017.

Gary Waleik, “Tales From Lou Gehrig’s Long-Forgotten Newspaper Columns,” WBUR.org, July 10, 2020.

____________________________

Teaser Tag: Autos & Public Health

1941-1950, 1951-1960, 1961-1970

“Smog Conspiracy”
DOJ vs. Detroit Automakers

May 22, 2021 J.D.

Famous “Earthrise” photo, taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft then circling the moon, beamed to Earth on Christmas Eve, 1968.

The year 1969 was a memorable time in America for technological accomplishment, especially in the space program, as the nation’s Apollo Program to put a man on the moon, was then at full throttle.

Down on earth, however, technological progress was another story. More on that in a moment.

But on January 10th that year, a ticker tape parade was held in New York City to honor the Apollo 8 astronauts – James Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders – who had recently returned from the first ever space flight to circle the moon, a prelude to the lunar landing later that summer.

The New York Times, reporting on the celebration in its January 11th edition, featured a front-page story with two photos, one with Mayor John Lindsay and Governor Nelson Rockefeller congratulating the astronauts.

Apollo 8 was also the flight from which the famous “Earthrise” photograph was taken. That historic photo had captured the lone, beautiful, blue-ball object that is the home planet, floating singularly in the black void of space, suggesting this was, possibly, the only life-sustaining planet out there, and that we, its occupants, ought to take care of it. Yet on that same fragile, blue ball, the record of mankind’s earth keeping had not been very good to that point.

January 11, 1969 front-page New York Times story reports on a Justice Department lawsuit alleging an automaker conspiracy on anti-pollution technology for automobiles.

In fact, on the same January 11th front page of the New York Times another story appeared just below the photos of the Apollo 8 celebration.

That story, with a Washington D.C. dateline, reported that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had brought an anti-trust lawsuit against American automobile companies for conspiring to hold back and delay the use of pollution-control devices for motor vehicles.

The suit would come to be called the “smog conspiracy” case, as it alleged that Detroit’s then “Big Four” automakers – American Motors, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, along with their trade group, the Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA) – had conspired for sixteen years (1953-1969) to prevent and delay the manufacture and use of pollution-control devices for automobiles.

The DOJ lawsuit made front-page news all across America, and potentially was a very major federal action against some of the world’s most powerful corporations. At stake, was nothing less than clean air and public health.

Chicago Tribune story on the smog conspiracy lawsuit, January 11, 1969.

The lawsuit alleged the automakers purposely agreed among themselves for more than a decade not to compete on pollution-control technology; that no one auto company would go forward with a new pollution-control innovation unless agreed upon by the others. And that vehicles equipped with such devices, would only be brought to market at an agreed-upon time. They also moved to buy up patents on new pollution-control devices by outside firms in order to keep those innovations from being applied, according to DOJ. There were also technologies and technological fixes that were known to the automobile producers capable of reducing pollution from existing internal combustion engines, but that these were also held back and/or delayed in application.

In other words, if the DOJ charges were correct, during the 1953-1969 period, millions of motor vehicles were produced without known pollution-control devices and/or known pollution-control fixes. This meant that millions of tons of auto pollutants were being dumped into urban and rural environments for more than a decade – pollution that could have been prevented – thereby harming public health and causing crop and property damage. Or looked at another way, the “breathable common” was subsidizing auto production.

The Detroit automakers and their trade association vigorously denied DOJ’s allegations. Much of the lawsuit hinged on a 1953 cooperative agreement made among the automakers to jointly research auto pollution and pollution-control technologies – with subsequent and ongoing joint auto company and AMA committee meetings under that agreement during the 1953-1969 period.

However, what DOJ billed as a conspiracy to hold back technology, the automakers claimed was industry cooperation and joint research to ensure technological advance.

Yet for some, the proof was in the pudding, as they say, since few technological advances in automobile pollution control had actually made their way to new vehicles during the 1953-1969 period. More on the legal battle and outcome after a bit of background.

L.A. Smog

The 1969 smog conspiracy case had its origins in Los Angeles, California, a city that had been choking on smog since the early 1940s – though its residents and officials then knew little about what smog really was or how it formed.

Yet this smog – a word formed by a contraction of “smoke” and “fog” – was new and different. There were days when a “pall of haze” would form over the city, as residents noticed that its peculiar yellowish-brown color was different and not benign. The soup would burn the eyes and sear the lungs. One of the first “smog days” came in the summer 1943, when visibility in some places dropped to three blocks, and hospital emergency rooms had visits from those suffering with burning eyes and lungs.

Early 1940s photo of highway leading into downtown Los Angeles, with smog forming over the city there, showing the tall landmark L.A. City Hall building at center in the distance.

Then came an episode of September 8, 1943, called a “daylight dimout” when even sunlight was diminished. “Everywhere the smog went that day,” reported the Los Angeles Times, “it left a group of irate citizens. . . Public complaints reverberated in the press. . . . Elective officials were petitioned.” Indeed they were, and some actions followed. A spate of laws and commissions came into being.

The Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District, established in 1947, was the first of its kind anywhere in the nation. By 1948, L.A. had targeted smokestack industries like oil refineries, foundries and mills, and later, backyard incinerators. But the smog persisted. Autos, for the most part, were not obvious smoke-belching contributors, with exhausts that were mostly invisible and thought to play only a minor role in the smog problem.

January 5, 1948. Smog formed in downtown Los Angeles, with City Hall building to the left. UCLA photo.

Then, in the fall of 1949, there was an event that occurred hundreds of miles north of L.A., at a University of California-vs-Washington State football game in Berkeley that offered some fairly convincing “cause-and-effect” clues. There, a fairly intense pollution event occurred at the stadium, which later led state legislators to investigate.

On the day of the game that fall, thousands of fans drove into Berkeley with resulting traffic congestion. Later that day, during the game, after the soup had formed, the pollution became so bad that “many thousands of persons attending . . . experienced intense eye irritation.” Game-day pollution at a 1949 Berkeley football game implicated autos – later seen as a microcosm of L.A. smog. Later, in the California General Assembly, the Committee on Air and Water Pollution investigated the incident, noting that the only unusual occurrence that day “was the concentration of automobiles at the football game in Berkeley, accentuated by the idling of motors, starting and stopping, which occurs in such a traffic jam.” There was no other industrial or other source in the area. It could only be concluded, the committee said, “that the cause of this particular eye irritation was in some way directly related to automobile exhaust.” In fact, the committee suggested that the pollution in Berkeley that afternoon was really quite similar–“very striking” in their words–to what was occurring in Los Angeles on a daily basis. The game-day traffic in the stadium area, they suggested, was actually a microcosm of what was happening over a much larger area in Los Angeles, where “the crowding of existing freeways leading to the downtown area results in daily traffic jams as the flood of cars enters the city in the morning, with resulting accentuation of the exhaust problem by idling, stopping, and starting.” Although there was little hard science to verify their hunch, they believed that vehicle exhaust, from auto combustion engines, was certainly contributing to the LA pollution problem.

Dr. Arie J. Haagen-Smit, discovered that the sun “cooked” certain auto pollutants in a photochemical reaction to make ground-level “ozone,” an unhealthy pollutant.

Ozone Man

Meanwhile, back in L.A., one inquisitive scientist, Dr. Arie J. Haagen-Smit, a professor of biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology, had begun researching the region’s air pollution. Haagen-Smit, initially working on how air pollution was damaging crops, began in 1950 researching how smog actually formed.

Haagen-Smit made an important discovery – that unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, coming primarily from automobile exhaust and some industrial sources, were “cooked” by sunlight in a photochemical reaction to form ground-level ozone, later revealed as a respiratory irritant.

Breathing ground-level ozone can trigger chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion. It can worsen bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. It can also reduce lung function and inflame the lining of the lungs. Repeated exposure may permanently scar lung tissue.

As Haagen-Smit’s ozone findings emerged, there was some finger-pointing initially among those in the auto and oil industries, as to whose sources were the bigger culprits. But it soon became clear that the region’s burgeoning auto population was central to the smog problem. By 1954, L.A.’s two million cars were racking up 50 million miles of travel every day. Episodes of dense smog in the L.A. area continued. On one occasion in 1954, the smog was so bad that it reduced visibility to the point where some 2,000 auto accidents occurred in a single day. Life magazine, the popular American weekly of that era, did a brief November 1954 story on L.A. smog titled, “Blight on the Land of Sunshine,” with photos of the city shrouded in smog and citizens in protest clamoring for action.

1956. Traffic on the Pasadena Freeway, which connects L.A. with Pasadena, captures the growing population of motor vehicles then in the L.A. region, where “vehicle miles of travel” for its then 2 million-plus vehicles, was exceeding 50 million miles every day.

By the mid-1950s, Dr. Haagen-Smit’s findings on the connection between automobiles and smog in Los Angeles became widely accepted in scientific circles – but not in most auto industry circles, at least not publicly.

In fact, as Los Angeles authorities began closing in on the automobile as major smog contributor, the auto industry doubled down and began its “denial-and-delay” campaign that would continue in one form or another for the next 50 years – not only in LA., but nationally as well. But it was in L.A., where the automakers made their earliest stands of denial and obfuscation.

1956 photo of smog in downtown Los Angeles, with the City Hall building at center.

First, the industry insisted on definitive proof that autos were the cause of L.A. smog. General Motors had already written in March 1953, for example, that while Los Angeles studies indicated that exhaust gases “may be contributing factor to the smog,” other cities did not appear to have the same problem. Thus, for GM, “some other factors,” peculiar to Los Angeles, “may be contributing to this problem.” Ford officials, also writing in March 1953, had taken the view that exhaust vapors from automobiles “dissipated in the atmosphere quickly and do not represent an air pollution problem.” Ford officials contended that the need for a device “to more effectively reduce exhaust vapors had not been established.”

Next, after the automakers conceded in 1954 that the automobile was the largest single source of hydrocarbons in Los Angeles, and that auto exhausts were capable of forming ozone, industry officials wanted further work to substantiate the exact cause-and-effect relationship between auto pollutants and smog. In 1955, the automakers held that the evidence did not prove auto pollutants produced smog and its harmful effects, such as eye irritation and crop damage, etc.

September 1955. Front-page New York Times story on Los Angeles smog showing four people reacting to the pollution who were walking near the L.A. Civic Center. The city was then experiencing one of its worst bouts of smog on record.

In 1957 when definitive proof was found that the automobile was the primary cause of photochemical air pollution, the automakers reverted to an earlier held position that the smog problem was peculiar to Los Angeles. It continued to espouse this view for three more years.

By 1959 the state legislature passed laws, making California the first to establish air quality standards based on the public health effects of smog. But progress was slow. “Eye irritation” that year was reported in Los Angeles on 187 days; by 1962 it was 212 days.

Headline from Sept 1958 L.A. Times story on a smog alert, a headline that would become all too common in the region during the 1950s-1960s period – and beyond.

The auto industry, meanwhile, was still bobbing and weaving. In a late February 1960 statement before Congress, the AMA’s Karl M. Richards conceded that Los Angeles’ smog may well come from automobiles, but the aggravating quality was not due to anything in the automotive gases per se, but rather, was caused by the unique nature of the Los Angeles Basin’s topography and meteorology.

Photochemical smog, Richards explained, was only caused when the unique combination of all the L.A. factors came into play: persistent temperature inversion, encircling mountains, very light wind movement, and intense sunlight. Further, photochemical smog, he said, “is not likely to occur anywhere else on earth with the frequency and intensity found in this area.” Richards added that the auto industry would not consider controls on its vehicles in other parts of the country until it was demonstrated that hydrocarbons presented a problem elsewhere.

Yet automobile-fed air pollution was occurring in other cities across America. “Los Angles-type smog” was being reported in New York, Philadelphia, and other cities by the late 1950s, also spreading to rural areas in some locations. Commercial airline pilots in the 1950s and 1960s reported seeing the skies over broad regions of the U.S. becoming less and less clear — and not just over urban areas.

“They Have a Responsibility”
Ken Hahn’s Letters
1953–1967

In February 1953, Kenneth Hahn, a Los Angeles County supervisor, wrote a letter to Henry Ford II to ask what Ford’s company knew about automobile pollution and what the company’s research plans were. Mr. Ford replied, through his staff, that there was really no problem, and therefore, no need for research. “The Ford engineering staff, although mindful that automobile engines produce gases, feels that these waste vapors are dissipated in the atmosphere quickly and do not present an air pollution problem,” replied Ford’s public affairs manager, Dan J. Chabak. “Therefore, our research department has not conducted any experimental work aimed at totally eliminating these gases.” Hahn was later assured by Detroit that an industry wide study of the exhaust problem had begun. Mr. Hahn, however, kept writing, pushing for action.

Ken Hahn, L.A. official.

In 1955 he was told in one reply, “We will soon be in a position to make recommendations which should point the way to reduction of hydrocarbons in automotive exhaust gases.” Nearly two years passed. Hahn again inquired about exhaust controls. Will they be ready for 1957 models? “We have . . . established the 1958 model year as the goal for the production of deceleration devices.” Still, there was little progress. Finally, in October 1960, the president of General Motors replying to Hahn, wrote, “I am gratified to report that positive crankcase ventilation is available on all 1961 General Motors passenger cars being delivered to California. We believe that this relatively inexpensive device will perform a major job of reducing air pollution.” Positive crankcase ventilation (see later below) – based on a technique known to industry since the 1930s – took care of gases in the engine proper, but only about 25 percent of hydrocarbon exhaust. Hahn wrote back to express his disappointment.

In January 1964, when Hahn testified before two U.S. Senate committees, he handed out a little booklet of the collected correspondence he had made with the automakers, explaining to the senators:

. . . I have tried to tell [the auto executives]. . . that they have a responsibility on air pollution and they have not met it. . . .

. . . [T]hey know about the problem. . . .They have been here; there are devices manufactured that have been proven. . . . [A]nd it is strange why they have not put it on all their cars. . . .

. . . Now they have had ten years of warning, all documented with answers back from their own officials saying they are studying the problem and researching it. They can research this to death; in the meantime we haven’t licked the problem. . .

It would not be until 1966–thirteen years after Mr. Hahn began his inquiries of the automakers–that exhaust controls would be required on new California cars. And even then, it would only be by force of law. Meanwhile, Ken Hahn’s 1953-1967 correspondence with the automakers leaves behind a record as good as any on the industry’s attitudes on pollution control at the time.

Birth of Lawsuit

1959 photo, S. Smith Griswold, L.A. County

The seeds of a possible auto industry conspiracy lawsuit had been planted by L.A. officials who had been questioning the car makers regularly about their efforts to control emissions since the early 1950s. As noted in the Ken Hahn sidebar above, regular inquiries of the industry – and their runaround replies – had been made since 1953.

Another L.A. official, S. Smith Griswold, the Chief Air Pollution Control Officer for the L.A. Air Pollution Control District since 1954, had been quite critical of the auto industry’s lack of progress on pollution. “Patent data,” Griswold once said, “shows that automobile pollution controls were available as far back as 1909.”

But in June 1964, Griswold, by then L.A. County Pollution Control Board executive, gave a speech at the annual meeting of the Air Pollution Control Association. Griswold recalled that in 1953 the automakers had made a joint cooperative agreement with one another, supposedly to pool their research on air pollution and come up with a solution.

The automakers said they would make progress jointly and even set up cross-licensing agreements to insure that progress by one would be progress by all. But a skeptical Griswold wondered what they had actually come up with.

Ralph Nader helped L.A. officials see legal action against the auto-industry.

“What has the industry accomplished in the last ten years?” he asked in his speech. “How has this [joint agreement] worked out?” Then he burrowed in with a more stinging observation. “Apparently, it has served to guarantee that no manufacturer would break ranks and bring into this field of air pollution control the same kind of competitive stimulus that spokesmen for the industry frequently pay homage to. . . .”

Griswold had hit upon a possible antitrust issue that was later driven home to him by Washington, D.C. attorney Ralph Nader, who was then beginning his career as a leading consumer advocate. In addition to alerting Griswold of the possible auto industry collusion, Nader also briefed Justice Department officials on what he thought was the basis for a major antitrust suit.

Griswold then drafted a resolution for the LA County Board of Supervisors citing the auto industry’s lack of progress on pollution-control technology.

The resolution, adopted in January 1965, specifically requested the U.S. Attorney General to initiate an investigation and take legal action to prevent the automakers from engaging in “further collusive obstruction.” By this time, the Justice Department had already subpoenaed records from the industry, and a formal investigation was underway. But the full pursuit of the case would take several years

During 1967-68, as the DOJ case moved forward, an eighteen-month grand jury investigation was convened in Los Angeles. The smog in L.A., meanwhile, had not abated, and was a continuing problem.

January 1967. Time magazine featured a cover photo of a smog-shrouded Los Angeles, around the time the DOJ grand jury investigation began in the automaker conspiracy case.

As Time magazine reported in January 1967 – with L.A. smog depicted on its cover:

“Instead of disappearing… Los Angeles’ characteristic whisky-brown smog has actually grown worse. The culprits are Los Angeles County’s 3.75 million autos, which produce 12,420 of the 13,730 tons of contaminants released in to the air over the county every day [emphasis added]… In addition to nearly 10,000 tons of carbon monoxide, autos exhaust 2,000 tons of hydrocarbons and 530 tons of nitrogen oxides daily, enough to form a substantial brew of irritating smog.”

Back inside the Justice Department, attorneys handling the conspiracy case had initially sought a criminal indictment, but “higher ups” hedged and delayed action. As the case evolved, there was debate over whether the grand jury should seek a criminal or civil indictment. The civil route won out.

Four federal judges who might receive the case were strongly opposed to criminal sanctions in antitrust cases. In addition, it had been long-standing Justice Department policy to reserve the criminal route for price-fixing and other traditional cases in which there was
no question of blatantly illegal conduct.

However, this auto pollution case was not traditional. Some, like Ralph Nader, argued for “product fixing;” that restraint of technology was restraint of trade, preventing competition. This, however, was a very novel approach at the time, especially in the conservative world of antitrust litigation.

D.C. attorney, Lloyd Cutler, post-1960s photo, represented auto industry in smog case and helped negotiate DOJ consent decree.

But finally, in January 1969, as noted at the top of this story, a civil suit was filed against the automakers. Yet the filing came at an awkward time, just as the Johnson Administration was leaving office, then handing the case off to the Nixon Administration’s new attorney general, John Mitchell. The auto industry, meanwhile, was in very competent legal hands.

Lloyd Cutler, then a well-known and respected 51 year-old attorney at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, was representing the Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA).

Cutler, in fact, had been in and out of meetings at the Justice Department for weeks during 1969 on the smog conspiracy case, negotiating on behalf of his clients. By late summer 1969, there came rumor of a deal on the smog conspiracy case.

Sure enough, on September 11th, 1969 – nine months after the case was filed – the Justice Department announced that the case would be settled by consent decree. In the legal trade, consent decrees are viewed as a way to save face, save cost, and not drag all the parties through a public display of charge and countercharge. For the automakers, that was good news. There would also be no findings or admissions of illegal activity.

Fight The Decree

September 1969 New York Times story on proposed consent decree.

Others supporting the DOJ lawsuit, however, were furious. They viewed the consent decree as a clear victory for the auto industry, a way to avoid a public airing of the case, essentially escaping more than fifteen years of illegal activity. Ralph Nader wrote to DOJ’s antitrust chief, Richard W. McLaren, asserting that criminal wrongdoing was uncovered by the grand jury, that the consent decree was weak by comparison, contained insufficient enforcement procedures, and that key provisions of the decree would expire after ten years. Nader and others asked Justice to rescind the decree and bring the matter to trial.

A key issue became the evidence compiled by the grand jury investigation. Under the consent decree, that evidence would be sealed forever. However, if the case were brought to trial, and the defendants found guilty of conspiracy, under the antitrust laws, any injured parties could then bring their own suits to recover three times the damages suffered. Triple damages are designed to serve as a deterrent to future violations, and in this case, future conspiracies against the public good.

Earlier on Capitol Hill, as rumors swirled about a settlement, a group of nineteen congressmen, led by Reps. George Brown (D-CA) and Bob Eckhart (D-TX), sent a letter to Attorney General Mitchell expressing their concern that a full trial was needed to show the public that corporate law breaking was no different than any other violation of law. The Justice Department, nevertheless, proceeded with its agreement.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, Supervisor Kenneth Hahn told the press that Los Angeles County would demand the unsealing of “a roomful of federal grand jury evidence” gathered by the grand jury. According to Hahn, the foreman of the grand jury, Martin Walshbren, was quite angry over the Justice Department’s consent agreement. In fact, when asked by a Los Angeles Times reporter if there was more to the case than the consent decree suggested, Mr. Walshbren said, “Yes,” there was, “a great deal more.” Walshbren also believed an indictment of some kind would have been brought by the grand jury if DOJ had sought one.

L.A.’s Kenneth Hahn wanted a trial. “The presidents of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler should be brought to trial right here in Los Angeles. . . . The big manufacturers all conspired. If one wouldn’t put the devices on, the others wouldn’t either. . . . This case is the most important legal battle in the history of the air pollution fight. If we lose it, we will go back twenty years.” California attorney general, Thomas Lynch, planned to file a separate antitrust action against the auto companies, but said he too was being hampered by the seal on the grand jury records. He was unable to question key grand jury witnesses.

“The presidents of General Motors, Ford, and Chrys-ler should be brought to trial right here in Los Angeles. . . The big manufacturers all conspired.”
– Kenneth HahnStill, there was one last chance for those opposing the settlement, as the consent decree had to be approved by a federal judge. A brief but intense campaign to prevent the approval of the decree followed. Thousands of individuals, scores of congressmen, and numerous municipalities petitioned Federal District Court Judge Jesse W. Curtis not to approve the decree. Other related developments at the time included the following:

> the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors asked the federal courts to allow them to intervene in the original suit and to sue the manufacturers for $100 million in damages. At the time, other municipalities were also being asked to join Los Angeles in the intervention. With other parties joining the case, it was thought that the court might be reluctant to agree to the settlement before holding an open trial.

> members of the Judiciary Committees in both Houses of Congress were asked to sign a letter urging the Justice Department to review its whole policy towards the use of consent decrees in antitrust cases.

> Rep. George Brown (D-CA) started a statewide petition drive requesting the Justice Department to withdraw the settlement, and he also introduced a four-part resolution in the House, part of which requested the full transcript of the 1966-67 grand jury investigation, including subpoenaed documents.

October 1969 NY Times story on the smog decree’s final approval.

On October 28, 1969, the two sides came before the judge at the US District Court in the Central District of California. Lloyd Cutler rose on behalf of his clients.”. . . [This] is the first case I am aware of that has ever been brought against an industry for cooperating in the exchange of technology in order to solve a public health problem. . . .” A few hours later, Judge Curtis approved the decree; the auto industry had its deal. Yet, the public only had a fleeting glimpse of what this case was all about, and more importantly, what the auto industry had done – or not done – to deserve this level of federal action.

Following the consent decree’s approval, there was a flurry of legal actions related to the DOJ case that continued through mid-1973. Some twenty-eight states and another ten cities and counties brought private actions against the automakers after the federal case was settled. These actions, modeled on DOJ’s antitrust case, sought damages for automotive air pollution. Later consolidated into one case in California, the suits sought a variety of remedies, asking, for example, that auto companies be ordered to take steps to eliminate smog, make contributions toward the establishment of mass transit systems, and provide free emissions testing of automobiles.

In June 1973, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the plaintiffs could not sue for damages in the case but they could seek equitable protection under the antitrust law. However, in October 1973, Federal Judge Manuel Real dismissed thirty-four of the thirty-eight cases saying that the antitrust laws did not give him the power to force the automakers to find a solution to the pollution problem. The automakers argued that antitrust laws were reserved for the regulation of business conduct and the adjudication of business damage. The cases brought, they argued, were not about business damage in the strictest sense of antitrust tradition, as in price-fixing. Judge Real agreed. He explained, this was “not the result of any conspiracy or combination in restraint of trade.” The antitrust laws, he explained, “are not intended–nor do they purport to be–a panacea to cure all the ills that befall our citizenry by the accident that some damage or injury may have been caused by a business enterprise.” The suits had asked the judge to depart from traditional antitrust law to “find a solution to this most perplexing social problem.” Some later speculated that the states might have fared better had they pursued a public nuisance argument rather than mimicking the federal government’s antitrust case.

Phil Burton’s Disclosure

In 1971, U.S. Rep. Phil Burton revealed DOJ memo from the “smog conspiracy” case.

In any event, more details from the DOJ conspiracy case did emerge courtesy of California congressman, Phil Burton, Democrat from San Francisco In May 1971, nearly two years after the DOJ case was settled, Burton obtained a copy of the original Justice Department memorandum on the case and submitted it to the Congressional Record. According to Burton, the memo–which had been kept under wraps since it was written in 1968–contained “previously undisclosed evidence” not available when the case was settled. It revealed, among other things, that a criminal proceeding was recommended rather than the civil case that DOJ finally did bring. It also provided some detail on the auto industry’s delay tactics and technological foot-dragging on auto emission controls.

“The disclosures are especially painful in light of the settlement of the government’s civil case . . . ,” said Burton, submitting the DOJ memo to the public record on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was immune from prosecution for revealing court-sealed documents. The settlement, in Burton’s view, “deprived the public of an open trial on all the issues;” a trial that he believed would deter the auto industry from technological collusion at the public’s expense. Burton urged Attorney General John Mitchell to reopen the case, conduct both a Justice Department investigation and convene a new grand jury to consider a conspiracy indictment–none of which ultimately occurred. Yet Burton was especially interested in an investigation to determine whether the alleged conspiracy was continuing. “All indications since the consent decree was approved point to the dismaying fact that nothing has changed,” Burton said. “The automobile companies continue their carefully orchestrated united front — claiming in every public, hearing and in every public docket that they can’t meet the deadlines for anti-smog devices.” (By then, in fact, the 1970 Clean Air Act had been passed by Congress with set auto emissions deadlines that the auto industry also fought).

Yet, Burton’s disclosure of the DOJ memo brought new evidence to the public record, showing how the auto industry and its trade association dealt with the growing auto pollution problem during the 1953-1967 period; how they maneuvered to hold back and delay pollution control technologies even while assuring public officials they were going all out to develop those technologies. Some of the technological delay the DOJ memo reveled follows below.

Crankcase Pollution

Bluster on Blow-By

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, three parts of the automobile were seen as the primary targets for addressing pollution: the crankcase, the carburetor/fuel tank, and the exhaust system. At the time, experts estimated that 25 percent of the pollutants came from the crankcase, 15-to-25 percent from evaporation losses at the carburetor and fuel tank; and 50-to-60 percent the engine’s exhaust.

Generalized graphic showing three major areas of auto pollution - crankcase, carburetor/fuel tank & exhaust system.

The first part of the automobile to receive pollution control attention – courtesy of pressure from California officials – was the crankcase, the engine compartment directly below the combustion chamber in which firing pistons located in sleeve-like cylinders above, connect to and turn a crankshaft that brings drive power to the vehicle. Some unburned gases from the internal combustion engine – known in the industry as “blow-by” since they escaped around the pistons during combustion – went into the crankcase. The gases, however, did not go into the exhaust system, but rather, were vented out of the crankcase and into the atmosphere. In fact, for decades prior, these crankcase pollutants were simply released from the bottom of the engine through a vent pipe opening to the road below. There were no controls– or at least none in use for most vehicles. But there was a simple fix — something called “positive crankcase ventilation” – that took the blow-by gases back into the engine’s intake manifold where they were consumed, at least partially, in the combustion process. GM later patented the Positive Crankcase Ventilation Valve (also known as the PCV valve) in 1959 and was credited with “discovering” that the PCV valve was effective in helping eliminate crankcase gases.

Engine graphic at left shows crankcase pollutants being recirculated for recombustion. Yet for decades prior, crankcase pollutants were simply released from the bottom of the engine through a vent pipe to the road below and into the atmosphere. There were no controls – or at least none in use for most vehicles.

Neither “positive crankcase ventilation,” nor the PCV valve itself, were new concepts or technological breakthroughs. PCV valve was known about since the 1940s – and the principle of vacuuming off the gases from the crankcase back to the carburetor or intake manifold for recombustion – long before that. Howe Hopkins, an industry old-timer, former federal emissions official, and long-standing member of the American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), offered this account in 1969:

“. . . From 1921-1923, Ludlow Clayton of the Sun Oil Company wrote numerous papers for the SAE Journal on drawing crankcase gases out by creating a small vacuum. Back in about 1936, I went down to the Studebaker plant to meet W.S. James, the company engineer who demonstrated for me a simple tube attachment from the crankcase to the intake manifold to recirculate and recombust the crankcase gases. They were offering a conversion kit for this which was essentially only a length of copper tubing. . . .”

Although certainly by the early 1950s there was sufficient understanding of crankcase blowby, some in the industry would portray crankcase ventilation as a new development. Almost magically, 1959 had become the year industry “discovered” what to do with crankcase pollutants. “In 1959, through a truly extraordinary stroke of good fortune,” reported one account from the AMA “–the crankcase was discovered to be a more important source of emissions than had been suggested by prior government and other studies.”

Auto industry officials, then eyeing possible statewide regulation in California with strong pressure from local officials in Los Angeles, soon began to see that installing the relatively simple PCV device on California cars might be a way to forestall even tougher regulation by the state.

Exhaust Devices

Catalytic Reaction

By the late 1950s, California had signaled its intent to the auto industry that exhaust-treating devices might be required. The automakers, however, were known to be less than excited by such a prospect. “They [the Big Three] are not . . . interested in making or selling devices. . . ,” wrote Dr. Donald Diggs, a technical manager at Du Pont, in an April 21, 1959 report. “[B]ut are working solely to protect themselves against poor public relations and the time when exhaust control devices may be required by law.”

Graphic showing placement of catalytic converter in the exhaust system to treat engine pollutants, exiting tail pipe.

Cut-away drawing of later-developed catalytic converter, in this case converting engine pollutants HC, CO, and NOx to water and CO2 after passing through a treatment medium.

In May 1959, Ford’s James Chandler took the position that the smog problem “is not bad enough to warrant the enormous cost and administrative problems of installing three million afterburners.” Chandler, in fact, believed that one of the functions of the AMA working group was to “contain” the smog problem.

J.D. Ullman, another Du Pont technical expert working on auto-related issues noted in April 1960: “We gathered that the automobile industry will continue to do whatever it can within the scope of California legislation and of political pressure to postpone installation of exhaust control devices. . . .” An official of the Maremont Automotive Products Co., also doing business with Detroit, confided to a Du Pont colleague in May 1960 that the automakers “were keeping up a good front, but were not pushing as rapidly as they could toward a solution of the smog abatement problem.”

What the automakers feared most, however, was that some outside interest might begin to meddle in the core of their business in a way that could affect control over what was produced. This fear surfaced as a new group of businesses began working on catalytic devices to be installed in exhaust systems to treat and reduce auto pollution.

Catalysts are substances used to facilitate a chemical reaction without themselves being consumed in the reaction. By the time catalysts were being considered for pollution control in the auto industry, they had been used for years in various industrial processes. Catalysts applied as a remedy to the exhaust fumes of gasoline engines were first used in the coal mining industry to deal with the carbon monoxide problem in enclosed spaces. In the 1920s, researchers at Johns Hopkins and the U.S. Bureau of Mines produced a substance called “hopcalite” to control CO. Separately, in fact, Johns Hopkins researchers had applied the substance to automobiles about the same time and published a research report about the attempt.

June 1955 Popular Science story highlighting some of the early catalytic converter research of Eugene Houdry.

Eugene Houdry, a French engineer, who came to America in the late 1930s, devised techniques for catalytic cracking of petroleum that helped oil companies make higher grade gasoline and aviation fuels. Following WWII, Houdry also used catalysts to treat various kinds of exhausts from engine-driven forklifts, mining equipment, and warehouse machinery.

Later concerned with possible health risks of automobile and industrial air pollution, Houdry started the Oxy-Catalyst Company, and would build early, generic catalytic converters capable of reducing carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons from auto exhaust.

A June 1955 Popular Science story, shown at right, highlighted Houdry’s work with catalysts to control pollution, suggesting they would soon come to automobiles. In 1956 Huodry received a U.S. patent for his early automobile catalytic converter design.

Detroit, however, was never keen on catalytic devices, especially those made by outside firms. The automakers would do all in their power to delay the day such devices would be required.

True, in 1957 Ford Motor had tested and bragged about its vanadium pentoxide device to the press – (a move that brought Ford a rebuke from its co-conspirators for violating the industry agreement of a united front). Ford’s device, in any case, was an early, crude version of a catalytic converter; so big and cumbersome that some speculated it was purposely put forward to show that such exhaust-treatment devices wouldn’t work.

August 13, 1964 NY Times story.

As California had made it clear that exhaust devices of some sort were going to be required on what amounted to about 10 percent of the nation’s cars, a fairly sizeable market, several non-automobile companies began investigating the catalytic converter in earnest as a business opportunity. Among them, each later teaming up with muffler manufacturers, were American Machine & Foundry Co./Chromalloy; Universal Oil Products/Arvin Industries; W.R. Grace/Norris-Thermador Corp.; American Cyanamid/ Walker Manufacturing; and Engelhard Industries.

The operative “trigger” for setting in motion the state’s requirement for installing exhaust controls was state certification of any two new devices. One year following such certification, automobiles then sold in California would have to be equipped with one or the other device. By the end of 1963 and early 1964, it was clear that two devices being produced by non-auto manufacturers would be certified, thereby triggering the law, and requiring their installation on all 1966 models. At the AMA, meanwhile, a March 1964 memorandum from William Sherman, offered a strategy for how the automakers might gain a one-year delay. Ford was also maneuvering at the time to say it could only meet a 1967 model-year goal.

California, however, did not blink in the face of industry’s delay gambits. The MVPCB notified the automakers that the state was testing four exhaust control devices on an accelerated basis. MVPCB’s chairman, J. B. Askew indicated the board was hopeful industry “would work with us to achieve exhaust controls for 1966 models.” In June 1964, the board approved four exhaust devices manufactured by nonautomotive manufacturers. In July, it requested Detroit’s plans for meeting the 1966 model-year requirement. On August 12, 1964, the automakers formally presented their intentions to comply with the 1966 model-year deadline.

As it turned out, however, none of the automakers used the approved catalytic devices developed by the outside manufacturers. What emerged in place of the catalytic devices was a “combustion control” approach Chrysler had known about since 1957 – something called the “Clean Air Package.” (The catalytic converter debate would resume once the federal 1970 Clean Air Act was passed by Congress, as converters were eventually used to help meet those standards).

Engine Tinkering

Clean Air Package

The Clean Air Package was criticized in the Nader Task Force book, “Vanishing Air.” Click for copy.

However, Chrysler’s Clean Air Package (also billed as “The Cleaner Air Package” in some accounts), was not exactly rocket science. The “system” for controlling exhaust emissions had two essential elements: more complete combustion and retarding the spark. These fixes were accomplished by adjusting the fuel/air ratio reducing the amount of gasoline burned, thereby reducing the amount of unburned, polluting gases; and adjusting the timing of the spark at the combustion chamber, which had the net effect of making the engine run at higher temperatures, thereby burning up some of the exhaust gases outside the combustion chamber. This, however, was not new technology.

“The technological breakthrough that is the Clean Air Package,” concluded Ralph Nader’s Task Force in Vanishing Air, “consists generally of . . . [a] different rubber hood seal, different cylinder gaskets, reduced production tolerances, and a different manifold heat valve. The carburetor and distributor employ very simple control valves.”

Auto industry veteran, Howe Hopkins, would explain of the long-known engine adjustments: “I knew about the effect of retarding timing on combustion efficiency in 1925,” he said. “But of course, others knew about it before that. The Model-T Ford had a manual device so that the owner could advance or retard the spark. . . .”

All told, concluded the Nader Task Force, “the Clean Air Package can hardly be heralded as a breakthrough in the annals of automotive history.”

It also became apparent that the adjustments in engine timing and spark used as a pollution-control strategy in the Clean Air Package were highly dependent upon regular maintenance and adjustment to local driving conditions to consistently reduce pollution.The Clean Air Package was not new technology; it consisted of engine adjustments known since the 1920s and deteriorated with use. Chrysler’s “package” deteriorated with use and would not cut pollution in 50 to 80 percent of operating vehicles. Engine adjustments made for cars in Los Angeles weren’t necessarily appropriate for stop-and-go driving in major cities of the northeast. The CAP and CAP-like systems also caused the engine to produce higher temperatures by combusting excess gases in the engine compartment, and with that, other pollutants began to form, and most notably, nitrogen oxides (NOx), a chief component of photochemical oxidants, or smog. NOx was then not regulated, so for industry, it did not figure into the pollution control fix at the time. Still, industry knew about the NOx problem at this juncture and knew it would be a problem going forward, but proceeded essentially to engineer around it. But for the auto industry, the CAP was a masterpiece of strategy; it was a low-cost, Band-Aid application when something more like a tourniquet was needed

In any case, GM, Ford, and American Motors eventually adopted the Chrysler CAP, or approaches similar to it, for their 1966 model year cars as well. As for the emerging catalytic converter industry, once it was learned that Chrysler’s Clean Air Package would be certified by California in 1964, most of the outside companies engaged in making catalytic devices either stopped or shelved their programs. CAP-like systems would also be used nationwide and would continue to be the primary “technology” used to control auto pollution, though quite poorly, through the early 1970s.

1968 General Motors print ad. “Air Pollution? They Never Heard of It.” Once basic pollution control devices and simple engine adjustments began to be used, GM sought to publicly tout its role in reducing pollution, although also, as in this ad, instructing drivers on their maintenance role.

Much Longer Story

The revealed 1950s-1960s technological foot-dragging by the auto industry, and the travail of the failed DOJ smog conspiracy case, are only a small part of the much longer story of automaker maneuvering and recalcitrance on auto pollution, fuel economy, safety, and alternative engine technology. It’s a story that continued through the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and beyond — and in fact, continues to this day in the current climate debate.

Brock Yates’ 1983 book on big-car myopia & other failings. Click for copy.

Following the smog conspiracy case, the automakers discovered they didn’t need to conspire to hold back technological improvements. Rather, their lobbying, political muscle, economic leverage, legal firepower, and public relations campaigns were typically sufficient to thwart the needed technology, whether for pollution-control, fuel economy, or alternative engine development. This is evident from the now 60-year record of their participation in the public policy arena, in which they were able, repeatedly, to water down, extend, delay, and/or subvert emissions and fuel economy standards and deadlines. Indeed, one GM official would later boast that in terms of the original 1970 Clean Air Act’s auto emission goals, “ninety-three [1993] was the first model year we ever built a model certified to seventy-five [1975] standards.”

But it wasn’t just the Clean Air Act they battled – which they fought from its inception in 1970 through subsequent amendment and into the late 1990s when new “smog & soot” provisions were sought. They also won rollbacks on fuel economy standards, learned how to game fleet accounting under the CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) program, and also threatened to use “foreign content” or move plants abroad to skirt MPG goals. When California moved to encourage electric vehicle development with tighter emissions standards, they worked to scuttle that program. And when Northeast states sought to adopt tighter California emissions standards, they fought that as well. They sometimes used front groups and fake grass roots names to oppose new actions in Congress. And they spared no expense in lobbying and PR campaigns to oppose updates to the clean air and fuel economy laws.

David Halberstam’s 1986 book on Ford & Nissan provides period context & perceptive historical analysis. Click for copy.

For years, the Detroit automakers were fixated on big car profits, expressed disdain for smaller European and Japanese cars, and were reluctant to make capital plant investments to change product lineups. When their own smaller cars were first produced, they were often poorly engineered, losing market share to European and Japanese competitors.

And although American automakers had studied or knew about improvements such as front-wheel drive, fuel injection, improved transmissions, and multi-valve engines (some, as early as the 1950s, and again in the early 1970s) – all technologies that would improve fuel efficiency and more – they ignored them or were slow to install them, lagging behind their competitors by years in some cases.

When sales went flat on the heels of energy crises, they typically asked Congress for help and regulatory relief. In periods of high profits, they spent their proceeds poorly, some on mergers and acquisitions rather than improved engineering of cars and trucks.

When the “quality revolution” arrived to make them better competitors, environmental and energy elements were not incorporated into the capital goods calculus. All in all, there were missed opportunities in the 1950s-1990s time frame that could have made the outcomes much different.

Maryann Keller’s 1989 book on GM is also good period history. Click for copy.

Most puzzling to those who studied and knew the industry, including any number of engineers inside Detroit, was the fact that the industry clearly had the technical capability to be energy and environmental leaders. Afterall, this was the industry that became the “Arsenal of Democracy” in WWII, converting their plants overnight to turn out a staggering array of fighter planes, tanks, and technologically complex weapons and other munitions. In more recent years, they have helped NASA. So why the decades-long histrionics over energy and environmental improvements?

To be sure, the air in America today is cleaner than it was in the 1950s and 1960s, as the energy and environmental performance of Detroit-made motor vehicles is much improved, no question. But as the annual reports of the American Lung Association typically show, there are too many metro areas in America (and around the world) having bad ozone days. And while “end-of-combustion-engine” deadlines and surging electric vehicle development now hold promise for further reducing the motor vehicle share of bad air and greenhouse gases, we are clearly not out of the woods yet.

Much more detail on the auto industry’s economic and environmental history is found in any number of the books and reports cited in this story and in the “Sources” section below. Additional stories at this website with auto industry content include the following: “The DeLorean Saga” (about John DeLorean’s rise and fall at GM and his bid to build the DeLorean Motor Car); “G.M. & Ralph Nader” (covering Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed and GM’s attempt to discredit him); and “Dinah Shore & Chevrolet” (about the popular 1950s TV personality who helped sell Chevrolets).

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 22 May 2021
Last Update: 22 May 2021
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Smog Conspiracy: DOJ vs. Detroit
Automakers,” PopHistoryDig.com, May 22, 2021.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Jack Doyle's, “Taken For A Ride: Detroit’s Big Three and The Politics of Pollution,” covers the 50-year clean car fight. Click for copy. (some book excerpts used in the foregoing story.).

Chip Jacobs & William J Kelly’s 2008 book, “Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles,” Abrams Press; updated 2015, 400 pp. Click for copy.

Dave Cooke’s 2017 report, “Time for a U-Turn: Automakers’ History of Intransigence and an Opportunity for Change,” Union of Concerned Scientists, 56 pp. Click for PDF.

James J. Flink’s cultural, economic and political history, “The Automobile Age,” described as “a virtual encyclopedia of automotive history.” MIT 1990 paperback, 472pp, Click for copy.

Karen R. Merrill’s book, “The Oil Crisis of 1973-1974: A Brief History with Documents,” Bedford/St. Martin's; 1st edition, 2007, 192pp. Click for copy.

Margo T. Oge’s 2015 book, “Driving the Future: Combating Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars,” Arcade. 368pp. Click for copy.

Bill Vlasic’s 2011 book, “Once Upon a Car: The Fall and Resurrection of America's Big Three Automakers--GM, Ford, and Chrysler,” William Morrow; 400 pp. Click for copy.

Michael Shnayerson’s 1996 book, “The Car That Could: The Inside Story of GM's Revolutionary Electric Vehicle,” an inside account of the EV-1, before its demise. Random House, 295pp. Click for copy.

2006 documentary film, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (Chris Paine, director, Martin Sheen, narrator). Tells the story of GM’s EV-1, with historical context, through its demise (1 hr, 32 min), and asks the question: “A Lack of Consumer Confidence...Or Conspiracy?”. Click for DVD or video.

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William K. Reilly and Kenneth Kimmell, Op-Ed, “Automakers Shouldn’t Fight Emissions Standards,” New York Times, October 19, 2017.

Dave Cooke, “Automakers’ Long List of Fights Against Progress, and Why We Must Demand Better,” Blog.USCusa.org (Union of Concerned Scientists), December 6, 2017.

Rian Dundon, “Photos: L.A.’s Mid-Century Smog Was So Bad, People Thought it Was a Gas Attack,” Timeline.com, May 23, 2018.

Tony Barboza, “Must Reads: 87 Days of Smog: Southern California Just Saw its Longest Streak of Bad Air in Decades,” Los Angles Times, September 21, 2018.

Amanda Grennell, “The Decades-Long War on Smog; What History Tells Us About Addressing Today’s Pressing Air Pollution Problems,” ScientificAmerican.com, April 16, 2019.

Lee Vinsel, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, Johns Hopkins University Press 2019, 424pp. Click for copy.

James Pasley, “35 Vintage Photos Reveal What Los Angeles Looked like Before the U.S, Regulated Pollution,” Insider.com, January 7, 2020.

Daniel Stern, “Automotive History: The Dawn of the Catalytic Converter – Who Put the Cat Out?,” CurbsideClassic.com, February 3, 2020.

Coral Davenport, “U.S. to Announce Rollback of Auto Pollution Rules, a Key Effort to Fight Climate Change,” New York Times, March 30, 2020.

Aaron Robinson, “Fifty Years Ago, the Government Decided to Clean up Car Exhaust. It’s Still at It,” Hagerty.com, October 7, 2020.

Dale Kasler, “California’s Long Game of Tug-of-War With the Auto Industry; California Has Banned the Sale of Gasoline-Powered Cars by 2035 and Automakers Retort with Concern about the State’s Electric Grid and Consumer Preference for Gas Vehicles. This Back and Forth Is Decades Long,” The Sacramento Bee / Governing.com, October 8, 2020.

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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Elton-John-Border-Song.mp3 6481308 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Aretha-Border-Song-Holy-Moses.mp3 6284224 audio/mpeg

1971-1980

“Border Song”
Elton & Aretha: 1970-72

March 28, 2021 J.D.

Elton John's 1970 single, “Border Song". Click for digital.

Elton John and Bernie Taupin, the song-writing pair who turned out an amazing run of 1970s hits.

“Border Song” is an Elton John and Bernie Taupin song originally performed by John for his 1970 self-titled second album, Elton John. It was also the album’s first single released in the spring of 1970.

The song, about half-way through, has a rousing, gospel-style sound to it. But upon its release, the song failed to get much attention. Then, a bit later in America, singer Aretha Franklin became interested in recording it. More on her involvement in a moment.

Music Player
“Border Song”- Elton John
1970

“Border Song” was one of the early Bernie Taupin/Elton John collaborations, presaging a 50-year partnership between the two, with Taupin writing the lyrics and John supplying the music. Their lives had converged when they were just starting out, both vying for songwriting jobs in London. Then they discovered their complementary talents.

Taupin was a country boy and farmer’s son from outside the city, while John was city-bred. But in this particular song, Taupin’s lyrics take issue with the London music scene he came to experience and his alienation in that environment: …Brand of people who ain’t my kind… / Please excuse my frankness, but it’s not my cup of tea… And more…

Yet, over the years, the song morphed into something more than just Taupin’s unease with the London music scene, and came to be regarded as a message of tolerance, anti-bigotry and human acceptance.

In fact, John, who rarely wrote lyrics, did pen the last verse of “Border Song” which adds the tolerance and “let-us-live-in-peace” sentiments.

The song was one of the first Elton John singles released in March 1970. It featured John’s vocals, his strong piano performance, plus a generous gospel-style chorus. However, the song did not chart in the UK. In North America a few months later, it did better. In Canada, it peaked at No. 34, and thereby became Elton John’s first chart appearance in any country. In the U.S., meanwhile, during October 1970, the song broke into the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 92, and No. 69 on the Cash Box chart. But good news on the song was soon to come from another quarter.

Aretha Franklin on the cover of Time, June 28, 1968.

Aretha Franklin's single of "Border Song," 1970. The title line includes the “Holy Moses” refrain reference. Click for digital.

American recording artist Aretha Franklin decided in 1970 that she wanted to do a cover version of “Border Song.” Aretha was 28 at the time, at the peak of her rising stardom, and involved with civil rights. An accomplished songwriter herself, Franklin by then was dubbed the “Queen of Soul” and had a string of hit songs, among them: “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I love You),” “Respect,” “Natural Woman,” “Think,” “Chain of Fools,” and others. She had also graced the cover of Time magazine in June 1968 for a feature story about soul music.

But it was in the fall of 1970 when word got out that she was planning to record Elton John’s “Border Song.”

Although Elton John by then had his American performance debut at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles in late August 1970, the news that Aretha Franklin would be doing a cover of “Border Song” was a big affirmation for both he and Bernie Taupin.

Years later, on tour, John would regale audiences about how they received the news. He explained that he and Taupin nearly “pissed our pants” with excitement, knowing what Aretha Franklin’s performance of their song would mean for their newly launched careers.

Music Player
“Border Song”- Aretha Franklin
December 1970

Aretha, having been reared in the gospel tradition, gave the song her own special interpretative treatment and no doubt saw it as useful for civil rights messaging, as per the final verse: Let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease / There’s a man over there, what’s his color? Do you care / He’s my brother, let us live in peace.

Her version, led by her own singing and piano playing, was backed with great instrumentation and gospel-styled vocals from the Sweet Inspirations. In addition, on listings of her version, and on the single’s record label, she parenthetically added “Holy Moses,” the repeated and familiar refrain from the song as an additional identifier. In some of her performances of this song, in the final verse, she added a few more lines and special emphasis in places, as with the collective “we”: “Lord, help me now / Holy Moses, can we live in peace? / Holy Moses, can we live…/ I wonder can WE, can WE, can WE — live in peace?”

“Border Song”
Elton John / Bernie Taupin
1970

Holy Moses, I have been removed
I have seen the spectre,
he has been here too
Distant cousin from down the line
Brand of people who ain’t my kind
Holy Moses, I have been removed

Holy Moses, I have been deceived
Now the wind has changed direction,
and I’ll have to leave
Won’t you please excuse my frankness
But it’s not my cup of tea
Holy Moses, I have been deceived

I’m going back to the border
where my affairs
My affairs ain’t abused
I can’t take any more bad water
Been poisoned from my head
down to my shoes, oh
Holy Moses, I have been deceived

Holy Moses, let us live in peace
Let us strive to find a way
to make all hatred cease
There’s a man over there,
what’s his color? I don’t care
He’s my brother, let us live in peace,
He’s my brother, let us live in peace,
He’s my brother, let us,
let us live in peace.

Aretha’s version was released as a single in December 1970, and it fared better on the music charts than the original John/Taupin version, reaching No. 37 in the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 23 on the Cash Box chart. In the Netherlands the following January, it hit No. 29 on the Dutch Top 40. Her version was also included as the closing track on the 1972 Aretha Franklin album, Young, Gifted and Black.

David Graham, writing a review of Aretha’s version of “Border Song” for The Atlantic magazine in 2016, noted:

I heard her recording of “Border Song” on the radio and only realized years later it was by Elton John; I only listened to his rendition as I wrote this. Don’t bother: All you need is this version [Aretha’s version], which takes the ersatz gospel of the original and alchemizes it into the real thing. The main attraction is Aretha’s vocals, but the backing musicians bring it all together — Billy Preston’s organ, Chuck Rainey’s bass, Cornell Dupree’s chorus-drenched guitar solo, but especially the piano playing, which perfects the recording. Who’s that? Just a little-known studio musician named Aretha Franklin…

In later years, Aretha Franklin would collaborate with Elton John on a couple of occasions. On her 1989 album, Through the Storm, which featured some duets with other stars, the title cut was done with Elton John, which was also released as a single that hit No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Elton and Aretha also performed the “Border Song” together with choir, orchestra and two pianos on her “Aretha Franklin & Friends” duets special in 1993.

Aretha Franklin’s final public performance came at Elton John’s AIDS Foundation benefit held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on November 7, 2017 in New York City. Aretha, then quite ill, was doing battle with cancer. Still, at that gathering she performed nine songs. Yet John later noted: “I honestly didn’t know how she could possibly perform,” given her condition at the time. But she did, and in rare form, according to John.

“She raised the roof,” John would say of her performance that night… “I think it’s because she was inspired by being in the cathedral. She went to church. She went back to where she came from and she raised the roof, and she sang, and she played, and she made us all weep. She gave us the performance of a lifetime.” John was reduced to tears by Aretha’s set that night, and he added of her performance: “You don’t see greatness like that very often, and we will never see it again.”

“Aretha & Elton: Through The Storm.” 1989 vinyl single edition shown. Click for digital or streaming.

“Aretha Franklin: 30 Greatest Hits.” Amazon Best Seller. Click for CD or digital.

Aretha Franklin died on August 16, 2018, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer. And her funeral was quite the event, attended by political, civil rights, and music royalty.

Following her death, part of Elton John’s tribute to her, posted on Instagram noted:

“The loss of Aretha Franklin is a blow for everybody who loves real music: Music from the heart, the soul and the Church. Her voice was unique, her piano playing underrated – she was one of my favorite pianists. I was fortunate enough to spend time with her and witness her last performance…”

The 2013 edition of The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, noted of Franklin’s career:

Aretha Franklin is not only the definitive female soul singer of the ‘60s, but one of the most influential and important voices of in the history of popular music. She fused the leaps and swoops of the gospel music she grew up on with the sensuality of R&B, the innovation of jazz, and the precision of pop. After she hit her artistic and commercial stride in 1967, she made over a dozen million-selling singles, and since then has recorded 20 #1 R&B hits…

Franklin remains one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. In 1987, she was the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the same year she received the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her No. 1 on its list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time.” The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2019 awarded Franklin a posthumous special citation “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades”.

For additional music stories, artist histories, and song profiles at this website see the “Annals of Music” category page. There is also a more detailed profile of Elton John’s career and music at, “Elton John’s Decade: 1970s (w/Bernie).”

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 28 March 2021
Last Update: 28 March 2021
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Border Song – Elton & Aretha:
1970-72,” PopHistoryDig.com, March 28, 2021.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

Elton John’s book, “Me: Elton John.” 2020 edition. Click for copy. Henry Holt & Co., 384 pp. Click for copy.

Bernie Taupin’s 2024 book, “Scatter-shot: Life, Music, Elton & Me,” Hachette, 416 pp. Click for Copy.

“Elton John All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track,” Ollivier & Roubin, 2023. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

“Soul Queen: Aretha Franklin,” a 2007 compilation of 60 songs from Rhino Atlantic. Click for album or singles.

2017 Elton John Greatest Hits Collection contains 2 CDs, 34 tracks and 10 pg booklet. Click for copy.

“Border Song,” Wikipedia.org.

“Border Song by Elton John,” SongFacts.com.

Elizabeth Rosenthal, His Song: The Musical Journey of Elton John, Billboard Books, 544pp., 2001.

Paul Gambaccini, A Conversation with Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Putnam Group, 112 pp, 1975.

“Aretha Franklin,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 351-352.

“Aretha Franklin,” Wikipedia.org.

David Ritz, Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin, Little, Brown & Co., 528 pp., 2014.

Tim Roxborogh, “When Aretha Franklin Covered A Song By An Unknown Singer/ Songwriter Named Elton John,” Roxborogh Report.com, March 26, 2017.

“Elton Recalls That Call From Aretha and Border Song,” RTE.ie (Ireland’s National Public Service Media), updated, September 29, 2018.

“Young, Gifted and Black,” Wikipedia.org.

David A. Graham, “Track of the Day: ‘Border Song (Holy Moses)’ by Aretha Franklin,” TheAtlantic.com, April 5, 2016.

“‘Border Song’ Aretha Franklin and Elton John Duet, Live” (from Aretha Franklin & Friends, TV Special, 1993), YouTube.com, posted, December 2008.

Elias Leight, “Elton John Pays Tribute to Aretha Franklin, ‘The Greatest Soul Artist of All Time.’ John Remembers Being Moved to Tears at Franklin’s Final Performance,” RollingStone.com, August 16, 2018.

Gary Graff, “Elton John Honors Aretha Franklin With Detroit Performance of ‘Border Song’,” Billboard.com, October 13, 2018.

Rishma Dosani, “Elton John Was Worried Aretha Franklin Wouldn’t Get Through Her Last Performance,” Metro.co.UK, November 7, 2018.

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Teaser Tag: Baseball & Civil Rights

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980

“A Season of Hurt”
Aaron Chasing Ruth

March 15, 2021 J.D.

Topps baseball card for Hank Aaron in 1957, one of his best years, hitting 44 home runs, leading the Braves to the NL pennant and World Series title over the NY Yankees, and taking the National League MVP award. He was then 23 years old.

The photograph at right is that of professional baseball player Henry “Hank” Aaron. It is his 1957 Topps baseball card when he was with the Milwaukee Braves of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, later becoming the Atlanta Braves of Atlanta, Georgia.

In this photo, however, what is most interesting is the face of the young Henry Aaron.

It is a face that is open, honest, and non-threatening; a face of someone who bears no ill will; a face of a determined ball player with still boyish dreams.

It is also the face of a good and decent man; a man whose life and baseball career would validate that view. More on that to come in the story that follows.

Yet there came a mean season in the life of Henry Aaron the baseball player; a mean season that hurt him deeply at the apex of his prodigious career, precisely when he should have been enjoying his hard-won fame and record-setting accomplishments.

But what came instead, was an ugly chapter of American racism that would forever scar the hopeful Alabama boy who had put his heart and soul into baseball.

During 1973-74, Henry Aaron had to be protected by private guards. On the road, at away games, he couldn’t stay at the same hotel as his teammates. His family was in danger too. Kidnaping threats were made on his daughter at college.

Then there was the hate mail.

Thousands of letters came with all manner of racial slurs and threats – one with a little hand-written diagram of a rifle-shot trajectory from the bleachers aimed at killing him. But Hank Aaron was only trying to play baseball.

It happened at the time that this very good ballplayer – who by then had played some 20 years in professional baseball with distinction – was closing in on one of the game’s most hallowed and revered records: Babe Ruth’s career home run mark of 714.

Ruth’s home run record had stood for 39 years, since May 25, 1935, when the Babe hit his last three homers in Pittsburgh. In fact the Ruth record had stood so long that there was no real thought it would ever be broken. But Henry Aaron had crept up on the record with his workman-like consistency, hitting 30 or more homers a year for much of his career. Yet Ruth diehards, and more obnoxiously – vehement racists – went after Aaron when it appeared he would soon catch and likely surpass Ruth. Yet Henry Aaron was doing what he had always done since a young boy; playing baseball.

Artist rendition of Hank Aaron in 1952 when he played briefly with the Indianapolis Clowns of the professional American Negro League, by Graig Kreindler (2017).

Early Days

Henry Louis Aaron was born in February 1934 in the black section of Mobile, Alabama known as “Down the Bay.” He was the third of the eight children born to Herbert and Estella Aaron. Herbert worked as an assistant to a boilermaker on the Mobile drydocks and also owned a small tavern. Growing up in the segregated south, Henry would later recall his mother telling him as a young boy to hide under the bed as the KKK came through their neighborhood. When Henry was eight years old, the family moved to Toulminville, a more middle-class neighborhood.

Not much for school, though he could be a decent student when interested according to his mother, Aaron had baseball in mind from his youngest days, playing with bottle caps and broomsticks.

After he heard Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson talk when Robinson visited Mobile in 1948 for an exhibition game, young Henry set his sights on baseball. Robinson had only a year earlier broken the color barrier in professional baseball.

Aaron had attended Mobile’s segregated Central High School as a freshman and sophomore, and then went to the Josephine Allen Institute, a private school. There, the emphasis was on football, and Aaron played halfback and end. And although good enough to draw college scholarship offers, he didn’t especially like football. Some reports say he also played on the schools’ softball team and as a younger boy had also played in neighborhood ballparks.

Jerry Poling’s 2002 book on Hank Aaron’s first Minor League season in Eau Claire, WI, with foreword by Bud Selig. Click for copy.

At age 15, he also began playing baseball with the Mobile Bears, a semi-pro sandlot club where he would earn five or six dollars a game on Sundays. In one game, the Mobile Black Bears played the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League, and Aaron’s play caught the attention of scout Ed Scott who signed Aaron November 20, 1951 to play for the Indianapolis team. He started play there as a 6-foot, 180-pound shortstop, and earned $200 per month.

(Another story about Aaron’s discovery by Ed Scott came during a neighborhood softball game, when Aaron was seen lacing line drives off the outfield fence. “I was like, ‘Look at those wrists,” recalled Scott. “Why isn’t he playing baseball?'”)

In 26 games in the Negro League, Aaron hit an estimated .366 with five home runs and 33 RBIs. By 1952 he caught the eye of major league scouts for the New York Giants and the Boston Braves (later to become the Milwaukee Braves in 1954, and Atlanta Braves in 1966).

A May 26, 1952 Boston Braves scouting report by Dewey S. Griggs on the 17 year-old Aaron as he played with the Indianapolis Clowns, noted : “great pair of hands, seems relaxed at all times, and a good wrist hitter.” Griggs recommended him as a “definite” prospect.

A May 27th, 1952 letter from Syd Pollock, the owner of the Indianapolis Clowns to Braves executive John Mullen, then concerning the terms of Aaron’s contract and sale to the Braves, noted: “I feel this youngster is another Ted Williams in the hitting department, and can hit to all fields, as well as lay down bunts…”

Aaron, in fact, had received two offers from Major League baseball teams via telegram, one from the New York Giants and the other from the Boston Braves. Years later, Aaron would note: “I had the Giants’ contract in my hand. But the Braves offered fifty dollars a month more. That’s the only thing that kept Willie Mays and me from being teammates – fifty dollars.”

The Braves paid the Indianapolis Clowns $10,000 for Aaron’s contract, and that summer of 1952 Henry Aaron began playing with the Braves’ minor league team in Wisconsin – the Eau Claire Bears. Then 18 years old, he arrived at the Eau Claire airport with a cardboard suitcase, admitting he was “scared as hell,” not knowing what to expect.

1953. Henry Aaron picking out a bat during his season with the Jacksonville Braves in Jacksonville, Florida.

Eau Claire had only a few black people in town at that time and Aaron’s only baseball experience was with black players; he had never played with or against white players. “It was a completely new experience for him culturally,” according to Jerry Poling, author of, A Summer Up North: Hank Aaron and the Legend of Eau Claire Baseball. While in Eau Claire, Aaron roomed at the local YMCA with the team’s two other black players, Wes Covington and Julie Bowers.

Amazingly, to that point, the right-hand hitting Aaron had batted “cross-handed,” that is, with his left hand above his right on the bat’s handle. Braves coaches soon fixed that and Aaron’s talents rose to fuller form. In his season at Eau Claire, Aaron hit .336, had 116 hits, nine home runs and scored 89 runs. That performance earned him the Northern League Rookie-of-the-Year award.

In 1953, Aaron moved up in the minor league ranks, sent south to Florida to play for the Class A Jacksonville Braves of the South Atlantic League. Aaron and two other Jacksonville players that year were the first blacks to play in the Deep South “Sally League,” as it was called. It was still the Jim Crow era there, and Aaron had to live with a black family in town. On the road, he and other black players had to stay in black hotels and would not be served at roadside restaurants, remaining on the bus while some white teammates brought food out for them.

During games, home and away, there was a steady stream of racist taunts from spectators and opposing players, some calling the black players “alligator bait” and worse, others throwing stones. At least one white Jacksonville player, according to Aaron, Massachusetts player Joe Andrews, would come to the defense of the black players and try to diffuse problems with fans.

On the field, meanwhile, Hank Aaron continued to excel. He led the league in batting average (.362), runs (115), hits (208), doubles (36), RBIs (125) and total bases (338), leading the Jacksonville Braves to the 1953 South Atlantic League championship and winning the league’s Most Valuable Player award.

1953 Wire Photo. Hank Aaron of the Jacksonville Braves, shown with Jacksonville manager, Ben Geraghty.

During his time at Jacksonville, Aaron had high regard for his manager, Ben Geraghty, who he called “the greatest manager I ever played for,” citing Geraghty’s ability to get the most out of his ballplayers, “treating every player as an individual.” Aaron would later say, “…Ben never told me how good I was—just how good I could be. He taught me to study the game and never to make the same mistake twice.” And during road trips, Geraghty would complain to restaurant management who would not serve his black players, would visit with them at their black-only hotels, and ate meals with them in restaurants where they were served. As for Aaron’s baseball ability, Geraghty later told Sports Illustrated that Aaron was “the most natural hitter I ever saw.”

Henry Aaron’s 1954 Topps baseball card. Click for copy.

In The Bigs

After Jacksonville, there was some time playing winter ball in Puerto Rico, preparing the young prospect for the Big Leagues. Yet, it wasn’t entirely clear that Henry Aaron would make the big jump and might have to spend more time in the minors. Still, by spring training time, it was off to the Milwaukee Braves.

In early 1954, as spring training began, the Braves’ left fielder, Bobby Thomson, broke his ankle. Aaron, then fresh from his stellar year in Jacksonville, was named Thomson’s replacement and began playing in the outfield.

It was about then that Aaron was renamed “Hank” by a local sports reporter to make him seem more approachable (though Aaron preferred Henry and regarded Hank his baseball name).

With the Milwaukee Braves, Aaron joined a lineup that included some good hitters, among them: third baseman, Eddie Mathews; catcher Del Crandall, and first baseman. Joe Adcock. Standout Braves pitchers then included Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, and Bob Buhl.

Hank Aaron would hit his first home run for the Braves in April 1954, his seventh game. In his first year with the Braves he hit .280 with 13 homers and 69 RBIs and finished fourth in the NL Rookie-of-the-Year voting.

The next year, 1955, he led the National League in doubles with 37, hit 27 home runs, had 106 RBIs, and was named to his first All-Star Game.

By this time, he was getting some national press. In late August 1956, The Saturday Evening Post, a popular weekly magazine of that era, did a feature story on Aaron titled, “Born to Play Ball.”

August 1956. First of a 3-page piece on Hank Aaron by The Saturday Evening Post, “Born to Play Ball”.

A lead tagline in that story noted, “Milwaukee’s prodigious Hank Aaron doesn’t go in for ‘scientific’ hitting. He just grabs a bat and blasts away.”

Two photos running at the bottom of the first page, as shown at left, have him striking out against pitcher Curt Simmons of the Philadelphia Phillies and then hitting a triple off Simmons the next time at bat. The caption notes “he’s hard to fool, and what pitches get him out one time, won’t get him out the next time”.

The story also noted: “…Over the last two and a half seasons in Milwaukee, he has carved out a reputation as probably the best fast-ball hitter in the league, and a man who should be up there among the batting leaders for many years to come.”

Indeed. By season’s end 1956, Aaron had hit .328, won the National League batting championship, and became the only player in baseball with 200 hits. Then came 1957.

Aaron was just 23 years old, in his fourth big-league season, and about to have one of his best years ever. A Sports Illustrated story reporting on Aaron offered this account of his early performance that year:

“…This year, Aaron has been hitting everything within reach. He beat the Redlegs 1-0 with a home run on April 18. On May 2 at Pittsburgh he had five singles; the next day he drove in four runs with a double, a triple and home run. On May 5 against the Dodgers he hit two singles, a double and a home run. On May 18 he beat Pittsburgh 6-5 by driving in four runs with two homers and a single. He drove in both runs in a 2-1 victory over the Dodgers June 27. On June 29 he began a streak in which he hit seven home runs in eight games. And on July 16-17 he had six for seven…”

But that was just the warm up. In the home stretch that year, the Milwaukee Braves were in a race with the St. Louis Cardinals for the National League pennant. The Braves needed just one more victory to take the National League flag. On September 23, 1957, the Cardinals came to Milwaukee’s County Stadium to play the Braves in a late season game that went into extra innings. By the 11th inning the score was tied, 2-2. Billy Muffett was then pitching for the Cardinals, and he hadn’t given up a home run all season. But then Henry Aaron came to the plate, and soon found a pitch he liked. He connected on a Muffett curve ball that took off toward center field, where Wally Moon raced back toward the fence with the 402-foot sign. Moon jumped in vain but couldn’t snag the ball as it sailed over the fence and onto the ground in front of some cedar trees beyond. That was Aaron’s 43rd homer that year, and none bigger, as it became the only walk-off home run to win a pennant for a major league team. Aaron was greeted by jubilant teammates who carried him off the field, pictured in some of the front-page newspaper coverage the next day, as shown below in The Janesville Gazette.

September 24, 1957. Janesville, WI newspaper headline proclaims Milwaukee Braves clinching the National League pennant, including a photo of Henry Aaron (last of 4) being carried off the field by teammates. Other headlines on that same front page report on the Little Rock, Arkansas school integration strife.

But The Janesville Gazette paper also bore another headline of the times just below the pennant-winning news. That headline read: “Ike Orders Arkansas Guard Federalized To Handle School Crisis,” a story about racial strife where violence loomed over the court-ordered integration of Central High School in Little Rock. Another photo (not shown) – an AP wire photo on the lower half of that same front page – showed a black reporter from the Tri-State Defender newspaper of Memphis, TN being kicked by a white protestor as the reporter tried to cover the Little Rock story. And although baseball was moving along in its own sphere, seemingly apart from the realities of Little Rock’s violence and American racism, the nation then was in the midst of its civil rights struggle; a struggle that Henry Aaron knew well, having experienced racism in his own life, including within baseball, which he would confront throughout his career.

But on the baseball field in 1957, Henry Aaron was giving a clinic on how to be a great hitter. In fact, he just missed winning a Triple Crown batting title that year, as he led the league in home runs (44) and RBIs (132), but finished third in batting average (.322), tied with Frank Robinson of Cincinnati at .322 and ahead of Pittsburgh’s Dick Groat at .315. Stan Musial took the batting title that year at .344. Aaron also led the league in total bases that year at 340 and was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player. Other Braves also had good years, led by the team’s pitchers: Warren Spahn went 21-11 with a 2.69 ERA and won the Cy Young Award; Lew Burdette went 17-9 and beat the New York Yankees three times in the World Series. Bob Buhl went 18-7 with a 2.74 ERA. Third baseman Eddie Mathews had 32 homers and 94 RBIs.

Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees and Henry Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves, respective power hitters for their teams, squared off in the World Series of 1957 and 1958. Mantle had a sub .300 showing in both series (.263 and .250 respectively), while Aaron tore up Yankee pitching in 1957, hitting .393 and held his own in 1958 at .333.

In the 1957 World Series that year the Braves faced the New York Yankees and their famous slugger, Mickey Mantle. Then in his prime, Mantle had won the American League batting title with a .365 average, hitting 34 home runs and 94 RBI’s. Mantle, like Aaron, was also his league’s MVP that year. Yet Henry Aaron had the better World Series, helping the Braves prevail in seven games to take the crown. Aaron had a stand-out series, hitting .393 with three homers and seven RBIs.

Jet magazine, June 1959.

In 1958, Aaron hit .326, with 30 home runs and 95 RBIs. He led the Braves to another pennant and World Series, again playing the Yankees. Mantle, meanwhile, led the American League in 1958 with 42 home runs, while batting .304 with 97 RBIs. In the 1958 World Series, the Yankees won in seven games, but Aaron bested Mantle again in hitting, posting a .333 series average. And for the year, Aaron finished third in the National League MVP race and also received his first of three Gold Glove Awards for fielding.

In 1959, Aaron posted a career best batting average of .355. And in one game that year, on June 21, 1959, against the San Francisco Giants, Aaron hit three two-run home runs, the only time in his career he would accomplish the rare three-homers-in-one-game feat.

In the black press that year, Jet magazine featured Aaron on the cover of its June 18 issue with the tag line, “Red Hot Hank” – Hank Aaron, Braves’ Outfielder is Setting A Torrid Batting Pace for Majors”.

After the 1959 season there was a short-lived television production called Home Run Derby, and Henry Aaron won more of the competitions and the most prize money, $13,500, than any of the 18 other participants, which included Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, and others. With his prize money, Aaron acquired a grocery store for his father and two houses in Mobile.

UPI story, early 1960, about Henry Aaron endorsing JFK for President.

In 1960, in addition to baseball, Henry Aaron campaigned for then-Senator and presidential candidate John F. Kennedy (D-MA) in Milwaukee and was credited with helping JFK win the April 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary, a competitive race at the time with Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-MN). Reportedly, Aaron was quite proud of his campaigning for Kennedy in 1960.

Yet according to sports journalist and Aaron biographer, Howard Bryant, Aaron and other black athletes endorsing Kennedy at that time were sought out, in part, to help off-set Jackie Robinson’s endorsement of Kennedy’s rival in the Wisconsin primary, Senator Hubert Humphrey.

(After Humphrey lost the nomination to JFK, Robinson switched his support to Republican candidate for President that year, then Vice President Richard Nixon).

In any case, Kennedy later wrote to Aaron in June 1960 thanking him for his help, adding that he hoped Aaron, then in a bit of slump, would rise above the .300 mark again.

On July 3, 1960, Aaron hit his 200th career home run in a game against the Cardinals. He ended 1960 with a .292 average, hitting 39 home runs and 126 RBIs.

In 1961, Aaron continued his workmanlike performance – playing 155 games with 603 at bats, 197 hits, 115 runs scored, 34 home runs, 120 RBIs, and a .327 batting average.

In 1962, among Aaron’s press coverage, was an appearance on the cover of Sport magazine in June, featuring a photo of Aaron with bat on his shoulder and story tagline that read: “Hank Aaron’s Hitting Secrets.”

Hank Aaron & Eddie Mathews hold the all-time record for home runs by two teammates, at 863, hit between 1954-1966.

Indeed, Aaron’s hitting secrets paid off in 1962, when he posted another torrid year – hitting .323, with 45 home runs and 128 RBIs. In the following year there was more of the same.

In fact, but for a few points in batting average, Aaron, for a second time, nearly captured the 1963 Triple Crown batting title, leading the league with 44 homers and 130 RBIs, but losing out on average to Tommy Davis of the Los Angeles Dodgers — .326 to Aaron’s .319.

Early that year, on April 19, 1963, Aaron had notched his 300th career home run against the New York Mets. He also had 201 hits that year – second best in the league – led the league in runs scored and was second in stolen bases. In fact, he was the third player in major league history at that point to make the “30-30 club” – hitting 30 or more home runs with 30 or more stolen bases. And he continued to be a nightmare to some of the league’s best pitchers, such as Don Drysdale and Juan Marichal.

In 1964, Aaron slowed off his 1963 pace on home runs and RBIs – with 24 and 95 respectively for the year – and a .328 batting average. Earlier that year, on April 20th against the Philadelphia Phillies, he hit his 400th career home run.

Meanwhile, in another home run category, by late August 1965, Aaron and his Milwaukee Braves teammate, Eddie Mathews, became the top home-run hitting duo in baseball history, passing the famous New York Yankee pair of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, who hit 859 home runs between them from 1923-1934. Aaron and Mathews would together hit 863 home runs during the 1954-1966 period, establishing a new major league record for teammates.

Henry Aaron, meanwhile, was also becoming more attentive to and involved with racial and civil rights issues. In 1961, Aaron and other black teammates spoke out about the Milwaukee Braves segregation policies and practices occurring during spring training in Florida. Since first joining the Braves in 1954, and attending spring training in Bradenton, Florida through the 1950s, Aaron and other Braves’ black players had to stay in a separate rooming house in the black section of Bradenton rather than with the rest of the team who stayed at the well-appointed Dixie Grande Hotel on the Manatee River, where white players were put up in style and comfort. Other MLB teams with spring training in Florida also had similar policies. But these spring training segregation practices were challenged in 1961 by Aaron and others — including the NAACP and a few journalists — and were mostly ended by the Braves and other MLB teams in 1961.

1964. Jackie Robinson book in which Henry Aaron wrote one chapter. A later edition includes Spike Lee introduction. Click for copy.

In late 1963, Aaron was asked to contribute to a Jackie Robinson book that would tell the story of baseball’s early integration, first published in January 1964 and titled, Baseball Has Done It. The Robinson book, published by Lippincott and edited by Charles Dexter, included sections written by, or based on Jackie Robinson interviews of, a number of players who participated in the early integration of baseball, including, in addition to Aaron: Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, Alvin Dark, Larry Doby, Carl Erskine, Elston Howard, Monte Irvin, Don Newcombe, Frank Robinson, Bill White and others. A cover tagline on the hardback edition just below the title, reads: “Integration is a fact in baseball, as Negro stars testify in these candid interviews with Jackie Robinson. Here they speak out about what it means to them, to baseball and to the country.”

In the Robinson book, Aaron described being knocked down by white pitchers throwing at him simply because he was black – noting that Eddie Matthews, who batted ahead of him and as good a hitter, wasn’t knocked down. Aaron also noted in the Robinson book that he had read James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, an important book on the black perspective, first published in 1963. Aaron biographer, Howard Bryant, explained that Aaron had come across Baldwin on a TV talk show once when he was surfing late night TV offerings, and hearing him talk, sought out his book.

Henry Aaron wasn’t only about baseball by the mid-1960s, but was also thinking about how to live his life too good effect off the field. “…He had actively begun to reinvent himself..,” according to biographer Howard Bryant, “… all the while growing more resolute in his belief that his baseball talent meant nothing if it did not translate to improving the general condition of the world around him.” It was about this time as well, that the Milwaukee Braves began their prospecting to move to another city.

Heading South

Part of a 1964 wire service story on views of Henry Aaron and Lee Maye on moving to Atlanta with Braves.

By 1964, it became the intention of Milwaukee Braves management to move their baseball team to Atlanta, Georgia. Declining attendance and Milwaukee’s small market were the primary reasons. And while the move was delayed until after the 1965 season, making the move south was contentious, not only for Milwaukee baseball fans (and there was litigation), but also for some players, including Henry Aaron.

“I have lived in the South, and I don’t want to live there again…,” said Aaron at one point. “…We [ meaning he and family] can go anywhere in Milwaukee. I don’t know what would happen in Atlanta.”

Aaron, in fact, had been airing his concerns about a move to Atlanta since the plans were first announced, and it appeared from some of his statements that he was not willing to go.

“I just won’t step out on the field” if the Braves moved there, he told a wire service reporter. “I certainly don’t like the idea of playing in Atlanta and have no intention of taking my family there.” He worried about his children, should they have to attend segregated schools.

Yet Atlanta was pushing hard for the Braves. The city then had no big league sports teams at all. In fact, as of 1964, when the idea first emerged, there was no major league ball club anywhere in the Deep South. But Atlanta was offering all kinds of incentives – a new stadium, TV deals, some revenue perks, Coca-Cola patronage, etc.,. Yet the 1960s were also a tense time for civil rights. 1964, in fact, was the year three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi. Atlanta had made slow progress in civil rights, with public places then “voluntarily” opened to blacks, the result of pickets, legal action, and activist pressure. But the city still had “a long way to go” on schools, housing and jobs for blacks.

Black leaders in Atlanta, however, were pinning their hopes, in part, on Henry Aaron. As Whitney Young wrote in one of his newspaper columns at the time, Aaron not joining the Braves in Atlanta would “dash the hopes of Atlanta’s Negro Leaders who have worked tirelessly to bring professional baseball and football clubs to Georgia’s first city.Whitney Young wrote of Atlanta’s black leaders: “It is their hope that Aaron’s big bat and superstar popularity will help knock Jim Crow out of town.” They’ve labored in the conviction that integrated pro teams would dramatically demonstrate what citizens of color can accomplish given equal opportunities. It is their hope that Aaron’s big bat and superstar popularity will help knock Jim Crow out of town.” Some wrote directly to Aaron encouraging him to come to Atlanta.

C. Miles Smith, then president of Atlanta’s NAACP, wrote that Atlanta was a progressive, bustling city where conditions for blacks were steadily improving. Atlanta-based lawyer and Morehouse College graduate, Walter J. Leonard, asked Aaron in an October 1964 letter, “to give Atlanta a chance.,” adding, “You will find Atlanta to be a city with its eyes fixed on the future.” Georgia State Senator and African American Leroy Johnson wrote Aaron, acknowledging: “Having been born and raised in the South, I can understand your fears and apprehensions relative to your moving to the south with the Braves Baseball Team.” But Senator Johnson asked him to reconsider his perception of Atlanta, noting the city had made much progress in the last five years.

In the end, Aaron did go to Atlanta with the Braves in 1966, and he became “the first black superstar in the South,” according to Bob Hope, a former Braves promoter. Howard Bryant, later writing of Aaron in The Last Hero, noted: “Henry had never considered himself as important a historical figure as Jackie Robinson, and yet, by twice integrating the South — first in the Sally League [with Jacksonville ] and later as the first Black star on the first major league team in the South (during the apex of the civil rights movement, no less) — his road in many ways was no less lonely, and in other ways far more difficult.”

Sports Illustrated photo and caption from August 1966 story: “Rarely fooled by a pitch, Aaron moves his weight forward but keeps his bat back, cocked and ready to commit.”

“Bad Henry”

In the baseball press, meanwhile, Aaron’s hitting talents were feted in an August 1966 Sports Illustrated story by Jack Mann, titled, “Danger With a Double A.”

The story focused on how Aaron, after 13 years in the majors and now in Atlanta, was still torturing National League pitching, acquiring the respectful nickname, “Bad Henry” for his hitting prowess.

As Aaron himself would explain on what he had learned: “I don’t go up there swinging at what they throw me anymore. I’ve studied and concentrated, and now I wait until I get my pitch.”

Los Angeles Dodger’s pitching ace, Sandy Koufax, agreed, telling Sports Illustrated at the time: “He sure as hell does… Did you see him go after that curve I hung for him today? That was a mistake, and you don’t get away with a mistake to Bad Henry. He’s the last guy I want to see coming up there…Some guys give me more trouble one year than another. But Aaron is always the same. He’s just Bad Henry.”

In 1966 Aaron showed his new home-town fans in Atlanta exactly what he could do with a baseball bat: hitting 44 home runs and driving in 127 runs, leading the National League in both categories while finishing 8th in MVP voting. Again in 1967, he had league-leading totals in runs scored with 113 and home runs at 39, while adding 109 RBIs and batting at .307. He finished 5th in 1967’s MVP voting.

Still, as consistent as Aaron was year-to-year, posting great hitting numbers, he didn’t always get the same level of press attention that other great players of his day received. Acknowledging this, Sport magazine, on the cover of its July 1968 edition, included a photo of Henry Aaron in his batting stance at the plate, along with cover tagline: “Hank Aaron: What It’s Like To Be A Neglected Superstar.” But in that same month, in mid-July 1968, Aaron hit his 500th home run. Surely, after reaching that rare milestone, he would be “neglected” no more. His 500th homer came on July 14th against Mike McCormick of the San Francisco Giants during a Braves home game in Atlanta.

Portion of the New York Times sports page story of July 15, 1968 with Associated Press photo of Henry Aaron hitting his 500th career home run in Atlanta. His focus is seemingly that of long-standing hitter’s goal of “seeing the bat hit the ball”.

The July 15, 1968 edition of the New York Times ran an Associated Press photo of Aaron that captured him hitting his 500th home run at the Atlanta Braves home park, along with headline: “Aaron Clouts No. 500 as Braves Top Giants, 4-2.” The 400-foot blast soared over the fence in left-center field. It was Aaron’s 19th homer of the season. He was met at home plate by teammates and the president of the Braves, Bill Bartholomay, who presented him with a trophy.

September 5, 1968. Jet magazine runs feature story, “Hank Aaron Blasts Racism in Baseball.”

Aaron became the 8th player in baseball history to hit 500 homers. At the time, he joined an exclusive list of seven others who had hit 500 or more home runs: Babe Ruth, 714; Willie Mays, 577; Jimmie Foxx, 534; Mickey Mantle, 529; Ted Williams 521; teammate Eddie Mathews, 512; and Mel Ott, 511. Of these, Mays, Mantle and Mathews were then still active.

The New York Times, in its July 15th story, reported that Aaron “still expects to have two or three good years, and most baseball experts predict that he will go over the 600-homer mark.” Indeed. “Bad Henry” still had lots of firepower remaining.

Hank Aaron was also speaking out more about the racism he experienced and continued to find in major league baseball. Jet magazine of September 1968, for example, included a feature story on Aaron titled, “Hank Aaron Blasts Racism in Baseball.” Among his concerns: the lack of black managers and near total absence of minorities in the front office, as well as salary discrepancies between black and white players. It wasn’t the first time he had addressed these topics.

Back in Milwaukee in October 1965 he wrote an article with Jerome Holtzman for Sport magazine, titled “I Could Do The Job,” in which he included himself, among other black players, who he believed could manage in major league baseball, then naming Jackie, Robinson, Bill White Billy Bruton, Junior Gilliam, Ernie Banks and Willie Mays as “could be” managers. Aaron would continue to raise these issues through his active and later years.

August 1969: “Henry Aaron Whips Atlanta Into Its First Pennant Drive,” Sports Illustrated. Click for custom poster.

1969

In the next baseball season, meanwhile, by July 31, 1969, Aaron hit his 537th home run, passing Mickey Mantle’s total of 536. Mantle had retired after the 1968 season. This put Aaron at No. 3 on the all-time career home run list. Only Willie Mays and Babe Ruth had more.

In August 1969, Sports Illustrated featured Aaron on the magazine cover with the story “Henry Aaron Whips Atlanta Into Its First Pennant Drive.” And yes, by season’s end, the Braves had won the National League West divisional title, as Aaron contributed 44 home runs, 97 RBIs, and a .300 batting average. He would later finish third in National League MVP voting.

It was then the first year of the divisional system in the post-season play-offs, and the Braves faced the New York Mets who had won the NL East title in a best-of-five National League Championship Series.

The “Miracle Mets” that year were on fire and swept Atlanta in three games. Aaron, however, did his part, hitting .357 in the series with three homers and seven RBIs. But there was more ahead for Aaron the following year.

1970

On May 17, 1970, Henry Aaron reached another hitting milestone: his 3,000th base hit. It came against the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. This was the Cincinnati club of Pete Rose and Johnny Bench, and at the time, they held first place with the Braves in second. But Aaron’s hit was the big news of the day despite the fact the Braves lost both games of a doubleheader. With his hit, Aaron became the ninth player in MLB history to join the exclusive 3,000 hit club of Hall of Famers and hitting legends.

Among the press coverage Aaron received for that achievement was a full-page photo in the New York Daily News of Aaron completing his swing on his 3,000th hit. Sports Illustrated also ran a cover story on Aaron’s 3,000th hit its May issue, featuring a photo of Aaron at center on the cover surrounded by smaller photos of the 8 other legends who had already done it: Cap Anson (1897), Honus Wagner and Nap Lajoie (both 1914), Ty Cobb (1921), Tris Speaker and Eddie Collins ( both 1925), Paul Warner (1942), and Stan Musial (1958). Musial, then retired, came to the game in Cincinnati to greet Aaron after he had singled up the middle for his 3,000 hit.

NY Daily News feature photo of Aaron completing swing for his 3,000th hit, May 1970. Click for framed photo.

May 1970. Sports Illustrated features photo of Aaron surrounded by 8 others in the 3,000 hit club. Click for copy.

The 3,000 hit club is a rarefied place, where only the very best hitters land. A number of other famous and great ballplayers never made it to the 3,000 hit club, among them: Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott, Mickey Mantle, and others. So Henry Aaron was now in quite a special place, and he treasured it more than his home run records, as he believed it distinguished him to be an all-around hitter and team player. Yet he was also the first player with 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. In fact, for his 3,001st hit, on that same day in Cincinnati, Henry Aaron hit a home run over the center field fence. That one was No. 570 for Henry Aaron.

In May 1970, at the time of his 3,000th hit, Aaron mused on the Babe Ruth home run record. He told Sports Illustrated: “This year and next are critical ones for me if I’m going to catch Ruth. I would almost have to have a 50 [home run] year in one of the two seasons…” But he also seemed pleased with joining the 3,000 hit club. “Sure, catching Ruth would be a thrill, but achieving 3,000 hits is more important because it shows consistency…” And indeed, for the last 16 years, since 1954, Henry Aaron had been a dependably consistent and dependably good hitter. And more was yet to come.

Another side of Henry Aaron shows how he could be a gentleman and sportsman on the field when circumstances warranted. In a May 1970 game with the Chicago Cubs when Aaron was on a hot streak, hitting the ball especially hard, he hit a scorching line-drive shot that caught Chicago Cubs rookie pitcher Joe Decker on the forearm hard and landed him behind the mound. Sports Illustrated writer William Leggett described the scene: “…When Aaron reached first safely he looked at Decker, waited for time to be called and then walked over to the pitcher’s mound. ‘I thought I had broken his wrist,’ Aaron said. ‘I want my hits but I don’t want to hurt anyone. I was kind of afraid for the kid. It could have all been gone for him right there. But he was O.K. I told him I was sorry’.”

August 1970, Hank Aaron on the cover of Sport magazine; “Henry Aaron: The Finest Hours of Quiet Legend.”.

The August 1970 edition of Sport magazine ran a cover photo of Aaron running in the outfield for a feature story on him. A week after Aaron had crashed through the 3,000 hit mark, Sport sent writer James Tobach to a Braves game in Atlanta, where hometown fans came out to honor Aaron for his latest achievement.

At the game, Tobach noted the home-made signs in the crowd that night: “We Love Henry,” “715 Comes Next,” and “Hammerin` Hank is Our Hero.” He also noted that Aaron’s latest round of accomplishments placed him near or at the top of all-time baseball stars — “a living, playing legend”.

Tobach would write a “Sport Special” on Aaron titled, “The Finest Hours of a Quiet Legend,” praising Aaron’s career, though noting that his talents were often taken for granted. But Henry Aaron wasn’t the aggressive type; he didn’t go around touting his own talents; it just wasn’t his style.

But writing in that same Sport issue in another story, Mickey Mantle, then retired, offered the following about Aaron:

“…What was lucky for me, as far as publicity was concerned, was playing in New York, with all its big TV and radio networks, the newspaper wire services and all the magazines. Willie Mays and I, we broker in together in 1951 and we got so much publicity because we played in New York. Hank Aaron didn’t get all that publicity because he didn’t play in New York, and Hank Aaron, in my mind is the most underrated ballplayer of my era. If he had played in New York, he would be as big today as Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays or anybody.”

Mantle had also praised Aaron earlier in a June 1970 Baseball Digest story: “As far as I’m concerned, Aaron is the best ball player of my era. He is to baseball of the last 15 years what Joe DiMaggio was before him. He’s never received the credit he’s due.” Meanwhile, Henry Aaron finished the 1970 season with a .298 batting average, 38 home runs, and 118 RBIs.

1971-72

Early in the next season, on April 27, 1971, Henry Aaron hit his 600th career homer off San Francisco’s Gaylord Perry, then joining Willie Mays and Babe Ruth as the only players to reach that milestone.

April 1971. A pleased Hank Aaron holds bat & ball for his 600th major league home run – a high fly of 350 feet that landed on the stadium wall behind the left field fence at Atlanta’s stadium. AP photo / JS.

In addition to his 600th home run, Aaron had a monster 1971 season at the plate as well with 162 hits, a career high 47 home runs, 118 RBIs, and a .327 batting average. Aaron’s slugging percentage that year was a career high .669 and led the National League. He also finished third in the National League MVP voting.

April 13, 1972. Jet magazine story - "Aaron Aims His Bat to Break Ruth's Record".

During the strike-shortened season of 1972, on June 10, 1972, Aaron hit home run No. 649 in Philadelphia, which moved him beyond Willie Mays for second place on the all-time list. It was now just he and Ruth at the top of the career home run chart. Aaron also added his 2,000th RBI of his career and hit a home run in the first All-Star game that year, a game played that year in Atlanta.

Toward the end of the 1972 season, Aaron also broke Stan Musial’s record for total bases, at 6,134. This was another record of importance to Aaron, reflecting overall performance and not just home run power.

Still, as the 1972 season closed, Aaron stood at 673 career home runs. He was now 41 home runs away from tying Babe Ruth’s record. But that proximity also had a dark side.

“In 1972, when people finally realized I was climbing up Ruth’s back, the ‘Dear N——r’ letters started showing up with alarming regularity,” Aaron would later write in his 1991 memoir. “They told me no n——-r had any right to go where I was going.” And it would get worse in 1973 and 1974. More on this to come.

1973

In the 1973 baseball season, the Atlanta Braves front office was hyping their home run star with a special press booklet on Aaron and his bid to upend the Babe Ruth record: “The greatest sports story in history is taking place in Atlanta,” it began, adding that “no single record is quite so precious as Babe Ruth’s career home run total of 714.” But this “greatest record of all records” is now in the sights of Hank Aaron. “Each Aaron homer becomes an incredible event to remember . . . and a long line of the game’s most sacred batting marks are falling one at a time to Hank’s mighty bat.” The sports press, too, was abuzz with Henry Aaron’s home run possibilities.

Henry Aaron, for his part, then making $200,000 a year, was otherwise living a modest life in Atlanta. Then a recent divorcee of two years, he had a two-bedroom apartment and he drove a Chevy Caprice. Two of his teenage sons lived with him that summer of 1973. Henry was also engaged to Billye Williams, a 36-year-old widow who taught English literature at Atlanta University and was also director of community relations at Morehouse University. Henry and Billye had met a few months after his divorce, when she was assigned to interview several members of the Braves.

Meanwhile, on the baseball field, Henry Aaron was no longer a young guy in baseball terms, now 39 years old. He had already slowed down a bit, playing fewer games in the preceding seasons. Yet Henry Aaron went about his craft just as he had done in the past, steadily, day by day.

July 21st, 1973, Atlanta stadium. Henry “Hank” Aaron tips his hat to the crowd then lauding his latest baseball milestone of hitting his 700th career home run during game with the Philadelphia Phillies.

By the end of April 1973, he was hitting a mere .125 and had logged 5 additional home runs. In May the average went up to .321 and he added 8 more home runs. By June he was hitting .303 with 7 more home runs. July was much the same: 8 home runs and batting .324. But on July 21st, during a home game in Atlanta against the Philadelphia Phillies, he hit his 700th career home run.

After he hit No. 700, the hate mail and racial insults ramped up, and more attention was paid to his and his family’s protection and safety. But still managing to take the field in August 1973, Aaron raised his average to .382 that month adding 5 more home runs, then finishing the year in September, when he hit a sizzling .426 that month with 7 more home runs.

September 1973. Associated Press photo of Henry Aaron completing a swing on a likely hit, as he had a very hot August and September, hitting 40 home runs for the year and finishing just one shy of Ruth's record career total .

Through the summer of 1973, there had been a range of coverage in the press and media about Aaron approaching the Ruth record, a few that mentioned the race issue. In July 1973, Jet magazine ran a cover story with tagline, “Hank Aaron Discuses Racism and His Race for Ruth’s Record.” The August 13, 1973 edition of Newsweek featured a more general cover story on Aaron’s pursuit of the home run record, showing him in his Braves uniform completing a batting swing, superimposed over a larger photo of Babe Ruth in the background, with the cover tag line, “Chasing The Babe.”

July 19th, 1973 edition of Jet magazine with cover photo and tagline: “Hank Aaron Discuses Racism and His Race for Ruth’s Record”.

August 13th, 1973 edition of Newsweek with Henry Aaron on the cover completing a swing superimposed over a large Babe Ruth photo in background with tagline: “Chasing The Babe”.

Although he had a very good 1973 season, hitting 40 home runs at age 39, Aaron finished the 1973 season, after 392 at-bats, at 713 career home runs, one shy of tying Ruth’s record.

In his last at bat for the 1973 season in Atlanta, Aaron had popped out to second base, and then he took his defensive position in the 9th inning out in left field. That’s when he was totally surprised by what happened next, as he would later write in his 1991 autobiography, I Had a Hammer:

…When I got out to left field for the ninth inning, the fans out there stood up and applauded. Then the fans on the third base side stood up an applauded, and fans behind right field and home plate. There were almost 40,000 people at the game – the largest crowd of the season – and they stood up and cheered me for a full five minutes. There have been a lot of standing ovations for a lot of baseball players, but this was one for the ages as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t believe that I was Hank Aaron and this was Atlanta, Georgia. I thought I’d never see the day. And God almighty, all I’d done was pop up to second base…. I took off my cap and help it up in the air, and then I turned in a circle and looked at all those people standing and clapping…. and to tell you the truth, I didn’t know how to feel, I don’t think I’d ever felt so good in my life. But I wasn’t ready for it.

Photo of Henry Aaron – No. 44, small figure, bottom center, at his position in the outfield during game – waving to, and acknowledging fans’ ovation for him at Atlanta Braves stadium on the last game of the season, even though he had 713, but unable to tie or surpass the Babe Ruth record during his at bats in that last game of 1973.

Still, the one real fear that Henry Aaron had as he closed out the 1973 baseball season – given the vicious threats he had received that year (see “Henry’s Hate Mail” below) – was that he might not live to see the 1974 season. Despite the last-game ovation and positive fan reaction for Aaron at the end of the 1973 season, the year had been a hellish one for he and his family. And the long wait until his next at bat in the 1974 season was now six months away — time enough for the bigots and haters to continue their hurtful craft, which they did.

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Henry’s Hate Mail
1972-1974

Beginning in 1972, Aaron had hired a secretary named Carla Koplin to deal with his mail – both his outgoing mail to fans requesting autographs, baseball cards, or photos, and other incoming mail, including the hate mail that increased in volume between 1972 and 1974. In 1973 alone, according to the U.S. Post Office, Henry Aaron would receive some 930,000 pieces of mail. Koplin organized the mail into good and bad stacks – and a separate pile of hate mail, with threatening letters reported to the FBI. The hate mail was saved for Aaron, who kept and stored the letters in his attic.

In 1972, Henry Aaron had hired a secretary named Carla Koplin to deal with his mail – both his outgoing mail to fans requesting autographs, baseball cards, or photos, and other incoming mail, including the hate mail that increased in volume between 1972 and 1974.

The letters came with scrawled KKK hoods, some that read, “You black animal,” and “You will die in one of those games,” and much worse. In the 1994 companion book to the Ken Burns PBS-TV series on the history of baseball, titled Baseball: An Illustrated History (based on the documentary film transcript), there is a sampling of excerpts from some of the racist mail Aaron received, as follows:

Dear Nigger: You black animal. I hope you never live long enough to hit more home runs that the great Babe Ruth.

Dear Hank Aaron: I hope you get it between the eyes.

Dear Brother Hanks Aaron: I hope you join Brother Dr. Martin Luther King in that Heaven he spoke of….

Dear Nigger Henry: It has come to my attention that you are going to break Babe Ruth’s record… I will be going to the rest of your games and if you hit one more home run it will be your last. My gun will be watching your every black move…

Another writer also threatened to shoot Aaron, as indicated in the letter shown below, written in 1973, with that writer listing the game dates and locations in 1973 he said he would be monitoring, accompanied by a shooting sketch at the bottom:

Sample of hate mail letter written to Henry Aaron threatening his life during the 1973 season.

It was threats of this sort that had prompted FBI monitoring and a body guard for Aaron. Some threats also came to those providing positive press coverage of Aaron. Lewis Grizzard, then executive sports editor of the Atlanta Journal, reported receiving numerous phone calls citing the journalists as “nigger lovers” for covering Aaron’s home run chase. Carla Koplin, Aaron’s secretary, also received some threats. “They knew I was white, Jewish, and working for a Black man,” she later explained.

After Aaron had talked publicly about his hate mail in the spring of 1973, that helped to generate a massive, national letter-writing campaign supporting him. The mail then turned in his favor, Koplin recalled, including that from school kids and others writing to support him. Koplin, meanwhile, would remain Aaron’s secretary through his later years and the two remained friends.

Henry Aaron, in his Atlanta Braves uniform, taking batting practice in the 1970s.

Some of the hate mail Aaron received during the Babe Ruth chase, along with other documents, are held in Atlanta at Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.

How Henry Aaron was able to take to the field, day after day during the Ruth chase, while receiving threats and daily hate mail, is truly amazing. He would later claim an ability to compartmentalize.

“I’ve always felt like once I put the uniform on and once I got out onto the playing field, I could separate the two – from say, an evil letter I got the day before or even 20 minutes before,” he would tell CNN in one interview. “God gave me the separation, gave me the ability to separate the two of them.”

And Henry Aaron was also on a mission, driven by a larger purpose.

“I had to break the record,” he would later write of pursuing Ruth’s home run mark. “I had to do it for Jackie (Robinson), and my people and myself and for everybody who ever called me a nigger.”

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1974

April 5, 1974. NY Daily News headline: “Aaron Hits 714, Ties The Babe.”

As the 1974 season began, the Braves opened on the road in Cincinnati with a three-game series. All eyes were on Henry Aaron. Braves management, naturally, wanted Aaron to break the record in Atlanta, and a minor flap ensued when they tried to have him sit out the Cincinnati games, as Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ruled that he had to play two games in that series.

So, on April 4, 1974, in his very first at bat, before a sellout crowd of 52,154 at Riverfront Stadium — and on his very first swing of the season — Henry Aaron smacked a home run tying Babe Ruth’s record with No. 714. New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson would write in his lead sentence for the next day’s story:

With the unobtrusive grace that has symbolized his career, Henry Aaron tied Babe Ruth’s record today with his 714th home run-a 400-foot, three-run line drive over the fence in left-center field at Riverfront Stadium on his first swing of the major league baseball season.

The Braves returned to Atlanta, and on April 8th, 1974 a crowd of 53,775 – then a Braves attendance record – turned out for what many believed would be baseball history. The game was also broadcast nationally on NBC-TV.

In Cincinnati, play was halted briefly following Aaron’s historic home run tying Babe Ruth, and a brief ceremony was held. Then U.S. Vice President Gerald Ford (R-MI) wished Aaron good luck for No. 715 “and a good many more,” while Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn presented him with a trophy, calling him “a great player and a great gentleman.” Braves owner, Bill Bartholomay, presented a plaque to Aaron commemorating the home run, promising more celebration to come a few days later in Atlanta.

April 4th, 1974, Crosley Field, Cincinnati. After Henry Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit career home run No. 714, tying the Babe Ruth record on opening day in Cincinnati, a short ceremony was held, with remarks from then U.S. Vice President Gerald Ford (w/ microphone), baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and, not shown, Braves owner, Bill Bartholomay

The Braves returned to Atlanta, and on April 8th, 1974 where a crowd of 53,775 greeted them – then a Braves attendance record. Many attending the game that evening no doubt believed they would see baseball history. The game was also broadcast nationally on NBC-TV.

NY Daily News, April 9th, 1974: “715! Henry Does It!,” with photo of Aaron completing his swing, his eyes on the ball’s flight. Click for replica tin poster.

In the game, Aaron drew a walk his first time up in the second inning. When he came to bat for the second time it was the fourth inning and the Braves were trailing 3-1 with no outs and a runner on first. The Dodgers’ pitcher was left-hander Al Downing.

On a 1-0 count, Downing threw a pitch that came across part of the plate but within Aaron’s wheelhouse, and he unloaded on it. With his wrist-powered, whip-action swing, he drove the ball into deep left field, beyond the reach of Dodgers’ fielder Bill Buckner, and over the fence. That was it; Henry Aaron had done it! Baseball had a new Home Run King!

The stadium went wild as fans rose to their feet applauding Aaron’s feat for the ages. Cannons fired and fireworks exploded as Aaron circled the bases.

Vin Scully, the Dodgers’ famous play-by-play announcer, declared the resulting scene as a “marvelous moment for baseball … the country and the world … A black man getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.”

Yet, recalling the threats in Aaron’s hate mail, his body guard and protector, Atlanta detective Calvin Wardlaw, then not far away in nearby stands, watched anxiously as Aaron made his way around the bases. Wardlaw became especially concerned – his hand on a hidden revolver – as two young men who had run on the field came at Aaron between second and third base. They were happy fans, it turned out, coming to congratulate him. By the time Aaron arrived at home plate he was mobbed by teammates and family – first by his father Herbert, and then his mother, Estella, who managed her way through the throng of players to embrace her son.

Henry Aaron, arriving at home plate to a jubilant throng of his teammates after hitting record setting home run.

Aaron, for his part, who had been in the worst kind of a pressure cooker for more than two years, was just happy it was over with, and said so when first asked how he felt. Aaron’s record-setting baseball accomplishment, meanwhile, was front-page news all across America and beyond. Some front-page stories on Aaron’s feat in major newspapers — such as that shown below with the Baltimore Sun‘s front page — featured him in mid-swing hitting the ball for its historic departure. The New York Times of April 9, 1974, also ran a front-page headline with a photo of Aaron being embraced by his mother, sharing that space with other news of the day, including President Richard Nixon’s political woes, then the era of the Watergate scandal. Other headlines on Aaron’s home run touched on his humility and integrity. The Huntsville Times of Huntsville, Alabama, on April 9, 1974 offered: “Humble Hank Minimizes Historic 715th Homer.” The Atlanta Inquirer of April 13, 1974, noted: “Aaron Feat Thrills Nation. All Ages Hail Super Gentleman.”

April 9, 1974, front-page headline that ran in ‘The Sun’ newspaper of Baltimore, MD: “Aaron Hits 715th Homer, Passes Ruth; Connects on His 1st Swing,” with Associated Press photo of Aaron hitting the ball.

Among notables attending the game that night at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was Sammy Davis, Jr. and Atlanta’s black mayor, Maynard Jackson. Pearl Bailey had sung the national anthem. Also attending was Georgia Governor, Jimmy Carter, along with mother Lillian and wife Rosalynn. During a ceremony honoring Aaron, Carter presented him with a personalized Georgia license plate that read: “HLA-715,” referring to Aaron’s initials, “Henry Louis Aaron,” and the record-breaking home run, No. 715. Carter was a baseball fan, and had been following Aaron’s career, and was also on hand earlier, during a September 27, 1973 game, when he visited Aaron briefly in the clubhouse. According to Carter, he and Aaron became friends and would also learn to ski together on trips to Colorado. After Carter was elected president in 1976, he invited Aaron and Billye to the White House.

As part of festivities honoring Henry Aaron for his career home run record ( here with his wife Billye), Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter presented him with a personalized Georgia license plate that read: "HLA-715," referring to Aaron’s initials – “Henry Louis Aaron” – and the record-breaking home run, No. 715.

Henry Aaron would finish the 1974 season with 20 home runs, bringing his career total then to 733. He contemplated retirement at that point, since his Atlanta contract expired at season’s end. Yet he indicated he was willing to play another year or so. He was also interested in working in baseball management, and the Braves did offer him a job in public relations. Aaron, however, wanted a more substantive role, or possibly one evaluating baseball talent.

”Home Run Henry”
Milestones: 1954-1976

Home Run No. 1
23 Apr 1954 / St. Louis
HR No. 100
15 Aug 1957 / Cincinnati
HR No. 200
2 July 1960 / St. Louis
HR No. 300
19 Apr 1963 / New York
HR No. 400
20 Apr 1964 / Philadelphia
HR No. 500
14 July 1968 / Atlanta
HR No. 600
27 Apr 1971 / Atlanta
HR No. 700
21 July 1973 / Atlanta
HR No. 713
29 Sept 1973 / Atlanta
HR No 714
4 Ar 1974 / Cincinnati
HR No. 715
18 Apr 1974 / Atlanta
HR No. 755
20 July 1976 / Milwaukee
________________________

Then in November 1974, an old friend, Bud Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League, made a trade with the Braves that brought Aaron to the Brewers, where an old teammate, Del Crandall, was then manager. Aaron signed a two-year contract with the Brewers for $240,000 per year and played mostly as a “designated hitter,” without having to play in the field. And with the Brewers, he continued to push his home run total up a bit, and also set another hitting record. On May 1, 1975, Aaron broke baseball’s all-time RBI record – also previously held by Babe Ruth – with 2,213 RBIs.

Aaron believed runs batted in – RBIs – were an important measure of a hitter’s worth. “I’ve always felt driving in runs was a solid measure of your worth to the team,” he told Los Angeles Times reporter Jim Murray in February 1987. “I know I used to feel embarrassed if I left runners on second or third with less than two out… I always felt ashamed to leave runners on…” It was like failing in his responsibility as a hitter, he would say. “…I wasn’t up there to keep a rally going, or get on base for the big guys. I was the big guy. I had to find a way to bring those runs in.” And more often than not, he did just that. Yet it was the home run mark for which he would be most remembered, though his RBI record may never be broken.

Still, the way he compiled his home run record was both consistent and dazzling. For 20 years in a row – encompassing seasons 1955 through 1974 – he hit 20 or more home runs every year. He had at least 30 home runs a year in 15 of those seasons. Eight times he hit 40 or more, with his high of 47 home runs coming in 1971. He is the only MLB player to have to hit 30 or more home runs a season at least fifteen times.

Henry Aaron hit his 755th and final home run with the Milwaukee Brewers on July 20, 1976, at Milwaukee County Stadium which stood for 31 years as the MLB career home run record until it was broken in 2007 by Barry Bonds. Over the course of his record-breaking 23-year career, Aaron averaged 163 hits, 32 home runs, and 99 RBIs every year. He also had a lifetime batting average of .305.

At his retirement from baseball following the 1976 season, Henry Aaron held a slew of records, among them: most home runs, 755; most RBIs, 2,297; most total bases, 6,856; most games played , 3,298; most at-bats, 12,364; and most plate appearances at 13,941. He was also at that time, second in hits at 3,771 behind only Ty Cobb. As of March 2021, he was still the career leader in total bases and RBIs, second in home runs, and third in hits, behind Pete Rose and Cobb.

Aaron appeared in a record 24 All-Star Games, won batting titles in 1956 and 1959, MVP in 1957, and led the league in home runs four times. He was the first player in baseball history to amass 500 career home runs and 3,000 hits. He is also, as of March 2021, one of only three players – Willie Mays and Albert Pujols being the others – who have managed a .300 or better batting average, 3,000 or more hits, and 600 or more home runs.

The Lasting Scar

Yet it was the Babe Ruth home run chase of the 1972-74 period that had been Henry Aaron’s most hurtful season; a time that wounded him deeply and left a lasting scar. He didn’t always show it or dwell on it, or wear it on his sleeve. Yes, he would talk about it when asked; what had happened to him in those years – and earlier – was wrong and unjust. Throughout his 23-year career, hundreds of racial slurs, slights, and cuts had come his way. But he bore much of it inside, where it ate at him in memory – especially the letters during the Ruth chase – as these had ruined his dream and left him with a hurtful view of America and baseball.

September 2013. Henry Aaron, his face still kindly and open, during interview at Turner Field in Atlanta with the Academy of Achievement, during which he noted having “a really bad time” of it for two years with hate mail, death threats, and some press accounts during the home run chase.

As the 20th anniversary of his passing Babe Ruth and setting the career home run record approached in 1994, he was interviewed by sports columnist William C. Rhoden of the New York Times:

“…April 8, 1974, really led up to turning me off on baseball… It really made me see for the first time a clear picture of what this country is about… My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats, and I had to live like a pig in a slaughter camp. I had to duck. I had to go out the back door of the ball parks. I had to have a police escort with me all the time. I was getting threatening letters every single day. All of these things have put a bad taste in my mouth, and it won’t go away. They carved a piece of my heart away.”

Similarly, in a 2006 interview with American History magazine, Aaron again described those effects:

“It still hurts a little bit inside because I think it has chipped away at a part of my life that I will never have again. I didn’t enjoy myself. It was hard for me to enjoy something that I think I worked very hard for. God had given me the ability to play baseball, and people in this country kind of chipped away at me. So it was tough. And all of those things happened simply because I was a Black person.”

Still, life went on for Henry Aaron after his active baseball years. When he left the game in 1976 he was still in his 40s, and he had another lifetime ahead.

Later Life

1997 copy of Atlanta Braves fan magazine featuring Ted Tuner and Hank Aaron on cover for opening of Turner Field, with the street address, “755 Hank Aaron Drive”. Click for Turner's story.

In 1975, rising Atlanta businessman and soon-to-be-media mogul of CNN fame, Ted Turner, bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team. Through his Turner Broadcasting cable TV network, he would broadcast Braves games nationally. But Turner was also interested in having Henry Aaron work in the Braves’ front office, as journalist Howard Bryant has noted, quoting Turner:

“When I bought the team, naturally I wanted Henry. It was the right thing to do because he was so important to the Braves… I asked him what he wanted to do and he told me he wanted to be farm director because that was a job with some teeth. I didn’t worry about whether he could do the job. I didn’t know very much about baseball when I came in. If I could go from non-baseball person to owner, he could go from baseball player to the front office…”

In the position as director of minor-league personnel Aaron would oversee the 125 players through the Braves’ five minor league clubs. He would be paid fifty thousand dollars annually. And in that position, Aaron became the first black ex–major-league player making front-office player-personnel decisions for a major-league club. According to Bryant, Turner told Aaron he would have a job for life with the Braves. Turner would also bring Aaron into the corporate world with later positions on the boards of directors of TBS, the Braves, the Atlanta Falcons football team, the Atlanta Technical Institute, and Medallion Financial Corporation.

In the baseball legends world, meanwhile, Henry Aaron was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, his first year of eligibility, with a near-unanimous vote, receiving 406 of the 415 votes cast.

Cover of 1991 Hank Aaron autobiography, “I Had A Hammer,” with Lonnie Wheeler. Harper-Collins, 333pp. Click for copy

In February 1991, his autobiography, I Had A Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story, written with Lonnie Wheeler, was published by Harper-Collins. Library Journal noted : “…It is the first-hand account of the prejudice faced by Aaron and his contemporaries who followed Jackie Robinson into the big leagues.”

In 1995, a documentary film on Aaron’s life and the home run chase, was made, titled, Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream. The film was executive produced by a team that included actor Denzel Washington and was written and directed by Mike Tollin. The film was broadcast on TBS cable TV and later made available in VHS format. Writing a review for the Baltimore Sun in 1995, Milton Kent noted, “Chasing the Dream is true must-see television, not only for baseball fans, but also for anyone with a conscience.” The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and it also won a Peabody Award.

Meanwhile, the “Chasing The Dream” theme would be used by Aaron in subsequent projects, most notably for his Chasing The Dream Foundation, established in 1995 to help young people achieve their dreams through various funding, mentoring, and scholarship programs, some in conjunction with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and others with MLB funding support. In 2009, the Baseball Hall of Fame created a “Chasing The Dream” exhibit on Aaron’s life and baseball accomplishments, one of only a few such programs on an individual player at the Hall.

In April 1997, a new baseball park, named Hank Aaron Stadium, was built for the AA Mobile Bay Bears in Aaron’s hometown of Mobile, Alabama.

In 1999, Henry Aaron had an especially good year, beginning with his 65th birthday celebration in February at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. It was VIP event, including a surprise visit from sitting president Bill Clinton, who regaled the audience with the story of how Henry Aaron helped him win the Georgia Democratic primary in 1992, a victory that helped send Clinton to the White House. Another big honor that year for Aaron, also unveiled at the birthday party, was Major League Baseball’s creation of the Hank Aaron Award, an annual award given to the best hitters in the American and National Leagues. The Hank Aaron Award for hitters was meant to be the equivalent of the Cy Young Award for pitchers. When MLB rolled out the award there was also some media promotion, which included a book on Aaron, Home Run: My Life in Pictures, written by Aaron with Dick Schaap and a foreword by Ted Williams.

Howard Bryant’s 2010 book, “The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron” (Pantheon, 624pp). Click for copy.

In later years, there were additional books published on the life of Henry Aaron and/or his home run chase. In 2004 Tom Stanton, author of other baseball books, published, Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America (William Morrow, 256pp). In 2006, Mark Stewart and Mike Kennedy published, Hammering Hank: How the Media Made Henry Aaron ( Lyons Press, 280pp). Howard Bryant’s highly regarded book, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, was published in 2010 (Pantheon, 624pp).

There had also been earlier books on Aaron up through 1974. One by George Plimpton: Hank Aaron: One for the Record – The Inside Story of Baseball’s Greatest Home Run (Bantam, 153pp, later updated by Little, Brown, 208pp). Another 1974 book, billed as an autobiography, Aaron, was written by Aaron with Furman Bisher (Ty Crowell Co, 236pp). However, in recent years, Howard Bryant’s 2010 book is regarded by many to be the most thorough and probing work on Aaron so far.

Henry Aaron had come to baseball from the segregated south and a family life where his mother and father had instilled in him the virtues of hard work and also the cautions of staying within the safety bounds of the southern culture he lived in — i.e, knowing one’s place, not drawing attention to oneself, etc. Throughout his baseball career, he had been cautious, private, and not self-promoting — including with the press, which some reporters took as stand-offishness, describing him in their stories unfairly or inaccurately. Henry just believed in dong his job and doing it well. He wasn’t a show-horse. But on top of his Jim Crow southern enculturation came the 1972-74 hate mail that burnished a legacy on his personality that left him looking over his shoulder for years and scanning large crowds for possible trouble to come. Still, he had set out on a Jackie Robinson-inspired mission to make things better for blacks in baseball at all levels, and beyond that, to help children going forward in their own lifetimes. And on both counts, he opened doors and created opportunities.

Over the years, Henry Aaron received all manner of achievement, civic, and civil rights awards. In 1976, he was awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. In 1977, he received the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award. He was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton in January 2001; the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President George W. Bush in June 2002; and in November 2015, was one of the five inaugural recipients of the Portrait of a Nation Prize, an award and national portrait granted by the National Portrait Gallery in recognition of “exemplary achievements in the fields of civil rights, business, entertainment, science, and sports.”

April 1999: “Atlanta Magazine” ran a feature piece on Henry Aaron at the 25th anniversary of his breaking Ruth’s record, focusing on his history, his personality, how fans & press perceived him, his work ethic, and more.

In the business world, meanwhile, Aaron would do quite well for himself and his family. While he had made some investment mistakes in his younger years, he came to own Hank Aaron BMW of south Atlanta as well as Mini, Land Rover, Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda dealerships throughout Georgia, as part of the Hank Aaron Automotive Group. By 2007, he sold all but one of these. He also owned a chain of 30 restaurants around the country and some apparel stores. In his years after baseball, Henry Aaron had become a wealthy man – worth $25 million by some estimates. Yet, he was also focused on leveraging his name and good fortune to helping others.

At his death in January 2021 at age 86, the tributes from those who knew him left no doubt that Henry Aaron, while a complicated man, was a giant in the important social and civil rights work he had chosen for himself both during and after his baseball years.

Muhammad Ali and Henry Aaron during the Presidential Citizens Medal ceremony on January 8, 2001 at the White House with President Bill Clinton.

For sports generally, see the “Annals of Sport” category page. There is also a topics page on “Civil Rights Stories.” And history on Ted Turner is found at “Ted Turner & CNN: 1980s & 1990s”.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle.

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Date Posted: 15 March 2021
Last Update: 1 April 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “A Season of Hurt: Aaron Chasing Ruth,”
PopHistoryDig.com, March 15, 2021.

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Henry Aaron picking out a bat in the prime of his career.

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Hank Aaron canvas wall art, framed or unframed; availability varies. Click for Hank Aaron page at Amazon.

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Young Henry Aaron, coiled and ready to strike.

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Tom Stanton, Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America, New York: William Morrow, 2004.

Dennis Yuhasz, “Hank Aaron Biography,” Baseball-Almanac.com, 2005.

George F. Will, “The Dignified Slugger From Mobile,” WashingtonPost.com, Sunday, May 6, 2007.

“Hank Aaron’s Career Timeline,” MLB.com, May 22, 2007.

“In Honor of Hank Aaron’s 755 Steroid-Free Home Runs,” 755HomeRuns.com.

Dwight Garner, Books of The Times / Review of The Last Hero, “The Man Who Broke Babe’s Record,” New York Times, May 9, 2010.

Gary D’Amato, “Seasons of Greatness: Top 10 > No. 2: Hank Aaron, 1957. Aaron Did it All for ’57 Braves,” Journal-Sentinal/JSonline .com (Milwaukee, WI), February 26, 2012.

Larry Granillo, “How a 39-Year-Old Hank Aaron Surprised Everyone,” SBnation.com, July 4, 2013.

“Hank Aaron: Baseball Immortal,” Interview at Turner Field, Atlanta GA, Achievement.org, September 10, 2013.

Jen Christensen, “Besting Ruth, Beating Hate: How Hank Aaron Made Baseball History,” CNN.com, April 2014.

David Jackson, “Carter Hails Aaron on Anniversary of 715th Home Run, USA Today, April 9, 2014.

“Black History: Aaron, Henry Louis,” Birm-inghamTimes.com, February 19, 2015.

“The Hank Aaron Fan’s Guide to Magazine Collecting,” jasoncards.WordPress.com, Mar. 20, 2015.

Mike Dyer Hank, “Aaron Reflects on His 3,000th Hit in Cincinnati,” Cincinnati Enquirer / cincinnati.com, April 17, 2015.

“We Still Hate Hank Aaron!,” HateMail .WordPress.com, December 8, 2015.

Rhiannon Walker, “MLB vs. Florida: When the League Protested Segregated Living Quarters During Spring Training. Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson and More Spoke out to Create a Standoff Between Mlb and the State of Florida,” TheUndefeated.com, March 7, 2018.

Chris Anderson, “When Hank Aaron Lived in a Segregated Bradenton,” HeraldTribune.com (Sarasota, FL), March 11, 2019.

Frank Drouzas, “Baseball and Biscuits and Gravy: Bay Area Racism and the National Pastime,” TheWeekly Challenger.com, July 11, 2019.

“Hank Aaron,” Encyclopedia.com.

Richard Goldstein, “Hank Aaron, Home Run King Who Defied Racism, Dies at 86. He Held the Most Celebrated Record in Sports for More than 30 Years,” New York Times, January 22, 2021.

“A Quiet Life of Loud Home Runs: Hank Aaron in Photographs: The Slugging Outfielder Was a Rock of Consistency for 23 Seasons. He Was a Superstar Unlike Any Before Him — or Any Since,” New York Times, January 23, 2021.

Henry Grabar, “The Woman Who Read Hank Aaron’s Hate Mail. In 1973, the Baseball Legend Got 900,000 Letters. It Was Carla Koplin Cohn’s Job to Report the Threats to the FBI,” Slate.com, January 22, 2021.

“A Timeline of Hank Aaron’s Life and Career,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette / Post-Gazette.com), January 22, 2021.

Richard Friedman, “Macon Native Carla Cohn Reflects on Long-Time Bond With ‘Uncle Henry’ Hank Aaron,” Southern Jewish Life /sjlmag.com, January 24, 2021.

“Hank Aaron Letters, 1973, 1979,” Baseball Hall.org (collection of six letters written to Hank Aaron in 1973 and 1979).

“Henry ‘Hank’ Aaron,” MyBlackHistory.net.

Dave Sheinin and Matt Bonesteel, ‘A Giant Presence’: Hank Aaron Remembered for Towering Baseball Achievements, Cultural Impact,” WashingtonPost.com, January 22, 2021.

“Photos: The Life and Career of Hank Aaron,” WashingtonPost.com, January 22, 2021.

Zach Kram, “The Staggering Greatness of Hank Aaron, by the Numbers,” TheRinger .com, January 22, 2021.

Dave Sheinin and Matt Schudel, “Hank Aaron, Baseball Great Who Became Force for Civil Rights, Dies at 86,” WashingtonPost.com, January 22, 2021.

Michael Lee, “Hank Aaron Fought Racism the Way He Played: Quietly but with Power,” WashingtonPost.com, January 22, 2021.

Terence Moore, “There Was Much More to Hank Aaron than Breaking Babe Ruth’s Record,” CNN.com, January 22, 2021 (w/2 videos).

Paul Newberry, Associated Press, “Hank Aaron, Baseball’s One-Time Home Run King, Dies at 86,” Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wisconsin), January 22, 2021.

Ray Sanchez, David Close, Wayne Sterling and Jen Christensen, “Hank Aaron, Baseball Legend and Former Home Run King, Dies at 86,” CNN.com, January 22, 2021.

Benjamin Hoffman, “Hank Aaron Was More Than His Stats. But His Stats Were Outrageous,” New York Times, January 22, 2021.

Editorial Board, “Henry Louis Aaron: The Home Run King Overcame Racism and Great Pitchers,” Wall Street Journal, January 22, 2021.

“Hank Aaron’s Career in Photos: a Photographic Journey Through the Career of Hank Aaron, a Baseball Legend, Hall of Famer and Long-Time Home Run King,” Newsday.com, January 22, 2021.

Bradford William Davis, “Henry ‘Hank’ Aaron Is Dead, But His Life’s Story Is Already at Risk,” NYDailyNews .com, January 22, 2021.

Hemal Jhaveri, “Hank Aaron’s Searing Words on the Racism He Faced Should Never Be Forgotten,” USAToday .com, January 22, 2021.

Larry Stone, “Baseball Great Hank Aaron Is Gone, But His Legacy and Dignity Will Last Forever,” SeattleTimes .com, January 22, 2021.

Katherine Acquavella “Hank Aaron’s Legacy Will Always Be BiggerTthan Baseball Thanks to His Fight for Civil Rights,” CBSsports.com, January 22, 2021.

Howard Bryant, “Hank Aaron’s Lasting Impact Is Measured in More than Home Runs,” ESPN.com, January 22, 2021.

Scott Allen, “The Night Hank Aaron Broke Babe Ruth’s Home Run Record,” Washington Post, January 22, 2021.

David Von Drehle, “Henry Aaron Did as Much as Anyone to Redeem the South,” Washington Post, January 22, 2021.

“Hank Aaron: Baseball Immortal – Biography,” Achievement.org.

Douglas Brinkley, “A Final Interview With Hank Aaron: ‘I Recognized That I Had a Gift’,” New York Times, January 23, 2021.

Jerry Brewer, “Racism Carved Away a Piece of Hank Aaron’s Heart. What Remained Was Still a Gift,” Washington Post.com, January 23, 2021.

Joe Lapointe, “Remembering My Day Fishing With Hank Aaron Revealed His Hall of Fame Principles,” Detroit Free Press / FreeP.com, January 24, 2021.

Joe Lapointe, “Henry Aaron: `I Believe Somehow Things Have to Change.’” I wrote it 40 summers ago (July 27, 1980) as part of a series called “Blacks and Baseball.” Detroit Free Press, p. 10-B.

Gene Seymour, “Bad Henry’s Lesson: Henry Aaron 1934–2021. For Baseball’s Black Superstar, Being The Best Still Wasn’t Good Enough,” TheNation.com, January 25, 2021.

Benjamin Hill, “Hammer Time: Aaron’s Minor League Career; Baseball Icon Honed His Skills in Eau Claire and Jacksonville,” MiLB.com, January 26, 2021.

Tom Haudricourt, “Hank Aaron Lauded at Funeral Service Not Only for Chasing His Dream but Helping Others Chase Theirs,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, January 27, 2021.

Gerald Early, “The Alabama Boy Makes Good; Hank Aaron, Legend of the Negro World,” The Common Reader / wustl.edu, January 28, 2021.

_________________________________

Baseball Books & Film at Amazon.com…

Robert Peterson’s book, “Only the Ball Was White” a history of black baseball players & teams, 1992. Oxford Univ. Press, 416 pp. Click for book.

2011baseball film, “Moneyball,” based on a true story, starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill & others. Click for film at Amazon.

Joe Posnanski’s 2007 book, “The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America,” William Morrow, 304 pp. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Selected Stories

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Music in Film”
Songs & Soundtracks

January 11, 2021 J.D.

Moving Film Score

“Glory & The 54th”

Civil War History

Harlem Boys Choir brings
haunting power to this story
of black Civil War soldiers.

Love Story Music

“Of Bridges & Lovers”

1992-1995

Clint Eastwood uses jazz/
blues classics to help set
tone for this love story.

Soundtrack Music

“The Saddest Song”

1942-1945

Samuel Barber’s “Adagio
for Strings” used powerfully
in several films.

Stirring Film Music

“The Ecstasy of Gold”

1966-2010

Famous “gold fever” song
from Good, Bad & Ugly
film w/ Clint Eastwood.

Saxophone Music

“Harlem Nocturne”

1939-1980s

Story includes use of
“Harlem Nocturne” as title
track for TV’s Mike Hammer.

Film Brings New Sound

“Reggae Breaks Out”

1972-74

The Harder They Come
soundtrack sends
reggae music soaring.

Film Music & Marketing

“Big Chill Marketing”

1980s & 1990s

The Big Chill soundtrack
helped bring original
rock music to TV ads.

Righteous Brothers Music

“Lost That Lovin` Feelin`”

1964 & 1965

Includes Bobby Hatfield’s
“Unchained Melody” used in
Ghost with Demi Moore.

Beach Boys Music

“Love & Mercy”

2015

Brian Wilson bio pic
captures his genius & demons
and his beautiful music.

Film Score Gems

“Philadelphia Morning”

1976-1977

Underrated & poignant
songs by Bill Conti helped
make Rocky “best picture.”

Mystery Film Song

“Sea of Love”

1959

Phil Phillips hit song
plays mystery role in
Al Pacino film.

Death Center Scene

“Soylent Green”

1973

Classical music medley &
old-world scenery help give
Sol a euthanized send off.

Book, Film, Music

“Doctor Zhivago”

1950s-2010s

Oscar-winning epic film
& love story set during
the Russian Revolution.

Publishing & Politics

“The Pasternak Saga”

…& Zhivago Chronicles

Boris Pasternak’s life
was every bit as
interesting as Zhivago’s.

Entertainment Assets

“The Sound of Money”

2009

Story covers business
legacy of Rogers and
Hammerstein music.

…30 Years Later

“Love is Strange”

1956-2007

Mickey & Sylvia’s 1950s hit
has 1980s chart run after
Dirty Dancing scene.

Film Soundtrack Hit

“Louis Armstrong”

What A Wonderful World

This 1968 Armstrong song
became a 1988 hit after use in
Good Morning, Vietnam.

Piano Love Theme

“The Love Story Saga”

1970

Francis Lai’s Oscar-winning
score includes theme song
that became Top 40 hit.

James Bond Music

“You Only Live Twice”

1967

Nancy Sinatra theme song
& Japanese music make
Bond film a winner.

James Bond Music

“Goldfinger”

1964-1965

Shirely Bassey’s “Goldfinger”
theme song became a
Billboard No. 8 hit.

1950s Rock in Film

“Fats Domino”

1950s-2000s

His music has more
than 100 film & TV
credits, 1950s-2010s.

1950s Rock in Film

“Rock Around The Clock”

Bill Haley: 1951-1981

Blackboard Jungle‘s use
of “Rock Around the Clock”
sent Haley’s music soaring.

Good Song Choice

“The Bourne Profitability”

1980-2016

“Extreme Ways” song by
Moby fits the Bourne mold;
used in film series.

Link Wray Music

“Rumble” Riles Censors

1958-59

Link Wray’s power guitar
upset some, but his songs
are used in several films.

Rousing Film Music

“Let The River Run”

1988-1989

Carly Simon’s rousing song
for Working Girl
left filmgoers inspired.

Poignant Film Music

“Streets of Philadelphia”

1993-1994

Springsteen & Neil Young
songs in Philadelphia
helped convey AIDs tragedy.

Vietnam War Music

“Paint It Black”

1966-2000s

This Rolling Stones song
used in Full Metal Jacket
and TV’s Tour of Duty.

Movie Theme Song

“The Green Berets”

1965-1968

“Ballad of the Green Berets”
was No. 1 hit in 1966 & theme
song for 1968 John Wayne film.

1950s Rock Films

“Moondog Alan Freed”

1951-1956

He coined term “Rock ‘n
Roll” & made series
of rock music films.

Dirty Dancing Music

“Do You Love Me?”

1959-1988

Old Contours’ song has
new life after featured
role in 1988 film.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 11 January 2021
Last Update: 14 July 2023
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Music in Film: Songs & Soundtracks,”
A Topics Page, PopHistoryDig.com, January 11, 2021.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

“100 Greatest Film Scores.” Click for copy.

“Hearing the Movies: Music & Sound in Film.” Click for copy.

“50 Best Soundtracks.” Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: World War II

1941-1950, 2001-Today

“Firebombing Japan”
67 Cities: 1945

November 29, 2020 J.D.

“The Fog of War” documentary film by Errol Morris featuring Robert McNamara. Click for DVD. (see also companion book).

In 2003, an Academy Award winning “best documentary” film by Errol Morris, titled “The Fog of War,” featured former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, a somewhat controversial figure, especially regarding U.S. involvement during the Vietnam War.

But the Morris film covers much more than the Vietnam period, and in particular, as explored below, a somewhat less well-known chapter of WW II when the American military firebombed more than 60 Japanese cities – all prior to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The film is framed, in part, around McNamara’s life and times and his long career in government service and the private sector, including his post-WWII work at the Ford Motor Company as one of the “Whiz Kids” who helped turn around the then ailing automaker. McNamara’s involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is also covered.

But the principal subject of Morris’s film is the conduct and carnage of warfare, and the decision making of those who manage it. The film’s title derives from the military concept of the “fog of war,” suggesting difficulty, confusion, and uncertainty in decision making in the midst of conflict.

In addition to winning the 2003 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, the film was also selected by the Library of Congress in 2019 for preservation in the National Film Registry as being culturally/historically significant.

Morris also builds his film around some of McNamara’s “lessons,” offered earlier in a 1995 book by McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. During the film, Morris intercuts historic footage and other imagery, audio tapes and voiceovers, as McNamara speaks about his career and experiences in war.

McNamara was 85 years old when Morris interviewed him, and he comes across at times as a somewhat tortured soul on his involvement in WWII and Vietnam; grappling with the morality of decisions made and owning up to his roles in those conflicts. He tries to come to terms with what he has done, personally, while imploring his audience and society in general to consider “the rules of war.” What follows here is that part of the film, and McNamara’s analysis and recollections, that deal with the U.S. firebombing of Japan.

Robert McNamara in a 1960s portrait photo when he was U.S. Secretary of Defense.

World War II

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. was brought fully into WW II, both in Europe and the Pacific. The Pacific theater, also called the Pacific War, was a vicious and horrific part of WW II — on land, sea, and air. Fighting consisted of some of the largest naval and air battles in history, as well as incredibly fierce battles across the Pacific Islands approaching Japan, all resulting in immense loss of human life. Millions died during the Pacific War – soldiers and civilians – and millions more were injured or made homeless.

Robert McNamara, meanwhile, was a young assistant professor at Harvard in August 1940 where he taught statistical analysis in the Business School. There, he would create the Office of Statistical Control for the Army Air Corps, teaching young Army officers how to increase the efficiency of aerial bombing through applied statistics.

By 1943 he became a captain in U.S. Army Air Forces, serving most of World War II with its Office of Statistical Control. One of his major responsibilities became analysis of U.S. bombers’ efficiency and effectiveness, especially the B-29 forces commanded by Major General Curtis LeMay. By August 1944, U.S. forces had captured Guam, Saipan and Tinian in the Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean south of Japan and subsequently built six airfields on the islands to accommodate B-29 bombers. These bases were closer to Japan than previously used bases in China, as B-29s could now make bombing runs to Japan without refueling. Still, the trip to Japan, 1,500 miles away, took seven hours.

Book on Curtis LeMay. Click for copy.

McNamara would come to have a front-row seat during the bombing runs, as he was stationed on Guam during those raids, would participate in some debriefings of B-29 bomber pilots after their missions, and provided analysis to General LeMay on bombing efficiency.

In the course of the war, meanwhile, conventional, high-altitude precision bombing of Japanese military and industrial targets was not having the hoped-for success. That’s when a shift was made by General LeMay to bomb Japanese cities as a way to weaken popular support and to destroy home-based war manufacturing supplying larger Japanese factories. Among the objectives of the bombing runs was to target the areas with these home-based workshops, often located in residential areas. And decisions about which specific neighborhoods to bomb was often made on the basis of which ones would burn most easily. And on this score, U.S. Army Air Force planners had done their homework.

Most Japanese residential structures were built of wood and tar paper, which made them particularly vulnerable to fire. In addition, these structures were densely clustered in many Japanese residential areas. And while some were resilient to earthquakes, they also offered good ventilation, another fire-facilitating factor. On top of these factors, many Japanese cities had poor fire prevention infrastructure and limited ability to combat large-scale and multiple fires. The U.S. planners, in fact, had constructed a replica “Japanese Village” at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah to test their strategies and which incendiary bombs would work the best.

Test burns were made on Japanese-styled residential structures at at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah.

The bombing runs would not use conventional munitions, but rather, incendiary bombs concocted with the jellied explosive, napalm. One type of firebomb – the M69 incendiary device – became one of the preferred weapons, and was particularly effective at starting uncontrollable fires. These bombs — or more correctly, bomblets — were packaged 36 per carrier cluster bomb. The cluster bombs, in turn, when dropped from B-29s, opened up at about 2,000 feet on their way down, dispersing the 36 bomblets into the air for their fiery handiwork below. Once the M69 bomblets hit the ground, a fuse ignited a charge which first sprayed napalm up to 100 feet from its landing point, and then ignited it.

The B-29s, meanwhile, were also flying in a new way with their firebomb payloads. Normally, with conventional bombing, they flew daytime missions at high altitudes – 20,000 feet and higher – and were out of range of anti-aircraft artillery. But their target efficiency in these runs had fared poorly, as bad weather and jet stream currents were taking their bombs off course. In the firebombing missions, however, LeMay ordered the B-29s to fly at night and fly much lower, at 5,000 feet. LeMay also required the crews to strip away much of their plane’s defensive armaments so they could carry more bombs. The B-29 pilots and crews thought LeMay crazy and they worried for their survival. But while some planes and crew were lost in the five-month long campaign, the new strategy would become highly effective. The fire-bombing B-29s were sent in waves, often with hundreds of planes per target, bombing Japanese cities for hours at a time. In some of the bombings, horrific tornado-like firestorms resulted on the ground, overwhelming firefighting capabilities, superheating the air, and burning, baking, or boiling everything in sight. Some reports tell of people and animals burnt to ash.

In “The Fog of War” film, one of Robert McNamara’s “lessons” comes about midway in the film – Lesson No.5, that “proportionality should be a guideline in war.” And for this lesson, McNamara draws on the LeMay firebombing campaign, offered in the film clip below. In the clip, McNamara describes the firebombing of Tokyo and other cities, listing the percent of each Japanese city destroyed and naming similar-sized U.S. cities for comparison purposes: Tokyo, roughly the size of New York City, was 51% destroyed; Toyama, the size of Chattanooga, 99% destroyed; Nagoya, the size of Los Angeles, 40% destroyed; Osaka, the size of Chicago, 35% destroyed; Kobe, the size of Baltimore, 55% destroyed, and others. And as he concludes, McNamara emphasizes this was all before the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here’s the clip:

A transcription for the above clip follows below, with Robert McNamara describing the firebombing of Japan:

Robert McNamara: Fifty square miles of Tokyo were burned. Tokyo was a wooden city, and when we dropped these firebombs, it just burned it.

[Appearing on screen]: Lesson #5: Proportionality should be a guideline in war.

Errol Morris: The choice of incendiary bombs, where did that come from?

Robert McNamara: I think the issue is not so much incendiary bombs. I think the issue is: in order to win a war should you kill 100,000 people in one night, by firebombing or any other way? [General Curtis] LeMay’s answer would be clearly “Yes.”

“Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.”
–Robert McNamara

“McNamara, do you mean to say that instead of killing 100,000, burning to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in that one night, we should have burned to death a lesser number or none? And then had our soldiers cross the beaches in Tokyo and been slaughtered in the tens of thousands? Is that what you’re proposing? Is that moral? Is that wise?”

Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay’s command.

Robert McNamara during "The Fog of War" film.

Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.

I don’t fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The U.S.—Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history: kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable.

What one can criticize is that the human race prior to that time — and today — has not really grappled with what are, I’ll call it, “the rules of war.” Was there a rule then that said you shouldn’t bomb, shouldn’t kill, shouldn’t burn to death 100,000 civilians in one night?

LeMay said, “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” And I think he’s right. He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

_________________________________

Japanese Cities Firebombed
World War II: March-August 1945
(listed w/ comparable U.S. cities)

Edwin Hoyt’s book, “Inferno: The Fire Bombing of Japan, March 9 - August 15, 1945,” October 2000, Madison Books, 183pp, Illustrated. Click for copy.

Barrett Tillman’s “Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan 1942-1945,” Simon & Schuster, 2010, 336pp. Click for copy.

Kenneth P. Werrell’s 1998 book, “Blankets of Fire: U.S. Bombers Over Japan During World War II,” 352 pp, Smithsonian, includes 58 photos. Click for copy.

Hoito Edoin’s 1987 book, “The Night Tokyo Burned: The Incendiary Campaign Against Japan, March-August 1945,” St. Martin's Press, 248 pp. Click for copy.

Malcolm Gladwell’s 2021 bestseller, “The Bomber Mafia,” tells the story of two competing perspectives on aerial bombing – selective, targeted precision bombing vs. area-wide firebombing with napalm – and the U.S. military personalities behind them. Little, Brown & Co, 256 pp. Click for copy.

James M. Scott’s 2022 book, “Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb,” W. W. Norton & Co., 432 pp. Click for copy.

Yokahama, Japan / 58% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Cleveland, OH

Tokyo, Japan / 51% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: New York, NY

Toyama, Japan / 99% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Chattanooga, TN

Hamamatsu, Japan / 60.3% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Hartford, CT

Nagoya, Japan / 40% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Los Angeles, CA

Osaka, Japan / 35.1% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Chicago, IL

Nishinomiya, Japan / 11.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Cambridge, MA

Siumonoseki, Japan / 37.6% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: San Diego, CA

Kure, Japan / 41.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Toledo, OH

Kobe, Japan / 55.7% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Baltimore, MD

Omuta, Japan / 35.8% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Miami, FL

Wakayama, Japan / 50% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Salt Lake City, UT

Kawasaki, Japan / 36.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Portland, OR

Okayama, Japan / 68.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Long Beach, CA

Yawata, Japan / 21.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: San Antonio, TX

Kagoshima, Japan / 63.4% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Richmond, VA

Amagasaki, Japan / 18.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Jacksonville, FL

Sasebo, Japan / 41.4 % destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Nashville, TN

Moh, Japan / 23.3% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Spokane, WA

Miyakonoio, Japan / 26.5% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Greensboro, NC

Nobeoka, Japan / 25.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Augusta, GA

Miyazaki, Japan / 26.1% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Davenport, IA

Hbe, Japan / 20.7% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Utica, NY

Saga, Japan / 44.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Waterloo, IA

Imabari, Japan / 63.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Stockton, CA

Matsuyama, Japan / 64% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Duluth, MN

Fukui, Japan / 86% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Evansville, IN

Tokushima, Japan / 85.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Ft. Wayne, IN

Sakai, Japan / 48.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Forth Worth, TX

Hachioji, Japan / 65 % destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Galveston, TX

Kumamoto, Japan / 31.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Grand Rapids, MI

Isezaki, Japan / 56.7% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Sioux Falls, SD

Takamatsu, Japan / 67.5% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Knoxville, TN

Akashi, Japan / 50.2 % destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Lexington, KY

Fukuyama, Japan / 80.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Macon, GA

Aomori, Japan / 30% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Montgomery, AL

Okazaki, Japan / 32.2% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Lincoln, NE

Oita, Japan / 28.2% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Saint Joseph, MO

Hiratsuka, Japan / 48.4% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Battle Creek, MI

Tokuyama, Japan / 48.3% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Butte, MT

Yokkichi, Japan / 33.6% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Charlotte, NC

Uhyamada, Japan / 41.3% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Columbus, GA

Ogaki, Japan / 39.5% destroyed
U.S. equivalent: Corpus Christi, TX

Gifu, Japan / 63.6% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Des Moines, IA

Shizuoka, Japan / 66.1% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Oklahoma City, OK

Himeji, Japan / 49.4% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Peoria, IL

Fukuoka, Japan / 24.1% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Rochester, NY

Kochi, Japan / 55.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Sacramento, CA

Shimizu, Japan / 42% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: San Jose, CA

Omura, Japan / 33.1% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Sante Fe, NM

Chiba, Japan / 41% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Savannah, GA

Ichinomiya, Japan / 56.3% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Springfield, OH

Nara, Japan / 69.3% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Boston, MA

Tsu, Japan / 69.3% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Topeka, KS

Kuwana, Japan / 75 % destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Tucson, AZ

Toyohashi, Japan / 61.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Tulsa, OK

Numazu, Japan / 42.3% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Waco, TX

Chosi, Japan / 44.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Wheeling, WV

Kofu, Japan / 78.6% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: South Bend, IN

Utsunomiya, Japan / 43.7% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Sioux City, IA

Mito, Japan / 68.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Pontiac, MI

Sendai, Japan / 21.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Omaha, NE

Tsuruga, Japan / 65.1% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Middleton, OH

Nagaoka, Japan / 64.9% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Madison, WI

Hitachi, Japan / 72% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Little Rock, AK

Kumagaya, Japan / 55.1% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Kenosha, WI

Hamamatsu, Japan / 60.3% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Hartford, CT

Maebashi, Japan / 64.2% destroyed.
U.S. equivalent: Wilkes Barre, PA
____________________________

Hiroshima, Japan / atomic bomb
U.S. equivalent: Seattle, WA

Nagasaki, Japan / atomic bomb
U.S. equivalent: Akron, OH

____________________________

Sources: Errol Morris, Documentary film,
“The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the
Life of Robert S. McNamara,” 2003, Errol
Morris.com; “67 Japanese Cities Firebombed
in World War II,” diText.com; and, Alex
Wellerstein, “Interactive Map Shows Impact
of WWII Firebombing of Japan, If It Had
Happened on U.S. Soil,” Slate.com, March
13, 2014. Note: Some sources say that more
than 100 Japanese cities & towns were
firebombed (see Tanaka in Sources).

_________________________________

Beyond the Errol Morris film, there is also a considerable literature on the firebombing of Japan, which has grown through the 2000s and 2010s. The firebombing of Tokyo, in particular, has received specific attention, as noted in books cited above, but also in periodical sources, some listed below in the reference section. American historian Mark Selden, for example, has written extensively about the Japanese firebombing episode and other wartime air campaigns, noting of the August 1945 Tokyo raid in a 2007 paper for The Asia-Pacific Journal:

…The full fury of firebombing and napalm was unleashed on the night of March 9-10, 1945 when LeMay sent 334 B-29s low over Tokyo from the Marianas [islands]. Their mission was to reduce the city to rubble, kill its citizens, and instill terror in the survivors, with jellied gasoline and napalm that would create a sea of flames. …[T]he bombers…carried two kinds of incendiaries: M47s, 100-pound oil gel bombs, 182 per aircraft, each capable of starting a major fire, followed by M69s, 6-pound gelled-gasoline bombs, 1,520 per aircraft, in addition to a few high explosives to deter firefighters. …Whipped by fierce winds, flames detonated by the bombs leaped across a fifteen square mile area of Tokyo generating immense firestorms that engulfed and killed scores of thousands of residents.

One photograph of devastated Tokyo, Japan following the U.S. March 9-10, 1945 firebombing raid by B-29s, showing, in part, an industrial area along the Sumida River. Some 16 square miles of the city were razed by incendiary and other strikes. AP photo.

Mark Selden further notes a first-hand report of a police cameraman named Ishikawa Koyo, who described the streets of Tokyo as “rivers of fire” where people “blazed like ‘matchsticks’ as their wood and paper homes exploded in flames.” Koyo further reported that “under the wind and the gigantic breadth of the fire, immense incandescent vortices rose in a number of places, swirling, flattening, sucking whole blocks of houses into their maelstrom of fire.”

People died from radiant heat and direct flames, falling debris, oxygen deficiency, carbon monoxide poisoning, by trampling of stampeding crowds, and by drowning, as thousands jumped into canals and other water bodies attempting to escape the flames. Tokyo firebombing survivor Haruyo Nihei, at age 83 when interviewed by CNN, reported she was 8 years old at the time of the firebombing when she and her father were swept up into a mass panic on the streets during the bombing. They fell to the ground as others piled on top of them, and survived only by virtue of being insulated by those who burnt to death on top of them.

Photograph of Japanese on a road through Tokyo taken some time after the March 1945 U.S. firebombing of the city.

Some estimates of the dead from that one raid on Tokyo run as high as 100,000 or more men, women and children, with a million more injured and another million left homeless – though Japanese and American estimates on the toll of the raid vary, some with lower numbers. Still, the firebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 9–10, 1945 is the single deadliest air raid in history, with a greater area of fire damage and loss of life than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But Tokyo would endure more firebombing — two more raids in April and two in May, adding more square miles to the city’s burnt-out destruction.

March 11th, 1945 headlines from “The Detroit Free Press” reporting on the first U.S. firebombing run by B-29s over Tokyo, Japan. Smaller headline over news story at right notes: “Great Fires Rage for Hours in 15-Sq-Mile Area, Photos Reveal”.

Some surviving B-29 crew members would later tell the New York Times Magazine in March 2020 that a few pilots voiced objection to the firebombing missions but were pressured to go along, while some crew members would recall the foul smell of the firebombings that would rise up and wash over their planes in updrafts from below. “We hated what we were doing,” said B-29 crewman, Jim Marich, of the civilian firebombings, “but we thought we had to do it. We thought that raid might cause the Japanese to surrender.” Marich was one of the B-29 airmen interviewed by the Times who flew on the firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945.

Others, however, had no qualms about the U.S. firebombing Japanese cities, citing Japan’s own acts of horror, from the Pearl Harbor sneak attack and American prisoner beheadings, to Japan’s own thousands of civilian bombings in China – of Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongqing, Nanjing, and Canton – between 1937 and 1943. Sparing additional American and Japanese lives in an otherwise necessary American invasion of Japan to end the war is cited as well – a defense also raised for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet the debate on all of this continues to this day.

CNN map of Japan showing 10 Japanese cities that were firebombed with percentage of area destroyed in each.

In addition to Tokyo, other Japanese cities were also hard hit. Osaka, the second largest city in Japan, with more than 3 million residents and a key industrial, shipping, rail, and war-materials center, was firebombed by three waves of B-29s in nighttime raids over a three-and-a-half hour period on March 13, 1945. According to a summary at Wikipedia, each wave targeted a distinct area of the city. The first wave of 43 U.S. bombers arrived from Saipan; a second group of 107 B-29s came from Tinian, and a third wave of 124 bombers flew in from Saipan. In all, 274 B-29s destroyed more than 8 square miles of the city, leaving nearly 4,000 residents dead and another 678 missing. Osaka would be bombed several more times in June and July and a final time in August 1945, though not all of these raids used firebombs. A total of more than 10,000 residents of Osaka were killed in eight raids by U.S. bombers.

This photo shows damage in the Namba area of Osaka following 1945 U.S. bomber raids. The Nankai Namba rail station is visible at left.

The Japanese city of Kobe was attacked by 331 B-29s on the night of March 16/17, 1945, with a resulting firestorm that destroyed roughly half its area, killing 8,000 and leaving 650,000 homeless. On May 13, 1945, a fleet of 472 B-29s struck Nagoya by day, followed by a second raid at night on May 16 by 457 B-29s. The two raids on Nagoya killed 3,866 Japanese and rendered another 472,701 homeless. A daylight incendiary attack on Yokohama on May 29 sent 517 B-29s to that city escorted by 101 P-51s fighter planes. This force was intercepted by Japanese Zero fighters, sparking an intense air battle in which five B-29s were shot down and another 175 damaged. The 454 B-29s that reached Yokohama struck the city’s main business district and destroyed 6.9 square miles of buildings with more than 1,000 Japanese killed.

Maps showing, in red, the proportion of key Japanese cities that were burnt out by the U.S. firebombings. At left, the damage in 3 cities on Tokyo Bay is shown: Tokyo, Kawasaki and Yokohama. On the maps at right, two cities on Osaka Bay are shown at top, Kobe and Osaka, and at lower right, the burnt-out area of Nagoya. Wikipedia.org.

The firebombing of dozens more Japanese cities continued through June and July of 1945, among these were smaller Japanese cities with populations ranging from 62,280 to 323,000. On the night of 27/28 July, six B-29s dropped leaflets over 11 Japanese cities warning that they would be attacked in the future. And on July 28, six of these cities were attacked – Aomori, Ichinomiya, Tsu, Uji-Yamada Ogaki and Uwajima. During August 1945 further large-scale raids against Japanese cities began. More than 830 B-29s staged one of the largest raids of World War II on August 1st when the cities of Hachioji, Mito, Nagaoka and Toyama were targeted, suffering extensive damage. On this raid, Toyama, a large producer of aluminum, was especially hard hit, as McNamara noted in the “Fog of War,” with some 99 percent of its area destroyed after 173 B-29s dropped incendiary bombs on the city.

August 1, 1945. Nighttime aerial view of fiery scene below as much of Toyama, Japan, a city of 100,000 and a large producer of aluminum, burns to the ground after 173 American B-29 bombers dropped incendiary bombs on the city.

As the bombing campaign continued and the most important cities were destroyed, the bombers were then sent out against smaller and less significant cities. Many of these cities were not defended by anti-aircraft guns and Japan’s night-fighter force was ineffective. In this phase of the campaign, on most nights, four cities were attacked each night. According to Wikipedia, sixteen multi-city incendiary attacks of this kind were conducted by the end of the war (an average of two per week), targeting some 58 cities. Some of the incendiary raids were coordinated with precision bombing attacks during the last weeks of the war in an attempt to force a Japanese surrender. Then came the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, respectively, which finally moved Japan to surrender on August 15, 1945. Overall, by one calculation, the U.S. firebombing campaign, exclusive of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed more than 300,000 people

Photo of Shizuoka, Japan, sometime after being firebombed on June 19, 1945 by 137 B-29 bombers which attacked in two waves from east and west, so as to trap the population within the center of the city, between the mountains and the sea, dropping 13,211 incendiary bombs. The resultant firestorm destroyed most of the city (66.1%), then with an estimated population of 212,000, comparable in size to Oklahoma City, OK. Two B-29s collided mid-air during the operation, resulting in the deaths of 23 Americans. See: “Bombing of Shizuoka in World War II,” Wikipedia.

Further research and writing on the WWII firebombing of Japanese cities – and on the American city comparisons – have been made by military historians, geographers, and others. Several of these are listed in Sources at the end of this story. One offering at Slate.com includes a series of interactive maps plotting out a “what if” scenario, mapping the locations of the comparable American cities with the bombed-out proportions of their Japanese counterparts. The Slate piece – by Alex Wellerstein – also notes, importantly, that Japan is a much smaller country than the U.S. (about the size of Montana), and so, the effects of the firebombings there were magnified all the more.

The Errol Morris film, meanwhile, also focuses on Robert McNamara during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the Vietnam War. The film generally received positive reviews and high praise, but not from all quarters. Public opinion on McNamara over the years has been sharply divided, and he has fierce critics. Still, in his later years, as with the 22 hours of interviews and filming he did with Morris, McNamara spent years writing, probing, and public speaking trying to come to terms with his and the nation’s military involvements (some of his books and those of others about him are listed below in Sources). No doubt McNamara was trying to exorcize demons and guilt that he could never completely purge as he sought to explain his actions and policy-making, for which many would never forgive him. But at least he tried, and did so publicly.

1965. U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, giving a briefing during the Vietnam War, with map of the region behind him.

See also at this website, “The Pentagon Papers,” a freedom-of-the-press story involving Vietnam War-era secret documents and other papers, some of which then Defense Secretary Robert McNamara commissioned for an historic review of that war. A Steven Spielberg film on the topic is also part of this story, along with involvement of the Washington Post, New York Times, and famous whistle-blower, Daniel Ellsberg.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 29 November 2020
Last Update: 6 August 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Firebombing Japan: 67 Cities, 1945,”
PopHistoryDig.com, November 29, 2020.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize winning book on J. Robert Oppenheimer. Click for copy.

Robert McNamara's 1995 book, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.” Click for copy.

Evan Thomas’ 2023 book, “Road to Surrender...” and Countdown to End of WWII. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

A.C. Grayling's 2006 book, “Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan,” 384pp, Walker Books. Click for copy.

Daniel Schwabe’s 2014 book, “Burning Japan: Air Force Bombing Strategy Change in the Pacific,” Potomac Books, 256 pp, illustrated, Click for copy.

Frederick Taylor’s 2004 book, “Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945,” takes a new look at the controversial British-American bombing of the German city during WWII. 544 pp., Harper. Click for copy.

H. R. McMaster’s 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam,” 480 pp., Harper. Click for copy.

Deborah Shapley’s 1993 book, “Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara,” Little Brown & Co., 734 pp. Click for copy.

Errol Morris, documentary film, “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara,” 2003, ErrolMorris.com.

Transcript of Errol Morris film, “The Fog of War,” ErrolMorris.com.

“The Fog of War,” Wikipedia.org.

“Pacific War,” Wikipedia.org.

“Air Raids on Japan,” Wikipedia.org.

“Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945),” Wiki-pedia.org.

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, “Effects of Air Attack on Urban Complex Tokyo-Kawasaki -Yokohama,” 1947.

“McNamara on Bombing of Japan”(cut.mp4), YouTube.com, Posted by: profgunderson, January 18, 2010.

“67 Japanese Cities Firebombed in World War II,” diText.com.

Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon, 1987, Yale University Press, 435 pp; winner of the Bancroft Prize. Click for copy.

Conrad C. Crane, American Airpower Strategy in World War II: Bombs, Cities, Civilians, and Oil, Lawrence, 2016.

R. W. Apple Jr., “McNamara Recalls, and Regrets, Vietnam,” New York Times, April 9, 1995.

Kenneth P. Werrell, Blankets of Fire: U.S. Bombers Over Japan During World War II (Smithsonian History of Aviation and Spaceflight Series), April 1996.

“Bombing of Osaka,” Wikipedia.org.

Alex Wellerstein, “Interactive Map Shows Impact of WWII Firebombing of Japan, If It Had Happened on U.S. Soil,” Slate.com, March 13, 2014.

“The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara,” Metacritic.com (87 metascore, based on 36 critic reviews), 2003.

User Reviews, “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara” (2003), IMDB.com.

“The Fog of War,” The Charlie Rose Show, November 11, 2003 (Guests: Director Errol Morris and former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara describe their documentary “The Fog of War” which follows the life of McNamara and his experience in modern warfare), Transcript, CharlieRose.com.

Jonathan Curiel, “In New Documentary, Old Hawk Rethinks Roles in Vietnam and WWII,” San Francisco Chronicle/SFgate.com, Janu-ary 21, 2004.

“An Appreciation of Robert McNamara,” The Charlie Rose Show, YouTube.com.

“Robert McNamara,” alchetron.com.

Joseph Coleman, Associated Press, “1945 Tokyo Firebombing Left Legacy of Terror, Pain,” CommonDreams.org, March 10, 2005.

A.C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan, New York, 2006.

Mark Selden, “A Forgotten Holocaust: U.S. Bombing Strategy, The Destruction of Japanese Cities and The American Way of War From World War II to Iraq,” Asia-Pacific Journal, May 2, 2007, Volume 5 | Issue 5

Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn B. Young (eds.), Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth Century History, New York: New Press, 2009. Click for copy.

Tim Weiner, “Robert S. McNamara, Architect of a Futile War, Dies at 93,” New York Times, July 6, 2009.

Laurence M. Vance, “Bombings Worse Than Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” The Future of Freedom Foundation, August 14, 2009.

Tony Long, “March 9, 1945: Burning the Heart Out of the Enemy,” Wired, March 9, 2011.

David Fedmana and Cary Karacasb, “A Cartographic Fade to Black: Mapping the Destruction of Urban Japan During World War II,” Journal of Historical Geography, Volume 38, Issue 3, July 2012.

Alison Bert, DMA, “Maps Reveal How Japan’s Cities Were Destroyed During World War II. Essay on Incendiary Bombings Awarded 2012 Best Paper Prize by the Journal of Historical Geography,” Elsevier.com, March 18, 2013.

Associated Press, “Deadly WWII Firebomb-ings of Japanese Cities Largely Ignored,” Tampa Bay Times, March 9, 2015.

Mark Selden, “American Fire Bombing and Atomic Bombing of Japan in History and Memory,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Decem-ber 1, 2016, Volume 14 | Issue 23.

“Bombing of Osaka,” Wikipedia.org.

“Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nag-asaki,” Wikipedia.org.

“Hellfire on Earth: Operation Meetinghouse,” NationalWW2Museum.org, March 8, 2020.

Brad Lendon and Emiko Jozuka, “History’s Deadliest Air Raid Happened in Tokyo During World War II and You’ve Probably Never Heard of It,” CNN.com, March 8, 2020.

John Ismay, “‘We Hated What We Were Doing’: Veterans Recall Firebombing Japan. American Airmen Who Took Part in the 1945 Firebombing Missions Grapple With the Particular Horror They Witnessed Being Inflicted on Those Below,” New York Times Magazine, March 9, 2020.

Motoko Rich, “The Man Who Won’t Let the World Forget the Firebombing of Tokyo. As a Child, Katsumoto Saotome Barely Escaped the Air Raids over Tokyo That Killed as Many as 100,000 People. He Has Spent Much of His Life Fighting to Honor the Memories of Others Who Survived,” New York Times Magazine, March 9, 2020.

Robert S. McNamara, James G. Blight, and Robert K. Brigham, Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy, NY: Public Affairs, 1999. Click for copy.

Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight, Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century, NY: Public Affairs, 2001. Click for copy.

Press Release, Sony Pictures Classics Presents, “The Fog of War: A Film by Errol Morris” (backgrounder w/ Director’s Statement and more), SonyClassics.com, 28 pp, 2003.

James Blight & Janet Lang, The Fog of War [book], 2005, Rowman & Littlefield, 307 pp. Click for copy.

E. Bartlett Kerr’s 1991 book, “Flames Over Tokyo: The U.S. Army Air Forces’ Incendiary Campaign Against Japan, 1944-1945,” Dutton Press, 348pp. Click for copy.”

“The Fog of War,” Part 1 (video, 57:43), DailyMotion.com.

“The Fog of War,” Part 2 (video, 48:51), DailyMotion.com.

____________________________________

History at Amazon.com…

PBS film, “Atomic People,” 2025 documentary on survivors accounts of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, 1 hr 25 min. Click for Prime Video.

Yuki Tanaka (ed) & Marilyn B. Young, 2009 book, “Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History,” 291 pp, New Press. Click for Amazon.

PBS film, “Victory in the Pacific,” 2 hrs. One reviewer > “Best documentary for that period I've ever seen.” Click for Amazon.com

Teaser Tag: Citizens Battle Builders

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Highway Wars”
1950s-1970s

October 25, 2020 J.D.

June 1938 Fortune magazine cover featuring rendering titled “Highways” by Hans Barschel. This edition also featured NY highway builder, Robert Moses. Click for highway history books.

William Durant, founder of General Motors, made a fairly audacious prediction in 1922. “Most of us,” he said, “will live to see this whole country covered with a network of motor highways built from point to point as the bird flies, the hills cut down, the dales bridged over, the obstacles removed.”

Indeed, for a car manufacturer, a nation of highways was certainly the preferred vision of the future. And, as it turns out, 100 years later, Durant wasn’t far off the mark.

However, what follows here is not a celebration of 100 years of highway building – although, to be sure, highways in America have contributed mightily to economic growth. Rather, after a bit of highway history, this story will focus on the citizen rebellion to highways that occurred throughout mid-20th century America – when major highways were pushed into developed urban and metropolitan areas without much care for resident displacement, social costs, and/or environmental impact.

But yes, in America today, highways are indeed everywhere. However, it didn’t start out that way. In fact, for many decades America was a nation of muddy, rutted and ill-maintained dirt, gravel, cobblestone roads.

The first crossing of the continent by car in 1903 required 44 days of sometimes perilous driving. By train, however, it took just 4 days. A “highway census” performed by the federal government in 1904 found just 141 miles of paved roads outside cities. By the time Henry Ford began mass-producing his Model-T automobiles in 1913, much of America, even as industrialization was underway, was still rural and agricultural with dirt roads across most of the country.

In July thru September 1919, a 28 year-old U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel named Dwight D. Eisenhower – later the U.S. President who would champion the 1950s Interstate Highway Act – was part of U.S. Army Motor Transport Corps convoy seeking to report on the nation’s road system. Their months-long journey took them 3,200 miles across country, from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco, discovering, for example, that practically all roadways of that day from Illinois through Nevada were unpaved, many with wooden bridges of dubious integrity, especially in the west.

Any nation with hopes of economic growth would need good roads, certainly. And it wasn’t long before various booster, civic, business groups, and government agencies arose to take up that cause, later evolving into a major power center in America’s economy and it politics. More on that later.

1929 classic by architect Le Corbusier, who offered new modernist urban plans, with grade-separated highways and high-rise buildings. Click for copy of book.

Entrance to GM’s Futurama pavilion at the 1939 Worlds Fair where thousands lined up daily to view the “1960 City of Tomorrow” exhibit with its superhighways & high-rise modernity.

Inside, revolving theater seats circled above a fantastic layout of the modern city titled, “Highways and Horizons.”

1939. View of seated patrons (at top) peering into GM’s “Highways & Horizons” layout in the Futurama theater.

Meanwhile, early visions of super-highways came from architects and city beautiful dreamers such as French architect Le Corbusier, a leader of the modernist design movement who drew grade-separated urban highways amid high-rise buildings in his “City of Tomorrow” plan for Paris in 1925.

Then there was the General Motors “Futurama” pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York which included various futurist exhibits, one of which was “Highways and Horizons” a theater-like experience with seating that revolved around a detailed city scape model below. It was described as follows:

Futurama is a large-scale model representing almost every type of terrain in America and illustrating how a motorway system may be laid down over the entire country—across mountains, over rivers and lakes, through cities and past towns—never deviating from a direct course and always adhering to the four basic principles of highway design: safety, comfort, speed, and economy.

The GM exhibit was designed by Norman Bel Geddes, who had built an earlier, smaller “city of tomorrow” model for a Shell Oil advertising campaign in 1937. But the GM undertaking was much grander and became a hit at the Worlds Fair, as Geddes would later recount:

“Five million people saw the Futurama of the General Motors Highways and Horizons Exhibit … during the summer of 1939. In long queues that often stretched more than a mile, from 5,000 to 15,000 men, women and children at a time, stood, all day long every day, waiting more than an hour for their turn to get a sixteen-minute glimpse at the motorways of the world of tomorrow.”

Geddes explained the reason visitors came to the exhibit was that many were frustrated motorists “harassed by the daily task of getting from one place to another, by the nuisances of intersectional jams, narrow, congested bottlenecks, dangerous night driving, annoying police-men’s whistles, honking horns, blinking traffic lights…,” etc, etc, The solution, Geddes suggested, was on display in the Futurama exhibit. Geddes would also follow up on Futurama the next year with a detailed book titled, Magic Motorways.

Given the Geddes-GM introduction of the wonders of freeways yet to come, America was primed for a new world of unimpeded, care-free auto travel, even through cities. The GM exhibit, one scholar suggested, “stimulated public thinking in favor of massive urban freeway building.”

Paved highways by this time already existed, with a few parkways and private highways dating to the early 1900s. Parkways in the New York city and Long Island area came on in the 1930s. In terms of highways between states, the famous “Lincoln Highway,” U.S. Route 30, the nation’s first transcontinental highway, a two-lane roadway, was completed in 1935.

U.S. Route 66, another of the original U.S. highways, would run more than 2,400 miles from Chicago, IL to Santa Monica, CA. That road was first initiated in 1927 but was not completely paved until 1938.

In Pennsylvania, the 164-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike, opened in 1940, was the first four-lane, limited access highway in the U.S. It was the first to feature no cross streets, no railroad crossings, and no traffic lights. It included a 10-foot median strip and a 200-foot total right-of-way. Each lane was 12 feet wide. Its design and engineering became an important model for the Interstates and freeways that followed.

In 1944, funds were designated for primary, secondary, and urban roads for the first time, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt then supported a 40,000 mile interregional system of interstate highways with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, but no funding was then secured for that system.

After Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in November 1952, support for a nationwide system of interstate highways grew. Eisenhower’s previous trek across America as a young army officer in 1919 had left an impression, as did his experience in Europe during WWII as the Allies supreme military commander, witnessing how easy it was to move military vehicles on the German autobahn, the world’s first “superhighway.” Eisenhower backed the completion of a 41,000 mile network of high-speed interstate highways across the nation – in part as a national defense measure during the Cold War. By 1955, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (then in the Department of Commerce) released the “Yellow Book”—a national blueprint to build out the 41,000-mile Interstate Highway System. The series of maps laid out the proposed routes for the massive project.

Map showing the Interstate Highway system as of 2006, fifty years after its authorizing legislation – at 46, 837 miles. This map gives a broad overview of the system, and does not provide detail on segments running through or around metro areas, or segments that were blocked, abandoned, or otherwise not completed.

On June 29,1956, Eisenhower signed into law, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 which set in motion the massive interstate highway road-building program for the 41,000-mile network. The limited-access highways would link 90 percent of all cities with populations of more than 50,000. The Federal Government would shoulder 90 percent of costs and would distribute tens of billions in road funds among the states over the next few decades. A key breakthrough in paying for the system – and an emerging power base for highway builders – came with the creation of The Highway Trust Fund, an exclusive financing source dedicated only to interstate highways and financed initially from a 3-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax.

The I-10 Interstate Highway in Houston, TX illustrates the extreme, but not atypical urban interstate highway in later years built to accommodate heavy commuter use in metro areas. Houston’s Katy Freeway, as shown here, was widened in 2008 to as many as 26 total lanes, counting six lanes of access or frontage roads –.the world’s widest freeway.

Construction of the initial Interstate Highway System began in the summer of 1957, and would not let up for the next four decades. Subsequent expansions and improvements continuing to this day.

Both praised and lambasted, the Interstate Highway build-out would become one of the world’s largest public works projects ever, making road builders, concrete and asphalt providers, heavy equipment manufacturers, and others jubilant in their windfall. Also happy were those profiting from the auto-industrial growth it stimulated – from cars and trucks, to tires, gasoline, motels, hamburger stands, service stations, trucking, real estate, and more.

On the downside, meanwhile, were the social and environmental costs – not least being a major transformation of the urban and suburban landscapes, smog and automobile pollution, eroding tax base in cities, and displacement of those in the path of freeway construction, quite often African Americans and other communities of color.

In some urban areas, city managers and transportation planners discovered that the generous 90 percent federal funding found in the interstate highway program could be used as a kind of urban renewal program, targeting “blighted areas” for “slum clearance.” Using the highway funds to pay for some of the urban demolition thus became a kind of two-for-one deal.

In fact, for a time, three federal laws – the Federal Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954 and the Federal Highway Act of 1956 – worked in a kind of synchrony reshaping urban areas, and in the process, dislodging thousands of residents and small businesses. More on this later.

Other targets of highway builders in metro areas would be parks or other open spaces, as well as land along rivers or bay areas; corridors that offered lower construction costs, minimal demolition, and seemingly less vocal resistance — but still considerable swaths of urban space.

“What Freeways Mean To You,” a 1950s pro-freeway publication by the Automotive Safety Foundation, formerly the safety division of the Automobile Manufacturing Association.

One “before-and-after” review of interstate highways in the 1950s and 1960s going through six American cities by author Nicholas LePan at VisualCapitalist.com, provides some idea of the displacement involved in those cities – Oakland, Miami, Providence, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Rochester. LePan has cleverly overlain the completed freeway segments over topographic maps of the former urban areas, making plain what was “in the way” and subsequently removed to accommodate each respective freeway.

A major and continuing criticism of the interstate program is that more commuter freeways simply generated more traffic, which in turn generates a demand for more and/or expanded freeway construction. This typically becomes apparent some time after a freeway segment is completed, only to be jammed with traffic congestion a few years later.

But in the mid-to-late-1950s, as the Interstate Highway System was initially rolled out, things went smoothly enough. Highway engineers encountered little opposition from communities in rural areas, and large segments of the system were completed quickly. But when the highway builders tried to expand the network into major cities, that’s when the age of the freeway revolts began.

What follows below is a look at a few of the urban areas where highway battles ensued in the 1950s-1970s time frame, as well as some of the books and other literature that appeared during and after the highway controversies, and which today comprise an important part of that story.

San Francisco

San Francisco was one of the first locations where citizen opposition to urban highway segments began, taking form in the mid-1950s. A road plan for San Francisco developed in the late 1940s by the company of Charles K. DeLeuw, a Chicago engineer, included a series of elevated and subterranean freeways. By 1948, a San Francisco Planning Department map, adopted in 1951, showed plans to build 10 freeways crisscrossing the city. The Bay Bridge was to be connected to the Golden Gate Bridge via the Embarcadero Freeway. As early as 1949, a park commissioner had objected to one proposed freeway encroaching on public park land. And by 1955, residents in the path of the Western Freeway organized in opposition to fight that route, and citizen groups elsewhere in the city were also raising concerns about other segments.

By 1959, the anti-freeway movement in San Francisco came to be known as “The Freeway Revolt.” Neighborhood groups at that time presented the Board of Supervisors with a petition signed by 30,000 people asking to cancel seven of the 10 planned freeways, including the Embarcadero Freeway, 1.2 miles of which had been built with work halted. In 1959, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to cancel seven of ten planned freeways, including an extension of the Central Freeway. Other freeway segments in the city went forward, despite protests, as in the case of Potrero Hill freeway segment.

Picketers at San Francisco City Hall, April 18, 1961 protesting against the Potrero Hill freeway segment (a segment also known as “P-11," the Southern Freeway, and I-280) connecting to the Embarcadero Freeway. San Francisco Public Library.

By 1962, opposition to other California highway projects beyond San Francisco had resulted in formation of a statewide anti-freeway organization called the California Citizens Freeway Association. Claiming 250,000 members, the association sought and won a “cooling-off period” from state leaders who promised that no further steps toward construction of four disputed freeways would be taken until they were discussed at a conference. Among those highways at the time were: one in Chico running through a memorial park; one in Oakland intruding on a college campus; a third in Monterey that threatened scenic values, and the last in San Francisco, the Embarcadero Freeway, then in use, but criticized for cutting off access to San Francisco Bay. The group said it would support legislation for tearing down that freeway.

May 17, 1964. Photo of crowd at rally in Golden Gate park to fight the freeways. Folk singer, Malvina Reynolds, famous for her 1962 song, “Little Boxes,” recorded by Pete Seeger and others, wrote and sang an anti-freeway song for the rally titled, “The Cement Octopus.”

Back in San Francisco, meanwhile, 1964 protests against a freeway through the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park led to its cancellation, and in 1966 the Board of Supervisors rejected an extension of the Embarcadero Freeway to the Golden Gate Bridge, and it remained an unfinished and disputed roadway for many more years.

Opposition to the Embarcadero Freeway continued, and in 1985, the Board of Supervisors voted to demolish it. It was closed after sustaining heavy damage in 1989’s Loma Prieta earthquake and torn down shortly thereafter. The entire portion of the Central Freeway north of Market Street was demolished over the next decade: the top deck in 1996, and the lower deck in 2003. Other short freeway segments were demolished in the same time period: the Terminal Separator Structure near Rincon Hill and the Embarcadero Freeway, and the stub end of Interstate 280 near Mission Bay.

New York City

R. Caro book. Click for copy.

Moses artist-bio. Click for copy.

In New York City during the 1950s and 1960s, one of the most powerful public officials was Robert Moses, famous builder of highways, bridges, parks, and other public works throughout the New York metro region.

Moses’ career, which ran from the mid-1920s through the early 1970s, has been written about extensively in Robert Caro’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1974 book, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, and also in the best-selling 2014 artist/ comic-book-style biography, Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City, by Pierre Christin and Olivier Balez.

Anthony Flint’s 2009 book, “Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City.” Click for copy.

In the 1960s, however, Moses and his highways began to come up against some determined citizen resistance – including one famous citizen at the time named Jane Jacobs. Jacobs had written a 1961 best-selling critique of urban planning and other urban ills, titled, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Earlier, Jacobs had also authored a piece for Fortune magazine in 1958, “Downtown Is for People,” which marked her first public criticism of Robert Moses. But in her later book, The Death and Life of…, she made plain her feeling about the automobile: “Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities.”

As a resident of New York’s Greenwich Village, Jacobs had participated in grassroots opposition to Robert Moses’ “urban renewal” and “slum clearance” projects, as well as efforts to protect Washington Square Park from roadway intrusion.

But in the 1960s, Jacobs chaired the Joint Committee to Stop The Lower Manhattan Expressway, a Robert Moses-backed 10-lane expressway planned to carry Interstate 78 from the end of the Holland Tunnel through Lower Manhattan to the Williamsburg Bridge with a connection to the Manhattan Bridge.

The expressway would have been built directly through such neighborhoods as Greenwich Village, SoHo, and the Lower East Side, much of which was characterized as old and “run down” in the mid-20th century. Jacobs continued to fight the expressway as plans continue to resurface in 1962, 1965, and 1968, and she became a local hero for her opposition to the project.

Williamt Buzbee’s 2014 book, "Fighting Westway." Click for copy.

After a long battle, the expressway was canceled in the 1970s by then New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller due to fears of increased pollution and negative effects on such cultural neighborhoods as Little Italy and Chinatown.

More detail in the Jacobs-Moses fight is found in Anthony Flint’s 2009 book, Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed The American City.

Dozens of other freeways and/or freeway extensions throughout the New York metro region were also challenged or stopped over the years, a number of which are listed at Wikipedia’s page on “Highway Revolts in the United States.”

Another famous long-running freeway battle in New York was that of the Westway Highway, a fight which included some determined litigation and tireless citizen opponents, among them, public interest advocate, Marcy Benstock.

For more detail on that battle, see William Buzbee’s 2014 book, Fighting Westway: Environmental Law, Citizen Activism and The Regulatory War That Transformed New York City.

A Wikipedia map of the proposed Inner Belt Expressway of Boston, MA in the 1960s, which would have been designated Interstate 695 had it been built.

Boston: Inner Belt

In 1948, inspired by changes to federal law, Massachusetts government officials started hatching plans to build multiple highways circling and cutting through a number of Boston communities. The plans made steady progress through the 1950s.

Part of the plans included The Inner Belt, which would have been designated as part of the Interstate System as I-695. It would have circled through Boston and adjacent areas, passing through communities including Roxbury, Cambridge, and Somerville, eventually connecting to I-93.

But when officials began to hold public hearings in 1960, and it became clear what this plan would entail, including a disproportionate impact on poor communities, the people pushed back. Activists, many with experience in the civil rights and antiwar protests, began to organize.

Meanwhile, swathes of Roxbury had been cleared out to make way for the highway, displacing residents, as protesters organized and started posting signs around town that read, “Stop the Belt”.

On January 25, 1969 — just days after Governor Francis W. Sargent’s inauguration — some 2,000 people gathered on the State House steps to protest the highway. In December 1970, Sargent declared a moratorium on the highway project, and by 1972, the plan for the Inner Belt system had been shut down entirely. The federal funding originally intended for it was instead directed to expansions of public transit through new provisions of law in subsequent highway acts.

Governor Francis W. Sargent spoke to the gathering of Inner Belt dissenters during a January 25, 1969 protest outside the State House. Photo, Associated Press.

As the Boston Globe would later report, quoting Sargent in a 1972 televised speech: “We will not build the expressways… In the end. . . we will have created a real and workable alternative to the increasingly damaging use of the automobile.”

There are at least two books, and a number of newspaper stories, on the history of the Boston battle over the Inner Belt. Three authors – Alan Lupo, Frank Colcord, and Edmund Fowler – combined efforts to produce the 1971 book, Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportation in Boston and the U.S. City (Little Brown). This book covers the Boston fight and also other highway issues in its review of U.S. urban transportation planning and decision making.

1971. “Rites of Way” book on the Boston highway fight and U.S. transportation policy. Click for copy.

Karilyn Crockett’s 2018 book, “People Before Highways,” also on the Boston fight. Click for copy.

Karilyn Crockett in her 2018 book, People Before Highways, offers her take on the social, political, and environmental significance of the Boston anti-highway protest and its national implications. Amazon describes her book as: “…The story of how an unlikely multiracial coalition of urban and suburban residents, planners, and activists emerged to stop an interstate highway is one full of suspenseful twists and surprises…. And yet, the victory and its aftermath are undeniable: federally funded mass transit expansion, a linear central city park, and a highway-less urban corridor that serves as a daily reminder of the power and efficacy of citizen-led city making.”

Writers & Critics

A 1962 edition of Lewis Mumford’s “The Highway and the City” (Mentor, 256pp). Click for copy.

Also contributing to the public critique of the Interstate Highway program during the 1950s-1970s were a number of academic historians, professional architects, and journalists.

One prominent early critic in this group was historian and urbanologist Lewis Mumford who would take up his pen against the urban intrusion of highways in books and essays. One of the latter, “The Highway and The City,” was a critical broadside he wrote in April 1958 that first appeared in Architectural Record. In later years, some books by Mumford using this title were also issued, as shown at right. Meanwhile, his 1962 book, The City in History, won the 1962 U.S. National Book Award for nonfiction.

Mumford also appears to have played a role in organizing one of the first anti-highway conferences among academics critical of the new Interstate Highway program. In September 1957, a conference titled “The New Highways: Challenge to the Metropolitan Region,” was sponsored by the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company and held in Hartford, CT. It was among the first formal confrontations between academic critics and the highway builders, receiving favorable press coverage at the time. Mumford, for his part, said that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 “was jammed through Congress so blithely and lightly… because we Americans have an almost automatic inclination to favor anything that seems to give added attraction to the second mistress that exists in every household…: the motor car.”

Other writers and academics also added new perspectives that were critical of, or otherwise illustrated new thinking about, locating and building highways and/or transportation planning in metropolitan areas. Among these was Daniel P. Moynihan, a professor at Harvard University who wrote an April 1960 article in The Reporter titled, “New Roads and Urban Chaos.” Moynihan, who would later become a special advisor or urban affairs to President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s, and later, a U.S. Senator, was no fan of metropolitan freeways. Historian Raymond Mohl has noted that Moynihan:

“…had written critically about the interstate system and about the lack of metropolitan transportation planning, especially for mass transit, calling it ‘lunatic’ to ‘undertake a vast program of urban highway construction with no thought for other forms of transportation’. Moynihan also disparaged the prevailing automobile culture: “More than any other single factor, it is the automobile that has wrecked the Twentieth-Century American city, of use, dissipating its strength, destroying its form, fragmenting its life.”

Helen Leavitt’s 1970 book, “Superhighway-Superhoax,” became an important source book on the politics of highway building & the Highway Trust Fund. Click for copy.

In the 1966-1969 period, a spate of critical and probing magazine and newspaper stories examining the Interstate Highway program appeared in the popular press. Articles appearing in The Saturday Evening Post, Business Week, Life, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, and others reported on various highway controversies and citizen battles. The Christian Science Monitor newspaper ran a series on stories on urban freeways in June and July of 1969, and Reader’s Digest had a 1969 story headlined, “Let’s Put The Breaks on the Highway Lobby!”

Academics and other writers added related books and articles, including: William H. Whyte, who wrote the 1968 book, The Last Landscape; Ian McHarg, whose 1969 book, Design With Nature, pioneered the concept of ecological planning, also wrote, “Where Should Highways Go?” earlier in an April 1967 Landscape Architecture piece; and Herbert Gans, a sociologist who would write a number of books, including one in 1968 titled, People & Plans: Essays on Urban Problems & Solutions.

However, one of the first hard-hitting popular critiques of urban freeways came from a Washington, D.C. journalist named Helen Leavitt. Her book, Superhighway– Super-hoax, published by Doubleday in 1970, would have a galvanizing effect on activists, and also, grudgingly, on some policymakers as well.

Leavitt, who had written for several major newspaper and magazines in her career, was moved to write the book when her Washington D.C. home was targeted for an urban freeway route. In that process, she had also been a party to a 1968 lawsuit opposing D.C. freeway construction.

But her 1970 book – with a cover tagline that described the nation’s highway system as “a concrete straightjacket that pollutes the environment and makes driving a nightmare” – became one of the first critical investigations of the Interstate Highway Program, its deep-pocketed lobby, “the road gang,” and its gold-mine funding system, the Highway Trust Fund.

1967 cartoon by the Washington Post’s “Herblock,” took aim at the high-powered “road gang” singing in chorus to protect cuts to their highway-building funding largesse.

Leavitt compiled a detailed history of the nation’s highway program, its philosophy, how it moved through Congress, who the principal politicians were, and how the special-interest lobby behind the Interstate Highway largesse became one of the most powerful groups in American political history.

Leavitt revealed, for example, that one of these special interest groups at the time, the American Road Builders Association, boasted 5,300 members and was made up of highway contractors, construction firms, engineering colleges and even some members of Congress. She also salted her narrative with lots of traffic and highway-building statistics as well as detail on the machinations of the road gang in Congress.

Leavitt opposed the Highway Trust Fund; believed that trust funds were generally bad public policy, and urged that it be abolished. All auto-tax revenues, in her view, should be put into the general treasury and that highway needs should have to compete fairly with all other national needs.

Leavitt would testify before Congressional committees to share her views on how highway and transportation policy should change, and her book became something of a guiding source to citizens and activists battling highways in their own communities.

In 1996, the New York Public Library included Leavitt’s book among the best books of the 20th century, noting: “The book’s argument and central paradox, that most superhighways bring increased traffic congestion rather than less, has never been effectively countered.” The citation also singled out some of her criticisms, “most notably, she demonstrates environmental degradation, strangled cities, and ruined public transportation systems.”

1971 book. Click for copy.	1972, “Highyways to Nowhere”.
1971 book. Click for copy.	1971 book. Click for copy.

There were also several other books that came out in the 1969-early-1970s period, each offering critiques of the nation’s highway program or “car culture” in one form or another:

A. Q. Mowbray’s Road to Ruin: A Critical View of the Federal Highway Program, was published in 1969 (Lippincott);

The Pavers and the Paved: The Real Cost of America’s Highway Program (D.W. Brown), by Ben Kelley came out in 1971;

The Great American Motion Sickness (Little Brown, 408pp), appeared in 1971 and was written by John Burby, a former newspaper reporter who had worked as a special assistant to Transportation Secretary Alan Boyd;

Autokind vs. Mankind, by Kenneth R. Schneider, was also published in 1971 (Norton, 268pp,); and,

Highways to Nowhere: The Politics of City Transportation, by Richard Hébert (Bobbs-Merrill), was published in December 1972.

In that book, Hébert examines highway controversies in five cities – Flint, Michigan; Dayton, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Atlanta, Georgia; and Washington, D.C.

Changing Law

After ten years of the interstate highway program, by 1966, more than 15,000 miles of highway had been built across the U.S. But there had also been some changes in transportation law and highway planning by way of subsequent federal highway acts that made the highway siting and planning process a bit more sensitive to the public interest. By 1965, metro areas had been required to have comprehensive transportation plans. And after 1966, parks, recreation areas, and historic sites could not be taken for a highways if feasible alternative routing existed – a provision of law that would later be upheld in litigation (more on this later). The urban and metropolitan segments of the interstate system, meanwhile, remained the toughest and most contentions for highway builders.One survey conducted by the U.S. DOT between 1967 and 1968 recorded 123 separate highway revolts and road-related protests across the country. One survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation between 1967 and 1968 recorded 123 separate highway revolts and road-related protests across the country.

There were also some new leaders coming into the federal highway program who brought a change in outlook. Alan Boyd became the first U.S. Secretary of Transportation in November 1966. According to historian Raymond Mohl, Boyd brought a new perspective in part: “Speaking in California in 1967, Boyd must haves shocked his audience of transportation experts by stating, ‘I think the so-called freeway revolts around the country have been a good thing.’ He elaborated by urging more citizen involvement in highway decision making and advocating a balanced transportation system. In another speech in 1968, Boyd asserted that expressways must be ‘an integral part of the community, not a cement barrier or concrete river which threatens to inundate an urban area’.” Many state highway administrators, however, were still old school in their outlook and very powerful in terms of the financial leverage and patronage they held through the interstate program.

1970 Herblock cartoon shows highway lobby, then at tens of billions in funding, “steamrolling” other interests – urban transit, city renewal, and pollution control among them. But changes were on the way to stop destructive urban freeways and help fund mass transit.

And in Congress, the highway powers were still holding their own. When Lady Bird Johnson’s “Highway Beautification” program was created (which included regulating billboards, screening junkyards, etc.,), the road gang in Congress made sure that no Highway Trust Fund money would be used for that purpose. Similarly, new highway safety initiatives were also kept from receiving Trust Fund money.

But one big change in the 1970s that was about to come down on the highway builders was the emerging national concern over pollution and environmental protection.

In early 1969, an offshore oil spill off Santa Barbara, California and the pollution-fueled burning of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio helped spur a new environmental fervor across the country. A year later, in January 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law.

Sometimes called the Magna Carta of the nation’s environmental laws, NEPA required federal agencies to consider environmental impacts before taking action on federal programs, in some cases, preparing detailed environmental impact statements on the proposed action, and including possible alternative options.

So by the 1970s, a whole new ball game was ahead for federally-funded public works projects, highways among them.

Earth Day 1970

Green Power

The environmental movement in America had been building in strength and influence since the 1950s. With Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the movement reached a critical mass of popular support and burst onto the national scene. On that day, twenty million people across the country participated in peaceful demonstrations and teach-ins. Earth Day organizer, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, called it a “truly astonishing grass-roots explosion.” Among concerns of some environmentalists was automobile pollution and the explosion of highway projects, a sentiment expressed, in part, by folk singer Joni Mitchell and her 1970 hit, song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” with the line: “…They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

October 17, 1970 edition, with cover story in this issue focusing on “Freeways - Tearing Up Cities.”

May 29, 1971 Environmental Action magazine with cover story featuring “ Freeway Folly”.

One public interest group founded in April 1970 by Earth Day activists to focus on environmental issues and national politics in Washington, D.C. was a group named Environmental Action. An important arm of the group was its lean, no-frills magazine, Environmental Action, reporting on the issues and politics of the day from Washington – including highway battles of that era. And in later years, the Environmental Action Foundation would contribute to publications such as, The End of The Road: A Citizen’s Guide to Transportation Problem-Solving.

In 1971, Environmental Action and several other organizations launched the Highway Action Coalition (HAC) with the purpose of reforming the federal Highway Trust Fund so that federal funds could be used for mass transit and other non-highway transportation projects.

June 1970. Earth Day co-founder, Denis Hayes, wrote the cover story, "Can We Bust The Highway Trust?", appearing in "Saturday Review" magazine.

Although the Highway Trust Fund was among the nation’s most sacrosanct and powerful of funding sources, and was tenaciously defended by the road gang in Congress — with all the fire power of the auto, oil, and construction industries – Environmental Action and HAC used their publications and outreach to harness the anger over highway projects and the nation’s distorted transportation policy to call for more flexibility in federal funding for all modes of transportation.

One of the Earth Day organizers and leading environmentalists at that time, Denis Hayes, would also write a June 1971 cover story for Saturday Review magazine titled, “Can We Bust the Highway Trust Fund?”

Environmental Action and the Highway Action Coalition lobbied Congress for changes in the Highway Trust Fund, and there was also movement elsewhere expressing support for change in how the Trust Fund could be used.

In March 1972, no less a voice that than of Secretary of Transportation John A. Volpe asked Congress to let cities and states spend several billion Trust Fund dollars over a period of years for urban mass transit projects. Earlier, in the fall of 1971, the Gulf Oil Corporation endorsed a proposal for using Massachusetts highway funds for mass transit. And in January 1972, Henry Ford II, of the Ford Motor Co. announced that he favored using some Federal highway money for public transportation.

Oct 1970 ad by Ford and ATA urging the completion of "gaps" in the Interstate Highway System.

But the road builders geared up to protect their turf. Forming a group called The Road Information Program, some $1.25 million was sought for a 1971-72 radio and newspaper advertising campaign touting the necessity of more highways. Earlier ads by “road gang” interests in 1970, such as the one at left by Ford and ATA, the American Trucking Association, called for “Ending The Map Gap,” meaning completing the remaining segments of the Interstate system, and typically those urban and metro segments opposed by citizen groups.

On the Trust Fund, meanwhile, by August 1973, after arduous battles in Congress, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 that gave local officials the option of using some Highway Trust Fund revenue for rail transit.

The highway wars, however, were not over by any means. Dozens of battles across the country were ongoing through the 1960s and 1970s. Among them was the one in metropolitan Washington, D.C. region, which because of its unique political, geographic and oversight situation, involved the states of Virginia and Maryland and the U.S. Congress, as the latter controlled District of Columbia funds through Congressional appropriations.

The D.C. Fight

In the 1950s-1970s period, there was a plan to build a complete freeway system within the District of Columbia, with urban segments connecting to the national interstate highway system. The plan underwent several revisions, but by the mid-1960s and early 1970s it began to come up against a determined base of citizen and community resistance. This citizen revolt was unique in a number of ways, not least of which was the breadth of the DC-wide citizen coalition that emerged – rich and poor, black and white, young and old – but also for the political gauntlet it ran, facing members of Congress and the White House at times, as well as litigation reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

General reference map of major highways that now exist in the Washington, DC metro area, with the state of VA to the left of the Potomac River, and the state of MD to the right. Some of the major interstates in the region, such as I-95 from the Maryland side, and I-66 from the VA side, were once planned to enter D.C.

Various Interstate Highways – among them, I-95 from Maryland and I-66 from Virginia – were proposed to enter D.C., some given local names inside the District, along with freeway spurs and various “legs.” There was also a major Potomac River bridge crossing proposed that would bring commuter traffic into the District from Arlington, VA – the Three Sisters Bridge (I-266). All of these elements, with variations and “inner loop” style highways, amounted to some 30-to-40 miles of proposed freeways converging on a relatively small geographic area with established neighborhoods. Other difficulties for prospective freeway construction in the District would involve potential impacts on the national monuments and review by the National Capital Planning Commission.

December 1968. Sammie Abbott in action.

1972. Angela Rooney, a Brookland DC resident.

1970. Reginald Booker before DC City Council.

Highway plans for the District of Columbia dating from 1959 had indicated a series of freeways traversing a number of established neighborhoods. In 1965, a Takoma Park, MD resident named Sammie Abbott discovered that his house was in the path of one of the proposed freeways– at least one of which had been shifted from the white Northwest quadrant of DC to the predominantly black Northeast quadrant. (Takoma Park is on the D.C. border, on the Maryland side of Northeast Washington, DC.)

Abbott, then in his 50s, and having been a union organizer and civil rights activist, was not a man accustomed to sitting still for any outside infringement on his life or community. It was about then that he and others would form a small core group that would later found a broader, city-wide umbrella group of citizen activists to fight DC freeways — the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis (ECTC).

Among the early joiners and founders of ECTC were Tom and Angela Rooney of the Brookland Neighborhood Association, also in the path of a proposed Northeast freeway. The Rooneys lived in Brookland not far from Catholic University where Tom was a faculty member.

Abbott later added others in the path of the Northeast freeways, including Simon Cain of Lamont-Riggs Citizens’ Association. Cain was an African-American lawyer who graduated from Howard University. He would serve as ECTC’s first Chairman and Angela Rooney its secretary. As noted in the dissertation of Gregory Borchardt (see Sources), Tom Rooney, at one public meeting on the freeways in 1967, explained ECTC’s position: “We will not accept freeways. They are being used as instruments of racial injustice.” ECTC called for a complete moratorium on freeway building until studies on their full impact were completed. They wanted all highway construction postponed until the planned mass transit subway system was built.

In 1960 the federal government created the National Capital Transportation Agency to begin planning a rapid rail system for the DC metro area and nearby suburbs – a planning power later transferred to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Activists like Abbott and others in ECTC, as well as some local politicians, viewed the transit system proposal as a way to block freeways and divert the highway money to subway construction.

Abbott would also recruit Reginald Booker, an African America resident, civil rights and anti-Vietnam War activist, then living near Howard University, an area of DC also affected by the proposed freeways. Booker, who had also served in the U.S. Army, was then a clerk for the federal government at the General Service Administration. He later became ECTC’s chairman, with Abbott serving primarily as the group’s strategist and often its passionate spokesman. Booker and Abbott, over the years, would be arrested multiple times during the DC freeway fight.

In February 1968 after Booker was elected chairman of ECTC he began recruiting other black leaders into the group, including Charles Cassel of Black United Front and Marion Barry of Pride, Inc. Barry would later become DC Mayor. By late 1968, ECTC meetings routinely began to attract turnouts of 200 or more citizens. From 1968 to 1972, ECTC conducted more than 75 street protests. A number of neighborhoods throughout Northeast DC would be impacted by planned highway segments such as the North Central and Northeast freeways.

February 1965. Sammie Abbott (at far right near policeman), with contingent of citizens demonstrating against freeways, but supporting rapid transit for DC Metro region. Photo by Walter Oates / DC Public Library, Star Collection, Washington Post.

Sammie Abbott, as ECTC’s chief strategist, typically organized pickets before local meetings, as shown above. But Abbott could also be quite theatrical in his appearances at public meetings, whether before local government or Congressional committee. At local meetings, he often climbed up and stood on a chair in the audience so he couldn’t be missed, booming out his critique in a loud voice.

At one DC meeting in December 1967 in the Brookland neighborhood, as noted by Gregory Borchardt, Abbott jumped on stage and pointed a finger at the DC mayor, accusing him of failing to use his political clout to save neighborhood homes confiscated for a freeway right-of-way. At the same meeting a group of ECTC members began a recitation of their version of “America the Beautiful” (no doubt a Sammie Abbott-encouraged tactic, if not his verse as well):

O Beautiful for Spacious Roads that Spread from Slum to Slum,
The smog is gray, the homes decay, but see the profits come.
Suburbia, Suburbia, there’s profit there to glean.
Pollute the air, but they don’t care, they’re selling gasoline.
Oh beautiful for Interstate, For glorious 90-10.
Don’t heed the people’s picket signs, but just cement them in.
America, America, Ford shed his grace on thee.
Black and white, unite and fight, to defeat High-way Lobby.

Portion of illustration with highway map background used in Nov. 2000 Washington Post magazine story on DC freeway history by Bob & Jane Levey, showing DC meeting with Sammie Abbott (standing at left) and others.

ECTC, meanwhile, did its homework on the proposed freeway routes, and often prepared detailed information for citizens and the media. One large poster prepared for city-wide distribution used the title, “Freeway Cancer Hits DC,” with a smaller headline that read, “Unite to Defend Your Homes, Community, City, Parkland And The Air You Breathe.” This poster offered neighborhood-by-neighborhood snapshots along the various proposed freeway routes listing the impacts in terms of homes and business losses (segments shown below are separate samples, not shown in sequence).

1970: Portion of “Freeway Cancer Hits DC” poster showing highway segment & neighborhood detail.

1970. Another portion of ECTC poster, provid-ing data on some resident & business impacts.

Much of this portion of the DC highway fight was on the Maryland side of the District and in the Northeast quadrant of D.C., with predominantly African American communities. The highway route that had first incensed Abbott and threatened his home – the North Central Freeway – had been shifted from the predominantly white Northwest DC quadrant, west of Rock Creek Park, to the predominantly black Northeast quadrant of DC. In 1966, after the National Capital Planning Commission voted to approve the North Central Freeway, Abbott, as Gregory Borchardt has noted, told the DC media that he planned to mobilize black power along with white power to battle the freeways. By 1967 he had indicated a plan to work with, among others, nationally-known black activists, like Stokely Carmichael, on parallel actions “to stop the institutional racism of the highway and urban renewal planners.”

[Note: “DC Fight” story continues below sidebar].

Highways & Race
1950s-1970s

Poster of phrase adopted from 1967 testimony of Sammie Abbott in Washington, DC during freeway protests.

During the Washington, DC freeway fight, one of ECTC’s more effective slogans to rally the public was, “White Men’s Roads Through Black Men’s Homes,” and variations

In January 1967 testimony before the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) on the North Central Freeway, Sammie Abbott used the phrase, “a white man’s road…through black men’s homes.”

His partner at ECTC, Reginald Booker, picked up on Abbot’s remark, turning it into a slogan for ECTC to use to galvanize black opposition to the freeways.

Abbott, who was also a graphics artist, produced dozens of posters and flyers that featured the phrase. Generally, however, the label of “White Men’s Roads Through Black Men’s Homes,” was appropriate for dozens of other cities where freeways during the 1950-1970s era were also routed through African American and other minority communities.

As urban historian Raymond Mohl has noted:

….Massive amounts of urban housing were destroyed in the process of building the urban sections of the interstate system. By the 1960s, federal highway construction was demolishing 37,000 urban housing units each year; urban renewal and redevelopment programs were destroying an equal number of mostly-low-income housing units annually. The amount of disruption, a report of the U.S. House Committee on Public Works conceded in 1965, was astoundingly large. As planning scholar Alan A. Altshuler has noted, by the mid-1960s, when interstate construction was well underway, it was generally believed that the new highway system would “displace a million people from their homes before it [was] completed.” A large proportion of those dislocated were African Americans, and in most cities the expressways were routinely routed through black neighborhoods.

The two photos below show a predominantly African American neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan — the first photo, from the 1950s, shows the scene “before” the freeway arrived, and the second, about 1962, “after” the freeway arrived.

Mid-1950 photo showing the Hastings Street area of Detroit, MI, (looking north and east ) which was then an active small business strip that catered almost exclusively to the African American community, also a center for Detroit blues and R&B (photo, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University).

Photo taken around 1962 with somewhat broader view of approximately the same Hastings Street area (use black-topped steeple at center as rough marker), as the Interstate highway segment I-75 / I-375 is constructed through the area. (photo, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University).

Below is a listing of some examples of cities where minority communities were sliced through, bisected, or completely destroyed by urban freeways. These examples, mostly from the 1950s-1970s period, are culled from the published works of Raymond Mohl, Olivia Paschal, Dan Albert, Nithin Vejendla, and others as indicated parenthetically here and attributed with full citations at the end of this story in “Sources”:

M. Rose & R. Mohl, “Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939.” Click for copy.

Francesca Ammon's 2016 book, “Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape.” Click for copy.

Eric Avila’s 2014 book, “The Folklore of The Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City.” Click for copy.

2004 book, “Transportation Racism & New Routes to Equity,” R. Bullard, G. Johnson & A. Torres (Eds). Click for copy.

Clayton Nall’s book, “The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America & Undermined Cities.” Click for copy.

**In Miami, Florida I-95 was routed through the Overtown neighborhood. One massive expres-sway interchange there took up forty square blocks and demolished the black business district and the homes of some 10,000 people. By the end of the 1960s, Overtown had become an urban expressway wasteland. Little remained of the neighborhood, known as the Harlem of the South.” [Mohl]

**In New York City, the Cross-Bronx Expressway gouged a seven-mile trench through a primarily lower- middle-class Jewish community, ripping through a line of apartment houses and dislocating thousands of families and small businesses. [Mohl]

**In Cleveland, a network of expressways displaced some 19,000 people by the early 1970s. [Mohl]

**In Pittsburgh, PA, a three-and-a-half-mile inner-city expressway forced 5,800 people from their homes. [Mohl].

**A Kansas City, Missouri, midtown freeway was routed through a Model City area and nearby neighborhoods, ultimately destroying 1,800 buildings and displacing several thousand residents. [Mohl].

**In Baltimore, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and St. Paul, expressways plowed through black communities, reducing thousands of low-income housing units to rubble. [Mohl]

**In Camden, New Jersey, Interstate 95 cut through the mostly black city, displacing nearly 1,300 families. [Albert ]

**In New Orleans, highway builders leveled a wide swath along North Claiborne Avenue, at the center of an old and stable black Creole community, which included a long stretch of old oak trees. North Claiborne Avenue served a variety of community functions, festivals, and parades. By the 1970s, I-10’s massive elevated highway had been built through the devastated Treme community. [Mohl]

**In Durham, North Carolina, construction of state Highway 147 in the late 1960s cut through the historically black community of Hayti, displacing more than 500 black families. [Paschal]

**In Little Rock, Arkansas, city planners bulldozed the black business district on 9th Street to construct Interstate 630, demolishing businesses and uprooting at least 695 black families in the High Street neighborhood. [Paschal]

**In Detroit, the Chrysler Freeway was routed through Paradise Valley and Black Bottom, destroying a vibrant black business and entertainment district that contained some of the African-American community’s most important institutions. The Lodge Expressway (M-10) cut through the increasingly black neighborhoods around 12th Street and west of Highland Park, and the Edsel Ford Freeway (I-94) managed to cut through both the black west side and the northern extension of Paradise Valley.. The Ford Freeway displaced 2,800 buildings by the 1950s in the??. Black Bottom, which had become home to 300 Black-owned businesses by the 1930s, was completely gutted. [Vejendla]

**In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S. Route 52 sliced through East Winston, where 100 percent of the 1,594 families known to have been displaced by construction were black. [Paschal]

**In Houston, Interstate 288 was built straight through the Third Ward, an historically black neighborhood. [Paschal]

**The Richmond, Virginia neighborhood of Jackson Ward, which also claimed a “Harlem of the South” attribution, was bisected and destroyed by I-95. [ Albert ]

**Highways also cut through black communities in Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama, and Columbia, South Carolina. [ Albert ]

**In Cincinnati, Ohio, I-75 razed the mostly black West End. [ Albert ]

**In Nashville, Tennessee, after Interstate 40 was routed through a black community there, residents sued, claiming racial discrimination and won a temporary restraining order, but ultimately lost and the highway was built. [ Albert ]

**In Los Angeles, the community of Beverly Hills defeated a highway project in 1975 that would have run through its center. However, the heavily Hispanic area of Boyle Heights had six freeways slice through the neighborhood over the years, including two massive interchanges less than two miles apart. [ Eric Jaffe ]

**And writing in the New York Times Sunday Magazine in August 2019, Kevin Kruze has observed: “While Interstates were regularly used to destroy black neighborhoods, they were also used to keep black and white neighborhoods apart. Today, major roads and highways serve as stark dividing lines between black and white sections in cities like Buffalo, Hartford, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. In Atlanta, the intent to segregate was crystal clear. Interstate 20, the east-west corridor that connects with I-75 and I-85 in Atlanta’s center, was deliberately plotted along a winding route in the late 1950s to serve, in the words of Mayor Bill Hartsfield, as ‘the boundary between the white and Negro communities’ on the west side of town. Black neighborhoods, he hoped, would be hemmed in on one side of the new expressway, while white neighborhoods on the other side of it would be protected…”

Back in Washington, D.C., meanwhile, the freeway protest continued in the late 1960s, now with a broadening base of citizen opposition – a function of where other freeway segments were then being planned.

A key driver of the freeway plans for the District of Columbia was coming from the west; from the Virginia side of the metro area, primarily by way of the proposed Three Sisters Bridge crossing of the Potomac River from Arlington, Virginia. Named after the Three Sisters Islands in the middle of the Potomac River — three small, boulder-type islands — the bridge would carry Interstate I-66 commuter traffic from the Virginia suburbs into DC, landing north of Georgetown. The bridge proposal, in various forms, had been around since the late 1940s, but by the mid-1960s with the Interstate Program, it was now a six-lane crossing, designated as I-266, with affiliated freeway attachments, upgrades, and interchanges on the DC side of the Potomac, feeding into yet other freeways cutting across town as well as down-river, near the Lincoln Memorial and beyond, with possible linkage to DC’s Southwest Freeway.

Three Sisters Bridge proposal, crossing the Potomac River from Arlington, VA, looking east into Washington, D.C., landing on river banks there (not far from Georgetown University, upper right), where it was proposed to connect with other freeway upgrades and interchanges, essentially carrying Virginia commuters into DC.

Residents on the receiving side of this proposal, principally those in upscale Georgetown, Foxhall, and the Northwest quadrant of the District, were discovering these and other freeways in their neighborhoods. Among these residents was Peter Craig, an attorney, chairman of a local group, the Northwest Committee for Transportation Planning, later connected to other groups, such as the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, which consisted of elite and influential players throughout the city. These groups favored mass transit and opposed the Three Sisters bridge, and used their influence to slow or redirect some of the DC freeway proposals — including the North-Central Freeway, a route first planned to run from the Georgetown waterfront up through Glover-Archbold Park in Northwest DC and out Wisconsin Avenue to Bethesda, Maryland, where it would join what is now Interstate 270. In the early 1960s, Craig and friends had won a five-year ban on freeways west of Rock Creek and north of M Street. That resulted, in part, in shifting routes like the North-Central Freeway to Sammie Abbott’s neighborhood and predominantly black communities in Northeast DC. Abbott knew Peter Craig and had earlier done some work for him. By the late 1960s, however, Abbott let Craig know he was angry about freeways being shifted to black Northeast communities, and urged Craig to take a broader city-wide stance on the freeway fight. Craig agreed, becoming a key ally in the ECTC fight, especially on the legal front.

Graphic art depicting Three Sisters I-66 traffic from Virginia "polluting" Washington, DC. ( art by Sammie Abbott ).

1969. Sample protest flyer and “call-to-Capitol-rally” offered by black activist members of ECTC protesting the “build-freeways-Congressional-blackmail” move by Rep. Natcher and others.

Still, DC freeway opponents, be they rich or poor, black or white, had another problem: the U.S. Congress. The District of Columbia was not its own political actor. By 1967 it had limited home rule with an appointed mayor and city council. Yet the city was still under the thumb of Congress for its funding, subject to the Congressional Appropriations process.

The congressional D.C. Subcommittee on Appropriations was run in those days by U.S. Rep. Bill Natcher (KY). Natcher, it turned out, was on the side of the DC highway plan, and he wanted all of it – all 38 miles of freeways and especially the Three Sisters Bridge from Virginia.

As Harry Jaffe would put it in his 2015 Washingtonian magazine story:

“Natcher pinned his hopes on the Three Sisters Bridge. He figured that, once built, it would break open the gate for the rest of the [DC] highways. And he had a card to play: The newly formed Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority had recently approved plans for a 97-mile regional Metrorail system. It was up to Natcher’s committee to appropriate funds. Natcher put down his marker. No Three Sisters Bridge, no Metro funds.”

In 1968, Natcher refused to release funds for Washington’s share of Metro unless construction began on the freeways and the Three Sisters Bridge. DC’s black activists, including Marion Barry Jr., then a member of ECTC and later DC mayor, denounced Natcher as a “racist congressman” who was trying “to blackmail the city.” ECTC activists, including Barry, Julius Hobson, ECTC’s Reginald Booker and others, helped organize rallies at the Capitol protesting Natcher’s move and other Virginia and Maryland members of Congress who were supporting the Three Sisters Bridge and the DC freeway plan.

In August 1969, however, the DC Council, which had been leaning toward blocking the bridge, voted to comply with the Federal Highway Act of 1968, succumbing to Natcher’s threat, thereby approving the Three Sisters Bridge, the North Central Freeway, and several other freeways. In return, the city’s subway money would no longer be blocked. The DC freeway activists were incensed, and the DC Council meeting devolved into a fracas. Sammie Abbott and Reginald Booker were among 14 arrested at that meeting.

October 13, 1969 story from The Washington Post, front page of the "City Life" section, reporting on college students' Three Sisters Bridge protest, with an occupation of one or more of the Three Sisters Islands in the middle of the Potomac River.

Following the Three Sisters Bridge approval, some construction began on river footings for the bridge in September 1969. But that’s when another contingent of opponents emerged: college students from Georgetown and George Washington universities. A white student organizer — Matt Andrea, who had been on the Georgetown crew team and was familiar with Potomac River and Three Sisters islands — had contacted Sammie Abbott about coordinating efforts, and soon the students joined the fight.

1969 poster announcing Three Sisters Bridge protest rally.

A series of protests and “occupations” of the Three Sisters Islands in the Potomac River ensued. The student protesters had boated out to the Three Sisters, some camping overnight on the islands. At times, up to 100 students were occupying the islands, planting an American flag and large banner on the island that read “Stop the Bridge” visible from the DC river banks. On October 15th, 1969 some 141 protesters demonstrating against the project were arrested at the construction site. In addition to the island protests there were also campus and street rallies against the bridge in DC, all of which enjoyed prominent news coverage in the Washington Post and Washington Star newspapers. Then, in early November 1969, over 85 percent of those voting on a nonbinding DC ballot initiative on the bridge voted against its construction.

Meanwhile, Peter Craig had gained some legal traction in the courts. In February 1968, when U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the DC highway plans illegal because of a failure to comply with planning procedures. A further lawsuit on behalf of the DC Federation of Civic Associations against U.S. Transportation Secretary John Volpe, alleged that politics had prompted decisions on the Three Sisters Bridge, not the legally-required needs assessment and consideration of alternatives. In late August 1970 the U.S. District Court agreed and ordered a halt to construction. Congress meanwhile, in December 1971, voted to release DC subway funds in a final rebuke to Natcher. On Three Sisters, Richard Nixon ordered the Justice Department in 1972 to appeal the earlier District Court case to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn that ruling, but the Supreme Court allowed the District Court ruling to stand. Over the next few years there would be a bit more maneuvering and politics involved, but the DC freeway plan and Three Sisters project were essentially finished by then.

November 2000. Washington Post magazine featuring history of DC’s freeway battles & Three Sisters Bridge protests.

Several years later, in 1976, U.S. Transportation Secretary, William T. Coleman, on behalf of the Ford Administration, announced that DOT would guarantee whatever money was needed to build the entire 103-mile DC metro-wide subway system. By 1977 the Three Sisters Bridge was officialy dropped from the DC master plan. Elsewhere in the region, the I-66 “inside-the-beltway” segment on the Virginia side, proposed to feed into the Three Sisters bridge, had also been opposed and litigated by citizen groups, primarily the Arlington Coalition on Transportation (ACT, formed in October 1970 and led by residents Jim & Emelia Govan), resulting in a scaled-down highway with traffic restrictions.

ECTC, meanwhile, in addition to being the prime mover citizen force to stave off the DC freeway carnage, also helped spawn three National Conferences on the Transportation Crisis, with citizens from 54 cities attending. These groups, in turn, helped push legislation that allowed States to turn over Federal highway funds for mass transit projects. As for Washington, DC proper, one summary of what the citizen and political opposition had accomplished there is offered by Washington Post reporters Bob and Jane Levy, who wrote in their retrospective November 2000 piece:

…Today, Washington has fewer miles of freeways within its borders than any other major city on the East Coast. More than 200,000 housing units were saved from destruction. So were more than 100 square miles of parkland around the metropolitan area. The city was spared from freeways bored under the Mall, freeways punched through stable middle-class black neighborhoods, freeways tunneled under K Street, freeways that would have obliterated the Georgetown waterfront and the Maryland bank of the Potomac.

The DC freeway fighters, however, had something of a magical coalition, populated by black and white activist citizen groups, but also various lawyers, power brokers and other influentials, plus media attention, all of which helped the community-based activists prevail in the freeway battle. Throughout the U.S., however, there were dozens of citizen uprisings over freeway projects that lacked such power, resulting in completed freeways through many of those communities. One freeway fight in Tennessee, however, resulted in a victory for saving parkland that affirmed such protections at the U.S. Supreme Court level.

Brooks Lamb’s “Overton Park: A People’s History,” Univ of Tennessee Press, includes the I-40 fight that went to U.S. Supreme Court. Click for copy.

Overton Park

Late in the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, a portion of the proposed route for Interstate Highway 1-40 threatened Overton Park, a popular 342-acre public park in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1901, Overton Park includes a portion of an old-growth forest, and also a number of popular Memphis cultural and outdoor attractions, among them the Memphis zoo, the Memphis College of Art, an amphitheater, and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, among other amenities. Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash performed there, while locals long enjoyed its playgrounds and jogging trails.

In the proposed routing of I-40, some 26 acres of the park were slated to be demolished to build freeway through the park to make it easier for suburban commuters to get to downtown. A small number of residents of midtown Memphis formed “Citizens to Preserve Overton Park,” and challenged the plan in court. Federal law by this time included specific provisions for protecting parkland and other areas, as indicated under section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966 and the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1968. Such lands could not be taken for a highway if other alternative routes were available. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the citizens favor in the landmark 1971 case, Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, upholding section 4(f) protections. However, that wasn’t the end of it. The City of Memphis and Tennessee Department of Transportation continued to propose a number of alternative Interstate 40 routes through Overton Park, including running the highway through a tunnel or in a deep trench. In 1978, Citizens to Preserve Overton Park successfully nominated the park to the National Register of Historic Places, thus guaranteeing that without approval from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Federal funding could not be used for projects that damaged the park’s historic integrity. The Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper concluded the National Registration was the “final nail in the coffin” for efforts to route I-40 through Overton Park. Other Tennessee cities, however, were not as fortunate with their freeways, as noted earlier above, as another section of I-40 was built through a predominantly black section of Nashville, in central Tennessee.

Jason Henderson’s 2013 book offers some San Francisco freeway history, but also how the city might serve as an example of the sustainable transportation fight going forward. Click for copy.

The Road Ahead

The freeway battles of the 1950s-1970s period mark an important time in America when local citizen groups and various national activists confronted powerful highway interests – including the larger auto-industrial culture – and came away with some major victories and important changes in public policy. Their efforts helped make the transportation planning process more sensitive to social and environmental concerns. But that battle is far from over.

Today, freeways in America continue to draw public attention, whether in new proposals, upgrades and expansions, and new metropolitan beltway proposals. But there are also various efforts to dismantle and remove existing freeways and freeway stubs, especially in urban areas. And transportation activists across America continue to push for more mass transit and other alternatives, including better and more integration of bikeways and walkways into urban design and transportation plans. Yet the continuing rise in highway traffic and motor vehicle numbers inevitably means there will be more highway building ahead – and likely, more highway battles as well.

Readers of this story may also find the “Environmental History” topics page of interest, or General Motors-related stories, including: “G.M. & Ralph Nader,” “The DeLorean Saga,” and “Dinah Shore & Chevrolet.” Or visit the Home Page for additional story choices. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 25 October 2020
Last Update: 1 December 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Highway Wars – 1950s-1970s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, October 25, 2020.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

50th anniversary edition of Jane Jacobs' 1961 classic work on urban planning and design, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” Click for copy.

James Howard Kunstler’s book, “The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape,” 1994 paperback edition. Click for copy.

Mark Rose’s 1990 book, “Interstate: Express Highway Politics 1939-1989,” University of Tennessee Press, 208 pp. Click for copy.

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San Francisco

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Boston

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Highways & Race

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Eric Avila, The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City, Quadrant paperback, 2014.

Eric Jaffe, “The Forgotten History of L.A.’s Failed Freeway Revolt: The Story of Boyle Heights Reminds Us That Urban Highway Teardowns Don’t Always End in Victory,” Bloomberg.com, July 23, 2014.

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Washington, D.C.

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Craig G. Simpson, “The D.C. Black Liberation Movement Seen Through the Life of Reginald H. Booker,” WashingtonAreaSpark.com, Jan-uary 28, 2020.

Willard Clopton, “Controversial Road Projects To Be Delayed: NCTA Plan Studied. NCTA Tactics Protested; Key District Road Jobs Are Delayed,” Washington Post, January 19, 1963, p. C-1.

Willard Clopton, “Rail Transit Plan Sent To Congress: President Asks Prompt, Favorable Action on Project,” Washington Post, May 28, 1963, p. A-1.

Peter Milius, “Freeway Foes Carry Protest to District Building,” Washington Post, January 18, 1967, p. C-1.

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Jack Eisen and Irna Moore, “Bridge Vote Tied To Metro Funds: Metro Fate Tied to Bridge,” Washington Post, July 23, 1969.

Jack Eisen and Ina Moore, “Fists Fly at Voting on Roads: Bridge Foes Erupt as City Bows to Hill,” Washington Post, August 10, 1969, p. 1.

B. D. Colen, “Nearly 100 Bridge Foes ‘Occupy’ Three Sisters Islands: Students Lead Protesters Awaiting Start of Construction Today,” Washington Post, October 13, 1969, p. D-1.

Martio Weil, “Bridge Work Starts: Protestors Cause Brief Delay on 3 Sisters,” Washington Post, October 14, 1969, p. C-1.

Ivan C. Brandon, “141 Protestors Arrested at Three Sisters Site,” Washington Post, October 16, 1969, p. B-1.

“Ban the Bridge?,” Newsweek, November 3, 1969.

“Washington: Freeway Blackmail,” Environ-mental Action, October 17, 1970.

Angela Rooney, “Freeways: Urban Invaders,” The Environmental Journal, October 1971.

Jack Eisen, “House Releases District Subway Funds: Leadership Rebuffed, 195 to 174,” Washington Post, December 3, 1971, p. 1.

Rice Odell, “To Stop Highways Some Neighbors Take to The Streets,” Smithsonian Magazine, March 1972.

Jack Eisen, “Md. Vetoes I-95 Extension Into District,” Washington Post, July 13, 1973.

Douglas B. Feaver, “Three Sisters Highway Project Is Killed – Again,” Washington Post, May 13, 1977.

Angela & Tom Rooney, “Sammie Abdullah Abbott: 1908-1990,” Washington, DC, January 5, 1991 (archived at Hood.edu).

Bob Levey and Jane Freundel Levey, “End of the Roads: In the Interstate Era, Congress Ruled Washington Like a Fiefdom. Then a Fight Over Some Freeways Inspired a Biracial, Neighborhood-Level Movement to Fight the Federal Power,” Washington Post Magazine, November 26, 2000.

Gregory M. Borchardt, “Making D.C. Democracy’s Capital: Local Activism, the ‘Federal State’, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Washington, D.C.,” A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of the George Washington University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, August 31, 2013.

“Three Sisters Bridge,” Wikipedia.org.

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“Unbuilt Three Sisters Bridge Across the Potomac,” GhostsofDC.org, April 13, 2015.

Harry Jaffe, “The Insane Highway Plan That Would Have Bulldozed DC’s Most Charming Neighborhoods,” Washingtonian.com, Octo-ber 21, 2015.

Jamila Jordan, “The Roads Not Traveled: D.C. Pushes Back Against Freeway Plans,” Boun-daryStones.weta.org, December 17, 2015.

Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis, Re: Map & Flyer / “White Man’s Roads Through Back Men’s Homes” (1969), Archived at The Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

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Zachary M. Schrag, George Mason University, “The Freeway Fight in Washington, D.C.: The Three Sisters Bridge in Three Adminis-trations,” Journal of Urban History, July 1, 2004.

Zachary M. Schrag, The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, Click for copy.

Agatha Sloboda, “No Bridge for Three Sisters,” BoundaryStones.weta.org, November 7, 2018.
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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Mamas-and-the-Papas-California-Dreaming-Forrest-Gump-Soundtrack.mp3 3881969 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Straight-Shooter-MAMAS-THE-PAPAS.mp3 3541986 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Got-A-Feelin-66.mp3 3527160 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Mamas-Papas-Go-Where-You-Want-to-Go.mp3 2990720 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/mamas-and-the-papas-i-call-your-name.mp3 2506752 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/05-Do-You-Wanna-Dance.mp3 6135502 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Mamas-The-Papas-Monday-Monday.mp3 3320727 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Mamas-And-The-Papas-I-Saw-Her-Again-Last-Night.mp3 3115297 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Mamas-The-Papas-Mama-Cass-Elliot-Words-Of-Love.mp3 2162983 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Mamas-and-Papas-Dedicated-To-The-One-I-Love.mp3 2876021 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Mamas-and-Papas-Twelve-Thirty-Young-Girls-Are-Coming-To-The-Canyon.mp3 3303977 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Mamas-the-Papas-Dream-a-Little-Dream-of-Me.mp3 3138396 audio/mpeg

1961-1970

“The California Sound”
The Mamas & The Papas

August 15, 2020 J.D.

March 1967. The Mamas & The Papas on the cover of “The Saturday Evening Post” magazine after a phenomenal 1966 with chart-topping hits. From left: Michelle Phillips, Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty, and founder/leader, John Phillips. Click for copy.

They were called “The Mamas and The Papas,” and for a time in the mid-1960s they made beautiful music together. Their sound was distinctive and inventive. Their layered arrangements and gorgeous male-female harmonies helped create a new genre of rock music – “folk rock,” also called “the California sound.” Their first classic hit, released in December 1965, was “California Dreamin`.”

Music Player
“California Dreamin`”-1965

As the New York Times would note some years later: “…The Mamas and the Papas became one of the most popular and influential American bands of the era between the Beatles’ arrival and Woodstock [roughly between 1965 and 1969]. Their enduring hits, like “California Dreamin’,” “Monday, Monday” and “Dedicated to the One I Love,” mixed the gentle jangle of folk with a rock backbeat and sweet, layered pop vocals.”

The foursome of Denny Doherty, Cass Elliott, John and Michelle Phillips offered an exceptional vocal blend. When they arranged their voices just right, this group could create something their leader, John Phillips, and others would describe as “the fifth voice” — a “two-plus-two-equals-five” kind of thing; a special vocal sound that no one voice could make alone, but together would soar. Their sound, though modern, was not unlike that of a madrigal or choral quality. It was soothing and upbeat, even if some of the lyrics weren’t always so cheery. Their music, on the whole, had broad appeal, for the young and old. It was feel-good and non-threatening, and it sold like wildfire.

But alas, this talented foursome was undone by the soap opera that was their entangled lives, which was also, in part, the wellspring and muse of their success. But for a brief time, they became folk rock’s dominant and leading troubadours, topping the music charts of their day and helping set a certain cultural tone.

The Mamas and Papas left a distinct mark on popular music of the mid-1960s and became part of the Los Angeles/ Laurel Canyon music scene, along with the Beach Boys, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and others then on the leading edge of folk-rock innovation.

Mamas & Papas making impromptu music at an outing in the Laurel Canyon area near Los Angeles. Mama Cass had a home there for a time, which served as a sometimes gathering spot for area musicians. Photo, Guy Webster.

The Mamas and Papas had an intense few years of musical success and national notice – although much too fleeting given their considerable talents. Were it not for their internal strife, mostly affairs and interpersonal difficulties, plus a later-found disenchantment with the music industry, they might well have had several more years of noteworthy music. Yet for a time, their exceptional sound graced the airwaves.

As it was, in four short years — and mostly in two-and-a-half years — the Mamas and the Papas released five studio albums and 17 singles, six of which made the Billboard top ten. They have sold close to 40 million records worldwide. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. What follows here is a look back at some of their music and group history.

From top: Denny Doherty, John & Michelle Phillips, and Cass Elliot.

Origins

The group had its origin in acoustic folk music. John Phillips, group founder, had learned his craft in the late 1950s in New York’s Greenwich Village’s music scene. He’d also worked with doo-wop and harmony groups and had studied the music of the Four Lads, Four Freshmen, Kingston Trio and others. John was briefly at the Naval Academy then attended Hampden–Sydney College, before dropping out. Later in New York, Phillips and two others, Scott Mackenzie and Dick Weissman, formed the folk group, The Journeyman, producing three albums and some success.

In May 1957, Phillips married Susan Adams of a wealthy Virginia family and the couple had a son, Jeffrey, and a daughter, Mackenzie. In 1961, while touring California with The Journeymen, Phillips met 17 year-old model Holly Michelle Gilliam, with whom he had an affair, followed later by the dissolution of his first marriage. He then married Michelle on December 31, 1962. Michelle Phillips, though not schooled in music, later joined John in a second Journeymen group – the New Journeymen – learning her craft on the job. They first lived in California, and then New York city.

Canadian folk singer Denny Doherty had played with future Lovin’ Spoonful member Zal Yanovsky in the “Halifax Three” Canadian group. He later joined Cass Elliot in a group that became the Mugwumps. Doherty then hooked up with John and Michelle in the New Journeymen. Cass Elliot, meanwhile, worked briefly with a jazz trio before joining Doherty, John and Michelle in the group that would later become the Mamas and the Papas. John, however, was not totally comfortable with their move away from acoustic folk to a more electric-based folk rock, then being influenced by the breakout success of the Beatles and Bob Dylan “going electric” at one celebrated outing. Denny and Cass eventually convinced him to make the change.

“The first time we all sang together,” Michelle Phillips would later recall, “was probably January 9th, 1965, at our apartment in the West Village.” As the folk scene was fading in New York City, Michelle, John and Denny then decamped to the Virgin Islands, in part for a change of scenery and R & R, and in part to try out more rock-based music. Cass, not then a full partner in the musical group, would come later, also working part-time at a Virgin Islands bar named Duffy’s where the others were testing their music. They hadn’t yet congealed as a full group, and it wasn’t clear that Cass would be invited to join, as John was resisting.

After the Virgin Islands, Denny, John and Michelle returned to New York City — but only by the good fortune of John wagering their last dollars at a casino where Michelle’s hot hand won 17 straight passes at the craps table, earning enough for their return air fare. Cass, meanwhile, had gone to Los Angeles. Later that fall, John, Michelle and Denny departed New York by car headed for Los Angeles determined to peddle John’s songs, “California Dreamin’,” “Monday Monday,” and others. Initially, there were no takers. Cass was already in L.A. at the home of either former Mugwumps bandmate James Hendricks or Barry McGuire, when the others joined her there. And it was at some rehearsals at that house, with Cass now fully participating, that the foursome first realized their special sound. “All of a sudden, we’re at her place and this sound happens; this Mamas and Papas sound,” Denny Doherty would later recount. “Even John couldn’t deny it. He started tinkering, saying, ‘Hey, if Cass sings here, Michie, you try singing there, and Denny you move up there.’ That’s how it happened.”

Mamas & Papas at mid-1960s recording session at L.A.'s Western Recording studios on Sunset strip: Denny Doherty, John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, and Cass Elliot.

In California, singer Barry McGuire, who then had the hit song “Eve of Destruction.” (No. 1, September 1965), had known John Phillips and Cass Elliott separately from the folk circuit. McGuire introduced John Phillips to producer Lou Adler, head of Dunhill Records, who agreed to audition the group. At the audition, Adler kept a poker face as he listened to them perform a series of songs, repeatedly asking “what else ‘ya got?” But Adler was actually floored by what he heard. “I couldn’t believe anything that good had just walked in off the street,” he would say in a later 1966 Life magazine story.

Lou Adler, mid-1960s.

Adler considered their vocal blend close to that of The Beach Boys or Simon and Garfunkel, then riding high on the charts. He would later mark the meeting with the rag-tag group as his “George Martin moment” – comparable to when Martin first met and heard the Beatles. Adler, who had never seen a foursome quite like this before, would later come up with the title of their first album: If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears. In any case, the audition led to a contract the next day. The group would record two albums a year for the next five years with a royalty of 5 percent on 90 percent of retail sales. Dunhill would also handle the group’s management and publishing. Initially, they worked as background singers for a Barry McGuire album, but were soon on to their own music.

In terms of the group’s composition, John still had doubts about, and some differences with, Cass Elliott formally joining the group, but was outvoted by Denny, Michelle and Dunhill’s Lou Adler. Cass, in fact, with her powerful contralto, had the strongest voice of the four. Denny Doherty added a very pure tenor. And Michelle offered a clear and bright soprano. John was group leader and chief songwriter, described as “a genius at arranging harmony.” But it was the particular mixing of their male and female voices that became their distinctive trademark, plus excellent arrangements and instrumental backing by L.A,’s famed session musicians, “the wrecking crew.”

California Dreamin`

45 rpm vinyl single of “California Dreamin,” released, Dec 1965, rising to No.4, March 1966. Click for digital,

“California Dreamin`,” the song offered at the top of this story, was once described by the New York Times writer Stephen Holden as the song that “beckoned the world to the lotus land of Los Angeles.”

It was written in its first stages by John Phillips, who wrote and arranged most of the group’s songs. He first worked on “California Dreamin`” in 1963 when he and Michelle were living in New York City during a particularly cold winter. Michelle was sorely missing sunny California, at the time.

John often worked on his music late at night, and one morning after writing the first verse or so, he woke Michelle to play what he had and work on further lyrics. Michelle wasn’t excited about being roused from her sleep, and wanted to work on it the next morning. But John insisted, asking her to write down the first verse, and to help craft more lyrics.

“Trust me,” he said, “you’ll thank me for this later. Write this down.” Michelle then proceeded to add some lyrics from when she and John had walked in a New York city snow and had “stopped in a church.” Michelle, in fact, would become the co-author of that song, giving her half the publishing and half the writer’s fees — which for that song would become quite a windfall for years and years. She would later say of John’s rousing her that night it was the best wake-up call she ever had.

Although a cover version of “California Dreamin`” had been recorded for a Barry MaGuire album as a “thank you” for his introduction to Lou Adler, that version did not take off. The Mamas and Papas’ “California Dreamin`” was released as a single on December 18th, 1965, touted by a full-page ad in Billboard magazine. In the song, John’s guitar backs the soprano voice of Michelle, Denny Doherty provides the lead tenor, and Cass Elliott adds her powerful contralto to the vocal blend that propels the song. Session musicians P.F. Sloan contributed the guitar introduction and Bud Shank the alto flute solo.

1966. “If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears,” debut album of Feb 1966, with “California Dreamin`” single released ahead of album, Dec 1965. Click for CD or singles.

“California Dreamin`,” however, was not an immediate breakthrough. In fact, initially, it gained little attention in Los Angeles. But it was radio station WMEX in Boston that became the catalyst for the song’s break-out nationwide, giving the song lots of air time.

There was also plenty of competition on the music charts at the time “California Dreamin’” was released. In late December 1965, The Byrds were riding high with their No. 1 folk-rock blockbuster, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Simon & Garfunkel also had a Top Ten song, “The Sounds of Silence.” The Beatles, The Lovin` Spoonful, The Supremes, The Righteous Brothers, James Brown, and the Four Seasons also had hits in the Top 10 or 20 at that time.

“California Dreamin'” made its chart debut on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1966. It then peaked on that chart at No. 4 in March 1966, remaining there for 17 weeks, and also on the Cashbox chart for 20 weeks.

“California Dreamin`” hit No. 1 on some individual radio surveys – such as New York City’s WABC survey, where it held at No.1 for four weeks during March and April 1966. By June 1966 it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. It was also listed in year-end surveys among the top songs of 1966.

“California Dreamin'” also hit No. 23 in the UK. In 1997, it charted again in the UK after it was used in a Carling Premier beer ad, then peaking at No. 9. In 2001, “California Dreamin'” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2007 Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 89 in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. According to one count, by early 2020, “California Dreamin’,” had been streamed nearly 240 million times on Spotify.

Mamas & Papas
Debut Album
1966

Side One
“Monday, Monday” (J. Phillips)
“Straight Shooter” (J. Phillips)
“Got a Feelin'” (J. Phillips, D.Doherty)
“I Call Your Name” (Lennon & McCartney)
“Do You Wanna Dance” (Bobby Freeman)
“Go Where You Wanna Go” (J. Phillips)

Side Two
“California Dreamin'” (J. & M. Phillips)
“Spanish Harlem” (J. Leiber, P. Spector)
“Somebody Groovy” (J. Phillips)
“Hey Girl” (J. Phillips, M. Phillips)
“You Baby” (S. Barri, P. F. Sloan)
“The ‘In’ Crowd” (Billy Page)

Superb Album

The group’s debut album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, included “California Dreamin’,” but its release came after the single. By February 1966, it hit No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart. In addition to “California Dreamin,” the album was full of good songs, not least of which was their follow-up single to “California Dreamin`” and their first No. 1 hit, “Monday, Monday.” More on that song a bit later.

However, there are at least six other songs on that first album that did not initially get specific chart recognition in 1966, but also delivered stellar vocals and solid performances, including: “Straight Shooter,” “Got a Feelin’,” “Go Where You Wanna Go,” and covers of three other songs: the Beatles’ tune, “I Call Your Name,” with Mama Cass Elliott in the lead; Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance;” and “Spanish Harlem,” written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector.

All of these Mamas and Papas songs have an airy, folky, breezy California feel to them, and seemed musically innocent. Yet the subject matter behind some of them was actually documenting the internal strife, jealousies, and love affairs that would contribute to the group’s demise – though generally not apparent to the listening public. It would be this autobiographical angst of the group that would fuel a number of their songs.

Free-spirited Michelle seemed to be at the center much of the turmoil, as she had affairs early on with others, including bandmate Denny Doherty, which soon had both John and Denny writing song lyrics about her. At least three of the songs on the first album – “Straight Shooter,” “Got A Feelin,” and “Go Where You Wanna Go” – appear to have Michelle as their muse, at least in part.

Michelle Phillips; devilish pose and “Mona Lisa” smile.

John Phillips and his youthful wife, Michelle Phillips, mid-1960s.

“Straight Shooter” is a John Philllips song with verse and message directed at Michelle:

Music Player
“Straight Shooter”-1965-66

[sample verse]
Don’t get me mad, don’t tell no lie
Don’t make me sad, don’t pass me by
Baby are you holding,
holding anything but me?
Because I’m a real straight shooter
If you know what I mean

You can bring me love,
you can hang around
You can bring me up,
don’t you bring me down
Baby are you holding,
holding anything but me?
Because I’m a real straight shooter
If you know what I mean…

Music Player
“Got a Feelin`”-1965-66

“Got A Feelin,” by both John and Denny, is possibly suggesting that they’re both being played by the winsome beauty?

John & Michelle Phillips in what appears to be a dressing room prior to performance, mid-1960s.

Dunhill promotional 45rpm record for "Go Where You Wanna Go".

Record sleeve for "Go Where You Wanna Go". Click for digital.

[sample verse]
Got a feelin’ that I’m wasting time
on you babe
Got a feelin’ that you’ve been untrue
I got a feelin’ that you’re stealin’
All the love I thought I was giving to you
Baby, it’s true. the joke’s on you…

Michelle Rising

Michelle had been raised by her father after her mother died when she was five years old. Her father was quite liberal and they also moved around a bit. In 1951 he took Michelle and her sister to live in Mexico City where they went to school and became fluent in Spanish before returning to Los Angeles. In L.A., at about age 13, Michelle met Tamar Hodel, a 23 year-old married women, reported as something of a beauty herself and a Kim Novak look-alike. (Tamar was the daughter of the infamous George Hodel, murder suspect in the Black Dahlia case [Elizabeth Short, 1947], also accused of raping Tamar, though neither case was proved.) Michelle became quite enamored of Tamar.

When Tamar first saw Michelle – whom she described as “a gorgeous little Brigitte Bardot” – she wanted to champion her “because no one had championed me” (Tamar having had a difficult raising). Michelle then needed a female model. And so began a tutelage of sorts in the social survival skills, as Michelle and Tamar became fast friends. Vanity Fair’s Sheila Weller notes: “Tamar took the lower-middle-class bohemian’s daughter and polished her. She bought her clothes…, enrolled her in modeling school, taught her how to drive…”

By early-1961, after Tamar divorced her husband, she and Michelle moved to San Francisco, where they enjoyed the club scene, including folk bands. Tamar briefly took up with one musician named Scott McKenzie, who then played with John Phillips’ band, The Journeymen. That’s when Michelle, 17 by then and working as a model, met John Phillips one night at a club in July 1961 where The Journeymen were performing. The two began a whirlwind romance.

Michelle set her sights on John and had to have him. “I fell in love with his talent, his poise, his ability to be leader of the pack,” she would later say. He was 25 at the time, married with two kids. His wife, Susan, was a former ballerina and they lived in Mill Valley. Michelle, reportedly took the direct route, visiting Susan at her home and telling her, “I’m in love with your husband.” Susan replied that John had a girl like her in every city. (Michelle in later years would reflect on her brazen visit to John’s wife: “When I look back on it, I wonder how could I have done that. It just seems so insensitive and mean.”)

John and Susan later divorced, and he and Michelle moved to New York and married on December 31, 1962. But John soon realized he had hooked up with a beautiful tigress with a mind of her own, and quite open about sex, love, and marriage. Michelle, in fact, would become his angst-inducing muse for Mamas and Papas music.

Music Player
“Go Where You Wanna` Go”-1965-66

Not long after she and John were married, in 1963, Michelle had an affair with Russ Titelman, a songwriter and record producer, briefly leaving John in California. Her plan, though not realized, was to live with Russ in New York city. That’s when John wrote the song “Go Where You Wanna’ Go,” written from the female perspective, with lyrics in the “free love” mold.

[sample verse]
You gotta go where you want to go
Do what you want to do
With whoever you want to do it with

You don’t understand
That a girl like me can love just one man
Three thousand miles,
that’s how far you’ll go
And you said to me please don’t follow

“Go Where You Wanna’ Go” had actually been the group’s first release, prior to “California Dreamin,” but didn’t go anywhere, and was pulled back. Still, apart from the John-and-Michelle turmoil behind it (and in that case, the pair did work it out, temporarily, as Michelle did return), the song’s production value was as good as others on the debut album. It featured Mama Cass in particular with strong vocals in one section where she can be heard, kicking it up a notch with her rising vocals. Had the song been released after “California Dreamin`” perhaps, it might well have become another big hit for the group.

1960s. Mama Cass Elliot on her porch in Laurel Canyon.

But other songs on that first album also offered quality Mamas & Papas music. “I Call Your Name,” a 1964 song recorded by the Beatles and written primarily by John Lennon, was covered quite nicely by the Mamas & Papas.

Music Player
“I Call Your Name”-1965-66

Cass Elliot takes a strong lead on this song, and at one point, during the instrumental break in the song, faintly whispers “John…John,” signaling her crush on John Lennon. Cass also has something of a Barbra Streisand-type moment on one note during the song. And call-backs and strong background harmonies also come through nicely on this tune. This song also showcases the honky-tonk piano sound, a feature heard on a few other Mamas and Papas songs.

Mama Cass was born Ellen Naomi Cohen in Baltimore, Maryland and would later take the stage name Cass Elliot. She grew up mostly in the Alexandria-Virginia-Washington-D.C. area, with some high school there and in Baltimore. With an interest in acting, she moved to New York City in the early ’60s and did some touring with in a production of The Music Man and had also vied with Barbra Streisand for a role in, I Can Get For You Wholesale. Cass did not begin to sing until after attending American University in Washington, D.C., where she met Tim Rose, leader of the Big Three folk group, joining them at a time when folk music was sweeping the nation, and also recording a few albums. By 1964 the group was reconfigured and renamed the Mugwumps, with Denny Doherty, Zal Yanovsky and John Sebastian. She and Denny, at different times, later joined John and Michelle Phillips in the Mamas & Papas.

The two "Mamas": Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot.

Cass proved to be one of the stronger Mamas & Papas voices, with her rising and powerful alto distinguished on several of their hit songs, as well as solo recordings in her later career.

One of her fans online, Caroline Anderson, assembling 20 of her songs with annotation, notes in part: “…Cass is one of the most technically precise singers. … such clear diction, agile and lithe and bel canto all at once. It’s not the voice of someone who happens to sing well, it’s a Stradivarius in a world of Yamahas.”

Cass Elliot also became a notable figure in the Laurel Canyon scene, sometimes called the Earth Mother of that community. Some of her friends lauded her as a kind of “1960s Gertrude Stein” (matchmaker of American expatriate artists in Paris during the 1920s), said to have helped bring various musicians together at her Laurel Canyon home, contributing to the careers of Joni Mitchell for example, and also folk-rock supergroup, Crosby, Stills and Nash, among others.

Troubled by being overweight since she was a young girl, Cass offered an outgoing personality, engaging humor, and a quick wit (with a high IQ) to make herself well liked and well respected by her peers. Fan Caroline Anderson adds: “Cass was, by all accounts, one of the funniest women of her time. Read about it in any biographies of the time, or just watch her trade barbs with Johnny Carson, yuck it up with The Smothers Brothers, or spoof yogurt commercials on The Julie Andrews Comedy Hour….” John Sebastian adds: “Cass was a star. Whatever room she was in became her salon. She had this wonderful charisma.” Even John Phillips, who had his differences with Cass, would later pay her this compliment: “She was as good as Streisand and she was as good as Joplin. She could have done anything.”

Record sleeve for "Do You Wanna Dance". Click for digital.

More 1st Album

Back to their first album, the Mamas and the Papas, with Denny Doherty in the lead, also did a cover of the 1958 song, “Do You Wanna Dance.”

Music Player
“Do You Wanna Dance”-1965-66

This song was first written and performed by American R&B rocker, Bobby Freeman. At that time, the song became a No. 5 hit on the Billboard Top 100 chart and No. 2 on the R&B chart. Freeman’s version, however, was lively and upbeat rock ‘n roll. The Mamas and Papas version was slowed down, allowing for a showcasing of both Denny’s tenor and group harmonies. A Beach Boys’ cover of this song had also come out in February 1965, about a year before the Mamas and Papas album with their version. The Beach Boys song hit No. 12 on the charts. The Mamas and Papas’ version wasn’t released as a single until 1968, with “My Girl” on the B side. At that time, the song did chart, at No. 78 on Billboard and No. 43 on Cash Box.

Monday, Monday

Cover art for single sleeve, Mamas & Papas No. 1 hit, "Monday, Monday". Click for digital.

The biggest hit for the Mamas and the Papas – also coming in 1966 from that first album – was “Monday, Monday.” This song was also written by John Phillips, who said he wrote it in about 20 minutes, and later also that he had no idea what it meant.

Music Player
“Monday, Monday”-1965-66

Denny Doherty sings the lead throughout, as the others provide the counterpoint background vocals. The song also has a false ending, which serves to showcase the blended voices on the restart. And like other songs from that album, “Monday, Monday” was backed by the instrumental talents of L.A.’s “wrecking crew” session musicians, including: Larry Knechtel on keyboards, Joe Osborn on bass, Hal Blaine on drums, and P.F. Sloan played guitar and used a tremolo effect on his part, which he overdubbed later. He described the “Monday Monday” recording work as a “magical session.”

Denny Doherty, distinguished tenor, sang lead on "Monday, Monday" & other Mamas & Papas songs.

The lyrics of the song indicate it’s about Monday being a bit of a drag; the day of the week people return to work after the weekend. But this song also incorporates lyrics about lovers seemingly not sure if their significant other is staying, leaving, will come back, etc.,.

…Oh Monday mornin’, Monday mornin’ couldn’t guarantee
That Monday evenin’ you would still be here with me

…Oh Monday mornin’ you gave me no warnin’ of what was to be
Oh Monday, Monday, how could you leave and not take me…

Released as a single in March 1966, “Monday, Monday” would become a No.1 hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, the first time a male-female recording act had achieved that mark. The song hit No. 1 on May 7th, 1966 and remained in that slot for three weeks. A year later, by March 1967, the single had sold more than 3 million copies. “Monday, Monday” is a good example of symphonic California folk-rock, overlain with rich vocal harmonies.

I Saw Her Again

Single sleeve for “I Saw Her Again.” Click for digital.

Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty, amid the flowers.

The “KYA Beat” newsletter, from KYA radio station in San Francisco, gave cover billing to Michelle’s ouster in July 1966, picturing her replacement, Jill Gibson with tagline, “Brand New Mama”.

“I Saw Her Again,” the Mamas and the Papas third hit single, is another song written by both John Phillips and Denny Doherty, and also had as its inspiration, at least in part, Michelle’s affairs, reportedly one with Denny and another with Gene Clark of The Byrds. The Denny affair had begun earlier with Denny’s advances in the Virgin Islands, later consummated in California.

Music Player
“I Saw Her Again”-1966

But Michelle would later say of “I Saw Here Again” that she thought it mean of John to have Denny write lyrics about the affair.

As later interviewed, Michelle explained: “…That’s when I said to him, ‘John, it seems a little sadistic to me that you would make Denny write the song with you.’ And he said [in reply], ‘I, personally believe in turning tragedy into publishing’.” As Michelle’s interviewer noted on that point: “He [John] wrote a song about it and made a million dollars.”

Denny, for his part, would say the affair with Michelle was a “one-and-done” incident and was over quickly, although at the time, Denny fell pretty hard.

John, however, was so angered by Michelle’s activities that he moved to have her kicked out of the group. Cass, as well, with long-standing romantic designs on Denny, wasn’t happy with Michelle.

Michelle Out!

But Michelle’s affair with Gene Clark might have been more of a factor in John’s anger. At one point Michelle had arranged for a guest pass to be given to Clark so he could attend a Mamas and Papas concert. He showed up at the concert in the front row wearing a bright red jacket.

Denny Doherty would later describe Michelle on stage blowing kisses to Clark during the performance, which enraged John.

After the show, John chased Michelle into the parking lot telling her she was through with the group and was fired. And for a time, Michelle was removed from the group.

In fact, after consulting Dunhill and their attorney, John, Cass, and Denny formally served Michelle with a letter on June 28, 1966 expelling her from the group.

Michelle’s reaction was explosive. She crashed a recording session of the “new” Mamas and Papas and at one point even took a swing at Denny when he refused to side with her. She also screamed at the group, telling them she would “bury” them all, then stomped out.

As Michelle later recounted in Vanity Fair: “I sat in my car, shaking and despondent and crying hysterically. I had just been fired by my husband and my best friends. I thought my life was over.” And indeed, John had once told her, “I created you, and I can take it all away,” which Michelle later realized he could, endangering her then golden existence. So she fought like hell to get back in the group.

Sept 1966. Mamas & Papas’ 2nd album cover, set inside an old building window, smudges and all, also known as the “Cass, John, Michelle, Dennie” album. Click for CD.

Michelle’s replacement in the new Mamas and Papas was Jill Gibson (Lou Adler’s girlfriend), who even toured with the group in the summer of 1966. But it didn’t work out with Jill. Two months later Michelle was brought back in, and she and John appeared to be on the mend. (Michelle would later extract a measure of revenge on Jill by announcing, in front of she and Lou together, that she was in love with Lou, with whom she would later, in 1972, have an affair).

In any case, apart from the ongoing soap opera, “I Saw Her Again,” did quite well on the charts. It was released in June 1966, and did especially well in Canada, owed in part to generous on-air playing at Chicago radio station WLS. By the week of July 30, 1966, the song peaked at No. 1 on the RPM Canadian Singles Chart, No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also appeared on the group’s second album, titled, The Mamas and The Papas, released in September 1966.

Dunhill producer, Lou Adler, borrowing from the Phil Spector “wall of sound” studio production method, filled up all the spaces on this song with multiple layers of voices and “wrecking crew” instrumentation. “I just overloaded it with production,” he would later say of the song, “it’s got everything on it that I could possibly think of, and just kept building and building.”

Mamas & Papas
Selected 1960s Songs
(click titles for Amazon)

“California Dreamin’”
March 1966 – #4
“Monday Monday”
May 1966 – #1
“I Saw Her Again”
July 1966 – #5
“Look Through My Window”
November 1966 – #24
“Words of Love”
January 1967 – #5
“Dedicated to the One I Love”
March 1967 – #2
“Creeque Alley”
June 1967 – #5
“12:30: Young Girls Are…”
September 1967 – #20
“Glad to Be Unhappy”
November 1967 – #26
“Dancing Bear”
January 1968 – #51
“Dream a Little Dream of Me”
August 1968 – #12
“Do You Wanna Dance”
December 1968 – #76

By October 1966, the Mamas and the Papas had their fourth Top 40 hit of 1966, “Look Through My Window” reaching No. 24, followed by another Top Ten hit, “Words of Love,” released in November 1966, and peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard chart in January 1967. Both were written by John Phillips.

“Look Through My Window” was written earlier by John, in 1964, when he was separated from Michelle, with emotional lyrics, which according to one AllMusic review, “are mirrored perfectly, with a melancholy chord progression and simple, intertwining melodic lines.” Suggested as “near classical in its approach,” the song is regarded by some as one the group’s best. However, on the charts, “Words of Love” would do better.

Music Player
“Words of Love”-1966

“Words of Love” features Cass Elliot throughout, and she doesn’t disappoint. The song, written by John Phillips, has a jaunty bounce to it musically, filled with honky-tonk piano as Cass dispenses her advice to guys looking to win the affections of their ladies:

Words of love, so soft and tender
Won’t win a girl’s heart anymore.
If you love her, then you must send her
Somewhere where she’s never been before.

Worn out phrases and longing gazes
Won’t get you where you want to go. (No!)
Words of love, soft and tender
Won’t win her…

Mamas & Papas' "Words of Love" single, 45 rpm. Click for digital.

The song succeeded in bringing the Mamas and Papas back into the Top Ten at the time, reaching No. 5 in the U.S. and No. 47 in the U.K. The single’s B side, a cover of the Motown hit, “Dancing in the Street,” by Martha and the Vandellas, also charted in the U.S. at No. 73.

During 1966, the group was doing some touring, but by some accounts, they didn’t always have their act together as a polished performance.

At a September 1966 concert at Fordham University in New York City, the band appeared out of sorts, and was reported as “high, drunk, or tripping,” and shouldn’t have been on stage according to other musicians with them at the time.

But later on the tour, it appeared they did pull themselves together. At New York city’s Carnegie Hall on November 11th, 1966, one short review of their performance was filed by Robert Shelton of the New York Times, noted:

…[T]he Mamas and the Papas displayed some of the most elegant vocalizing, compelling arrangements and goosepimple-producing harmonies to be heard in pop music these days…[They] are giving luster and depth to the musical qualities of rock ‘n roll.

The Mamas and The Papas by mid-1966 – only seven months or so after their arrival in Los Angeles – had risen to the top of pop music and the L.A. social scene with dizzying speed. They had hit the big time. One day they were poor and barely surviving, next day they were incredibly rich. “It was like winning the lottery,” Michelle would later say. Once famous, and performing on weekend tours, they could pull in the equivalent of $250,000-to-$300,000 in today’s money. And they each spent freely – on homes, sports cars, parties, drugs. John and Michelle bought Jaguars; Cass had a Porsche 911; and Denny a Lincoln Continental convertible. The money wasn’t an end in itself, they would say, but it became like a “salve,” as Denny would later describe it, to cover over their interpersonal affairs and group travail. Yet, still, at least for a time, they managed to stay together for the music.

1967

More Hits

1967. “The Mamas & The Papas Deliver,” their third studio album rose to No. 2 on Billboard, and included top hits, “Dedicated to the One I Love” and “Creeque Alley.” Click for album or singles.

In 1967, the Mamas and Papas continued to have success on the pop charts, releasing their third studio album in February – The Mamas & The Papas Deliver – which rose to No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart, No. 1 on Cash Box, and No. 4 in the U.K. It sold in excess of 500,000 copies, receiving “gold” status.

Music Player
“Dedicated to the One I Love”

In March, one of the singles from the album – “Dedicated to the One I Love” – a song first written for the Five Royals in 1957, also a big hit for The Shirelles in 1961 – became a No. 2 hit for the Mamas and Papas in 1967, both in the U.S. and the U.K.

The lead singer on this Mamas & the Papas tune was Michelle Phillips. It was the first time Michelle was given the lead over Cass Elliot. The song also has some prominent piano support. “Dedicated to the One I Love” was included on the group’s 1967 album, The Mamas & The Papas Deliver. The song also had Top Ten ranking in Australia, Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa.

March 1967. John and Michelle Phillips accepting Grammy Award for 1966 Mamas & Papas hit song, "Monday, Monday".

Also in March of 1967, at the Grammy Music Awards for 1966, the Mamas & the Papas won a Grammy Award for their hit single, “Monday, Monday,” in the category Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. That month they were also featured on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post magazine, shown at the top of this story. The Post was still a popular, wide-circulation magazine at the time.

Another hit single for the Mamas & Papas in 1967 came with “Creeque Alley,” the group’s autobiographical song about how they formed in their early years. It’s an insider’s account, written by John and Michelle Phillips, telling of their time in the Virgin Islands where they sang at a club on “Creque” or “Crequi” alley, and also naming the folks who played a role in their music industry travels — or as one New York Times reviewer noted, “names of people and places that made sense only to about 50 people in the country…”. Nevertheless, the song peaked at No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard pop singles chart the week of Memorial Day 1967. It also hit No. 9 on the U.K. charts and No. 4 in Australia and Canada.

On June 11, 1967, the group appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show at CBS studios in New York, where they performed both “Creeque Alley” and “Dedicated To The One I Love”. It was their second appearance on the Sullivan show – in those days, a sought-after Sunday night TV venue and quite a big deal. But the big event of the summer of 1967 — in which John Phillips in particular, would play a major role — was about to unfold in Monterey, California.

Monterey Pop Festival
…and John Phillips

Sample poster for the Monterey Pop Festival, designed by artist Tom Wilkes, some produced on foil paper. Click for posters.

One night in the early spring of 1967 a small group of friends and fellow musicians at Mama Cass Elliot’s house in Laurel Canyon, including Paul McCartney, John and Michelle Phillips, Lou Adler, Cass, and others were talking about their craft and the fact that rock ‘n’ roll, unlike jazz, was then viewed as a fad or a trend, although both jazz and rock were American- born musical genres. Alan Pariser, a music producer who had attended the 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival, along with business partner and music promoter named Ben Shapiro, had approached John Phillips and Lou Adler about hiring the Mamas and The Papas to headline a blues and rock concert at the Monterey Fairgrounds.

The idea, then congealing, was that a major event like a rock music festival would help validate rock music in a similar way that jazz and folk were regarded.

John Phillips and Lou Adler then ran with the festival idea, soon recruiting a cast of others to help bring about what would become the Monterey International Pop Festival, then envisioned as a non-profit event all about promoting the music. In a mere seven weeks, a three-day concert event was planned with more than 30 acts scheduled for the weekend of June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. Phillips, in fact, threw in some of his own money to get things going. Alan Pariser would be one of the producers. Derek Taylor, who had worked with Brian Epstein and The Beatles, became the publicist. And there were others. A Board of Governors was established with Donovan, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Jim McGuinn, Terry Melcher, Andrew Loog Oldham, Alan Pariser, Johnny Rivers, Smokey Robinson, Brian Wilson, John Phillips, and Lou Adler. An office was set up on Sunset Boulevard. Among others, Michelle Phillips worked the phones there selling ads, while John and Lou began talking with artist managers and lining up group acts.

Later-developed product poster showing names of various acts who played at Monterey Festival. Click for Amazon page.

The Monterey Pop Festival would seek to embody the theme of California as a focal point for the counterculture. In fact, a famous song – “San Francisco ( Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)” – was written by John Phillips for his friend and former band mate, Scott McKenzie. It was released in May 1967 to promote the festival and the “Summer of Love.” It became a hit song and helped draw thousands to California.

“Monterey Pop” became the first of the big 1960s rock festivals, and among the most famous, after Woodstock, which would follow two years later. Estimates of 25,000 to 90,000 attended the festival over the three days. The event became notable for launching the careers of dozens of San Francisco-based acts, and also brought national and international recognition to others, some performing to a mass audience for the first time. Among the impressive roster of performers over the three-day festival were: June 16th: The Association, The Paupers, Lou Rawls, Beverley, Johnny Rivers, Eric Burdon and The Animals, and Simon & Garfunkel. June 17th: Canned Heat, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), Country Joe and the Fish, Al Kooper, The Butterfield Blues Band, The Electric Flag, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Steve Miller Band, Moby Grape, Hugh Masekela, The Byrds, Laura Nyro, Jefferson Airplane, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, The Mar-Keys, and Otis Redding. June 18th: Ravi Shankar, The Blues Project, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Group With No Name, Buffalo Springfield, The Who, Grateful Dead, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Scott McKenzie, and The Mamas & The Papas.

Criterion Collection box set – “The Complete Monterey Pop Festival” - Pennebaker films. Click for set.

In addition to these acts, others, including the Beach Boys, Dionne Warwick, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles, were invited but because of scheduling conflicts or other reasons, could not or did not participate. Among notable performances at Monterey were those of Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Ravi Shankar, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding.

A documentary film, titled, Monterey Pop, by filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, was also made, with John Phillips and Lou Adler as producers. The film was aired in 1968 in theaters nationwide and helped raise the Monterey festival to mythic status. It also helped create a new market of sorts, with rising numbers of would-be festival-goers looking for the next big event. It also inspired new entrepreneurs to stage more such festivals around the country. In 2002 Monterey Pop was released on DVD as part of a Criterion Collection box set – The Complete Monterey Pop Festival – which also includes short films on Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding as well as two hours of outtake performances, including some by bands not seen in the original film. In December 2018, the original film was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Success & Strife

By the time of the Monterey Pop Festival, the Mamas and Papas were living the good life, reaping the rewards of their musical success. In two years time – 1966-67 – the disparate group of musicians had become wealthy superstars. During those two years they had six singles that were Top Five hits plus four gold albums. John and Michelle had bought a mansion in Bel Air, described in the Los Angeles Times as “a baronial old Norman country house” formerly owned by 1930s actress Jeanette MacDonald. It was here where they hosted parties attended by rock royalty and Hollywood glitterati, including members of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. As noted earlier, Cass Eliott had a home in Laurel Canyon – formerly owned by actress Natalie Wood. Denny Doherty as well, had a large hilltop home — a two story Spanish house in the hills off Sunset Plaza once owned by Mary Astor.

1960s. John Phillips in front of the home in Bel Air that he and Michelle shared, and where John would install a recording studio.

But despite their material well-being and all the good times, their level of contentment and musical prowess in the second half of 1967 were quite another matter. In fact, as early as the recording of their second album in 1966, as noted earlier, strains in the group had already emerged. And by mid-1967, their musical production had slowed and was becoming more difficult.

Although John had installed a full recording studio in the mansion where he and Michelle lived at a cost of $100,000, there was less and less of the group coming together to record, as vocal parts and music were pieced together separately. Work on their fourth studio album – the album that would later become The Papas and The Mamas – was slow and halting, and wouldn’t be complete for months. Still, in August 1967 the group did rally for a concert performance before 18,000 fans at the Hollywood Bowl with Jimi Hendrix as the opener. John and Michelle Phillips would recall the concert as one of their top career moments.

1967. Dunhill releases “greatest hits” album, “Farewell to the First Golden Era,” a No. 5 album hit. Click for vinyl.

Sample single sleeve with “Twelve Thirty,” here packaged with “Straight Shooter.” Click for digital version of “Twelve Thirty”.

However, due to the slow progress on their fourth studio album, Lou Adler at Dunhill Records, hoping to keep the group in the public eye, decided to release a “greatest hits” album, entitled, Farewell to the First Golden Era. Also at that time, around August 1967, a single, “Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon),” one of the completed songs intended for the delayed fourth studio album, was released and included on the greatest hits album. Both album and single did well. The song peaked at No. 20 in the US and the album did even better, hitting No. 5 and receiving U.S. “gold” status.

Music Player
“Twelve-Thirty”

“Twelve Thirty,” written by John Phillips, was inspired by Laurel Canyon. The narrator begins by saying he formerly lived in “dark and dirty” New York city, where a broken clock on a church steeple was stuck at 12:30. The song’s lyrics then move on to “the Canyon,” generally assumed to mean the Laurel Canyon where Phillips and band spent time at Cass’s home and elsewhere.

One interpretation of the Phillips’ lyric, “young girls are coming to the canyon,” etc, has it that girl “groupies” would party late into the night at various VIP canyon homes, walking home the next morning in view of the narrator as they went by.

In any case, the song captures the Mamas & Papas good harmony in their performance, making it one of their memorable hits. “Twelve Thirty” would also appear later on the group’s fourth studio album, The Papas and The Mamas. The group would perform the song on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 24th, 1967, in one of their last televised appearances as a group. In October 1967, the non-album single “Glad to Be Unhappy,” reached No. 26 in the U.S. “Dancing Bear,” from the group’s earlier second album was released as a single in November. It peaked at No. 51 in the U.S.

Meanwhile, fissures in the group had grown. A trip abroad to Europe was begun, billed by John as time off and an attempt to rejuvenate their music. There were also some scheduled performances in London along the way, but Cass was arrested there on some odd charges, and the shows were cancelled. Cass and John also had a falling out on that trip, and at one point while travelling, Cass announced the group was finished. Back in the states, Cass and John did reconcile and the group managed to finish their fourth studio album. The Papas & The Mamas, released in May 1968. But things were never quite the same again.

May 1968: "Papas & Mamas," 4th studio album. Click for album.

Single sleeve for Mama Cass song, “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Click for digital.

After the second single from that album, “Safe in My Garden,” released in May 1968, made it only to No. 53, Dunhill then released Cass Elliot’s solo from the album, “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” John opposed that release, but the song hit No. 12 on the U.S. charts and No. 11 in the U.K. It signaled the beginning of Mama Cass’s solo career.

Music Player
“Dream a Little Dream of Me”

The fourth and final single from The Papas & The Mamas, “For the Love of Ivy” in July 1968, peaked at No. 81 in the U.S. That was followed in October 1968 by Dunhill digging out and releasing “Do You Wanna Dance” from the group’s first album, reaching No. 76 in the U.S.

Dunhill also milked the Mamas & Papas back list for three more compilation albums: Golden Era Vol. 2 in 1968, 16 of Their Greatest Hits in 1969, and Monterey Live album in 1970.

But for all intents and purposes, the Mamas and the Papas were finished by 1968. They struggled to deliver their final work to Dunhill (after litigation from both sides) with a fifth studio album completed, but not until 1971, People Like Us. Each of group’s members by then had gone their separate ways: John, Cass, and Denny with solo albums either released or in the works, and Michelle pursuing an acting career.

Cass Elliot, for one, began to have considerable career success – turning out a series of albums – two for Dunhill and three for RCA, also touring in the U.S. and Europe. She became a favorite on TV – both on music variety shows and the late night talk-show circuit. She starred in two TV specials: The Mama Cass Television Program on ABC in January 1969 and Don’t Call Me Mama Anymore on CBS in September 1973. However, it was a real shock when Cass died while on tour in England. She died of heart failure in London on July 29, 1974, after completing a two-week engagement at the Palladium. She was 32 years old. Her Palladium shows had been mostly sold out, where her performances brought standing ovations. Lou Adler, who attended Cass’s Palladium opening, along with George Harrison, Ringo Starr and other ‘70s pop stars, would later note: ”She was really up. She felt she was opening a new career; she’d finally got together an act she felt good doing, not prostituting herself… and she enjoyed doing it.”

John Phillips’ 1970 solo album, “John the Wolfking of L.A..” Click for vinyl album, CD or digital.

Cover for 2009 documentary, “Here I Am: Denny Doherty and the Mamas and the Papas”.

Poster for 2019's "Echo in the Canyon," documentary on the 1960s Laurel Canyon music scene, with Michelle Phillips, among others. Click for DVD or streaming.

Michelle and John were divorced in 1969, though he and Michelle had a daughter, Chynna, born in February 1968. Michelle had relative success as an actress, with notable roles in Dillinger (1973) and Valentino (1977). She also produced a solo album, Victim of Romance in 1977. In addition to her film career, Michelle was also still reaping rewards from her Mamas and Papas years. As she reported in December 1985: “I still make fine royalties from the albums. If you had told me in 1968 that 20 years later I’d still be receiving wonderful royalty checks for those three years [1966-68], I wouldn’t have believed you.” Michelle would continue to land film roles through the 1990s and would also find acting success on TV’s Knots Landing series and other shows. She also had a series of romances with Hollywood actors, among them: Dennis Hopper (to whom she was married for 8 days in 1970), Jack Nicholson, and Warren Beatty.

John Phillips released his solo album John, The Wolf King of L.A. in 1970. He would also become involved in a variety of other projects, including one with Andy Warhol, and later with the Rolling Stones. In the 1970s, he wrote songs for film soundtracks, including: Brewster McCloud and Myra Breckinridge in 1970 and The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976. In 1974 he wrote most of the tracks for Romance Is on the Rise, an album by his third wife, Geneviève Waïte, which he also produced.

However, by the mid-1970s, according to Rolling Stone, Phillips “had become idle….reportedly living off his $100,000-a-year royalties from songs like ‘California Dreamin`’ By 1975 he had quit work altogether.” John also succumbed to drug use of one kind or another, which would haunt him throughout his life. Still, there would be flashes of his creative talents.

In 1988, he co-wrote “Kokomo” for The Beach Boys, a No. 1 hit. And in the early 1980s, after serving jail time for a narcotics violation, he reconvened a “new Mamas & Papas” group, consisting initially of himself, his daughter Mackenzie, Spanky McFarlane of Spanky and Our Gang taking the Cass Elliot part, and a returning Denny Doherty. The “new Mamas and Papas” performed steadily for a time and received some favorable notices, but there were no albums and personnel changes persisted.

Denny Doherty, meanwhile, had returned to Nova Scotia, and in addition to two solo albums, did some stage acting, hosted a TV variety show, Denny’s Sho, for one season, and also did a longer-running children’s TV program. In 1997, Doherty co-wrote and performed in the autobiographical stage musical, Dream a Little Dream (the Nearly True Story of the Mamas and the Papas), which debuted in Canada and also ran off-Broadway in 2003. Doherty, a recovered alcoholic, died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in January 2007. A 2009 documentary by Paul Ledoux, Here I Am: Denny Doherty and the Mamas and the Papas, premiered in Halifax and later ran on the Bravo cable TV network.

Among the more tragic life courses of Mamas and Papas members was that of John Phillips, whose considerable musical talents would be squandered by drug abuse. Periodically he cleaned up, but never really broke free of addiction’s pull, with a $1,000-a-day heroin habit in later years that would nearly kill him. He later recounted depleting his wealth and possessions to support his habit. “I had 12 Rolls Royces and a good art collection, and I slowly wasted all of it,” he said in one interview. In 1992, his years of drinking and drug abuse resulted in a liver transplant. In 1995, he married his fourth wife, Farnaz Arassteh, an artist, spending his last years with her in Palm Springs, California. On March 18, 2001, John Phillips died of heart failure in Los Angeles at the age of 65. A posthumous album, Phillips 66, was released a few months after his death.

Michelle Phillips kept at her acting craft through the early 2000s, and had an 18-year relationship with her partner, Steve Zax, until his passing in 2017. As the last surviving member of the Mamas and the Papas, she has become its spokesperson and caretaker, appearing most recently in Echo in the Canyon, a 2019 documentary on the 1960s Laurel Canyon music scene. She also became something of a helper to various Mamas and Papas progeny over the years, had another child of her own, and also adopted a third child – all three now grown.

John Phillips’ “Papa John,” hardback, Doubleday, 444 pp. Click for copy.

Michelle Phillips’ book on Mamas & Papas history, “California Dreamin`,” 190 pp. Click for copy.

For The Record

Several books on the adventures of the Mamas and the Papas have been written, not least of which are two that might be described as “dueling memoirs” – one each from John and Michelle Phillips, both published in 1986. Michelle has reported that initially, she had cleared her book with the other members of the Mamas & Papas, including John, only to be surprised to learn somewhat later that John, too, had landed a book deal.

John’s book – Papa John: An Autobiography (of the Mamas and the Papas): A Music Legend’s Shattering Journey Though Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll (Doubleday, 444 pp.) — came out in early 1986. It recounts his life and career from childhood to stardom, and as the subtitle suggests, his extracurricular activities as well. The blurry “Papa John” title on the hardback signaled some of what would follow.

Michelle’s book is a somewhat softer treatment, titled, California Dreamin’: The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas – The Music, the Madness, the Magic That Was (Warner Books, 190pp). In the book, Michelle also tells her life story, particularly the years with John and The Mamas and the Papas up through 1968. Publisher’s Weekly found her book to be “a sanitized account compared to John’s,” but hers is “more successful at putting events into historical context.” Michelle’s portraits of the group and its members were called engaging by some critics, while others found her a little trite with the use of `60s-period phrasing. But some readers enjoyed Michelle’s description of “what it was like to have lived during the late 60’s – Flower Power, the hippie scene and the ‘Summer of Love’”– a stated intent by Michelle in writing the book.

John’s book, on the other hand, is the more unvarnished treatment. As reviewer Paul G. Feehan for Library Journal notes: “John names names, filling in the raunchy details that Michelle only sketches… His book is a hard and honest account whose glamour is tempered with grimness.” But some critics found John’s account to be overly self-indulgent and hedonistic, with repetitive details of his sexual exploits and drug use. One Chicago Tribune reviewer, considering both books together, noted that on stage it was “California Dreamin’,” but off stage “it was more like screamin` than dreamin`,” with assorted debaucheries for what would later be called, “life in the fast lane.” Both John and Michelle also did respective book tours, including the TV talk-show circuit, with some of those still found on YouTube.com.

Matthew Greenwald’s 2002 book, “Go Where You Wanna Go,” 328pp. Click for copy.

Eddi Fiegel’s 2005 book on Cass Elliot, “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” 416 pp. Click for copy.

Added to John and Michelle’s accounts are three other books and a couple film documentaries. Among these is Doug Hall’s book, The Mamas and the Papas: California Dreamin’, published in July 2000 as a 240-page Quarry Press paperback. Another is Matthew Greenwald’s 2002 book, Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of the Mamas and the Papas (Cooper Square Press, 328 pp).

Greenwald’s book includes interviews with Michelle and Denny; material from an unpublished Cass Elliot interview; and comment from Lou Adler, Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Graham Nash and some “wrecking crew“ musicians. Joel Selvin, Pop Music Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle calls the book “the definitive account of this American rock fable.”

Michael Fremer of Listener magazine adds: “Much more than merely a history of The Mamas and The Papas, Greenwald’s book is a snapshot of a magical time in our cultural history. The interconnections it delineates are absolutely fascinating.”

A profile of Cass Elliot is found in Eddi Fiegel’s 2005 book, Dream a Little Dream of Me: The Life of Cass Elliot (Chicago Review Press, 416 pp). An Amazon.com summary explains:

…[T]his book follows her development from her misfit teenage years to her part in the folk boom of the early 1960s. How Cass came to join the Mamas and the Papas, and the mix of love, hurt, and betrayal that fractured relationships within the group is central to the story as Cass is driven to strike out on a successful solo career. This account reveals the considerable unhappiness Cass experienced that was hidden by her jovial facade—her unrequited love for Papa Denny Doherty, her unhappy marriages and affairs, and her tragic death at age 32.

Publisher’s Weekly adds that the book’s author, Eddi Fiegel, “has done her homework; she speaks with seemingly everybody who knew Elliot and examines nearly every step of her personal life and career, from her displaced childhood to her years as a star musician…”

In addition to the books, there are also a few DVDs on The Mamas and The Papas. Among these is the 2005 PBS television documentary, California Dreamin’: The Songs of the Mamas and the Papas. There is also a DVD for the 1988 documentary, Mamas & The Papas: Straight Shooter (130 minutes, 2008 release). And online, there are a few YouTube offerings of past TV specials, such as VH-1 “Behind The Music” features and past interviews and talk-show appearances by one or more of the group.

The Mamas & The Papas performing, 1960s.

Legacy

The Mamas and The Papas had their incandescent moment in the progression of popular music — and an important and memorable moment it was! Their talents burned bright for a few short years as they helped advance the folk-rock genre with their beautiful harmonies, showcasing the power of voice in creative arrangement. Their exceptional sound was unique and is enduring to this day. They turned out modern-day madrigals, a kind of easy-listening chamber rock that fit the times and caught the ear of millions. They weren’t alone, of course, as a number of groups were also at that founding – the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Beach Boys, and Simon & Garfunkel, to name a few. Still, they notched a fair claim in the annals of folk-rock music during 1966 and 1967 with their exceptional songs; too bad there wasn’t a bit more of it. Their time was much too short.

For additional stories at this website on the music of the 1960s and 1970s, see for example: “Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1969 & Beyond,” a profile of the group formed by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash (later joined by Neil Young); “Joni’s Music, 1962-2000s”, a profile of Joni Mitchell’s amazing career; and, “Early Beach Boys, 1962-1966,” focusing on their early hits and the role of Brian Wilson as songwriter and producer. Additional stories on music can be found at the “Annals of Music” category page.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 15 August 2020
Last Update: 15 August 2020
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The California Sound – Mamas & Papas:
1965-1968,” PopHistoryDig.com, August 15, 2020.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

CD cover, “The Mamas & The Papas - Greatest Hits,” Remastered w/ 20 songs.. Click for Amazon.

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Johnny Rogan’s 2017 book, “Byrds: Requiem For the Timeless, Vol 2: The Lives and Tragic Deaths of Gene Clark, Michael Clarke, Kevin Kelley, Gram Parsons, Clarence White, and Skip Batin.” Click for copy.

William McKeen’s 2017 book, “Everybody Had an Ocean: Music and Mayhem in 1960s Los Angeles.” Chicago Review Press, 432 pp. Click for copy.

Richie Unterberger’s 2002 book, “Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution,” Backbeat Press, 320 pp. Click for copy.

Russ Giguere & Ashley Wren Collin’s 2020 book, “Along Comes The Association: Beyond Folk Rock and Three-Piece Suits,” with David Geffen foreword. 320 pp. Click for copy.

Barney Hoskyns’ 2006 book “Hotel California,” a national bestseller on the true life adventures of 1960s California rockers and their many friends. Wiley, 336 pp. Click for copy.

Sheila Weller’s 2009 book, “Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--and the Journey of a Generation,” Washington Square Press, 608 pp. Click for copy.

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“The Mamas and the Papas,” Wikipedia.org.

John Phillips, Papa John: An Autobiography (of the Mamas and the Papas): A Music Legend’s Shattering Journey Though Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll, 1986, Doubleday, 444pp.

Michelle Phillips, California Dreamin’: The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas – The Music, the Madness, the Magic That Was, 1986, Warner Books, 190pp.

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“Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon),” Wikipedia.org.

Ben Fong-Torres. “John: ‘It Sounded Like the Mamas and the Papas’; A Band Gets Back Together,” Rolling Stone, June 10, 1971.

‘Mama Cass’ Elliot Dead; Remembering the Mamas and Papa’s singer,” Rolling Stone, August 29, 1974.

“Creeque Alley,” Wikipedia.org.

John M. Wilson, “One of the Mamas Is Making Book on the Mamas and Papas,” Los Angles Times, November 3, 1985.

Marilyn Beck, “Michelle Phillips Reveals What She Left out of Book,” Sun-Sentinel (South Florida), December 21, 1985.

Book Review, “California Dreamin’: The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas,” by Michelle Phillips,” Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1986.

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Michelle Phillips, Guest (book interview, California Dreamin), Regis Philbin, Lifestyles (TV show), YouTube.com, 1986.

Stephen Holden, “Pop: Mamas and the Papas,” New York Times, November. 5, 1987.

Michael Ollove, “1960s Siren Baltimore’s Cass Elliot Spoke to a Generation with Her Music, and Now Her Voice Is Being Heard Again,” BaltimoreSun.com, May 4, 1997.

Andrew G Marshall, “No One’s Getting Fat Except Mama Cass. So Sang the Mamas & the Papas in One of the Hits That Shot Them to Stardom in the 60s. But When Cass Elliot Died, 25 Years Ago This Week, Did All Hope of a Larger-Than-Life Role Model in Pop Die With Her?,” TheGurardian.com, July 25, 1999.

Neil Strauss, “John Phillips, 65, A ‘Papa’ of the 1960’s Group, Dies,” New York Times, March 19, 2001.

“John Phillips – Papa John from The Mamas & The Papas,” HollywoodMemoir.com, March 18, 2001.

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“John Phillips (musician),” Wikipedia.org.

Sheila Weller, “California Dreamgirl,” Vanity Fair.com, November 20, 2007 (December issue).

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“Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll: “California Dreamin’,” RockHall.com, September 19, 2016.

Matthew Greenwald, Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas and The Papas, 2002, Cooper Square Press, 328 pp.

James McNair, “Michelle Phillips: Trip of a Lifetime,” Independent.co.uk, October 30, 2004.

Eddi Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream of Me: The Life of Cass Elliot, 2005, Chicago Review Press, 416 pp.

Associated Press, “‘Mamas And The Papas’ Doherty Dies At 66,” Billboard.com, January 19, 2007.

International Herald Tribune, “Denny Doherty, 66, of The Mamas and the Papas, ’60s Singing Group, Dies,” New York Times, January 21, 2007.

Frazier Moore, “Phillips Defends Incest Memoir, Says it Can Help Others,” SeattleTimes.com, September 24, 2009.

JohnF, “A Dark & Haunted Album From the Masters of Sunshine Pop,” Amazon.com, review of album, The Mamas and The Papas, October 19, 2013.

“Flower Children: The Mamas and Papas Story (Australian play),” 2011-2013, Magnor-mos.com.

“Music: John Phillips: ‘Papa John’s Blues’,” AndrewDarlington.Blogspot.com, May 27, 2014.

“I Saw Her Again,” The Mamas and The Papas,” Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame / CSHF.ca, Year Inducted: 2017.

William McKeen, Everybody Had an Ocean: Music and Mayhem in 1960s, 2017, Los Angeles Chicago Review Press, 288 pp.

Caroline Anderson, “20 Cass Elliot Solo Songs You Should Know,” Medium.com, January 25, 2018.

Tom Breihan, “The Number Ones: The Mamas And The Papas’ ‘Monday, Monday’,” Stereo Gum.com, September 5, 2018.

Charles Donavan, “Harmony & Me”(Michelle Phillips interview), RnR Magazine, November /December 2018 (Vol 2, Issue 72).

Keith Chaffee, Librarian, “Music Memories: John Phillips,” Los Angeles Public Library / lapl.org, August 30, 2019.

JJ Foster, “Behind-the-Scenes Secrets About The Mamas & The Papas,” PensAndPatron .com, October 15, 2019.

Jacqueline Tager, “Luminaries of the Canyon: Laurel Canyon’s Most Star-Studded Home,” TheHollywoodHome.com, November 30th, 2019.

VH-1, “The Mamas and the Papas: Behind the Music,” YouTube.com, posted, Posted by Karen Fuentes, May 30, 2020.

“The Mamas and The Papas,” Biography (1989) / YouTube.com, Posted by Karen Fuentes, May 15, 2020.

“Fabulous Flip Sides – Cass Elliot,” Goldmine Mag.com, July 17, 2019.

Patrick Ryan, “’Laurel Canyon’: Mamas and the Papas Singer on the ‘Very Big Highs and Lows’ of ’60s Music Scene,” USAtoday.com, May 29, 2020.

“Michelle Phillips: Life in The Mamas and the Papas,” RocksOffMag.com, March 24, 2020.

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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MacArthur-Park.mp3 14441381 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MacArthur-Park-Summer-Single.mp3 8601721 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“MacArthur Park”
…And Jimmy Webb

June 7, 2020 J.D.

Richard Harris, an unlikely music pop star, but the Irish actor helped make “MacArthur Park” a 1968 hit. Click for digital.

“MacArthur Park” is a song written and composed by songwriter Jimmy Webb in 1967 and first recorded by Irish actor and singer, Richard Harris. It became a top hit on the Billboard music charts in June 1968, reaching No. 2 in the U.S., also topping charts in Europe, Australia, and Canada.

Music Player
“MacArthur Park”-1968
[ lyrics below later, scroll down ]

“MacArthur Park” is actually a love song – or rather, a lament over love lost – though it might not convey that message to all listeners at first impression. The song’s lyrics, arrangement, and structure are somewhat unusual and may seem a bit confounding. But given a chance, say its fans, the song will grow on you. And indeed, in 1968 the song did grow on a great many listeners, defying the odds on several levels, as it sold more than a million copies and would win a Grammy. It would also spawn more than 100 cover versions. More on that later.

But initially, in the music business of its day, “MacArthur Park” was a hard sell and went nowhere. First, it ran more than 7 minutes at a time when 2-to-3 minutes was more the norm for pop radio play. Secondly, it was a pretty complex song musically. Third, its lyrics were baffling, confounding and/or distracting for some, and would later draw long-lived critique and parody. And fourth, it was not sung by a mainstream pop music star. Still, “MacArthur Park” rose above those supposed handicaps and became a hit in its day and would also become a hit for several other artists in later years. But added to this song’s musical and lyrical features, and perhaps more importantly, are its cast of interesting characters and storyline – including its inspiration, rejection, successful release, surprising range of covers, and its musical accolades.

MacArthur Park post-card rendering, late 1950s, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westlake, where Jimmy Webb and Susie Horton shared affections in the mid-1960s, with the park’s namesake later becoming the title for the famous 1968 song.

The song’s genesis sprang from a romance between then unknown and aspiring songwriter Jimmy Webb and his girlfriend at the time, Susan Horton. Webb, who would later become a quite famous songwriter with dozens of successful songs and albums to his credit, was just starting out in 1965.

Susie Horton, undated.

At the time, young Jimmy Webb was smitten in young love with Ms. Horton, then called “Susie.” She worked for Aetna Life Insurance company in Los Angeles. Her offices were located just across the street from MacArthur Park – an actual place in Los Angeles – shown above from a late-1950s-era post card.

MacArthur Park is located in the Westlake area of Los Angeles, near downtown. The park’s origins date to the late nineteenth century and earlier names, but by the 1940s became MacArthur Park, named for the famous military man, General Douglas MacArthur. The park has a small lake and walking paths, fronting on L.A.’s Wilshire Boulevard, and in the mid-1960s also had paddle boats and ducks.

Susie and Jimmy had begun their romance when both were high school students in Colton, California. In mid-1965, the couple met frequently at MacArthur Park for lunch and had memorable times there.

But alas, Ms. Horton ended the relationship, breaking Jimmy Webb’s heart, but inspiring him to later write “MacArthur Park” and a few other songs as well. More on all of that a bit later. First, some background on Jimmy Webb.

Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb was born in Elk City, Oklahoma, August of 1946, and raised in Laverne, Oklahoma. His father was a Baptist minister at rural churches in southwestern Oklahoma and west Texas. Jimmy, who had learned piano and organ by age 12 at the urging of his mother, was playing in the choir of his father’s churches, and also accompanied by his father on guitar and his mother on accordion. By the late 1950s, Webb was improvising and rearranging the hymns at his father’s churches and also began to write religious songs. And despite restrictions on the music heard at home – primarily country and white gospel music – he was drawn to and influenced by popular music he also heard, including that of Elvis Presley.

Young Jimmy Webb at piano, about 1966 – near the launch of his “boy wonder” song-writing phase.

In 1961, at the age of 14, in something of a prescient moment, he bought his first record, “Turn Around, Look at Me,” by Glen Campbell, a singer for whom he would later write hit songs. By 1964, his family moved to Southern California, and Webb would later attend San Bernardino Valley College to study music. At the death of his mother from an inoperable brain tumor, his father and siblings packed up to return to Oklahoma. Jimmy would stay in the Southern California to pursue a career in music. His father thought songwriting would break his son’s heart, but gave him the last $40 he had.

On the Rise. Webb with Grammy for “Up, Up and Away,” a hit song for The 5th Dimension. Click for their CD or singles.

In Hollywood, Webb’s first job involved transcribing other people’s music for a small music publisher. Then he joined Jobete Music, the publishing arm of Motown Records. With Jobete, Webb made his first commercial recording – “My Christmas Tree” by The Supremes, which appeared on their 1965 Merry Christmas album.

In 1966 he met singer and producer Johnny Rivers, who signed him to a publishing deal and recorded his song “By The Time I Get to Phoenix” for his 1966 album Changes. Another Johnny Rivers album, Rewind, followed, with seven Jimmy Webb songs. Rivers, also a producer, had a new group named The 5th Dimension, and asked Webb to write songs for then. The result, in part, was the album that later became Up, Up and Away, including the title track “Up, Up and Away.” That song, released as a single in May 1967, became a Top Ten hit. Another 5th Dimension album followed – The Magic Garden – and was also released in 1967, featuring eleven additional Webb songs. Webb would later collect a Grammy for “Up, Up and Away” as Song of the Year and Record of the Year for 1967. So, the unknown Jimmy Webb from Oklahoma was on the rise fairly quickly in the L.A. music scene. But there was also some rejection.

In 1967, producer and recording engineer, Dayton “Bones” Howe, who also worked with the 5th Dimension, challenged Webb to write a radio-friendly song — one with classical elements, different movements, and changing time signatures. Webb undertook the challenge, crafting a four-part suite about the end of a romantic relationship. In fact, when Webb set out to work on the piece in the summer and fall of 1967, he had a long cantata in mind, even suggesting it could run for 22 minutes, or a whole side of an album. Webb’s work was later delivered to Howe with all the elements Howe had asked for.

At Western Recording Studios in L.A., “Bones” Howe, seated, with members of the 5th Dimension pop recording group, left, and Jimmy Webb standing, far right, during sessions for “The Magic Garden” album. Click for 'Ultimate 5th Dimension' CD.

Howe had intended the song for a rising soft rock group, The Association, then of recent pop fame for hit songs, “Along Comes Mary”(No 7, March 1966) and “Cherish” (No 1, August 1966), among others. But when Webb auditioned his cantata for the Association, they were not thrilled with what they heard, and rejected it, especially since it would consume a whole side of an album. Webb’s arrangement and its lyrics were seen, respectively, as ambitious and unorthodox. Yet length was the major problem. So at that point, what would become “MacArthur Park” (the last 7-to-8 minute part of Webb’s cantata), went to the bottom of his song bag. But it wasn’t dead yet. The song would soon have an interesting recovery and a new trajectory.

October 16, 1968. Jimmy Webb, at keyboards with Irish actor and singer Richard Harris (Larry Ellis/Daily Express).

Enter King Arthur

By late 1967, Jimmy Webb was a rising young talent on the L.A. music scene, and would find himself attending various social gatherings. At a Hollywood anti-war pageant and fundraiser in East L.A., he met Richard Harris, the incorrigible Irish actor then of rising stage and screen fame, who had just starred as King Arthur in the film version of Camelot – a role in which he also sang several songs. Harris would have later film roles, among them, The Molly Maguires, A Man Called Horse, Cromwell, and many others. In the early 2000s, Harris would become known to a younger generation for playing Dumbledore, the Hogwarts school headmaster in the early Harry Potter films.

But back in Los Angeles at the 1967 fundraiser, Harris wanted to sing old pub songs, and finding a backstage piano with Webb, the pair soon became a duo that night and drinking buddies. “He liked vodka,” Webb recalled of that evening. “And I was out of my league. Way out of my league…” But Webb noted that Harris also said to him that night: “‘Let’s make a record, Jimmy Webb’ – He only called me ‘Jimmy Webb,’ never just ‘Jimmy’.” And although Webb enjoyed the good times shared with Harris that evening, he thought nothing would ever come of Harris’ recording suggestion. But not long after, Webb received a telegram from Harris: “Jimmy Webb, come to London and make a record. Love, Richard.”

Webb then went off to London – his first time out of the country – with his songs and sheet music in tow. He ended up at Harris’ home in Belgravia, London, and when they set to work — “over pitchers of Pimm’s Cup” according to one account — Webb auditioned pieces of his songs as Harris listened to each one. But nothing clicked for Harris. Then Webb reached down into the bottom of the bag. “I looked down with some dread because there was only one thing left. I was down to ‘MacArthur Park’,” he recalled, the song rejected by Bones Howe and The Association. “By the time I played it, we had moved on to straight brandy, but [hearing the song] Richard slapped the piano [and exclaimed]. ‘Oh Jimmy Webb. I love that! I’ll make a hit out of that, I will!’”

1968 Richard Harris album, “A Tramp Shining,” included “MacArthur Park” and “Didn’t We.” Click for CD.

By late December 1967, Webb and others – including famed session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew – converged on recording studios in L.A., with Harris working in Dublin, to begin production of “MacArthur Park.” On some of the material, Webb recorded the orchestral tracks in Los Angeles while Harris did vocals in Dublin.

Not only did Webb and Harris collaborate on “MacArthur Park,” they also produced an entire Richard Harris album, titled A Tramp Shining – with eleven songs by Webb who also produced it.

As noted earlier, the ambitious construction of the “MacArthur Park” song, its 7:21 minutes length, and Harris’ lack of a track record as a vocalist, all made the song a tough sell among recording labels. In fact, several labels turned it down.

But finally, Lou Adler at Dunhill Records agreed to do the single and the album. “MacArthur Park,” was released ahead of the album in April 1968. The single’s B-side song, also by Webb and Harris, and also on the album, was “Didn’t We?,” a song that would also have modest success.

A 45rpm single of Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park” by Richard Harris on Dunhill Records.

“MacArthur Park” first charted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 79 on May 11, 1968. Some weeks later, on June 22, 1968, it peaked at No. 2, only behind Herb Alpert’s “This Guy’s in Love With You” and just ahead of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.” It also peaked at No. 10 on Billboard’s Easy Listening survey and was ranked at No. 8 on New York’s WABC’-77 radio’s end-of-the-year chart for 1968. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc and also topped the music charts in Europe and Australia. “MacArthur Park” would later win a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist.

A Tramp Shining also became a hit, peaking at No. 4 on the album charts in July 1968. A second Webb/Harris album followed in 1969, The Yard Went on Forever, reaching No. 27 on the Billboard albums chart. It included eight Webb compositions. One review of that album in Billboard magazine said Webb’s material was “treated with class and finesse” by Harris, and that one track, “Lucky Me,” was “a shimmering gem.”

But for Webb, it was his first love, Susie Horton, who helped stir his musical soul.

“Susie, The Muse”
Fueling Jimmy’s Hits

After Susie Horton broke Jimmy’s heart at MacArthur Park in 1965, she became a dancer and moved to Lake Tahoe to work in the casino showrooms. There she met another guy and fell in love. And when Susie first told Jimmy Webb that she intended to marry that guy, one result was another Webb song. This one was titled “The Worst That Could Happen,” which had been used for the 5th Dimension Magic Garden album. However, this song became a much bigger hit for Johnny Maestro & The Brooklyn Bridge, released in December 1968 and rising to No.3 by February 1969. The opening lyrics in that song may be familiar to Baby Boomers of that era: “Girl, I heard you’re getting married, heard you’re getting married…. Maybe it’s the best thing for you, but it’s the worst that could happen — to me.” There was also “Where’s the Playground Susie” (1968-69), another Susie Horton-inspired song by Webb that Glen Campbell used for a hit. Webb also wrote ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix’ about his and Susie’s relationship (“Phoenix” was recorded first by Johnny Rivers in 1965 and more prominently, by Glenn Campbell in 1967).Susie Horton became the muse for at least four of Jimmy Webb’s hit songs. So Susie Horton – or at least the angst she stirred in Jimmy Webb’s soul – became the muse for at least four of Webb’s hit songs.

Meanwhile, Susie Horton’s first marriage was short-lived, and she and Jimmy did reconnect for a time. According to Webb: “…A long time after I had written it [“MacArthur Park”] I found out she had moved to Lake Tahoe and become a dancer. When I came into some significant money, I hired a Lear jet, flew up there, and said: ‘I’m not going back without you.’ We lived together for three years. Then it turned into a soap opera….” Webb and Horton went their separate ways thereafter, married other people but remained friends. (Susie Horton married Linda Ronstadt’s cousin, Bobby in 1993). Yet it would be Webb’s “MacArthur Park” that would live through the ages. Of his song writing, Webb has said: “The territory I tend to inhabit is that sort of ‘crushed lonely hearts’ thing. The first part of a relationship is usually that white-hot center when all the happy songs come. When that’s gone it can be devastating, and that’s when the sorrowful songs come.”

Boy Millionaire

November 1968, Teen magazine: “Up Up & Away’s Jim Webb: Boy Millionaire Meets Teen Beauty”– the cover girl, Patsy Sullivan, who he would later marry. Click for copy.

Jimmy Webb, meanwhile, was riding high by the late 1960s. In November 1967, Glen Campbell released his version of Webb’s song, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” which rose to No. 26 and became an instant pop standard.

At the February 1968 Grammy Awards, Webb’s songs, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Up, Up and Away,” had won a total of eight Grammys between them, and turned Jimmy Webb into the most prominent new songwriter of his generation. Webb by then had become a millionaire, and his services were much in demand. More success and accolades would soon follow.

Frank Sinatra included his version of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” on his 1968 album Cycles. Sinatra, in fact, would praise “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” as “the greatest torch song ever written.”

In November 1968, Teen magazine, shown above, featured Webb in a cover story titled, “Up Up & Away’s Jim Webb: Boy Millionaire Meets Teen Beauty” The teen beauty he posed with was then a very young– Patricia “Patsy” Sullivan – daughter of actor Barry Sullivan and Swedish actress/model Gita Hall. Several years later, in 1974, Webb would marry Patsy Sullivan, then 17, becoming his wife of 22 years and mother to six of his children, though the couple later divorced.

Back in the 1960s, meanwhile, Webb, with his quick-won fame and wealth, had indulged in all manner of comforts, toys and diversions. Not least of these was a fondness for fast cars, including the purchase of a very rare and expensive Shelby Cobra sports car with a supercharged 427-cubic-inch V-8 engine capable of enormous horsepower and neck-snapping speed. He also bought a 1930s “valleywood” mansion and hilltop estate of many acres with pools, gardens, waterfalls, century-old white oak trees, horse stables, and more. Grand pianos, a recording studio, and a giant pipe organ were part of the interior. There he adopted something of a hippie lifestyle, living communally for a time, and becoming immersed in the world of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” And while Jimmy Webb had his share of very bad moments during that period, his work ethic and his love of music kept him afloat.

Late 1960s. Jimmy Webb in his long-hair phase, posing with his "Supersnake," high-performance, Shelby Cobra sports car.

Interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine in 1982, Webb would say of his experiences in the 1960s: “In a way, I don’t think I did survive…. Certainly, that farm kid who showed up in Hollywood with a pack of songs under his arm didn’t survive. I think I lived quite a few years in a kind of haze, because as my manager once put it, I took to marijuana like a fish takes to water. And though my strong Baptist background broke down to a certain degree, it was always inside me. For a while I really did believe I was a genius. When you read it in the press a hundred times a year, you tend to believe it. But eventually all the hype caught up with me.”

In 1974, Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb issued a collaboration album titled, "Reunion," which featured a dozen Jimmy Webb songs performed by Glen Campbell. Album was reissued with remastered tracks in 2001. Click for CD.

In fact, his work in the music community was less hippie and more mainstream — and quite successful. However, Webb resented being cast as a middle-of-the-road songwriter and longed to be recognized for his counter-culture contributions. Yet among his most successful collaborations would be his linking up with Glenn Campbell, although the two had very different politics.

When Webb and Campbell first met – during the production of a General Motors commercial – Webb had Beatle-length hair. Campbell, then seated and tuning his guitar, looked up at Webb and said, “when ‘ya gonna get a haircut?” Still, Webb’s songs were especially successful for Campbell, and the two had a long collaboration, producing, among others: “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”(1967), “Wichita Lineman”(1968), “Galveston”(1969), “Where’s the Playground Susie”(1969), and others. At the 1969 Grammy Awards, Webb accepted awards for “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, “Wichita Lineman” and “MacArthur Park”.

In addition to Glen Campbell, there was a long line of other artists who would record Jimmy Webb’s songs through the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1968 Nina Simone and Bobby Vee did versions of Webb’s song, “Do What You Gotta Do.” Also in 1968, when Webb and his father were in Las Vegas for a visit, they attended a Frank Sinatra show at one of casinos there. Sinatra at one point during the show had Jimmy stand up in the audience and take a bow, and then performed Webb’s song, “Didn’t We?” Sinatra would also include that song on his acclaimed 1969 album, My Way.

Frank Sinatra would prove to be a big Jimmy Webb fan, incorporating some of his songs in his shows and on his albums. Click for Sinatra’s 1969 “My Way” album.

In August 1969, Waylon Jennings did a country version of “MacArthur Park” on his album Country-Folk, in collaboration with the family group, The Kimberlys. This version charted at No. 23 on the Hot Country Songs chart and No. 93 on the pop chart. It also earned a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1969, “Wichita Lineman” was also recorded by Sérgio Mendes in a version that charted at No. 95.

In January 1970, “Honey Come Back” by Webb charted at No. 19 for Glen Campbell. In April that year, “The Girls’ Song” by The 5th Dimension hit No. 43. And in September 1971, Motown’s Four Tops had a No. 38 hit with their version of “MacArthur Park.” Barbra Streisand charted at No. 82 in December 1972 with “Didn’t We?” And in September 1973, Art Garfunkel had a No. 8 hit with “All I Know.” British rocker and bluesman, Joe Cocker, had a No. 5 hit in 1975 with Webb’s “It’s a Sin When You Love Somebody.”

Meanwhile, Webb himself would try recording his own songs in the 1970s, something he would continue doing throughout his career, issuing a number of his own albums and performing live concerts. Yet his songwriting for others, and extensive cover versions of his songs, would remain at the center of his successful career. And not least in the Webb discography would be the numerous cover versions of “MacArthur Park” – the song that also continued to spark questions, varied interpretation, critique, and parody.

MacArthur Redux

Late 1970s. Cover sleeve for Donna Summer single of “MacArthur Park” issued in France. Click for her hits.

In the fall of 1978, however, almost a decade after the Richard Harris version of “MacArthur Park” had first moved that song to No.2 on the pop charts, came a new version that gave the song new life – and Jimmy Webb, new income. This version, by singer Donna Summer, was a disco version, and sent “MacArthur Park” soaring.

Music Player
“MacArthur Park”-1978
Donna Summer

Released in September 1978, Summer’s vinyl single of “MacArthur Park” arrived at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of November 11, 1978 and it held that position for three weeks. It became a million seller again and also earned Summer her first nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

Summer would have two recordings of “MacArthur Park.” One was an 8:40 minute version included as part of a “MacArthur Park Suite” on her double album, Live and More. A shorter version – for the seven-inch vinyl single, running 3:56 – was the disco-dance hit version, the song that went to No. 1 on Billboard. It was shorter than the Richard Harris version, with the ending stanzas omitted and some minor variation in the lyrics.

But Donna Summer wasn’t the only one who covered the song. In fact, “MacArthur Park” was subsequently covered by numerous artists – more than 150 by some counts. Among those offering their interpretations have been: Tony Bennett, Liza Minnelli, Dionne Warwick, Andy Williams, Sammy Davis Jr., The Letterman, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Rod McCuen, the Ray Charles Singers, Elaine Page, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Carrie Underwood, and others. Instrumental and jazz versions have been offered by: Ferrante & Teicher, Percy Faith, Floyd Cramer, Stanley Turrentine, Doc Severinsen, Francis Lai, Woody Herman, Stand Kenton, Maynard Ferguson and others.

“MacArthur Park”
Jimmy Webb-1968
Richard Harris version

Spring was never waiting for us, girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance
Between the parted pages and were pressed
In love’s hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again, oh noooooo

I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
Birds like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers, by the trees

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark…
…(chorus repeats )

There would be another song for me
For I will sing it
There would be another dream for me
Someone will bring it

I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life, you’ll still be the one

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky

And after all the loves of my life
Oh, after all the loves of my life
I’ll be thinking of you – and wondering why

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark…
…(chorus repeats )

But for Jimmy Webb, the one nagging element of this otherwise successful song was the ongoing puzzlement about, and often harsh critique of, the song’s lyrics – from innocent queries and misunderstandings to outright “worst ever” designations. The song has been spoofed by “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons,” and included in Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs.

There is also one cleverly-done parody advertisement on the web, with the headline, “Found: Cake, Possibly Metaphorical, In Local Park, After Storm, Left by Someone (Deliberately?).” The comical ad, done in cake-icing green, picturing cake on platter with a slice or two removed, has much more tongue-in-cheek text, offering a non-malicious send up.

“People have very strong reactions to the song,” Webb would acknowledge in one Los Angeles Times interview. “There’s been a lot of intellectual venom.”

In other interviews, he would say: “I see it as a relatively simple love song with some very sad imagery and about things passing away and never being the same again. I’ve always been amazed that people find that such a mystery.”

On the internet, meanwhile, some critics have honed-in on specific lyrics. Asks one: “what the hell does a striped pair of pants have to do with love’s hot, fevered iron? Is Jimmy Webb writing about love or laundry?”

The most famous lyrical verse in the song is the repeated chorus, “MacArthur Park is melting in the dark, all the sweet, green icing flowing down,” explained by the fact that “someone left a cake out in the rain.” But the apparent tragedy, as the narrator sings it, is, “I’ll never have that recipe again…”

“It’s clearly about a love affair ending,” Webb has said, “and the person singing it is using the cake and the rain as a metaphor for that. OK, it may be far out there, and a bit incomprehensible, but I wrote the song at a time in the late 1960s when surrealistic lyrics were the order of the day.” Never having the recipe again means never again having the elements of that particular relationship.

For Webb, the image of a cake in the rain struck him as a great metaphor for “losing a chapter of your life.” But nothing in the song is fabricated, Webb has said. “…The old men playing checkers by the trees, the cake that was left out in the rain, all of the things that are talked about in the song are things I actually saw. And so it’s a kind of musical collage of this whole love affair that kind of went down in MacArthur Park.”

Naysayers aside, “MacArthur Park” and Jimmy Webb have their admirers. AllMusic.com’s Mark Deming has observed, “MacArthur Park’s” lyrics, “although not psychedelic, were as rich and ornate as anything the Beatles or the Beach Boys had created,” adding that Webb’s arrangement “was a vast sonic canvas, combining the sounds of a rock combo and a full orchestra and choir….” Others who have studied the harmonies and chords of “MacArthur Park,” acknowledge that Jimmy Webb broke new ground with this song.

Young Jimmy Webb working with orchestra, possibly during a "MacArthur Park" session in the late 1960s. Photo, Henry Diltz.

“I think one of the real, real geniuses is Jimmy Webb,” songwriter Sammy Cahn has noted. “His ‘MacArthur Park’ is a major piece of work, major. I’d almost compare it to Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ in size and scope.” A 2018 ranking of the “100 Greatest Songs of All Time” by The Telegraph in London, placed “MacArthur Park” by Richard Harris at No. 85. As for the song’s length – “MacArthur Park” at 7:21 minutes became the longest single at that time to ever become a Top Ten hit – Beatles’s producer George Martin would note that “MacArthur Park” cleared the way for “Hey Jude,” a No. 1 song of July 1968, which ran for 7:11 minutes.

In July 2014, "MacArthur Park," Jimmy Webb, and full orchestra were featured on David Letterman's show. Click for book, “Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night”.

Also among the song’s admirers is former late-night TV host, David Letterman. It turns out, Letterman is a Jimmy Webb fan and loves “MacArthur Park.” In fact, in July 2014, an entire Late Show With David Letterman was devoted to the song. Letterman had heard three versions of the song on Sirius radio when he was with his son: the Richard Harris one, the Donna Summer version — which he said he had never heard before — and the Jimmy Webb/Brian Wilson version, and he just became quite taken with the song. So, he decided to feature the song on a whole segment of his late night show, including a full performance of the song, during which Paul Shaffer played piano, bassist Will Lee did the vocals, and Jimmy Webb himself played the harpsichord — plus a 23-piece orchestra. Webb’s wife at that time, Laura Savini, noted of the event:

“They rehearsed and planned this segment for months, and the producer said it’s maybe only the second time in history that David brought in a whole symphony orchestra. He made a huge deal of it. They called the whole night ‘MacArthur Park Night.’ They even had a big cake — with sweet, green icing — that Will Lee climbed at the end, playing the guitar and singing.

“The whole thing was a tiny bit tongue-in-cheek, but it was a huge tribute to the song and how much David liked it, and he wanted his son to understand the song. It was an unbelievable thing — everyone was so excited about it. We got a handwritten note from David a couple of days later thanking us and saying what an incredible experience it was for him.”

The full tape of that performance on the David Letterman Show that night is available at YouTube.com.

Jimmy Webb’s 1998 book, “Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting,” touted as one of the best books on songwriting. Hachette Books, 448 pp. Click for copy.

Jimmy Webb, of course, has a lot more to his credit than “MacArthur Park,” singular as that song has become. During his career, in addition to work with Johnny Rivers, the Fifth Dimension, Richard Harris and Glen Campbell, he also produced collaborative albums with Art Garfunkel, Thelma Houston, Carly Simon, and Linda Ronstadt. He has also produced and recorded more than a dozen of his own albums. His awards and recognition have been considerable as well, with multiple song and songwriting Grammys to his credit. Webb, in fact, is also the only artist to date to have received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration.

Jimmy Webb was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990. He received the National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993, the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award in 2003, the ASCAP “Voice of Music” Award in 2006, and the Ivor Novello Special International Award in 2012. According to BMI, his song “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 and 1990. In 2019, “Wichita Lineman” was added to the National Recording Registry. He has also written a highly-regarded book on songwriting, titled, Tunesmith: Inside The Art of Songwriting, shown at left.

In 2017, Webb completed a partial autobiography titled, The Cake and the Rain: A Memoir, published by St. Martin’s Press. The book provides some insight into “early Jimmy Webb,” flush with success and wealth, living in the fast lane, being paid in Corvettes for some work (yes, Chevrolet Corvette sports cars), and mingling with all manner of musical cognoscenti, whether Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, or Joni Mitchell and John Lennon– and many more.

Cover of Jimmy Webb's 2017 memoir, "The Cake And The Rain," St. Martin's Press, 352 pp. Click for copy.

One excerpt offers an example of some of the opulence thrown his way when he was at the top of his game in 1969, though in this case turned down as he aspired for another path:

…By the time we got back to Los Angeles, Caesars Palace had offered me an eight-week engagement — forty thousand dollars, three times a year. Management wanted me to play an instrumental version of “MacArthur Park” on a white piano once a night “like Liberace.” They didn’t want any singing; singing would pay less.

I turned the deal down. I wanted to be part of the world that my peers inhabited. The world I’d experienced at the Monterey Pop Festival, playing with Johnny Rivers and the Wrecking Crew. Real rock ‘n’ roll and higher- consciousness types did not play Vegas in 1969. I faced a significant divergence in life’s river…

Also described in this book, is Webb’s encounter with supplying drugs to John Lennon and Harry Nilsson during one night of their infamous “lost weekend” in the early 1970s, and another episode that resulted in a near-death, PCP-laced drug experience for Webb and a long recovery. His Oklahoma/Baptist heritage would later reclaim him.

Still, despite the stumbles, Webb’s star shone brightly in those early years, and later too, leaving a very fine trove of musical accomplishment for the ages. The book doesn’t cover his entire career – only through 1973 – and in view of some readers, does not reveal enough about the details of his songwriting successes. There is, however, one index that runs for 11 double-column pages bearing the names of all those artists who have performed or recorded his songs. Webb’s original manuscript for this book ran to 300,000 words or so, of which the publisher used about 100,000. So, there is more yet to come. Stay tuned.

For additional stories at this website on song histories, songwriters, and artist biography, see the “Annals of Music” category page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 7 June 2020
Last Update: 6 February 2023
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “MacArthur Park …And Jimmy Webb,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 7, 2020.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

2001 album CD: “MacArthur Park - Richard Harris Sings The Songs of Jimmy Webb,” with 17 songs. Click for CD.

Robert Sellers’ book, “Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed,” 2011 edition, St. Martin's Griffin, 320 pp. Click for copy.

1989 Linda Ronstadt / Aaron Neveille album, “Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind,” includes 4 Jimmy Webb songs. Click for CD.

Kent Hartman’s 2012 book, “The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Best-Kept Secret,” about the famous L.A. session musicians who backed “MacArthur Park” and numerous other songs. Thomas Dunne, 304 pp. Click for copy.

Michael Feeney Callan’s 2014 book, “ Richard Harris: The Biography,” Pentheum Press, 376 pp. Click for copy

JimmyWebb.com.

“MacArthur Park (song),” Wikipedia.org.

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“MacArthur Park” (the park), Wikipedia.org.

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Hadley Meares, “MacArthur Park’s Glory Days: It Reigned for a Half-Century as a Grand Setting for Outdoor Concerts and Boat Rides,” LA.Curbed.com, January 19, 2018.

“Up Up & Away’s Jim Webb: Boy Millionaire Meets Teen Beauty,” Teen Magazine, November 1968.

Geoff Boucher, “‘MacArthur Park’ Jimmy Webb | 1968,” Los Angeles Times, June 10, 2007.

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Randy Lewis, “Muse For Jimmy Webb’s ‘MacArthur Park’ Treasures Those Days,” Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2013.

Dave Simpson (interview with Jimmy Webb), “How We Made MacArthur Park. Songwriter Jimmy Webb Recalls Recording the Somewhat Infuriating Suite with Actor Richard Harris, and The Real Story Behind Leaving That Cake Out in the Rain,” TheGuardian.com, Novem-ber 11, 2013.

“The Yard Went On Forever,” Wikipedia.org.

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Scott K. Fish, “Jimmy Webb: I Didn’t Have Any Kind of a Gift,” ScottkFish.com, July 3, 2016.

Dan MacIntosh, “Songwriter Interviews: Jimmy Webb,” SongFacts.com. May 16, 2011.

“Readers’ Poll: The Worst Songs of the Sixties; Selections Include ‘I Got You Babe,’ ‘Revolution 9’ and ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’,” Rolling Stone, November 16, 2011.

Kent Hartman, “The Hidden History of a Rock ’n’ Roll Hitmaker. Bassist Carol Kaye Blazed Her Own Trail, as the Only Female Studio Musician to Record Some of the Greatest Songs of the ’60s and ’70s,” Smithsonian Mag.com, February 28, 2012.

Kent Hartman, The Wrecking Crew, St. Martin’s Press, 2012.

Fred Bronson, “MacArthur Park; Donna Summer, Week of November 11, 1978,” The Billboard Book of Number One Hits, Billboard Books, 2003.

Greta Sproul “MacArthur Park: The Song That Launched a Thousand Parodies,” The Shal-lows (blogspot.com), March 26, 2012.

Michael Starr, “Jimmy Webb Tune Will Take Another Turn on ‘Late Show’,” NYPost.com, July 16, 2014.

Alan H. Fallick, “Jimmy Webb Discusses Famous Lyrics in ‘MacArthur Park’,” News-day.com, October 8, 2014.

Luisa Yanez, “Fifty Years Ago, ‘The Worst Song Ever Written’ Hit the Radio. Now Donna Summer Is Reviving It — Again,” Miami Herald.com, April 29, 2018.

Randal Hill, “‘MacArthur Park’– Richard Harris, July 1968,” Senior Life / VieraVoice .com, June 28, 2018.

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“Paul Shaffer + CBS Orchestra w/ Jim Webb -‘MacArthur Park’ on Letterman,” YouTube .com, July 22, 2014.

Jon Dolan, “Jimmy Webb on John Lennon’s Lost Weekend, Writing for Frank Sinatra; Veteran “Songwriter Recalls His Hard-Partying Early Days, Brushes with The Beatles and Other Career Highs and Lows Chronicled in New Memoir,” RollingStone.com, April 18, 2017.

Here and Now / “Songwriter Jimmy Webb On Glen Campbell: ‘He Really Taught Me A Lesson In Bravery’,” KGOU.org, May 2, 2017.

Brandy McDonnell, “Oklahoma Songwriter Jimmy Webb Returns to Home State to Sign New Memoir ‘The Cake and the Rain’, Oklahoman.com, May 7, 2017.

Dominic Green, “Jimmy Webb’s Rise and Fall; The Cole Porter of the ’60s Only Wanted to Be a Rock Star,” Book Review: ‘The Cake and the Rain’,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2017.

George Varga, “Jimmy Webb Talks Music, Drugs, His New Book and ‘MacArthur Park’,” SanDiegoUnionTribune.com, July 16, 2017.

Johnny Rogan, “Jimmy Webb’s Remarkable Memoir Has its Cake and Eats It. The Songwriter Behind ‘Wichita Lineman’ Has a Hell of a Story to Tell – and What a Cast,” IrishTimes.com, November 18, 2017.

Roger Norris, “A Lineman For His Country. An Interview With Jimmy Webb, One of America’s Greatest Storytellers in Music,” NeighbourhoodPaper.com, Sydney, Australia.

Sue Cameron, Hollywood Secrets and Scandals, 2018, BearManor Media, 378 pp.

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Cliff Goodwin, Behaving Badly: A Life of Richard Harris, 2004, Virgin Pub, 256 pp.

Michael Sheridan, Anthony Galvin, A Man Called Harris: The Life of Richard Harris, 2013, The History Press, 224 pp.

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Teaser Tag: Environmental History

1991-2000, 2001-Today

“The Brent Spar Fight”
Greenpeace: 1995

April 15, 2020 J.D.

Cover of 1999 book by Tony Rice & Paula Owen, “Decommis-sioning The Brent Spar.” Click for copy.

In April 1995, a famous environmental protest and activist intervention began to unfold in Europe’s North Sea. A political, media, and direct-action controversy erupted there between the environmental group, Green-peace, and one of the world’s largest oil companies, Royal Dutch Shell.

The battle began when Shell sought to dispose of a gigantic, decommissioned North Sea oil storage rig named the Brent Spar. Shell proposed to dump the rig into the North Atlantic Ocean.

Greenpeace by the mid-1990s was a well-known environmental group globally – known especially for their often heroic direct-action protests at sea. In 1985, their Rainbow Warrior boat, scheduled to protest nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean, was blown up at a dock in New Zealand by French agents, killing one activist. That incident galvanized public support for the group, and their membership climbed for a time, only to ebb away a bit in the early 1990s. The Brent Spar battle, however, would spark renewed interest in the group and their environmental campaigns.

The book cover at right depicts a scene from the North Sea in June 1995 as Greenpeace activists in a motorized rubber raft were attempting to board the Brent Spar facility amid water-cannon fire from nearby Shell vessels attempting to discourage the activists from approaching and boarding the Spar.

What follows below is a re-telling of the Greenpeace/Brent Spar battle and the role the activists and their organization played in that intervention – not only at sea, but also in negotiations and other activity throughout Europe at the time. Included, as well, is some review of related offshore oil/ environment issues in the North Sea and other regions as of October 2019.

* * * * * *

Graphic describing the Brent Spar oil storage structure.

North Sea Oil

In the early 1970s, Royal Dutch Shell, and its then project partner, Esso, a predecessor of ExxonMobil, were faced with an oil storage problem for their North Sea oil operations – the North Sea then, and still, a major realm of offshore oil production.

The oil companies needed a facility on the water into which they could pump and store their Brent Field crude oil while awaiting collection.

At the time, there were essentially two storage options: using a permanently-moored oil tanker, or building a new kind of huge, cylindrically-shaped, floating oil storage unit called a “spar.”

The name is taken from the old “spar buoy” used in navigation, traditionally a long piece of colorfully-painted timber anchored at one end to sit upright in the water. However, in this case the spar would be an industrial behemoth – a gigantic, floating oil tank, which stood on its end, would be equivalent to a 40-story structure, tethered with massive chains to six 1,000-ton concrete blocks — a structure of more than 460 feet in total length, with about 100 feet of that visible above the water’s surface (see graphic at left).

The storage tank section would have a capacity of 300,000 barrels of crude oil. The Brent Spar, it turns out, would be the first of other kinds of spars used in the industry, and particularly, production spars, which have become most prevalent in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Spars are also found in offshore Malaysia and Norway.

Back at Shell headquarters in the early 1990s, internal analysis showed the moored tanker option to be cheaper than the floating “spar.” Esso, in fact, favored the tanker option. But Shell as operator had the final say, and it wanted to use the spar – Brent Spar, as it would be called. Shell also stated that it favored the spar option, in part, because the risk of polluting the sea with the tanker option would be “significantly higher.”

The very top of the Brent Spar oil storage unit during its operation, showing helipad and operating level, with more than 450 feet of its below-sea storage tanks not shown.

So in 1972, the dry-dock building of the Brent Spar commenced at Erfjord, Norway and was completed three years later in January 1975, when the huge storage cylinder was floated out to sea. The Brent Spar was put in place in June 1976 and officially began operation that December

The Brent Spar continued to operate for nearly 15 years, until September 1991. During that time a number of large tanker ships – such as the Esso Warwickshire, shown in the photo below — would come to load North Sea oil from the facility.

In the intervening years, however, a pipeline was built, relieving Shell and Esso of the need for the Brent Spar storage unit. So, by the early 1990s, Shell was faced with a decision about what to do with the Spar, as it had outlived its usefulness but could not remain in place since it would pose a danger to shipping and over time would also break apart.

Photo showing large oil tanker, the “Esso Warwickshire," taking on oil from the Brent Spar storage unit during its working years, likely sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Dump or Dismantle?

Although a study of 13 different options for the Spar’s disposal ensued over a 30-month period, there were essentially two choices: dumping the rig at sea or dismantling it on land. The studies that Shell commissioned showed that sea dumping was the cheapest route, while dismantling the rig on shore would be more expensive. One estimate found that sinking the Spar would cost $19 million, while dismantling it on land would cost $70 million. The dismantling-on-land option had potential environmental and worker exposure costs. The ocean dumping option would mean that the Brent Spar would be towed more than 100 miles out into the North Atlantic Ocean and sunk in a very deep trench there where the environmental effects were projected to be minor. Shell acknowledged there were toxic and radioactive materials aboard the vessel — a small amount of radioactive waste, small quantities of cadmium and mercury, and 53 tons of oil and oily wax. The scientists and studies commissioned by Shell found that these materials would create no major environmental or health problems. Britain’s National Environment Research Council also found the sea disposal acceptable, noting that “the direct impact on the environment would be small, since at these depths animal life is sparse and only loosely connected to the food chain.” Still, it would be the first time that an offshore oil facility of this size and kind would be disposed of at sea.

Map shows the approximate locations of the Brent Spar, and its proposed 1995 dumping location, in the North Feni Ridge region, out in the north Atlantic Ocean, off the northwest coast of Scotland.

By February 1995, the disposal had the approval of Shell’s board and the UK government, which said at the time the disposal was fully in line with the 1991 Oslo and Paris Convention (OSPAR) of internationally-agreed guidelines for the disposal of offshore installations at sea. So the dumping was set: the rig would be towed out into the Atlantic Ocean, 150 miles off the northwest coast of Scotland. There it would be sunk in more than 6,000 feet of water.

Greenpeace Action

But two months later, in April 1995, the Brent Spar was about to have some unwelcome visitors. On the evening of April 29th, 1995, just before sunset, a group of Greenpeace activists, in an old fishing vessel named the Moby Dick, set sail from the Shetland Islands. Their destination was the Brent Spar, 118 miles and fifteen hours away. And their objective was to board and occupy the Spar in protest of its proposed dumping at sea.

1995. Greenpeace activists approaching the base of the Brent Spar, would scale the structure to the helicopter pad where they would begin their occupation and protest.

Arriving near the Brent Spar by mid-day on April 30th, the Moby Dick rendezvoused with another contingent of German Greenpeace activists who had come by chartered vessel. Rubber rafts were shortly put into the water. Minutes later, four of the activists had reached the giant Brent Spar structure, scaling its tower and unfurling a banner at the top of the Spar on its flat helicopter-pad. The banner – clearly legible from fly-overs above – read: “Save the North Sea. Stop Shell.” The activists, meanwhile, had come to stay, bringing initial quantities of food and setting up shop in the Spar’s living quarters and galley, also establishing a communications capability.

The Greenpeace action at the Brent Spar was no spur-of-the-moment crusade. In fact, Greenpeace had heard about Shell’s plan to scuttle the rig more than a year earlier, and in the summer of 1994 had set out their own study to look into the decommissioning options, finding that the dump at sea would be about four times cheaper for Shell than to dismantle it on land. They soon decided to take on the fight – and planning to get media attention in the battle was at the top of their list. In fact, they made sure to acquire satellite communications and video equipment in advance so their people would be able to transmit televised pictures during the protest. So once the Greenpeace activists had boarded the Brent Spar on April 30, 1995, the Greenpeace media plan would begin.

Greenpeace activists atop the Brent Spar rig in the North Sea, April 1995, with protest banners – one reading “Save The North Sea: Stop Shell’ – opposing Shell’s proposed dumping & disposal of the rig in the north Atlantic Ocean.

On the Moby Dick, meanwhile, which also carried some news reporters, Greenpeace organizer, Tim Birch, announced that “Greenpeace will remain on the Brent Spar until the UK government or Shell come to their senses and revoke the decision to dump it.” Back in London, Greenpeace released a report to the media entitled, No Ground for Dumping: The Decommissioning and Abandonment of Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms. Greenpeace was using the Brent Spar disposal to raise larger issues for the region: the North Sea ministers would soon meet in Denmark to discuss solutions to toxic environmental problems affecting the North Sea. Britain had been a laggard in this effort, due in part to its highly lucrative North Sea oil revenues.

During early and mid-May 1995, the activist numbers on the rig grew to 14 along with about 9 journalists. The Brent Spar occupation and protest during this time was also filmed by Greenpeace and journalists aboard the Greenpeace supply vessel. Meanwhile, on May 15, 1995 at the G7 summit being held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, German chancellor Helmut Kohl publicly protested the Brent Spar dumping plan to British Prime Minister John Major.

Shell offshore vessel using water canons aimed at Brent Spar to discourage/dislodge Greenpeace activists on the structure. This is a later, mid-June 1995 photo, after two Greenpeace activists had re-boarded the Brent Spar via helicopter. AP photo.

Shell, meanwhile, had refused to meet with Greenpeace. At sea, Shell had begun using water cannons from it own vessels to bombard the Brent Spar activists and their rubber rafts. In court, Shell’s lawyers went after Greenpeace for trespassing. But on May 22nd, Greenpeace received a letter from some of Shell’s worker representatives in Germany expressing their “concern and outrage” over the rig dumping plan – which was quite embarrassing for Shell UK. The next day, May 23rd, Shell workers with police boarded the Brent Spar to remove the activists and journalists from the structure. The activists were jailed briefly in Aberdeen, Scotland. But by then, the televised media coverage had been running for days and a “David-vs.-Goliath” storyline had been cast over the offshore battle. The TV broadcasts had captured some of the water cannon bombardment attempting to dislodge the activists, which garnered sympathy for the activists throughout Europe. “… Joe Six-Pack won’t understand your technical details [about the dump-ing]. All he knows is that if he dumps his car into a lake, he gets fined….”
– Jochen Lorfelder, Greenpeace

Although the activists were removed from Spar by May 23, 1995, Greenpeace then called for a boycott of Shell service stations in continental Europe.

On June 1st in Hamburg, Germany, executives from Shell’s subsidiary met with Greenpeace, arguing that the dumping of the rig at sea was the best option scientifically. One of the Greenpeace reps at that meeting, Jochen Lorfelder, offered a public perception perspective: “…But Joe Six-Pack won’t understand your technical details [of the dumping]. All he knows is that if he dumps his car into a lake, he gets fined. So he can’t understand how Shell can do this.” Lorfelder also had some other more alarming information for Shell at the meeting, pointing to an independent survey showing that 85 percent of German motorists would support a Shell gasoline boycott. Lorfelder explained that in the four weeks it would take to tow the Brent Spar to its dump site in the North Atlantic Ocean – moving at a pace of about 1 mile per hour – a gasoline boycott could really have a considerable impact on Shell’s German gasoline revenues.

By June 10th, Greenpeace executive director Steve D’Esposito sent a 22-page report to the Shell board in London and released it to the public about a week later. The report charged that sinking the Brent Spar would release radioactive waste, heavy metals, and 5,500 tons of oil sludge into the ocean with unpredictable consequences. Greenpeace also charged that the released waste from dumping the Brent Spar would damage the food chain for fish in the area, reducing the fishing stocks. Greenpeace’s estimates of the oil and toxic materials on the Spar were over a hundred times those offered by Shell, and were later found to be quite overstated.

Another photo of a vessel using its water canons in an attempt to foil the Greenpeace activists at the Brent Spar.

Shell UK, meanwhile, on June 11, 1995, went ahead with their dumping plan, cutting the anchor chains of the Brent Spar to begin its towing out to sea. The gasoline boycott on the continent then began in earnest. In Germany, some politicians, trade unions, and the Protestant church supported the boycott of Shell’s 1,700 gas stations there. “We couldn’t believe the response,” said Jochen Vorfelder of Greenpeace Germany, referring to the boycott. “These ordinary people said they wanted to do something.” In Berlin, Shell Service stations reported a 30 percent drop in sales in the first two weeks of June 1995.

However, at some locations in Germany, the protest turned violent. On June 16th, 1995, a Shell gas station in Hamburg was firebombed in the middle of the night, and for a period of six days thereafter one report had it that about 50 Shell stations were damaged, two firebombed, and another shot at. The boycott soon spread to Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK. Government leaders in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark also called for a halt to the sinking.

June 1995. Other Greenpeace demonstrations protesting the Brent Spar dumping occurred elsewhere in Europe, such as this “Stop Brent Spar!” banner being installed by activists on a large Shell Oil storage tank in Luxembourg.

UK Environment Minister Tim Eggar accused Greenpeace of “grossly exaggerating” the disposal problem, arguing that disposal on land would cause “very significant environmental damage.” Prime Minister John Major, holding forth in the British House of Commons, said Shell had his full support. Major even leveled some remarks at German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who had been critical of the Shell dumping plan earlier that week at a G-7 Summit held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in mid-June 1995.

Out in the North Sea, meanwhile, Greenpeace activists had tried boarding the Brent Spar a second time in May, but were unsuccessful. Then they tried again in mid-June 1995. This time, two Greenpeace activists re-boarded the Brent Spar by way of a dramatic helicopter drop at noon, with the activists later re-laying their protest banners on the helipad deck. Shell officials on nearby tug boats again used water cannons to try to stop the activists, nearly knocking the helicopter down at one point, according to Greenpeace.

Photo showing Greenpeace activists in motorized rubber raft trying to approach Brent Spar structure amid water cannons being fired from nearby vessels. This action occurred on June 16, 1995 after an earlier occupation of structure in May.

TV images of Shell security and British police spraying the protesters with the water-cannons were broadcast by the media worldwide, and especially in Europe, where they helped fuel demonstrations. There had also been continuing coverage in major European newspapers. Three London newspapers, for example – The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Mirror – more or less had continuous coverage of the controversy, though with somewhat differing sympathies for the protest.

By June 19th, 1995, a Greenpeace advertisement appearing in national newspaper editions demanded that Shell accept its corporate responsibility. “The day Shell sinks the Brent Spar,” said the ad, “Shell’s reputation sinks with it.” Greenpeace had spent heavily on promoting its campaign to stop the dumping. Shell, by comparison, was outflanked – at least in the media.

June 23, 1995. New York Times reporting on Shell’s troubles with its Brent Spar plans.

Inside Shell’s own corporate structure, meanwhile, there had been considerable tumult among the company’s European units. Shell Germany complained about Shell UK’s arrogance in the whole affair and its lack of communication. Peter Duncan, chairman of Shell Germany, said the first he heard about the sinking of the Brent Spar was “more or less from the television.” Shell officials in the Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavia were also feeling the heat from their national governments. And the head of Shell Austria described the dumping plan as “intolerable.” Given this internal dissension, Shell UK began to retreat: “The European companies of Royal Dutch Shell Group find themselves in an untenable position and feel that it is not possible to continue [with the Brent Spar sinking] without wider support from [their] national governments.”

On June 20th, 1995 Shell’s directors at the Hague were deep into a three-hour session on the fate of their plan, after which they agreed to abandon the dumping. With that, Shell UK chairman Chris Fay met with UK Environment Minister Tim Eggar to inform him that a press release on the abandonment would be sent out within a few hours. Shell’s Fay admitted his company was in an “untenable position” because it had failed to convince other North Sea governments that dumping the rig was the best option. According to the company’s statement: “Shell UK has decided to abandon deepwater disposal and seek from the UK authorities a license for onshore disposal… Shell UK Ltd still believes that deep water disposal of the Brent Spar is the best practicable environmental option, which was supported by independent studies.”

Shell’s decision was not cheered by the UK government, with some officials openly critical of the company’s backing down. Prime minister John Major, for one, was quite angry and reportedly called the company’s board “wimps” for caving in to the pressure brought by Greenpeace, the European boycott, and national leaders such as Germany’s Helmut Kohl. Major had put his own prestige on the line supporting Shell’s claims that sinking the “Brent Spar” rig would do the least damage to the environment, saying at one point, it was the “right way” to get rid of it.

Out at sea, meanwhile, Greenpeace activists aboard the Brent Spar, noticed the structure was moving in a different direction. They soon received word that Shell’s disposal plan for the rig had been stopped, and the structure was now heading temporarily back toward Scotland, while Shell sought plans to moor the rig in Norway. The protestors on board the Brent Spar celebrated on the news, some lighting flares on the upper deck, as shown in the photo below (top deck, at left).

Four Greenpeace occupiers aboard the Brent Spar, upper left, celebrate on helicopter pad waving lit flares at the news that the Brent Spar was heading a new direction toward shore, and would not be dumped at sea.

Some at Greenpeace, however, were not gloating over Shell’s reversal. “It’s not a victory against Shell or the British government,” said Ulrich Jurgens, campaign director for Greenpeace International. “It’s a victory for the sea.”

The Brent Spar was finally towed and “parked” to a corner of the deep Norwegian sea near Stravanger. A week after Shell abandoned its plan, OSPAR voted 11-2 for a moratorium on disposal of decommissioned offshore installations in the North Atlantic, including the North Sea. However, Britain and Norway, the largest beneficiaries of North Sea oil and gas revenues, voted against the ban. Under the OSPAR convention, the suspension vote was not legally binding on dissenting countries. (The real success came three years later (1998), when the OSPAR conference (at a meeting of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic) passed a general ban against sinking oil platforms.

Post-Mortem

July 7, 1995. Headlines from front-page Wall Street Journal story on the Brent Spar battle.

By July 7, 1995, a trio of Wall Street Journal reporters – Bhushan Bahree, Kyle Pope, and Allanna Sullivan – filed a long, post-mortem newspaper story on the whole Brent Spar affair, tracking both Shell and Greenpeace moves and countermoves. That account is summarized by the story’s headlines and opening paragraphs, shown at right, as it ran on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that day. The reporters covered the history of the controversy, key events, with telling quotes from participants on both sides, as well as third party observers, but generally concluded that Shell was outflanked by the Greens who had won the battle in the court of public opinion:

“For Greenpeace, the Brent Spar shows that high-profile cases, properly framed and easily explained, can ignite widespread public interest, especially if the news media get plenty of good photo opportunities. It also shows that economic warfare may be the best way to wage eco-warfare. The attention grabbing tactics helped spark a boycott against Shell that cut sharply into gasoline sales and pushed the company to reverse course.”

A New York Times report about the same time found that Greenpeace’s appeal to the public was likewise boosted by the Brent Spar events, as the organization would gain in membership and funding.

Greenpeace, however, did not emerge unscathed, as the group was challenged on some of its arguments and also called out for its estimates of oil waste on board the Brent Spar. In late June 1995, an article surfaced from the British magazine Nature critical of Greenpeace’s scientific arguments opposing the dumping. Its authors argued that the metallic elements found in the structure, compared to those already found on the ocean floor and in undersea venting at the planned site, would make the damage from the Brent Spar “minimal” by comparison. In early September 1995, Greenpeace itself acknowledged in an apology to Shell, that it had overstated its case with incorrect data about toxic quantities due to inaccurate sampling measurements. It was later shown there were 150 tons of oil waste aboard the Brent Spar, not 5,000 tons, as Greenpeace had claimed. Still, Greenpeace maintained that the larger issue was dumping the structure at sea. Each retired rig jettisoned to the sea bottom would commit, on average, about 4,000 tons of “oil junk” to the ocean floor.

In the end, Shell did dismantle the Brent Spar on shore, using it to help build a pier in Norway. However, it is still unclear what the future holds for the numerous rigs, pipelines, and other oil junk now found in offshore regions all over the world.

A Daily Mail (London) newspaper photo from January 2016 showing a “graveyard”-like image of retired oil rigs parked off the coast of Scotland, hauled to their harbor moorings during a drop in oil prices as companies were then cancelling off-shore explorations.

Indeed, at the time of the Greenpeace action, the Brent Spar was only one of 6,500 offshore rigs worldwide and one of 416 oil platforms in the North Sea. In the British sector of the North Sea alone there were then 219 offshore installations, 53 of which were deep-water oil platforms then scheduled to be decommissioned over the next decade or so. Should deep-sea dumping of these structures become the standard disposal practice, what then will be the long-term impact of such practices for both ocean ecosystems and shipping safety?

October 2019

Battle Flares Anew

More than 20 years after the Brent Spar controversy, in October 2019, Greenpeace activists again boarded Shell offshore oil structures in the North Sea – this time, two Brent Alpha and Brent Bravo structures, unfurling a banner on one that read: “Clean Up Your Mess, Shell!” The Greenpeace activists were protesting plans by the company to leave parts of several of its old, decommissioned North Sea structures in place rather than entirely removing them.

October 2019. Greenpeace activists from the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark boarded two oil platforms in Shell's Brent field in protest against plans by the company to leave parts of old oil structures with 11,000 tons of oil in the North Sea. Climbers, supported by the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, scaled Brent Alpha and Bravo and hung banners saying, `Shell, clean up your mess!' and `Stop Ocean Pollution'. Source: Greenpeace

As of late 2019, Shell’s refusal to fully remove four old Shell oil platforms from the North Sea prompted complaint, not only from Greenpeace, but also European Union member nations Germany, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. While Shell has removed the large topside parts of some rigs, at issue in this instance was an estimated 11,000 tons of raw oil and toxins still remaining in the base structures of three rigs – Bravo, Charlie and Delta – located in the East Shetland basin.

Environmentalists believe that such proposals are but the opening salvo of a much larger plan of “leave-them-in-place” rig abandonments, with oil firms intending to leave hundreds of offshore North Sea structures behind. Stay tuned. The battles over how to deal with the world’s offshore oil junk – including that in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico – will undoubtedly continue for many years ahead.

For additional stories on the environment and the fossil fuel industry at this website see the “Environmental History” topics page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 15 April 2020
Last Update: 15 April 2020
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Brent Spar Fight, Greenpeace:
1995,” PopHistoryDig.com, April 15, 2020.

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Books at Amazon.com…

Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” 2013 edition, Penguin Books, 704 pp. Click for copy.

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Gregory Zuckerman’s book, “The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters.” Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Rex Weyler’s 2004 book, “Greenpeace: The Inside Story: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists and Visionaries Changed the World,” Pan MacMillan (hardcover), 480 pp. Click for copy.

2019 paperback edition, “Shamrocks and Oil Slicks: A People's Uprising Against Shell Oil in County Mayo, Ireland,” by Fred Wilcox, Monthly Review Press, 160pp. Click for copy.

Paperback edition of Elizabeth Kolbert’s Pulitzer-prize winning best-seller, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” first published in 2014 by Henry Holt & Co., 335 pp. Click for copy.

Paperback edition of “Where Vultures Feast,” a 2003 book about Shell’s performance history in Nigeria. Click for copy.

2008 book: “Failure to Learn: The BP Texas City Disaster,” 200pp. Click for copy.

Riki Ott’s 2008 book, “Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” 352 pp. Click for copy.

Scott Cole’s 2018 book, “Fallout,” about a community’s fight with oil industry pollution from a Unocal Oil refinery in California. Click for copy.

Robert Easton’s 1972 book, “Black Tide: The Santa Barbara Oil Spill and Its Consequences,” Delacorte Press; 336 pp. Click for copy. The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill helped generate the first Earth Day and the environmental movement. Story at, https://pophistorydig.com/topics/santa-barbara-oil-spill/.

Stephen Howarth, A Century in Oil: The Shell Transport and Trading Company, 1897-1997, Weidenfeld & Nicoloson, 1997, p. 323 and p. 381. Click for copy.

“Brent Spar,” Wikipedia.org.

Simon Reddy, No Grounds for Dumping: The Decommissioning and Abandonment of Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms, Greenpeace, 1995.

Auke Visser´s Esso UK Tanker’s Site, www. aukevisser.nl/uk.

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“Science: Dump The Rig – And Be Damned,” Daily Telegraph (London), May 31, 1995.

Richard L. Hudson, “Global Outcry Greets Shell’s Dumping Plan,” Wall Street Journal, 1995.

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“Experts Warned Ministers of Oil Rig Disaster Two Year Ago,” Daily Mirror, June 20, 1995.

“Greed That’s Poisoning Our Seas: Shell Sinking of the Brent Spar Oil Rig,” Daily Mirror, June 20, 1995

“We Shell Not Be Moved: Dumping of Brent Spar Could Be The First of Many – There are 350 Rigs in the North Sea,” Daily Mirror, June 20, 1995.

“Mr. Green Targets Britain: As Britain is Tagged The Dirty Man of Europe, Green Heroes Talk of North Sea Ordeal: European Greens Target Britain;’s Polluting Companies,” Daily Mirror, June 20, 1995.

“30 Studies in Favour of Dumping,” Daily Telegraph, June 20, 1995.

Associated Press (London), “Greenpeace Tackles Shell; Offshore Platform Opposed,” Delaware County Daily Times (Swarthmore, PA), June 20, 1995, p. 21.

“Shocked Shell” Editorial, Wall Street Journal, June 20, 1995.

“Green For Danger,” Daily Telegraph, June 21, 1995.

Associated Press, “Shell Abandons Plans To Sink Oil Platform Off Scottish Coast,” New York Times, June 21, 1995, p. A-9.

Cacilie Rohwedder and Peter Gumbel, “Shell Bows to German Greens’ Muscle; Reversal of Plan to Sink Rig Shows Growing Clout of Environmentalists,” Wall Street Journal, June 21, 1995, p. A-15.

Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press, “Shell Bows to Environmentalists, Says it Won’t Sink Old Rig At Sea,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 21, 1995.

William Tuohy (London), “Shell Backs Down, Won’t Sink Oil Rig in Atlantic,” Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1995.

Bill Glauber (London), “Brent Spar’s Burial at Sea Canceled,” Baltimore Sun, June 21, 1995.

Associated Press (London), “Shell Backs Down; Oil Platform Won’t Be Sunk,” Delaware County Daily Times (Swarthmore, PA), June 21, 1995.

Financial Times, June 20 and 21, 1995.

Sue Leeman, Associated Press (London), “Shell Apologizes to Government After Backing Off Plan to Sink Oil Rig,” APnews .com, June 21, 1995.

Colin Brown, Nicholas Schoon & Peter Rodgers. “Shell `Wimps’ Apologise to Major,” Independent.co.uk, June 22, 1995.

Kyle Pope and Allanna Sullivan, “Shell’s Course Change Invites Questions; Bringing Oil Rig Ashore May Hold Its Own Hazards,” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 1995, p. A-12.

“A Triumph For The Forces of Ignorance: In The Wake of the Brent Spar Fiasco, One of Britain’s Most Distinguished Noble Prize-Winning Scientists Savages Greenpeace,” Daily Mail, June 22, 1995.

Kyle Pope, “Rig Incident Shows Britain Is Paler Shade of Green Than Rest of Europe,” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 1995, p. A-12.

Nathaniel C. Nash, International Business, “A Humbled Shell Is Unsure On Disposal of Atlantic Rig,” New York Times, June 23, 1995, p. D-2.

“Heroes Did Great Job: Fishermen Pay Tribute of Greenpeace Over Brent Spar,” Daily Mirror, June 23, 1995.

“Oil Rig Hero Gets Sell Discount Card,” Daily Mirror, June 24, 1995.

“Demo Man Wants Hug From Love: Brent Spar Hero Al Baker Arrive Back in Shetlands,” Daily Mirror, June 24, 1995.

“Dumping Rigs ‘Is Good For Sea Life’,” Daily Mail, June 30, 1995.

Bhushan Bahree, Kyle Pope, and Allanna Sullivan, “Giant Outsmarted: How Greenpeace Sank Shell’s Plan to Dump Big Oil Rig in Atlantic; Environmentalists Used TV To Win the PR battles while the Firm Bumbled; Science Loses to Joe Six-Pack,” Wall Street Journal, July 7, 1995, p. 1.

Marlise Simons, “For Greenpeace Guerrillas, Environmentalism Is Again a Growth Industry,” New York Times, July 8, 1995, p. 3.

Clifton Curtis, Biodiversiety/Oceans Political Advisor, Greenpeace International (Wash., D.C.), Letter-to-the-Editor, “You Can’t Hide, Even in The Sea,” Wall Street Journal, July 7, 1995, p. A-11.

Edward A. Ross, Jr., Response to Clifton Curtis Letter-to- the-Editor, “Frightening Seepage: Toxic Propaganda,” Wall Street Journal, July 21, 1995, p. A-11,

“Greenpeace Brent Victory ‘A Sad Day’,” Daily Mail, July 8, 1995.

“Oil Rig Sinking Blocked in Europe, Accepted in U.S. Gulf Coast,” Environmental Science & Technology, September 1, 1995, Vol. 29, No. 9, 406A.

“Deep Waters,” Daily Mail, September 6, 1995.

Reuters, “Greenpeace Apologizes To Shell Oil Company,” World News Briefs, New York Times, September 6, 1995, p. A-11.

“Greenpeace Fiasco,” Daily Telegraph, Sep-tember 7, 1995.

“Brent Spar Plan ‘Was Right’,” Daily Tele-graph, September 12, 1995.

Nature, September 29, 1995, vol. 375, p. 715.

“The Brent Spar Saga,” Environmental Health Perspectives / NIH.gov, September 1995, Vol 103, No 9, pp. 786-787.

“Brent Spar Was No Pollution Threat, Say Experts,” Daily Telegraph, October 19, 1995.

BBC, On This Day, June 20, 1995, “1995: Shell Makes Dramatic U-Turn,” News.BBC.co.uk.

Julian Oliver, “Learning The Lessons of Brent Spar Saga,” European Voice / Politico.EU, November 1, 1995.

Samuel Passow and Michael D. Watkins, “Sunk Costs: The Plan to Dump the Brent Spar,” Case Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1997, CR1-97-1369.0, 19 pp.

Chris Rose, The Turning of the ’Spar, (Greenpeace: London), June 1998, 221 pp.

Paula Owen and Tony Rice, Decommissioning the Brent Spar, CRC Press, May 14, 1999, 192pp.

Rémi Parmentier, “Greenpeace and the Dumping of Wastes at Sea: A Case of Non-State Actors´ Intervention In International Affairs,” International Negotiation, Vol. 4, No. 3., 1999, Kluwer Law International (The Hague).

S. M. Livesey, “Eco-Identity as Discursive Struggle: Royal Dutch/Shell, Brent Spar, and Nigeria,” Journal of Business Communi-cation, 2001., Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 58-91.

Jack Doyle, “Shell At Sea” chapter in, Riding The Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell & the Fossil Fire, Boston: The Environmental Health Fund, 2002, pp. 141-145.

Thomas Mösch (jen) “Brent Spar Revisited, 10 Years On,” DW.com, June 20, 2005.

Shell International, Ltd., “Brent Spar Dossier,” May 2008.

Anders Hansen, “Claims-Making in the Brent Spar Controversy,” in Barbara Adam, Stuart Allan, Cynthia Carter (eds), Environmental Risks and The Media, Routledge, 2013, pp 57-71.

Nicholas A Jackson, Ronin Institute, “Shell Responds to the 1995 Ogoni and Brent Spar Crises: Industry-level Risk Management Through Corporate-Level Perception Man-agement,” ResearchGate.net, January 2013.

Brian G. Williams, “The Brent Spar: Coverage Analysis,” briangwilliams.us, Last Updated, 14 June 14, 2016.

Euan McLelland, “Is This the Graveyard of the World’s Economy? As Shares Crash Along with Price of Crude Oil, the Ranks of Massive Drilling Rigs Rusting in the Scottish Estuary Where They’ve Been Dumped since Demand Tumbled,” DailyMail.com (London), January 21, 2016.

Adam Vaughan, “Leave Oil Rigs in the North Sea, Say Conservationists,” TheGuardian.com, May 29, 2017.

Tom Lamont, “Where Oil Rigs Go to Die. When a Drilling Platform Is Scheduled for Destruction, it Must Go on a Thousand-Mile Final Journey to the Breaker’s Yard. As One Rig Proved When it Crashed on to the Rocks of a Remote Scottish Island, This Is Always a Risky Business,” TheGuardian.com, May 2, 2017.

Rex Weyler, “A Tribute to Jon Castle,” Greenpeace.org, January 25, 2018.

ipj/sms (AP, AFP, Reuters), “Berlin to Shell: Remove Old Oil Platforms in North Sea,” DW.com, October 17, 2018.

Philip Oltermann and Jillian Ambrose, “UK Facing EU Outrage Over ‘Timebomb’ of North Sea Oil Rigs; Germany Leads Complaint Against Plan to Leave Polluted Remains of Shell Rigs in Place,” TheGuardian.com, September 5, 2019.

Greenpeace International, “Greenpeace Acti-vists Board Shell Oil Rigs in Protest Against Plans to Leave Behind Oil in the North Sea,” Greenpeace.org, October 15, 2019.

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Teaser Tag: Magazine Cover Art

1941-1950, 1951-1960, 1961-1970

“John Clymer’s America”
The Saturday Evening Post

March 30, 2020 J.D.

Never mind the headline for the Marilyn Monroe story that appears at the top of the May 5th, 1956 Saturday Evening Post magazine cover shown below. With all due respect to Ms. Monroe and her beauty, the main topic that follows is not about her, but rather, another kind of beauty, celebrated here in the works of painter/illustrator, John Clymer. The offering below is one of the more than 80 cover illustrations Clymer rendered for the Saturday Evening Post during his career there from 1942 to 1962. What follows is a sampling of Clymer’s work at the Saturday Evening Post and a few other places, as well as some background on his life and career.

“Rocky Mountain Fly Fishing,” is the understated title of this stunning “Saturday Evening Post” magazine cover by artist John Clymer, delivered to about 2 million Post subscribers on May 5th, 1956. Click for copy.

The work above is titled, “Rocky Mountain Fly Fishing,” which is more about the grandeur of the American landscape Clymer has captured here than it is about fishing. Clymer, in fact, was partial to landscapes, and often, as here, western landscapes with mountains. This one has its “purple mountains majesties” along with forested hillsides and bountiful meadows. But it also shows, in the lower right hand corner, a lone fishermen; a local rancher perhaps, who just gotten off his horse and is now mid-stream doing a little fly fishing. But Clymer here, as in his other works of this kind, relegates the human figure to scale on this landscape, appearing small and almost beside the point; inconsequential before the majestic natural world he is privileged to be enjoying. In other works, however, as in the one below, Clymer places human figures more at the center of the composition, though typically in a setting where they too are enjoying nature.

October 7, 1950: “Walking Home Through Leaves.” Illustrator John Clymer captures the essence of an autumn scene for “The Saturday Evening Post” with school kids and dog charging through fallen leaves.

John Clymer was one of those “old fashioned” magazine illustrators; those who drew and painted scenes from what today might seem like another world – the 1940s and 1950s. These artists were capturing American beauty and America culture of those years – published weekly by one of the nation’s most read and trusted magazines, The Saturday Evening Post, selling 2 million or more copies a week in the mid-1950s – sort of an oversized iPhone of its time. But this body of work by Clymer and other illustrators – and generously displayed on the large 11″ x 17″ magazine format of that era – also marks a kind of cultural history; a conveyance of American values from those times, and not least, some media history as well.

September 21, 1957. John Clymer’s, “Ride ‘Em Cowboy.” Another western landscape with dramatic mountains, streams of sunlight, and young children at play – the latter of which frequently appear in a number of his covers. Yet, again, the natural world is the star.

John Ford Clymer was born in Ellensburg, Washington – in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. And it would be in this environment of Pacific Northwest wilderness, that Clymer would develop his eye for natural beauty and a love of the outdoors. His parents, Elmira and John P. Clymer, were early settlers to the area, building and operating a greenhouse and florist business. However young John wasn’t the best school student in those days, as long hours in a classroom bored him. Summer vacations and after school hours spent exploring the natural world in his native land were his happiest times – and these experiences would be stored away in Clymer’s memory banks, later taking form on canvas and magazine covers.

October 8, 1955. “Football in the Country.” Another of John Clymer's expansive, colorful landscapes at fall, with boy footballers seemingly oblivious to the grandeur all around them.

As John Clymer was growing up, traveling magazine salesman would come by the Clymer home from time to time selling magazine subscriptions. Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Hearst’s International magazines, were among the offerings. Young John occasionally flipped through the magazines. One day he came across a double-page illustration by an artist named Walt Louderback. He had never seen a picture like it before. Other magazines of that time were filled with equally interesting illustrations by Dean Cornwell, N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover and others. This was a world of art John never knew existed. He became a regular at local newsstands, seeking out the latest magazines, and whenever new issues came out he studied what the artists and illustrators of that day were offering. He became especially enamored of the work of Louderback, and also discovered other illustrators, including those of the Brandywine School of artists, of the Southeastern Pennsylvania / Wilmington, Delaware area — N.C. Wyeth and others.

February 1, 1958, Saturday Evening Post, “Cascade Mountain Farm.” Another western landscape by John Clymer, this one at winter, with dramatic sky and snow-covered fields and mountains, in the Cascade Range of Clymer’s home state, Washington.

Soon he began to ponder the possibilities for art education, and around the age of 12 or 13 he took a correspondence course and spent his free time working toward this goal. Several of Clymer’s high school teachers noticed his potential and determination, and encouraged his interest. By the time he was 16 he had sold his first two illustrations to Colt Firearms Company in Hartford, Connecticut. The Colt illustrations were used for advertisements, and in fact, published many times. While still in high school, he also produced promotional advertising for the Ellensburg, Washington rodeo.

July 27, 1957. “Pacific Ocean Sunset,” one of John Clymer’s most dramatic covers set along the coastline of Northwest Washington near the town of La Push. Offshore rocky island spires there, some rising 200 feet or more, give a unique and dramatic character to the scene that Clymer renders here, capturing a special light at sunset with returning fishing boats and various beach visitors. Some of the offshore formations – rising like rocky cathedrals – are regarded as sacred by the indigenous Quileute people. Today, this coastal area is protected as part of the Olympic Wilderness system.

After high school, Clymer moved to Canada and worked as an illustrator for billboards and as a sign painter in Vancouver, where in his early 20’s he took art classes at night for a time. He also studied at the Vancouver School of Fine Art and then at the Ontario College of Art. As a young man, Clymer traveled throughout the Northwest and Canada, immersing himself in the environments and subjects he loved most in those regions, and would later come alive in his painting –– wildlife, wilderness, mountain men, trappers, and Indians.

May 21, 1960, Saturday Evening Post cover titled, “Green Mountains.” John Clymer didn’t limit his fondness for landscapes to the West, also rendering scenes from the Eastern U.S., as here from Vermont. He also did other landscape scenes for the Post set in North Carolina, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Ohio.

In the summer of 1927, Clymer worked as a deckhand on a steamboat on the Yukon River and during that time he visited gold mines, river trading posts, and logging camps. Clymer had made his way to Alaska and then by rail White Horse, Yukon Territory, where he took up work on the wood-fired steamboat that ran a supply service. “Since there were no roads in there at the time, the only way into the interior was by the river,” Clymer recalled. “Our itinerary was to make round trips with supplies to the trading posts up three different tributaries of the Yukon: the Pelly, Stewart and Teslin rivers.” These travels came at a time when the frontier landscapes of America and Canada were yielding to the inroads of civilization. So in these and later travels, young John Clymer was drinking in what he saw and experienced, to be drawn upon from memory in later years.

1927. John Clymer, a 20 year-old deckhand on trading & supply steamboat on Yukon Territory rivers.

John Clymer in later years, by then working mostly on art of the American West and Native Americans.

In the late 1920s, Clymer also visited with artist Frank Schoonover in the Brandywine River area of Pennsylvania, who encouraged him to study in Wilmington. By 1930, Clymer was a student at the Wilmington Academy in Delaware, where he was strongly influenced by N.C. Wyeth and Wyeth’s students: Gayle Hoskins, Stanley Arthurs, and Douglas Duer. Two years later, in 1932, he married his childhood sweetheart, and by the fall of 1937, he and his wife Doris moved to Westport, Connecticut, the location from which he would establish his career, as an illustrator for American magazines, including Argosy, The Saturday Evening Post, Woman’s Day, True, and Field and Stream.

September 9, 1961. “Roadside Vegetable Stand,” by John Clymer, has a bit of an impressionistic look. Set in New Hampshire, Clymer captures a summery-like autumn day, with leave-changing yellows abounding as a touch of green still hangs on. Meanwhile, a rain shower and darkening clouds move in across the hills beyond the lake, as roadside customers come and go at the vegetable stand.

In Westport, Clymer joined an artists colony, where he studied with Harvey Dunn, and later at the Grand Central School of Art in New York city. The illustrator, Walt Louderback remained his hero, although he was much impressed by the work of Dean Cornwell and NC Wyeth. In addition to his Saturday Evening Post work, Clymer also painted calendars every year for 28 years for the American Cyanamid Co., a major chemical company, and did an advertising series for the New England Life Insurance Company. Other advertising work included paintings for White Horse Scotch Whisky, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Chrysler Corporation.

February 1, 1958. “Yakima River Cattle Roundup” shows the Yakima River in Washington, not far from John Clymer’s boyhood home in Ellensburg. An irrigation canal appears on the right, and the bluffs beyond are quite stunning. Reportedly, at this river bend, not far from old U. S. Route 10, Clymer and his father often fished for trout.

By the early 1940s, Clymer scored his first illustration for a Saturday Evening Post cover, shown below right. Later interviewed by Walt Reed, who published 1976 biography on Clymer, the artist recalled his beginnings at the Post:

January 31, 1942. John Clymer’s first cover for “The Saturday Evening Post” is published, titled, “Totem Pole.”

…Just before the war I had done my first Post cover, an Alaska inland passage subject with a totem pole in the foreground, U.S. Navy destroyers and aircraft in the background. On a visit back home, out at Ellensburg, I noticed my young son, David, peering into a hole in an old poplar stump, looking for flickers nests. It immediately struck me as a good possibility for a Post cover. So I painted it, sent it in to them, and they bought it [“Boy on A Horse” cover, July 30, 1949 edition, see below], saying they’d like to see a sketch for another idea. So I began to do a long series of Post covers — approximately 80 of them over the next dozen years. My approach was to look for human interest subjects and then try to place them in a proper setting to fit the idea. Sometimes it would take a long time to bring the two elements together. One early idea involved a young boy playing in an abandoned auto chassis, but I couldn’t figure out how to present it. Two years later, while driving through Jackson Hole in Wyoming, I noticed some old, rusty farm machinery in the corner of a field. It then struck me that this was a perfect spot for the old car. A Western boy would be brought up on horseback riding, but when he spotted the old auto body, he ceased to be a cowboy and was transformed into a hot rod driver (see the two final covers Clymer described below).

During World War II, Clymer and his friend from Westport, illustrator Tom Lovell, joined the Marines together (went through boot camp at age 36), and Clymer’s Saturday Evening Post career was interrupted. Too old for action, they were stationed in Washington, D.C. and spent the war painting illustrations for the Marine Corps Gazette and Leatherneck magazine. After Clymer was discharged in 1945, he rejoined The Saturday Evening Post and started doing covers once again, more than 80 of which would follow.

July 30, 1949 cover, “Boy on a Horse,” the idea for which came to Clymer after seeing his son inspecting a hole in a tree stump looking for flicker nests.

May 23, 1959. Parts of this cover came to Clymer years earlier seeing an abandoned auto chassis, but he added the boy on horseback discovering it later. Click for copy.

Continuing his remarks to Walt Reed, Clymer also noted the scrutiny Post covers received from the magazine’s readers:

“…There was only one drawback about doing covers for the Post. They went everywhere in the country, and because I picked and painted actual places, there would be several hundred people who lived nearby who’d scrutinize every detail to try to find something wrong. I had to be sure I knew all about everything included in a picture, and why it was there. There would always be someone like a telephone lineman who’d write in and say, ‘I don’t think that was the kind of insulator they used in that area.’ The Post was good about those things. The only time I had to make a correction on a cover was when I sent in a picture that had an automobile in the foreground. I had completed everything, lights, chrome, trim, spokes, but forgot to paint in the door handle.”

Clymer would also state about his work that he always tried to take the viewer “to an actual place and make him feel that he was really there.” Creating cover art for The Saturday Evening Post was a four-step process: a field sketch, a charcoal sketch, the oil painting, then a plate was made from a photograph of the original. The sketches were generally approved by the editor before the oil stage was reached. In describing his working process, Clymer in his own words, noted: “The sketch gives you the feel, but the photo gives you the facts. Next, make a small oil on canvas for the mood. Then comes the finished painting, where you emphasize the beautiful and wonderful and leave everything else out…”

December 22, 1956. John Clymer, in this Saturday Evening Post cover, titled “Snow on The Farm,” has captured a snowy, wintry scene that has the feel of a fading, late afternoon December sun, which is directly ahead behind the mountain, casting long shadows from the trees and farmhouse, as “Mom” appears to be brooming off one of the youngsters.

In any case, the magazine art of that era – at least at a few publications like The Saturday Evening Post – had a way of reminding Americans through weekly cover illustrations from artists like John Clymer, John Falter, Stevan Dohanos, and others, what a beautiful country they had, whether in the natural majesty of the wide-open west, or nature’s color and light just out the window or down the street. The magazine illustrators of that time, like John Clymer, helped capture that beauty, and in the process, left a legacy of great landscapes, homage to America the Beautiful, and also, some “good-old-days” nostalgia of a by-gone time. A listing and a few more samples of John Clymer’s work at The Saturday Evening Post follows below.

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“Clymer’s Covers”
Saturday Evening Post, 1942-1962
Listing & Samples

April 21, 1951, Saturday Evening Post, John Clymer cover, “Oregon Baseball” – the girl is pitching. Click for canvas wall art.

September 18, 1954, Saturday Evening Post, John Clymer cover, “Lasso Practice.”

October 26, 1957, Saturday Evening Post, John Clymer’s “South for the Winter.” Click for canvas wall art.

October 20, 1956, Saturday Evening Post, John Clymer’s “Fall Horseback Ride.” Click for copy.

Cover Title & Date

“Totem Pole”
January 31, 1942
“Old Glory”
July 4, 1942
“Boy on Horse”
July 30, 1949
“Belgian Horse Farm”
October 8, 1949
“Winter Sleigh Ride”
December 17, 1949
“Tired Hiker”
April 15, 1950
“Apple Blossom Time”
May 6, 1950
“Feeding Fawn Near…”
May 27, 1950
“Dude Ranch Meal”
July 29, 1950
“Walking…Thr. Leaves”
October 7, 1950
“Ranch Basketball”
November 11, 1950
“Winter on the Farm”
December 30, 1950
“Gathering Wood”
January 27, 1951
“Barn Skiing”
February 17, 1951
“Oregon Baseball”
April 21, 1951
“Putting Up Birdhouses”
June 9, 1951
“Oregon or Bust”
August 4, 1951
“Colorado Creek”
October 13, 1951
“Apres Ski Bonfire”
February 23, 1952
“Hiking in Mountains”
May 31, 1952
“Herding Horses”
September 13, 1952
“Walk in the Forest”
October 18, 1952
“Quarterback in…Tub”
November 15, 1952
“Jumping Rope…”
April 25, 1953
“Feeding Chipmunks”
May 16, 1953
“Feeding the Elephants”
July 25, 1953
“Town Green”
August 15, 1953
“Children W/ Rowboat”
October 31, 1953
“Deep Snow Fall”
January 23, 1954
“Rural Wedding”
May 29, 1954
“Picnic On Mt. Rainier”
July 17, 1954
“Lasso Practice”
September 18, 1954
“Leaf Pile”
October 16, 1954
“Tobogganing”
January 22, 1955
“Harbinger of Spring”
May 7, 1955
“Dog Days of Summer”
June 25, 1955
“Blueberry Hill”
August 13, 1955
“Football in the Country”
October 8, 1955
“Thanksgiving on…Farm”
November 26, 1955
“Cutting Down the Tree”
December 17, 1955
“Snowball Recess”
February 4, 1956
“Kite in the Tree”
March 10, 1956
“Two Little Dears”
August 25, 1956
“Fall Horseback Ride”
October 20, 1956
“Snow on the Farm”
December 22, 1956
“Mountain Farm”
March 23, 1957
“Skipping Stones”
June 22, 1957
“Pacific Ocean Sunset”
July 27, 1957
“Ride ‘Em Cowboy”
September 21, 1957
“South for the Winter”
October 26, 1957
“Bringing Home the Tree”
December 21, 1957
“Cascade Mnt. Farm”
February 1, 1958
“Yakima Riv…Roundup”
May 10, 1958
“Following The Leader”
September 27, 1958
“Fall Photo Op”
October 25, 1958
“Ice Hockey on Mt. Pond”
December 13, 1958
“Abandoned Equipment”
May 23, 1959
“A Fine Catch”
June 13, 1959
“Portage Glacier”
July 25, 1959
“Swimming in the Creek”
August 29, 1959
“Blue Ridge Burro Ride”
October 10, 1959
“Gloucester Harbor”
November 14, 1959
“Iceboating”
November 28, 1959
“Snow… at Snoqualmie…”
February 6, 1960
“Recess at Pine Creek”
April 2, 1960
“Green Mountains”
May 21, 1960
“Zion Canyon”
July 9, 1960
“Horseback…Glacier Pk”
July 30, 1960
“Sheep Ranch”
March 18, 1961
“Ohio River in April”
April 15, 1961
“Appalachian [Rhodies]”
May 27, 1961
“Green KY Pastures”
July 29, 1961
“Roadside Veg. Stand”
September 9, 1961
“Spring Warms…Mnts.”
May 5, 1962
“Walking… in the Rain”
October 20, 1962

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Western Art

In 1964, John Clymer began to explore a second chapter of his art career, this time painting scenes from the Old West and Native Americans. Western art collectors at that time were taking an interest in historic paintings by living artists. Clymer and his wife Doris would move to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where John began a focus on painting, working on wildlife scenes at first, and later, historic western art of the early 19th century Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions. Doris encouraged him on that latter front, and the pair teamed up in the enterprise. They did detailed research on the proposed historical subjects and visited sites to get a first-hand feel for the area. The attention to historic detail paid off, as Clymer would collect a number of awards for his western art, some of it also published as illustrations for textbooks and historical documentaries.

1977 book, “The Western Paintings of John Clymer,” with introduction by Paul Weaver, published by Bantam Books, New York; 98pp, with 46 full-page color plates and 4 black & white illustrations. Click for copy.

John Clymer had long-standing interest in his home territory, the Pacific Northwest, and its history. One of his featured subjects was the great fur trade era. He also did a series on Lewis & Clark and their exploration of the region, covering the role of Sacagawea, an Indian interpreter and wife of a French scout on the journey. One of his paintings is titled, “Sacagawea At The Big Water,” depicting the first time Sacagawea had seen the ocean. Clymer also had a special interest in Northwest Coastal tribes, and as a boy he had been exposed at home to an old Indian visitor and friend of the family. Another of his subjects was Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. His Indian works often revealed little known details of Native American life and practices, as in “Breaking Wild Horses,” which depicts young Indian braves cleverly breaking and taming wild horses while riding them in shoulder-deep river water.

John Clymer’s “The Cattle Drive,” one of 3 works in the Winchester-sponsored series completed in 1969-70.

Winchester Works

In 1969, John Clymer was commissioned by the Olin Corporation (then the parent company of the Winchester Repeating Rifle Co,) to create three large paintings that featured Winchester rifles – rifles that company advertising for decades had described as “guns that won the West.”

One of the Clymer paintings depicted a scene around the time of the 1859 gold rush, titled “The Gold Train,” showing a line of gold-laden mules descending Colorado hills led by a guard on horseback holding a Henry repeating rifle.

A second painting, titled “The Home-steaders,” features a homestead family with wagon crossing Wyoming territory as the father on foot leads a boy on horseback ahead of the wagon, holding a Winchester rifle in one hand as he goes.

The third of the Winchester paintings, shown at right, is set near the Rawhide Creek crossing of the Platte River in then-Nebraska Territory during the mid-1860s. Clymer titled this painting, “The Cattle Drive,” and the dust from the thundering herd of Texas longhorns is seen rising from the distant trail. This cattle drive is heading to Montana grazing land.

But in this rendering the trail boss on horseback, with Winchester rifle across his saddle, is confronted by a group Sioux warriors.

Left to conjure here is what sort of negotiations and resolution might have followed between the parties depicted. It is also one of many “how-the-West-was-settled” renderings that raise questions about the expropriation of Native American lands.

All three of Clymer’s Winchester paintings (each of which measures nearly five feet by ten feet), were first dedicated in March 1970 at the 21 Club in New York City, and now reside in the Cody Firearms Museum, which is one of five museums under one roof at The Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.

John Clymer’s works on early Western exploration and the fur trade, as sampled below, were also quite good and typically very accurate, offering important details and historic fact. A number of Clymer’s Western and Indian paintings are pictured with explanations at The Eddie Basha Collection.

“Devil's Gate: Fitzpatrick 1824,” painted by John Clymer in 1986, shows fur trappers Thomas Fitzpatrick and companions after a winter of trapping in Montana and Idaho passing through a notch in the hills called Devil’s Gate in an attempt to float their wares down a series of rivers to St. Louis, only to be stymied by shallow water later. Click for The Eddie Basha Collection.

At John Clymer’s passing in 1989, the Los Angeles Times noted that in 1978, when Clymer was in his 70s, some 282 people took part in a drawing at the Cowboy Artists of America art show in Phoenix for the right to pay $30,000 for one of his paintings: “Water, Water–Overland Astorians 1811,” an oil painting of a Western expedition financed by John Jacob Astor. That painting depicts the expedition finding creek water after a long, dry overland crossing. There was also some competitive bidding for another Clymer painting at the same auction the following year – this time for his “Roast Rabbit” painting – also sold in a drawing for $40,000, only to be resold a few minutes later to a losing bidder who paid the winner $55,000. But that was in the 1970s.

In more recent years, Clymer’s works – both of the Western variety, and some of his Saturday Evening Post paintings – have fetched even higher prices. In November 2012, for example, “The Raiding Party” sold for $194,500, as posted by Heritage Auctions. In November 2016, two of Clymer’s Western paintings topped the Leslie Hindman Auctioneers art sale in Denver – “Stalking Buffalo” (Indians camouflaged in wolf skins sizing up the prey), sold to the floor for $161,000, and “The Wild Land” (Grizzly bear standing over a taken-down Elk, 1967), sold to a phone bidder for $81,250. In addition, the Jackson Hole Art Auction website shows about two dozen John Clymer paintings – Western, Indian, and wildlife – that have been listed at auction in the 2007-2018 period, some selling for more than $350,000. Similarly, the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction has also listed a number of John Clymer paintings, including a few of his Saturday Evening Post covers, that have sold at auction in the $100,000 to $500,000 range.

“Bears on Tundra Pond” by John Clymer, shows bears emerging from a harsh winder on the Alaskan tundra.

In addition to his Western and Native American art, a number of Clymer’s wildlife and big game paintings – of bear, mountain goats, buffalo, etc. – are also quite stunning. Clymer’s eye for landscapes, however, still shone through in many of his Indian, trapper, frontier, and wildlife paintings.

Clymer received the Franklin Mint Gold Medal for Western Art in 1973 and the Gold Medal in Oil from the National Academy of Western Art in 1974. He was named to the New York Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1982, and was featured on the PBS program “Profiles in American Art” in 1984. His works have been widely exhibited in various shows, auctions, and museums over the years. A more complete listing of his honors and exhibits can be found at the John Clymer Museum website.

The Saturday Evening Post, meanwhile – and its millions of readers – were lucky to have had John Clymer’s particular talents and vision for depicting the American landscape during the 1950s and early 1960s.

November 14, 1959, Saturday Evening Post cover, “Gloucester Harbor,” by John Clymer depicts a colorful autumn scene at Gloucester, Massachusetts, with harbor, wetlands and some surrounding hills in view, as fishing boats move over the water and a harbor-side resident works at his garden. Click for copy.

Additional stories at this website covering other illustrators at The Saturday Evening Post include, for example: “Rosie The Riveter” (Norman Rockwell), “U.S. Post Office” (Stevan Dohanos), “Falter’s Art Rising” (John Falter), and, “Rockwell & Race.” Other related stories can be found at the “Magazine History” topics page.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 30 March 2020
Last Update: 31 January 2021
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “John Clymer’s America: The Saturday
Evening Post,” PopHistoryDig.com, March 30, 2020.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

June 13, 1959. John Clymer’s cover of a family fishing on a scenic, quiet lake, titled, “ A Fine Catch..” Click for copy.

April 2, 1960. John Clymer’s subject here is “Recess at Pine Creek,” a one-room schoolhouse near Yellowstone National Park he had passed many times, but when painting the scene, he turned the schoolyard around so the Absaroaka Mountains would be the backdrop.

May 27, 1961. John Clymer’s cover highlights Catawba rhododendron at Craggy Gardens along Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville, NC. Clymer shows trail to Craggy Pinnacle and noted at the time that “sections of the trail wind through ten-foot-high rhododendrons...” Click for copy.

November 26, 1955, Saturday Evening Post, “Thanksgiving on the Farm,” by John Clymer.

“John Ford Clymer (1907-1989),” Curtis Publishing.com.

John Ford Clymer Museum & Gallery, Ellesnburg, WA, ClymerMuseum.org.

John Clymer, AmericanIllustration.org.

“John Clymer,” Wikipedia.org.

“John Clymer, Saturday Evening Post Covers,” SaturdayEveningPost.com.

Walt Reed, John Clymer, An Artist’s Rendezvous With the Frontier West, Flagstaff, Northland Publishing, 1976.

Grace Lichtenstein, “Cowboy Art Finds Home on the Range,” New York Times, February 10, 1977.

Cynthia Gorney, “Boom Time for the Cowboy Artists,” Washington Post, Novem-ber 7, 1979.

“1982 Hall of Fame Inductee: John Clymer,” SocietyofIllustrators.org.

“John Clymer, 130 Items,” Art.com.

Diana Denny, “Classic Covers: John Clymer’s Beautiful Seasons,” Saturday EveningPost.com, September 11, 2010.

David Saunders, “John Clymer (1907-1989),” PulpArtists.com, 2009.

Mike Johnston, “New John Clymer Painting Added to Museum,” The Daily Record (Ellensburg, WA), December 5, 2010.

Todd Wilkinson, “Perspective: John Ford Clymer [1907-1989]; This Native Son of the West Chronicled History and Rubbed Shoulders With Giants,” WesternArtand Architecture.com, Summer-Fall 2011.

Post Editors, Cover Artists, “John Clymer: This Week’s Eeatured Artist, John Clymer, Created Over 80 Covers for The Post From 1942 to 1962,” SaturdayEveningPost.com, October 8, 2014.

Post Editors, Cover Collection, “John Clymer’s Perfect Fall Day. Autumn Seemed to Capture a Special Place in Artist John Clymer’s Heart. We Offer a Selection of Our Favorites,” SaturdayEveningPost .com, October 4, 2017.

Michael Allen, “John Ford Clymer: the Painter Who Put Ellensburg on the Map,” The Daily Record, (Ellensburg, WA), January 22, 2018.

“John Ford Clymer (American, 1907-1989),” FineArt.ha.com.

Post Editors, Cover Collection, “Salute to the 50 States: From the Lighthouses of Maine to the Majestic Cascades of Oregon, the Saturday Evening Post Has Represented Every State on its Cover. Here Are 50 of Our Favorites, Saturday EveningPost.com.

Michael Allen, “John Clymer: The Yukon Steamboat Deckhand,” The Daily Record (Ellensburg, WA), March 20, 2018.

Brian J. Cantwell “At La Push, Walk Wild Washington Beaches and Commune with Native Culture,” SeattleTimes.com, March 29, 2018.

Joe Powell, “John Clymer and The Saturday Evening Post,” The Daily Record (Ellensburg, WA), February 27, 2018.

Michael Allen, “Doris Schnebly Clymer: John Ford Clymer’s Partner in Life and Art,” The Daily Record (Ellensburg, WA), April 17, 2018.

Michael Allen, “Ellensburg Painter Helped Illustrate the History of the Marine Corps,” The Daily Record (Ellensburg, WA), May 22, 2018.

John Clymer, “The Homesteaders,” 1969 Painting Exhibited at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming, September 24, 2014.

“Works by John Ford Clymer Top Arts of the American West Sale at Leslie Hindman,” ArtFixDaily.com, November 17, 2016.

John Ford Clymer (1907-1989), “The Booshway” (24 x 40 in; sold for US $375,075 inc. premium), Bonhams.com.

John Clymer (1907–1989), “Moving Camp”(1972, oil on canvas, 20 x 40 in), Sold: $380,250, as reported by Tammy Christel, “2016 Jackson Hole Art Auction Results!,” JacksonHolEartBlog.com, Sep-tember 23, 2016.

Myrna Oliver, Obituary, “John Ford Clymer, 82; Western Artist and Illustrator,” Los Angeles Times, November 4, 1989.

John Clymer, “Water, Water – Overland Astorians – 1811″ (1978, oil on canvas, 30 × 48 inch), The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, cdaartauction.com.

John Clymer, Artist Works (sold), Jack-sonHoleArtAuction.com, 2007-2018.

John Clymer (1907-1989), Past Auction Highlights (works sold), The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, cdaartauction.com.

“John Clymer,” YouTube.com.

“John Ford Clymer (1907-1989),” Eddie BashaCollection.com, Western American and American Indian Art.

John Prentice, “The Super-Famous Washington Artist You’ve Probably Never Heard of,” SeattleRefined.com, November 26, 2019 (w/short video).

Nancy McClure, Points West Online: “John Clymer ‘Winchester’ Paintings Reunited,” centerofthewest.org, August 9, 2014.
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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Paul-Mcartney-Maybe-Im-Amazed.mp3 4704749 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“McCartney: Amazed”
The Paul & Linda Story

March 15, 2020 J.D.

Photo from back cover of “McCartney” album, April 1970, his first solo album. Photo of he and daughter Mary, tucked inside his coat, by Linda McCartney, shot in Scotland. Click for album.

It was a turbulent time for the famous British rock group, the Beatles – that period from around September 1969 through April 1970. The “Fab Four,” as they were once called, were having their differences.

Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were having both creative differences over musical direction and business disagreements. In August 1967, they had lost their friend and business manager, Brian Epstein, then 32, to a drug overdose and were now navigating the business world on their own. Apple Records, their new label, was created in 1968, but a rift ensued when Allen Klein came in as manager with the support of Lennon, Harrison and Starr, while McCartney wanted his wife’s father, entertainment lawyer Lee Eastman, to be manager.

On the musical front, too, there were serious fissures in the group, some dating to early 1968 and a couple of walk outs. But as they worked on the final sessions for what would be their last album together, Let it Be, the rifts were widening and near rupture.

By then, each of the Beatles had been thinking about, or had launched, solo projects. John and Yoko Ono had already recorded. George Harrison, frustrated with Lennon-McCartney domination, had put out a solo album in January 1968. Ringo was pursuing some film interests and also had a solo album in the works. And Paul McCartney, too, had begun working on songs for a possible solo album.

But for McCartney, the period leading up to his work on that solo album had become a rough, uncertain time, borne by the prospect of the Beatles breaking up, which had set him adrift. In September 1969, John Lennon had privately announced to the group (and not the public) that he wanted to quit the Beatles, though at the time it was unclear whether he meant permanently. Still, Paul had taken John’s announcement to heart, and it left him bereft. The Beatles were practically everything Paul had ever done. So what now?

McCartney then retreated with his wife and young family to his farm in Scotland, a remote place on the Kintyre peninsula they also called the High Park farm. At the farm, however, McCartney went through a very down period of brooding, drinking, and depression over the likely demise of the Beatles and his uncertain musical future. He and his first wife, Linda – Linda Eastman, an American photographer – were married for less than a year at that point, having wed in March 1969.

“Maybe I’m Amazed”
Paul McCartney
1970

Maybe I’m amazed at the way
you love me all the time
Maybe I’m afraid of the way I love you
Maybe I’m amazed at the way
you pulled me out of time
And hung me on a line
Maybe I’m amazed at the way
I really need you

Maybe I’m a man and maybe
I’m a lonely man
Who’s in the middle of something
That he doesn’t really understand

Maybe I’m a man and maybe
you’re the only woman
Who could ever help me
Baby won’t you help me understand

Maybe I’m a man and maybe
I’m a lonely man
Who’s in the middle of something
That he doesn’t really understand

Maybe I’m a man and maybe
you’re the only woman
Who could ever help me
Baby won’t you help me understand

Maybe I’m amazed at the way
you’re with me all the time
Maybe I’m afraid of the way I leave you
Maybe I’m amazed at the way
you help me sing my song
Right me when I’m wrong
Maybe I’m amazed at the way
I really need you

Linda then had her hands full with her 7 year-old daughter Heather from an earlier marriage, plus their newborn baby, Mary. Still, Linda became the rock in helping Paul weather the Beatles’ turmoil and getting him back on track. She encouraged him musically, boosting his confidence, helping him to finish his solo album, which he had already started. Then, from late December 1969 through late March 1970 – working mostly at the McCartney London home, he set about working on that solo album, which would be titled, McCartney and would include an assortment of 13 songs, some of which had begun as earlier-composed fragments. One of the songs — “Maybe I’m Amazed,” dedicated to Linda — would become a top hit in the U.K. and America, and one of Paul’s most famous songs.

Music Player
“Maybe I’m Amazed”
Paul McCartney – 1970

McCartney recorded the album in secrecy, mostly using basic home-recording equipment – a Studer four-track tape recorder – at his house in St John’s Wood. Some of the material dated to ideas he had years earlier. One of the songs, “The Lovely Linda,” was written at the farm in Scotland. McCartney played all the musical instruments for the songs – acoustic and electric guitars, bass, keyboards, drums and various percussion instruments. Linda supplied backing vocals on some of the songs. There was also some mixing and later recording for some of the songs at two studios in London – the Abbey Road studios and the Morgan Studios, the latter to copy the four-track recordings onto eight-track tape for overdubbing (more on the album later).

But it was “Maybe I’m Amazed” that stood out on the album — an ode and love song to Linda, as the lyrics make plain. It was Paul’s tribute to his wife for bringing him out of his funk and restoring his confidence. She was his muse and inspiration; the one who steadied him through a difficult time.

The McCartney album is also noted for its photo art by Linda, one sample of which is shown at the top of this story from the album’s back cover — a photo of Paul taken at their farm in Scotland. Paul is shown in a fur-lined winter coat with baby Mary peering out from her snug position, tucked inside Paul’s coat. Additional photos by Linda used in that album included a collage of 21 family snapshots in the inner gate-fold spread – images of Paul, Linda, Heather, newborn Mary, and the family sheepdog.

1960s: Photographer, Linda Eastman.

Linda Eastman

Linda Louise Eastman was born in Scarsdale, an affluent community in Westchester County, New York. Her father, Lee Eastman, practiced entertainment law in New York and had well known clients such as Tommy Dorsey, songwriters Harold Arlen and Jack Lawrence, and artists Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. Her mother, Louise Sara (Lindner) Eastman, was the daughter of Max J. Lindner, founder of the Lindner Company clothing store of Cleveland, Ohio.

Linda graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1959, attended Vermont College for an associate degree in 1961, and then to the University of Arizona to study Fine Arts, also taking up nature photography there as a hobby.

Linda’s mother had died in a plane crash in March 1962. Linda married Melville See Jr., in June 1962, whom she had met in college. Their daughter, Heather, was born that December. Linda’s mother had left Linda an inheritance to live on plus some paintings.

In June 1965, Linda and Melville divorced, and thereafter Linda took a job as a receptionist and editorial assistant for Town & Country magazine.

Linda Eastman at a 1960s photo shoot with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.

During a personal relationship with professional photographer David Dalton, Linda began learning about how photographic shoots were set up and organized. She soon developed a good eye and a knack for shooting rock groups in particular, setting them at ease and getting them to cooperate.

A big break for her came with a Rolling Stones shoot on a yacht where she was the only photographer. Linda’s father, however, was not impressed with her becoming a photographer, as her siblings had gone on for further education.

Nevertheless, during the 1960s, Linda Eastman became an unofficial house photographer at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East concert hall in New York, photographing a range of rock acts.

Among the artists and groups she photographed at the Fillmore and elsewhere were: Aretha Franklin, Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton, Simon & Garfunkel, the Who, Jim Morrison and the Doors, the Animals, John Lennon, and Neil Young. In May 1968 she photographed Eric Clapton for Rolling Stone magazine and became the first woman to have a photograph featured on Rolling Stone‘s front cover.

Meeting Paul

In May 1967, while on a photo assignment in London, Linda met Paul McCartney. She was then doing a photo shoot of blues and jazz performer Georgie Fame performing at the Bag O’Nails club. Paul and Linda met again four days later at the party for the launch of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album at Brian Epstein’s house. In May 1968, they met again, this time in New York, while Paul and John Lennon were there to inaugurate Apple Records.

May 1967. Early dating. Linda Eastman talks to Paul McCartney at launch party for Beatles album “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The couple would marry two years later, in March 1969. Photo: John Pratt

A few months after their May 1968 meeting in New York, and after McCartney returned to London, he invited Linda to spend some time with him there. When she arrived, they went to his home, where they spent the evening together.

March 1969. Linda & Paul McCartney at their wedding, with daughter/flower girl Heather.

McCartney, known as a free-loving bachelor with his share of ladies, did have a long-term relationship and near-marriage with British actress Jane Asher; a relationship ended by Asher when she suspected Paul’s dalliances. Yet, Paul was smitten by Linda; attracted to her good looks and her sense of independence.

McCartney would note that Linda had a rebellious streak growing up, was a “very free spirit,” considered something of a black sheep by her family, not choosing to excel in education like her father and brother. “She was an artist,” McCartney would say of her, “and was not cut out to be an academic.” They both shared a love of nature, which became one of their most important emotional links.

When Paul and Linda first began seeing one another, Paul also took readily to Linda’s daughter from her first marriage, Heather, then six years old. He insisted that Linda and Heather move to London to live with him. After they did, Paul took time with Heather, reading her stories, drawing with her, and sometimes, singing her bedtime tunes.

On March 12, 1969, Linda and Paul were married in a small civil ceremony in the Marylebone area of London. Young ladies around the globe were broken-hearted, as Paul was now a married man.

John Lennon married Yoko Ono a week later, and both women were sometimes wrongly cast by fans as the reasons why the Beatles broke up. Lennon at one point publicly criticized the press for its treatment of Linda: “She got the same kind of insults, hatred, absolute garbage thrown at her for no reason whatsoever other than she fell in love with Paul McCartney.”

November 1969. Among the photos taken by Life magazine of Paul, Linda and family in Scotland. Click for magazine copy.

During the tense times of the Beatles difficulties and pre-break up in later 1969, Paul, Linda and family had retreated to their farm in Scotland. Paul and Linda both loved the farm. Linda would say of the farm and location:

“Scotland was like nothing I’d ever lived in. It was the most beautiful land you have ever seen, way at the end of nowhere. To me it was the first feeling I’d ever had of civilization dropped away … so different from all the hotels and limousines and the music business, so it was quite a relief.”

But it was also around this time – from about September through December 1969 – when the “Paul-is-dead” hoax story was in its most heated form (see separate story here), with supposed Beatles song and album image “clues” all feeding into a mini-media frenzy.

Perpetrated mainly by college students and some disc jockeys, the story had it that McCartney was supposedly killed in a 1966 car crash and had been quietly replaced by a look-alike to spare Beatles’ fans and keep the group on track. None of it was true, of course – a big false story – which a Life magazine cover story of November 7, 1969 dispelled quite directly, finding Paul, with family, very much alive and well in Scotland.

The Solo Album

The production of the McCartney album, meanwhile, was taking form. A purposely low-tech affair, the songs on the album were mostly absent the Abbey Road studio treatment and wizardry of Beatles’s productions, since it was McCartney’s goal to produce a “getting-back-to-basics” selection of tunes.

April 1970. Front cover, “McCartney” album. Bowl with cherries photographed by Linda. Click for CD or digital.

Side one
“The Lovely Linda” – 0:43
“That Would Be Something” – 2:38
“Valentine Day” – 1:39
“Every Night” – 2:31
“Hot as Sun/Glasses” – 2:05
“Junk” – 1:54
“Man We Was Lonely” – 2:56

Side two
“Oo You” – 2:48
“Momma Miss America” – 4:04
“Teddy Boy” – 2:22
“Singalong Junk” – 2:34
“Maybe I’m Amazed” – 3:53
“Kreen-Akrore” – 4:15

The album cover, a photo of an emptied bowl with cherries strewn across a white strip, was taken by Linda when on vacation in Antigua.

During the release of the McCartney album, meanwhile, there had been something of an ongoing battle behind the scenes between Paul and the other Beatles, and their record label, Apple, over the timing of releasing Paul’s album (also from Apple), versus the Beatles’ Let it Be album, plus a scheduled album from Ringo. Eventually – after some unpleasantness between Paul and others – Paul’s album was set for April 17, 1970, to precede the Let it Be album, which would come out later, on May 8, 1970.

April 1970. UK news story on Paul quitting the Beatles. Lower headline also notes, "Clash Over The Running of Apple".

Prior to the McCartney album’s release, however, there was also a press release from Paul and Apple on the album, which included a statement about Paul’s departure from the Beatles that made front-page headlines in London on April 10th, 1970. Thus Paul was seen publicly as the prime mover in the group’s break up, when in reality, there were multiple reasons for the group’s demise (the formal break up of the Beatles would not come for months, with legal entanglements for several years thereafter).

McCartney was released in Britain on April 17, 1970, and three days later in the U.S. In the UK, the album debuted at No. 2, where it remained for three weeks behind the best-selling album of 1970, Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Although McCartney’s standing among Beatles fans had plummeted as a result of his announcement that he was leaving the Beatles, news of the band’s break-up ensured that the album was highly publicized and helped it gain notice.

By May 15th, 1970, McCartney had sold over 1 million copies in the U.S., and from May 23, 1970, McCartney began a three-week stay at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, eventually going double platinum.

Despite the album’s good sales performance, a number of music critics dismissed the work as mediocre – with the exception of “Maybe I’m Amazed.” A few praised Paul’s skills with melody on some of the tracks, or noted it’s home-made quality. Rolling Stone reviewer, Langdon Winner, found most of the songs “distinctly second rate” relative to McCartney’s best work as a Beatle.

April 30, 1970. Paul McCartney interviewed for “Rolling Stone,” in which, among other things, he spoke about his solo album and the Beatles. Click for magazine or Kindle subscription.

Nor did his former Beatle bandmates have much to praise about it, feeling betrayed by its release at the time of the Beatles break up. Lennon, in fact, called it “rubbish” and “Engelbert Humperdinck music.”

Yet Paul had set out to make a minimalist, no-frills-just-the-basics collection of songs, and admitted to some experimentation, and that it was not on a par with the studio-engineered, George Martin-helmed Beatles albums.

Paul McCartney was interviewed for the April 30, 1970 edition of Rolling Stone, in which, among other things, he spoke about his solo album and his desire to become a broader musician.

“From very early on, when our bass player [Stuart Sutcliffe] died, I have been lumbered with the bass,” he said. “All the time, however, what I really wanted to do was play guitar and play lead, so that’s what I’ve done on this LP [i.e., McCartney].”

Paul, at the time, was also personally unwinding, taking a respite from the fast-paced music world. He was also enjoying the contentment of family life, his marriage, and being a new father.

In his Q&A released on April 10, 1970, Paul described the theme and feel of the McCartney album as, “home, family, love.” The music on McCartney, his website would offer some years later, “represented a creative rebirth, bursting with new ideas, experiments, playfulness and freedom.”

In any case, the album was no doubt buoyed by the popularity of “Maybe I’m Amazed,” as Paul did not release that song as a single. However, the song did receive a great deal of radio airplay worldwide, helping boost McCartney album sales, and making the song one of Paul’s most recognizable solo successes.

Ram & Wings

May 1971. Paul & Linda album, “Ram.” Click for CD.

In 1970, Paul taught Linda to play keyboards and the couple began working on an album together that would be titled Ram, with a Linda McCartney photo of Paul and a ram from Scotland on its cover. This album was produced with the help of a few other musicians, but was mostly a Paul and Linda project, recorded in New York city between October 1970 and Mach 1971.

Ram was released in May 1971. One of its songs, “Uncle Albert” became a hit, while others on the album stirred some Beatles controversy, construed to be musical digs aimed variously at John and Yoko (“Too Many People”) and George, John and Ringo.(“3 Legs”).

“Another Day,” a song recorded by Paul and Linda McCartney during the Ram sessions in New York, was also a Top Ten single in the U.S., UK, and elsewhere. It was later included on subsequent editions of the Ram album in 1993 and 2012.

May 1976. Linda & Paul performing at Wings concert, Madison Square Garden, New York.

In 1971, Paul and Linda formed the band Wings, and despite criticism of including her as a musical partner in the band, she continued to be part of Wings until the band’s breakup in 1981. Linda would also continue with McCartney’s subsequent touring band through 1993.

Although Wings had periods of changing personnel, it was anchored by its core trio of Paul, Linda, and former Moody Blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Denny Laine. Of the nine albums released by Wings in the 1970s, all went into the Top Ten in either the UK or the U.S., with five consecutive albums topping the U.S. charts. Wings also had 12 Top Ten singles in the UK and 14 Top Ten singles in the U.S., including six at No 1. All 23 singles released by Wings in the 1970s reached the U.S. Top 40.

Cover art for Wings live version of “Maybe I’m Amazed.” Click for digital.

Wings also produced the notable James Bond theme song and 1973 hit, “Live and Let Die.” And seven years after McCartney debuted “Maybe I’m Amazed” on his solo album, Wings released a live version of the song as a single from their Wings Over America album. In early February 1977, that single rose to No. 10 on the U.S. Billboard chart and No. 28 in the UK.

Another Wings single in 1977, “Mull of Kintyre,” a tribute to the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland where the McCartney farm is located, became one of the best-selling singles in UK history.

In some ways, Wings, especially through the 1970s, was Paul still getting over and proving himself after his separation from the Beatles, and doing so, again with Linda’s help and presence throughout. The two were practically inseparable.

During the 1970s, in fact, the whole McCartney family was involved with Wings on the road, as Paul and Linda had their children in tow as well, which was surely a challenge at times, but which Paul has reflected was an important and memorable time. Professionally, Paul has also reflected, that the Wings Over America tour of 1976 was particularly gratifying, as it had turned out Beatle-equivalent crowds and recognition at tour stops, which was especially satisfying to Paul.

June 1976. The McCartneys & crew during dinner aboard their private jet over America during Wings tour. Mary is trying to hear Paul's guitar while Linda listens on headphones across the aisle, and Stella, to Linda’s left, looks on.

Linda & Legacy

Linda, meanwhile, also became an animal rights activist and wrote and published several vegetarian cookbooks. She and Paul founded the Linda McCartney Foods company, a successful vegetarian business marketing a range of food products in the 1990s, making her a millionaire in her own right. A book of her photographs was also published in 1992: Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era.

Paul, Linda & friend, possibly at farm in Scotland, early 1970s.

However, in 1995, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer and died from the disease in 1998 at the McCartney family ranch in Tucson, Arizona. She was 56 year old. A memorial service was held for her at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, which was attended by George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Joel, Elton John, David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel, and other celebrities among a gathering of 700. Linda’s ashes were scattered by Paul and immediate family at the McCartney farm in southern England.

In January 2000, Paul announced donations in excess of $2,000,000 for cancer research at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson, where Linda received treatment. Also that year, The Linda McCartney Centre, a cancer clinic, opened at The Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

Linda and Paul McCartney were married for 29 years, raised four children together. In addition to Heather, from Linda’s first marriage whom Paul adopted, the couple had three children, Mary, Stella, and James. And except for ten days Paul spent in jail in Japan on marijuana charges, the couple had never been apart. In April 1999, Paul McCartney, and others, performed at the “Concert for Linda” tribute at the Royal Albert Hall, which had been organized by two of their friends, Chrissie Hynde and Carla Lane.

Linda’s photographic work, meanwhile, has been reprinted in several books and exhibited at more than fifty galleries around the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Paul McCartney retains Linda’s photographic legacy, and in recent years has made selections of her photos available for public exhibits, donating some of her work to British museums. Regarding Linda’s talent as a photographer, Paul would note, “she always put people at ease, no matter who she was taking a photograph of…She just had a way of disarming you.”

A Memorable Photo
John & Paul, 1968

Linda Eastman McCartney took hundreds of photos, both during her early career as an entertainment photographer and after she was married to Paul McCartney. Some of her photos captured the Beatles at work. And one of those photos – the one shown below – is of John Lennon and Paul McCartney at work in 1968 during their Beatles career. To the right of the photo, Paul explains the context and his feeling about this photo and its importance to him, as he described the photo and context in a June 2019 interview with the London newspaper, The Guardian, discussing several of Linda’s photos for that story. Here’s Paul:

1968. Linda McCartney photo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney at work at Abbey Road studios, possibly composing a song together.

“This is me and John, in Abbey Road. It wasn’t too long before the breakup of the Beatles; this would be the end of our relationship and, at the end, when the breakup happened, it was kind of sour – very difficult to deal with. The rumour started going around that John and I didn’t get on well, we were arch-rivals, that it was very heavy and ugly. The strange thing is you sometimes get to believe something, if it’s said enough times. So I used to think: ‘Yeah, it’s a pity, you know, we didn’t get on that well.’

“So this picture is a blessing for me. It’s like, this is how we were: this is why we related, or else we couldn’t have collaborated for all that time. It sums up what our relationship was like the minute we were actually working on a song, and most of the time we were together, really. I’m just writing something out – possibly it’s a medley or something; it might be for Abbey Road – and it’s lovely, because John is very happily in on the process, and agreeing with me, and we’re laughing about something. Just seeing the joy between us here really helped me, because it reminds me that the idea we weren’t friends is rubbish. We were lifelong friends, our relationship was super-special.

“That applied to all the Beatles, even when we were pissed off with each other from time to time. People used to remind me: that’s families, that happens. Mates disagree. As soon as we started working on music, we gelled, we just enjoyed the noise we made together, we enjoyed playing with each other. We’d worked together for over 10,000 hours over the years, and that old spirit automatically kicked in. Any disputes were got over very quickly.”
______________________
Source: Alexis Petridis, “Paul McCartney on Linda’s Best Photos: ‘Seeing the Joy Between Me and John Really Helped Me’,” TheGuardian.com (London), June 26, 2019.

Paul McCartney, meanwhile, remains part of two giant musical legacies – The Beatles, and since the Beatles with Wings and numerous other projects – as he continues to this day with his solo work, various collaborations, forays into classical music, stage and video productions, and more.

Vintage 1962 record sleeve for first Beatles hit. Click for collector’s box set of 14 Beatles albums in vinyl or CD editions.

The Beatles, of course, are ranked among the best-selling music acts of all time, with more than 183 million units sold in the US and estimated 600 million worldwide. They hold the record for most No. 1 albums on the UK Albums Chart, most No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and most singles sold in the UK.

The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a group in 1988, and all four were also inducted individually between 1994 and 2015.

As noted earlier, the Wings and Paul McCartney output during the 1970s was quite successful, with multiple platinum-selling No. 1 albums and more than 20 Top 40 hits.

Following the Wings era, McCartney continued writing, composing and touring. Since 1989, for example, and continuing through 2018, Paul McCartney has completed more than 15 concert tours, encompassing hundreds of shows, including 50 most recently during his Freshen Up Tour of the 2018-2020 period.

2010. Paul McCartney collecting his Gershwin Prize for popular music from President Obama at the White House.

Paul McCartney’s 17th solo album, Egypt Station, released in September 2018, debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard albums chart, and delivered a Top Ten performance throughout Europe, Japan and Australia.

Throughout his career, McCartney has accumulated a long list of honors and accolades, among them: 18 Grammy Awards; appointment to the Order of the British Empire in 1965; Academy Award winner (as a member of the Beatles) 1971; Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Music presented by Prince Charles in 1995; knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to music in 1997; Fellowship into the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 2000; Super Bowl halftime show headliner, 2005; Kennedy Center Honors and the Gershwin Prize for popular music presented by President Barack Obama in 2010; star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012; and others. As of 2015, Paul McCartney was also ranked one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, with an estimated fortune of $730 million.

In his personal life, Paul McCartney was rocked by losing Linda to cancer, and he mourned her passing for a good long while. But today he is married to New Yorker Nancy Shevell, the vice-president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate that owns New England Motor Freight. They had known each other for about 20 years, both having homes in the Hamptons.

Paul & Linda McCartney, 1970s.

Meanwhile, the song Paul McCartney wrote for his first lady muse back there in the rough waters of 1969-1970, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” is still among his personal favorites. In fact, as he remarked in a 2017 interview, it’s the song he would like to be remembered for in the future.

For other Beatles stories at this website, see the “Beatles History” topics page, and for a profile of John Lennon during his post-Beatles years, see the “Watching The Wheels” story. For additional stories on music history, artist and song profiles, and the music business, see the “Annals of Music” category page.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 15 March 2020
Last Update: 21 November 2021
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “McCartney: Amazed – The Paul & Linda
Story,” PopHistoryDig.com, March 15, 2020.

____________________________________

Beatles Music at Amazon.com…

The Beatles: 1967-1970, “The Blue Album,” 28 songs. Remastered. Click for Amazon.

“The Beatles 1,” Remastered (2000), 27 songs. Click for Amazon.

The Beatles, “Abbey Road” album, Remastered (2009). 17 songs. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

2021 book, “Paul McCartney: The Lyrics, 1956 to the Present,” includes descriptions of 154 Paul McCartney songs with commentaries on his life and music. Click for Amazon Kindle edition or two-volume hardback set, about 900+ total pp.

Danny Fields’ 2001 biography of Linda McCartney. Time Warner UK edition shown, 286pp. Click for similar US edition.

“Paul McCartney,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 624-627.

Sherryl Connelly, “Paul McCartney’s Girl-friends, Loves, and Lovers Documented in New Biography of Beatles Star,” New York Daily News, April 16, 2016.

“Linda McCartney,” Wikipedia.org.

Bryan Wawzenek, “The Day Paul McCartney Met Linda Eastman,” UltimateClassicRock .com, May 15, 2017.

“McCartney (album),” Wikipedia.org.

Kitty Empire, “Paul McCartney Leaves the Beatles (10 April 1970): Number 21 in Our Series of the 50 Key Events in the History of Rock Music,” TheGuardian.com, June 11, 2011.

Jann S. Wenner, “Q&A: Paul McCartney; Rolling Stone’s Founder Talks with the Rocker About His Solo Album and the Possibility of a New Beatles Record,” RollingStone.com, April 30, 1970.

“The Ex-Beatle Tells His Story: Interview of Paul McCartney,” Life, April 16th, 1971.

Tom Doyle, “’We Were Gypsies, a Bunch of Nutters on the Road. God, What Were We On?’: Paul McCartney’s Most Moving Interview Ever About Life with Linda,” DailyMail.co.uk, May 11, 2013.

“’Man on the Run’ Excerpt: Paul McCartney Threatened to Kick Linda Out of Wings and More,” Billboard.com, June 9, 2014.

Beatles Interviews Database, “Paul McCartney Interview: Beatles Break-Up 4/9/1970,” BeatlesInterviews.org.

“Break-Up of The Beatles,” Wikipedia.org.

Zach Baron, “Paul McCartney After the Beatles,” GQ.com, September 23, 2015.

Dalya Alberge, “She Loved Him: Linda McCartney’s 1960s Letters About Paul Revealed. In Three Handwritten Notes, the Late Photographer Writes About Her Budding Romance With The Beatle,” TheGuardian .com, November 24, 2019.

“Ram (album),” Wikipedia.org.

“Sir Paul McCartney Donates Photographs Taken by His Late Wife Linda to V&A Museum,… McCartney Has Made a ‘Major Gift’ of More than 60 Photographs Taken by His Late Wife Linda To The Victoria & Albert Museum,” Express.co.uk, May 3, 2018.

“Paul McCartney and Wings,” Wikipedia.org.

Paul McCartney Website, PaulMcCartney .com.

Alexis Petridis, “Paul McCartney on Linda’s Best Photos: ‘Seeing the Joy Between Me and John Really Helped Me.’ Linda Eastman Was the Award-Winning Photographer Who Captured a Generation of Rock Stars Before Marrying a Beatle. He Discusses How Her Work Changed His Life,” TheGuardian.com, June 26, 2019.
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Teaser Tag: Politics & Culture

2001-Today

“Street Smarts”
The Rise of Elizabeth Warren

February 27, 2020 J.D.

Elizabeth Warren featured in an Atlantic magazine story as she rose in Washington policy circles, here photographed in front of the D.C. sculpture, “Man Controlling Trade.”

Elizabeth Warren, among Democratic presidential contenders in 2020, began making waves on the national scene in the mid-2000s. Her rising profile was helped along with some national TV exposure during those years (more on that a bit later). And she was already a Harvard law school professor by then – an academic expert steeped in the mysteries of bankruptcy and credit law. She also had three books under her belt by then, a slew of law journal articles, and a seasoning stint in the Washington swamp.

But at the core of Elizabeth Warren’s soul and career, and her populist politics, is what she knows about the elite economic structure that governs America – and in particular, how banks, laws, and markets fuel and protect that structure at the expense of the 99 percent.

Warren has worked at the intersection of law and economics for more than 40 years, and during her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and as a U.S. Senator, she has pursued and advocated policy changes that would help democratize the economy for all Americans.

Contrary to her detractors, Warren’s remedy isn’t a dismantling of market economics. She is a “free market girl,” as she once put it, believing that markets can do a lot of good. Yet absent guardrails, as she has also explained, markets can be oppressive, arrogant, stupid, and unfairly beneficial. In her bid to level the playing field, she is part Mother Jones and part FDR; an economic insurgent intent on making structural change. Her plans are aimed at a fairer distribution of national gain and opportunity so that the 99 percent have a better shot at a decent life. That, of course, is exactly why the Wall Street elite, most of corporate America, and their handmaidens in Washington have opposed her efforts at financial reform, fairer taxation, and consumer protection. They fear what she might accomplish in these and related areas. Indeed, CEOs and government officials who have been eviscerated by her probing will grudgingly attest to her abilities in political and legal combat (see her YouTube “greatest hits,” for example).

December 2009. Elizabeth Warren, during her ascent, on the Boston Globe Sunday magazine cover as “Bostonian of the Year,” with tagline, “The American taxpayer’s fiercest advocate.”

In The Cauldron

It was the nation’s economic meltdown of 2008-2009 – and in particular, Wall Street’s bad boy bankers and credit manipulators – that really brought Elizabeth Warren front and center. For years she had dug deep into the machinations of banking, finance and commercial law, which made her an especially useful advisor as Wall Street crumbled and Washington panicked.

In mid-November 2008, while hosting a barbecue at her home for some of her law students, she received a phone call from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asking her to serve on the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) for the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) – the Congressional “Hail Mary,” as some have called it, to save the economy.

Before long Warren was in the thick of overseeing how the money was being spent, asking tough questions, ruffling egos, and becoming something of a people’s champion. In the process, she added a progressive ingredient of her own: a whole new federal agency — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to protect consumers from financial fraud and credit traps.

Along the way, Warren became a special advisor to the President, and later, to the Secretary of the Treasury. After that, in 2012, she became the first women to be elected U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, reelected in 2018, and then candidate for President in 2020. But all of this was a long way from her roots in Oklahoma, where the early seeds of economic fair play were planted in her ambition. Becoming a politician, however, was not part of her plan – at least initially.

1966. Elizabeth Warren, Oklahoma high school debate champion with debate partner, Karl Johnson.

Back Story

She was born Elizabeth Ann Herring in June 1949 — the last of four children and some years younger than her three older brothers. Growing up in Norman, Oklahoma – on “the ragged edge of the middle class” as she would later describe it – gave her some early, first-hand “hard times” economic lessons. At age 12, her father, a former fencing and carpet salesman, had a heart attack, plunging the family into difficult straits. He later became a janitor. Her mother went to work at Sears to help pay the bills, and they barely kept their home. The family station wagon, however, was repossessed. These experiences became part of Elizabeth Warren’s internal resume`.

But young “Betsy,” as she was called in childhood, was a pretty smart kid back there in Norman, where she completed grade school. At age 16, she graduated high school, heading up Oklahoma City’s Northwest Classen High School’s debate team, which took the state championship. Her family couldn’t afford college, but her debating skills brought a scholarship to George Washington University in Washington D.C. However, she dropped out after two years, deciding to marry her high school boyfriend, James Warren in November 1968. He was a mathematician and an engineer with NASA whom she’d been dating since she was 13. They settled in Houston, where Jim took a job with IBM. There, Elizabeth began commuting to the University of Houston to complete her degree. In 1970 she received a B.S. in speech pathology and audiology.

Jim’s work then took them to New Jersey, where he worked on the country’s antiballistic missile program. Elizabeth then briefly taught public school children with disabilities, before becoming pregnant. In 1971, her first child, Amelia, was born. Elizabeth was then 22.

After Amelia turned two, Warren enrolled in Rutgers University Law School at Newark. She received her J.D. there in 1976 and passed the bar as well. But shortly before graduating, Warren became pregnant with her second child, Alexander, and decided to practice law from home and briefly did wills and other legal work. During 1977-1978 she became a law lecturer at Rutgers School of Law. Husband Jim, however, was not keen on Warren’s pursuit of a career outside the home. The couple divorced in late 1978, but she kept the Warren surname.

1971. Elizabeth Warren with newborn Amelia.

Early 1970s, Warren with young daughter, Amelia.

By this time, the Warrens had moved back to Houston after Jim’s career had taken a new turn. Elizabeth then became an assistant, and later, associate professor at the University of Houston Law Center. A new bankruptcy law had come into effect about that time, and Warren used it in her classes. But she was also curious about this law beyond teaching, e.g., if this law was the fix, she wondered, what was the problem? Bankruptcy, it would turn out, and its parade of players – from hard luck citizens to giant corporations and the banks themselves – would become a central focus for much of her career.

Conservative Liz

1979: Young conservative, age 30.

During the summer of 1979, Warren joined a group of academics on retreat in Miami, Florida to study with the libertarian legal scholar Henry G. Manne. With financial support from industry and conservative foundations, Manne had formed a Law and Economics Center at the University of Miami. Warren, with this influence and her own thinking, was becoming a conservative economist, often siding with big business, even anti-consumer at times. “She was really into this ‘law and economics movement,’ where we assume that everybody is a rationale economic actor, markets are the best way to go, and we should keep government out of business,” recalled former University of Texas (UT) law professor, Tom McGarity

Warren would write several articles in the 1978-1980 period, on utility regulation, for example, promoting a pro-industry position. A 1980 article in the Notre Dame Law Review, argued that public utilities were over-regulated and that automatic utility rate increases should be instituted. She championed free markets over government regulation, and believed people should have the right to make as much money as possible.

Warren’s conservatism might have helped her land the UT job. According to Russell Berman reporting in 2020 for the The Atlantic, Russell Weintraub, then a law professor at UT Austin, recruited Warren after seeing her teach. Weintraub reportedly told colleagues at the time: “she was the smartest person in Houston, and we should hire her if we could.” UT also wanted Warren’s budding law-and-economics specialty on its faculty, and according to Calvin Johnson, a UT law professor, neighbor and commuting buddy of Warren’s, they hired her because she wrote well “with supply-and-demand curves from a conservative point of view.”

Still, Warren was mostly into policy at the time, not politics; she was essentially non-political. A sometimes independent, she bounced around between Republican and Democrats in national elections. She voted for the Republican Gerald Ford in 1976, but backed President Jimmy Carter in his unsuccessful reelection bid in 1980. Warren was a registered Republican from 1991 to 1996, because she thought “those were the people who best supported markets.” She finally left the Republican Party when she found it was no longer “principled in its conservative approach to economics and to markets,” and instead, tilted the playing field in favor of large financial institutions. (However, it wouldn’t be until her later years in Washington, post-1995, when Warren got to see Democrats and Republicans up close in the policy making process).

In July 1980, Warren married for a second time, to law professor Bruce H. Mann, a legal historian. She had met Mann at an earlier law and economics gathering. By 1981, she and Mann both had teaching posts at the University of Texas (UT) in Austin, although Mann’s was a visiting slot. He taught at Washington University in St. Louis and shuttled back and forth to Austin. Warren, meanwhile, agreed to teach bankruptcy law at UT. In the classroom, she earned a reputation for lively lectures and Socratic probing.

1986. Warren at the University of Texas; faculty photo published in the 1986 edition of law school yearbook.

Warren’s curiosity about bankruptcy, meanwhile, soon evolved into a major research project in which she would team up with two other UT professors — law professor Jay Westbrook and sociologist Teresa Sullivan — to examine what was happening in the nation’s bankruptcy courts. But the initial idea for the project began with Warren.

Bankruptcy Project

“I get this clever idea,” she would later tell the Boston Globe, recounting her plan. “I’m going to expose these sleazy debtors who are exploiting the bankruptcy system and their poor, hapless creditors and enriching themselves as far as the law allows by going through bankruptcy court. I go out with these other two folks [ UT colleagues Westbrook and Sullivan] and we start collecting data about the families who are filing for bankruptcy. We end up doing this big study, and it ends up as a book [As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America, November 1989]. And it completely turns me around…”

The debtors, in fact, were more victims of circumstance – not deadbeats or cheats, as Warren and others had first assumed. “We learned that nearly 90 percent were declaring bankruptcy for one of three reasons: a job loss, a medical problem, or a family breakup,” Warren would later write.

Nov 16, 1989, “As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America,” 1st Edition, Oxford University Press, 370pp. Click for copy.

Warren and colleagues visited bankruptcy courts in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas in research that continued through the 1980s. Their Consumer Bankruptcy Project was the largest empirical study of bankruptcy then undertaken. They discovered there was little collected data about consumer bankruptcy. No one in academia or government could provide basic information like the financial situations of the people who filed for bankruptcy or how much debt was discharged in the process. From 1982 to 1985, they collected a quarter-million pieces of data from 2,400 people in bankruptcy in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas. They read through thousands of bankruptcy filings, sometimes sitting in court hearings, talking with judges, and also interviewing hundreds of those then facing financial ruin.

Bankruptcies were going up in America in the 1980s, and continued doing so through the 1990s. Over a million families each year were filing for bankruptcy. People had problems in their lives before, but bankruptcy filings had stayed far lower. What had changed in the 1980s and 1990s? What difference was there in America? The answer: incomes stayed flat awhile core expenses went up, and people quit saving. Some went deeper and deeper into debt, as credit card companies, payday lenders, and subprime mortgages outfits saw new opportunities and pounced. And with that, the seeds of more and continuing bankruptcies were planted, figuring in part, in the later economic meltdown.

The bankruptcy project changed Warren, especially since the research required looking into people’s personal lives. “She saw more of the very difficult side of life of the people who go through the bankruptcy process,” said former colleague and co-author Westbrook. “She saw their struggles. And she saw a variety of ways in which the credit industry manipulates things in order to get them ever deeper into debt.” For Warren, bankruptcy and consumer credit would become lifelong issues – and emblematic of the systemic structural powers she would later name as part of the “rigged” economy that favors the one percent.

Upward Bound

By 1987, meanwhile, Warren’s law career began moving toward the Ivy League, a she joined the University of Pennsylvania Law School that year as a full professor (along with her husband). By 1990, she had an endowed chair at Penn, becoming the William A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law. She would teach contract and bankruptcy law at Penn Law from 1987 to 1995. Former students of Warren’s at Penn remember her as a tough but likable professor. Shannon Sanfilippo, a 1993 Penn Law graduate, noted, “I think she had all of our names memorized on the first day, so there was no place to hide.” Penn Law graduate, Eric Marandett noted: “She processes things very quickly, and she also understands arguments much more quickly than most.” Another remembered her as “whip-smart.”

By 1992, as a visiting professor, Warren taught commercial law for a year at Harvard Law School as a visiting professor. Then, in 1995, Warren left Penn to become Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

1990s. Professor Elizabeth Warren lecturing law school students at the University of Pennsylvania.

1995 was the year Warren began edging into politics, though haltingly at the time – receiving a call to come to Washington. “I didn’t come from a political family,” she said. “I hadn’t been political as an adult. I was raising a family, teaching school and doing my research,” she said.

Congress Calls, Pt. 1

In 1995, former Oklahoma Congressman Mike Synar (D), an old high school debating opponent of Warren’s (“defeated me three years in a row back in high school,” Synar would say), asked her to help him run a special commission reviewing the bankruptcy system – the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. Synar was appointed by President Bill Clinton to head the blue-ribbon panel that had the difficult task of recommending changes to national bankruptcy laws at the time when the banking industry was pushing hard to cut protections—even as the number of Americans declaring bankruptcy was skyrocketing. The finance industry wanted to make it harder to expunge debt on the theory that too many Americans were gaming the system.

1997. Inside title page for National Bankruptcy Review Commission final report, Vol .1, October 20, 1997.

Warren, meanwhile, said “no” to Synar at first, preferring to stick to her scholarship, fearing the taint of politics. But Synar promised to keep her insulated from politics.

Synar, however, died prematurely at age 45 when he was stricken by brain tumor. Warren then had to fend for herself, which she ably did, then leading the Commission and preparing its recommendations and report to Congress in 1997.

In the process, Warren was getting a new political education. “I quickly discovered that every single Republican was on the side of the banks and half the Democrats were,” she said. “But whenever there was someone who would stand up for those working families, it was a Democrat.”

For Warren, the experience was a turning point: “I picked sides, got in the fight, and I’ve been in the fight ever since.” Over the next several years she would be active in opposing legislation that would restrict consumers’ right to file for bankruptcy, later butting heads with Senator Joe Biden, who then sided with the banks on reform legislation, not consumers.

Warren continued teaching and writing at Harvard Law School. In March 2000, another book on bankruptcy, The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt was published. This book, co-authored with Warren’s earlier UT colleagues, Teresa Sullivan and Jay Westbrook, examined why most families in bankruptcy would be considered to be middle class and that most of them ended up in dire financial straits due to medical problems, job loss, or the breakup of the family. It picked up from their first book, with more data.

March 2000. “The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt,” Yale Univ. Press, Click for copy.

Sept 2003. “The Two-Income Trap,” by Elizabeth Warren & Amelia Warren Tyagi. Click for copy.

In September 2003, Warren and her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, published The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. At that time, a fully employed worker earned less inflation-adjusted income than a fully employed worker 30 years earlier. Families were then spending less on clothing, appliances, and other forms of consumption, but the costs of core expenses such as mortgages, health care, transportation, and child care had increased dramatically. The result was “the two income trap” – that even families with two income earners were no longer able to save and were piling up ever greater debt. Both incomes were committed largely to necessities, and when an unforeseen event occurred – serious illness, job loss or divorce – families had no reserve or discretionary income to fall back on. Two-income families were then worse off than single-income families of the golden, post-war 1950s-1960s era, having less financial security and less disposable income. Among the Warrens’ suggested remedies and actions were prohibiting credit card companies from charging grossly unfair interest rates and exposing banks that were luring minority customers with “loan-to-own” high mortgage rates certain to default. They also pointed out that families then seeking to live in neighborhoods with better schools for the sake of their kids’ education, were buying homes they could not afford. In any case, The Two-Income Trap received positive reviews. Time magazine called it “a startling account of the elusiveness of the American dream.” And Warren herself would later describe the books as “what happened to the middle class over a generation. From the 1970s to the early 2000s, there was a hollowing out of the middle class.”

Politico magazine’s “Friday Cover” featuring a 2018 story about Warren and the Dr. Phil show in 2004-05.

Dr. Phil

The Two Income Trap, or at least part of it, also got the attention of daytime TV host, Phil McGraw of the popular Dr. Phil Show, where the good doctor – in front of a live studio audience and millions of TV viewers – dispensed healing advice on any number of fronts to America’s middle class.

In Chapter 7 of The Two Income Trap, there was an ending section titled, “The Financial Fire Drill,” that caught Dr. Phil’s attention, as it aligned with his on-stage format. He invited Warren and her daughter to come onto his show to offer advice. And on March 10, 2004, under the show titled “Going for Broke,” Dr. Phil introduced Warren and her daughter to his TV audience and asked them to give advice directly to debt-troubled couples right in the studio. This was a whole new ball game for Elizabeth Warren, who would later see the magical powers of television.

After her first show, Dr. Phil gave Warren some advice, telling her that The Two-Income Trap was good but “too technically intense.” and she needed to write another book like it, but make it more people friendly. Warren and daughter took the advice, quickly producing All Your Worth, published in March 2005. This book was even more popular and accessible than The Two Income Trap, as it spoke generally to the audience that Dr. Phil’s show had exposed her to — distilling the complicated topics she had studied as an academic into TV-ready offerings. An outspoken critic of America’s credit economy, Warren honed in on credit debt and rising middle-class bankruptcies. Banks were increasingly learning to trap people in costly debt cycles, she would explain, partly by just confusing them. “For Bank of America’s credit card in 1980,” she would explain, “the agreement was 700 words long. The average credit-card agreement by the mid-2000s was 30 pages long, and it was loaded with ‘double-cycle billing’ and ‘LIBOR-linked’ terms [international banking rates] no one understood.” The effect, Warren concluded, was akin to predation, not just for those with bad credit, but for the entire middle class, which she felt was being hollowed out by agreements most people didn’t understand.

March 2005. “All Your Worth,” book #2 by Warren & daughter Amelia is published. Click for copy.

All Your Worth made the bestseller lists of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. The Washington Post called it “eye-opening,” and the Dallas Morning News, “the best explanation to date” for why Americans felt like they were working more and making less. Newsweek proclaimed it “provocative.” Warren would make two other appearance on Dr. Phil in 2004-2005. And it wasn’t just Dr. Phil, as Warren also began appearing on NBC, CBS, CNN and NPR. In her media spots, Warren came across as someone who knew her material, and was good on her feet and could turn a good phrase. She was learning the power of TV: a few minutes on Dr. Phil was more effective than a year in academia.

Still, Warren continued her academic writing. In 2004, Warren published an article in the Washington University Law Review in which she argued that correlating middle-class struggles with over-consumption was a fallacy. Her expertise was now sought out in more televised venues. She appeared that year on a nationally-televised Frontline PBS documentary titled “The Secret History of the Credit Card.”

Warren was also edging back into the Washington political realm. At the end of April 2004, Senate Democrats convened a two-day conference on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to discuss economic issues. She had been invited for a panel on the middle class after an aide to Senator Harry Reid had discovered The Two-Income Trap. On the panel, “How the Middle Class Is Being Squeezed By Bush’s Economic Policies,” Warren in particular had brought the subject to life. Senator Harry Reid, according to one aide, “came away very impressed with her ability to break down complex economic arguments, in a way that voters could understand, basically.” North Dakota Democrat, Senator Byron Dorgan, no slouch on economics, was also impressed. “A superb communicator,” he said of Warren. “Some people are very good at that, and others know the subject and start at A and finish at Z and everybody’s asleep, you know?” Warren also did some of her own advance work that year – pushing The Two-Income Trap into the 2004 presidential campaign, contacting Democratic candidates John Edwards, Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean. Senator John Kerry called the book one of the best on describing “the transformation that has taken place in America.”

February 2005. Elizabeth Warren testifying before Senate Banking Committee on bankruptcy reform bill and tangling with then committee chairman, Sen. Joe Biden.

In 2004-2005, Warren was also plugging away on bankruptcy reform. She had lobbied First Lady Hilary Clinton on the bankruptcy reform bill then pending in Congress, who then persuaded her husband and President Bill Clinton to pull the bill. However, that bank-favored bill returned in 2005, and that’s when in February, Warren went head-to-head with then Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Biden as she testified before his committee, opposing the bill that favored bankers and made it more difficult for consumers. She and Biden sparred over the bill, with Biden supporting the bankers, as the bill passed his committee and became law.

Other banking and finance work followed for Warren. In 2006, she appeared on a 60 Minutes segment investigating Sallie Mae and student loan debt. In 2007 she had penned a detailed piece on why a federal Consumer Financial Protection Agency — her brain child, like the Consumer Product Safety Agency – was needed to protect consumers, ferret out the “tricks and traps” of financial products, and prosecute the bad guys. Afterall, she argued, there were baseline safety protections and oversight for almost every kind of consumer product imaginable – from autos to food, toys to TVs – but there were no equivalent protections for consumer credit and financial products. A watchdog agency dedicated to this arena, she believed, would better regulate mortgages, student loans, credit cards and other financial products. More on that front would come a few years later.

Sept 19, 2008. Washington Post front page showing Hank Paulson, Nancy Pelosi, and Ben Bernake as TARP is formulated to rescue the economy.

Warren had also testified in late January 2007 before the Senate Banking committee on credit card industry practices and had long criticized that industry’s exploitive tricks and obfuscations –, i.e., “Let’s be clear. There is no one who is helped by a 31-page credit card document….”

But then, in late summer 2008, Wall Street began its meltdown.

Congress Calls, Pt. 2

Warren’s earlier research and analysis of what had been happening in bankruptcy and credit finance in the 1980s and 1990s, figured into the mix of factors contributing to the collapse of 2008. No surprise then that Senator Harry Reid called her that November, two months after Congress had fashioned the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). She was Reid’s pick to join the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) that would oversee TARP. Warren wasn’t sure of what powers the COP would have, but her instincts and methods would soon prove their worth.

The COP was charged with reviewing the state of the markets, current regulatory system, and the Treasury Department’s management of the TARP. The panel was required to report their findings to Congress every 30 days, and would prepare other special reports as well. The panel consisted of five outside experts – one chosen by the Speaker of the House, then Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ; one by House minority leader, then John Boehner (R-OH); one by Senate the majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV); one by then Senate minority leader (Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and one jointly chosen by Pelosi and Reid. All members were chosen by mid-November 2008 and the COP held its first meeting on November 25, 2008, when Elizabeth Warren was elected chairperson. The COP not only held its own hearing, but its members, and Warren, would also testify before various House and Senate committees to update them on what they were finding.

Dec 10, 2009. Congressional Oversight Panel at Capitol Hill hearing, (L-R) Paul Atkins, Chair, Elizabeth Warren, Damon Silvers, and Richard Neiman, evaluating whether TARP was helping nation’s financial situation. Photo, Alex Wong.

It wasn’t long before Warren made her presence felt. Early on, she tangled with Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary under George Bush and the first administrator of TARP. Warren exposed that the initial round of TARP money under Paulson was a $78 billion giveaway to Wall Street’s most reckless banks, not, as Paulson had claimed, a fair exchange of cash for equity. Warren appeared on the CBS Early Show in early March 9, 2009 to talk about how Paulson misled the COP, among others, in making her charge. Warren was also getting other media attention.

C-SPAN – the important cable sponsored TV network that covers Congress and all things policy and political – covered the COP and Warrren’s various appearances elsewher on Capitol Hill. allowing snippets of her statements to be used by news outlets and others, some finding their way to YouTube and beyond. Her questioning Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and later, Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner showed her asking tough questions.

The Daily Show

2009. Elizabeth Warren on The Daily Show. Click for video.

On March 22, 2009, she appeared in a NBC-TV Dateline show, “Inside the Financial Fiasco: Mortgage Madness.” And on April 15, 2009, Warren appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to explain how much taxpayer money Wall Street received and what they had done with it. And she actually did a lot more than that – providing a quick but very effective overview on the U.S. history of banking and finance regulation, and how various strands of this critical regulatory network in recent years started to be pulled apart by the powers that be, and that’s when things started to go bad. Here’s a bit of what she laid out (click on image at right for video version of below excerpt):

Warren: …Let me start that question in 1792. Okay, young country, George Washington is in his first term, and we have a credit freeze. There’s a financial panic. Every 10 to 15 years, there’s a financial panic in our history. You just look at it. And there’s a big collapse, big trouble, people lose their farms, wiped out. Until we hit the Great Depression. We come out of the Great Depression [and] we say, ‘you know, we can do better than this. We don’t have to go back to this kind of boom-and-bust cycle.’ We come out of the Great Depression with three regulations: [1] FDIC Insurance — it’s safe to put your money in banks; [2] Glass-Steagall [Act of 1933] — banks won’t do crazy things [with depositors money, like wild investments]; and [3] Some SEC regulations [i.e., regulation of stock trading]. We go 50 years without a financial panic, without a crisis —

Stewart: A couple of recessions, and then, there are some down times.

Warren: But no crisis. No banks failing. You know, no big crisis like that.

Stewart: S&L [i.e. Savings & Loan bank failures], that sort of thing.

Warren: …Well, now, wait a minute: I said fifty years, because then what happens is we say, “Regulation? Ahh, it’s a pain, it’s expensive, we don’t need it.” So we start pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric, and what’s the first thing we get? We get the S&L crisis [1980s-1990s], 700 financial institutions failed. Ten years later, what do we get? Long-Term Capital Management [highly leveraged hedge fund failure, late 1990s], when we learn that when something collapses one place in the world, it collapses everywhere else. Early 2000’s, we get Enron, which tells us the books are dirty. And what is our repeated response? We just keep pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric.

Warren: So we have two choices. We’re gonna make a big decision, probably over about the next 6 months. And the big decision we’re gonna make is, it’s gonna go one way or the other. We’re gonna decide, basically, “Hey, we don’t need regulation. “I don’t know what you did just there, but for a second that was like financial chicken soup for me. Thank you….” -Jon StewartYou know, it’s fine: boom-and-bust, boom-and-bust, boom-and-bust — and good luck with your 401(k).” Or alternatively, we’re gonna say, “You know, we’re gonna put in some smart regulation that’s going to adapt to the fact that we have new products.” And what we’re gonna have going forward is, we’re gonna have some stability and some real prosperity for ordinary folks.

“That is the first time in six months to a year that I felt better,” Stewart said after Warren summed up the financial history. “I don’t know what you did just there but for a second that was like financial chicken soup for me. Thank you. That actually put things in perspective that made a little sense…” Warren’s national profile notched up a little bit more after that and other TV appearances.

C-SPAN excerpts of her grilling of public officials began appearing on YouTube helped move her into the national spotlight. She was articulating the outrage of millions of Americans, some of whom lost their homes while bankers were being bailed out.

Warren surprised members of her own staff when she began using the nearby Senate recording studio to produce monthly videos of her COP reports. She and staff also created a comprehensive website with a regularly updated blog – this at a time when such digital tools weren’t widely used by members of Congress. But she also received a few friendly warnings: the COP’s printed reports were “far too direct,” one Capitol Hill aide told her, not hedged in the language politicians were accustomed to.

2009. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner being questioned by Elizabeth Warren at Sept 2009 hearing. Click for C-SPAN video.

By late April 2009, Warren’s COP had a Capitol Hill hearing at which Warren grilled then Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner on the TARP program, pointedly asking him why the bank bailouts were structured differently than auto bailout. Geithner also appeared before Warren’s panel that September, shown at left. During the questioning, there were some detailed exchanges, as Geithner defended himself, and the program, as well as other actions of the federal reserve and administration.

Geithner and other Obama administration officials would appear before Warren and the COP on other occasions, and her questioning was so direct at times that it stunned some of the Republicans on the COP panel. Geithner, for one, according to some sources, would not forget his encounters with Warren. She was also critical of the banks and the Obama administration on Fox and Friends, in the New York Times, and in Michael Moore’s 2009 documentary Capitalism: A Love Story.

Warren was not in Washington to win any popularity contests, and she said as much, then believing her COP stint a one-time political appointment. “I have no future in this… I have lifetime tenure [at the Harvard Law School]. What are you going to do to me?,” she told the Boston Globe in late 2009. Her rising notice made her a media favorite, called to TV news and talk shows. She also appeared in documentaries – among them, two PBS/Frontline shows: “Breaking the Bank” in June 2009 (on the banking crisis and what COP was doing) and “The Card Game” in November 2009 (how banks and credit card companies were reacting to new government regulations). And there were other media appearances, as well, including a return to John Stewart’s The Daily Show in late January 2010.

And while Warren and others sought financial reform in Washington, banks and other business interests on the other side were not standing still. According to the Center for Public Integrity, from 2009 through the beginning of 2010, more than 850 businesses and trade groups paid lobbyists $1.3 billion to fight financial reform.

May 2010. Time magazine cover showing Warren as one of three women – with Mary Schapiro, Sheila Bair – dubbed “The New Sheriffs of Wall Street,” to “clean up the mess” and regulate banking and finance.

By May 2010, Warren appeared on the cover of Time magazine along with Mary Schapiro, Sheila Bair – the three women dubbed “The New Sheriffs of Wall Street” – the women charged with cleaning up the 2008 financial mess, and featured in the cover story. “They were underestimated by men,” said part of the lead tagline, “and were not accustomed to taking no for an answer.” They would regulate banking and finance for the next generation.

Warren, for her part, was then also working with then Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) to hammer out the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation in June of 2010.

Barney Frank gave her high marks in the process. “When we actually got into the legislative drafting, she was unusually good for someone who wasn’t involved with the political process.” She exhibited “tactical flexibility,” Frank explained, “ordering priorities, fighting for the ones you think are most important, and being willing to compromise on others.”

Warren used her new platform to lobby for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog agency she had advocated three years earlier to better regulate mortgages, student loans, credit cards and other financial products. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce promptly announced that it would spend “whatever it takes” to defeat Warren’s proposal. At least $3 million in Chamber advertising was thrown into the fray. Still, after much political wrangling, the new consumer agency was authorized under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. On September 17, 2010 President Obama appointed Warren as assistant to the president and special adviser to the Treasury secretary in order to set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

But behind the scenes in the White House, there was some difficulty with Warren and the new agency – chiefly the fact that Republicans and Wall Street were loaded for bear should Obama try to nominate Warren as the agency’s first director. His temporary middle ground was the September 2010 naming of her as an assistant to the president and special adviser to Treasury Secretary Geithner while she staffed the agency, delaying the decision to name a director.

September 17, 2010. President Barack Obama appoints Elizabeth Warren as assistant to the president and special adviser to the Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner to launch new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

There had been an impressive array of support for naming Warren: the AFL-CIO, scores of consumer groups, numerous newspaper editorials. bloggers galore, and several hundred thousand people and organizations signing White House petitions to the on her behalf. Yet the other side was out in force – Wall Street finance, most Republicans, and also some Democrats, including some in Obama’s own White House – all blocking her chances. Timothy Geithner for one, having been roughed up a time or two before Warren’s oversight panel, was privately not a big fan. Obama was also running for a second term, and had Wall Street campaign money to consider.

On May 2, 2011, more than 40 Republican senators sent a letter to Obama, citing “the lack of accountability in the structure” of the CFPB, and that its director had “unprecedented authority” over financial institutions and main street businesses.” They promised to block confirmation of anyone nominated to direct the CFPB unless the bureau’s structure was overhauled.

In July 8th 2011, nearly a year after Obama had signed the Dodd-Frank bill and after Warren had spent 10 months setting up the CFPB with 500 staff ready to go, Obama in the Rose Garden, nominated former Ohio Attorney General, Richard Cordray, to lead the CFPB. Warren had already brought Cordray to the CFPB as its chief enforcement officer. Still, Cordray’s nomination would face some difficult political fights before being finally confirmed.

July 11, 2011. Elizabeth Warren, under siege, on the cover of “Bloomberg BusinessWeek” magazine

Warren, meanwhile, had been offered another option by Obama: run for the Massachusetts Senate seat in the 2012 election. Warren, however, did not immediately jump at the opportunity.

Obama would send advisor David Axelrod to informally meet with Warren and her husband about the idea. Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer also lobbied her, promising to help with experienced campaign teams. Warren’s national profile, and likely ability to raise money, suggested she was an ideal recruit for the Democrats’ top Senate target in 2012. Still, she mulled it over.

Warren, wherever she went, would likely continue to be a target of Wall Street and big business.

A July 2011 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, a popular Wall Street and New York financial and business magazine produced by Mike Bloomberg’s empire, issued the cover image of her at left with its spattering of critical epithets and tagline that read: “Banks don’t trust her. Republicans won’t confirm her [for the CFPB]. Yet Elizabeth Warren had already won her battle to remake how America borrows.” But some insiders in the Administration and on Capitol Hill felt Warren had gotten “a little ahead of her skis,” as it were, ruffling delicate egos with her directness and hard-charging ways.

Nevertheless, Warren, with her straight talk and media appearances had become something of a populist hero. And by August 2011, she began moving toward elective office with a “listening tour” in Massachusetts to explore making a run for the U.S. Senate.

What She Knows

From the more liberal press, meanwhile, Vanity Fair magazine of November 2011, offered a feature piece on Elizabeth Warren by Suzanna Andrews which explored the Wall Street and Republican efforts to keep Warren out of power – then to keep her from leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the key thesis of this Vanity Fair piece was to highlight what Warren knew about how Wall Street finance really worked – and her ability to communicate the arcane practices of high finance plainly to the public and in the policy arena. Warren’s knowledge about the world of banking and finance was what the Wall Street gang and their accomplices in Washington feared most about her. “Keep Warren out at all costs,” was essentially their mantra and main goal.

November 2011. First two pages of a Vanity Fair story on Warren, “The Woman Who Knew Too Much,” recounting her struggles with the Obama Administration, various political friends and enemies, and Wall Street financial opponents in the battle over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and her bid to lead it. Click for story.

Warren “knew what she was talking about,” explained Andrews in her article, noting that Wall Street’s power in Washington, “was built partly on the fact that few people outside Wall Street understand the esoterica of finance—the intricacies of C.D.O.’sShe knew the secret hand-shake, the secret language. [collateralized debt obligation, a structured finance product] and the labyrinthian structures of credit-default swaps.” That knowledge, “is used to control and confuse,” explained Andrews. But it didn’t confuse Warren. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), quoted in the piece, said of Warren: “She understands the information as well as the top players in the business.” Warren knew “the secret handshake, the secret language,” as Andrews put it, and she used it against the Wall Street CEOs and Washington’s movers and shakers. And that’s why the Wall Street financial gang did all in their power to keep her from running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But by the time of her bid for the U.S. Senate, they would come at her again.

Senate Race

2012. "Warren For Senate" logo.

On September 14, 2011, Elizabeth Warren announced her bid for the U.S. Senate, challenging Republican incumbent, Scott Brown. Massachusetts had never elected a woman to statewide office. And there were a lot of people, according to Stephanie Schriock of Emily’s List who helped recruit Warren, who were adamant that a woman couldn’t win.

But at a campaign event in Andover, MA about a week after Warren’s announcement, it became clear that Warren had something to say that could resonate in Massachusetts and beyond. There, at a private residence with an overflowing crowd, Warren gave a rousing defense of liberal economics, responding to a charge that asking the rich to pay more taxes was “class warfare.” She also made clear how “public goods” supported private gain:

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. … You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Parts of this Warren speech was video taped by an attendee and put on YouTube where it went viral. Political wags learning of this agreed that Warren had tapped into something that could go beyond Massachusetts and have a national appeal. Even Obama would later use a bit of Warren’s message in his own 2012 re-election campaign.

April 2012. Conservative National Review magazine features U.S. Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren as the “occupy candidate” re Wall Street protests at the time.

By August 2012 the political director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce stated that “no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren.” Yet in her campaign for the U.S. Senate, Warren received support across the political spectrum, including some Republicans.

Sheila Bair, the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and a lifelong Republican, endorsed Warren in the Massachusetts race. Bair had worked with Warren, during the financial crisis and in its aftermath, and in early November 2012, before election day, Bair did an interview on CNN during which she had high praise for Warren.

“We probably don’t agree on all the fiscal issues,” Bair said. “But on financial reform, we do. Most importantly, I think she’s a person of integrity who is going to be independent … And we need more independent thinkers like that in Washington, people who will be independent of special interests…. I know Elizabeth well…She’s really, she’s just whip-smart and she’ll be a player from day one if she gets elected.”

On the Senate campaign trail, Warren would repeat her economic charges, born of years-long research: that middle-class families were getting hammered and that Washington doesn’t get it. “G.E. doesn’t pay any taxes,” she would say, referring to the giant corporation, General Electric, “and we are asking college kids to take on even more debt to get an education, and asking seniors to get by on less. These aren’t just economic questions. These are moral questions.”

Opinion polling indicated a close race between Warren and Brown, though Warren opened up a small lead in the final few weeks. She went on to defeat Brown by over 236,000 votes, 54 percent to 46 percent. Warren also raised $39 million — more than any other Senate candidate in 2012, and showed, according to the New York Times, “that it was possible to run against the big banks without Wall Street money and still win”.

Jan 2013. Senator Warren in ceremonial swearing-in photo with husband Bruce Mann and Vice President Joe Biden.

June 2014. Warren with Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Patty Murray (D-WA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at Capitol Hill news conference on college affordability.

Sept 2014. Senator Warren at Capitol Hill rally for senior citizens.

In The Senate

Taking her seat in the U.S. Senate, Warren was assigned to three committees: the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee; the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; and the Special Committee on Aging. She wasted little time getting to work. At her first Banking Committee hearing in February 2013, she asked banking regulators when they had last taken a Wall Street bank to trial, adding: “I’m really concerned that ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial’.” Videos of Warren’s questioning went viral, amassing more than one million views in a matter of days.

In March 2013, she asked Treasury officials why criminal charges were not brought for money laundering against multinational banking and investment giant, HSBC ( holding company for world’s 7th largest bank, established in London by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation). “If you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine,” she observed, offering a street crime contrast, “the chances are good you’re going to go to jail … But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night.”

Warren also used the power of her Senate office to pressure federal agencies. In May 2013 letters to the Justice Department, the SEC, and the Federal Reserve, Warren questioned their decisions to settle cases rather than prosecute in court. Legislatively, she introduced a number of new bills, among them, in May 2013, the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act, proposing that students should get “the same great deal that banks get” – i.e., 0.75 percent, the rate banks were then paying to borrow from the federal government.

November 2013 - New Republic story on how Democrats were beginning to see Warren as a party favorite.

Rising Democrat

Through 2013 and 2014 there was continued coverage of Warren’s rising in the Democratic ranks, even as a possible alternative to then Senator Hillary Clinton, the likely Democrat to run for president in 2016.

By September 2013, bumper stickers and T-shirts began surfacing in liberal enclaves proclaiming, “I’m from the Elizabeth Warren Wing of the Democratic Party.” In October 2013, however, Warren joined the other 15 female Democratic senators in signing a letter that encouraged Hillary Clinton to run for president. Still, The New Republic magazine in November 2013 ran a cover full of Warren faces with the tagline, “Hillary’s Nightmare: A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies With Elizabeth Warren Instead.”

In late April 2014, Warren’s memoir, A Fighting Chance, was published. The book’s title refers to a time, Warren says, that is now gone; a time when families of modest means who worked hard and played by the rules had at a fair shot – a fighting chance – at the American dream. The book received positive reviews.

The New York Review of Books called it “A revealing account of Warren’s rise to prominence…[Her] arguments demand to be taken seriously….As a politician and activist, Warren’s great strength is that she retains the outsider’s perspective, and the outsider’s sense of moral outrage, which runs throughout A Fighting Chance…”

Paperback edition of Warren’s 2014 memoir, “A Fighting Chance.” Click for copy.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s review called it: “Passionate… Her vision [for the country], laid out elegantly and effectively in A Fighting Chance, involves investments by ‘we the people,’ through our government, in schools, roads and research labs, and in a social safety net for ‘the least among us,’ investments that are, at once, in our own self-interest and in the national interest.” Booklist gave it a starred review, noting in part: “…[Warren] offers a behind-the-scenes look at the political dealmaking and head-butting machinations in efforts to restore the nation’s financial system.” The book became a New York Times bestseller, with Warren making the rounds on the talk shows.

During the 2014 mid-term elections, Warren became a top Democratic fundraiser, and later that fall was appointed as Strategic Adviser of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, adding to speculation she would run for president in 2016. But during a December 15, 2014 interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Warren repeated four times that she was not running for president in 2016.

In early June 2015, during her first term as Senator, Warren sent a scathing June 2, 2015 letter to Mary Jo White, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), saying “I am disappointed by the significant gap between the promises you made during and shortly after your confirmation and your performance as SEC Chair.”

Also in June 2015, came a somewhat backhanded compliment of Warren’s rising economic-political notice with the cover of a Bloomberg Markets business magazine, which circulates on Wall Street and among the Fortune 500. The headline used – run above a head shot of Warren – made no bones about its message: “Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. Why Elizabeth Warren Makes Wall Street Tremble.”

June 2015. “Bloomberg Markets” cover & tag line: “Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. Why Elizabeth Warren Makes Wall Street Tremble.” A badge of honor?

The story inside the magazine, by Katrina Brooker, was titled: “The Elizabeth Warren Effect – How the Senator from Massachusetts Has Wall Street Trembling as She Fights Efforts to Roll Back Regulation.”

Warren was then in her continuing fight with big banks and financial institutions, none happy with the reforms she was seeking. Wall Street was then trying to rollback financial regulation established under the Dodd-Frank law of 2010, but Warren was in the way. Income inequality was also a rising issue, another of Warren’s central concerns. Americans were still angry about the financial crisis, and Warren was one of their more vocal champions in the U.S. Senate. On the floor of the Senate, Brooker noted, Warren called out financial giant Citigroup, acknowledging that the Dodd-Frank law put into effect after the 2008 crash wasn’t perfect, adding: “It should have broken you into pieces” – meaning a break up of big banks like Citi.

“Warren turned Citi into exactly the kind of villain so many people suspect lurks in the backrooms of the Capitol,” Brooker wrote. “In one particularly striking moment, she connected nine top government officials—including Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew—directly to the megabank. She invoked Teddy Roosevelt, her favorite trust-busting president, who took on the big corporations of his day.” Brooker’s story also looked at Warren’s ability to dig out tiny legislative details important to big banks and financial institutions — “obscure items tucked away in the middle of 1,600-page spending bill in Congress — and then call attention to the provisions as an unfair giveaway to the wealthiest one percent.”

Yet, casting shade on Ms. Warren’s professed intentions as the cover of Bloomberg Markets did with its June 2015 cover – might be stating the very reasons why a national leader with views like hers should be president: if Wall Street doesn’t like what she’s about, that’s probably a good reason for the 99 percent to join her crusade.

July 2015. Time magazine cover asked,“Who’s Afraid of Elizabeth Warren?”

Back in the Senate, Warren continued her fight. “Despite the progress we’ve made since 2008,” she said in July 2015, “the biggest banks continue to threaten our economy.” Warren, along with John McCain (R-AZ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Angus King (I-ME), reintroduced the 21st Century Glass–Steagall Act, a modern version of the Banking Act of 1933. The legislation was intended to reduce the American taxpayer’s risk in the financial system and decrease the likelihood of future financial crises.

Also that month, the July 9, 2015 issue of Time magazine, shown at right, ran a cover story entitled, “Who’s Afraid of Elizabeth Warren?” Those “afraid” in this story were Wall Street Democrats – and more pointedly, Hilary Clinton Democrats. The piece inside the magazine, by Micheal Scherer, was titled “How Elizabeth Warren’s Populist Fury is Remaking Democratic Politics.” It picked up from the cover tagline that explained of Warren: “She’s hounding Obama, haunting Hilary and paving the way for Bernie Sanders. How She’ll shape the 2016 race.”

During late 2014-and through 2015, Warren had picked fights with her own party, not all of which were well received. In December 2014, she attacked the White House and Democratic leaders for agreeing to roll back limits on derivatives trading by federally-insured banks. She called out Obama advisers involved with Citigroup, one of the major proponents of the change. Antonio Weiss, an Obama-nominated Wall Street investment banker slated for the No. 3 spot at Treasury, was blocked by Warren and forced to withdraw. Larry Summers, a top economic aide to both Obama and Clinton – and also a former consultant to Citibank – was blocked by Warren and other Democrats from becoming Chairman of the Federal Reserve. She also raised issues with an Obama trade deal, telling progressive activists in mid-June 2015, “he won’t let you see the deal,” adding, however, that “big corporate interests” were getting to see the drafts. Also during the summer of 2015 Warren launched a broadside against Mary Jo White at the Securities and Exchange Commission chair, criticizing White’s delay of new rulemaking for the finance industry, and raising conflict-of-interest matters related to White’s husband who worked at a Wall Street law firm.

Elizabeth Warren received lots of interest in a possible 2016 presidential run, but decided to support Hillary Clinton. Illustration, The Nation / Andy Friedman.

Some Democrats thought Warren risked overplaying her hand, that she was “pushing the envelope” a bit too hard; in danger of crossing the line. Her view of Obama as soft on Wall Street wasn’t held by most Democrats, according to then House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, a recipient of Warren’s critique, fired a dig at her, saying, “I don’t know if she fully understands the global banking system.” And Warren Buffett, generally a friend of thoughtful, fair-play market critiques, advised that Warren be “less angry and demonizing.”

Still, Elizabeth Warren’s Washington agenda remained ambitious – wanting, among other things, to break up the big banks, increase funding for Social Security, and slow the revolving door between the White House and Wall Street. But now, she was increasingly seen as a potential presidential candidate.

There had been heavy speculation for some time that Warren would mount a challenge to Hillary Clinton for the 2016 democratic presidential nomination. In fact, in early 2015, Joe Rospars, Obama’s former online fundraising strategist, sent Warren an unsolicited memo predicting, based on her past performance and then support, that she could raise more than $100 million online through the first quarter of 2016, adequate to mount a serious challenge to Clinton. But Warren declined, deciding she could accomplish more by fighting in the Senate,

October 2016. Senator Elizabeth Warren campaigning for Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Manchester, NH.

Warren was officially neutral during the 2016 Democratic primary season, though she had made public statements that she was cheering Bernie Sanders on. Still, On June 9, 2016, after the California Democratic primary, and while on The Rachel Maddow Show, Warren formally endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

Warren would actively campaign for Clinton through that fall and delivered the nationally-televised keynote address on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 25, 2016, the third woman in history along with Texas Representative Barbara Jordan and Texas Governor Ann Richards to be given that spot. Warren took the opportunity to draw clear distinctions between Clinton and her opponent, Donald Trump. Then came speculation about Warren being added to the Democratic ticket as a vice-presidential candidate. On July 7, 2016, CNN reported that Warren was on a five-person short list to be Clinton’s running mate. Clinton eventually chose Tim Kaine.

In the business press, meanwhile, the activities and outlook of Senator Warren were still of keen interest. Interviewed in Bloomberg BusinessWeek of August 2016, here’s a bit of what she then had to say when quizzed on the Glass-Steagall Act:

2016: Senator Warren being interviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek, August 8-21, 2016.

Q: Is there some part of you that’s thrilled Donald Trump is calling to reimpose the Glass-Steagall Act and force a split between commercial and investment banks?

A: I am delighted to see people of all political views engage on the Glass-Steagall issue. I think most Americans get this one: that there’s plain old basic banking, checking, savings accounts, and then there’s more speculative, high-risk banking. And those two should not be joined together. That’s what Glass-Steagall is principally about, and that’s why I think we’re seeing so much support for it all around the country.

Q: Are you surprised Trump is pushing it? He doesn’t strike me as someone who’s given deep thought to financial reform.

A: I’m not sure Donald Trump gives deep thought to much of anything. But on financial reform, it’s really hard to miss the Glass-Steagall issue. I get up and talk to people who are not very politically connected, and I say “Glass-Steagall” and get a big cheer. I think that because it’s not a distant, technical issue, it’s something that people can feel and understand.

Finance serves two functions: basic banking, moving around your money through checking accounts. And that needs to be rock-solid pure. That’s why banks get a monopoly to do that and why there’s FDIC insurance. In effect, banks get to do that in return for modest but steady profits. This whole business around using some of those funds, backstopped by an FDIC guarantee, to get out there and engage in speculative financial transactions seems fundamentally wrong to most people. I think that’s why it’s an idea whose time has come again. John McCain and I have submitted a Glass-Steagall bill…

Wells Fargo Grilling

September 2016. Senator Warren during questioning of Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, with documentation in hand, Click for C-SPANN video.

Back in the United States Senate, at a September 20, 2016 hearing, a Wells Fargo “fake accounts” banking scandal was the day’s top issue. Wells Fargo had opened two million checking and credit-card accounts without the customers’ consent in a practice called “cross-selling” to help boost its stock rating. Senator Warren called on Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf to resign, adding that he should be “criminally investigated” for the practices. Warren unleashed a withering attack on Stumpf, complete with documentation, CNN calling Warren’s probing an “epic takedown.” Warren charged that Stumpf was “gutless,”and demanded that he step down, also criticizing the bank’s firing of more than 5,000 lower level employees for creating fake accounts, while no upper level management were fired. Indeed, as Warren enumerated, Stumpf and others at the bank had enriched themselves during the course of the fraud. Front-line employees, required to create the fraudulent accounts, had to meet bank quotas with those accounts or face firing.

A poster sample of some of the “nevertheless-she-persisted” material that followed Senator Warren’s Senate rebuke of February 2017.

“…She Persisted”

In February 2017, during Senate debate on President Trump’s nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions for U.S. Attorney General, Warren, in a floor statement, quoted a letter Coretta Scott King had written in 1986 when Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship.

King wrote, “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to happen.”

Senate Republicans voted that by reading the letter from King on the Senate floor, Warren had violated Senate rule 19, which prohibits impugning another senator’s character. This prohibited Warren from further participating in the debate on Sessions’s nomination.

On the floor, explaining the Senate vote and prohibition, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, stated, “…She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” McConnell’s language in this last phrase became a viral meme on behalf of Warren and generally for women’s persistence in breaking through barriers, despite being silenced or ignored.“Nevertheless, she persisted” was posted widely on social media with various hashtag references. And shortly thereafter, there were all kinds of t-shirts, posters, and other items with some version of the phrase being used.

“If the Republican senators had intended to minimize Warren’s message,” wrote Amy Wang in the Washington Post, “the decision backfired—severely. Her supporters immediately seized upon McConnell’s line—giving Warren a far bigger megaphone than if they had simply let her continue speaking in what had been a mostly empty chamber, some pointed out.” Warren, meanwhile, read King’s letter elsewhere, streaming it live online.

April 2017. Warren’s book “This Fight Is Our Fight,” is published, Metropolitan Books, 352pp. Click for copy.

In mid-April 2017, Warren published This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class.

In the New York Times Book Review, Paul Krugman, Noble prize winning economist, professor, and columnist, wrote of Warren’s book: “This Fight Is Our Fight is a smart, tough-minded book….What Democrats need right now is a reason to keep fighting. And that’s something Warren’s muscular, unapologetic book definitely offers. It’s an important contribution.”

The New York Journal of Books added: “This Fight Is Our Fight provides an insider’s look at the machinations that are undermining the U.S. economy and political system. Warren spells out what is happening and what needs to be done to reverse the slide….Warren is outspoken, personable, emphatic, dedicated… It is unusual for any politician to be so open.”

At Amazon.com, the book has received hundreds of customer reviews, many giving it a top rating. It also became a New York Times bestseller, published in paperback and Kindle editions.

In 2018, Warren ran for re-election to the U.S. Senate and in November easily won a second term, defeating Republican nominee, Geoff Diehl, 60 percent to 36 percent. Even before she had officially won that election, Warren had signaled at a town hall meeting in Holyoke, Massachusetts on September 29, 2018 that she would later “take a hard look” at running for president in 2020. Two months later, at the end of December 2018, she announced she was forming an exploratory committee to run for president, followed in February 2019 with her official candidacy for president at a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts. A longtime critic of President Trump, Warren called him a “symptom of a larger problem [that has resulted in] a rigged system that props up the rich and powerful” at the expense of everyone else. “It won’t be enough to just undo the terrible acts of this administration,” she said at the rally. “We can’t afford to just tinker around the edges—a tax credit here, a regulation there. Our fight is for big, structural change….”

Feb 2019, National Review.	March 2019, The Nation.
April 2019, Politico.	May 2019, Time.
Oct 2019, National Review.	Oct-Nov 2019, Economist.

Through 2019, as she mounted her bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination and the primary fight, Elizabeth Warren has received continued scrutiny and “cover girl” treatment from both the left and the right. Some magazine cover images, for example, are included at left.

The cover illustration for Jonah Goldberg’s story in the February 7th, 2019 edition of National Review on “the dangers of the progressives’ favorite shibboleth: The Moral Equivalent of War’,” included caricatures of “Green New Deal” supporters, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), all shown in military attire, lobbying motors at some unseen enemy.

From the left, The Nation magazine’s cover of March 2019 showed Warren punching a small cartoon likeness of Donald Trump for its story, “A Fighter From Within: Elizabeth Warren Isn’t Scared of Trump—or Her Own Party,” by R. Sikoryak.

Politico magazine, for its April 12, 2019 “Friday cover” issue, explored Warren’s Republican years.

Time magazine of May 2019 featured a cover story on Warren’s presidential bid, including brief summaries of some of her much-touted policy plans.

National Review, several months later, in October 2019, also did their take on Warren’s plans with a Warren cartoon caricature on the cover along with tagline: “She’s Got A Wretched Plan For That.”

The Economist of October 24, 2019 also put Senator Warren on its cover with its feature story: “Elizabeth Warren’s Plan To Remake American Capitalism.”

Structural Change

Elizabeth Warren campaigning, U.S. News/Matt York/AP.

Wall Street and corporate America know that when Warren says “structural change,” she means their industries, their practices, their loopholes, and their lobbyists.

Among her proposals are those that would overhaul private equity, get big money and donors out of politics, jail guilty corporate executives, and implement a lobbying tax — and more.

Warren has touted her anti-corruption package – aimed primarily at corporate influence and special interest power in Washington, DC. – as among her first steps.

“Corruption has put our planet at risk. Corruption has broken our economy. And corruption is breaking our democracy,” Warren has said. “I know what’s broke. I’ve got a plan to fix it…”

And again, by “corruption” she means the fine print of law in thousands of provisions; fine print put there by the favored interests; provisions of law that need to be either removed or democratized so that the “one-percent skew” is no longer a factor. Warren – and the people she will bring with her – will work at democratizing the legal powers that shape the American economy.

On Wall Street

Should a Warren Administration take charge in January 2021, most of Wall Street and corporate America will not be among her leading supporters. But not everybody on Wall Street is at odds with what Warren has in mind. In fact, there are more Warren supporters in the financial and business sector than might be expected. Emily Stewart, writing for Vox.com in an October 2019 story titled, “The Wall Streeters Who Actually Like Elizabeth Warren,” noted for example:

…I spoke with more than three dozen people from across the financial sector — professionals who work at hedge funds, big banks, and private equity funds, in asset management, financial advice, investment banking, trading, research, and compliance — who support Warren’s presidential bid. They know if she lands in the White House that may make their jobs a bit different, their companies a little less lucrative, or mean they’ll pay more in taxes. And they think that’s great. They support Warren because of her policies, not in spite of them….

‘Even though, on a personal basis, Elizabeth Warren may be bad for me economically’ [one director at Citi told Stewart], she would be better for society, which I want my kids to grow up in’….

2018. Senator Warren being interviewed by "Mad Money" host, Jim Cramer on Wall Street.

“Mad Money”

And during her years unfurling bankruptcies, overseeing TARP, and as a U.S. Senator, Warren has never shied away from the business press. In fact, she has won over some of those analysts with her fair and thoughtful critiques. Among these have been Jim Cramer, the popular host of CNBC’s Mad Money TV show on the stock market.

Warren appeared on Cramer’s show several times, with Cramer admitting to colleagues at one point having a “soft spot” for Warren, believing her work was aimed at helping people. On a CNBC show of October 1, 2019, then reporting about Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction to Warren calling for the break up of big tech companies, Cramer felt the business community’s reaction to Warren was overblown. And he added: “I just want to stop the fear of Senator Warren. I really think that’s a mistake. I also don’t think she’s nearly as anti-business [as she’s made out to be]… I also think that some of these bank stocks are so bad I wish they’d break them up.”

2020 "Warren-For-President" campaign button.

Other reporting on Wall Street’s Warren supporters from Gideon Resnick at The Daily Beast in September 2019, found a few employees of major financial firms actually supporting Warren with $400-to-$500 donations. One was Jhoana Ocampo who has worked in finance for 14 years and had given Warren’s campaign $400 with plans to max out her giving to Warren. Ocampo said Warren’s policies resonated with her more than others. “I’m just a firm believer that we all prosper when the middle class prospers,” she said, adding that Warren’s plans are often perceived “as being extreme until you look at what the plans really say.”

A key part of Warren’s platform, and how she would pay for a variety of social programs – child care, student debt forgiveness, black colleges, improved public education, and others – is a two- tax proposal aimed at the extremely wealthy. The first is a 7 percent tax on business profits exceeding $100 million. The second, a wealth tax aimed at the top one-tenth of the richest 1 percent of Americans – 2 percent tax on fortunes over $50 million, and 3 percent on fortunes over $1 billion. Together, these two taxes, by Warrren’s accounting, would raise $3.75 trillion over ten years. While there would likely be challenges to implementing these proposals, they are extremely popular with most Americans, as is Warren’s rationale for offering them, such that wealth and huge profits are made possible by taxpayer-supported “common goods” like public infrastructure, police and fire protection, etc.

Then, in the final analysis, there’s the matter of actually getting that broader swath of the American electorate to vote for Elizabeth Warren.

Trump-To-Warren?

Politico’s Michael Kruse offered one interpretation of that question in his November 30, 2018 story, “The Making of Elizabeth Warren”:

…One way to look at what happened in 2016 is Donald Trump stole Elizabeth Warren’s issue. He ran and won because lots and lots of people are struggling and falling behind, and they’re angry, and they’re right to be angry, say people on both sides of the political divide, because the economy, the system, this country, is not working for them. But Warren had started to figure this out all the way back […in 1981, when her bankruptcy work began]…And through the lens of bankruptcy she had her eyes opened to so many of the other factors making life more and more difficult for more and more people. The plight of the middle class has defined Warren’s life’s work. She has thought about them longer and harder than just about anybody anywhere. Trump saw them. Spoke to them. And he connected.
…One way to think about 2020, then, is this: How can she, or anybody else, for that matter, get them back?…

October 2019. Senator Elizabeth Warren at a Norfolk, Virginia campaign event. Photo, Zach Gibson.

Warren’s performance in the early Democratic primaries as of late February 2020 was mixed at best, but perhaps only because many voters had yet to understand what Elizabeth Warren already knew about the “rigged system” and what she might do about it as president.

Warren's NY Times bestseller, "Persist," 2022 paperback, Metropolitan Books, 320pp. Click for copy.

Update. Although Warren had placed first in some Iowa primary polls in September and October 2019, and she drew huge early crowds during the primaries, she ended her campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination on March 5, 2020, finishing behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Thereafter, she continued her duties in the U.S. Senate while supporting and helping raise money for other Congressional and Senate candidates through her “Warren Democrats” group, established for that and other purposes. She also became an advisor to Joe Biden during his Presidential campaign and was one of four finalists considered to be Biden’s Vice President. Kamala Harris was picked as Biden’s running mate on August 11, 2020.

In the run up to Biden’s election in November 2020, there were press reports that Warren was interested in a possible Secretary of the Treasury position in a Biden Administration. Failing that, should the Democrats take control of the Senate, she might then make a run to chair the Senate Finance Committee or push for tough actions from that committee. Wherever she may end up, Elizabeth Warren will no doubt continue to advocate for “major structural change” in the economic system to redress imbalances that have straightjacketed most Americans. Stay tuned.

For additional stories at this website on politics, please see the “Politics & Culture” page and also two topics pages: “Democrats’ History, 1930s-2010s”, and “Republican History, 1950s-2010s”.

Thanks for visiting. And if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 27 February 2020
Last Update: 15 March 2023
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Street Smarts: The Rise of Elizabeth Warren,”
PopHistoryDig.com, February 27, 2020.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

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PBS/Frontline: “Inside the Meltdown: What Happened to the Economy?” Click for DVD.

“Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves,” Click for copy.

Gordon Lafer’s 2017 book, “The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time,” 272pp. Click for copy.

“A Seat At The Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters.” Click for copy.

Peter Temin’s book, “The Vanishing Middle Class.” Click for copy.

“All The Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of The Financial Crisis.” Click for copy,

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“Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises.” Click for copy.

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Teresa A. Sullivan, Elizabeth Warren, Jay Lawrence Westbrook, As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America, Oxford University Press, 1989.

David Cay Johnston, “Narrowing the Bankruptcy Escape Hatch,” New York Times, October 4, 1998, p. 9.

“Five Questions for Elizabeth Warren,” New York Times, Sunday, September 3, 2000, p. 7.

Elizabeth Warren, Op-Ed, “A Quiet Attack on Women,” New York Times, May 20, 2002, p. 19.

Dr. Phil staff, “Going For Broke: Financial Advice – Dr. Phil Invites Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi to Give His Guests Financial Advice,” DrPhil.com, 2003.

Elizabeth Warren Interview, Frontline/PBS, “Secret History of the Credit Card,” November 23, 2004.

“User Clip: Elizabeth Warren: Credit Card Industry Practices,” C-SPAN.org, Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren Before The Senate Banking Committee on Credit Card Industry Practices, January 25, 2007.

Elizabeth Warren, “Unsafe at Any Rate…Why We Need a Financial Product Safety Commission,” DemocracyJournal.org, Summer 2007, No. 5.

Elizabeth Warren, OP-ED, “Mortgage Brokers’ Sleight of Hand,” The Boston Globe, October 2, 2007.

David Barstow, “Treasury’s Oversight of Bailout Is Faulted,” New York Times, January 9, 2009.

“Elizabeth Warren Introduces the First Report of the Congressional Oversight Panel,” YouTube.com, posted by oversightpanel, December 11, 2008.

Melissa Block, “Expert: Few Clues On How Banks Used TARP Funds,” All Things Considered/NPR.org, February 11, 2009.

Thomas F. Cooley, “Elizabeth Warren’s Holy Crusade,” Forbes.com, April 22, 2009.

Catherine Rampell, “Elizabeth Warren on Consumer Financial Protection,” New York Times, June 17, 2009.

“Professor Elizabeth Warren, 2009 American Constitution Society (ACS) National Conven-tion, YouTube.com, posted by American Constitution Society, June 25, 2009.

Business, “Oversight Panel Chief on Stock Warrants (CNBC),” NewYorkTimes.com, July 10, 2009.

Business, “Oversight Panel Chief on TARP (CNBC),” New York Times, December 9, 2009 (w/video).

Jackie Calmes, “Geithner Finds Support, and Questions, on Handling Bailout,” New York Times, December 10, 2009.

Charles P. Pierce, “Bostonian of the Year: The Watchdog: Elizabeth Warren,” Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, December 20, 2009.

C-SPAN, “User-Created Clip: Elizabeth Warren [The Congressional Oversight Panel (COP)] Questions Timothy Geithner on TARP Bailout, Troubled Asset Relief Program Oversight Panel September 10, 2009,” CSPAN.org.

Jackie Calmes and Sewell Chan, “Obama Pressing for Protections Against Lenders,” New York Times, January 19, 2010.

Business/Dealbook, “Warren: Banks’ Sabotage of Overhaul Will Hurt Them,” New York Times, February 9, 2010.

Sewell Chan, “Concern Aired Over Banks’ Real Estate Loans” New York Times, February 11, 2010, p. B-2.

Cyrus Sanati, Business “Not Just for Laughs: A Consumer Lending Salvo,” New York Times, March 9, 2010.

Ben Werschkul, “Elizabeth Warren’s Mission,” New York Times, March 24, 2010.

Jodi Kantor, Business, “Behind Consumer Agency Idea, a Tireless Advocate,” New York Times, March 24, 2010.

Jodi Kantor, “Consumers’ Champion Wages Her Own Crusade,” New York Times, |March 25, 2010, p. 1.

Tim Dickinson, “Elizabeth Warren vs. Wall Street. She May Be the Only Person in Washington Who Stands Between Us and the next Meltdown…,” RollingStone.com, April 12, 2010.

Michael Scherer/Washington, “The New Sheriffs of Wall Street,” Time, May 13, 2010.

Joshua Green, “Elizabeth Warren,” Atlantic Monthly, November 2010.

Rebecca Johnson, “Elizabeth Warren: Held to Account,” Vogue.com, December 20, 2010.

Editorial, “New Top Consumer Cop Is Bankers’ Second-Worst Nightmare,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, July 19, 2011.

Jill Lawrence, “ ‘I Wasn’t Born at Harvard’: Elizabeth Warren Meets the Voters. Now Running for the U.S. Senate, The Consumer Advocate Conservatives Love to Hate Turns Out to Have A Deft Touch on the Stump,” The Atlantic, September 15, 2011.

Greg Sargent, “Game On: Elizabeth Warren Stands By Occupy Wall Street,” WashingtonPost.com, October 26, 2011.

Suzanna Andrews, “The Woman Who Knew Too Much,” VanityFair.com, November 2011.

Darla Shelden, “Oklahoma Debate Champion and Advocate for Middle Class Families Becomes Senate Hopeful,” CitySentinel.com (Oklahoma), December 14, 2011.

Kevin D. Williamson, “Occupy The Senate: Elizabeth Warren Meets the 99 Percent,” National Review, April 16, 2012.

Glen Johnson, “Elizabeth Warren Blasts Mitt Romney as She Introduces President Obama in Boston,” Boston.com, June 25, 2012.

Jeffrey Toobin, “The Professor; Elizabeth Warren’s Long Journey Into Politics,” NewYorker.com, September 17, 2012.

Noah Bierman, “Warren Releases Financial Report; Earned $700,000 in 2-year Period,” BostonGlobe.com, September 21, 2012.

Katie Glueck, “Sheila Bair: Warren Is ‘Whip-Smart’,” Politico.com, November 2, 2012.

Jonathan Martin, “Populist Left Makes Warren Its Hot Ticket,” New York Times, September 29, 2013.

Noam Scheiber, “Hilary’s Nightmare A Democratic Party That Realizes its Soul Lies With Elizabeth Warren Instead,” New Republic.com, November 10, 2013.

Gregory S. McNeal, “Is Affluenza Real? Ask Senator Elizabeth Warren And Other Experts,” Forbes.com, December 13, 2013.

“Elizabeth Warren’s Political Journey; 11 Photos,” USAToday.com, April 20, 2014.

David Moberg, “It’s the Inequality, Stupid. How to Frame the ‘Defining Challenge of Our Time’,” InThese Times.com, September 2014 September 29, 2014.

John Cassidy, “Elizabeth Warren Wins the Midterms,” NewYorker.com, October 29, 2014.

George Zornick, “Elizabeth Warren Insists She’s Not Running for President. These Activists Are Trying to Change Her Mind; But Would a Warren Campaign Help—or Hurt—the Causes She Cares Most About?,” TheNation.com, February 4, 2015.

Katrina Booker, “Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. Why Elizabeth Warren Makes Wall Street Tremble,” Bloomberg Markets, June 2015.

Micheal Scherer, “How Elizabeth Warren’s Populist Fury is Remaking Democratic Politics,” Time, July 9, 2015.

Kathleen O’Brien | For Inside Jersey, “How Elizabeth Warren’s Rutgers Roots Forged Her Future VP Prospects,” NJ.com, June 25, 2016.

Isabelle Taft, “How a Decade in Texas Changed Elizabeth Warren,” TexasTribune .org, July 13, 2016.

Matt Egan, “Elizabeth Warren’s Epic Takedown of Wells Fargo CEO,” CNN.com, September 21, 2016.

Ahiza Garcia, “Elizabeth Warren Wants Wells Fargo Firings Investigated,” CNN.com, September 22, 2016.

Karen Veazey, “The Rise of Elizabeth Warren From Determined Little Girl to Powerful Senator,” SheKnows.com,
Feb 10, 2017.

Andy Kroll, “Why Is Elizabeth Warren So Hard to Love?,” BostonMagazine.com, April 2, 2017.

Nancy Coleman, “Pint-Sized Persistence: Elizabeth Warren Action Figure Fights the Patriarchy from Your Pocket,” CNN.com, June 9, 2017.

Graham Vyse, “How Elizabeth Warren Became the Soul of the Democratic Party,” NewRepublic.com, October 12, 2017.

Elizabeth Warren, OP-ED, “Companies Shouldn’t Be Accountable Only to Shareholders; My New Bill Would Require Corporations to Answer to Employees and Other Stakeholders as Well,” Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2018.

Charles P. Pierce, “Elizabeth Warren Put a Stake in the Ground. We Should Pay Close Attention. If Corporations Want to Be Treated like People Then They Should Be Punished like Them, Too.” Esquire.com, August 16, 2018.

Michael Kruse, “The Making of Elizabeth Warren. In 2004, She Was a Respected but Little-known Academic with an Obscure Specialty. Then Dr. Phil Called,” Politico.com, November 30, 2018.

Associated Press, “US Sen. Warren Releases 10 Years of Her Tax Returns Online,” CNBC.com, Aug 23, 2018.

Sabrina Tavernise, “How Elizabeth Warren Learned to Fight,” NYTimes.com, June 24, 2019.

Sharon Cohen, [Associated Press], “Elizabeth Warren’s Rise Started by Looking at the Bottom,” Yahoo.com, August 25, 2019.

“Elizabeth Warren,” PopularTimelines.com.

Ryan Grim, “Elizabeth Warren on Her Journey From Low-Information Voter,” TheIntercept.com, February 19, 2018.

Rebecca Traister, “Leader of the Persistence; Elizabeth Warren’s Full-Body Fight to Defeat Trump,” New York Magazine, July 2018.

Julia A. Seymour, “CNBC’s Jim Cramer Boosts Warren’s ‘Novel’ Business Regulations,” NewsBusters.org, August 16, 2018.

“Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Accountable Capitalism Act | Mad Money | CNBC,” YouTube .com, October 29, 2018.

Jack Bohrer,“ ‘It Is a Pleasure to Blog with You’: Elizabeth Warren’s Early Years Online. When a Bankruptcy Reform Bill That Contained Favorable Terms for the Credit Industry Was Moving Through Congress in Early 2005, Warren Logged on,” NBCnews.com, January 6, 2019.

Grant Bianco, “’Whip-Smart’ and ‘Well-liked’: Elizabeth Warren’s Penn Law Students Remember Their Professor,” The Daily Pennsylvanian, January 22, 2019.

Jonah Goldberg, “Everyone a Conscript,” National Review, February 7, 2019.

“A Fighter From Within,” The Nation, March 2019.

“Elizabeth Warren: The Republican Years,” Politico.com, April 2019.

Tim Fernholz, “Elizabeth Warren Has a Very Timely Grudge with Joe Biden,” Quartz/ QZ.com, April 30, 2019.

“‘I Have A Plan For That: Elizabeth Warren,” Time, May 20, 2019.

Annie Linskey | Washington Post via CNHI News Service, “Dow Breast Implant Case Spotlights Elizabeth Warren’s Work Helping Big Corporations Navigate Bankruptcies,” July 23, 2019.

Rebecca Traister, “Elizabeth Warren’s Classroom Strategy a Lifelong Teacher, She’s the Most Professorial Presidential Candidate Ever. But Does America Want to Be Taught?.” NYmag.com, August 6, 2019.

Stephanie Saul, “The Education of Elizabeth Warren,” New York Times, August 25, 2019.

Alex Thompson, “ ‘Why Are You Pissing In Our Face?’ Inside Warren’s War With the Obama Team,” Politico.com, September 12, 2019.

Kevin Stankiewicz, “Cramer Says He Has a Soft Spot for Elizabeth Warren Because She Thinks About How to Help People,” CNBC.com, September 12, 2019.

Alexander Burns, “Elizabeth Warren Lost Her Dream Job but Gained a Path to 2020; She Had a Plan to Take on Big Banks. In the Fight to Get it Done, She Honed the Approach to Politics That Defines Her Presidential Campaign,” New York Times, September 21, 2019.

Gideon Resnick, “Why These Wall Streeters Are Giving to Elizabeth Warren. The Senator Wants to Go after Wall Street and Supposedly Inspires Fear Among its Top Brass. But a Few Employees of Major Financial Firms Are Excited to See Her Doing it,” TheDaily Beast.com, September 19, 2019.

“She’s Got A Wretched Plan For That,” National Review, October 2019.

Emily Stewart, “The Wall Streeters who actually like Elizabeth Warren,” Vox.com, October 23, 2019.

“WarrensWorld: Elizabeth Warren’s Many Plans Would Reshape American Capitalism; for Better and for Worse,” The Economist, October 24, 2019.

“Elizabeth Warren Wants to Remake American Capitalism. As it Stands, the Democratic Front-Runner’s Programme Has Too Little Time for Markets or Business,” The Economist, October 24, 2019.

Asma Khalid, WCAI/NPR, “Elizabeth Warren’s Journey From ‘Pro-Business’ Academic To Consumer Advocate,” CapeAnd Islands.org, December 10, 2019.

Tessa Stuart, “Elizabeth Warren: The Rolling Stone Interview. On the Campaign Trail in Iowa with the Progressive Warrior as She Tries to Prove She’s the Democrats’ Best Chance to Beat Trump,” Rolling Stone, December 19, 2019.

Russell Berman, “The Story Elizabeth Warren Isn’t Telling. The Progressive Senator Doesn’t Talk About Her Republican Past. Should She?,” TheAtlantic.com, January 10, 2020.

Sheila Bair, OP-ED, “The Republican Case for Elizabeth Warren. She Has Independence and Integrity and Is No Socialist. She Just Wants the Market to Work for Everyone,” Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2020.

_______________________

Teaser Tag: Film & Dance

1951-1960, 1981-1990

“Charisse & Astaire”
Girl Hunt Ballet: 1953

December 2, 2019 J.D.

Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire were two of the most elegant and exacting dancers of the 1950s, appearing as a famous dancing pair in a number of Hollywood musicals. A scene from one of those films – the “Girl Hunt Ballet” sequence from the 1953 film, The Band Wagon – is shown below. While much of the career of Cyd Charisse is covered elsewhere at this website – see, “Legs: Cyd Charisse, 1950s-1990s,” which includes Charisse dancing scenes, bio, and her history with Gene Kelly – a bit more focus is offered here on this famous dance sequence from The Band Wagon with Fred Astaire.

The Band Wagon is a American musical-comedy film, with stage roots dating to the 1930s. It tells the story of an aging musical star played by Astaire who hopes a Broadway show will restart his career. In the play-within-a-play storyline, Astaire’s character becomes entangled with, and falls for, the lead female dancer played by Charisse.

Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire in scene from “The Band Wagon”.

The Band Wagon — along with Singin’ in the Rain (1952) in which Charisse had her breakout appearance dancing with Gene Kelly — is regarded as one of the finest of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musicals.

The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli. The songs were written by composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz, and the choreography was by Michael Kidd.

“The Girl Hunt Ballet,” with Charisse and Astaire, is one of the most famous sequences from the film – and some say, in the history of dance on film.

In the dance, Charisse plays the vamp to Astaire’s private-eye character, who is heard narrating parts of the film. The sequence with Charisse and Astaire clearly shows their athletic talents, and Charisse’s incredibly smooth and elegant body movement in unison with Astaire.

Charisse also appears as the femme fatale blonde dancer with Astaire, which is set up elsewhere in the film (not shown in above clip, except brief shot near end).

Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire, “Dancing in the Dark” scene.

Another highly regarded Charisse-Astaire dance segment in The Band Wagon film comes with the elegant “Dancing in the Dark” sequence in Central Park where Astaire’s character falls for the beautiful dancer.

In seven weeks at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in the summer of 1953, the film grossed $1,044,000, then one of the highest grossing films at that theater.

In a July 1953 review for the New York Times, Bosley Crowther, called The Band Wagon “a show that respectfully bids for recognition as one of the best musical films ever made.” And indeed, by 1995, The Band Wagon was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” In 2006, this film was also ranked at No. 17 on the American Film Institute’s list of best musicals.

And while musicals like The Band Wagon are no longer made in quite the way they were in the 1950s, the film, its scenery, dress, and its dancing, have had an influence on later dancers and choreographers, including pop icon Michael Jackson.

Jackson Videos

Jackson, in fact, was influenced by, and borrowed from, the 1950s MGM dance scenes of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse when he produced some of his famous music videos. In Jackson’s 1988 “Smooth Criminal” music video for his hit song of that name, he pays tribute to Fred Astaire and The Band Wagon with a similar dance and bar fight sequence, which are also performed in a 1930s styled setting.

1988. Michael Jackson at center, along with other dancers in “Smooth Criminal” video, which has some dance, set, and costume similarities to 1953's “The Band Wagon”.

Jackson and dancers doing anti-gravity lean in “Smooth Criminal” video, also used in the 1988 Jackson film, “Moonwalker”.

The dancers in the Jackson video perform similar moves and wear similar period clothing. Jackson wears a white suit with a blue collar shirt and a white fedora type hat with a black stripe on it, replicating Astaire’s iconic outfit from “The Girl Hunt Ballet.”

Jackson also uses an Astaire line from “The Girl Hunt Ballet” segment – i.e., “she came at me in sections” – for the title song of his album Dangerous. In fact, according to Wikipedia, “Jackson notably pays homage to the film on at least three successive albums.”

But in “Smooth Criminal” Jackson and dancers also perform their own unique contributions, including an “anti-gravity lean” that appears physically impossible. “The Smooth Criminal” video also became the centerpiece of the 1988 Jackson film Moonwalker.

It is not uncommon, of course, for artists from one era to be influenced by, and build upon, the work of previous artists and their productions.

Jackson’s dance moves, in fact, were influenced by the work of a long line of previous artists, among them: Bill Bailey (first to “moonwalk”), Eleanor Powell, John W. Sublett — and especially James Brown and Fred Astaire. (See for example: “Michael Jackson’s Influences” at YouTube.com ).

Jackson often mentioned Fred Astaire as a prominent influence, and according to some sources, he acknowledged the influence of The Band Wagon sets and choreography on “Smooth Criminal,” reportedly dedicating that video to Fred Astaire.

DVD cover of Michael Jackson's “Moonwalker” film. Click for Blu-ray edition.

Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” won Best Music Video at the 1989 Brit Awards. The Critic’s Choice also awarded the Jackson production “Best Video” and People’s Choice awards for “Favorite Music Video” that same year.

“Smooth Criminal” was re-released in 2006 as a single and as part of Michael Jackson’s Vision: The Video Singles box set.

Other Jackson historians note that his “Billie Jean” music video also uses similar set elements as those appearing in the “Girl Hunt Ballet”, and Jackson’s “You Rock My World” video, is another of his videos said to imitate some of Astaire’s choreography.

Back in the 1950s, meanwhile, Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly and others were putting down some pretty dazzling choreography of their own, with a performance legacy that survives to this day. See at this website, for example, “Legs: Cyd Charisse, 1950s-1990s.”

For additional stories on “Film & Hollywood” please visit that category page. Two additional Michael Jackson stories can be found at: “The Jackson Statues” and “Michael & McCartney.”

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 2 December 2019
Last Update: 30 December 2020
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Charisse & Astaire: Girl Hunt Ballet,
1953,” PopHistoryDig.com, December 2, 2019.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

“Michael Jackson’s Vision,” a 3-disc set of Jackson’s music video singles, released in 2010. Click for Amazon’s Choice DVD.

2017 book on Gene Kelly, “He’s Got Rhythm.” Click for copy.

Bosley Crowther, “The Screen in Review,” New York Times, July 10, 1953.

“The Band Wagon,” Wikipedia.org.

“Girl Hunt Ballet” — Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, 1953,” YouTube.com, posted by Jean Belmondo, March 6, 2015.

Roger Ebert, “The Band Wagon (1953),” RogerEbert .com, March 27, 2005.

Robert Berkvist, “Cyd Charisse, 86, Silken Dancer of Movies, Dies,” New York Times, June 18, 2008.

Manohla Dargis, “Sylph or Siren, The Legs Have It,” New York Times, June 19, 2008.

Joe Holley and Adam Bernstein, “Cyd Charisse, 86; Actress Danced Across Silver Screen,” Washington Post, June 18, 2008, p. B-5.

Reuters, “Actress and Dancer Cyd Charisse Dies at 86,” June 19, 2008.

Christina Whener, “Girl Hunt Ballet” From The Band Wagon – Parody of Film Noirs and Detective Stories,” ChristinaWehner.WordPress.com, July 2, 2014.

“Smooth Criminal,” Wikipedia.org.

“Michael Jackson’s Influences,” YouTube.com, posted by Daniel Winter, October 31, 2010.

“Gene Kelly & Cyd Charisse” [from Singin in the Rain], YouTube.com, posted by OurMarvellousWorld, No-vember 22, 2011.

Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson, He’s Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly, April 2017, University Press of Kentucky, 560 pp.

As told to Dick Kleiner, The Two of Us: Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse, 1976, Mason/Charter, publisher, 286 pp.

Brent Phillips, Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood Dance, November 2014, University Press of Kentucky, 368 pp.

Earl J. Hess and Pratibha A. Dabholkar, Singin’ in the Rain: The Making of an American Masterpiece, 2009, University Press of Kansas, 346 pp.

___________________________

Teaser Tag: Western Pennsylvania

2001-Today

“Petrochem Peril”
Shell Cracker History

November 26, 2019 J.D.

In late October 2019, the mayor of Pittsburgh, PA, Democrat Bill Peduto, shook up the nation’s energy and petrochemical establishment, and sent local Chamber of Commerce types into a bit of frenzy, when he made some controversial remarks about the kind of industrial development taking place in Western Pennsylvania. Peduto, a leader among city mayors on green energy, spoke out against a future of fracking-fueled petrochemical and plastics industrialization, the outlines of which were already apparent on the landscape north of Pittsburgh where a $6 billion plastic-producing ethane cracker complex, owned by Shell Oil, was then under construction (photo below).

$Construction cranes dominate the scene in Beaver County, PA where Shell Oil is building a $6 billion ethane cracker complex to make plastic pellets. Plant will be fed by fracking wells and pipeline networks throughout the region.$
Construction cranes dominate the scene in Beaver County, PA where Shell Oil is building a $6 billion ethane cracker complex to make plastic pellets. Plant will be fed by fracking wells and pipeline networks throughout the region.

Peduto, in fact, was quite blunt about his position: “Let me be the first politician to say publicly, I oppose any additional petrochemical companies coming to Western Pennsylvania. …We don’t have to become the petrochemical/plastics center of the United States.” Peduto wasn’t out to stop the Shell cracker plant shown above. No, he acknowledged the plant was out of his jurisdiction and it would be foolish to take that stand since the project was nearing completion, slated to open in 2021. But Peduto was concerned about what might be coming next, as ExxonMobil was then looking around the region for a second possible cracker site, and some rumors had cited a third for the area.

October 31, 2019. Pittsburgh mayor, Bill Peduto, making his remarks at the Climate Change Summit.

Mayor Peduto’s remarks brought swift condemnation from those tied to the fossil fuels model of industrial development – some calling him “misguided” and worse, although a few of his critics privately told Peduto they were with him but could not do so publicly.

(About a week after the controversy had formed, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette veteran reporter, Don Hopey, did a piece on the various parties reacting to Peduto’s remarks. See, “To Crack or Not To Crack: Peduto Fires Salvo in Regional Climate Change Battle.”).

Yet Peduto’s speech was both courageous politically and raised legitimate and important concerns, not only for the Pittsburgh region, but for the future of the nation and planet.

Peduto has worked to make Pittsburgh a leader in high-tech, green energy development and environmental cleanup. Fracking and plastics, meanwhile, are at the center of the fossil-fuels model that will only feed climate change and worsen the plastics mess.

“I ask you,” said Peduto at one point, “how can we get our community to work together as one, to be able to end the nonsense of debating whether or not climate change is real and whether man is responsible; to end the nonsense of being able to say that our economy of the future is based on fracking and petrochemicals…?”

Just north of Pittsburgh, in Beaver County, where Shell’s ethane cracker is being built, the fossil fuels model is taking form big time, as a network of wells, pipelines, and processing facilities has begun to unfold in what might be called a “plastics industrialization.” Shell’s cracker will be supplied by fracking wells – i.e., wells that use high-pressure hydraulic fracturing of underground geology to extract oil and gas – drawing from the gigantic Marcellus-Utica Shale deposit that underlies more than 60 counties in the tri-state Pennsylvania/West Virginia/Ohio region (some studies rank that deposit as the world’s second largest natural gas field). The Shell plant will crack ethane molecules from incoming natural gas liquids to make polyethylene pellets – raw plastic – which is then shipped to manufacturers to create an array of plastic products.

Graphic shows tri-state PA-OH-WV region with underlying Marcellus-Utica shale formations and locations of three ethane crackers. Sources: U.S. Energy Information Agency and Paul Horn / Inside Climate News.

But the Shell plant is only the opening salvo. Some say the region can support up to five or more ethane crackers, given the Marcellus-Utica bounty. In addition to the reports of ExxonMobil’s scouting in the Pittsburgh region, and rumors of others, two additional cracker units have been planned nearby in Ohio and West Virginia, as seen on the above map. And each cracker complex brings a corollary network of supply wells, pipelines, fractionaters, etc.

Royal Dutch Shell artist’s rendition of completed ethane cracker petrochemical processing complex now being built in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, northwest of Pittsburgh, PA.

Mayor Peduto, meanwhile, is not happy with what he sees coming, fearing his “clean industry” build for Pittsburgh and the region’s future may be in jeopardy. “When you go and you talk to Duolingo [software] and Google and Microsoft and Facebook and Argo AI and Uber, the companies that are employing thousands [in Pittsburgh]— companies like Philips bringing 1,100 jobs into the city, and SAP 700 — have they said they want to live in a city with seven petrochemical plants around it?”Should we as a nation be building more industrial infrastructure that simply embeds the petrochemical -plastics-fossil-fuels model deeper into the national economy? The Pittsburgh region, which in recent decades has just climbed out of the “dirty skies coal-and-steel era,” may well be heading for a new era of petrochemical peril while stoking the greenhouse.

In taking his stand on petrochemicals regionally, Peduto is also bringing the issue to the top of the national agenda: Should we as a nation be building more industrial infrastructure that simply embeds the petrochemical-plastics-fossil-fuels model deeper into the national economy? Should we be building $6 billion chemical plants, in essence, to make more environmentally-problematic plastic while adding to the planet’s CO-2 load? Is that really an economically sound and environmentally smart investment strategy for the future? These cracker-complexes, and their supporting infrastructure, are not temporary investments that can be easily undone. Rather, they are huge 25-to-30 year commitments of sunk capital goods that then “have to be used” once they are built – a reality the fossil fuels industry is counting on.

This generalized graphic from “Inside Climate News” and U.S. Department of Energy, shows the natural gas-to-plastics process and all the various capital goods required in that kind of fossil-fuel-based industrialization.

True, the plastic-petrochemicals-fossil fuels model has been among the world’s most important economic and wealth-producing engines, providing jobs, innovation, and array of useful products. Yet much of the petrochemical success story has come with a high price tag and is fraught with “genie-out-of-the bottle” consequences.Too many “wonder chemi-cals”–plastics among them –were released without full toxicological profiles, little regulation, and no end plan. Too many “wonder chemicals” – plastics among them – were released without full toxicological profiles, little regulation, and no end plan, resulting in toxic pollution, worker cancers, and public health risks and exposures that continue to this day.

The polyethylene output of the Shell complex in Beaver County, and others like it, will add to the plastic peril the world is already facing – from Texas-size swirls of plastic junk now circulating in the Pacific Ocean (and in micro form, now infiltrating food chains), to the mountains of discarded plastic heading to landfills, incinerators, and export to who knows where. Added to this, of course, is the petrochemical component of climate change. The Shell cracker will release some 2.25 million tons of greenhouse-stoking carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to the yearly output of about 430,000 automobiles. In the region’s well fields, meanwhile, methane emissions will be considerable, as the 1,000-to-1,300 fracking wells needed to supply the cracker are notorious methane emitters, as are typically leaky gathering lines that collect gas from those wells (The FracTracker Alliance has cited a Nature Conservancy study calculating that each 19-acre well pad requires, on average, about 3.1 miles of gathering lines). Methane, though shorter-lived in the atmosphere than CO-2, is a more potent global warming gas. Then there are the “garden variety” operational impacts — emissions, plant fires, pipeline leaks, etc. More of this kind of industrialization is surely perilous, as numerous scientists, academics, and environmental leaders have projected.

Bad Air

When it comes on line, the Shell cracker north of Pittsburgh will become the leading polluter in Western Pennsylvania and the third largest in the state. While local citizens and environmental groups have been successful in securing fence-line monitoring at the Shell site for detecting leaks and excess pollution, the permitted pollution load coming from the plant, and affiliated supply, manufacturing and transportation activities, will impose a burden on the Pittsburgh region, effectively undoing clean air progress made since the late 1990s. Pittsburgh in recent years has not reached clean air goals, but has been moving in the right direction. Air quality throughout the seven–county metro area has not met the annual federal limits for ground-level ozone, a pollutant that raises asthma and lung risks for children, and is also problematic for the elderly, and generally at higher levels.

Map sample shows hourly air quality index (AQI ) in the Pittsburgh-Eastern Ohio area on February 4, 2019 at 10:20 a.m for a combined reading of particulate matter (pm 2.5) and ground-level ozone (O-3). Green is good, yellow moderate, orange unhealthy for sensitive groups, and red unhealthy generally. On this particular day there was an atmospheric inversion, which tends to have a “lid” or trapping effect on regional pollution.

“If you are using ethane to drive a petrochemical industry,” explained James Fabisiak, University of Pittsburgh toxicologist in a 2017 Pittsburgh Quarterly interview, “that creates a new pathway for volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants being released. We know volatile organic compounds can contribute to ozone formation. This industry brings an unprecedented amount of volatile organic compounds to the area.” Among the Shell cracker’s permitted pollutant levels will be some 484 tons annually of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), like ground-level ozone. More than 30 tons of hazardous air pollutants will be released by the cracker each year – including benzene and toluene, which have been linked to various cancers and/or other health impacts on the brain, liver, and kidney, as well as birth defects. Also permitted will be 159 tons annually of particulate air pollution – called “particulate matter 2.5,” or PM 2.5, referring to the tiny size of particles that pass through the lung and into the bloodstream where they can contribute to cardiovascular and respiratory disease, as well as lung and bladder cancer. In addition, treated wastewater released to the Ohio River from the Shell cracker will contain some quantities of potentially hazardous chemicals and known human carcinogens such as benzene, benzo[a]pyrene, and vinyl chloride.

Pipelines

Part of the related infrastructure that comes with the fracking-plastics model of industrialization are pipelines – not just one or two, but over time, a welter of such lines, extensions, and upgrades, not only to supply ethane crackers, but also to move fracked gas out of the region for export. Among lines now being built for the Shell cracker is the company’s Falcon Pipeline project – a two-leg, 97-mile system that will carry ethane from fracking field wells and processing units in Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania to the cracker in Beaver County.

$Shell’s Falcon Pipeline will collect raw natural gas feedstock from fracking-well supplied processing points, and then to the Shell ethane cracker in Beaver County, northwest of Pittsburgh.$
Shell’s Falcon Pipeline will collect raw natural gas feedstock from fracking-well supplied processing points, and then to the Shell ethane cracker in Beaver County, northwest of Pittsburgh.

Along the two legs, Shell has had to negotiate its right-of-ways with local property owners and has agreements with about 300 landowners. As with most modern pipelines, the Shell lines will be monitored by computer for operation and safety, and control valves installed at various intervals can shut off the lines remotely should problems arise. Still, accidents happen, and Shell for one has had its share of incidents nationwide and around the world. (See for example, “Shell Plant Explodes, Belpre, OH, 1994″). And beyond the Falcon lines, there are a number of other pipelines already operating in the region, others under construction, and still others being planned for moving shale-derived liquids and gases (for an overview of Pennsylvania pipelines, and an interactive map, see “Pennsylvania Pipelines and Pollution Events” by the FrackTracker Alliance).

Pipeline leaks, explosions and fires have occurred in the region, some quite recently. In February 2015, an ethane pipeline in Brooke County, WV operated by Appalachia-Texas Express (ATEX) ruptured and exploded, burning more than 23,000 barrels of ethane, with flames sent hundreds of feet into the air and burning five acres of land. Closer to Pittsburgh, in September 2018, the natural gas Revolution Pipeline in Beaver County – built as part of Energy Transfer’s (Sunoco Logistics) 100-mile Revolution Pipeline system to gather dry and wet gas from local wells and deliver it to a separating plant in Washington County, PA – leaked and exploded. That incident occurred around 5 a.m., turning night into day, as flames shot 150 feet into the air. The blast and fire destroyed one house, a barn, two garages, several vehicles, and some high tension electric lines. The incident forced the temporary evacuation of nearly 50 residents from 30 homes, shut down a section of a highway, and left 1,500 people without electric power due to the toppled transmission lines.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photo of charred acreage following the September 2018 explosion and fire from the Revolution Pipeline in Center Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Darrell Sapp/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Closer in shot of damage following Revolution Pipeline explosion and fire of September 2018 in Center Township, Beaver County, PA. Darrell Sapp/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Pipeline incidents are not rare occurrences. According to data from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, between 2010 and 2018, over 280 pipeline incidents were reported in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Some 70 of those incidents were fires and/or explosions. Of 108 pipeline incidents occurring in Pennsylvania between January 2010 and mid-July 2018, there were 8 fatalities, 15 injuries, more than $66 million in property damage, and some 1,100 people forced to evacuate their homes.

Well Explosions

Pipelines aren’t the only volatile part of the fossil fuels/plastics industrialization model. Fracking wells, for one, have also had their explosive and leaky moments. In February 2014, a Chevron-owned shale well about 70 miles south of Pittsburgh in Green County, PA exploded, killing one worker and burning for several days before being contained. The explosion happened as workers were preparing the Lanco 7H well for production. But the force of the explosion from that well also ignited another well, the Lanco 6H, on the same well pad. In a March 2014 notice of violation letter from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Chevron was cited for “hazardous venting of gas,” “open burning,” and “discharge of production fluids onto the ground.” But according to DEP, Chevron’s most serious violation was an equipment failure at the wellhead believed to have caused the explosion that took the life of 27-year-old worker at the site. DEP later fined Chevron $940,000 for the explosion, noting: “The penalty points to Chevron’s failure to construct and operate the well site to ensure that health, safety and environment were protected…” The company also paid a $5 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit for the worker who was killed in the incident.

February 2014 fire at a Chevron-owned shale gas well operation in Greene County, PA, following explosion, 70 miles south of Pittsburgh. Photo, KDKA-CBS TV News.

In February 2019, another major shale gas well explosion and fire occurred about 80 miles southwest of Pittsburgh in the Ohio Valley at Powhatan Point, Ohio. This well – operated by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil – burned and leaked gas for several weeks before it was contained. Following the initial blowout residents from some 30 homes within one mile of the well were evacuated and kept away for a few days before returning. An unknown quantity of brine and produced water from the site was also released into streams that flow into the Ohio River during this event, estimated by EPA to be more than 5,000 gallons. But a major discovery at this well event was its gigantic hemorrhage of methane emissions. In fact, satellite monitoring of this one well explosion found that in the 20 days it took to stop the uncontrolled release of natural gas, about 20 tons of methane was released per hour.Methane emissions from the XTO Energy (Exxon Mobil) well blow-out over 20 days were estimated to be about 60,000 tons. That’s more methane than European countries like France, Spain and Norway release in one year. Assuming that to be an average release rate for the 20-day period, methane emissions from that one well blow-out would total about 60,000 tons. That’s more methane than entire European countries like France, Spain and Norway release in one year.

Granted, this was an exceptional event. Still, thousands of fracking wells now operating in the Western Pennsylvania/Ohio Valley region routinely release methane to the atmosphere. Recent studies on the rise of fracking generally in the last decade have found a corresponding spike in atmospheric methane emissions solely attributed to fracking – wells which routinely release 2-to-6 percent of the gas they produce.

In addition to well fires and explosions, intermediate gas processing plants – those used for storage and chemical separation in the fracking-to-cracker process – also have leaks, fires and explosions. In mid-December 2018, a fire at the MarkWest (Marathon Petroleum) Houston, PA processing plant in Washington County, southwest of Pittsburgh, occurred there after a condensate tank exploded, burning four workers. The MarkWest facility, and other Ohio and Pennsylvania gas processing operations owned by MPLX/Marathon, have also been cited for alleged violations in recent years for failure to monitor and report leaks of gas and underreporting of gas leak rates, as well as VOC emissions at truck loading and gas compressor stations in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Exploiting the Region

Meanwhile, looking at the larger regional context across Pennsylvania and beyond, additional infrastructure for the increased exploitation of the Utica-Marcellus shale resource base has already arrived. Pipeline systems in the tri-state OH-PA-WV shale region point up the push for continued fracking-style industrialization – including that for overseas export from the east coast. Take, for example, the Mariner East pipelines – a series of three west-to-east lines for moving natural gas liquids from the fracking fields across Pennsylvania. The lines are owned by Energy Transfer/Sunoco Logistics and run roughly along a 350-mile route across some 17 counties in southern Pennsylvania (see map below). The Mariner East pipelines extend from the Utica-Marcellus Shale region in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, to a former Sun Oil refinery location at the extreme eastern end of the state at Marcus Hook, PA, on the Delaware River.

$Map of route that 3 Mariner East pipelines follow from the Utica-Marcellus shale fracking fields in Western PA-Eastern Ohio-West Virginia, transporting natural gas liquids to Marcus Hook, PA for processing & export.$
Map of route that 3 Mariner East pipelines follow from the Utica-Marcellus shale fracking fields in Western PA-Eastern Ohio-West Virginia, transporting natural gas liquids to Marcus Hook, PA for processing & export.

The primary purpose of these lines is to transport the Utica-Marcellus natural gas liquids (ethane, butane, pentane, and propane) to Marcus Hook for storage, processing, and overseas export for plastics production. The three lines run generally in the same corridor: Mariner East 1 is an old east-to-west gasoline line from the 1930s updated in 2015 to handle west-to-east natural gas liquids (NGLs); Mariner East 2, a second new line begun in February 2017 at a projected cost of $2.5 billion, also to carry NGLs; and the Mariner East 2X, a third NGLs line begun in 2018. These pipelines represent the largest investment of private money in Pennsylvania history, something in the neighborhood of $3 billion. The three lines, when fully operational, will have an estimated shipping capacity of more than 700,000 barrels of NGLs per day. However, the Mariner lines have been controversial in their various updates and expansions, meeting citizen resistance, at least one lawsuit, and collecting dozens of PA Department of Environmental Protection fines and enforcement actions for construction damages and pollution. Still, the three lines – built by Sunoco Logistics and partners – are further evidence of the enormous capital infrastructure expansion growing out of the Utica-Marcellus shale region. And beyond the Mariner lines themselves, at the Marcus Hook end of the lines, more fossil-NGL infrastructure is being added there to accommodate overseas exports, East coast markets, and possible on-site manufacturing.

$Marcus Hook, PA, where a World War II Sun Oil Co. refinery once stood, a new “natural gas liquids/energy” hub is emerging, fed by pipelines supplying Marcellus-Utica fracked natural gas liquids from Western PA and Eastern OH, for export to European petrochem companies, possible on-site manufacturing, and regional customers.$
Marcus Hook, PA, where a World War II Sun Oil Co. refinery once stood, a new “natural gas liquids/energy” hub is emerging, fed by pipelines supplying Marcellus-Utica fracked natural gas liquids from Western PA and Eastern OH, for export to European petrochem companies, possible on-site manufacturing, and regional customers.

Marcus Hook is being hyped to become an energy/NGLs hub to rival those on the Gulf Coast, with the old refinery complex receiving a $200 million update. Most of the NGLs that is now delivered to Marcus Hook is loaded on ships bound for European petrochemical manufacturers. Energy Transfer/Sunoco Logisitics is also exploring opportunities to build manufacturing facilities at Marcus Hook that would use the gas liquids as a raw material. The former Sun Oil refinery at this location was idled in 2011 and was acquired in 2012 by Sunoco Logistics, then eyeing its value anew in the shale gas era. By 2017, Sunoco Logistics merged with Energy Transfer Partners and the site is currently owned by Energy Transfer subsidiary, Sunoco Partners Marketing and Terminals. There is also a huge existing underground cavern on the Sun Oil grounds that can be used for natural gas storage. Storage caverns for NGLs are also being sought in the Pittsburgh area.

$Gov't Cheerleading? 2018 'Report to Congress' from U.S. Dept. of Energy on future of fracking-fueled ethane infrastructure in the U.S. and the Marcellus-Utica Appalachian region.$
Gov't Cheerleading? 2018 'Report to Congress' from U.S. Dept. of Energy on future of fracking-fueled ethane infrastructure in the U.S. and the Marcellus-Utica Appalachian region.

Infrastructure Race

Today, there is a big-time industrial building race underway – an investment and capital goods race between a green economy infrastructure vs. a dirty economy infrastructure.

Solar, wind, IT, and energy efficiency technologies are in the former category. Old fossil fuel interests persist in the latter category with polluting technologies and manufacturing facilities now powered by the oil and natural gas fracking boom.

Fossil-fuel giants like Shell and ExxonMobil are moving quickly to build their “old economy” shale-to-cracker capital goods plants and networks – wells, pipelines, storage facilities, waste pits, etc. (much with generous taxpayer subsidies). Once these extensive networks are established they become “sunk investments”; capital goods that industry will argue “must be used” for the next 20-to-30 years. In the process, such region-wide fossil-powered infrastructure will be so large and capital-usurping that it will surely dissuade – if not eclipse and prevent – green economy investments from occurring in those same regions.

Bill Peduto said much the same thing in his October 2019 remarks at the Climate Change Summit, stating that investment in fossil fuels was coming at the expense of what he saw as trillions of dollars that could be invested in sustainable technologies. “There is a direct opportunity cost when we continue to invest in 19th century industry [ i.e., fossil-fuel styled development] that costs us the opportunity to bring 21st century industry to this region.”

Pushed Around

“…The people that live here are in the way. We’re in a gas field. They [indus-try] want every square inch of this land… We’re just in the way – for plastic…” -Steve WhiteIn the Pittsburgh region, meanwhile, losses and impacts from the Shell cracker complex now under construction are already visible. Since about 2011, Steve White, a pilot and contractor who lives with his family in Beaver County, has watched the spread of cracker-related growth in the region from the vantage point of his Csena airplane at 30,000 feet. White told Climate Change News in a February 2019 video interview how the early growth of gas wells, pipelines, processing plants, and waste pits has taken form across the Pittsburgh region. As he saw it then, it was slicing up farms; encroaching on homes, schools, and businesses.

“We are just in the way,” White said. “…The people that live here are in the way. We’re in a gas field. They [industry] want every square inch of this land… They’re not locating these sites to accommodate the residents that live here. They’re doing it strategically to get as much gas out of the land as they can. So we’re just in the way – for plastic…”

Too often in America, corporations and government agencies view the American landscape as their private chess board, where they can move their exploitive industrial pieces about at will, regardless of consequence. For average folks bullied in this process, and without the financial means of appeal, there is no fair play and no real accountability. For too long, the waves of industrialization have repeatedly ravaged communities and the environment. In western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley, the long history of natural resources plunder has been played out time and time again – from timber clear cuts and the early oil boom, followed by rapacious strip mining to subterranean long-walling. Repeated assaults, sometimes over the same land and in the same communities. Now comes fracking and plastics industrialization. It’s just more of the same.

2015. “The Great Transition”.	2016. “Our Renewable Future”.
2019: “Renewable Energy”.	2019. “Taming the Sun”.
2019. “On Fire”. Click for copy.	2019. “The Green New Deal”.

The Alternative

But there is another way forward. Alternative economic investments in green energy industries and green manufacturing that move away from the fossil-fuel based petrochemical model need to move to the front of the line in Pittsburgh and all regions.

This kind of investment and industrial development is currently occurring throughout the U.S. and around the world, and is a viable, cleaner, and better alternative to what is currently occurring, generating jobs, new service and support businesses, and other local and regional economic activity.

Numerous reports, studies, and books on the success of such investments, and their projections for the near future, attest to the rising potential and viability of the green energy/green manufacturing model (click on book images for Amazon .com descriptions).

Renewable energy, in fact, is the fastest-growing energy source in the United States, increasing 67 percent from 2000 to 2016. Renewables made up nearly 15 percent of net U.S. electricity generation in 2016, with the bulk coming from hydropower (6.5 percent) and wind power (5.6 percent).

Solar generation is projected to climb from 7 percent of total U.S. renewable generation in 2015 to about 36 percent by 2050, making it the fastest-growing electricity source. Over 242,000 Americans work in solar – more than double the number in 2012 – at more than 10,000 companies in every state. In 2018, the solar industry generated a $17 billion investment in the American economy.

As of July 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed 82 Fortune 500 companies on its Green Power Partners program – companies using green power sources to generate some or all of their electricity supply, representing a total, at that time, of nearly 24 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually.

Some of the listed companies – including Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems, Starbucks, BD Health Care, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, Met Life, Netflix, Biogen, and others – are using 100 percent or more (generating a surplus) of their electric power from renewable sources. And some are also using their own on-site and/or fully-owned renewable sources.

In the years ahead, there will continue to be economic opportunities for investment in renewable energy technologies and green manufacturing. Locations with university research talent and programs, such as Pittsburgh, are ideally suited for developing and expanding renewable energy R&D programs, helping to advance those technologies and attracting new green manufacturing to their regions that will spawn new jobs and healthy and safe local economies.

2012 book. “Plastic Ocean”.

2019 book. “Plastic Soup”.

So today, there is a choice in how regions invest and build their economies – and political and corporate leaders need to be leading the green challenge. Bill Peduto, for one, is doing that, and is sounding the alarm for his own region and others, stating that the old fossil-fuels-petrochem model of investment and industrialization – once all the costs are truly considered – is no longer the smartest, safest, or cleanest kind of economic development.

Plastics production, meanwhile, needs to face up to its carbon and environmental costs if it is to survive in the future. Granted, plastics have contributed to improved automotive fuel economy, critical parts in wind and solar systems, communications, medicine, and other fields. But can a future plastics industry shed its carbon costs, its toxic emissions, and its open-ended waste streams? Short of such changes, there would appear to be ongoing battles ahead with fossil-based plastics industrialization wherever it ventures.

For additional environmental stories and history on the oil and chemical industries, see the “Environmental History” topics page at this website. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank You. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 26 November 2019
Last Update: 31 October 2022
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Petrochem Peril: Shell Cracker History,”
PopHistoryDig.com, November 26, 2019.

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Books at Amazon.com…

Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” 2013 edition, Penguin Books, 704 pp. Click for copy.

Christopher Leonard’s book, “Koch-land: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America,” 2020 edition. Click for copy.

Gregory Zuckerman’s book, “The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters.” Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Jamie Redford’s 2017 documentary on the growing business of clean energy, “Happening: A Clean Energy Revolution.” Click for copy.

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Walter M. Brasch’s, “Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting With Disaster,” Greeley & Stone Publishers, 274 pp. Click for copy.

Tony Seba’s 2014 book, “Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030". Click for copy.

Updated 2015 edition of Elizabeth Colbert’s, “Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change,” paperback, Bloomsbury USA, 320 pp. Click for copy.

Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway’s, “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,” which includes chapters on the sowing of doubt on acid rain, the ozone hole, and attack on Rachel Carson, 368pp. Click for copy.

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Reid Frazier, “Could Shell’s Ethane Cracker Erase Recent Gains in Air Quality?,” AlleghenyFront.org, September 9, 2016.

Jeffery Fraser, “Petrochemical Alley: Shale Gas Build-Out Raises Prospects for Jobs and Air Pollution,” Pittsburgh Quarterly, 2017 Fall.

Reid Frazier, “Enviro Group Names Names in New Anti-Pollution Campaign,” Allegheny Front.org, October 3, 2017.

Paul Van Osdol, “Investigation: Cracker Plant Will Bring Jobs, Pollution; Some Medical Experts Said Breathing Will Be Much Harder Once Plant Is up and Running,” WTAE.com, May 9, 2019.

Paul Van Osdol, “EPA Chief Vows Cracker Plant Will Be Clean; President Trump to Visit Shell Facility Under Construction in Beaver County,” WTAE.com, August 12, 2019.

Marlene Motyka, Andrew Slaughter, Carolyn Amon, “Global Renewable Energy Trends,” Deloitte Insights/Deloitte.com, 13 September 2018.

P. Bérest1and B. Brouard, “Safety of Salt Caverns Used for Underground Storage: Blow Out; Mechanical Instability; Seepage; Cavern Abandonment,” Oil & Gas Science and Technology – Rev. IFP, Vol. 58 (2003), No. 3, pp. 361-384.

Clay Jones, Terrel Laroche,and Cheryl Ginyard-Jones, “U.S. Ethane Crackers and Ethylene Derivative; Economics Behind Monetizing Cost-Advantaged U.S. Ethane Reserves, Part 2″, Honfleur LLC, June 2016.

U.S. Department of Energy, Report to Congress, “Ethane Storage and Distribution Hub in the United States,” November 2018.

“US DOE Details Marcellus-Utica Ethane, Petrochemical Options,” Oil & Gas Journal, March 2019, pp. 49-50.

“DEP Staffers Called to Testify Before Grand Jury; Criminal Probe Involves the Shale Gas Industry,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 22, 2019, p.A-1.

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Teaser Tag: Classic Film Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Ecstasy-of-Gold-Ennio-Morricone-Good-Bad-Ugly.mp3 4956669 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Death-Of-A-Soldier.mp3 5690432 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 2001-Today

“The Ecstasy of Gold”
1966-2010s

October 28, 2019 J.D.

United Artists record sleeve for a 1968 Netherlands edition of two singles from “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,” featuring title track and “The Ecstasy of Gold”. Click for digital album.

“The Ecstasy of Gold” is the title of a song composed by Ennio Morricone and used to great effect in the 1966 Sergio Leone film, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

Music Player
“The Ecstasy of Gold”
1966-67 – Ennio Morricone

Over the last 50 years, the song has become something of a classic, used on various occasions for its stirring, rising tempo and triumphant and uplifting energy – from Metallica concerts and sporting events to mainstream TV advertising. “The Ecstasy of Gold” is among Morricone’s most famous compositions, and its performance is aided by the amazing voice of Edda Dell’Orso, who is featured in the song’s stirring vocal high notes.

The song is played during a famous scene in the film when Tuco – “the ugly” character, played perfectly by Eli Wallach – is frantically searching through a huge Civil War-era graveyard for the name of a gravesite that is said to hold a fortune in gold treasure. Tuco is “ecstatic” to be at the cemetery where the gold is hidden, thus the name of the tune. But actually finding the gravesite where the gold is buried is another story. This “frantic search” scene by Tuco precedes a final climactic standoff and shoot-out when the three main characters in the story converge on the site and vie for the gold. But it is the “Ecstacy of Gold” song, and also the film’s title song, that have had continuing appeal over the years. The film itself has also become something of a classic in the Western genre.

In the film, “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,” Elli Wallach’s “Tuco” character, has just arrived at the Sad Hill Cemetery, with thousands of Civil War graves, one of which holds hidden gold, which Tuco frantically searches for while Ennio Morricone’s “Ecstasy of Gold” plays in the film’s soundtrack.

In the film, following Tuco’s initial excitement, there comes the climactic showdown scene at the cemetery’s circular plaza (seen in the distance, above photo), when the three main characters appear in a three-way Mexican stand-off and gun battle out over the gold treasure. In that scene, “Blondie,” the “good” character, played by Clint Eastwood, and “Angel Eyes,” the “bad” character, played by Lee Van Cleef, face off, along with Tuco, to determine who will survive to get the gold. More on that outcome and the film’s music a bit later. First, some background on the film’s history and its storyline.

The original soundtrack for “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,” with added tracks. Click for album or digital singles.

The Dollars Trilogy. The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly is the third installment in the “dollars trilogy,” as the three films in this Italian western film series are called. A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More were the first and second installments in the series. These films are also known as “spaghetti westerns,” the somewhat derogatory moniker given Italian-made westerns produced during the mid-1960s.

After first being released in Italy in 1966, the three films were then each released in the U.S. in sequence during 1967 — A Fistful of Dollars in January 1967; For a Few Dollars More in May 1967, and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly at the end of December 1967. Given the bad rap of the spaghetti westerns at the time, the critical reception of the films following their release was mixed, but in later years they gained critical acclaim. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly was a financial success in its day, grossing over $25 million at the box office, and is credited with sending Clint Eastwood into stardom.

Plot & Characters

Clint Eastwood as “Blondie,” the nickname his sometimes partner, Tuco, has given him. Of the three, he is the only one who has any semblance of empathy.

The plot of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly revolves around three hard-bitten gunslinger / bounty-hunter types who come to learn about a fortune of buried Confederate gold amid the chaos of the American Civil War. But the twist in the film is that gradually over time, each man comes to learn only part of the gold’s exact location. And in their respective quests to find it, none of the three is above double-dealing or making temporary alliances of convenience to gain knowledge about the prize. But some of this trio are quite ruthless in the process.

In the early part of the film, Tuco and Blondie are running a bandit-reward scam with local law enforcement. Tuco, a Mexican bandit, is wanted for a long list of crimes, and bounty hunter Blondie turns him in to local officials for a reward, which he then splits with Tuco after helping Tuco escape execution – a lucrative money-making scam repeated by the pair in a couple of small towns. But Blondie becomes fed up with Tuco’s complaints, and abandons him in the desert. Tuco survives, vows vengeance, and tracks Blondie down in a town where Tuco has captured Blondie and placed him on a precarious perch to hang himself. But Union shelling there creates enough confusion and opportunity for Blondie to escape.

Tuco later recaptures Blondie and marches him across a desert until Blondie collapses from dehydration. Tuco by this point is ready to shoot Blondie and be done with him, but just then, a runaway stagecoach appears – a Confederate stagecoach with dead and dying soldiers inside, one of whom is Bill Carson, who knows about buried Confederate gold. He promises Tuco $200,000, money which is buried in a grave in the Sad Hill Cemetery. Tuco presses the dying Carson for the name of the grave, but Carson needs water, and passes out from thirst. Tuco then rushes off to fetch water for Carson, but Blondie, also near death by this time given his desert torture by Tuco, is slumped next to the dying Carson. When Tuco returns with water, Carson has died and Blondie reveals that Carson whispered the name on the grave marker to him just before dying. Tuco, whose moral compass is opportunist at all times, immediately turns his attention to reviving and caring for Blondie, now his “best friend” again. Tuco lavishes him with water and care, taking him to a nearby frontier mission to recover, where Tuco’s brother happens to be the head Abbot.

Actor Lee Van Cleef plays “Angel Eyes” – “the Bad” character in “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” film.

Blondie recovers at the mission, and he and Tuco leave in Confederate uniforms taken from he stagecoach, now on a mission to get to the Sad Hill Cemetery. But then they are captured by Union soldiers and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. During a roll call there, Tuco answers for “Bill Carson,” getting the attention of “The Bad” character, known as “Angel Eyes,” who knows something about the Carson connection to the gold.

Played by Lee Van Cleef, Angel Eyes is a ruthless killer who has also heard about the Confederate gold, but doesn’t know the details. He is now disguised as a Union sergeant at the Yankee prisoner camp and tortures Tuco, who reveals the name of the cemetery, but not the name on the grave, which only Blondie knows.

Knowing that Blondie will not likely give up the gravesite name, Angel Eyes offers him an equal share of the gold, and the two ride out as Tuco is put on a prisoner train to be executed, but later escapes. Blondie, Angel Eyes, and his gang arrive in an evacuated, war-contested town, where Tuco has come as well. There, afer a gunfight with others, Tuco resumes a partnership with Blondie, and the pair turn their guns on Angel Eyes’s gang, killing most of them. Angel Eyes, however, has escaped.

Tuco and Blondie continue to make their way to Sad Hill Cemetery (which only Tuco knows at this point), but they are blocked by large Union and Confederate forces preparing for battle. The two armies are separated only by a narrow bridge. Each side is preparing to fight for it, but apparently both sides have been ordered not to destroy the bridge. However, Blondie, reasoning that if the bridge were destroyed “these idiots would go somewhere else to fight.” So he and Tuco then set out to wire the bridge with dynamite.

Actor Eli Wallach plays “Tuco” – “the Ugly” character, in “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” film.

During their joint enterprise at the bridge, the two trade information; Tuco revealing Sad Hill Cemetery as the gold’s location and Blondie saying that the name on the grave is Arch Stanton. The two then take cover as the bridge blows up and the two armies resume their battle. The next morning, the Confederate and Union soldiers have gone. Tuco abandons Blondie, who has stopped to tend to a dying young Confederate soldier, as a poignant song from the soundtrack plays. (A few contemporary veterans have reported being moved by this song and film scene).

Music Player
“The Death of a Soldier”

Tuco, meanwhile, has left Blondie and is making his way to the cemetery to retrieve the gold for himself. When he arrives, he is beset by a very large cemetery stretching out in all directions, holding hundreds if not thousands of graves. It is here where Tuco begins running and spinning in something of a whirling frenzy, searching for the gravesite with Arch Stanton’s name. And this is when “The Ecstasy of Gold” song runs at full throttle, reflecting Tuco’s feverish search.

Running through the sea of tombstones and makeshift grave markers, Tuco finally locates Arch Stanton’s grave. As he digs with his hands, Blondie suddenly appears. Clad in his trademark poncho, and chomping on a slender cheroot-type Toscano cigar, he tosses a shovel to Tuco. A few moments later, the two are surprised by Angel Eyes, who holds them both at gunpoint. Blondie kicks open Stanton’s grave to reveal it holds no gold, just a skeleton. He hadn’t given up the real name afterall. Declaring that only he knows the name of the grave with the gold, Blondie writes the name on a rock and places it in the middle of the cemetery, telling Tuco and Angel Eyes that “two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We’re going to have to earn it” — meaning, fight for it.

Long view of the climactic Mexican standoff scene at the Sad Hill Cemetery plaza, where Blondie, Angel Eyes, and Tuco take up positions for a gun fight to determine who will survive to get the gold.

The three then warily back off from one another and take positions nearly equally separated around the outer circumference of a stone plaza at the center of the cemetery. They stare each other down in a Mexican standoff. The camera pans back-and-forth with close-ups of each of their faces, one by one. On the soundtrack, guitar strings sound, countdown-like, with the “Triple Duel” song building the tension. Then, they go for their guns and the shooting ensues.

Blondie shoots Angel Eyes, who tries to shoot Blondie as he falls, only to be shot again by Blondie, then rolling into an open grave. Angel Eyes is dead. Tuco also tries to shoot Angel Eyes, but discovers that Blondie had unloaded his gun the night before.

Tuco is overjoyed at finding the gold.

Now in control, Blondie directs Tuco to the grave marked “Unknown” next to Arch Stanton’s. Tuco digs into the grave and is overjoyed to find bags of gold inside.

But Blondie has a surprise for Tuco.

Seeking revenge for what Tuco had done to him earlier in the desert, Blondie forces Tuco to stand atop a shaky grave marker, hands bound behind him, while he places a noose around Tuco’s neck tied to a tree branch above.

Blondie is now prepared to ride off, having collected his share of the gold – but only his share – leaving Tuco’s share there on the ground below, as Tuco now deals with his shaky predicament.

As Blondie rides away, Tuco screams for mercy, but Blodie continues his ride. Then the camera pans to Blondie’s silhouette on horseback, seen on a distant hillside against the horizon. He is aiming his rifle at Tuco. Blondie fires a single shot and severs the rope of the noose around Tuco’s neck, as he had done on several previous occasions when he and Tuco were running their local bandit-reward scams.

As the lynch rope is severed by Blondie’s rifle shot, Tuco falls face-first onto the ground below and on top of his share of the gold. Blondie smiles and rides off. Tuco, meanwhile, now has his gold, but his hands are still bound and he has no horse. In a rage of shouting he begins cursing Blondie with a string of expletives. “Hey Blondie! You know what you are? Just a dirty ….” And with that, the film ends.

Near the end of “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,” Blondie takes revenge on Tuco for his earlier near-death desert torture of Blondie, who now --planning to ride off -- has Tuco set precariously atop a shaky gravemarker rigged to a lynch rope.

Music Lives On

Hugo Montenegro album featuring covers of several Ennio Morricone songs from Sergio Leone westerns. Click for CD.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (shown earlier above), composed by Ennio Morricone, was released in 1966 when the film was released.

The main theme song from that soundtrack — using whistling and other sound effects, which some say resemble a coyote in parts — would become especially memorable.

The theme’s motif runs through the soundtrack in various forms, and is also cleverly adapted as identity music for each of the three main characters using separate musical instruments – flute for Blondie, ocarina for Angel Eyes, and human voices for Tuco.

In fact, largely on the strength of the title track, the Morricone soundtrack album remained on the music charts for more than a year, rising to No. 4 on the Billboard albums chart and No. 10 on the R&B albums chart.

In August 1968, the original score was certified by the RIAA with a gold record for the sale of 500,000 copies in the U. S. alone. Worldwide, it sold more than three million copies, earning more than $20 million for Morricone since its release.

The main theme was also a hit for American musician, Hugo Montenegro, whose rendition was a No. 2 Billboard single in 1968. Montenegro’s album of that year, featuring “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” theme, also included additional Morricone songs from other Sergio Leone films.

1967 paperback by Joe Millard, Award Books, came out shortly after the film. Click for copy.

In 2001, a European production of the Morricone soundtrack was released by GDM music with additional tracks. In 2004, the original soundtrack album was remastered and re-released on Capitol Records, with 10 additional tracks from the film. And in 2009, The Recording Academy inducted Morricone’s 1966 score for The Good, The Bad & The Ugly into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

“The Ecstasy of Gold,” meanwhile, has been used in a number of films, TV shows, video games, and TV ads. The heavy metal rock band, Metallica, has taken a special interest in the song. For more than two decades, since 1985, Metallica has used the song, in its classic rendition, to open their live shows. As the music plays, the band members usually take the stage. The band has also recorded a cover version of the song, and that version appears on several Metallica albums, including a version they recorded with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for their S&M album.

The Ramones rock group has also used the song on albums and in performances, as has classical musician, Yo-Yo Ma. On American radio, “The Opie & Anthony Show” (1995-2014), used “The Ecstasy of Gold” as opening music. Jay Z and rapper Immortal Technique are among those who have sampled the song, and it has been remixed by Bandini for the Ennio Morricone Remixes 2 album of 2004. “The Ecstasy of Gold” is also played as entrance music at every home game of Los Angeles Football Club (soccer).

Other stories at this website exploring the power and influence of music in film include: “Streets of Philadelphia” (Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young songs in Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks as AIDS victim Andy Beckett); “The Saddest Song” (Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” in Platoon and other films); “You Only Live Twice: Film & Music, 1967” (a James Bond film story by that name and main theme song by Nancy Sinatra); “Let The River Run” (Carly Simon’s hit song from 1988’s Working Girl); and “Philadelphia Morning – Rocky Music: 1976-1977”. See also the “Film & Hollywood” page for additional stories in that category.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 28 October 2019
Last Update: 28 October 2019
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Ecstasy of Gold: 1966-2010s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, October 28, 2019.

Twitter: JackDoyle/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

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Books at Amazon.com…

Matt Schroder’s 2017 book includes a collection of interviews with modern film music masters. Click for copy.

“Hearing the Movies: Music & Sound in Film.” Click for copy.

“50 Best Soundtracks”– a guide to the music of John Williams, Hans Zimmer & others. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Matt Lawson & Laurence MacDonald’s 2018 book, “100 Greatest Film Scores,” Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 336pp. Click for copy.

“The Ecstasy of Gold,” Wikipedia.org.

“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966),” IMDB .com.

“The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” Wikipedia .org.

Roger Ebert, “Great Movie: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,” RogerEbert.com, August 3, 2003.

“9. The Death Of A Soldier – Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad And The Ugly),” YouTube .com, Posted by Art Revell, December 17, 2012 (with posted comments).

Matthew Jackson, “12 Great Facts About The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” MentalFloss.com, December 29, 2017.

“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (soundtrack),” Wikipedia.org.

“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (theme),” Wikipedia.org.

Charles Leinberger, Ennio Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A Film Score Guide, September 1, 2004, Scarecrow Press, 160 pp.

“Ennio Morricone,” Wikipedia.org.

Nick Shave, “Drips, Pop and Dollars: The Music That Made Ennio Morricone,” TheGuardian.com, November 18, 2016.

Tim Gray, “Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns Made a Fistful of Dollars and Clint Eastwood a Star,” Variety.com, January 4, 2019.
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Teaser Tag: Sports, Publishing, Celebrity

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Paper Lion”
George Plimpton

September 27, 2019 J.D.

Signet paperback edition of George Plimpton’s best-selling book on his trials as a professional quarterback with the Detroit Lions football team, summer of 1963. Click for copy.

In the summer of 1963, a well known author and New York literary figure named George Plimpton, sought to undertake an unlikely and somewhat audacious athletic challenge in the spirit of “participatory journalism.”

Plimpton – an amateur sportsman at best, but not a gifted athlete – wanted to experience the role of quarterback on a professional NFL team, all in the interest of discovering what it would be like for an average person to try that profession. He planned to write about the experience for Sports Illustrated, where he was a reporter, and would later publish a popular book about the experiment, Paper Lion, shown at right.

This was not the first time that Plimpton sought the experience of a professional athlete. In 1959, he went three rounds with light-heavyweight boxing champ, Archie Moore. And in professional baseball, Plimpton arranged in 1960 to pitch to a lineup of National and American League baseball all-stars in a post-season exhibition game at Yankee Stadium.

In that experiment, Plimpton proposed to pitch his way through each lineup once, and whichever team had the most total bases against him would win a monetary prize. Plimpton – although he had his moment of glory with Willie Mays popping out – was shelled pretty badly, and reportedly exhausted himself in the ordeal, needing a relief pitcher to finish.

Plimpton chronicled his pro baseball experience in the 1961 book, Out of My League. And in later years, he would do similar stints in other professional sports – from ice hockey to basketball, all to show how an average guy might fare in competition with the stars of professional sport. But Plimpton’s real genius in these undertakings – and hitting upon some unique journalistic territory – was the insider reporting he did on the sports cultures he experienced and player personalities he engaged along the way.

Summer of 1963. George Plimpton in his practice football attire at the Detroit Lions summer camp.

August 1963: George Plimpton, at center with ball, going through some practice drills at Detroit Lions camp, appears to be looking for a receiver with some trepidation.

August 1963: George Plimpton, during a light-attire Detroit Lions practice session, is late with hand-off to running back.

Football, of course, is a rough contact sport where an unknowing soul can be smashed around a good bit – all in fair play, to be sure. Yet the consequences can range from painful body blows and bruising in the least, to more serious assaults resulting in broken bones, knock-outs, and worse. Plimpton, 36 at the time, was in good health, but not a man acclimated to the pounding pro football players experience. Still, George Plimpton was game.

In his football quest, Plimpton had contacted several pro teams seeking approval to try out his plan. Among these were the Baltimore Colts, the New York Giants, and the New York Titans (predecessor to the New York Jets), all of which turned him down. But the Detroit Lions agreed to host Plimpton at their training camp. The un-athletic Plimpton arrived at the Lions camp in early August 1963 under the guise of a walk-on, former Harvard quarterback, competing for a possible back-up slot.

The coaches at first went along with the fable that Plimpton had come to their camp to try out as a backup quarterback. Detroit Lions players, meanwhile, at least initially, were not aware of the ruse. But once Plimpton hit the practice field it soon became apparent that the “new guy” had questionable football cred. In fact, he didn’t even know QB basics – like how to receive the snap from center.

Still, for several weeks, Plimpton was groomed in the finer art of quarterbacking by veteran Lion QBs Earl Morrall and Milt Plum, who helped him with the basics and offered advice

But along the way, Plimpton would have his troubles with the intricacies of the QB position. He made gaffe after gaffe. His hands and feet were too slow to make the quick-timing moves and spins QBs had to make with hand-offs and passing. The third photo here at left shows Plimpton during a light workout being too slow and missing a hand-off to one of his backs on a simple running play.

Yet as a journalist, he was seeing and learning about the game in a new, insider way – and that’s what he had come to do, though trying his best to measure up as a player. Fellow players thought it odd that Plimpton — tall and gangly, who described himself as having a physique akin to a tall wading bird — was always writing in a notebook between plays. When the players discovered that Plimpton was a writer, he took his share of ribbing and practical jokes. A handmade sign attached to a locker-room whirlpool, for example, read “reserved for Plimpton.” But he went along with all the good-natured fun and was gracious about the ribbing — including rookie hazing rituals.

Despite his struggles on the field, Plimpton managed to convince head coach George Wilson to let him take some snaps and run the team at an upcoming “big game” – an intra-squad exhibition contest – where he was given a chance to run a series of plays.

August 1963. George Plimpton taking some practice snaps prior to the intra-squad game.

On one play, Plimpton was met in the backfield by giant 300-pound defender, Roger Brown, who threw him for a loss and nearly forced a fumble for a touchdown.

After his shot at QB, Plimpton talks with Joe Schmidt, No. 56, the linebacker who opposed him during his series of downs. Sports Illustrated photo.

The annual intra-squad scrimmage was conducted in Pontiac, Michigan, and Plimpton rode the bus with the team to the contest, sitting alongside a veteran player, seeking his counsel and advice along the way. When Plimpton got his chance, he managed to lose yardage on each play.

Plimpton first wrote about his Detroit experience in Sports Illustrated in two articles, covering both his time in training camp and his shot at QB in the “big game” intra-squad contest. Plimpton wrote in a self-effacing, humorous manner about his own play, while accurately describing the mechanics of the game and sometimes capturing the more colorful side of his Lion teammates. Below, he describes his third play at QB in the intra-squad game, after his first two attempts had gone for bust:

…The third play on my list was the 42, another running play, one of the simplest in football, in which the quarterback receives the snap, makes a full spin and shoves the ball into the 4 back’s stomach. He has come straight forward from his fullback position as if off starting blocks, his knees high, and he disappears with the ball into the No. 2 hole just to the left of the center—a straight power play and one which seen from the stands seems to offer no difficulty.

I got into an awful jam with it. Once again the jackrabbit speed of the professional backfield was too much for mc. The fullback, Danny Lewis, was past me and into the line before I could complete my spin and set the ball in his belly. The fullback can’t pause in his drive for the hole, which is what he must keep his eye on, and it is the quarterback’s responsibility to get the ball to him. The procedure in the forlorn instance of missing the connection and holding the ball out to the seat of the fullback’s pants as he tears by is for the quarterback to tuck the ball under his arm and try to follow the fullback into the line, hoping that he may have budged open a small hole.

I tried to follow Lewis, grimacing, and waiting for the impact, which came before I’d taken two steps. I was grabbed up by Roger Brown, a 300-pound tackle. For his girth he is called Rhinofoot by his teammates, or Haystack, and while an amiable citizen off the field, with idle pursuits—learning very slowly to play the saxophone, a sharp dresser, affecting a narrow-brimmed porkpie hat with an Alpine brush—on the field he is the anchor of the Lions’ front line, an All-League player, and anybody is glad not to have to play against him.

He had tackled me high and straightened me up with his power, so that I churned against him like a comic bicyclist. Still upright, to my surprise, I began to be shaken around and flayed back and forth, and I realized that he was struggling for the ball. The bars of our helmets were nearly locked, and I could look through and see him inside—the first helmeted face I recognized that evening—the small, brown eyes surprisingly peaceful, but he was grunting hard, the sweat shining, and I had time to think, “It’s Brown, it’s Brown!” before I lost the ball to him. Flung to one knee, I watched him lumber into the end zone behind us for a touchdown.

The referee wouldn’t allow it. He said he’d blown the ball dead while we were struggling for it. Brown was furious. “You taking that away from me,” he said, his voice high and squeaky. “Man, I took that ball in there good.”…

While Plimpton’s big moment had met with failure, he remained confident he could do better, and conceivably might have another chance to play. And so he continued at training camp for another week as the team prepared for its first pre-season game against the Cleveland Browns.

Plimpton believed that if the Lions had a big enough lead near the end of that game, coach Wilson would let him play. However, team officials inform Plimpton at halftime that NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle would not allow him to play under any circumstance. The next day, Plimpton cleaned out his locker space and ended his sojourn with the Detroit Lions. But at his departure, the Lions team awarded him a gold football engraved as follows: “To the best rookie football player in Detroit Lions history.”

About a year later, in September 1964, Plimpton would publish his two long pieces in Sports Illustrated magazine on his adventures at the Lions’ training camp and his QB action.

1966. Harper & Row first edition hardcover of George Plimpton’s book, “Paper Lion,” including photos of Plimpton in drills during Lions’ football camp. Click for copy.

But in the fall of 1966, Plimpton’s full book on his Detroit Lions experience was published by Harper & Row in New York: Paper Lion: Professional Football – As it Looks to a First String Writer Trying Out as a Last-String Quarterback.

“Paper Lion has vivid details, exuberant humor, a powerful narrative arc and a polished, sophisticated diction, all of which suggested a young craftsman pushing himself to the limit,” observes Scott Sherman, writing on Plimpton for The Nation in 2009.

The 362-page book wasn’t just about Plimpton’s own trials on the field, but also covered the players and coaches he came to know in his month or more association with them.

Among those featured in the book were linebacker Wayne Walker, quarterback Milt Plum, future Hall of Famers cornerback Dick “Night Train” Lane, middle linebacker Joe Schmidt, and defensive tackle Alex Karras. Karras, however, had missed the 1963 season, then serving a suspension for gambling on football games, so his profile came by way of stories about him told to Plimpton teammates, coaches, and others (Plimpton would do more with Karras in a later book). Paper Lion was also a great read for football fans. It not only captured what it might feel like for the average fan to try out for a professional football team, it also had inside information and a locker-room perspective.

Plimpton’s book became a best seller. And in subsequent paperback editions, Paper Lion received a bit more hype, as the Vantage edition at the top of this story notes: “Over 1,000,000 copies in print!” That edition also used the cover tagline: “When a first string writer suits up to take his lumps as a last-string quarterback for the Detroit Lions the result is ‘the best book ever written about football’ – Red Smith”. Then came the film.

“Paper Lion,” the movie, was a 1968 sports comedy film starring Alan Alda as Plimpton, based on Plimpton’s book. The film also depicted his tryout with the Detroit Lions. It premiered in Detroit on October 2, 1968, and was released nationwide the following week. In the movie, unlike the book, Plimpton does well in the scrimmage and scores a touchdown, only to realize that the defense purposely loosened up and allowed him to score.

Film poster for “Paper Lion” movie of 1968 starring Alan Alda, Lauren Hutton & 62 Lions. Click for DVD or video.

Paperback issued when film came out, some using tagline, “Now a United Artist Motion Picture.” Click for copy.

In the film, a number of Detroit Lions players appear in brief scenes, among them: Joe Schmidt, Alex Karras, John Gordy, Mike Lucci, Pat Studstill, Roger Brown, Lem Barney, and Garo Yepremian. Coach George Wilson also appeared, as did Green Bay Packers’ coach, Vince Lombardi in one scene, although that scene was not in the book. Frank Gifford, former New York Giants halfback and sportscaster, also appeared. Film posters and tie-in editions of the Plimpton book, both used variations on the tagline: “The Paper Lion is About to Get Creamed.”

2011: 45th anniversary edition. Click for copy.

More than 20 years after the film, Plimpton’s son, Taylor, noted some differences in Alan Alda’s portrayal of Plimpton in his Detroit Lion’s venture, explaining: “Alda’s version was always angry or consternated, like a character in a Woody Allen film, while my dad, though he certainly faced hurdles as an amateur in the world of the professional, bore his humiliations with a comic lightness and charm—much of which emanated from that befuddled, self-deprecating professor’s voice.”

Plimpton’s book, meanwhile, went on to live a long paperback life. Paper Lion was reissued in 2011 with a new look for its 45th anniversary edition.

In subsequent years, Plimpton would go on to chronicle other professional sports – and also non-sport professions – in the participant-journalist mold. Not all of these would become book-length treatments, and some would be published as magazine articles or as parts of other books. And Plimpton’s books were not always completely about his experimental participation, as his stories would also include perspective on the special insider access he had, and/or profiles of related people and activity surrounding the subject sport he had chosen.

Plimpton’s first sports book in the participant journalist mold had been his 1961 book about pitching to the major league baseball All Stars, Out of My League. A cover blurb on the hardback edition noted: “A weekend athlete and a full-time man of letters recalls his eye-opening and very funny experience pitching against the greatest pros in baseball.” The book touched upon many of the famous players of that day, including Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Whitey Ford, Ralph Houk, Richie Ashburn, and others. It also included a number of photos of Plimpton and other players, either in action or in the dugout, among them: Stan Lopata, Frank Thomas, Bill Mazeroski, Bob Friend, and Don Newcombe. The baseball book was followed by Plimpton’s Detroit Lions stint in 1963 and the Paper Lion book in 1966.(Click on any book image for Amazon page on that book).

1961: Out of My League.	1967: The Bogey Man.
1973: Mad Ducks & Bears.	1977: Shadow Box.
1977: One More July.	1985: Open Net.
1974: Hank Aaron book.	1987: Novel about Sidd Finch.
2016 edition, Paper Lion.	2016 - Hank Aaron book.

His third sports book came in 1967, The Bogey Man: A Month on the PGA Tour, a book about his experiences playing (with an 18 handicap) and traveling with the Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) tour in the time of Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus. “Stroke-saving theories, superstitions, and other golfing lore,” are part of this Plimpton book, explained one reviewer. Another review in the New York Times noted that with Bogey Man Plimpton was probing the psychology of the sport, and on that count, “there is nothing more revealing around.”

A Life magazine blurb added: “Golf is a lonely and private game, lacking the natural drama of football, but Plimpton, by substituting improvisation for plot, has caught its mad comedy and bizarre effects on people in a book just as charming, in its own way, as Paper Lion.”

Mad Ducks & Bears: Football Revisited, is a 1973 book about Detroit Lions linemen, Alex Karras and John Gordy, which also includes extensive chapters on Hall of Fame quarterback Bobby Layne, as well as an account of Plimpton’s return to his “participant” football experience, this time with the Baltimore Colts. But the primary subjects in this book are Karras and Gordy. Says one Chicago Tribune blurb: “[An] irreverent and roguish account of the lives of the two linemen…. Pure gold.” The book was meant, in part, as a companion to Paper Lion.

Shadow Box: An Amateur in the Ring, is Plimpton’s 1977 book about boxing, which includes his own brief 1959 bout with then light-heavyweight champ, Archie Moore, in which Plimpton received a bloodied nose for his efforts. The book also includes Plimpton’s writing on the history of boxing, the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman fight in Zaire, as well as other bouts and character sketches of fellow writers Norman Mailer and Hunter Thompson.

Another Plimpton book published in 1977 is One More July: A Football Dialogue with Bill Curry, about the last NFL training camp of former Green Bay Packer player, center Bill Curry, who later became a football coach and sportscaster. A New York Times blurb for this book notes: “If a time capsule needed a history of pro football’s years from 1965 to 1975, this would be the book.”

Open Net: The Professional Amateur in the World of Big-Time Hockey, is Plimpton’s 1985 book about his experience playing professional ice hockey with the Boston Bruins. This time, Plimpton, at age 50, suited up as a goalie for an exhibition hockey game against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Spectrum arena in Philadelphia. As one account of that outing noted: “Plimpton, gangly even in his goalie pads, tends the net with a reporter’s notebook tucked in his uniform. His moment of reckoning comes on a Flyers penalty shot from Reggie Leach. Plimpton makes the save, but when a teammate slaps him on the back of the helmet in celebration, the game-winning goalie loses his balance and topples to the ice.”

Plimpton also did a book on Hank Aaron in 1974 – Hank Aaron: One for the Record – The Inside Story of Baseball’s Greatest Home Run. In this book, Plimpton recounts the play of baseball’s Hank Aaron in his 1974 bid to become the all-time home run champion, then eclipsing Babe Ruth’s previous record of 714 home runs. Aaron sought to beat Ruth’s record amid a media frenzy and even received some death threats. Plimpton, meanwhile, covers the pitchers who faced Aaron during this time, but the focus is on Aaron – his abilities, his philosophy on hitting, and his achievements.

In April 1985, Plimpton wrote a Sports Illustrated story about a baseball pitcher named Sidd Finch, a mysterious talent who reportedly threw pitches at an astonishing 168 mph and was signed by the New York Mets. Reportedly, Finch was an English-born Buddhist monk – Siddhartha – who had acquired his hurling skills by throwing rocks at snow leopards in the Himalayas. The Sports Illustrated story ran for 13-pages and came complete with spring training photos, scouting reports, and Mets player reaction. However, the story was an elaborate April Fools hoax perpetrated by Plimpton. But he liked the story so much he expanded it and turned it into a novel, published two years later by MacMillan – The Curious Case of Sidd Finch.

George Plimpton visiting with Muhammad Ali, likely in the 1970s. Plimpton wrote about Ali in “Shadow Box” and for Sports Illustrated.

In 2016, publisher Little, Brown & Co. decided to reprint a number of Plimpton’s participatory sports books in a new format, some updated with new material from Plimpton’s archives, celebrity introductions, and/or other features. When Little, Brown reissued the Plimpton book on Hank Aaron, for example, it repackaged it with a foreword by Bob Costas and additional Plimpton material. Two of those later-edition covers appear in the last row above.

In 2016, Nathaniel Rich, writing in the New York Review of Books, noted that Plimpton’s sports books “have aged gracefully and even matured. Today they have the additional (and unintended) appeal of vivid history, bearing witness to a mythical era.” A review of Plimpton’s work in The Guardian noted: “…With his gentle, ironic tone, and unwillingness to take himself too seriously, along with Roger Angell, John Updike and Norman Mailer, he made writing about sports something that mattered. He wrote about the way professional athletes coped with failure, ambition and envy, making them sound like interesting people.”

In his career as a sports journalist, Plimpton came to know and befriend some leading lights of the various professions, among them, Muhammad Ali, of whom he had written in his book, Shadow Box, and soccer great, Pele`, who blistered a shot past amateur goalie Plimpton during a documentary promotion. But beyond his forays into the world of sport and other professions, George Plimpton was a man of many dimensions, a kind of experiential renaissance man, who lived an incredibly full life and was well liked by many.

Man About Town

George Plimpton
1927-2003

1972: George Plimpton photographing birds in Africa. Photo, Freddy Plimpton / WNET.

In some ways, George Plimpton was an unlikely sportswriter – and even less likely a person to test professional sports as an amateur. He was born in March 1927 into a blue-blooded American family in New York City. His father was a wealthy corporate lawyer and a diplomat, appointed by President John F. Kennedy as U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, serving from 1961 to 1965. His mother was Pauline Ames, the daughter of botanist Oakes Ames and artist Blanche Ames, with an accomplished lineage of notables on that side of the family as well.

Plimpton grew up on New York’s Upper East Side, attending St. Bernard’s School there and later, Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire Although he tried out for most sports at Exeter, he never survived the cuts. Plimpton was also expelled from Exeter just shy of graduation. According to one account, he wasn’t very good at set schedules, and had been placed on disciplinary probation at Exeter for curfew violations. But then, after aiming a Revolutionary War-era musket at the football coach, he was expelled from Exeter. Still, after earning his high school diploma in Florida, he entered Harvard in July 1944, but did not graduate until 1950 due to his time in the U.S. Army, serving as a tank driver in Italy. Returning to Harvard, he majored in English, wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. After graduating from Harvard in 1950, he went on to Kings College at Cambridge, England for two years where he earned a graduate degree in English. In 1953, Plimpton joined the newly-created literary journal, The Paris Review, founded by writer Peter Matthiessen (The Snow Leopard) and others. Matthiessen made Plimpton the journal’s first editor in chief, a post he would keep until his death in 2003.

George Plimpton, shown here reading some papers for The Paris Review, and selected by writer and founding member, Peter Matthiessen, to be its editor in 1953, a post he served until his death in 2003. PBS photo.

At the Review, Plimpton initially served as editor in Paris, France, but later the Review was moved to New York City, at Plimpton’s town home on the Upper East Side. Plimpton is credited with constructing the classic Paris Review interview with established writers, which became an important feature, engaging the subject in a collaborative process with corrections, revisions, and final sign-off. Plimpton viewed the interviews as a vehicle for established writers to explain their craft, not unlike what he would later do in a somewhat different vein as a reporter with his sports immersions. At the Review, Plimpton did classic interviews with figures such as E.M. Forster and Ernest Hemingway, among others. Some credit him with inventing the form, later adopted by Rolling Stone and Playboy magazines. In New York, meanwhile, his residence became known for its legendary cocktail parties, where all the important literati of that era would gather.

At 1963 party at his home in New York, Plimpton is shown seated at lower left. Among other notables attending were: William Styron, Gore Vidal, Jonathan Miller, Truman Capote, Arthur Penn, Mario Puzo, and Ralph Ellison. Photo, Cornell Capa.

“George saw his home as a place for everybody,” said Sarah Plimpton, his second wife, in comments after his death in 2003. “He loved the lights blazing, piano playing, glasses clattering, and the more oddballs the better. He loved people so much that he felt something was missing if this house wasn’t full.” According to one New York Times accounting, “for more than 45 years, he was host to hundreds of parties for thousands of guests, sometimes at a rate of one a week.”

Those visiting Plimpton at his office in his spacious townhouse on East 72nd Street in New York would notice his piles of papers and his somewhat disheveled dress and work manner, as well as his collection of framed and other memorabilia from his personal travels and friendships. Others marveled at how much life George Plimpton lived, how many balls he juggled at once, and the various projects he had underway or lined up.

George Plimpton traveled in a circle of the American elite and the otherwise famous through most of his life, shown here at the 1962 America’s Cup with Jackie and President John F. Kennedy and others. Photo, PBS.

At Harvard, he was a classmate of and friend to Robert F. Kennedy, and would befriend the entire Kennedy family. In the early 1960s, he was a familiar figure at the RFK family place at Hickory Hill in northern Virginia, where he could be found playing touch football. In 1968, he and first wife, Freddy Espy Plimpton, were traveling with RFK when he was making his decision to enter the 1968 Democratic presidential race, and Plimpton also made campaign appearances on Kennedy’s behalf. Following RFK’s victory in the 1968 California Democratic primary, Plimpton, along with former decathlete Rafer Johnson and American football star Rosey Grier, was credited with helping wrestle RFK shooter, Sirhan Sirhan to the floor when Kennedy was assassinated at the former Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Bobby Kennedy’s son, RFK, Jr., would later say of Plimpton: “My father admired George for his courage; he had a curiosity about life and I think that’s the thing that probably attracted my father the most to him. Like my father, he saw life as a great adventure…”

1977: Plimpton trying his hand as race car driver. (AP Photo)

1970: Playing bad guy shot by John Wayne in 'Rio Lobo' film.

1970s: In real life, a father of four; here with son Taylor.

Sept 2003: Alex Karras and George Plimpton at 40th “Paper Lion” reunion at Ford Field in Detroit. Karras, featured in “Mad Ducks & Bears,” became lifelong Plimpton friend.

In addition to his better known forays into baseball, football, boxing and ice hockey, George Plimpton also tried his hand at auto racing, playing basketball with the Boston Celtics, soccer with the Tampa Bay Rowdies, tennis with Pancho Gonzales, trapeze acrobatics with the Flying Apollos of the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus, stand-up comedy in Las Vegas, as a photographer of Playboy models, and as a percussionist on tour in Canada with the New York Philharmonic orchestra under Leonard Bernstein.

In fact, on his orchestral venture with Bernstein, New York Times reporter Richard Severo would later note: “He was assigned to play sleigh bells, triangle, bass drum and gong, the latter of which he struck so hard during a Tchaikovsky chestnut that Leonard Bernstein, who was trying to conduct the piece, burst into applause.”

Some of Plimpton’s journalism stunts were turned into short television films, including his flying trapeze act, an African wildlife photography stint for Life magazine, and his attempt at stand-up comedy.

He also appeared in bit parts in more than thirty films, including Lawrence of Arabia (Bedouin extra), Rio Lobo (shot by John Wayne), Good Will Hunting (rejected counselor by Matt Damon), and two Ken Burns TV films – Baseball and The Civil War, doing the voice of George Templeton Strong in the latter. And he also did a string of TV commercials and print ads for Intellivision video games in the early 1980s, the income from which he used, in part, to help pay the bills and keep The Paris Review afloat.

But above all, it seems, George Plimpton was a writer. He authored, co-authored, or edited more than 20 books, as well as hundreds of articles for Sports Illustrated, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s and Horizon magazines, and other publications.

Among his books are titles on Truman Capote and one he edited with author Jean Stein on the 1960s Pop Art scene that featured the rise and fall of Edie Sedgewick, an Andy Warhol star.

An avid birdwatcher, Plimpton also wrote about declining bird populations and threats to bird habitat and rare species, including the ivory-billed woodpecker, whooping crane, and other species. He was also a fireworks enthusiast and wrote a book on that subject.

Plimpton was married twice; first to Freddy Medora Espy in 1968, having two children with her, that marriage ending in 1988. His second marriage was to Sarah Whitehead Dudley, in 1992, having twin daughters with her and remaining in that union through his final days.

George Plimpton died in his sleep on September 25, 2003 in his New York City apartment from an apparent heart attack. He was 76.

Only days before Plimpton had been in Detroit where he and the 1963 Detroit Lions were honored by fans and the Detroit Lions organization at a special “Paper Lion” 40th reunion at Ford Field during a Lions football game.

“George Plimpton was one of a kind,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) in a statement at Plimpton’s death. “He was a lifelong friend of our family since the day he met Bobby at Harvard. . . . He reminded me of the line from Shakespeare, ‘Age could not wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety.’ We’ll miss him very much.”

Shortly after his death, Cynthia Cotts for the Village Voice, offered a hypothetical “help wanted” ad for a mythical George Plimpton replacement as a lead for her article, “Is George Plimpton Irreplaceable?”:

“George, Being George” - George Plimpton's life as told by others, October 2008, Random House, 432 pp. Click for copy.

Wanted: Editor to take over New York-based quarterly magazine of fiction and poetry. Must have impeccable taste, be steeped in the craft of writing and editing, and have met every key literary figure of the last 50 years. Please have natural athletic skills, good manners, and a genuine enthusiasm for life. Be world-famous, witty, unpretentious, admiring of pop stars and complete nobodies, a party animal, experienced fundraiser, and shameless self-promoter. Understand New York as the ultimate coliseum for accomplished people in every field. Optional: be tall, handsome, and well-born, with spacious uptown flat that can double as editorial and business offices and party venue.

In 2008, Graydon Carter, himself a literary figure and editor of Vanity Fair for many years, writing a review for the oral history on Plimpton, George, Being George, would offer this summary:

…As literary lives go, Plimpton’s was a doozy. Well born, well bred, the father of four, a witness to the great, the good and the gifted, he epitomized the ideal of the life well lived. He sparred with prize-fighters and competed against the best tennis, football, hockey and baseball players in the world, and along the way he helped create a new form of “participatory journalism.” He palled around with Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and William Styron, and drank with Ernest Hemingway and Kenneth Tynan in Havana just after Castro’s revolution. He also edited and nursed that durable and amazing literary quarterly, The Paris Review, which published superb fiction and poetry and featured author interviews that remain essential reading for anyone interested in the unteachable art of writing. ….Plimpton was ….the public face of the New York intellectual: tweedy, eclectic and with a plummy accent he himself described as “Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan.”

Tom Bean, co-director of the 2014 American Masters/PBS film, Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself, noted: “George’s life was about seeking out and trying new things, regardless of the outcome. And as an artist, his life was his greatest work of art.”

See also at this website the “Publishing” and “Annals of Sport” pages for additional stories in those categories. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 27 September 2019
Last Update: 6 January 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Paper Lion: George Plimpton,”
PopHistoryDig.com, September 27, 2019.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

“Home Run,” a 2001 collection edited by George Plimpton, 278pp. Click for copy.

1970 book, “American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy.” Interviews by Jean Stein, George Plimpton, Ed., 372pp. Click for copy.

2014 PBS / WNET Thirteen documentary - “Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself.” Click for DVD.

“Women Writers At Work,” 16 interviews: Marianne Moore, Katherine Anne Porter, Rebecca West, Dorothy Parker, P.L. Travers, Simone de Beauvoir, Eudora Welty, Elizabeth Bishop, Mary McCarthy, Nadine Gordimer, Maya Angelou, Anne Sexton, Toni Morrison, Susan Sontag, Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates. George Plimpton, Ed. Click for copy.

2003 book, “As Told at The Explorers Club: More Than Fifty Gripping Tales Of Adventure,” George Plimpton, Ed., 464pp. Click for copy.

George Plimpton, “Zero of the Lions,” Sports Illustrated, September 7, 1964, pp. 96–117.

George Plimpton, “Hut-Two-Three…Ugh!,” Sports Illustrated, September 14, 1964, pp. 26–35.

Garry Valk, “Letter from the Publisher,” Sports Illustrated, September 13, 1965, p. 4.

“Paper Lion,” Wikipedia.org.

George Plimpton, “The Celestial Hell of the Superfan,” Sports Illustrated, September 13, 1965 pp. 104–120.

George Plimpton, Paper Lion, Harper & Row, 1965.

“Book Review, Paper Lion by George Plimpton,” Kirkus Reviews, 1965.

George Plimpton, “Miami Notebook: Cassius Clay and Malcolm X,” Harper’s, June 1964.

Brian Glanville, “Paper Lion, by George Plimpton,” Commentary Magazine, October 1967.

George Plimpton, “Sportsman of the Year: Bill Russell” and “Reflections in a Diary,” Sports Illustrated, December 23, 1968.

David Remnick, “The Very Good Life Of George Plimpton,” The Washington Post, November 4, 1984.

George Plimpton, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career, 1997, New York: Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 498pp.

Graydon Carter, “Lucky George,” Book Review, New York Times, November 14, 2008

“The Life Adventures of George Plimpton in Trading Cards,” PBS / Thirteen.org.

Luke Poling & Tom Bean (Directors), “Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton As Himself,” American Masters / PBS, May 16, 2014.

Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr., Ed., George, Being George; George Plimpton’s Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals — and a Few Unappreciative Observers, 2008, New York: Random House, 423 pp.

Mike Pesca, “Plimpton’s ‘Paper Lion’ at 40,” NPR.org (audio, Day to Day Show), Septem-ber 22, 2003.

Richard Severo, “George Plimpton, Urbane and Witty Writer, Dies at 76,” New York Times, September 26, 2003.

Patricia Sullivan, “George Plimpton Dies at 76,” Washington Post, September 27, 2003.

David Mehegan, George Plimpton, 76; ‘Paper Lion’ Author, Longtime Literary Editor, Amateur Athlete,” Boston Globe, September 27, 2003.

Eric Homberger, “George Plimpton: Fashionable American Writer Who Founded The Paris Review and Turned Sports Journalism Into an Art Form,” The Guardian, September 29, 2003

Associated Press, “Paper Lions Lose Their Author,” September 26, 2003.

George Kimball, “Plimpton Had No Problem Having Fun,” Irish Times, October 2, 2003.

Terry McDonell, “The Natural: George Plimpton, 1927-2003. A Singular Man of Letters, He Pushed the Limits of Journalism and Helped Define Sport in the 20th Century Even as He Elevated it,” Sports Illustrated, October 6, 2003.

David Remnick, “George Plimpton,” The New Yorker, October 6, 2003.

Cynthia Cotts, “Is George Plimpton Irreplaceable?,” The Village Voice, October 21, 2003.

“George Plimpton, 76; Death Claims Another of My Giants,” BlacklistedJournalist.com, December 1, 2003.

Scott Sherman, “In His League: Being George Plimpton; An Affectionate and Absorbing Oral History Raises Questions of Whether George Plimpton’s Amiable Exterior Concealed a Man Without Qualities,” The Nation.com, January 15, 2009.

Taylor Plimpton, “My Father’s Voice,” The New Yorker, June 16, 2012.

Bill Dow, “Recalling Alex Karras’s Last Public Appearance in Detroit,” VintageDetroit.com, October 11, 2012.

Jessica Gelt, “‘Plimpton!’ Documentary Looks at George Plimpton’s Lives,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2013.

Miles Wray, “Review: Out of My League by George Plimpton,” Plougshares at Emerson College, August 28, 2015.

“The Stacks: George Plimpton’s Gridiron Nightmare: In Book After Book, He Was The Everyman Who Donned a Uniform and Played Against the Pros, Never More Appallingly or Hilariously than When He Quarterbacked the Detroit Lions,” The Daily Beast, May 1, 2016.

John Warner, “The Biblioracle: Remembering George Plimpton’s Sports Books,” Chicago Tribune, May 11, 2016.

Nathaniel Rich, “The George Plimpton Story,” New York Review of Books, October 13, 2016.

Paul Brown, “Pitcher, Trapeze Artist, Footballer…”, FourFourTwo.com, March 2018, pp. 96-97.

Bob Morris, “Last Call at George Plimpton’s Party Pad,” New York Times, March 2, 2018.

Little, Brown & Co. Re-issued George Plimpton Sports Books, 2016

George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur’s Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little, Brown & Co., 151 pp.

George Plimpton, Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback, 2016, Little, Brown & Co., 360 pp.

George Plimpton, The Bogey Man: A Month on The PGA Tour, 2016, Little, Brown & Co., 284 pp.

George Plimpton, Mad Ducks and Bears: Football Revisited, 2016, Little, Brown & Co., 251 pp.

George Plimpton, One for the Record: The Inside Story of Hank Aaron’s Chase for the Home Run Record, 2016, Little, Brown & Co., 193 pp.

George Plimpton, Shadow Box: An Amateur in the Ring, 2016, Little, Brown & Co., 347 pp.

George Plimpton, Open Net: A Professional Amateur in the World of Big-Time Hockey, 2016, Little, Brown & Co., 270 pp.

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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Santana-Jingo.mp3 8553777 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1991-2000

“The Santana Sound”
Woodstock: 1969

August 14, 2019 J.D.

1969 Woodstock Festival poster. Click for framed version.

At the famous Woodstock music festival of mid-August 1969, late-arriving fans on Saturday, August 16th were walking in from the distant reaches of the gathering. Traffic had long since clogged local roads. It was the second day of the festival, and the late arrivals were heading to the fields and pastures of Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm where the performers’ stage and main hillside audience were located. These walkers could not yet see the stage, but they were hearing a new kind of music in the distance. It wasn’t exactly rock ‘n roll; it was something else. But it was powerful, rhythmic, and beckoning.

Music Player
“Jingo”- Santana

The sound came rolling over the hillsides and across the pastures; some said they could feel it in the earth as they walked. One of the songs they were hearing – along with 400,000 others at Woodstock that day – was titled “Jingo” (sampled above). That song opens with congas, then builds to big drums, rising organ, piercing electric guitar, and later, some backing vocals. But at its opening, the song has something of a primitive, native sound to it – in a good, earthy way – and in fact, was an African-derived song first done in 1959 by Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji.

But that afternoon at Woodstock, “Jingo” and others were being performed by a new west coast group that most in attendance had never heard of; a group called Santana. But this “Santana sound” of hard-driving Afro-Latin instrumentals was perfect for an outdoor festival. And that afternoon, it raised the energy level of the Woodstock multitudes then covering the hillsides, setting thousands to moving, dancing, and feeling the power of that day. Neither they nor Santana would ever be quite the same again.

Aug 1969. Santana at Woodstock, looking out over the huge crowd – at far left front, Michael Carabello, Jose Areas on congas, David Brown on guitar, Carlos Santana, rear left, guitar, and Michael Shrieve, drums. Not shown, far left, Gregg Rolie, organ.

Santana, named after their leader, Mexican-born American guitarist, Carlos Santana, had in fact, scored their slot on the big Woodstock festival almost by accident. They weren’t on the promoters’ original “A-list” of big, “have-to-get” rock stars. In fact, they were pretty much an unknown entity nationally, except for their west coast and San Francisco exposure. Some on the east coast had heard them a few weeks earlier at the Atlantic City Pop Festival of August 1-3, 1969. A mere 100,000 attended that gathering, some of whom were impressed by Santana’s performance there. Still, Santana had not yet cut an album and were unknown by most.

August 16, 1969. Carlos Santana, Jose Areas, and Michael Carabello during performance at Woodstock.

In the 1960s, Santana and his band had more or less broken into the San Francisco music scene by way of promoter Bill Graham, famous for his Fillmore ballroom, a performance venue where a number of rock acts were given exposure that helped launch their careers – notably The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others. Graham also booked acts at a second San Francisco venue, Winterland, as well as the Fillmore East in New York city. Graham’s venues in the 1968-1971 period were places where performers could experiment and improvise, engage in long sets, and where fans felt comfortable and could even dance in the aisles if they chose.

Famous music promoter, Bill Graham, shown here at his Fillmore East venue in New York City, 1971. Photo, John Olson/ Life.

Carlos Santana had played music with his father as a youth, but it was not his style of music. By 1961, the Santana family had moved to San Francisco, and Carlos worked for a time as a dishwasher while pursuing his music. Bill Graham had taken an interest in the young Mexican-American guitarist, a kid he’d first met trying to sneak into the Fillmore. Santana’s band formed in 1966, initially as the Santana Blues Band with the help of guitarist Tom Fraser. Santana’s group made their debut at the Fillmore in 1968 and were soon managed by Graham, who sensed their sound was different and had potential. By 1969 the band consisted of Santana on lead guitar, Gregg Rolie on organ and keyboards, David Brown on bass, Michael Shrieve on drums, and Michael Carabello and Jose Areas, both on congas and percussion.

1969: Bill Graham, right, at Woodstock with promoter Michael Lang, likely discussing some aspect of Woodstock's logistics.

The Woodstock opportunity for Santana came when the Woodstock promoters – then having a bit of trouble with their planned event – came to Bill Graham seeking his help. Graham was then one of the few people in the country who knew how to put on a big music show. Graham agreed to help with Woodstock, but he had one stipulation. “I told them the only way I’d help them is if they put Santana on.” At the time, Graham also managed Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, who were on the Woodstock A-list, and reportedly, Graham also used these groups in the bargain to get Santana a slot. The Woodstock promoters agreed but replied, “What the hell is Santana?” They would soon find out.

Graham believed that Woodstock could be a big breakout moment for Santana, and told them so one evening when he assembled the group at his home in Mill Valley outside of San Francisco. He told them this was their big chance, and if done well, they would emerge on a par with the biggest names in rock. Yet they were skeptical, as Carlos Santana would recall saying, “Bill, we’re from the Mission. We don’t buy into that rock star thing.” The group had no track record beyond their west coast performances. Although in May 1969, they had gone into the studio to record some of their music for a possible later album release.

At Woodstock, Santana and band arrived on Saturday morning, August 16th, for the festival’s second day of music. They were under the impression they would not go on until much later that night, closer to midnight. But in the early afternoon, at around 2:00 pm, they were suddenly rushed on stage, told it was now or never. They performed a 45-minute set of eight songs, of which “Soul Sacrifice” — near the end of their set and including a famous drum solo by Michael Shrieve — was one of the big hits of the festival.

The Santana performance at Woodstock left a lasting impression on many who experienced it live that August afternoon in 1969. One college student who attended Woodstock with a group of friends, later posted comments noting: “…From a musical standpoint, Santana was unforgettable…. They had the entire crowd on it’s feet and dancing. I believe that this event really launched them to a national level….” Another noted “Santana’s near shamanic outpouring of exuberance on ‘Soul Sacrifice’”. Michael Spendolini, in later comments to the New York Times recalling his visit to Woodstock with a group of guys who piled into a VW bug from Connecticut, noted: “A couple of us were active musicians playing in bands for local high school and college dances…. and were thinking we were ‘aware’ of the music scene until we heard Santana. We, like everyone else there, were totally taken by the sound and ethnic vibe of this unique sound. The crowd reacted immediately and I would say that the energy level of the crowd at that time of day was at its peak.”

Santana's first album, released a few weeks after Woodstock, rose to No. 4 on the Billboard album chart, and would remain on that chart for two years. Includes “Jingo,” “Soul Sacrifice” & “Evil Ways”. Click for CD.

And true to form, as Bill Graham had predicted, within a few weeks of Woodstock, Santana shot to the top of popular music.

Their debut album, Santana, which had been recorded in May 1969, was released two weeks after Woodstock, on August 30, 1969. It quickly peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and would stay on that chart for two years. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the Santana album at No. 150 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Composed mostly of instrumental tracks, the album contains their first two singles, “Jingo” and “Evil Ways”. The latter became a Top Ten hit, rising to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album would later reach 2x-Platinum in sales and be reissued in 1998 and 2004.

But in the aftermath of Woodstock, the market momentum for Santana and other festival performers would continue for some time, as both a film and album of its music – the first of many – would follow.

Film & Music

The Woodstock film was first released for theaters in 1970, followed by an expanded director’s cut in 1994, and a second expanded version for a 40th anniversary edition in 2009, shown here. Click for DVD.

By late March 1970, Woodstock, the documentary film was released, a 185-minute production featuring the best parts of more than 25 of the Woodstock acts, including Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice” performance. The film received wide acclaim from newspaper and magazine critics of the day and was an enormous box office hit. Initially, the film played at one or two theaters in many metropolitan areas, but thousands were showing up to see it. The film would soon be shown in many theaters and would gross $50 million in the U.S., against a $600,000 production cost, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 1970 and one of the most profitable that year.

In May of 1970, a live album of selected performances from the 1969 Woodstock festival was released under the title, Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More. It was originally released on Atlantic Records’ Cotillion label as a triple album, and also included Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice” among its selections. All of the Woodstock “media” and music items that followed the festival helped raise the stock and trade of Santana and other acts who had appeared there.

Santana Gigs

Santana, meanwhile, through the remainder of 1969 and 1970, became a sought-after act at numerous venues beyond those in California where they had been appearing prior to Woodstock. Over the next year, between August 18, 1969, beginning at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ending on June 28, 1970 in England at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music, Santana appeared at more than 70 locations across the U.S. and Europe. They were performing somewhere almost daily during that time. Included in their 1969-1970 touring were several large festivals, such as the Texas International Pop Festival at the Dallas International Motor Speedway on August 31, 1969 and the Altamont Speedway Free Festival of December 6, 1969 at Tracy, California. They also appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on October 24, 1969 in New York City. Bill Graham, meanwhile, would feature Santana, among other acts, at his various venues in San Francisco and New York city during this time.

1970. Abraxas album.	1971. Santana III album.
1972. Caravanserai album.	1973. Welcome album.
1974 - Borboletta album.	1976. Amigos album.
1977. Festival album.	1977. Moonflower album.
1978. Inner Secrets album.	1979. Marathon album.
1981. Zebop! album.	1999. Supernatural album.
2016. Santana IV album.	2019. Africa Speaks album.

Albums

Carlos Santana and the Santana band would continue to have musical success in the decades following Woodstock. But along the way they would have their ups and downs. There would be personality clashes, differences over musical direction, changing personnel, and new management — and also musical experimentation.

Yet through it all, the 1970s would prove to be a prolific time for the band, as they would turn out some 14 albums (click album images for product links).

In September 1970, Santana’s second album, Abraxas, topped the Billboard charts and went on to earn a five-times Platinum certification.

In September 1971, Santana III followed, also reaching No. 1 and two-times Platinum. Santana released another twelve albums in the 1970s, each earning RIAA certifications in the U.S. of Gold or better.

Following its early `70s albums, Santana experimented with jazz fusion on Caravanserai (Oct 1972, #8 U.S.), Welcome (Nov 1973, #25), and Borboletta (Oct 1974, #20). Among others in the 1970s were: Amigos (March 1976, #10), Festival (Jan 1977, #27), Moonflower (Oct 1977, #10), Inner Secrets (Oct 1978, #27), and Marathon (Sept 1979, #25).

Zebop!, released in April 1981 was a Top Ten finisher at No. 9 and a Platinum performer.

A lull in the band’s output and popularity came in the 1984-1994 period, as fewer Santana albums were released and sales declined.

But after signing with Arista Records, and teaming up with manager Clive Davis, Santana released the very successful Supernatural album in June 1999 — a collaborative effort with younger artists — that rose to No. 1 in several countries. Supernatural earned Diamond status and beyond at 15-times Platinum, and would sell more than 27 million copies worldwide.

In 1998, the original Santana group line-up of Carlos Santana, Jose Chepito Areas, David Brown, Mike Carabello, Gregg Rolie, and Michael Shrieve was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 2000, basically on the merits of the album Supernatural, the band won six Grammy Awards in one night, tying a record set by Michael Jackson, also winning three Latin Grammy Awards.

In 2016, Carlos reunited with the revered early ’70s Santana lineup of musicians, releasing the album Santana IV, which debuted at No. 5 on Billboard 200 chart. In 2019, they released the album, Africa Speaks.

Legacy

Santana remains one of the best-selling groups of all time with 43.5 million certified albums sold the U.S., and an estimated 100 million sold worldwide. Their output includes 25 studio albums, 14 of which rose into the U.S. Top Ten. Four Santana albums have held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts in their day – Abraxas, Santana III, Supernatural, Shaman – along with two No. 1 singles, “Smooth” and “Maria Maria”.

Beyond their music, Santana and band have also been involved in various social causes during their careers. In October 1969, the band headlined a benefit concert at the Fillmore West on behalf of striking California farmworkers during the Delano grape strike. And Carlos Santana would later become executive producer for the 2017 documentary film, Dolores, about the life and work of Dolores Huerta, a farmworker advocate who, with Cesar Chavez, helped found the United Farm Workers of America.

President Barack Obama congratulates 2013 Kennedy Center Honors recipient Carlos Santana, during White House reception, December 8, 2013. AP photo, Manuel Balce Ceneta

Santana and his family have also established the Milagro Foundation, created in 1998, which has donated millions of dollars to non-profit programs supporting underserved children and youth in the areas of arts, education, and health.

Over the years, Carlos Santana has collected a number of achievement awards and special recognition honors from Rolling Stone magazine, Billboard, BMI, the Latin Recording Academy, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and others. In 2013, he was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient and attended a White House reception with President Barack Obama for honorees that December.

1969 "special report" from Rolling Stone magazine on Woodstock with cover photo of the Santana performance.

Woodstock Moment

Meanwhile, the “Santana moment” back at the Woodstock festival of August 1969, might now feel like ancient history and something that has receded into the musical ether.

Yet at that time and place in 1969 it was a transforming sound and performance; one that was new and exciting, innovative and liberating. It gave its listeners a new and uplifting experience. And it sent an unknown but rising group of musicians on their way, opening the doors to fifty more years of new music and experimentation across a diversity of Latin rock, African, and jazz-fusion genres. As the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame put in 1998: “Santana’s fusion of jazz, rock and Latin influences built them a hugely successful and lasting reign in the world of rock.”

For other artist profiles at this website involved with, or have work related to, Woodstock, see for example: “Crosby, Stills & Nash,” “Joplin’s Shooting Star,” “Joni’s Music” (Woodstock song & history), and “Diamonds & Rust: Joan & Bob.”

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 14 August 2019
Last Update: 12 August 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Santana Sound: Woodstock 1969,”
PopHistoryDig.com, August 14, 2019.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

“The Road to Woodstock” (2010), by Michael Lang, one of the organizers. A New York Times best-seller, 352 pp. Click for copy.

Carlos Santana’s book, “The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light” (2014). Little, Brown & Co., 544 pp. Click for copy.

“Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock” (2009), by New York city DJ, Pete Fornatale. Touchstone, 336 pp. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

The PBS/American Experience film, “Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation,” was released in 2019. It provides one of the best overviews of the history of the festival and its promoters, the reaction and comments of some of its participants, as well as a sampling of the music and artists who performed there, and also good and rare footage of the event as it occurred. Click for DVD.

“Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More” is a live album of selected performances from the 1969 Woodstock festival. Rhino’s 40th anniversary, 2-CD reissue (2009) is remastered from the original analog soundboard tapes. Click for Amazon.

“Santana/Carlos Santana,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 857-859.

Charles Perry, “The Sound of San Francisco,” in Anthony De Curtis and James Henke (eds), The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, Random House, New York, 1992, pp. 362-369.

“Carlos Santana Biography,” Santana.com.

“Biography: Santana Induction,” Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1998 (Members: Carlos Santana, Jose Chepito Areas, David Brown, Mike Carabello, Gregg Rolie, and Michael Shrieve).

“Santana (band),” Wikipedia.org.

“Carlos Santana,” Wikipedia.org.

James Sullivan, “Presenting Bill Graham / Rock Ringmaster Gets Top Billing in A&E Documentary,” SFgate.com / San Francisco Chronicle, July 13, 2002.

“Latin Music USA – Bridges; The Salsa Revolution,” PBS-TV, KQED, September 2010.

“Woodstock Remembered: Carlos Santana on the Spiritual Vibe of the Fest,” Rolling Stone.com, August 5, 2019.

Rob Tannenbaum, “Woodstock at 50: How Santana Hallucinated Through One of Woodstock’s Best Sets (His Own),” New York Times, August 6. 2019.

“Santana – Soul Sacrifice 1969 ‘Woodstock’, Live Video HQ,” YouTube.com.

“Santana Discography,” Wikipedia.org.

“Remembering Woodstock: Why the 1969 Festival Still Resonates; Woodstock Was More Than a Concert — It Was a Social, Political, Musical Event That Changed Our Culture (with video),” Rolling Stone.com, August 1, 2019.

George Varga, “Carlos Santana on Woodstock, Tijuana and His Vibrant New ‘Africa Speaks’ Album and Tour,” PacificSanDiego.com, June 19, 2019.

“Santana Tour” (first tour, 1969-1970), Wikipedia.org.

“Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More,” Wikipedia.org.

______________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

“Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock And Out,” by Bill Graham & Robert Greenfield, 2004 edition, Da Capo Press, 609 pp. Click for copy.

Daniel Bukszpan & Amalie R. Rothschild (photos), “Woodstock: 50 Years of Peace and Music,” 192 pp, w/photos, 2019. Click for copy.

Marc Shapiro’s book, “Carlos Santana: Back on Top” (2002), St. Martin's Griffin, 270 pp. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: James Bond Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Nancy-Sinatra-James-Bond-You-Only-Live-Twice.mp3 2641001 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/James-Bond-You-Only-Live-Twice-07-Mountains-and-Sunsets.mp3 3112026 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/08-The-Wedding.mp3 4799576 audio/mpeg

1961-1970

“You Only Live Twice”
Film & Music: 1967

August 4, 2019 J.D.

“You Only Live Twice” is the name of the fifth James Bond film, as well as the title of its theme song, performed by Nancy Sinatra. The film and soundtrack were both released in the summer of 1967. More on the music in a moment; first, some background.

When James Bond creator and author, Ian Fleming, roamed the world writing early travel stories, he had visited Japan and was very impressed by Japanese culture. Fleming later decided to bring British secret agent 007 to this location via his Bond novels. You Only Live Twice, published in 1964, picked up where a previous Bond adventure and Fleming novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, had left off. The film’s actual plot for You Only Live Twice, however, is a good bit different than Fleming’s novel of that name, his 11th and the last one he wrote for the James Bond series. But the film is flavored throughout with Japanese culture, Japanese scenery, and a quite pleasant and intriguing Japanese musical motif.

One of the opening title screens for the 1967 James Bond film, “You Only Live Twice,” during which the Nancy Sinatra title song is played over the opening credits and film’s set up.

In the film, British secret agent, James Bond, after a faked death, is dispatched to Japan after a manned American spacecraft disappears mysteriously while in orbit (swallowed whole and captured by a SPECTRE spacecraft, but then unknown to authorities). Back on earth, amid the Cold War, the U.S. blames the Soviet Union for the missing spacecraft. And later in the film, one of Russia’s orbiting spacecrafts is hijacked as well. Meanwhile, a British tracking station in Asia has recorded an alien craft landing in the Sea of Japan and suspects Japanese involvement somehow. This is when Bond, traveling under an alias after his faked death, is sent secretly to Japan, where he later poses as a fisherman in a local Japanese village to investigate the suspected hijackers’ base of operations.

1967. Original soundtrack album for “You Only Live Twice,” the 5th James Bond film, featuring popular title theme song of that name by Nancy Sinatra. Click for CD or digital singles.

During the film, rural Japanese settings and Japanese culture are key parts of the story, and composer John Barry sought to incorporate the “elegance of the Oriental sound” in the soundtrack, using Japanese-inspired music and instruments.

Music Player
“You Only Live Twice”
Nancy Sinatra, 1967
(scroll down for lyrics)

The title song, offered above, is widely recognized for its striking opening bars and Japanese flavor. It is heard twice in the film: at the opening and also over the closing credits.

In 2008, Drew Kerr, at an online music site, rated all of the Bond theme songs and placed Nancy Sinatra’s “You Only Live Twice” at No. 1. At the time, Kerr told National Public Radio that Sinatra’s song fit all the usual Bond criteria, from seductive to “spy-ish” sounding, but went further. “It also had that existential thing a lot of Bond movies had,” he said. “There’s something very emotional and cutting about that song.” More recently, in 2015, David Ehrlich at Rolling Stone rated all 22 Bond theme songs, ranking “You Only Live Twice” at No. 3, calling it “a classic” – ahead of Adele’s “Skyfall” of 2012 (No. 4) but behind Shirley Bassey’s 1963 hit, “Goldfinger” (No.1), and Paul McCartney & Wings’ 1973 song, “Live and Let Die” (No.2).

Nancy Sinatra on a later Reprise label EP featuring “Your Only Live Twice” and other songs. Click for similar CD.

Nancy Sinatra, daughter of famous crooner and Hollywood actor, Frank Sinatra, already had a hit song by the time she recorded “You Only Live Twice.” Her 1965 song, “These Boots Are Made for Walking,” had stormed the pop charts, becoming a No. 1 hit in the U.S. and UK February 1966. More on that song a bit later.

For the 1967 Bond film, however, Nancy Sinatra was the first non-British vocalist to sing a theme song for the James Bond film series. The music, as with other scores for Bond films of that era, was composed by John Barry. The song’s lyrics were written by Leslie Bricusse.

Both the Sinatra theme song, and full soundtrack album, scored well on the music charts of that day. The soundtrack for “You Only Live Twice” rose to No. 27 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1967.

Two versions of the Sinatra title song were recorded – one with the full orchestra for the soundtrack, and a second one with guitar backing more appropriate for release as a single. Both versions were popular – the soundtrack version on radio, and the single version for the pop charts, the latter rising to No. 44 on the U.S. Billboard chart and No. 11 in the UK.

Popular Appeal

Among the numerous James Bond film songs, “You Only Live Twice” is one that has had lasting appeal for many listeners. It offers something of a poignant and longing message for some; and perhaps a bit of life nostalgia – of memories gone by – for others.

The suggestion of two lives in the song, of course, raises all kinds of interesting possibilities, though here the premise seems to be the struggle between a real world and a dream world – “one life for yourself, and one for your dreams.”

“You Only Live Twice”
Nancy Sinatra
1967

You only live twice, or so it seems
One life for yourself, and one for your dreams

You drift through the years and life seems tame
Till one dream appears and love is its name

And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on
Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone

This dream is for you, so pay the price
Make one dream come true, you only live twice

And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on
Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone

This dream is for you, so pay the price
Make one dream come true, you only live twice
_____________________________

Songwriters: John Barry / Leslie Bricusse
Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

This notion is tailor made for spycraft, certainly, and works well with the James Bond mission in this particular film. But the idea can also inhabit mere mortals as well, and so, the song’s appeal to just ordinary folks.

Also woven through the song is the love variable; that elusive, sometimes mysterious element that is also a part of this song’s suggestion.

The lyrics speak of love as a beckoning stranger – an opportunity, though vanishing the moment second thoughts creep in, or worries about what may lay ahead. “Don’t think of the danger, or the stranger is gone,” say the lyrics. In other words, just go for it, or you’ll lose it!

You can have the dream, suggest the lyrics, if you’re prepared to risk the unknown and reap the consequences, whether good or bad. So, just jump in, “you only live twice.”

Along these lines, Mark Monahan of The Daily Telegraph of London described the lyrics as “mysterious, romantically carpe diem … at once velvety, brittle and quite bewitching.”

For various listeners, the song’s lyrics may summon personal past experiences of missed opportunities, ranging from that mysterious someone who got away, to missed love affairs, missed career opportunities, and generally, the lost past of days gone by. Others have been moved by the music. Visitors to YouTube.com videos playing music from You Only Live Twice have noted various reactions and comment on the film’s soundtrack or the Nancy Sinatra song. Stephen Paul Neave called the film’s music “hauntingly beautiful,” a sentiment repeated by other listeners. Oor Jaki, another from YouTube, said the song “sends shivers down my spine. John Barry really knew how to get right under your skin.” Bruce Powell, liking Nancy’s performance of the song, offered: “…It has some kind of magical, mystical quality, and some eternal truths in the lyrics. Wonderful piece.” Walter Fechter noted Nancy’s “sublime voice” and the “superb orchestration,” and that the song had remained fixed in his memory since 1967.

Japanese Sound

James Bond, in staged marriage ceremony to Kissy Suzuki in Japanese fishing village, as part of his cover. Click for song.

Later in the film, about midway, there is an interlude with the camera panning a beautiful Japanese seaside location ringed by rugged topography, as the “Mountains and Sunsets” track of the soundtrack plays, offering a gentle and beautiful instrumental Japanese version of the “You Only Live Twice” theme (excepting a brief middle section using mysterious-sounding plot music). Here’s that track below:

Music Player
“Mountains & Sunsets”
“You Only Live Twice” Soundtrack

Also on the soundtrack, there are short, repeating, instrumental motifs of the theme song that occur throughout the film during several scenes, including the beautifully-scored wedding scene when Bond, as part of his cover, marries a local Japanese fisherwoman (“ama” pearl diver), Kissy Suzuki, played by Japanese actress Mie Hama.

Kissy Suzuki and James Bond cavorting on Japanese hillside as they discover helicopters flying into an extinct volcano.

Music Player
“The Wedding”
“You Only Live Twice” Soundtrack

In the film plot, meanwhile, Bond is working with Japanese intelligence commander and ally “Tiger” Tanaka.

Tanaka has helped set up Bond in the fishing village, and earlier, as a measure of his Japanese hospitality, treated Bond to an evening with Gisha girls at a Japanese bath house. Tanaka has also been tracking parties believed related to the space hijackers and had Bond undergo rigorous training with Tanaka’s ninja force for an expected confrontation with the hijackers.

Bond later, with his new Japanese wife on one of their rural outings, discovers that the hijackers are using an extinct volcano in the Japanese hills to house an elaborate underground complex where they are holding American and Russian astronauts and spacecraft, as well readying their launch site at the complex for another space nabbing of a soon-to-be-launched U.S. spacecraft.

Bond v. Spectre

During some later reconnaissance of a supporting SPECTRE ship docking at nearby islands, Bond has the opportunity to use one of MI-5’s new high-tech military toys, “Little Nellie,” a jazzed-up mini-helicopter that can nearly single-handedly defeat any enemy, and in this case, with Bond at the controls, downs four SPECTRE craft that have come after him.

SPECTRE’s fake-volcano missile site, where Bond and his ninja allies later create havoc, leading to its complete destruction and the release of the captured astronauts.

Bond later infiltrates the SPECTRE base inside the extinct volcano, and a major battle ensues. To make a long story short, Bond, with later help of the ninjas, does battle with the bad guys at this location and saves the day, freeing the prisoners and preventing any further space thievery by SPECTRE. A self-destruct device is activated by arch nemesis and rival, Ernst Bloefeld, who has escaped, and the whole complex blows up. Bond and his ninja allies, meanwhile, have accomplished their mission, avert World War III, and also escape to the sea. As the film ends, Bond rejoins Kissy in a life raft, hoping to convince her they should begin their “honeymoon.” But then a British sub beneath them surfaces, catching the raft on the sub’s deck, as Bond is then summoned to make his report.

1967. Frank Sinatra with daughter Nancy in recording studio.

Music Back Story

Initially, in the making of the film’s title song, “You Only Live Twice,” there was some trial and error before Nancy Sinatra became the choice to sing that track.

The song was first recorded by Julie Rogers, a popular British singer. Rogers recorded her version with an orchestra in London. And jazz singer Lorraine Chandler also recorded a version that was more in the bombastic mold of Shirley Bassey, the Welsh singer famous for other Bond themes, notably Goldfinger.

But for this Bond film, there was some debate over which version and which artist should be used. As John Barry would put it: “It was usually the producers that said ‘this isn’t working, there’s a certain something that it needed’. If that energy wasn’t there, if that mysterioso kind of thing wasn’t there, then it wasn’t going to work for the movie.”

Actually, the film’s producer, Cubby Broccoli, wanted his friend, Frank Sinatra, to perform the song. But Sinatra suggested his daughter, Nancy, instead. John Barry at one point had thought to have Aretha Franklin do the song, but the producers insisted that he use Nancy, as she was then enjoying great popularity in the wake of her hit single, “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

A later album of Nancy Sinatra hits, with Nancy attired in mini-skirted dress and boots. Click for vinyl.

In the end, Nancy’s version of “You Only Live Twice” prevailed, offering a somewhat lighter style, with a Japanese flavor, as befitting the film’s setting and content. But Nancy’s image at the time may have also been a marketing factor.

“Nancy Sinatra was the epitome of that swinging sixties hipness, with her boots, her mini skirts, and her blonde hair,” observed British songwriter Marc Almond, commenting some years later on her choice for the song. “She was American as well, which I think was important because that gave the feeling that Bond was international. But there was also a sophistication to her as well.”

Nancy, for her part, later recalled that she was quite nervous during the recording. She was 26 years old at the time. She said she was “scared to death.”

The song was recorded with a 60-piece orchestra in May 1967 at the CTS Studios in London. John Barry created the final version from editing and mixing music and vocals of some previous 30 takes, and re-orchestrating the song to suit Nancy’s range. And Nancy herself later explained: “‘You Only Live Twice’ was difficult in a lot of ways. The fact that is was quite rangey, and I wasn’t used to that, I was used to my little octave and a half. I even asked John [Barry], are you sure you want me to do this because maybe you need Shirley Bassey? But they said no, we want you, we want your sound.”

Penguin Books cover art for hardback edition of Ian Fleming’s “You Only Live Twice.” Click for copy.

Nancy Sinatra, through 1967, would have a productive year with her various recordings appearing in the Top 100 nine times. As a soloist she had “Sugar Town” (#5), “Love Eyes” (#15), “Lightning’s Girl” (#24), and “Tony Rome” (#83). Three duets with Lee Hazelwood included “Summer Wine” (#49), “Jackson” (#14), and “Lady Bird” (#20). But her biggest hit for the year 1967 was a duet with her father, “Somethin’ Stupid”, which in April 1967 rose to No. 1 for 4 weeks.

For additional stories at this website on film and film music, see for example: “Goldfinger,” another Bond film with Shirley Bassey singing the classic title song; “Philadelphia Morning,” which explores some well-done, film-enhancing music by Bill Conti in the first Rocky film; “Let The River Run,” a story on the rousing Carly Simon song used in the 1988 film Working Girl; “Streets of Philadelphia,” covering two moving songs – one by Bruce Springsteen and the other by Neil Young – that underscore the message and emotional power of that classic film about an AIDS-stricken lawyer played by Tom Hanks; and “The Saddest Song,” which covers some of the history of Samuel Barber’s 1939 masterwork, “Adagio for Strings,” and its use in films including “Platoon” and “Elephant Man.”

Additionally, the “Sinatra Stories” page offers a selection of stories involving the music, politics, and/or love life of Frank Sinatra.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 4 August 2019
Last Update: 30 July 2023
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “You Only Live Twice, Film Music: 1967,”
PopHistoryDig.com, August 4, 2019.

____________________________________

James Bond Books & Film at Amazon.com…

2015 book, “...The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films,” History Press. Click for Amazon.

“The James Bond Collection,” 24 films, including SPECTRE. Blu-ray, 2020 release. Click for Amazon.

Thom Shubilla’s 2024 book, “James Bond and The Sixties Spy Craze,” 288 pp. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Ian Fleming's 1964 book, "You Only Live Twice," showing cover of New American Library 1st edition. Click for copy.

“Greatest Movie Series Franchises of All Time – James Bond Films: You Only Live Twice (1967),” FilmSite.org.

“Nancy Meets James Bond … in the Recording Studio,” Melody Maker (London), May 13, 1967.

Andrew, “Nancy Meets James Bond: ‘You Only Live Twice’ at 50,” NancySinatra.com, April 28th, 2017.

“Ranking The Bond Theme Songs,” NPR/All Things Considered, November 14, 2008.

David Ehrlich, “James Bond Movie Theme Songs, Ranked Worst to Best,” RollingStone.com, November 2, 2015.

Keith Caulfield, “’Skyfall’ Soundtrack: Highest-Charting Bond Album in 27 Years,” Billboard .com, November 16, 2012.

MI-6 Staff, “You Only Sing Twice: The History of the Haunting Title Song That Was Recorded 50 Years Ago,” www.MI6-hq.com, May 5, 2017.

Nancy Sinatra – You Only Live Twice (HQ),” YouTube.com, posted, December 22, 2011 (includes Nancy Sinatra song and film frames for opening and closing credits with music, 4:27).

“You Only Live Twice (film),” Wikipedia.org.

“You Only Live Twice (song),” Wikipedia.org.

“You Only Live Twice (soundtrack),” Wikipedia .org.

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James Bond Books & Film at Amazon.com…

Sean Connery / James Bond Film Collection: Vol 1, on DVD. Click for Amazon.

“Licence to Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films,” 2008. Click for Amazon.

Nicholas Shakespeare’s 2024 book, “Ian Fleming the Complete Man.” Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Petrochem History

1981-1990, 2001-Today

“The Phillips Explosion”
Pasadena, TX: 1989

July 30, 2019 J.D.

On October 23rd, 1989 an earth-shattering explosion at the Phillips Petroleum Company’s plastics plant in Pasadena, Texas, killed 23 workers, injured more than 130 others, and totally destroyed the plant, resulting in some $750 million to $1 billion in economic losses. The explosion, with the force of 2.4 tons of TNT, ripped through the plant, twisting multi-story steel structures like tinker toys, sending debris into the air for miles. Buildings shook in downtown Houston and homes were damaged eight-miles away.

October 23, 1989. Fire and smoke at Phillips Petroleum’s Pasadena, Texas plastics plant, following explosion that would kill 23 workers and injure more than 130 others. Homes were damaged within an 8-mile radius of the blast. (AP Photo/Ed Kolenovsky)

“Everything shook with that tremendous boom, and then it began raining pieces of sheet metal a foot more more longer,” reported construction worker Mike Buchanan in comments to the New York Times. Buchanan was driving on Interstate 10 at the time of the explosion, about five miles from the plant. The smoke cloud rising from the disaster could be seen at a distance of 15 miles. Yet the seeds of this catastrophe, according to many experts in and out of the industry, were planted some years before, owing mostly to business and market machinations on Wall Street, as well as the company’s adjustments to those pressures. More on that part of the story in a moment; first some company background.

October 24, 1989. Early reporting and headline on the Phillips explosion from the New York Times before final numbers were determined on those killed and injured.

Phillips History

In the early 1900s, brothers Frank and L.E. Phillips were having success as wildcat operators and by June 1917, they formed the Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. It soon became a fully integrated oil company with oil and gas production, crude oil pipelines, refineries, and gasoline marketing. After discoveries Texas and Kansas, Phillips became a leader in natural gas production, and by 1925, it was the largest U.S. producer of natural gas liquids.

The Phillips 66 logo and service station sign, having the look, in part, of the “Route 66" highway sign.

In 1927, it built its first oil refinery in Borger, Texas, then producing gasoline for the burgeoning automotive market, opening its first service station that year. By 1930, it developed its “Phillips 66” trademark logo, later familiar at its service stations nationwide ( named in part from the company’s location near U.S. route 66)

With World War II, Phillips became a producer of high-octane aviation fuel and jet fuel, and after the war, it moved into petrochemicals. Forming the Phillips Chemical subsidiary, it first entered the fertilizer business, but soon stumbled into plastics when a couple of its chemists in 1951 accidentally came up with Marlex, crystalline polypropylene chemical that could be used for a variety of plastics.

Initially, there were few uses for the substance until a company named Wham-O came along in 1958 with a plastic, waist-twirling “Hula Hoop” toy that became a pop culture sensation. Wham-O would sell hundreds of millions of Hula Hoops, many made with Phillips’ Marlex polypropylene. As the Hula-Hoop fad diminished, Wham-O continued using Phillips’ Marlex through the late 1960s and beyond to make the plastic Frisbee, a recreational throwing disc that also became popular. Phillips Chemical by then was making all kinds of plastic products.

Late 1950s. Phillips Chemical began to make its mark as a plastics producer with rise of the Hula Hoop.

In fact, by 1965, the company was boasting in advertising that it was producing “more plastic that any other oil company in the world,” with Marlex leading the charge.

“Almost anything can be made of Marlex…,” Phillips explained in a two-page magazine ad showing a happy family with all kinds of plastic products arrayed around them. “…And 1,001 things are, from colorful, stain-proof fabrics to tough-boy resistant school furniture. They’re easy to use, clean and carry. Easy to look at too. Not surprising then that Marlex is a new household word…”

Well, perhaps not a household word, but by then certainly contributing millions of dollars to Phillips’ coffers.

Back in the oil and gas business, meanwhile, Phillips had ventured internationally with exploration in Canada, Venezuela, and Colombia, and made a major North Sea gas discovery in 1969. In the 1970s, the company was rocked by political scandal for illegal campaign contributions, but by then it had become giant multinational corporation. The Phillips empire by 1979 included 8,400 miles of pipelines, nine crude oil tankers at sea, five U.S oil refineries, 14 chemical plants, and 13,600 service stations. In 1983 it acquired the General American Oil Company, “one of the largest independent oil companies in the nation, with worldwide operations and interests.” By the mid-1980s, Phillips was among the top tier of Fortune 500 companies with annual sales north of $10 billion and profits of more than $1 billion.

March 1985. T. Boone Pickens on the cover of Time magazine in feature story, “The Takeover Game.” Click for his book.

The Raiders

The mid-1980s, however, would not be happy times for Phillips Petroleum or Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the company’s headquarters. That’s when corporate raiders T. Boone Pickens and Carl Icahn came knocking on Phillips shareholders’ doors, attempting to buy out the company in successive takeover attempts. First, came T. Boone Pickens.

In December 1984, Pickens led an investment group named Mesa Partners in an attempt to purchase what was then the nation’s eighth-largest oil company.

Pickens, a 1951 graduate of Oklahoma State University with a degree in geology, had worked for Phillips in one of his first jobs in the oil industry. But he later became a wildcat oilman, and by 1956 founded the company that would become Mesa Petroleum.

By 1981, Mesa had grown into one of the largest independent oil companies in the world and Pickens would use its Mesa Partners investment group as the vehicle in his shareholder raids. Pickens, like other raiders of that period, saw his takeover bids as helping to sharpen the target corporations, ultimately, in his view, increasing their value and making them better companies – a view not always shared by the companies under attack.

Pickens had previously made a run at Gulf Oil. In the Phillips raid, Pickens accumulated 8.9 million shares of Phillips stock by November 1984 and was angling for another 23 million shares, which would have given him 21 percent of the company. On December 2nd, 1984, Phillips executives were told that Pickens’ Mesa group was making a tender offer at $60 a share — $12 more per share than the stock was then selling for. Pickens said the offer was the first step in a leveraged buyout of Phillips. While just a fraction the size of Phillips, Pickens and Mesa’s leveraged offer was worth $1.38 billion.

Cartoon poking fun at Pickens’ buyout bid for Phillips. Dave Simpson, Tulsa Tribune, December 1984.

Bartlesville, essentially a Phillips company town, panicked with the Pickens raid. For more than a half-century, Phillips was at the center of the town’s economy and was its model corporate citizen, contributing to the hospital, sponsoring athletic events, and more.

But people in Bartlesville began to fear that a takeover would mean job cuts. Some pulled their savings from local banks and a few small businesses began backing out of deals. Layoffs were feared, and holiday shopping that December was subdued.

But townspeople also picketed, wrote anti-Pickens songs, sold “Boone Buster” T-shirts, and held Phillips rallies. Pickens buyout plan was for all of Phillips’s stockholders to receive the equivalent of $60 a share. On that basis, Phillips’s 154.3 million shares would be worth at least $9.3 billion. But Pickens later withdrew his bid after settling with the company. Within a month of Pickens’ December 1984 raid, Phillips` reached a compromise with him, issuing a recapitalization plan to increase the company’s stock value. Under the plan, Phillips would buy back 38 percent of the 154 million shares outstanding at $53 a share, or $3.1 billion. But that wasn’t the end of Phillips’s troubles.

Feb 1985. New York Times headlines for story on the Icahn raid at Phillips.

In January and February 1985, financiers Irwin Jacobs, Ivan Boesky, and Carl Icahn all bought up large blocks of Phillips stock. And Carl Icahn proved to be the most determined among this group.

He made his run at the company in February 1985, challenging some of the terms in the Pickens agreement, and putting together an $8.1 billion takeover bid. On February 12th, Icahn sought to buy up 45 percent of the company, which combined with the 5 percent he already owned, would give him a controlling stake in the company.

In early March, Phillips executives, faced with shareholders willing to sell to Icahn, came up with a plan to exchange debt securities for half of its outstanding stock, including Icahn’s 5 percent, at $62 per share – compared to the $53 per share it had paid Pickens. Icahn accepted the deal and he left a wealthier man.

In the end, Phillips had managed to outflank both Pickens and Icahn, essentially out-bidding them with sweeteners and special deals for stockholders. But the price was high. Pickens made $90 million in his deal; Icahn $50 million. And in the process, Phillips – with lots of new debt – became the banker’s new best friend. But how this maneuvering and financial debt would manifest itself on the ground, in day-to day operations at the company’s oil and chemical plants, was the more dangerous story.

Debt & Job Cuts

By year end 1985, Phillips was $8.6 billion in debt, and its stock value had fallen dramatically. In 1986, the company’s earnings plunged 45 percent. Under Wall Street’s watchful eye, the company began looking for ways to reduce debt, keep production up, and bolster returns. It soon began selling off some assets and cutting jobs. Between 1984 and 1987, it cut more than 7,000 jobs, and was still slashing in 1989.Between 1984 and 1987, Phillips cut more than 7,000 jobs, and was still slashing in 1989. But some of those job cuts might prove to be costly.

“The stock buyback scheme [ to fend off Pickens and Icahn] forced Phillips to let go 10,000 of its 25,000 employees,” wrote Joseph Kinney, executive director of the National Safe Workplace Institute in Chicago in an October 1989 Op-Ed piece. “…Among those terminated were safety engineers, industrial hygienists and maintenance engineers — technicians who are integral to plant safety.” Bob Wages of the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) would also note: “Many of the job cuts (at Phillips) came as a result of closures and divestitures, and others as a result of early retirement offers… Seasoned employees at all levels were let go. In fact, the ranks of hourly workers were decimated — once by early retirements and twice by substitution with contract employees….”

One of the places where strains in the Phillips’ workforce soon became apparent was at the company’s Pasadena petrochemical plant near Houston, where polyethylene plastic was produced. Built in 1956, the Houston Chemical Complex in Pasadena, Texas had undergone major expansions in the late 1970s and 1980s.Phillips froze its work force and used outside workers and mandatory overtime to run the plant. The plant produced approximately 1.5 billion pounds high-density polyethylene (HDPE) per year, a plastic material then used to make milk bottles and other containers. Some 1,500 people worked at the facility, including 905 company employees and approximately 600 daily contract employees who were engaged primarily in regular maintenance activities and new plant construction. But in the aftermath of the mid-1980s takeover raids, the company froze its work force there and used a combination of outside workers and mandatory overtime from existing workers to run the complex. Some workers on mandatory overtime, for example, were doing five-day, 12-hour-per-day shifts in 1989. At the Pasadena plant, Phillips also froze its maintenance work force at about 140-150.

Still, with production up, Phillips had ongoing maintenance responsibilities, especially in the ethylene reactors where production would be slowed by bad product blockage. These maintenance needs were met, increasingly with outside contractors through the services of Fish Engineering. By 1989, there were more than 200 such contract laborers performing maintenance tasks at the plant.

Cheaper Labor

“The company is strongly motivated to subcontract,” explained OCAW’s Robert Wages at November 1989 a Congressional hearing, “as these workers have no labor agreement and can be compensated at approximately 65 percent of that of a Phillip’s employee.” Contract laborers were cheaper in other ways too: benefits did not have to be paid, nor medical insurance or pensions. Nor did the company have to worry about payroll, accounting, hiring or firing. The subcontractor did all that.

Stock photo of construction workers. In the aftermath of the 1989 Phillips plastic plant explosion, an examination of the differences in experience and training between long-time company and union employees vs. hired-out contract workers was revealed to be an important issue, with contract workers’ inexperience implicated in the explosion.

But contract workers did not always receive the level of training that full time laborers did — particularly with regard to hazardous material and emergency procedures. In fact, a 1990 study commissioned by the U.S. Occupational, Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and conducted by the John Gray Institute of Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas would conclude: “Compared to permanent employees, contract employees receive significantly less safety and health training and are less knowledgeable about workplace hazards, hazardous materials, and emergency response in petrochemical facilities.”

And that just might have been what made the difference on October 23, 1989. That’s when explosions ripped through the plant, killing and maiming workers, and terrorizing residents for miles around the facility. One OCAW official, reacting to the explosion in November 1989 was quoted in the AFL-CIO News stating that “contracting out of maintenance work, elimination of relief crews, excessive overtime, and paring of staff to the ‘bare bones’ set the stage for an explosion that was waiting to happen.”

Cover of the April 1990 U.S. Department of Labor/OSHA report to the President showing enormous fireball at the October 1989 explosion of the Phillips 66 plastics plant in Pasadena, TX that killed 23 workers.

The primary cause of the explosion was the accidental release of a mixture of 85,000 pounds of four highly flammable process gases that created a vapor cloud which then moved rapidly from an open valve to an ignition source on the plant grounds. At the time of the accident, a Fish Engineering contracting crew was working on what is known as a settling line or dump leg, in which solidified polyethylene from processing — called “plugs” or “logs” — accumulates as blockage and must be removed in a normal maintenance procedure. “We were working on No. 1 leg…,” Phillips worker, Chuck Soules would later recall. “The crew that they had there at the time, as far as contractors, was very inexperienced. They did not know what was going on.”

Map showing plant location.(New York Times).

According to OCAW, the contractor crew removed a blocking device, and having hooked up actuating hoses in reverse order, opened a 10-inch valve to the atmosphere. The April 1990 OSHA/Labor Department Report to the President (cover photo above) described the sequence of events after the gas began to escape from the opened valve:

…Because of the high operating pressure, the reactor dumped approximately 99 percent of its contents in a matter of seconds. A huge unconfined vapor cloud formed almost instantly and moved rapidly downwind through the plant.

…Within 2 minutes, and possibly as soon as 90 seconds, the vapor cloud came into contact with an ignition source and was ignited. Two other major explosions occurred subsequently, one about 10 to 15 minutes after the initial explosion when two 20,000 gallon isobutane storage tanks exploded, and another when another polyethylene plant reactor catastrophically failed about 25 to 45 minutes into the event…

…The large number of fatally injured personnel was due in part to the inadequate separation between buildings in the complex. The distances between process equipment were in violation of accepted engineering practices and did not allow personnel to leave the polyethylene plants safely during the initial vapor release; nor was there sufficient separation between the reactors and the control room to carry out emergency shutdown procedures. The control room, in fact, was destroyed by the initial explosion. Of the 22 victims’ bodies that were recovered…, all were located within 250 feet of the vapor release point; 15 of them were within 150 feet.”

“Area Affected By Explosion” map shows a six-mile radius area around the site of the Phillips November 1989 explosion with some examples of building damage and debris that followed.

When Secretary Dole announced the proposed fine for Phillips in April 1990, she explained: “This tragedy is magnified by clear evidence that this explosion was avoidable, had recognized safety procedures been followed. OSHA has uncovered internal Phillips documents that called for corrective action but which were largely ignored.” In fact, there were signs as early as 1987, and up until a few weeks before the explosion, operations at the Phillips plant weren’t as tight as they should have been.

U.S. Secretary of Labor, Elizabeth Dole, shown at another event, would issue OSHA’s April 1990 report to the President on the Phillips explosion.

OCAW union representatives had complained to management on seven specific occasions between September 1987 and August 1989 about sub-contractors performing either unsafe work or failing to notify the company of their intent to work on critical systems. Union members also reported to Phillips management five instances of supervisors not following plant safety procedures or ordering workers to violate safety rules.

In April 1989, an OSHA inspector had received complaints about mandatory overtime from some Phillips employees. A few months prior to the explosion, a crew of contractors working at the plant had suggested to horrified plant operators that they use reactor pressure to clean a 10-inch valve that had become plugged. And in August (1989), Fish Engineering sub-contractors opened some piping to a tank without isolating the line, resulting in a venting of flammable solvents and gas into an adjoining work area where it ignited, burning four workers and killing two others. OSHA cited Phillips for improper lock-out procedures and proposed a fine of $720, which the company contested.

But after the plastics plant calamity at Pasadena, OSHA proposed that Phillips be hit with a $5.7 million fine, accusing the company of 566 willful safety violations, defined by OSHA as “those committed with an intentional disregard of, or plain indifference to, the requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.” OSHA also issued 181 willful and 12 serious violations for subcontractor Fish Engineering along with $729,600 in fines. However, in 1991, Phillips reached a settlement with OSHA removing the “willful” characterization of the violations and eventually agreed to pay $4 million to settle the charges, less than 2 percent of the company’s profits in the year of the accident.

Photo of the damaged, still smoldering Phillips plastics plant in the aftermath of the 1989 explosions and fire.

Hazardous Industry

Dangers Rising

“OSHA’s findings in the investigation of the Phillips complex disaster,” said the agency’s April 1990 Report to the President, “support the conclusion that poor risk assessment and management, lack of redundant systems and fail-safe engineering, inadequate maintenance of equipment, poorly conceived operational or maintenance procedures, and incomplete employee training are the underlying factors that contribute to or heighten the consequences of an accident.” And OSHA also warned: “Because of the trend toward larger, continuous operations, the hazards within this industry are being magnified…”

The Phillips explosion, in fact, was not an isolated case – at Phillips or elsewhere in the oil and petrochemical sectors. One history of OSHA inspections of Phillips facilities in the Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas region prior to the Houston explosion, showed 18 deaths and “multiple hospitalizations.” Beyond Phillips, a series of accidents, fires and explosions throughout the U.S. oil and petrochemical sectors had occurred during the 1980s and early 1990s. A number of American journalists at that time – at the Austin American-Statesman (Texas), National Journal (Washington., DC), New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and others (see “Sources” below) – had all published in-depth stories probing the rash of fires, explosions, and other mishaps then occurring throughout the oil refining and petrochemical sectors. And in many of the reported mishaps, failure to stay on top of plant maintenance and capital repair with an experienced and sufficient workforce was cited as among the chief causes. ‘Skimping on safety,” in other words – whether driven by takeover-related financial pressures, or just plain corporate neglect and/or greed – had become a too common reality in the oil and petrochemical sectors, putting workers and nearby communities at risk.

“Most Hazardous”
Oil Refining

Between 1984 and 1991, a series of fires and explosions at U.S. oil refineries and related facilities killed more than 80 workers and injured more than 900. In California, injuries to oil refinery workers which resulted in at least one day of lost work, increased 32 percent between 1989 and 1990, rising from 214 to 284, according to statistics compiled by the state OSHA.

“Within the petrochemical industry, petroleum refining has been identified as the most hazardous sector,” reported the U.S. OSHA and the Labor Department to then President George Bush in the wake of the Phillips explosion. “All of the data sources, including OSHA’s own inspection data, indicate that a fire or explosion is more likely in petroleum refining than in other petrochemical sectors.”

The OSHA/Labor Department report to President Bush also pointed out some other worrisome trends in the petrochemical industry, namely, that:

the Bureau of Labor Statistics had found “an increase in injury rates in the petrochemical industry since 1985;”

the number of “serious” violations found by OSHA inspections of petrochemical facilities “has increased significantly;”

increases in the size of industrial processing units, changes from multiple-batch operations to continuous-train operations, and reduced spacing of processing equipment have resulted in an increased risk of explosion and of injury or death to workers; and,

inadequacies in engineering controls, supervision, employee training programs, improper tools and equipment, and fire and rescue equipment — all the result of inadequate management systems — contributed to accidents themselves and to severity of their impact.

Phillips Again

1999-2000

Phillips Petroleum, meanwhile, would regain its economic footing after the 1989 explosion. It would reap multi-billion dollar annual revenues across its U.S. and global operations through the 1990s. But there would also be additional accidents. Nearly a decade after its 1989 explosion, Phillips had more explosions at its Pasedena, Texas chemical complex. In April 1999, a rail car containing polypropylene blew up. Another explosion and fire occurred on June 23 that year as two contractor workers were killed and three others injured. Phillips was fined $204,000 by OSHA for 13 alleged safety and health violations in the wake of the June 23rd explosion and fire. A third incident occurred in August 1999, when there was an explosion in the polypropylene section of the plant.

Then, on March 27, 2000, another explosion occurred at the Pasadena complex, this time at a chemical process tank. The tank had been out of service for cleaning but had no pressure or temperature gauges that would have provided warnings to workers. In this explosion, one worker was killed, while 71 others were injured (32 Phillips employees and 39 subcontractors), some taken to local hospitals for burns, smoke inhalation, and other injuries. The fire that followed produced huge plumes of black smoke (see NYT photo below) that spread over the Houston Ship Channel and neighboring residential areas. It took work crews five hours of digging through rubble to locate the body of the dead worker, Rodney Gott, a 45-year-old supervisor and long-time employee at the plant who had barely survived the 1989 explosion.

March 28, 2000. New York Times early reporting and photos of explosion and evacuated workers at Phillips Petroleum’s Houston chemical complex, where one worker was killed, and in later accounting, 71 others injured.

The March 2000 explosion involved a process in which a type of plastic is made with butadiene. OSHA’s regional administrator, John B. Miles Jr., reporting on that process in the K-resin unit, where the blast occurred, observed: “The primary violations were the failure to properly train workers in the hazards associated with the reaction of the butadiene chemical. We found 30 instances of that where they failed to train their operators and supervisors.” OSHA’s six-month investigation concluded that failure to train workers properly was a key factor in the explosion and fire, and proposed that Phillips be fined $2.5 million in penalties for 50 alleged safety violations. In the broader business arena, meanwhile, Phillips was about to experience some major change.

Conoco-Phillips

On August 30, 2002, Phillips merged with Conoco, another large oil company, forming ConocoPhillips, then the third largest integrated energy company and second-largest refining company in the United States. Ten years later, however, in 2012, the ConocoPhillips creation would reorganize and split into two separate companies. The new Phillips 66 company would keep the refinery, chemical, and pipeline assets formerly held in ConocoPhillips, as well as the brand name and trademark used by the original Phillips Petroleum. The other company, using the ConocoPhillips name, would include the upstream oil and gas exploration and production operations.

Graphic showing some of the business evolution of the Phillips and Conoco oil companies from the early 1900s through their 2002 merger and subsequent 2012 split into separate operating companies.

Of course, becoming larger by merger, or more focused as separate, specialized companies, did not necessarily translate into safer operations. Conoco and Phillips, together or separate, would continue to have safety problems through the 2000s and 2010s, regardless of their business structure. Among some their incidents during these years, for example, have been the following (not a complete list):

2001. Part of damage in the wake of explosion and fire at then Conoco-owned Humber Refinery in England, for which ConocoPhillips was fined & cited.

2003. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) filed a report on the 2003 storage tank explosion & fire at the ConocoPhillips tank farm in Glenpool, OK.

2009. Crumpled storage tank at ConocoPhillips’ Billings, MT refinery following fire. L. Mayer/Billings Gazette.

A well head gas leak sparked a fire at ConocoPhillips well near Chetwynd, B.C. November 2008.

Stock photo. Bayway oil refinery, Linden, NJ.

Title card, backgrounder, ConocoPhillips WY gas plant.

Explosion & fire at a Phillips 66 natural gas liquids line at Paradis, LA killed one worker and injured 3 others.

The Phillips 66 Wood River oil refinery in Roxana, Illinois looking west towards the Mississippi River.

March 15, 2019. Fire at Phillips’ Carson , CA refinery.

U.K. Refinery Explosion
April 16, 2001. Conoco had a major explosion and fire at its Humber Refinery in North Lincolnshire, England on Easter Monday. With most workers away for the holiday, injuries were few and there were no fatalities. In nearby residential areas, however, windows and doors were blown in. And damage at the plant and some adjacent areas was extensive, as the refinery was shut down for several weeks. The incident was investigated by the U.K. Health and Safety Executive and ConocoPhillips was fined £895,000 and ordered to pay £218,854 costs. The Health and Safety Executive cited the company for failing to effectively monitor erosion in the refinery’s pipework. The company pleaded guilty to the charges and implemented a new inspection program.

Storage Tank Explosion
April 7, 2003. An 80,000-barrel storage tank at a ConocoPhillips tank farm in Glenpool, Oklahoma, exploded and burned as it was being filled with diesel. The resulting fire burned for about 21 hours and damaged two other storage tanks in the area. The cost of the accident was placed at more than $2.3 million but there were no injuries or fatalities. Some nearby residents were evacuated, and schools were closed for 2 days.

Refinery Explosion & Fire
July 23, 2003. A gasoline processing unit at ConocoPhillips’ refinery in Ponca City, Oklahoma exploded into flames, sending three workers to the hospital. One worker on the scene reported a fireball shooting as high as 100 feet into the air.

Alaska Oil Spill
2004-2007. Polar Tankers, a ConocoPhillips subsidiary, pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of covering up an oil spill off the coast of Alaska three years earlier. The company was ordered to pay a $500,000 criminal fine and $2 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Canada Well Fires
December 2007. An out of control well fire at a ConnocoPhillips natural gas well near Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia burned for several weeks before it was brought under control. A seconf gas well fire at another ConocoPhillips location near Chetwynd,m B.C. occured in November 2008.

Refinery Safety
In 2009 OSHA proposed fines of $92,000 for the ConocoPhillips Bayway Refinery in Linden, New Jersey (830 workers) for repeat violations that left workers “at risk of accidents that could result in injury or possible death.”

Refinery Tank Fire
December 24, 2009. A storage tank at the ConocoPhillips refinery in Billings, MT caught fire on Christmas Eve. The 97,000 bbl/ 4 million- gallon tank was about one-quarter fill with asphalt and pitch, accounting for thick dark smoke with soot during the blaze. There were some complaints from nearby residents about odors and soot. ConocoPhillips later reported emissions from the fire included 6.8 tons of sulfur dioxide, 10.4 tons of particulate matter, 5 tons of carbon monoxide, 1.5 tons of hydrocarbons and 400 pounds of nitrogen oxides.

Refinery Fire
April 29, 2010. Fire reported at Conoco Phillips’ 306,000 bbls-per-day Wood River refinery at Roxana, Illinois. Fire broke out at a sulfur treatment unit and according to the company was safely extinguished with no reported injuries or offsite impacts.

Gas Plant Burns Workers
August 22, 2012. A flash fire at the Conoco-Phillips Lost Cabin natural gas processing plant near Lysite, Wyoming burned four contract workers. Three of the workers were helicoptered to burn centers for medical attention and a fourth was sent by ambulance to Riverton Memorial Hospital. An earlier explosion and fire at this same plant on June 5, 2010, destroyed one of its units and also triggered automated calls to local residents warning them to evacuate. There were no injuries in that fire. The plant strips carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide from natural gas wells in the area.

Pipeline Explosion & Fire
February 9, 2017. A Phillips 66 natural gas liquids pipeline exploded into a raging inferno at Paradis, Louisiana, killing one worker and injuring three others. Local officials reported that residents of some 60 homes in the area were temporarily evacuated. The fire burned for three days before being extinguished. The line is near the Williams Discovery natural gas plant about 30 minutes west of New Orleans.

Hydrofluoric Acid Leak
February 11, 2017. Seven workers were sent to the hospital after a hydrofluoric acid leak at Phillips 66’s Ferndale Refinery, located in the Cherry Point area, west of Ferndale, WA. The leak was from the refinery’s alkylation unit where hydrofluoric acid is used to convert refining byproducts into octane-boosting components of gasoline. The Washington State Department of Labor & Industries fined Phillips $37,800 for the leak, calling the incident “serious” and charging that Phillips “did not implement safe work practices for the control of hazards for the employees” and did not inform the contract employer of the known potential hazards related to the work.

Lawsuits & Settlements
August 20, 2018: Phillips 66 agreed to settle alleged Clean Air Act and other violations at its Wood River Refinery in Illinois. Under the terms of the settlement filed in federal court, Phillips 66 agreed to pay a $475,000 fine (and make other payments) for leaking valves and pumps that caused excess emissions of dangerous chemicals, some occurring in 2009. A 2014 inspection reportedly revealed hydrocarbon emissions escaping from three vents and 17 roof seams at the refinery. Benzene was reportedly leaking from 14 locations on-site. Phillips agreed to make $10.8 million worth of changes at the refinery to comply with federal and state standards. In 2017, the Phillips refinery reached another settlement in a separate case in which 183 properties near the refinery claimed they were polluted by leaked underground toxic chemicals released from the refinery over decades that had migrated off site. In October 2016, the Phillips refinery reached a third settlement over allegations it had released mercury, ammonia, and other byproducts into the Mississippi River.

Refinery Fires
May 1, 2019. For the second time in less than two months, Los Angeles firefighters were called to put out a blaze involving the crude oil pumps at the Phillips 66 refinery in Carson, CA. A similar incident occurred on March 15, 2019 when three of the refinery’s four crude oil pumps were involved in a fire that took about three hours to put out.

For additional stories at this website on the history of oil refinery explosions and fires, see the following: “Texas City Disaster: BP Refinery, March 2005” (about BP’s negligence in the 2005 Texas City, TX oil refinery explosion & fire that killed 15 workers and injured another 180, including 60 Minutes TV coverage and details on related litigation); “Inferno at Whiting: Standard Oil, 1955” (story about the eight-day catastrophic oil refinery fire near Chicago in 1955, and later leaks, spills, and waste issues at the refinery under Amoco and BP management); and, “Burning Philadelphia”( a story about the 1975 Gulf Oil Co. refinery fire in that city). For another story on a petrochem plastics plant explosion and fire, see, “Shell Plant Explodes, 1994: Belpre, Ohio.”

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 30 July 2019
Last Update: 19 July 2020
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Phillips Explosion – Pasadena, TX: 1989,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 30, 2019.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

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T. Boone Pickens’ 2008 book, “The First Billion is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future,” 272pp. Click for copy.

Steve Early’s 2017 book, “Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City,” a story about community politics in Richmond, CA, home to a large Chevron oil refinery with a history of pollution and safety incidents. Click for copy.

Stephen McGinty’s book, “Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster,” about the July 1988 Occidental Petroleum disaster in the North Sea that killed 167 people. Click for copy.

2013 paperback edition of “Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution,” by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner. Click for copy.

Related Reading: Scott Cole’s 2018 book, “Fallout,” about a community’s fight with oil industry pollution from a Unocal Oil refinery in California. Click for copy.

2016 book, “The Green and the Black: The Complete Story of the Shale Revolution, the Fight over Fracking, and the Future of Energy,” St. Martin's Press, 288 pp. Click for copy.

June 2010, U.S. Senate hearing on safety in the oil & gas industry. Click for copy.

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Associated Press, “Oil Takeover Bid Dropped,” Washington Post, December 24, 1984, p. A-3;

“Icahn Offers $8.5 Billion For Phillips Petroleum Co.,” Washington Post, February 6, 1985, p. D-11

Steven P. Rosenfeld, “Phillips Sues to Block Icahn Bid,” Washington Post, February 7, 1985, p. E-4.

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James R. Norman, “What The Raiders Did To Phillips Petroleum,” Business Week, March 17, 1986, pp. 102-103.

Michael Arndt, “Raiders Leave Mark on Phillips` Town,” Chicago Tribune, September 27, 1987.

Associated Press, “Plastics Plant Near Houston Explodes; 80 Injured,” Washington Post, October 24, 1989, p.

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Joseph A. Kinney, “OSHA May Be Looking In The Wrong Places,” The Houston Post, Op-Ed, Sunday, October 29, 1989.

David Malakoff, “Texas Explosion Exposes Weak Safety Rules,” Not Man Apart, Friends of the Earth, Washington, DC, Dec.1989-Jan.1990, p. 4.

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Caleb Solomon, “Rash of Fires at Oil And Chemical Plants Sparks Growing Alarm,” Wall Street Journal, November 7, 1989, p. 1.

Bill Disessa, “Oct. 23, 1989: Terror from Phillips Blast Still Haunts,” Houston Chronicle, October 21, 1990.

Testimony of Robert E. Wages, V.P., Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, Before the Environment and Housing Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, U.S. House of Representatives, in Hearing record, “Adequacy Of OSHA Protection For Chemical Workers,” November 6, 1989, No. 24-782, 1990, Washington, D.C., pp. 79-121.

“OCAW Warning Ignored Before Houston Explosion,” AFL-CIO News, November 30, 1989.

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John Gray Institute, “A Study Of Safety And Health Practices As They Pertain To The Reliance Upon Contractors In Selected Petrochemical Industries,” Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, 1990, p. 21.

“Phillips Facing Fine For Texas Explosion,” Kentucky New Era, April 18, 1990.

Richard Leonard, “Contracting Out — A Threat To The Environment,” LRA’s Economic Notes, 1990, p. 5.

U.S, Department of Labor, Elizabeth Dole, Secretary; Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Gerard F. Scannell, Assistant Secretary, “Phillips 66 Company; Houston Chemical Complex Explosion and Fire; Implications for Safety and Health in the Petrochemical Industry: A Report to the President,” April 1990.

News Release, U.S. Department of Labor, “Dole Proposes More Than $6 Million In Penalties For Phillips 66 Pasadena, Texas, Fatal Fire/Explosions,” April 19, 1990, p. 1.

Michael Parrish, “Phillips Fined $5.7 Million for Blast at Refinery… OSHA Cites the Oil Company for 575 Safety Violations in Connection with the Explosion That Killed 23 and Injured More than 130,” Los Angles Times, April 20, 1990.

“OSHA Hits Phillips,” Corporate Crime Reporter, April 30, 1990.

Kirk Victor, “Explosions on The Job,” National Journal (Washington, DC), August 11, 1990.

Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union, Video and Script #9 (May 1990), Out of Control: The Story of Corporate Recklessness in the Petrochemical Industry, Produced by the Organizing Media Project, Washington, D.C., 1990.

Fred Millar, “Too Close for Comfort,” Friends of the Earth Magazine, Winter 1991, p. 10.

Keith Schneider, “Petrochemical Disasters Raise Alarm in Industry,” New York Times, June 19, 1991, p. A-22.

“Phillips 66 to Pay Record $4 Million,” Washington Post, August 23, 1991.

Testimony of Robert E. Wages, OCAW, “OSHA’s Proposed Safety Standard For Highly Hazardous Chemicals,” Houston, TX, 1991, in New Solutions, Fall 1991, p. 94.

David E. Benson, “Potential Dangers of Oil Plants Stir Debate,” Austin American-Statesman, July 5, 1992, p. B-3.

Willy Morris, “Refinery Cutbacks Are Possible Culprit in Spate of Accidents,” West County Times (W. Contra Costa County, CA), August 24, 1992, p. 1-A.

“Petrochemical Accidents,” West County Times (Contra Costa County, CA) August 24, 1992.

Caleb Solomon and Allanna Sullivan, “Phillips Inquiry Disputes Claims Over Explosion; Some Workers Accuse Firm of Telling Them to Lie About 1989 Plant Blast,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 1992, p. A-4.

Allanna Sullivan and Caleb Solomon, “U.S. Clears Phillips Petroleum of Trying to Mislead Inquiry Into Fatal Explosion,” Wall Street Journal, November 20, 1992, p. A-8.

Robert E. Wages, President, Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, Letter to Jack Doyle, Friends of the Earth, Washington, DC, February 26, 1993.

Charlotte Anne Smith and Paul Hoversten, “‘Perils’ in Petroleum’s Shadow;” USA Today, May 17, 1993, p. 8-A.

Jack Doyle, Crude Awakening: The Oil Mess in America, Friends of the Earth (Washington, DC.) October 1993.

Jack Doyle, “Oil Slick: Profits Abroad and Poison At Home,” Washington Post, Sunday Outlook Section, A Look At Toxic America, July 31, 1994, p. C-3.

Jim Morris, “Union Leaders Express Fears For Plant Safety,” Houston Chronicle, November 20, 1994, p. 1-A.

Ray Tuttle, “Phillips Looks Back: Pickens Launched Takeover Bid 10 Years Ago,” Tulsa World, December 4, 1994.

“Phillips Plant Explodes; Search for Two Workers Continues After Chemical Fire; at Least 52 Injured,” CNN Money, March 27, 2000.

“Explosion At Texas Chemical Plant Injures 52,” New York Times, March 28, 2000, p. A-12.

“2000 Phillips Explosion,” Wikipedia.org.

Ruth Rendon, “Phillips Facing Fine for Fatal Plant Blast,” CNN.com/Houston Chronicle, September 22, 2000.

OSHA Proposes $2.5 Million Penalty Against Phillips Chemical Complex; Just Days after Announcing a New Plan to Improve Safety at its Houston Chemical Complex, Phillips Chemical Co. Has Been Fined $2.5 Million by OSHA,” EHS Today, September 24, 2000.

Alan S. Brown, “Phillips K-Resin Plant Explosion Kills One, Injures 71,” Chemical Online.com, March 30, 2000.

Robert Frank and Alexei Barrionuevo, “Phillips Petroleum, Conoco to Merge In Stock Deal Valued at $15.17 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2001.

“The Phillips 66 Explosion: The Rise of Process Safety Management in the Petrochemical Industry,” Root Cause Analysis, February 11, 2011.

Hugh Pickens, Ponca City Oklahoma, “Deaths and Injuries at Phillips Refineries and Chemical Plants,” ResearchIdeas.com.

“Public Report of the Fire and Explosion at the ConocoPhillips Humber Refinery on 16 April 2001,” Prepared by the Health and Safety Executive, U.K.

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, “Pipeline Accident Report, Storage Tank Explosion and Fire in Glenpool, Oklahoma, April 7, 2003,” NTSB No. PAR-04/02.

Dawn Marks and Mac Bentley, “Refinery Blast, Fire Injures 3 in Ponca City; Gasoline Unit Explodes at ConocoPhillips Plant,” Oklahoman.com, July 22, 2003.

“ConocoPhillips Crude Unit Out,” The Oil Daily, July 23, 2003.

Reuters, “Conoco Unit Pleads Guilty to Hiding Alaska Spill,” Reuters.com, October 24, 2007.

“Burning B.C. Gas Well Could Take Weeks to Fix,” CTVbc.ca, November 12, 2008.

News Release, “U.S. Labor Department’s OSHA Cites ConocoPhillips for Repeat Workplace Safety and Health Hazards,” OSHA.gov, October 9, 2009.

Photo Gallery: ConocoPhillips Refinery Fire, Billings Gazette (Billings, MT), December 24, 2009.

United Steelworkers, “Refinery Events, January 4, 2010 – January 7, 2010.”

Clair Johnson, “ConocoPhillips Identifies Cause of Christmas Eve Fire,” Billings Gazette (Billings, MT), February 19, 2010.

United Steelworkers, “Phillips Disaster: Learning From History,” USW@Work, Winter 2010. p. 23.

Cristina Gallardo, “ConocoPhillips Wyoming Natgas Plant Blast Under Investigation,” Star Tribune (Casper, Wyoming), June 5, 2010.

“A Disastrous Century: Regulations And Worker Safety Since The Triangle Fire,” PoliticalCorrection.org, March 24, 2011.

Jeremy Fugleberg, “4 Burned in Lost Cabin Gas Plant Flash Fire,” Casper Star-Tribune (Casper, WY), August 22, 2012.

Mark Schleifstein, “Louisiana Refinery Accidents Decline, but Accident Emissions Rise, Louisiana Bucket Brigade reports,” NOLA.com / The Times-Picayune, December 4, 2012.

Carlie Kollath Wells, “Phillips 66 Pipeline Fire in Paradis Extinguished, Missing Worker Presumed Dead,” NOLA.com / The Times-Picayune, February 13, 2017.

Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/01-Your-Song.mp3 7912010 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Elton-John-Come-Down-In-Time.mp3 4112384 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Elton-John-Rocket-Man.mp3 9204618 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Elton-John-Amoreena-Tumbleweed-Connection.mp3 7102592 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Elton-John-Yellow-Brick-Road-Amazon.mp3 6240061 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Elton-John-Sorry-Seems-To-Be-The-Hardest-Word.mp3 7457155 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Elton-John-Tiny-Dancer.mp3 12019540 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/14-Someone-Saved-My-Life-Tonight-Remastered.mp3 13039983 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Elton John’s Decade”
The 1970s (w/Bernie)

May 31, 2019 J.D.

Sheet music cover for Elton John’s “Your Song,” one of his first Top Ten hits in the U.S., England, and Canada. Click for digital version.

In the 1970s, there were few musicians more successful than Elton John, the British singer and piano player who partnered with lyricist Bernie Taupin. Together, the pair would turn out some of the decade’s most signature and enduring popular songs. One of their first was 1970’s “Your Song,” sampled below and featured on the sheet music cover at right.

Music Player
“Your Song” – 1970″

“Your Song” was a kickoff of sorts, the breakthrough song that sent Elton John and Bernie Taupin on their way to the big time. As The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll would say of the prolific output of John and Taupin in the 1970s:

“…For most of the `70s Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin were a virtual hit factory with 26 Top 40 hit singles, 16 Top 10, and six No.1 hits. Fifteen of the 19 albums released in the United States during this time went gold [500K] or platinum [1 million]. In the `80s their fortunes declined only slightly. To date [as of 2001] they have achieved more than four dozen top 40 hits and become one of the most successful songwriting teams in pop history…”

What follows later below is an Elton John chronology listing most of the major albums and singles turned out by the John/Taupin team in the 1970s – a decade significantly marked, if not dominated, by their music. As the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has noted: “…John and Taupin identified and shaped the mood of the Seventies from its inception. Given to roughly equal numbers of ballads and rockers, John’s output was as critical to this decade as the Beatles were to the Sixties and Presley to the Fifties.” Before getting to the chronology, however, some background on John, Taupin, and the times.

1950. Young Reggie at piano.

“Reggie” Dwight

Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight in a London suburb in March 1947. “Reggie,” as he was called growing up, learned to play piano at an early age, and was somewhat gifted with an ear for melody and could play classical pieces from memory.

John’s parents were fairly strict, with his father encouraging him to pursue a more conventional career. However, both parents were musically inclined and record collectors, among which were Bill Haley and Elvis Presley recordings that young Reggie liked most.

At the age of 11, Reggie won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where he attended Saturday morning sessions for several years. At school on occasion – presaging his later stage antics – Reggie would imitate the raucous piano style of rocker Jerry Lee Lewis. By age 15, he was playing piano in a local pub. In 1962 he formed a band named Bluesology, and two years later, dropped out of school to pursue music full time.

Bernie Taupin

By June 1967 John met his life-long songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin after both had separately answered the same magazine ad in the New Musical Express — an ad seeking songwriters. Taupin was born in 1950 at a farmhouse in eastern England, where he grew up, a somewhat rural area that would color his later lyrical life. Not a keen student, but having a flair for writing, Taupin at age 15 worked briefly in the print room of the local newspaper, The Lincolnshire Standard, with thoughts of possibly becoming a journalist. When that did not work out, he drifted through various part-time jobs until answering the New Musical Express ad for songwriters. He and John would prove to be an exceptionally productive pair, as Taupin could sometimes turn out lyrics in less than an hour, while John was equally efficient and would fit Taupin’s words to music without changing the lyrics. When the two first met in 1967, they recorded what would become the first Elton John/Bernie Taupin song: “Scarecrow”. Not long after, “Reggie” would begin using a new name – “Elton John” – which he would formally adopt later.

1970. Young collaborators, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, on the cusp of becoming one of the music industry’s most successful hit-producing teams.

Initially, John and Taupin wrote songs for Dick James Music for other artists, and John also worked as a session musician for groups such as the Hollies. John and Taupin, however, were advised to write for themselves, which they began doing in 1968, producing an early album titled Empty Sky. The album was recorded during the winter of 1968 and spring of 1969. It was released in the U.K. in early June 1969. However, neither it nor other early John-Taupin tunes were making much headway in the U.K. And that’s about when Dick James got the idea of sending Elton to America, which Elton initially resisted.

U.S. Breakout

The Troubadour

Young Elton John at piano, circa 1970, age 23.

Elton John’s second studio album in the U.K. – titled Elton John – had been released there in April 1970, but not in the U.S. until July 22, 1970. It wouldn’t enter the U.S. charts for another three months.

Still, the album had been sent to a number of U.S. venues hoping to receive some U.S. exposure for the new British singer and piano player. Doug Weston, owner of the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood, Los Angeles was one of those receiving the album – along with a request for John to perform at his club. Weston, upon hearing the album, booked John for some late August shows.

The Troubadour by then was already well known for being a center for 1960s folk music and would help launch the careers of a long list of singer-songwriters and rock musicians. But Dick James’ sending Elton John to America in this case was actually something of a last attempt to get John’s music across to the public.

Meanwhile, a single from the Elton John album, “Border Song,” had made a modest entrance on the Billboard Hot 100 by the time of Elton’s first Troubadour show in late August 1970. Local FM radio had also been playing his songs leading up to the show. So there was a rising interest among musicians, music industry reps, and music critics leading up to his appearance on August 25, 1970.

Robert Hilburn's review of Elton John’s opening show at the Troubadour, as it appeared, Los Angeles Times, Aug 27, 1970.

The Troubadour’s small room — capable of seating 300 or so — was filled to beyond capacity that first night, with possibly 400 people. Neil Diamond, then a rising singer in his own right, was among those who had heard John’s album in advance. He had come to the Troubadour to hear John perform, and would also introduce John to the Troubadour crowd that evening.

Also in the audience that night were Quincy Jones, Mike Love of The Beach Boys, David Crosby, Gordon Lightfoot, Leon Russell, Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night, Linda Ronstadt, and other notables.

John performed a nine-song set that night, leading off with “Your Song” followed by “Bad Side of the Moon,” “Sixty Years On,” “I Need You To Turn To,” “Border Song,” “Country Comfort,” “Take Me To the Pilot,” “Honky Tonk Woman” (a Rolling Stones cover), and “Burn Down the Mission.” Five of the songs were from the Elton John album, and two others from a later planned album.

John did not disappoint with his performance that night, as he received a rousing response from the audience (some years later, in 1990, Rolling Stone magazine declared these shows to be among the 20 most important concerts in the history of rock ‘n’ roll).

“Tuesday night at the Troubadour was just the beginning. He’s going to be one of Rock’s biggest and most important stars.”
– Robert Hilburn, L.A. Times In the next day’s Los Angeles Times, rock critic, Robert Hilburn, gave the show a rave review, opening with: “Rejoice. Rock music…has a new star. His name is Elton John, a 23-year old Englishman whose United States debut at the Troubadour… was, in almost every way, magnificent.” Hilburn reported that the crowd – including the largest local gathering of rock writers in months – “roared its approval, bringing John back for an encore.” Hilburn added that by the end of the evening: “there was no question about John’s talent and potential. Tuesday night at the Troubadour was just the beginning. He’s going to be one of Rock’s biggest and most important stars.”

Thereafter, it was “Katie bar the doors!” First, there was a brief U.S. tour following the Troubadour shows that ran from October 29th through December 4th. One of these shows at the A&R Studios in New York City was recorded for a later live album. Then, for the rest of the decade, the Elton John/Bernie Taupin mind-meld kicked in at full speed, turning out a continuing stream of hit albums and hit singles. (Click on any of the album or singles covers displayed below to visit respective Amazon.com pages).

A Decade of Hits

During 1971 alone, there were four new albums, each of which reached Billboard’s album chart – the western-themed Tumbleweed Connection; the soundtrack to an obscure film, Friends; the live album 11-17-70, recorded on that date at a New York radio station; and Madman Across the Water, which contained the hit singles “Tiny Dancer,” “Levon,” and the title track. Honky Chateau, which appeared in 1972, included hit singles “Honky Cat” and “Rocket Man.”

Elton John hit, "Levon".	"Someone Saved My Life..."
"Don't Let The Sun Go Down..."	"Rocket Man" / "Tiny Dancer".
“Candle” & “Bennie.”	"Rocket Man" single.
“Don’t Go Breaking My...”	"Goodbye Yellow Brick Rd".

In fact, from 1972 to 1975, there would be seven consecutive albums that topped the charts: Honky Chateau (1972, No.1 for five weeks), Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player (1973, No.1 for two weeks), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973, No.1 for eight weeks), Caribou (1974, No.1 for four weeks), Elton John – Greatest Hits (1974, No. 1 for ten weeks), Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirty Cowboy (1975, No.1 for seven weeks) and Rock of the Westies (1975, No. 1 for three weeks).

These seven albums topped the album chart for a combined total of 39 weeks, meaning that during the mid-1970s, Elton John had a No.1 album about every fourth week.

(See below: “An Elton John Chronology” for listing of album covers and more detail).

As for hit singles, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, during the three-year period 1973-1976, John amassed 15 hit singles in the U.S., including six that went to No.1 – “Crocodile Rock,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” “Philadelphia Freedom,” “Island Girl,” “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. Three others were No. 2 hits – “Daniel,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”.

Those 15 singles logged a combined 156 weeks from 1973-1976, which is to say that, on average, an Elton John single could be found in the Top 40 every week for three years.

What follows below is a general 1970s chronology of Elton John’s hit singles, albums, and a selection of a few other career highlights from that decade. To be sure, there is much more to John’s career beyond the 1970s, which stretches another 40 years through the 2010s to the present day. And some of the story for those years is covered below the chronology, where the narrative continues.

_____________________________________________

An Elton John Chronology
1970s Music & Other Events
(not a complete list)

Elton John’s first studio album, “Empty Sky” was produced in the U.K. and released there in 1969, but not in the U.S. until 1975. Click for copy.

April 1970. Elton John’s U.S. debut album, his second studio album, became best seller. Click for CD.

Oct 1970. Tumbleweed Connection, John’s 3rd studio album; hits No.5 on album charts. Click for CD.

March 1971. Soundtrack album for “Friends” film is released; spawns “Friends” Top 40 single. Click for CD.

May 1971. Release of live album “17-11-70" – recorded earlier at A&R Studios in NY city. Click for CD.

Rolling Stone, June 10, 1971, cover story, “Elton John: One Year On,” meaning one year from his breakout at the Troubadour.

Nov. 1971: “Madman Across the Water”, 4th studio album; peaks at No 8 on album charts. Click for CD.

May 1972. “Honky Château” is released, John’s 5th studio album. Click for CD.

January 1973. 6th studio album, “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player” released. Click for CD.

July 10, 1973. Bernie Taupin and Elton John enjoying their early success at a private Universal Studios party, Universal City, California.

October 1973: “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” double album released, has 2-year chart run. Click for CD.

June 1974. “Caribou” album released, John’s 8th studio album; 2x Platinum by 1993. Click for CD.

November 1974. “Greatest Hits” album released; will become 20+million seller. Click for CD.

May 1975. “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” released; 9th studio album. Click for CD.

24 Oct 1975. “Rock of the Westies,” 10th studio album, enters chart at No.1. Platinum by 1993. Click for CD.

30 April 1976. “Here and There” live album released, includes London and NY concerts. Click for CD.

22 Oct 1976. “Blue Moves” album released; peaks at No. 3 in U.K./ U.S. and is million-seller. Click for CD.

13 Sept 1977. “Elton John’s Greatest Hits, Volume II” is released. Platinum by Nov 1977. Click for CD.

1 Oct 1978. “A Single Man” album is released, Elton’s 12th studio album - minus Bernie Taupin. Click for CD.

June 1979: Three-song EP released from “The Thom Bell Sessions.” Click for complete six-song CD.

October 1979. “Victim of Love” album released: hits No 35 on Billboard, No. 41 in the U.K. Click for CD.

1969-1975
Elton John’s first studio album, Empty Sky, is produced in the U.K. and released there in 1969, but not in the U.S. until 1975.

10 April 1970
Elton John’s second studio album – titled Elton John – is released in the U.K., peaking at No. 5 and spending 22 weeks on that chart. In the U.S., it is John’s debut album, released there on July 22nd, peaking on Billboard at No. 4. It is also nominated for an Album of the Year Grammy. Some years later it would be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

24 April 1970
Release of “Border Song” single from Elton John album flopped in the UK, but later peaked in Canada at No. 34, John’s first chart appearance in any country. “Border Song” would also hit No. 92 on U.S. Billboard chart by Oct 1970.

25 August 1970
U.S. breakout after performance at Trouba-dour club in Los Angeles, CA; gets rave review in L.A Times.

30 October 1970
Tumbleweed Connection, 3rd studio album released in the U.K. on this date; U.S., January 1971; peaks at No. 2 in the U.K., No.5 on Billboard. On this album, John and Taupin were influenced by American country rockers, The Band and 1968’s Music From Big Pink, as well as western TV shows they grew up watching. No U.S. singles issued from this album, but “Come Down in Time,” sampled below, with its strings, harp, oboe, and horn, offers a quiet love song.

Music Player
“Come Down in Time”- John/Taupin
From Tumbleweed Connection

31 December 1970
During 1970, Elton John had performed at 71 concert venues or made other appearances.

23 January 1971
“Your Song” single – from Elton John album – reaches No.8 by this date. Began as the B-side to “Take Me to the Pilot” before radio DJs discovered its gold. Later added to the Grammy HOF (1998) and also ranked No. 137 on Rolling Stone 500.

5 March 1971
Friends film soundtrack album released – a pre-U.S. breakout John/Taupin project that nonetheless went Gold by April 1971. Also received 1972 Grammy nomination for Best Original Score for a Motion Picture

10 April 1971
“Friends” single from the Friends soundtrack hits No. 34 on Billboard at this date.

10 May 1971
First live album released – titled 17-11-70 – recorded at the A&R Studios in New York City, Nov 1970, during post-Troubadour U.S. tour. Also scored Top 40 rank on album charts.

5 November 1971
Madman Across the Water, 4th studio album released. While only reaching No. 41 on the UK charts, Madman did better in the U.S., peaking at No. 8 on Billboard and No. 10 on 1972 year-end list. It achieved Gold standing in Feb 1972, and $1 million in U.S. sales. By 1998, it was multi-Platinum in the U.S., with sales of more that 2 million units.

11 November 1971
John & band perform most of Madman album before a small studio audience at BBC-Television Centre in London for broadcast on April 29, 1972 edition of “Sounds For Saturday” show on BBC2.

31 December 1971
During 1971, Elton John had performed at 129 concerts or made other appearances.

5 February 1972
“Levon” single (from Madman) – a song about a yearning young boy seemingly stuck in a boring place but bound by family business or local convention – hits No. 24 on the U.S. Billboard chart and No. 6 on Canadian chart.

Music Player
“Tiny Dancer”- John/Taupin
From Madman Across The Water

7 February 1972
“Tiny Dancer” single (from Madman) is released – believed to be about Bernie Taupin’s wife at the time, Maxine Feibelman, who loved ballet and also did a bit of sewing for Elton. But there are also elements about the free-spirited California girls Taupin met on his 1970 visit there. While a Top 40 hit in several countries, the song got a second wind after being featured in the 2000 film, Almost Famous. Certified 3x Platinum in the U.S., April 2018, and Gold in the UK, August 2018, though not released there as a single.

3 March 1972
“Rocket Man” single released, from Honky Château album, rises to No. 2 in the U.K. and No. 6 in the U.S. Spends more than three months on both charts. The song uses space travel as a metaphor for spiritual isolation. Later certified 3x Platinum, U.S. and No. 245 on RS500. Taupin says he took inspiration from Ray Bradbury’s 1951 short story, The Rocket Man, which also features a lonely astronaut missing his family

Music Player
“Rocket Man”- John/Taupin
From Honky Château

19 May 1972
Honky Chateau album released; would rise to No. 1 on Billboard 200 and be ranked at No. 359 on RS 500.

23 September 1972
“Honky Cat” single from Honky Château album hits No. 8.

31 December 1972
During 1972, Elton John had performed at 92 concerts or made other appearances.

1973
Elton John and partners launch Rocket Records label, used mostly for other artists.

22 January 1973
Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player album is released; second straight No. 1 album in U.S. Eventually goes 3× Platinum.

3 February 1973
“Crocodile Rock” single (from Don’t Shoot Me) became John’s first U.S. No. 1 single on this date, staying there for 3 weeks. Also No.1 in Canada (4 weeks), No 5 in UK. U.S. Gold by Feb 1973, Platinum, Sept 1995.

2 June 1973
“Daniel” single hits No. 2 on Billboard by this date. Taupin wrote “Daniel” after reading a newsmagazine article about Vietnam War veteran who had been wounded and wanted to get away from the attention he was receiving when he went back home. “I wanted to write something that was sympathetic to the people that came home,” Taupin would later say

16 July 1973
“Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” single released (from Yellow Brick Road ); hits No. 7 on UK charts, No. 12 on Billboard. Also featured in Grand Theft Auto V video game (2013-14) and film, Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017).

5 October 1973
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road double album released, reaches No.1, and remains on the album charts for two years. Using Wizard of Oz film imagery, the album is regarded as John’s best. It has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. In 2000, Q magazine listed it at No.84 on its 100 Greatest British Albums Ever, and in 2003, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and also ranked No. 91 on RS 500.

8 December 1973
“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” single hits No. 1 Canada, No. 2 in U.S., No. 6 in UK. Song is widely praised by critics; some calling it John’s best song. Yellow brick road imagery from 1939 Wizard of Oz film used by Taupin to “get back to [his] roots.” Certified Platinum in 1995 (song sampled later, near end).

31 December 1973
During 1973, Elton John had performed at 91 concerts or made other appearances.

4 February 1974
“Candle in the Wind” (from Yellow Brick Road) – John/Taupin ode to departed Hollywood starlet, Marilyn Monroe – is released in U.K., reaches No. 11 there but is not released as a single in the U.S. (Click for separate story).

13 April 1974
“Bennie and the Jets”(from Yellow Brick Road) – a song about a fictional band and satire on the greed and glitz of the early 1970s music scene – hits No. 1 in U.S. after heavy play on CKLW radio in Windsor, Ontario, sending song to No. 1 in Detroit, as other markets followed. “Bennie” also found some acceptance on Top 40 R&B radio, especially after John appeared on the Soul Train TV dance show in May 1975 performing the song.

28 June 1974
John’s 8th studio album, Caribou, is his fourth No.1 album in the U.S. and third in the U.K.; nominated for Album-of-the-Year Grammy (1974) and certified 2x Platinum by 1993. The Caribou album is named for the Caribou Ranch studio, where it was recorded, in the Rocky Mountains near Nederland, Colorado, built in 1972. John also recorded the single, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” there, along with its b-side, John Lennon’s “One Day (At A Time).” His next two albums were recorded there as well – Captain Fantastic… and Rock of the Westies, along with part of the single, “Philadelphia Freedom.”

27 July 1974
By this date, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” single (from Caribou) has hit No. 2; song also features Beach Boys Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston on backing vocals.

3 November 1974
“The Bitch is Back” single (also from Caribou) hits No.1 in Canada, 4 U.S., 15 U.K. RIAA Gold by Sept 1995. Reportedly, title was inspired by Taupin’s wife at the time, Maxine Feibelman, who would say, “the bitch is back,” when John was in a foul mood. Taupin lyrics also parody John’s celebrity lifestyle. Some radio stations in the U.S. refused to play the song because of the word “bitch,” to which John remarked: “some radio stations in America are more puritanical than others.”

8 November 1974
Elton John’s Greatest Hits album is released, his first “best of” compilation. It became a No 1 album in both the U.S. (10 wks) and the U.K. (11 wks). In 1975, it was the best-selling album in the U.S., and to date is one of John’s best-selling albums and among best-selling albums of all time, with 24 million copies sold worldwide.

28 November 1974
Thanksgiving Day; John coaxes former Beatle John Lennon onstage for three songs during a Madison Square Garden concert that turned out to be Lennon’s final live public performance.

1974
Elton John signs $8 million deal with MCA – company then reportedly took out a $25 million life insurance policy on John.

31 December 1974
During 1974, Elton John had performed at 69 concerts or made other appearances.

4 January 1975
Elton John cover of Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” hits No. 1 (w/John Lennon on guitar).

12 April 1975
“Philadelphia Freedom,” a non-album single, hits No.1 The song was inspired by John’s friendship with tennis superstar Billie Jean King, whose pro team at the time was the Philadelphia Freedoms.

Music Player
“Someone Saved My Life Tonight”
John/Taupin, from Captain Fantastic…

19 May 1975
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy album released, described as an autobiographical account of the early musical careers of Elton John (Captain Fantastic) and Bernie Taupin (Brown Dirt Cowboy). It debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200, believed to be the first album to do so. It sold 1.4 million copies in its first 4 days of release, and stayed at No. 1 for seven weeks

9 August 1975
Elton John named outstanding rock personality of the year at first Rock Music Awards in Santa Monica, California.

16 August 1975
“Someone Saved My Life Tonight” hits No. 4 on Billboard chart – the only single released from Captain Fantastic album. The song is a semi-autobiographical story of John’s ill-fated engagement to Linda Woodrow and his related suicide attempt, as the saving “someone” in the song – Bluesology bandmate and friend, Long John Baldry – convinced him to break off the engagement rather than ruin his music career for an unhappy marriage. John’s performance and piano are perfect in the story-telling, supported with a fine use of backing vocals throughout.

September 1975
“Amoreena,” a song about a young man’s love interest, from John’s 1970 Tumbleweed Connection album, is used over the opening credits of the Al Pacino film, Dog Day Afternoon. The song features John’s powerful piano playing and has a country-rock style from the 1970 Tumbleweed album.

Music Player
“Amoreena”- John/Taupin, 1970
From Tumbleweed Connection

11 October 1975
Neil Sedaka’s “Bad Blood” (on Rocket Records) hits No.1 and features John on harmony vocals.

24 October 1975
Rock of the Westies album enters Billboard chart at No.1 (second in a row to do that in the same year, then unprecedented), and is John’s seventh consecutive No. 1 album. The title is a play on the phrase “West of the Rockies,” as it was recorded at Caribou Ranch studio in the Colorado Rockies. RIAA-certified gold in October 1975 and platinum in March 1993.

25-26 October 1975
Elton John performs two sold-out shows at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (55,000 each night). It was part of his “West of the Rockies” tour that included 17 shows across the U.S. and Canada.

October 1975
Elton John becomes the 1,662nd person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1 November 1975
“Island Girl,” from Rock of the Westies album hits No.1.

31 December 1975
During 1975, Elton John had performed at 28 concerts or made other appearances.

1976
John, a long-time English soccer/football fan, becomes investor in, and director of, the professional Watford Football Club.

30 April 1976
Here and There live album released; title refers to two concerts: “Here,” a concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall, summer of 1974; and “There,” a concert at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, November 28 1974.

7 August 1976
“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” by Elton John and Kiki Dee, tops the U.S. charts for the first of four weeks. Released in June, it also rose to the top of the U.K. charts after three weeks. It was John’s sixth No. 1 hit in 3 years – and his last one in the U.S. for 21 years.

22 October 1976
Blue Moves album released; second double album and first on his own label, Rocket Records. Peaks at No. 3 in U.K. and U.S. Although album suffered some negative reviews – one finding it “impossibly weepy” and another charging “fatigue” – it was still RIAA-certified Gold (Oct 1976) and Platinum (Dec 1976). Includes Edith Piaf tribute song, “Cage the Songbird.”

Music Player
“Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word”
1976

25 December 1976
“Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word” single (from Blue Moves album), a ballad about a dying relationship, went to No. 3 in Canada., No. 6 U.S., and No. 11 U.K. – and No. 1 on the U.S. Easy Listening chart. The song was also used in 1977 film Slap Shot starring Paul Newman.

31 December 1976
During 1976, Elton John had performed at 64 concerts or made other appearances.

13 September 1977
Greatest Hits Volume II album is released. Would reach No. 6 in U.K., No. 21 on Billboard, and was certified Gold in September 1977, Platinum in November 1977. There have been several versions of the album.

3 November 1977
Elton John announces at a London concert that he is retiring from live performances, which he does – for 15 months.

31 December 1977
During 1977, Elton John had performed at 13 concerts or made other appearances.

1 October 1978
A Single Man album is released, reaching No. 8 in the U.K. and No. 15 on Billboard. It is Elton John’s 12th studio album and the first with Gary Osborne replacing Bernie Taupin as lyricist. It is the only Elton John album not have any tracks co-written by Bernie Taupin on the original cut. Still, in the U.S., even with mixed reviews, A Single Man was certified Gold in October 1978 and Platinum the following month.

31 December 1978
During 1978, Elton John had performed at 126 concerts or made other appearances.

3 February 1979
Elton John resumes touring after a 15-month hiatus.

21-28 May 1979
Elton John plays eight concerts in the former Soviet Union (USSR). The two-city tour – Leningrad and Moscow – was a significant event amid Cold War tensions of that era and one of the first rock concerts permitted there by a western artist. As a result of John’s visit, in June 1979, the Soviet authorities permitted the state-owned Melodiya record company to issue John’s 1978 album A Single Man, making it the first Western pop album to be officially released in the USSR

June 1979
An EP recording with three songs – The Thom Bell Sessions – is released. It was recorded by Elton John in 1977 in a project with R&B songwriter and producer, Thom Bell, known at the time for his Philadelphia soul music. One of the songs – “Mama Can’t Buy You Love” – became an Elton John Top Ten U.S. single, August 1979. Ten years later, The Complete Thom Bell Sessions was released by MCA, with the original six songs recorded by John and Bell.

13 October 1979
Victim of Love album released: hits No 35 on
Billboard, No. 41 in the U.K.

_____________________________________________

2017 book, “Captain Fantastic: Elton John’s Stellar Trip Through the ’70s,” by Tom Doyle (no relation). Click for copy.

The Showman

Part of the Elton John success machine of the 1970s evolved from his on-stage concert showmanship and flamboyant costuming.

At the piano, John was an energetic performer, often conducting Jerry Lew Lewis- type acrobatics, beginning with kicking the piano stool out of the way, playing the piano from various contorted positions, to doing flying handstands and horizontal extensions from the piano keyboard – revving up the audience as he did.

In terms of costumes, he used a range of glittery and feathered ensembles, platform shoes, eyeglasses, and more to adorn various fictional and on-stage musical personas. He not only entertained as a talented musician but also broke ground as a kind of “glam rock” fashionista, typically surprising his audience with some new outfit at every show.

As The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll has noted:

“In the mid-1970s, John’s concerts filled arenas and stadiums worldwide. He was the hottest act in rock & roll. And his extravagance, including a $40,000 collection of custom-designed and determinedly ridiculous eyeglasses and an array of equally outrageous stagewear, seemed positively charming.”

1977. Elton John amid colorful feathers on The Muppet Show.

John’s style had grown progressively more extravagant and outlandish as his performances moved through the decade. By the mid-1970s, Elton John’s stage wardrobe included ostrich feathers and spectacles that spelled his name in lights.

At concerts he would appear in elaborate costume as the Statue of Liberty, Donald Duck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and other figures. He also appeared with an exaggerated Mohawk hair piece, in a bumble bee costume, as a cowboy, or in various feathered and floral arrangements.

In an appearance on The Muppet Show in June 1977, he wore a large Mummers-parade styled multi-colored floral and feathered ensemble with jeweled white skull cap and matching white-rimed and tinted sunglasses.

He would also dress up for special occasions, as in October 1975, when he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, then wearing a special custom-made pale green and white suit with miniature, gold “Elton John sidewalk stars” sewn throughout the jacket, along with matching star-shaped eyeglasses. In 1997, at his 50th birthday party – for 500 friends – he costumed as Louis XIV of France.

Some of his concerts had an air of spectacle to them – as at the Hollywood Bowl in September 1975 where, as introduction, a succession of dressed impersonators of the Queen of England, Elvis Presley, Frankenstein, the Pope, the Beatles, Batman and Robin, Groucho Marx and Mae West all made their entrance down the staircase. Then, a set of concert pianos arrayed there each raised their covers to display a giant series of letters spelling out E-L-T-O-N, and as they did, flocks of doves were released.

Elton John in concert during the 1970s, doing one of his flying handstands, extending out from the piano keyboard, typically revving up the audience with his energetic performances.

But there were also concerts where the music was what the fans remembered. In October 1975 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles– in a white and blue Dodger-like baseball outfit, adorned with silver studs along with a pair of rhinestone-encrusted glasses – he performed 3-hour plus shows before 100,000 raving fans over two nights. It was one of his more successful outings. Elton John was then a pop culture phenom, as photographer Terry O’Neill has observed:

…You have to remember – in October 1975, no one was bigger than Elton John. He was like Elvis at the height of his career. It is impossible to try to explain to people today what it was like – numerous number one albums, touring non-stop, recording non-stop, media, press, television… he was everywhere. Elton still is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met and he gave his all at those concerts.

August 1973: Elton John featured on the cover of Rolling Stone with some of his decorative eyewear.

July 1975. Elton John on the cover of Time magazine -- "Rock's Captain Fantastic". Click for copy.

Over more than 50 years, Elton John would play some 3,000 concerts in more than 75 countries around the world – and he’s not done yet, as his farewell tour with 300 more dates is slated to close in 2020.

Among other memorable Elton John imagery from the mid-1970s was his appearance as the pinball wizard of the famous Who song and rock opera album, Tommy – in the 1975 rock opera film of that name. John appeared as a very tall “Pinball Wizard” rigged on stilted giant boots.

Elton John w/stilted boots in "Tommy." Click for DVD.

Pete Townshend of British rock group, The Who, had asked John to play the “Pinball Wizard” character in the film version of the rock opera Tommy, and to perform the “Pinball Wizard” song.

John’s version of the song was recorded and used for the movie release in 1975 and a single of the song was later released as well, charting at No. 7 in England. John’s version of that song is the only cover of a Who song to reach the Top 10.

The Bally Company, meanwhile, later released a “Captain Fantastic”-themed pinball machine featuring an illustration of Elton John on the machine’s main glass facing.

Living Large

Through the 1970s and 1980s Elton John soared to the top of the rock world. He played the most famous venues, became a media darling, and made millions of dollars. He also began living large as the good times flowed – “sex, drugs, and rock & roll,” as they say. But behind the success and flamboyance there were some real-life consequences that caught up with John by mid-career.

May 2019. Life special edition: “Elton John, Rocket Man: The Songs, The Journey, The Life,” Click for copy.

In the 2019 film about his life, Rocketman, with Taron Egerton playing Elton, there is some coverage of the difficult days John faced as he soared to the top of the world as a famous rock star.

“Success was fantastic and then I couldn’t cope with it,” John explained in one interview about the film and his life, including his personal struggles, which he said he didn’t want covered up or glossed over in the film. “[Y]ou can’t leave out the bad,” he said, of those parts which are included in the film.

“Everyone knows I had quite a lot of [sex and drugs] during the ’70s and ’80s,” he explained during a May 2019 interview in The Guardian. “So there didn’t seem to be much point in making a movie that implied that after every gig, I’d quietly gone back to my hotel room with only a glass of warm milk and the Gideon’s Bible for company.”

Still, those scenes are painful for John. “…It’s difficult to watch [them in the film] because I thought, ‘God, I don’t want to go back there. Thank God I came out of it.”

In earlier interviews, John has spoken about his past excesses and his struggles with alcohol, drugs and food:

“I would have an epileptic seizure and turn blue, and people would find me on the floor and put me to bed. Then 40 minutes later I’d be snorting another line [of cocaine]…This is how bleak it was, I’d stay up, I’d smoke joints, I’d drink a bottle of Johnnie Walker and then I’d stay up for three days….I’d binge and have three bacon sandwiches, a pot of ice cream and then I’d throw it up because I became bulimic. And then go and do the whole thing all over again. That is how tragic my life was.”

“This is Elton John circa the late 1980s,” adds Time magazine, also reviewing Rocketman. “He may be one of the world’s richest and most successful rock stars, but he’s also an alcoholic, a cocaine addict and a bulimic. He’s addicted to sex and he has an anger-management problem. He loves prescription painkillers and he can’t stop shopping. He’s alternately agitated and demonically animated as he rattles off his list of flaws and vexations.” By the 1990s, John got treatment, pulled through it all, and got his head on straight.

Poster for 2019 film, "Rocketman," about the life and career of British rock star, Elton John, here recreating a scene from a famous October 1975 concert before tens of thousands at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Click for "Rocketman" film DVD.

John also struggled with his sexuality for much of his career – married once, announced he was bisexual, then homosexual. Openly gay since 1988, he met David Furnish in 1993, a former advertising executive from Toronto, and the two began a relationship. They entered into a civil partnership in December 2005, and after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales, they married in December 2014. Today they have two young children born with the help of a surrogate mother.

Woodside, the residence of Elton John in England since 1975.

Condo-converted to art gallery in Atlanta as part of Elton John residence there. Photo, Architectural Digest.

Elton John with some of his car collection, circa 2001.

Wealth & Generosity

With his rapidly rising success in the 1970s, wealth came quickly to Elton John – and continued to come to him over the next four decades with touring, more hit songs, film and stage productions, Las Vegas performing, and legacy publishing fees and royalties.

In recent years, his personal wealth has been estimated in the $250-$400 million range. A few higher estimates have been closer to $500 million. Bernie Taupin, meanwhile, is believed to have amassed an estimated $70 million fortune through his partnership with John.

In any case, Elton John’s fortune will likely get a bump up following his final concert tour. In September 2018, John began his three-year, 300-date “Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour” that is expected to gross something north of $400 million.

According to one touring analyst, Pollstar, John grosses about $1.4 million per tour stop. Given 300 arena shows planned on his final tour through 2020, that could translate to $420 million in ticket sales for the entire tour – leaving out tour merchandise.

Meanwhile, in terms of real estate, in addition to his main home in Berkshire, England, John also owns residences in Atlanta, London, Los Angeles, Nice and Venice.

In 1991, he bought a condo in the Buckhead area of Atanta, Georgia in the Peachtree Heights West neighborhood, starting out with a 5,000 square foot unit, then expanding into several neighboring units, making a two-story art gallery in one.

Elton John is also an art collector, and is believed to have one of the largest private photography collections in the world.

In November 2016 through May 2017, an exhibit of some of his photos ran at the Tate Museum in London under the title, “The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection.” It appears that he and partner David Furnish have agreed to donate some of these works to the nation.

Also a car collector until recent years, when in June 2001 he sold a 20-car collection of Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Jaguars through Christies that brought in nearly £2 million.

Able to burn through money with the best of them, especially as he churned up the ladder of fame, Elton John was, and continues to be, quite generous with his wealth and celebrity, using both to bring attention to various social causes and raising money for a range of charities.

In July 1985, along with others including Paul McCartney, Queen, David Bowie and U2, he performed at the Live Aid benefit concert for famine relief at Wembley Stadium in London. In 1986, he joined with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder to record the single “That’s What Friends Are For,” with all profits donated to the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

Hardback edition of Elton John’s 2012 book, Love is The Cure: On Life, Loss, and The end of Aids,” which became a best seller. Click for copy.

In the 1980s, John had become quite attentive to the AIDS epidemic. In 1989, he became involved with the plight of Ryan White, a young Indiana boy who had contracted AIDS in a blood infusion and had been ostracized in his local community. John befriended and supported the boy and his family until White’s death in 1990. John was also rocked by the 1991 AIDS death of friend and fellow musician Freddie Mercury. In 1992, John established the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Since its founding, the EJAF has raised something north of $350 million for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention and has become one of the largest HIV/AIDS grant-makers in the world. In addition to his AIDS work, John also supports the Breast Cancer Research Foundation as well as scholarship funding for students at the Royal Academy of Music, Wright State University, and the Juilliard School. He also has established the Elton John Charitable Fund, which has directly supported nearly 100 organizations, including the American Cancer Society and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

In 1993, he began hosting his annual Academy Award Party in Hollywood, which has become one of the highest-profile Oscar parties and has raised over $200 million.

Back in England, John annually hosts a “celebrity-must” White Tie & Tiara Ball at his Berkshire home where a typical menu might include a truffle soufflé, surf and turf, and Knickerbocker glory ice cream, followed by benefit auctions of famous artwork, rare antique automobiles, and entertainment by the likes of a Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and others. Tens of millions have been raised by these balls for the Elton John Aids Foundation. He has also hosted or participated in a number of AIDS benefit concerts. In 2012 he published the book, Love is the Cure: On Life, Loss and The End of Aids, which became a best seller.

“Candle in the Wind 1997," Elton John’s tribute to Princess Diana at her passing, helped raise tens of millions for her foundation. Click for digital, CD, or vinyl.

In 1997, after Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris, Elton John, who had been a very close friend of Diana’s and the Royal Family, adapted his former 1973 Marilyn Monroe “Candle in The Wind” song for Diana, with Bernie Taupin adding new lyrics. This version, using a string quartet and woodwinds, was titled “Candle in the Wind 1997,” and was later released as a single at Diana’s passing. It quickly became a gigantic worldwide hit, selling more than 30 million copies. All artist and composer royalties and record company profits from the song have been donated to “The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.” By September 1999, income to that Fund was estimated at $150 million, much of it from royalties generated by sales of “Candle in the Wind 1997.”

In 2001, one month after the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, John appeared at the Concert for New York City, where he performed a memorable version of “Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters”. Through the 2000s and 2010s, John has continued to lend his celebrity in support of various social causes around the world.

October 4, 1997. Billboard magazine cover and tribute story, “Elton John: 30 Years of Music With Bernie Taupin.”

The Music

Meanwhile, Elton John and Bernie Taupin have given the world an enormous musical legacy that will be enjoyed for many years into the future. After their frenetic success in the 1970s, Elton and Bernie took a two-year hiatus from each other (1979-1980), during which time they worked with other writers and artists. But not long thereafter, they resumed their partnership, co-writing several songs on the 1981 album, 21 at 33, and were back in full partnership by 1983’s Too Low for Zero album. Through the 1980s, 1990s and beyond they continued to pen many more songs.

Their work over the years has not only been musically appealing, but also bears a message or two here and there, defines personal feelings that have universal appeal, or offers a commentary on the times or the human condition. Millions of listeners who love the songs of Elton John have their own personal favorites, and listener polls, music magazine rankings, and sales data have identified a number of Elton John tunes regarded as most popular, most loved, most moving, etc..

Some of these have been the top hits, such as “Tiny Dancer,” “Levon,” “Rocket Man,” “Daniel,” and others. But also buried in the Elton John / Bernie Taupin oeuvre are songs that have not necessarily been pop hits, or even released as singles, but are nonetheless popular with listeners. Among these, might be, for example, “The Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” “Come Down in Time” (sampled earlier above), “Take Me to the Pilot”, “Razor Face” “My Father’s Gun”, “Border Song”, “Amoreena” (also sampled above), “Grey Seal”, “Funeral For a Friend”, and any number of others.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John / Bernie Taupin
1973

When are you gonna come down
When are you going to land
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man

You know you can’t hold me forever
I didn’t sign up with you
I’m not a present for your friends to open
This boy’s too young to be singing the blues

So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough

Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

What do you think you’ll do then
I bet that’ll shoot down your plane
It’ll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again

Maybe you’ll get a replacement
There’s plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain’t got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground

So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough

Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

Yet, of all the songs Elton John and Bernie Taupin have penned together, perhaps few are more poignant than “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” sampled below. Among his platinum-level hits, and popular globally, this song was not as big a hit as “Tiny Dancer,” “Rocket Man,” “Levon,” or “Your Song.” Still, it is among those John/Taupin songs that many fans and music critics single out.

Music Player
“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”
Elton John/ Bernie Taupin – 1973

The song and the album of the same name, use the phrase and iconic imagery from the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. There, and in other historic uses dating to the 1900s and the books of Frank Baum, upon which the film is loosely based, “the road of yellow bricks” has the implied meaning of a pathway upon which one might find some kind of reward, happiness, inner peace, and/or personal redemption. At least that is the seeming promise. It is also sometimes referred to as a metaphor for “the road that leads to life’s answers” or “the road that leads to life’s fantasies”.

In the film, of course, in the Land of Oz, it is the pathway to see the Wizard in the Emerald City. The Wizard is sought for his powers by Dorothy and her friends. But to make a long story short, the wizard doesn’t really have any special powers and he isn’t really a wizard.

The Wizard of Oz was reportedly the first film that Bernie Taupin had ever seen, and he used the imagery in the lyrics to relate to his own life. At the time he wrote “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” he wanted to live a more tranquil existence after experiencing the frenetic 1970s success he and John were having during the height of Elton John mania – a desire to get back to his roots; back, perhaps, to a more real world setting. No more “promised land” for him, say the lyrics; he prefers hearing the owls and ploughing the land over penthouse living and vodka and tonics.

Bernie Taupin’s lyrics in this song have the visceral power of nostalgia, of looking back, of longing for a past that is colored by the thought that, “yes, it was a better time back then.” And for many, that is a universal kind of sentiment. In addition, “the yellow brick road” imagery and concept, known to millions, is the perfect vehicle for innocent hope or nostalgic longing. And in this song’s delivery, Elton’s voice and the melody drive those kind of notions deep into the listener’s emotional core. Together, the song’s moving orchestral arrangement, along with Elton’s powerful vocals, elevate the lyrics to make this song a classic. Stewart Mason’s review of the song at AllMusic.com notes: “…Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” is a small masterpiece of ’70s soft rock, and a strong contender for the coveted title of John’s finest song ever.”

Elton John's “Diamonds” 3-CD set w/51 songs, issued May 2019. Click for copy.

Through the 1980s and 1990s the Elton John magic continued with more hit songs – among singles, for example, have been: “Little Jeanie” (#3 US, 1980); “I Guess That’s Why They Call it The Blues” (#4 US, #5 UK, 1983); “I’m Still Standing (#4 UK, #12 US, 1983); “Sad Songs Say So Much”(#5 US, # 7 UK, 1984); “Passengers” (#5 UK, 1984); “Nikita” (#3 UK, #7 US, 1985); “I Don’t Wanna Go on with You Like That”(#2 US, 1988); “Sacrifice (#18 US, 1989 / #1 UK 1990); “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (with George Michael; #1 US & UK, 1991); “The One” (#9 US, #10 UK, 1992); “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”(#4 US, #14 UK); and, “Live Like Horses” (with Luciano Pavarotti; # 9 UK, 1996).

Elton John and Bernie Taupin have been among most successful teams in popular music. They have collaborated on more than 30 albums. A total of more than 300 million Elton John records have been sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. To date, he has had more than fifty Top 40 hits, as well as seven consecutive No. 1 albums in the U.S., along with 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 in the Top Ten, four at No.2, and nine at No.1. In his U.K. homeland he has scored 69 Top 40 singles, including 32 Top Tens and seven at No.1.

Philip Norman’s 2001 book, “Sir Elton: The Definitive Biography,” 592 pp, Carroll & Graf, publisher. Click for copy.

After decades of success in rock and roll, John also achieved success in film musicals and on stage, composing music for The Lion King film and its stage adaptation, as well as Aida, and Billy Elliot the Musical.

In fact, in the entertainment world, Elton John is distinguished as one of that rare group who have won an Oscar, a Grammy, and a Tony.

Over his career, he has been nominated for 34 Grammy Awards, winning six including, one honorary Grammy.

In film, he has been nominated for three Academy Awards, winning once for Best Original Song for “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” from The Lion King (1994). And in the theater, he has been nominated for four Tony Awards, winning once for Best Original Score in 2000 for Aida.

In addition to these, he has also five Brit Awards – two for Outstanding Contribution to Music and the first Brits Icon award in 2013 for his “lasting impact on British culture”. He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a Disney Legends award, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2004.

Elton John – make that “Sir Elton” – has also been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to music and charitable services.” In music, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Ten years later, Rolling Stone ranked him at No. 49 on its 2004 list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era. In 2018, Billboard placed him among the very top of successful solo artists on the Billboard Hot 100 – 3rd on the list of Top Artists of All Time, behind only the Beatles and Madonna and ahead of Elvis Presley. And there are still other awards, honors, collaborations, new Elton John ventures, and more. For further detail on these, see “Sources” below or visit his website at EltonJohn.com.

“Made in England,” 1995, had several popular singles and was million-seller plus. Click for CD.

In October 2019, his autobiography, Me, Elton John, was published by Henry Holt & Co. (click for copy). The book became a best-seller and received good reviews. According to a New York Times review: “[Me] pushes the envelope…. The movie Rocketman gave a reasonably accurate overview of the Elton John story – but it barely scratched the surface of what’s in this memoir. The lurid parts will get all the headlines. But [it is really about] the man’s hard-won self-knowledge.”

John’s 3-year farewell tour, begun in 2018, is slated to end in England in December 2020 after some 300 shows. But there will likely be a new Elton John song or two yet to come.

In any case, the music of Elton John – and especially those indelible John /Taupin creations of the 1970s – will live on well into the future.

See also at this website, “Candle in the Wind, 1973-1997,” about the Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana songs that John and Taupin wrote, or two other songs they did at “Poignant Elton,” one on birth and the other, old age — or check out the “Annals of Music” category page for additional stories that profile artists, song histories, and the music industry.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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this Website

Donate Now

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Date Posted: 31 May 2019
Last Update: 17 April 2020
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: JackDoyle/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Elton John’s Decade: 1970s (w/Bernie),”
PopHistoryDig.com, May 31, 2019.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

Elton John’s book, “Me: Elton John.” 2020 edition. Click for copy. Henry Holt & Co., 384 pp. Click for copy.

Bernie Taupin’s 2024 book, “Scatter-shot: Life, Music, Elton & Me,” Hachette, 416 pp. Click for Copy.

“Elton John All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track,” Ollivier & Roubin, 2023. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

"Elton John, Greatest Hits, 1970-2002," Click for CD.

Keith Hayward’s 2013 book, “Tin Pan Alley: The Rise of Elton John,” 400pp. Click for copy.

“Elton John: Fifty Years On. The Complete Guide to the Musical Genius of Elton John and Bernie Taupin,” 320pp, Post Hill Press, October 2019. Click to order.

Elton John, Madison Square Garden, Oct 2000, “One Night Only - The Greatest Hits.” Click for DVD.

Elton John’s partner, film maker David Furnish, made this film during Elton’s career in 1995. Click for DVD.

Companion book to “Rocketman” film. “Inside the world of the movie” with foreword by Elton John. May 2019, 160pp. Click for copy.

“Elton John,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 500-502.

Robert Christgau, “The Little Hooker That Could,” The Village Voice, November 24, 1975.

Robert Christgau, “Elton John,” in Anthony De Curtis and James Henke (eds), The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, Random House, New York, 1992, pp. 528-531.

“The 1970s,” EltonJohn.com.

“Biography, Elton John,” 1994 Induction, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“Elton John,” Wikipedia.org.

“Elton John, Chart History,” Billboard.com.

Ben Fong-Torres, “Elton John: The Four-Eyed Bitch Is Back; Elton Is Hard to Talk to When Anybody’s Around. By Himself, He’ll Talk,” Rolling Stone, November 21, 1974.

David Rensin,”Performance: Elton at the Hollywood Bowl, 9/7/73,” Rolling Stone, October 11, 1973.

“Elton John: Rock’s Captain Fantastic,” Time (cover story), July 7, 1975.

Matt Ballinger, “Times Critic Was Early Champion of Elton John,” L.A. Times Past/Tumbler.com, October 3, 2013.

Paul Sexton, “The Troubadour Nights That Changed Elton John’s Life; Why 25 August 1970 Was Such a Monumental Occasion in the Career of a Young English Singer-Songwriter,” uDiscoverMusic.com, August 25, 2018.

Elton John Interview, “A More Reflective Leap On Elton John’s ‘Diving Board’,” Fresh Air/ NPR.org, September 23, 2013.

Stephanie Zacharek, “A Glitter-Fueled Rocket-man Blasts Off, Time, June 3-10, 2019, pp. 93-95.

“Elton John: 20 Essential Songs,” The Tele-graph, October 20, 2015.

“Readers’ Poll: The Best Elton John Songs of All Time Your Picks Include ‘Levon,’ ‘Your Song’ and ‘Rocket Man’,” Rolling Stone, November 28, 2012.

“Elton’s First Shows in the U.S. – A Look Back,” EltonJohn.com, August 25, 2017.

“Bernie Taupin,” Wikipedia.org.

“Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy,” Wikipedia.org.

“Madman Across The Water – BBC Sounds for Saturday, London, UK: 1971,” EltonJohn.com.

“Elton John 1970 World Tour,” Wikipedia .org.

“Elton John Tour Statistics,” SetList.fm.

“Border Song,” Wikipedia.org.

Cal Fussman, “Bernie Taupin: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 2, 2012.

“Levon by Elton John,” SongFacts.com.

Tiny Dancer,” Wikipedia.org.

“Bernie Taupin Interview,” Billboard, October 4, 1997.

Mark Simonian, “Bowls Hollywood Over; Elton John ‘Puts On’ Concert,” The Stanford Daily, Volume 164, Issue 4, September 27, 1973.

Elton John’s 1979 Tour of the Soviet Union,” Wikipedia.org.

“1970s Decade Overview,” RockMusicTimeline .com.

“Photos: Elton John’s Outfits Through the Years; See All the Sunglasses, Animal Costumes and Chest Hair from 1973 On,” RollingStone.com, February 2, 2011.

Kimberley Dadds (BuzzFeed Staff, UK), “The 28 Most Flamboyant Elton John Stage Costumes Ever,” BuzzFeed.com, March 5, 2014.

Doug Fox, “Inside Elton John’s Historic Sold-Out Shows at Dodger Stadium,” Ultimate ClassicRock.com, October 25, 2015.

“Dodger Stadium 1975 – Game On!,” Elton John.com, August 28, 2018.

Marc Myers, “Bernie Taupin Tells the Story Behind 1972’s ‘Rocket Man.’ Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Tale About an Astronaut, The Song Became an Unlikely Catch Phrase in Trump’s Tweets,” Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2018.

Dave Simpson, “Elton John’s 50 Greatest Songs, Ranked!,” TheGuardian.com(London), September 13, 2018.

Ed Power, “This One’s for You: The Story Behind Elton John’s Hit ‘Your Song’,” The Independent (London), November 15, 2018.

“The Boy & The Piano,” John Lewis Christmas Advert, 2018.

Roisin O’Connor, “John Lewis Christmas Ad: Elton John Tribute With ‘Your Song’ As Soundtrack Could Melt the Flintiest of Hearts,” The Independent (London), November 15, 2018.

Zack O’Malley Greenburg, “Elton John’s Retirement Tour Should Gross More Than $400 Million,” Forbes, January 24, 2018.

Jessica Napoli, “Elton John Reveals His Most ‘Difficult’ Scenes To Watch in ‘Rocketman’ Biopic,” Fox News, May 26, 2019.

Kristin Corpuz, “Elton John’s Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits,” Billboard.com, March 25, 2017.

Paul Sexton, “50 Years Of Diamonds From Elton John And Bernie Taupin,” uDiscover Music.com, January 24, 2018.

“Farewell Yellow Brick Road,” Wikipedia.org.

Hannah Taheri, “Top 10 Most Iconic Elton John Ensembles,” Golden1Center.com, Janu-ary 7, 2019.

Kathryn Vasel, “The World’s 10 Richest Recording Artists,” CNN Business, December 2, 2014.

Aisling Moloney, “What is Bernie Taupin’s Net Worth? Elton John’s lyricist Has Made a Serious Fortune,” MetroUK, November 13, 2017.

Ben Hirsh, “Does Elton John Really Live In Buckhead?,” Buckhead.com, May 4, 2016.

“Elton’s Photography Collection Now on Display at Tate Modern,” EltonJohn.com, November 10, 2016.

“Elton John Op-Ed on Tirelessly Fighting AIDS Through His Foundation: ‘We Have So Much Work Left to Do’,” (Cover Story), Billboard.com, October 15, 2015.

Stewart Mason, Song Review, “Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” AllMusic.com.

Rob Sheffield, “Elton John’s Greatest Non-Hits; For every “Rocket Man” or “I’m Still Standing,” There Are Countless Other Lost Gems Ripe For Rediscovery, From Stripped-Down Ballads to Decadent Glitter Epics,” Rolling Stone, February 2, 2011.

“Top 33 Forgotten / Overlooked Elton John Songs,” NeedSomeFun.net, July 4, 2017.

Billboard staff, “The Hot 100’s Top Artists of All Time,” Billboard.com, August 2, 2018.

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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Five-for-Fighting-100-Years.mp3 6032368 audio/mpeg

2001-Today

“100 Years To Live”
2003-2004

April 24, 2019 J.D.

Sheet music cover for “100 Years,” similar to cover art used for the single, with a “life stages” timeline. Click for digtal single.

Cover art for “The Battle for Everything” album by Five for Fighting / John Ondrasik, released in February 2004, includes “100 Years” song. Click for CD.

The title of the song is “100 Years,” a popular tune from 2003. It was written and performed by John Ondrasik, who uses the stage name, Five for Fighting.

“100 Years” was the first single from his third studio album, The Battle for Everything. The single was released ahead of the album, in November 2003, but both would become million sellers.

Music Player
“100 Years” – Five For Fighting
(scroll down for lyrics)

“100 Years” is a song for the ages; its lyrics and composition aptly capture the wistfulness of life flying by – and the progression of life stages. And the spare but perfectly-suited instrumentation by piano, gives it a weighty poignancy and a lingering, classic appeal.

By early 2004, “100 Years” had risen to No. 28 on the Billboard pop chart. And on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, the song did better, hitting No. 1. In fact, on that chart it was the longest running No. 1 single of the year, doing so during May-September 2004. It claimed the top spot for 12 non-consecutive weeks. In December 2004, on Billboard’s end-of-the-year music chart, “100 Years” was also ranked No. 77 for the year.

“100 Years” also reached the top 40 in Australia and New Zealand, peaking at No. 32 in both countries. In 2007, the song surpassed more than 1 million copies sold, earning Platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.

“100 Years” is not so much about reaching the age of 100, or a song in praise of seeking that milestone as a goal. Rather, this is a song lamenting time’s passing – and in a fashion, about how brief a time 100 years actually is, or more exactly, how quickly all of those years actually pass by in one person’s life. The song, depending on listener, may also summon an accounting of what one has done, not done, or might have done, with those years. For the young, it is an offering of possibilities and what might be — “time to lose yourself within a morning star,” as one lyric puts it.

During 2004-2006, “100 Years” also received exposure from its use on various TV programs and movies, among them: One Tree Hill (2004), Smallville (2004), JAG (2005), Scrubs (2006), the ABC Family movie, David Heart (2004), and also during Katie Couric’s last day on the Today Show (May 31, 2006). The song was also used as musical backing for a video montage of the 2004 Stanley Cup ice hockey playoffs broadcast after game seven of the finals on Canadian TV’s Hockey Night in Canada (John Ondrasik, by the way, is a serious ice hockey fan, and his stage name, Five for Fighting, is in fact, an appropriated ice hockey phrase meaning, five penalty minutes for fighting on the ice.)

But it was the song’s use as the backing track for a 2005 Chase credit card TV commercial (above) that also boosted the song’s exposure. That ad, titled “Life,” produced by the McGarryBowen agency of New York, ran during primetime ABC, CBS and NBC shows such as “Lost,” “Survivor,” and “Will & Grace.” Although a music video was prepared for the song, and was quite successful, the Chase TV commercial hyping its credit card services, did a pretty good job of actually capturing, visually, the essence of the song and its message.

“100 Years”
Five For Fighting
2003-2004

I’m 15 for a moment
Caught in between 10 and 20
And I’m just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are

I’m 22 for a moment
She feels better than ever
And we’re on fire
Making our way back from Mars

15 there’s still time for you
Time to buy and time to lose
15, there’s never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live

I’m 33 for a moment
Still the man, but you see I’m a they
A kid on the way babe
A family on my mind

I’m 45 for a moment
The sea is high
And I’m heading into a crisis
Chasing the years of my life

15 there’s still time for you
Time to buy, Time to lose yourself
Within a morning star

15 I’m all right with you
15, there’s never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live

Half time goes by
Suddenly you’re wise
Another blink of an eye
67 is gone
The sun is getting high
We’re moving on…

I’m 99 for a moment
Time for just another moment
And I’m just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are

15 there’s still time for you
22 I feel her too
33 you’re on your way
Every day’s a new day…

oooooh, oooooh, oooooh, ooh

15 there’s still time for you
Time to buy and time to choose
Hey 15, there’s never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live…

The Chase ad portrays a young male traveling through his various “life stages” – college, job, marriage, family, retirement, grandkids – life stages that are also the subject of “100 Years.” And conveniently for Chase, those life stages are also junctures of commerce when one or more type of credit card Chase issues and co-brands might be useful – such as Continental Airlines, Disney, Amazon, or AARP – each of which appears briefly as the ad runs.

The Chase commercial using “100 Years” in its soundtrack was quite well done visually, hitting all the right emotional buttons. It spurred numerous queries to the web in search of the song’s title and artist. The song and its lyrics, however, are worth a closer look.

Song’s Message

The narrator begins with age 15, which he describes as a time “caught between 10 and 20″ when he is “just dreaming.” And here, as a teenager, he appears to be thinking about, and forming himself, for some unknown love in his future. As John Ondrasik has recounted of his own life at that age, it was an awkward time; a time when he had no girl friend.

By age 22, however, all that bad teen angst is history, and the narrator, now in his early twenties, is flying high, and has found his love – “we’re on fire, making our way back from Mars.”

Then comes what might be called “the counseling chorus,” which is repeated later. The narrator here seems to be advising a 15 year-old – about the time he is in and the time he has left: “time to buy and time to lose” – early years, time to wonder and experiment; time to learn; a time of trial and error — but still, a time to make these early years count. “Never a wish better than this,” than to be 15 — with a full road ahead, 85 or more to go…

Back on the narrator’s life track, meanwhile, he is now 33 – “for a moment.” But now he is “a they,” he explains, a family man — “kid on the way…family on my mind.”

At 45 he finds the sea of life is “high” around him, as the years have mounted. And at this point there could be what some call “a mid-life crisis” looming. So now, perhaps, he’s beginning to chase — or reclaim/relive — some of his former self from earlier years?

Again, back to 15 when it was all there before you, really – “never a wish better than this.” Especially when “you only got 100 years to live.”

At the half-way mark there is some reflection. Travelling this far, he appears to be saying, you finally get a little knowledge and you think you’re pretty good at life’s chores and figuring it all out… But soon, 67 is gone in a blink of an eye… And you’re moving on…

By age 99, he is looking back, but still hoping for a bit more time – “time for just another moment.” Then there is a quick recap of the years rolling by – at 15, 22, 33 and more, also reminding us that “every day is a new day”… Carpe deim! But in the end, our narrator appears to be coming full circle, back to age 15, with that counseling chorus — “there’s still time for you.”

In any case, throughout his song, Ondrasik gets it right; suggesting that the sand-in-the-hour-glass slows down for no one. The years are precious intervals and we are all privileged to have those gifts of time. And in the end, it’s not how many years you live, but rather what you have made of them – and how well you have done by the people you’ve known, the family you’ve had, and your own personal truths and measures.

An image taken from the "100 Years" video, showing song author and performer John Ondrasik, along with some lyrics.

Music Video. In January 2004, the music video for “100 Years” came out. It would reach No. 30 on VH1’s Top 40 Music Video Countdown of 2004, spending 18 weeks on VH1’s weekly Top 20 countdown. In the video, images of John Ondrasik singing and playing the song at the piano are intercut with fictional versions of himself as a 15-year-old boy, a man in his mid-40s, a 99-year-old man, and at the end, meeting his older self.

A version of the video posted on YouTube.com has collected more than 37 million views and 11,000 comments (as of 2019), many praising the song, and some offering various takes on its lyrics and meaning. Similarly, comments on song and lyrics are also offered at SongFacts.com.

In January 1977, New West magazine featured “How To Make it To 100" as its cover story for a special year-end health issue.

Living To 100

Living to the age of 100 has long been thought to be something of the gold standard for those born in the 20th century – though an unreachable marker for most. However, as nutrition, medicine, and genetic knowledge advance, it appears that for those born in the 21st century, living to 100 will be a distinct possibility, and not exceptional.

A growing number of Americans are now found to be living to age 100. Nationwide, the centenarian population has grown 65.8 percent over the past three decades – from 32,194 people who were age 100 or older in 1980 to 53,364 centenarians in 2010, according to new Census Bureau data (as of January 2013). Some 82.8 percent of U.S. centenarians were female.

Japan currently has the greatest number of known centenarians of any nation with 67,824 according to their 2017 census. They also have the highest proportion of centenarians at 34.85 per 100,000 people. According to the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics, one-third of U.K. babies born in 2013 are expected to live to 100.

Of course, for decades now, “living to 100” has been quite topical in the media, receiving generous play in the popular press. Periodic magazine stories, as the one above left, have appeared featuring the lives of those who have achieved the milestone, or other stories about the best way to get there, and still others on the latest science and/or dietary secrets for reaching 100.

Parade Magazine – the Sunday supplement magazine that comes with many Sunday newspapers across America – has periodically featured stories on living to 100, such as the two samples offered below. The April 5th, 2015 issue of Parade ran its cover titled “Cheater’s Guide to Living to 100.” A group of middle-aged to elderly folks were shown on that cover with small print above saying “these people are practicing two longevity boosters now. Can you name them?” And again in January 2017, Parade headlined a “Living to 100” story with the title, “Forever Young,” noting, “Your chances of living to 100 are better than ever,” and adding: “We’ve got the moves to get you there.”

The April 5th, 2015 issue of Parade with cover story, “Cheater’s Guide to Living to 100.” Click for copy.

Jan 22nd, 2017 issue of Parade headlining a “Living to 100” story with the title, “Forever Young”. Click for copy.

Time magazine has also periodically visited the “living-to-100” story, or variations thereof, as the three sample covers below illustrate, these respectively, from 2004, 2010, and 2015. In August 2004 Time ran a cover story with the tagline, “How to Live To Be 100 (and not regret it)” – this last point focused on the quality of life in those elder years. In a February 2010 cover story, Time featured “The Science of Living Longer,” showing three stages of a woman’s life, from young girl to older woman. Five years later, in February 2015, Time blew past the age 100 marker, featuring a baby on the cover who Time said “could live to be 142 year old”!

Time, August 2004. Click for copy.

Time, February 2010. Click for copy.

Time, February 2015. Click for copy.

Time, and other of the popular media, delivering stories on this subject, usually focus on the latest information from science and long-term studies. Typically, the message is that some combination of genetics, diet, and lifestyle figure into the magic formula for long life. Some of these stories also point to places such as Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Spain; and Nova Scotia, Canada where clusters of long-lived individuals have been studied, hoping to find their “secret sauce.” Then there are also a slew of magazines, specialized publications, and one-time editions that offer advice, counsel, and/or various products to aide those striving to reach 100. A sampling of some of these are offered below.

2018. "Live to 100", U.K. magazine.

2013. "Prospect" magazine, U.K.

2011. Dr. Oz, "Men's Fitness".

One U.K. magazine, Live to 100 – “dedicated to inspiring people to lead healthier lives” – has featured a Dr. Hilary Jones on its cover periodically – “Live Longer My Way!” says one of his taglines on a recent issue. Another U.K magazine, Prospect, a monthly British essay and comment magazine, ran a special issue in 2013 on living to 100, including an article by American author and radio personality, Garrison Keillor, with the billing, “Living To 100: Now It’s Normal What Will You Do?” And Dr. Oz, a well-known celebrity physician in the U.S., is shown on a Men’s Fitness cover of July 2011 for the story, “Dr. Oz Shows You How to Live to 100 (and live well).”

2007: “Healthy at 100," by John Robbins. Click for copy.

2017: “The 100-Year Life,” by Gratton & Scott. Click for copy.

1999: “Living to 100," by Perls & Sliver. Click for copy.

In addition, a number of books have also been published on the “100 years of life” theme. Among titles released in recent years, for example, noted above, are: John Robbins’ 2007 book, Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World’s Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples (384 pp., Ballantine Books); Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott’s 2017 book, The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity (424pp., Bloomsbury Business, paperback); and Thomas T. Perls and Margery Hutter Silver’s 1999 book, Living To 100: Lessons In Living To Your Maximum Potential At Any Age (304 pp., Basic Books, paperback).

Music Best

Song author, John Ondrasik, shown on cover of 'Five for Fighting, Live' album, which also includes a version of '100 Years'. Click for CD.

Publishing and the popular press may well have the corner on the market for the “how-to-get-to-100” stories and/or profiles of those who have crossed the centenarian threshold.

However, the more poignant stories, perhaps, are those that come with music, as in John Ondrasik’s “100 Years” song. And of course, his is not the only song on the subject.

One listing at SongFacts.com, for example, includes more than 180 songs that have something to do with aging or age-related themes. And periodically, some of the more thoughtful radio stations will offer special broadcasts that group songs around one or more age-related themes.

In any case, music looking back on one’s life – the joys and the trials, the loves lost and won, the wisdom gleaned or missed, and more – will always have strong appeal. And the John Ondrasik song, “100 Years,” is definitely one worth keeping on the playlist.

Readers who liked this story may also find the following stories of interest, which also sample music with related “life story” themes and lyrics, including: “Cycles” (Frank Sinatra), “What A Wonderful World” (Louis Armstrong), “Life is Beautiful” (Vega 4), “Taxi” (Harry Chapin), and “In My Life” (The Beatles). Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Donate Now

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Date Posted: 24 April 2019
Last Update: 25 January 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “100 Years To Live: 2003-2004,”
PopHistoryDig.com, April 24, 2019.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Former NPR producer, Neenah Ellis’s 2004 book, “If I Live to Be 100.” Click for book and/or audio edition.

Michael Greger, M.D. and Gene Stone’s 2015 book, “How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease,” Flatiron Books, 576pp. Click for book.

“100 Years,” Wikipedia.org.

“Five for Fighting” (John Ondrasik), Wikipe-dia.org.

JPMorgan Chase, Press Release, “Campaign Positions Chase as Company that Empowers Consumers Throughout Life’s Important Moments,” May 9, 2005, New York, NY.

“JPMorgan Makes Its ‘Choice’,” Adweek, May 9, 2005.

“Playing the ‘Heart Strings’ Card: JPMorgan Chase’s New Ad Connects with Consumers on an Emotional Level…,” U.S. Banker, July 5, 2005.

Apple/iTunes, “Commercial Success:50 Songs That Sell,” Apple.com, October 7, 2005.

Tim Nudd, “Apple Picks 50 Top Songs from Commercials,” Ad Week, October 11 2005.

“Five for Fighting – 100 Years: Music Video,” YouTube.com, posted October 2, 2009.

“100 Years by Five For Fighting,” SongFacts .com.

“Songs About Getting Older” (list of 186 songs), SongFacts.com.

Richard Corliss and Michael D. Lemonick, “How To Live To Be 100. New Research Suggests That a Long Life Is No Accident. So What Are the Secrets of the World’s Centenarians?,” Time, August 30, 2004.

Emily Brandon, “What People Who Live to 100 Have in Common; U.S. Residents in Several States Live Considerably Longer than the Rest of the Country,” U.S. News & World Report, January 7, 2013.

Bronwen Maddox, “Editorial: Living to 100,” and Cover Story, Garrison Keillor, “Living to 100. Now it’s Normal, What Will You Do?,” Prospect (U.K. magazine), March 2013.

“How Many Singaporeans Are Living to 100 Years Old?,” Population.sg, March 2016.

“More than Half of World’s Wealthy Expect to Live to 100: Survey,” Reuters.com, April 19, 2018.

John Robbins, Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World’s Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples, 2007, Ballantine Books, 384pp.

Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, 2017, Bloomsbury Business, paperback, 424pp.

Thomas T. Perls and Margery Hutter Silver, Living To 100: Lessons In Living To Your Maximum Potential At Any Age, 1999, Basic Books, paperback, 304pp.

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Teaser Tag: Annals of Sport

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 2001-Today

“Two-Sport Man”
Pittsburgh’s Dick Groat

March 22, 2019 J.D.

Early 1950s. Dick Groat, All-American basketball star at Duke University, became a pro baseball player with the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals & Philadelphia Phillies.

Dick Groat grew up in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania in the 1940s, only a few miles from the Forbes Field baseball park in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, then home of the Pittsburgh Pirates professional baseball team.

Some years later, Groat would become a key player on the famous Pittsburgh Pirates team of 1960. That team — with a roster of other key players, including Vernon Law, Bob Friend, Hal Smith, Harvey Haddix, Bill Mazeroski and others — would upset the heavily-favored New York Yankees team of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, et. al, in the World Series that year in an historic and memorable Game 7 drama.

In fact, Dick Groat, as a Pittsburgh Pirate, would become quite the standout that year – serving as the Pirate’s team captain, winning the National League batting title with an average of .325, and also collecting the 1960 National League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.

But before his baseball heroics, there was basketball, as Dick Groat had also been an All-American basketball player at Duke University in the early 1950s, a nationally=ranked player who was selected by the then Fort Wayne (and later, Detroit) Pistons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft.

And for a time, Dick Groat thought he might try to play both professional sports for a few years. But in the end, baseball won out, yet basketball always tugged at his soul.

Groat was born in November 1930, the youngest of five children. As a boy growing up in the Pittsburgh area, he played more basketball that baseball, at least initially. “I played probably 20 times more basketball than I did baseball. Nobody in my neighborhood played Little League in those days…”

Dick Groat, 1954 Pittsburgh Pirates; Topps baseball card.

The first time he really started to play baseball was during his sophomore year in high school. He honed his athletic skills at Swissvale High School, where he played both baseball and basketball, and also volleyball.

Groat was not a exceptionally big guy – just at 5′ 11’’, but had grit and athletic talent enough that he stood out among his peers. And when the colleges came after him, he chose Duke, receiving a basketball scholarship there, where he would also play baseball.

Groat excelled at Duke, becoming an All-American in both sports in 1951 and 1952. But it was his basketball play that distinguished Groat during his collegiate years. Roy Terrell of Sports Illustrated would later write of Groat’s basketball talents at Duke:

…As a scorer he was almost impossible to stop. He could hit from outside with a two-hand set shot or confound and confuse the opposition with his driving, stop-and-go dribble in close. He was one of the first to realize the value of the one-hand jump shot, and he used it; he was also an exceptional rebounder for his size, a tough defensive man and perhaps the best playmaker ever seen in the old Southern Conference.

In 1951 at Duke he was named the Helms Foundation Player of the Year. In 1952, he became the first and only player to lead the nation in both scoring and assists. In fact, some who watched him play were astonished at his production – one calculating that with his points and assists he was sometimes accounting for more than 55 percent of Duke’s points. In 1952 UPI named him National Player of the Year after he set an NCAA record with 839 points

Dick Groat of Duke University driving for the bucket during his collegiate career in a game against Temple.

Groat’s last home game with Duke was against North Carolina in late February 1952, a game in which he had an especially hot hand, finishing with 48 points, the most allowed in a game by the Tar Heels. Duke won that game, 94-64, and Groat was carried off the court on the shoulders of Duke students.

Groat’s 48-point performance that game, became the single-game scoring record for a Duke player. The record would stand for 36 years until December 1988 when Danny Ferry of Duke scored 58 points against Miami.

Still, in Groat’s time at Duke, the university was not keen on post-season participation of its athletic teams.

“We were 24-6 in my senior year in basketball,” Groat would recall in a later interview, “and the administration wouldn’t let us play in the NIT.”

Duke that year had upset national No. 1 West Virginia, 90-88, in the Southern Conference semifinals, but lost in the Southern Conference championship game to N.C. State, who went on to the NCAA playoffs.

In the NBA draft of April 1952, Groat was selected 3rd overall pick in round one by the Fort Wayne (later, Detroit) Pistons. He was still in college at the time, and in fact, playing his final year of college baseball that spring as well.

Dick Goat was drafted 3rd overall in the 1952 NBA draft and played briefly with the Ft. Wayne Pistons.

And on the Duke baseball team, Groat was also a standout. In 1951, he hit .386 and helped his team to the College World Series, where they won their first game against Oregon State, but dropped out of the tournament after losses to Penn State and Western Michigan.

In the next season with Duke, Groat hit .370, and was again named All American. He also led the team that year in doubles, hits, runs batted in, and stolen bases.

In his collegiate career, Groat was a two-time winner of the McKelvin Award, given to the Athlete of the Year in the Southern Conference.

Pro baseball scouts, meanwhile, had noticed Groat’s play, and by 1952, three teams were interested – the Pirates, the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Giants. The Pirates had a leg up in the competition, as Pirate scouts and general manager Branch Rickey had been following Groat’s collegiate play. In fact, Groat had been invited to a workout with the Pirates in the summer while still in his junior year at Duke. Branch Rickey wanted to sign him then, offering to put him in the Pirates’ lineup the next night if he signed a contract on the spot.

But Groat said he felt an obligation to finish what he started at Duke, planning to play basketball and baseball in his senior year. But if Rickey made him the same offer a year later, he said, he’d be glad to sign with the Pirates. Rickey agreed to bide his time. A year later, a few days after the conclusion of the College World Series, Groat signed a five-year deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates, then joining the team in New York where he played the next night at the Polo Grounds in a game against the New York Giants.

June 1952. Dick Groat, fresh from the College Baseball World Series of 1952, shakes hands with Branch Rickey, General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, after signing a baseball contract to play with the Pirates, as Groat’s father looks on.

Groat played with the Pirates through the remaining games of the 1952 season, hitting .284 in 95 games that summer. But after the first season with the Pirates, he returned to Duke, where he planned on finishing his degree. However, the Ft. Wayne Pistons were still hot on his trail and wanted Groat to play basketball for them that fall.

But since Groat was finishing his degree at Duke in Durham, North Carolina, he had assumed that he wouldn’t be able to play in the NBA – “because they were in Fort Wayne and I was in Durham.” But the Pistons really wanted him. “They said they would fly me out for the games, so I flew out and played an exhibition and scored a bunch of points and they wanted to keep me around. So they just flew me into wherever they were playing.” Still, the hectic schedule of games on the road and classes at back Duke almost caused him to end his basketball career, as he later recalled:

“At one point… the weather grounded me in Detroit and I had to cut a class. In those days, if you cut three classes during one semester you were kicked out of the school. My father would have killed me if I didn’t graduate since I only needed nine credits, so I called the Pistons and told them that I quit. They told me that they had to have me back and that the owner would get me a private plane to get me back for my classes on time. Along with that, they doubled my salary, so I was making more in basketball than in baseball. With the new arrangement, I would play with my team on Monday and play at places like Madison Square Garden, and then I’d go to class Wednesday and then fly out to the next game….”

Pittsburgh Pirate shortstop and NL MVP in 1960, Dick Groat, is featured on the August 8th 1960 cover of Sports Illustrated - “Fiery Leader of the Pirates.” Click for his Amazon page.

Dick Groat had a .325 batting average in 1960, helping the Pirates take the NL pennant & himself, the MVP award.

By 1961, on the heels of the Pirates’ 1960 World Series win, and his own MVP year, Groat was getting top billing alongside Mickey Mantle on the early season reports.

At a 1961 spring training game, Groat continued to get head- liner treatment, here with NY Yankee slugger Roger Maris.

In May 1961, Groat continues to receive top billing along side big stars like Mantle and football great, Jim Taylor.

1960s: Pittsburgh Pirates Roberto Clemente and Dick Groat checking out the Pirate lumber.

During his 1952-53 season with the Pistons, Groat played 26 games of the 69-game schedule. He scored 309 points on 100 (two-point) field goals and 109 free throws, with 86 rebounds, averaging 11.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 2.7 assists. He then had two years of military service, where he continued to excel in both basketball and baseball.

During his time at the U.S. Army base in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., he led his teams to worldwide Army championships in both baseball and basketball – the first time a single U.S. Army base had won both titles in the same year.

In his Army play, Groat compiled a .362 batting average in baseball and a 35 points-per-game average in basketball.

In 1955, at the completion of his military service, Groat returned to Pittsburgh, ready to resume his two-sport pro careers with the Pistons and the Pirates.

“I honestly felt it would be all right to play both sports for a number of years.” But Pirate’s general manager Branch Rickey was not happy with that prospect. Rickey believed the two sports were different, and the demands on the human body would be too great – at a cost, Rickey believed, for the baseball side of the equation.

In trying to convince Rickey he could play both sports, Groat cited the example of Gene Conley, who pitched for the Milwaukee Braves pro baseball team in 1952 and also played pro basketball for the Boston Celtics.

“Don’t bring up Conley with me,” Rickey told Groat. “As a starting pitcher he only works every fourth or fifth day, and he’s only a backup center in basketball. You are a regular player in both baseball and basketball. I think you should realize that eventually you won’t justify your salary in either sport”. Rickey didn’t think an every-day player could do both.

Still, Groat said he had considered breaking his baseball contract in order to rejoin the Pistons, who had offered a higher salary and would also allow him to leave the team early for spring baseball training.

But in the end, Groat’s father weighed in as well. He was pretty insistent that his son stick with baseball, especially since in those years, professional baseball was considered the premiere, prestige professional sport – “America’s game.” More than either football or basketball at that time, baseball was the great American pastime. And legally, Groat had signed a five-year bonus contract with Rickey and the Pirates.

So, that was the end of Groat’s professional basketball career, but not the end of basketball in his life. More on that later. Still, Groat is one of 13 athletes who have played in the NBA and the Major Leagues.

The Pirates in the 1950s, meanwhile, were something of a doormat club in the National League, as Rickey was then on a building mission, soon to add high-caliber talent.

Rickey had come to the Pirates as General Manager in 1950, after he had made history with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 by bringing in Jackie Robinson as the first African American player in Major League baseball.

But with Pittsburgh, Rickey had some tough seasons while he tried to rebuild. In 1952, the Pirates had one of the worst seasons in major league history, finishing with 42 wins and 112 losses, 54½ games out of first place.

Rickey had previously invented the farm system with the Cardinals, and built powerful teams with both the Cardinals and the Dodgers. Now in Pittsburgh, he set out to do the same, bringing in new blood and younger players.

Among Rickey’s successful picks were pitchers Vernon Law, Bob Friend and Elroy Face, second baseman Bill Mazeroski, outfielder Roberto Clemente, drafted from Brooklyn, and Dick Groat. These players, and a few others, would form the nucleus of the Pirates’ 1960 championship club.

Groat for his part had a few tough years at the outset, but soon found his footing. At shortstop, though not endowed with exceptional speed or the strongest arm, he was a very smart defender, typically taking the right field position for each hitter.

At the plate, by 1957, Groat was the fifth best in the National League, batting .315. In 1958 he hit .300, and led the league in putouts and double plays as the Pirates finished in second place. In 1959, he again led the league in putouts and double plays and made his first of five All-Star teams. However, in the off-season that year, he was nearly traded for Roger Maris, but the deal was cancelled by manager Danny Murtaugh.

In 1960, at age 29, Groat had a banner year with the Bucs, becoming team captain. He hit for a .325 average that year with 189 hits, winning the National League batting title. By August 1960, Groat made the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, with the cover tagline, “Fiery Leader of the Pirates.”

Groat would also win the National League’s Most Valuable Player trophy in 1960, and help the Pirates to their World Series victory over the NY Yankees, though having just recovered from a broken wrist.

In the Series, Groat tied Game 1 at 1-1 with a first-inning double and scored to give Pittsburgh the lead, eventually winning that game 6-4, with Groat turning a double play to end the game. In Game 7, he had an RBI single and scored in the 8th inning, in which the Pirates scored 5 runs to take a 9-7 lead, eventually winning that game and the Series on Bill Mazeroski’s famed walk-off home run.

In 1961 Groat batted .275, and together with Mazeroski led the league in double plays. In 1962 he batted .294, finishing third in the league in doubles with 34, also leading the league in putouts, assists, and double plays.

But in November 1962, Dick Groat was caught by surprise, as then general manager Joe L. Brown, in need of pitching support, traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for pitcher Don Cardwell.

July 22, 1963: Dick Groat on the cover of Sports Illustrated – “A Hitting Shortstop On a Hard-Hitting Team”.

October 1964: St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Dick Groat and pitcher Bob Gibson celebrate the 1964 World Series championship. (Sports Illustrated photo).

April 18, 1966. Dick Groat on the cover of Sports Illustrated showing his "hit-and-run" form, then thought to be a help to the Phillies pennant hopes.

1967. Groat in his final season with the San Francisco Giants.

In St. Louis…

Dick Groat was deeply hurt by the trade to St. Louis, having set his sights on possibly coaching and managing in Pittsburgh after his playing years.

“I was heartbroken to hear that I had been traded. Pittsburgh is my hometown and I never wanted to leave. It’s the greatest city in the world and I never wanted to leave. That was one of the toughest winters that I’ve ever spent….”

In fact, for a time after the trade to St. Louis, Groat severed all contact with the Pirate organization (though later restored in 1990 after a team reunion).

In St. Louis, though, Groat became a key member of one of the best hitting infields ever assembled, including: Ken Boyer at third base, Groat at shortstop, Julian Javier at second, and Bill White at first.

By July 1963, Sports Illustrated was praising Groat’s play: “Groat, still the same deadly opposite-field hitter he was when he won the National League batting title in 1960, uses a log for a bat and merely slaps the ball wherever it is pitched.”

Groat would later say of his first year in St. Louis, “… I had the best year of my career in 1963 with the Cardinals. I hit in front of Stan Musial the whole season and I had never seen so many good pitches to hit.”

Groat finished finished fourth in the National League that year with a .319 batting average – just seven points off the top average that year – compiling 201 hits. He also led the league with 43 doubles, and was third in triples with 11. And in a year when Los Angeles Dodger pitching sensation, Sandy Koufax, was striking out everything in sight and would win the National League’s MVP award, Dick Groat was the runnerup for that award. He also earned an All-Star appearance that year.

In 1964 he batted .292 for the pennant-winning Cardinals, also leading the league in assists and double plays and making his last All-Star team.

In the 1964 World Series against the Yankees, he reached base on Bobby Richardson’s error in the sixth inning of Game 4, and scored on Ken Boyer’s grand slam in the 4-3 St. Louis victory. Groat also tagged out Mickey Mantle in the third inning of that game on a pickoff play. He scored in the 3-run tenth inning of Game 5, a 5-2 win, and had an RBI groundout in the final 7-5 win in Game 7.

To Philadelphia

After hitting .254 for the Cardinals in 1965, he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in a six-player deal. The Phillies that year were a good prospect for a National League pennant, according to Sports Illustrated, and Groat, a good hit-and-run man, was seen as someone who could help them get there.

The Phillies finished in the top half of the National League that year, in fourth place, at 87 and 75. Dick Groat hit .265 for the year, and his contract was sold midway through the next season, in June 1967, to the Giants (by then in San Francisco). He then split that 1967 season between the Phillies and the San Francisco Giants, ending his career that year with a .156 average in 44 games.

In his Major League baseball career, spanning 14 years and some 1,929 games, Dick Groat compiled a .286 batting average with 2,138 hits, 39 home runs, 829 runs scored, 707 runs batted in, 352 doubles, and 14 stolen bases. He made five all-star teams and won two World Series rings, one with the Pirates (1960) and St. Louis Cardinals (1964).

At the end of his playing career, Dick Groat returned to the Pittsburgh area. For many years when he played baseball, Groat had worked during the off-season as a salesman for Jessup Steel in Washington, Pennsylvania. But in 1965 he took a new direction. Groat and former Pirates teammate Jerry Lynch built a public golf course, called Champion Lakes, in the Laurel Valley, 50 miles east of Pittsburgh. And for some years thereafter, Groat would spend a good deal of time living at Champion Lakes and managing day-to-day operations there.

Back to Basketball

But then in 1979, a new opportunity came Groat’s way – one that brought him back to his first love, basketball. That’s when the University of Pittsburgh reached out to him about becoming a broadcaster for the Pitt men’s games in Division 1 NCAA play. He didn’t hesitate on the offer.

2018. Groat being honored at a Duke-Pitt basketball game.

Dick Groat was then in his version of basketball heaven! For the next 40 basketball seasons, Groat was a Pitt Panthers’ radio sportscaster, alongside partner Bill Hillgrove.

In March 2019, his tenure as a Pitt broadcaster was ended at age 88, though feeling he still had a few more seasons left. But Dick Groat was always grateful for the experience, saying at one point:

2015. Honored on Duke-Pitt program.

“I could have never pictured myself becoming a broadcaster, but thank God that this has happened because it’s an absolute joy to me and I’ve loved every minute of it. I love college basketball. It was my first love. And just being around all of the kids keeps me young. Every day that I walk into a basketball arena is a joy to me.”

And over the years in Pittsburgh, and on the road, there have been special moments for Groat, some commemorating his basketball feats of the past, and others celebrating reunions with former baseball teammates, and various other special events where he has been honored.

In 2007, Groat was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. Four years later, in 2011 he was inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011. With that induction, he became the first man ever inducted into both the college basketball and college baseball halls of fame.

In March 2014, at the opening day of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball season, Groat was there at PNC Park along with Barry Bonds and Andrew McCutchen as honored guests. In mid-January 2015, when Pitt played Duke at the Cameron Indoor Stadium, a photo of Dick Groat of 1952 dribbling down court was featured on the game’s program cover. Back in Pittsburgh, meanwhile, in mid-2018, the City Council announced that “Dick Groat Day” would be celebrated on June 12, 2018. For Dick Groat, the years have been mostly kind, filled with a two-sport collection of many fans and many fine memories.

Duke University's hot young guard, Dick Groat (#10), eluding Temple defenders, and taking the ball to the bucket, early 1950s.

Readers of this story may also find “The Mazeroski Moment” of interest — a story about the famous 1960 World Series games between the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Yankees, including background on each team’s 1960 season, key players, and review of the seven World Series games, with photos. See also the “Annals of Sport” category page for additional sports stories. And basketball fans may also find these stories of interest: “Basketball Dollars: NCAA History,” about how NCAA tournament basketball has grown in recent years to become a big money and big media enterprise; and “Bill Bradley, 1960s-2009,” about the former Princeton and New York Knicks basketball star who went on to become a U.S. Senator, presidential candidate, and author of several best-selling books.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Story Update: At the passing of Dick Groat in late April 2023 at age 92, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a front-page story on Groat and his career with photo of then-current Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park in Pittsburgh paying tribute as Groat’s photo from his playing days appeared on the large stadium screen. Click photo for lnkt to that story.

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Date Posted: 22 March 2019
Last Update: 28 April 2023
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Two-Sport Man: Pittsburgh’s Dick Groat,”
PopHistoryDig.com, March 22, 2019.

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Baseball Books & Film at Amazon.com…

“Baseball: A Film By Ken Burns,” – the definitive history; fully restored in high definition, 2021, blue-ray or DVD. Click for Amazon.

Ben Lindbergh & Travis Sawchik’s best-selling 2020 book, “The MVP Machine,” building baseball talent. Basic Books, 416 pp. Click for book.

Joe Posnanski’s 2020 best seller, “The Baseball 100,” the 100 greatest players, with foreword by George Will. Simon & Schuster. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Dick Groat/ Frank Dascenzo 1978 book, "Groat: I Hit and Ran," Moore Publishing. Click for book.

Dick Groat / Bill Surface 1961 book, "The World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates," Coward-McCann. Click for book.

Walter Bingham, “Dick Groat and His Hitting Machine,” Sports Illustrated, July 22, 1963.

William Leggett, “Whose Turn in the Fratricidal National?,” Sports Illustrated, April 18, 1966.

Associated Press, “His First Sport: Ferry’s 58 Points Broke Duke Record Few Realized That Ex-Pirate Dick Groat Held,” Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1988.

Bill Brill, “Duke-UNC Memories: Dick Groat,” Blue Devil Weekly, March 5, 2004.

Steve Treder, “The Branch Rickey Pirates (Part 3: 1951-1952),” The Hardball Times, March 31, 2009.

Joseph Wancho, “Dick Groat,” Society for American Baseball Research, 2013.

Johnny Moore, “An Interview With Former Two-Sport Star Dick Groat,” GoDuke (The Magazine), June 6, 2014.

Al Yellon, “Cubs Historical Sleuthing: All-Star Edition” (There aren’t too many photos around of this game), BleedCubbieBlue.com, February 17, 2018.

Christine Coleman, “Cardinals Throwback Thursday: Basketball Stars Bob Gibson and Dick Groat,” AaronMilesFastball.com, March 20, 2014.

Chip Alexander, “He Twice Won the World Series. But Before That, He Was a Duke Basketball Star,” NewsObserver.com, January 23, 2018.

Ben Hamrick, “Baseball Legend and Pride of Swissvale,” Pittsburgh.com, June 6, 2016.

Brian Rzeppa, “An Interview With Pittsburgh Sports Legend Dick Groat,” BucsDugout.com, February 4, 2016.

James Crabtree-Hannigan, “Pittsburgh City Council Names June 12, 2018, ‘Dick Groat Day’ To Honor Pitt Broadcaster,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 12, 2018.

Ron Cook, “Ron Cook: Dick Groat is The Best Athlete To Come Out of Western Pennsylvania,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 13, 2018.

Jerry DiPaola, “In 40th and Final Year, Dick Groat Reflects on Broadcasting Pitt Basketball,” TribLive.com, March 13, 2019.

“Dick Groat,” Wikipedia.org.

“Guide to the Dick Groat Collection, 1948-1955,” David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library / Duke University.

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Teaser Tag: Coal Mining History

1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Buffalo Creek Disaster”
Coal Dams Fail: 1972

February 1, 2019 J.D.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, February 26th, 1972, after three days of rain, a series of coal slurry impoundments in the upper reaches of the Buffalo Creek watershed in Logan County, West Virginia, were beginning to weaken. They were filled to capacity, holding tons of coal wastewater. The dams, built of coal slag wastes, were then owned by the Pittston Coal Company. Coal waste dumping had gone on there for decades, up in the hills, at the headwaters of the Buffalo Creek. But in the valley below, Buffalo Creek ran for about 17 miles where some 5,000 people lived in a string of 16 small towns built along the valley’s bottom lands. When the impoundments up in the hills gave way that February morning, a tsunami-like wall of thick, black coal wastewater went crashing down the hollow, wiping out homes and lives.

Feb 28, 1972. Headlines of the 'Charleston Daily Mail' of Charleston, WV reporting early death toll of 66 people killed during the Buffalo Creek flood disaster, the result of a giant “coal waste” wall of water from failed “gob” dams high in the hills upstream, also showing houses tossed about in the ravaged watershed. Actual death toll would be 125, nearly twice early reports.

Residents were just awakening that Saturday morning; some entire families were still in bed. In the end, more than 125 people were killed, at least 1,000 injured, and some 4,000 left homeless. The headlines the next day played the catastrophe as a flood disaster, as there had been heavy rain. Yet, as all who lived in those parts knew well, this was a coal disaster, not an “act of God,” as the coal company would later claim.

Some residents in the area, especially those who lived in the town of Saunders, located in the valley directly below the dams, had worried for years about the dams’ strength. They also worried about the mining practice of dumping coal mining “slag” or “gob”– coal mining waste – into the dams. One resident had even written to the governor a few years earlier saying if something wasn’t done about the dams, “we’re all going to be washed away.”“We saw the water lift up our house. When the water set it down again, it just flattened out on the ground. The water was there, and then it was gone…” – Edna Baisden And on the morning of February 26, 1972, just after 8:00 am, that worst fear was realized.

The huge wall of coal wastewater was 30 feet high and 550 feet wide as it gouged its way down the hollow, first smashing through Saunders and then, successively through Pardee, Lorado, Londale, and a dozen other small villages in the narrow creek valley.

The moving wall of wastewater did its damage in seconds, in repeated fashion, as it moved down the hollow. “We saw the water lift up our house,” said Enda Baisden Short, recalling for The Herald Dispatch of Huntington, West Virginia that she and her husband had run from their home early that Saturday morning just prior to coal waste flood. “When the water set it down again, it just flattened out on the ground. The water was there, and then it was gone.”

As the wave moved down the mountain valley it wiped out much of what stood in its path. Some residents in higher hilltop homes overlooking Buffalo Creek, watched as entire houses floated down the hollow, some later crashing into a small bridge downstream. One resident at the scene, later quoted in in Kai T. Erikson’s book, Everything in Its Path, noted of the onrushing tide: “This water, when it came down through here, it acted real funny. It would go this way on this side of the hill and take a house out; take one house out of all the rows, and then go back the other way. It would just go from one hillside to the other…”

Map of Buffalo Creek communities in 1972 shown with disaster summary inset. Sources: “The Herald Dispatch,” newspaper of Huntington, WV, Thomas Marsh, and the West Virginia Division of Culture and History.

The black wall of water was later estimated to have moved at a rate of seven feet per second. In addition to its coal debris, the slurry wave picked up an abrasive and destructive mixture of semi-rotten trees, rocks, and sediment as it went, gouging out the land and becoming a more lethal force capable of battering and sweeping away all in its path. It ripped homes from their foundations, swept up cars, mobile homes, and bridges, and even left twisted rail lines in a few places before it finished its destructive run over 17 miles to the Guyandotte River.

One retired coal miner who survived the flood, but who lost his wife, daughter and granddaughter in the disaster, explained what he experienced in one Charleston Gazette account: “…How I got out of that water, I don’t know… I rode the house a long ways. Then I fell off in the water. I finally caught hold of the railroad with one hand and pulled my myself out. As I rode that house down the creek I could see that the bottom of it was above those telephone poles in the holler.”

February 1972. Aerial photograph from 'The Herald Dispatch' (Huntington, WV) captures some of the enormous damage in the Buffalo Creek valley, showing collection of homes uprooted and floated down the valley, covering roads and rail lines.

Rescue operations and accurate reporting of the dead and missing were made difficult by the fact that access to the area by road had been wiped out, with bridges destroyed and rail lines blocked or flooded. A few helicopters were used initially until local miners and others, and the National Guard, began clearing debris and building makeshift roads and bridges.

Robert Shy, among those in the West Virginia Army National Guard who helped during the crisis, flew helicopters up and down the valley delivering water and milk and picking up dazed and injured survivors. “It just broke your heart to see firsthand the devastation that water could do,” he would tell a Herald Dispatch reporter. “Roads weren’t where they used to be, nor were houses. Railroad rails were twisted, cars were everywhere, bridges were on the roads instead of over the creek.”

February 28, 1972. An early New York Times story filed from Man, West Virginia, implicated 'coal waste pile' in its reporting on the Buffalo Creek disaster, along with a photo of some of the local damage.

The news of the Buffalo Creek Disaster broke variously across the nation the next few days, in part due to the difficulty of getting to the site. The New York Times ran an Associated Press wire story on the front page of its Sunday, February 27th, 1972 edition, above the fold, bearing the headline, “37 Killed as Flood Sweeps A Valley in West Virginia.” The opening sentence of that story read: “A huge, coal-slag heap serving as a dam burst under the pressure of three days of torrential rains early this morning, sending a wall of water through a narrow valley dotted with small impoverished mining towns.” The Times’ own reporter, George Vecsey, based in Kentucky, managed to reach Man, West Virginia on February 27th, filing his story (above) which appeared in the next day’s edition. UPI photographer Leo Gardner, one of the first outsiders to reach the area reported, “Lorado was wiped out.” Another early report from the devastation noted: “52 bodies lying on both sides of the road running alongside Buffalo Creek.” Some drowned in the floodwaters, while others were buried by landslides, as a thick muck had moved along with the coal water.

Feb 27, 1972. Headlines from 'The Springfield Republican' of Massachusetts, report on the 'W.Va. Dam Break'.

The Charleston Gazette of February 1972 reporting on the early flood death total, with front-page photo of damaged homes thrown about on the valley floor.

Associated Press wire story reporting "400 missing" in a front-page story that ran in The Tuscaloosa Times newspaper in Alabama.

Feb 28, 1972, The Logan Banner of Logan, WV reports on the search for victims, relief effort, and first-hand accounts.

The Springfield Republican newspaper of of Springfield, Massachusetts ran a wire story from United Press International (UPI) on the front page with the headline: “80 to 90 Feared Dead in W. Va. Dam Break; Mining Town ‘Wiped Out’.” That story shared the front page with other national and regional news that day, picturing U.S. Senator Ed Muskie (D-NH) in one photo, then running for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, shown campaigning ahead of the New Hampshire primary.

At one point, West Virginia Governor Arch Moore, complaining that the state’s image was getting a bad rap from the media, closed the Buffalo Creek area to reporters. But West Virginia newspapers in the area were covering the tragedy closely, as the grim business of accounting for the dead, injured, and homeless continued. Still, the reported number of dead and missing varied with each day’s news reports, a reflection of the difficulty in finding and identifying bodies in the aftermath.

Later accounts from survivors would describe some of the horrendous moments that families faced as the coal flood tore through the valley.

Roland Staten, a coal miner who had managed to jump off of his house as it was being carried away by the rushing waters, held on to his son as he jumped. But his pregnant wife couldn’t get out; she was trapped in the house. In a court statement later, Mr. Staten recounted his travail and losing his wife: “When I looked back and saw her she said, ‘Take care of my baby.’…That’s the last time I saw her.”

Mr. Staten and his son, meanwhile, swept along in the water, were struggling to save themselves. “I was thrown from side to side and crushed,” he recounted, “my insides was crushed so hard it just seemed my eyeballs was trying to pop out, and… I couldn’t get my breath at all. Somewhere along there I lost that boy of mine. I don’t know where. By that time he had stopped screaming and drunk so much water and everything – I don’t what happened to him.”

Alvid Davis was working outside his home in the community of Stowe when he looked up and saw the flood waters coming, according to an Associated Press report of February 28, 1972. Davis managed to rescue two of his sons, and his neighbors helped pull his 17-year-old daughter from the waters two miles down the hollow. But his youngest son and daughter and his wife were among the missing. “My daughter said she had heard my wife praying when the waters hit the house,” said Davis, later recounting his travail.

Wallace Adkins of Robinette, tried to escape the on-rushing wall of water by loading up his family car. But the water-soaked engine would not start, and as he reached for his wife, the flood “just carried her away.” Adkins did manage to hold onto one daughter and two sons, but his wife and two other children could not be located.

Another survivor and eye witness recounted what he saw to a Logan Banner reporter: “…It was throwing houses around like matchstems and it was picking up cars like they were eggshells…”

Two other witnesses reported to the Logan Banner that they “saw bodies getting hung in trees… The water was black and it was carrying homes and timber…” Another man added: “I just didn’t believe I would see that much water and houses floating down the creek. Men and women, children and animals were …floating in that high wall of water.”

Those who survived saw corpses everywhere. Hundreds of families lost everything — their homes, their belongings, their memorabilia. An accounting of the disaster, and multiple investigations, would then proceed to piece together what had happened there, focused on the coal mining and dam building.

A Pittston Coal Group decal sticker listing some of the company's mining locations in the VA-WV area.

Mining & Dumping

The first coal mining in the Buffalo Creek watershed dated to the 1910s when a few “coal camps” – small mining towns – sprang up following the first rail lines into the area to exploit the coal there. Through the 1940s coal mining and coal washing – including dumping coal refuse and coal wash water – occurred in the area of the Middle Fork, one of three headwater streams that formed Buffalo Creek. By 1957, the Buffalo Mining Company, as part of its strip mining operations, began dumping “gob” — mine waste consisting of mine dust, shale, clay, low-quality coal, and other impurities — into the Middle Fork branch.

In 1960, Buffalo Mining had constructed its first gob dam, or impoundment, near the mouth of Middle Fork in 1960. Six years later, it added a second dam, 600 feet further upstream. And by 1968, the company was dumping more gob at a third location, another 600 feet upstream. But this dam – dam No. 3 – had been built on top of coal slurry sediment that had collected behind the earlier dams 1 and 2, not on solid bedrock. By 1972, the third dam ranged from 45-to-60 feet in height, and the Middle Fork had become a series of black pools.

The three dams also served as something of a crude pollution-prevention system: filtering, settling out, and retaining the dirty prep plant particles and toxins found in the coal wastewater, also enabling some reuse of the water in processing. Downstream, the coal wastewater — theoretically “filtered” through the dams – would then emerge in a “cleaner” state in Buffalo Creek and beyond. But the dam pools, and the dumping of the solid slag wastes on the dam structures, were both essentially cost-saving, “cheapest-way-to-do-it” coal industry practices. Additionally, on one side of the valley below Dam #1, there was a huge smoldering coal refuse pile.

Aerial photograph used during investigation of Buffalo Creek Disaster, showing the approximate locations of the three coal waste “gop” dams, and the path taken by coal slurry flood wave on its destructive run downstream.

The dams themselves were certainly not state-of-the-art construction. According to one assessment at the time: “These impromptu structures were hardly dams in any technical sense… They were simply piles of coal waste, clay, shale, red dog, and other by-products of the coal preparation process, dumped off the back of trucks and bulldozed to an even height. Many in the downstream communities were keenly aware of the unstable nature of these impoundments, and expressed their concern to government officials….” In fact, there had already been signs of trouble at the dams, which should have raised alarms and efforts at corrective construction.

In March 1967, a partial collapse at one of the dams caused some flooding in the hollow, alarming residents already concerned about the structures. State officials requested a few minor alterations to the impoundment. And that same year, 1967, the U.S. Department of the Interior had warned state officials that the Buffalo Creek dams – and 29 others throughout West Virginia – were unstable and dangerous.“[I]f you don’t do some-thing, we’re all going to be washed away.”
– Pearl Woodrum letter, Feb 1968 Interior’s study had been prompted by a coal dam failure in Aberfan, Wales in 1966 – a catastrophe that had killed 147 people, including 116 school children.

In February 1968, Saunders resident Mrs. Pearl Woodrum wrote a letter of complaint to then Governor Hulett Smith saying in effect, the dams were unsafe. “[I]f you don’t do something,” she wrote, prophetically, “we’re all going to be washed away.” Her letter did bring a state inspector to visit the dams. He reported there was no danger of a washout of Dam No. 1. However, he did question the ability of the overflow pipes in Dam No. 2 to handle excessive runoff. A search of Public Service Commission records in response to Pearl Woodrum’s complaint failed to produce any proof that dams No.1 and No. 2 had ever been formally approved by the state. In March 1968, DNR notified the Logan County Prosecuting Attorney of Pearl Woodrum’s letter, but no action was taken at the local level or by the state.

By June 1970, Pittston had acquired the Buffalo Mining Company. But before the acquisition, Pittston engineers had reportedly surveyed the Buffalo Mining property, and according to company officials who later testified: “Our reports had no indication that there was any danger, or that anything was wrong with the impoundments . . .”In 1971, Pittston was cited for over 5,000 safety violations at its mines nationally. At the time of Pittston’s acquisition of Buffalo Mining, Dam No. 3 was under construction and about 50 percent completed.

Less than a year later, in February 1971, Dam No. 3 failed. However, in this case, Dam No. 2 held and halted the water. The state then cited Pittston for violations but failed to follow up with inspections. Pittston by then had developed a reputation for poor safety practices, and was ranked second nationally in the number of fatal and non-fatal mine accidents. In fact, the company was cited for over 5,000 safety violations at its mines nationally in 1971. But the company challenged each of the violations and paid only $275 of the $1.3 million in fines originally proposed.

Pittston was also the fifth largest corporate landowner in the Appalachian region at the time, holding nearly 375,000 acres. It also held coal reserves of 1.5 billion tons, mostly high-grade metallurgical coal used in steel-making. Beyond coal, and headquartered in New York City, Pittston had other diverse holdings – an oil company, a large trucking firm, the Brink’s armored car company, and forty percent of the warehouses in New York City.

February 1972. Some of the flood damage in the aftermath of the Buffalo Creek disaster in West Virginia, showing "mud line" on damaged home, indicating approximation of flood levels for some structures, while others were carried away in the wave or disintegrated into pieces.

As of February 1st, 1972, dam No. 3 was being filled at a rate of about 1,000 tons of refuse a day, carried from the coal preparation plant to the dam in 30-ton trucks. The company was operating eight mines in the vicinity and ran all the coal through the preparation plant above the dams. The plant was pumping about 500 tons of water-saturated waste into the pond behind dam No. 3 every day. A few weeks later, on February 22nd, a federal mine inspector and the company safety engineer observed the dams and found conditions satisfactory. Three days later, on February 25, with heavy rain, the water behind dam No. 3 was rising one or two inches per hour. The next day, February 26th, at 1:30 a.m. the water was twelve inches from the dam’s crest and oozing through the dam’s surface. Not long thereafter, the dam gave way, creating the horror that unfolded for the Buffalo Creek communities downstream.

Surveying The Damage

As the skies cleared on Sunday, February 27, West Virginia’s Governor, Arch Moore toured the area by helicopter, describing the “awesome destruction” he viewed from above. President Richard Nixon, then in China, had contacted Moore by phone to promise Federal disaster aid. Army personnel, the Red Cross, state and county officials were all on the scene by then as well, trying to feed, clothe and comfort survivors. A temporary morgue was set up at an elementary school in the town of Man.

A helicopter hovers over one location in the Buffalo Creek valley, surveying the damage in the aftermath of the coal dam failures and devastating flood of February 26, 1972. Note mud lines on the building at left, marking flood level.

U.S. Congressman Ken Hechler (D-WV)), who also came to the area on Sunday, February 27th, told reporters that the U.S. Bureau of Mines and state agencies had “failed to demonstrate sufficient concern for the protection of the safety of the people who work in the mines and live in the mining communities.” Hechler also pointed to what he believed was a contributing cause of the flooding: “As I looked through Buffalo Creek valley yesterday, it struck me again that the entire valley is honeycombed with strip mines and the waste from deep mines so that the soil can no longer hold the [rain] water.” Hechler also slammed the coal industry’s power in the area, saying, “the people are prisoners of the coal industry…” And with some irony, he added, “the only building left intact in one Buffalo community was the company store.”

Crowd of onlookers in the distance surveys the enormous debris field jammed up against a downstream bridge following the Buffalo Creek coal flood. Some survivors reported homes exploding or splintering apart with the wave's impact. Gazette-Mail/L. Pierce.

On Monday, February 28th, U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph (D-WV) visited Man High School, a temporary refugee location for Buffalo Creek survivors. Tempers flared there as one local man tore into Randolph. “I told you this was going to happen,” he said, “I told you.“ He had voted for Randolph, but was frustrated with the political process and how the locals were regarded by most politicians. He believed most local people didn’t tell Randolph and other politicians how they really feel. “You build them up with a bunch of political propaganda…..,” he said, also suggesting that the “coal operator’s money” installed the politicians in Washington, and then, “you don’t care nothing about us.”

February 1972. The Charleston Gazette reporting on the rising death toll of the Buffalo Creek Disaster and Pittston’s PR office calling the disaster an “act of God”.

“Act of God”

Not long after the dams had burst, and the flood waters had raged through the Buffalo Creek communities, Pittston’s New York public relations office, attempting to absolve the company from legal responsibility, issued a news release stating that the flood was “an act of God.” The dam, said the Pittston officials, was simply “incapable of holding the water God poured into it.”

At a protest meeting held in the Buffalo Grade School in Accoville a month after the flood, an older woman stood up and shouted out: “I’ve lived up at the top of the hollow for a long time. And I ain’t never seen God up there driving no bulldozer dumping slate on that dam.” Her remarks won applause from most everyone in the room. Robert Weedall, West Virginia’s climatologist, noted in later remarks that yes, “Act of God is a legal term,” but there were other perhaps more apt legal terms that might apply to what had happened in Buffalo Creek, such as “involuntary manslaughter” or “criminal negligence.” The record, however, would prove that “acts of man” had everything to do with what happened at Buffalo Creek.

WV Governor, Arch Moore.

Investigations

By March 2, Republican Governor Arch Moore announced the formation of an Ad Hoc Commission of Inquiry to investigate the flood. Its nine members, however, were either sympathetic to the coal industry, or government officials whose departments might have been complicit in the dams’ failures. After then-president of the United Mine Workers Union, Arnold Miller and others were rebuffed by Gov. Moore regarding their request that a coal miner be added to the commission, a separate Citizens’ Commission was formed to provide an independent review of the disaster.

“The current members of [the Governor’s] panel are either oriented to coal or apologists for the tragedy, so we are creating our own commission of 19 residents to take testimony from eyewitnesses,” said Pat McClintock at the time. McClintock was a field worker for the Black Lung Association, an organization focused on the debilitating disease common to miners. “We do not see this as a disaster in a vacuum,” he said, “but a series of events of coal dominating the lives of West Virginians.”

Both the Governor’s Commission and the Citizens’ Commission set about their investigations, and each group began holding public hearings and collecting information regarding the disaster. But these weren’t the only investigations; there were also several others, including: one or more Congressional committees, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

March 5, 1972. Ralph Nader letter to Congressional committees raises dangers of coal dams.

Among those pressing for action in Washington was consumer advocate Ralph Nader, well known by then for taking on politicians and corporations. Nader had sent one of his investigators, a young West Virginia lawyer named Davitt McAteer (who years later would head up the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration) to the Buffalo Creek area a few days after the disaster. Nader and McAteer, in a letter to key members of Congress urging investigations, estimated that hundreds of thousands of West Virginians living in narrow Appalachian valleys, could be threatened by sudden catastrophic flooding from unstable coal waste dams. They pointed to a 1966 U.S. Geological Survey report of 1966 that had found 60 such coal mine waste piles in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia, and that little had been done to correct or eliminate those hazards – and additional ones – since that report was made. Citing coal industry dereliction throughout central Appalachia, they said it was imperative for Congress to investigate the industry’s practice of erecting crudely-made coal refuse dams and propose legislation to prevent future disasters. Nader was also quoted saying: “The Buffalo Creek massacre is only one more in the long series of tragedies which coal corporations have perpetrated upon the people of Appalachia, especially of West Virginia.”

The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Labor had already begun an investigation, and by late May 1972 also began a series of public hearings on the Buffalo Creek disaster. This subcommittee would hear from dozens of witnesses, and was briefed at one point by experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who provided a scale model of the site with details of what happened (see photo below).

May 1972, Wash., DC. U.S. Senators and experts gather around scale model of Buffalo Creek area in Senate hearing room showing valley below and three coal waste impoundments (#s 8, 5, & 4) that burst causing catastrophic flood on February 26, 1972. Among officials and Senators shown are, from left: Dennis Gibson, Buffalo Mining Co.(22) Garth Fuguay (21, with pointer), Army Corps of Engineers; Sen. Harold Hughes (18); Sen. Jennings Randolph (17); Sen. Jacob Javits (16); Sen. Harrison Williams (15); Sen. Richard Scheiker (19), and Sen. Robert Stafford (20).

Leading off the testimony before the Senate Subcommittee was Garth Fuquay of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (shown in above photo), who had been detailed to the subcommittee to help guide the committee in its investigation. Fuquay would also conduct an early field analysis of what happened there. At the outset of the hearing, Fuquay was the first witness, and the subcommittee chairman, Senator Harrison Williams (D-NJ), submitted for inclusion in the hearing record, Fuquay’s 225-page report, titled “An Engineering Survey of Representative Coal Mine Refuse Piles as Related to the Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, Disaster.” That two-part report, focusing on the failed Buffalo Creek dams and a sampling of other dangerous coal refuse dams in the region, made headlines in a few places on May 30th, 1972, the day the Senate hearings began. One newspaper, reporting on the study and the Senate hearings, used the headlines “Army Corps of Engineers Says Dam Doomed From Start” (below).

May 30, 1972. Headlines from an Associated Press story reporting that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- also testifying at U.S. Senate hearings -- found the the Pittston Coal Co. dam above Buffalo Creek was "doomed from the start."

The Senate subcommittee would later issue some three volumes of material and by June 1972 would call for new legislation to prevent disasters like Buffalo Creek, offering a “Mined Area Protection Bill,” a measure, however, that would not be adopted.

West Virginia Governor's report: "The Buffalo Creek Flood And Disaster".

By September 1972, the two competing West Virginia commissions — one from the Governor, and the other a Citizens’ Commission — issued their reports. Governor Moore, however, acting to protect the Pittston Coal Company, tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress his own commission’s report. When that report came out it called for new legislation and further inquiry by the local prosecutor, also concluding:

…Based on the testimony obtained from hearings, technical reports and our own field inspection, the Commission concludes that: Dam No. 3 on the Middle Fork was born out of the age-old practice in the coal fields of disposing of waste material and was constructed without utilizing technology developed for earthen dams and without using or consulting with professional persons qualified to design and build such a structure. The physical conditions leading to the failure of the dam are complex and involve a weak foundation and saturated embankment giving rise to failure of the downstream portion of the dam and a sudden total collapse of the remainder of the dam due to liquefaction. The failure occurred a minute or so before 8:00 a.m. February 26, 1972, and was solely the cause of the Buffalo Creek flood. No evidence of an act of God was found by the Commission.

Norm Williams, Deputy Director, WV-DNR & Citizens' Commission chairman.

The citizens’ commission report, formally titled Disaster on Buffalo Creek: A Citizens’ Report on Criminal Negligence in a West Virginia Mining Community, was released in 1972 — and it pulled no punches. It charged that officials of the Buffalo Creek-Pittston Company were “guilty of murdering at least 124 men, women and children living in the Buffalo Creek Hollow.”

The tautly-worded 31-page report offered detailed findings and evidence of corporate negligence and government failures in the disaster, and proposed 21 recommendations. The report found that company and state officials were ill informed of the problems of refuse dams and had not taken timely measures. “Clearly and simply,” said the report, “people living downstream from the Buffalo Mining Company’s coal refuse dam at Saunders were the victims of gross negligence.”

The Citizens’ report also noted that strip mining above the dam had likely contributed to its over-filling. Aerial photos at an Army Corps of Engineers office showed that earlier strip mining of coal seams had occurred on both sides of the slate dump, along with horizontal auger mining boring into the hillsides there. This mining activity, though in the past, had stripped away the water-absorbing forest undergrowth, thus increasing surface run-off during heavy precipitation. The report also noted the possibility that water and coal wastes in abandoned underground mines could break through auger holes and flow into the impoundment behind dam #3, as the practice of disposing coal sludges in abandoned underground mines had occurred in other areas of the state, with sludges breaking through to the surface in some cases.

One of the photos used in “Disaster on Buffalo Creek: A Citizens' Report on Criminal Negligence in a West Virginia Mining Community,” 1972.

The chair of the citizens’ commission, Norman Williams, then deputy director of West Virginia’s Department of Natural Resources, called for the outlawing of strip mining throughout the state. Williams explained that such mining was only viable because the state allowed it to “externalize costs” – i.e., impose its pollution, mine wastes, and environmental damage on landowners and the general public. Williams wasn’t alone in pointing to the ravages of strip mining. In the U.S. Congress at the time, federal legislation was being considered to regulate strip mining, and the Buffalo Creek disaster figured into the debate. West Virginia Congressman Ken Heckler (D) had offered a bill in 1971 to ban all surface coal mining. West Virginia’s Secretary of State at the time, Jay Rockefeller (D) – who became a candidate for Governor running against Arch Moore in the 1972 fall election – also favored banning strip mining. Moore would prevail in the election, campaigning heavily in West Virginia’s coal mining regions, impugning Rockefeller’s position on strip mining. (Rockefeller would later be elected governor and U.S. Senator). The Buffalo Creek disaster, however, did galvanize concern about strip mining and coal safety in Congress, and helped to spur passage of regulatory bills on the House side during Congressional debate in the early 1970s. A final federal strip mine bill, however, would not be signed into law until 1977.

1977 edition of Gerald Stern's book on class-action lawsuit he brought against Pittston Coal Co. on behalf of Buffalo Creek survivors and settled in 1974. Click for copy.

In addition to the two West Virginia reports, there were also several others, including the U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing record already mentioned; a U.S. Geological Survey report; a U.S. Department of the Interior Report; and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report – all of which, in one form or another, found fault with the design, integrity, and lack of oversight of the dams, and how regulators and the Pittston Coal Company failed to meet their responsibilities for public health and safety.

Several lawsuits were also filed in the wake of the Buffalo Creek disaster, including a large class action with 645 survivors and victim family members suing Pittston for $64 million. The plaintiffs settled out of court for $13.5 million in 1974, with each individual receiving an average of $13,000 after legal costs.

The state of West Virginia also sued Pittston for $100 million for disaster and relief damages, but Governor Arch A. Moore settled that case for just $1 million three days before leaving office in 1977. That deal would dog Moore for the rest of his career. Having faced several corruption allegations when serving as governor, Moore left office with this additional blemish on his record. The state later had to pay the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers more than $9 million for recovery work along Buffalo Creek.

Although the Governor’s Commission had referred the case to the Logan County, West Virginia prosecutor for possible legal action against Pittston Coal Company and its subsidiary, nothing came of it. No criminal charges were brought against the mining executives for their negligence in the creation and operation of the illegal and unstable coal waste dams.

The Logan prosecutor said at the time that Pittston’s failure to receive a state dam license was merely a misdemeanor and that a one-year statute of limitations for prosecutions had lapsed. He also concluded that Pittston’s Buffalo Creek Mining Co. could not be charged with negligent homicide because “there was no way to put a corporation in jail.”

In 1973, the West Virginia Legislature passed the Dam Control Act, regulating all dams in the state. However, adequate funding was never appropriated by teh West Virginia legislature to enforce the law. Pittston, meanwhile, would inform its investors that the 1974 settlement that had come with one of the survivors’ lawsuits did not impact the company’s profit margin.

Kai Erikson’s book, “Everything In Its Path: Destruc-tion of Community in The Buffalo Creek Flood”. Click for copy.

According to some, however, there were positive changes that did come to coalfield and regulatory practices in the years immediately following the disaster. But those improved practices didn’t last. And for the survivors of the Buffalo Creek Disaster, there was little real recovery. They lost loved ones, their homes, their neighbors, their community. Many lived in temporary trailer-park style homes following the disaster – some for years. Old community ties and neighbor networks could not be reestablished. The socio-psychology of all this was probed and covered in an award-winning 1976 book by Kai T. Erikson, Everything In Its Path: Destruction of Community in The Buffalo Creek Flood.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, various state, local and federal government agencies had initially come together to help plan for the recovery of the Buffalo Creek area. The first restoration, however, came with the railroads, rebuilt to serve the mines, which were operating again within a week of the flood. A few years later, construction began on water and sewage systems, and some permanent housing was built. But $27 million in flood emergency funds was used in 1975 to build a highway that really went nowhere, except to the coal tipples at the head of Buffalo Creek. Four years after the disaster, in 1976, about 100 families were still living in the government provided mobile homes. There had been emergency relief, but little community redevelopment.

The Pittston Coal Co., meanwhile, continued extracting coal in the Buffalo Creek area through its subsidiary there. And it also continued dumping its coal wastes in the area as well, absent the use of watery waste dams. As of 1987, Pittston was still among the ten largest coal companies in the U.S. But following a bitter labor strike in 1989, and the declining profitability of its minerals division throughout the 1990s, Pittston began to wind down its coal operations. In 2002, Alpha Natural Resources purchased what remained of Pttston’s coal business. By 2003, Pittston had moved into one of its more profitable businesses, private security, then adopting its Brinks Company subsidiary as its new corporate name.

The National Research Council's 2001 report to Congress on coal waste impoundments. Click for copy.

Coal Waste Legacy

The problem of coal waste impoundments in Appalachia — and all across America — has not gone away since the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster. Nearly 50 years later, there are still hundreds of coal waste dams to worry about, as well as other assorted coal waste dangers throughout the U.S.

In fact, there is a very sizeable “coal waste legacy” that will continue to pose dangers for many rural American communities — and the nation’s rivers and streams — for decades to come, even as the coal industry as a whole winds down its role in the U.S. and global economies. For as it turns out, there are coal waste impoundments, and coal waste disposal methods, of many kinds.

In addition to coal waste dams used in mining and coal washing operations, there are also more than 1,400 coal ash impoundments used mostly at or near coal-fired powerplants in the U.S. In addition, coal wastes have also been dumped into abandoned deep mines and used to “reclaim” strip mines. Still other operations use injection techniques to pump various coal wastes underground. Recent history suggests that a number of these facilities and practices hold public safety risks and/or environmental threats.

In the year 2000, increased attention was focused on the regulation of coal waste impoundments following a failure near Inez, Kentucky. In that case, the bottom of the 72-acre Big Branch slurry impoundment – owned by the Martin County Coal Corp. – broke through an abandoned underground mine located below it. That failure sent 300 million gallons of liquid coal waste tearing through the underground mine chambers, then spewing out of mountainside portals into valley streams below. The toxic coal slurry poured into Kentucky’s Coldwater and Wolf creeks, then to the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River, traveling more than 70 miles downstream, and eventually reaching the Ohio River, with blackwater visible at Cincinnati. Drinking water systems in ten counties had to be shut down, and a 20-mile stretch of river was declared an aquatic dead zone: more than 1,500 fish were killed. At the time, the EPA called it “the worst environmental disaster in the southeast United States.” The coal company called it “an act of God” (sound familiar?).

In the wake of this disaster, Congress asked the National Research Council to examine ways to reduce the potential for similar accidents in the future, and their report appeared in October 2001, recommending the federal government establish clear authority to review the stability of such impoundments, improve regulation, establish minimum distance rules, and undertake more complete mapping of existing and abandoned underground mines.

December 2008. The failure of a giant 84-acre coal ash impoundment (upper right) at TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee, released 5.4 million cubic yards of ash slurry into the Emory & Clinch rivers and the downstream community of Harriman, TN.

Then in December 2008 a second major impoundment breach occurred — this time, a failure of a giant 84-acre coal ash impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Kingston Fossil Plant in eastern Tennessee (photo above). This dam failure released 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry into the Emory and Clinch rivers. More than a dozen homes and hundreds of acres in the down-stream community of Harriman, TN were hit with a gigantic toxic mess. The spill covered the surrounding land with up to six feet of sludge. EPA had initially estimated the spill would take four-to-six weeks to clean up, however, three years later they were still cleaning up.

TVA’s spill was from a “coal ash” impoundment, which is somewhat different than a mine-site slurry impoundment, as it deals with post-combustion, powerplant coal ash, which involves a different regulatory arena than mine-site or coal processing impoundments. Still, the worries for citizens living near either kind of impoundment are equally valid, whether of the mine-site or powerplant variety.

U.S. map showing locations of coal ash waste dams, spills, and contamination compiled by Earth Justice. Click to visit that site.

According to the U.S. EPA, there are over 1,000 operating coal ash waste ponds and landfills, plus many hundreds of “retired” coal ash disposal sites. Some 208 of these “coal combustion” waste sites are known to have contaminated groundwater, wetlands, and/or rivers. A number of leaks and smaller spills have also occurred. EPA has made hazard ratings for hundreds of coal combustion waste ponds and impoundments in the U.S., ranking them for the public safety dangers and environmental risks they would pose in the event of failure. As of December 2014, some 331 of these facilities were rated as either holding a “high” or “significant” safety hazard – meaning likely loss of life in the former case, and significant economic/environmental damage in the latter case. The Earth Justice organization, one of the environmental groups following this issue, has complied a U.S. map of these sites as shown above.

For additional stories at this website on the history of coal and coal mining, see for example, the following: “Paradise: 1971″ (about a John Prine song, strip mining in Muhlenberg County, KY, and the demise of a small town); “Mountain Warrior” (profile of Kentucky author and coal-field activist, Harry Caudill, noted for his famous book, Night Comes to The Cumberlands and his life-long critique of Appalachian strip mining); “Giant Shovel on I-70” (about strip mining in southeastern Ohio during the 1960s and `70s and the use of giant strip-mining shovels there); “Coal & The Kennedys,” (featuring Kennedy family involvement with Appalachian coal communities, deep mine safety, environmental protection, and related political issues, 1960s-2010s); “Sixteen Tons, 1950s” (the famous Tennessee Ernie Ford song and some coal mining history, 1940s-1960s); and, “G.E.’s Hot Coal Ad, 2005” (a General Electric TV ad that features a new breed of coal miner).

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. — Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 31 January 2019
Last Update: 31 January 2019
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Buffalo Creek Disaster: 1972,”
PopHistoryDig.com, January 31, 2019.

________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

"Coal: A Human History", 2016 edition. Click for copy.

Richard Martin's 2015 book, "Coal Wars". Click for copy.

Peter Galuszka's "Thunder on the Mountain". Click for copy.

Thomas Andrews' "Killing for Coal". Click for copy.

Harry Caudill's "Theirs Be The Power". Click for copy.

Davitt McAteer's book on the 1907 Monongah mine disaster.

Chad Motrie's 2003 history of Appalachian strip mining.

Penny Loeb's 2007 book, "Moving Mountains". Click for copy.

Robert Shogan's 2004 book, "The Battle of Blair Mountain".

Rebecca Bailey's 2008 book, "Matewan: Before The Massacre".

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“A Town Stood Here,” Life, October 10, 1972.

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Ben A. Franklin, “Flood Survivors Sue Mine Concern; Plaintiffs Ask $64-Million — Seek Damages Over ‘Survivor Syndrome’; 800 Pages of Testimony; A Sound Like ‘Thunder’,” New York Times, April 18, 1973.

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“Survivors of 1972 Dam Disaster Accept $13.5-Million Settlement,” New York Times, July 6, 1974.

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Tom Price, “Who Killed Buffalo Creek?,” Rolling Stone, January 3, 1974.

Associated Press, “Pittston’s Federal Flood Suit Settled Out of Court,” Bluefield Daily Telegraph (Bluefield, WV), July 6, 1974, p. 1.

Gerald M. Stern, The Buffalo Creek Disaster: The Story of the Survivors’ Unprecedented Lawsuit, New York: Random House, 1976.

J.L. Titchener, F.T. Kapp, “Disaster at Buffalo Creek. Family and Character Change at Buffalo Creek,” American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1976, pp 295-299.

K.T. Erikson, “Disaster at Buffalo Creek. Loss of Communality at Buffalo Creek,” American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1976, pp. 302-305.

C.J. Newman, “Disaster at Buffalo Creek. Children of Disaster: Clinical Observations at Buffalo Creek,” American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1976, pp.306-12.

Paul Cowan, Book Review of Gerald Stern’s “The Buffalo Creek Disaster: The Story of the Survivor’s Unprecedented Lawsuit,” The New York Times Book Review, September 5, 1976, pp.6-7.

Mimi Pickering (Film Director), “Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man” (essay), Library of Congress, 1978 (in 1984, filmmaker Mimi Pickering completed Buffalo Creek Revisited, an update on the flood and its consequences).

Film Clip, “The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act Of Man,” YouTube.com (8:22), February 20, 2012.

“The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act Of Man,” Transcript (undated).

“Two Films 1975 and 1984,” Appalshop.org.

“The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man / Buffalo Creek Revisited,” BuffaloCreekFlood .org, Website.

Dennis Deitz & Carlene Mowery, Buffalo Creek Valley of Death, 1992.

“Buffalo Creek Flood, 1972,” Online Exhibit /Special Collections, Marshall University, 2002.

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Ken Ward, Jr., “Agencies Failed to Protect People, Inspector Recalls,” Charleston Gazette, Tuesday, February 25, 1997.

“Modern Marvels: The Buffalo Creek Disaster” (History Channel production), YouTube.com (9:27).

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Rita Colistra, “The Rumble and The Dark: Regional Newspaper Framing of the Buffalo Creek Mine Disaster of 1972, Journal of Appalachian Studies, Vol. 16, Nos. 1 & 2.

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Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson, “Many Coal Sludge Impoundments Have Weak Walls, Federal Study Says,” Washington Post, April 24, 2013.

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Erin L. McCoy, “The U.S. Has Nearly 600 Coal Waste Sites. Why They’ve Got West Virginians Worried,” YesMagazine.org, April 23, 2015.

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Teaser Tag: Story Songs, 1970s
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Taxi-Harry-Chapin.mp3 13313249 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Cats-In-The-Cradle-Harry-Chapin.mp3 7760634 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Harry Chapin”
Taxi & Beyond

January 19, 2019 J.D.

A taxi cab at work on the nighttime streets of some anonymous city.

It was sometime in early spring of 1972 that a little-known American musician named Harry Chapin made a national TV appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. In those pre-cable, pre-internet days, with only three major over-the-air TV channels, Carson’s late night show had a good share of the viewing audience.

Harry Chapin was then a folk rock singer-songwriter who had been playing New York City nightclubs with his small quartet and receiving some local notice. But nationally, he was virtually unknown.

On Carson’s show that night, Chapin performed his song, “Taxi,” about a cab driver who picks up a female passenger whom he discovers, after a few looks in his rear-view mirror, is a long lost love from his youth.

“Taxi” is a song filled with hard-luck poignancy, life-lived serendipity, and what-might-have-beens. And on the Carson show that night, Chapin’s performance wowed the late night audience. His appearance was followed by viewer phone calls and telegrams sent to NBC praising the performance.

In fact, at the time, Johnny Carson himself was so taken with Chapin’s performance that he invited him back to perform the following night. Reportedly, it was the first time in the show’s history that Carson had brought a performer back the very next night for an encore performance. But apparently, the chemistry with Carson was for real, as during his career, Chapin would appear on Carson’s show more than a dozen times.

Harry Chapin performing in the 1970s.

In any case, “Taxi,” and the Carson show appearance that spring of 1972, helped launch Harry Chapin into national prominence.

Music Player
“Taxi” – Harry Chapin
(scroll down for lyrics)

Only months before, in November 1971, Chapin had signed a big recording contract after something of a bidding war had broken out over signing him between Columbia’s Clive Davis and Elektra’s Jac Holzman. Elektra won in the end, and Chapin got free recording time as part of his deal.

By March 1972, Chapin released Heads & Tales, his first studio album. It included “Taxi,” and both the album and single had successful chart runs for about six months, each selling more than 1 million copies. Chapin also had a supporter in WMEX-Boston radio DJ, Jim Connors, who helped push “Taxi” up the pop charts – lasting 16 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No.24. Billboard would also rank the song at No. 85 for the year of 1972.

But “Taxi” had not been expected to do well, especially since it ran nearly seven minutes in playing length (6:47), while most A.M. radio stations at the time rarely used recordings of more than two minutes. But progressive FM radio stations were coming into vogue at the time, exploring lengthier musical formats and even entire albums, a development which also helped “Taxi” get air time. In any case, “Taxi” sent Chapin on his way, providing huge career momentum. And even today, nearly 50 years later, “Taxi” still resonates with many listeners. Below are the song’s lyrics along with some narrative comment.

Harry Chapin's song "Taxi" begins with a lady hailing a cab in a San Francisco rain. Click for digital version of song.

“Taxi”
Harry Chapin-1972

It was raining hard in ‘Frisco
I needed one more fare to make my night
A lady up ahead waved to flag me down
She got in at the light

Oh, where you going to, my lady blue
It’s a shame you ruined your gown in the rain
She just looked out the window, she said
“Sixteen Parkside Lane”

Something about her was familiar
I could swear I’d seen her face before
But she said, “I’m sure you’re mistaken”
And she didn’t say anything more

It took a while, but she looked in the mirror
And she glanced at the license for my name
A smile seemed to come to her slowly
It was a sad smile, just the same

And she said, “How are you Harry?”
I said, “How are you Sue?
Through the too many miles
And the too little smiles
I still remember you”

It was somewhere in a fairy tale
I used to take her home in my car
We learned about love in the back of the Dodge
The lesson hadn’t gone too far

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly
She took off to find the footlights
And I took off to find the sky

Whoa, I’ve got something inside me
To drive a princess blind
There’s a wild man, wizard
He’s hiding in me, illuminating my mind

Oh, I’ve got something inside me
Not what my life’s about
‘Cause I’ve been letting my outside tide me
Over ’till my time, runs out

Baby’s so high that she’s skying
Yes she’s flying, afraid to fall
I’ll tell you why baby’s crying
‘Cause she’s dying, aren’t we all

There was not much more for us to talk about
Whatever we had once was gone
So I turned my cab into the driveway
Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns

And she said we must get together
But I knew it’d never be arranged
And she handed me twenty dollars
For a two fifty fare, she said
“Harry, keep the change”

Well, another man might have been angry
And another man might have been hurt
But another man never would have let her go
I stashed the bill in my shirt

And she walked away in silence
It’s strange, how you never know
But we’d both gotten what we’d asked for
Such a long, long time ago

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly
She took off to find the footlights
I took off for the sky

And here, she’s acting happy
Inside her handsome home
And me, I’m flying in my taxi
Taking tips, and getting stoned

I go flying so high, when I’m stoned…

The song features its cab driver narrator in San Francisco coming to the end of a long rainy night, and needing one more fare before calling it quits for the evening.

He picks up a lady who has waved him down at a stop light. She is dressed in an evening gown. When she enters the cab, he offers a sympathetic comment about the rain ruining her gown. She simply stares out the window and gives him the address.

As they drive, he checks her out in the rear-view mirror, then thinks he’s sure he’s seen her face before. He then asks her the “don’t-I-know-you-from- somewhere” question, to which she replies with an air of certainty: “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

But as they drive on and sit in silence for a time, she looks into the mirror to see his face, and then views the cab-driver license posted on the back of the front seat with his name, photo, and license number.

Still glimpsing her occasionally in his rear-view mirror, he notices a slight smile of discovery coming across her face, noting, as narrator: “It was a sad smile, just the same.”

Finally, she acknowledges her discovery and greets him: “How are you Harry?” to which he replies, “How are you Sue?,” having also remembered who she was: “Through the too many miles, and the too little smiles, I still remember you.”

Then, continuing as narrator, he fills in his listeners with the Harry-and-Sue back story, as in their younger years, they had dated in an earlier “fairy tale,” where they learned love in a back seat of his Dodge. And during those years, they each had big dreams: “She was gonna be an actress, and I was gonna learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights, and I took off to find the sky.”

Then Harry the cab driver appears to begin a life assessment of sorts – and it’s not clear whether this is just his own “talking-to-himself” private assessment, or something that he and his lost love are having a conversation about during the cab ride — catching up a bit, to learn what’s gone on in each other’s lives?

In any case, as for himself, Harry believes he still has “something inside” and the desire and drive to realize his dream. What you see now, he explains of his cab driver gig, is not the final act — “just tiding me over.”

And as for the lady of his dreams, well she appears to be doing well, at least from outward appearances. Yet there’s some uncertainty there. She’s flying high, but on a tightrope of sorts, afraid to fall. (Musically, this part is performed in falsetto by Chapin’s bass player, John Wallace). But why is she crying? “`Cause [inside] she’s dying; aren’t we all.”

Here is the frustration of what people feel when they realize they will never reach their dreams, though they still have the desire; but that life has now become something less than what they had hoped for.

“There was not much more for us to talk about,” says the cabbie narrator, nearing the end of the ride, acknowledging that “whatever we had once was gone.” And although at ride’s end Sue says “we must get together,” Harry knows “it would never be arranged.”

Upon departing the cab, she covers the $2.50 fare with a $20 bill, saying: “Harry, keep the change” – which didn’t provoke anger or hurt in Harry, only regret – “another man never would have let her go.”

As she walks away to her home, Harry thinks somehow that they had both gotten what they asked for those many years ago, when she set out to be an actress, and he was going to learn to fly. For she is now “acting happy inside her handsome home,” and Harry, well he’s now “flying” in his taxi, “taking tips, and getting stoned… I go flying so high, when I’m stoned.”

When Chapin was asked at one point if the song was true, he replied:

“It’s emotionally true, if not literally true. I’ve been in the film business on and off for a lot of years, and wasn’t doing well at one point. So I went out and got a hack [taxi cab] license…, and during the month that I was waiting for it to come through, I heard that an old girlfriend of mine had gotten married and instead of becoming an actress she married a rich guy. I envisioned some night I’d be driving a cab in the big city streets and this lady would get in the back, and I’d turn and look at her and she’d look at me and know we both sold out our dreams.”

Grainy photo of Clare Alden MacIntyre in later life.

Chapin’s brother and fellow musician, Tom, during a 2016 interview, would flesh out more details about Harry’s old girlfriend and the lady character in “Taxi.” Her name was Clare Alden MacIntyre, and Tom described her “an early, formative love” in Harry’s life. She came from the prosperous Scarsdale area, while Tom and Harry were from Brooklyn.

Harry and Clare had met as summer camp counselors in the early 1960s. She was the daughter of Malcolm MacIntyre, a lawyer and corporate executive who headed up Eastern Airlines from 1959 to 1963.

Clare’s parents, in fact, weren’t wild about the budding relationship between their daughter and Harry Chapin. According to Tom, Clare’s father viewed Harry as something of a ne’er-do-well, not worthy of his daughter’s affections.

Still, Harry and Clare had an on-and-off romance in the early 1960s; they dated for two years despite Harry living in Brooklyn, Clare living in Scarsdale. But there was one difference in how they traveled locally in those days, according to brother Tom.”We took subways,” explained Tom of he and Harry. “But [Clare’s] father and mother refused to let her take subways. They always gave her money to take a taxi.”

Harry Chapin, Elektra promotional photo.

Some years later, in 1969-1970, as Harry was out of work and about to begin driving a cab in the New York area, scheduled to report for his first 12-hour shift in a few days, he began thinking: “What happens if Clare gets in my cab? What am I going to say?”

As it turned out, Harry didn’t become a cab driver nor did he have to confront Clare getting into his cab, as other job offers came his way. But he never discarded the idea of Clare getting into his cab, and some years later, turned it into the song, “Taxi,” as New York became San Francisco and Clare became Sue. And the rest is history, as they say. Billboard ranked “Taxi” as the 85th top song of the year. “Taxi” also earned Chapin a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist of the Year. Yet, according to Peter Coan, Harry Chapin’s biographer, Chapin never completely got over Clare MacIntyre: “She was the love of his life.”

Harry Chapin's second album, "Sniper and Other Love Songs". Click for album choices.

Meanwhile, through the 1970s, following the success of “Taxi” and his first album, Harry Chapin remained popular, recording a number of other “story songs” and successful albums.

His second album, Sniper and Other Love Songs, released in 1972, included two other popular Chapin songs: “Sunday Morning Sunshine” and “Circle.”

Chapin’s third album, Short Stories, came out in 1973 and spawned the million-selling hit, “W.O.L.D.,” using the call letters for a radio station who’s devoted disc jockey has neglected his family, the song penned from the wife’s perspective.

“W.O.L.D.” was inspired by an American radio personality from Boston who Chapin knew, with the song’s story focused on a workaholic-damaged marriage.

“W.O.L.D.” became a top 40 hit in 1974 on the Billboard Hot 100, top 10 in Canada, and in the Top 20 in various other countries.

Other songs from the Short Stories album, but not released as singles, include: “Mr. Tanner,” “Mail Order Annie,” and “They Call Her Easy.”

Cover of Harry Chapin's No. 1 hit single of 1974, "Cat's In The Cradle". Click for digital single.

In 1974, Chapin released, Verities and Balderdash, his fourth album, which sold 2.5 million units, largely due to the single, “Cat’s in the Cradle,” his No. 1 hit.

Music Player
“Cat’s in The Cradle”

This song is about a father who didn’t find time for his son during his childhood, and finds as he grows older, his son has become “just like me,” and does not spend time with his aging father. “Cat’s in The Cradle” earned Chapin another Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. He was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Verities and Balderdash peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. The album’s follow-up single, “I Wanna Learn a Love Song,” charted at No. 7 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The song is a true story about how he met his wife, Sandra Chapin.

By 1976, Chapin was established as one of the most popular singers of the decade. A live album came that year, Greatest Stories Live, selling 2.1 million copies. By the end of the decade, he was doing more touring, though still releasing one album a year.

Harry Chapin proved to be a popular act, selling out smaller arenas and concert halls, some in the neighborhood of 25,000 or so. He was then earning an estimated $2 million per year, through 1981, making him one of the highest paid artists in the world. And despite almost no promotion for his later albums with Elektra, they all sold well and charted.

Harry Chapin at the White House, three chairs down from President Jimmy Carter's left at Hunger Commission meeting.

Activist Harry

Harry Chapin, however, was not just a musician; he was also an intensely committed social activist. By the mid-1970s, Harry Chapin was devoting more of his time and energy to various activist and charitable causes – one of which was hunger. In 1975, he co-founded World Hunger Year with radio host Bill Ayres, and also became a key player in the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger under President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Chapin was reportedly the only member of that commission who attended every meeting. He became something of a regular in Washington, DC. advocating for anti-hunger initiatives. He was also involved in a number of other social causes, from helping local food banks to historic preservation. By the mid- and late 1970s, Chapin was performing over half of his 200 concerts a year for charitable causes. By one count, in 1977 he earned $2 million, giving away some $700,000 to charity. In those times, according to some sources, Chapin was known for keeping “a totally insane schedule” between his music career and his various charitable causes.

Album cover for Harry Chapin’s “Sequel” of 1980. Click for CD.

Taxi, Redux

In 1980, as his contract with Elektra expired, Chapin signed a one-album deal with Boardwalk Records. It was at this point he made an attempt to reconnect with his first hit, “Taxi,” naming a new album “Sequel,” which included a single by that name as well.

“Sequel” continued the story of Harry and Sue. In the song, Harry is no longer driving cabs, but returns to San Francisco as a successful singer for a concert appearance. While in San Francisco Harry hails a cab, instructing the driver to head for “16 Parkside Lane,” where he had last seen Sue.

When he arrives at the address, Sue no longer lives there, and is given the name of an apartment building at another address. There, he finds Sue, now divorced, but appearing happy. They talk for some time that afternoon, both admitting, in their own way, that it may have been better, as Sue put it, “when we don’t get to touch our dreams.” He invites her to his concert. She says no, she has to work that night. He tries to give her money, she refuses. It’s unclear if they make love or not. He ends his song as follows:

I guess it’s a sequel to our story
From the journey ‘tween Heaven and Hell
With half the time thinking of what might have been
And half thinkin’ just as well
I guess only time will tell.

“Sequel,” the single, became a top 25 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and the album sold 500,000 copies. Following “Sequel,” Chapin was coy about whether there would be another “Harry and Sue” song down the line. But it was not to be.

On July 16, 1981, Chapin was driving in the fast lane on the Long Island Expressway on the way to perform at a free concert that evening in East Meadow, New York. Along the way, near the Jericho exit, as his car had slowed for some reason, he put on his emergency flashers, veering into the center lane, then swerving left and right. At that point, a tractor-trailer truck traveling behind him could not brake in time to stop, ramming into and climbing over Chapin’s 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit, rupturing the fuel tank which burst into flames. The truck driver and a passerby cut Chapin’s seat belt and removed him from the burning car through a window before the car was entirely engulfed. Chapin was then helicoptered to a hospital where doctors tried to revive him to no avail. Harry Chapin was 38 years old.

Harry Chapin performing, here with other backing musicians, but sometimes on tour, he performed solo.

Chapin, by many accounts, was a multi-talented artist, with works in film, stage, and poetry in addition to his music career. A documentary film he made in the late 1960s with Jim Jacobs, titled Legendary Champions, was nominated for an Academy Award. And a 1975 musical stage production, The Night That Made America Famous, ran on Broadway for 75 performances and was nominated for two Tony awards. Chapin’s musical legacy includes nine studio albums, two live albums, thirteen singles, and 14 compilation albums. His total record sales were in excess of 16.7 million copies. In December 1987, he was honored at an all-star Carnegie Hall tribute. At that tribute he was also posthumously awarded a Special Congressional Gold Medal for his campaigning on world hunger and other social issues. An album documenting the event, titled Tribute – with performers including Judy Collins, Richie Havens and Bruce Springsteen – was released in 1990.

Harry Chapin, undated.

At his passing, Harry Chapin was also lauded by activists and politicians who knew him outside of music.

“To talk about Harry Chapin only as a singer-composer,” said Ralph Nader, “is like viewing Theodore Roosevelt as a state assemblyman or Babe Ruth as a pitcher. More than any other entertainer in his generation, Harry was a citizen-artist.” A number of U.S. Senators and members of Congress made floor statements praising Chapin’s policy work. Among these was former Senator Robert Dole (R-KS) who called Chapin “a liberal — and a liberal in the best sense of the word …What he really was committed to was decency and dignity.”

In recent years, Harry’s widow, Sandy, has served as chair of the Harry Chapin Foundation, where she has continued to pursue Harry’s legacy. His son, Josh, has also been involved with the foundation, along with other family members.

For additional stories at this website on music and song history, see the “Annals of Music” category page. Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 19 January 2019
Last Update: 10 January 2023
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Harry Chapin: Taxi & Beyond,”
PopHistoryDig.com, January 19, 2019.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

“When In Doubt, Do Something: The Harry Chapin Story,” A Documentary Film, 2019-2020. Click for DVD.

Peter Coan's 1987 book, "Taxi: The Harry Chapin Story," hardcover edition, Ashley Books, 542pp. Click for book.

Harry Chapin Sheet Music Collection & Songbook (2009), described as “a moving account of Chapin's legacy as a pioneering 'story song' writer, performer, and philanthropist...” Includes 24 of his songs. Alfred Publishing, 176pp.

Don Heckman, “Harry Chapin Shows His Style In Program at the Bitter End,” New York Times, April 7, 1972, p. 25.

Don Heckman, “America — A One-Hit Phenomenon?,” New York Times, April 30, 1972, p. 28-D.

Henry Edwards, “‘Story Songs’ From Harry Chapin,” New York Times, December 12, 1972, p. 63.

“Chapin is Multi-Talented Man,” The Merciad ( Merceyhurst College, Erie, PA), April 2, 1976, p. 3.

Tony Kornheiser, “Harry Chapin: Words and Music,” New York Times, December 4, 1977.

John Rockwell, “Harry Chapin, Singer, Killed in Crash,” New York Times, July 17, 1981.

“Harry Chapin,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 163-164.

“Harry Chapin,” Wikipedia.org.

Harry Chapin Website (Chapin family)

Carol Strickland, “Harry Chapin: All His Life Was a Circle,” New York Times (N.Y./Region), October 19, 1997.

Alan Grayson, “Harry Chapin on What Made America Famous,” HuffingtonPost.com, Sep-tember 27, 2011.

JC Mosquito, “Almost Hits: Harry Chapin, “Taxi” (1972) and “Sequel” (1980),” Some-thingElseReviews.com, September 10, 2013.

Peter Crigler, “Harry Chapin: Balderdash, Charities & Cab Rides, Perfect Sound Forever,” Furious.com, October 2013.

James R. Hagerty, “Clare MacIntyre-Ross, Woman Who Inspired Song ‘Taxi:’ 1943-2016; Clare MacIntyre-Ross’s Break up with Harry Chapin in the ‘60s Prompted Him to Write Tune,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2016.

Peter D. Kramer, “Scarsdale Woman Inspired Harry Chapin’s ‘Taxi’,” The Journal News (lohud.com), March 22, 2016.

“Harry Chapin,” DramaticPublishing.com.

Jennifer Kathleen, “Harry and Clare, Skyying,” Medium.com, March 28, 2016.

Rick Moore, Harry Chapin, “Taxi,” American Songwriter.com, June 20, 2016.

“Harry Chapin Discography,” Wikipedia.org.

“Sniper (song),” Wikipedia.org.

The Harry Chapin Foundation.

“HarryChapinMusic,” YouTube.com, posted, December 20, 2008.

Ralph Nader and Mark Green, “Harry Chapin Was a Citizen-Artist’,” New York Times, July 26, 1981.

Harry Chapin Music, “Some More Stories: Live At Radio Bremen 1977,” CD or MP3. Click for copy.

Harry Chapin Music, “The Gold Medal Collection,” 1990 album, 32 songs. Click for CD, streaming, or MP3.

“The Essentials, Harry Chapin: Greatest Hits,” Elektra Catalog Group, 2006. Click for CD.

Harry Chapin, “Greatest Stories, Live,” album, Elektra Off Roster, 2007. Click for CD, streaming, MP3, or vinyl.

Harry Chapin, “Story Book: Elektra Albums 1972-1978,” 6-CD Box Set, Click for set.

Rick Korn and S.A. Baron, In Plain View Entertainment, “When In Doubt, Do Something: The Harry Chapin Story,” A Documentary Film, 2019-2020.

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Teaser Tag: Pro Football History

1951-1960

“Big Game, New Era”
Colts vs. Giants, 1958

January 12, 2019 J.D.

In 1958, the game of professional football occupied a distinctly different position in America’s economy and culture than it does today. There were no Super Bowls then and certainly no $150,000-per-second TV ads during any sporting event. Baseball was then America’s most popular sport, by far. In fact, through most of the 1950s, college football was more widely followed than professional football. But in late 1958 a sea change was about to come to professional football; a change that would set the game on its present course as big-time business, taking over a large part of American sports culture and American Sunday afternoons for five or more months of the year.

December 28, 1958 game-changer: Famous photo from Baltimore Colts vs. New York Giants NFL championship game; the game that launched a new era of big time pro football sports culture & big business. Baltimore Colts quarterback, Johnny Unitas, No. 19, shown here about to throw one of his passes.

The historic moment marking the beginning of this transformation came more than 60 years ago now, on December 28th, 1958 at the meeting of the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants in a professional football game played at New York’s Yankee Stadium. In those days, this season-capping football showdown was simply called a National Football League (NFL) championship game. There was only one football league then, the NFL, consisting of two conferences, East and West, each with six teams. The championship game, however, wasn’t just any old championship game. No, it happened that there was a pretty impressive lot of talent out on the field that day – a number of whom would later join the pro football Hall of Fame. The game was also nationally televised, still something of a rarity for professional football at the time. But this particular mix of elements would make for a pretty exciting afternoon – and more. “That’s the game that changed professional football,”famous Hall of Fame football coach Don Shula would say some years later. “The popularity of it started right there.”

1950s America

Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President 1953-1961.

America in 1958 was a much different place than America today. Republican Dwight David Eisenhower was president, and the Cold War was on with the Soviet Union. The previous fall, in fact, in October 1957, the Soviets had beat the U.S. into space with the first earth-orbiting satellite, raising fears about America’s security and technological capabilities.

In terms of consumer amenities in those years, there were no iPhones, of course, no PCs, no big-screen TVs. In fact television then had three primary channels, viewed mostly on small black-and-white sets. TV westerns were a dominant genre in the 1950s, and Gunsmoke, with actor James Arness, was among the most popular shows.

In music, Billboard magazine debuted its “Hot 100″ music chart in July 1958, and Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool” became the first No.1 hit. In Hollywood, South Pacific, a romantic musical film based on the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage production of the same name, would become the year’s top grossing film. In September that year, Bank of America introduced the first credit card.

President Eisenhower, meanwhile, who had played halfback on the West Point football team, watched the 1958 NFL Championship Game that day between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants. He tuned in from Camp David, joining millions of others who also watched the game.

Colts QB, Johnny Unitas, at a 1950s practice session, about to throw a pass.

Regular Guys

Professional football players in those days, for the most part, did not have the exalted status and multi-million-dollar paydays they would come to have years later. Most in fact, were then pretty much like everybody else; like normal people. Some even lived in row houses.

A guy named Johnny Unitas who happened to be the quarterback on the Baltimore Colts professional football team, had recently helped his teammate, fullback Alan Ameche, lay out his kitchen floor in the row house that Ameche and his wife had bought.

Professional football salaries were such that some players held other work-a-day jobs during their football careers. Unitas, in fact, worked at Bethlehem Steel during the off-season for extra cash. Another Colt, defensive lineman Art Donovan, worked as a liquor salesman.

Football Drama

But in late December 1958, Unitas, Ameche, Donovan and their teammates would travel to New York’s Yankee Stadium for a professional football championship showdown with the New York Giants that some believe was one of the greatest games ever played. It would also be the game that catalyzed a major change in the fan base for pro football, and generally, in its economics as well.“I knew nothing about pro football when the game began and was hooked for life when it ended. So too were millions… of other Americans…”
– Jonathan Yardley Of fans who saw the game that day – either among the reported crowd of 64,185 who filled the old Yankee Stadium, or the millions who watched on television – many came away believing they had witnessed a very special contest indeed. Washington Post writer, Jonathan Yardley, recalled some years later that his football conversion occurred watching this game on television as a young man – a game, he would later write, “for which the only appropriate adjective was, and remains, thrilling.” Yardley was 19 years-old at the time, home from college for Christmas vacation. Bored to tears with nothing much to do, he had found a black-and-white television set in a recreation room at the school where his father was headmaster – “to which I retreated in desperation the afternoon of December 28th.” Yardley recounted that “he knew nothing about pro football when the game began, but was hooked for life when it ended. So too were millions – literally millions – of other Americans…” More on the game in a moment; first some background on how the two teams got there.

The ’58 Season

In 1958, the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts were the respective champions of their divisions. Each team had complied 9-and-3 records that season, pro teams then playing a 12-game schedule as opposed to 16 today. Baltimore had won their first six games, standing at 6-and-0 until losing to the Giants in a regular season contest, in part because quarterback Johnny Unitas was out due to an injury. In any case, the Colts clinched the Western Conference title by Game 10, beating San Francisco, then able to rest their starters for the remaining two games of the regular season, which they lost.

Dec 14, 1958. Pat Summerall kicks winning field goal in the snow against the Browns to advance Giants to playoff game.

The Giants had a more tortured route. They were 2-and-2 by week four, improving to 5-and-3 by week eight, and finishing strong by wining their last four games in a row, bringing them to 9-and-3. But their last few contests with the Cleveland Browns would test their mettle.

On December 14th, 1958, the 8-3 Giants faced a 9-2 Cleveland Browns team — their last regular season game and their last shot at a possible Conference title. That game came down to a 10-to-10 tie in closing minutes of play on a cold, snowy afternoon.

It was then that the call went out to Giant’s place kicker, Pat Summerall, to attempt a 49-yard field goal in the driving snow. The pressure was on. Ending in a tie game would mean Cleveland would go to the Championship game, not the Giants.

Summerall made the kick, despite the freezing conditions, sending the ball through the uprights, and lifting the Giants to a 13-10 win. But that wasn’t the end of it.

Giants managed to hold NFL’s leading rusher, Jim Brown (32) of Cleveland to 8 yds in Dec 21, 1958 playoff game.

Now the Giants and the Browns were tied for the Eastern Conference title, each at 9-and-3.

That meant a playoff game would be needed to determine the Eastern Conference champion. So that game was played the following week on December 21st, 1958 at Yankee Stadium.

Jim Brown of Cleveland was a punishing and powerful fullback for Cleveland, who had gained a record 1,527 yards rushing that year. In the playoff game, however, the Giants managed to hold Brown to a mere eight yards total rushing – no mean feat – and won the game, beating Cleveland 10-0.

Then, a week later, came the NFL Championship game against the well-rested Baltimore Colts, to be played on the same Yankee Stadium field where the Giants had just beaten the Browns – a field worn by the previous weeks’ battles, and much of it on the baseball diamond’s bare-dirt infield. These were not the days of well-manicured Super Bowl fields and climate controlled superdomes.

The Hall of Fame 15
1958 Championship Game

New York Giants
Rosey Brown, Offensive Lineman
Frank Gifford, Halfback
Sam Huff, Linebacker
Don Maynard, Wide Receiver
Andy Robustelli, Defensive End
Emlen Tunnell, Defensive Back
Vince Lombardi, Offensive coordinator
Tom Landry, Defensive coordinator

Baltimore Colts
Raymond Berry, Wide Receiver
Art Donovan, Defensive Lineman
Weeb Ewbank Head Coach
Gino Marchetti, Defensive Lineman
Lenny Moore, Halfback/Receiver
Jim Parker, Offensive Lineman
Johnny Unitas, Quarterback

Talented Teams

The nationally-televised NFL Championship Game was broadcast by NBC and watched by some 50 million people. The broadcast would help open the floodgates to more televised professional football contests thereafter, and the sport’s rising popularity via television in the 1960s and beyond. And the fact that it was being played in media-centric New York, even then, meant that it would receive a fair amount of press attention.

On the field that day there were 12 players and 3 coaches – including Colts’ quarterback Johnny Unitas and hulking Giants linebacker Sam Huff – who would later be inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. (see later sidebar below for brief player profiles).

Unitas and the Colts also had Lenny Moore at halfback, wide receiver Raymond Berry, and all pro defensive end, Gino Marchetti. The Giants, in addition to Huff’s formidable defensive talents, had a potent backfield in Frank Gifford at halfback (also a passing threat), Alex Webster at halfback, and fullback Mel Triplett.

This particular game, in addition to its playing talent, would also have some of game’s rising strategic thinkers and coaching personnel, especially in the case the Giant’s offensive coordinator, Vince Lombardi, and Giant’s defensive coordinator, Tom Landry, both of whom would later rise to have standout seasons and Super Bowl victories as head coaches — Lombardi with the Green Bay Packers and Landry with the Dallas Cowboys. The Super Bowl trophy, in fact – the Lombardi Trophy – is named after Vince Lombardi. And for the Colts as well, head coach Weeb Ewbank would go on to other coaching successes, notably winning Super Bowl III with the New York Jets and quarterback great, Joe Namath.

Frank Gifford (16), star halfback for the New York Giants, shown in an earlier 1958 game, running against the Cleveland Browns, as offensive end, Bob Schnelker (85), blocks ahead of Gifford, with other Giants, offensive tackle Rosey Brown (79) and half back Kyle Rote (44), visible in the background and headed downfield.

The 1958 championship game would also have high drama, as it would go into sudden-death overtime – the first time that had ever occurred in an NFL game. And in the wake of this game, new football celebrities were created and pro football as a sports business was about to become a much bigger enterprise.

For the Giants, backup QB Don Heinrich would start the game, as he and regular QB Charlie Conerly had routinely shared the position in the early minutes of each game throughout the season. The Giants’s coaching staff liked to use Heinrich for the first few series to “feel out” the opposition so that offensive coordinator Vince Lombardi and Conerly could look over the defense from the sidelines. Along with their other coaches in the press box, the Giants could then modify the game plan for Conerly when he entered the game. At least that was the plan.

Colts’ Lenny Moore (24) about to catch a Unitas pass. (graphic, Robert Riger).

First Quarter. The game got off to a sloppy start with fumbles on both sides. Giant linebacker Sam Huff sacked Colt QB Johnny Unitas forcing a fumble, as New York recovered on the Colts 37. One play later, Baltimore took the ball back after defensive end Gino Marchetti hit NY QB Don Heinrich causing him to fumble with the Colts recovering. But in the ensuring Colt possession, a Unitas pass was picked off by Giant defensive back, Lindon Crow.

The Giants then went three-and-out. Baltimore began moving on its possession, as Unitas completed a 60-yard pass to Lenny Moore at the Giants 26-yard line, establishing speedster Moore as a big threat. But Baltimore’s drive was slowed, and they were forced to make a field goal try at the 19 yard line.

Kicker Steve Myhra, who made only 4 of 10 FGs during the season, missed the kick from about the 31 yard line. However, the Giants were offside, so Myhra got another chance, this time from about the 26. However, Giant linebacker Sam Huff broke through the Colt line and blocked the kick.

As the Giants took over, QB Charlie Conerly then came in and moved New York to the Colts’ 30-yard line, featuring a 38-yard run by Frank Gifford. On a third-down play, Conerly threw a pass to wide-open fullback, Alex Webster, who slipped on the turf just as the ball arrived, sailing past him and falling incomplete. If caught, however, this one might have been a Giant’s touchdown. Pat Summerall then kicked a 36-yard field goal to put New York on the board. Giants 3, Colts 0.

Second quarter. During the second quarter, the line play of both teams began to be a telling feature of this game, as some of New York’s standout defenders, like Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier, playing with a a bad leg, wasn’t at full power. Halfback Frank Gifford would have his problems as well. Giant QB Conerly tossed to Gifford in the left flat. But as Gifford tried to break the tackle of Colt defensive lineman, Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb (6′-6″, 285 lbs), the ball popped out and Colt defensive tackle, Ray Krouse, fell on it at the New York 20-yard-line.

December 28, 1958 NFL championship game at Yankee Stadium, as New York Giant’s halfback, Frank Gifford, No. 16, looks for running room as Baltimore Colt defenders – including “Big Daddy” Lipscomb No 76 -- close in.

The Colts then took over with mostly running plays: Lenny Moore ran for 4 yards, Ameche for 5, and then again for a yard more and a first down. The Colts were now at the ten-yard line. Moore then tried a run around left end, was almost taken for a loss by Colt defensive back Karl Karilivacz, but broke free briefly until Colt defensive back Jimmy Patton pushed him out at the 2-yard-line. From there, Unitas gave the ball to fullback Ameche (photo below) who took it in for a score behind the blocking of left tackle Jim Parker. Myhra’s point-after-touchdown kick then added the extra point. Colts 7, Giants 3.

Alan Ameche, No. 35, takes hand-off from Colt quarterback Johnny Unitas, No, 19, to score on a two-yard run in the 2nd quarter after Giant’s Frank Gifford had fumbled at that end of the field, putting the Colts in the lead, 7-to-3.

The Giants made little progress after receiving the Colt’s kick, and after a series of plays had to punt. The kick to the Colts, however, was fumbled by Jackie Sampson, with the Giants recovering on the their 10-yard line. But the Giant’s were unable to capitalize, as Frank Gifford, on a sweep play left, fumbled again late in the second quarter when hit by Colt defensive back Milt Davis. On the Giant’s defensive line about that time, tackle Rosey Grier took himself out of the game, as his leg injury had hobbled him by then. With thin reinforcements, the Giants were forced to use an offensive tackle, Fran Youso, to replace Grier for the rest of the game.

Play diagrams & explanation from ‘Sports Illustrated,’ January 1959 issue (more detail, later below)

Unitas then came in with his Colts needing 90 yards for a score – and promptly engineered an impressive drive. Among the key plays: a 10-yard pass to Ameche on 3rd-and-5; a Lenny Moore sweep for a 10-yard gain; a Unitas scramble for 16 on a 3rd-and-7; and a 13-yard pass to Raymond Berry, who made a diving catch at the 21.

From there, Ameche gained 6 more yards. Then Unitas faked to Ameche, as in the previous running play, drawing in Colt defender Jimmy Patton (#20), who thinks it’s a run. But instead, Unitas then turns and fires a 15-yard-pass to Berry who is wide open in the end zone. Touchdown! (see diagram at right). Myhra then added the extra point. Colts 14, Giants 3.

Sam Huff would later say of his nemesis that afternoon, Johnny Unitas:

“You couldn’t out-think Unitas. When you thought run, he passed. When you thought pass, he ran. When you thought conventional, he was unconventional. When you thought unconventional, he was conventional. When you tried thinking in reverse, he double-reversed. It made me dizzy. It bothered me. We were one of the greatest defensive teams ever put together. … But we didn’t have a defense for Unitas.”

Third Quarter. The Colts received the kickoff at the opening of the second half, and Unitas, with continued good protection from his offensive line, moved the Colts down the field with passing in two series of downs before punting to the Giants. But the Giants went 3-and-out, punting the ball back to the Colts. This time, Unitas moved the Colts down the field to the Giant three-yard line, first down and goal to go. A sure touchdown seemed certain. Giant fans were about to throw in the towel. But the Colts were stopped cold by the Giant defense there on four attempts, including a quarterback sneak attempt by Unitas. But the Colts, surprisingly, did not opt for a field goal. On successive 3rd and 4th down running attempts by fullback Ameche, as the Giant defenders held the line

Alan Ameche, Colts fullback, and key workhorse in the game, mis-heard play call that might have been TD.

On the fourth down play, however, the Colts went for what they hoped would be a touchdown and an insurmountable 21-3 lead. Unitas called a play for Ameche to take a handoff and then throw a pass for the score. In the ensuing play, tight end Jim Mutscheller was open in the end zone, but Ameche didn’t throw the ball. He hadn’t heard the play correctly in the huddle and thought he was supposed to run the ball. He never looked for Mutscheller and was tackled for a loss.

The Giants then took over, giving team and fans hope they would prevail. It was one of the game’s key turning points in what was becoming an exciting see-saw battle.

Still, backed up against their own endzone, the Giants had their work cut out for them. They had 95-yards to go. A key play came on a Conerly pass to Kyle Rote who caught the ball on a long crossing route, broke an arm tackle at about mid-field, but then fumbled when he was hit from behind at around the 25 yard line. Fortunately for the Giants, running back Alex Webster wasn’t far behind, and although some Colt players were closing in on the fumble, Webster managed to pick up the ball and ran downfield until he was knocked out-of-bounds at the one-yard-line. From there, Giant fullback Mel Triplett took the ball in for the score. Summerall kicked his first extra point of the day. Colts 14, Giants 10. The psychology of the game suddenly shifted in the Giant’s favor – or so it seemed.

Mel Triplett (33), NY Giants’ fullback, on the move during the 1958 NFL Championship Game, as Colt’s defensive lineman, Gino Marchetti pursues him. Triplett would score Giant touchdown in the 3rd quarter..

The Giants continued their momentum, sacking Unitas for a loss to force a three-and-out for the Colts. Starting the next possession from their 19, the Giants began moving again. Webster ran for 3, then Conerly hit tight end Bob Schnelker with a pass for 17 yards as the third quarter ended.

Fourth Quarter. Then early in the fourth quarter, with the Giants still with the ball, Conerly hit Schnelker again, followed by a 15-yard pass to Gifford who caught it at the 5 yard line, then carrying defender Milt Davis with him into the endzone for the score. With the extra point, it was now Giants 17, Colts 14.

The Baltimore Colts in the fourth quarter were able to move the ball into scoring range on two occasions, but came up short both times. First they made it to the Giants 39-yard line, but kicker Bert Rechichar missed a 46-yard field goal attempt. On another drive after a fumble recovery, they moved the ball to the New York 42 yard line, and then to the 27-yard line. But here, Unitas was sacked twice in a row – once by Giant’s defensive tackle, Andy Robustelli, and once by Giant’s defensive end, Dick Modzelewski. These losses pushed the Colts back by 20 yards or so and out of field goal range.

New York Times photo from November 1962: NY Giants defensive lineman, from left: Andy Robustelli, Dick Modzelewski, Jim Katcavage and Rosey Grier, were also key Giant players in 1958. Photo Dan Rubin.

With less than three minutes left in the game when they received the Colts punt, the Giants were trying to run out the clock through a series of plays and hold their lead. But then they faced a crucial third-down-and-4-yards-to-go, needing a first down for a fresh set of plays. They were on their own 40 yard line. Gifford was given the call on a sweep play, and appeared to have the first-down as he was tackled by Colt’s defensive end, Gino Marchetti. Also joining in on the tackle was Colt teammate “Big Daddy” Lipscomb who fell on Marchetti, breaking his lower leg bones above the ankle. Some say Marchetti’s yelling in pain had distracted the officials resulting in a bad spot of the ball marking the end of Gifford’s run. Gifford believed – and would maintain for years thereafter – that he had made the crucial first down. But at the time, the ball was placed just short of the marker.

Sports Illustrated artists’ rendition of key 4th quarter play from 1958 Championship game when Colt’s Gino Marchetti (89) makes tackle of Giant’s Frank Gifford (16), as Colt’s Big Daddy Lipscomb (76) joins in, when the tibia and fibula bones in Marchetti's lower right leg were broken, afterwhich officials made a controversial spot of Gifford’s advance just short of a first down.

This meant the Giants were then at a pivotal fourth-down moment. They were inches away from a possible first down, which if made, would help them continue to eat up the clock, hold their lead, and win the game. Should they go for it or punt? Offensive coach Vince Lombardi urged Giant head coach Jim Lee Howell to go for it, as did defensive coach Tom Landry. Giant players wanted to go for it as well, thinking they had a better shot at running the ball at Marchetti’s replacement, Ordell Brase. Giant’s offensive guard, Jack Stroud, would later say: “We only need four inches. We would have run through a brick wall at that point.” There was a little over two minutes remaining.

Injured Colt Gino Marchetti on sideline.

Meanwhile, the injured Gino Marchetti, who had been carried off on a stretcher, told his carriers to put him down just outside the sideline so he could watch the rest of the game. “After all those years when we were so bad,” he would later say, “I wanted at least to see the finish.”

Back on the Giant’s sideline, head coach Jim Howell was still pondering his fourth down decision. He elected to punt, believing his defense could protect the Giants 17-to-14 lead and hold the Colts in the remaining minutes.

The punt by Giant’s Don Chandler pinned Baltimore back on their own 14 yard-line with about two minutes remaining in the game. As the Colts took the field, wide receiver, Raymond Berry recalled: “I said to myself, ‘Well, we’ve blown this ballgame.’ The goalpost looked a million miles away.”

With 1:56 left and no timeouts, a Johnny Unitas legend was about to begin. From that point, Unitas engineered one of the most famous drives in football history – what might be called a “2-minute drill,” though before anyone used that term. His first two throws were incomplete, but Unitas made a third down, 11-yard completion to Lenny Moore. After a first down throw went incomplete, Unitas then threw three consecutive completions to Raymond Berry for 25, 15 and 22 yards, moving the ball 62 yards down the field to the Giants 13-yard line as time nearly ran out. This set up a 20-yard field goal by Myhra with seven seconds left to play. Myhra, in fact, wasn’t just a kicker that day, as he had been playing most of the game, since the first quarter, replacing injured left linebacker Leo Sanford. Nor was Myhra’s record exceptionally good, having made only 4 of 10 field goal attempts during the season. But this time, with seven seconds left, Myhra hit the 20-yard field goal, tying the score – Giants 17, Colts 17.

1958. With 7 seconds remaining in the championship game, Colts kicker, Steve Myhra, successfully boots one through the uprights from 20 yards out, tying score with the Giants, 17-to-17. Ball in flight is visible, upper center.

As the final seconds ticked away in the deadlocked contest, many of the players thought the game was over and would end as a tie. Some began heading to the locker rooms only to be admonished by the officials that a “sudden death” overtime period was about to begin. It was the first overtime game in NFL playoff history.

Sports Illustrated artist’s rendition of coin toss for “sudden death” period, showing Johnny Unitas for the Colts and co-captains for the Giants, Kyle Rote and Bill Svoboda.

Sudden Death

As Johnny Unitas later recalled:: “When the game ended in a tie, we were standing on the sidelines waiting to see what came next. All of a sudden, the officials came over and said, ‘Send the captain out. We’re going to flip a coin to see who will receive.’ That was the first we heard of the overtime period.” The respective player-captains came to the center of the field for the coin toss. Unitas called for the Colts, but lost the toss. The Giants would receive. “The first team to score, field goal, safety, or touchdown,” the referee explained to the captains, “will win the game, and the game will be over.”

Across America, meanwhile, as the special overtime period began, TV viewers and radio listeners were transfixed. This game was providing a new kind of athletic drama. On the NBC-TV broadcast, Colts announcer, Chuck Thompson, offered that “something historic” was happening “that will be remembered forever…”

In the overtime period, Don Maynard received the opening kickoff for the Giants, bobbled the ball a bit, but held onto it as he was tackled at the Giants 20-yard line. Giants quarterback, Charlie Connerly, the 37-year-old veteran, then came in, and his first play went to halfback Frank Gifford, who gained four yards. Then Conerly faked a draw play, as receiver Bob Schnelker was sent downfield for about ten yards, deep enough for a first down, but Conerly’s pass just missed him, as Schnelker made a valiant dive attempting to reach it. With a third-down-and-six-to-go, Conerly tried to pass again, but his receivers were covered, so he tried to run for it, moving around the Colts right end, but was hit by Colt linebacker Bill Pellington first, then lineman Don Shinnick, who brought Conerly down just short of the first-down marker. The Giants then punted and the Colts took over.

Earlier in the game, Giants quarterback, Charlie Conerly (42), had been having a pretty good day, shown here throwing a jump pass over on-rushing Colt defenders. But in the overtime period, the Giants seemed to run out of gas.

As the Colts took possession of the ball in the overtime period following the Giant’s punt, once again, the field command of quarterback Johnny Unitas would be put to the test – and he did not disappoint. Unitas took his team 80 yards down the field in 13 plays, as a tired Giant’s defense tried to keep up.

The first play was a run by halfback Louis Dupre over right tackle for 11 yards to the 31. Next, Unitas threw a long pass for Lenny Moore down the sideline, but Colt defender, Lindon Crow, broke it up. Dupre was called again for a two-yard run. It was then 3rd-down-and-8-to-go. On this crucial play, wide receiver Raymond Berry headed downfield on a passing route, but Unitas tossed a flare pass in the flat to Ameche who took it eight yards, just enough to make the first down at the 41 yard line. Dupre that ran again for a gain of four yards.

Photo shows Colt QB, Johnny Unitas (19), in action during NFL Championship Game, throwing pass over the attempt of hard-charging NY defensive tackle, Dick Modzelewski (77), to unsuccessfully block it.

On the next play, Giants’ tackle, Dick Modzelewski, broke through the Colt line and sacked Unitas for a loss of eight yards. It was then 3rd down. The Colts were on their own 37 yard-line and needed 14 yards for first down. On the that 3rd down play, Unitas was rushed by Colt defenders, but evaded them and threw to Berry, who had come back for the ball off his pass route, gaining 21 yards for the first down and crossing midfield to the Giant’s 42 yard-line.

As Unitas came to the line for the next play, he had been feeling the pressure of Giant’s hard-charging defensive tackle, Dick Modzelewski. So Unitas this time called an “audible” at the line – a change of play – signaling a trap block on Modzelewski from left Colt guard Art Spinney (63) who would cut across center laterally “trapping” Modzelewski (77) with a good block (see illustration below), while the other Colt’s guard, George Preas (60) went after Giant linebacker Sam Huff (70), clearing the way for fullback Alan Ameche who then went for a gain of 23 yards downfield. A nicely timed play which then put the Colts on the Giant’s 19 yard line.

Artists rendition from ‘Sports Illustrated’ showing key “trap play” during the Colts’ final sequence of plays, with Colt linemen – Art Spinney (63) making trap block on Giant tackle, Dick Modzelewski (77), and George Preas (60) on Giant linebacker Sam Huff (70) – clearing the way for Colt fullback, Alan Ameche (35).

The next play was a run by Dupre who was stopped cold by the Giant’s line for no gain. Unitas then threw a pass to Raymond Berry who ran a slant pattern over the middle for a gain of 11 yards, bringing the Colts to the Giant’s eight yard-line. The Colts then had first-down-and-goal-to-go.

However, at this point, in the middle of Raymond Berry’s catch, millions of TV viewers across the nation no doubt went apoplectic as the TV transmission of the game suddenly went black. Someone in the crowd had knocked a cable loose in the end zone. NBC tried to get a delay in the game, but failed initially. Then, after some “drunk” (or instructed NBC employee) wandered onto the playing field, a timeout was called, during which NBC managed to reconnect its cable. Viewers would miss a play or two, including play no.11 in the Colt’s drive, when Ameche ran for a one yard gain.

Colt receiver, Ray Berry, making one of his catches during 1958 Championship Game. Berry's 12 receptions for 178 yards that day set an NFL record that stood for 55 years.

Back on the field, Unitas on the next play then made what many believed was a risky call. As he dropped back to pass, Unitas made a pump-fake to his halfback Lenny Moore, who was then running into the end zone, but he threw instead to his end, Jim Mutscheller, who made a twisting catch at about the two-yard-line before going out of bounds, just short of the goal. This pass was risky because if it had been intercepted in the flat by a Giant defender, he could have gone all the way for a Giant touchdown. But that didn’t happen. Now the Colts were poised to win the game.

On the next play the Giant defenders dug in on the goal line, including linebacker Sam Huff, all expecting a run. Fullback Ameche got the call, put his head down and sailed through a big opening off right tackle and into the endzone. Colts win, game over! Final score, Colts 23, Giants 17.

Headlines from The Salisbury Times in Maryland reporting on fan reaction to Colt's victory.

Jubilant fans rushed the field and one group carried Ameche off on their shoulders in celebration. Later than night in New York, Ameche would appear briefly on The Ed Sullivan Show, lauded for his and the Colts victory that day.

Back in Baltimore there was wild celebration; 30,000 fans would come out to the airport back home to greet their conquering heroes. Some newspaper stories ran a front-page photo of one happy Colt threesome in the locker room – Steve Myhra, Johnny Unitas, and Alan Ameche.

Unitas was the MVP of that game, awarded for his stellar late-game and sudden-death heroics, as he completed 26 of 40 passes for 349 yards, then a championship game record. Raymond Berry’s 12 receptions for 178 yards and a touchdown that day also set a championship game record that would stand for 55 years.

The following year, Unitas, Berry, and the Colts returned to win the 1959 NFL championship game, also against the New York Giants. But it was the 1958 game that would live for the ages.

New York Daily News, Monday, December 29, 1958 edition, announcing Colts win with photograph of Colt fullback Alan Ameche scoring winning touchdown behind great Colt blocking.

Lore & Legacy

In fact, “greatest game” accolades for the 1958 NFL Championship Game began almost immediately. In the Monday morning edition of the New York Daily News following the game, reporter Gene Ward wrote:

“In years to come when our children’s children are listening to stories about football, they’ll be told about the greatest game ever played – the one between the Giants and Colts for the 1958 NFL Championship.”

They’ll be told of heroics the like of which never had been seen . . . of New York’s slashing two-touchdown rally to a 17-14 lead . . . of Baltimore’s knot-tying field goal seven seconds from the end of regulation playing time . . . and, finally, of the bitter collapse of the magnificent Giant defense as the Colts slammed and slung their way to a 23-17 triumph with an 80-yard touchdown drive in the first sudden death period ever played….”

True enough; the game was an emotional roller coaster, with ups and downs, multiple lead changes, exciting plays, costly miscues, player heroics, and more. But “greatest” and “best” game attributions would come from other quarters as well, including an early boost from Sports Illustrated magazine, then and now, a respected journal of sports reporting and analysis.

Only a week or so after the game was played, a January 5th, 1959 Sports Illustrated story by Tex Mule was titled, “The Best Football Game Ever Played.” This piece ran over five pages with several photographs by Arthur Daley and Hy Peskin. The first two-page spread from that piece is shown below. Maule, in his article, would say that the contest “was a truly epic game which inflamed the imagination of a national audience.”

The January 5th, 1959 issue of “Sports Illustrated” lauds the 1958 NFL Championship Game as “The Best Football Game Ever Played” in a five-page story by Tex Maule with photos by Arthur Daley and Hy Peskin. Click for magazine issue.

But Sports Illustrated wasn’t finished with just one piece on the game. Two weeks later, the magazine followed up in its January 19th, 1959 edition with a more detailed breakdown of the game by Tex Maule, along with dramatic hand drawings by Robert Riger, and some play diagrams and description, recreating some of game’s action in detail. That article was titled, “Here’s Why It Was The Greatest Game Ever.” A sampling of a two-page layout from that piece is offered below, but the full Sports Illustrated treatment of the game in this edition ran for nine pages, with drawings and annotation, including one page with a diagram of a football playing field marking the on-field progress of each of the 13 plays Johnny Unitas called in the final Colt drive in the sudden death period.

Sports Illustrated, January 19th, 1959, showing first two pages of a nine-page spread of diagrams, play calling, and analysis of the December 28, 1958 NFL championship game between NY Giants and Baltimore Colts. Click for magazine issue.

Some observers believe that the January 1959 Sports Illustrated pieces did capture a sense of what the game meant to those who were there at the time or had viewed in on TV, and also how the culture then began perceiving pro football. But the legend and lore for the 1958 game only grew thereafter, especially as the years went by. In fact, over the next fifty years, this game would become the subject of a number of books, magazine features, film documentaries, player reunion TV shows, and more.

David Klein book, 1976.	Sports Illustrated, April 2008.
Frank Gifford book, 2008.	Mark Bowden book, 2008.
Lou Sahadi book, 2008.	Pro Football Researchers, 2008.

The first of the books on the 1958 game came nearly 20 years later, in 1976 – The Game of Their Lives, by Dave Klein, a sports writer for the Newark Star-Ledger (New Jersey). Published by Random House, this book profiled the 13 players from the 1958 game who would later be inducted into the pro football Hall of Fame. A paperback edition of this book came out a year later, and it was also re-issued in digital and paperback form again in 2007-2008.

But after Klein’s book came out in 1976, there wasn’t much more activity on books about the 1958 game until about the time of its 50th anniversary in 2007-2008 (click on book covers at right for Amazon.com).

In April 2008, Sports Illustrated put the 1958 game on its cover, using the classic photo of Unitas rearing back in QB form preparing to throw one of his passes during the game, and titling its lead feature story, “The Best Game Ever,” as it had nearly 50 years before in January 1959. Only this time, the feature story was written by book author, Mark Bowden, and titled: “How John Unitas and Raymond Berry Invented the Modern NFL.”

Bowden would also publish his own book on the game in 2008, The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and The Birth of The Modern NFL.

Frank Gifford, meanwhile, a former New York Giant player in the 1958 game, and also by this time, a well-known sportscasting celebrity who had worked on TV’s Monday Night Football games, also wrote a book on the 1958 game that came out in November 2008. This book – The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever – was written with Peter Richmond, and was popular at the time of the game’s 50th anniversary.

The genesis of the Gifford book had begun with Pulitzer Prize winning writer David Halberstam – famous for his book on Vietnam, The Best and the Brightest, and others, including several sports books. Halberstam had intended to write a book on the 1958 game and Gifford was recruited to help Halberstam get in touch with a number of the players from that game for the planned book. Halberstam, however, on his way to meet one of his first interview subjects for that book, was killed in a California car accident. Thereafter, Gifford decided to take on the project. And once the book came out, Gifford made the rounds on some sports shows and media interviews talking about the famous game.

There were also a couple of other books that came out at that time. In September 2008, Lou Sahadi, an author of other sports and pro football books, published One Sunday in December: The 1958 NFL Championship Game and How It Changed Professional Football, released by Lyons Press. And also that year, the Professional Football Researchers Association issued a book titled, The 1958 Baltimore Colts: Profiles of the NFL’s First Sudden Death Champions.

“Famous Players”
1958 Colts v. Giants Game

The 1958 game also became known for its famous players – those who entered the professional Football Hall of Fame and others who were famous in that game, for what they did elsewhere in football, and/or for later achievement in sportscasting and other career endeavors. What follows below are brief profiles of selected Colt and Giant players who took part in the famous 1958 NFL Championship Game (some with links to their books at Amazon.com).

– Baltimore Colts –

Alan Ameche book, 2012.

Alan Ameche, cousin of actor Don Ameche, won the Heisman Trophy in college at the University of Wisconsin where he played both fullback and linebacker. He is one of six Wisconsin players to have his numeral retired there. Nicknamed “The Horse,” and famous for his winning touchdown in the 1958 NFL Championship game, Ameche was elected to the Pro Bowl in his first four seasons in the NFL.

Due to an Achilles tendon injury in 1960, Ameche finished his NFL career after six seasons with 4,045 rushing yards, 101 receptions for 733 yards, and 44 touchdowns. He is one of four players named to the NFL 1950s All-Decade Team not elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Ameche was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975 and the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Colts teammate Gino Marchetti, Ameche founded the Gino’s Hamburgers chain and the Baltimore-based Ameche’s Drive-In restaurants were also named for him.

Raymond Berry book, 2017.

Raymond Berry was a split end for the Baltimore Colts from 1955 to 1967. When he was drafted in the late rounds by the Colts in 1954 he was considered a long shot to make the team. His college career at SMU had not been exceptional and he had poor eyesight. However, his subsequent rise with the Colts has been touted as one of American football’s Cinderella stories. He became known for rigorous practice and attention to detail, along with running near-perfect pass routes and his sure handedness. By his second NFL season, after quarterback Johnny Unitas arrived, Berry’s talents came in full display. Over the next 12 seasons together, the two became one of the most dominant passing and catching duos in NFL history. Berry, who did not miss a single game until his eighth year in the league, led the NFL in receptions and receiving yards three times and in receiving touchdowns twice. When his playing days ended, Berry began coaching. After several assistant coaching positions, he became head coach of the New England Patriots from 1984 to 1989. In 1973, Berry was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. He is also a member of the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, compiled in 1994, and the 1950s All-Decade Team. Berry’s No. 82 jersey is retired by the Colts and he is also included in the Baltimore Ravens Ring of Honor.

Art Donovan book, 1987.

Art Donovan, a Colt defensive lineman, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968. As a U.S. Marine he served in the Pacific Theater during World War II seeing action in the Battle of Luzon and the Battle of Iwo Jima. He played his college football at Boston College following his military service. He was an All-NFL selection 1954-1958 and played in five straight Pro Bowls. During his playing days Donovan was noted as a jovial and humorous teammate and capitalized on those qualities with television and speaking appearances in later years. He appeared ten times on the Late Show with David Letterman telling humorous stories about his playing days and “old school” footballers. Donovan also made other TV guest appearances and was a guest commentator for the WWF’s 1994 edition of “King of the Ring.” He was also co-host of the popular 1990s Baltimore TV program, “Braase, Donovan, Davis and Fans,” with fellow Colt teammate Ordell Braase. Donovan also owned and managed a country club in Towson, Maryland and he published his autobiography in 1987 titled, Fatso. Art Donovan died in 2013 from a respiratory disease at age 89.

Big Daddy & Marchetti, 1950s.

Eugene Allen Lipscomb, also known as “Big Daddy” due to his hulking 6′-6″/285 lb. size, was born in Uniontown, Alabama. He never knew his father, moved to Detroit at age three, where his mother was brutally murdered when he was 11, then raised by his grandparents. For a time at Detroit’s Miller High School, he starred in football and basketball, but was declared ineligible his senior year for playing semi-pro basketball. He then enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, playing football for the Camp Pendleton team. He was signed as a free agent by the Los Angeles Rams (1953-1955) before being traded to the Baltimore Colts where he played five seasons. In 1958 and 1959, he earned a spot in the Pro Bowl, and was instrumental in the Colts’ two consecutive NFL Championships in 1958 and 1959. He then went on to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers for two seasons. Fellow players described him as a powerful big man with unusual speed and athletic ability, but also as a gentle and big-hearted person off the field, often helpful to those down-and-out. Gino Marchetti, his teammate and mentor, found his lateral movement exceptional, calling him “our fourth linebacker;” an uncommon defensive tackle who could sometimes catch halfbacks downfield. In his final game, the 1963 Pro Bowl, Lipscomb was named MVP after making 11 tackles, forcing two fumbles and deflecting a pass. But Gene Lipscomb also had a fondness for nightlife, women, and liquor, and in May 10, 1963, he was found dead of a heroin overdose in Baltimore, though many believed he was not a drug user and suspected foul play. He was 31 years old. In Baltimore, 30,000 lined up for his funeral. Several magazines would later profile and eulogize him following his death (see Sources).

Gino Marchetti sports card.

Gino Marchetti, the son of Italian immigrants, enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II and fought in the Battle of the Bulge as a machine gunner. After playing college football at the University of San Francisco, he was drafted by the New York Yanks, the team that later became the Baltimore Colts. Marchetti played 13 seasons with the Colts and became known as a relentless pass-rusher. He was voted “the greatest defensive end in pro football history” by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1972. In 1999, he was ranked number 15 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, then the second-highest-ranking defensive end behind Deacon Jones.

In 1959, Marchetti joined with several of his teammates, including Alan Ameche, and opened a fast food restaurant. The business grew, began to franchise, and would eventually become known as Gino’s Hamburgers, a popular fast food chain in the 1960s. On the East Coast in would grow to have 313 company-owned locations when the chain was sold to Marriott International in 1982 and became Roy Rogers restaurants.

Lenny Moore book, 2005.

Lenny Moore, Penn State standout from Reading, Pennsylvania, won the NFL Rookie of the Year as a Baltimore Colt running back in 1956. In 1958, he caught a career-high 50 passes for 938 yards and seven touchdowns in helping the Colts win the NFL championship. In 1959, he had 47 receptions for 846 yards and six touchdowns as the Colts repeated as champions.

In 1964, Moore had one of his best seasons when he scored 20 touchdowns, helping the Colts to a 12–2 record and another trip to the NFL Championship Game. He was voted MVP by his fellow players that year and also won the Comeback Player of the Year Award. Moore was selected to the Pro Bowl seven times and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1975. In 2005, he published his autobiography, All Things Being Equal. In 2010, Moore retired from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services after 26 years of service, working with at-risk kids in Maryland middle schools and high schools.

Jim Parker, Colt lineman.

Jim Parker, offensive lineman with the Baltimore Colts from 1957 to 1967, played college football at Ohio State University from 1954 to 1956. During the 1958 Championship Game, Sam Huff noted that the Giant’s All-Pro defensive end, Andy Robustelli, was having no success getting past Parker to harass Unitas. Huff recalled: “Andy couldn’t get around Parker; he couldn’t come under him; he couldn’t go over him. The immovable object, that’s what Jim Parker was.” And Robustelli himself would say: “I used to think there wasn’t a big tackle I couldn’t outmaneuver. But Parker was too strong, too smart, too good.” Parker was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1974. He is considered among the greatest lineman to ever play pro football. In 1994, Parker was selected to the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team. In 1999, he was ranked number 24 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Jim Parker died in 2005 at the age of 71.

Johnny Unitas book, 2004.

Johnny Unitas, legendary quarterback of the Baltimore Colts, grew up in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA, losing his father at age 5 and raised by his mother, who worked two jobs to make ends meet. Of Lithuanian decent, Unitas played halfback and quarterback at Pittsburgh’s St. Justin’s High School, and dreamed of playing at Notre Dame, but at a try out there he was told by coach Frank Leahy he was too skinny and would “get murdered” on the field. Unitas played instead for the University of Louisville, where mid-career there, the school deemphasized football, but Unitas persisted, playing both ways, heroically in a few cases, suffering many losing contests. Still, Unitas emerged from Louisville with 245 completed passes for 3,139 yards and 27 touchdowns and was selected as a ninth-round draft pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955. However, with four other QBs in training camp, Unitas was cut by the Steelers even before training camp had ended. After being cut, Unitas played for the Bloomfield Rams in the semi-pro Greater Pittsburgh League. In 1956, Baltimore Colts coach Weeb Ewbank gave Unitas a look and liked what he saw and signed him for a pittance. But with the Colts, Unitas would become the prototype, modern era marquee quarterback, setting records and winning NFL most valuable player awards in 1959, 1964, and 1967. For 52 years he held the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass ( 47, set between 1956 and 1960), until quarterback Drew Brees broke the record in 2012. Unitas is 7th all time in number of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with 118. He was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. In 2004, The Sporting News ranked Unitas No. 1 among the NFL’s 50 Greatest Quarterbacks, with Joe Montana at No. 2. At the Baltimore Ravens stadium a statue of Unitas is the centerpiece in the stadium’s front plaza, and large banners depicting Unitas in his heyday flank the entrance. Towson University named its football and lacrosse complex Johnny Unitas Stadium in recognition of his football career and his service to the university.

– New York Giants –

Rosey Brown, New York Giants.

Roosevelt “Rosey” Brown, growing up in Charlottesville, VA, initially played trombone in the Jefferson High School band. He was forbidden to play football by his family after his older brother died from a football injury. However, Brown did play at the prodding of the high school coach, and at first without his father’s knowledge. He then went on to Morgan State University on a football scholarship where he would be named to the Pittsburgh Courier’s All-America team in 1952. Brown was selected by the New York Giants in the late rounds of the 1953 NFL draft, would become one of the team’s most consistent and valuable players, appearing in 162 games, missing only four games in a 13-year career. In his prime, between 1956 and 1963, he helped lead the Giants to six division championships and the 1956 NFL Championship Game. He was selected as a first-team All-NFL player eight consecutive years and was also selected to play in the Pro Bowl nine times. After his playing days, Brown became the Giant’s assistant offensive line coach in 1966, then offensive line coach in 1969. He remained with the Giants organization in the scouting department for many years. Rosey Brown was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1974. In 1999, he was ranked number 57 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Brown passed away in 2004.

Book by Perian Conerly, 2003.

Charlie Conerly, quarterback for the New York Giants from 1948 through 1961, played college football at the University of Mississippi where he started in 1942 but left to join the U.S. Marines during WWII, and fought in the Battle of Guam in the South Pacific. Back at Mississippi in 1946, he would lead Ole Miss to their first SEC championship in 1947. That season, he also led the nation in pass completions with 133, rushed for nine touchdowns, passed for 18 more, and was a consensus All-American. Conerly was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1966. The Conerly Trophy is given annually to the top college player in the State of Mississippi. Conerly also portrayed the “Marlboro Man” in cigarette commercials. After his playing days, Conerly owned shoe stores throughout the Mississippi Delta, and his wife, Perian, a sports columnist, authored the book, Backseat Quarterback. Charlie Conerly retired to his Clarksdale, Mississippi hometown where he spent his final days before his death in 1996.

Frank Gifford book, 1970.

Frank Gifford was a star football player at the University of Southern California and was drafted by the New York Giants in 1952 as a first-round pick, 11th overall. Gifford became a versatile player for the Giants, adept at running, passing, and receiving. He also played defensive back and returned punts and kickoffs. He was named the NFL’s MVP in 1956, helping lead the Giants to a championship. Gifford was named All-NFL six times in his career and selected to a total of eight Pro Bowls at three different positions – defensive back, halfback, and flanker. Overall, Gifford spent 12 seasons with the Giants compiling a record of 3,609 yards rushing and 34 touchdowns on 840 carries. He also had 5,434 receiving yards with 367 catches and 43 touchdowns. Gifford was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame 1977. He also became one of the better-known American sportscasters in the latter part of the 20th century, notably for ABC’s Monday Night Football (1971-1997). Gifford also had an extensive advertising career, both as a player and for years thereafter. At his death in 2015, the much admired Gifford was called “the Mickey Mantle of the Giants.” The New York Post’s Steve Serby also wrote of Gifford at that time: “He was the Giants’ first made-for-television superstar in the grainy, black-and-white glory days of the 1950s, every bit the heartthrob Joe Namath would be in the 1960s…” More detail about Gifford at this website can be found at “Celebrity Gifford” and “Bednarik-Gifford Lore.”

Rosey Grier book, 1986.

Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier played his college football at Penn State, and was drafted by the New York Giants in 1955 as the 31st overall pick. He played with the Giants from 1955 to 1962 and was named All-Pro at defensive tackle in 1956 and 1958–1962. Later traded to the Los Angeles Rams, Grier became part of the “Fearsome Foursome” along with Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, and Lamar Lundy, considered one of the best defensive lines in football history. After Grier’s professional sports career, he worked as a bodyguard for Robert Kennedy during the 1968 presidential campaign and was guarding Ethel Kennedy when Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, though Grier helped subdue Sirhan and took control of his gun during the mayhem. Beyond football, Grier hosted his own Los Angeles television show and made numerous guest appearances on other shows during the 1960s and 1970s. He also authored several books.

Sam Huff, Time cover 1959.

Sam Huff was born and grew up in the No. 9 coal mining camp in Edna, West Virginia. During the Great Depression, his father and two brothers worked in the coal mines. Playing high school football, Sam Huff collected all-state honors as a lineman, and continued at the University of West Virginia, where he was an All-American in 1955. Drafted by the New York Giants in 1956, they weren’t sure where to play him until he found a home at middle linebacker, then a relatively new position – where he excelled. Huff appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a pro football feature story in November 1959, and was also the subject of an October 1960 CBS television special, “The Violent World of Sam Huff,” part of a Walter Cronkite series. Traded to the Redskins in 1964 he helped make their defense second best in 1965. An ankle injury in 1967 ended a streak of 150 consecutive games for Huff, and he retired briefly, until Vince Lombardi, then coach of the Washington Redskins, coaxed Huff out of retirement to help bring a winning season in 1969. Huff retired for good in 1970, the year he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, though losing in the West Virginia Democratic primary. Outside of football, Huff worked in textile sales and sports marketing, but through 2012 became known as a Washington Redskin radio and TV broadcast personality with former Redskin teammate Sonny Jurgensen. Sam Huff was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982. In 1999, he was ranked number 76 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2005, Huff’s No. 75 numeral was retired by West Virginia University.

Don Maynard book, 2010.

Don Maynard, then in his rookie NFL season, returned punts and kickoffs for the Giants in the 1958 Championship game. However, he would become a Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver with the New York Jets (1960-1972). In 1965, Maynard was paired up with Jet’s rookie QB Joe Namath and had 1,218 yards with 68 receptions and 14 touchdowns. In 1967, Maynard caught 1,434 of Namath’s historic 4,007 passing yards. The receiving yards were a career-high for Maynard and led the league; he also had 71 receptions, 10 touchdowns, and averaged 20.2 yards per catch. In the 1968 season opener against Kansas City, Maynard had 200+ receiving yards for the first time in his career and passed Tommy McDonald as the active leader in receiving yards, where he remained for the next six seasons until his retirement. Maynard finished his career with 633 receptions for 11,834 yards and 88 touchdowns. His 18.7 yards per catch is the highest among those with at least 600 receptions. Maynard’s No. 13 New York Jets numeral was the second ever retired by the Jets after Namath’s. He was selected to the Pro Football Hall of fame in 1987. In his post NFL-career, Maynard worked as a math and industrial arts teacher, a salesman, and a financial planner.

Andy Robustelli book, 1987.

Andy Robustelli was drafted initially by the Los Angeles Rams but played most of his career with the New York Giants. He was a starter on the Giants defense from 1956 until his retirement following the 1964 season. Robustelli was a six-time All-Pro selection and was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in 1971. After his playing days, Robustelli spent 1965 as a color analyst for NBC’s American Football League broadcasts. That same year he purchased Stamford-based Westheim Travel and renamed it Robustelli Travel Services, Inc. In December 1973, he was appointed director of operations for the New York Giants, essentially becoming the team’s first general manager for the next six years. In 1988, he was named Walter Camp Man of the Year, a public service and leadership award. Robustelli Travel Services, meanwhile, specializing in corporate travel management, grew into Robustelli World Travel by the time it was sold to Hogg Robinson Group in 2006. He also founded National Professional Athletes (NPA), a sports marketing business which arranged appearances by sports celebrities at corporate functions, and International Equities, which evolved into Robustelli Corporate Services. Andy Robustelli died in May 2011 from complications following surgery. He was 85 years old.

Kyle Rote, New York Giants.

Kyle Rote was a running back and receiver with the New York Giants for eleven years. He was an All-American running back at Southern Methodist University where he became one of the most celebrated collegiate football players in the country. In December 1949, in a near upset of undefeated national champs, Notre Dame, Rote ran for 115 yards, threw for 146 yards, and scored all three SMU touchdowns in a 27–20 loss. His performance was voted by the Texas Sportswriters Association as “The Outstanding Individual Performance by a Texas Athlete in the First Half of the 20th Century.” He appeared on the cover of Life magazine November 1950 in his SMU football gear in a featured story on college football. Rote, who had been runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, was the first overall selection of the 1951 NFL Draft. When Rote retired after the 1961 season, he was the Giants’ career leader in pass receptions (300), receiving yardage (4,795) and touchdown receptions (48). He was named to the Pro Bowl four times and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1964. Following his playing career, Rote was the Giants backfield coach and also a sports broadcaster for WNEW radio, NBC, and WNBC New York. He also wrote a few football books. Kyle Rote died in 2002 following surgery. He was 73 years old.

Pat Summerall book, 2006.

“Pat” Summerall played college football from 1949 to 1951 at the University of Arkansas as defensive end, tight end, and placekicker. He graduated in 1953 majoring in Russian history. Summerall spent ten years as an NFL football player, first drafted by the Detroit Lions, traded to the Chicago Cardinals, and then the New York Giants, his last team and where he had his best year in 1959 as a kicker, with 30-for-30 extra points and 20-for-29 in field goals. Pat Summerall, however, is best known for his many years of work in the broadcast booth, along with partners such as Tom Brookshier, John Madden, and others on various TV and cable networks including CBS, FOX and ESPN, doing NFL and other sports events and special telecasts. In 1977, he was named the National Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association and inducted into their Hall of Fame in 1994. That year, he also received the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 1999. The Pat Summerall Award, honoring his legacy, has been awarded to various individuals since 2006. Pat Summerall died in 2013 of cardiac arrest at age 82.

Emlen Tunnell book, 1966.

Emlen Tunnell, played 14 seasons in the National Football League (NFL) as a defensive halfback and safety for the New York Giants (1948–1958) and Green Bay Packers (1959–1961). He was the first African American to play for the New York Giants and also the first to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was named to the NFL’s 1950s All-Decade Team and was ranked No. 70 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. He was selected as a first-team All-Pro player six times and played in nine Pro Bowls. When he retired as a player, he held NFL career records for interceptions (79), interception return yards (1,282), punt returns (258), and punt return yards (2,209). After retiring as a player, Tunnell served as a special assistant coach and defensive backs coach for the New York Giants from 1963 to 1974. Born and raised in the Philadelphia area, Tunnell was a high school standout at Radnor High School. He played his college football at the University of Toledo in 1942 and University of Iowa in 1946 and 1947. He also served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1943 to 1946. He received the Silver Lifesaving Medal for heroism in rescuing a shipmate from flames during a torpedo attack in 1944 and rescuing another shipmate who fell into the sea in 1946. In July 1975, Tunnell died from a heart attack during a Giants practice session at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York. He was 51.

In terms of the media hype on the famous 1958 Championship game, in addition to the books mentioned above, there have also been occasional newspaper and magazine stories on the game, as well as a few TV specials. In 1998, at the game’s 40th-anniversary, the NFL conducted a teleconference with four of the Hall of Fame players from that game — Johnny Unitas and Art Donovan of the Colts, and Frank Gifford and Sam Huff of the Giants. In January 1999, at the coin toss for Super Bowl XXXIII,…On any given Sunday since 1958, there have been, and continue to be, games that are arguably better… twelve of the surviving Hall of Fame players and coaches from the 1958 game were honored. And by its 50 anniversary year in 2008, the various books had come out, followed by commentary.

So yes, over the years there has been ample analysis of, and reflection upon, the 1958 NFL Championship Game. But despite the game’s legendary claim as the “best” or “greatest” game ever played, most analysts today acknowledge a certain amount of hype and inflated worth in that claim – and some even mark the game’s lapses of sloppiness and poor execution as evidence it was not the “greatest” NFL game ever played. Indeed, on any given Sunday during pro football seasons since 1958, there have been, and continue to be, games that are arguably better, or at least equally thrilling and engaging, played with equally-talented and superb players who regularly demonstrate amazing feats of athletic dexterity and improvisation plying their craft, whether golden-armed quarterbacks, hard-nosed offensive guards, shape-shifting halfbacks, punishing middle linebackers, or ballerina-styled, sideline-dancing wide receivers.

Michael MacCambridge’s 2012 book, “Lamar Hunt: A Life In Sports,” 416pp. Click for book.

Yet the 1958 NFL Championship Game does have a fair claim to being an important demarcation in the rise of pro football’s cultural and economic importance. Clearly, things did change after that game, as it did get the attention of the TV networks, advertising executives, journalists, and investors.

Lamar Hunt, son of oil billionaire H.L. Hunt, had spent much of 1958 trying to decide whether he wanted to invest in a football team or a baseball team. But sitting in his Houston hotel room on a business trip on December 28, 1958, he watched the Colts-Giants game and the action convinced him that football was the way to go.

Hunt would proceed to stir the competitive juices of football investors across the country as he and others founded the American Football League (AFL), and in so doing, hastened expansion in the NFL.

There were 12 pro football teams in 1959, and by the beginning of the 1960 season, that number had grown to 21. The AFL-NFL wars had begun, and with them, among other things, came escalating player salaries and a growing interest among the TV networks in telecasting all pro football games.

Pete Rozelle, elected NFL Commissioner in January 1960, helped negotiate large TV contracts, deftly playing one network against the other. In late September 1961, a bill legalizing single-network television contracts by professional sports leagues was passed by Congress and signed into law by President John F. Kennedy.

David Maraniss’s 1999 book on Vince Lombardi, “When Pride Still Mattered,” 544pp. Click for book.

Other changes were also afoot following the 1958 Colts-Giants game that would add to pro football’s rising allure. Vince Lombardi, who had been the Giants offensive coordinator, was hired by the Green Bay Packers as head coach in January 1959, starting a pro football dynasty there and raising pro football fervor in Upper Midwest America. By 1966, Lombardi’s Packers would reign victorious over Lamar Hunt’s Kansas City Chiefs in the first AFL-NFL Championship contest (Super Bowl I, though not called that at the time). The AFL and NFL would announce their merger soon thereafter, eventually yielding a pro football colossus that today counts 32 NFL teams generating more than $13 billion in annual revenue, and Super Bowl Championship games with 100 million or more TV viewers globally.

Indeed, the 1958 Colts-Giants Championship Game is quaint by comparison – especially when held up against today’s modern Super Bowl, which some might conclude is an over-the-top, out-of-control media extravaganza with way out-of-proportion importance. Yet the money-making genie of professional football is long out of the bottle, and there is no going back.

* * * * * *

Additional football-related stories at this website include: “I Guarantee It” (a profile of Joe Namath, his famous prediction for Super Bowl III, his bio and pro career, and his off-the-filed activities); “Bednarik-Gifford Lore” (the respective playing careers of Chuck Bednarik and Frank Gifford, and a famous on–the-field collision between the two); “Slingin` Sammy” (career of quarterback Sammy Baugh and Washington Redskins history, 1930s-1950s); “Dutchman’s Big Day”(about Norm Van Brocklin’s single-game NFL passing record and other QBs closing in on that record; and, “Celebrity Gifford” (a detailed look at the advertising, sports broadcasting, and TV/film/radio career of Frank Gifford ). See also the “Annals of Sport” category page for other sports stories.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 12 January 2019
Last Update: 11 February 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Big Game, New Era: Colts vs. Giants, 1958,”
PopHistoryDig.com, January 12, 2019.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

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Football Books at Amazon.com…

Michael MacCambridge’s 2005 book, “The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation.” Click for copy.

NFL History, Rob Fleder, et al., “NFL 100: A Century of Pro Football,” with Peyton Manning intro. Click for copy.

Ray Walker’s book, “The Ultimate Pittsburgh Steelers Trivia Book,” 2020 edition. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Jack Cavanaugh’s 2008 book, “Giants Among Men,” paperback edition, 352pp. Click for book.

John Eisenberg’s 2018 book, “The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire,” Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell, 416pp. Click for book.

Jerry Kramer of the Green Bay Packers, 1968 classic book with Dick Schaap, “Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer,” 303pp. Click for book.

Former QB Ron Jaworski’s 2018 book, “The Games That Changed The Game,” 336pp.

Jack Hand (Associated Press, New York), “Colts 3.5 Point Favorite Over N.Y. Giant’s Sunday,” San Mateo Times (California), December 27, 1958, p. 6.

Gene Ward, “Colts Win In Sudden Death, 23-17; Cop Title in Fifth Period After Late FG Ties Giants,” Daily News (New York), Monday, December 29, 1958, p. 44.

Joe Trimble, “Six Inches Worth $1,600 As Giff Misses First Down,” Daily News (New York), Monday, December 29, 1958, p. 44.

“’The Greatest Game Ever Played’: Colts Beat Giants in 1958 NFL Championship,” Daily News, January 13, 2015 (reprint of 1958 story).

Tex Maule, “The Best Game Ever Played,” Sports Illustrated, January 5, 1959 (photos by Arthur Daley and Hy Peskin).

Tex Maule, “Here’s Why it Was the Best Football Game Ever,” Sports Illustrated, January 19, 1959 (drawings by Robert Riger, explanations by Tex Maule).

“1958: Baltimore Colts @ New York Giants, NFL Championship Games,” Golden Football Magazine, GoldenRankings.com.

“Greatest Game Ever Played,” Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“1958 NFL Championship Game,” Wikipedia .org.

“A Man’s Game” (Sam Huff cover story), Time, November 30, 1959.

Tony Kornheiser, “Giants, Colts of 1958 Play It Again – For Laughs,” New York Times, July 8, 1978.

Shelby Strother, NFL Top 40: The Greatest Pro Football Games of All Time, 1988.

William Gildea, When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore, 1994.

Frank Litsky, “There Were Better Games; None More Important,” New York Times, December 16, 1998.

National Football League (NFL), “Historical Chronology, By Decade,” NFL.com.

William Nack, “The Ballad Of Big Daddy: Big Daddy Lipscomb, Whose Size and Speed Revolutionized the Defensive Lineman’s Position in the Late ’50s, Was a Man of Insatiable Appetites: For Women, Liquor and, Apparently, Drugs,” Sports Illustrated, January 11, 1999.

Richard Rothschild, “Sudden Death, Sudden Impact,” ChicagoTribune.com, January 24, 2001.

Richard Goldstein, “Kyle Rote, a Top Receiver For the Giants, Dies at 73,” New York Times, August 16, 2002.

Scott Calvert, “Hero for a Working-Class Town: Friends and Fans Recall John Unitas as a Gritty, Big-Hearted Man Who Perfectly Fit the City Where He Played Football for Nearly Two Decades; 1933-2002,” Baltimore Sun, September 12, 2002.

Chris McDonell, The Football Game I’ll Never Forget; 100 NFL Stars’ Stories, 2004.

Craig R. Coenen, From Sandlots To The Super Bowl: The National Football League, 1920-1967, University of Tennessee Press, 2005.

Jonathan Yardley, “Book Review, Johnny U: The Life and Times of Johnny Unitas, by Tom Callahan, Book World, Washington Post, October 22-28, 2006.

Tom Callahan, Johnny U: The Life & Times of John Unitas, 2006.

Frank Deford, “Everything On The Line: The Colts-Giants in ’58 Was a Door Between Two Eras,” SI.com, Tuesday July 17, 2007.

“The Greatest Game Ever Played – Sports Illustrated‘s Coverage of The Game,” FleerSticker.blogspot .com, December 14, 2008.

Mark Bowden, The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL, 2008.

Frank Gifford with Peter Richmond, The Glory Game: How The 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever, 2008

Jeff Miller, “Shaky Myhra Made the Kick That Mattered Most,” ESPN, December 8, 2008.

Michael MacCambridge, “Legacy of ‘The Greatest Game’ Can Be Found in What Followed,” NFL.com, December 25, 2008.

Mike Klis, “The ‘58 Classic,” The Denver Post, December 26, 2008.

Ihsan Taylor, “The Glory Game: Q&A With Frank Gifford,” New York Times, January 10, 2009.

Bill Lubinger, “Remember When … Off-Season Was Work Time for the Cleveland Browns (and all pro athletes)?,The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), May 26, 2010.

Joe Garner and Bob Costas, 100 Yards of Glory: The Greatest Moments in NFL History, 2011.

Ernie Palladino, Lombardi and Landry: How Two of Pro Football’s Greatest Coaches Launched Their Legends and Changed the Game Forever, 2011.

Dan Manoyan. Alan Ameche: The Story of ‘The Horse’, 2012.

Joe Horrigan and John Thorn (eds.), The Pro Football Hall of Fame 50th Anniversary Book: Where Greatness Lives, 2012.

Kevin Boilard, “Pat Summerall: New York Giants Kicker’s Greatest Performances with Big Blue,” BleacherReport.com, April 20, 2013.

‘Steve Serby, “‘Unforgettable’ Frank Gifford Was The Giants’ Mickey Mantle,” New York Post, August 9, 2015.

“Evolution Of The NFL Player; Creating An NFL Player: From ‘Everyman’ To ‘Superman’,” NFL.com.
https://operations.nfl.com/the-players/evolution-of-the-nfl-player/

“AFL–NFL Merger,” Wikipedia.org.

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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Guinnevere.mp3 11219128 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lady-of-the-Island.mp3 6368704 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Wooden-Ships.mp3 13160968 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 2001-Today

“Crosby, Stills & Nash”
1969 & Beyond

November 18, 2018 J.D.

In late May 1969, an album of folk-rock music with some stunningly beautiful songs was issued by a group named Crosby, Stills and Nash. It was their debut album, simply titled in their last names, Crosby, Stills & Nash. The three musicians, shown below – David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills – had each played previously with other groups. Crosby, with the Byrds, played guitar, sang and wrote songs; Stills, a guitarist, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter with Buffalo Springfield; and Nash, a guitarist, singer and songwriter with The Hollies – all groups that had made hit songs and albums. By mid-1968, however, these three singer-songwriter-musicians came together forming a new group to make new music. And what good music it was – fashioning a distinctive and beautiful sound, along with a social statement or two as they went.

David Crosby, Graham Nash & Stephen Stills at Big Sur Folk Festival, CA, Sept 1969. Photo, Robert Altman.

Legend has it, that at a July 1968 party in Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles (at either Joni Mitchell or Cass Elliot’s house) Crosby, Stills and Nash tried out a new song written by Stills, “You Don’t Have To Cry,” revealing to themselves and others they had very good vocal chemistry and exceptional harmonies. Before long, excepting a rejection at Apple Records, they were signed by Ahmet Ertegün at Atlantic Records, hiring David Geffen and Elliot Roberts as their management team. Their new album came out in May 1969. And with the help of progressive FM radio in those days, which served up generous portions of new albums over the air, Crosby, Stills & Nash became a wildly popular album. The boys also added to their rising standing by performing at the enormous Woodstock music festival in August 1969, where Neil Young joined the group (later becoming “Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young”). Their performance at Woodstock — then the largest gathering at a rock festival to that date — helped place them among the leading troubadours of the counterculture era.

Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, and David Crosby, on the cover of their 1969 album that would help advance the singer-songwriter genre of music through the 1970s. Click for album & digital singles.

In the U.S., Crosby, Stills & Nash peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard album chart and had a 107-week stay on that chart. The album also spawned two Top 40 hits – “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and “Marrakesh Express.”

“Marrakesh Express” was released first, in July 1969. It’s a song by Graham Nash describing a Moroccan vacation he took in 1966 by train from Casablanca to Marrakesh – a song that was turned down by Nash’s earlier group, the Hollies, as not being commercial enough. Released with “Helplessly Hoping” on the B side, another song from the CSN album, “Marrakesh Express” would rise to No. 28 on the Billboard pop chart by August 23rd, 1969.

“Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” is a song about Stephen Still’s former girl friend, folk singer Judy Collins. It’s the opening song on the album and was released as a single in September 1969 with “Long Time Gone” on the B side. It peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart by December 6, 1969 and also rose to No. 11 in Canada. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” at No. 418 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was also included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs That Shaped Rock & Roll.”

On the success of their break-out album, Crosby, Stills and Nash won a 1970 Grammy for Best New Artist. The album would continue to be a best seller in later years, earning a RIAA triple platinum certification in 1999 and quadruple platinum certification in 2001.

In one sense, the album was ground-breaking; its music in perfect step with the times. It set a new tone and would prove to be very influential in advancing the singer-songwriter movement of that era, and helped define a kind of “California” or “soft rock” sound that rose to prominence through the 1970s with groups and solo performers such as The Eagles, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, and others. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Crosby Stills & Nash at No. 262 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In addition to its vinyl edition of 1969, it has been issued on compact disc three times: the mid-1980s, again in 1994, and as an expanded edition in 2006. Worldwide is has sold in excess of 6.5 million copies.

1969. The original 'Crosby, Stills & Nash' vinyl LP album was released in a gatefold-type record sleeve that included the above photo of the three musicians in large fur parkas shot against a sunset background in Big Bear, California. photo, Henry Diltz.

Although the album’s two pop hits, “Marrakesh Express” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” are notable and worthy songs, there are other songs on the album that are arguably better – more beautifully written and performed, more entrancing, more melodic. Among two of these, for example, are “Guinevere” and “Lady of the Island” (“Guinevere” was initially spelled with two “n’s,” later corrected).

“Guinevere”
Crosby, Stills & Nash
1969

Guinevere had green eyes
Like yours, mi’lady, like yours
When she’d walk down
Through the garden
In the morning after it rained

Peacocks wandered aimlessly
underneath an orange tree
Why can’t she see me?

Guinevere drew pentagrams
Like yours, mi’lady, like yours
Late at night
When she thought
that no one was watching at all
on the wall
She shall be free

As she turns her gaze
Down the slope
to the harbor where I lay
Anchored for a day

Guinevere had golden hair
Like yours, mi’lady, like yours
Streaming out when we’d ride
Through the warm wind
down by the bay

Yesterday
Seagulls circle endlessly
I sing in silent harmony
We shall be free

“Guinevere”

The lyrics of “Guinevere” appear to be patterned, in part, after Queen Guinevere of King Arthur/Knights-of-the-Roundtable lore, using a Sir Lancelot-type perspective (who had an affair with the queen). However, Crosby has also explained the song has relevance to loves in his own life. Guinevere in the song is clearly the object of the singer’s affection.

According to a Rolling Stone interview with Crosby: “That is a very unusual song, it’s in a very strange tuning with strange time signatures. It’s about three women that I loved. One of who was Christine Hinton, the girl who got killed [in an auto accident] who was my girlfriend, and one of who was Joni Mitchell, and the other one is somebody that I can’t tell. It might be my best song.” Elsewhere, Crosby has said of the song, “It’s three women – three verses, three different women…” – one of whom he promised he wouldn’t reveal.

Music Player
“Guinevere”-4:40
Crosby, Stills & Nash
1969

Guinevere, in the song, provides glimpses of various behaviors and personality traits. The song also deals with the importance of freedom, with Guinevere described longingly by the male narrator as an inspiring beauty, but also as a free spirit, never quite attainable. “Why can’t she see me,” he asks as one point. And later, recalling a time “when we’d ride…down by the bay.” But in the end, it seems, free spirit prevails, with narrator accepting.

The music, in any case is, as one writer put it, “mesmerizingly beautiful,” and fans of this song have not been bashful about singing its praises.

Some posted comments reacting to one YouTube airing of the song a few years ago are indicative of the impressions this song has left on many listeners:

“Crosby, Stills and Nash: Greatest Hits,” Piano/Vocal/Guitar songbook, Hal Leonard publishers, 2005 paperback, 144pp.

Poster for a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert at New York’s Fillmore East, June 4, 1970.

Judith Petree: “I still think this is one of the most beautiful songs ever recorded.”

Guitar BS: “This song is so beautiful and haunting. The feeling described in this song doesn’t seem to exist in the 21st century. I dunno, I could be wrong but don’t think so.”

Burt472: “One of the most beautiful songs of the last 2,500 years.”

Limestonegoth: “I wore this album out on vinyl, mostly listening to this song over and over.”

Comer: “Is there any way to describe this song? I consider this one of the most perfect songs ever written. Nothing compares to it.”

Mike Kenwright: “One of the greatest songs ever recorded, I was around 23 when I first herd this track and it always makes my hair on my neck stand on end. The whole album is superb, but this track stands out from the others.”

Adrienne Spy: “Still has the magic. This song will never age.”

Kealani: “Perfection. And no other song is anything like it. Crosby totally knocked it out of the ballpark with this one.”

Thundergod129-7307: “Call me a purist but this is the definitive version of this great ballad. Just David and Graham and a guitar. Pure Bliss…”

Mtjgw: “This song from 1969 is as timeless as they come. Was 11 then and now at 55, the full power of this piece resonates with me every time I hear it. I’m not sure music can ever be better than this as it truly sets the ‘Gold Standard!’.”

TheDocrock100 says, “I constantly hit replay when I get this song on Pandora. Amazing harmony. Timeless.”

Robert Scott adds: “…Always the song I need to hear when I haven’t listened to them for a while.”

Crosby’s skills in writing and arranging “Guinevere” have been praised by Lindsay Planer in one review of the song at AllMusic.com, as follows below:

“Although David Crosby’s contributions to the Byrds had hinted at the depth of his capacity as a singer/songwriter, it would take the calibre of material such as “Guinevere” to reveal his prowess as a true craftsman. This ballad musically spotlights Crosby’s intricate and highly inventive open chord structures. He possesses an uncanny sense of harmonics, which can be likened to that of Brian Wilson or, perhaps more aptly, jazz icon Thelonious Monk. “Guinevere” is likewise structurally designed to augment and support the equally complex vocal harmonies from he and Graham Nash.

“The name “Guinevere” itself instantly conjures up romantic images of knights in shining armour and virtuous maidens fair. Lyrically, Crosby weaves those connotations with his own unique minstrel-like qualities — even incorporating the use of “m’lady” when describing the different muses that influenced his hauntingly beautiful verse.

“The acoustic backdrop is sublime, providing ample space for the crystalline vocals to blend with the sparse instrumentation in an organic way. It also allows Crosby to demonstrate his amazing jazz influenced guitar playing.”

1969 poster with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young at top of bill for San Francisco venues. Click for posters.

As for what musicians might hear in this song, consider the comments and reaction of Michael Kaulkin, a San Francisco based teacher and composer. Kaulkin has written about how he belatedly discovered “Guinevere” in 2006, quite by accident, when he was downloading “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the only CSN song he had previously known. His reaction to “Guinevere,” praising it highly in musical terms, follows:

…What a gorgeous song! … It opens with an almost Sondheim-like chromatic vamp, which turns into a beautiful repeating Dorian-mode figure before the vocals come in. This use of modality is something in common with other music that I like, particularly Reich and early Adams. Do you think David Crosby was sitting around with the score to Ravel’s Mallarmé Songs, turning pages between bong hits?

Then there’s the vocal writing. It’s your standard CSN three-part homophonic harmony at first, which is lovely as usual. But there’s a nifty mixing trick at the end of each verse. The two higher voices are faded in (muted trumpets if I were orchestrating it), holding D and F# (we’re in E dorian, by the way), and they step down in thirds, crossing the remaining voice who has the melody. Some wonderful dissonances result naturally from this, and it’s a terrific effect.

The melody is particularly expressive. It’s rhythmically complex in that it often avoids landing on the beat, which is something I find myself doing a lot in my own music. This is easy for a solo vocalist to pull off — Sinatra is most famous for it — but hats off to these guys for accomplishing it in three parts.

For those listening to this tune with a musical ear, Kaulkin advises: “…Stick with it until the end to hear those descending parallel thirds.”

“Lady of the Island”
Crosby, Stills & Nash
1969

Holding you close undisturbed
before a fire
The pressure in my chest when
you breathe in my ear
We both knew this would happen
when you first appeared
My lady of the island

The brownness of your body
in the fire glow
Except the places where the sun
refused to go
Our bodies were a perfect fit
in afterglow we lay
My lady of the island

Letting myself wander through
the world inside your eyes
You know I’d like to stay here
until every tear runs dry
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do
My lady of the island

Wrapped around each other
in the peeping sun
Beams of sunshine light the stage
the red light’s on
I never want to finish what I’ve
just begun with you
My lady of the island
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do
_____________________
Written by Graham Nash.

Another noteworthy song on the Crosby, Stills & Nash album is “Lady of the Island,” a folk song written by Graham Nash. It is the second track on side two of the original edition of the Crosby, Stills & Nash album.

Like “Guinevere,” this song is also a love song, in this case taking its inspiration from fellow folk musician Joni Mitchell, with whom Nash was romantically involved at the time. The lyrics describe the narrator’s impressions and feelings over the course of one or more intimate engagements between he and his lover.

Music Player
“Lady of the Island”-2:39
Crosby, Stills & Nash
1969

Nash had come up with the melody/music for this song when he was with the Hollies sometime in 1968, but the lyrics weren’t quite there yet. They came later after he began working with Crosby and Stills.

“When I came over to America and I started working with David and Stephen and Neil [Young] and Joni [Mitchell],” explained Nash in a later interview, “I noticed what words they were putting to their melodies and I realized that I would have to get serious about songwriting. I knew I could write melodies, but it was only after I came to America that I really got into changing the way I wrote songs.”

One listener at a YouTube posting of “Lady of the Island” using the name “Charleybones,” noted: “Nash and Crosby make a perfect vocal blend in this song. The sensitivity of Nash’s voice singing the words and melody, with Crosby singing harmony notes that perfectly flow around Nash’s voice. These two were always special together, and Stills simply added the bottom of the three- part harmony and the musicianship to help the other two flush out the instrumental side of their songs in order to produce them on record and in concert. This first CSN album was truly phenomenal….”

“Wooden Ships”

A third song from the Crosby, Stills & Nash album worth mentioning here is “Wooden Ships,” which is the first track on side two of the original album. It was written and composed in 1968 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a boat owned by Crosby. The song was written by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane, who also recorded a version of the song around the same time. Crosby composed the music, while Kantner and Stills wrote most of the lyrics.

“Wooden Ships”
Crosby, Stills & Nash
1969

If you smile at me, I will understand
‘Cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does
in the same language

I can see by your coat, my friend
You’re from the other side
There’s just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please, who won?

Say, can I have some of your purple berries?
Yes, I’ve been eating them
for six or seven weeks now
Haven’t got sick once
Probably keep us both alive

Wooden ships on the water,
very free and easy
Easy, you know the way it’s supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline, let us be
Talkin’ ’bout very free and easy

Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries
Stare as all human feelings die
We are leaving, you don’t need us

Go, take your sister then, by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away, where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don’t need us

And it’s a fair wind blowin’ warm
Out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I’ll set a course and go

The song came during the social upheavals of the late 1960s, and at the height of the Vietnam War. Bob Dylan by then had written several songs with anti-war sentiment, and his “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall” was being heard in 1962 around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” came out in 1965. “Wooden Ships” was also aimed at the Cold War clench between the U.S. and Soviet Union and their nuclear arsenals – but in this case, what might happen in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange.

Music Player
“Wooden Ships”-5:28
Crosby, Stills & Nash
1969

The song opens with a series of innocent-sounding guitar picks, landing on a loud and full guitar power riff, sounding at first confrontational and defiant, but then settling into a quieter story mode.

The lyrics depict the horrors of a post-nuclear war landscape. A man from one side stumbles upon another survivor, hoping for a smile as a sign of trust. He can tell by this survivor’s coat, he’s “from the other side.” Then he asks, perhaps with a shred of sarcasm, “Can you tell me, please, who won?”

The conversation then moves on to their survival and the sharing of “purple berries,” which appear safe; “haven’t got sick once” (re: nuclear fallout).

The narrative then turns to wooden ships on the water, those on board, and a sighting of “silver people on the shoreline,” who David Crosby has described as “guys in radiation suits” — authorities scouring the devastation, perhaps, or other survivors protecting themselves from fallout? In any case, those on the ships are “let be” by those on the shoreline.

Record sleeve for single release of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Long Time Gone". Click for digital.

Crosby has noted that he and the other authors “imagined ourselves as the few survivors, escaping on a boat to create a new civilization.”

In the presumed departure of the ships then escaping the devastation, those on board look back in horror at those remaining, feeling helpless, “as all human feelings die.” Those aboard the ship are heading “away from this foreign land” – someplace unnamed, but “far away, where we might laugh again,” adding, “we are leaving, you don’t need us.”

For some listeners in that late 1960s early 1970s period, this music and verse no doubt resonated metaphorically regarding the tumult of those times. Some were then opting out of mainstream culture, seeking new values and alternative lifestyles. The year 1968, for example, from top to bottom was truly annus horribilis in the U.S. in terms of the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, presidential election tumult, as well as convulsive events abroad.

The Crosby, Stills & Nash album of 1969 also included “Long Time Gone,” a David Crosby song reacting to the July 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy. And in May 1970, Neil Young was then with the group, and he wrote the CSN&Y protest song, “Ohio,” reacting to the National Guard shooting of student anti-war protesters at Kent State University (see separate story, “Four Dead in O-H-I-O.”). Other songs on the Crosby, Stills & Nash album of 1969 include: “You Don’t Have to Cry”( Stills), “Pre-Road Downs” (Nash), “Helplessly Hoping” (Stills), and “49 Bye-Byes” (Stills).

CSN&Y's "Déjà Vu" album of 1970, featuring old tintype style photo, and including musicians Dallas Taylor and Greg Reeves.

Déjà Vu & Beyond

Close on the heels of their success with the Crosby, Stills & Nash debut album, the group – now with Neil Young aboard – turned out another album titled Déjà Vu. It was released in March 1970 and rose briefly to No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. It also generated three Top 40 singles: “Woodstock” (written by Joni Mitchell), “Teach Your Children”, and “Our House.”

Déjà Vu would become a monster hit album, selling over 8 million copies worldwide. In 2003 it would be ranked at No.148 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, however, had their internal squabbles and artistic differences, and not long after a summer tour in 1970, they had an acrimonious parting of the ways. It would be the first of many such splits. They would break up and reform several times over the next few decades, sometimes with and without Neil Young. They split off into twosomes and solo acts (separate solo albums were issued by each member in 1970-71) and they would hold a number of reunion tours of one kind or another. Yet, they would continue to have a loyal fan base, as their touring and subsequent album sales would make clear. (Note: most album, record, and book images displayed in this story link to Amazon.com pages for those items. Click on images to go to those pages).

CSN - Greatest Hits album.	CSN&Y - Woodstock single.
"On The Way Home" - DVD.	"Daylight Again" - DVD.
Stephen Stills - solo album.	Neil Young - solo album.
Peter Doggett's 2019 book.	David Browne's 2019 book.
CS&N - Guitar Songbook.	Graham Nash - Guitar Tabs.

Four Way Street, a live double album issued after their first breakup in 1970, became another No. 1 hit (8.7 million worldwide). In 1974, they re-formed for a summer stadium tour, but did not cut a new record. Still, a compilation album was released – So Far – and it too became a No. 1 album, their third straight (10.2 million worldwide).

In 1977, Crosby Stills & Nash re-formed without Young for the album CSN, another giant hit (6.8 million worldwide). They followed that album in 1982 with Daylight Again (2.4 million worldwide). By the mid-1980s, however, David Crosby was in the throes of drug addiction and some legal problems, landing in jail during 1985-1986. But he cleaned up his act and returned to the music scene.

In 1988, CS&N along with Young this time, reunited for what would become only their second studio album, American Dream (1.8 million worldwide). Two years later, CS&N followed with Live It Up, which was not a commercial success, though the trio remained a popular live act. CS&N embarked on a 25th anniversary tour in the summer of 1994 and released a new album, After the Storm (200,000 worldwide).

The trio reunited with Young once again for 1999’s Looking Forward (600,000 worldwide), followed in 2000 by their CSN&Y2K tour. A decade or so later, CSN 2012, a DVD/CD set, filmed and recorded during a 2012 tour, was released that same year. As of early 2017, there appeared to be the possibility that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were at least open to the idea of reforming yet again. In any case, they have certainly made their mark musically over the last 50 years or more.

Lauded for their lasting influence on U.S. music and culture, both for kicking off the singer-songwriter movement that soared throughout the 1970s, and their sterling, indelible harmonies, Crosby, Stills & Nash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. All three members of the group were also inducted for their work in other groups – Crosby for the Byrds, Stills for Buffalo Springfield, and Nash for the Hollies. Neil Young, meanwhile, with an amazing body of work on his own and with other groups, has also been inducted as a solo artist and as a member of Buffalo Springfield.

There is a lot more detail on the history and biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – both together and as solo artists. Some of this history can be found at any number of on-line sources and websites, as well as a number of books, some of which are listed here at left or below in “Sources”.

See also at this website, “Joni’s Music, 1962-2000s”, a profile of Joni Mitchell’s career, with song samples, album history, travels, songwriting, and her time with Graham Nash. “Four Dead in O-hi-o, 1970,” profiles the Kent State shootings and the genesis and reception of the CSN&Y song, “Ohio.” Additional stories on music can be found at the “Annals of Music” category page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 18 November 2018
Last Update: 3 January 2025
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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Crosby, Stills & Nash: 1969 & Beyond,”
PopHistoryDig.com, November 18, 2018.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Neil Young's 2012 book, "Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream," 512pp. Click for copy.

David Roberts’ 2017 book, “Stephen Stills, Change Partners: The Definitive Biography,” 326pp. Click for copy.

“CSN Demos” CD, a 12-song compilation of previously unreleased Crosby, Stills & Nash demos from 1968 to 1971.

“Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 224-225.

“Crosby, Stills & Nash” (biography & induction page), RockHall.com, 1997.

“Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young,” Wikipedia.org.

Jason Ankeny, “Crosby, Stills & Nash (album),” AllMusic,com.

Lindsay Planer, Song Review, “Guinnevere,” AllMusic.com.

Lee Zimmerman, “The 13 Best Songs by Crosby, Stills & Nash,” PasteMagazine.com, September 27, 2016.

Andy Greene, “Track by Track: Crosby, Stills & Nash on Their Self-Titled Debut,” Rolling Stone, August 18, 2008.

Scott Mervis, Weekend Editor, “Review: CSNY Concert Rocks in Truly Classic Style,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Monday, March 20, 2000.

“Crosby, Stills & Nash,” Apple Music Review, iTunes.Apple.com.

“Wooden Ships (1969), Crosby, Stills & Nash,” SongMango.com.

“The Story Behind ‘Wooden Ships’,” The Hangar (Jefferson Airplane), Archived on the WayBack Machine (internet archive), Novem-ber 16, 2012.

“Wooden Ships,” Wikipedia.org.

Lindsay Planer, Song Review, “Wooden Ships, Crosby, Stills & Nash,” AllMusic.com.

“David Crosby,” Wikipedia,org.

David Crosby, Official Website.

“Stephen Stills,” Wikipedia,org.

Stephen Stills, Official Website.

“Graham Nash,” Wikipedia,org.

Graham Nash, Official Website.

“Neil Young,” Wikipedia,org.

Neil Young Website/Archives.

Jordan Runtagh, “Graham Nash Tells the Wild Tales Behind His Most Enduring Songs,” People.com, June 29, 2018.

“Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (page 2),” UnMask.us.

“Top 100 ’60s Rock Albums” (page down on site), UltimateClassicRock.com.

Rick Moore, “Crosby, Stills & Nash: Wooden Ships; Jefferson Airplane Recorded Their Own Version of The Song for Their Controversial Fifth Album, Volunteers,” AmericanSong-writer.com, January 31, 2016.

“Déjà Vu (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album),” Wikipedia.org.

Dave Lewis, “The 10 Best Songs By Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young,” LouderSound.com, August 15, 2016.

Patrick Lyons, “The 10 Best Crosby, Stills And/Or Nash Albums To Own On Vinyl,” VinylMePlease.com, March 9th 2018.

Richard Buskin, “Crosby, Stills & Nash: ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ | Classic Tracks, Producers: David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash; Engineer: Bill Halverson,” SoundOnSound .com, August 2010.

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Teaser Tag: Celebrity, Culture, Politics

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Fonda Fitness Boom”
1980s & Beyond

September 27, 2018 J.D.

1979: Jane Fonda, with ballet exercise bar behind her.

Jane Fonda, Hollywood film star and sometimes controversial activist, became a national fitness leader in the 1980s.

Her rise to this position, however, was something of an accident, but it would bring her a new identity, a new career path, and a considerable cash flow. More on this part of her career in a moment; but first some biography.

Daughter of Hollywood legend Henry Fonda (who famously played Tom Joad in the film version of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath), Jane Fonda had a difficult family life that would haunt her, but also forge her into the energetic whirlwind she later became. When Jane was 12, her mother committed suicide in a psychiatric hospital, a tragedy kept from Jane until she read about it a magazine. She strove for approval from her father, emotionally distant and demanding, as Jane bid for a perfection that would help fuel her ambition.

As a teen, Jane Fonda attended the Emma Willard boarding school in Troy, New York and then to Vassar College for two years before heading to Paris to study art briefly. Returning to New York to work as a model for a time, she twice appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine. By 1958, she attended Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio where she was told she had real acting talent, soon earning positive notice in a few early 1960s’ stage and screen performances, including a few in France. In August 1965 she married her first husband, French film director Roger Vadim, with whom she would make films and have a daughter, Vanessa.

1965. Fonda in "Cat Ballou".(Click images for products).	1967. With Robert Redford in "Barefoot in the Park".
Life cover, 1968, "Barbarella".	Newsweek, 1967, "Barbarella".
1969. "They Shoot Horses...".	1970. Time; "Flying Fondas".
1971. "Klute," Fonda Oscar.	1978. "Coming Home".
1977. Newsweek on "Julia".	1984. TVWk, "The Dollmaker".
1979, “Electric Horseman”.	1986. “The Morning After”.

Meanwhile, a breakout U.S. film role had come for Fonda in the western comedy, Cat Ballou (1965) playing the lead character, Catherine “Cat” Ballou, a schoolmarm turned outlaw. This was followed by other films, including Barefoot in the Park (1967) with Robert Redford.

Then came the “sex kitten” stage, especially after her 1968 role in Barbarella, the sci-fi space film directed by her then husband, Roger Vadim, who cast her as the film’s principal character who explores space, futuristic sex, and extravagant costumes while hunting an earth-threatening villain.

Newsweek featured Fonda in a scene from Barbarella on its cover for a November 1967 story on “The Permissive Society.”

But Jane Fonda’s acting bona fides soon became clear when she was nominated for a best acting Oscar in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), a film about marathon dancers during the Great Depression.

Two years later she won a best acting Oscar for Klute (1971), playing a New York city call girl mixed up in a murder, described recently in that role as “a major actress, with a persona all her own: empowered yet high-strung, her taut intelligence shot through with anxiety.”

Time magazine, meanwhile, had published a February 1970 feature cover story under the banner, “The Flying Fondas,” covering the Holly-wood accomplishments of Jane, father Henry, and brother, Peter Fonda, who had just co-written, produced, and starred in the 1969 counterculture film classic, Easy Rider.

In the 1977 film, Julia, Jane played famous playwright, Lillian Hellman, in a story about her lifelong friendship with Julia, played by Venessa Redgrave, who fought the Nazis prior to World War II. Fonda was nominated, but did not win, a Best Acting Oscar, but she did win both a best-acting Golden Globe and BAFTA for her role.

In 1978, Fonda won her second best-acting Oscar for her performance in Coming Home, playing a Vietnam-era Army wife who falls for a paraplegic anti-war veteran, Jon Voight. This film, and several others, were produced by her own film company, IPC, founded in 1972 with Bruce Gilbert, who had been the nursery-school teacher of Fonda’s 4-year-old daughter at the time.

Fonda started IPC, in part, because she felt “graylisted” in Holly-wood — not being hired due to her activism. But IPC was also created to make films that offered important social statments. Coming Home had been inspired, in part, by Fonda’s earlier meeting and hearing Ron Kovic, a Vietnam veteran paralyzed in the war who became an anti-war activist. The film took six years to make. Another IPC film, Nine-to-Five (1980), took on the plight of 40 million female office workers.

Throughout her career Jane Fonda would appear in more than 50 films and various TV productions. In 1984, she won an Emmy Award for her performance in the IPC-crafted TV film The Dollmaker, in which she played an Appalachian mother of six who follows her husband north for work during World War II and takes up wood carving. Recently she and her long-time friend, Lily Tomlin, have appeared in the Emmy-nominated Netflix series, Grace and Frankie (2015-2018). Among some of her other Hollywood films have been: Steelyard Blues (1973), Fun with Dick and Jane (1977), California Suite (1978), The Electric Horseman (1979), The China Syndrome (1979), On Golden Pond (1981), Agnes of God (1985), The Morning After (1986), Stanley & Iris (1990), Monster-in-Law (2005), and others through the 2010s that will be mentioned later.

Apart from Hollywood, it was the political activism of Jane Fonda in the late 1960s and early 1970s that gained her as much notice as her film roles – not all of it good. For she had left some deep scars among Vietnam War era veterans, especially after a 1972 trip to North Vietnam when she appeared in an infamous photo seated in an North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi, for which she later apologized a number of times (including once on ABC’s national TV show, 20/20, in June 1988 and also on 60 Minutes in March 2005) and in written explanations. Still, a derogatory “Hanoi Jane” nickname and worse would dog her for much of her life, with occasional threats and some nasty confrontations from detractors.

1971. Life, "Busy Rebel".	1972. "Rolling Stone" feature.
1975. People, Fonda-Hayden.	1977. "Sex Object...To Woman".
1977. US mag, "Fonda at 40".	2018. HBO, "Fonda in 5 Acts".

Activist Jane

As an anti-war activist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Jane Fonda had the attention of the Nixon Administration, and later the FBI. She had also been lecturing at colleges in the U.S. and Canada about the war. And in Cleveland, Ohio in November 1970, after a flight from Canada, she was arrested and detained on suspicion of drug trafficking, finding in her luggage several baggies of pills. She was booked and photographed by police, told by the arresting officer that he was acting on direct orders from the Nixon White House.

Fonda would later write that Nixon’s people probably hoped that the “scandal” of catching her in a drug bust (and there were headlines), would cause her popularity as a college speaker to be ruined. But in the end, lab tests confirmed the pills were vitamins, as Fonda had said at the time of her arrest. Still, in the the battle with Nixon, Fonda might have had the last laugh, as today her mugshot from that arrest, with raised fist in protest, has become famous, an image she now uses on t-shirts, coffee mugs and other merchandise to benefit child and adolescent development. The Fonda mugshot was also used as the poster image for the 2018 HBO documentary, Jane Fonda in Five Acts, and was used on a giant billboard ad in Times Square in September 2018.

But during the early 1970s, Jane Fonda received quite extensive coverage in the popular press for her various activist involvements. Life magazine, for example, did a cover story on her in April 1971 with the tag, “Busy Rebel: Jane Fonda Pusher of Causes.” That story noted, in part:

“ …[T]here is scarcely an evil – be it racism, sexism, capitalism or the war in Vietnam – she had not taken on, nor a cause she has not espoused….Headlines proclaim her involvement in antiwar shows for servicemen, in demonstrations on behalf of welfare clients and California farm workers and Indians. She makes speeches for women’s rights and GI rights and Black Panther rights. She appears on TV talk shows, and if she turns on many of the young she turns off a great many other citizens. Publicity for herself, however, is not her aim. She is a sincere advocate, though her command of facts and complexities is unconvincing…” Her then estranged husband, Roger Vadim, called her ‘Jane d’Arc.” They were later divorced.

In January 1973, she married her second husband, Tom Hayden, the famous 1960s anti-war activist, organizer of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and one of the Chicago Seven defendants in the high-profile 1969 Chicago trial following the street protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

2001. "Ms America: Why Jane Fonda is A Mirror of the Nation's Past 40 Years". Click for copy.

By 1976 Fonda helped her husband in an unsuccessful primary challenge to then incumbent U.S. Senator John V. Tunney, with Hayden finishing a surprisingly strong second in that bid. Later that year, Fonda and Hayden founded the Campaign for Economic Democracy in California, to promote solar energy, environmental protection, and candidates for local and state political office. Hayden would later win a seat in the California Assembly.

By the late 1970s, Jane Fonda appeared to be having a bit of makeover, with the movie-going public returning to her films, though her Vietnam reputation remained for many. Uneven treatment in the media (examples above) acknowledged her activism (Ms. magazine, October 1977), but also cast her in more of a mainstream role (US magazine, November 1977 “Fonda At 40: How She Juggles Husband, Family and A Red-Hot Film Career”). Through the remainder of her career, Jane Fonda would continue to fascinate and confound, with the popular press continuing to profile her in all manner of stories, from a 1988 Vanity Fair story by Tina Brown on Fonda as a repeat risk taker, to American Heritage magazine in 2001 (at left) treating her as a socio-political mirror of four decades of U.S. history.

There is a lot more detail in the many lives of Jane Fonda, some of it presented in the 2018 HBO film, Jane Fonda in Five Acts, or from Jane herself in her 2005 autobiography, My Life So Far. Suffice it to say here, briefly, that despite her critics and detractors over the years, throughout most of her life, Jane Fonda has been generous with her celebrity and her money, helping advance civil rights, women’s issues, child development, and other causes.

But one chapter of her life during the 1980s became especially interesting, presenting her with new opportunity and a new persona of sorts as she became America’s fitness queen, touching off both a fitness boom and a home video revolution. The “Jane Fonda workout” soon permeated the larger culture as her best-selling books and exercise videos swept over America. She soon had legions of fans in a new arena. In the process, a Jane Fonda business empire worth millions was spawned that both spurred new technology and boosted the economy, while helping enable her pursuit of various activist causes. What follows is a review of some of that history.

Fonda as reporter Kimberly Wells in “The China Syndrome,” a 1979 film about a nuclear meltdown. Click for DVD.

A Broken Ankle

In 1978, as Jane Fonda was filming The China Syndrome, she had something of a fortuitous accident. The film, about a nuclear power plant disaster (i.e. nuclear core meltdown i.e, “burning through the earth to China”), starred Jack Lemon, Michael Douglas and Fonda as a reporter covering the accident and revealing the dangers to the public.

But on her way to one film set, and running in high-heeled platform shoes, she fell, breaking her ankle. The producers were able to complete filming by working around Fonda’s parts and filling in later. The film, released in 1979, became an especially well-timed and propitious arrival, as an actual near meltdown was then occurring at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Jane, meanwhile, had some other upcoming film roles, in two of which she had to appear in a swimsuit. Staying in shape was important to her for such film roles, and regular exercise had also became part of her life. Normally she had done ballet type exercise to stay in shape. But now, in recovery with her bad ankle, she began to look elsewhere for exercise.

Ballet to Aerobics

Exercise for Fonda, however, wasn’t new. In fact, she had been a devotee of, and believer in, regular exercise for years, focused primarily on ballet. “When I’m on a movie location, no matter where I am, the first thing I ask is, ‘Where is a ballet school?,’ she explained in a 1979 Vogue magazine story. “I’ve studied ballet in almost every country I’ve been in.” Fonda had her own philosophy to go along with the ballet routine. “People respond differently to various types of movement, to different workout speeds, even to different kinds of music.,” she told Vogue. “I like ballet and what it does for me—the slowness, the rigor, the sense of creativity while I move.”

Jane Fonda, at the ballet bar, as photographed by Arthur Elgort for the 1979 Vogue magazine story, “Fitness – Fonda Style”.

After her ankle injury, her mother-in-law pointed her to an exercise class in Century City, California run by a woman named Leni Cazden who had developed an exercise technique that toned through repetitive movement backed with popular music. Fonda soon began participating in aerobics and strengthening exercises under Cazden’s direction. “Her class was a revelation,” Fonda would later write. “I entered so called adult life at a time when challenging physical exercise was not offered to women. We weren’t supposed to sweat or have muscles. Now, along with forty other women, I found myself moving nonstop for an hour and a half in entirely news ways.”

Early 1980s: Entrance to “Jane Fonda’ Workout,” her Beverly Hills exercise studio.

Fonda liked what she had discovered in Cazden’s routines, and soon saw the possibility of something bigger on the local scene. In May 1979, she teamed up with Cazden, opening “Jane and Leni’s Workout” studio in Beverly Hill, where three studios were strung together around a patio. The Leni Workout soon became the Jane Fonda Workout, and the Beverly Hills studio was also named “Jane Fonda’s Workout.” Fonda also conducted some classes there and on film sets. The chance to workout with Jane Fonda became an obvious drawing card, and at its peak, 2,000-to-3,000 people would pass through the Beverly Hills studio each week. The three studios there were open six days a week with multiple classes running from 7am to 10pm. For the year 1982, that location alone was showing a pre-tax profit of about one million dollars. By this time, Fonda hired a Julie LaFond as business manger and other teachers as well. She also opened a couple of other studios, one in Encino area of Los Angeles and another in San Francisco. At the time, there was also some thought of franchising the studio. But by then, a few publishers had approached her about the possibility of doing a book on her exercise routines.

The Book

“Jane Fonda’s Workout Book,” in a 254-page hardback edition, was published by Simon & Schuster, November 1981. Click for book.

At first, she was resistant to the idea of doing a book. “I kept saying no,” she would later recall in a 1992 interview, “but I kept thinking, ‘You know something? If I really made it personal, and I tried to tell some truths about my own journey [she had suffered from bulimia in younger years], maybe it would be helpful.’ And I never had thought of myself as a writer, so it was a real big commitment of time, but I did it anyway, and it made publishing history. It totally took me by surprise.”

In November 1981, New York publisher Simon & Schuster issued the first edition of Jane Fonda’s Workout Book, with photos by Steve Schapiro. The 254-page hardback book, priced at $17.95, included Jane Fonda’s fitness program, designed to burn calories, improve body shape, and increase stamina and flexibility.

The book included chapters on nutrition, health, and beauty, and demonstrations of the exercises. But the book’s personal touch, incorporating some of Fonda’s own struggles and her fitness philosophy, became important elements for her audience. She also wrote about health in a broader environmental context, as she noted in the book:

…There is no way I can write about health and leave it at urging you to make a personal commitment to nutrition and exercise. […] The fact is we can only be as healthy as our ecological environment – the one true life-support system […] we must become aware of how we are being affected by our environment and what actions we can take to protect ourselves, as individuals, as communities, and as part of the whole ecosystem.

By January 24, 1982, Jane Fonda’s Workout Book was making its climb on the New York Times nonfiction bestsellers list, landing at No. 8, described as “an exercise book for women, seasoned with the film star’s philosophy of physical well-being.”

1982. Time: "The New Ideal of Beauty: Taut, Toned & Coming on Strong".

By March 13, 1982 it was No. 1 on the New York Times nonfiction list, where it would stay for many weeks. And it didn’t hurt that Time magazine jumped into the frenzy with a cover story of August 30, 1982 titled, “Coming on Strong: The New Ideal of Beauty,” picturing a Fonda-like model in exercise attire.

For the year 1982, according to a New York Times survey, Robert Ludlum’s novel The Parsifal Mosaic was the biggest selling book of the year, though it had just edged out the year’s nonfiction best seller, Jane Fonda’s Workout Book.

The book was No. 1 on the bestseller list for over six months and over 16 months in the top five through 1983. By December 1983, for example, hardback copies of the book could even be found at some Eastern Newstand locations in New York city, such as: the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the Sheraton Centre, the Helmsley Palace Hotel, the Pan Am Building, and Rockefeller Center. After 1.3 million copies of the hardback edition were sold, Simon & Schuster issued a paperback edition in March 1984.

In writing the book, and in her exercise programs generally, Fonda researched sports physiology to understand the process of exercise. She emphasized health outcomes rather than using exercise for beauty or appearance only. And this focus on the factual basis of exercise became an appealing component of Fonda’s programs for many of her followers.

1982 record album and cassette tapes offered an “aural companion” to Fonda’s Workout Book, with music by The Jacksons, REO Speedwagon, Boz Scaggs & others. Click for CD.

LP & Cassette

Close on the heels of the book, came Jane Fonda’s Workout Record, a two-disc album featured as “an aural companion” to her best-selling book. The double disc album listed at $12.98, and suggested its users augment the record with the Jane Fonda Workout Book, then available for $17.50. The recording was also available on cassette tapes. Both were issued by Columbia Records and Tapes, a CBS company.

The Workout Record, in fact, had climbed into the Top 40 of the album pop charts in both the UK & US, peaking at No.7 in the UK and No. 15 in the U.S. In 1983, Jane Fonda’s Workout Record was the seventh biggest selling album in the U.S.

By May 1982, the headline on a full-page Billboard magazine ad, then being pitched to record dealers, noted: “‘Jane Fonda’s Workout.’ Her #1 Book is Now an Album.” The text of the Billboard ad ran as follows:

Later edition of “Workout Record” with new music from Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, Dean Correa & others. Click for CD.

‘Jane Fonda’s Workout’ book is the #1 best-selling book in the country and has been for over thirteen weeks! To date, it has sold in excess of 350,000 copies. So be prepared for Jane’s ‘Workout’ album to take off like no other exercise record ever had or ever will!

Narrated by Jane and featuring hits by REO Speedwagon, The Jacksons, Boz Scaggs, Brothers Johnson and others, it is based on the program she advocates in the book, in Jane Fonda’s Workout health clubs, and in her many TV appearances. Included in both the album and cassette packages is a special fold-out of selected illustrated instructions.

This is one time when you’ve be in great shape if you order heavily! Remember, there are plenty of exercise records out and coming out, but only one has Jane Fonda!

Through early 1982, Jane Fonda’s book and record album were doing quite well, as were her exercise studios, generating a sizeable cash flow, some of which was being channeled through the Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), the organization that she and Tom Hayden established in 1976. By May 1982, some of Fonda’s workout revenues were being used to help fund Hayden’s political campaign, then seeking a seat in the California legislature.

In May 1982, there were some news reports, as in this New York Times story, reporting that money from Jane Fonda’s workout studios and her book were being used to help fund her husband’s run for the State Assembly.

The CED was then financed largely by income generated from Fonda’s exercise salons and her book, which by then was the nation’s No. 1 nonfiction bestseller. Hayden at the time said that the income – about $30,000 a month – was helping finance overall operations of CED and that only a portion of his legislative campaign fund had come from the organization’s political action committee.

Meanwhile, the bigger revenue producer for Jane Fonda’s budding exercise empire – and the product that brought her the most fame and the cultural change that followed – came with the Jane Fonda exercise videos.

Jane Fonda original workout video, April 1982; since re-issued in DVD and digital formats. Click for DVD.

Make a Video?

In 1980, Stuart Karl, an early producer of home improvement videos, approached Fonda about making a video of the exercise routine that appeared in her workout book. On trip to New York city, Karl’s wife, Debbie, while looking at the book in a New York store window, remarked to her husband that it would be nice to work out at one’s home to avoid gym crowds. That gave him the idea of having Fonda make videos – a video made by his company. But at the time, the home video market was minuscule, and hardly anyone had or could afford a VCR player (also known as a videocassette recorder or video recorder). And besides, who would use a video over and over again?

Still, Karl believed there was a huge opportunity to create a new market for home videos somewhere between the highly commercial Hollywood films and the lurid under-the-counter world of pornography. His fledgling company, Mid-Vid, turned out a line of home improvement tapes, instructional videos, and other special titles that he described at the time as “filling the gap between Jaws and Deep Throat.” But his wife’s remark about working out at home got him thinking, and that’s when he went to talk with Fonda.

But Jane was initially reluctant about Karl’s proposal, thinking it would be bad for her career as an actor. Still, her workout studio in Beverly Hills had been going great guns. So she finally decided, “what the heck, it won’t take long, not too many people will see it and a video will bring in a little extra funding to CED.”

Jane Fonda leading a workout class, circa 1980s.

So Karl’s company partnered with RCA and $50,000 was made available for production costs to make the first workout video. Fonda’s partner, Leni, created the exercise routine and Jane brought in Sidney Galanty as director, who had done ads for Tom Hayden’s political campaign.

Fonda wrote a short script, and the video featured herself, along with some of her studio workout teachers and clients doing the workout. They did their own hair and makeup, had one camera, and after a few takes, they had their product.

“We did it in three days, we hardly had any rehearsal, we had no hairdressers — when I look at how we do it now compared to then, it was funny,” she would later recall. On April 24th,1982, Jane Fonda’s Workout video hit the streets. Within a few months, it sold more than 300,000 copies — and it kept selling.

The first workout video included a 30 minute beginners’ class and a 60-minute advanced session, with segments for toning arms, waist, abdomen, legs and hips. The workout was designed to build strength, develop flexibility, and increase endurance.

Jane Fonda in beach scene from 1979-80 film, “California Suite,” a Neil Simon comedy with Alan Alda and others.

Jane Fonda in dock scene from 1981 film “On Golden Pond,” right before the island mail boat arrives.

“Look Like Jane”

In her 40s at the time of the first video’s release in 1982, Jane Fonda became “a perfect advertisement for herself,” as one reviewer would put it. And in her writing and verbal instruction, Fonda came across in a non- threatening way, and was all business in her exercise routines, becoming famous for certain phrases, such as, “feel the burn.” Her natural beauty was also an asset, and she drew women to her as they trusted her familiar face over that of strangers. Her Hollywood films also helped sell the Jane Fonda exercise materials.

Swimsuit appearances in two of her movies during 1979-1982 (shown at left) certainly did not hurt sales of her book and video – one beach appearance in Califor-nia Suite, a Neil Simon comedy released late December 1979 with Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Richard Pryor and others; and another on a lake dock in On Golden Pond, released in 1981, starring her father, Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn.

Fonda, then in her early 40s, looked fit and healthy in her swimsuit scenes, evidence enough for many women to get on the workout bandwagon and buy the Jane Fonda book and video.

VCRs Boom! Jane Fonda’s Workout became the highest selling home video of the early 1980s, with over a million sold. A Fonda-led fitness craze swept the country. The video’s release led many to buy then new VCRs in order to use the workout at home. VCR sales jumped, helping advance the home video revolution.

Jane Fonda, meanwhile, had tapped into a gold mine of female frustration, as in those days there were few places for women to work out, or even to know what kind of exercise to do. Gyms were primarily designed for men, as were weights and most exercise equipment. There was also something of stigma attached to women working out; women “weren’t supposed to sweat,” as Fonda would say.“Part Murphy Brown, part Teddy Roosevelt, the ’80s Fonda was a solid role model for entrepreneurial feminists & career moms.” But with the Baby Boomer females of that era, Fonda found a willing and eager audience, and a huge market. And for Fonda image-wise, her exercise leadership contributed to an elevation of her reputation and national standing, especially among women. One 1984 World Almanac listing identified her as the country’s third most influential woman, and a 1985 Gallup poll ranked her fourth on a list of “America’s Most Admired Women.” Writing in American Heritage magazine in 2001, Peter Braunstein described her as: “Part Murphy Brown, part Teddy Roosevelt, the eighties Fonda was a solid role model for entrepreneurial feminists and career moms.” Meanwhile, the Jane Fonda fitness craze of the 1980s was just hitting its stride at mid-decade, as more Jane Fonda books and videos were on the way.

1984: new book, “Women Coming of Age With Jane Fonda’s Prime Time Workout”. Click for book.

In 1984 there was, Women Coming Of Age With Jane Fonda’s Prime Time Workout, written with Mignon McCarthy, which also had a companion video. The book included chapters titled: “Women In Midlife,” “The Body Mature,” “Is There Life After The Menopause?,” “My Program For Midlife Well-Being,” and “Prime Time Workout.” This book also had a 1985 Viking Press edition published in Great Britain.

A couple of yearbook/desk calendar-type publications also came out: Jane Fonda’s Year of Fitness, Health and Nutrition, 1984, a 192-page spiral bound book published by Simon and Schuster. And another similar volume for the following year in hardcover, Jane Fonda’s Year of Fitness, Health and Nutrition, 1985 published by Holiday House.

By the early mid-1980s, it was clear that Jane Fonda, on her exercise ventures alone, had penetrated popular culture in a major way. Observes James Michael Rafferty in a British PhD thesis paper he wrote on Fonda in 2010, “Politicizing Stardom”:

“…The cultural impact and commercial success of The Workout cannot be overstated… By April 1984, [the Jane Fonda workout video] had sold approximately 275,000 copies at $60 each, making it the biggest selling non-musical video in American history. This earned the CED-owned Workout Inc. approximately $2 million. Jane Fonda’s Workout Book sold two million copies in hardcover at $19.95 each and was on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list for ninety weeks; the trade paperback version sold more than 250,000 copies at $9.95 each. Jane Fonda’s Year of Fitness and Health/1984 desk diary, which retailed for $8.95, had two print runs totaling 250,000 copies.

Jane Fonda Workout and Active Wear, manufactured by Capri Beachwear Corporation in partnership with Fonda, was being carried by Saks Fifth Avenue and nearly one hundred major retail outlets across the nation; the clothing line was projected to gross more than $30 million in 1984 alone….

Yet, through the remainder of the 1980s and beyond there was more to come. In 1986, she revised her workout book with a new version – Jane Fonda’s New Workout and Weight Loss Program — released in June that year (Simon & Schuster 254 pages).

1986: New book, “Jane Fonda's New Workout and Weight Loss Program,” released in June 1986, by Simon & Schuster, 254 pages, with a trim Jane Fonda on the back cover holding a vegetable on a fork as a diet prompt. Click for book.

New York Times writer and columnist, Jane Brody, who then wrote a personal health column, reviewed Jane Fonda’s New Workout and Weight-Loss Program book in mid July 1986, noting: “At last a celebrity has proposed a weight-loss program that is sensibly slow, nutritionally sound, appropriately flexible and readily adaptable for a lifetime.” The updated version of the Fonda workout book put more stress on the role of a healthy diet and suggested a weight-loss program high in fiber and complex carbohydrates and low in fat. A sample menu was also provided. But the book’s major focus was the exercise routines.

Easy Going Workout, 1985.	New Workout, 1985.
Low Impact Workout, 1986.	Complete Workout, 1988.

Videos Boom

By 1986, Fonda sold over $4 million worth of fitness videos alone. And through the 1980s and into the 1990s, more Jane Fonda videos and books would come as well. Displayed here at right are the covers of some of her classic exercise videos, first produced in the 1980s, but later remastered and re-issued in DVD format. (Click on images for DVDs or videos).

Jane Fonda’s Easy Going Workout (1985), was designed for those who found her other tapes, especially the original Workout video, too difficult and needed a slower workout program. It is a mild, but challenging routine that offers upbeat music & easy-to-follow choreography.

Jane Fonda’s New Workout (1985), her fifth workout video, was designed as an improved version of her original workout program. It offers a 35 minute beginners’ class with 12 minutes of aerobics and a 55 minute advanced class with 16 minutes of aerobics. Each class begins with a warm-up, proceeds to work the waist, arms and aerobics, floor stretch, abdominals, legs and hips, buttocks, and ends with a cool-down.

In 1986, she released Jane Fonda’s Low Impact Workout, offered an alternative to her other aerobic classes with high intensity moves. The classes in this video include a 6 minute warm-up, 35 minutes of low impact aerobics, and a 10 minute stretch cool-down.

Jane Fonda’s Complete Workout was released in 1988, and was designed by Fonda as her new overall exercise class to replace her original and New Workout classes. This program offers a half hour of aerobics which can be done at high or low intensity, or alternating between the two for an interval training effect to maximize fat burning. Upper and lower body toning segments precede and follow the aerobics which can be done with or without dumbbells or ankle weights.

Fonda Fitness Empire
Books, Videos & Audio
1980-2012

Videos:
Jane Fonda’s Workout (1982)
Jane Fonda’s Workout Challenge (1983)
Jane Fonda’s Pregnancy, Birth
and Recovery Workout (1983)
Jane Fonda’s Prime Time Workout (1984)
(later, Easygoing Workout)
Jane Fonda’s New Workout (1985)
Jane Fonda’s Low-Impact Aerobic Workout (1986)
Start Up With Jane Fonda (1987)
Jane Fonda’s Workout With Weights (1987)
Jane Fonda Presents Sports-Aid (1987)
Jane Fonda’s Complete Workout (1988)
Jane Fonda’s Light Aerobics
& Stress Reduction Workout (1989)
Jane Fonda’s Lean Routine (1990)
Jane Fonda Presents Fun House (1990)
(2 videos for children & young adults)
Jane Fonda’s Lower Body Solution (1991)
Jane Fonda’s Step Aerobic and
Abdominal Workout (1992)
Jane Fonda’s Favorite Fat Burners (1993)
Jane Fonda’s Yoga Exercise Workout (1993)
Jane Fonda’s Step & Stretch Workout (1994)
Jane Fonda’s Personal Trainer Series:
Low Impact Aerobics & Stretch (1995)
Total Body Sculpting (1995)
Abs, Buns & Thighs (1995)
Jane Fonda’s Prime Time Series
Fit and Strong (2010)
Walkout (2010)
Trim, Tone & Flex (2011)
Firm & Burn (2011)
Jane Fonda’s Am/Pm Yoga for Beginners (2012)

Books:
Jane Fonda’s Workout Book
Jane Fonda’s Workout for
Pregnancy, Birth and Recovery
Women Coming of Age
Jane Fonda’s New Workout
and Weight Loss Program
Jane Fonda’s New Pregnancy Workout
and Total Birth Program.

Records & Tapes:
Jane Fonda Workout (album & casette)
Jane Fonda’s Walkout
Audio Companions to Videos.
_________________________
Not a complete list. *Pregnancy books were written
by Femmy Delyser in conjunction with Jane Fonda.

By the early 1990s, Jane Fonda’s video line had workouts for just about everyone. There was a standard aerobics video, a workout with weights, workouts that were less vigorous and low-impact, as well as workouts for those in good shape and could deal with Jane Fonda’s Workout Challenge. There were also videos for children and pregnant women, as well as women recovering from childbirth.

So why all the videos? “This is a repeat thing, “ Jane would later explain, “I mean, people use it two, three, four, five times a week, and after a year, they want new music, a few new steps. And so we do a lot of market research to determine what it is now that people want.”

By December 1990, Jane Fond was in New York promoting her 12th workout video, Jane Fonda’s Lean Routine. She told the New York Times reporter at that time: “I never could understand why after a long 15-hour day on the sound stage everyone would be real tired Instead of going home I’d go to dance class and study ballet for a few hours and at the end of that I would feel so great, like I just had a good night’s sleep. Thirty years later, I understand that when you’re exercising strenuously, a chemical is released in the body called endorphin, which gives you a natural high. It also helps relieve stress, fatigue and depression.”

Her new video explored some new exercise territory while also offering diet advice. “I hadn’t yet done a 60-minute aerobic program using interval training, which is now considered the best way to burn fat,” she said at the time, referring to a system where a few minutes of light exercise are interspersed with periods of intense exercise.

“If we’re asking people to do that, we also have to tell them that exercise goes hand in glove with proper eating and dieting. And that doesn’t mean crash diets, which are totally counterproductive. I wanted to explain how to eat and diet properly so that you really are getting on a lifelong program and not just a roller coaster ride.”

On her Lean Routine video Fonda discusses, among other things, why aerobics is considered the safest and most effective way to burn calories, how weight control is fat control, the advantages of healthy living, and guidelines for good eating habits.

By April 1991, Fonda closed her Beverly Hills, workout studio, in part due to increasing competition but primarily to concentrate on her core businesses of fitness videos, books and audiotapes. At that time one UPI report estimated her empire to be worth $100 million.

It was around this time that Fonda had met her third husband, Ted Turner, cable-TV maverick and CNN founder, who she would marry in December 1991, with her life then taking another new turn, as she would put down some roots and make certain philanthropic and community commitments in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

VHS edition of "Jane Fonda's Step & Stretch Workout" from 1994.

Back in the workout business, meanwhile, by 1992 she had issued some 15 tapes that had sold about 9 million copies. That year she issued her second video on step aerobics, which involves the use of a small platform or step. Fonda, who formerly conducted some classes at her workout studio, was no longer leading the aerobics sessions on her tapes, but was still doing the floor exercises on the videos. She was still working out four times a week by then, but just didn’t have the time to memorize and rehearse the aerobics routines. The video taping for her exercise videos by this time — more than a decade after her first video – was now much more of a production and took about a year to complete. In the earlier tapes, Fonda had been the principal choreographer, but now most of the routines were created by staff members with input from Fonda, as well as a physiologist and a cardiologist.

Other celebrities had come to the market with their own exercise videos of one kind or another, as the Fonda tapes faced competition. Still, during 1991-1994 she issued five more exercise videos: Lower Body Solution; Step Aerobic and Abdominal Workout; Favorite Fat Burners; Yoga Exercise Workout; and Step & Stretch Workout.

By 1995, as sales of the videos slowed, the Fonda workout managers and sales folks were adopting other strategies. “Fonda’s Personal Training Center” – a retail store kiosk that included videos, clothes, and fitness equipment – was installed at 1,000 locations, including Target, Oshman’s, Big 5 Sporting Goods and Sportsmart. There was also “bundling” of the video tapes with exercise equipment, as Fonda’s business manager, Julie LaFond, reported to Billboard magazine. “Of the 2 million units sold on Fonda’s “Step Aerobics,” explained LaFond, “1.5 million were sold with the step.”

Jane Fonda, meanwhile, in her personal life had separated from Ted Turner and began living at her own ranch and working on her memoir. By May 2001, her divorce from Ted Turner was final, though the two have remained friends. After she finished writing the manuscript for her memoir, she began to think about making a return to acting. But at 65, that would be a pretty hard sell, but by 2005, she made her first out-of-retirement movie, Monster-in-Law with Jennifer Lopez. That same year, Random House published her autobiography, My Life So Far, which prompted a Washington Post reviewer to conclude that Jane Fonda is a “beautiful bundle of contradictions.” The New York Times called her book, “achingly poignant.” Also around this time, some of her older workout videos were re-released in DVD.

But Jane Fonda was not finished with her wellness acts just yet.

Jane Fonda’s “Prime Time” book, 2012. Click for book.

Fitness & 3rd Acts

Although her exercise videos from the 1980s and 1990s were still available in VHS format, and some remastered and issued in digital formats, Fonda decided to hit the exercise market once again in 2010. This time, she would be focusing on seniors living in their “prime time” years. First came two new fitness videos released on DVD in 2010. And there was also a new book to dovetail with the videos – Prime Time: Love, Health, Sex, Fitness, Friendship, Spirit; Making the Most of All of Your Life. It was a new call to her audience that focused on living one’s life fully in the final years. This book followed upon her 2005 best seller, My Life So Far, as Jane explains:

…In my memoir, My Life So Far [2005], I defined my life in three acts: Act I, from birth to 29 years; Act II, from 30 to 59 years; and Act III, from 60 until the end. It really seemed to resonate with people, and a few years after the book came out, my editor at Random House, Kate Medina, came to me and suggested I write a book focusing more on the Third Act. I was interested in doing this because I was already well into my Third Act and relished the challenge to dig deeper, to understand its meaning, to learn how to make the most of it, and to navigate the inevitable challenges of aging–what is negotiable and what isn’t….

The videos – two issued in 2010 and three more in 2011-2012 – targeted the boomer and senior population to help them stay fit as they aged. Brief summaries of four of those videos follow below. (Click on images for DVDs or videos).

Walkout video, 2010.	Fit & Strong video, 2010.
Yoga for Beginners, 2012.	Trim,Tone & Flex, 2011.

In 2010, Jane Fonda: Prime Time–Walkout was released. It includes two one-mile walking workouts. Also released in 2010, Jane Fonda: Prime Time – Fit & Strong, was also aimed at seniors and includes two 25-minute workouts aimed at burning fat, toning and shaping muscles, and core strengthening.

In 2011, came Jane Fonda Prime Time: Trim, Tone & Flex, which emphasized the importance of staying strong and flexible in aging, focusing on stretching to help promote weight loss and also protect bones and reduce joint stress. IT includes upper- and lower-body workouts.

Also in 2011, Jane Fonda Prime Time: Firm & Burn Low Impact Cardio was released, using several programs of dance routines to Doo-Wop, Latin, Funk and other music to get folks moving in 5 and 10 minute defined segments.

In 2012, Jane Fonda AM/PM Yoga for Beginners was released. This video includes three morning workouts and two evening workouts. Says Jane: “It’s time to get a yoga body! I love doing yoga in the morning to wake up my body and again at night to unwind from the day. Yoga is a great way to enhance your energy build strength and increase flexibility. Join me for my series of three AM yoga workouts designed to make you feel rejuvenated and energized and two PM workouts that will help you relax unwind and release tension and stress.” This video includes a 5-minute bonus section on stability and posture exercises to improve balance.

The Fonda Cohort

In the end, Jane Fonda had tapped into a market that has grown and aged along with her – mostly around the Baby Boomer cohort, but edging into demographics on either side of that group as well. For it was the thirty- and forty-something boomers from the 1980s who first bought her books and videos, and who then became the fifty- and sixty-somethings in the 1990s and 2000s, and as this is written, even the seventy- and eighty-somethings in the 2010s. At each of these stages there was some kind of Jane Fonda book or exercise video — and/or living advice in later years — to help keep her followers active and interested. It proved to be a prosperous and magic demographic for her. A bonus, of course, is that fair numbers of non-boomers became a part of Jane’s market too, in some cases, as the children of boomers also used Jane Fonda tapes and read her books, and possibly even a few millennials have now ventured there as well.

1979. Jane Fonda working out with others, as photographed by Vogue magazine.

Nor should Fonda’s exercise success and business empire be considered a ‘60s activist “sell out.” Certainly for Fonda herself, her books and tapes were always about female empowerment – bringing fitness and health to women as first steps in the broader empowerment process – and happily for her, also an avenue for proselytizing on diet, the environment, and other issues. It was, for her, all of a consistent piece — an honorable way of doing well while doing good; it all fit together. And it also became something of a built-in market for her autobiography, later books, films, and TV shows.

The success of her workout venture over the years also became an important enabler for her – a financial enabler worth millions every year, complimenting her acting and film production income and providing the means to continue her activism while living a comfortable celebrity life. Moreover, the additional celebrity that accrued to her by way of her workout fame through the 1980s and beyond, only added to her impact and reach on various activist causes. And the publicity she has received, and continues to receive, at activist events (see below), and for her support of social causes and activist organizations, reinforces her celebrity and activist standing.

Jane Fonda, at one of her workout studios, leading a group in floor exercise, circa 1980s.

It’s also turned out that her exercise business gave Jane Fonda entrée to a giant constituency of sorts – a base of followers who not only listened to her fitness advice, but also her “bigger-picture” messages on diet, health and the state of the environment. Certainly not all of Fonda’s fitness audience were in lockstep with her views. No doubt more than a few of her fitness followers loved her workout routines but hated her politics. Still, many likely at least gave her a listen. And combined with her Hollywood film and later TV audiences, Jane Fonda over the years has had a bigger base than many national politicians.

Fonda & others in "Book Club". Click for DVD.

Later Films

Jane Fonda’s film career, meanwhile, has continued into her later years. After Monster-in Law of 2005, Fonda made ten more Hollywood films, among them: Georgia Rule (2007), All Together (2012), Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (2012), The Butler (2013), in which she plays Nancy Reagan; Youth (2015), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress; Our Souls at Night (2017 /Netflix), with Robert Redford; and Book Club (2018), about a group of senior women reacting to the book, 50 Shades of Grey, also starring Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen.

In her television work, Fonda has been a guest actress appearing in the series, The Newsroom (2012-2014), and is also co- starring with Lilly Tomlin in the series, Grace & Frankie (2015-2018), for which she and/or Tomlin have received several Emmy and other nominations.

During her earlier film career Fonda had won her profession’s highest acting awards, including two Oscars, two BAFTAs, and four Golden Globes, among others.

Activist Life

Whatever might be said about Jane Fonda, one thing is for sure: she has not stood still. Her friends, former husbands, and fellow actors throughout her life have been amazed at her energy and the many causes she undertakes. One reviewer of her 2005 autobiography remarked at being “astonished by how much living can be packed into sixty-plus years.” Indeed, Jane Fonda has marked every decade in which she has lived; leaving a little “Fonda dust” wherever she ventures. Her activism of the 1960s and 1970s — though not always well-received — was no one-time occurrence, and it continues as this is written. She has a long history of supporting women’s rights, environmental protection, and childhood development, and often travels far and wide to participate in protests, conferences, and marches on these and other issues.

1972. Jane Fonda in Rome, Italy supporting a rally on behalf of Italian feminists. photo, Associated Press.

In May 1979, she was among speakers supporting anti-nuclear power protests in Washington following the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. In the mid-1990s she established the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential and the Fonda Family Foundation in the late 1990s. In 2001, she established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at Emory University in Atlanta to help prevent adolescent pregnancy. She has also been a longtime supporter of feminist causes, including V-Day, a movement to stop violence against women, inspired by the off-Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues.

May 1979. Jane Fonda flanked by Governor Jerry Brown of California (left), and her husband, Tom Hayden, at anti-nuclear power protest rally in Washington D.C., which occurred shortly after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania and as ‘The China Syndrome’ film was still running in theaters.

In mid- February 2004, Fonda led a march through Ciudad Juárez, Mexico with Sally Field and others urging Mexico to provide sufficient resources to investigate the murders of hundreds of women in that city. In 2005, along with Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem, she co-founded the Women’s Media Center, an organization that works to amplify the voices of women in the media. Fonda serves on its board.

2015. Jane Fonda holding a 'Stop Shell' protest sign at an anti-oil development gathering in Vancouver, British Columbia.

She has also opposed oil development in Alaska and oil sands conflicts with First Nation indigenous lands in Canada.

In June 2015, she joined protests in Vancouver, British Columbia regarding Shell Oil’s drilling plans in offshore Alaska as well as expected oil tanker traffic off the British Columbia coast. In July 2015, she marched in a Toronto protest called the “March for Jobs, Justice, and Climate.”

In November 2016 she helped lead a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North and South Dakota (and later withdrew her money from Wells Fargo bank, one the project’s funders).

In January 2017 she stood with Greenpeace and First Nation groups opposing expansion of tar sands development in Alberta, Canada. Fonda’s protests on various oil projects are often met with vitriol by many in the oil industry, but she says she is working on behalf of her grandchildren and wants to make sure “I did every single possible thing I could do to make their world a liveable world.”

Back in Hollywood, meanwhile, Fonda was honored in 2014 with the AFI Life Achievement Award, and in 2017 she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 74th Venice Film Festival. As this is written, Jane Fonda shows no signs of slowing down, planning to continue both her advocacy and her acting. Indeed, by October 2019, nearing age 82, Fonda moved temporarily to Washington, D.C. to begin a series of global warming protests on the steps of the U.S. Capitol under the banner, “Fire Drill Fridays,” inspiring others to join her, including Ted Danson, Diane Lane, Piper Perabo, Manny Jacinto, and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream). As of November 2019, Fonda had led at least seven of the protests, as she and others have been arrested, spending some nights in D.C. jails.

See also at this website, “Noteworthy Ladies,” a topics page with dozens of story choices on the lives of famous women in various fields. See also the “Film & Hollywood” page or the “Environmental History” page for stories in those categories. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 27 September 2018
Last Update: 22 September 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: JackDoyle/PopHistoryDig
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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Fonda Fitness Boom: 1980s & Beyond,”
PopHistoryDig.com, September 27, 2018.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Mary Hershberger's 2005 book, "Jane Fonda’s War: A Political Biography of an Antiwar Icon," 228pp. Click for book.

Jane Fonda's 2005 autobiography, "My Life So Far," Random House, hardback, 624pp. Click for book.

Mary Hershberger’s 2006 book, “Jane Fonda's Words of Politics and Passion,” The New Press, 161pp. Click for book.

Patricia Bosworth’s 2011 book, “Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman,” 400pp. Click for book.

Mary “Lulu” Williams’ 2013 book, “The Lost Daughter: A Memoir,” includes her remembrance of years she lived with Jane Fonda, who informally adopted her as a teen, living in Santa Monica with Fonda and Tom Hayden. Ms. Williams went on to travel the world and become a social activist; 320pp.

George Haddad-Garcia’s book, “The Films of Jane Fonda,” February 1983, paperback edition, Lyle Stuart, 256 pp. Provides synopsis, cast, credits, review excerpts, and stills for each of Jane Fonda’s films through "On Golden Pond," and traces development of her career. Click for book.

Cover art for earlier Jane Fonda biography by Thomas Kiernan, Jane: An Intimate Biography of Jane Fonda, New York: Putnam, 1973.

2019. Jane Fonda at “Fire Drill Friday” protest at U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., holding up a copy of Naomi Klein’s 2019 book, “On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal.” Click for Klein book. Photo, Tim Aubry/Greenpeace.

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Sean French, Jane Fonda: A Biography, London: Pavilion, 1997.

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Gary Herman and David Downing, Jane Fonda: All American Anti-Heroine, New York: Quick Fox, 1980.

Thomas Kiernan, Jane: An Intimate Biography of Jane Fonda, New York: Putnam, 1973.

Stephen H. Dunphy, “Jane Fonda Uses ‘Leverage’ to Aid Cause of Indian Rights,” Seattle Times, Sunday, March 8, 1970, p. A-20.

Barb Jacola, “Fonda’s Theory: Peaceful Revolt,” The BG News (Bowling Green, Ohio), November 5, 1970, p. 1.

John Frook, “Jane Fonda, Nonstop Activist,” Life, April 23, 1971, pp. 50-55.

Robert Windeler, “Jane’s New Cause,” People, June 23, 1975.

Donald R. Katz, “Jane Fonda Is a Hard Act to Follow; With Husband Tom Hayden, The Actress Is Trying to Move Past the ‘Hanoi Jane’ Tag,” Rolling Stone, March 9, 1978.

Paul W. Valentine, Karlyn Barker, Thomas Morgan, and others, “The Protesters,” Washington Post, May 7, 1979.

Michael J. Weiss, “Biggest No-Nuke Rally Rocks Washington,” Circus Weekly (magazine), June 12, 1979.

Warren Taylor, “’On Golden Pond’ Sappy, Highly Overrated… Despite Fine Performance From H. Fonda,” Connecticut Daily Campus, March 23,1982, pp. 4-5.

Aljean Harmetz, “Jane Fonda: She Makes Ideas Pay at Box Office,” New York Times, March 25, 1982.

Robert Lindsey, “Jane Fonda’s Exercise Salons Aiding Her Husband’s Candidacy,” New York Times, May 2, 1982.

Richard Harrington, “In Tone With the Music,” Washington Post, May 22, 1982.

“Hayden Seeks to Erase Angry 60’s Image,” New York Times, October 14, 1982.

Diane White, “Fonda, Feminism and Fitness,” Boston Globe, December 3, 1982.

S. Aljean Harmetz, “Sales of Movie Cassettes for Home Use Rising,” New York Times, June 27, 1983, p. 1.

Douglas Thompson, “What Fitne$$ Means to Fonda,” The Mail On Sunday, October, 30, 1983.

Jane Fonda and Mignon McCarthy, Women Coming Of Age With Jane Fonda’s Prime Time Workout (Harry Langdon, photographer), New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984.

Tony Seideman and Marc Zabatkin, “Jane Fonda’s Workout Titles Keep Flexing Their Muscles on Sales Chart,” Billboard, November 30, 1985, pp, 27-29.

“Walking Out On Jane Fonda’s Regime,” The Times (London), September, 1, 1986.

Jane Brody, “Personal Health” (part review of Jane Fonda’s New Workout and Weight-Loss Program book, New York Times, July 16, 1986, p. C-8.

Nick Ravo, “Jane Fonda Finds Peace in Her Time,” New York Times, August 4, 1988.

Helen Dudar, “Barbarella’s Progress,” Review of Citizen Jane: The Turbulent Life of Jane Fonda, By Christopher Andersen, New York Times, June 10, 1990.

Christopher Andersen, Citizen Jane: The Turbulent Life of Jane Fonda, New York: Donald Hutter /Henry Holt & Co., 1990, 389 pp.

“Fonda’s View of Food: Live Without the Fat,” New York Times, December 24, 1990.

Elaine Louie, “Currents; Children Staying Fit With Fonda,” New York Times, January 31, 1991,

Alan Citron, “No Sweat: Jane Fonda Closes Her Beverly Hills Aerobics Studio,” Los Angeles Times, April 3, 1991.

UPI Archives, “Jane Fonda Closes Aerobics Studio,” April 3, 1991.

Susan Heller Anderson, “Chronicle: Jane Fonda Closes Her Workout Studio…”, New York Times, April 4, 1991, p.46.

Yardena Arar (Los Angeles Daily News), “Jane Fonda Exercises Sound Business Sense with Workout Tapes,” Baltimore Sun, September 20, 1992.

Peter Braunstein, “Ms America, Why Jane Fonda is A Mirror of the Nation’s Past 40 Years,” cover story, American Heritage, July/August 2001.

Emma Brockes, “’I Give Off Sparks’,” TheGuardian.com (interview), April 4, 2005.

“Jane Fonda Is Interviewed about Her Book, ‘My Life So Far’,” Hardball With Chris Matthews, Aired: April 15, 2005.

David Sheff, “Whatever Happened to Jane Fonda in Tights?,” New York Times, February 8, 2007.

James Michael Rafferty, “Politicising Stardom: Jane Fonda, IPC Films and Hollywood, 1977-1982,” Thesis submitted for the qualification of Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD), Queen Mary, University of London, 2010.

“Two Books, One Woman: Jane Fonda,” Vogue.com, August 9, 2011.

“The Decade That Made Us: Lift Off” (1 of 6), YouTube.com.

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Hilton Als, “Queen Jane, Approximately; How Jane Fonda Found Her Way Back to Acting,” The New Yorker, May 9, 2011.

“30th Anniversary of My First Workout Video,” JaneFonda.com, April 24, 2012 (24 Comments).

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Lacey Gattis, “Jane Fonda’s Workout Book”(with slide show), IntoTheGloss.com, 2014.

Melanie Pruit, “On Golden Fonda,” Confes-sions of a Movie Queen, June 10, 2014.

April Braden, “Women Don’t Sweat, They Glisten: Jane Fonda and The Commer-cialization of Aerobics In the 1980s,” US historyScene.com.

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David Kipen, “Magnetic Men, Vietnam, Aerobics, Religious Epiphany — Jane Fonda Has Lived Through Enough to Fill a Book,” Review of ‘My Life So Far’,” San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, April 8, 2005.

“Jane Fonda’s Workout Launched a Revolution; 1982: Jane Fonda’s Workout Comes Out on VHS,” Bloomberg.com, December 4, 2014.

Michael d’ Estries, “Jane Fonda’s Workout Series to Go Digital for a New Generation; the Original ‘Jane Fonda’s Workout’ Video Remains the Top-Grossing Home Video of All Time,” MNN,com, January 2, 2015.

“Jane Fonda, Now More Than Ever,” cover story, DuJour.com, Spring 2015.

Jake Rossen, “How Jane Fonda’s Workout Conquered the World,” MentalFloss.com, June 19, 2015.

Ree Hines, “Get Your Legwarmers Ready! Jane Fonda’s Classic Workout Videos Are Back,” Today.com, October 14, 2016.

Zoe Ruffner, “Jane Fonda’s 1979 Fitness Advice Is the Secret to Looking Good Forever,” Vogue.com, December 21, 2016.

“Jane Fonda Fast Facts,” CNN.com, updated, January 23, 2018.

“Jane Fonda The Chameleon,” Blogspot.com, April 2007.

Noah Berlatsky, “Fire Up the Orgasmatron: Why We Can’t Let Barbarella Go,” TheGuardian.com, October 5, 2016.

Catherine Shoard, “Jane Fonda: ‘Plastic Surgery Bought Me a Decade’,” TheGuardian.com, May 21, 2015.

Brooks Barnes, “Jane Fonda Has Always Been on the Move — And She Has No Plans to Slow Down Now,” TownAndCountrymag.com, Oct 12, 2017.

Owen Gleiberman, “Sundance Film Review: ‘Jane Fonda in Five Acts’ is an Enjoyably Candid Documentary; the Fabled Star and Activist Gazes Back on a Life of Shifting Roles That Now Looks More Timely Than Ever,” Variety.com, January 21, 2018.

Danielle Friedman, “The History Behind Women’s Obsession With Working Out,” Harpers Bazaar.com, February 14, 2018.

Patricia Bosworth, “Jane Fonda Is 80 and Still Conquering Hollywood,” VanityFair.com, April 10, 2018.

Patricia Garcia, “Jane Fonda’s 1982 Workout Routine Is Still the Best Exercise Class Out There,” Vogue.com, July 7, 2018.

As Told to Alison S. Cohn, “Jane Fonda Opens Up About Her Ageless Style; The Actress Has Defined Her Signature Look on Her Own Terms,” HarpersBazaar.com, September 20, 2018.

____________________________________

Teaser Tag: Chemical Plant Safety

1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Shell Plant Explodes”
1994: Belpre, Ohio

August 26, 2018 J.D.

On May 27th, 1994, an explosion and multiple fires at a Shell Oil chemical plant in southeastern Ohio killed three workers, caused the temporary evacuation of 1,700 local residents, and polluted the adjacent Ohio River with a mixture of toxic chemicals for more than 20 miles downstream. As later described by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): “A catastrophic failure of a 15,000 gallon polymer reactor vessel was initiated by a runaway chemical reaction” in the company’s Kraton-D polymer unit. “The reactor failure and resulting fire,” explained OSHA, “caused the complete destruction” of that unit. Additionally, missile fragments from the failed reactor damaged

May 27th, 1994 photo of raging inferno in the chemical tank storage area of Shell’s Belpre, Ohio chemical plant, set off as a second fire by missile fragments from initial explosion in another part of the complex. (firefighter photo).

adjacent units of the plant, as well as another area with large chemical storage tanks. One fragment from the initial explosion punctured a styrene storage tank some 600 feet away. This tank’s explosion and fire resulted in the burning of five additional styrene storage tanks containing approximately 3.5 million gallons of flammable products.

The Parkersburg News of Parkersburg, West Virginia reporting on the May 1994 Shell explosion & fires: 'Disaster At Shell'.

Throughout Ohio, and especially in the local region, the Shell explosion was front-page news. The Parkersburg News of Parkersburg, West Virginia, a town just across the Ohio River from Belpre, reported the incident with the May 28th headline: “Disaster at Shell” (photo at right). That story also included a front-page aerial photo of the Shell plant complex burning in two locations (see larger photo later below).

Another Ohio newspaper, The Saturday Review of East Liverpool, for its May 28th edition, used the headline: “Explosion, Fire Force Evacuations; Governor Declares State of Emergency in Belpre.”

Belpre, Ohio is a small town in southeast Ohio on the Ohio River opposite Parkersburg, West Virginia. A town of about 6,800 people at the time of the Shell accident, Belpre is located about 110 miles southeast of Columbus, Ohio and about 150 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Ohio River, in fact, stretching from Pittsburgh, and flowing south and west along the Ohio-West Virginia border to the Mississippi River, became an industrial highway of sorts, making the area something of a chemical valley, with DuPont, GE, and others all locating plants in the Belpre-Parkersburg area in the 1950s and 1960s, using river barges to supply their operations and move their finished products.

Map showing location of Belpre, Ohio on the Ohio River border with West Virginia.

In 1961, the Shell Oil Company opened a plastics plant at Belpre along U.S. highway 50, building a complex of buildings there on about 15 acres. The plant was expanded at least twice after that – once in 1980 and again in 1990.

The plant became known for making plastics, and in particular, Shell’s Kraton, a thermoplastic rubber used in automotive parts, wire, footwear, adhesives, and cable coverings.

For the most part, things were good at the Belpre plant during those years. In fact, Shell had been crowing during the summer of 1993 about how this plant was meeting “stringent international quality standards” under something known as ISO 9002.

But early morning on Friday, May 27th, 1994, just ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, things at the Shell plant were not quite right. It was about 6:20 a.m., and at that hour only 50 to 75 workers were on hand at the plant. Normally, the plant would fill to several hundred workers. An explosion occurred in the K-1 building at the plant about 6:25am followed by a fire, but soon spread to a chemical storage tank area. Then, at about 6:30 am, there was a violent explosion as the fire reached one of the tanks. Soon, five more chemical tanks there, holding millions of gallons of styrene and 400,000 gallons of diesel fuel, were burning, and they continued burning.

Front page photo from the May 28th 1994 “Parkersburg News” showing the Shell Chemical plant at Belpre, Ohio along the Ohio River, with two areas of the plant burning on May 27th, 1994, following an early morning explosion that day. Three workers were killed; 1,700 residents evacuated. ( Source: Mackey’s Antiques & Clock Repair, Parkersburg, WV).

The fire raged for nine hours before being brought under control, as dozens of fire companies and some 150 firefighters from surrounding communities responded. At times, flames shot 300 to 600 feet into the air; and firefighters had to back away from their battle at various points due to the intense heat. One exchange among firefighters caught by local reporters for the Parkersburg News, had a fire chief in radio communication with his men who were reporting the searing heat and a possible retreat and withdrawal of equipment. “I don’t care about the [fire] engines, they can be replaced. Just get those people out of there,” he relayed over the radio, according to the Parkersburg reporters. “We’re really feeling the heat,” one firefighter radioed back. “Leave them babies [referring to the trucks] and run,” said the chief. “If you feel it’s safer, then come up here,” the chief advised.

Another photo from the “Parkersburg News,” taken from the other side of the Ohio River, showing two areas of the Shell plant in flames – at right, where the initial explosion occurred, and tank storage area, to the left, where projectiles from the first explosion caused several tanks there to ignite & leak. (Source: Mackey’s Antiques & Clock Repair, Parkersburg, WV).

At one point, a giant, elongated plume of thick black smoke moved away from the plant and was visible stretching over nearby areas as the fire burned. Two of the burning chemicals in the blaze were petroleum-based solvents, cyclohexane and styrene monomers, according to Ohio Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Rob Berger. Both are used in the production of plastics and can produce irritating or poisonous gases.“…Former sheriff Bob Schlicher later told us that officials simply could not explain why the entire tank farm did not explode that day…” Authorities first ordered the evacuation of 15 homes in Porterfield, five miles west of Belpre, then ordered the evacuation of everyone within a one-mile radius of the plant, on both sides of the Ohio River. In all, 1,700 people were evacuated. US highway 50 was shut down and an advisory was issued to boaters on the Ohio River to avoid the area because of the smoke.

One reporter who was at the scene, Mike Cullums, filing live reports for WMOA and ONN radio stations, later offered this account:

…The most memorable moment came as I was reporting from the press pool location, in the parking lot of the Belpre Church of Christ late that morning. While on-air, I looked up and saw a parade of fire engines racing away from the scene and past the church. They had run out of fire-fighting foam. As urgently as possible, hundreds of residents were evacuated from Porterfield, Blennerhassett Heights, and the portion of Belpre west of Farson Street. Former sheriff Bob Schlicher later told us that officials simply could not explain why the entire tank farm did not explode that day. He said that, had the expected blast occurred, the results would have been unimaginably worse….

“Family Men”
Killed in Explosion

Michael Lee Harris of Reedsville, Ohio was one of the workers killed in the explosion at the Belpre plastics plant. He was 36 years old. By all accounts, Michael Lee Harris was madly in love with his wife, Lori, crazy about his two kids, Steven 4, and Katie 2, and liked his job. His wife last saw him at 10 pm the night before the accident when they went to bed, as Michael would sometimes slip away quietly in the morning without waking her. Michael’s father, Sonny Harris, like other residents in the Belpre area, knew the hazards of the job at the Shell plant. “I’ve been in factories all my life,” he said, “so I understand this.” Still, Mr. Harris saw his son as a person with few flaws and a model family man. “Thirty-six years old, and I never heard a swear word out of him… Never smoked a cigarette in his life. No enemies. …That’s just the way he was.”

The other two victims were Gary Reed, 41, who enjoyed the outdoors and left behind his wife, Julie, and two kids, Alexis, 7, and Ashley, 10. George Nutter, 50, was an avid woodworker, leaving behind his wife, Brenda, and two children, Michael, 22, and Heather, 18.

Governor Acts

Shortly after noon on the day of the fire, Ohio Governor George Voinovich declared a state of emergency in Washington County, Ohio where the plant and Belpre were located. He had been advised that the fires at the Shell plant were burning out of control and posed a threat to the health and safety of residents and rescue crews. Voinovich also ordered the Ohio National Guard to fly 8,000 pounds of foram from Rickenbacker Air Base in Columbus, Ohio to Wood County Airport as local foam supplies were low. More foam would be flown in later from Texas.

By late afternoon the day of the explosion, the fires at the Shell plant were brought under control. “The large fire is now out,” reported one Belpre firefighter. “All the firefighters are going through detoxification to assure they don’t have any chemicals on them.” Evacuated residents were also allowed to return to their homes later that afternoon. But at that point, it was known that at least one worker was dead and two others were missing.

Six days later, industrial cranes were still working at the site clearing through heavy debris, as a search continued for the two other plant workers, then presumed to have died in the blast.

River Pollution

Meanwhile, liquid chemicals from the burning and burst tanks had been seeping into the Ohio River, which flows south along West Virginia, then west along the northern Kentucky border to the Mississippi River.

After the explosion, a long slick of ethylene dibromide formed in the Ohio River and began moving down-river with concentrations of more than 100 times the federal drinking water standard. As the spilled chemicals moved downstream toward the Mississippi, towns such as Ironton and Portsmouth, Ohio, and Huntington, West Virginia, began to shut their water intakes. By June 7th, Ironton, Ohio was dependent upon barges bringing in fresh drinking water. By then, the chemical slick on the Ohio River stretched downstream for miles.

On June 10th, 1994, EPA issued a statement on the Shell explosion at the Belpre plant:

“A major explosion and fire at a chemical plant owned by Shell Oil caused four one-million gallon styrene tanks and their secondary containment systems to fail… The explosion released numerous hazardous substances and killed over 1,500 fish in the Ohio River. EDB [1,2-dibromoethane, a pesticide] has been discovered at the water-intake on the River in Huntington, West Virginia, and at other downstream locations. A plume of EDB measuring 22 miles long was identified, and is continuing to be tracked downstream.”

EPA ordered Shell to begin a clean up, monitor on-site run-off and movement of the chemical spill in the river, develop a warning system for downstream water users, provide alternative drinking water supplies for those users, and assess all off-site environmental damage.

In the aftermath of the May 1994 explosion & fires, one portion of the Shell complex revealed a collapsed tank and other damage. Note distant worker standing on platform near right center of photo. Source: Mackey’s Antiques & Clock Repair/Mike Cottrell.

Within a few weeks of the explosion, a number of residents in the area filed a class-action lawsuit seeking damages for the evacuation and exposure to harmful chemicals. EPA would later report that more than 1 million pounds of toxic chemicals were released during the fires. In the lawsuit, most of the residents were seeking compensation for property damage. The lawsuit also sought, at Shell’s expense, medical testing of people living near the plant and a determination of whether the gases endangered their health. That lawsuit was not certified as a class action, but six individual cases did go forward. Families of the three workers killed in the blast filed wrongful death suits against Shell seeking $20 million each in damages.

Others in the community, however, were worried about jobs, and a rally was held in Porterfield on June 5th, 1994. Hundreds of people turned out voicing their support for the company and carrying signs that they stood behind the company despite the explosion. Meanwhile, investigations by Shell, the state of Ohio, and federal authorities were all underway.

Another photo of the internal damage found at the Shell chemical plant in Belpre, Ohio in the wake of the May 1994 explosion and fires. Source: Mackey’s Antiques & Clock Repair/Mike Cottrell.

By late June 1994, Shell said it was preparing to resume operations at the plant, although at a reduced level. In July, when Shell Oil (U.S.) made its quarterly report, it booked a loss and recorded $233 million in costs from the Belpre explosion. In October 1994, Shell reported that one of the three workers killed in the explosion helped cause the accident by failing to follow established operating procedures, but declined to name which worker was responsible. A month later, the company announced it was planning to rebuild the damaged portions of the plant and have it back on stream within one year.

OSHA Fine

In late November 1994, Shell agreed to pay a fine of more than $3 million to the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) for federal safety violations that occurred in connection with the Belpre explosion. At the time, it was the largest fine ever levied on an Ohio company, and the sixth largest ever for OSHA since the agency was created in 1970. OSHA had found 42 violations at the Belpre plant.

“We are very pleased that Shell has agreed to resolve this matter as quickly as possible, in order to ensure maximum protection for its employees,” said then Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich in a prepared statement. “The agreement avoids the burden and cost of possible prolonged litigation and furthers the efforts of both Shell and OSHA to assure a safe workplace.”

A broader look at the Shell chemical plant and one of the damaged areas at center following the May 1994 explosion, with the Ohio River and near shore of West Virginia at the top of photo. Source: Mackey’s Antiques & Clock Repair/Mike Cottrell.

Shell, for its part, stated the agreement with OSHA was not an admission of any violations. Arnie Ditmar, Shell’s Belpre plant manager, said the company disputed many of OSHA’s allegations and conclusions, but that Shell decided against contesting the case. “It would have continuously distracted from our desire and need to move forward and focus on rebuilding our plant and returning to normal, safe operation,” Ditmar said.

“We don’t agree with Shell’s conclusion that it was operator error.”
– Deborah J. Zubaty, OSHAMeanwhile, Shell’s internal investigation of the accident found employee error and equipment failure contributed to an abnormal chemical reaction and resulting explosion in the reactor unit. OHSA disagreed. “We don’t agree with Shell’s conclusion that it was operator error,” said Deborah J. Zubaty, director of OSHA’s Columbus, Ohio office at the time the agreement was announced. “We feel there were a multitude of causes,” though the agency’s investigation did not pinpoint one specific cause.

The violations OSHA did find, however, indicated deficiencies in the company’s equipment, plant layout, production safety procedures, and training of its employees. OSHA also faulted Shell’s emergency response plan, noting that those who first responded were not wearing breathing apparatus to protect them against chemicals, including asbestos.

A “closer in” look at some of the damaged areas of the Shell chemical plant following the May 1994 explosion and fires there. Source: Mackey’s Antiques & Clock Repair/Mike Cottrell.

One of the OSHA violations revealed that Shell had an earlier experience with an “uncontrolled reaction” at the same reactor and the same chemical involved in the May 27th explosion. That event occurred on January 23, 1994, only four months earlier. Shell, in fact, had written a three-page memo on the January incident, but there was no further investigation and no report by the company. OSHA wasn’t informed about the January 23rd incident until the agency investigated the May 27th accident. Shell maintained it didn’t need to report the January 23rd incident because it was a minor incident that didn’t fall within OSHA’s reporting requirements. Shell’s Mike White said at that time that the company would have “vigorously contested” the OSHA charge on that count. White explained that the January 23rd incident “was not uncontrolled,” and that the attending technician knew what was in the reactor before allowing the reaction to proceed. The reaction was hotter than normal, he acknowledged, because of a frozen vent line due to extremely cold temperatures at the time.

Shell Blocks OSHA

Nearly two years later, in September 1996, just as OSHA was about to publicly release its final report on the May 1994 Belpre accident, Shell filed a lawsuit to block the report. The OSHA report contained a more detailed narrative on the accident and described what the agency believed were contributing factors.…Shell filed a lawsuit to block OSHA’s report on the Belpre explosion. Shell, then facing litigation from the families of the dead workers as well as other cases for property damage from local residents, was doing what it could to limit possible awards in court and keep the company’s name out of the newspapers and media. Shell’s lawyers met with OSHA staff on September 18th, and an agreement was reached to withhold the OSHA report until Shell had a chance to make its case before a federal judge. Shell then filed suit in U.S. District Court in Houston to formally block the report’s release. Shell argued the OSHA report contained trade secrets and law enforcement information that is exempt from the Federal Freedom of Information Act. Shell had also learned that the Charleston Gazette newspaper of West Virginia had sought a copy of the report under the Freedom of Information Act.

Under that law, OSHA is required to inform companies of requests for such reports. OSHA had already explained to Shell that it was intending to delete portions of the report that contained trade secret information. Although OSHA had prepared to delete more of the report after rereading some of Shell’s earlier letters, OSHA still favored releasing the report.

“OSHA believes, as amended, the report does not disclose any of Shell’s trade secrets or confidential information,” said OSHA in a September 10th, 1996 letter to Shell. “Moreover, OSHA continues to believe that the conclusions of its investigation team relating to the history and causes of the event would be useful in educating both the public and the chemical industry on hazards presented by chemical processes and thereby possibly preventing death and injuries at other locations.”

“The Daily Damage”
An Occasional Series

This article is one in an occasional series of stories at this website that feature the ongoing environmental and public safety impacts of various industrial disasters and accidents – oil and chemical spills; explosions and fires; toxic and hazardous waste issues; air and water pollution; and other such occurrences.

These stories cover both recent incidents and those from history that have left a mark either nationally or locally; have generated controversy in some way; have brought about governmental inquiries or political activity; or generally have taken a toll on the environment, worker health and safety, and/or local communities.

My purpose for including such stories at this website is simply to drive home the continuing and chronic nature of these occurrences through history, and hopefully contribute to public education about them so that improvements in law, regulation, and industry practice will be made, yielding safer alternatives in the future. – Jack Doyle

Shell, in its court documents, argued against disclosure of the report since its was “based almost exclusively on confidential and privileged documents and information that Shell had voluntarily given to OSHA, which Shell would not release to the public.” Shell also said the report was “an investigatory record prepared by OSHA for law enforcement purposes, and its disclosure would unfairly prejudice Shell in pending litigation. . .” Shell’s request to prevent the OSHA report’s public release went before the US District Court in Houston – where Shell’s U.S. headquarters are located — and was granted a “protective order” to keep the report under wraps while Shell was in litigation.

In January 1997, Shell settled the wrongful death lawsuits with the families of three dead workers. Each family received payments of between $2.1 and $2.4 million in out-of-court agreements. Other litigation with 44 residents seeking damages from the Belpre explosion and fire also proceeded, but it is unclear what the details and final outcome of those actions were, or if any settlements were made. And it appears that OSHA’s more detailed report and narrative on the Belpre, Ohio explosion was never publicly released.

At the Shell Belpre plant, however, there was another incident – an August 1998 explosion. This time it was a hydrogen explosion in a compressor unit. The blast rattled buildings up to five miles away. A fire ensued but was brought under control by the plant’s firefighters within 30 minutes. Shell, meanwhile, had begun an internal process of reevaluating its chemical strategy, and decided to exit some of its chemical lines. In December 1998, Shell announced that it planned to sell the Belpre chemical complex, but would continue to operate the plant until a new owner was found. After 18 months on the sales block, Shell finally sold the Belpre plant to Rippelwood Holdings LLC in September 2000 for an estimated $600 million. Rippelwood then operated the plant until late December 2003 when the plant was again sold, this time to the Texas Pacific Group, a private investment partnership, for $770 million. As of 2018, the Belpre plant continues to operate under these owners, and is known as Kraton Polymers. Following the 1994 explosion, new technology and safety measures were added to the chemical complex, and subsequent owners report they have continued to spend money on system upgrades, worker safety, and environmental protection.

One of the logos used by Royal Dutch Shell.

Big Player

While Shell sold its chemical plant at the Belpre, Ohio location, it has been a major player in the global chemical business for decades. Royal Dutch Shell, known commonly as “Shell Oil,” is among the world’s top five corporations, one of the four “supermajors” in the oil and gas industry. It is also among the world’s top 15 chemical companies, with more than $20 billion in annual chemical sales.

Formed in the 1907 merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport & Trading, Shell Oil today has operations in more than 140 countries. In 2017, the company’s total annual revenues were in excess of $300 billion, making it the world’s fifth largest corporation by sales. It’s profits in 2017 were $13.4 billion.

In recent years, Shell has also begun a small renewable energy business developing wind, hydrogen, and solar power. Still, as of 2018 Shell appears to be a fully-committed fossil fuels player, with continuing investments in exploration, refining, transport, and petrochemicals. The company’s 2016 acquisition of the BG Group (formerly British Gas) for $53 billion made Shell the world’s largest player in liquefied natural gas and also bolstered its position in the Brazilian oil business while expanding its holding of offshore deep water assets. Today, in the oil and gas business, only ExxonMobil is bigger.

From an October 2017 story on Shell’s cracker plant, The Pitt News (University of Pittsburgh). Map, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In North America, as of 2018, Shell has begun building a $6 billion ethylene cracker plant for the production of plastics north of Pittsburgh, PA along the Ohio River (click for story). This location was chosen in part for its proximity to a huge feedstock source: the Marcellus Shale natural gas fields, where hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is the current method of extraction. Shell has also stated that 70 percent of its polyethylene customers in North America are within a 700-mile radius of the Pittsburgh location.

In addition to the cracker plant itself will be the 97-mile Falcon Pipeline project that will collect and transport more than 100,000 barrels of ethane daily to feed the cracker.

As work on the Shell plant has gone forward, environmentalists in the area, along with some citizens and clergy, have expressed concerns over the plant’s potential pollution impacts. Others worry about public safety issues. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania officials, supporting the Shell cracker, have awarded the company a $1.7 billion, 25-year tax credit.

With its far flung global empire, Royal Dutch Shell, like other multinationals, has its hands full managing its many operations. While the company is attentive in controlling the impacts of its rigs, refineries, and factories, and spends sizeable amounts on safety and environmental protection, the company’s performance history in these areas is not without incident. Chronic safety and environmental issues continue to be a problem for this company and include, for example: oil spills at sea, refinery fires, offshore accidents, pipeline leaks, workplace incidents, and various chemical release and pollution issues. In the 2010-2018 period, Shell has had major and minor incidents. A few examples follow below:

Paperback edition of “Where Vultures Feast,” a 2003 book about Shell’s performance history in Nigeria. Click for copy.

North Sea Leak
August 2011. A Royal Dutch Shell pipeline off the coast of Scotland at the company’s offshore Gannet Alpha oil platform leaked more than 1,300 barrels of oil into the North Sea.

Refinery Fire
September 28, 2011. A 32-hour fire at Shell’s Pulau Bukom oil refining and petrochemical complex in Singapore, brought an $80,000 fine from Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower on October 30, 2012 for “lapses in workplace safety” that led to the blaze.

Oil Spill
December 21, 2011. Up to 40,000 barrels of crude oil was spilled while being transferred from a floating oil platform to an oil tanker 75 miles off the coast of the Niger delta in the Bonga offshore oil field, off Nigeria, Africa.

Oil Spill
May 12, 2016. More than 88,000 gallons of crude oil discharged from a Shell subsea wellhead into the Gulf of Mexico off Timbalier Island from a flow line about 90 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Glider Field near the company’s Brutus Tension-Leg Platform.

Pipeline Leak
May 30, 2016. Shell Oil’s San Pablo Bay Pipeline, which transports crude oil from California’s Central Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area, leaked an estimated 21,000 gallons into the soil.

Refinery Explosion
August 11, 2016. An explosion and major fire rocked the Shell/Motiva oil refinery in Convent, Louisiana, leading to the evacuation of 1,400 workers and damage to one of the refinery’s processing units. No injuries were reported.

Refinery Fire
July 31, 2017. A massive fire erupted at Shell’s Pernis refinery in Rotterdam in the Netherlands — the largest refinery in Europe – causing a blackout and forcing the company to halt all loadings.

Rig Fire & Spill
November 8, 2017. Shell’s Enchilada oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico was shut down and all associated production stopped after a fire broke out on the rig. Two people were injured and the crew of 46 were evacuated to a nearby platform. There was also a report of a light sheen of oil on the water north of the Shell platform, which is located about 112 nautical miles south of Vermilion Bay, Louisiana.

Refinery Fire
March 4, 2018. Fire and rescue crews were called to the Shell Refinery in Saraland, Alabama for an oil pump fire. No injuries were reported.

Tank Explosion & Fire
June 11, 2018. Shell reported a storage tank explosion and small fire at its Carson, California tank farm and distribution facility. Employees were evacuated from the tank farm, but no injuries were reported. About 60,000 barrels of gasoline were in the tank when the incident occurred,

See also at this website, “Petrochem Peril: Bill Peduto, 2019.” For additional history on the environmental and safety performance of the oil and chemical industries see, for example, the “Environmental History” topics page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 26 August 2018
Last Update: 29 November 2019
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Shell Plant Explodes, 1994: Belpre, Ohio,”
PopHistoryDig.com, August 26, 2018.

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Books at Amazon.com…

Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” 2013 edition, Penguin Books, 704 pp. Click for copy.

Christopher Leonard’s book, “Koch-land: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America,” 2020 edition. Click for copy.

Gregory Zuckerman’s book, “The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters.” Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Ian Cummins and John Beasant’s 2005 book, “Shell Shock: The Secrets and Spin of an Oil Giant,” 256pp. Click for copy.

Steve Lerner’s 2004 book on the Diamond community of Norco, LA, an African-American subdivision sandwiched between a Shell oil refinery and a Shell chemical plant. MIT Press, 344pp.

Lawyer and oil royalty landowner J. Michael Veron’s 2007 account of a nine-year legal battle with Shell Oil over decades of pollution on his family's Louisiana farm. Lyons Press. 272pp.

2002 book published by the Environmental Health Fund of Boston, “Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell & The Fossil Fire,” includes case histories of Shell environmental and public safety performance over several decades; 350pp.

Stuart Smith’s 2005 book about battling oil companies (including Shell) in Mississippi over oil- derived radium contamination and other oil/environment warnings. BenBella Books, 264pp. Click for copy.

“Ohio Chemical Plant Erupts In Fire,” Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1994.

Deborah Paolucci and Jesse Mancini, “Disaster at Shell,” The Parkersburg News (Parkersburg, West Virginia), May 28, 1994, p.1.

Associated Press, “Explosion, Fire Force Evacuations; Governor Declares State of Emergency in Belpre,” The Saturday Review (East Liverpool, Ohio), May 28, 1994, p. 1.

“Explosion at Plant Kills 1; 2 Missing,” Columbus Dispatch, (Columbus, Ohio), May 28, 1994.

U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Accident Report Detail, Accident: 170662498 – Three Employees Killed In Chemical Plant Explosion, Report ID: 0522500 — Event Date: May 27,1994.

Associated Press, “Ohio Chemical Plant Fire Forces 1,700 to Evacuate,” The Washington Post, May 28, 1994, p. A-3.

“Shell Chemical Fire, Belpre Ohio,” Mackey’s Antiques & Clock Repair, Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Rita Price and Jim Phillips, “Families Grieve For Three Killed In Belpre Explosion,” The Columbus Dispatch, May 29, 1994, p. 1-A

K.C. Ottenbacher, (UPI, Belpre, OH), “Third Fire Victim Identified,” May 29, 1994.

“Search Continues for 2 Bodies at Blast Site,” Columbus Dispatch, May 31, 1994.

Susan Ainsworth, “Fatal Fire at Shell Plant Hits Elastomers Market,” Chemical & Engineering News, June 6, 1994, p. 5.

“Ironton Hauls In Drinking Water,” Columbus Dispatch, June 7, 1994.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, Order of Injunctive Relief and Corrective Action, June 10, 1994, Case Name: Shell Oil Company; Location: Belpre, OH; Statute: CERCLA section 106 UAO.

“EPA Orders Shell to Clean Up After Fire At Ohio Facility,” Dow Jones News Service, June 13, 1994.

“Shell To Check River for More of Chemical,” Columbus Dispatch, June 15, 1994.

“Shell Ordered to Test, Clean Up Belpre,” Chemical Week, June 22, 1994, p.4.

John Seewer, Associated Press, “Reactions to Disaster Mixed in Company-Dependent Town,” The Register Herald (Beckley, WV), October 2, 1994, p. 5-C.

Associated Press, “Shell Chemical Implements Safety Proposals after Blast,” Journal of Commerce, October 26, 1994.

“Belpre Blast Alarm Ignored Says Shell,” ICIS Chemical Business, November 14, 1994.

Jim Woods, “Shell Agrees To Pay $3 Million OSHA Fine For Fatal Blast,” Columbus Dispatch, November 23, 1994, p. 1-A.

Reuters, “Shell Unit to Pay $3 Million to Settle Explosion Charges,” Journal of Commerce, November 27, 1994.

Rocky Lantz, “Reconstruction: Shell’s $80 Million Recovery Helps Area Economy,” Parkersburg News, May 28, 1995, p. 1.

Ken Ward, Jr., “Shell Sues To Stop Release of Belpre Report,” Charleston Gazette, Septem-ber 25, 1996, p. 5-A.

Cynthia Sequin, “Shell Requests OSHA Report Remain Sealed,” Parkersburg News, June 28, 1997, p. A-1.

Shell Oil Co. v. United States Department of Labor, No. H-96-3113 (S.D. Tex. Mar. 31, 1998).

Associated Press, “Hydrogen Explodes at Chemical Plant; No Injuries,” August 10, 1998.

Associated Press, “Chemical Company to Sell Plastics Division,” Plastics News, September 6, 2000.

Associated Press,“Kraton Sale Estimated at $600 Million,” Plastics News, September 18, 2000.

Mike Cullums, “’It Could Have Been Much Worse’– Remembering the 1994 Shell Plant Explosion,” WMOA1490.com (radio station, Marietta, Ohio), May 27, 2014.

Henny Sender, “Texas Pacific Buys Ripplewood Unit,” Wall Street Journal, November 11, 2003.

Bruce Davis, “Investment Firm to Buy Kraton Polymers From Ripplewood,” Rubber & Plastics News, November 24, 2003.

Alex DeMarban, “Shell’s International Record Slammed by Opponents of Arctic Oil Drilling,” Anchorage Daily News, June 12, 2012.

“Shell Oil: A Record of Environmental and Corporate Malfeasance,” Alaska Wilderness League, 2012, 51pp.

Remy Samuels, “Cracker Plant Creates Controversy,” The Pitt News(University of Pittsburgh), October 5, 2017.

Shell’s Ethane Pipeline ‘Right on Track,’ Construction Starts 2019,” MarcellusDrilling .com, June 22, 2017.

“Shell Pipeline: Not Quite the ‘Good Neighbor’,” FracTracker.org, April 2, 2018.

Steven Mufson and Chris Mooney, “Shell Foresaw Climate Dangers in 1988 and Understood Big Oil’s Big Role,” Washington Post, April 5, 2018.

Fiona Harvey, “Shell Stops North Sea Leak after 10 Days; Scottish Government Launches Investigation into Safety Procedures after Worst Oil Spill in UK Waters for a Decade,” The Guardian, August 19, 2011.

“Fire at Shell’s Bukom Refinery,” The Straits Times ( Singapore), September 29, 2011, p. 1.

Ministry of Manpower, Singapore, “Shell Fined $80,000 for 2011 Pulau Bukom Refinery Fire,” Press Release, October 29, 2012.

“Pulau Bukom Fire (2011),” InfoPedia / National Library Board, Singapore, July 2016.

Lim Yi Han, “Fire at Shell’s Pulau Bukom Plant Leaves 6 Injured, Including 3 in Critical Condition,” The Straits Times (Singapore), August 21, 2015.

Sarah Kent, “Shell Oil Spills Led to ‘Astonishingly High’ Pollution in Nigeria; Stalled Cleanup of Leaks from Faulty Pipeline in 2008 Is Endangering Locals, Letter Warns,” Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2017.

Oliver Milman (New York), “Shell Working to Repair Leak That Spilled 2,000 Barrels of Oil into Gulf of Mexico; Thursday Leak Created a 13 Mile-Wide Slick on the Surface of the Water, from Group of Underwater Oil Wells 97 Miles South of Port Fourchon, Louisiana,” The Guardian, May 16, 2016.

Emma Grey Ellis, “Bet You Didn’t Hear Shell Spilled a Bunch of Oil in the Gulf,” Wired, June 9, 2016 (on the inexact nature of reporting and recording spills; and why small spills matter).

Reuters, “Shell Reports Small Explosion at Carson, California Facility,” June 11, 2018.

Mark Schleifstein, “Shell Offshore to Pay $3.9 Million for 2016 Deepwater Oil Spill from Cracked Pipeline,” NOLA.com, July 7, 2018.
_____________________________________

Teaser Tag: Baseball History

1951-1960, 1961-1970

“The M&M Boys”
Summer of 1961

August 21, 2018 J.D.

2001 book by The Sporting News on the Mantle-Maris home run race of 1961. Click for book details.

Baseball fans in the summer of 1961 had a special treat that brought them to the sports pages daily: a “home run race” between New York Yankee teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.

The Mantle-Maris “race” in 1961 was about more than just who could hit the most home runs that year. Rather, it was also about which one of the two might be first to topple the venerable home run mark set by former Yankee, Babe Ruth in 1927. Ruth hit 60 home runs that year, and by 1961, his record had stood for 34 years.

Prior to 1961, only two other players had approached Ruth’s record: Jimmie Foxx of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1932 and Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers in 1938, both of whom hit 58 home runs. Hack Wilson of the Chicago Cubs hit 56 in 1930, and Ralph Kiner of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Johnny Mize of the New York Giants hit 51 in 1947. Kiner also hit 54 in 1949. Willie Mays of the New York Giants hit 51 in 1955, and Mickey Mantle hit 52 in 1956. Still, in most years, the home run leaders were in the 40s.

The pursuit of Ruth’s record in 1961 by Mantle and Maris wasn’t something purposely stated by either man at the outset of the season, though they were asked about it frequently by the press. In their private thoughts, no doubt, each man wanted to break Ruth’s record. And as both Mantle and Maris had impressive home run totals in previous years, there was periodic press speculation about one or the other of them breaking Ruth’s record

Still, as the season began, no one was flatly predicting that either Maris or Mantle, or anyone else, would hit 61 home runs that year. And for Mantle and Maris, there was also the uncertainty that comes with any baseball season, each man’s abilities, the possibility of batting slumps or personal injury, other competitors outperforming them, etc. But as the season progressed, and the home run count for Mantle and Maris each rose, the race between “the M&M boys” as they came to be called, soon captivated baseball fans and the broader public, while permeating popular culture of that day and for years to come. What follows here is a review of that season, with photos, press accounts, and later, a timeline, as well as a postscript on events that followed the 1961 season, including a Hollywood film and the numerous books that came out on the pair and their home run race. But first, some background on Maris and Mantle.

Late 1950s. Roger Maris with the Cleveland Indians.

Roger Maris

Roger Maris grew up in Fargo. N.D and was an outstanding athlete at Shanley High School, an all-state halfback in football, who led the state in scoring his senior year and helped Shanley win the North Dakota championship as a junior. He also set a record for returning 4 consecutive kickoffs in one game.

In addition to football, Maris was also a standout in basketball and track. Shanley, like other high schools in the state, did not play spring baseball because of the long North Dakota winters. However, Maris did play summer baseball as a boy, and also at the American Legion level, where he excelled.

But Roger Maris was first sought out for his football prowess, recruited by a number of colleges, including the legendary Bud Wilkinson of the University of Oklahoma, where Maris agreed to go. However, a baseball scout for the Cleveland Indians began waving around a $15,000 contract and signing bonus, and that appeared more enticing to Maris than college.

After four seasons in the minors Maris made his major league debut at in 1957 with the Indians, batting .235 with 14 homers and 51 RBI in 116 games. A year later he was traded to Kansas City, and from there, to the Yankees. In New York, however, he would soon prove his worth.

March 1951: Young Mickey Mantle picking out a bat at New York Yankee spring training.

Mickey Mantle

Mickey Mantle had been with the Yankees nearly a decade when Roger Maris arrived. Mantle had come to the Yankees in 1951 as a 19 year-old sensation from Oklahoma – a player with a rare combination of speed and switch-hitting power the game had not seen in years.

Like Maris, Mantle had played running back as a high school football player, but baseball was his passion, instilled by his father who had worked with him as a young boy, insisting he become a switch hitter.

As a muscular, 5′-11,’ 195-pound baseball player, Mickey Mantle packed amazing power into his swings, and during his career would hit some memorable 500-foot-plus home run shots. He could also move with lightening speed running the bases and in the outfield, especially in his early years.

In his early spring training appearances with the Yankees in 1951, he had received effusive praise from famous Yankees such as former catcher and Hall of Famer, Bill Dickey, then a Yankee coach. Dickey, not prone to exaggeration, would say of the young Mantle: “I thought when I was playing with Ruth and Gehrig I was seeing all I was ever gonna see. But this kid [Mantle]… Ruth and Gehrig had power, but I’ve seen Mickey hit seven balls, seven so far…. Well, I’ve never seen nothing like it.”

Mickey Mantle on the cover of Sports Illustrated in June 1956, the year he would win Triple Crown batting honors.

In June 1951, then Yankee manager Casey Stengel, speaking to SPORT magazine about the new kid, Mantle, stated: “He’s got more natural power from both sides than anybody I ever saw.”

When Mantle came to play with the Yankees, he was touted as the next link in the legendary line of Yankee superstars, and the likely replacement for Joe DiMaggio, whose centerfield spot he would inherit full time in 1952.

Although the young Mantle had a rough start with the Yankees in the early 1950s, sent for a short stint in the Yankee farm system, and disappointing fans when he didn’t become an instant DiMaggio or Ruth, he soon began demonstrating his superstar talents.

By the time Roger Maris arrived in 1960, Mantle’s heroics had already put him on the covers of Time, Life, and Sports Illustrated magazines, and often in the headlines of the New York sports pages. In 1956, Mantle posted a .353 batting average, slammed 52 homers, and drove in 130 runs, winning the Triple Crown, a rare baseball achievement. At that time, in fact, he was only the twelfth player in baseball history to have won it. And to date, Mantle is the last Triple Crown winner to have led all of Major League Baseball in all three Triple Crown categories.

1960, Early 1961

Nov. 1960: Roger Maris featured in ‘Sport’ magazine cover story: “Roger Maris Rejuvenates The Yankees’.

By 1960, however, the new kid in town – Roger Maris – was also demonstrating his talents. In fact, in his very first game as Yankee, Maris hit a single, double, and two home runs. Maris hit 39 home runs in 1960, along with 112 RBIs and a .283 batting average. That performance brought him the American League’s Most Valuable Player award. Mantle took the home run title that year with 40, along with 94 RBIs and a .275 average.

Although the Yankees had won the pennant in 1960, and were favored to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series, the Pirates prevailed, wining one of the most dramatic Game 7 battles in baseball history.

By November 1960, Sport magazine featured Maris in a cover story touting him as rejuvenating the Yankees. Still, compared to Mantle, Maris was the newcomer and slow to become a fan favorite. But at the beginning of 1961 at least, Maris appeared to have no designs on Ruth’s record, and was asked by an Associated Press reporter if the expanded 164 game schedule that year might make it possible to break Ruth’s record. His reply: “Nobody will touch it… Look up the records and you’ll see that it’s a rare year when anybody hits 50 homers, let alone 60.”

In mid-January 1961, Mickey Mantle, then 29, was the highest-paid active player in professional baseball. That year he signed a $75,000 contract with the Yankees (equal to more than $620,000 in 2018, but still a pittance compared to what elite players now get under free agency). Heading into the baseball season that year, Mantle said: “I don’t remember when I have felt better at this stage. I ought to have my best year.” In the previous year, he noted he had hit .275 and “struck out much too much” (125 times). For the coming 1961 season, he said: “I’m setting my sights on a .300 plus batting average, 100 runs batted in and at least 40 home runs. And I’m not going to strike out as often.” Mantle’s lifetime batting average at that point, after 10 years with the Yankees, was over .300.

October 12th, 1960, Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, PA. New York Yankees Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Clete Boyer are optimistic about their chances in winning the 1960 World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, having just thrashed the Pirates in Game 6 by a 12-0 score. "1 more" is all they need, say the boys, but it was not to be, as the Pirates pulled off one of the most exciting World Series finishes in baseball history. Click for separate story.

In the 1960 World Series against Pittsburgh, Mantle hit a torrid .400, going 10 for 25 with 1 double, 3 homers, 8 runs scored, and 11 RBIs. Roger Maris hit .267 in the series, contributing 8 hits including a double, 2 home runs, and 6 runs scored.

In March 1961, during Mantle’s first spring training season under new Yankee manager Ralph Houk, Mantle blasted a towering home run shot against the Dodgers at their Dodgertown stadium in Vero Beach, Florida. That Mantle drive soared over the right field fence and went completely out of the park, disappearing into the distance. It was a good omen for the home run derby to come between he and Maris in the regular season.

In addition to Maris and Mantle, the Yankees in 1961 were loaded with talent, and any number of guys who could hit the long ball – including Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, Clete Boyer, Moose Skowron, and John Blanchard. On the mound was ace Whitey Ford, and a superb reliever in Luis Arroyo. So coming into the 1961 season, the Yankees were favored to win the American League pennant.

1961. Roger Maris watching one of his home runs take flight.

The M&M Race

In the home run race between Mantle and Maris that season, the lead would shift back and forth between the two power hitters numerous times throughout the summer.

Mantle got off to a strong start in April, hitting seven round trippers. Maris was slow at the start. The Yankees were already 11 games into the 1961 season before Maris hit his first home run. Mantle had a productive April, but Maris picked up the pace in May, hitting 11.

Nor were Mantle and Maris the only American Leaguers hitting home runs that season. By the end of May, Mantle led the American League with 14 home runs, with Jim Gentile of Baltimore next at 13, while Maris with 12 was tied for third place with Rocky Colovito of Detroit and Harmon Killibrew of Minnesota. These power hitters were also in the home run hunt through much of the summer, until both Maris and Mantle pulled away from the pack in later months.

In June, Maris hit 15 and Mantle 11.Still, they would each sometimes have four- and -five-game droughts without hitting a single home run, followed by a hot streak by one or the other, sometimes with multiple home runs in the same game. In Yankee Stadium on June 11th, Mantle hit an impressive upper deck home run against the Los Angeles Angels in the first inning of a second game doubleheader, giving Mantle the home run lead at 18 – but only momentarily. Two innings later, in the same game, Maris hit his 19th home run, followed by another in the seventh inning, raising his total to 20. During a 16-game road tour that month, Maris would hit seven more.

1961: Mickey Mantle, coiled up and waiting to strike.

By the end of June it was Maris 27, Mantle 25. It was about then, that reporters started to speculate, with a few asking the principals directly about the Ruth record, as one did with Maris after he hit his 27th at Kansas City. But Maris replied:

“…I hope you believe me when I say I never give Babe Ruth a thought… I do not think about his record. I’m just surprised I’m able to hit this many. Thankful, too.”

Still, as the competition heated up between the M&M boys, the buzz among fans and press was increasingly about one or both of them breaking Ruth’s record. At the first All-Star game break of July 10-12 (there were two All-Star games played at the time, the second coming in August), Maris was in the lead at 33 home runs with Mantle at 29.

Then on July 17th that summer, Commissioner of Baseball, Ford Frick, made a ruling addressing the difference between the Ruth-era 154 game schedule and new 162 game schedule inaugurated that year in the American League to accommodate its expansion to 10 teams. Frick ruled that any home run total surpassing Ruth’s 60 would have to be accomplished in 154 games as Ruth did in order to be the official record. Failing that, and anyone hitting more than 60 during the 162 game schedule would have to carry some special mark or notation indicating that it was done during the longer schedule.

Roger Maris was a bit misunderstood by the press, who treated him unfairly in their reporting, adding to his woes and the pressure to beat the Ruth record.

The Frick ruling touched off a long-running controversy, with divided opinion among fans and players. Still, Mantle and Maris at that point were both on pace to eclipse Ruth in 154 games, but the pressure was on both of them. In fact, on July 17th, the day of the Frick ruling, during the second game of a doubleheader at Baltimore, both Mantle and Maris each lost a home run they had hit that day due to a rain out, with that game and their home runs cancelled.

In addition to the Frick ruling, Mantle and Maris were also fighting against history and some powerfully entrenched nostalgia – with Ruth’s widow, Claire Ruth, and several Hall of Famers, including Rogers Hornsby, and even some members of the Yankee organization, openly rooting against both of them. Numerous Yankee baseball fans, as well, did not want to see Ruth’s record upended.

But Mickey Mantle by then, who had suffered years of fans jeering him as a “hayseed” and pretender to the Yankee slugger throne, was now getting more sympathetic fan support.

“If anyone should break Ruth’s record,” went the new fan logic, “it should be Mantle.”

Maris was considered the outsider; not a true Yankee. And unlike Mantle, he was not the easy-going type, personality-wise. His workman-like focus on his craft was often mistaken for a dower, unconcerned disposition. And accordingly, he suffered, unfairly, for how the press portrayed him in their stories.

Mickey Mantle’s explosive power captured in photo as he hits one into the seats during the 1961 home run race.

Still, Maris always took time to talk with the press – multiple times a day in some cases as the race heated up with reporters camped out at his locker – often subject to repeated and inane questioning. While the harsh treatment he received from fans and press did bother and upset him, it also helped steel him in his quest for the record.

Meanwhile, back in the home run hunt, Mickey Mantle went on a bit of tear in mid-July 1961, hitting seven homers in eight games at Yankee Stadium.

Against Chicago on July 13th and 14th, Mantle hit two (Nos. 30, and 31); on July 15 and 16 in games against Baltimore, he hit Nos. 32 and 33; and against Washington on July 18th he hit Nos. 34 and 35 in the same game, and No. 36 on the following day, also against Washington. Maris was then having a bit of a hitless stretch over some 19 at-bats in six games.

But Maris soon broke out of his funk in a big way on July 25th in Boston. During a doubleheader there he hit four home runs – two in each game – for Nos. 37, 38, 39 & 40. Mantle hit No. 37 during the first game of that doubleheader. At this point, the M&M boys were running about 20 games ahead of Ruth’s 1927 pace.

Others in the American League were also on the home run leader board, though somewhat behind Mantle and Maris – Harmon Killebrew at 30, and Rocky Colavito, Norm Cash, and Jim Gentile, all tied with 27.

In early August, Mantle had another multiple home run performance, hitting three home runs – Nos. 41, 42, and 43 – during an August 6th doubleheader with Minnesota before 39,408 fans at Yankee Stadium. Maris had hit his 41st homer two days earlier.

Aug 11, 1961: NYTimes finds fan support for breaking Ruth’s record & begins publishing comparative home run chart.

About a week later, in a somewhat unscientific poll of 50 New Yorkers at Yankee Stadium, in a New York Times story reported by Gay Talese, the headline read: “Fans Want Ruth’s Record Broken; 39 of 50 Here Hope Mantle or Maris Hits 61 Homers.”

That story also included a chart comparing where each Ruth, Mantle and Maris were in their progression of hitting home runs after 112 games: Ruth 36, Maris 41, and Mantle 43. The New York Times would continue running that graphic – titled “The Yankee Home Run Derby” – on the sports page in subsequent Times reporting, updated with each new Mantle or Maris addition.

On August 11, Mantle hit his 44 and Maris his 42 in Washington, D.C. game against the Senators, as the Yankees had won nine in a row. The Yankee win streak ended the next day, as they lost to the Senators, but Maris hit his 43rd. By August 13th, with Maris homering twice and Mantle once during a doubleheader with the Senators, the Yankee duo were then tied at 45 home runs a piece and still ahead of Ruth’s pace.

August 18, 1961. Life magazine, then one of the premiere news and lifestyle sources of its day, runs a featured cover story on the Mantle and Maris race to upend Ruth’s record. Click for copy.

The August 18th, 1961 issue of Life magazine – the iPhone news feed of its day – featured Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris on the cover. Their photo was overlain on a background image of Babe Ruth, with one tagline that read “Babe Ruth’s Challengers: Mantle and Maris.” One lead headline at the top of the magazine asked: “Will Yank Sluggers Smash 60 Homers? The Real Odds.”

The Mantle-Maris cover photo was taken by photographer Philippe Halsman, while the ghostly background photo of Ruth from earlier times had been taken by William Greene. Inside the magazine, a several-page story featured Mantle and Maris in separate photos, each swinging mightily for the fences.

Life titled its story “Math Muscles in On The Race Against Ruth,” in which it explored the use of “Bernoullis Distribution,” a mathematical formula used to project probability. Life even offered charts and graphs in the application of the formula to the chances of Mantle and/or Maris breaking Ruth’s record.

Life concluded: “Based on this season performance after 110 games… Mantle’s chances were 50-50. The odds were 4-1 against Maris, but the combined probability of one or the other or both men breaking the record was 3-2 in favor.”

Still, with more than 40 games to go in that chase, Life acknowledged there were certain other variables and imponderables that could still come into play for Mantle and Maris. And in Ruth’s case in 1927, the formula was no predictor whatsoever. In any case, the Life magazine story was one more indicator as how the nation had fastened its attention on the M&M boys. But behind the scenes, there was a high-stakes drama in play as well, and it was taking a toll on both hitters, especially Maris.

Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were much alike on one level, both coming from the Midwest, raised in working class families, with similar high school athletic stardom, and both marrying their high school sweethearts. Yet, in terms of personality and lifestyle, they were quite different. Mantle was more outgoing and gregarious than Maris, and liked being in the limelight. Though he played it humbly, Mantle really loved the media attention and he wanted the adulation. Maris only wanted to play baseball; he didn’t want the celebrity that might come with breaking Ruth’s record, and he especially did not want the press attention that hounded him that summer.

Mickey Mantle, a switch-hitter, showing his power from the right side of the plate, capable of 'distant shot' home runs of 500 feet or more.

Roger Maris was a line-drive power hitter with a long, smooth swing, and more of a contact hitter.

Press Pressure

Mantle had the benefit of 10 years experience in the New York fishbowl, and had learned quickly how and when to smile and what to say and not say to the press. Still, Mantle had had his bad times with fans and press, and earlier had been given “the hick treatment,” also receiving his share of grandstand booing and bad press when he didn’t perform, sometimes regarded as a DiMaggio upstart.

Even in 1956, on his way to the Triple Crown, as Mantle crossed the 50 home run threshold and was seen as a possible contender to the Ruth home run record, fans and press jumped on him as the undeserving soul and threat to the Ruth legacy.

Now, Maris was getting the treatment full bore – fans jeering and booing him, receiving threatening mail and telegrams, and followed by a constant throng of press at his every turn. He wasn’t prepared for it, and had little help dealing with it. And he often made matters worse by his statements or behavior, or stubbornly sticking to his course with an “I’ll-show-them” determination. Yet this attitude often made the press go after him all the more. In his book, October 1964, David Halberstam would write of Maris in the latter months of the 1961 home run race:

…The more he [Maris] became the story, the warier he became. The Yankees, completely unprepared for the media circus, gave him no help, offered him no protection, and set not guidelines. They let him, stubborn, suspicious and without guile, hang out there alone, utterly ill prepared for this ordeal; they never gave him a press officer to serve as a buffer between him and the media, or even set certain times when he would deal with the reporters, so what it would not be a constant burden. They did not filter requests, or tell him who he might trust and whom he might not or which requests were legitimate and which were trivial.

Under all this pressure, Maris grew more and more irritable. He found that he could go nowhere without a phalanx of journalists….

Some of the media had also fabricated a rivalry between Maris and Mantle that didn’t exist. That was obviously good for selling newspapers and gaining TV share, but it wasn’t true. Mantle and Maris, along with Bob Cerv, a Yankee friend of Maris’s, lived together in a Queens apartment for most of the 1961 season. Maris and Cerv had in effect, rescued Mantle from his more freewheeling lifestyle and Times Square hangovers, when he lived downtown at the St. Moritz hotel. Sure, Mantle and Maris were competitors in the home run race, but they were also friends despite significant lifestyle differences. And as a pair of New York Yankees hitting home runs, they were very good for the business of baseball, and not only in New York.

As the Yankees went on the road to other cities, record crowds began coming out, but not to see their home teams. “Cleveland baseball fans,” wrote the New York Times’ John Drebinger in a story filed from Cleveland on August 18th, “who soured on the Indians weeks and weeks ago, turned out 37,840 strong tonight – the largest crowd of the local season – to see the Yankee bombers, heated by Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, do their stuff.”

August 21, 1961 New York Times story on the increased interest of TV viewers tuning in for the home run race.

Through the month of August 1961, the Maris-Mantle home run race and the prospect of Ruth’s record falling, was the big news of the day – every day. The sports pages throughout the nation were full of “home run battle” reporting. Television, too, was enjoying the “home run fever,” with more viewers tuning in.

The New York Times of August 21, 1961 ran a story headlined “TV: Battle of the Bats – Home Run Hitting of Maris and Mantle Increases Interest in Yankee Telecasts.” The TV baseball audience, it seemed, had suddenly swelled to World Series levels six weeks early, all to watch the exploits of Maris and Mantle. Some New Yorkers were even foregoing visits to the beach in favor of watching the Yankees on TV. “In office building, bars and other locations,” wrote Times reporter John Shanley, “the cluster of fans around TV sets testify to the extraordinary interest” in the Maris-Mantle home run duel. Radio audiences for Yankee games were also up.

Roger Maris, in particular, continued his hot-hitting through August, as Mantle went cold for a time. Maris became the first player in history to hit 50 home runs by the end of August. On August 26, in a game on the road against Kansas City, Maris hit s 51st. But when the boys went hitless, as they did on August 27th, the headlines would note that too. On August 30th and 31st, Mantle got back on track, hitting home runs Nos. 47 and 48 in back-to-back games at Minnesota. For the month of August, Maris had hit 11 and Mantle 9.

Sept 3, 1961 New York newspaper story with Roger Maris holding up a “5” and “3” hand count of the 8 more home runs needed to break Ruth's record (inset ticket stub incidental, not part of original story).

On September 1st with the start of a critical three-game series with the Detroit Tigers, who were only one-and-a-half games behind the Yankees in the pennant race, Maris led the home run race with 51, while Mantle stood at 48.

Both Maris and Mantle went hitless in the first game of the Detroit series, each going 0-for-4.

Then, on September 2nd, 1961 against the Tigers, before a Yankee Stadium crown of 50,261, Maris hit two home runs – Nos. 52 and 53. That made him the first Yankee to hit 53 in a season, after Ruth.

New York newspapers’ sports pages gave Maris top billing, crowing about his hitting, one showing a classic black and white photo of a smiling Maris holding up a hand count of “5” and “3” with the huge headline, “Maris: 52, 53; Needs 8 to Top Ruth’s Record.”

The following day against Detroit, on September 3rd, Mickey Mantle rejoined the home run race in a big way, hitting his Nos. 49 and 50 (see photo below). Mantle, in fact, wasn’t expected to play that game, as he had strained his left forearm muscle, and could be seen wincing in some photos of his swings that evening. But he kept playing.

And when the Washington Senators came to Yankee stadium on September 5th, Mantle hit No. 51. The following day against the Senators, Maris added his 54th. Then the Cleveland Indians came to Yankee Stadium for a four-game series, September 7th-thru-September 10th, during which Mantle hit Nos. 52 and 53, and Maris, Nos. 55 and 56. At this point, the combined total of home runs hit by Maris and Mantle, 109, eclipsed the previous record set by a pair of teammates — Ruth (60) and Gehrig (47) at 107 –set back in 1927.

Mickey Mantle’s powerful swing from the left side of the plate, September 3, 1961, hitting his 49th home run during 1st inning against the Detroit Tigers at Yankee Stadium with Roger Maris aboard. Mantle would hit his 50th home run in the same game in the 9th inning. AP photo.

On September 14th, after the Yankees had dropped a doubleheader to the Chicago White Sox in Chicago, Mickey Mantle, who had gone hitless in both games, made a surprising statement after the game. “I can’t make it,” he said referring to the Ruth home run mark, “not even in 162 games. I figure if I could have hit a couple here (in the Chicago doubleheader) I might have been able to do it. But I don’t think I can do it now.” But there was more going on with Mantle at that time then he allowed in his remarks.

14 Sept `61. Mickey Mantle, frustrated at first base after grounding into a force play during Chicago game, afterwhich he would assess his HR record chances as poor, but he then had an infected hip.

Mantle had been waylaid with what was variously reported as a virus, head cold, and upper respiratory infection that had lingered for some time, affecting his performance. Still, Mantle continued to play, though not at his best. In the Detroit series, September 16th and 17th, and he hit a couple of long balls that almost made it out.

Also in that series, Mantle had some heated words for Detroit pitching ace, Jim Bunning, who had thrown hard and inside to Mantle during one at bat, causing Mantle’s ire to rise – in part, no doubt, from his feeling ill and his home run frustration. At the time Mantle hadn’t hit a home run since September 10th, and was stuck at No. 53, while Maris had 57. The game itself would go into extra innings, until the top of the 12th when Maris hit his 58th homer of the season – a two-run blast – giving the Yanks a 6-4 victory. Maris would have three RBIs that day while Mantle struggled, going hitless in four at bats.

By the time the Yankees traveled to Baltimore for a three-game series, September 19-thru-21, Mantle only made one appearance as a pinch hitter. At the Yankees’ next stop in Boston on September 24th, Mantle made a surprise start and also hit his 54th home run – a three-run, first inning blast that helped the Yankees win that game. The next day in Boston, Mantle went hitless, and the day after that he could only play one inning. On the plane ride back from Boston, Mantle, still feeling under the weather, spoke with Yankee announcer Mel Allen who said he knew a doctor who could fix him up — an infamous physician, it turns out, named Max Jacobson. Dr. Jacobson, popular for a time with celebrities and even President John F. Kennedy, was known by the nickname, “Dr. Feelgood” for his rejuvenating injections of amphetamines (and who later had his medical license revoked). Mantle received one of Dr. Jacobson’s shots, ostensibly to knock out the virus, but the needle had hit Mantle’s hip bone, causing an abscess on his side that would later have to be lanced and drained. By September 28th, Mantle was taken to the hospital where he was treated for an infected hip, as doctors excised and packed the abscess. Mantle was effectively knocked out of the home run race, hospitalized for the final week of the season.

Roger Maris, watching one of his homers leave the yard.

Roger Maris, meanwhile, continued his charge on the home run record book, although the pressure of Ruth’s 60, plus the daily press harangue, was hanging over him hard, taking a personal toll. At one point, patches of his hair were falling out. Still, he soldiered on. Maris hit No. 56 on September 9th in a game at Yankee Stadium against Cleveland. But No. 57 didn’t come until a week later, on September 16th, followed by No. 58 the next day, both on the road at Detroit. With that last home run, Maris joined the “58 club” along with Hank Greenburg, Jimmie Foxx and Babe Ruth, only the fourth player to have hit 58 home runs.

The Yankees traveled next to Baltimore, Babe Ruth’s hometown to play the Orioles. There, Maris had some rough at bats in the first game of a doubleheader on September 19th. The second game was the 154th game of the season, in which he could equal or exceed Ruth. But there would be no Roger Maris home runs in that game either. On the next day at Baltimore, however, Maris hit No. 59. And with that day’s performance, Maris had once again moved into rarefied home run territory – now only the second player in major league history to hit 59 home runs, that also set by Ruth in 1921, six years before he hit 60.

Then there were two games on the road at Boston, September 23rd and 24th, where Maris did not hit another home run, but where Mantle had hit his last home run (No. 54) on the 23rd. The final five games of the 1961 season were played at home — two with Baltimore on September 26th and 27th, and three with Boston, September 29th & 30th and October 1st. In the first game with Baltimore on September 26th, Maris hit his 60th home run in the third inning. And then, in the final game of the 1961 season, on October 1st in the fourth inning, Roger Maris went into the record books with his 61st home run of the season, surpassing Babe Ruth.

September 20, 1961, New York Daily News headlines and photos feature the 59th home run of Roger Maris (Yogi Berra greeting him at the plate) and the New York Yankees celebrating their 1961 American League pennant victory.

October 2, 1961, New York Daily News headlines and photos show Roger Maris coming out of the dugout to tip his hat to Yankee Stadium fans after hitting his 1961 season record 61st home run. Maris is also shown with his wife Pat.

Rare Baseball Event

Exceptional Season

1961. Roger Maris, haunted by Babe Ruth all year, shown at the Babe's monument, then behind Yankee Stadium's center field.

In the end, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris each posted exceptional seasons in 1961, providing baseball fans and baseball history with a rare event, especially since the likelihood of two players on the same team being that productive with the long ball is not normally a regular season occurrence.

Mickey Mantle played in 153 games that year, and his 1961 statistics included: 514 at bats, 163 hits, 54 home runs, 128 RBIs, 131 runs scored, 126 walks, 112 strike outs, an on-base percentage of.448, a slugging average of.687, and a batting average of .317, fourth best in the American League.

Roger Maris played in 161 games with 590 at bats, 159 hits, 61 home runs, 142 runs batted in, 132 runs scored, 94 walks, 67 strikeouts, an on base percentage of.372, a slugging average of.620, and a batting average of .269. He led the American League that year in runs scored, RBIs, and home runs.

Feb 1962. Roger Maris, Man of the Year.

The Yankees won the World Series that year, besting the Cincinnati Reds, 4 games to 1, but neither Mantle or Maris played major roles. Mantle, still recovering from his infected hip, made a few appearances in two of the games with one hit. Maris played all five games, went 4 for 19, with a home run and double, scoring 4 runs.

Roger Maris won the 1961 American League MVP Award for the second consecutive year, with Mantle finishing second in the voting. As of this writing, Mantle and Maris still hold the single-season record for combined home runs by a pair of teammates at 115 (although as of 2018, current Yankee teammates Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton may one day challenge that record).

Maris also collected a number of other awards following his 61 home run season. He won the Hickok Belt as the best professional athlete of the year. He was also voted Sport magazine’s Man of the Year (shown at left on February 1962 cover), The Sporting News Player of the Year, the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year; and Sports Illustrated‘s Sportsman of the Year.

As for Maris-Ruth home run comparisons, some baseball historians note that it took Ruth 689 plate appearances (i.e., all at bats) to hit 60 home runs, while Maris hit his 60th after 684 plate appearances.

1961 Home Run Race
Mickey Mantle & Roger Maris
Day-By-Day Scorecard

Prior year, August 1960: Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle await their turn at batting practice before a game at Yankee Stadium. In 1960, Maris hit 39 home runs (HRs) and Mantle 40. Photo, Neil Leifer, Sports Illustrated.

A pinback button – “61 in ‘61 or Bust” – among the fan paraphernalia that emerged during the Mickey Mantle-Roger Maris home run race of the summer of 1961.

Roger Maris & Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees playing a little “hand-over-hand” game with baseball bat to see who comes out on top.

August 14th, 1961 cover of Newsweek magazine featuring the “Home Run Year: Target 60,” with a Mickey Mantle look-alike pictured. Click for copy.

Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris jogging in from the outfield, circa 1960s. Mantle played center field, Maris played right field.

September 3rd, 1961 front page of the New York Times reporting on 52nd and 53rd home runs of Roger Maris at Yankee Stadium, with two photos.

October 2, 1961. Cover of Sports Illustrated magazine featuring Roger Maris hitting one of his late-season, record home runs, with full story by Roger Kahn, “Pursuit of No. 60: The Ordeal of Roger Maris”. Click for copy.

vs = home game
at = away game

April 1961
(Mantle 7, Maris 1)

17 April / vs. Kansas City
Mantle, #1
20 April / vs. Los Angeles
Mantle, #2 & #3
21 April / vs. Baltimore
Mantle, #4
23 April / vs. Baltimore
Mantle, #5
26 April / at Detroit
Maris, #1
26 April / at Detroit
Mantle #6 & #7

May 1961
(Mantle 7, Maris 11)

2 May / at Minnesota
Mantle, #8
3 May / at Minnesota
Maris, #2
4 May / at Minnesota
Mantle, #9
6 May / at Los Angeles
Maris, #3
16 May / vs Washington
Mantle, #10
17 May / vs Washington
Maris, #4
19 May / at Cleveland
Maris, #5
20 May / at Cleveland
Maris, #6
21 May, vs. Baltimore
Maris, #7
24 May, vs. Boston
Maris, #8
28 May, vs. Chicago
Maris, #9
29 May, at Boston
Mantle, #11
30 May, at Boston
Mantle, #12 & 13
30 May, at Boston
Maris, #10 & #11
31 May, at Boston
Maris, #12
31 May, at Boston
Mantle, #14

June 1961
(Mantle 11, Maris 15)

2 June, at Chicago
Maris, #13
3 June, at Chicago
Maris, #14
4 June, at Chicago
Maris, #15
5 June, vs. Minnesota
Mantle, #15
6 June, vs. Minnesota
Maris, #16
7 June, vs. Minnesota
Maris, #17
9 June, vs. Kansas City
Mantle, #16
9 June, vs. Kansas City
Maris, #18
10 June, vs. Kansas City
Mantle, #17
11 June, vs. Los Angeles
Mantle, #18
11 June, vs. Los Angeles
Maris, #19 & #20
13 June, at Cleveland
Maris, #21
14 June, at Cleveland
Maris, #22
15 June, at Cleveland
Mantle, #19
17 June, at Detroit
Maris, #23
17 June, at Detroit
Mantle, #20
18 June, at Detroit
Maris, #24
19 June, at Kansas City
Maris, #25
20 June, at Kansas City
Maris, #26
21 June, at Kansas City
Mantle, #21
22 June, at Kansas City
Mantle, #22
22 June, at Kansas City
Maris, #27
26 June, at Los Angeles
Mantle, #23
28 June, at Los Angeles
Mantle, #24
30 June, vs,Washington
Mantle, #25

July 1961
(Mantle 14, Maris 13)

1 July, vs. Washington
Mantle, #26 & #27
1 July, vs. Washington
Maris, #28
2 July, vs. Washington
Maris, #29 & #30
2 July, vs. Washington
Mantle, #28
4 July, vs. Detroit
Maris, #31
5 July, vs. Cleveland
Maris, #32
8 July, vs. Boston
Mantle, #29
9 July, vs. Boston
Maris, #33
13 July, vs. Chicago
Maris, #34
13 July, vs. Chicago
Mantle, #30
14 July, vs. Chicago
Mantle, #31
15 July, vs. Chicago
Maris, #35
16 July, vs. Baltimore
Mantle, #32
17 July, vs. Baltimore
Mantle, #33
18 July, vs. Washington
Mantle, #34 & #35
19 July, vs. Washington
Mantle, #36
21 July, at Boston
Maris, #36
21 July, at Boston
Mantle, #37
25 July, vs. Chicago
Maris, #37
25 July, vs. Chicago
Mantle, #38
25 July, vs. Chicago
Maris, #38, #39 & #40
26 July, vs. Chicago
Mantle, #39

August 1961
(Mantle 9, Maris 11)

2 August, vs. Kansas City
Mantle, #40
4 August, vs. Minnesota
Maris, #41
6 August, vs. Minnesota
Mantle, #41, #42 & #43
11 August, at Washington
Maris, #42
11August, at Washington
Mantle, #44
12 August, at Washington
Maris, #43
13 August, at Washington
Maris, #44
13 August, at Washington
Mantle, #45
13 August, at Washington
Maris, #45
15 August, vs. Chicago
Maris, #46
16 August, vs. Chicago
Maris, #47 & 48
20 August, at Cleveland
Mantle, #46
20 August, at Cleveland
Maris, #49
22 August, at Los Angeles
Maris, #50
26 August, at Kansas City
Maris, #51
30 August, at Minnesota
Mantle, #47
31 August, at Minnesota
Mantle, #48

September 1961
(Mantle 6, Maris 9)

2 September, vs. Detroit
Maris, #52 & #53
3 September, vs. Detroit
Mantle, #49 & #50
5 September, vs. Washington
Mantle, #51
6 September, vs. Washington
Maris, #54
7 September, vs. Cleveland
Maris, #55
8 September, vs. Cleveland
Mantle, #52
9 September, vs. Cleveland
Maris, #56
10 September, vs. Cleveland
Mantle, #53
16 September, at Detroit
Maris, #57
17 September, at Detroit
Maris, #58
20 September, at Baltimore
Maris, #59
23 September, at Boston
Mantle, #54
26 September vs. Baltimore
Maris, #60

October 1961
(Mantle 0, Maris 1)

1 October vs. Boston
Maris, #61
___________________

Postscript

Following the incredible 1961 season, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle continued their careers with the Yankees. The M&M boys would still fire up their bats over the next few years, creating bursts of home run power and RBIs here and there. But their respective careers would level out some, and after a few years, their life paths would also diverge.

Roger Maris settled in for a more middling career during the next seven years of his baseball life. Continuing with the Yankees in 1962, Roger Maris hit 33 homers, 100 RBIs, and batted .256. He was also named to the All-Star team for a fourth straight year. In 1963 in 90 games, he hit 23 homers and 53 RBIs as the Yankees won their fourth straight pennant. The following year, Maris had some improvement, hitting .281 with 26 homers and 71 RBIs, meeting the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

July 3, 1962. The M&M boys had occasional displays of their home run power beyond 1961, as they did here, shown in the locker room after hitting two home runs apiece in a game against the Kansas City Athletics at Yankee Stadium. AP photo,

In 1965 Roger Maris was out with an injury for all but 46 games, though he rebounded somewhat in 1966, playing 119 games hitting 13 homers. Maris, in addition to a painful hand injury (according to one account, he played most of the 1966 season with a misdiagnosed broken bone in his hand) and declining production, had his age-old troubles with the press and Yankee fans who thought him a slacker when he didn’t produce. That December, Maris was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals, becoming a part-time right fielder there, hitting 14 homers with 100 RBI over two seasons. However, in the 1967 World Series, he hit .385 with seven RBIs for the Cardinals in their victory over the Boston Red Sox in seven games. Maris hit his 275th and final regular season home run on September 5, 1968. After 12 years in the major leagues, Roger Maris retired from professional baseball in 1968, having played in 1,473 games with 5,101 at bats. In those years he compiled a .260 batting average with 1,325 hits, 275 home runs, and 851 RBIs.

Oct 14, 1964: Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in locker room following Game 6 of World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals in which they hit back-to-back home runs.

Maris had wanted to retire in 1967, but St. Louis owner, Gussie Busch, persuaded him to stay another season by offering him an Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship in Gainesville, Florida. When he did retire from the Cardinals in 1968, he moved to Gainesville, where he and Pat raised their six children. Running the beer distributorship there in the 1970s and 1980s with his brother Rudy, the business made him a wealthy man.

However, the relationship of Roger Maris with the New York Yankee organization and fan base had left some deep scars, and he had vowed never to return again to Yankee Stadium.

Maris had previously turned down repeated Old Timers Day invitations. But over the years, he mellowed a bit, and on opening day 1978, at the urging of new Yankee management, he returned with Mantle to Yankee Stadium for the raising of the team’s championship banner.

As described in The Sporting News book, 61* : “…The scene was electric as Maris, with the tape of his 61 homer playing on the scoreboard, was introduced by the voice of Mel Allen saying, ‘Welcome Back Roger,’ Fans screamed and shouted his name in a tribute that obviously moved the emotional home run champion.”

July 1984: Monument Park plaque in honor of Roger Maris's 61 home runs in 1961.

Maris came again to Yankee Stadium on July 21, 1984 when the Yankees retired his No. 9 jersey along with the No. 32 jersey of the late Elston Howard.

The ceremony was held in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium and also included an inscribed plaque in honor of Maris’s “61 in ’61” home run accomplishment, subtitled “Against All Odds” and praising Maris as “a great player and author of one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of major league baseball.”

Maris by this time, as of November 1983, had been diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. He later died of the disease on December 14, 1985 in a Houston hospital and was buried in his home town of Fargo, North Dakota. He was 51 year old.

Mickey Mantle, meanwhile, following the 1961 season, had his ups and downs both in the field and at the plate. In 1962, he had a good year, batting .321 in 123 games with 30 home runs, 89 RBIs, winning MVP honors. In 1963, he played only 65 games, having sustained a fielding injury on June 5th that year trying to prevent a home run by Brooks Robinson in Baltimore, catching his spikes in the center field chain link fence as he was leaping for the ball, breaking his foot in the process. In 1964, Mantle hit .303 with 35 home runs and 111 RBIs and he also eclipsed Babe Ruth’s career World Series home run record (15) hitting his 16th, and in later years adding two more for a World Series total of 18, which remains the career World Series home run record to this day.

By 1965, the Yankees were not the dynasty Yankees of old, finishing in sixth place. Mantle, meanwhile, was slowed by injuries that year, batting .255 with 19 home runs and 46 RBIs. In 1966, Mantle’s average rose to .288 with 23 home runs and 56 RBI. For the 1967 season, he was moved to first base for less wear and tear on his legs, and on May 14th that year he became the sixth member of the 500 home run club. In 1968, Mantle hit .237 with 18 home runs and 54 RBIs. He announced his retirement on March 1, 1969. When he retired, Mantle was third on the all-time home run list with 536, and he was the Yankees all-time leader in games played with 2,401, until eclipsed by Derek Jeter in 2011. Mickey Mantle was selected to the America League All-Star team in 16 of his 18 years with the Yankees. He entered the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974, his first year of eligibility. Mantle would die of liver cancer in August 1995 at age 63.

May 1991. Mantle and Maris looking good, 30 years later, as Sports Illustrated pines for Yankees of old. Click for copy.

In Hindsight…

As the years have gone by, the New York Yankees of 1961 have grown in stature, and the performance of Mantle and Maris that year has become a touchstone of dynasty Yankee performance.

By 1991, for example, at the 30th anniversary of Summer of ’61, Sports Illustrated ran a cover story with M&M boys Mantle and Maris pictured, lamenting those glory days gone by, contrasted with the then sinking Yankee performance (last place in 1990).

“Whatever Happened to the Yankees?,” asked the magazine’s cover headline, with the smiling Mantle and Maris looking on. “Thirty years after the magical season of Mantle and Maris,” explained a companion tag line, “New York has hit rock bottom.”

A number of books have also been written chronicling that 1961 season and the home run race, some profiling Mantle and/or Maris, the Yankees that year, the pennant race that season, and more. Some of those titles, with cover photos and links, are listed below in “Sources.” There has also been one film.

Crystal Film

In April 2001, forty years after the home run summer of 1961, came the Hollywood film titled, 61*, a film revisiting the story of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as they chased Ruth’s record.

DVD for Billy Crystal film, “61", on the Roger Maris - Mickey Mantle home run race of 1961. Click for DVD.

The HBO film was directed by famous actor and comedian, Billy Crystal, who had grown up a Yankee fan in New York. Crystal was 13 years-old at the time of the Mantle-Maris race, but he remembered it fondly and as an adult had become a collector of Yankee history and memorabilia.

Crystal had later become a friend to Mickey Mantle and had talked to Mantle about his friendship with Maris and their race for Ruth’s record. The film was written by Hank Steinberg and produced by Robert F. Colesberry. Barry Pepper, who looked a bit like Roger Maris, played Maris, and Thomas Jane appeared as Mickey Mantle. The film follows the real-life Maris/Mantle quest during the 1961 season.

The asterisk in the title reflects the controversy that had raged for time over the Ruth 154-game record vs. the 162 game season that Mantle and Maris played (though no asterisk ever appeared for the Maris home run total).

The film chronicles the negative attention Maris received from fans and the press during the race, and the different lifestyles and personalities of Mantle and Maris during their quest. The film also explores the personal relationship between Maris and Mantle, portraying them as friends more than rivals, with Mantle defending Maris to the New York media, and Maris trying to help Mantle clean up his hard living off the field. The film first aired on HBO on April 28, 2001. Stated Crystal in one interview on what he hoped the film would accomplish: “I wanted it to be an intimate look at these two men and rivals who became friends. Of Mickey being able to say, ’You’re a good man, Roger’… what it was like off the field. I wanted people to come away with a feeling for theses two guys… And to acquaint them with what it was like for Roger to go through this assault on his character…”

April 27, 1962. Roger Maris at the White House, signing a baseball for U.S. President, John F. Kennedy. Click for copy.

Maris & Legacy

Meanwhile, Roger Maris’ single-season home run record of 61 would stand for 37 years, three years longer than Babe Ruth’s previous record. In 1998, Mark McGuire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs raced to beat Maris’ record, ending that year, respectively, with 70 and 66 home runs. Barry Bonds set a new record in 2001 with 73 home runs.

However, those numbers by McGuire, Sosa and Bonds, official as they may be, remain contested and tainted since all three players have been suspected for the possible use of performance-enhancing steroids. And so, for many fans, the 61 home runs that Roger Maris hit in 1961, has become the home run milestone now regarded as the untainted record. In 2005, in light of the steroid question, the North Dakota Senate wrote to Major League Baseball to express the opinion that Roger Maris’ 61 home runs should be recognized as the single-season record.

Roger Maris U.S. postage stamp, September 1999.

In 1974, Roger Maris became eligible for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, but since that time, in subsequent votes for induction, he has not received enough votes for induction, and since then his eligibility has run out. His critics charge that while he had a few exceptional seasons playing at Hall of Fame caliber, his career statistics overall are not worthy of induction.

Still, some fans and sportswriters believe Maris’s absence from the Hall to be a grave injustice, and there is a petition supporting his selection by the Hall of Fame’s Golden Era Committee that considers induction of previously overlooked candidates active between 1947 and 1972. This committee’s next ballot will come in 2020.

In North Dakota, however, Maris has always been regarded as a sports hero. He has been honored with the Roger Maris Museum in Fargo and billboards around town proclaim him as the true home run king. There is also the Roger Maris Cancer Center at Sanford Hospital in Fargo, a beneficiary of an annual golf tournament. In September 1999, the U. S. Postal Service issued a “Roger Maris, 61 in 61” commemorative stamp in his honor.

For additional baseball history at this website please see the “Baseball Stories” topics page, or visit the “Annals of Sport” category page for a broader selection of sports stories. Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 21 August 2018
Last Update: 19 September 2022
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The M&M Boys: Summer of 1961,”
PopHistoryDig.com, August 21, 2018.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

1987 book by Tony Kubek & Terry Pluto, “Sixty-One: The Team, the Record, the Men,” Macmillan, 287pp. Click for copy.

Phil Peppe’s 2011 book, “1961*: The Inside Story of the Maris-Mantle Home Run Chase,” Triumph, 288pp. Click for copy.

Robert Gorman’s 2019 book, “Sixty-One in '61: Roger Maris Home Runs Game by Game,” McFarland, 347pp. Click for copy.

Maury Allen’s 1986 book, “Roger Maris: A Man for All Seasons,” Dutton, 272pp. Click for copy.

Randy Roberts & Johnny Smith’s book, “A Season in the Sun: The Rise of Mickey Mantle,” Basic Books, 304pp. Click for copy.

1962 book, "Roger Maris At Bat," by Roger Maris and Jim Ogle / publisher, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 236pp. Click for copy.

“The Classic Mantle,” 2012 book by Buzz Bissinger (author) and Marvin Newman (photographer), publisher, Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 144pp. Click for copy.

Harvey Rosenfeld's 1991 book, "Roger Maris: A Title to Fame," Prairie House publishers, 287pp. Click for copy.

Peter Golenbock's 2010 book, "Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949-1964," Dover Publications, 720pp. Click for copy.

Leonard Shecter’s 1961 book, “Roger Maris: Home Run Hero,” Bartholemew House, paperback. Click for copy.

Tom Molito’s 2016 book, “Mickey Mantle: Inside and Outside the Lines,” publisher, Black Rose Writing, 184pp. Click for copy.

Jim Sargent’s 2016 book, “The Tigers and Yankees in '61: A Pennant Race for the Ages...,” McFarland, 256pp. Click for copy.

1996 book by Mickey Mantle's wife, Merlyn and three sons, "A Hero All His Life," HarperCollins, 272pp. Click for copy.

Allen Barra’s 2013 book, “Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age,” Crown Archetype, 496pp. Click for copy.

Mickey Mantle with Mickey Herskowitz, 2006 book, “All My Octobers: My Memories of 12 World Series When the Yankees Ruled Baseball,” Harper Perennial, 256pp. Click for copy.

Mark J. Schmetzer’s 2011 book, “Before the Machine: The Story of the 1961 Pennant-Winning Reds,” Clerisy Press, 256pp. Click for copy.

Ron Smith, Billy Crystal (Foreword), 61*: The Story of Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle and One Magical Summer (Hardcover), 2001, The Sporting News, St. Louis, MO, 160pp.

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John Drebinger, “Yanks Beat Minnesota in Tenth on Mantle’s Home Run with Bases Filled; 2 Bomber Drives Mark 6-4 Victory; Skowron Homer Sends Game into 10th Inning and Clout by Mantle Beats Twins,” New York Times, May 3, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Beat Twins Second Time in Row as Maris’ Homer Routs Ramos; Turley’s 6-Hitter Takes 7-3 Verdict…,” New York Times, May 4, 1961.

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John Drebinger, “Indians Score Five Runs in Eighth-Inning Rally and Triumph Over Yankees; Bombers Bow, 9-7, Despite 3 Homers; Maris, Berra, Lopez Belt Drives but Indians Win With Late Offensive,” New York Times, May 20, 1961.

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John Drebinger, “Delock Subdues Bombers, 2 to 1; Red Sox Pitcher in Control Except for Seventh, When Mantle Hits a Homer,” New York Times, May 30, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Belt 7 Home Runs During 17-Hit Attack That Overwhelms Red Sox; Mantle’s Drives Mark 12-3 Game; Maris, Skowron Also Get 2 Homers Each and Berra Clouts One at Boston,” New York Times, May 31, 1961.

Joe King (Boston, MA), “Taped-Up Mick Busts Loose on Home Run Binge; Crippled Mantle Hits Four in Three Games, Leads in Onslaught Against Bosox,” The Sporting News, June 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Beat Red Sox by Halting Rally in 9th; Mantle and Maris Connect; Five Runs in 4th Gain 7-6 Victory; Mantle’s Drive Key Blow — McDevitt, in Relief, Ends Late Red Sox Surge,” New York Times, June 1, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Ford of Yanks Beats White Sox on Two Homers by Berra and One by Maris; Bombers Win, 6-2, Behind Southpaw Ford Pitches a Seven-Hitter Before 38,410, Chicago’s Top Crowd of Season,” New York Times, June 3, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Rout White Sox in Series Finale as Stafford Pitches Complete Game; Maris Hits No.15 in 10-1 Conquest…,” New York Times, June 5, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Take Double-Header and Send Twins to 10th, 11th Straight Defeats; Coates, Sheldon Triumph, 6-2, 6-1 Yankees Set League Mark as Blanchard, Mantle and Kubek Wallop Homers,” New York Times, June 6, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Home Runs by Mantle and Maris Help Yankees Beat Athletics Before 22,418; Arroyo Is Victor in Relief, 8 to 6; Maris Ends Deadlock with Blast in 7th as Yankees Top Athletics in Rain,” New York Times, June 10, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Ford Wins, 5 to 3; Mantle Clouts Homer and Triple — Yanks Take Series…,” New York Times, June 11, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks, Behind Terry and Sheldon, Take Double-Header From Angels Here; Five Homers Aid in 2-1, 5-1 Sweep; Maris and Berra Belt Two, Mantle One Off Angels…,” New York Times, June 12, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Indians Rout Yanks With Six-Run Outburst Off Coates in First Two Innings; Perry Is Winner in 7-to-2 Contest… Maris Hits 21st Homer for Yanks,” New York Times, June 14, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Homers in Ninth Decide 4-3 Game; Siebern, Covington Connect After Maris Puts Yanks Ahead With No. 25,” New York Times, June 19, 1961.

“Yankees Down Athletics and Gain Second Place as Maris Hits 26th Homer; Stafford Scores Fifth Victory… Maris’ Clout 4th in 4 Games,” New York Times, June 20, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yankees Down Athletics as Maris’ 27th Homer Paces 5-Run Second Inning; Arroyo Aids Ford in 8-to-3 Victory; Whitey Wins 12th of Season — Maris Drives In 4 Runs With Homer, 2 Doubles,” New York Times, June 23, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Yanks Beat Senators as Ford Gains 8th Victory in Row and 14th of Season; Mantle’s Homer Aids 5-1 Triumph; Star Scores on Inside-Park Hit — Maris Drives in 3 Runs — Ford Fans 8,” New York Times, July 1, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Mantle Clouts 2; Maris’ Homer in Ninth Wins for Yanks — Arroyo Victor…,” New York Times, July 2, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Daley Is Credited with 13-4 Victory; Yank Pitcher Wilts in 9th — Mantle, Howard, Skowron Add Homers to Maris’ 2,” New York Times, July 3, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Yanks Divide With Red Sox and Slip to Second as Tigers Beat Angels Twice; Bombers Win, 3-0, Before 9-6 Loss… Maris Hits 33d Homer,” New York Times, July 10, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Yanks Beat White Sox and Regain First Place as Maris, Mantle Hit Homers; Stafford Victor in 6-to-2 Triumph… Maris Hits No. 34 — Idle Tigers Drop to 2d,” New York Times, July 14, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Pizarro Is Victor with 7-hitter, 6-1; Mantle’s 31st Homer Only Damaging Blow Made Off White Sox Left-Hander,” New York Times, July 15, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Maris Hits No. 35; Yanks Win, 9-8, in 10; Keep League Lead — Arroyo Victor Yankees Defeat White Sox, 9 to 8,” New York Times, July 16, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Daley Triumphs On 4-Hitter, 2-1; Mantle Bats In Yankee Runs With 32d Homer and a Two-Bagger in Ninth,” New York Times, July 17, 1961.

“Ruth’s Record Can Be Broken Only in 154 Games, Frick Rules,” New York Times, July 18, 1961.

Associated Press, “Houk Roots for His 2 Stars,” New York Times, July 18, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Bombers Triumph With 6-Hitter, 5-0; Mantle Connects in Opener — He, Maris Lose Homers When Rain Ends Finale,” New York Times, July 18, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “2 Mantle Homers Spark 5-3 Victory; Mickey Moves Into Tie With Maris for Clout Honors at 35 as Yanks Win,” New York Times, July 19, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Yanks Drop Double-Header to Senators But Cling to American League Lead… 27,126 See Daniels, Donovan Halt Yanks at Washington — Mantle Hits No. 36,” New York Times, July 20, 1961.

Joseph M. Sheehan, “Mantle and Maris Aid 11-8 Triumph; 4 Yanks Hit Homers — Ford Routed in Fifth — Arroyo Victor…,” New York Times, July 22, 1961.

Howard M. Tuckner, “Giants Beat Yanks Before 47,346; Mays’ 2-Run Single, Mantle Home Run Mark 4-1 Game; Coast Club Cheered in First Showing Here Since ’57,” New York Times, July 25, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Maris Hits Four Home Runs As Yanks Beat White Sox Twice and Regain Lead; Bombers Defeat Chicago, 5-1, 12-0…,” New York Times, July 26, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Blanchard Hits 2 Homers and Mantle Poles No. 39 as Yanks Beat White Sox; Sheldon Is Victor with 4-hitter, 5-2,” New York Times, July 27, 1961.

“Ruth, Gehrig Shared Spotlight In Homer Derby 34 Years Ago,” New York Times, July 27, 1961.

John Drebinger, Sports of the Times, “The Home-Run Whirligig,” New York Times, July 30, 1961.

Walter Bingham, “Assault on the Record: If Either Mantle or Maris Hits 61 Home Runs This Season, Will He Break Ruth’s Record? Herewith a Straight Answer to a Hot Question,” Sports Illustrated, July 31, 1961.

Gordon S. White, Jr., “Mantle’s 40th Homer Highlights Double Victory by Yankees Over Athletics; Arroyo and Terry Triumph… Mantle Ties Maris in Homers,” New York Times, August 3, 1961.

Howard M. Tuckner, “Frick, Giles and Tests of Ball Can’t Explain Homer Increase; Spalding Assures Big League Officials That Specifications of Its Product Haven’t Changed in 25 Years,” New York Times, August 3, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Arroyo Triumphs in Relief, 8 TO 5; 24,109 See Yankees Win on Blanchard Hit Off Pleis — Maris Gets 3-Run Homer,” New York Times, August 5, 1961.

Gay Talese, “Fans Want Ruth’s Record Broken; 39 of 50 Here Hope Mantle or Maris Hits 61 Homers,” New York Times, August 11, 1961.

Louis Effrat, “Yankees Rout Senators for Ninth In Row as Mantle and Maris Hit Homers; Terry Is Victor…Mantle Belts His 44th Homer, Maris No. 42,” New York Times, August 12, 1961.

Louis Effrat, “4-Run Homer Wins; Green’s Hit in Seventh Cuts Yank Lead to 3 Games over Tigers; Yankees Are Beaten by Senators in Washington, Despite Maris’ 43d Homer…,” New York Times, August 13, 1961.

Louis Effrat, “Maris Hits 2 Homers and Mantle 1 As Yanks Split Twin Bill With Senators… Maris, Mantle Each Hits No. 45,” New York Times, August 14, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Maris Poles Two Homers, for Total of 48, in Yankee Victory Over White Sox; Game Ends at 5-4 as Pitch Hits Cerv; Tie Is Broken in 9th After Maris’ Homers Provide First 4 Yankee Runs,” New York Times, August 17, 1961.

“Math Muscles in On the Race Against Ruth – The Odds on Mantle and/or Maris Breaking Babe Ruth’s Home Run Record,” Life, August 18, 1961, pp. 62-70.

John Drebinger, “Yankees Bow to Indians Before 37,840 Fans as Mantle and Maris Go Hitless…,” New York Times, August 19, 1961.

William Barry Furlong, “That Sixtieth Home Run; Baseball’s Big Guns Are Still Trying to Top a Record Set in 1927,” New York Times Magazine, Sunday, August 20, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Arroyo Relieves; Howard’s Hit Wins – Maris and Mantle Fail to Connect; ..Ford Wins No. 21…,” New York Times, August 19, 1961.

UPI, “Home-Run Odds Quoted; Bookie Offers 5 to 6 Either Way on Maris or Mantle,” New York Times, August 20, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yankees Turn Back Indians Twice as Maris Hits No. 49 and Mantle No. 46… Mantle Drives in 6 Runs — Skowron Connects,” New York Times, August 21, 1961.

“Yanks’ Homer Derby Goes West And Berra Ponders a New Pitch; Yogi Asks: What Happens if One Star Hits 61 in 154 Games but the Other Finishes With More in 162?,” New York Times, August 22, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Maris Clouts 50th Homer But Yankees Lose to Angels in Contest on Coast…,” New York Times, August 23, 1961.

Arthur Daley, “Sports of The Times; One Who Came Close (Greenburg), New York Times, August 27, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Maris’ 51st Helps Yanks Win… A’s Beaten, 5 to 1; Yanks Raise Lead to 2 1/2 Games…,” New York Times, August 27, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Sheldon, Arroyo Aid 8-7 Triumph… — Maris, Mantle Hitless — Howard, Berra Clout Home Runs,” New York Times, August 28, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Mantle on Homers: The Players Are Livelier; Yankees’ Star Says Maris Should Get Credit for Feats; Pitchers Are Called Slicker, Smarter Than in Past,” New York Times, August 29, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Casey the Computer Says Maris Will Set Mark; But Electronic Brain Thinks Mantle Has Little Chance,” New York Times, August 30, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Crowd of 40,118 Sees 3-0 Contest; Record Bloomington Turnout Watches Pascual of Twins Fan Mantle 3 Times,” New York Times, August 30, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Twins Beat Yanks Despite Mantle’s 48th Homer;…Sheldon Routed in 5-to-4 Defeat; Yank Lead Cut to 1 1/2 Games — Season Homer Mark of 195 Set — Maris Halted,” New York Times, September 1, 1961.

Gay Talese, “Mantle, Maris and a Few Others Stir a Potpourri of Fan Emotion,” New York Times, September 2, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Lead Is 3 1/2 Games; 50,261 See Yanks Win…as Maris Hits 52d and 53d Homers…Colavito of Tigers Hits No. 40,” New York Times, September 3, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Mantle Makes It 49 and 50 and Yanks Make It Three Straight Over Tigers; Howard’s Homer Caps 8-5 Victory; Drive in 9th Defeats Tigers After Mantle Ties Score — 55,676 See Game,” New York Times, September 4, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Sink Senators Twice; Mantle Plays One Inning and Maris Goes Hitless; …Yanks Take First on Homer by Blanchard…,” New York Times, September 5, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Maris’ 54th Homer, One of 5 by Yanks, Marks Ford’s Shutout Over Senators; Bomber Ace Gains 23d Triumph…Blanchard Hits 2 Homers…,” New York Times, September 7, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Maris Hits 55th Homer as Yankees Beat Indians and Lift Lead to 9 Games…Mantle’s Double Snaps Tie in 6th,” New York Times, September 8, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “Mantle Hits Homer No. 52 as Yanks Down Indians Before 41,762 at Stadium; Bombers Capture Ninth in Row, 9-1 Stafford Hurls 7-Hitter and Belts Triple and Single — Kubek Clouts Homer,” New York Times, September 9, 1961.

UPI, “[Ted] Williams ‘Pretty Sure’ Maris Will Set Record,” New York Times, September 10, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Maris Hits No. 56 As Yanks Beat Indians; 4 Runs in 9th Win; Yankees Take 10th in Row — Arroyo Victor — Mantle Stopped…,” New York Times, September 10, 1961.

Robert L. Teague, “The Not-So-Private Life of the M-Squad; Home Runs on Field and Home Fun Just Do Not Mix; Mantle Likes Films and Golf — Maris Reads Sports; Yankee Sluggers Short on Privacy,” New York Times, September 10, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Mantle Hits No. 53 as Yanks Extend Streak to 12 by Beating Indians Twice; Maris Is Stopped …57,824 See Yank Sweep…,” New York Times, September 11, 1961.

Louis Effrat, “Hank Greenberg Roots for Mark In Homers by Maris or Mantle,” New York Times, September 14, 1961.

John Drebinger, “White Sox Turn Back Yanks Twice; Maris and Mantle Fail to Hit Homers…Winning Streak Ends at 13 — Maris Gets Three Singles — Mantle Hitless,” New York Times, September 15, 1961.

Louis Effrat, “Mantle Concedes He Can’t Beat Ruth Homer Mark in 162 Games,” New York Times, September 15, 1961.

Louis Effrat, “Maris Sulks in Trainer’s Room As Futile Night Changes Mood,” New York Times, September 16, 1961.

John Drebinger, “…Four Yank Hurlers Allow 17 Hits Yanks Lose, 10-4; Maris Hits No. 57,” New York Times, September 17, 1961.

Louis Effrat, “Maris’ Big Bat Speaks Louder Than He Does; 57th Homer Gets Ace Talking Again, But Not Effusively, Abusive Crowd, ‘Bad Press’ Embitter Yank Slugger; Maris Still Lets Bat Talk for Him,” New York Times, September 17, 1961.

“Computer Says It’s 20-1 Maris Won’t Set Mark,” New York Times, September 17, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Maris’ 58th Homer Gives Yanks Victory Over Tigers in 12th Before 44,219; Two-run Wallop Decides 6-4 Game…, ” New York Times, September 18, 1961.

Louis Effrat, “Maris, Second Only to Ruth Now, Stirred by the Thrill of the Chase,” New York Times, September 18, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks Win Pennant… Maris Hits 59th Homer But Misses 154-Game Mark; Bombers Victors At Baltimore… Maris Connects But Fails to Tie Ruth Mark of 60,” New York Times, September 21, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Yanks 8-3 Victors; Ford Stops Red Sox for 25th Triumph… Mantle Hits 54th…” New York Times, September 24, 1961.

Philip Shabecoff, “Maris Likely to Top $100,000 For Earnings Outside Baseball,” New York Times, September 24, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Maris Hits No. 60 as Yankees Win; Wallop Starts Team To a 3-2 Victory Over Orioles,” New York Times, September 27, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Mantle Is Hospitalized, But Yankees Expect Him to Play in World Series; Mickey Will Miss 3 Red Sox Games; Abscessed Hip Sends Mantle to Hospital — Maris Hopes for 61st Homer Tonight,” New York Times, September 29, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Maris Hitless as Yankees Beat Red Sox; Mantle to Leave Hospital Sunday; Blanchard Drive Decides, 2-1…,” New York Times, September 30, 1961.

Roger Kahn, “Pursuit of No. 60: The Ordeal of Roger Maris,” Sports Illustrated, October 2, 1961.

John Drebinger, “Maris Hits 61st in Final Game; Yank First to Exceed 60 Home Runs in Major Leagues;…Right-Field Shot Wins 1-To-0 Game; Maris Is First to Go Above 60 Homers – 4th-Inning Drive Caught by Youth,” New York Times, October 2, 1961, p. 1.

Louis Effrat, “Mantle to Stay Out of World Series Opener Unless His Condition Improves; Yankee Slugger Weak and in Pain; Club Doctor Says He Thinks Mantle Can Play, However…,” New York Times, October 3, 1961.

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_______________________________

Teaser Tag: Oil Disaster History

2001-Today

“Deepwater Horizon”
Film & Spill: 2010-2016

July 14, 2018 J.D.

DVD cover for 2016 film, "Deepwater Horizon," based on the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster that killed 11 workers and resulted in the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Click for DVD.

In 2016, Hollywood produced a film that tackled the daunting subject of the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The film took the name of the failed drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon.

The actual BP oil spill that began in April 2010 is mostly remembered as an environmental catastrophe – for the months-long oil hemorrhage spewing from the blown-out well 5,000 feet below the water’s surface.

The spill – the worst in U.S. history — lasted 87 days and spilled an estimated 4.9 million barrels (210 million gallons) of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The damage to the region – from Texas to Florida – was extensive, taking a toll on wildlife, fisheries, tourism and more. BP paid out billions in fines and damages, and the full ecological toll is still being studied.

But one part of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that did not receive the media attention the spill did was what happened to the rig’s workers before the spill, when the well blew out and the rig became a raging inferno and death trap.

This is the story that the 2016 Hollywood film endeavors to tell with the aide of an all-star cast, including: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O’Brien, and Kate Hudson.

Turns out that making this film was no easy task. Director Peter Berg, producers, and studio faced some pretty stiff challenges, not least of which was a resistant Louisiana oil culture led by BP, local workers fearful or legally bound from not talking, and having to build an enormous offshore oil rig set that cost tens of millions (more on all of this later). Still, Berg, studio, cast and crew pulled it off in good form, producing an important film that is as much a cautionary tale and valuable history lesson as it is entertainment.

The Deepwater Horizon film focuses on the failed elements and decision making that led up to the 2010 BP blowout. It covers the mayhem of the initial catastrophe, the worker heroics attempting to right the ship, and the final scramble of workers to get off the doomed rig. It is a film “inspired by a true story of real life heroes,” as the film’s promotional material explains.

In fact, the Deepwater Horizon film is based, in part, on an account that appeared in print by New York Times reporters David Barstow, David Rohde, and Stephanie Saul. That 8,500 word story, run on the front page of the Sunday, December 26th, 2010 edition, was titled, “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours — Mixed Signals. Indecision. Failed Defenses. Acts of Valor.” It began as follows:

The New York Times story, “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours,” ran on the front page, Sunday, December 26, 2010.

“The worst of the explosions gutted the Deepwater Horizon stem to stern.

Crew members were cut down by shrapnel, hurled across rooms and buried under smoking wreckage. Some were swallowed by fireballs that raced through the oil rig’s shattered interior. Dazed and battered survivors, half-naked and dripping in highly combustible gas, crawled inch by inch in pitch darkness, willing themselves to the lifeboat deck.

It was no better there.

…Searing heat baked the lifeboat deck. Crew members, certain they were about to be cooked alive, scrambled into enclosed lifeboats for shelter, only to find them like smoke-filled ovens.

Men admired for their toughness wept. Several said their prayers and jumped into the oily seas 60 feet below….”

It was this New York Times story that Lionsgate and its partners, acquired for film rights to use as a starting point for the film. (However, the film’s casting, script writing, set construction, and filming would not be finished until 2016, and during that time there was more detailed information, continued news reporting on the BP catastrophe, as well as government and corporate inquires, a 60 Minutes program, and other information that could be used to help frame the film and its characters.)

Risky Business

Poking holes into underground geological strata holding fossil fuels is inherently risky business. Geological formations holding oil and gas are typically under great pressure. They hold various mixed proportions of volatile natural gas and oil. In the film, these inherent dangers are “set up” in a family scene at the home of Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife, Felicia (Kate Hudson), and their elementary school-age daughter, Sydney, who is doing a “what-my-Daddy-does-at-work” project.

Mike Williams (Wahlberg) in film scene at home with wife (Kate Hudson) and daughter Sydney before departing for his shift on the drilling rig, is about to use a shaken Coca-Cola can as “oil reservoir” to illustrate drilling well pressures.

Sydney correctly, if somewhat fantastically, describes the 300 million year old fossil deposits “where the trapped dinosaurs are” who want to be free and rush furiously to holes poked into their reservoirs. Her father uses a shaken can of Coca-Cola to illustrate the pressures involved, poking a hole in the can as his daughter then applies honey to the hole, simulating drilling mud, “to tame the dinosaurs.”

Floating oil rig in 5,000 ft of water; well on sea bed below.

Here’s some of the exchange between the two as Mike listens to his daughter read her report:

Sydney Williams: My dad is Mike. He works on a drilling rig that pumps oil out from underneath the ocean. That oil is a monster, like the mean old dinosaurs that oil used to be. So for 300 million years, these old dinosaurs have been getting squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter.

Mike Williams: We get it. Just use two “tighters”.

Sydney Williams: Then dad and his friends make a hole in the earth. These mean old dinosaurs can’t believe it. Freedom! So they rush through the new hole. Then smack, they run into this stuff called mud that they cram down the straw [her pipe/riser in the Coke can] to hold the monsters down…

But during the end of this table-top demonstration – and as prelude to what actually happens later in the film on the Deepwater Horizon – the “well” in the Coke can sends up an uncontrolled geyser of “untamed dinosaurs.” It’s a clever little lesson, which serves to clue-in viewers of the bigger drama yet to come. Here’s the film trailer with the kitchen scene and the later, more explosive action.

Offshore oil rigs of the Deepwater Horizon variety are enormous and complex structures. On one level they are truly marvels of sophisticated engineering and oil industry “derring-do.” Since the early days of oil extraction when the first flimsy wooden rigs ventured a couple hundred yards offshore into shallow water, the business and technology of oil drilling at sea has become dramatically more capable and powerful. Today’s modern rigs – of nearly aircraft-carrier heft and proportion – are now able to go many miles out to sea and drill in 5,000 to 10,000 feet of water. Total well depth beyond that – i.e, from the sea floor, where the actual drilling begins, to the pay zone, where the oil is – can be 10,000-to-20,000 more feet. This was the case with the drilling at BP’s Macondo oil well prospect in the leased federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico about 45 miles south of Louisiana.

Sample offshore drilling rig shown here, with its main well derrick, construction cranes, and helicopter landing pad. This happens to be another Transocean rig. But for some perspective on the scale of things in the offshore world, note what appear to be two “tiny men” standing mid-deck on the supply boat, lower right corner of the photo.

The drilling rig involved, however, was not BP’s. This rig, owned and operated by Transocean, a Swiss company, was leased by BP to drill the well. Transocean and the Deepwater Horizon were hired by BP to drill and open the well, not extract the oil. Once drilled, BP would later move in a production rig or submersible pumping unit to harvest the oil. The disaster occurred, however, at BP’s well; Transocean was then attempting to finish the opening of the well. Both parties, however (plus a third party, Halliburton) each bore some responsibility for what went wrong when the well blew out, as later investigations would find that a series of bad decisions, corner cutting, and failed technology all contributed to the disaster.

What the film dramatizes, in part, is the conflict between BP’s man on the scene, Donald Vidrine (played by John Malkovich), and Transocean’s rig manager and safety guy, Jimmy Harrell (“Mr. Jimmy,” played by Kurt Russell). BP wants to get the job done quickly (i.e. to meet corporate goals and profit targets), while Transocean wants to get the job done safely (not injuring or killing any workers or fouling the environment). And in fact, in real life, at the time of the blow-out, the Transocean rig was six weeks behind schedule, costing BP half a million dollars a day, so there was no fiction about BP’s push to complete the well as fast as possible.

Transocean’s “Mr. Jimmy” – played by Kurt Russell, the man concerned with rig integrity & safety.

BP’s Donald Vidrine, played by John Malkovich, the man concerned with $ 1 million-a-day drilling delays.

Mark Wahlberg’s Mike Williams is the lead character in the film. He is the person who frames the whole movie as he interacts with his family at home, Mr. Jimmy, BP’s Vidrine, and various workers on the drill floor and control bridge. (Williams in real life would later give 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelly an extensive and compelling interview recounting his harrowing ordeal on the rig during the catastrophe. More on this later).

The film also does a good job of capturing the scale and sophistication of modern offshore drilling rigs. The Deepwater Horizon was known in the trade as a dynamically positioned, semi-submersible, mobile offshore drilling unit. That means, essentially it floats, albeit with the aide of some sophisticated technology, being “dynamically positioned,” or locked in one place, with the help of an assortment of data fed into its computers – wind sensors, motion sensors, gyro-compasses, etc.

Film clip, drilling rig derrick. Looking skyward, from the drilling floor of the main deck, up into the farthest reaches of a multi-story, steel-built drilling derrick at the center of the rig.

The Horizon’s main deck was nearly as big as a football field. And mounted at the center of that deck was the main attraction – a 25-story well derrick (above photo), made with tons of steel, and flanked by two large cranes. Below the main deck there were two floors. These included sleeping rooms for up to 146 people– as crew and officers lived on the rig for weeks at a time. Each room had its own bathroom and satellite television. On board, there was also a gym, a sauna, and a movie theater. Housekeepers cleaned the crew members’ rooms and did their laundry. Some workers called the place “a floating Hilton.”

A New York Times illustration of the Deepwater Horizon rig helps to show the gigantic rig's layout, with helicopter pad and bridge control center at top left, and various other levels, production cranes, engine rooms, drilling floor, and central well shaft area, as well as living quarters, mess hall, movie theater, and life boat areas. It also shows path of mud & gas during blow-out.

But the Deepwater Horizon rig was also about the business of opening new wells, and could carry up to 5,000 pieces of drilling equipment, pipe, and tools. The rig was ten years old at the time of the catastrophe, but still pretty much a state-of-the-art facility that included lots of redundant safety features. The rig won an award for its 2008 safety record, and on the day of the disaster, in fact, BP and Transocean managers were on board to celebrate seven years without a lost-time accident, which is depicted briefly in the film when Mr. Jimmy is given the award and cheered by the crew assembled in the mess hall.

Film clip. Mike and Felecia Williams in the family SUV, travel over Louisiana causeways and wetlands on their way to the regional heliport for Mike's departure to the offshore Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Deepwater Horizon also captures the everyday life of rig workers and the environment of southern Louisiana’s oil culture. Early in the film, Wahlberg’s character travels with his wife in the family SUV over some miles of Louisiana causeways and beautifully green wetlands to the regional helicopter center that ferries hundreds of workers back and forth to the numerous rigs out in the Gulf. There are dozens of copters at this field awaiting others crews, as the Deepwater Horizon group in the film is shown walking to their designated departure pad (In 2013, BP reported that some 12,000 people each month traveled through the Houma, LA heliport on their way to BP rigs and platforms in the Gulf of Mexico).

Mark Wahlberg’s Mike Williams character (right) walks with Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell, left), bridge officer, Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez, center), and other crew on their way to waiting helicopter for the 45-minute flight to Deepwater Horizon rig.

At the heliport, Williams has joined his colleagues, including: Andrea Fleytas (played by Gina Rodriguez), a young bridge officer in charge of the rig’s sophisticated navigation computer; Transocean crew chief, “Mr. Jimmy” (Kurt Russell); two BP executives; and others. They will take a 45 minute helicopter flight out to the rig. (Of the helicopter ride out into the Gulf, the film’s director, Peter Berg, who took a similar trip, would later observe: “I did one of these flights out to a rig. And you get about 5 miles out and you still have 35 miles to go. And you hit weather, you know, there’s a lot of weather in the Gulf. And the isolation is very clear and very palpable. And I found… my anxiety level after about 5 miles, [and] every mile, I just felt unsettled and very alone in that helicopter.” And in the film, during the helicopter ride, there is a bird strike, which brings a brief moment of distress to the passengers.

Film clip showing helicopter with about a dozen BP and Transocean passengers aboard, approaching Deepwater Horizon rig.

Upon arrival on the rig’s helipad, Williams and Mr. Jimmy notice that the well cementing crew is boarding the helicopter for the return trip back to land, claiming they’ve finished their work, as the BP guy, Donald Vidrine (Malkovich), has said that no further testing was needed. But Mr. Jimmy is distressed by this claim, as he believes checking the integrity of completed cement work on the well – called a “cement bond log”– is critical for the rig’s safety. So Mr. Jimmy sets about verifying from several sources on the rig, with the help of Mike Williams, that yes, in fact, BP has passed on verifying the cement work. Mr. Jimmy has also noticed a boat in the area, the Damon Bangston, and verifies it too has been summoned by BP to take on drilling mud, another verification that BP has by-passed the testing. This prompts Mr Jimmy and Mike to go visit with BP’s Donald Vidrine and other BP officials in their on-rig office, where they have a somewhat testy exchange about the cement work. Mr. Jimmy, reminding the BP folks that a properly done cement job “is the only thing between us and a blow out,” says it would only cost BP $125,000 to do it properly. Vidrine replies that Transocean is 53 days being behind schedule, costing BP millions. Mr Jimmy, who has the final word on rig procedures, insists that a negative pressure test be done, which is reluctantly agreed to by the BP folks.

Film clip of Mr. Jimmy watching monitors as negative pressure testing in underway, with Mike Williams (far right), BP’s Donald Vidrine (obscured in back), and other Transocean crew.

As they gather to monitor the test, there are some anxious moments as the computer monitors record steadily rising well pressure – 100 psi (pounds per square inch), 450 psi, 900 psi, 1395 psi – “enough to cut your car in half,” says Mr. Jimmy on that last reading, and at which point “pressure alert” warnings are also sounding. But Vidrine, drawing on a whiteboard to make his point, dismisses these as an anomaly or false readings, claiming that sensors are picking up “pockets of pressure,” also explained in technical jargon as a “bladder effect.” Still, Mr. Jimmy is not assured and wants further testing. Vidrine then agrees to run a second test, this time on the “kill line” to illustrate his belief they are over-reacting to the first test.

Mr. Jimmy, meanwhile, is called away at that point by two other BP officials for an “urgent safety matter” on another deck, which is pretext for presenting him with a safety award in front of assembled crew in the galley. On his way to the safety gathering, Mr. Jimmy and Mike acknowledge that it’s possible Vidrine’s theory about the pressure test could be correct, but they still have their doubts. Mr. Jimmy, meanwhile, is lauded at the surprise gathering for his safety leadership. Back at the kill line test, however, the readings are still not stellar, and Mr. Jimmy’s Transocean colleague, Jason, is reluctant to give BP’s Vidrine the o.k. until he talks to Mr. Jimmy. Over the intercom, Jason informs Mr. Jimmy of the barely passable results. Mr. Jimmy very reluctantly gives the o.k., and tells Jason he will see him in about a half an hour. He decides to go to his room for a quick shower and some rest before resuming his duties. Vidrine then issues the go ahead to begin pumping out drilling mud, on the way to completing the well opening and closing out that phase of the work.

Film clip. On the drilling floor of the Deepwater Horizon, with well at work at left, floorhand Caleb Holloway (Dylan O’Brien) holding radio speaker, is in communication with the drill operator in the wire-protected Drill Shed behind him, as BP’s Donald Virdrine (John Malkovich) looks in at the well shaft. Things appear to be working O.K.

Donald Vidrine’s gamble appears to work, as the oil well seems to be cooperating with no adverse signs. Mike Williams by this time is back at his workshop office, later talking with his wife on a computer screen over Skype. On the drilling floor, work on the well resumes with the Transocean crew, as BP’s Virdrine walks by occasionally to monitor the work.

However, as the drilling crew is going about their work, floorhand Caleb Holloway (Dylan O’Brien) notices a tiny bit of mud welling up around the drill pipe. It also starts coming up in the seams around the well drilling floor.

Film clip. Floorhand Caleb Holloway (Dylan O’Brien) discovers some bad news at the drill pipe.

“Are you seeing this?,” Holloway frantically calls into the drill shack monitor on his radio. And just then, a large buildup of mud gushes up through the pipe, causing it to burst, sending drill crew members and BP’s Vidrine flying off their feet, thrown about, and covered in a torrent of mud and spray from the powerful blowback.

Blast of mud and debris from the well sends workers flying on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

After some struggle, the drill crew and technicians manage to stop the mud from spewing. But Jason in the Drill Shed is still recording rising pressure. Then, as popping bolts and projectiles begin pelting the Drill Shed, he calls for the crew “to get off the drilling floor — now !” But just then the rig shakes violently, and another, more powerful burst of mud and pressure spews, this time rising up through the top of the rig’s huge derrick. Rig floor workers struggle against the torrent, and their attempts at control are futile. Some begin a scramble to the lifeboats.

Film clip. Transocean floorhand Caleb Hollway (Dylan O’Brien) attempts to help BP’s Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich) to his feet after powerful well blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Methane gas is part of the escaping blow-out brew and this volatile substance begins to seep out invisibly all over the rig. Some of the drenched workers can smell and taste the gas; a few begin to panic. Gas alarms are now sounding throughout the rig. Up on the bridge, Andrea is discovering that the rig’s giant underwater thrusters that maneuver the rig are over-revving as escaping gas is being sucked into their on-board engines. She can’t hold the rig in place. Magenta alarms – the most serious of the color-coded alarms – are going off and appearing on the consoles. The leaking gas soon finds an ignition source and a powerful explosion occurs, cascading destructively throughout the rig, and a roaring firestorm ensues.

Mike Williams (Wahlberg) in his workshop on a Skype call to his wife when he hears some strange sounds, moments before he is blown across the room behind the flying metal door of his workshop and knocked unconscious temporarily.

Mike Williams, then at his workshop office in conversation with his wife on Skype, hears a few pops and pings, and the lights suddenly get real bright. Just as he starts to get up to see what’s going on, the explosion sends him flying as the heavy steel door to his office is blown off its hinges, sending him across the room and to the ground.

Mr. Jimmy, meanwhile, is then in the midst of his shower. As the terrific blast force ripples through the living-quarters, compressing those compartments as it goes, Mr. Jimmy is blown against the shower wall and bounced out onto the bedroom area like a rag doll. He is knocked out temporarily and lands on the floor. A blast wave of tiny glass, metallic, and plastic particles have hit him and now cover his entire body.

Mr. Jimmy, showering in the living quarters, notices the lights becoming brighter; not a good sign. As a blast wave rips through the living quarters, Mr. Jimmy is bounced around his compartment like a rag doll, covered with debris, and is temporarily knocked out.

Mr. Jimmy, upon waking in near darkness, and now with impaired vision, discovers that a long slender piece of glass or metal has pierced through the arch of his foot and is lodged there. He pulls it out with a painful scream. He then pulls on some coveralls and shoes, cursing at the pain. Feeling his way along the walls, he tries to walk, but falls down in a near hallway.

Mike Williams, too, is in a post-blast daze. He wakes up with a door on top of him, pushes it off, and manages to make his way to a hallway with a flashlight, where he finds an injured colleague who he helps to the lifeboat area. He then decides to go to the living quarters to look for Mr. Jimmy.

Mark Wahlberg’s Mike Williams character shown with flash light and crow bar at left, and Mr. Jimmy next to him, trying to free trapped worker whose leg is stuck and severely injured between damaged deck flooring.

When Mike arrives at the living quarters area, he finds Mr. Jimmy on the floor in a hallway and helps him up to walk. Mr. Jimmy asks Mike to help get him to the bridge to check on the status of the well. But along the way they hear calls for help from a pair of workers, one with his leg caught between heavy steel plates. They work to help free him, buffeted by a secondary blast as they do.

With the Deepwater Horizon now in flames, the nearby Damon Bangston work vessel has also sent in a “may day” call: “the Deepwater Horizon has exploded and is on fire.” The Bangston is the one refuge ship in the area, and it sends out a smaller skiff to look for survivors.

As the Deepwater Horizon burns in a raging inferno, the nearby Damon Bangston vessel sends out a smaller rescue boat to help pick up survivors.

The film cuts briefly to U.S. Coast Guard message center where other reports of an explosion in the Gulf are also coming in, which the Coast Guard verifies and locates with a satellite image that shows the burning rig. Rescue helicopters are dispatched, but it will take more than 35 minutes for them to get to the rig.

Film clip. At the home of Mike Williams, Felicia has learned that there is a fire on the Deepwater Horizon, and that some workers are “jumping into the water”.

At the home of Mike Williams, Felicia has called the company to learn that there is a fire on the Deepwater Horizon, but she is given no further information. She has also called the wife of another rig worker who has learned that some workers “are jumping into the water.” Felicia fears the worst for Mike.

Back on the rig, Mr. Jimmy says he must get the bridge, as he and Mike continue their trek through flames and flying debris. Arriving at the bridge, Mr. Jimmy has a long “if-looks-could-kill” face-off with BP’s Vidrine, curtly ordering him to the lifeboats.

Film clip. At the bridge control center as the rig continues to burn, Mr. Jimmy and BP’s Donald Vidrine have an awkward moment, but Mr. Jimmy contains his anger and orders Vidrine to the lifeboat area.

At the bridge, Mr. Jimmy, asks for Andrea’s help to guide his hand to the disconnect button on the control panel to activate the blowout preventer on the sea floor below to cut the riser pipe and seal the well. But it doesn’t work. They try a second time. No dice. Mr. Jimmy then decides they must try to hold the rig in place so the riser pipe doesn’t break off without a seal. But the rig is dead in the water; there is no power.

Mr. Jimmy says the emergency generators could work, but they’re on the other side of the rig, a perilous distance given the circumstances. Mike then volunteers to go across the rig to reach the emergency generators. Floorhand Caleb Holloway (Dylan O’Brien) volunteers to go with him. This journey is filled with continuing peril from fire, secondary explosions, and flying shrapnel all over the rig.

Mike Williams (Wahlberg) and colleagues find a worsening situation on the Deepwater Horizon rig as the rig fire intensifies and secondary explosions occur all around them.

Along they way, one of the huge cranes is swinging perilously above the rig, as it has broken free of its cradle. Mike and Caleb see one of their fellow workers scale the fiery tower to get to the operator’s chair attempting to bring the crane back to its cradle. He does so heroically, but soon falls to his death as the continuing inferno claims him.

Mike and Caleb get to the generators and start them briefly. For a moment, back on the bridge, Andrea and others are elated they have power to maneuver the rig, but the power goes out again. Back at the generators, Mike and Caleb try again, and start the generators a second time, successfully it appears, and they try heading back to the bridge across the blazing rig.

A badly beaten up Mr. Jimmy confers with others on the bridge about their worsening situation on the Deepwater Horizon.

Back on the bridge, Mr. Jimmy is flagging, nearly passes out, and is helped by Andrea. The situation on the rig has deteriorated badly by this time, and the captain gives the abandon ship order. Most of the crew have already made it to the lifeboats, and have evacuated the rig. The last of those on the bridge, including Mr. Jimmy, now head to the lifeboat area, only to discover that the last one has already left. Mike and others work to deploy a canister holding an inflatable emergency raft, and after some difficulty, are successful, though Caleb has caught fire and falls into the water during the process, but is shortly rescued.

Mike, Caleb, and others attempt to deploy an emergency raft cannister, their last chance of escape from the blazing Deepwater Horizon.

As conditions on the rig deteriorate in the area of the emergency raft, Mike and Andrea are cut off from the raft area by a small explosion, and are unable to board the raft. Instead, they will have to don life vests and jump into the water. However, they have to climb to a higher level on the rig amid the inferno in order that their jump trajectory will take them beyond flaming seas. They climb up to the helicopter pad level.

Andrea is terrified and refuses to jump, as Mike tries coaxing her. Still she hesitates, then Mike asks her a distracting question and pushes her off the rig with a little run assist. He then follows her with his own run and leap. They each plunge deep beneath the water, surfacing in the oily waters as some flaming seas can be seen not far from them. They are later pulled to safety in a rescue skiff, which heads for the Damon Bangston nearby.

Mike and Andrea contemplating their plight after being unable to board the last emergency escape raft, now have to don life vests and jump from the burning Deepwater Horizon rig into the waters below, much of which is also ablaze.

As they climb aboard that ship and find some space to collect themselves, they, like others, are shattered emotionally from the horror they have just experienced. Much of the evacuated crew has assembled on the deck of the Damon Bangston, where an injured Mr. Jimmy begins calling the roll to get an accounting of those who have made it. Evacuation helicopters come to take away the most seriously injured. After a time, the survivors on deck are led in a round of the Lord’s Prayer. The nearby Deepwater Horizon is still burning, and would continue to burn for two more days before it would sink to the sea floor more than 5,000 feet below.

Survivors from the Deepwater Horizon blow out and explosions have gathered on board the "Damon Bangston" vessel, here showing Dylan O'Brien's character, Caleb Holloway, at center.

The surviving crew is then taken away from the scene to hotels on land where they are given medical treatment and rooms to shower and reunite with their families. Mike is swarmed by reporters outside a hotel, and he is shoved against a wall by a distressed man asking him if his son got off the rig. Mike goes up to his room and breaks down as he tries to take a shower. Felicia and Sydney enter the room to comfort him in a family embrace. But throughout his ordeal, Mike has managed to hold onto the fossil he was given for Sydney, which he gives to her. Later, upon leaving the hotel, the camera pans Andrea and Caleb reuniting with their loved ones, while both Mike and Felicia embrace Mr. Jimmy, who is walking on crutches.

After the movie’s ending, the film continues with a tribute and homage to the eleven men who were killed on the Deepwater Horizon. There is also footage of the real Mike Williams, Andrea Fleytas, and James Harrell giving testimony in the aftermath of the disaster. Williams never returned to sea, and lives in Texas with his family. Fleytas lives in California and no longer works in the oil industry. James Harrell continued his work for Transocean. BP’s Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza (also portrayed in the film) were indicted on manslaughter charges, but federal prosecutors later dropped those charges.

Making The Film

“To this day, when people think of Deepwater Horizon, they only think of an oil spill,” said film director Peter Berg in 2016 comments to the Los Angeles Times, “– they think of an oil spill and dead pelicans,” said Berg. “Obviously that oil spill was horrific,” he continued. “But the reality is 11 men died on that rig and these men were just doing their jobs and many of them worked hard trying to prevent that oil from blowing out and it was certainly not their fault. As it pertains to the families of those men who lost their lives, I want them to feel as though another side of that story was presented, so that whenever someone talks about the Deepwater Horizon or offshore oil drilling, people don’t automatically go to ‘oil spills.’ ”

However, the families of the workers who were killed in the disaster were initially resistant to the film. “When Pete (Berg) and I reached out to the families we were getting resistance at first, and we didn’t understand,” said Wahlberg, also one of the film’s producers, in a USA Today interview. “I’ve done Lone Survivor [2013], I’ve done many true stories. We figured our reputation would have been enough to at least get us to be able to sit down (with them).”The families of the workers killed on the rig were afraid the film would again cause their loved ones to be blamed for the oil spill. The families, it turns out, were afraid that their loved ones would be blamed, again [as occurred in 2010], for the devastating environmental consequences of the massive oil spill that followed the disaster. But Berg and Wahlberg made clear to the families their intention was to highlight worker efforts to save the rig in doing their jobs, and helping save one another during the rig’s melt down. The film would also include coverage of rig safety measures cut by BP to speed up production – namely, skipping the check on the well cementing. Still, to be sure that they got the story as correct as possible from the workers’ perspective, as well as the work settings used in the film, they signed on Mike Williams as a consultant to the film. “Once I met Mike,” Wahlberg explained, “I just insisted that they bring him on as a consultant. I wanted him to be there with us and make sure we were getting it as accurately as possible.” Caleb Holloway was also consulted. Once Berg and Wahlberg communicated their intent to the families, they had their support for making the film.

May 2010. The CBS TV show, "60 Minutes," aired a riveting interview with Mike Williams, which recounted his harrowing escape from the rig. The interview also helped frame Williams’ role in the film. Click for DVD.

Mike Williams, for his part, was also apprehensive about the casting of his role. He was hesitant about being presented as any kind of a hero. “He was very nervous about what he called ‘stolen valor,'” Berg said in an Los Angeles Times interview. “He wanted to make sure that we didn’t present him in a way that made him look like he did a bunch of things that he didn’t do, or was any more heroic than any other people on that rig. And I respected that.”

Williams had also given a riveting 2010 interview with Scott Pelly on the CBS 60 Minutes program in which he recounted his harrowing escape from the rig. That interview also helped frame the Williams role in the film.

In making the film, there was also considerable attention to detail on the set, not the least of which was the enormous rig replica they built in Louisiana (see sidebar). On the bridge, for example, there were real drilling rig instrument panels and computer screens, and Berg and some of the actors were tutored in the business and technology of deep water oil drilling.

On the bridge set for the Deepwater Horizon film, real oil rig instrument panels and control monitors were installed to give an authentic look.

In an interview on National Public Radio, Berg explained that he had the good fortune of attending a kind of “oil school” which was set up for him and others by some of the film’s producers. In that experience, Berg explained, “we were able to spend a lot of time with petroleum engineers and deepwater drilling experts,” who took them slowly and carefully enough through the process that they developed an appreciation and decent understanding of offshore drilling. Likewise, Gina Rodriguez, who plays Andrea Fleytas, the bridge officer who runs the Deepwater Horizon’s navigation controls, was sent to dynamic positioning school in Houston where she learned Fleytas’ duties aboard the rig. Rodriguez also spoke with Fleytas and studied audio tapes of her testimony during one of the government inquiries on the disaster.

Big Oil’s Turf
Filming Not Welcome

As the film-makers sought to be as realistic as possible in making a film about an oil industry disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, they rightly came to the Gulf coast region and to Louisiana to do their filming. But as it turns out, according to director, Peter Berg, the oil industry, and BP in particular, wasn’t exactly excited about the prospect of a film on the Deepwater Horizon disaster. And in fact, according to Berg, BP went out of its way to make filming in Louisiana as difficult as possible.

Peter Berg, director, 'Deepwater Horizon' film, 2016.

“…BP became a very effective disruptor and prevented us getting any access to any oil rigs. We couldn’t even fly by one. At one point we were in a helicopter on a tour of a rig called the Nautilus and were told if we got any closer we would be perceived to be a threat and they were going to defend themselves. The companies exert so much power because they are such financial engines in that part of the country – anyone who worked with BP basically said they couldn’t talk to us. We had consultants who would work with us for a day or two, but the third day they would call in sick and we would never hear from them again. We had contracts to film on the tenders that go back and forth to the rigs – then the day before, they would say we couldn’t. It became obvious that BP was doing a great job of intimidating most of the people down in that community. We understood it; it wasn’t a news flash. BP pays a lot of bills there, a lot of mortgages, sends a lot of kids to school, pays a lot of medical insurance. We realized our only option was to build our own rig – which we did… [more on this below]

Berg also discovered that several of the people who were involved in the real-life incident had gag orders as a result of their settlement with BP, and “told us they could not speak with us.” And then there was the threat of BP legal action hanging over the production. Says Berg: “…The legal processes were something else.“It became obvious that BP was doing a great job of intimidating most of the people down in that community.” Lionsgate, our studio, had a team of independent lawyers who would review every word in the script… [Also]… in the final edits the lawyers were all over me; it was the first time in my career I have ever had to take mandatory edits from the studio….”

The rig seen in the movie and used in filming was an 85 percent scale recreation of the actual Deepwater Horizon rig. But this “studio rig” was no small project – and in many ways, was an actual smaller rig using real materials. It was located in a rural area of Louisiana at an abandoned amusement park. The rig was constructed using 3.2 million pounds of steel, and was built inside of a giant, five-acre, two-and-a-half million gallon water tank. Peter Berg would say of this project:

…[T]he set we built was about 85 feet in the air, was about size of about one and a half football fields, and underneath it was a 5-acre water tank that we could set on fire… [W]e could…blow up giant pieces of that set and blow oil and mud up in the air about 150 feet and land helicopters on it to do all kinds of things to try and provide the audience with an experience that…felt as authentic…as possible.”

An 85-percent scale recreation of the actual Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, using some 3.2 million pounds of steel, and set in a 5-acre water tank, had to be constructed in rural Louisiana due in part, to oil industry resistance to using an existing rig.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the biggest practical set ever built, really ever, in the history of filmmaking. It’s certainly one of them,” Peter Berg said in a September 2015 Los Angeles Times story on the set. The main deck sat more than five stories in the air, and internally real materials were used from similar oil rigs on the bridge set and throughout other parts of the rig. “On the drill deck, all the mechanics above them, we built that for real,” explained production designer, Chris Seagers. “We thought we’d just rent that stuff, but then you realize each piece weighs 20, 30 tons. So we had to make it all…” The real Mike Williams acknowledged the set’s accuracies — “all the way down to the salt and pepper shakers in the galley.” In addition to meticulously recreating the rig, current and former oil workers and Coast Guard members were cast in smaller roles. In the end, the rig was set ablaze to recreate the explosions and inferno.

The fact that this substitute rig had to be built from scratch, as opposed to using an existing or out-of-commission rig somewhere in the Gulf, meant that huge and unexpected costs were confronted, which certainly cut into the film’s profit, which was meager in the end. The film’s costs of $156 million, minus some production credits from the state of Louisiana, gave it net costs of about $120 million. Worldwide box office for the film was $122 million plus another $16 million in 2017 video sales.

Reviews & Critics

On September 13, 2016, Deepwater Horizon had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where, after its screening, it received a standing ovation. The film opened in theaters about a week later. Deepwater Horizon received generally positive reviews from critics and viewers. Audiences polled by CinemaScore, for example, gave the film an average grade of “A–”.

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans produced 'Six Steps That Doomed The Rig' in 2010. Click for somewhat larger version.

BP’s review of the film, however, was negative – and not unexpected. In late September 2016, as the film began circulating in theaters worldwide, a statement came from Geoff Morrell, BP senior vice-president of U.S. communications and external affairs:

“The Deepwater Horizon movie is Hollywood’s take on a tragic and complex accident. It is not an accurate portrayal of the events that led to the accident, our people, or the character of our company. Morrell also said the film “ignores the conclusions reached by every official investigation: that the accident was the result of multiple errors made by a number of companies.”

Yes, true enough, other companies and the lack of government oversight share the blame. Yet the major errors at the Macondo well, and the setting of a culture of haste at the expense of safety, were those laid to BP.

(For those who might want more detail on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, click on the New Orleans Times-Picayune graphic at right for more detail and a somewhat larger version of “Six Steps That Doomed the Rig.”)

One of the film’s producers, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, explained that Deepwater Horizon sought to steer clear of simplistic depictions of corporate villainy, though it is clear that BP’s Donald Vidrine is wearing the back hat in this film, which is basically supported by the historical record (although perhaps compressed for the purpose of filmmaking).

“In those kinds of events, there is no black and white,” Di Bonaventura said in one interview about the film. “If you have an agenda, you’ll see this movie through your agenda. But it’s very important to us: It’s not an anti-oil movie. It’s not a pro-oil movie. It’s what happened that day.”

Most reviews of the film were positive. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian of London praised Berg’s direction as “admirably, uncharacteristically restrained…[He] stages the action horribly well, capturing the panic and gruesome mayhem without the film ever feeling exploitative. It’s spectacularly constructed, yet it doesn’t forget about the loss of life…”

Gina Rodriguez plays rig navigation expert, Andrea Fleytas, who has a near-death escape scene from the blazing rig.

Deepwater Horizon “evokes the human cost of that calamity from the crew’s point of view,” wrote one Wall Street Journal reviewer, “and does so with impressive pictorial energy.” In other reviews, the film and Berg received high marks for providing context and offering explanations, while not simply making it all explosions and gore.

Reviewers also found the performances of Wahlberg, Russell, Maklkovich, Rodriguez, and Hudson as bringing authenticity to the film.

“…Wahlberg proves a sturdy, sympathetic leader on a journey to an enormous floating hellscape,” wrote Ann Hornaday in her Washington Post review. Another thought Kurt Russell was especially good in his role, worthy of a best supporting actor consideration. And portions of Gina Rodriguez’s performance — especially those at near the end, showing human fear — added to the believability of how people react in life-threatening situations.

There was also one review from CatholicMom.com that found the film’s depictions of marriage, family life, faith – minor as they may appear – all to be pluses, from the Wahlberg-Hudson characters as a married couple in love, to Wahlberg’s sign-of-the-cross-moment and the surviving crew taking a knee to say the Our Father together.

True, there was some criticism of the film for straying too far from the actual events, or not getting things exactly right technically. Some felt there was too much technical detail, others not enough. Time magazine’s Justin Worland, who flagged some of the film’s shortcomings in his September 2016 review, nevertheless concluded: “…No movie is flawless and, as far as films based on true events go, Deepwater Horizon is pretty good. The average viewer will walk away from the movie with a new understanding of a complex disaster. And, as easy as it is to complain about the details, the film gets the gist of it right.”

Sample poster art for "Deepwater Horizon" film.

One viewer in Houston, Texas, David Vaucher, a director specializing in energy issues at the firm Alvarez and Marsal, told the Houston Chronicle in October 2016 after viewing Deepwater Horizon, that the film didn’t need to be completely accurate in order to have an impact. Vaucher went to see the movie because he was concerned about the oil and gas industry’s portrayal. However, he came away thinking that Deepwater Horizon is a cautionary tale the industry should embrace. “This is really horrible to watch,” he said. “Let’s just try and learn something from it. I hope that in 10 or 15 years that people will still talk about this film.”

Less Marvel…

Whatever the technical, sequential, or composited shortcomings of this film may be, they are few and inconsequential as far as the main story line is concerned. On the whole, Deepwater Horizon is a genre of film that Hollywood should be lauded for making. Thank you, Lionsgate.

In fact, Hollywood should make more films like it. Lord knows there are lots of industrial calamities and pollution stories out there that need to be told, many with real human consequences and drama at their core.

History is full of such examples – from the coal mines, the steel mills, the chemical factories, and more. Hollywood needs to do much more in these arenas as a public service and for public education. Less Marvel, more realism.

For those interested in “Part II” of the Deepwater Horizon disaster – i.e., the actual oil spill and its aftermath — a bit of that history follows below, along with some of its media coverage. In addition, more than a dozen books on the spill, shown with cover art, are listed in “Sources” with Amazon.com links at the end of this article.

May 17, 2010. Time magazine, “The Big Spill". Click for copy.

New Orleans Times-Picayune graphic showing Deepwater Horizon rig, disconnected riser pipe, and blowout preventer at the well head, all on the sea bed, 5,000 feet below Gulf surface.

“SpillCam,” on the sea bottom at hemorrhaging well spewing thousands of bbls per day, became a split-screen 'star' during CNN and other TV broadcasts probing the spill.

June 18, 2010. L. A. Times front-page photo & story on BP's Tony Hayward in Washington: “Head of BP Rejects Taking Blame.”

June 17, 2010. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) with photo of oil-covered pelican during hearings in Congress, as he admonished BP’s Tony Hayward to "keep this image in your mind".

May 12, 2010. Front-page oil spill headlines from Florida’s ‘Pensacola News Journal’ featuring 'BP Holding Back' story & Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) during Washington hearings.

June 4, 2010. President Obama with Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, and speaking with press, at Deepwater Horizon oil spill response center in New Orleans, Louisiana.

June 12, 2010. Portion of the front page of the Press-Register of south Alabama reporting on 'black tide' hitting the beaches.

June 7, 2010. During Congressional hearing in Chalmette, LA, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) holds up full-page BP newspaper ad to illustrate complaint about BP paying for advertising while Gulf Coast region faced financial need.

June 14, 2010. Portion of Newsweek cover, with featured story, "What The Spill Will Kill".

June 12, 2010. Front page of The Mississippi Press showing oil on beaches of Petit Bois Island and reporting that latest spill projections look bad for wildlife and BP damages.

June 14, 2010. Chemical & Engineering News cover story: 'Oil Spill Exposes Regulatory, Science Gaps'.

June 15, 2010. Pensacola, FL newspaper shows President Obama walking the beach with Governor Crist with headline, “BP Will Pay”, and story about Obama speech to nation.

Signs of protest – like this one along a Grand Isle, LA highway in July 2010 – were spotted throughout the region, expressing anger of those whose lives and livelihoods were turned upside down by the spill, fishing restrictions, and oil drilling bans.

July 2010. Newsweek cover story on Obama Administration's BP spill response. Click for copy.

National Geographic's special report on Gulf oil spill, October 2010, features partially-cleaned Pelican at Fort Jackson Bird Rehabilitation Center. Click for copy.

January 2011: The Obama-appointed National Oil Spill Commission’s 390pp report on the Deepwater Horizon disaster, titled “Deep Water,” with blazing rig on cover. Click for copy.

Nov 2012. Wall Street Journal Europe on $4.5 billion in criminal fines for BP, with Clean Water Act fines yet to come.

2015. National Wildlife Federation’s “five-years-later” report on Gulf spill’s wildlife impacts. Click for copy.

The Real Spill

After the Blowout…

Once the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank, the spill phase of the disaster began in earnest. It would last for more than 80 days — and the controversy would continue for years.

But unlike most other oil spills, this one was an underwater hemorrhage — deep underwater, more than a mile. Large oil slicks on the surface would take a while to form, and the oil wouldn’t reach coastal areas for some weeks. Still, national TV news coverage had begun with the rig explosion and would continue, along with extensive print coverage, throughout the spring and summer of 2010.

One prominent TV image became the real-time underwater camera – nicknamed “SpillCam” – that focused on the spewing crude from the blown out well at the bottom of the sea. The volume of oil escaping – originally estimated by BP to be about 1,000 barrels per day—would rise considerably over subsequent weeks as experts got a better fix on the volume, later figured by U.S. government officials and other experts to have been 60,000 barrels per day for much of the spill’s uncontrolled duration.

Magazine cover stories and front-page newspaper accounts lasted for months, including coverage of hearings in Washington and in the Gulf region, as BP executives, rig survivors, and government officials were summoned to answer questions from Congress, the U.S. Coast Guard, Dept. of Interior investigators, and others.

Throughout the ordeal, neither government nor industry fared very well in public opinion polls. Early on, there were some fairly dismissive comments by BP officials, either to press or made during hearings.

BP’s CEO at the time, Tony Hayward, in May 14th, 2010 comments to U.S. Secretary of the Interior, stated: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” A few days later, on May 18th, in other comments Hayward stated: “I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest….”

Somewhat later, as Hayward had suffered through a few inquiries and haranguing by the press, he was quoted saying: “…There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do, I’d like my life back.” That comment was especially hurtful to the families of those killed in the rig explosion, also resented by many Gulf Coast residents whose lives and livelihoods had been turned upside down by the spill.

As plumes of oil formed on the sea surface, strategies were deployed to spray the spill with chemical dispersant to break up, congeal, and sink it. There were also “controlled burns” of corralled portions of the oil slick at sea. Both methods were billed as ways to keep the spill from moving inland, to protect wetlands and beaches. Neither of these strategies were especially popular, and the chemical dispersant, Corexit, was suspect as a toxic problem itself.

At the White House, initially, there had been no verification of a major spill problem. Although briefed by the Coast Guard on the search and rescue operations following the rig explosion, there appeared to be little concern in the Obama Administration about a spill — at least at first. Once the rig sank, there was heightened concern and more briefings, though the requisite federal agencies were assumed to be handling the situation.

Only weeks earlier President Obama had proposed expanding the government’s offshore oil leasing program. And during remarks on April 2, 2010, Obama was quoted as saying: “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during [hurricane] Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs. They came from the refineries on shore.” But soon, the Administration would discover that advanced offshore technologies had their shortcomings.

Once it was clear there was a major spill, the president sent his top energy and environmental officials to the Gulf region to assess the problem. The Coast Guard was already working with BP. On April 29, the president said he would use all in his power to contain the spill, including bringing in the U.S. military if necessary. The following day, the White House ordered that no new offshore drilling would be permitted until the cause of Deepwater Horizon disaster was determined.

Meanwhile, at the main event – i.e., trying to stop the hemorrhaging well – BP struggled with its technology and various jerry-rigged methods.

When the drilling rig sank (see diagram above right), the long riser pipe between it and the well 5,000 feet below broke off at the rig end, though staying connected to the top of the giant blowout preventer atop the well on the sea bed below. It would later be learned that there were leaks along the riser pipe, at the blowout preventer, and at the well head.

First, BP tried, via deep-sea robot, to manually turn on the blowout preventer, but that didn’t work. BP had also begun, by May 2nd, drilling relief wells, one designed to intersect the Macondo well so it could be plugged with cement. But that well wouldn’t be complete until August, nearly two months away.

Then BP began fashioning a giant, 125-ton containment dome on land, later brought to the site on a separate vessel. This massive structure was lowered over the spewing well on May 7th with the hope that it would trap and siphon off some of the escaping oil, sent to surface vessels. But deep-sea ice hydrates foiled that attempt.

Back in Washington, meanwhile, three executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton testified on May 11th before a U.S. Senate committee, each blaming one or both of the other companies for the incident.

Several days later, on May 15th, scientists reported huge underwater plumes of oil – one six miles wide and 22 miles long. These underwater “clouds of oil” consisted of oil beads believed to be the result of chemical dispersants used on the spill. The underwater plumes were moving with the current toward the coastline.

Back at the well, on May 16th, BP inserted a narrow tube into the riser pipe, capturing a small portion of the escaping oil and pumping it to a surface ship. But the well was still releasing tens of thousands of barrels per day into the Gulf.

By May 19th, the oil was reaching Louisiana wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi River. “This wasn’t tarballs, This wasn’t sheen,” reported Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. “This is heavy oil in our wetlands.” Oil had also hit the Chandeleur Islands earlier in May, barrier islands that comprise an eastern boundary for Louisiana and include part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge.

By late May, NOAA — the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — had closed nearly 20 percent of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing. The toll on wildlife and natural resources mounted day by day, and throughout the ordeal, there were heroic efforts to save and treat oiled wildlife. On June 28th, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission began digging up turtle egg nest on Florida’s Panhandle Gulf Coast and moving them to the state’s Atlantic coast – thousands to be moved this way by November 2010. Reporting by the Los Angeles Times on wildlife losses found that by August 2010, some 516 dead sea turtles had been collected and more than 3,900 dead birds. The Audubon Society would later report that more than one million birds were killed.

On May 22nd, President Obama ordered the creation of a bi-partisan national commission on the spill to report on the root causes of the disaster and options for improved safety and environmental protection. Five days later, on May 27th, he announced a six month moratorium on new deep water drilling.

Obama would make several trips to the Gulf region during the duration of the BP spill, meeting variously with Coast Guard officials, state governors, fishermen, local residents, and walking beaches. His first visit came on May 2nd, 2010, when he traveled to Venice, Louisiana.

Back in Washington, on June 1st, Attorney General, Eric Holder, announced that the Justice Department would begin a criminal and civil investigation of the oil spill.

Meanwhile, attempts to control the hemorrhaging well continued with more of BP’s “technological-trial-and-error.” On May 26th, BP tried a maneuver it called “top kill,” using a 30,000 bbls of mud-like liquid to staunch the flow. Along with that was “junk shot,” using golf balls and shredded tires in an attempt to clog up the blowout preventer to stop the flow. Neither worked. By May 27th the oil was reported to be leaking at a rate of 19,000 bbls per day, a rate later found to be low.

Public opinion polls were extremely critical of BP’s response. Across the U.S. at one point, thousands participated in protests at BP gas stations and other locations, actions which reduced BP sales at some stations by 10-to-40 percent. BP’s stock suffered and its reputation sank to all time lows. By June 1st, BP’s stock value had fallen some 40 percent, a reduction of nearly $75 billion in shareholder value.

On June 3, BP began an advertising campaign in the U.S. aimed at boosting public opinion. Tony Hayward was featured in one of the first TV spots, and also on the company’s Facebook page offering a mea culpa for his earlier “I-want-my-life-back” remark. Here’s Hayward in one of the June 3rd TV ads:

“The Gulf spill is a tragedy that never should have happened.

” … BP has taken full responsibility for cleaning up the spill in the Gulf… We’ve helped organize the largest environmental response in this country’s history… Where oil reaches the shore, thousands of people are ready to clean it up. We will honor all legitimate claims. And our cleanup efforts will not come at any cost to taxpayers.

“To those affected and your families, I am deeply sorry. The Gulf is home for thousands of BP’s employees and we all feel the impact. To all the volunteers and for the strong support of the government, thank you. We know it is our responsibility to keep you informed. And do everything we can so this never happens again. We will get this done. We will make this right.”

The same message appeared in major newspaper ads. BP in fact, more than tripled its advertising budget in the U.S. in the three months after the explosion to combat negative publicity and rising public anger. Between April and early July 2010 by one estimate, BP spent $93 million on advertising.

BP’s campaign also included local newspaper ads, run in 126 markets in 17 states, including the those directly impacted by the oil spill. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), one of those critical of BP’s campaign, said at one point:

“BP’s extensive advertising campaign that is solely focused on polishing its corporate image in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon blowout disaster is making people angry… As small businesses, fishermen, and mom and pop motels, hotels and restaurants struggle to make ends meet, they are bombarded by BP’s corporate marketing largesse day after day.”

In one interesting move to capture the informational high ground on public queries, BP purchased Google and other search engine page-one positioning (shown as top-of-page sponsored content) for search terms such as “oil spill.”

Further work at the well continued as BP moved with underwater robots to shear off the riser pipe from the gushing well. This was part of a plan to install a containment cap, which was successful, as some siphoning off of escaping oil began. Still, by June 10th, the government was then estimating that 25,000-to-30,000 bbls of oil per day were flowing into the Gulf.

On June 15th BP officials met with President Obama at the White House. The following day, BP announced it was setting up a $20 billion escrow fund for damages and claims and also agreed to set aside $100 million to pay lost wages to oil workers left unemployed by the disaster.

On July 12th, BP installed a “capping stack” to provide a tighter seal on the well – this until the relief wells were completed. Three days later BP reported that the hemorrhage had stopped. However, there was continuing question that all the leakage had stopped.

On August 4th, BP reported that its ‘static kill’ attempt to stop the oil leak by pumping mud into the well had been successful, though more mud may still have to be pumped into the well. The following day, on August 5th, BP pumped cement into the blown-out well, asserting the leak was permanently sealed. The U.S. government, however, wouldn’t declare the well “effectively dead” until September 19th, 2010, some five months after the blow-out.

Once the well was capped, there was still plenty of drama ahead and years of settling up – cleaning up the mess, investigating the accident, adjudicating blame, assessing damages, parsing claims, and making reparation. While the spill was in progress, a series of inquiries, hearings, and investigations had already begun – one joint investigation by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard. Various committees in the U.S. Congress also conducted hearings, some held in the Gulf region. By early July 2010 at least 19 congressional committees — 11 House and eight Senate — had held hearings on the rig failure and/or the oil spill.

Then came a variety of reports – a few from the companies involved, as well as more weighty tomes from government agencies. Each of the reports, in one way or another, implicated one or more of principals – BP, Transocean, and Halliburton. These reports also enumerated a series of mistakes, bad calls, and failed technology in one way or another, some shifting blame more this way or that, while others tried to remain neutral.

Notable among the reports was that of the Obama-appointed, bi-partisan national commission on the Deepwater Horizon, released in early January 2011. This 390-page report to the President – titled Deepwater: The Gulf Oil Disaster and The Future of Offshore Drilling – concluded the blowout was “avoidable” and resulted from “clear mistakes” made by BP, Halliburton and Transocean. But theses mistakes, said the commission “reveal such systemic failures in risk management that they place in doubt the safety culture of the entire industry.”

At one of the Commission’s earlier briefings it was also stated there had been “a rush to completion” on the Macondo well and, “there was not a culture of safety on that rig.”

One example of that failing came when rig operators were doing a “negative pressure test” to check the integrity of the cement job on the well to prevent gas from leaking. Co-chairman Bill Reilly explained that the operators didn’t like a reading they were getting from the drill pipe test, so they did a second test on another piece of equipment, which came out better.

“Inexplicably,” said Reilly, “a decision was made to take the reassuring test result without trying to figure out why it was inconsistent with the information coming up the drill pipe.” The report blames the operators for failing to communicate the inconsistent results to their onshore operations and states that if they had, the blowout may not have occurred.

In another example, before the accident, Halliburton found that the cement slurry it planned to use was not stable, but Halliburton did little to warn BP.

The report also singled out “government officials who, relying too much on industry’s assertions of the safety of their operations, failed to create and apply a program of regulatory oversight that would have properly minimized the risk of deepwater drilling.”

Commission co-chairman Bob Graham, former US. Senator (D-FL), said at the report’s release: “I’m sad to say that part of the answer is the fact that our government let it happen… Our regulators were consistently outmatched. The Department of Interior lacked the in-house expertise to effectively enforce regulation.”

Meanwhile, in London in November 2011, Tony Hayward, by then no longer BP’s CEO (resigned July 27, 2010), made some fairly stunning revelations about the disaster to BBC television and other news outlets – namely, that “BP’s contingency plans were inadequate,” and “we were making it up day to day.” Hayward added, however, that BP was actually doing “some extraordinary engineering” under the circumstances – “tasks completed in days that would normally take months, numerous major innovations with lasting benefits.” But when these efforts were “played out in the full glare of the media,” he said, “it looked like fumbling and incompetence.”

“While we were able to mount a massive response to contain and disperse the oil on the surface,” Hayward said, “we did not have the equipment to contain and disperse on the seabed. In fact the equipment had never been designed or built. It simply did not exist.” And it wasn’t just BP that was unprepared for a deep water disaster. “The whole industry,” he said, “had been lulled into a sense of false security after 20 years of drilling in deep water without a serious accident…” For BP, he said, the Deepwater Horizon event “was the ultimate low-probability, high-impact event – a black swan to borrow a term used in the financial crisis.”

“Embarrassingly we found ourselves having to improvise on prime-time TV…”

In November 2012, BP and the U.S. Department of Justice settled federal criminal charges with BP pleading guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter, two misdemeanors, and a felony count of lying to Congress. As of February 2013, criminal and civil settlements and payments to a trust fund had cost the company $42.2 billion. In September 2014, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that BP was primarily responsible for the oil spill because of its gross negligence and reckless conduct. In July 2015, BP agreed to pay $18.7 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history.

All told, BP is on the hook for something north of $60 billion for all Deepwater Horizon related charges, portions of which were being paid by the company over time in smaller annual installments continuing through 2018 and beyond.

Still, today, BP survives and remains one the world’s largest corporations, continuing to drill for oil around the world. In fact, by late April 2012, it was starting work on three new Gulf of Mexico oil rigs – then making a total of eight new BP drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico, more than it operated before the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

This later graphic from the news agency, AFP, offers a good summary of some of the timeline and impacts of the 2010 BP blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Obama Administration for its part, did move to reorganize the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), which was found to have exercised poor industry oversight and had internal conflicts of interests. In October 2011, MMS was dissolved and divided into three new agencies: the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, for regulation; the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for leasing; and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue for revenue collection.

The disaster’s economic impacts on the Gulf region were considerable: the coastal tourism industry lost about $22.7 billion, and the area’s commercial fishing industry, $247 million. BP faced more than 390,000 claims from fishermen, seafood producers, and tourism providers, and most of these were paid, or will be paid, when determined to be valid. Wildlife losses, ecological and natural resources damage have also been significant, with ongoing studies and assessments still being made.

Encyclopedia Britannica map of the Gulf of Mexico and region showing former location of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the extent of the oil spill, impacted shoreline areas, and the spill’s relation to Gulf currents.

The lessons of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster loom large over the world’s offshore oil regions – whether the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, Southeast Asia, Eastern Africa, or the Australian Bight. As drillers push into more remote frontier regions with harsh conditions, and move into deeper and deeper waters with attendant geologic pressures, risks and unknowns will rise, and the world will be but one mistake, one unfortunate decision, or one technological glitch away from the next fiasco. Greenland, taking a cue from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, announced it November 2010 that it will require a $2 billion “bond” up front from oil companies who want to drill in its Arctic waters.

The “Routine” Assault

Added to the possibility of future Deepwater Horizon-type events, and perhaps more problematic, is the continuing “routine” assault of offshore oil spills, pipeline breaks, and drilling rig mishaps that rarely make the evening news. And of those recorded in recent years since the Deepwater Horizon by Interior’s new Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), there is not much to cheer about. Here are some totals of reported incidents for the 2011-2017 period, occurring across offshore leases in the federal outer continental shelf region (of which the Gulf of Mexico is the largest), based on BSEE categories: 74 collisions, 377 evacuations (or musters for evacuation), 760 fires and explosions, 119 gas releases, 26 loss-of-well-control incidents (which can be a precursor to a blowout), 129 spills (oil, drilling mud and/or chemicals), more than 1,400 injuries, and 13 fatalities. These numbers do not include incidents in state offshore waters or other inland waters. Nor do they include “unreported” incidents. In the Gulf of Mexico, there are thousands of rigs operating.

Map of some 3,858 oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as of 2006, also showing the former location of the Deepwater Horizon rig. The yellow dots used to note platform locations are not to scale and exaggerate the density of platforms. NOAA 2012.

Another concern in the Gulf of Mexico, according to an investigation by Associated Press (AP), are more than 27,000 abandoned oil wells found there from a host of companies, including BP. AP has described the area as “an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades”. Some of these wells date back to the 1940s, and state officials estimate that thousands of them are badly sealed. There are also 43,000 miles of underwater pipeline and pumping stations in the Gulf.

In any case, the likelihood of more offshore incidents occurring in U.S. waters in the years ahead has increased significantly with recent actions by the Trump Administration. In December 2010, the Obama Administration had backed away from plans to expand offshore oil and gas development, designating the waters of the Atlantic seaboard and the eastern Gulf of Mexico off-limits for at least another seven years. The Obama Administration also strengthened offshore regulations in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. However, the Trump Administration has now reversed all of that, and has sought to expand offshore oil and gas development in all U.S. waters. Coastal communities and environmental organizations throughout the nation are girding for the battles ahead. Stay tuned.

Additional stories on the environment and the oil industry at this website can be found at the “Environmental History” topics page. Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 14 July 2018
Last Update: 2 December 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Deepwater Horizon: Film & Spill: 2010-2016,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 14, 2018.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

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Deepwater Horizon Blowout & Spill
_______________________________

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Jamie Friedland, “Deepwater Drilling Moratorium Version 2.0,” Political Climate, July 14, 2010.

Russell Gold, “Rig’s Final Hours Probed; Spill Investigators Focus on 20 ‘Anomalies’ Aboard Doomed Deepwater Horizon,” Wall Street Journal, updated, July 18, 2010.

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Bruce Alpert, “BP’s $93 Million Spent on Advertising after Gulf Oil Spill Is Questioned,” Times-Picayune, September 1, 2010.

Richard Adams and Adam Gabbatt, “BP Oil Spill Report – as it Happened; BP Released its Report into the Oil Spill Which Followed the Deepwater Horizon Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico,” The Guardian, September 8, 2010.

Justin Mullins, “The Eight Failures That Caused the Gulf Oil Spill,” New Scientist, September, 8, 2010.

James C. Mckinley, Jr., “Documents Fill In Gaps in Narrative on Oil Rig Blast,” New York Times, September 7, 2010.

“The Spill,” Frontline & ProPublica, PBS.org, November 2010.

“Tony Hayward Says BP Was ‘Not Prepared’ for the Gulf Oil Spill,” BBC.com, November 9, 2010.

Terry Macalister, “Tony Hayward: Public Saw Us as ‘Fumbling and Incompetent’; Ex-BP Boss Says When Oil Spill Hit, BP Was Forced to Make up Disaster Response as it Went Along,” The Guardian, November 10, 2010.

Tim Webb, “Greenland Wants $2bn Bond from Oil Firms Keen to Drill in its Arctic Waters; Greenland Wants Upfront Payment to Cover Major Oil Spills in Wake of Bp’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster,” The Guardian, November 11, 2010.

“How the Rig Crew Responded to the Blowout (NYT video & graphics),” New York Times, December 26, 2010.

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Elizabeth Shogren, “Panel Spreads Blame For BP Oil Rig Explosion,” Morning Edition, NPR.org, January 6, 2011.

Peter Elkind, David Whitford, and Doris Burke, “BP: ‘An Accident Waiting to Happen’,” Fortune.com, January 24, 2011.

Ed Crooks and Sylvia Pfeifer, “US Pins Blame for BP Spill; Scathing Verdict on Three Groups; Managements at Fault; Complacency Fears,” Financial Times, January 6, 2011, p. 1.

Gregg Lawson, “Oil Spill Commission Final Report Blames Deepwater Disaster On ‘Systemic Failures’,” LexisNexis.com, February 4, 2011.

Sarah Shearman, “BP Runs Ads as Deepwater Horizon Anniversary Approaches,” Campaign Live.co.uk, April 11, 2011.

Ben Bryant, “Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf Oil Spill – The Key Questions Answered; One Year After the Fire and Explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon Rig in the Gulf of Mexico, We Round up the Main Points So Far,” The Guardian, April 20, 2011.

Richard Thompson and Mark Schleifstein, “Transocean Tool Pusher Recalls Harrowing Final Moments Aboard Rig as Testimony Continues in BP Oil Spill Trial,” The Times-Picayune, updated, March 5, 2013.

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Associated Press, “Q&A: Five Years After Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Gulf Is Resilient but Scarred,” Tampa Bay Times, April 17, 2015.

Jonathan L. Ramseur, “Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Recent Activities and Ongoing Developments,” Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC), April 17, 2015.

Ben Casselman, “Five Years After The BP Oil Spill, The Industry Is Still Taking Big Risks,” FiveThirtyEight.com, April 20, 2015.

Wendy Koch, “Is Deepwater Drilling Safer, 5 Years After Worst Oil Spill? Deepwater Drilling Is Increasing in the Gulf. Oil Companies Say It’s Safer Now, But Critics Say Spills Are Inevitable,” National Geographic, April 20, 2015.

Nsikan Akpan, “NOAA Report: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Caused Biggest Dolphin Die-Off in Gulf’s History,” PBS NewsHour, May 20, 2015.

Emily Green, “Big Oil: Five Years After Deepwater Horizon,” Real Change, May 20th, 2015.

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“BP Blowout: Inside the Gulf Oil Disaster,” Brookings.edu, 2016.

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Daniel Gilbert and Sarah Kent, “BP Agrees to Pay $18.7 Billion to Settle Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Claims; Settlement of All Federal and State Claims Brings Total Costs to Nearly $54 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, updated, July 2, 2015.

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Charles K. Ebinger, “6 Years From the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: What We’ve Learned, and What We Shouldn’t Misunderstand,” Brookings Institution (Wash-ington, D.C.), April 20, 2016.

“Deepwater Horizon Anniversary Reminds Why Offshore Drilling Should Be Phased Out, Not Expanded,” CleanEnergy.org, April 20th, 2017.

Martha Harbison, “More Than One Million Birds Died During Deepwater Horizon Disaster,” Audubon.org, May 6, 2014.

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Christina Caron, “How a 672,000-Gallon Oil Spill Was Nearly Invisible,” New York Times, October 29, 2017.

Amanda Jordan and Kelly Gilblom, “BP’s $60 Billion Gulf Spill Tab Rises as Lawsuits Wind Down,” Bloomberg.com, January 16, 2018.

Peg Howell (petroleum engineer, commentary), “BP Oil Spill Still Haunts Off-Shore Drilling Industry 8 Years Later,” CNBC.com, April 20, 2018.

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Russell Gold, “BP’s Big Oil Find Cements Gulf’s Revival,” Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2009.

________________________________________

Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Shirelles-Will-You-Still-Love-Me-Tomorrow.mp3 6536967 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Chains.mp3 5027470 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Pleasant-Valley-Sunday.mp3 6481370 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Natural-Woman.mp3 6551943 audio/mpeg

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Goffin and King”
Love & Music: 1950s-2010s

May 24, 2018 J.D.

For a time in the 1950s-1960s era, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, pictured below, made beautiful music together, both in their love affair and for the millions who listened to the songs they wrote. They became, at a young age, one of America’s most creative and productive songwriting teams. They rose to fame working for the fabled New York City / Brill Building song publisher, Aldon Music. Their story is one of great accomplishment, though touched by personal sorrow, love undone, and rocky travels ahead for each. What follows here is some of that history and cultural context.

1959: In a photo that suggests an air of youthful confidence, young lovers Carole King & Gerry Goffin are about to hit the big time with a string of pop music hits. But their union would not survive the shoals of 1960s’ drugs and entertainment-world temptations.

Gerry Goffin and Carole King were each born and raised in the boroughs of New York City. Gerry was born in Brooklyn, though later moving to Queens after his parents divorced when he was five. Carole Klein – later taking the name Carole King in high school – was born in Manhattan, daughter of a firefighter and school teacher. She would be raised in Brooklyn and taught piano by her mother at an early age. As a boy, Gerry had been exposed to show tune music at home, and growing up, he also “played a game with words in my head,” though without music, foreshadowing a talent that would serve him well a few years later. After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School, Gerry enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve. He then spent a year at the U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1961, but resigned from the Navy to study chemistry at Queens College.

Gerry & Carole at work in their early days at Aldon Music.

1959: Carole King and singer Johnny Restivo between takes in New York recording studio.

1959, New York: Carole King, Paul Simon, and Gerry Goffin listening to a playback of some music they worked on.

Early 1960s. Carole King at piano, with fellow Brill Building song writers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil behind her, and husband/partner, Gerry Goffin, far right.

Carole King & Gerry Goffin, somewhat later 1960s.

Carole went to public high school in Brooklyn and as a teen had attended Alan Freed Paramount Theater rock `n roll shows in New York, where she had been moved by the music and performers. In high school she formed a band briefly and made demo records with her friend, Paul Simon. Carole sold her first composition in Manhattan for $25 when she was 16. But in 1958, Carole King met Gerry Goffin at Queens College.

“She was interested in writing rock’n’roll, and I was interested in writing this Broadway play [a musical about beatniks],” Goffin would later recall for Vanity Fair. “So we had an agreement where she would write [music] to the play if I would write [lyrics] to some of her rock ‘n roll melodies…” Gerry eventually gave up on his play, as the pair decided to focus on writing rock ‘n roll tunes. And along the way, they fell in love.

Neil Sedaka, who had dated King in high school, had a hit song in 1959 titled “Oh! Carol.” Goffin took the tune and wrote a playful response to it titled, “Oh! Neil,” which King recorded and released as a single. She and Gerry also wrote the B-side song on that single, but neither song was a success.

Their personal relationship, however, was going strong. In August 1959, Carole and Gerry were married in a Jewish ceremony on Long Island after Carol had become pregnant. He was 20 and she was 17. They both quit college and took daytime jobs; Goffin working as an assistant chemist and King as a secretary. They wrote songs together in the evening.

It was about then that Don Kirshner at Aldon Music in Manhattan hired them both to write songs professionally. Carole’s friend, Neil Sedaka, had worked there as well.

Carole would later tell a New York Times reporter of how they worked at Aldon Music:

“…We each had a little cubby hole with just enough room for a piano, a bench and maybe a chair for the lyricist — if you were lucky. You’d sit there and write and you could hear someone in the next cubby hole composing some song exactly like yours…

“The pressure… was really terrific, because Donny [Kirshner, of Aldon] would play one songwriter against an other. He’d say ‘We need a latest smash hit,’ and we’d all go back and write a song and the next day we’d each audition for Bobby Vee’s producer. ‘Take Good Care of My Baby,’ one of our biggest hits, came about that way.”

Initially, Gerry and Carole both worked with other composers and writers. And in one case they would establish a long-lasting friendship, though competitors in songwriting, with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, another husband-and-wife team at Aldon.

Still, before long, Carole King and Gerry Goffin soon established themselves as a successful team, she crafting the music and he the lyrics. Their big breakthrough came with the 1960 song, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” It was in 1960, not long after the couple had their first child. They were then based at Aldon Music at the 1650 Broadway, across from the famed Brill Building, and they also worked at home.

Making The Hit

As Carole would later recall in her book, A Natural Woman, the hottest girl group in the country at that time were the Shirelles, four black teenagers just a few years out of Passaic High School in New Jersey – Shirley Owens, Doris Coley, Addie Harris, and Beverly Lee. They had just broken out with the hit song “Tonight’s The Night.” Don Kirshner and Aldon Music wanted the follow-up song to that hit, whatever it might be, and he pushed his writers and composers to come up with it.

Carole King began working from piano on music and melody, using “There Goes My Baby” as a model. Soon, she had worked up a rough demo. But when the Shirelles first heard Carole’s demo, they found it sounded “like a country-and-Western song,” and didn’t like it. So a strings section for the song was suggested, which Carole then planned to incorporate into her melody. On the strings arrangement, Carole later acknowledged in her book, this was her first: “I had never before composed a string arrangement.”

“Will You Love Me”
Tomorrow?”
The Shirelles
1960-61

Tonight you’re mine completely
You give you love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment’s pleasure?
Can I believe the magic of your sighs?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Tonight with words unspoken
You say that I’m the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sun?

I’d like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now, and I won’t ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?

So tell me now, and I won’t ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?
Will you still love me tomorrow?
Will you still love me..
_______________________
Carol King, music; Gerry Goffin, lyrics

One morning after she dropped off her daughter at her grandmother’s, King traveled to the offices and studio of Scepter Records, the Shirelles’ record label. There she recorded the rhythm track, which took less than an hour.

“…Then the string players arrived,” she would later recount in her book. “The first time I heard the cellos play the rhythmic figure at the beginning of ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow,’ I was euphoric. Some composers literally hear the sounds in their head as they write; I had to wait until a session to hear what I wrote. As the musicians began to play the parts I had written for ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow,’ I became giddy with excitement. I was 18.”

Music Player
“Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”
The Shirelles: 1960-61

But the words for this song were also key – and that was Gerry’s department. Goffin came home from a night bowling with his buddies to find a message from Carole on the tape recorder, asking him to write lyrics for the music she had composed for the Shirelles, as Don Kershner was hot to get the tune locked up. Goffin would later say that the lyrics came easily to him.

Hiram Lee, writing some years later on the Goffin-King effect in this song, observes:

…On this pop classic, King’s fragile melody seems to rise nervously from its bed of chords as if she were raising a question she is afraid to ask. To this, Goffin’s lyrics add: “Tonight you’re mine completely/You give your love so sweetly/Tonight the light of love is in your eyes/But will you love me tomorrow?”

As was often the case, Goffin’s words seemed to marry so exactly to King’s melodic line that it was difficult to imagine the two having been written separately.

Yet others would marvel at how Gerry, a guy, could reach into a woman’s thoughts and emotions and express her feelings, as he did in this song, and would do in other songs to come. As former Shirelle, Beverely Lee, offered of the “Will-You-Love-Me-Tomorrow” lyrics in a May 2018 New Yorker story:

“Now that I’m older, I listen to the lyrics. Knowing what’s going on — as women, you have a right to ask: Are you going to still love me if I am your loved one? Are you just going to love me for the moment and leave me? Is this a lasting treasure or just a moment’s pleasure? Can I read the magic of your sighs? Will you love me tomorrow? That tells it all. Are you going to be for real with me, or are you just playing with me and my emotions? What am I worth to you? That’s what it’s saying.”

When the final Goffin-King package came together for “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” they had the follow-up Kirshner wanted, and then some. “…Tomorrow” became a giant hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1961 – the first song by a female group to reach No. 1 on the pop charts since the McGuire Sisters in 1958, and first ever for a black female group.

‘Bye-Bye Day Job!’

Gerry and Carole, a young married couple then living in a Brooklyn basement apartment, were still working other day jobs while they wrote their music. But the hit record they had just composed would change all that, as Carole recalled: “When ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow?’ sold a million [copies], we went: ‘bye-bye day job!’” Gerry Goffin remembered that day too, as he was still working his chemical company day job: “Carole and [Don Kirshner of Aldon Music] arrived in Donny’s limousine at the chem factory and told me I didn’t have to work anymore. And he gave us a $10,000 advance and we got credit cards, and I’ve never had to do an honest day’s work since.”

Later 1963 photo for the hit song, “The Loco-Motion,” from left: Aldon Music producer Al Nevins; composer, Carole King,; singer, Little Eva Boyd; songwriter, Gerry Goffin; and Aldon Music producer, Don Kirshner. Click to visit 'Loco-Motion' story.

The Shirelles’ hit was a turning point for the Goffin-King partnership – and more hits kept coming. In 1961 they did “Take Good Care of My Baby,” a No. 1 hit for singer Bobby Vee and “Some Kind of Wonderful,” a Top 40 hit for The Drifters. Then came “The Loco-Motion” in 1962, another No. 1 hit with their former baby sitter, Eva Boyd, who became “Little Eva.” (see separate story at this website on the history and success of this song). They also wrote and composed “Up On The Roof” in 1962, a No. 5 hit for The Drifters.

Early 1960s photo of the growing Goffin-King family.

Also in 1962, the Goffin-King song, “It Might as Well Rain Until September,” was originally written for Bobby Vee, but became a top 40 hit for Carole King at the time. Don Kirshner liked King’s demo version of “…September” rather than Bobby Vee’s version, and released it as a single on the Dimension label. (King’s demos, in fact, were so well crafted, that they were sometimes copied note-for-note in the final recordings, and some were even squirreled away by A&R people in the music business who had received them but found the piano playing and/or the background arrangements so good that they kept them as collector pieces).

Carole and Gerry had two small children at the time, and Carole was not interested in traveling to promote the song. However, she was persuaded by Kirshner and Gerry to appear on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, where she performed the song in lyp-sync mode as was the custom there, but received a low score in a Bandstand “rate-a-record” session.

Still, the song peaked at No 22 on the Billboard charts in September 1962, and also rose to No. 3 on the U.K. charts. Yet, according to some accounts, Carole was discouraged from doing further recordings herself at this point by Gerry, who preferred her to focus on the composing part of their partnership. And according to Carole herself, she then lacked the confidence to write lyrics. But that would change.

Goffin-King Music
Sample Top 40 Hits, 1960s

“Will You Love Me Tomorrow”
1960 / The Shirelles / #1
“Take Good Care of My Baby”
1961 / Bobby Vee / #1
“Some Kind of Wonderful”
1961/ The Drifters / #32
“The Loco-Motion”
1962 / “Little Eva / #1
“Up On The Roof”
1962 / The Drifters / #5
“Chains”
1962 / The Cookies / #17
“I’ve Got Bonnie”
1962 / Bobby Rydell /#18
“Go Away Little Girl”
1962 / Steve Lawrence / #1
“It Might As Well Rain Until Sept”
1962 / Carole King / #22
“Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad About…”
1963 / The Cookies / #7
“One Fine Day”
1963 / The Chiffons / #5
“This Little Girl”
1963 / Dion / #21
“I Can’t Stay Mad at You”
1963 / Skeeter Davis / #7
“Hey Girl”
1963 / Freddie Scott / #10
“I’m Into Something Good”
1964 / Herman’s Hermits /#13, #1 UK
“Just Once In My Life”*
1965 / Righteous Brothers / #9
“Don’t Bring Me Down”
1966 / The Animals / #12
“Pleasant Valley Sunday”
1967 / The Monkees / #3
“…Natural Woman”
1967 / Aretha Franklin /#8
___________________
Release / Artist / Billboard / *w/Phil Spector

Over the next several years, through the mid- and late 1960s, more hits came for Gerry Goffin and Carole King, including more No. 1 hits, and others charting in the Top Ten and Top 40. In all, between 1960 and 1968, the Goffin-King team would write more than 50 Top 40 hits together – among those not already mentioned: “Crying in the Rain,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Take Good Care of My Baby,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” “Natural Woman,” and others.

They had particularly good fortune with the black girl group sound; a winning formula in the early 1960s. Among these girl group successes were The Cookies, then consisting of Dorothy Jones, Earl-Jean McCrea, and Margaret Ross. In 1962, the Cookies had a Top 20 hit with the Goffin-King song “Chains.”

Music Player
“Chains”
The Cookies: 1962

They scored a second somewhat bigger hit in 1963 with the Goffin-King song, “Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad (About My Baby)”, which peaked at No.3 on the Billboard R&B chart and No.7 on the Billboard pop chart. But it was the earlier Cookies hit, “Chains” that brought the group and Goffin-King some unexpected attention.

The Beatles, who were then coming on the music scene in a big way, had covered “Chains” for their first British LP. The Beatles had recorded it on February 11, 1963 and released it on their debut album, Please Please Me, on March 22, 1963. In fact, John Lennon was quoted as saying about this time that he wanted Paul McCartney and himself to become “the Goffin-King of England.” This helped give the Goffin-King songwriting team more notice, and demand for their talents rose.

Gerry Goffin, meanwhile, went on the road with The Cookies, leaving Carole at home with the two kids. And before long, he was having an affair with one of the Cookies, Earl-Jean McCrea.

By early 1964 it was apparent that Earl-Jean was pregnant and Gerry was the father. The baby was born in July 1964. Gerry had been restless and unsettled, and he had told Carole about his dalliances, not wanting to lie to her. But the McCrea affair was a sign of troubles to come.

The Cookies, mid-1960s: Dorothy Jones, Earl-Jean McCrea, and Margaret Ross. Dimension Records. Click for CD.

The 1960s were perilous times for young marriages, as a more permissive cultural milieu was then coursing through society. There was a new birth control pill, and an emergent youth culture was setting new trends and challenging establishment norms. “Sex, drugs and rock `n roll” was the mantra of the day, and Gerry Goffin was a more willing participant than Carole King.

As Gerry would later explain in a Vanity Fair interview: “I wanted to be a hippie—grew my hair long—and Carole did it modestly… And then I started taking LSD and mescaline. And Carole and I began to grow apart because she felt that she had to say things herself. She had to be her own lyricist.”

McCrea, meanwhile, would leave the Cookies and sign with the Colpix record label, where she recorded the Goffin-King song, “I’m Into Something Good,” which hit No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964. However, this Goffin-King tune became a bigger No. 1 U.K. hit for the British group, Herman’s Hermits, that same year.

Suburban Angst

Through the mid-to-late 1960s, the Goffin-King songwriting continued, though now under a good deal of strain given their personal circumstances, but still staying together as a couple. Adding to this strain, no doubt, was the move they made in 1965 to the New Jersey suburb of West Orange. Carole had wanted to make the move, but now there was an added complication. With financial help from Goffin-King song-writing royalties, Earl-Jean McCrea would move into a nearby home in the same suburb.

“Pleasant Valley
Sunday”
The Monkees: 1967

The local rock group down the street
Is trying hard to learn their song
They serenade the weekend squire
Who just came out to mow his lawn

Another pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Rows of houses that are all the same
And no one seems to care

See Mrs. Gray, she’s proud today
Because her roses are in bloom
And Mr. Green, he’s so serene
He’s got a TV in every room

Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in Status Symbol Land
Mothers complain about
how hard life is
And the kids just don’t understand

Creature comfort goals,
they only numb my soul
And make it hard for me to see
Ah, thoughts all seem to stray
to places far away
I need a change of scenery

Ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta ta
Ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta ta

Another pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in Status Symbol Land

Another pleasant valley Sunday
(A pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday
(A pleasant valley Sunday)
_______________________
Carol King, music; Gerry Goffin, lyrics

Meanwhile, Gerry was not a big fan of the suburbs to begin with, and this would be revealed in the lyrics he wrote for the 1967 song that he and Carole composed for The Monkees – “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, a No. 3 hit in July 1967. The song was pure satire and social commentary on life in suburbia. The inspiration for the song’s title, in fact, derived from a street in West Orange near to where Gerry and Carole were living, named Pleasant Valley Way.

Music Player
“Pleasant Valley Sunday”
The Monkees-1967

At the time Goffin and King wrote “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” suburbia was already topical, with a growing collection of popular books and academic literature, some critical, some not.

Split-Level Trap, 1961.

Titles dating from the mid-1950s and early 1960s took on one or more aspects of the suburban experience. Among these, for example, were, A.C. Spectorsky’s The Exurbanites of 1955, and Split-Level Trap of 1961, by Richard and Katherine Gordon. More sympathetic portrayals came with William H. Whyte’s The Organization Man of 1957, examining Park Forest, Illinois, and Herbert Gans’ 1965 sociological study of Levittown, New Jersey, The Levittowners.

Also in music at that time, there was the 1962 song, “Little Boxes,” written and composed by folk singer-songwriter-activist Malvina Reynolds, a song noted for its line mocking the sameness of suburban tract housing as “little boxes” made of “ticky-tacky.” That song became a 1963 hit for folk singer Pete Seeger.

In any case, Goffin and King’s “Pleasant Valley Sunday” captured a bit of the critical vibe at the time for suburbia in the 1960s. The song stayed in the Top 40 for most of that summer and was also featured during the Monkees’ television series that year.

Gerry, meanwhile, was feeling especially isolated in suburbia and was having bigger problems. He was taking LSD and dealing with a crumbling marriage. King would later write in her book that Goffin suffered from mental illness following his use of LSD. He would be diagnosed with manic depression, and was hospitalized for a time. He eventually underwent treatment with lithium and electroshock therapy. He and King would separate in 1967 and divorce in 1968.

Goffin and King, like the rest of America, had gone through some perilous times in the 1961-67 period. The country was still digesting the November 1963 assassination of its promising young president, John F. Kennedy. A certain innocence had died then as well. A rising civil rights struggle was then underway: the Freedom Rides (1961), the March on Washington (1963) and the “Bloody Sunday” beatings of marchers in Selma, Alabama (1965) had all occurred, among others. Anti-Vietnam War sentiment was increasing at home as U.S. troop levels rose and more Americans were being killed. On the music scene, in addition to the Beatles arrival in 1964 and the subsequent “British invasion,” there was also competition from Berry Gordy’s Motown music center in Detroit, as well as the onset of new folk and protest music. Bob Dylan, who had begun performing in Greenwich Village clubs in 1961, released his first album with Columbia in March 1962. And finally, Don Kirchner sold Aldon Music to Columbia Screen Gems in 1963 for $3 million and had begun packaging his songwriters’ music under the new ownership for use in TV, film, and Hollywood – of which the Monkees were one example.

Aretha Franklin in recording studio, 1960s. Click for hits link.

Hit for Aretha

Still, in the midst of the cultural changes and industry upheaval, and the Goffin-King personal struggles, the pair would manage a few more hit songs. One of these is perhaps Gerry Goffin’s tour de force — “A Natural Woman,” or more correctly, “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.”

The song became a classic 1967 hit for Aretha Franklin. It’s about a woman who is somewhat down and out, doubting herself, until a new love appears to lift her to a new beginning.

Although written by Goffin and King, the song’s title at least was inspired by Atlantic Records co-owner and producer Jerry Wexler. As recounted in his autobiography, Wexler, a student of African-American musical culture, had been mulling over the concept of the “natural man,” when he drove by Carole King on a New York sidewalk, shouting out to her that he wanted a “natural woman” song for Aretha Franklin’s next album. Goffin and King delivered in short order – and they would also give Wexler a co-writing credit for his part in their song.

“…A Natural Woman”
Aretha Franklin
1967

Looking out on the morning rain
I used to feel so uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day
Lord, it made me feel so tired
Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But your the key to my peace of mind

‘Cause you make me feel,
You make me feel,
You make me feel like
A natural woman

When my soul was in the lost and found
You came along to claim it
I didn’t know just what was wrong with me
Till your kiss helped me name it
Now I’m no longer doubtful of what I’m living for
And if I make you happy I don’t need to do more

‘Cause you make me feel,
You make me feel,
You make me feel like a natural woman

Oh, baby, what you’ve done to me
You make me feel so good inside
And I just want to be, close to you
You make me feel so alive

You make me feel,
You make me feel,
You make me feel like a natural woman

You make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman

You make me feel
You make me feel
_______________________

Songwriters: Goffin / King / Wexler

Yet the lyrics that Goffin would write for this song – powerfully delivered in performance by Aretha Franklin (and a few years later, also by Carole King) – continue to amaze critics to this day for Goffin’s ability to plumb the depths of female emotion. Goffin’s daughter for one, Sherry, herself a musician, would say on camera during a 2017 TV special, that lines from that song, such as – “When my soul was in the lost and found / You came along to claim it,” among others – were pretty amazing. Gerry Goffin had a gift that way.

Music Player
“…A Natural Woman”
Aretha Franklin-1967

“…Natural Woman” is also about spiritual satisfaction from the female perspective: “Oh, baby, what you’ve done to me / You make me feel so good inside.”

The Aretha Franklin version of the song was released in September 1967 and would peak at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and No. 2 on the Billboard R & B chart

Yet, within a year of this single reaching the U.S. Top 10, the Goffin-King partnership was over. Both Carole and Gerry would move to California, where their careers would take new turns.

Carole’s Rise

Carole King’s move to Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles – then a haven for up-and-coming singer-songwriters – would prove beneficial, but not right away. Earlier, she had met James Taylor, who had encouraged her to begin solo recording and performing.

After a false start or two, and a middling debut album, Writer, King would find her footing in a big way in 1971 with her second solo album, Tapestry. That album proved to be a blockbuster, topping the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks and remaining on the charts for more than six years. Tapestry first charged onto the charts April 10, 1971, staying there for 302 consecutive weeks until January 15, 1977. Then it returned to the chart twice — in 2010 and 2016. Tapestry’s record was finally eclipsed by Adele’s album, 21, which logged its 319th week on the Billboard 200 album chart dated April 15, 2017.

Carole King proved herself a capable lyricist on Tapestry, crafting a series of new songs for the album, including: “So Far Away,” “I Feel the Earth Move,” “You’ve Got a Friend.” and “It’s Too Late,” this last song, a Billboard No.1 hit. She would even garner praise from former partner Gerry Goffin for the album: “It was completely original, and Carole really showed me up as a lyricist….”

A portion of the cover art from Carole King's 1971 album, 'Tapestry," with Carole & cat in view. Click for Amazon link.

Still, three of the songs on Tapestry were earlier Goffin-King collaborations – “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” “Natural Woman,” and “Smackwater Jack.”

King reinterpreted these older Goffin-King tunes in her own style and voice. Her rendition of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” for example, is far sadder and perhaps a bit wiser than the Shirelles’ version. Or as another observer put it, the slower version showed that the lyrics worked just as poignantly for a housewife stuck in an unstable marriage as they did for an innocent teenager pondering her first love. Delivery and performance of this song matters as well, as historian and writer Kirk Silsbee has observed: “The Shirelles sang ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ like girls. Carole sang it as a woman” — each, however, appropriate for their times.

Women of all ages flocked to Tapestry. The mix of material King used on Tapestry struck a chord with women all over the world.

“Carole spoke from her heart, and she happened to be in tune with the mass psyche,” said her old Brill Building friend and fellow songwriter, Cynthia Weil. “People were looking for a message, and she came to them with… exactly what they were looking for.” Tapestry sold more than 15 million copies over the decades and became a critical influence on other artists.

The album also garnered four Grammy Awards for King: Album of the Year; Song of the Year (“You’ve Got a Friend”); Record of the Year (“It’s Too Late,” lyrics by Toni Stern); and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. Tapestry would help propel King to becoming one of America’s most beloved singer/songwriters.

Following Tapestry, Carole King had an incredible run of additional hit albums in the 1970s: Music (No. 1, Dec 1971); Rhymes and Reasons (No. 2, Nov 1972); Fantasy (No. 6, June 1973); Wrap Around Joy (No. 1, Sept 1974); Thoroughbred (No. 3, 1976 ); and Simple Things (No. 17, July 1977). Along the way, there was also touring, and a few notable homecomings, among these, her Carnegie Hall Concert of June 18, 1971, which was her first concert performance in front of an audience, and a free concert she gave in Central Park on May 26, 1973 made the front page of the next day’s Sunday New York Times with the headline: “Carole King Draws 70,000 to Central Park.”

King’s 2nd album of 1971, “Music,” released Dec 9th, entered the charts at No. 8, reportedly selling 1.3 million copies the first day of its release, reaching No. 1 on Jan 1, 1972. Click for CD.

Overall, King would produce some 25 solo albums during her career, and her record sales have been estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide. She would also have productive collaborations with other musicians and successful touring, and would collect a bevy of music awards and singular notices, a few of which are covered later below.

By virtue of her 1970s success, Carole King was becoming a wealthy woman. Tapestry alone yielded an estimated $10.7 million in earnings in 1971. She also had estimated earnings of $500,000 or more per album for the albums she produced in 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976 and 1977.

And over the next 30 years, there would be additional income generated by her continuing work, as well as a healthy stream of songwriting royalties from the Goffin-King back-catalog.

But during the late 1970s, King would move to Idaho and later buy a 128-acre ranch there, inspiring her environmental activism, including testimony some years later in Congress for protecting the northern Rocky Mountains ecosystem. King would also own other real estate, including a Hollywood Hills West home and an ocean-side home in Malibu, California, the latter acquired in 2003 for $1 million.

However, in her personal relationships following Gerry, Carole King traveled a difficult road. A second marriage to bass-player Charlie Larkey, with whom she had two children, would end after some years in 1976. Her third husband, musician Rick Evers, reported by Carole to have been abusive, died of a heroin overdose in 1978. A fourth marriage to Idaho rancher Rick Sorenson would end in divorce in 1989. Some who have written about King’s life, speculate that part of the reason for her failed relationships lay in her successive husbands’ failures to accept her achievements and celebrity.

One version of a release from Gerry Coffin's 1973 album, "It Ain't Exactly Entertainment'.

Goffin, Pt. 2

Gerry Goffin, meanwhile, had continued success in his music career as well, though not on the scale that Carole King had. In 1973, he tried his hand at recording with a solo album, It Ain’t Exactly Entertainment, but it was not successful. This album was part social protest, as Goffin, an admirer of Bob Dylan, was feeling the social and political turmoil of those times. One of the songs on the album, “Honorable Peace,” was an anti-war song, aimed at the Vietnam War, by then a major point of social unrest.

But in the music business, songwriting collaboration was still Gerry Goffin’s strong suit, as he had collaborated with other songwriters in addition to Carole from his earliest years. And now he continued to do so, with partners such as Barry Mann, Jack Keller, Russ Titelman, Wes Farrell, Barry Goldberg and Michael Masser.

In 1975, Goffin and Michael Masser earned an Academy Award nomination for the “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To?),” a No. 1 hit for Diana Ross from that movie. Goffin and Masser also received a Golden Globe nomination for “So Sad the Song,” from the 1976 Gladys Knight film, Pipe Dreams. They also wrote “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love” a 1983 duet hit by Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack. In 1985, the Goffin-Masser R&B ballad, “Saving All My Love for You,” became Whitney Houston’s first No. 1 hit and Grammy winner. And in 1989, the Goffin/Masser/Preston Glass tune, “Miss You Like Crazy,” became a major hit for Natalie Cole, reaching No 7 of the Billboard chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B and adult contemporary charts, as well as No. 2 on the U.K. singles chart.

March 1987. Gerry Goffin and Carole King at their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Goffin-King Kudos

As Carole King and Gerry Goffin made their way through their respective separate careers, there was no escaping their earlier joint successes and history together – with all its glories and perhaps a few regrets. They had etched themselves into the American cultural tableau with their music making, and it was not letting go. If anything, their joint body of work was burnishing itself into rock music history more permanently.

By the mid-1980s, the legacy of their earlier Brill Building work, now more than 20 years old, was faring well with the test of time and in the judgement of their peers. In March 1987, Gerry and Carole were among those lauded for their work, along with seven others – including their former Brill Building colleagues, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil – who were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. Three years later, in 1990, they were again jointly honored for their songwriting, this time inducted into the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame.

1990: Carole King and Gerry Goffin at their Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame induction.

Jon Landau, a writer with Rolling Stone magazine, who had covered their careers, gave the induction speech, as follows:

As songwriters, Gerry and Carole stand as a great bridge between the Brill Building styles of the late 1950s and the early 1960s and the modern rock era. And the fact is, they started looking forward with their very first hit. In 1961, they wrote a little song called “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” It was the first great ‘60s record to be written from a woman’s point of view. It was a first great ballad directed toward a new generation that would soon be labeled “baby boomers.” And for some of the people in this very room, it was the first song they slow-danced too, made out too, and made love to. It was perhaps the first ’60s song about which you and your girlfriend or boyfriend said, “that’s our song.” And by the way, because it meant so much to so many, it is a song and a record – beautifully sung by the Shirelles – that will live on well into the next century. In 1962, the Drifters recorded their sublime “Up on the Roof,” a song that expressed the sensibility that a few years later would be called “60s idealism.” And in 1963 Gerry and Carole extended that idealism with a romantically eloquent “One Fine Day.” And then in 1965 they put themselves at the center of one of rock’s most vital developments – the Phil Spector-Righteous Brothers collaborations. One of the two songs they wrote with Phil was the classic, “Just Once in My Life,” and the other, is one of those great lost masterpieces due for rediscovery in the 1990s, a great song called “Hung on You.” By the time they wrote “Don’t Bring Me Down” for the Animals and “Goin Back” for the Byrds they helped to start an approach that would effect every sing-songwriter to come after them. And in a nice epiphany, in 1967, they closed a cycle they began with “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?,” when they wrote, “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman” for Aretha Franklin. But by then, they had given us more that we could ever give back… Gerry Goffin and Carole King – two of rock’s great writers!

Gerry Goffin's "Back Room Blood" album of 1996, motivated by a conservative wave in Congress, with some Dylan input, but not successful. Click for CD.

Landau’s tribute was followed by a brief audio clip of “One Fine Day,” by the Chiffons, including Carole’s signature piano riff on that piece.

Later Careers

Goffin and King, meanwhile, continued their careers through the 1990s and beyond. In 1996, Goffin co-wrote three songs for the soundtrack to Grace of My Heart, a film with a principal character modeled on Carole King.

That year, Goffin also took another stab at solo recording, releasing the album Back Room Blood, inspired by his politics and anger over conservative gains in the 1994 congressional elections. The album was mostly co-written with Barry Goldberg, but included two songs co-written with Bob Dylan.

At the time, Goffin also told a reporter at Billboard magazine: “I depend mostly on my back catalog… Actually, I could afford to retire, but I would go crazy…” Compositions from Goffin’s catalog at the time, in fact, appeared on the Beatles’ Live At The BBC album (1994), the Forest Gump film soundtrack (1994), and Carole King’s Tapesty Revisited album (1995).

Gerry Goffin, however, was also still dealing with his past marriage to Carole King, noting in one 1996 interview with United Press International: “Carole loved me for what I was… I’ve had a lot of guilt [over his role in that marriage]. It’s been almost 30 years, and I’m finally feeling expurgated…. I feel like I’ve worked it off, but maybe you never work it off.”

2010. "Live at the Troubadour". Click for CD.

Gerry, like Carole, had married again, three more times in fact. In the early 1970s, he married Barbara Behling and they had a son in 1976. After that marriage ended later that decade, Goffin married songwriter Ellen Minasian in the 1980s and they had a daughter in 1984. Following a divorce in that union, Goffin married for a final time to actress Michele Conaway in 1995.

Carole King, meanwhile, continued her busy career. In 1992, she wrote and performed the song “Now and Forever,” for the film, A League of Their Own, a song that received a Grammy nomination.

In 1997, she recorded backing vocals for Celine Dion’s song, “The Reason.” In 2001, after an eight-year break from studio recording, she released the album, Love Makes the World.

Another album, The Living Room Tour, was released in 2005, consisting mostly of live versions of her Tapestry songs. This album debuted at No. 17 in the U.S., becoming King’s highest-charting album since 1977, spurred, in part, by TV ads and Starbucks marketing. For the week of July 18, 2005 it was the No.1 album on Amazon.com.

In 2007 King and James Taylor performed six Troubadour club anniversary shows – as she and Taylor had performed at that famous Los Angeles night club in 1970. These Troubadour shows would inspire the Troubadour Reunion Tour with King and Taylor, which ran globally from March through May 2010, with 58 shows selling more than 700,000 tickets and grossing about $60 million, making it one of that year’s most successful tours. A King-Taylor Live at the Troubadour album was also released, which debuted at No. 4 on Billboard Album Chart that year.

2012 book. Click for copy.

2014: Carole King musical.

In 2012, King published her memoir, A Natural Woman, which became a national bestseller. The next year, she became the fifth recipient and the first woman to receive the Gershwin Prize for popular song from the Library of Congress. President and Mrs. Barack Obama hosted the award concert at the White House on May 22, 2013, with the President presenting the prize and reading the citation.

In February 2013, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award. And in January 2014, a Broadway musical covering her life – including the Goffin years – titled, Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, opened in New York. It would go on to great success, wining two Tony Awards, and after its London run, two Olivier Awards. King had been apprehensive about the show’s dredging up of old, painful history, as it focuses on the Goffin-King love affair, their work at the Brill Building, their marriage, and Goffin’s infidelity. The show ends just as King is enjoying fame for her groundbreaking solo album, Tapestry. While Gerry Goffin’s infidelity and emotional problems are part of the stage production, he did attend the show’s opening in January 2014 at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, though he was not then in the best of health.

Gerry’s Death

Gerry Goffin in February 2004, when the Recording Academy presented he and Carole jointly with a Trustees Award for lifetime achievement.

About six months after he had attended the opening of the Carol King Musical, Gerry Goffin died on June 19th, 2014 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 75. He left behind his wife Michele, one son, four daughters, and six grandchildren. During his career Goffin wrote or co-wrote some 114 Billboard Hot 100 hits, including eight No.1 songs, and 72 of which were also U.K. hits.

Carole King said in a statement that Goffin was her “first love” and had a “profound impact” on her life. “Gerry was a good man and a dynamic force, whose words and creative influence will resonate for generations to come …His legacy to me is our two daughters, four grandchildren, and our songs that have touched millions and millions of people, as well as a lifelong friendship.”

Barry Goldberg, composer and pianist who wrote many later songs with Goffin said of him: “Gerry was one of the greatest lyricists of all time and my true soul brother. I was privileged to have had him in my personal and professional life.”

Lawrence Downes of the New York Times noted that when he taught a class on writing for New York Times interns, he used “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”– and specifically the lyrics from that song – to make a point about brevity and beauty in writing. He used the Goffin-crafted lyrics “to show how it’s possible to convey complicated emotions, deep feeling and intricate meanings with the tiniest and plainest of words.” He explained that “you can be short and sweet” or “short and heartbreaking” – all with economy and good effect, as Gerry Goffin did.

Richard Williams, writing for The Guardian newspaper in London, called Goffin “The Poet Laureate of Teenage Pop,” also adding: “…Those who accept the conventional wisdom that nothing happened in pop music between Elvis and the Beatles should listen to these marvelous [Goffin-crafted] records – and to the outpouring of memories of a man who did the best thing a pop songwriter can do: made listeners feel they are not alone with their emotions.”

Richard Corliss, writing a remembrance on Goffin at Time magazine, adds: “A look at Goffin’s lyrics upends the common wisdom that pre-Beatles adolescent pop was all banal optimism conveyed in moon-June-spoon doggerel….Goffin was eerily in sync with the convulsions kids feel during first love, first sex and first breakup.” Corliss continues that Goffin used “the pop-ballad form to offer hard answers to dewy questions, …often saying that life’s most perplexing riddles had no comforting resolutions …[B]ut Goffin educated young listeners to the complexity of love and loss. He wasn’t just the guy who put simple words to [King’s] lovely music. He was a prime ’60s poet of teen yearning.” By the mid-1970s, however, with the No. 1 hit, “Do You Know Where You’re Going To,” made popular in the Diana Ross film, Mahogany, Corliss explains that Goffin “raised the age bar from fretful teen to disillusioned adult, and the stakes from failed romance to existential chill. ‘Now looking back at all we’ve planned / We let so many dreams just slip through our hands. / Why must we wait so long before we’ll see / How sad the answers to those questions can be?’.”

An album of Carole King’s July 2016 Hyde Park performance of her ‘Tapestry’ songs was released in 2017. Click for CD.

Carole King, in recent years, has remained in the public eye. In December 2015, she was among Kennedy Center honorees receiving recognition for their lifetime contribution to American culture through the performing arts.

Janelle Monae, James Taylor, Sara Bareilles, Aretha Franklin, and the cast of Beautiful, The Carole King Musical, performed during King’s segment of the awards ceremony.

In February 2016, the PBS TV program, American Masters, featured the profile, “Carole King: Natural Woman,” which included history on the Goffin-King biography and discography.

In July 2016, King was on the top of the bill at the British Summer Time Festival at Hyde Park, London, where she performed all of Tapestry live for the first time. That concert was broadcast on UK TV in October 2016 and in 2017, an album of that concert, Tapestry: Live at Hyde Park, was released.

Goffin-King Legacy

Carole King and Gerry Goffin with Aldon Music owner and creator, Don Kirshner, 1960s.

The Goffin-King catalog and musical legacy appears to be alive and well in the 2010s, as any number of their songs – some more than 50 years old – are likely being played somewhere in the world every day. Their compositions have been recorded by hundreds of artists, and their songs continue to be used in film and television. Their careers and songwriting mark an important time in the evolution of modern music – from the Brill Building era of love-conquers-all pop hits played on 45 rpm vinyl records, through the singer-songwriter era of folk rock played on 33.3 rpm vinyl albums, to the current internet era of anytime-anywhere digital music. Still, the sentiments they penned and the melodies they made, have stood the test of time and remain a part of cultural history. In all likelihood, their music will continue to be “loved tomorrow.”

See also at this website, for example, “Joni’s Music” (Joni Mitchell), “Linda & Jerry” (Linda Ronstadt & Jerrgy Brown), “Streisand Rising” (Barbra Streisand), and “1960s Girl Groups” (includes long sidebar on Brill Building scene). The “Annals of Music” category page offers additional story choices. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 24 May 2018
Last Update: 17 October 2020
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Goffin and King, Love & Music: 1950s-2010s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, May 24, 2018.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

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Harvey Kubernik, “Carole King’s Monumental Tapestry Album,” PBS.com/American Mas-ters, February 14, 2011.

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Jon Kanis, “Gerry Goffin: Beyond the Brill Building,” SanDiegoTroubadour.com, August 2014.

Cathy Applefeld Olson, “Carole King, George Lucas & More Feted at 2015 Kennedy Center Honors,” Billboard.com, December 7, 2015.

Helen Brown, “Carole King Interview: ‘I Didn’t Have the Courage to Write Songs Initially’,” The Telegraph (London), March 7, 2016.

Amanda Kolson Hurley, “Welcome to Disturbia: Why Midcentury Americans Believed The Suburbs Were Making Them Sick,” Curbed.com, May 25, 2016.

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Kristin Corpuz, “Carole King’s Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits,” Billboard.com, February 8, 2017.

Elon Green, “A Magical Ten Seconds of the Shirelles,” The New Yorker, May 3, 2018.

_______________________________________

Teaser Tag: Politics, Publishing, Culture

1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“The Pentagon Papers”
1967-2018

February 5, 2018 J.D.

After the first newspaper stories broke on the Pentagon Papers, Newsweek and Time magazines each followed with June 28,1971 cover stories – Newsweek’s shown here with a “map”of Vietnam peopled by those making secret decisions.

In 1967, the United States was mired in an ever-deepening war in Vietnam. By year’s end there were 485,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, with more than 11,300 American war deaths that year and rising discord at home.

Lyndon B. Johnson was then President of the United States, in his first full term following his assumption of the Presidency after JFK’s November 1963 assassination. Johnson had won the 1964 election in a landslide victory over Republican candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater.

Then U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, a JFK appointee continuing to serve in Johnson’s cabinet, and known for his statistical acumen and penchant for data-driven objectives, commissioned a top-secret study that year on the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, going back to World War II.

McNamara – one of JFK’s brightest cabinet members and a chief architect of American strategy in Vietnam since 1961 – was having private doubts about American involvement there and wanted an “encyclopedic history of the Vietnam War” that would comprise a written record for historians and military planners in the future.

That study — though top-secret and never intended to see the light of day as a contemporary document — would prove to be explosive if revealed. It included some 46 volumes and thousands of pages of secret history – sensitive diplomatic cables, presidential decision documents, military analyses, political manipulations, and more that told the true story of what had really gone on in American-Vietnam relations over some 22 years. When it was later leaked to the press in 1971 — and after an historic First Amendment legal battle and Supreme Court ruling — this study would reveal that the American public was misled, deceived, and lied to about the real nature of U.S. involvement in Vietnam for more than two decades.

Secret Study

The top-secret study would come to be known as the “Pentagon Papers,” named for the sprawling, five-sided U.S. Defense Department headquarters just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. in Arlington, Virginia. McNamara commissioned the study in mid-June 1967, but neither then President Lyndon Johnson nor Secretary of State Dean Rusk, knew about it.

During 1967-68 a team of some 36 researchers worked on the study coordinated at a Pentagon office adjacent to McNamara’s. Of those who worked on the study, half were high-level Pentagon staff, half security-cleared contract analysts. One of the analysts was Daniel Ellsberg, a Harvard-educated economist and one-time hawk on the war, who would later leak the study to the New York Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers. That top secret Pentagon document, and Ellsberg’s action, touched off one of the country’s fiercest battles over freedom of the press vs. government secrecy; a battle recently given dramatic form in the 2017 Steven Spielberg Hollywood film, “The Post,” starring Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and others. Here’s one of the trailers for that film:

Stephen Speilberg’s 2017 film, of course, focuses on the inside story at the Washington Post as it struggled with the publication decision, court battles and the Nixon Administration. Yet, the story – both before and after it got to the Washington Post and the U.S. Supreme Court – has a number of heroes and heroines, not least of whom is Daniel Ellsberg, the guy who followed his conscience and got the ball rolling. What follows below is a recounting of some of the Pentagon Papers history and why it remains important today – including a narrative chronology of events, sample newspaper headlines, legal battle, photos of some of the principals, as well as various books, television productions, and Hollywood films that came in the wake of that controversy through the present day.

Daniel Ellsberg, circa 1970s.

“Most Dangerous Man”?

In 1971, President Richard Nixon’s national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, would call him “the most dangerous man in America.” Yet, many today regard Daniel Ellsberg as a true patriot for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the press.

Ellsberg, a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard in economics in 1952, was also Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Cambridge for a year following graduation. He returned to Harvard for graduate study for a time, then joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1954 where he served as a platoon leader and company commander, completing his service in 1957 as a first lieutenant. He later resumed graduate work at Harvard, then worked as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, focusing on nuclear weapons strategy. He completed a PhD in Economics at Harvard in 1962, with an emphasis on decision theory, later becoming known for something in that field called “the Ellsberg paradox.”

By August 1964, Ellsberg was working in the Pentagon under Defense Secretary McNamara as special assistant. When Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs John McNaughton, an expert on nuclear test bans, needed an assistant, Ellsberg got the job. He then volunteered for duty in South Vietnam for two years, working for General Edward Lansdale as a member of the State Department. By 1967, he was back in the States, later that year working on the secret Pentagon study that would become the Pentagon Papers.

Vietnam, 1967: Daniel Ellsberg, right, shown with Associated Press photographer Horst Faas.

Ellsberg had been a “hawk” on the Vietnam War early on. But later, in August 1969, while still at RAND, he converted to the other side, beginning as a strategic dissenter after being moved by a draft resistor’s remarks and willingness to go jail for his beliefs. He soon became a more active anti-war activist (“superhawk-turned-superdove” is how Time magazine would later put it). And by this time, given his work at RAND and his security clearance, Ellsberg was in a position to access sensitive government and military information, including the U.S.-Vietnam history.

The McNamara-ordered history was completed on January 15, 1969 – just five days before the inauguration of the Nixon Administration. Officially titled: United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, it was a massive and sweeping document: 47-volumes in all, consisting of 4,000 pages of documents, 3,000 pages of analysis, and 2.5 million words — all classified as secret, top secret, or top secret-sensitive.

Among those called in to help with the project for a time was then Harvard University professor Henry Kissinger. The report offered a detailed self-examination of U.S.-Vietnamese relations and the Vietnam War. Only 15 copies were initially authorized and held in secret, made available to selected officials — two at the State Department; two for the National Archives; two copies held by the RAND Corporation (one at its D.C. office, and another at a California office); one for incoming Defense Secretary, Clark Clifford; and seven to remain at the Department of Defense.

Robert McNamara, appointed Secretary of Defense by JFK, and served LBJ until differences over the war emerged, had initiated the secret US-Vietnam history in mid-June 1967.

Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, also received one copy. However, McNamara was gone from the Pentagon about year before the study was finished.

In November 1967, McNamara had written a memorandum to President Johnson in which he recommended that the President freeze troop levels, stop bombing North Vietnam, and turn over ground fighting to South Vietnam. McNamara by then believed the U.S. could not win the war in Vietnam. His advice to Johnson at that time was not well received and ignored.

Within a few months of his memo to LBJ — by the end of February 1968 — Robert McNamara was persona non grata in the Johnson Administration. He would resign as Secretary of Defense and move on to head up the World Bank.

Tumultuous Times

Several books have documented the tumultuous events of 1968. Click for copy of this book.

The social and political milieu in the U.S. as the secret Vietnam study was being compiled was anything but calm. During 1968 in particular, an election year, there came a series of especially volatile events that sent successive shock waves through the nation. “All hell broke loose” is how some described what would become one of the most tumultuous periods of American history – between January 1968 and November 1968.

First came the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in late January 1968 (“Tet” marking the lunar new year holiday), when North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack in South Vietnam that undermined what President Johnson and the U.S. military were saying about the war. At home, Johnson’s well-intentioned Great Society domestic agenda for helping the poor was being circumscribed by the war. Then on February 27th, respected CBS-TV newsman, Walter Cronkite, who had gone to Vietnam after the Tet Offensive, offered an on-air commentary during the regular CBS Evening News program watched by millions, concluding that the Vietnam War was “mired in stalemate.” That broadcast is regarded as seminal in raising doubts among mainstream Americans about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Johnson, meanwhile, was being challenged for his party’s presidential nomination. On March 12, 1968, anti-war candidate, Senator Eugene McCarthy staged a surprised challenge to Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. Four days later, Senator Robert F. Kennedy announced he would also seek the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Walter Cronkite's February 1968 "stalemate-in-Vietnam" TV commentary was devastating to LBJ.

Then on March 31, 1968, LBJ, in a nationally-televised address in which he announced a partial Vietnam bombing halt while offering the possibility of peace talks, stunned the nation and his party by also announcing he would not seek a second term as President, primarily because of Vietnam. A few days later, on April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, and dozens of cities erupted in reaction. On April 23rd, 1968 in New York city, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) seized five buildings on the campus of Columbia University to protest war-related research there. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, meanwhile, had surged to the front of the Democratic pack seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination. But after winning the California primary on June 6th, 1968, Kennedy was assassinated, crushing liberal hopes for a better future. A highly fractured Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago in late August 1968 and became the scene of violent anti-war protests and nationally-televised street battles with Chicago police.

Nixon-Agnew button.

The feeling across the nation was that things were out of control; as if the country had lost its moorings. Republican Presidential candidate Richard Nixon then deftly exploited the Democrats’ chaos using “law & order” rhetoric in his campaign speeches and advertising, appealing to America’s law-abiding “silent majority” and promising to set the nation right again. On November 6th, 1968, in one of the closest presidential elections in history, due in part to third-party candidate, George Wallace of Alabama who garnered 9 million votes, the Republican ticket of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew defeated the Democrats’ Hubert Humphrey and Ed Muskie. By year’s end 1968, America had 540,000 of its soldiers in Vietnam. Nixon had campaigned to bring an “honorable end to the war in Vietnam,” also saying he had a “secret plan” to end the war.

Early 1970s: Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo, who made late night copies of the Pentagon Papers while at RAND.

Ellsberg’s Move

Meanwhile, by January 1968, Daniel Ellsberg had spent about 8 months working on the McNamara-ordered Vietnam history, and he regarded the Tet Offensive a troubling development, among others. Still, he continued to work as a government contractor, Vietnam trouble-shooter, and policy advisor, meeting with government officials, presidential candidates – and even in early 1969 — meeting with Henry Kissinger, President Richard Nixon’s national security advisor. Kissinger asked Ellsberg to prepare a list of policy options for the new Nixon administration, which Kissinger did not include in those submitted to Nixon.

Some months later, however, by October 1, 1969, Ellsberg began to cross the line from government contractor and Vietnam analyst to anti-war activist and government whistleblower. As a RAND analyst, he had access to an authorized copy of the 47 volume Pentagon Papers – and he had also read the entire study. Over a three-month period beginning that October, Ellsberg and a RAND colleague named Anthony Russo, began photo-copying the study bit by bit late at night, returning it to the RAND safe each morning. But once copied, Ellsberg would not immediately distribute the sensitive materials to the press.

Ellsberg also tried other avenues to advance his concerns about the Vietnam War. On October 12, 1969, he and several RAND colleagues wrote a letter to the Washington Post opposing the Nixon Administration’s Vietnam policies and statements. As for the secret document he was copying, his first thought was to distribute a few copies to selected U.S. Senators. Members of the U.S. Senate (or the U.S. House of Representatives) could release sensitive papers on the Senate or House floor and face no repercussions, as they could not be prosecuted for anything they said in official proceedings.

Among those receiving early copies of the Pentagon Papers from Ellsberg was Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-AR) a critic of the Vietnam War and a careful foreign policy thinker.

In November 1969, Ellsberg sent a portion of the secret study to Senator J. William Fulbright (D-AR), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fulbright was an early critic of the Vietnam War and no fan of the Pentagon.

In 1966, he held some of the first public hearings on the Vietnam War and would publish The Arrogance of Power that year as well, a book sharply critical of the war, in which he attacked its justification and Congress’s failure to set limits on it. As for the Pentagon, in 1970 he would publish The Pentagon Propaganda Machine, a short book focusing on the military’s public relations campaigns.

Fulbright, however, would not release the secret Pentagon study Daniel Ellsberg brought to him. Instead, he decided to request a copy of the full secret Vietnam history from Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird. On December 20, 1969, Laird replied but refused to release the Pentagon study to Fulbright.

War Protests

Protest over the Vietnam War, meanwhile, had grown. Two large marches on Washington – with hundreds of thousands of protesters — occurred in October and November of 1969. In early November 1969, Nixon made his “silent majority” speech, claiming that most Americans supported his policies to end the war.

May 1970: Four students killed by National Guard during anti-war protest; click for story.

Then on April 30th, 1970 it was revealed that the U.S. had invaded Cambodia in an effort to stop North Vietnamese using that neighboring country to raid South Vietnam. The Nixon Cambodia incursion is seen as a broadening of the war, and it sets off student demonstrations around the U.S., including one at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4th, where national guard troops are called out to quell the protests. Four Kent Sate students are killed by guardsman on the campus during the demonstrations, setting off further protests across the nation.

Ellsberg, meanwhile, has left RAND and becomes a senior research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies, where he meets others, including William Bundy, a former Vietnam war architect, and two professors, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, with whom he shares the Pentagon Papers. Back in Washington, Ellsberg continued to distribute portions of the Papers to selected Senators and Congressmen, including Sen. George McGovern (D-SD), a leading opponent of the war, and Republican Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA). But both choose not to act on the secret document.

On May 13, 1970, Ellsberg testifies before Senator Fullbright’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but does not disclose the secret Pentagon study he holds. Several months later, in September that year, Ellsberg publishes an essay, “Escalating in a Quagmire,” presented at a conference of the Political Science Association. He also meets with Secretary Kissinger around this time to discuss his concerns. Kissinger offers him a position as an advisor, which Ellsberg declines. Ellsberg would later confront Kissinger again, publicly, over Vietnam casualty reports, at a January 1971 MIT conference.

Going To The Press

In early March 1971, Ellsberg meets with New York Times reporter, Neil Sheehan. Sheehan had covered the Pentagon and White House for the Times since the mid- and late- 1960s, writing on political, diplomatic and military issues. He was also a former UPI correspondent whom Ellsberg had met in Vietnam. By 1971 Sheehan worked in the Washington bureau of the Times. At his first meeting with Sheehan, Ellsberg only describes the document he has, and wants to be sure that the Times will publish it. He and Sheehan would meet again later.

Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe

Then on March 7th, 1971, the Boston Globe carries a front-page story by its Washington correspondent Thomas Oliphant that is headlined, “Only 3 Have Read Secret Indochina Report; All Urge Pullout,” referring to three Defense Department insiders who had access to the papers – Morton Halperin, Leslie Gelb and Ellsberg.

The Boston Globe story is the first public reporting that a secret U.S./Vietnam history even exists (except for a brief mention in the Oct 25, 1970, issue of Parade magazine). Although Oliphant and the Globe are the first to write publicly about the Papers, no other media picked up on it. Oliphant had interviewed Ellsberg earlier, when Ellsberg acknowledged the study existed. Still, the Globe at this point did not have access to the secret study’s content. Ellsberg and his wife, meanwhile, feared the government might come knocking on their door, so they begin salting away additional copies of the study with friends.

Neil Sheehan of the New York Times had covered the Pentagon and the White House in his reporting.

A few weeks later, on March 21st, 1971, Ellsberg meets again with New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan in a Cambridge, Massachusetts motel, and Sheehan later photocopies a set of the Pentagon Papers.

By April 5, 1971 Sheehan and New York Times editor Gerald Gold have set up shop in DC’s Jefferson Hilton hotel to begin reviewing the documents. The Times’ winnowing operation on the papers – called Project X – is later moved to a hotel near Times Square. (The Times’ editors and writers had holed up in hotels away from their D.C. and New York offices for fear of FBI raids).

By this time, Sheehan is joined by a broader team of reporters and editors from the Times – Hedrick Smith, Ned Kenworthy, Fox Butterfield and others. During a three-month period, up through early June 1971, while the Times prepared and selected stories to publish from the secret Pentagon study, there was much internal debate over whether and how to publish, with outside counsel recommending not publishing. Among those arguing strongly to run the secret material was senior Times editor, James Reston, who would write an early column titled, “The McNamara Papers.” Finally, on June 11th, 1971, after having the documents for nearly three months, New York Times publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger gave to final approval to publish the secret material.

June 13, 1971: The New York Times publishes its first Pentagon Papers stories (shared with coverage of Tricia Nixon’s White House wedding) – “Vietnam Archive...” by Neil Sheehan , and “Vast Review of War Took A Year,” by Hedrick Smith. A box in the first story directed readers to further pages of “documentary material from the Pentagon study.”

In its Sunday edition of June 13th, 1971 (above), the New York Times published its first Pentagon Papers story on the front page in a story by Neil Sheehan headlined as the “Vietnam Archive.” That headline introduced the secret Pentagon study to Times readers, noting it covered “3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement” in Vietnam. There was also coverage of the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which proved to be a fictitious provocation (of a U.S. vessel fired upon at sea) that the U.S. would use to justify greater U.S. participation in the war via the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed by the House and Senate, and used by LBJ as a broad executive power to prosecute a major war. The first New York Times stories, their headlines, and others later, were purposely drawn to be as bland as possible, and not sensationalized, so as to show intent of publisher responsibility, as the Times was then anticipating legal challenges ahead. Still, there was much more in the Times that first day than just these two stories. In fact, that Sunday edition came in at a whopping 486 pages – much of it in supporting verbatim materials from the secret Pentagon study.

On June 14th, 1971, the Times published its second story (below) on the Pentagon Papers – it focused on the February 1965 decision to bomb North Vietnam. This story revealed that President Johnson was planning the bombing on the day he was elected to his second term, despite campaign promises he would not escalate military action. The article also described the decision process that led to the bombing campaign.

June 14, 1971. Cropped front page of the New York times featuring the second in a series of stories on the Pentagon’s secret Vietnam history. This story revealed that planning was underway to bomb North Vietnam before the U.S. 1964 Presidential election, when as a candidate, President Johnson had said he would not escalate the war.

With the Times’ second story on the sensitive Vietnam history, the Nixon Administration becomes involved in an effort to stop further publication. However, President Nixon had not known of the secret Pentagon study before the Times had run its first stories. Kissinger knew of it, but hadn’t read it. And the secret Vietnam history only covered events up to 1967, and nothing during the Nixon years — with the previous Democratic Administrations of Johnson and Kennedy being skewered initially.

On June 13th, 1971, when the first of the New York Times stories appeared, Nixon did not, at first, want to go after the Times for publishing the material. In fact, he hadn’t read the stories that morning – the day after his daughter had been married at the White House. When he did read them, and after he heard early reaction from his staff and some Cabinet members, Nixon became more concerned with going after who ever leaked the material than he was with the Times’ publication.

President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, early 1970s.

On Monday evening, June 14, 1971, Nixon would remark to his top domestic policy aide, John Ehrlichman, “Hell, I wouldn’t prosecute the Times. My view is to prosecute the [expletive, expletive ] that gave it to ‘em.” However, Nixon’s views about publication would soon change as he held various telephone conversations and meetings with aides, including: National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger; Alexander Haig, then assistant to Kissinger; Secretary of State, William Rogers; Nixon’s top domestic policy aide, John Ehrlichman; and Attorney General John Mitchell.

But Henry Kissinger and others soon convinced Nixon there was plenty to worry about. For if documents as sensitive as these could be photocopied and handed out to the press at will, how could their own Administration carry on the business of national security? They had already had some leaks of their own sensitive material, and the move to publish these Pentagon documents could only embolden others. Indeed, Nixon’s team had their own secrets about how they were conducting the war in Vietnam, Cambodia and elsewhere. There was also the anti-war movement at home that was growing beyond the campuses. In Congress, there were a dozen or so bills calling for an end to the war. Nor did Nixon care much for the press, referring to the Times and other press as “enemies.” So the Nixon Administration — driven by Nixon’s own paranoia about conspiracy efforts out to get him — soon became preoccupied with stopping publication and prosecuting those who leaked sensitive material.

Nixon’s Attorney General, John Mitchell, sent a telegram to New York Times publisher Sulzberger threatening Espionage Act prosecution if the Times does not stop publication. Mitchell cited “irreparable injury to the United States.” Violating the Espionage Act meant prison time for those convicted. The Times girded for a legal fight. They added Yale Law Professor Alex Bickel and First Amendment litigator Floyd Abrams to their legal team. Still, they continued publication.

June 15, 1971: New York Times third installment of its series on the secret Vietnam study runs with a front page story on how the Johnson Administration began U.S. ground combat operations in Vietnam. There is also the featured top headline story on the Nixon Administration’s efforts to shut down the Times’ publication of the study.

On June 15th, 1971, the third installment of the series on the secret Pentagon study is published by the New York Times – this time with a double headline. The first told of the current fight with the Nixon Administration over publication: “Mitchell Seeks to Halt Series on Vietnam But Times Refuses.” On the Vietnam history story, the headline read: “Vietnam Archive: Study Tells How Johnson Secretly Opened Way To Ground Combat.” That story described the decision to commit U.S. ground troops to Vietnam, which was first made on April 1, 1965, beginning with 3,500 Marines, then 18,000-20,000 ground troops, and escalating to 200,000 more requested by General Westmoreland in June of that year (over Ambassador Maxwell Taylor’s objections) which LBJ approved on July 17, 1965.

In this same June 15th edition, the Times wrote that court action over the Vietnam series was likely. In fact, an injunction came later that day, with Nixon’s team filing its action in federal district court in Manhattan. The presiding judge was Nixon appointee, Murray Gurfein, then hearing his first case. Judge Gurfein issued a temporary restraining order barring the Times’ further publication. Back in Washington, the Department of Justice announced that it was considering criminal penalties for the leak and publication. Also at that time, Secretary of State William Rogers, in a press conference, singled out the disclosure of the secret study for harming U.S. relations with its allies.

June 16, 1971. The New York Times reports on the Nixon Administration’s action to halt the Times’ publication on the secret Pentagon study, while also reporting another story from that study and another on related issues.

On the following day, June 16, 1971, the Times runs the dominant front-page headline announcing the government’s action against the paper: “Judge, at Request of U.S., Halts Times Vietnam Series Four Days Pending Injunction.” But the paper also runs another piece from the secret Vietnam archive, as well as a related story on Secretary of State Rogers’ concerns, and another on Senator Mike Mansfield’s (D-MT) call for Senate hearings into the history of the Vietnam War. With the Times being shut down on the story, Daniel Ellsberg then offers the Pentagon Papers to the three television networks (in those days there were only three). But each of the TV networks declines, citing FCC license vulnerability. By this time, Ellsberg and his wife Patricia go underground after Ellsberg is identified as the probable source for leaking the secret Pentagon study.

Post Joins Fray

With the New York Times now legally sidelined, the Washington Post, which had only published wire stories and summations of what the Times had been reporting about the secret study, then began its own effort to pursue the story. Ben Bagdikian, an assistant managing editor at the Post, knew Ellsberg from a time when both had been together at RAND. He had also pieced together that Ellsberg was the likely leaker, and contacted him on behalf of the Post to arrange for a copy of the study. Bagdikian flew to Boston on June 17th, 1971, met with Ellsberg to get the Papers, then flew home to D.C. in an airplane scene now made famous by the 2017 film, “The Post,” with Bagdikian and his big box of papers “belted in” on an adjacent airplane seat (photo below). He was actually carrying two copies, one for a member of Congress (Senator Mike Gravel), later to be incorporated into a formal committee record (see sidebar later below).

Scene from 2017-18 film, “The Post,” showing Ben Bagdikian of The Washington Post (played by Bob Odenkirk ), flying back to Washington after obtaining copies of the 7,000-page “Pentagon Papers” from Daniel Ellsberg in Boston. “Must be precious cargo,” observes flight attendant of his seat companion; “only government secrets” he assures her. Click for 'The Post' DVD.

When Bagdikian arrived in Washington that evening, on June 17th, 1971, he went straight to the home of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, where a gathered team of reporters and editors were awaiting the secret study to write stories for the following day’s edition. They soon dug into the work as the Post’s lawyers and editors debated the risks of publishing. The Post’s owner and publisher, Katharine Graham, would later approve the publication of the secret material over the telephone during a party being held at her home. Graham’s approval came despite strong objections by the Post’s legal counsel and her own worry about risking the family business. Back in New York, the Times, complying with a court order, released a list of the secret documents it held to the government, but not the documents themselves. The court rejected the government’s request for the copies. Meanwhile, the next day, the Washington Post published its first stories on the secret Pentagon study.

June 18, 1971. The Washington Post runs its first front-page stories on the secret Pentagon study: one from the study during the Eisenhower era in 1954 when the U.S. figured into a delay in South Vietnamese elections; another on how members of Congress were then mostly supporting the earlier New York Times’ publication of the secret study; a third on the Times’ actions regarding the government’s legal requests for documents; and a fourth, in the lower right hand corner, about the government’s pursuit of then suspected leaker, Daniel Ellsberg.

In its debut on the secret Pentagon study (above), the Post featured four related stories on its front page: one from the study during the Eisenhower era in 1954 when the U.S. figured into a delay of South Vietnamese elections; another on how members of Congress were then mostly supporting the New York Times’ publication of the secret study; a third on the Times’ actions regarding the government’s legal requests for the Pentagon documents; and a fourth about the government’s pursuit of then suspected leaker, Daniel Ellsberg. Upon publication, the Nixon Administration immediately goes after the Washington Post.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General, William Rehnquist, calls Post editor Ben Bradlee to inform him that further publication will be a violation of espionage laws. He also requests the Post turn over its documents. Bradlee refuses on both counts.

Some hours later – now June 19th, 1971 at 1:20 a.m – the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily enjoins the Post from further publication. Two days later, on June 21, 1971, in Federal District court in Washington, Judge Gesell denies the government’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Post, but the government immediately appeals to the D.C. Circuit.

June 21, 1971. Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post,, emerging from Federal District Court in Washington, DC after court temporarily ruled in their favor.

Then, over the next few days, in both the Washington Post case, and New York Times case, a series of legal maneuvers and appeals and counter-appeals began, culminating in the arrival of both cases together at the U.S. Supreme Court, which first hears oral arguments in a rare Saturday session on June 26, 1971.

By this time, more than 10 other newspapers across the country had received the sensitive Pentagon study and begin publishing their own articles.

At stake in the case as it came before the Supreme Court – New York Times v. United States – is the question of whether the First Amendment allows “prior restraint” (in the form of a legal injunction/prohibition) on the publication of the Pentagon Papers (and by extension, all other information of this kind going forward) by the Times and Post, and generally, the press. It is a fundamental First Amendment challenge.

Meanwhile, as the legal questions were being sorted out in this epic case, Ellsberg was moving from motel to motel to avoid capture by the FBI, still distributing the secret Pentagon study selectively to other newspapers. On June 22nd, 1971, for example, after being contacted earlier by Boston Globe reporter Thomas Oliphant, and with the Globe agreeing to publish the secret material, Ellsberg supplies portions of the study and the Globe runs three related front-page stories; two reporting, respectively, on the JFK and LBJ roles in the secret Vietnam history, and a third reporting that Ellsberg would soon be making a statement on his role. The Justice Department then stopped the Globe from further publication with an injunction and also ordered the Globe’s documents to be impounded. Instead, the Globe’s editor, Thomas Winship, moved the documents off premises to a locker at Boston’s Logan Airport.

June 22, 1971: Boston Globe reports on JFK and LBJ roles in secret Vietnam history – and also Ellsberg.

June 24,1971: San Francisco Chronicle reports on secret Pentagon Vietnam history, Ellsberg, & newspaper bans.

Ellsberg would continue distributing portions of the secret Pentagon study to other newspapers, a few of which the government also tried to enjoin. The St Louis Post-Dispatch, Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, and Chicago Tribune were among newspapers that published material from the secret Pentagon report. By June 23rd, 1971, Ellsberg himself was interviewed on Walter Cronkite’s CBS-TV news show, when he told the anchorman that Americans were to blame for the war and “now bear the major responsibility, as I read this history, for every death in combat in Indochina in the last 25 years.”

June 25, 1971: St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes revealing front-page story from the secret Pentagon Vietnam history, running the headlines: ‘M’Namara: Pacification A Failure; Despaired In ‘66 Of Quick Victory, Papers Show,” with front-page photos of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and President Lyndon Johnson.

On June 25th, 1971, the St. Louis Post Dispatch published a front-page story (above) on the secret Pentagon study that headlined the fact that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had declared the “pacification” effort in Vietnam a failure, and in 1966 he warned President Johnson there would be no quick victory. This story was a clear indication that more than just the New York Times and Washington Post were involved, as nearly an additional dozen or so newspapers – some in the heartland of the country such as the St Louis Post-Dispatch – were also publishing revealing accounts from the secret Pentagon Vietnam history.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, a federal grand jury was convened to hear charges on the criminal aspect of the Pentagon study leak. On June 26th, 1971, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Daniel Ellsberg; his attorneys announced he would surrender the following Monday. Also on June 26th, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch came under a restraining order for its publication.

June 28, 1971: Time cover, “Pentagon Papers: The Secret War.”

By late June 1971 the secret Vietnam history is being called “The Pentagon Papers” by Time magazine, and the story continues to be big national news. On June 28, 1971, Time and Newsweek both run cover stories on the secret Papers (Newsweek’s cover story of this date shown earlier, the first photo at the top of this story). Time, in its cover story, for example, offers its impression of the U.S./Vietnam decision making revealed in the study:

…Each step seems to have been taken almost in desperation because the preceding step had failed to check the crumbling of the South Vietnamese government and its troops—and despite frequently expressed doubts that the next move would be much more effective. Yet the bureaucracy, the Pentagon papers indicate, always demanded new options; each option was to apply more force. Each tightening of the screw created a position that must be defended; once committed, the military pressure must be maintained. A pause, it was argued, would reveal lack of resolve, embolden the Communists and further demoralize the South Vietnamese. Almost no one said: “Wait—where are we going? Should we turn back?”

Also on June 28th, 1971, Daniel Ellsberg surrendered to the U.S. Attorney in Boston. There he was charged under the Espionage Act with theft and unauthorized possession of classified documents and released on $500,000 bail. Ellsberg faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Meanwhile, the New York Times/Washington Post case over the right to publish was still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Late June 1971: Daniel Ellsberg appears before microphones, surrounded by reporters at the Federal Building in Boston, where he would surrender to Federal authorities after admitting he supplied the New York Times with the secret Pentagon papers.

On the following day, June 29, 1971, U.S. Senator Mike Gravel (D-AK) then attempted to read the Pentagon Papers into the Senate record as part of his filibuster on the military draft, but he was stopped by a parliamentary maneuver. He then convened a hearing of his Senate Public Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee in the middle of the night and began reading the Pentagon Papers into the hearing record, continuing to do so for three hours, and later submitting the unread remainder into the formal hearing record. (more on Gravel and these papers in later sidebar).

Then on June 30, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in New York Times v. United States, with the nine justices voting 6-3, upholding the Times’ and Post’s right to publish, and declaring that all news organizations could publish any excerpt of the report they deemed newsworthy. The landmark decision made front-page news all across the country, and no more happily than at the New York Times and Washington Post – with each of those newspapers, and others, resuming their reporting on the once secret U.S.-Vietnam history.

July 1, 1971: In addition to its front page coverage of the Supreme Court’s decision, the Times continued its series on the Pentagon Papers with two of the stories appearing on the front page – one on JFK decisions – “...Made ‘Gamble’ Into a ‘Broad Commitment’,” – and another on the overthrow of South Vietnam’s President Diem.

July 1, 1971. Washington Post front page following U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the right of the press to publish secret Pentagon Papers. Photo shows Post owner Katharine Graham, editor, Ben Bradlee, and Post reporters in Post’s newsroom receiving and celebrating the court’s decision.

The case marked the first time in modern American history that the U.S. government had actually restrained the press from publication in the name of national security, as the New York Times had been restrained for 14 days from publishing. But the Supreme Court’s decision re-affirmed the right and duty of the press to keep a watchful eye on government. Justice Hugo Black wrote, for example: “In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.” Justice Black and Justice William O. Douglas added that no restraints of any sort are permissible under the First Amendment. (For a legal analysis of the importance of New York Times v. the United States, see C-SPAN’s “Landmark Cases” series on this case).

However, the controversy over the publication of the Pentagon Papers did not end with the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the right to publish. The story continued with the arrests and trial of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo. In fact, on the day of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Pentagon Papers case, June 30, 1971 the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles indicted Ellsberg on two counts of theft and espionage. And in some ways, this is where “the plot thickens,” as they say, for the Nixon Administration, as would be later revealed, was hot on the trail of Daniel Ellsberg.

July 5, 1971: Time puts Daniel Ellsberg on it cover with story on the “Battle Over the Right to Know.”

July 12, 1971: “Victory for The Press,” Newsweek cover story on Supreme Court ruling.

The Ellsberg/Russo prosecution and trial would run nearly two years, from June 1971 through May 1973, and would take several twists and turns. In August 1971, Anthony Russo was called to testify before the grand jury in Los Angeles, but refused, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. And after he was offered immunity from prosecution, he still refused to testify and was cited for contempt and put in jail. In late December 1971, a second indictment was brought against Ellsberg and Russo that superseded the original, this one containing fifteen counts. By July 29, 1972, with the trial underway, it was learned the government had wiretapped a conversation between one of the defendants and his lawyer or consultants. However, the judge in the trial, Judge Matthew Byrne, refused to stop the trial because of the wiretap. But Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas ordered a stay since an appeal has been filed at the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court, on November 13, 1972, refuses to hear defense arguments arising from the government’s wiretap. Then on December 12, 1972, Judge Byrne, declares a mistrial in the Ellsberg-Russo case and calls for a new jury to be empaneled. On January 17, 1973, opening statements are delivered in the new Ellsberg/Russo trial. But not long thereafter, some other revelations come to light.

Charles Colson, Nixon aide.	John Erlichman, Nixon aide.
Howard Hunt, "plumber".	Gordon Liddy, "plumber".

Nixon’s Plumbers

Two years earlier in the White House, during the New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers, concern about leaks and conspiracies had escalated, as Nixon and his aides fumed over the Pentagon Papers disclosures and Daniel Ellsberg.

During June and July 1971 several of Nixon’s top aides and chief advisors — through a series of memos, telephone calls, and meetings — were involved in a continuing harangue about the leaks, Ellsberg, and what they were going to do about it. All of this led to an internal, self-reinforcing revving up of the group, including Nixon, to stop leaks and take revenge, initially on Ellsberg, the first among a variety of “enemies.”

Henry Kissinger, for example, Nixon’s National Security Advisor – who had once praised Ellsberg and sought his expertise – painted a very dark and damaging portrait of Ellsberg on the evening of June 17, 1971 in the Oval Office with Nixon, John Ehrlichman, and Bob Haldeman present.

Another top Nixon aide, Charles Colson, in a July 1st, 1971 telephone call with retired CIA agent named E. Howard Hunt, helped inspire and recruit Hunt to see what he could come up with on Ellsberg and other projects, suggesting, among other things, that Ellsberg might be “tried in the newspapers.” By July 6, 1971 Hunt was hired as White House consultant.

Meanwhile, the FBI and CIA by this time had been looking into Ellsberg’s past at the request of the White House with some urgency. But this was apparently not sufficient, as a special and covert White House Special Investigations Unit – later to be known as the “plumbers” – had been created on July 24, 1971 to help stop the leaking of classified information. Two junior aides were appointed to administer the unit – Egil “Bud” Krogh, Jr., and Kissinger aide David Young, Jr. This unit would come under the supervision of Nixon’s Domestic Advisor, John Ehrlichman.

On July 28, 1971, Howard Hunt sent a memo to Colson entitled “Neutralization of Ellsberg” with an outline of several proposed actions. “Building up a file on Ellsberg,” Hunt wrote, was “essential in determining how to destroy his public image and credibility.” One of the proposals from Hunt was to burglarize the offices of Ellsberg’s one-time psychiatrist in Los Angeles,…Hunt’s plan to burglarize the office of psychiatrist Dr. Lewis Fielding sought a “mother lode” of infor-mation about Ellsberg’s mental state in order to discredit him. Dr. Lewis Fielding, to obtain a “mother lode” of information about Ellsberg’s mental state in order to discredit him. In August 1971, that plan is fleshed out in more detail at the Old Executive Office Building near the White House and is later approved by Ehrlichman under the condition that it “is not traceable.” On September 3, 1971, the burglary of Fielding’s Beverly Hills Los Angeles office was carried out by “plumbers” Hunt, Liddy, Eugenio Martínez, Felipe de Diego, and Bernard Barker (the latter three, former CIA). In Fielding’s burgled office and crow-barred filing cabinet, Nixon’s plumbers found Ellsberg’s file, but it apparently did not contain the embarrassing information they had hoped for and left it discarded on the floor. Hunt and Liddy then planned to break into Fielding’s home, but Ehrlichman did not approve the second burglary. (This plumbers unit, meanwhile, would be the one and the same group made famous in the 1972 burglary of Democratic Campaign headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington DC — the break in and subsequent cover-up that would lead to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon).

Back at The Trial…

Back at the Ellsberg/Russo trial on April 26, 1973, a memo to Judge Bryne revealed the White House “plumbers” break-in of Dr. Fielding’s office seeking Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatric records. And there was more. On May 9th, further evidence of illegal wiretapping of Ellsberg was revealed, as the FBI had recorded numerous conversations between he and Morton Halperin without a court order. In addition, it was also revealed that during the trial, Judge Byrne – the residing judge in the trial – had personally met with Richard Nixon’s domestic advisor, John Ehrlichman, who had offered Byrne a position at the FBI. Given the gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo on May 11, 1973. The dismissal was front-page news.

May 12, 1973. New York Times headlines proclaiming government charges against Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo in their Pentagon Papers trial are dismissed and the are free, with the judge noting “improper government conduct” in that trial.

At the White House, however, President Nixon was not happy with the outcome of the Ellsberg trial, nor with the fact that earlier, on May 2, 1972, the New York Times had been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for “meritorious public service in journalism” for its reporting on the Pentagon Papers. While speaking to Alexander Haig and Bob Haldeman at the White House on the day the mistrial is declared, Nixon says: “…Son-of-a-bitchin’ thief is made a national hero and is gonna get off on a mistrial. The New York Times gets a Pulitzer Prize for stealing documents. They’re trying to get at us with thieves. What in the name of God have we come to?”

Fifteen months later, on August 8th, 1974, Richard M. Nixon announced in a televised address that he would resign as President of the United States the following day to escape what would have been most certain impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate for the crimes of the Watergate Scandal, which began, in part, with the White House paranoia over the publication of the secret Pentagon Papers (see also at this website “The Frost-Nixon Biz,” which covers the 1977 David Frost TV interviews with Richard Nixon about the “plumbers” and Watergate, and the books, stage play, and film that followed).

Books & Film

Popular History

In the years following the publication of the Pentagon Papers and the Daniel Ellsberg disclosures, there came a number of books and films on the controversy, its various characters, and related Vietnam War histories and politics. Among the first of these was a July 1971 Bantam Books paperback of some 677 pages that compiled what the New York Times had published in its newspaper series. The cover of that book appears below left, which also provided attribution on the cover for the various Times reporters involved, adding — “with key documents and 64 pages of photographs.”

1971: Bantam Books paperback edition of the New York Times published “Pentagon Papers,” 677pp. Click for copy.

1971: NY Times / Quadrangle Books “definitive” hardback copy of Pentagon Papers & documents, 810pp. Click for copy.

Also in 1971, the New York Times-owned company, Quadrangle Books, published a hardback volume of some 810 pages (above right) billed at the “definitive edition” of the Pentagon Papers as published by the Times, plus supplementary materials. It was offered as a comprehensive volume for libraries, universities, and private citizens. It included the ten chapters covered by the Times in its June and July 1971 stories, plus the full texts of the government documents that appeared in those stories; the court proceedings in the case of The New York Times Company vs. The United States; pictorial documentation of the Pentagon study in 60 pages of photographs; a glossary of names, code words, abbreviations and technical terms used in the Pentagon study; expanded and illustrated biographies of American and Vietnamese officials prominent in the study; and a 32-page index. Then there was also “the Gravel edition” of the Pentagon Papers, with a little history of its own.

“The Gravel Edition”
Mike Gravel & Beacon Press

Senator Mike Gravel, early 1970s.

In mid-June 1971, as the New York Times and Washington Post were doing legal battle with the Nixon Administration to continue publishing the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg wasn’t sure how they would fare. He continued looking for a way to get the entire document on the public record so anyone could read it. He then returned to the idea of having a member of Congress read the papers into the formal proceedings of Congress or the Congressional Record. He hadn’t succeeded with other Senators in earlier attempts. But now he turned to a freshman senator from Alaska, Democrat Mike Gravel, who was then using a filibuster in an attempt to end the military draft as one way to end America’s involvement in Vietnam. Gravel agreed to receive the papers from Ellsberg, who had arranged for a copy through Washington Post editor Ben Bagdikian. Gravel picked up the papers in a midnight exchange in front of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

On the evening of June 29, 1971, after being thwarted in his attempt to read the secret study on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Gravel resorted to using his Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee as a way to enter the Pentagon Papers into the formal Congressional record. As he began reading from the papers with the press in attendance, Gravel noted: “It is my constitutional obligation to protect the security of the people by fostering the free flow of information absolutely essential to their democratic decision-making.” He read until 1 a.m., though finally inserting some 4,100 pages of the Papers into the record of his subcommittee. The following day, the Supreme Court, in New York Times Co. v. United States, ruled in favor of the newspapers’ right to publish the Pentagon Papers, which then continued at the Times, Post, and other newspapers. In addition, by July 1971, Bantam Books published an inexpensive paperback edition of the papers containing the material the New York Times had published.

"The Senator Gravel Edition" of the Pentagon Papers, published by Beacon Press, October 1971. Not shown, Chomsky/Zinn Vol. 5.

Gravel, too, wanted to publish in book form the portion of the papers he had read into the record, believing that “immediate disclosure of the contents of these papers will change the policy that supports the war.” On August 4, 1971, after being turned down by dozens of commercial publishers, some fearful of government retribution, Gravel reached agreement with Beacon Press, the publishing arm of the Unitarian church, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), of which Gravel was a member. On October 22, 1971, a four-volume set of the Pentagon Papers bearing the name, “The Senator Gravel Edition,” was published. This edition of the Pentagon Papers was edited and annotated by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also included an additional volume of articles and essays on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn. Cornell University and the Annenberg Center for Communication are among institutions offering kudos for the Gravel Edition

UUA President Bob West and Senator Mike Gravel respond to the FBI’s attempt to seize UUA bank records in 1971.

In 1971, however, the response of the Nixon Administration to Beacon Press publishing the Gravel Edition was swift. Days after Beacon Press published The Pentagon Papers: The Senator Gravel Edition, FBI agents showed up at the UUA’s bank asking for their financial records. The UUA and Senator Gravel sued the government to suspend its search in a legal action that made its way to the Supreme Court, which decided in June 1972 that the senator’s official speech immunity did not, however, extend to Beacon Press. Senator Gravel and his staff were also involved in other litigation with the Nixon Administration for their initial disclosure of the Pentagon documents.

Senator Gravel’s involvement with the Pentagon Papers, meanwhile, had made him into something of a national political figure at that time. He became a sought-after speaker on the college lecture circuit and was also sought out for political fundraisers. The Democratic candidates for the 1972 presidential election sought his endorsement, and he later backed Maine Senator Ed Muskie.

Gravel continued fighting the Nixon Administration on Vietnam. In April 1972, he appeared on all three nightly TV newscasts criticizing Nixon’s “Vietnamization” plan for the South Vietnamese to shoulder the war fighting, while also making other secret government war documents public.

Sanford J. Ungar first published this book with E.P, Dutton; shown here in Columbia Univ. Press edition. Click for copy.

In 1972, Sanford J. Ungar, a former Washington Post reporter, published The Papers and The Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle Over the Pentagon Papers. The first hardback edition of this book at 319 pages was published by E.P. Dutton. The edition shown at left is the March 1989 Columbia University Press edition of 340 pages.

Ungar had also written on the Pentagon Papers and Ellsberg in 1971-72 for the Washington Post, publishing one story there titled, “Daniel Ellsberg: The Difficulties of Disclosure,” in a Sunday edition, April 30,1972, tracking the difficulties Ellsberg encountered trying to put the secret Pentagon materials on the public record.

Ellsberg himself published his own quick book on the Pentagon Papers in July 1972 titled simply, Papers On The War (Simon & Schuster, 309pp). In 2002, Ellsberg would publish a second account on the Pentagon Papers case, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, which reached bestseller lists across the nation and won several awards, including the American Book Award.

One book profiling Ellsberg’s history with the Pentagon Papers is Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War, published by Roaring Brook Press in 2015 and was a National Book Award finalist.

Other popular and academic volumes on the Pentagon Papers, some from the perspective of journalism, and others probing the trail of litigation or parsing the Supreme Court’s decision, would also come into print over the next 40 years – not to mention numerous periodical and law review articles (click on any book cover below to go to Amazon page for that book).

Daniel Ellsberg, 1972 book.	Daniel Ellsberg, 2002 book.
David Rudenstine’s 1996 book.	James Goodale's 2013 book.
David Halberstam's 1972 book.	Robert McNamara's 1996 book.
Steve Sheinkin’s 2015 book.	H.R. McMaster's 1998 book.
Ben Bradlee's 1995 book.	Kay Graham's 1997 book.

Among books exploring the publishing and/or legal aspects of the Pentagon Papers, for example, is David Rudenstine’s 1996 work, The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case (University of California Press).

In 2013, James Goodale, the former general counsel and vice chairman of the New York Times, published Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles, which includes his account representing the Times before the Supreme Court in the Pentagon Papers case.

There are also two books from the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham, which include sections on the Pentagon Papers: Graham’s Personal History of 1997, published by Alfred A. Knopf, and Bradlee’s A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures, published by Simon & Schuster in 1995. Presidential biographies – especially those on Johnson and Nixon – also have history related to the Pentagon Papers and Vietnam era decision making.

Complimenting the early books on the Pentagon Papers is David Halberstam’s well-received 1972 best seller on Vietnam, The Best and The Brightest. Halberstam’s book offers details on how the decisions were made in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations that led to the war, focusing on a period from 1960 to 1965, but also covers earlier and later years up to the book’s publication.

One of the “best and brightest” featured in Halberstam’s book, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, penned his own book on Vietnam in 1995, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (Crown Books). McNamara’s best-selling book generated considerable controversy with lots of media time for the former Defense Secretary.

Beyond the literature that covers the Pentagon Papers per se or the decision making at that time, there is of course, a vast array of works on the history of the Vietnam War from multiple perspectives. Among these, for example, are: Frances FitzGerald’s 1975 book, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam, and Stanley Karnow’s 1984 book, Vietnam: A History (Viking), billed at the time as “the first complete account of Vietnam at war” (This book was also used as a basis for the long form PBS TV series of the same title).

Among books taking a critical look at Vietnam policy making and military strategy is H.R. McMaster’s 1998 book, Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam – one of many probing the whys and wherefores of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Neil Sheehan, the former New York Times reporter that broke the early Pentagon Papers stories, also wrote an award-winning 1988 book on the war, A Bright Shining Lie:John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (Random House), which probes the Vietnam War through the experiences of John Paul Vann, a U.S. military advisor there in the early 1960s who became increasingly critical of U.S. military command and tactics used in the war.

Another Vietnam book by Mark Bowden published in 2017 focuses on one of war’s seminal military engagements during the Tet Offensive: Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam (Atlantic Monthly Press). The titles presented here and above are only samples; not by any means an exhaustive listing of the much larger universe of U.S./Vietnam analysis and the politics of that period.

TV & Hollywood. In September 2003, a television film, The Pentagon Papers, was the first in that arena to explore the Pentagon Papers episode. It aired on the FX cable TV channel. The film is about Daniel Ellsberg and the events leading up to the publication of the Pentagon Papers. It documents Ellsberg’s life starting with his work at the RAND Corporation, and ends with the mistrial in the Ellsberg-Russo espionage case. The film stars James Spader as Ellsberg and cast that also includes Claire Forlani, Alan Arkin, and Paul Giamatti (Rod Holcomb director,Joshua D. Maurer executive producer).

Sept 2003 cable TV movie, “The Pentagon Papers,” with James Spader as Daniel Ellsberg, FX channel. Click for DVD.

2009 film, “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.” Click for DVD.

In 2009, a documentary film directed and produced by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, titled, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. The film had a four-month theatrical run and in 2010 it was shown on the PBS series POV, for which it won a Peabody Award. It was also nominated for an Oscar in the documentary film category and won more than a dozen other film festival and other awards. It features Ellsberg and explores the events leading up to the publication of the Pentagon Papers. One Washington Post reviewer of the film called it: “Compelling… (a) gripping mix of politics, history and the derring-do of one of the era’s most audacious capers…deservedly Oscar nominated.” Here’s the trailer for that documentary:

An earlier documentary on the Vietnam war – Hearts and Minds of 1974 (which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature that year) – is also relevant to this period and its history, and includes interviews with Ellsberg and other major figures involved in U.S./Vietnam policy making and military operations. And most recently, of course, the 2017, Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg Hollywood film, The Post, covers the Washington Post portion of the Pentagon Papers episode (trailer available at the top of this story).

The Post

The 2017 Spielberg film – with Meryl Streep portraying the country’s first female newspaper publisher, Katharine “Kay” Graham of The Washington Post, and Tom Hanks playing hard-driving newsroom editor, Ben Bradlee – was released in America at a propitious time; a time when the sitting president, Donald Trump, much like the historic figure, Richard Nixon during the Pentagon Papers controversy, was at war with many news organizations. In addition, by depicting the struggles of a female executive in a powerful business, the Spielberg film also struck a positive chord with women in a time of renewed calls for female equity and empowerment. But perhaps most of all, the film helped drive home the importance of a vibrant and unfettered press, rising to its “fourth estate” responsibilities.

Scene from Steven Spielberg's 2017-18 film, ‘The Post’, showing, at left, Ben Bradlee (Hanks, w/cup), Kay Graham (Streep) next to him, and Meg Greenfield, seated (Carrie Coon), watching news on table-top TV set in the Washington Post newsroom during the tense days of June 1971 as Pentagon Papers publication was being challenged by the Nixon Administration. Click for film DVD.

Spielberg read the screenplay in early 2017 and decided to direct the film as soon as possible. “When I read the first draft of the script,” he told USA Today in November 2017, “this wasn’t something that could wait three years or two years — this was a story I felt we needed to tell today.” Spielberg also explained that it was “a patriotic film” and that he decided to take it on basically because he believes in journalism. Spielberg’s film helped trumpet the importance of a free and feisty press. “It is an antidote to ‘fake news,’ he said of the film. “Those journalists in the movie are true heroes.”

The film began airing in the U.S. in late December 2017, with full release in January 2018. It was chosen by the National Board of Review as the best film of 2017 and was named as one of the top 10 films of the year by Time magazine and the American Film Institute. It also received six Golden Globe nominations (Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Actress – Drama [Streep], Best Actor – Drama [Hanks], Best Screenplay and Best Original Score), and two Academy Award nominations (Best Picture and Best Actress). And while there were some gripes about not giving the New York Times its due in the film, and that “nice guy” Tom Hanks lacked a certain edge to fully portray the Ben Bradlee character, the film nonetheless achieved an important public education role by underscoring the importance of a free and feisty press.

As for the real Pentagon Papers crisis and confrontations of June 1971, it is at least somewhat heartening to know that good people came forward to expose and publish the truth, and that key institutions generally worked as the Founders intended: to help free up vital information for all citizens to access so that democracy can work to keep power in check.

April 1, 1972. Daniel Ellsberg, addressing a crowd at the State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania following an anti-war march that ended at the Capitol. (AP photo/Rusty Kennedy)

Still, in the world of government secrecy since 1971, the news is not so good, as Dana Priest, Pulitzer Prize-winning intelligence and Pentagon reporter for the Washington Post has written in a 2016 Columbia Journalism Review article titled, “Did The Pentagon Papers Matter?” Citing a number of cases of “government at work” since the days of the Pentagon Papers, she concludes that “secrecy in government…has continued unabated….” All the more reason for the first-amendment protected press to keep digging and afflicting, and for the rest of us to ensure that they do.

_____________________________

New York Times team that won 1972 Pulitzer Prize for public service for publication of the Pentagon Papers; from left, reporter Neil Sheehan, managing editor A.M. Rosenthal, foreign news editor James L. Greenfield & others. AP photo

Other related stories at this website include, for example, four on Richard Nixon: “Enemy of the President, 1970s” (profile of Paul Conrad’s political cartoons with special attention to those on Richard Nixon and Watergate); “The Frost-Nixon Biz, 1977-2009” (the David Frost/Richard Nixon interviews and Watergate); “1968 Presidential Race: Republicans” (includes Nixon’s candidacy & election that year and others); and “Nixon’s Checkers Speech” (Nixon in crisis as 1952 VP candidate). See also: “Newsweek Sold!, 1961” (history of Washington Post under Phil Graham, acquisition of Newsweek magazine, and later years); “Four Dead in O-hi-o, 1970” (Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and Kent State shootings); and “1968 Presidential Race: Democrats” (covers the tumult of 1968 and candidacies of Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey).

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 5 February 2018
Last Update: 22 January 2022
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The Pentagon Papers: 1967-2018,”
PopHistoryDig.com, February 5, 2018.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Cover used on one version of Quadrangle Books edition of “Pentagon Papers as published by the NY Times,” showing LBJ with Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, and McGeorge Bundy.

“Inside The Pentagon Papers,” by John Prados and Margaret Pratt Porter, 2004 edition, 260pp. Click for copy.

“The Pentagon Papers, Abridged Edition” (1993), by historian George Herring (ed), is billed as “a brief and manageable collection of the most important documents on U.S. policy-making in the Vietnam War between 1950 and 1968”. Click for copy.

Originally titled, “United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967,” the Pentagon Papers were designated “Top Secret-Sensitive,” and despite their 1971 disclosure to the press, were not officially “declassified” by the government until June 2011.

Neil Sheehan’s “A Bright Shining Lie” (1988), winner of a Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Award. Click for copy.

Frances FitzGerald’s 1972 best seller, “Fire in The Lake,” won a Pulitzer Prize and “shows how America utterly and tragically misinterpreted the realities of Vietnam”. Click for copy.

Stanley Karnow’s 1983 “tie-in” best seller, “Vietnam: A History,” the basis for 13-part PBS TV series “Vietnam: A Television History ,” aired 1983. Click for copy.

Mark Bowden’s 2017 book on Tet Offensive, “Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam”. Click for copy.

David Rudenstine, Chapter One: “McNamara’s Study,” WashingtonPost.com, from: The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case, 1996.

Tim Weiner, “Robert S. McNamara, Architect of a Futile War, Dies at 93,” New York Times, July 6, 2009.

Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, Penguin, 2003.

John Prados and Margaret Pratt Porter (eds), Inside the Pentagon Papers, University of Kansas Press, 2004.

“Pentagon Papers,” History.com.

“Pentagon Papers,” Wikipedia.org.

C-SPAN, “Landmark Cases,” New York Times v. The United States.

George Herring (ed), The Pentagon Papers, McGraw-Hill, 1993.

Tom Olipant, “Only 3 Have Read Secret Indochina Report; All Urge Pullout,” Boston Globe, March 7, 1971, p. 1.

Neil Sheehan, “Vietnam Archive: Study Tells How Johnson Secretly Opened Way to Ground Combat,” New York Times, June 15, 1971, p. 1.

Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, Random House, 1988.

Hedrick Smith, “Vast Review of War, Set Up by McNamara, Took a Year But Leaves Gaps,” New York Times, June 13, 1971, p.1.

Fred P. Graham, “Argument Friday; Court Here Refuses to Order Return of Documents Now; Judge Halts Times Series on Vietnam for 4 Days,” New York Times, June 16, 1971.

Editorial, “Vietnam: The Public’s Need to Know…” Washington Post, June 17, 1971.

Michael Getler, “Pentagon Reclaims Rand Copies of Viet Study,” Washington Post, June 22, 1971, p. A-10.

“Courts Continue Post, Times Ban; Globe Restrained,” Washington Post, June 23, 1971, p. A-1.

Robert M. Smith, “F.B.I. Men Visit Congressman on Papers He Holds,” New York Times, June 23, 1971, p. 22.

“Post’s Brief Against Enjoining Series on Vietnam,” Washington Post, June 23, 1971, p. A-14.

Michael Getler, “Secrecy Rule Review Was Sought by Nixon,” Washington Post, June 23, 1971, p. A-1.

Linda Charlton, “Ellsberg, On TV, Blames U.S. for 25 Years of War,” New York Times, June 24, 1971, p.1.

Max Frankel, “Impact in Washington: Pentagon Papers a Major Fact of Life For All Three Branches of Government,” New York Times, June 25, 1971, p. 12.

Noam Chomsky, Op-Ed, “The Crisis Managers /The War: The Record and the U.S.,” New York Times, June 25, 1971.

Paul L. Montgomery, “Ellsberg: From Hawk to Dove,” New York Times, June 27, 1971, p. 27.

“Hill Gets Secret Files on War,” Washington Post, June 29, 1971, p. A-12.

“Gravel Calls Night ‘Hearing,’ Reads Pentagon Documents,” Washington Post, June 30, 1971, p. A-1.

Hedrick Smith, “Pentagon Papers: Study Reports Kennedy Made ‘Gamble’ Into a ‘Broad Commitment’,” New York Times, July 1, 1971, p. 1.

Sanford J. Ungar and George Lardner, Jr., “War File Articles Resumed,” Washington Post, July 1, 1971, p. A-1.

Fox Butterfield, “Pentagon Papers: Vietnam Study Links ’65 -’66 G. I. Build-Up to Faulty Planning,” New York Times, July 2, 1971, p. 1.

Don Oberdorfer, “Changing Viet Regimes Baffled U.S.,” Washington Post, July 2, 1971, p. A-1.

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“Setting a Date,” Newsweek, July 5, 1971, p. 25.

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“Round Three: More Pentagon Disclosures,” Time, July 12, 1971, pp. 12-13.

Ken W. Clawson, “Grand Jury Probes Times, Post, Globe,” Washington Post, July 13, 1971, p. A-1.

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_________________________________

Teaser Tag: Celebrity, Music, Religion

1961-1970

“Burn The Beatles!”
1966: Bigger Than Jesus?

October 11, 2017 J.D.

August 1966: A two-photo collage of “burn-the-Beatles” protests following John Lennon’s “more-popular-than-Jesus” remarks. Top: sign advertising a Beatles burning. Bottom: A radio station disc jockey – center w/microphone -- possibly delivering “on-the-air” reporting during a "Beatles bonfire.”

Fame and celebrity can sometimes be a very fragile and fleeting commodity — here today, gone tomorrow! One moment the adoring masses are tearing your clothes off because they love you, next they’re burning you in effigy because they hate you.

Indeed. For popular matinee idols, sports stars, politicians, and rock musicians, public pirouettes in adoration can come rather sharply. In fact, sometimes, an adoring public or fan base will pivot en masse, turning on its idols for something they have said or done. Often it’s for trivial reasons. But sometimes it’s more serious and the reaction is explosive – and in these cases, the cause is sometimes due to an insensitive comment made in sensitive territory; a verbal trespass that touches a raw nerve on matters of class, race, religion, politics, or civil society.

For the Beatles — the famous British rock`n roll band of the 1960s –the pivot of the masses from adoration to something closer to hate came by way of that most sensitive of topics: religion.

The controversy first broke in the U.S. in late July 1966, right before the Beatles were slated to begin a major 14-city North American concert tour. However, the beginning of the controversy had its origins months earlier, back in London, England.

The Interview

It all began in March 1966, during one of hundreds of media interviews the Beatles had given on their rocket ride to international stardom and pop music fame. In this case, it was John Lennon being interviewed by Maureen Cleave a reporter with the London Evening Standard.

Cleave, in fact, was also a friend of Lennon’s, and John had agreed to be interviewed by her at his home for a Beatles series she was planning. Cleave’s series would eventually run in four parts, one for each Beatle. During the Lennon interview, and in the writing of her article – which appeared on page ten of the London Evening Standard of March 4, 1966 – a paragraph written by Cleave described Lennon’s views on religion, noting at the end of the graph, that Lennon was then reading a lot about religion.

March 4, 1966: Portion of the original London Evening Standard newspaper story & layout interviewing John Lennon about his life as a Beatle, in which he made remarks about religion and Jesus, which weren’t given any special attention by the paper, nor did they bring any noticeable reaction from British readers at the time.

Here’s the passage Cleave wrote (which was only part of a wide-ranging interview profiling Lennon on a number of topics):

…Experience has sown few seeds of doubt in him [Lennon]: not that his mind is closed, but it’s closed round whatever he believes at the time. ‘Christianity will go,’ he said. ‘It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first-rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.’ He [Lennon] is reading extensively about religion…

Paul McCartney on Sept 1966 “Datebook” magazine cover, which also featured story on Lennon’s remarks about Jesus.

In the Evening Standard article, Lennon’s remarks on Jesus and religion were not given any special attention, used as a pull quote, or accorded any other special treatment. In fact, after that story ran in the U.K., there was no wild popular reaction to Lennon’s remarks. Nothing seemed to have come of it.

DATEbook

Then, five months after Lennon’s interview with Cleave had appeared in London, parts of the same interview were scheduled to be republished in the September 1966 edition of the American teen magazine, DATEbook.

However, some of the DATEbook material appears to have been released ahead of newsstand arrival and reached the American media by late July 1966.

When the magazine’s final edition hit the newsstands in September (shown at left) – with Paul McCartney on the cover – it also used a tagline that ran second in a column of multi-colored taglines on the left side of the cover, quoting Lennon’s remark: “I don’t know which will go first — rock `n roll or Christianity.” That line was also used as the headline for the story that ran inside the magazine.

[Interestingly, the first tagline listed on the DateBook cover, using a quote from Paul McCartney, apparently commenting on state of American society at the time, noted: “It’s a lousy country where anyone black is a dirty nigger!” That comment might have been more incendiary than Lennon’s remarks, but at the time, it did not generate the attention that Lennon’s comments had. McCartney, for his part, was likely reacting to news reports on civil rights protests in America at that time. In fact, on an earlier U.S. tour in 1964, the Beatles, during a press conference, refused to play at a segregated Gator Bowl concert in Jacksonville, Florida, leading management there to change its policy of segregated seating.]

Two-page layout of the September 1966 “DateBook” magazine article on John Lennon (from the March 1966 London Evening Standard) using the headline, “I Don’t Know Which Will Go First – Rock `n Roll Or Christianity”.

Lennon’s comment, in context, was an observation about religion losing its connection to youth. It was taken, especially in the South, as an anti-Christian boast.

Boycotts & Bonfires

July-Aug 1966: Birmingham, Alabama radio disc jockeys, Tommy Charles, top, and Doug Layton, right, of WAQY, ripping up Beatles record albums and other materials.

By Sunday, July 31st, 1966, two disc jockeys at radio station WAQY in Birmingham, Alabama – Tommy Charles and Doug Layton – had read the DateBook story, became outraged by Lennon’s remarks, and kicked off a drive to ban the Beatles music from the airways. Their radio station would no longer play records by the Beatles, they said – the British group who “grew wealthy as the music idols of the younger generation.” The DJs encouraged listeners to throw away or burn the band’s records. They called for a “Beatles Burn-In,” to be held around the time the Beatles tour was to arrive in nearby Memphis, Tennessee.

The photo at right shows the two Birmingham disc jockeys, Tommy Charles, upper left, and Doug Layton of Radio Station WAQY, ripping up and breaking Beatles record albums and other materials They are credited with starting a “Ban the Beatles” campaign, which would spread to other stations and protest actions.

Charles in particular took exception to Lennon’s statement as “absurd and sacrilegious.” He went on to say, “something ought to be done to show them they cannot get away with this sort of thing.” Charles then began making spot broadcast announcements on the air every hour urging WAQY’s audience to turn in their Beatles records, pictures, magazines and souvenirs for a Beatles bonfire. Other radio stations would soon follow suit. And the anti-Beatles sentiment grew from there. Overnight, it seemed, teenaged Beatles fans in states like Georgia and Mississippi turned out to smash records and throw their Beatles paraphernalia on bonfires.

News Coverage

Newspapers throughout the country soon picked up on the story as well. An August 4th, 1966 United Press International story on the developing radio ban, appearing in a Camden, New Jersey newspaper, used the headline, “DJs Ban The Beatles for Lennon Remarks.” The News and Observer newspaper of Raleigh, North Carolina that same day used a more descriptive headline: “Stations Ban ‘Sacrilegious’ Beatles.” Another that day, The Republic newspaper in Columbus, Indiana, ran the headline: “Christianity Will Go, Says Prophet Lennon; Beatles ‘More Popular Than Jesus’?”

August 4th, 1966: United Press International story on Beatles radio ban, appearing in a Camden, New Jersey newspaper with headline, "DJs Ban The Beatles for Lennon Remarks."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Capitol Records, which then distributed Beatles recordings in the U.S., had already issued a statement explaining that Lennon was “quoted out of context and misconstrued.” Rather, Lennon was being “conjectural” on the topics of Christianity and rock `n roll, said the spokesman, and “only intended the broadest comparison…. He definitely intended no irreverence.” Nonetheless, the radio bans of Beatles music continued.

August 4, 1966: “The News and Observer” newspaper of Raleigh, North Carolina ran the headline,“Stations Ban ‘Sacrilegious’ Beatles,” for its story about radio bans of Beatles music in reaction to John Lennon’s remarks.

“Anyone making a sacrilegious remark like that has no place on our station,” said George Nelson of WRNB in New Bern, North Carolina, quoted in Raleigh’s News and Observer August 5th, 1966 story, announcing his station’s ban. Bob Latham of station WTYC in Rock Hill, South Carolina reported a telephone poll of 177 supporters of his station’s Beatles ban, as opposed to 10 who wanted the group’s music continued. Another station using a poll to decide on a Beatles ban was WORG of Orangeburg, South Carolina, which found 144 in favor and 2 opposed.

August 4th 1966 headlines from “The Evening Republican” newspaper of Columbus, Indiana: “Christianity Will Go, Says Prophet Lennon; Beatles ‘More Popular Than Jesus’?”

Bobby Dark of radio station WYNA of Raleigh, North Carolina reported that his station had a Beatles bonfire scheduled. According to the News and Observer, as of August 4th, among other stations then banning Beatles music were: WKDK of Newberry, South Carolina; WLSC of Loris, South Carolina; WPET of Greensboro, North Carolina; WBBB of Burlington, North Carolina; WVCB of Shallotte, North Carolina; WRKB of Kannapolis, North Carolina; and WTYN of Tryon, North Carolina.

Although many of these stations were in the south, there were boycotts elsewhere as well. WAKR of Akron, Ohio decided to ban Beatles music on August 5th: “WAKR banned the playing of the Beatles records on the station Thursday in light of comments by John Lennon,” said Roger G. Berk, vice president and general manager of Akron’s Summit Radio Corp. “The ban will continue until such time as it’s in the public interest to play them again.”

Brian’s Mea Culpa

August 6th, 1966: Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, holds NY press conference in attempt at “damage control” re: Lennon remarks.

From a business standpoint, the reaction to Lennon’s statement had the potential to become a major economic disaster for the group, as millions of dollars were in the balance with the pending 14-city tour about to begin. On August 6th, 1966, the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, then on a brief vacation following the Beatles’ Asian tour, decided to fly to New York City where he held a televised press conference at the Americana Hotel. During that appearance, in which Epstein delivered a calm and professional defense of Lennon, he tried to quell the emerging American controversy over Lennon’s remarks:

“The quote which John Lennon made to a London columnist has been quoted and misrepresented entirely out of context… Lennon is deeply interested in religion and was at the time having serious talks with Maureen Cleave…of the London Evening Standard. The talks were concerning religion. What he said and meant was that he was astonished that in the last 50 years the Church in England, and therefore Christ, had suffered a decline in interest. He did not mean to boast about the Beatles fame. He meant to point out the Beatles effect appeared to be, to him, a more immediate one upon certainly the younger generation. John is deeply concerned and regrets that people with certain religious beliefs should have been offended.”

The media, of course, had more questions for Epstein, who at one point, even allowed that if any of the promoters for the upcoming concert events had concerns and wanted to cancel, he wouldn’t stand in their way:

Press: We’re wondering whether you’re going to change the itinerary of The Beatles to avoid areas where the radio stations are now burning their records and their pictures?

Epstein: This is highly unlikely. I’ve spoken to many of the promoters this morning. When I leave here, I have a meeting with several of the promoters who are anxious that the concerts should not be cancelled, at all. Actually, if any of the promoters were so concerned and wish that the concerts be cancelled, I wouldn’t, in fact, stand in their way.

August 1966: Collage of some of the newspaper headlines, Beatle protests, and “Beatle bonfires” that erupted in the U.S. following John Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” remark, republished in ‘DateBook’ teen magazine.

Meanwhile, in Alabama two days later, on August 8th, 1966, The Daily Gleaner of Birmingham published the following notice:

…Hundreds of Beatles records are to be pulverized in a giant municipal tree-grinding machine here because of what Beatle John Lennon said about Christ, a disc jockey revealed today. ‘After going through the “Beatle-grinder,” borrowed from Birmingham City Council, all that will be left of the records will be fine dust.’ A box full of the dust will be presented to the British pop stars when they arrive in Memphis, Tennessee, not far from here, for a concert August 19th, said local disc jockey Rex Roach…

There were also reports of protests in Spain, South Africa, Costa Rica, and other locations. Yet the U.S. reaction, also covered by the world press, was the primary focal point, especially since the Beatles were about to begin their American tour.

Politicians Jump In

August 1966. AAP-Reuter wire story about Pennsylvania legislator who sought to ban Beatles music and performances in the state via a proposed resolution.

In Pennsylvania, state Senator Robert Fleming, a Republican, said he was “shocked” by Lennon’s remarks, and announced he would offer a resolution in the Pennsylvania legislature on August 8th calling on all talent agents in the state to refuse to book the Beatles and to cancel any engagements already made – as one in Philadelphia was already scheduled for the Beatles’ planned tour. Senator Fleming’s resolution also proposed contacting radio and TV stations to request they stop playing Beatles records and that owners of juke boxes also remove Beatles records from their machines.

“We can all get along very well without the Beatles,” Fleming was quoted as saying in a AAP-Reuter news story, “but there are multitudes of us who cannot get along without Jesus Christ.” Fleming’s resolution was not approved.

In Boston, too, state representative Charles Iannello, a Democrat drafted a petition to be offered in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, for the city of Boston to revoke the Beatles permit for their scheduled August 18th show at the Suffolk Downs race track venue. “Who are these four creeps to put themselves above the High and Mighty”, Iannello asked. “Do you think they will do anything for the morals of out teenagers? We’ve got enough problems.” Iannello, however, was unable to obtain a suspension of House rules to permit the introduction of his petition. In Indiana, meanwhile, there was a Catholic youth group organizing a Beatles burning, and other such protests were in the offing elsewhere.

Cusp of Change

For the Beatles, however, then in their third year of international acclaim, the troubles of 1966 – and their forthcoming concert tour – would contribute to a major shift in their career. A combination of forces would be at work on the group’s thinking, and would not fully form until the end of the tour. As it was, they were already evolving from the “she-loves-you” style of music, to more sophisticated compositions. The release of their Revolver album in 1966 – their 7th studio album – would set something of a new standard once it was digested by fans and critics. However, that album – released on August 5th in the U.K, and August 8th in the U.S. – came just as the furor over Lennon’s remarks was spawning protests in America.

August 1966: Roadside sign along route 93 near Hazelton, Pennsylvania expressing disapproval with the Beatles, then in reaction to John Lennon’s “more-popular-than-Jesus” remarks.

So sitting in London and hearing about the outrage in the States over Lennon’s remarks, the Beatles must have certainly thought about cancelling their tour. This would be their third trip to America in as many years, having arrived to wild acclaim in 1964, the year they first broke out, and again during their 1965 American tour. But now, as they contemplated coming to America for their August 1966 tour in the wake of the heated reaction to Lennon’s remarks, they surely had concerns about coming. Still, they came. But now, their popularity and staying power would be tested in ways they had never experienced before.

Meet the Press

By August 11th, 1966, the Beatles had arrived in Chicago, the first stop on their American tour. They had flown into Chicago from a connecting flight from Boston on American Airlines, and at their first class seats they found copies of the Bible, thoughtfully provided for each member of the group. In Chicago, the four young Brits held a press conference at the Astor Towers Hotel. During that meeting, Lennon attempted to apologize for his “more-popular-than-Jesus” remarks, as other Beatles also joined in the session:

August 11, 1966: John Lennon of the Beatles, center, is flanked by George Harrison, left, and Ringo Starr as he apologizes for his remark that "the Beatles are more popular than Jesus," at a Chicago news conference.

Associated Press wire story reporting on John Lennon’s August 11, 1966 apology.

John:“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I said it, really. I never meant it as a lousy, antireligious thing…

If I had said television is more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it…

“[O]riginally I was pointing out that fact in reference to England– that we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion, at that time. I wasn’t knocking it or putting it down, I was just saying it as a fact…”

“I’m not saying that we’re better, or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is, you know. I just said what I said and it was wrong, or was taken wrong. And now it’s all this…”

Paul: “And this is the point– you know, this is why we’re getting in all these messes with saying things. Because, you know, we’re just trying to move forward. And people seem to be trying to just sort of hold us back and not want us to say anything that’s vaguely sort of, you know, inflammatory… I think it’s better for everyone if we’re just honest about the whole thing.”

George: “Well, in the context that it was meant — it was the fact that Christianity is declining, and everybody knows about that, and that was the fact that was trying to be made… I agree that it’s on the wane.”

Ringo: “Well, I just hope it’s all over now, you know. I hope everyone’s straightened out, and it’s finished.”

But it wasn’t finished.

Later that same evening, in fact, August 11th, 1966, in Chester, South Carolina, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) held a “Beatle Bonfire” at a cross burning.

The Associated Press photograph below shows South Carolina KKK Grand Dragon, Bob Scoggin, tossing Beatles records into the fire.

Still, the Beatles hoped for the best as they began their tour.

August 11, 1966: South Carolina KKK Grand Dragon, Bob Scoggin, tossing Beatle records into the fire of a burning cross at Chester, South Carolina. Photo, Associated Press.

Beatles’ 1966 Tour
Dates & Locations

12 August 1966*
Chicago / Int’l Amphitheatre

13 August 1966*
Detroit / Olympia Stadium

14 August 1966
Cleveland / Cleveland Stadium

15 August 1966
Washington, D.C./ D.C. Stadium

16 August 1966
Philadelphia /JFK Stadium

17 August 1966*
Toronto /Maple Leaf Gardens

18 August 1966
Boston / Suffolk Downs

19 August 1966*
Memphis/ Mid-South Coliseum

21 August 1966 (noon)
Cincinnati / Crosley Field

21 August 1966 (8pm)
St. Louis / Busch Stadium

23 August 1966
New York / Shea Stadium

25 August 1966*
Seattle /Seattle Center Coliseum

28 August 1966
Los Angeles /Dodger Stadium

29 August 1966
San Francisco / Candlestick Park
______________
*two shows scheduled.

August 12th & 13th

Tour Amid Protest

By August 12th, as the Beatles began their American tour, they performed two shows at the International Amphitheater in Chicago, at 3:00pm and 7:30pm. Each performance was at near full capacity, seen by 13,000 fans. Press coverage was favorable. One story filed by United Press International (UPI), which appeared in newspapers nationally, and ran, for example, on the front page of Salt Lake City’s Desert News, used the headline, “Fans Hail Beatles in Chicago.” The reporting in that story began as follows:

Their theology didn’t matter. The Beatles were in town and teenagers were in ecstasy.

Beatle fans who had forgiven or forgotten or who were unconcerned about John Lennon’s reported statement that his group was more popular that Jesus, streamed into the 13,500 seat International Amphitheater….

…The Beatles…played to near packed houses for two tumultuous concerts… If any of their Midwest fans were bothered by Lennon’s comments, he apparently smoothed things over with this statement that he was sorry he had ever said it and that he merely mean to deplore the decline in religious zeal…”

In Detroit as well, where the Beatles performed two shows the following day at 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm before a total of 28,000 fans, an Associated Press account gave the performances a positive report, with the Milwaukee Journal using the headline: “Detroit Teens Give Beatles Big Welcome”:

A throng of screeching youngsters greeted Britain’s Beatles in Detroit Saturday in what appeared a second American vote of confidence for the controversial mopheads.

Not deterred by the story of protest kicked up recently by Beatle John Lennon, an estimated 30,000 fans bought tickets for two performances here.

The near sellout crowds were similar to the large and vocal audiences the British rock `n rollers drew in two Chicago performances Friday…

Still, in Detroit there were some pickets that carried signs in protest, one that read, “Jesus Saves – John Sins.” Two Beatles fans, however, tore down another sign that read, “Limey Go Home.”

August 15, 1966: UPI wire photo showing Donna Woods of Longview, Texas applying torch to pile of Beatles material, ending a 10-day “Burn the Beatles” campaign.

Texas Bonfire

On the same day that thousands of fans were cheering the Beatles in Chicago, radio station KLUE-AM in Longview, Texas organized one of the “Beatles bonfires” (shown at left). For that event, ex-Beatle fans over a ten day period brought their Beatles records and other memorabilia to be burned in protest.

According to the Associated Press, “Hundreds of youths contributed records and pictures of the vocal group for the bonfire,” and “several thousands persons witnessed the burning.” (Interestingly, in a possible sign of divine intervention on the Beatles’ behalf, KLUE’s radio tower was struck by lightning the next morning, throwing the station off the air.)

In addition, by August 13, the music industry magazine, Billboard, was also reporting that a number of radio stations were calling for a ban on Beatles music. Some twenty-two radio stations by that date, mostly in the South, had begun to boycott Beatles music. Billboard also noted that New York’s WABC station had then reportedly put Beatles records on a “no play” list.

Meanwhile, back in Birmingham, Alabama, where the “Ban the Beatles” campaign had begun, WAQY disc jockey Tommy Charles said in a statement of August 12th that he accepted Lennon’s apology made at the Chicago press conference, and that Charles would call off the Beatles bonfire that had been scheduled there for August 19th. And at their first performances on the 1966 tour, The Beatles appeared to be doing quite well, playing to full venues, at least in Chicago, as shown in the photograph below.

August 12th, 1966: The Beatles in Chicago at the International Amphitheater, first stop on their 1966 American tour, taking a bow on stage after their performance, which appears to have drawn a full house.

August 14th

Cleveland

For the third city on their concert tour, the Beatles were scheduled for one show in Cleveland, Ohio on August 14th at 7:30pm at Cleveland Stadium, then also known Lakefront Stadium or Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

AAP-Reuter wire story on Cleveland pastor who told his parishioners they would be expelled from the church if they attended Beatles concert.

However, on the day of that concert, Sunday morning, during church services at Cleveland’s New Haven Baptist Church, Rev. Thurmann H. Babbs warned his parishioners that if they attended the Beatles concert that evening he would expel them from the congregation – and he backed up his warning by reading passages from the third book of Daniel. The previous evening, Rev. Babbs had told reporters that he felt it was time for Christians to speak out against John Lennon’s remark that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

Yet, the very same day came a report from Rome that the Vatican paper of record, L’Osservatore Romano, had accepted Lennon’s public apology, noting in its editorial that Lennon’s remark was made “offhandedly and not impiously.” Though adding: “This is a sign that some subjects must not be dealt with lightly, in a profane way, even in the world of beatniks.” But the Vatican also noted: “It cannot be denied that there is some foundation to the latest observations of John Lennon about atheism or the distraction of many people.”

In Cleveland, meanwhile, it is not known how many members of Rev. Babbs’ congregation did not attended the Beatles concert, but there were some 20,000 or so fans in Cleveland who did go to that concert.

In fact, during that show, about 3,000 of the more enthusiastic fans in Cleveland broke through a four-foot security fence around the stage area just as the Beatles played “Day Tripper.” The police were overwhelmed, and stood back as fans ran over the stage and surrounding grassy area. The Beatles sought refuge in their caravan/trailer dressing room behind the stage. The concert was halted for about 30 minutes until police reinforcements arrived to restore order. Still, as reported by Beatles media manager, Tony Barrow, at the end of that show some fans tried stealing Beatles instruments from the stage as souvenirs.

August 15th

Washington, D.C.

On Monday, August 15th, 1966, in Washington, D.C., the Beatles performed one show at 8:00 p.m. at the DC Stadium (later named RFK Stadium). The stadium was then used by the Washington Senators professional baseball team. Prior to the concert, the Beatles held a press conference in the Senators’ locker room, where more than 50 reporters and TV camera crews had assembled. One reporter there suggested the Beatles were using the “more-popular-than-Jesus” flap as a publicity stunt to increase ticket sales. In response, Lennon, no doubt incensed by the reporter’s remark, said it was one of the “most stupid versions” he had heard yet of his controversial remark, adding the incident was “not a publicity stunt…We don’t need that publicity; not like that.”

Washington., D.C., August 15, 1966: Beatles press conference in Washington Senators’ baseball locker room, prior to show.

Outside D.C. Stadium, five members of the Prince George’s County Ku Klux Klan, dressed in red, white and green robes, and led by the Imperial Grand Wizard of the Maryland clan, picketed in protest of Lennon’s earlier remarks about Jesus. Still, the D.C. concert took place without incident, as the Beatles performed before 32,164 fans. “Steering steadfastly clear of amateur theology,” wrote one Associated Press account of the D.C. concert, “the Beatles resumed their American tour today, having sent thousands of the capital’s teenagers into cheering fits.” Newspaper columnist, Charles McDowell, Jr., who attended the earlier press conference and also the concert, noted the stadium reception for the Beatles was “the loudest. most blood-curdling screams these old ears had ever heard,” adding, “The Goodyear blimp was overhead, and it flinched perceptibly.”

Washington Post Interview
John Lennon: August 1966

In advance of the Beatles arrival in Washington D.C., Washington Post reporter Leroy Aarons did a 40-minute interview with John Lennon, then in Cleveland. Aarons came away from that interview with a sympathetic view of Lennon and his plight, having digested from Lennon what had happened to him between the time of Maureen Cleave’s interview in London through the emerging American controversy. He noted, for example, that Lennon was reading quite a bit on religion and spiritual matters, including one book, The Passover Plot, popular at the time, which claimed that Jesus’s message had been distorted by his disciples to the point where it had become irrelevant to many in modern times.“…I believe that what people call God is something in all of us…”

As Aarons explained in his piece, Lennon had a childhood of indifferent religious training, then went through a period of cynical atheism, and in more recent years, a reshuffling of his thinking given his various worldly exposures and travels. Said Lennon during the interview: “I’m more of a Christian now than I ever was… I don’t go along with organized religion and the way it has come about. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us, I believe what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong…”

Aarons found that Lennon’s views on Jesus were part of a growing process that Lennon was then going through at age 26 – “more of a groping than a finding.” And that process would continue, soon apparent in the changes coming to Beatles music as well, with lyrics and sound, reflecting social concerns, eastern mysticism, and transcendental meditation, and drug-influenced spiritualism…

On a personal level, Lennon was genuinely concerned about the reaction to his remarks. The Beatles Bonfires were especially unsettling. “….But the record burning. That was the real shock, the physical burning. I couldn’t go away knowing that I created another little piece of hate in the world.“….But the record burn-ing. That was the real shock, the physical burn-ing. I couldn’t go away knowing that I created another little piece of hate in the world….” Especially with something as uncomplicated as people listening to record and dancing and playing and enjoying what the Beatles are. Not when I could do something about it.

“If I said tomorrow I’m not going to play again, I still couldn’t live in a place with somebody hating me for something irrational… But that’s the trouble with being truthful. You try to apply truth talk, although you have to be false sometimes because the whole thing is false in a way, like a game. But you hope sometime that if you’re truthful with somebody they’ll stop all the plastic reaction and be truthful back and it’ll be worth it. But everybody is playing the game and sometimes I’m left naked and truthful with everybody biting me. It’s disappointing.”

Lennon, like other twenty-somethings of his day, searching for spiritual meaning, and was reading extensively about religion, as the Cleve article noted. He and other Beatles, like thousands of other young people at that time, were searching in various venues –eastern and western – for spiritual meaning and guidance… For Some / some ventured This became part of the psychedelic and transcendental movements… The Beatles would go to India, in fact, two years later in search of spiritual guidance.
__________________________
Source: Leroy Aarons, “‘Can’t Express Myself Very Well’, Beatle Apologizes for Remarks,” The Washington Post, August 15, 1966, p. A-1; and Leroy Aarons (Washington Post News Service), “Beatle Tells How Religion Got Into Act,” August 16, 1966.

Portion of front page of the August 17th, 1966 metro edition of The Miami News has Beatles’ Philadelphia concert story & photo appearing below Vietnam War-related headline.

Portion of front page from Aug 13th Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA) noting Beatle’s earlier concert in Chicago (left column), amid other news on Vietnam (McNamara headline) and lower on page, civil rights march and “racial rampage” stories .

Texas newspaper, ‘The Victoria Advocate’ of August 12th, 1966, features ‘Beatles Bonfire” photo on its front page, but also a dominant LBJ/Vietnam War headline, and lower on page, story headline about race-related rioting in Chicago.

August 16th

Philadelphia

In Philadelphia, the Beatles performed one evening show on Tuesday, August 16th 1966, at the John F. Kennedy Stadium, before an audience of 20,000, which was about a third of that venue’s capacity.

An Associated Press story that ran in The Reading Eagle of Reading, PA, used the headline, “Philadelphia Fans Enthusiastic; 20,000 Cheer The Beatles at Stadium.” As in other tour cities, the reporting on the Philly concert in this story also noted the Christianity issue:

Beatle John Lennon’s remarks about Christianity and his subsequent apology apparently haven’t dampened the enthusiasm of the quartet’s fans, their cheers indicated last night.

And a sampling of fans, most of whom said they weren’t offended by his first remarks, stood up for this right to speak his mind about the popularity of Christianity and rock n roll music.

“The church isn’t doing its job – that’s what he meant when he said it,” said Eninise Sevellia, 14, a Philadelphia high school student. “If the church was doing its job, rock `n roll wouldn’t be more popular than religion.”

…In the News

The Beatles, of course, were not the only news of the day, as larger issues loomed for the nation and the world. In fact, while reporting on the Beatles’ tour during August 1966 often appeared on the front pages of American newspapers, and those around the world, there were also more dire news reports on those front pages – notably headlines about the Vietnam war or racial strife in American cities, as American involvement in the war and civil rights issues were both pressing issues of the day.

In The Miami News of August 17, 1966, for example, a front-page story appeared on the Beatles in Philadelphia with a photo of two female Beatles fans and front-page headline noting: “Teens Still Love Beatles: They’re Big in Philly.” But the big lead headline in that Miami News edition that day was about a military jet in Vietnam slamming into a Vietnamese village.

At the Beatles earlier shows on the tour as well, newspapers had Beatles stories on front pages that also carried news about Vietnam War related issues, civil rights marches, and/or racial strife.

The front page of the August 13th, 1966 Desert Sun of Palm Springs, CA, for example (above right), noted the Beatles’ earlier August 12th concert in Chicago (left news column), amid related news on Vietnam War (McNamara headline) and a Civil Rights march (lower on page).

In Texas, The Victoria Advocate featured a photograph of a Beatles Bonfires on a front page but also had a major Vietnam headline, and lower on the page, a story about Chicago racial strife – “Chicago Rioting Continue as Police Battle in Park.”

August 17th

Toronto

Back on the Beatles tour, meanwhile, on Wednesday, August 17th – one day after their show in Philly – the Beatles were scheduled to performed two shows at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Canada. The first show took place at 4 pm and was seen by 15,000 people and the second began at 8 pm and was attended by 17,000.

During a press conference between the two shows, the Beatles created a bit more controversy by appearing to side with American “draft dodgers” who moved to Canada rather than be drafted into the U.S. military to fight in the Vietnam War. Harrison noted, for example: “‘Thou shalt not kill’ means that – not amend section A… We all just don’t agree with war for any reason whatsoever. …People have a right not to go into the army.” There were also questions about Christianity, to which Lennon replied that he recommended “the basic idea” of Christianity to young people, and Harrison added, “there are lots of things right about Christianity, but people don’t follow it.”

One columnist for The Toronto Star, Robert Fulford, writing in an August 17th column, that Lennon was in good company raising the issue of youth’s declining interest in Christianity, as some “substantial portion of the ordained clergyman of the English-speaking world” had been saying much the same thing for years. Fulford also noted that newspapers – always looking for controversy “to fill that otherwise white space” – were having a field day hyping Lennon’s remarks and fanning the reaction that followed. There was also a spate of letters-to-the-editor at The Toronto Star on Lennon and The Beatles that appeared the day before their concert, some defending Lennon’s right to his own opinion or calling his remarks “thought-provoking.”

August 18th

Boston

In Boston, on Thursday, August 18th, 1966, their seventh stop, the Beatles played one show at Suffolk Downs, a horse race track. That concert began at 8 pm, and went off without incident, save a few fans who tried reaching the performers on stage. Among the 25,000 attending the Boston show were 13 year-old Joseph and 15 year-old Kathleen Kennedy, teen children of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, along with 33 other friends and Kennedy family members who had driven up from Hyannis Port, Massachusetts for the show. According to The Boston Globe, the Kennedy group had a block of seats in the front section of the venue.

On August 18, 1966 the Beatles performed one show in Boston, MA at the Suffolk Downs Racetrack, as this photo shows the Beatles performing, far right, on a make-shift stage set up on the race track turf, facing the grandstand audience.

August 19th

Memphis

The most southern of the venues for the Beatles’ 1966 American tour was the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee, where they were slated to perform two shows on Friday, August 19th, at 4:00 and 8:30 p.m. When Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” remarks had first broke, the mayor of Memphis, William Ingram, sought to have them banned from performing in the city. He asked the city council to request that the Beatles withdraw from their performance contract, which the Beatles would not do. Instead, the mayor and board of commissioners adopted a unanimous resolution on August 10th to express “official disapproval,” and “advise the Beatles that they were not welcome in the City of Memphis.” Brian Epstein, meanwhile, tried to quell their concerns with a telegram to Mayor William Ingram that read: “I wish to assure yourself, the people of Memphis and the Mid-South, that the Beatles will not, by word, action or otherwise in any way offend or ridicule the religious beliefs of anyone… Furthermore, John Lennon deeply and sincerely regrets any offense he many have caused.” The Beatles had also considered at one point that they might arrange for a recording session at the famous Stax music studios in Memphis, but that deal was never completed.

August 2006 story by John Bifuss for ‘The Commercial Appeal’ newspaper of Memphis 40 years after the Beatles visit recalls “the icy reception” they received from city fathers.

At the time of the August 18th concerts in Memphis, however, the anti-Beatles sentiment over Lennon’s remarks was still strong in the area. A local preacher, the Reverend Jimmy Stroad, staged a rally outside the Coliseum. There were also six members of the Ku Klux Klan who picketed the venue wearing full robes. Just before their first show in Memphis, the Beatles received an anonymous phone call warning them that at least one of them would be shot on stage, and a bomb scare caused an hour delay in the first show while authorities checked the facility. Still, the Beatles proceeded with their performances. Midway through the evening show, however, a lit cherry bomb was thrown on stage, frightening them, each thinking one of them had been shot. This incident, among others, was one of those contributing to the Beatles rethinking their career plans, and live touring in particular.

August 1966: Paul McCartney walking toward an infield stage at Crosley Field, Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Mid-South Coliseum would normally accommodate 13,300 people, and the Beatles drew 7,589 for the 4 pm show and 12,539, for the evening show. Across town that evening, a group of ministers held a youth rally and a Beatles protest gathering that drew some 8,000 attendees, prompting some news outlets to report that the Beatles outdrew the Christian protest. One 17 year old female fan at the concert, wearing buttons that read “I still love you Beatles,” told a UPI reporter, “I love Jesus, but I love those Beatles, too.”

August 20th-21st

Cincinnati

The next city on the tour was Cincinnati, Ohio, where the Beatles were scheduled to do a Saturday concert on August 20th, 1966 at Crosley Field, a baseball stadium. As the show progressed, the warm-up and opening acts that had been traveling with the Beatles, and performing at every stop as well, included: the popular 1960s girl group, The Ronettes; a Boston garage band, The Remains; the pop group, Cyrkle (“Red Rubber Ball” hit), and Nashville R& B singer Bobby Hebb (“Sunny” hit). Each of these performers in Cincinnati managed to get their acts in before a rain storm there became worse. At that point, the Beatles were advised that touching any of the stage’s rain-soaked electrical equipment could be lethal, so Brian Epstein had no option but to call off the concert. However, it was announced to the audience that the Beatles would perform their portion of the show the following day, Sunday, August 21st at noon – although later that same day the Beatles were scheduled to perform an evening show in St. Louis. “We had to get up early and get on and play the [Cincinnati] concert at midday,” George Harrison would later recall in Anthology (published in 2000), “then take all the gear apart and go to the airport, fly to St Louis, set up and play the gig originally planned for that day. In those days all we had were three amps, three guitars, and a set of drums. Imagine trying to do it now!”

August 20, 1966: Ren Grevatt's column, for UK's ‘Melody Maker’ magazine, was also reporting that Beatles music was receiving air play.

Better News

Meanwhile, by August 20, Billboard magazine was reporting that a number of Hot 100 “powerhouse” radio stations – those in big markets – were not involved in any Beatles boycotts, and in fact, were playing Beatles music as part of their regular programming. Among these stations were: KIMN in Denver; KLIF in Dallas, Texas; KDWB in Minneapolis; EFUN in Miami; WDKO in Louisville; KDKA in Pittsburgh; WCBG in Chambersburg, PA; WPRO in Providence, Rhode Island; and EMCA in New York. The Chambersburg, Pennsylvania station, in fact, aired an editorial supporting the Beatles. And according to Capitol Records, Southern stations were also among those playing Beatles music, including WMPS in Memphis; WAPF in Jacksonville, Florida; WVOK in Birmingham, Alabama; WBAM in Montgomery, Alabama; and WFLI in Chattanooga.

Radio program directors, Billboard noted, were in no hurry to ditch Beatles music. “For a program director to say ‘I’m not going to play the Beatles’ is tantamount to committing rating suicide,” said Ted Atkins of KIMN in Denver. “When the story first broke,” Atkins said, “we conducted a two-hour poll during a radio show and found 900 listeners were for the Beatles, while only 200 were against playing the [Beatles] record. We had a couple of heated comments, but nothing serious…”

August 21st

St. Louis

The Beatles’ St Louis concert had been expected to sell out in the brand new, three-month old Busch Stadium. But ticket sales had slowed there when Lennon’s comments about Christianity first broke, although picked up again as the controversy cooled. Still, before the concert began, some 85 people from two Baptist churches distributed 20,000 pamphlets on the Lennon statement. The Rev. Bob Wright of the First Baptist Church in Ferguson said his membership tried to take a positive approach, as the pamphlets acknowledged there was an element of truth to what Lennon had said, but that popularity was fickle, and that those who once praised Christ were also those who later demanded his crucifixion. The Christian pamphleteers, however, were not always well received by many of the St. Louis concert goers.

John Lennon shown performing during the rain storm at the Beatles' St. Louis concert, August 21, 1966.

There were 23,143 fans who attended, and neither rain nor religious controversy appeared to dampen their enthusiasm. The Beatles and the other acts played in the rain, under a makeshift shelter. Busch Stadium then also had a brand new public address audio system with 200 speakers, but the echo effect in the stadium made the listening experience something less than stellar. It was at this concert when Paul McCartney became convinced that The Beatles should cease touring, as he later recalled in Anthology:

…It rained quite heavily, and they put bits of corrugated iron over the stage, so it felt like the worst little gig we’d ever played at, even before we’d started as a band. We were having to worry about the rain getting in the amps and this took us right back to the Cavern days – it was worse than those early days. And I don’t even think the house was full.

After the gig I remember us getting in a big, empty steel-lined wagon, like a removal van. There was no furniture in there – nothing. We were sliding around trying to hold on to something, and at that moment everyone said, ‘Oh, this bloody touring… I’ve had it up to here, man.’

I finally agreed. I’d been trying to say, ‘Ah, touring’s good and it keeps us sharp. We need touring, and musicians need to play. Keep music live.’ I had held on that attitude when there were doubts, but finally I agreed with them.

George and John were the ones most against touring; they got particularly fed up. So we agreed to say nothing, but never to tour again. We thought we’d get into recording…

…But now even America was beginning to pall because of the conditions of touring and because we’d done it so many times.

August 22-23

New York

After the St. Louis concert, the Beatles took a night flight to their next stop, New York city, arriving there in the wee hours of August 22nd, at 3:50 a.m. They lodged at the Warwick Hotel, where they gave a press conference the following day (and also a junior press conference for teens). At the main press conference, John and George came out against the war in Vietnam, and war in general, and John was reluctant to answer any more questions on his Christianity remarks, feeling played out on the subject, with nothing new to say. Some concern arose when two teenage girls, who walked out on to a 21st story building ledge of the nearby Americana Hotel, threatened to jump unless they met the Beatles. The two were rescued by New York police.

August 22, 1966: New York city police rescue two teenage girls on the 21st story of the Americana Hotel who threatened to jump 'unless we get to see the Beatles,' who were in the Warwick Hotel, a block away. AP wire photo.

The following day, on August 23rd, the Beatles did their show at Shea Stadium, which a year earlier was among their biggest and most successful venues. This time, however, their August 23rd show did not sell out, with 11,000 of the 55,600 tickets still available. The New York Times reported that “more than 45,000″ fans greeted the Beatles at Shea this time, but that was about “10,000 or so shy of the Queens stadium’s capacity.” Still, the Beatles made more money from this appearance than they had from their previous Shea concert, receiving $189,000 – which was a 65 per cent cut of the $292,000 gross. Some of those traveling with Beatles, such as Judith Sims, editor of TeenSet magazine, thought the New York concert was one of the most exciting of the 1966 tour. During the performance hundreds of fans broke through barriers at one point and attempted to reach the stage. They were held back by security guards and none managed to reach The Beatles. Following the New York show, the Beatles flew to Los Angeles where they rented a home on Curson Terrace in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles to use as a West Coast base and a more amenable non-hotel retreat, as they finished up their last three show dates scheduled for Seattle, L.A., and San Francisco.

August 25th

Seattle

Special souvenir Beatles edition of the 'Seattle Post-Intelligencer' newspaper for the Beatles' August 25th, 1966 concerts in Seattle, Washington.

On August 25th, 1966, departing from their adopted temporary base in Los Angeles, the Beatles took a chartered flight to Seattle for their two scheduled shows at the Seattle Center Coliseum. They also held a press conference in Seattle prior to the first show, as they had at other tour stops. In advance of their visit, a special issue of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper had been prepared, shown at right. In a front-page section entitled, “Beatlemania Returns to Puget Sound Area,” the editors noted that the Beatles “appear to be as hot as ever,” despite the remarks by Lennon on Jesus and Christianity. In further explanation, the editors added:

…Lennon, who made an offhand comparison of the Beatles with Jesus, said he was misunderstood. It now appears that his millions of teen-age fans all over the world are agreeing with him, for they are buying tickets and records as in the peak year of the Beatles’ popularity.

As a result, Lennon’s remarks are now being studied in a new light. By pinpointing the fact that worship and church attendance have fallen off everywhere in the world, the performer shocked millions of persons into recognizing the alarming status of international morality.

At any rate, there can be no doubt the Beatles are making a comeback…

Still, in protest over Lennon’s earlier remarks a small group of pickets set up outside the Seattle Coliseum bearing hand-lettered signs with Biblical and other phrases, such as “Beware of False Prophets,” “Christ first, Beatles last,” and, “Teenagers who support the Beatles continue to crucify Christ.” One of the pickets handing out leaflets noted: “We are protesting against the atheistic, anti-Christ Beatles. It’s a sad day for America when we fall for this. It’s straight out of the pits of Hell.”

Ticket for the Beatles Thursday, August 25th, 1966 concert at the Seattle City Center Coliseum, 3 pm.

In addition, as the Beatles’ evening show ran, the Reverend Thomas Miller, Pastor of the Calvary Bible Presbyterian Church, arranged for a concert of sacred music in the Rainier Room at the Coliseum, at which some 250 attended. Yet earlier that day, each of the Beatles had been presented with official certificates designating them honorary citizens of the state of Washington.

For the Beatles’ first Seattle show at 3 pm, about half of the Coliseum was filled – roughly, 8,200 seats in a 15,000-seat arena. The evening show, however, was a sell-out with the gross gate for both shows reported at $118,071 (nearly $900,000 in today’s money) – then “the biggest single day’s gross ever in (Seattle’s) entertainment history,” according to Zollie M. Volchok, for the sponsoring agent. Of that amount, the Beatles received some $73,717.81 for the two shows (about $560,000 in today’s money). Following the evening show that night, the Beatles and their supporting acts flew back to Los Angeles.

August 24th-28th

Los Angeles

August 24th, 1966: Beatles at the Capitol Records Tower Building in Los Angeles, for press conference and to receive Gold Record award.

In Los Angeles, the Beatles stay had two parts. On the 24th of August, 1966, ahead of their Seattle show date, the Beatles had some time to themselves, but also held a press conference that day at the Capitol Records Tower building in Los Angeles. During the press conference, they were asked again about Lennon’s “more-popular-than-Jesus” remarks, which Lennon, now tired of explaining himself, begged off once more, saying he’d tried clarifying it “about 800 times, you know.” They were also asked if the controversy had hurt of helped their careers, to which Paul replied: “It hasn’t helped or hindered it, I don’t think. I think most sensible people took it for what it was… and it was only the bigots that took it up,” thinking it was something they might “get the Beatles” on, trying to cast John as arrogant in the process. And that once people read it, “they saw that there was nothing wrong with it really.” Meanwhile, at the Capitol Records building following the press conference, the Beatles were also awarded Gold records by Capitol and RIAA for their latest album, Revolver.

August 28th, 1966: The venue at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where the Beatles and their opening acts appeared on a temporary stage constructed just behind second base on the edge of center field, then typical of early stadium set ups, which many performers felt as remote from their audience.

On the second part of their L.A. stay, after their Seattle show, the Beatles had some time off prior to their August 28th show at Dodger Stadium. They used the time to relax at their rented home with swimming pool in the Hollywood Hills, and also to visit with other musicians who lived and worked in the L.A. area. Among those that one or more of the Beatles met with informally at various homes and other locations during this time (along with Barry Tashian of the Remains on some visits), were: Brian and Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys; David Crosby, then with the Byrds; Cass Elliott, Michelle Phillips, and Denny Doherty of The Mamas & The Papas; photographer Barry Feinstein and his wife, Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul & Mary; Jim McGuinn (known as Roger McGuinn, then with Byrds); Peter Tork of The Monkees, and others. A number of these artists that year, had or would have, top charting hits of their own, including, for example: “Eight Miles High by the Bryds”(No. 14, April-May); “Monday, Monday” by The Mammas & The Papas (No. 1, May-June); “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys (No. 8, Aug-Sept ); and, “Last Train to Clarksville,” by The Monkees (No.1, Oct ).

August 28th, 1966: The Beatles performing at Dodger Stadium, from left: Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and John Lennon. Not shown, drummer Ringo Starr, set up behind the three frontmen, outside of the photo's right frame.

On Sunday evening, August 28th, the Beatles performed before an audience of 45,000 in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium, with their stage set up behind second base on the edge of center field, the typical set up for stadium venues on the tour. After their performance, however, the Beatles had some difficulty escaping enthusiastic fans, as their ground transportation was waylaid by hundreds of fans who blocked their exit in a first vehicle. Flattened tires on a second armored vehicle brought further delay and a retreat back into some inner stadium rooms before they again departed. They were even pursued into the Hollywood Hills by some fans before making it back their rented home safely with the help of police. Bob Eubanks, the promoter of the L.A. show and well known TV game host, would later recall the Beatles as being far more jaded in 1966 than they were in 1964 and 1965 when they played the Hollywood Bowl. “It was much different because the band was different,” Eubanks told a Los Angeles Times reporter. “I believe they were tired of it all. They were different people in ’66.”

August 29th

San Francisco

San Francisco was the last stop for the Beatles’ 1966 American tour – and as it turned out, it would also be the last time they would ever appear publicly in a live concert format. Few of their adoring fans knew that at the time, but the Beatles certainly did, and they were happy to be at the end of their 1966 tour. Back stage, before the show began, there were some visits from American musicians – Joan Baez, her sister, and a teen neighbor visited with George and Ringo briefly.

August 29th, 1966: Pickets from Sunnyvale, CA outside Candlestick Park protest John Lennon's "more-popular-than-Jesus" remark. These demonstrators were seen by some concert goers, but missed by the Beatles, who used a different entrance. AP photo.

Yet, in San Francisco, as at other tour locations, there were also pickets protesting the much-publicized Lennon statements about Jesus and Christianity. However, inside the venue, one fan offered a cheeky home-made sign hung over the stadium railing that read, “Lennon Saves.”

In San Francisco, the Beatles and their opening acts were again playing in a baseball stadium set up, this time Candlestick Park, home of baseball’s San Francisco Giants, a stadium known for its sometimes finicky and chilly winds. The stage, once again, as in the other stadiums, would be set up behind second base, well away from fans, and surrounded by fencing.

Some Beatles fans inside Candlestick Park offered home-made signs of cheeky support for John Lennon, like this one.

Barry Tashian, with The Remains, one of the opening acts on the tour, would recall later: “…on stage, a wild sea wind was blowing in every direction. There was a double fence around the stage. The only entrance was behind the drums. The audience was about 200 feet away–much farther than usual. It made us feel extremely isolated… But it was the last show, and we were determined to have a good time. All the acts did a great job to wind up the tour on a high note…”

At Candlestick, the Beatles played their 30-minute set of tunes – “Rock and Roll Music,” “She’s A Woman,” “If I Needed Someone,” “Day Tripper,” “Baby’s In Black,” “I Feel Fine,” “Yesterday,” “I Wanna Be Your Man,” “Nowhere Man,” “Paperback Writer,” and “Long Tall Sally.” Their share of the gate that night was about $95,000 (roughly $725,000 today). For the entire tour – 19 shows in 14 cities – they would make something in the vicinity of $4 million ($30 million today). At the end of the San Francisco show that night, the Beatles and their opening acts flew back to Los Angeles, and the following day, August 30th, the Beatles flew home to England. It would prove to be the end of an era for them, and in many ways also, a beginning for more sophisticated rock music and better quality rock concerts.

Jesus Controvery

Little Impact

As for the Jesus controversy that had dogged the Beatles from late July 1966 throughout their August tour – with Beatle bonfires, radio station protests, threatening messages, endless questions from the press, some picketing, etc – the uproar did not really have a “material effect” on the Beatles fan base or their business. True, their popularity may have been temporarily dented and their activities more closely examined. And there were a couple dozen or more radio stations that did boycott Beatles music for a time. Yet it appears they were the exception, as most U.S. radio stations ignored the boycott, while those who did boycott, later returned to playing Beatles music. And yes, attendance was down in a few of the concert venues on the 14-city tour that August – but overall, the Beatles still appear to have drawn record numbers at these concerts for the most part. Nor did their record sales appear to be noticeably affected.

“Eleanor Rigby” sheet music cover. Click for separate story on “Eleanor Rigby” song, a Beatles hit in 1966.

In fact, while they were on tour, their single, “Yellow Submarine”/“Eleanor Rigby,” released on August 5th, was being played regularly by many Top 40 American radio stations and became the No. 1 hit in the U.K. within a week. By the end of the month, this single would also hit No. 1 in the Los Angeles market and reach No. 11 nationally, on the Billboard Hot 100. (However, there were also reports that Capitol Records was wary of religious references in “Eleanor Rigby,” given the Jesus controversy, and favored “Yellow Submarine” in some of its marketing and promotion).

The studio album, meanwhile, Revolver – which was released on August 5th in the U. K. and August 8th in the U. S., at the very outset of the Jesus controversy – also managed to scale the pop charts. Revolver sales, in fact, would reach $1 million in the first two weeks, with the album hitting No. 1 on the American charts by September 10th and remaining there for six weeks.

The Jesus controversy, meanwhile, would still sprout up on occasion in subsequent years, and there would also be some enterprising research analysts and graphics artists who set out to investigate whether, in fact, the Beatles really were more popular than Jesus (one suggested they were not, for example, with Bibles sold outdoing Beatles albums sold).

Tour Captives

Repressed Musicians

What did happen on the 1966 American tour, however, was that the Beatles came to a consensus among themselves that they were finished with touring – and the “Jesus reaction” that had occurred on that tour was only one factor contributing to that conclusion. Earlier that year, also on tour, they’d had some rough moments in Germany and in the Philippines. They were also fed up with the Beatlemania scene; the screaming fans even prevented them from hearing their own music on stage in order to stay in sync with each another. And the general chaos and mob scenes surrounding their visits and security concerns had made them virtual prisoners on tour. Ringo Starr would later comment that the chaos had gone on “24 hours a day without a break. Press, people fighting to get into your hotel room, climbing 25 stories up drain pipes. If it had carried on, I would have gone insane.”

A photographer's film contact sheet showing a series of headshots of the Beatles as they were performing at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, August 1966 – from left: Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney.

But the central problem for the Beatles on tour was what the craziness was doing to their advancement as musicians. They had been trapped by Beatlemania; for three years playing essentially the same music. And on tour, especially in stadiums, the sound quality of what they did play — when any sound could be heard — wasn’t very good. They weren’t happy with that, of course. Having worked in the studio, discovering new ways to produce more sophisticated music – like that on Revolver – they wanted more of that and more advancement for themselves as musicians. In fact, the Beatles had actually begun a new phase of their careers in late 1965 – before they began the 1966 tour – with their Rubber Soul studio album (released December 1965). But as they were breaking new ground in the recording studio, on the road they were playing the same old hits at teenage rock shows, and that was holding them back. So for them, touring was over and done with. They would now turn their energy and talents toward the recording studio, and along with their producer, George Martin and his engineers, the Beatles would become a powerhouse of studio production and innovation.

1967-1970

Studio Tour de Force

Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s” album, May 1967. Click for CD or digital.

During the next four years — 1967-1970 — the Beatles would do some of their best work, turning out a stunning array of high quality and musically complex albums that would top the charts and have a significant influence on the composition and quality of popular music for years to come. Among their albums in that period would be: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (May 1967), Magical Mystery Tour (Nov 1967), The White Album (Nov 1968), Yellow Submarine (Jan 1969), Abbey Road (Sept 1969), and Let it Be (May 1970), all of which were No. 1 in the U.S. with the exception of Yellow Submarine (No. 2)

Additional history on the Beatles at this website can be found at the “Beatles History” topics page, which includes more than a dozen story choices on Beatles music, song histories, and Beatles’ biography. See also the “Annals of Music” page for additional stories.

Thanks for visiting — and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

_______________________________________

Date Posted: 11 October 2017
Last Update: 16 October 2021
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Burn The Beatles, 1966: Bigger Than Jesus?,”
PopHistoryDig.com, October 11, 2017.

_______________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

“All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release,” every album, every song, 1963-1970. Click for Amazon.

Glenn C. Altschuler’s “All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America,” Oxford University Press, 240 pp. Click for Amazon.

“The Rolling Stones All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track” (2022 expanded ed.). 340 songs, 760pp. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

August 1966: Beatles material aflame in a bonfire of protest following John Lennon's "more-popular-than-Jesus" remarks.

August 20, 1966: UPI story from Pittsburgh Post Gazette suggesting Beatle critics could have been more Christian.

August 11th, 1966: Beatle George Harrison quizzed by reporter on tarmac at Boston’s Logan Airport as Beatles made connecting flight to Chicago to begin their American concert tour.

August 12th, 1966 AP story appearing in The Miami News (FL) on John Lennon’s apology at Chicago press conference.

Ticket for Beatles' concert at Washington, D.C., Aug 15th, 1966.

August 21st, 1966. Paul McCartney and John Lennon per-forming at rescheduled Crosley Field concert, Cincinnati.

Ticket for Beatles' August 1966 concert, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Portion of the crowd that turned out for the Beatles' August 23rd, 1966 concert at New York's Shea Stadium.

Poster image advertising Beatles’ August 29th, 1966 concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. Click for poster selection.

Aug 29th, 1966: Joan Baez, center, with sister Mimi Farina, backstage at Candlestick Park; George Harrison in foreground. Baez also brought along 10 year-old neighbor, Naomi Marcus, to meet the Beatles.

Ticket for the Beatles' August 29th, 1966 concert in San Francisco at Candlestick Park.

August 29th, 1966: Paul McCartney and George Harrison performing at Candlestick Park in what would be the last time the Beatles would perform together in a public concert.

Maureen Cleave, “How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This,” Evening Standard (London), March 4, 1966.

“I Don’t Know Which Will Go first – Rock n Roll or Christianity,” Datebook (republished edition of Maureen Cleave story above), September 1, 1966 (story was available to press late July 1966).

Associated Press (Birmingham, AL), “Beatle Ban: ‘Christianity Will Go’ Comment Stirs up Fans,” Ottawa Citizen (Canada), August 3, 1966, p.3.

Associated Press (AP), “Stations Ban ‘Sacrilegious’ Beatles; Singer’s Claims Bring Actions,” The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) August 4, 1966, p. 14.

Associated Press, “Beatles Ban Gains Ground,” The Daily Iowan (University of Iowa), August 4, 1966, p. 1.

Peter J. Shaw, United Press International (UPI), “Christianity Will Go, Says Prophet Lennon; Beatles ‘More Popular Than Jesus’?” The Republic (Columbus, Indiana), August 4, 1966, p.12.

Associated Press, “Comment on Jesus Spurs a Radio Ban Against the Beatles,” New York Times, August 5, 1966.

“Beatles Manager Here to Quell Storm Over Remark on Jesus,” New York Times, August 6, 1966.

“Brian Epstein, Americana Hotel, August 6, 1966 N.Y.C.” (Press conference re: John Lennon’s remarks), YouTube.com, posted by Godzzzila69, May 30, 2014.

A.A.P., (London, U.K.), “Bonfire of Beatles’ Records”(radio station WPXE at Starke, Florida), The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia), August 7, 1966, p. 17.

Damian Fanelli, August 8, 1966: “Hundreds of Beatles Records Are to Be Pulverized in a Giant Municipal Tree-Grinding Machine,” Guitar World, posted August 5, 2015.

Wire Dispatches (London, U.K.), “Beatles Face Hornet’s Nest; Fans Threaten War”(unnamed newspaper), August 10, 1966.

David Frost, The Press, “John’s Gospel,” The Spectator, August 11, 1966, p. 10.

UPI, “Stock in Beatle Songs Is Cheaper in London,” New York Times, August 11, 1966.

UPI, “Lennon of Beatles Sorry for Making Remark on Jesus,” New York Times, August 12, 1966.

AP (Chicago), “John Lennon Apologizes for Statement,” The Morning Record (CT), August 12th 1966.

UPI (Chicago), “Beatle Sorry, But Popularity ‘True’,” August 1966.

Meredith Eiker, “The Beatles Versus God: Religion Hippy Style,” The Michigan Daily (Ann Arbor, MI), August 12th 1966.

Associated Press (Boston), “Solon Would Bar Beatles From Boston,” The Nashua Telegraph (Nashua, New Hampshire), August 12th 1966.

Gerald R. Thorp, “Beatle Ticket Sales Pick Up After Slowdown,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 13, 1966.

AP, “Just the Usual Din As Beatles Open Tour in Chicago,” New York Times, August 13, 1966.

“Stations No, No Beatles Disks,” Billboard, August 13, 1966, p. 4.

“Lennon Comments Regarding ‘Jesus and Christianity’ Sparks Outrage, Group’s Music Airplay Ban Across U. S.,” Billboard, August 13, 1966.

UPI, “Vatican Accepts Lennon’s Apology,” New York Times, August 14, 1966.

“Beatles Suffering From Crack In Their Image; How Will U. S. Tour Turn Out?,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, Monday, August 15, 1966.

AP (Cleveland, OH), “Ohio Fans Chase Beatles From Stage,” The Spokesman Review (Spokane, WA), August 15th, 1966, p. 7.

Art Buckwald, “Plain Blasphemy; Burn, Beatles, Burn!,” The Milwaukee Sentinel, August 16, 1966.

Editorial, “What He Meant Was…,” New York Times, August 16, 1966.

“The Beatles Beat a Retreat From Fans in Cleveland,” New York Times, August 16, 1966.

“Guarded Beatles Whisked to Hotel On Arriving Here for Stadium Show,” The Washington Post, August 16, 1966, p, A-1.

AP (Washington, DC), “The Beatles A Smash in D.C., Lennon Grateful to The Vatican,” The Miami News (FL), August 16th, 1966.

UPI, “Beatles Lure Big Crowd,” The Spokane Daily Chronicle (Spokane, WA), August 16th, 1966.

Raymond J. Crowley, AP, “Amid Cheers, The Beatles Steer Clear of Theology Pittfalls,” The Fort Scott Tribune (Kansas), August 16th, 1966.

AP (Washington, DC), “Beatles Carefully Keep Clear of Own Theology In Their American Tour,” The Lawrence Journal World (Lawrence, KS), August 16th, 1966.

Art Buckwald, “Burn, Beatles, Burn, I Cried,” The Miami News (Florida), August 17th 1966.

“Fewer Fans, Fainters — But Beatles Took $96,000,” The Toronto Daily Star (Tornoto, Canada), August 18th, 1966, p. 1.

Associated Press (Toronto), “Beatles Heard on War Views,” The Spokane Daily Chronicle (WA) August 18th, 1966.

Sara Davidson, “25,000 Teens Cheer Beatles at Suffolk,” The Boston Globe, August 19th, 1966, p. 1.

Charles McDowell, Jr., “Kookiness And Beatle Theology,” The Evening Independent (FL), August 20th, 1966.

Times Wire Service, “Memphis De-Emphasizes Beatles,” The St. Petersburg Times (FL), August 20th, 1966.

UPI (Memphis), “Beatles Outdraw Religion,” The Dispatch (North Carolina), August 20th, 1966.

UPI, (Memphis), “Debris Is Hurled at Beatle Concert,” New York Times, August 20th, 1966.

UPI (Memphis), “Beatles Show Outdraws Church Rally,” The Reading Eagle (Reading, PA), August 20th, 1966.

Ren Grevatt, American Viewpoint, “Radio Stations Ignore Ban On Beatle Records,” Melody Maker, August 20th, 1966.

Claude Hall, “Beatles Running Strong — With Powerhouse Stations’ Blessings,” Billboard, August 20th, 1966.

Robert K. Sanford, “The Beatles Sing in the Rain for Wet, Enthusiastic Audience; 23,000 Pay to Hear them – Firs Air Stations Busy,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 22nd, 1966, p. 1.

Associated Press, “John Lennon Says He’s Hated, But Thousands Flock to Beatles’ Concert,” The Lawrence Journal World (Lawrence, Kansas), August 22nd, 1966.

“Flock Circling Warwick A Harbinger of Beatles,” New York Times, August 22nd, 1966.

Paul L. Montgomery, “The Beatles Bring Shea to a Wild Pitch of Hysteria,” New York Times, August 24th, 1966.

Robert E. Dallos, “Beatles Strike Serious Note in Press Talk; Group Opposes the War in Vietnam as Being ‘Wrong’,” New York Times, August 23rd, 1966, p. 30.

AAP-Reuter (Johannesburg, Sourth Africa), “Beatle Music Banned,” The Canberra Times (Australia) August 25th, 1966.

“Beatles Storm Seattle,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 26, 1966, p. 1.

“Rumors Fly In With Beatles,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 26, 1966, p. 3;

“6 Teenagers Defend Christ, Protest Beatles,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 26, 1966, p.3.

“Beatles Engaging; Show, Dull,” The Seattle Times, August 26, 1966, p. 26.

“Beatles Planned No Religious Dispute,” The Seattle Times, August 26, 1959, p. 59.

UPI (Los Angeles), “Screaming Teenagers Storm Beatles Car,” The Desert Sun (CA), August 29th 1966.

AP, “Beatles’ Closing Concert On Coast Attracts 25,000,” New York Times, August 31, 1966.

Leonard Gross (European Editor), “Beatle on His Own,” Look, December 13, 1966.

“More Popular Than Jesus,” Wikipedia.org.

“Beatles in the News,” blogspot.com.

John C. Stoskopf, “The Beatles 1966 International Tour (Part 2 of 2),” Thursday, September 8, 2016.

Barry Tashian, Ticket to Ride: The Extraordinary Diary of The Beatles’ Last Tour, August 1996, Dowling Press, 142pp (Tashain toured with the Beatles as a member of The Remains).

“Friday, March 4, 1966: ‘We’re More Popular Than Jesus Now’,” The60sat50.Blogspot.com.

Robert Fontenot, “…And Now It’s All This: Frequently Asked Questions About the Beatles’ ‘Bigger Than Jesus’ Controversy,” About.com, Updated March 3, 2015.

Robert Fontenot, “The Beatles Backlash: Jesus, War, and Raw Meat: A Timeline of the Beatles in 1966,” About.com.

Vince Kowalick, “25 Years Later: Recalling The Beatles’ Last Stand,” Los Angeles Daily News, September 3, 1991.

Harry Sunrall (San Francisco), “Beatles’ Last Show A Hard Day’s Night,” The Canberra Times (Australia), September 1st, 1991.

David Willey, “Vatican ‘Forgives’ John Lennon,” BBC News (Rome), November 22nd, 2008.

Mark J. Price “Local History: Akron Radio Station’s 1966 Beatles Ban Recalled,” Ohio.com (Akron Beacon Journal), August 1st, 2011.

Chris Erskine, “In 1966, the Beatles Brought a Whole New Ballgame to Dodger Stadium,” Los Angeles Times, August 26th, 2011.

Brian Ward, “The ‘C’ is for Christ: Arthur Unger, Datebook Magazine and the Beatles,” Popular Music and Society, August 1st, 2012, pp. 541-560.

Mark Murrmann, “Burn Your Beatles Records!,” Mother Jones, August 12th, 2014.

Jordan Runtagh, “When John Lennon’s ‘More Popular Than Jesus’ Controversy Turned Ugly; How an Offhand Remark Led to Protests, Death Threats and the End of the Beatles’ Touring Career,” Rolling Stone, July 29, 2016.

“Revolver, Jesus and the Beatles – August of ’66,” 1966myfavoriteyear.blogspot.com, Fri-day, August 5, 2016.

Jeff Suess, “The Beatles, When They Played Crosley Field,” Cincinnati.com, August 19, 2016.

“A Look Back at the Fab Four’s U.S. Tours,” The Orange County Register (California), September 16, 2016.
________________________________________

Beatles Music at Amazon.com…

The Beatles: 1967-1970, “The Blue Album,” 28 songs. Remastered. Click for Amazon.

“The Beatles 1,” Remastered (2000), 27 songs. Click for Amazon.

The Beatles, “Abbey Road” album, Remastered (2009). 17 songs. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Topics Page

1951-1960

“Pop Music, 1950s”
Artists, Songs, Bios

October 11, 2017 J.D.

Sultry Saxophone

“Harlem Nocturne”

1939-1980s

The Viscounts’ 1959
sax-powered instrumental
gave old tune new life.

No.1 R&B Hit

“Love is Strange”

1956-2007

Mickey & Sylvia’s hit song
has 1987 pop encore
in “Dirty Dancing” film.

1950s R&B Rocker

“Fats Domino”

1950s-2000s

“Boogie-woogie” pianist
helps invent rock `n roll;
becomes nat’l sensation.

Rock `n Roll Rising

“Rock Around The Clock”

Bill Haley: 1951-1981

Bill Haley & Comets
become major force in
1950s rock `n roll.

Late ’50s Beginnings

“1960s Girl Groups”

1958-1966

The innocent & upbeat
“girl group” sound began
in the late `50s.

1950s Doo-Wop

“Dion DiMucci”

1950s-2012

Dion & Belmonts score
hits w/ “Wonder Why” and
“Teenager in Love.”

1950s TV Dance Show

“American Bandstand”

1956-2007

Dick Clark’s “American
Bandstand” brought 1950’s
music to millions via TV.

Danny & The Juniors

“At The Hop”

1957-1958

“At The Hop” got a
boost from Bandstand;
hit No.1, sold 2 million.

1950s Radio DJ

“Moondog Alan Freed”

1951-1956

He coined the term
“Rock ‘n Roll” & gave
exposure to R&B artists.

Finding His Audience

“Elvis on the Road”

1955-1956

Elvis Presley’s concert
tour, w/town-by-town
itinerary, southeast U.S.

Versatile Entertainer

“Dream Lover”

1962 & 1988

Bio of Bobby Darin,
who had six Top 40
pop hits in 1958-59.

Coal Mining Song

“Sixteen Tons”

1955-1956

Tennessee Ernie Ford’s
“sold-my-soul” song
tops the charts.

1958 Hit Song

“To Know, Know Him”

1958-2010

Phil Spector, before
the Wall of Sound,
as Teddy Bears singer.

Seattle Soft Rock

“Come Softly To Me”

1959-1963

In 1959, The Fleetwoods
scored big with two
No. 1 “soft pop” hits.

Newsreel/Commentary

“Drew Pearson on Elvis”

1956: Video

National newsman
reviews the rise of
Elvis Presley.

Music Controversy

“Elvis Riles Florida”

1955-1956

Elvis Presley’s music
& dancing on stage
brings judicial threat.

1950s Love Song

“Sea of Love”

1959

Phil Phillips wrote
this No.1 R&B hit
to woo his girlfriend.

1957’s Top Songs

“Bandstand Performers”

1957

American Bandstand
brought dozens of top
acts to national TV.

1950s Power Guitar

“Rumble Riles Censors”

1958-1959

Link Wray’s guitar song
prompts some radio
managers to ban its airing.

Enchanting Sound

“I Only Have Eyes
For You”

A 1959 remake of
an old standard has
resonance for the ages.

“See The U.S.A.”

“Dinah’s Chevy Tune”

1951-1963

Her 1950s PR anthem
for General Motors was
like a pop hit.

Popular Musicals

“The Sound of Money”

2009

Story covers music of
Rodgers & Hammerstein which
permeated 1950s & beyond.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

Date Posted: 11 October 2017
Last Update: 17 October 2017
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Pop Music, 1950s: Artists, Songs, Bios”
(Topics Page),PopHistoryDig.com, October 11, 2017.

_______________________________________________

1950s-Related Reading at Amazon.com…

J.C. De Ladurantey’s 2016 book, “Rock & Roll and Doo-Wop...” 1950s & Early 1960s. 256 pp. Click for Amazon.

Richard Aquila’s 2016 book, “Let's Rock!: How 1950s America Created Elvis and the Rock and Roll Craze,” 368 pp. Click for Amazon.

David Halberstam’s best seller, “The Fifties,” w/fascinating profiles of Madison Avenue, Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, etc. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Modern Chemistry

2001-Today

“Plastic Infernos”
A Short History

July 5, 2017 J.D.

Among the “wonder products” generated by the synthetic chemical revolution of the mid-20th century are an array of plastics that today permeate all manner of products and structures throughout the world. And tragically, as learned in the June 14th, 2017 London Grenfell high-rise fire that claimed 72 lives and injured 70 others, the building’s exterior skin – consisting of aluminum composite panels with a polyethylene core plus polyisocyanurate insulation behind the panels — have been implicated in subsequent reports and investigations as playing a key role in the fire’s rapid spread and severity.

June 2017. Photo of the Grenfell Tower high-rise fire in progress in London, believed to have been aided in its rapid spread by the building’s exterior cladding; panels which incorporated a polyethylene-filled core, and also, possibly, plastic insulation.

And beyond the role the plastic-filled exterior building panels and/or insulation played in the Grenfell Tower blaze, another issue raised in fires of this kind is the toxic gases given off by multiple burning plastic substances – from furniture and carpeting to wall coverings and plastic piping. In fact, “toxic fires” fueled by an array of plastic products remain a serious problem worldwide, and one that was not foreseen at the invention stage of the “miracle plastics.”

1927 headlines for Cleveland Clinic fire; other headlines note “poisonous fumes from burning x-ray films continue to claim victims” – one of the early plastic-fueled fires.

Headlines for 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston, where nitrocellulose decor was a later-implicated fuel.

1972 White House report, “America Burning,” was the first such report to signal the special dangers of plastics in fires.

For decades, little was known about the special toxicity that came with plastics that burn in accidental fires in homes, office buildings, cars and trucks. But over the years, as major fires have occurred in which plastics have been implicated, more has been learned about their toxicity.

Most plastics are carbon-based materials and will burn and give off gases and smoke when subjected to a flame.

Burning polyurethane foam, for example, instantly develops dark smoke along with deadly carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide gas. Inhaling this smoke only 2 or 3 times would cause rapid loss of consciousness and eventually, death by internal suffocation.

Yet, sadly, protective regulations, safety standards and building codes to deal with these and other dangers have lagged behind the learning.

The trail of tragedies dates to the earliest uses of plastics, some implicating substances such as nitrocellulose used in celluloid. A 1927 fire at the Cleveland Clinic killed 135 people as an acrid brown-black smoke was generated from the nitrocellulose x-ray film used at the clinic. That fire was among the first to be fueled by synthetics. But it wasn’t the last.

The famous catastrophic 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire killed more than 400 people. An investigation highlighted some obvious issues in that fire. But only a handful of scientists and investigators knew that the nightclub’s copious decor of nitrocellulose cocoanut fibers was a contributing cause of the resulting death and injury.

By the 1950s and 1960s, a wide array of synthetics began filling up homes and office buildings, such as nylon carpeting, urethane foam mattresses, plastic filled soft furniture. and PVC wire insulation. Automobiles, trucks and planes added synthetics material to their construction and interiors as well.

During the 1960s and 1970s, airplane crashes in which victims survived the crash but died in a toxic fire began to raise questions about the plastic material inside planes. And the 1969 New York Harbor fire aboard the USS Enterprise killed many sailors after plastic-coated electric cables burned.

Following these incidents, a White House report on fire in 1972 — America Burning — noted that plastics were being sold and used without adequate attention to the special fire hazard they presented. But when the National Fire Protection Association tried in 1975 to require by code that material used in construction be no more toxic than wood, the Society of the Plastics Industry blocked the move.

In 1974–75, some plastics manufacturers advertised that urethane foam was fireproof and self extinguishing, a claim the Federal Trade Commission challenged, but only resulted in industry’s “rehabilitating the product” to improve its public image.

‘Dragon Fires’

Deborah Wallace’s 1990 book, “In the Mouth of the Dragon,” details the dangers of plastic-fueled toxic fires. Click for book.

In her eye-opening 1990 book, In The Mouth of the Dragon: Toxic Fires in The Age of Plastics, Deborah Wallace notes:

“No one thought to test [the] early synthetic polymers for their combustion toxicity. These products were virtually untested when they were put on the market. Instead, the public became the test animals.”

Wallace describes in detail the “plastics effect” in a number of toxic fires occurring in recent history, among them:

> the 1975 New York Telephone Exchange fire that injured 239 out of 700 firefighters who battled a blaze fueled by polyvinyl chloride (PVC);

[ One later description of that fire from The New York Daily News noted: “…A 16-hour blaze followed in which more than 100 tons of PVC sheathing in a rat’s nest of wires went up in smoke at a phone switching high-rise south of 14th St. on Second Ave. Clouds of hydrochloric acid and fumes of cancer-causing benzene and vinyl chloride filled the air as the conflagration boiled within a sealed vault three stories below ground. At one point, an explosion of accumulated hydrocarbon gas knocked firefighters outside to the pavement. Men inside used up their air cylinders, unable to escape in dense, black smoke without gulping the toxic air….” The Daily News also noted later-reported, PVC-related cancer deaths among Telephone Exchange firefighters.]

> the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire of 1977, in which 165 people were killed in an electrical and PVC-fueled blaze;

> the 1978 Cambridge, Ohio Holiday Inn fire in which 10 died from smoke from burning PVC and nylon;

> the 1978 Younkers Brothers Department Store fire in which 10 people died in another PVC-electrical fire;

> the 1980 MGM Grand Hotel fire in which 85 died and 600 were injured in a fire largely fueled by plastics;

> the 1980 Stouffer’s Inn fire in which 26 people died in a blaze fueled by PVC and nylon/wool;

> the 1983 Westgate Hilton fire in which 12 died from smoke that came mainly from PVC and urethane foam; and,

> the 1983 Fort Worth Ramada Inn fire in which five died from PVC and nylon fumes.

Early L. A. Times headlines on the November 1980 MGM Hotel fire that would finally take 85 lives, with plastics heavily implicated.

Added to these are the toxic fires that came during and after the September 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center, and the February 2003 fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island that killed 100 and injured 230. Burning plastic material played a role in the death, injury and/or debilitation of victims and workers in both of these catastrophes.

Although The Station nightclub fire was caused by pyrotechnics set off as part of the Great White rock band’s act that night, the fire’s spread and intensity were aided by ignited plastic foam used as sound insulation in the walls and ceilings surrounding the stage, materials that generated considerable carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide within a few minutes.

Plastic material was implicated in the September 23, 2007 fire at the Water Club Tower at the Borgata Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey where fire raced up 38 stories on the face of the building. And since 2012, fires fueled by metal composite cladding with plastic cores have occurred in high-rise buildings in France, Dubai, and South Korea. Thousands of structures worldwide may be similarly vulnerable.

Fires at plastic manufacturing facilities and in storage areas can also yield catastrophic results. In March 2017, spools of high density polyethylene (HDPE) conduit stored below a freeway in Atlanta, Georgia fueled an intense fire there that caused an elevated portion of I-85 to collapse on March 30th. In the spectacular blaze, flames shot 40 feet into the air, and the heat was so intense that it melted supporting metal structures. Both directions of I-85 were closed in a key area of Atlanta near its busy downtown hub.

Meanwhile, individual homes continue to be vulnerable to the toxic effects of plastic-fueled fires, as everything from urethane-filled sofas and mattresses to PVC siding, wall coverings, plumbing lines, and molded furniture can provide toxic fuel.

“Burning Plastic”
by Stephen Fenichell*

Stephen Fenichell's 1996 book, "Plastic: The Making of A Synthetic Century" (Harper-Collins). Click for book.

. . . That burning plastic could release noxious gases equal to any biochemical weapon . . . was dismally proven in January 1970 when an elderly resident of the Harmar House nursing home in Marietta, Ohio carelessly tossed a lighted cigarette into a polypropylene wastebasket filled with waste paper. The burning paper caused her plastic basket to flare up, throwing out flames that rapidly consumed her polyurethane foam mattress, touched off her nylon wall-to-wall carpet, and instantly ignited the carpet’s styrene-butadiene foam underlayer. By the time rescue workers arrived on the scene to evacuate the ward, they were met by a dense, black wall of smoke that obscured their view of survivors still trapped inside. The billowing smoke not only blinded the firemen but was so viciously toxic that it overcame scores of enfeebled patients who might otherwise have been able to escape on their own. By the time the fire was brought under control five hours later, twenty-two elderly people had died. The vast majority, coroners concluded, had been felled by the toxic fumes, not the flames.

Eight months later, on a steamy day in August 1970, a twelve-alarm fire broke out on the thirty-third floor of One New York Plaza, a modern high-rise office building in Manhattan’s financial district. A stray electrical spark ignited a welter of computer cables concealed within a dropped ceiling in a telephone equipment room, which was itself filled floor to ceiling with mile after mile of exposed polyethylene- insulated cable. As the heat intensified, flammable and toxic gases were distilled from the polyurethane foam padding cushioning office furniture in the suites below. As the toxic gases burned, the blaze exploded, as if shot from an aerosol can. Fed on this rich diet of toxic, flammable gas, the fire consumed two entire floors covering over forty thousand square feet of office space in under twenty minutes. During the six hours it took to extinguish the flames, two firemen died of smoke inhalation.“Plastics ignite like excel-sior, contribute heat like kerosene, and produce four to thirty times the amount of smoke as non-synthetic materials.” Thirty more were hospitalized with potentially life threatening lung injuries—as the result of inhaling burning, noxious plastic fumes.

Only three weeks later, at 8:30 on the morning of August 26, a third blaze broke out in the recently completed British Overseas Airways terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. As flames licked across six hundred polyurethane foam-padded benches clustered by the gate entrances, clouds of toxic gas distilled from the benches’ foam padding caused the fire to gallop off down the 35-foot- wide, 330-foot-long corridor at lightning speed . . . As the roaring fire leapt wildly from seat to seat, blowing out dozens of large plate-glass windows in its wake, it took a mere fifteen minutes to consume the entire west gallery of the newly completed airline terminal, at an estimated cost of $2.5 million in damages.

Awestruck insurers would later term it “the shortest large-loss fire in the history of mankind.” [A] flammability expert retained by BOAC’s insurance company to investigate the blaze, delivered the bad news to plastic manufacturers on . . . the issue of plastic fire safety: “Plastics ignite like excelsior, contribute heat like kerosene, and produce four to thirty times the amount of smoke as nonsynthetic materials.”
___________________

*Excerpted from Stephen Fenichell, Plastic: The Making of A Synthetic Century, Harper- Collins: New York, 1996, pp. 308–11.

Grenfell Update: In addition to the suspected role that the polyethylene-filled exterior cladding panels may have played in the June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, an insulation foam product named Celotex RS5000, a polyisocyanurate product, was also used in that building, installed behind the cladding. Some have stated that this insulation was more flammable than the cladding.

Grenfell Tower fire near its end, with bits and fragments of exterior cladding and insulation seen in the charred remains.

Wikipedia’s entry on the Grenfell Tower fire, with citations, notes that the polyisocyanurate product “will burn if exposed to a fire of sufficient heat and intensity” and that such insulation foams, when ignited, “burn rapidly and produce intense heat, dense smoke and gases which are irritating, flammable and/or toxic,” among them carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.

Building and fire codes in recent years have no doubt been updated in many jurisdictions to take account of the toxic effects of plastic materials, leading to safer installations and products. But certainly not everywhere, as the Grenfell tragedy attests. Given the ubiquity of plastics in modern use, plastic-fueled infernos are likely to remain a danger throughout the world.

And beyond the fire dangers of modern plastics, there are a whole host of other problems associated with this miracle of inventive science – not least those being, for example: plastics in municipal waste incineration, in landfills, worker exposures in “upstream” chemical manufacturing, plastic chemicals leaching from food packaging and containers, the tons of plastics floating in the world’s oceans, and plastic chemicals and their breakdown products found in human blood and body tissue.

See also at this website, the “Environmental History” topics page which offers additional stories on spills, fires, and explosions in the oil industry; agricultural pesticide history; and surface coal mining in Ohio and Kentucky. Thanks for visiting – and if you find the reporting and story development at this website useful and informative, please make a donation to help support its continued publication. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

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____________________________________

Date Posted: 5 July 2017
Last Update: 12 August 2021
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Plastic Infernos: A Short History,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 5, 2017.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Robert G. Lawson’s 1984 book, “Beverly Hills: The Anatomy of a Nightclub Fire,” Ohio Univ. Press, 228pp. Click for book.

1982 book, “The Day The MGM Grand Hotel Burned,.” Lyle Stuart, 208 pp. Click for book.

“London Fire: What We Know So Far About Grenfell Tower” and, “London Fire: Six Questions for the Investigation,” BBC News, June 23, 2017.

“Grenfell Tower Fire,” Wikipedia.org.

Robert Moulton, “The Cocoanut Grove Night Club Fire, Boston, November 28, 1942,” National Fire Protection Association, 1943.

D.L. Breting, Underwriters Laboratories, “Pretty Plastics–Ugly Fires,” 1954.

J. Harry DuBois, Plastics History U.S.A, 1972.

Ronald K Jurgen (Editor), “The Great New York Telephone Fire,” IEEE Spectrum Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 6, June, 1975.

Richard Best, Investigation Report on The MGM Grand Hotel Fire, Las Vegas, Nevada, November 21, 1980, National Fire Protection Association, Report revised January 15, 1982.

Deborah Wallace, In the Mouth of the Dragon: Toxic Fires in the Age of Plastics, Avery Publishing Group, Garden City Park, New York, 1990.

Stephen Fenichell, Plastic: The Making of A Synthetic Century, Harper- Collins: New York, 1996.

Robert Burke, “Plastics & Polymerization: What Firefighters Need To Know,” Firehouse, February 28, 1999.

Bob Port, “Three Decades After an Infamous New York Telephone Co. Blaze, Cancer Ravages Heroes,” New York Daily News, Sunday, March 14, 2004.

James M. Foley, “Modern Building Materials Are Factors in Atlantic City Fires,” Fire Engineering, May 1, 2010.

Susan Freinkel, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, April 2011.

Thunderthief, “PSA–Burning Plastic Can Kill You,” DailyKos.com, June 2, 2012.

Associated Press, “Fire That Killed Newark Family Fueled by Plastic Flowers,” New York Post, June 17, 2014.

Carla Williams, “Smoked Out: Are Firefighters in More Danger than Ever Before? New Construction Materials Are Making Firefighting More Hazardous to the Health and Well Being of First Responders, As Well as Building Tenants and Homeowners,” EHSToday.com, September 7, 2016.

Catherine Kavanaugh, “Plastic Conduit Fuels Fire That Brings Down I-85 Overpass,” PlasticsNews.com, March 31, 2017.

Justin Pritchard, Associated Press, “Insulating Skin on High-Rises Has Fueled Fires Before London,” ABC News.com, June 18, 2017.

“Grenfell Tower Fire” (Polyisocyanurate insulation), Wikipedia.org.

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Teaser Tag: T.V. & Politics

2001-Today

“Shields, Brooks, Trump”
PBS: 30 June 2017

July 3, 2017 J.D.

Mark Shields, analyst, The PBS NewsHour.

David Brooks, analyst, The PBS NewsHour.

Donald J. Trump, President of the United States.

If you’re not a regular watcher of The PBS News-Hour, one reason to check in more often is the commentary and political analysis of New York Times columnist, David Brooks, and syndicated columnist, Mark Shields. They have been regulars on the show, along with moderator Judy Woodruff, since 2004.

Every Friday, this threesome tries to make sense of the political insanity that has transpired in the previous week. Their analysis is usually fair, insightful, and done in respectful form with good humor. There is also a personal decorum in the exchanges among these three that is often lacking in many other such forums.

As one example, take their analysis on the PBS NewsHour of June 30, 2017, focusing on Donald Trump’s latest “tweetstorm” regarding cable TV commentators Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.

If you’ve not heard about this, here’s the gist of it: President Trump, reacting to criticism of him made by Brzezinski and Scarborough on the CNBC politics show, Morning Joe, launched one of his Twitter commentaries (short internet messages known as “tweets”) on Thursday June 29th (8:52-8:58 a.m.) aimed at the pair as follows:

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came…..to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

President Trump’s tweet — with its personally-laden insults, and street-style language — elicited a furor of criticism just prior to the 4th of July weekend, many condemning the president for his remarks.

On that same morning, for example, three U.S. Senators responded to the President’s tweet — Sen. Lindsey Graham (“your tweet was beneath the office”); Sen. Ben Sasse (“this isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office”); and Sen. Susan Collins (“this has to stop…we must show respect and civility”). It also brought back into the arena a review of similar coarse comments and/or tweets made earlier by either candidate or President Trump.

But on the PBS NewsHour that Friday evening, Shields and Brooks, responding to Judy Woodruff’s questions about the incident, offered some cogent and compelling perspectives on the incident — as well as the continuing problem of our nation’s declining discourse. Here’s the PBS video with their comments (begins at about 6:20) during the PBS NewsHour.

Transcript

JUDY WOODRUFF: [6:20]….Well, speaking of the tweets, David, we have seen some eyebrow-raisers. We have heard some gasps. But I guess the president’s tweet yesterday morning about the “Morning Joe” MSNBC cable hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, where the president tweeted very personal insults, low I.Q., face-lift, and so forth, it seemed to reach a new low.

Do we learn anything new about this president at this point?“…It’s morally objection-able. And I do wish more senators would say that…”

“…[T]he issue here is the corruption of our public sphere. And that’s what Donald Trump does with these things. And it makes it harder for us, our country, to ever get back to normal, when these things are corrosive to just the way people talk to each other.”

DAVID BROOKS: Well, one of the nice things, if we can find a silver lining here, is, it’s possible for everybody to be freshly appalled, that we are not inured to savage, misogynistic behavior of this sort.

And I saw a lot of people around. And I certainly felt in myself a freshness, a freshness of outrage.

And I must say, when I hear Roy Blunt say it’s unhelpful to himself, well, that’s true, but it’s more than unhelpful to Donald Trump to tweet in this way. It’s morally objectionable. And I do wish more senators would say that. Lindsey Graham and Ben Sasse have said it, but a lot of others, oh, it’s just not helpful.

It’s more than that. And the issue here is the corruption of our public sphere. And that’s what Donald Trump does with these things. And it makes it harder for us, our country, to ever get back to normal, when these things are corrosive to just the way people talk to each other.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Corruption of the public sphere, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I think David is guilty of understatement.

No, I think he put it very well. This is hateful and it’s hurtful. Judy, I don’t know what a parent or a grandparent is supposed to say to a 10-year-old or a 12-year-old who said anything comparable to this and was sent — banished to their room or whatever else for it, I mean, that the president of the United States can talk this way, and there are no consequences.

The irony is that he’s more engaged on the back-and-forth with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on this than he has been on health care or any other issue. He obviously — this is what matters to him. And it’s just that classic — not to be sectionally biased, but it’s sort of a New York bully approach to life, I mean, that you say anything, you do anything, because the important thing is winning.“…This is hateful and it’s hurtful…I don’t know what a parent or a grandparent is supposed to say to a 10-year-old or a 12-year-old… I mean, that the president of the United States can talk this way, and there are no consequences…”

“…[I]t’s sort of a New York bully approach to life, I mean, that you say any-thing, you do anything, because the important thing is winning.

And I just — you know, I don’t know what else there is to say, other than you want to put yourself through a car wash after you listen to the president talk this way.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are there consequences, David? I mean, I heard what you said about some senators are just saying, well, it’s not helpful, but other senators are going further and saying, this is really wrong.

But are there ever consequences? Do we just go on like this?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes. Well, we will see if people eventually get disappointed and get tired.

I do think if it — one of the things that may begin to offend people is potential mafioso behavior. One of the things we heard this morning in the op-ed piece in The Washington Post by the two hosts was that the White House sort of threatened sort of extortion, that, if the show becomes more Trump-friendly, then a National Enquirer investigation into their relationship will be spiked.

And that’s sort of mafioso, extortion behavior. That’s beyond normal White House behavior. It’s beyond political hardball. It’s sort of using your media allies, The National Enquirer and the Trump administration, to take down enemies. And that’s not something we have seen in America since maybe Nixon, or maybe never.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s true, Mark, we haven’t seen anything like this in a while.

MARK SHIELDS: We haven’t.

But I think David’s point about extortion certainly strengthens the position of James Comey, that threats and extortion or a hint of extortion is part of the modus operandi. To Republicans …

JUDY WOODRUFF: I mean, we should say the White House is denying it.“…[D]o we snapback? Do the norms that used to govern politics reestablish themselves after the Trump administration, or are we here forever?

“…[T]he politics is broken up and down. And Trump may emerge from a reality TV world that is much more powerful than we think. And there is the prospect that this is where we are, which is an horrific thought.”

MARK SHIELDS: The White House is denying it. Jared Kushner, I guess, is denying it, or perhaps somebody else through him is denying it.

But the fact that there’s negotiations going back and forth or communications on this subject, you do this and we won’t print an injurious and harmful article in The National Enquirer, one of the great publications of our time.[said facetiously].

But, Judy, I remember when Republicans used to get upset and angry at Bill Clinton because he didn’t wear a suit and tie in the Oval Office. And Donald Trump, who is supposed to be this great deal-maker, I mean, Joe and Mika Brzezinski have Morning Joe, which is a show that’s watched very much in this area, but it doesn’t have a great national audience, and probably 1 percent of the people.

And he just made them a national — everybody now knows about this show. It’s probably increased their ratings, juiced them up. So I don’t understand where — if anything, it’s but counterproductive in every sense.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it is true, David, that this is — it’s hard to find; you said there may be a silver lining in fresh outrage, but beyond that, I’m not sure where it is.

DAVID BROOKS: No.

And, you know, the big question for me is, do we snapback? Do the norms that used to govern politics reestablish themselves after the Trump administration, or are we here forever?

And I hope, from the level of outrage, that we have a snap back. But the politics is broken up and down. And Trump may emerge from a reality TV world that is much more powerful than we think. And there is the prospect that this is where we are, which is an horrific thought.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Horrific thought.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, it is that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark Shields, David Brooks, we thank you both.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you, Judy.
_________________________________________

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough on their show, June 2017.

The Shields-Brooks commentary, and the PBS NewsHour generally, offer some of the more intelligent oases in TV news analysis these days, especially important in these current times, and one more reason to be thankful that there is public broadcasting.

Readers of this story may also find “Brian’s Song: C-SPAN, 1977-2012” of interest. See also at this website, the “Politics & Society” page for additional stories on politics, or the “TV & Culture” page for stories in that category. Thanks for visiting, and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 3 July 2017
Last Update: 29 January 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Shields, Brooks, Trump: PBS – 30 June 2017,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 3, 2017.

____________________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

Cassidy Hutchinson’s 2023 book, “Enough,” Simon & Schuster, 384 pp. Click for copy.

Adam Kinzinger’ 2023 book, “Rene-gade: Defending Democracy and Liberty...” Click for copy.

Liz Cheney’s 2023 book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning.” Little, Brown, 384 pp. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

The PBS NewHour Website.

Jenna Johnson, “President Trump Angrily Lashes Out At ‘Morning Joe’ Hosts on Twitter,”
Washington Post, June 29, 2017.

Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Mocks Mika Brzezinski; Says She Was ‘Bleeding Badly From a Face-Lift’,” New York Times, June 29, 2017.

“Shields and Brooks on GOP’s Health Care Bill Gridlock, Trump Tweet Backlash,” YouTube.com, posted by, The PBS NewsHour, June 30, 2017.

“PBS NewsHour,” Wikipedia.org.

Daniella Diaz, “GOP Lawmakers Blast Trump’s ‘Morning Joe’ Tweets,” CNN.com, June 29, 2017.

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, Op-Ed, “Donald Trump is Not Well,” Washington Post, June 30, 2017.

J. Freedom du Lac and Jenna Johnson, “Mika Brzezinski Explains What President Trump’s Tweets Reveal About him,” Washington Post, June 30, 2017.

Callum Borchers, “The Strange Saga of Trump and ‘Morning Joe’ Now Involves The National Enquirer,” Washington Post, June 30, 2017.

Emily Jane Fox, “Joe and Mika Defend Themselves Against the Haters; The Morning Joe Hosts Talk Access to Donald Trump, Ratings, and Their Critics,” Vanity Fair, December 15, 2016.
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Teaser Tag: Film, Music, Culture
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Jimmy-Cliff-The-Harder-They-Come.mp3 3576939 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Scotty-Draw-Your-Brakes.mp3 2361496 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Jimmy-Cliff-Rivers-of-Babylon.mp3 4108416 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/jimmy-cliff-many-rivers-to-cross.mp3 2889400 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/The-Slickers-Johnny-too-bad.mp3 2515798 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/007-Shanty-Town-Desmond-Dekker.mp3 1991233 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Toots-and-the-Maytals-Pressure-Drop.mp3 2711831 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Jimmy-Cliff-Sitting-In-Limbo.mp3 5757542 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/You-Can-Get-It-If-You-Really-Want-Jimmy-Cliff.mp3 2660982 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Reggae Breaks Out”
Jimmy Cliff: 1972-74

June 25, 2017 J.D.

Original album cover for Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” soundtrack, July 1972, Island Records. Click for CD.

In 1972-73, The Harder They Come, a Jamaican film about a poor country boy who becomes a music star and then a criminal, arrived at the box office with a very upbeat and powerful soundtrack of Jamaican reggae music.

“The Harder They Come is the most important movie ever to come out of the Caribbean,” says iTunes, “and its soundtrack helped put reggae, in all its variants, on the world map.” The effusive iTunes praise for the film may be a bit of a stretch, but the part about the music is right on the money.

First released in the U.K in 1972, the film was slow to capture much attention. And in the U.S., too, at least with its initial release in February 1973, the film did not receive much notice. About a year later, however, it became more popular with audiences in midnight showings. And from that point on, the film’s music also began to take off.

The soundtrack became a breakthrough for reggae music in the U.S., introducing many listeners to the distinctive sound for the fist time. The Harder They Come soon became a favorite dance album at parties across the U.S. It left a lasting impact and its influence on the music scene continues today.

One commentary on the film’s music in 2009 from the blog, DK Presents gave The Harder They Come its top rating, noting: “The soundtrack gathers legendary performances that not only enhance the action of the film, but on their own play out as nothing less than the greatest reggae album of all-time… Whether or not you’re familiar with the movie, this is an impeccable collection that remains the best possible introduction to the genre.”

The soundtrack’s selections are also loaded with Jamaican nuance and political meaning, as the lyrics, both directly and between the lines, refer frequently to oppression, inequality, and social injustice. What follows here, is an exploration of the film’s music along with historical background on Jimmy Cliff and the album’s other artists, as well as the film’s producer, Perry Henzell.

Cover of David Katz’s book, “Jimmy Cliff: An Unauthorized Biography,” 2011. Click for book.

span style=”margin-left: 25px;”>The Harder They Come was the first Jamaican-produced feature film shot in Jamaica with a full Jamaican cast and director. The film starred Jimmy Cliff, who plays a role in the film which, in part, is not unlike his own early years.

Music Player
“The Harder They Come”

Jimmy Cliff had left his country home as a teenager in 1962 heading to Kingston where he began cutting tracks for DJs to consider. With the help of producer Leslie Kong, he had a couple of hits, including a No. 1 Jamaican hit, “Hurricane Hattie” and others. By 1965, Cliff was in London, and eventually scored there with another Top Ten international hit 1969, “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” one of the first big reggae hits heard outside of Jamaica. He also wrote and sang “The Harder They Come” title track for the 1972 film.

In the 1960s, Cliff had also written a number of songs for other Jamaican artists. In 1969, he had written, “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” which became a hit for Desmond Dekker. That year as well, Cliff wrote and recorded the song “Many Rivers to Cross.” It was also the year Cliff met Jamaican film maker Perry Henzell, as he would later explain to the Wall Street Journal’s Marc Myers in a 2013 interview. Henzell would offer Cliff the lead role in The Harder They Come:

…In 1969, I was at Dynamic Sounds Studio in Kingston recording a song I had written, ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want.” When we finished, I walked outside and met a gentleman named Perry Henzell, who had been waiting for me. He said he was making a movie and asked if I could write music for it.

“The Harder They Come”
Jimmy Cliff – 1972

Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky
Waiting for me when I die
But between the day you’re born and when you die
They never seem to hear even your cry.

So as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share now of what’s mine
And then the harder they come
the harder they’ll fall, one and all
Oh, the harder they come
the harder they’ll fall, one and all.

Well the officers are trying to keep me down
Trying to drive me underground
And they think that they have got the battle won
I say forgive them Lord,
they know not what they’ve done.

So as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share now of what’s mine
And then the harder they come
The harder they’ll fall, one and all
Ooh the harder they come
The harder they’ll fall, one and all

And I keep on fighting for the things I want
Though I know that when you’re dead you can’t
But I’d rather be a free man in my grave
Than living as a puppet or a slave.

Repeat Chorus: “So as sure…”

By that point, I was pretty well known in Jamaica and the U.K. I had recorded quite a few hits. I had always wanted to be a movie actor, so I asked Perry to send me the script. When I read it, I felt I had known Ivanhoe Martin [the main character] all my life. In the script, he was a guy from the country who came to the city to make it as a musician but was held back by the trickery of a record-company owner. Eventually Ivan turns to crime and is killed at the end.

I told Perry that the script was great, and he decided to cast me as Ivan. The film at the time was called “Hard Road to Travel,” after one of my songs, and we filmed over the next year or so. When we shot the scene where Ivan cuts the bicycle-store owner who came on really hard, a line came to my mind—”the harder they come.” In real life, if you come on hard like that, you’re going to die hard.

When I told Perry my line, he loved it. He thought it was a stronger film title and asked me to write a theme song to go with it….

…The lyrics came from my past. I grew up in the church and had always questioned what they were telling me. Like the promise of a pie in the sky when you die. The second verse about oppressors trying to keep me down kind of reflected my own life—coming out of the ghetto in Jamaica and fighting the system. I wanted the song to have a church feel and to reflect the environment I grew up in—the underdog fighting all kinds of trickery.

In the film, Cliff plays Ivanhoe “Ivan” Martin, a country boy who heads to Kingston, Jamaica, to seek fame as a singer.

Jamaican director and writer Perry Henzel, later describing his film in a 2003 National Public Radio (NPR) interview: “The theme of The Harder They Come is: Can the little man get through? The character, Ivan Martin, has no education, and is coming into the city from the country with no advantages at all – a young, impoverished, ambitious guy who is trying to make it. And [he] has so much going against him that he ends up as a renegade…”

Album Tracks
The Harder They Come
1972

1. “You Can Get It If You…”
Jimmy Cliff
2. “Draw Your Brakes”
Scotty
3. “Rivers of Babylon”
The Melodians
4. “Many Rivers to Cross”
Jimmy Cliff
5. “Sweet and Dandy”
The Maytals
6. “The Harder They Come”
Jimmy Cliff
7. “Johnny Too Bad”
The Slickers
8. “007 (Shanty Town)”
Desmond Dekker
9. “Pressure Drop”
The Maytals
10.”Sitting in Limbo”
Jimmy Cliff
11.”You Can Get It If You…”
Jimmy Cliff
12.”The Harder They Come”
Jimmy Cliff

After being taken advantage of by a record producer who pays him only $20 for recording his first song, Ivanhoe Martin turns to a life of crime, dealing marijuana, and becoming a cop-killing folk hero – a character modeled in part on an actual 1940s Jamaican criminal who was not a musician.

In the film, it is Ivanhoe’s criminal notoriety and folk hero standing that ironically sends his record to the top of the Jamaican charts.

The title song, by Cliff, is also central in the film story, as it is the song that Ivanhoe Martin records to launch his own career. It is also a song that intimates the hard life of Jamaica’s poor.

In the end, the film wasn’t exactly Oscar material – though it still has its fans to this day. Yet the film’s soundtrack was eventually a blockbuster, opening the door to reggae big time.

The soundtrack album was released in America in 1973, and proved to be a steady seller, though it didn’t enter Billboard‘s album chart until March 1975.

In any case, the early- and mid-1970s was the dawning of a golden time for reggae. By then, Bob Marley and Wailers had broken through (their first U.S. charting song came about two months after The Harder They Come film was first shown in the U.S.), and others followed.

Part of the success of The Harder They Come album then, and still today, is its notable collection of other reggae artists in addition to the songs by Jimmy Cliff. Half of the tracks on the album are by Cliff, including: two performances each of “The Harder They Come” and “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” plus two others – “Many Rivers to Cross” and “Sitting in Limbo.”

The other six tracks, however, are fine reggae offerings as well, and include Jamaican singles that had been previously released in the 1967-1972 period that were also popular, including: “Draw Your Brakes” by DJ Scotty; “Rivers of Babylon” by the Melodians; “Sweet and Dandy” and “Pressure Drop,” both by Toots & the Maytals; “Johnny Too Bad” by the Slickers; and “007 Shanty Town” by Desmond Dekker. Dekker also had a hit with “You Can Get It If Your Really Want.” Some of these songs and their context are reviewed briefly below.

"Draw Your Brakes" on Crystal label, 1971.

“Draw Your Brakes”

The second track on the soundtrack album, for example, is “Draw Your Brakes,” by Scotty, also known as DJ Scotty, and formally, David Scott (1951-2003).

Music Player
Scotty – “Draw Your Brakes”

Scotty’s song is a 1971 Jamaican deejay version of Keith & Tex’s hit, “Stop That Train.” It is a lament of man who has just lost his woman to another man. A review of this song at an earlier blog titled, DK Presents 2009, stated that ‘Draw Your Brakes’ is one of the most important tracks on the album –along with The Slickers’ “Johnny Too Bad,” noted later below — Jamaican songs “which take on the twin cultures of violence and grief that are at the heart of the Jamaican ghetto, and the center of the movie.” See also Scotty – “Draw Your Brakes” for full lyrics and additional interpretation.

Cover of record sleeve for “Rivers of Babylon” song by The Melodians, Island Records, 1978. Click for single.

“Rivers of Babylon”

The third track on The Harder They Come album is “Rivers of Babylon,” a song by the Jamaican group The Melodians. The group was formed in 1963 by Tony Brevett, Brent Dowe. and Trevor McNaughton. “Rivers of Babylon” was written by Dowe and McNaughton and was recorded as a Rastafarian song in 1970, two years before it was used on The Harder They Come.

Rastafarianism is a religious movement among black Jamaicans that teaches the redemption of blacks and their return to Africa, employs the ritualistic use of marijuana, and venerates Haile Selassie as a god. (Selassie was Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930).

Interestingly, the lyrics of “Rivers of Babylon” are adapted from the texts of Psalm 137 and Psalm 19 in the Bible ( there, in the original, as a hymn expressing the lamentations of the Jewish people in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem). In further explanation, Wikipedia notes: “In the Rastafarian faith, the term “Babylon” is used for any governmental system which is either oppressive or unjust.

“Rivers of Babylon”
The Melodians, 1970

By the rivers of Babylon
Where he sat down
And there he wept
When he remembered Zion

‘Cause the wicked carried
us away in captivity
Required from us a song
How can we sing King Alpha’s song
In a strange land?

[ Repeat above]

Sing it out loud
Sing a song of freedom, brother
Sing a song of freedom, sister

So, let the words of our mouth
And the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in Thy sight
Oh, Fari!

[ Repeat above]

We got to sing it together
Everyone
La la la la la

By the rivers of Babylon
Where he sat down
And there he wept
When he remembered Zion

‘Cause the wicked carried
us away in captivity
Required from us a song
How can we sing King Alpha’s song
In a strange land?

[ Repeat above, fade out]

In Jamaica, Rastafarians also use ‘Babylon’ to refer to the police, often seen as a source of oppression because they arrest members for the use of marijuana (which is sacramental for Rastafarians).

Therefore, ‘By the rivers of Babylon’ refers to living in a repressive society and the longing for freedom.

Brent Dowe, the lead singer of the Melodians, told Kenneth Bilby that he had adapted Psalm 137 to the new reggae style because he wanted to increase the public’s consciousness of the growing Rastafarian movement and its calls for black liberation and social justice.

Traditional Rastafarian worship often included psalm singing and hymn singing, and “Rastas” typically modified the words to fit their own spiritual conceptions; Psalm 137 was among their sacred chants.

Music Player
“Rivers of Babylon”

In Jamaica, the song became well known in 1970 after its release. But then, it was initially banned by the Jamaican government because of “its overt Rastafarian references” then considered “subversive and potentially inflammatory.”

But after a round of criticism for banning a song that was taken almost entirely from the Bible, the government backed down. Three weeks later “Rivers of Babylon” was a No. 1 hit in Jamaica. The Harder They Come film and soundtrack album then took it to an international audience.

In 1978, the song was further popularized in Europe by the Boney M. cover version, which became one of the Top Ten all-time best-selling singles in the UK.

The song was later used in the 1999 Nicolas Cage movie, Bringing Out the Dead, and again in 2010 in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s film, Jack Goes Boating.

Cover art for “Many Rivers to Cross” single by Jimmy Cliff, issued by Trojan Records in 1969. Click for single.

“Many Rivers…”

“Many Rivers to Cross” – also on The Harder They Come soundtrack – is a song written in 1969 by Jimmy Cliff, released on his earlier 1969 album, Jimmy Cliff. The song has often been described for its church-like or hymnal quality, arranged with organ and a gospel backing.

Music Player
“Many River to Cross” – Jimmy Cliff

But Tom Moon, writing in 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, points out that the song also has some culture-specific conveyance: “Though ‘Many Rivers’ sounds like a plainspoken sermon of persistence, it was heard in Jamaica as a rallying cry of rude-boy culture, a bold street kid talking openly about getting what he could.” (The “rude boy” subculture arose from the poorer sections of Kingston, Jamaica, and was associated with violent discontented youths, who also had their own fashion and music preferences, including Jamaican reggae in the 1970s.)

“Many Rivers To Cross”
Jimmy Cliff – 1969

Many rivers to cross
But I can’t seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost
As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover

Many rivers to cross
And it’s only my will that keeps me alive
I’ve been licked, washed up for years
And I merely survive because of my pride

And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
It’s such a drag to be on your own
My woman left me and she didn’t say why
Well I guess, I have to try

Many rivers to cross
But just where to begin, I’m playing for time
There are times I find myself thinking
Of committing some dreadful crime

Repeat 1, fade out…

Cliff has stated that the song emerged from his frustrations in early career when he wasn’t making much headway:

When I came to the UK, I was still in my teens. I came full of vigor: I’m going to make it, I’m going to be up there with the Beatles and the Stones. And it wasn’t really going like that, I was touring clubs, not breaking through. I was struggling, with work, life, my identity, I couldn’t find my place; frustration fueled the song.

Rolling Stone has ranked “Many Rivers to Cross” at No. 325 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The song has been covered by a number of artists, including: Harry Nilsson, John Lennon, Joe Cocker, Percy Sledge, Desmond Dekker, UB40, Cher, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Marcia Hines, Toni Childs, Oleta Adams, Linda Rondstadt, and Annie Lennox.

In 2013, Tessanne Chin performed a cover of “Many Rivers to Cross” on a live round of NBC-TV’s The Voice. Her rendition spurred some interest in the original Jimmy Cliff version, as Billboard’s Digital Singles chart indicated that “Many Rivers to Cross” sold 707 downloads the week Chin performed. As of mid-November 2013, Cliff’s song had sold more than 87,000 downloads since Neilsen Soundscan began tracking digital sales of reggae singles in 2008.

“Many Rivers to Cross” has also been featured in the film Rush (2013) and during episodes of TV shows such as: the Australian-American comedy series Wilfred (2011-2014); the Netflix TV series, Daredevil (2015-16),based on the Marvel Comics character; and the post-apocalyptic series, Falling Skies (2011-15), produced by Steven Spielberg.

Promotional photo from “The Harder They Come” with Jimmy Cliff featured as pistol-packing Ivanhoe Martin.

Cover art for Slickers’ 2006 reissued “Breakthrough” album by Tad's Records, which includes 'Johnny Too Bad'. Click for CD.

“Johnny Too Bad”

“Johnny Too Bad,” the 7th track on The Harder They Come, is a song recorded by the Slickers, a Jamaican group that began in the mid-1960s.

The lyrics in this case fit some of the action in The Harder They Come film, as Ivanhoe becomes a renegade criminal and folk hero, though the song is also asking what will happen when it all catches up with him. Here’s the song along with a portion of the lyrics:

Music Player
“Johnny Too Bad”-The Slickers

…Walking down the road
With your pistol in your waist,
Johnny you’re too bad (oh boy)…

You’re just robbing and you’re stabbing
and you’re looting and you’re shooting
Now you’re too bad (too bad)….

…One of these days when you hear,
a voice say come,
where you’re going to run to (oh boy)…

…You’re gonna run to the rock
for rescue…
There will be no rock…

After its use on the soundtrack album, the original version of “Johnny Too Bad” became one of the most celebrated tracks ever recorded in Jamaica. The Slickers toured the U.S. and the U.K. on the success of the song, continuing until they recorded their album Breakthrough in 1979. Some version of the Slickers group continued touring in both the U.S. and Europe, releasing occasional singles through the 1970s before ceasing as a group sometime in the late 1970s.

Countless versions of “Johnny Too Bad” have been recorded by other musicians in a variety of styles. The song was covered by the British reggae group UB40, the American reggae punk band Sublime, American power pop band, The Silencers, and blues artist Taj Mahal. John Martyn covered it with additional lyrics on his 1980 album Grace and Danger.

Desmond Dekker

Cover of 2-CD set of “The Best of Desmond Dekker” on the Trojan label, London, 2016. Click for CD.

Desmond Dekker is another Jamaican artist who had an earlier hit song – his “007 (Shanty Town)” – featured on The Harder They Come soundtrack album. Dekker (1941 – 2006) was a popular Jamaican ska, rocksteady, and reggae singer-songwriter and musician who had already had several Jamaican hit songs in the early 1960s.

But in 1967, Dekker’s “007 (Shanty Town)” became his first international hit, rising to No 1 in Jamaica and No. 14 on the UK singles chart – the first Jamaican-produced record to reach the UK top 20, which then demonstrated the viability of Jamaican music in England. It was followed by another much bigger hit with Dekker’s “Israelites” in 1968 (U.S. pop, No. 9, 1969), which uses lyrical imagery from the Biblical Exodus story.

“007 (Shanty Town)” was released in the U.K. as a 1967 single on the Pryamid label. The song has been called “the most enduring and archetypal” rude boy song. Its title and lyrics also hint at James Bond and Oceans 11 film imagery, then admired by Jamaican rude boys.

“007 (Shanty Town)”
Desmond Dekker

0-0-7, 0-0-7
At ocean eleven
And now rude boys have a go wail
‘Cause them out of jail
Rude boys cannot fail
‘Cause them must get bail

Dem a loot, dem a shoot,
dem a wail (a shanty town)
Dem a loot, dem a shoot,
dem a wail (a shanty town)
Dem rude boys get a probation
(a shanty town)
And rude boy bomb up the town
(a shanty town)

0-0-7, 0-0-7
At ocean eleven
And the rude boys a go wail
‘Cause them out of jail
Rude boys cannot fail
‘Cause them must get bail

Dem a loot, dem a shoot,
dem a wail (a shanty town)
Dem a loot, dem a shoot,
dem a wail (a shanty town)
Dem rude boys get a probation
(a shanty town)
And rude boy bomb up the town
(a shanty town)

According to Dekker, the song was also inspired in part by news coverage he had watched of a student demonstration protesting construction of an industrial complex near the beach in the Shanty Town area, where violence had erupted. The song also deals with rude boy violence and rude boys being released from prison, but continuing to commit crime.

Music Player
“007(Shanty Town)”-Desmond Dekker

AllMusic.com’s Jo-Ann Greene notes in her review of the song:

“If any song can be said to epitomize the entire rudeboy era, ‘007 (Shanty-Town)’ is it. The song has it all: a melody that once heard is never forgotten, a brilliant arrangement that’s all stomping beats emphasized by every one of the instruments, references to cool movies — from the Bond films’ hero to the equally hip Rat Pack flick Ocean’s 11 — and lyrics aimed directly at the rudies. Desmond Dekker succinctly sums up rudeboy ways, looting and shooting their way across the shanty-towns that surround Kingston. Amongst a clutch of pithy lyrics, “Rudeboys have no fear [or cannot fail]” was the line that inevitably brought whoops from every rudie on the dancefloor.

In The Harder They Come film, with Ivanhoe Martin doing his looting and shooting, Dekker’s tune also hits the mark — though in his earlier career, Dekker’s music had been associated with tamer, more traditional values.

“Pressure Drop”

Cover of CD with selections by Toots & The Maytals, The Definitive Collection, Trojan. Click for their music.

“Pressure Drop,” by the Maytals, is another fine example of the infectious reggae sound. The song was written by Frederick Hibbert and recorded by The Maytals in 1969 for producer Leslie Kong. It was released as a single and on their 1970 album, Monkey Man, as well as a follow-up album, From The Roots.

Music Player
“Pressure Drop” – The Maytals

“Pressure Drop,” as offered in this song, can also have some interesting social meanings. The phrase, in one common usage can refer to a change in barometric pressure, the meteorological term, which in weather forecasting, with the technical aid of an instrument called a barometer, is used to predict adverse weather conditions and approaching storms, certainly important for island populations like Jamaica. A rapid barometric “pressure drop” can signal, for example, an approaching hurricane. And on a personal level, in a social context, a pressure drop as suggested by these lyrics, might also mean, that “a storm is coming for you.” Toots Hibbert, elaborating, has also added in one 2016 interview with The Guardian of London, that this song can serve a further purpose: as a calling for a kind of karmic justice:

It’s a song about revenge, but in the form of karma: if you do bad things to innocent people, then bad things will happen to you. The title was a phrase I used to say. If someone done me wrong, rather than fight them like a warrior, I’d say: “The pressure’s going to drop on you.”

“After this song appeared on The Harder They Come soundtrack, The Maytals enjoyed success beyond Jamaica. In one example, Clifton ‘Jackie’ Jackson, bass-player for the group, in the same 2016 interview with The Guardian mentioned above, recalled that in 1975 the Maytals were on the bill with The Who, playing to a crowd of 90,000 people in California. At that concert the Maytals were kind of stunned, “because the crowd just stood there staring, like they were going to have us for their supper. We said: ‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Then someone suggested opening with ‘Pressure Drop.’ The place erupted.”

In 2004, Rolling Stone rated “Pressure Drop” at No. 453 in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song has been covered by other artists including, The Specials and The Clash, and it is also featured in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Disc label for Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting In Limbo” single, released in 1971, Island Music Ltd. Click for single.

“Sitting in Limbo”

In 1971, Leslie Kong died – the producer Jimmy Cliff (and other Jamaicans) had worked with since his early youth, at age 14. According to AllMusic.com, Cliff was racked by the loss, and was not sure how to proceed.

Music Player
“Sitting in Limbo”- Jimmy Cliff

“Sitting in Limbo” is a song he wrote about that time; a song which also had origins in Cliff’s travels and his return to Jamaica from England where his career had stalled. He was seeking direction on several fronts. But Cliff did proceed that year, recording the album, Another Cycle, at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. “Sitting in Limbo,” co-produced with Gully Bright, is included on that album and was also released as a single in 1971. It was added to The Harder They Come soundtrack in 1972. Jo Ann Greene at AllMusic.com notes of the song: “This gentle song perfectly captures [Cliff’s] mood, determined to somehow carry on, but unsure just how to begin…” Greene, citing its musical detail, calls the song “a true masterpiece.”

“You Can Get It…”

Jimmy Cliff on cover of later released CD of "You Can Get It If You Really Want." Click for single.

The next-to-the last track on The Harder They Come soundtrack album – as well as the album’s opening song – is also a song by Jimmy Cliff: “You Can Get It If You Really Want.” This is a song Cliff had originally written for Desmond Dekker in 1969. Dekker’s version of the song became a hit first, released as a single in a number of markets. It rose to No. 2 on the U.K. Singles Chart. It was also ranked at No. 27 on the 1970 year-end U.K. chart.

Music Player
“You Can Get It If You Really Want”
Jimmy Cliff

Over the years, “You Can Get It If You Really Want” has become something of an anthem for can-do optimism, and an inspirational tune for individuals seeking success or persevering in personal struggles of one kind or another. It has also been used in political campaigns. In 1990 it was used as a campaign anthem during the 1990 Nicaragua elections by the ruling left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front. And SongFacts.com has noted the song was used in the U.K. in 2007 to close the British Conservative Party’s leader David Cameron’s speech during the party’s annual conference that October. In fact, the Conservatives liked it so much, apparently, the song was used again by the party as a catchphrase for a media package of newspaper ads, billboards, broadcast and web messages by Cameron calling for a shift away from “old politics.” Paraphrasing from the song’s lyrics, Cameron said: “Rome was not built in a day, opposition will come your way; but the hotter the battle you see, it’s the sweeter the victory; you can get it if you really want.” Jimmy Cliff, noted SongFacts, had his own views: “I’m from the lower class of society and I tend to support them rather than the upper class.”

Perry Henzell
Film Producer
The Harder They Come

In 1969 Perry Henzell heard Jimmy Cliff’s song, “Many Rivers to Cross,” and sensed it would be a good fit for a film he had in mind about a Jamaican’s struggle to make it. He also asked Cliff to work up some other songs for the film. But once the film was made, bringing it to a wider audience beyond Jamaica was the next step, and one fraught with challenge.

Perry Henzell, Jamaican film producer, at work, 1970s.

Henzell had something of an uphill fight to get his film distributed. “Nobody would take it,” he later explained to Variety in a 1995 interview. “They’d never heard of reggae music, and nobody was interested in black people in Jamaica.” The film, although told through the life of its main character, was also an unflinching look at what Henzell called “the harsh reality of Jamaican life.”

In London, he tried distributing the film himself, resorting at one point to handing out 5,000 fliers at bus and subway stops. He eventually hooked up with producer Roger Corman to help distribute the film, but that effort did not fare well initially either. In the U.S., midnight showings of the film in some college towns helped bring word-of-mouth cache, and by 1974-75 its music in particular helped broaden its marketing. Respectable reviews soon arrived (see samples in reproduced poster below).

Roger Ebert, reviewing the film February 9th, 1973, noted it was “sort of two movies in one.” First, he explained, “we get a Jamaican version of the standard black exploitation movie, with guns and gangsters and a flashy superhero turned folk hero.” But the second movie, he continued, “the one that makes the experience worthwhile – is a celebration of Jamaican music and style. This was the first extensive American movie exposure for reggae, the insinuating Jamaican music that was just then beginning to make itself heard over omnipresent rock.”

“I didn’t make the soundtrack of The Harder They Come until the last two weeks of editing,” Henzell would later note in a 2003 interview. “And I just chose all the of the music that I really loved that I thought [others would like]. And sure enough, it’s been selling ever since…”

Henzell had plans for what he hoped would be a trilogy of films centering on Jamaica and Ivanhoe Martin. A next film in that series, No Place Like Home, was started by Henzell in the 1970s but later abandoned for lack of funds. Some years later, Henzell rediscovered bits of the film and reworked it. Eventually, No Place Like Home was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival to sold-out audiences in September 2006. The film was then scheduled to be screened at the Flashpoint Film Festival in Negril, Jamaica in early December 2006. However, Perry Henzell died of cancer in November 2006. He was 70 years old. In 2015, a documentary film – Perry Henzell: A Filmmaker’s Odyssey, which explores Henzell’s journey in making No Place Like Home – was released by David Garonzik and Arthur Gorson.

1970s promo piece for film “The Harder They Come,” with a headlined review contrasting it with the Marlon Brando film of that era, ‘Last Tango in Paris.” A selection of other reviewer comments are also offered.

In later years, both the film and the music would collect kudos and spawn a number of other projects. The Harder They Come soundtrack was ranked No.12 on one list of the “100 Best Film Soundtracks,” those described as “soundtracks that moved us the most” by Entertainment Weekly. In 1980, Jamaican-American author Michael Thelwell published a novel based on the film, using the same title. In August 2003, the Universal Music Group issued a two-disc deluxe edition of The Harder They Come soundtrack album, remastered with the second disc featuring additional reggae singles from 1968-1972. In 2005, the film story was developed into a stage musical by the Theatre Royal Stratford East and U.K. Arts Productions in London. The script for that production was overseen by Perry Henzell who also served as production consultant. It opened in London in March 2006 and played through 2008, going on international tour thereafter. The stage production used the original soundtrack as well as a couple of additions. In 2006, The Harder They Come film was also digitally restored, frame by frame, and issued in a remastered DVD version. In 2013, there was a 40th anniversary celebration of the film and its re-release.

Rolan Bell, one of the stars in the London musical stage production of "The Harder They Come," 2006-2009

Jimmy Cliff, meanwhile, was propelled to international fame by The Harder They Come. Not long after the film became popular, Cliff helped introduce reggae to America by performing two songs from the film on the first season of the Saturday Night Live TV show, episode 12, on January 31, 1976. Cliff that night sang the title track, “The Harder They Come” and “Many Rivers to Cross.” Since those heady years of the 1970s, Cliff has done a variety of work in film and music, much of which is detailed at his Wikipedia page and elsewhere. Cliff provided backing vocals on The Rolling Stones’ 1986 album Dirty Work, and appeared in the comedy Club Paradise, co-starring with Robin Williams and Peter O’Toole, also contributing several songs to the soundtrack, including “Seven Day Weekend,” which he sang with Elvis Costello. In 1988, his song “Shelter of Your Love” was featured in the hit film Cocktail. Cliff returned to the American music charts in 1993 with his Top 20 cover of “I Can See Clearly Now,” from the soundtrack for Cool Runnings. In March 2010 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As of this writing he continues to perform and lives in Jamaica.

For additional stories on music, song histories, and artist biography at this website see the “Annals of Music” category page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 25 June 2017
Last Update: 16 February 2019
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Reggae Breaks Out: Jimmy Cliff, 1972-74,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 25, 2014.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

1998 book, "Reggae Routes: The Story of Jamaican Music," Temple University Press, 246 pp.

"Best of Bob Marley and the Wailer, 2002. Click for CD.

"The Encyclopedia of Reggae," 352pp, 2012. Click for book.

40th anniversary film poster for “The Harder they Come,” 2013.

“Jimmy Cliff,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 185-186.

“The Harder They Come,” Wikipedia.org.

Tom Moon, “Reggae Rises Here: The Harder They Come, Jimmy Cliff,” 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, New York: Workman Publishing, pp 174–175.

Loraine Alterman, “Pop; It’s Here–Reggae Rock,” New York Times, February 4, 1973, p. 132.

Tom Shales, “’Harder They Come’: Good Work, Mahn,” Washington Post, Times Herald, February 14, 1973, p. F-1.

Ian Dove, “Records: Black Music; Soundtrack Albums of 2 Films Include Reggae Pieces From West Indies,” New York Times, February 14, 1973.

John Rockwell, “Jimmy Cliff Makes His American Debut Exciting, Formal [at Carnegie Hall],” New York Times, November 18, 1974.

John Rockwell, “The Pop Life; Toots and Maytals in a Reggae Year,” New York Times, September 26, 1975.

Tom Zito, “Jimmy Cliff: Bringing the ‘Freshest Form of Music’ From Jamaica to the U. S.,” Washington Post, October 28, 1975, p. B-9.

Stephen Davis, “Reggae Jamaica’s Inside-Out Rock and Roll; Reggae It’s Inside-Out Rock,” New York Times, November 30, 1975.

“80th Straight Weekend for Reggae Film,” New York Times, April 30, 1976.

John Rockwell, “Jimmy Cliff And Reggae In the Park,” New York Times, September 1, 1976.

National Public Radio, Morning Edition, “’The Harder They Come’ – Jimmy Cliff Film, Soundtrack Sparked the ’70s Reggae Explosion,” NPR.org, October 22, 2003.

Toby Ball, “The Harder They Come,” All Music.com Review.

“Jimmy Cliff, Biography,” RockHall.com.

“Jimmy Cliff, Biography,” AllMusic.com.

“The Harder They Come”(song), Wikipedia .org.

“The 20 Greatest Reggae Albums Of All-Time,” DK Presents, June 2009.

“Rivers of Babylon,” Wikipedia.org.

“Desmond Dekker,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, p. 249.

“Many Rivers to Cross,” Wikipedia.org.

Adam Jones, “The Harder They Come”-Jimmy Cliff,” Anthems for A New Generation, January 13, 2012.

Neil McCormick, “Jimmy Cliff Interview: ‘I Still Have Many Rivers to Cross’,” The Telegraph(London), July 12, 2012.

Colin Jacobson, Review, “The Harder They Come: The Criterion Collection (1973),” DVD Movie Guide.

“Pressure Drop (song),” Wikipedia.org.

Dennis McLellan, “Perry Henzell, 70; His Movie `The Harder They Come’ Brought Reggae to the World,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2006.

“The Harder They Come (remastered) – Jimmy Cliff,” iTunes.com.

Song Review by Jo-Ann Greene, “Sitting in Limbo,” AllMusic.com.

Emily Dugan, “‘I Always Support the Lower Classes’: Jimmy Cliff’s Response to His Adoption by Cameron,” The Independent, October 5, 2007.

“You Can Get It If You Really Want, by Jimmy Cliff,” SongFacts.com.

Mike Riggs. “Is Reggae Classic ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want’ ‘Conservative’? Jimmy Cliff Weighs In,” The Washington Times, June 6, 2012.

Marc Myers, “Anatomy of a Song; The Song That Put Reggae on The Map,” Wall Street Journal, updated February 14, 2013.

Dave Simpson, “Toots and the Maytals: How We Made Pressure Drop,” The Guardian, September 6, 2016.

“Perry Henzell, 70, Filmmaker of ‘The Harder They Come,’ Dies,” New York Times, December 5, 2006.

“Perry Henzell,” Wikipedia.org.

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Kevin Jackson, “Chin, Cliff Surge, Dancehall Stumbles,” Jamaica Observer, Sunday, November 17, 2013.
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Teaser Tag: Business, Culture, Biography

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“The DeLorean Saga”
Car Guy: 1960s-1980s

June 15, 2017 J.D.

Sketch of the DMC - "the DeLorean" sports car -- later built by the DeLorean Motor Co. in 1981-82.

It was the September 1973 story in Fortune magazine that turned heads at the General Motors Corporation, then the world’s largest automaker. Featured in the story was one of GM’s top executives then leaving the company. His name was John Z. DeLorean and he had risen to the very top of the company with astonishing speed.

This would be the same guy who would later found the DeLorean Motor Company, inventing and producing the DMC-12 sports car, also known as “the DeLorean.” And DeLorean was also the guy whose name would appear on a “tell-all” book about GM — On A Clean Day You Can See General Motors. But at the moment, Mr. DeLorean was caught up in the “leaving-GM” controversy.

John Z. DeLorean, in fact, had been a rising star on the GM fast track; a good bet to run the place and become CEO. But DeLorean had done the unthinkable: he had quit his high-level post at General Motors (some say he was fired), doing so with controversy and in his own style.

Early 1970s photo of John DeLorean that ran in Fortune magazine. By then he had gone through some personal changes, lost weight, became fit & lived a full social life, clashing with the expected GM executive model. Photo, Anthony Edgeworth.

Earlier that year, in May 1973, DeLorean had walked away from his $650,000-a-year job (about $8 million in today’s money). He had been a group vice president, one of an elite cadre of managers at the very top of the corporation.

The Fortune piece was a post-mortem on the whys and wherefores of DeLorean’s departure. But it also became hot fodder for water-cooler gossip at GM since it showed the six-foot-four DeLorean shirtless in one photo, a buff 48 year-old in good trim, and also working out with weights in another.

‘Picture Star’

“He looked like a million-dollar picture star,” remarked Hollywood producer Pierre Cossette, who had met DeLorean about that time, “like he had been put together by the property department of M-G-M.,”

No, John DeLorean wasn’t your typical, every day GM executive, especially in those last few years near the top of the company. In fact, the guy had quite a reputation on his climb up the corporate ladder – known for dating Hollywood starlets and models, wearing tapered Italian suits, and roaring around town in high-performance Maseratis and Lamborghinis. Yet John DeLorean was also a dedicated automotive professional. He had become a highly competent GM executive in a leadership role, boosting GM’s fortunes in two of its divisions and operating at the industry’s highest levels.

GM Wunderkind

John Z. DeLorean as he appeared in August 1965, a rising star at General Motors featured here in a “Car Life” magazine spread on his success with the Pontiac GTO.

In fact, during the 1960s and early 1970s, John DeLorean was a General Motors wunderkind. He ran the Pontiac Division in 1967 and 1968, leading it to record sales in both years. In 1969, he was tapped to help turn around GM’s troubled Chevrolet Division, which he did in spades.

In 1971, he was featured in Business Week. In 1972 he appeared on the cover of Automotive Industries magazine with his overhead cam engine. By 1973, he was GM’s vice president and group executive for North American cars and trucks — a huge swath of the General Motors empire, encompassing Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Cadillac, GMC, and Canadian car and truck operations. Total sales of this group at the time were $25 billion, placing it among the top echelon of only a handful of other businesses worldwide.

John DeLorean, then 48, was one of four other group-level vice presidents, and he held more GM turf than his peer Roger Smith, who would later run the company. In fact, many believed John DeLorean, too, was on the “candidate track” to run GM, and those who worked with him thought he was a sure bet to do just that.

Yet, when he made it to the company’s prestigious “14th floor”headquarters – the inner sanctum sanctorum of global auto power in those years – John DeLorean, by the early 1970s, was not exactly fitting in. Rather, DeLorean was running counter to GM’s management culture.

John DeLorean doing the company’s bidding on his way to the 14th floor, before his cultural makeover.

It was not his work – which was spotless for the most part, as his track record proved he was a valuable and creative asset to the company. At issue was his style; he was not meeting GM’s expectations of the model executive. He had become, in fact, the Willie Joe Namath of the automotive industry; a guy with plenty of ability but a personal style that grated on the conservative, button-down ways of the industrial heartland. Higher ups in the company would complain about DeLorean’s dress, his hair, his cowboy boots, his women.

In the mid-1950s when DeLorean was recruited to GM’s Pontiac division by Bunkie Knudsen, he was viewed as a hard worker and straight-arrow; just the kind of creative young man the company would want to groom for its top leadership positions. “He wasn’t flamboyant or anything; just a nice young man,” Knudsen would say of DeLorean when he hired him. And before rising to the lofty heights of GM’s command center, DeLorean had toiled for many years in the engineering bowels of the auto industry, notching some impressive accomplishments. He would later claim to have a number of patents, and would be credited for a number of automotive innovations, including the concealed windshield wiper, the overhead cam engine, and the windshield-embedded radio antenna.

John DeLorean began his rise in GM's Pontiac Division.

John DeLorean with Pontiac Firebird model, later 1960s.

Streets of Detroit

John DeLorean’s roots were in the hard scrabble streets of Detroit, where he played stickball as a kid. His father had worked in a Ford foundry. Young John proved a bright kid who applied himself in school, landing at Cass Technical High School for Detroit’s honor students, considered a feeder school for the Big Three.

At “Cass Tech,” as it known locally, DeLorean excelled, then winning a scholarship – not in engineering, but in music – to attend the Lawrence Institute of Technology. DeLorean would later study industrial engineering there. At night for pocket money he played the saxophone at “black and tan” clubs, as the mixed-race jazz clubs were then called.

In 1943, during WWII, his education was interrupted when drafted into the U.S. Army. After his three-year hitch, he returned to Lawrence to complete his degree in mechanical engineering.

He then had a series of odd jobs thereafter, including a stint selling insurance before enrolling in a post-graduate engineering program at the Chrysler Institute, earning an M.A. there in industrial engineering in 1952. He was also working at Chrysler by then as well.

DeLorean would later add an MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, attending at night, and he also studied law briefly.

In the mid-1950s, DeLorean moved to the Packard car company where he became director of research and development. At Packard, among other things, DeLorean improved the efficiency of their automatic transmissions by adding something called “a lockup clutch” that directly linked the engine to the wheels. Eliminating slippage in an automatic transmission provides much better fuel economy and lower temperatures.

1968 magazine ad for Pontiac GTO: “Get One, Before You’re Too Old to Understand.” DeLorean’s GTOs of the 1960s pitched power & speed to American youth.

After Packard merged with Studebaker, DeLorean in 1956 was offered a choice of jobs at General Motors. He decided to work at GM’s Pontiac division as an assistant to chief engineer Pete Estes and general manger “Bunkie” Knudsen, the son of former GM CEO Bill Knudson. Bunkie and DeLorean would become fast friends, even after Bunkie went to Ford Motor Co.

At Pontiac, in September 1956, DeLorean’s first title was director of advanced engineering. He was 31 years old.

After a few years at Pontiac, DeLorean rose to assistant chief engineer, and then chief engineer of the Pontiac division.

But in the early 1960s, working with Estes and Knudsen, DeLorean helped turned the fortunes of the Pontiac division around. What they came up with was a new “wide track” design; producing cars with longer axles and powerful engines. Initially, new high-powered Catalina and Bonneville models were quite successful. But the best was yet to come.

The GTO

1960s: John DeLorean receiving a Motor Trend award for his work on the Pontiac GTO.

At Pontiac, DeLorean made his mark in the early 1960s by creating a new Pontiac model called the GTO – one of the first “muscle cars,” as the high-performance street cars would be called. DeLorean and his team in 1963 took a big 389 cu. in V-8 engine outfitted with three carburetors and placed it in a smaller but newly-styled Pontiac Tempest body that was relatively light at 3,200 pounds. The result was a very hot car, with “blinding acceleration” as Brock Yates would later describe it for Sports Illustrated. This “supercar” as DeLorean saw it, was perfect for the emerging new market of testosterone-brimming baby boomer males who saw themselves as street racers. DeLorean, and others – most notably Lee Iacocca at Ford with his Mustangs – saw the “boomer-hot-car” market emerging in the early 1960s, and the Pontiac GTO would lead the “muscle car” parade, touching off one of the most successful industry makeovers and product introductions in auto history.

From 1964 through 1974, each of Detroit’s then “big four” automakers all offered muscle cars – among these were AMC’s Rebel SSTs, Plymouth Road Runners, Chevrolet Chevelles, Dodge Chargers and more. [ However, with the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and the emergence of the Clean Air Act and 1975 auto emissions standards, the muscle car era cooled off considerably by the mid-‘70s.]

“GTO Marketing”
Revving Up the Kids
1969

In 1969, Brock Yates, writing in Sports Illustrated, would describe some of the GTO marketing that ensued under Pontiac ad executive, Jim Wangers:

“… Realizing, with DeLorean and Estes, that rival manufacturers were plunging into the performance market with bigger, hotter cars than the GTO, [Wagners] launched a text book sales promotion campaign that included the pop hit, ‘Little GTO’, recorded by Ronnie and the Daytonas [the writer of the song, reportedly, had come to Pontiac for advice and accuracy of lyrics]. While by-passed in the Grammy awards, ‘Little GTO’ got to No. 3 on the charts, sold 1.2 million copies and got played an estimated seven million times on the nation’s rock radio stations – ground zero for the GTO market. At the same time Wangers flooded the nation with GTO shoes, emblems, T-shirts and more records until every kid from Portland, Maine to West Covina, California was stuffing his piggy bank in anticipation of the day he could purchase a GTO. In 1965, 65,000 GTOs were sold. The following year sales soared to 83,000.” (Brock Yates, Sports Illustrated, 1969).

But in the mid-1960s, the GTO was immensely popular with young drivers when it first came out. Nearly 250,000 of the fast and classy “hot rods” were sold in the first five years of production. As a result, Pontiac’s sales tripled.

It was also during DeLorean’s years leading the Pontiac division that he developed a prototype sports car – a 1964 concept model named the Pontiac Banshee. However, this project was halted since it would have been direct competition for the Chevrolet Corvette, GM’s marquee performance sports car. But it was this idea that would later lead to DeLorean’s plan for a future automotive venture, the DMC-12. More to come on this later. Still, it is alleged that DeLorean’s Banshee model was raided by others at GM for features incorporated into the 1968 Corvette.

By 1965, the high-flying success of the GTO helped send Bunkie Knudnsen up the ladder to GM corporate, Pete Estes to become general manager at Chevrolet, and DeLorean as top man at Pontiac. He was now making more than $200,000 a year. It was at this juncture in John DeLorean’s rise in the auto establishment that he appeared to begin something of personal metamorphosis.

“After giving Pontiac its new style,” Newsweek would report, “DeLorean gradually transformed himself from a button-down conformist to a vain, middle-age clotheshorse. He lost 60 lobs., began lifting weights and started draping his 6-ft’ 4-in. frame in brightly colored shirts, turtlenecks and nipped-at-the-waist suits…” He also dyed his hair, and according to some sources, had facial work done as well.

DeLorean began to enjoy the freedom and celebrity that came with his position, and spent a good deal of his time traveling to locations around the world to support promotional events. His frequent public appearances helped to solidify his image as a “rebel” businessman with his trendy dress style and casual conversation.

DeLorean also became more of a free spender, and open to new business opportunities. By 1966 he had acquired a 10 percent share of the San Diego Chargers football team, and could be found at times visiting with the team’s head coach, Sid Gilman, or star players like receiver Lance Alworth.

General Motors executive John DeLorean, shown on first of a 2-page spread in ‘For Men Only,’ June 1969.

Fast cars, flashy females, and sideline access to pro football games were part of this DeLorean story.

In June 1969, the magazine For Men Only, ran a feature story on DeLorean (above) with the title, “The Women-and-Wheels Life of Johnny DeLorean – General Motors’ 200 M.P.H., Million Dollar Swinger.” As a tag line on the article’s next page put it, “At the wheel of the world’s fastest cars, dating the flashiest females of the Jet Set, or being on the field with your own pro football team are dreams to most men, just another day to ‘Johnny Z’.”

DeLorean, then age 43, had divorced his wife of 15 years. In late May 1969 he married Kelly Harmon, 21, the daughter of football legend Tom Harmon, described by one writer as “the uncrowned Miss America.”

1969: John DeLorean relaxing with his young wife, Kelly Harmon, outside their home. Photo, Sports Illustrated.

After his success at Pontiac, DeLorean was promoted to the top job at the company’s Chevrolet division, GM’s flagship brand. He was the youngest man ever to head up the huge division. DeLorean was recruited for the job by GM’s CEO at the time, as Chevy was in some difficulty, with declining sales and dealer profits down. Over the next few years, DeLorean executed a turn around at Chevy, which helped solidify his management bona fides (although there were some “misses” in this period, as well, including a rather mixed record on GM’s sub-compact, “import fighter,” the Chevrolet Vega, related to the vehicle’s quality, durability and performance. DeLorean, for his part, would later claim that he was “called upon by the corporation to tout the car far beyond my personal convictions about it.”). Still, under his leadership at the time, Chevrolet in 1971 became the first Big Three division to sell more than 3 million vehicles a year. And dealer profits that year had also soared by 400 percent.

1971 Business Week: “A Swinger Tries to Cure Chevy’s Ills”.

1973 Newsweek photo of John DeLorean shown with actress Ursula Andress at an outdoor event.

But during his Chevrolet years, because he was on the road so much, and working long hours back in Detroit, there were problems at home. He was not spending enough time with his wife, Kelly, or the son they were adopting. And Kelly, younger than most other executive wives, wasn’t fitting in well either. She missed California. The pair separated in the fall of 1972 and were later divorced.

By October 1972 DeLorean was promoted again, this time as GM’s VP for its entire car and truck group. And after his separation from Kelly, he resumed a free-ranging life style, as described by Paul Ingrassia, former Detroit bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, in his book, Engines of Change:

… DeLorean started dating Ursula Andress, Raquel Welsh, and other Hollywood starlets. He appeared in gossip tabloids as often as car magazines. On Thursday nights he would commandeer a General Motors jet from Detroit to Los Angeles, where a GM junior executive would meet him with keys to a company car and hotel room in Beverly Hills or Bel Air, He would party through the weekend and fly back to Detroit Monday nights, showing up in the office on Tuesday morning. On Thursday nights, it was back out to Hollywood again.

His bosses tolerated this flight pattern because DeLorean sill produced results. He eliminated layers of management, reorganized engineering,… slashed inventory, and installed computerized financial controls… On September 19, 1971, Business Week touted him on its cover with the headline: “John Z. DeLorean: A Swinger Tries to Cure Chevy’s Ills.”

In 1972, under DeLorean’s leadership, Chevrolet became the first automotive nameplate on earth to sell more than 3 million vehicles in a single years. It was a major milestone, and in October of that year, DeLorean was promoted yet again: to group vice president in charge of GM’s entire car and truck business….

On his way up the corporate ladder at GM, DeLorean had leapfrogged ahead of several promising engineers, some with more seniority. At Pontiac, DeLorean had already been the youngest GM division head at 40. And with his arrival as head of GM’s North American operations, he began collecting his $650,000-a-year paycheck. In his rise, he had occasionally rubbed colleagues the wrong way, made unflattering public statements about other auto executives, or offended important politicians, calling Michigan’s Republican U.S. Senator, Robert Griffin, for example, a “moron.”

Still, in his last couple of years at GM, he continued his jet-setting lifestyle, seen in celebrity circles with noted businessmen and entertainers. In Hollywood, he became friends with James T. Aubrey, president of Metro-Goldwyn -Mayer studios, and was introduced to entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. and The Tonight Show TV host, Johnny Carson. He also met financier Kirk Kerkorian. By then, DeLorean also held a 1.5 percent interest in the New York Yankees baseball team.

Cristina Ferrare on the July 1974 cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Cristina Ferrare in a 1975 magazine advertisement for Max Factor eye makeup.

In 1972 DeLorean began dating Cristina Ferrare (above), an American supermodel, who had graced fashion magazine covers. Hired as a model by the makeup company Max Factor when she was 16, Ferrare at 20 signed with the New York modeling agency Eileen Ford. She soon became a cover girl for major fashion magazines and later did TV and film work as well. DeLorean and Ferrare would marry in 1973.

14th Floor Blues

DeLorean’s disaffection with his position at GM began to surface when he moved from heading up the Chevrolet division to becoming a regional vice president. As a head of a car company line, auto executives had public visibility and more hands-on involvement with the business. On the 14th floor, however, although at the center of GM power, life was considerably more boring, filled with lots of meetings, and as some would later speculate, not at all in the style of John Z. DeLorean.

Late 1960s: John DeLorean, far right, at meeting when he was head of the Chevrolet division, where he felt more engaged, could meet with dealers, travel the country, etc., as opposed to life on the 14th floor. Sports Illustrated.

As one friend noted, it was “like putting a straitjacket on Secretariat”(famous thoroughbred race horse). Another observed, “instead of [being] the big cheese at Chevy or Pontiac, he was just another vice president upstairs at the GM staff level.” DeLorean himself would recount one meeting with an executive who told him he should “disappear into the wallpaper up here.” DeLorean, in other words, was being told to tone down his act.

In addition, on the 14th floor, DeLorean’s ideas for GM’s business were being rejected, which was something of a new experience for him. His idea for making restyling changes earlier in the design cycle was nixed, as was the plan to make model changeovers at night and on weekends to keep plant shutdowns at a minimum, which would have saved the company $1 billion by his accounting. His suggestion to meet the 1975 federal air pollution emissions standards (then three years away) with catalytic converters was also rejected – as GM and the Big Three would instead lobby Washington for a one-year extension the Clean Air Act deadline ( the first of many such delays the automakers would win from subsequent administrations and/or Congress). DeLorean, in fact, had caught the attention of some environmentalists and safety advocates who viewed him as someone who might help turn GM in a better direction.

Little Innovation

According to some accounts, DeLorean had misgivings about GM and what he was seeing in the business well before his rise to the 14th floor. Detroit Free Press writer, Paul Hendrickson, noted in a Detroit magazine profile shortly after DeLorean had left GM:“…My concern was that there hadn’t been an important product innova-tion in the industry since the automatic transmis-sion and power steering in 1949…” – John DeLorean

“…By late 1972, there were new rumblings [for DeLorean]. More and more, many of America’s cars were becoming to him just big, vulgar hunks of tin and chrome. At the auto show in [Detroit’s] Cobo hall that fall, DeLorean was repulsed by what he later said was the gaudiness everywhere he looked. He began to question all over again the validity of bending the tin a different direction each year.”

DeLorean’s disenchantment with GM he would later say, actually began “sometime in the late 1960s,” when “a nagging suspicion about the philosophy of General Motors and the automobile business began to overtake me…” At that point he began looking at the company more critically, recalling what he had witnessed over 17 years. “My concern was that there hadn’t been an important product innovation in the industry since the automatic transmission and power steering in 1949. That was almost a quarter century in technological hibernation.”

In place of product innovation, DeLorean charged that the automobile industry “went on a two-decade marketing binge which generally offered up the same old product under the guise of something new and useful.” There really wasn’t much that was new, DeLorean said. “But year in and year out we were urging Americans to sell their cars and buy new ones because the styling had changed. There really was no reason for them to change from one model to the next, except for the new wrinkles in the sheet metal…”“Soon,” he would later write, “I found myself questioning the bigger picture; the morality of the whole GM system…” DeLorean felt that more emphasis on innovations that made a car safer, easier to drive, more trouble free, or more economic to operate would bring true benefit to the consumer. These were new found concerns for DeLorean, who admitted he had been among the stylists who pushed for superficial model changes in the past.

“Soon,” he would later write in a tell-all book, “I found myself questioning the bigger picture; the morality of the whole GM system… The undue emphasis on profits and cost control without a wide concern for the effects of GM’s business on its many publics seemed too often capable of bringing together, in the corporation, men of sound, personal morality and responsibility who as a group reached business decisions which were irresponsible and of questionable morality.” At GM, DeLorean charged, “the concern for the effects of products… was never discussed except in terms of cost or sales potential…”

Small Cars
Delorean & GM

In the late 1960s, small cars produced by foreign manufacturers, notably Volkswagen, and later the Japanese, were beginning to penetrate the American market in a noticeable way. But such sales — and the emerging trend — were dismissed for the most part by Detroit’s Big Three automakers, preferring to sell large cars. This was occurring a few years before the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo and resulting U.S. energy crisis, revealing America’s big-car culture to be energy profligate and vulnerable. John DeLorean then headed GM’s Chevrolet division, and he became a voice for trying to move GM away from its large-car bias, a task that proved difficult and bucked up against GM tradition and culture. Here is an excerpt from Jack Doyle’s book, Taken For a Ride, on that period:

…Detroit’s heart and soul — and its leadership — just weren’t in the small-car business, a fact often admitted, and for some like Ford engineer Hal Sperlich, deeply lamented. But like Sperlich at Ford, there were a few voices within the industry that tried to push efficiency and smaller car design well before the energy crisis.Cole and DeLorean…were up against the fundamen-tal Alfred Sloan growth dictum of…trading up to bigger cars. At General Motors, Ed Cole and John DeLorean, then head of the GM’s Chevrolet division, had argued for smaller cars in the late 1960s. They pointed to the VW Beetle and the fact that much of the sales growth in the U.S. since 1965 had been in the small car segment. Smaller families, congested roads, higher costs and shifting values were also part of a trend toward a new market segment. But Cole and DeLorean were voices in the wilderness at GM; for they were up against the fundamental Alfred Sloan [formative and legendary GM CEO] growth dictum of GM’s success: trading up to bigger cars. By this rule, every American had a fundamental right (if not an economic obligation) to “trade up” to bigger cars — an idea that has never lost favor in management, even today. Cole and DeLorean — prodding GM to design smaller and lighter compacts and intermediates, while scaling down full-size cars — were bucking tradition. And they ran into GM’s powerful finance committee; then dominated by executives who had served with Sloan, and who were solidly committed to the big-car world view.

At John DeLorean’s departure from GM in 1973, he also made remarks on this topic in an October 28, 1973 New York Times story as follows:

…The thing that disappointed me was that most of the growth in the auto business in the last 10 years [ 1963-1973] has gone to the foreign cars. [That] business is 1.5 million units, and it’s gone overseas. This is an indictment of our industry.

…It was my feeling that we had a moral responsibility to build smaller cars, especially in G.M.’s case as America’s major supplier of transportation equipment.

Clip from October 28th, 1973 New York Times story & interview with John DeLorean by reporter Robert Irvin.

We had a responsibility to do that — whether it was profitable or not. And what happened is that we didn’t, and we left those cars to overseas.

Then we got to the point where the trade deficit on automobiles alone was $3.5-billion or $4-billion a year and that was the total amount of the nation’s trade deficit. That was the principal reason the dollar had to be devalued three or four times and we had no credibility in the financial world.

These guys refused to step up to their responsibility. Some guys say you should not do anything that’s not profitable. That is a matter of opinion.

…[I] wanted to bring out a sub-Vega size car long before the Vega [ was introduced in 1970].

We had worked out a line of smaller cars, that really combined the Camaro and Nova in a considerably smaller car so that today’s [i.e., 1973’s] intermediate-sized Chevelle would have been the size of the present compact Nova and the Nova would, have been somewhat smaller but with the same amount of size inside…. [ That program was cancelled ].

However, during DeLorean’s watch as head of the Chevrolet division, the Vega was launched, a small car whose first five years of production saw erratic fuel economy (23 mpg in 1971; 13 mpg in 1973), body rusting within a few months of purchase, a problem-plagued aluminum engine, and various brake, drive-train and rear-axle problems. These shortcomings and others in GM and Ford small cars [i.e., the Pinto] raised troubling questions about the U.S. auto industry’s engineering capabilities — a harbinger of things to come in later years. It also brought forward for the first time in Detroit “the quality issue.”

Greenbrier Speech

DeLorean’s growing disaffection with GM seemed to bubble up in a speech he was preparing to give at a November 1972 gathering of GM’s top 700 managers in Greenbrier, West Virginia. GM held such meetings every few years or so to have its managers talk candidly about needed internal changes and new perspectives. DeLorean was asked to talk on Product Quality, and his earlier drafts were quite pointed and critical, but later toned down by management. None of the material, in any case, was intended for the public beyond GM. But an earlier draft of DeLorean’s speech was leaked, and made its way into the Detroit News in November 1972.

While John DeLorean was having his doubts about GM, the press was still featuring him in cover stories, here with Signature magazine in November 1972 – “Man on the Move John DeLorean: The New Mr. Cool at General Motors.”

DeLorean’s speech included a number of topics, including some discussion of the Wankel engine, an alternative internal combustion engine then thought to be a low-polluting alternative to the conventional ICE, later found to have poor fuel economy and was dropped. However, it was his critique of the company’s poor product quality at the time that appeared to wound GM most deeply.

DeLorean revealed that GM was then spending as estimated $500 million annually in warranty repairs — a huge sum in the early 1970s. “Poor quality,” DeLorean wrote for his prepared remarks, which were printed in the newspaper, “threatens to destroy us.” DeLorean also noted, “every defect, each recall, only diminishes the credibility of whatever amount of advertising we do.” Poor quality in GM’s cars, he continued, “has already resulted in seriously declining owner-loyalty… and reduced credibility of our promises to do better next time.”

After that speech, GM Vice Chairman Thomas Murphy, who generally had judged DeLorean on his ability and solid business performance, began to lose confidence in him. It was about then as well that DeLorean himself began to realize he was on his way out.

In December 1972, DeLorean wrote a 19-page single-spaced memorandum to Murphy. The memo recounted in great detail what DeLorean believed to be GM’s failings and poor record — on safety and pollution, among other concerns. One small portion of that memo, pertaining to the company’s views on emissions control, is excerpted below:

…In no instance, to my knowledge, has GM ever sold a car that was substantially more pollution free than the law demanded — even when we had the technology. As a matter of fact, because the California laws were tougher, we sold “cleaner” cars there and “dirtier” cars throughout the rest of the nation. This approach of just doing the bare bones minimum to just scrape by the pollution law when GM could do much better by spending a few dollars is not socially responsible. With our virtual monopoly position in the industry we also, in effect,DeLorean argued that GM, with its dominant market position, could lead the industry with socially-re-sponsible technology and push its competitors in that direction as well. control our competitors — who would be economically devastated if they tried to do better socially but at a greater product cost.

We of Chevrolet proposed to the EPG [Engineering Policy Group] that we make our cars cleaner than the law demanded — we were told that the other divisions did not need a $15.00 air pump to meet the law — we were to take it off our cars. Our next proposal was to have all optional engines exceed the law (do the best we knew) since the customer would pay the extra cost anyhow — once again we were not permitted to do so for fear we would lose a few sales…

…Our corporation has lost credibility with the public and the government because each new emissions standard has been greeted by our management’s immediate cries of “impossible,” “prohibitively expensive,” “not economically responsible” — usually before we even knew what it involved. The remarkable thing is that with all of our resources and the amount we tell the government we are spending on emissions research that most of the significant developments in this field have come from someone else — for example, our first answer, the “Clean Air Package,” was developed by a handful of engineers at Chrysler, the manifold reactor which meets the 1975 standard now (and should be in production) was developed by Du Pont with less than 10% of our facilities and manpower. The other 1975 answer, the catalytic converter with EGR, was developed by a small grant given by Ford, several oil companies and several Japanese manufacturers. Not a very good record for a corporation that professes to be vitally interested in emissions. When we tell government about our large expenditures for emissions controls we don’t bother to tell them that very little is being spent on R and D and that most of our money is spent on adapting hardware to our wide variety of engines.

Feb 1974: John DeLorean shown in a reflective pose on the cover of Detroit magazine: “The Private Side of John DeLorean: Designing a New Life at 49.”

Murphy gave the memo back to DeLorean without any response or comment, and before long, John DeLorean knew he would have to resign.

In January 1973, after 17 years of making his way to the top of the auto game, John DeLorean took the final plane ride from Detroit to New York to meet with three GM executives to tender his resignation. Some say DeLorean’s departure from GM was not his decision but GM’s, choosing to rid itself of a bothersome critic. Upon leaving, however, DeLorean was awarded a Cadillac dealership in Florida and was owed over $500,000 in bonus pay. And while he planned his next venture, he would also run the National Alliance for Businessmen for one year, an organization that helped find jobs for disadvantaged minorities. GM would pay him a $200,000 salary while he held this post. The resignation letter, which DeLorean signed at GM’s headquarters in New York city after meeting with GM Chairman Richard Gerstenberg and Vice Chairman Thomas Murphy, would become effective on May 31, 1973.

Meanwhile, in his personal life, DeLorean and Cristina Ferrare were married that same month, May 1973. By February 1974, in addition to his home in the Bloomfield Hills of Detroit, he had a string of real estate holdings that included a cattle ranch in Salmon Idaho, an avocado farm in southern California’s Puma Valley, and a D.C. townhouse. Later, a New Jersey estate and a New York city residence would be added.

The Bombshell

1st edition of, “On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors,” John DeLorean's GM account, as written and published by J. Patrick Wright. Click for book.

“On a Clear Day…”

Upon leaving GM, DeLorean agreed to collaborate in writing a “tell all” book about his GM experience with J. Patrick Wright, a former Detroit Business Week bureau chief. Wright had covered the auto industry for 13 years.

As the book project got underway in the mid-1970s, and Wright proceeded with the writing, DeLorean began his quest for a new automotive business venture. He planned to build a new sports car, and would found a new auto company to do it; a company he called the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC). The car he planned to build and sell would be called the DMC-12 (more on the venture later below).

However, as DeLorean set about raising money and making connections in the auto industry for suppliers and production, he began to worry about the forthcoming book he and Wright were doing, and possible retaliation from GM on his new-car venture.

For several years, in fact, DeLorean vacillated about publication, frustrating Wright to the point of Wright mortgaging his house to stake the book’s publication. Wright persisted because he believed that what DeLorean had told him about GM, and big business generally, was important for the public to see. Finally, in November 1979, after four years of holding the book off the market, and at least one blown publishing contract with Playboy Press, the book was published — and some controversy began.

J. Patrick Wright, former Business Week Detroit Bureau Chief.

“It is his book,” said Wright of DeLorean and the story, which was written in the first person as told to Wright by DeLorean. “He told me several times that it is exactly what he wanted.”

Wright, who had staked his personal reputation on the book’s publication, also added in the introduction that “much of the factual content, anecdotes, tenor and tone of the book has been confirmed in my own outside reporting.” Wholesalers sold all 20,000 copies of the first edition. Another 20,000 copies were quickly printed.

DeLorean, for his part, gave a two-hour interview on the book that November (1979) with several reporters. By then he was well along with plans for his DMC car idea and was then working out of a suite of ultra modern offices atop a Manhattan office building – which had a clear view of GM’s office tower a few blocks away.

Regarding the book, DeLorean acknowledged On A Clear Day to be a true account, and said there were no significant errors of fact and no misrepresentations of his own views about GM. In fact, DeLorean reiterated that he didn’t see a dramatic difference in the GM of that day (1979) compared to the company he had left in 1973. He also offered comment on one current hot Detroit topic: the financial troubles of the Chrysler Corporation. Chrysler at the time, prior to Lee Iaccoca, was near bankruptcy, and complained that government regulation was the cause. “That’s bullshit,” DeLorean said, pointing to stumbles by mistake-prone management, adding however, that he did support government aid to bail out Chrysler.

John DeLorean, in his Manhattan office suite during his DMC planing years in the 1970s, high above New York city.

On A Clear Day, meanwhile, exposed a whole laundry list of GM misdoings — from industrial espionage and contempt for workers, to poor quality in manufacturing and misleading advertising campaigns. The book showed GM’s fledgling attempt to produce the 1968 Vega, a car that was supposed to compete with the VW bug, but instead became an engineering disaster, and was dropped by the end of the 1977 model year.

First edition, Wright/DeLorean book, 1979.

DeLorean also revealed that the Corvair in 1959 “was unsafe as it was originally designed” and that GM knew it was unsafe and made “an immoral business decision” to produce the car. The Corvair had also been the central subject of Ralph Nader’s 1965 book, Unsafe At Any Speed, to which DeLorean’s charges helped lend further substantiation. On a Clear Day also described the efforts of the company to “squelch information which might prove the [Corvair’s] deficiencies.”

In the book, DeLorean also recounts one tale in 1971 of the company’s attempt to destroy 19 boxes of microfilmed complaints from Corvair owners, only to have those boxes come back to GM by way of two Detroit junk dealers who found them, selling them back to GM for $20,000. DeLorean’s management critique of GM, including the increasing centralization of management at the expense of its individual car divisions, would prove to be prophetic as GM and all of Detroit became victimized by their own inertia and myopia during the 1980s.

A number of journalists gave the Wright /DeLorean book glowing reviews. “What we have spread on the record is a stunning account of the venality, narrow-mindedness – yes, even immorality – of one big American business,” wrote Washington Post business reporter Hobart Rowan.

June 1980: Avon paperback edition of “On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors.” Click for book.

Others, however, were more critical, challenging DeLorean’s motives. Detroit News columnist Robert Irvin found DeLorean’s memory a selective one, and the book “full of gossip” and detailed accounts of office politics and executive pettiness. Still, even Irvin said the book “should be read by students of the auto industry because DeLorean offers some interesting insights and opinions about GM corporate life.”

The back jacket of the June 1980 Avon paperback edition leads with a series of press blurbs and offers a summary description:

“Controversial.” – The New York Times

“Damming.” – Saturday Review

“Riveting.” – Chicago Sun Times

In the spring of 1973. John Z DeLorean stunned the business world by handing in his resignation as a Vice President of General Motors. His rise had been meteoric. By his mid-forties he was their most brilliant and flamboyant young executive, earning $650,000 a year and destined to become the next president of the industrial giant. But the higher he rose, the more disillusioned he became. When he saw what really went on along Executive Row – the corruption, the mismanagement, the total irresponsibility at every level – he decided the climb to the top was no longer worth it. He got out.

This is John Z. DeLorean’s story, the unprecedented and unforgettable expose of America’s most powerful supercorporation – the book that blows the lid off the king of carmakers.

On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors sold more than 1.6 million copies, and the book is still used today in schools and colleges for reference and the study of the automobile industry. Meanwhile, Part 2 of the John DeLorean story was already in motion.

The DMC Dream

DeLorean in a happier moment, promoting his DMC.

After leaving GM, and mulling over his options for a time, DeLorean managed to do what few others in the auto business had done: begin a new automobile company. He set up the DeLorean Motor Corporation (DMC) in Ireland, with the partial backing of the British government, delivering by the fall of 1978, a prototype “gull-wing” sports car. Production models for sale, however, would take a bit longer.

The fact that he could raise the money alone was something of a coup. “No one had ever doubted his talent, for he was one of the most creative young men of his generation,” wrote David Halberstam in his 1986 book on the auto industry, The Reckoning. “Many thought, that his was the most plausible attempt by an American at a start-up [auto] company since that of Henry Kaiser…” Halberstam observed that DeLorean’s flamboyant style and Iacocca-like national recognition, helped him raise the money.

DeLorean needed $175 million to finance his dream. He enlisted more than one hundred investors, including Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis, Jr., who put over $12 million into a partnership for research and development while the British government produced $156 million in grants and loans in return for DeLorean locating the DMC factory in Northern Ireland. (Britain liked the idea of creating 2,000 new jobs in a region suffering a 20 percent unemployment rate.) He also had more than 250 U.S. car dealers sign up as partner/investors, with many of those filing early orders for the car. DeLorean, however, according to some accounts, risked relatively little of his own money — $700,000 by one estimate — but he seemed to be on the road to having his dream come true.

1981: John DeLorean at right showing famous late night talk show host, Johnny Carson – also a DMC investor – some of the internal controls of a DeLorean Motor Car.

And as he pursued his DMC, DeLorean lived in the style of the well-paid business executive that he had become accustomed to. Among his multiple residences in 1982 were, for example: a $7.2 million, 20-room Fifth Avenue duplex; a $3.5 million estate in New Jersey; and a $4 million California ranch. His estimated net worth at the time was $28 million. As DMC’s CEO, his salary was nearly half a million dollars a year. DMC’s New York city offices, meanwhile – in a GM- comparable skyscraper – ran a costly $25,000-a-month.

The DMC and DeLorean received quite extensive publicity both in advance of the car’s actual production and as it first became available for sale in 1981-82. The car was featured in a number of prominent auto magazines well before it became available, helping to stoke expectations. And DeLorean himself appeared on magazine covers and in numerous media stories.

Oct 1979: DeLorean w/DMC, billed by Success mag. as a “pioneer in a new era of individual opportunity.”

John DeLorean & his DMC featured in a laudatory 1982 Cutty Sark profile.

One 1982 Cutty Sark Scotch whisky advertisement — featuring DeLorean’s face and his DMC — offered a profile that was especially laudatory, opening with the headline: “One Out of Every 100 New Businesses Succeeds. Here’s to Those Who Take the Odds.” And the ad’s text gave DeLorean rave reviews:

John DeLorean was on the way to the presidency of General Motors when he quit to build his own car company. In his 17 years with GM he helped quadruple Pontiac sales, built Chevrolet into a 3-million seller and was awarded 44 automotive patents. While his bosses railed at him for wearing his hair too long.

Now his stainless steel DeLorean Sports Car is here. Designed to last 20 years rust free. And the first year’s production is sold out.

John DeLorean anticipates the needs and wants of car buyers. He does no less for the scotch drinkers he invites to his home. That’s why he selects and serves the impeccably smooth Cutty Sark… The Scotch with a following of leaders…

Automobile suppliers were also eager to use DeLorean and his upcoming DMC in their product advertising. Goodyear, for example, ran a double page magazine spread in about the DMC’s use of their tires on the new model, with DeLorean along for the photo shoot. “Goodyear. Quality A Man Can Stake His Reputation On,” read the ad’s headline, with DeLorean getting good press in the ad’s copy (below):

Circa 1981-82. Goodyear’s double-page magazine ad touted the man and the car -- and of course, its own tires on the car.

John Z. DeLorean. A legend in the car industry long before he ever decided to build his dream car. And when he did decide to build his dream car, he went to Lotus for the suspension; to Giugiaro for the design.

And to Goodyear for the tires.

Working with Goodyear engineers, and drawing on Goodyear’s unequalled racing experience, John Z. decided on race-type sizing for optimum balance and handling:

Goodyear NCT 195/60 HR14s for the front: larger Goodyear NCT235/60 HR15s for the rear.

Given John Z’s knowledge of the automobile industry, he could have decided to have just about any major tire manufacturer provide him with tires for the first car bearing his name.

But when John’s first car rolled off the line, the only name other than John’s that appeared on the exterior was ours.

Our name is Goodyear, And we make high-performance radial tires.

Radial tires that a man can stake his reputation on.

March 2, 1981. Automotive News reporting on the first DMCs produced in Ireland.

DeLorean the GM critic, meanwhile, would also surface from time to time in the media, goading GM or the industry generally on one or more topics, a favorite being lack of innovation.

“Today’s transverse engine front-wheel-drive layouts,” he wrote in an April 1981 New York Times Op-Ed piece, “differ little from the British Layland mini [car] of 25 years ago…” In that same piece, he also suggested that a then-advertised GM efficiency feature was hardly cutting edge:

“I remember my first visit to the GM proving ground in October 1956. I rode in a 1956 Chevrolet with John Dolza, GM’s noted engine engineer. In this particular car, he had rigged the V-8 engine to run on all eight cylinders when maximum power was required and to cruise at highway speeds on only four cylinders to save fuel. That was 24 years ago. [emphasis added]. A Cadillac advertisement recently touted that a V-8 that accelerates on eight cylinders and cruises on four is 1981’s hottest feature…”

After a fair amount of hype and numerous false starts, the production of his $25,000 V-6-powered, stainless-steel, gull-winged DMC-12 finally began in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The snazzy car debuted in February 1981. In Los Angeles there was an unveiling of the car at the Biltmore Hotel on February 8th, 1981 with Johnny Carson, DeLorean, wife Cristina Ferrare and others.

One of the print ads that ran in 1982 for the DMC, using the theme, 'The DeLorean: Live The Dream'.

Some advertising for the car had also begun, using the theme, “The DeLorean: Live The Dream,” with ad copy hyping the car’s special features and noting the company’s 345 U.S. dealers would deliver a “superb standard of service.”

But the DMC’s introduction and early sales were not without glitches. There were some quality problems with the cars, though these for the most part were quickly addressed with a series of Quality Assurance Centers set up to correct problems before the cars went to the dealers. But entering the market in 1981 there was lower priced competition in the sports car class from Datsun, Mazda, and Porsche. The DMC, at $26,000, cost $8,000 more than a Chevy Corvette. There was also a recession during 1981-82. The hoped-for sales of 12,000 DMCs a year fell short by half.

DeLorean then faced a raft of DMC-related financial difficulties – not least of which was money owed against some very weak cash flow. He had sought a second round of financial help from the British Government without success (which some believe could have helped the company survive and was shortsighted by the Thatcher government). Other sources of financial help were limited, with earlier backers tapped out. And that’s when some believe John DeLorean ventured into desperate territory.

“Busted”

In the fall of 1982, DeLorean’s fortunes changed rather abruptly when he walked into the middle of an FBI drug sting in Los Angeles. There he was videotaped in an airport hotel meeting with 50 pounds of cocaine in a briefcase while saying, “it’s as good as gold,” a reference to the drug’s possible street value. This was DeLorean’s assumed move to help generate the large amounts of capital he needed to keep his car company afloat. But now he was busted; arrested and charged with conspiring to sell drugs. But the arrest was just the beginning of a very public prosecution and trial that would stretch over nearly 2 years.

Time, Nov. 1st, 1982: “DeLorean’s Shattered Dream.” Click for copy.

New York Daily News front page on DeLorean drug bust, Oct. 22, 1982.

Newsweek’s Nov. 1st, 1982 story on DeLorean: “From Cars to Cocaine.”

The bust was something of a media event, with Time, Newsweek and many newspapers giving the story top billing and front-page treatment. DeLorean’s trial following his arrest fueled the tabloids for months. There were stories in People magazine featuring DeLorean and wife Cristina. One unflattering profile of DeLorean appeared in a New York magazine cover story by Michael Daly titled, “The Real DeLorean Story.” Rather than the well-intentioned maverick businessman with tendencies toward ethical car production and righting callous corporate decision making, DeLorean, in this piece, was characterized as a ruthless operator and something of a con man, leaving a trail of unhappy business partners, self-interested investments, and litigation by various wronged parties. According to this piece, a range of creditors, former partners, and government agencies all had him in court for a variety of charged offenses, from breach of contract an unpaid attorney fees to racketeering and income tax evasion.

People, Nov. 29, 1982: Cristina “telling the kids about Dad.” Click for copy.

Nov. 1982. New York magazine cast DeLorean in unflattering story.

April 1984. People magazine at trial time asks: “Will He Get Off?”

Back at the main event, however – DeLorean’s drug trial and the government’s alleged conspiracy case against him – he had pled not guilty and his attorney mounted a defense that charged the government agents (who had first posed a legitimate investors) with entrapment and luring DeLorean into the drug deal. It was a strategy that won the day. DeLorean was acquitted of all charges in 1984 – “not so much because the jury believed him,” wrote David Halberstam in his book, The Reckoning, citing those who had followed the case, “but rather because ordinary Americans did not like the idea of their government setting up its citizens…”

Detroit Free Press headlines of August 17th, 1984 on “not guilty” verdict in DeLorean’s drug case. Second headline: “Tapes Were Dramatic, But Didn’t Sway Jurors.”

In addition, DeLorean’s wife, Cristina Ferrare, appeared to be a particularly strong and loyal companion throughout his drug ordeal and trial. She put her modeling career on hold to devote time to family and helping her husband raise money for his defense, including, reportedly, selling parts of her personal diary to People magazine for $110,000. And she was also an invaluable public relations asset throughout the trial. People’s Michael Ryan would later write of her in late December 1984, post verdict:

“…But the most telling argument for the defense was the woman who sat at [DeLorean’s] side most days, descended like a fairy princess from the ether of her high-fashion world to give the jury a lesson in wifely devotion. Surely Cristina Ferrare DeLorean — loyal, chic, and smart – would not be the moll of a drug peddler. Nobody ever said that in so many words, but it was a question the jury had to ponder every time the faithful wife appeared in the courtroom. The government said that DeLorean acted out of greed; his lawyers said he acted out of fear, to protect his family from drug dealers. The jury, weighing the model of matrimonial devotion against the testimony of often bumbling government operatives, decided that evil was not in the mind of John DeLorean.”

By this time, the British Government had closed down DeLorean’s DMC plant in Ireland in 1983, which still had several hundred cars in stock and others on the production line. He and his company, meanwhile, would become ensnared in business-related litigation for years thereafter. In the end, fewer than 10,000 DMC cars were produced. But many of those cars have had an amazing second life, with more than 6,000 in fact still in use today, testament to their “no rust” billing. More on that in a moment.

Poster for “Back to The Future,” now a three-film, $1 billion franchise with a universe of related products. Click for DVD.

Back To The Future

One happy development for DeLorean’s legal troubles and his legacy, however, came in 1985, with the Hollywood film, Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as the slightly unhinged but lovable Doc Brown. The film used the DMC-12 as one of its main characters: the time-travelling machine aiding Marty and Doc in their adventures.

In fact, there were three Back to the Future films (1985, 1989, and 1990) and the then-defunct DeLorean DMC-12 car received a huge popularity boost throughout the world. The three films have grossed nearly $1 billion to date, and DeLorean through the 1980s and 1990s collected millions in licensing fees from all three, plus a piece of the action from a related animated television series, toys, games, and other Back to the Future paraphernalia.

The income generated by the DMC’s starring role in the Back to the Future franchise helped to keep DeLorean afloat as creditors, partners, and government agencies pursued him for various damages, taxes, and fees. The DMC, meanwhile, lives on.

In 1995, Liverpool-born mechanic and business entrepreneur, Stephen Wynne, started a separate company using the “DeLorean Motor Company” name. He would also acquire the remaining parts inventory (in fact, quite substantial and enough to build a couple hundred new DMCs) and the “DMC” logo trademark. Now based in the Houston, Texas area, and known informally as “ DMC Texas”, this company has five franchised dealers in Florida, Illinois, California, Washington and the Netherlands helping to service existing DMCs, of which some 6,000 are believed to be still in operation. And as of January 2016, this company was also building new DMCs in limited numbers, some priced around $100,000. The DMC has also become something of a car-collectors favorite, with a number of clubs and/or fan websites devoted to the car and its history.

“De Lorean: Stainless Steel Illusion,” by John Lamm, published, April 1983. Click for book.

Hillel Levin’s book, “John DeLorean: The Maverick Mogul,” published in October 1983. Click for book.

“Dream Maker: The Rise and Fall of John Z. DeLorean,” Fallon & Srodes, 1985. Click for book.

Tougher Times

John DeLorean, meanwhile, had a tougher life following his failed car effort and his battles with the government. He divorced again in 1985, married for a fourth time, and led a much quieter life through the 1990s. Still, he was seen occasionally in media photos, attending social events. However, by 1999, after fighting some 40 court cases related to his failed car company, he filed for bankruptcy. Among assets and personal property sold were his 1978 Yankees World Series ring (he held a minority stake in the team) and his 434-acre estate in Bedminster, New Jersey. The estate was purchased by Donald Trump for part of a golf course.

John DeLorean did not, however, let go of his new car ideas. In May 1999, a wire story noted he had another new car in the works – this one built with structural composite that could go zero-to-60 mph in 3.2 seconds and would cost $18,000. “Cars are in my blood,” he said at that time, “they’re really the only thing I’ve ever worked at.” But he never returned to the industry. In March 2005, John DeLorean died after a stroke. He was 80 years old. Still, to this day, DeLorean remains an intriguing figure for journalists and auto historians. At least half a dozen books have been written about him, along with several TV and film documentaries. In 2017, a new Hollywood film on DeLorean was reported to be in the works, and there is also a DeLorean Museum located in Humble, Texas.

“…Heart of a Hippie”?

Charles Madigan, writing a profile of DeLorean for the Chicago Tribune in October 1982 at the news of his drug arrest, offered the following sketch:

John Z. DeLorean was a man tailor-made for success, a bold and brilliant engineer with a plan to ride to glory in a stainless steel sports car.

He was a Henry Ford with some rock ‘n roll mixed in. He was fireworks instead of stuffiness. He built cars and talked about the ethics of industrial America. He became a media favorite.

It was almost too good to be true, a man with the brains of a capitalist and the heart of a hippie, the kind of character who would walk away from one of the most powerful positions in American industry to “do his own thing.”…

Dan Neil, writing a 2005 retrospective on the DeLorean/ GM era in the Los Angles Times, suggested that GM and DeLorean needed each other, and implied that if each side had come half way in working with each other, perhaps the historic outcome would have been different:

What if DeLorean and GM had reconciled?

It certainly seems now they needed each other. GM needed the bold strokes of an unconventional thinker such as DeLorean. He needed the coat-and-tie discipline of the 14th floor. If the collapse of the DeLorean Motor Co. proves anything, it’s that the bean-counters have their place.

With the DMC-12, DeLorean had in mind an “ethical sports car”: a car that would be fun to drive, practical, safe, offer good fuel efficiency and value… And — as the stainless steel body suggests — he wanted it to last a long time. He argued that the endless churn of automotive obsolescence was a waste of money and resources.

In this respect, DeLorean was one of the rare Detroit auto executives who — along with futurists such as Buckminster Fuller and Norman Bel Geddes — saw the automobile as part of a progressive vision of the world, where transportation was framed by social and environmental impera-tives….

“Framing John DeLorean,” a 2019 American documentary film, stars Alec Baldwin as DeLorean. Click for film.

Unfortunately, that progressive vision of transportation has not yet reached fulfillment, and is certainly not apparent in most of what General Motors turns out today, or for that matter, the rest of the automobile industry either.

As for the DeLorean saga, on one level, it illustrates the difficulty in trying to make modest change in an automobile culture that – with all its moving parts, resource requirements, urban congestion, pollution, wastes, and parallel consumption – is now well into its second century of roiling the planet and most major cities.

For additional stories on General Motors at this website see, for example: “Dinah Shore & Chevrolet”, “Smog Conspiracy: DOJ vs. Detroit Automakers,” and “G.M. & Ralph Nader.” See also the “Business & Society” and “Environmental History” topics pages for stories in those categories.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 15 June 2017
Last Update: 3 August 2021
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “The DeLorean Saga: Car Guy, 1960s-1980s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 15, 2017.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

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Dan Jedlicka, “Ambitious DeLorean Planning A Comeback,” Chicago Sun-Times, Business, Tuesday, October 3, 2000, p. 48.

Lucy Kaylin, “Wings of Desire. After a Drug Arrest and Bankruptcy, 75 Year-Old Maverick John DeLorean Wants to Build A New Car For You,” GQ (Gentleman’s Quarterly), September 2000, pp. 320-324.

“John DeLorean: This Automotive Visionary Took A Detour,” People, August 2001, p. 122.

Al Rothenberg, “Back To The Future: GM is Reviving The GTO and Architect John DeLorean Has Plenty To Say About It and The Carmaker,” Chicago Tribune, Cars Section, June 6, 2002, p. D-1.

Dan Neil, “Detroit’s “Kid Notorious’ Was Creative Force Behind The GTO; John Z. DeLorean Put the Car on the Map by Being in Touch with All Things Young,” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2003.

“DeLorean: Winging Its Way Home, Call it Nostalgia, But Motor Buffs in The UK Are Now Buying A Car With A Bad Reputation and Fantastic Look, ” UK Metro, March 18, 2004, p. 15.

Dan Neil, “DeLorean: A Vision Clouded by Vanity. The Automaker Lived Fast and His Burnished Dream Died Young, The Icon of an Age of Excess,” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 2005.

Edward Lapham, “John DeLorean: Maverick Exec Was Talented, Devious — and Never Dull
Rising Star Ruffled Feathers at GM, Made Headlines with Failed Sports Car Venture and Scandals,” Automotive News, September 14, 2008.

Edward Lapham, “DeLorean Didn’t Fit the GM Mold; Talented, Quirky Exec Played by His Own Rules, Ruffled Corporate Feathers Along the Way,” Automotive News, October 31, 2011.

Paul Ingrassia, Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars, Simon and Schuster, 2012, 395 pp. (click for copy).

Richard Retyi, “The Stainless Steel Life of Playboy Carmaker John Z. DeLorean; Inventor of the GTO. Father of the DeLorean. Lover. Huckster. Genius,” Road & Track, March 17, 2014.

Wallace Wyss, “Unsung Heroes – The Story of John DeLorean,” CarBuilderIndex.com, June 16, 2015.

Wallace Wyss, “The Legend of Long Tall John,” CarBuilderIndex.com, October 22, 2015.

“DeLorean Books & Publications,” DeLorean Directory.com.

Glenn Patterson, “John DeLorean: A Visionary or a Charlatan? Creator of ‘Back to the Future’ Car and His Belfast Factory Were Sources of Controversy,” Irish Times, Friday, January 8, 2016.

Lily Rothman, “The Short, Chaotic History of the DeLorean, Time, January 21, 2016.

“DeLorean Literature /DeLorean Magazines,” SpecialTauto.com.

2020 documentary film, DeLorean: Living the Dream (1hr, 21 min). Click for film.
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Teaser Tag: Coal Mining History

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Giant Shovel on I-70”
Ohio Strip Mine Fight: 1973

May 31, 2017 J.D.

Colossal earth-moving machines became symbols in the 1960s-1970s environmental battles over surface coal mining, also known as “strip mining.” These machines – some capable of scooping two-to-three Greyhound bus-size equivalents of earth with each bite – laid waste to tens of thousands of acres as they uncovered near-surface coal to feed electric power plants. In 1972-73, a trio of these machines, then chewing through southeastern Ohio, became involved in a controversial proposal: to cross, and temporarily shut down, a major interstate highway to get to the coal on the other side. The event became a symbolic and actual “line-in-the-sand” confrontation between those opposed to strip mining and those who saw it as vital for energy, jobs, and local economies.

The February 1973 issue of Smithsonian magazine ran a dramatic shot of “The GEM of Egypt” in operation in the Egypt Valley of Ohio, just north of I-70, as the magazine featured a story on “the need for energy vs. strip mining.” Note size of the shovel’s bucket relative to the vehicles on the road below. Photo, Arthur Sirdofsky.

There were three of the giant machines at issue: The Tiger, The Mountaineer, and The GEM of Egypt. All three were then in the service of the Hanna Coal Company, which by 1970, had been strip mining in Ohio for decades and was then a division of the much larger Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company, later known as “Consol,” itself then owned by Continental Oil. More on Hanna/Consol and the big machines in a moment, first some background on Ohio’s coal.

Ohio’s Coal

Various coalfields in the tri-state OH-PA-WV area are shown in color, overlaying county boundaries – a region where coal has been mined for decades in the Appalachian Coal Basin.

Coal is found in 32 counties in Ohio, though primarily in the southeastern part of the state which is located on the northwestern edge of the Appalachian Coal Basin, one of the largest coalfields in the U.S.

Coal has been mined in Ohio since the early 1800s, initially with crude mining techniques working surface outcroppings, to more sophisticated mechanized technologies that evolved following WWI and WWII. Most of the mining in Ohio through the 1930s was in deep mines or shaft mines that bore into mountainsides. Surface mining existed as well, but it wasn’t until the big shovels came on in the 1940s and 1950s that strip mining began to take a larger portion of the state’s annual coal production.

Generally it is economic to strip mine when there is a 20:1 ratio of overburden-to-coal seam, meaning, for example that a three-foot coal seam can be surface mined economically when the overburden is up to 60 feet. However, at some surface mines in Ohio, highwalls of up to 200 feet high remain where five-foot-coal seams have been extracted. And in these cases, the size and power of the giant shovels and draglines used in those areas made that level of extraction possible.

The Big Shovels

The smallest of Hanna Coal Company’s earth movers involved in the I-70 controversy, The Tiger, was among the company’s first big shovels, built in the early 1940s. But even for that “small” shovel, mining historians noted that it took about 63 trainloads to ship its parts from Marion, Ohio to Hanna’s Georgetown coal complex south of Cadiz, Ohio in Harrison County, where it was assembled. The shipping and assembly of the shovel began in 1943, and by the following year, The Tiger was ready to begin digging. At the time, it was considered to be the world’s largest shovel, used to help mine coal for the steel mills during WWII. The photo below shows a portion of The Tiger in 1957 near Cadiz, Ohio.

The Tiger shown during a 1950s field tour. This shovel first began its work in Harrison County, Ohio in 1944, moving on to other coal fields in Ohio through the 1970s.

The Hanna Coal Company, meanwhile, was quite an Ohio industrial power, evolved initially from Rhodes & Co., a firm in the 1840s that mined coal in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley area. Hanna expanded into iron ore mining in the Lake Superior region in the mid-1860s, establishing roots in the steel industry. Some years later, after considerable growth over the decades, and various business transactions, stock trades, mergers, and restructurings, including the sale of its iron and steel interests, Hanna, by 1945-46, became part of what was then called the Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company (Pitt-Consol). In this deal, Hanna brought to Consol its eastern Ohio coal properties, which then accounted for about 20 percent of Ohio’s production. A few years later, Pitt-Consol acquired more Hanna coal lands in Ohio’s Harrison, Belmont and Jefferson counties. But Hanna, as a Consolidation company, continued to operate in these areas under its name.

Undated photo (probably circa 1950s) of a smaller Bucyrus-Erie electric shovel loading a 55-ton Euclid truck at one of Hanna's coal mines. The loaded coal would then go to Hanna’s Georgetown prep plant for cleaning and shipping.

Hanna became one of the major players in the Eastern and Southeastern Ohio coalfields for many years. By the 1950s at Duncanwood, Ohio, near Cadiz in Harrison County, Hanna had a complex of offices and shop buildings, and also a major coal processing center at its giant Georgetown complex of coal mines, tipples, and railroads. The company’s coal cleaning operations there, which opened in 1951, was then one of the largest preparation plants in the world, and could process 1,275 tons/hour – which was quite formidable in the 1950’s. Hanna was also one of the first to use a coal slurry pipeline to transport coal over a long distance. In 1956 the company built a 10-inch, 108-mile-long pipeline that linked the Hanna’s Georgetown prep plant near Cadiz with the Cleveland Electric Company’s Eastlake Generating Station in Cleveland. Crushed coal was mixed with water at a Hanna plant and the slurry mixture then pumped through the line to Cleveland. Between 1957 and 1963, this pipeline supplied about six million tons of coal to Cleveland Electric.

Headlines from July 1966 when Hanna made a big investment in a nearby West Virginia deep mine.

Hanna made front-page news whenever it was inovled in a new coal investment. On June 10, 1966, for example, the company made headlines in the Steubenville Herald-Star of Steubenville, Ohio, for its plans at the Shoemaker Mine in the nearby West Virginia panhandle south of Wheeling. Just across the Ohio River there, at Benwood, West Virginia, a deep mine and related facilities were being planned. In the newspaper, an aerial photo on the front page showed the complex of coal haulage roads and preparation facilities to service the deep mine, which also included rail transport from the mine, conveyor system, and coal crushing and coal washing.

At its deep mine locations, especially in earlier years, Hanna built company housing for its miners, such as those built for workers at the Dunglen mine at Newtown, Ohio. It also operated company stores – those invoked generally by the Tennessee Ernie Ford song, “Sixteen Tons.” Two of Hanna’s stores were those named Dillonvale and Lafferty, and another one was located at Willow Grove, Ohio. First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, had visited Hanna’s Willow Grove deep mine in April 1935. Below is an enlarged map of several Ohio counties where Hanna Coal Company mines and machines exploited the Pittsburgh No. 8 Coalfield for many years.

Map showing the Pittsburgh No. 8 Coalfield, running beneath Southeastern Ohio counties where Hanna Coal Co and others operated strip and deep mines and other facilities for decades. Source: CoalCampUSA.com

Hanna’s Ohio strip mining, meanwhile, was aided through the 1950s by another of the big machines, The Mountaineer, built by the Marion Co. The Mountaineer was among the first of the big “super strippers.” This colossus was also assembled in pieces, near Cadiz, Ohio, a build that began in June 1955. The big shovel didn’t start digging until January 30, 1956. The Mountaineer had a 65-cubic-yard dipper, stood 16 stories tall, with a 150 foot tall boom. Its shovel could hold a 100-ton payload. The Mountaineer was the first shovel to have a built-in elevator for the crew to reach the operating controls, in this case, located in dual cabs at the front of the machine, one on each side.

The Mountaineer shovel, from a Life magazine photo in the 1950s, shows the colossal size of this earth mover relative to nearby vehicles, locomotive, and group of workmen.

The GEM of Egypt (“GEM,” an acronym for “Giant Earth Mover” or “Giant Excavating Machine”), the largest of the three shovels in Hanna’s employ, went into service in January 1967 (There was also a fourth giant shovel that Hanna used, The Silver Spade, sometimes called the “sister” to The Gem of Egypt, also used in Ohio, but not involved in the I-70 crossing. The Spade in 1965 had worked at Hanna’s Georgetown Mine near Cadiz, among other places, active through 2008). The Gem of Egypt was 20 stories tall and weighed 7,000 tons. It had a 170-foot boom and a 130 cubic yard bucket. It first went to work at the opening of the Egypt Valley mine in January 1967.

Photo of The Gem of Egypt shovel, believed to be around the time it began operating in the Egypt Valley of Ohio in the late 1960s. Note the size of the machine relative to the people standing near its shovel and around its base.

Hanna invited the public to attend the grand opening of the Egypt Valley Mine in late January 1967. An estimated 25,000 people traveled to the site, many from Ohio cities such as Cleveland, Akron, and Canton, as well as those from neighboring states. The centerpiece of the tour was the colossal GEM of Egypt, which towered over the visitor’s cars parked near it that day. The GEM, in fact, was capable of holding the equivalent of at least two Greyhound buses in its bucket. The giant earth mover was slated to operate in Hanna’s 96,000-acre Egypt Valley surface mine in Belmont County. Production there was expected to average 20,000 tons a day until the vein ran out, which the company then forecast to last for the next 30 to 40 years.

January 1967 “open house” at Hanna Coal Co’s Egypt Valley surface mine, unveiling the GEM of Egypt shovel.

Hanna also used the 1967 mine-opening event to public relations advantage, offering hand-out literature for the public that touted the virtues of reclamation and post-mining uses, some of which bordered on the far-fetched, such as suggesting spoil piles could be used for ski slopes. The reality was that this mine, and others that had preceded it, were ripping through farmland, and despite laws on the books, leaving in their wake, highwalls, spoil piles, acid mine drainage, damaged homes, silted streams and polluted water supplies.

1940s-1960s

Weak Ohio Laws

The state of Ohio has not had a happy environmental history with strip mining; and to this day, its ravages are still taking a toll. Although Ohio was one of the earliest states to adopt a strip mining law in 1947-48, that law had very little impact in terms of environmental protection or land reclamation. As documented in Chad Montrie’s book, To Save The Land and People, Ohio farmers were among the first to rail against the ravages of strip mining.“We believe that strip mining is a menace to agriculture and the very life of our county, unless some control measure is taken.”
-Morgan County Grange, 1947 Farm groups such as the Grange and Farm Bureau, concerned about losing good farmland to the strippers, helped pass the Ohio law in 1947. Wrote one member of the Morgan County Grange in 1947 in support of Ohio’s first strip mine law: “We believe that strip mining is a menace to agriculture and the very life of our county, unless some control measure is taken.” A member of the Western Tuscarawas Game Association, also supporting the legislation that became law, noted: “Strip mines must level their spoil banks and the land put in a tillable condition.” But despite the 1947 law, that wasn’t happening, and didn’t happen. Essentially, there was no reclamation.

1940 post card from the Cadiz News Agency, with four photos by E.C. Kropp Co., showing coal mining scenes near Cadiz, Ohio, Harrison County with caption: “Scenes From Cadiz, Ohio. Where They Destroy Good Farms to Get The Coal.” Some stripping shovels at that time were mounted on rails and/or temporary rail lines & hopper cars serviced the mining area.

By 1949, the Grange and Farm Bureau were back in the legislature seeking strengthening amendments to the law. Still, little changed. In 1953, the Conservation Committee of the Ohio Grange noted that “land in the strip mining areas of Ohio [is] left in such condition that it is practically worthless.” By 1965, the Grange and Farm Bureau again lobbied the Ohio General Assembly for tougher strip mine regulations, but only minor changes resulted.“Land in the strip mining areas of Ohio [is] left in such condition that it is practically worthless.”
-Ohio Grange, 1953 Some of the adopted language now called on coal operators to grade spoil banks “so as to reduce the peaks thereof …to a gently rolling, sloping or terraced topography, as may be appropriate, which grading shall be done in such as way as will minimize erosion due to rainfall, [and] break up long uninterrupted slopes.” Large boulders were also to be removed and acid mine drainage and stream siltation on adjacent lands prevented, “if possible.” Needless to say, such language wasn’t exactly iron clad. Farm organizations by then were filing reports of strip mine siltation and clay washing onto adjacent lands in depths of up to two feet. They called on legislators to deny strippers their license when they damaged neighboring lands. But that didn’t happen either. Further reform wouldn’t come until 1972, covered later below.

During the late 1960s, meanwhile, The GEM of Egypt was chewing through Ohio farm country at a rate of 200 tons per bite, continuing to work through the Egypt Valley of Harrison and Belmont counties where Hanna held thousands of acres of land with strippable coal. The GEM gradually worked its way to within sight of the interstate highway, I-70, as it dug through the hills just north of the highway. Motorists traveling on I-70 would sometimes stop to marvel at the giant shovel while it did its handwork.

The Gem of Egypt working its way through the Egypt Valley strip mine of Ohio in the late 1960s early 1970s. The giant machine is removing the earth over the coal seam on the right, and then, swinging its boom and loaded shovel left, depositing the “overburden” on the spoil banks. A tiny vehicle mid-photo appears to be riding on a road that is the unearthed coal seam. At right, atop the hillside being mined, is a line of powdered-white blasting holes where dynamite will be used to loosen the “overburden” the giant shovel will continue to remove.

Hanna, at this point, had new plans for The Gem of Egypt. Hanna wanted to use the machine ten miles south, to begin stripping coal lands near Barnesville, in Belmont County. Barnesville then had a population of 4,300. But in order to move the big machine to that location, it would have to cross, and temporarily shut down, a major interstate highway, I-70. While Hanna and other coal companies had worked their will with local and state roads – sometimes taking them over completely for hauling coal, or taking them out of service – a federal interstate highway was in something of a different league. And this particular east-west segment – running between Wheeling, West Virginia and Columbus, Ohio – would become heavily traveled.

The I-70 Deal

In the 1950s and 1960s, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway system was taking form across the U.S., one of the segments to be built in Ohio was the East-West running Interstate I-70. This highway would cut across Southeastern Ohio’s coalfields, including counties in the vicinity where Hanna and others were operating. Hanna, in fact, had acquired some 12,000 to 13,000 acres of coal lands in the area prior to the laying of the I-70 route. So when the Federal and state governments started planning for I-70, Hanna was one of the parties at the table– and by that time Hanna was part of Consolidated Coal Co., or Consol.

Map showing I-70 running through a portion of S. E. Ohio near the town of Barnesville, where strip mining was headed in 1973.

In the 1960s, the State of Ohio attempted to negotiate with Hanna/Consol for the necessary right-of-way for that part of I-70 which divided the Egypt Valley coalfield.

Consol claimed $8-to-$10 million in damages for the dividing of its coal field by the highway. However Ohio agreed to construct two underpasses at I-70 to permit Consol’s coal trucks to travel under the highway. The state also agreed to permit Consol to cross over the surface of the I-70 highway with mining equipment 10 times during a period of 40 years. The U.S. Secretary of Transportation also approved this agreement in early September 1964.

By 1968, Interstate highway I-70 was built, with about 27 miles traversing Belmont County, bisecting the coal lands held by Hanna/Consol. During this time, Hanna’s Gem of Egypt and the strip mining of the Egypt Valley site had proceeded, moving closer and closer to the Interstate.

1960s-1970s

New Activists

Through 1967, the Ohio farm groups continued to seek stricter strip mine enforcement in the state legislature, though with little success. By this time, however, new public environmental awareness was rising across the nation and in Ohio, where the Cuyahoga River had caught on fire from pollution in June 1969, raising the state’s environmental profile. New activists were entering the strip mine fight there as well, and throughout the region. A 1970 strip mining symposium held in Cadiz, Ohio drew 400 attendees, including many students, but with sponsors such as the Ohio Conservation Foundation, state chapter of the Sierra Club, the Ohio Audubon Council, and others. By late December 1970, some local members of the United Steelworkers Union and the Belmont County AFL-CIO, along with others from Ohio State University’s Marion extension campus, formed an organization called Citizens Concerned About Strip Mining. This group planned to lobby the Ohio legislature for strip mine reforms, and in the summer of 1971, sponsored a meeting that drew prominent strip mining opponents from nearby states, including a regional representative of the Sierra Club.

“The Ravaged Earth”
NBC-TV: Cleveland
1969

Title screen for “The Ravaged Earth” TV program pro-duced by WKYC-TV, Cleveland, 1969. Click for film.

In Ohio and across the nation during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the media began to play an important role in bringing environmental issues to the attention of the general public.

In Cleveland, a small group of TV producers and writers at NBC’s WKYC-TV station, produced a 1969 documentary that focused in part on strip mining in Ohio’s Perry County and the environmental ruin it was causing there. The film was part of WKYC’s Montage series of documentary programs on local and regional subjects that aired in Cleveland from 1965 to 1978. The title of the strip mine program was “The Ravaged Earth.” Linda Sugarman, one of the associate producers at the time, wrote a July 31, 1969 memo, statement of need, and description of the planned program, to be broadcast in late September 1969:

For twenty five years giant steamshovels have been clawing their way across the beautiful hills of Southern Ohio, unearthing shallow veins of coal and leaving a scene of utter devastation. The strip mines, which are dug instead of deep mines when the coal is close to the surface, bring about in their wake a stark, and almost worthless wasteland of steep spoil banks whose overturned earth is so acidic weeds can barely grow on it. Rivers and streams become red with sulfuric acid pollution. Public heath hazards are created by uncontrolled clouds of coal dust and carbon monoxide fumes. Property damage, caused by blasting goes uncompensated. Many of the mining interests seem to be in almost total disregard of the local laws, property rights, safety, and health of the nearby residents.

Although a few of the coal companies attempt to renew and reclaim the land they have strip mined, the ones who have made so much damage seem to be able to continue their activities without much opposition. Since the coal companies bring in most of the income in many of these counties, most public officials seem hesitant to prosecute or even confront them. Residents of the area who depend directly or indirectly upon the mines also seem hesitant to complain about the coal companies’ actions…

Montage will talk to these conservationists, as well as local citizens, elected officials, and mine representatives. The film will also show the damaged as well as the reclaimed areas of Southern Ohio.

Screen shot from “The Ravaged Earth” of light green automobile (center) moving through unreclaimed strip-mined area with remaining highwall, spoil debris, and rugged terrain.

The program included extensive footage of strip-mined lands, eroded hillsides, miles of highwalls, polluted run-off, closed and detoured local roads, and more (especially in Perry County, Ohio). Some mining operations of the Ohio Power Company were shown, featuring its gigantic dragline, “Big Muskie.” A Peabody Coal Co. roadside billboard was also shown with its boastful “Operation Green Earth” headline and wildlife mural, as the camera slowly panned across an adjacent and continuous view of poorly-reclaimed spoil piles and strip-mined lands. One official interviewed during the program explained that problems such as the acidic run-off and lack of successful reclamation, resulted from “turning the land upside down” and not saving and segregating topsoil during the mining process so it could be used in reclamation. Other officials were also interviewed during the program – from Perry County Planning Commissioner, James Brown, to former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall.

In fact, Udall, who served as Interior Secretary from 1961-1969, made extensive comment during the program. Below are excerpts from his remarks and voice-overs during that program:

Stewart Udall, as he appeared in the 1969 TV report, “The Ravaged Earth.”

“…Of course, the whole history of coal mining in this country is a rather sad story, of lack of any control or regulation… And lack of any conscience on the part of the industry, until very recently. And as someone said, in those parts of the country that were fortunate to have coal, when you look at the long haul, coal has been a curse.” [here Udall may have been referring to Harry Caudill].

“Coal as an extractive industry, like all extractive industries, once the mineral or product is mined, the values are gone, and the industry usually walks away and you’re confronted then with the long haul with what people will do with what is left…”

“…We calculated once in a strip mine study we made about two years ago what the cost would be of restoring all the stripped areas in the United States. As I recall it was a very big cost, something like $2 billion…And it’s also an uneconomic cost because this should have been done at the time the coal was mined and should have been charged as part of the cost of the mining… So I fear this [reclamation] will have a very low priority, that it will not be done in the near future, and the result is that we’re going to be denied the use and benefit of these lands for recreation,“…[T]here’s no damage to the land that is more permanent, and really more devastating, than what you see in the worst strip mining areas of the United States…”
– Stewart Udall, 1969 as watershed lands, and for the contribution that they can make to the country…

“…I’ve probably seen as much of this nation from a helicopter in the last 6 or 8 years as anybody – and that’s the best way to see it.. Because you see the beauty, you see the scars, you see the damage. And of course, there’s no damage to the land that is more permanent, and really more devastating, than what you see in the worst strip mining areas of the United States… The reason this is damaging is that if action is not taken to restore these stripped areas, they’re left there; they can’t revegetate themselves — at least it will take many, many tens or hundreds of years for anything to occur… And that these become sort of permanent, man-made wastelands. …We have too many people; we have too many things we need to do with our land; too much need for outdoor recreation and playgrounds…We can’t afford to have wastelands created by man in this country. And this is the reason all of us have to regret the mistakes of the past and we have to determine that we’re not going to repeat those mistakes now.”

All in all, WKYC-TV’s “The Ravaged Earth” was one of the first of its kind on strip mining, and helped educate the public about what was happening in the coalfields.

In the Ohio academic community, meanwhile, Arnold Reitze, from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, wrote a 1971 law review article entitled, “Old King Coal and the Merry Rapists of Appalachia,” in which he focused on some of strip mining’s effects in the Egypt Valley where Hanna was mining. Reitze found that in Belmont County, some 200,000 of the county’s 346,000 total acres had been sold, leased, or optioned to coal interests. “That beautiful county,” he wrote, “like scores of others, seems destined to become a wasteland of silted, acid waters, barren land, and patches of crown vetch, all legally reclaimed.”New activists and a new governor were changing Ohio’s strip mine politics. Another professor who became involved was Dr. Theodore “Ted” Voneida, a professor of neurobiology also at Case Western. Voneida and his wife had built a cottage on Piedmont Lake in the Egypt Valley in the 1960s and soon began to see first hand the results of strip mining in that area. Voneida didn’t like what he saw, and was amazed at what the strippers were doing to the land and communities. He began gathering documentation of strip mining’s impacts in the area – measuring water pollution, taking photographs, and generally chronicling what was going on there. He also succeeded in getting The Plain Dealer newspaper of Cleveland, the Akron Beacon Journal, and others news outlets interested in the strip mining story. By the early 1970s, Voneida would be quoted in newspaper stories on strip mining’s harmful effects, sometimes opposite Hanna Coal’s CEO, Ralph Hatch.

New political developments in Ohio also brought more attention to the lack of effective strip mine reclamation. John J. Gilligan, a democrat from Cincinnati who had served in the U.S. Congress for one term in 1965-1967 and had run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, was elected Ohio’s Governor in November 1970 (Gilligan was also the father of Kathleen Sebelius, who would later serve as Governor of Kansas and U,S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama Adminstration). Governor Gilligan took on strip mining as one of his top priorities, and he specifically backed a bill in the legislature that would bring tougher reclamation standards to Ohio’s coalfields.

Hanna Coal, meanwhile, made plans for mining south of I-70 and sought to exercise its highway crossing agreement with Ohio and the federal government. However, by late 1970, Hanna, and strip mining in Ohio, were getting some unwanted national attention, now cast in an Appalachian regional and national context over how best to deal with surface coal mining. And Hanna’s hulking machines were part of the theater – and the damage being done.

Ohio in Spotlight

On December 15, 1970, Ben Franklin, a reporter with The New York Times, did a story on strip mining that his editors ran on the front page with a photo of a ravaged Ohio strip mine scene. “Strip-Mining Boom Leaves Wasteland in Its Wake,” was the headline. Franklin filed his story from St. Clairsville, Ohio. And while the story covered strip mining nationally, it featured particular problems in Belmont County, where Hanna was then operating day and night.

Dec 15, 1970: Front-page story in the New York Times with photo of strip mine damage in Belmont County, Ohio and story that prominently featured Ohio strip mining, environmental issues there, and the Hanna Coal Company.

In his story, Franklin described the strip mining problem in Ohio as follows:

…This rolling, unfarmed farm land, just west of the Ohio River, is being chewed into billions of tons of rocky rubble by strip mining for coal. More than five billion tons of it, long considered low-grade fuel too marginal for mass mining, lies less than 100 feet from the sur face in eastern Ohio, and a boom is on to recover it.

It is bringing an upheaval of terrain unmatched since the glaciers of the last Ice Age scoured these hills and valleys as far south as Cincinnati, compacting thick bituminous coal beds that have aged 300 million years…

“They’re turning this beau-tiful place into a desert…”
– U.S. Rep., Wayne L. Hays (D-OH)

Strip mining—a cheaper, quicker and more efficient method than digging under ground—now produces more than 35 per cent of the nation’s annual coal output…

…To lay bare the coal, farms, barns, silos, houses, churches and roads are being dynamited, scooped up by mammoth power shovels that tower 12 stories high, and piled in giant windrows of strip mine spoil banks.

Scores of aggrieved persons here have lost well water, have suffered sleepless nights from blasting, or have seen timbered acreage at their property lines turned into the 100-foot-deep pits of strip mines.

In his story, Franklin also quoted U.S. Congressman Wayne L. Hays, an Ohio Democrat who then lived in Flushing, Ohio, a Belmont County town which Franklin described as “isolated on three sides by abandoned strip mine highwalls, the sheer, quarry-like cliffs where the strip mine excavation stopped.” Congressman Hayes, cited in Franklin’s story, had this to say: “They’re turning this beautiful place into a desert … They’ll take anything that’s black and will burn… It costs them more to really reclaim this land than the land is worth when they’re finished. No one has figured out what will happen to us here when they’re through, but I can tell you it isn’t going to be pretty.”

The GEM of Egypt at work in Ohio, circa 1960s-1970s, also illustrates the problem of “highwalls” – the sheer-face cliffs, seen here on the right – often left as unreclaimed “final cuts” when the mining was finished.

During 1970, environmental concerns continued to rise across the nation. On December 20th that year, President Richard Nixon established the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the strip mine fight, just after Christmas 1970, West Virginia’s Secretary of State, Democrat John D. “Jay” Rockefeller announced that he would seek a ban on the surface mining of coal in West Virginia, with bills to that end introduced in the legislature in late January 1971. At the federal level too, by July 1971, West Virginia’s Congressman, Democrat Ken Heckler, had introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to ban surface coal mining. The prohibition efforts, however, at state and federal levels, would prove to be uphill fights.

A New York Times Op-Ed by Belmont County, Ohio resident brought further attention to the impact of strip mining on Ohio’s land and small towns.

Ohio coal mining, meanwhile, continued to receive more national attention as a local Belmont County resident and former newspaper man named Doral Chenoweth wrote a January 1972 Op-Ed piece on that topic in the New York Times. The title line used for the piece was, “Say Good-by to Hendrysburg,” a small town then in the cross hairs of Hanna’s strip mining.

As the article contended, Hendrysburg would be ruined as a viable small town given what the strippers were doing to depopulate the area, having bought out many landowners. A pull quote used in the piece noted: “All the farms started going in 1967 when the big shovels were moved in.”

Barely a town by that point, Hendrysburg had been badgered day and night for several years by the hulking operations of The GEM of Egypt. Blasting and digging to get at the coal — as well as 100-foot-deep excavations made around and near the town — had unnerved residents. Wells were disrupted in some places. And since the shovel worked around the clock with lights, the town’s homes were sometimes “bathed in an eerie electric glow,” as one reporter described it.

Florence Bethel, a Hendrysburg resident who worked as a telephone operator, had first-hand experience with The GEM of Egypt. She later recounted her tale to reporter George Vescy of the New York Times:

“It started around Christmas of 1969. You could feel the blasting three and a half miles away. I had a brand new sealed well, 53 feet deep. The water got so muddy, it clogged the valves. Then my basement walls cracked. …I was working nights and trying to stay in college. I couldn’t sleep during the day. I called them up and asked them to take is easy, but it just got worse. Then my health started to go. I had a 3.2 average but it dropped to D’s and F’s. I had to drop out….” Bethel sued Hanna for $107,500 and damages and moved to a mobile home south of Barnesville.

In February 1972, a two-day strip mining conference at Zanesville, Ohio attracted about 100 activists. Also that month, on February 26th, the Buffalo Creek disaster in West Virginia occurred. In the upper reaches of the Buffalo Creek watershed in Logan County, West Virginia, a series of large coal slurry waste gop impoundments burst after heavy rains, releasing a tidal wave of coal waste water on more than a dozen downstream communities. More than 125 people were killed, with at least 1,000 more injured and 4,000 left homeless. Upstream strip mining and mine wastes were implicated as contributing factors.

New Law

In March 1972, Ohio Governor John Gilligan, addressing the state legislature in opening his administration, listed strip mining legislation as among his priorities. As the new Ohio state strip mine bill was being considered in early 1972, among those coming to testify was Mrs. Alice J. Grossniklaus, of Holmes County, Ohio. Mrs. Grossniklaus had a cheese store near Wilmot, Ohio that she had run since 1932.“…They’d call me at 2 or 3 a. m. and tell me that their cupboard doors were opening and closing from the blasting, flower pots were falling off the walls, and that the walls were cracking…” In the early 1960s, she had her first experienced strip mining on about 1.000 acres of land in nearby Tuscarawas County. She would explain that the mining was driving some of the neighbors crazy. “They’d call me at 2 or 3 a. m. and tell me that their cupboard doors were opening and closing from the blasting, flower pots were falling off the walls, and that the walls were cracking. ‘What can we do, they would ask.’ I told them to call up the mine owners and get them out of bed so they could be bothered too.” Grossniklaus had crusaded for tougher strip mine laws since 1963. “Until then, I didn’t even know what a strip mine was,” she would say. But in March 1972, she drove to Columbus to testify before a Senate committee on the pending strip mine legislation, calling for the strongest possible bill. Ted Vonieda testified on the pending bill as well. He recommended a three-year ban on strip mining until a detailed study could be made of strip mining’s environmental impact on the state.

The new Ohio strip mine bill, backed by Governor Gilligan, was passed and took effect on April 10, 1972. But it wasn’t clear how much the new law would help those in Belmont County facing the expansion of strip mining south of I-70, as the giant shovel prepared to cross the interstate. Local newspapers were reporting that the crossing by The Gem of Egypt could occur before June 15, 1972, ahead of the summer vacation season when traffic on I-70 would be at a peak levels. Local activists, however, were vowing to fight the crossing.

The Crossing Fight

Among local residents who were opposed to the I-70 crossing was Barnesville City Council member Richard Garrett. After a couple of residents had come to him when strip mine blasting had damaged their homes, Garrett formed Citizens Organized to Defend the Environment (CODE) in June 1971, a grassroots effort aimed at the environmental impacts of strip mining.

The local opponents, however, were outnumbered by those who saw coal mining as key to their local economy and those who worked directly at the mines. During a summer 1972 public meeting sponsored by CODE in Barnesville, part of which was captured by an ABC-TV documentary, Echo of Anger, some of those working at the strip mines came out to offer their opinions.“…If that GEM is not able to cross the road, I’m out of a job…[I]f they keep the publicity up on this thing [i.e., the crossing], we are going to boycott the busi-nesses in town…”
– Bernard Delloma, mine worker A bulldozer operator working at the Egypt Valley Mine, Bernard Delloma, voiced his objection to the lawsuit filed to stop the crossing. “If that [mine] shuts down, there are 322 of us [out of a job]. If that GEM is not able to cross the road, I’m out of a job. I’m out of a ten or twelve thousand dollar a year job.” And he added that he and the other strip miners “have organized… and we say that if they keep the publicity up on this thing [i.e., the crossing], we are going to boycott the businesses in town. If we do, there won’t be no town left.”

“I don’t like stripping or any part of it,” explained Barnesville furniture store owner John Kirk, quoted in a Wall Street Journal story. Kirk, in fact, had gone to Columbus to protest new mining regulations. Still, “it isn’t that simple,” he said. “Better than 10 percent of the work force in this county works for the mines.” Newspaper editor Bill Davies of the Barnesville Enterprise agreed, “Our future is definitely tied to the strip mining industry – it’s more important to us that you think.”

Map shows approximate location in Ohio of a planned I-70 crossing by a giant strip-mine shovel owned by the Hanna Coal Co. N.Y. Times map.

But others in Barnesville were working on a plan to establish a one-mile greenbelt buffer around Barnesville where new surface mining would be prohibited. They also wanted additional reclamation for areas leading to and from the village to “reduce the visual aspect of strip mining.” The greenbelt group had some support from Governor Gilligan. Hanna/Consol, in negotiations with the group, agreed to reclaim its mined lands in the area to meet the standards of the 1972 Ohio Strip Mine Law, though technically Hanna was only bound by the less stringent 1965 law. Hanna’s Hatch also agreed to fund a land use plan for the area around the village and to work with local officials to ensure that reclamation did not violate the plan, which would also provide for post-mining planning and development of industrial sites and access roads.

Meanwhile, a permit for the crossing of I-70 by The GEM of Egypt strip mining shovel was issued to Hanna/Consol on August 7, 1972. That’s when the CODE group joined the Ohio Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) in a lawsuit to challenge the I-70 crossing. Garrett in comments to the Times-Leader newspaper of Martins Ferry, Ohio, had stated earlier his group’s intent “to fight every one of those machines when they try to bring them across.” The lawsuit was filed in federal district court. CODE was joined by Friends of the Earth and two local residents as listed plaintiffs

The legal battle would delay any further action on the crossing. Still, on September 29, 1972, Hanna/Consol moved to amend the crossing permit to substitute The Mountaineer and The Tiger (also known as 46-A) shovels, instead of The GEM of Egypt. Some speculated this was partly a public relations move on Hanna’s part, since the bigger GEM of Egypt had drawn national notice at the time. But Hanna’s CEO, Hatch noted that The GEM had plenty to do north of the interstate and would make the crossing later in 1973 or early in 1974.

In their legal challenge to the crossing, CODE and fellow plaintiffs made federal and state arguments. They raised questions of federal procedure and decision making under the Administrative Procedures Act; whether the U.S. Secretary of Transportation could approve such a crossing under the Federal Highway Act; and whether the action to cross might be construed to be “a major federal action” under the National Environmental Policy Act requiring an environmental assessment.

From Associated Press story, December 29, 1972, Observer-Reporter (Washington, PA).

The plaintiffs also claimed that the state of Ohio lacked authority to allow Hanna/Consol to cross I-70 for three reasons: the Ohio Constitution required public roads to be open to the public at all times; the Ohio Director of Transportation may permit only special uses or occupancy of highways that will not inconvenience the traveling public; and Ohio law prohibits access to limited access highways at undesignated access points.

On each of these counts, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Kinneary in Columbus offered his findings and analysis, and on December 15th, 1972 he dismissed the plaintiffs’case and allowed the crossing to proceed.

In his ruling, the judge cited as valid the 1964 shovel-crossing agreement the company had made with Ohio and the Federal highway agencies. He did note that the crossing of 1–70 would be an “inconvenience,” but one that would only slow traffic and not stop it, with suitable detours. Hanna would, however, be liable for any damage to the highway. So with Judge Kinneary’s ruling, the crossing was allowed to proceed.

One protest group, The Commission on Religion in Appalachia, from Knoxville, Tennessee, made an 11th-hour appeal to Ohio Gov. Gilligan to step in and halt the crossings. But the giant shovels would not be stopped. Still, a coalition of protesters from Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia planned a peaceful march to the crossing site.

The Crossing

On January 4, 1973, in the early hours of a bitterly cold winter morning, the two mammoth machines – first, the 5.5 million pound Mountaineer (65 cu yd bucket) followed by the smaller, 4.5 million pound Tiger (46 cu yd bucket) – crossed I-70. The machines moved very slowly in making the transit, at a rate of about three miles an hour.

Grainy black & white photo of The Mountaineer shovel moving toward crossing point at I-70 near Hendrysburg, OH, dumping crushed stone & earth ahead of itself as part of a make-shift land bridge being built to protect the highway from damage.

The crossing required a rerouting of traffic off I-70 for approximately 1¼ miles. Temporary entrance and exit ramps in both directions were constructed, connecting with State Route 800 onto which traffic was routed for a mile or so, until it could return to I-70. Uniformed flagmen were stationed to direct traffic through the re-routing. To protect the highway pavement, a special gravel and earthen land bridge was built across I-70 over which the Hanna shovels crossed. At least six feet of crushed stone and earth was used for the land bridge and heavy wooden mats were also placed over the crushed stone and earth. Sensors were also placed beneath the highway surface to test for any stress on the roadway.

The Mountaineer shovel shown continuing to aid in the construction of the land bridge upon which it and another shovel, The Tiger, would cross interstate highway I-70 in Ohio in order to strip mine coal fields on the other side.

A fleet of some eight bulldozers worked around the base of the big shovels, helping to shape and stabilize the land bridge ahead of the crossing. The transit of the big shovels began at noon on January 4th, 1973. Under the permit, Hanna was allotted a period of 24 hours to move its equipment, and officials at the company had estimated it would take from two to three hours to make the actual crossing. However, the crossing was made ahead of schedule and was actually completed by 6:30 pm that day.

The crossing of the big shovels made The NBC Evening News with John Chancellor on Friday, January 5th, 1973. The event was also front-page news in many Ohio newspapers, and was also covered in the New York Times and Washington Post. One local newsman rode along in The Tiger as that shovel made the crossing.

Jan 4, 1973: The Mountaineer earth-moving shovel makes the transit across I-70 near Hendrysburg, Ohio, on its journey south through Belmont County to help strip mine coal lands owned by Hanna Coal Co. near Barnesville.

Ted Voneida of Case Western Reserve University was one of the activists at the crossing. He was quoted in an Associated Press story on the day of the crossing: “I’m protesting the idea that we must trade off the environment for [electric] power in this country. I hope to let people know, especially in the western states, what is happening.” Strip mining was then about to move west in a big way, to states such as Montana and Wyoming, where the land was flat to gently rolling, the coal seams thick, and the odds against reclamation even greater. Voneida was sounding a warning: the giant shovels were headed their way and the results would not be pleasant. Other protesters at the crossing – all peaceful; there were no confrontations – sought to highlight the fact that costs were being created — costs to roads, water, and land — that would be borne by the public, not the companies making the profits.

On January 5th, 1972, after the two shovels were moved across the highway, Arthur Wallace, who then headed Hanna’s reclamation efforts, conducted a bus tour of “reclaimed” areas for newsmen, as a contingent of press from out of state had gathered for the crossing. Wallace noted that Belmont County’s’ farming land, after strip mining, would be used for cattle grazing due to the lower quality of the restored land. Wallace noted that the cattle would graze on a variety of vegetation including alfalfa and crown vetch.

Postscript

Once on the south side of I-70, The Mountaineer and The Tiger resumed their digging as Hanna/Consol continued strip mining in Belmont County for many years. And despite the new 1972 Ohio strip mine law (the implementation of which was blocked for several years by coal company litigation), Hanna’s Egypt Valley Mine continued its southward expansion, as the big shovels worked to turn the landscape upside down. True, some reclamation occurred in that area and throughout the state, and the land in some cases was returned to passable condition. But environmental problems from strip-mined land, and disruption for nearby communities, persisted for many years throughout the coal mining areas of the state, continuing for some areas as this is written.

The Tiger at work uncovering coal seams near Barnesville, Ohio in 1973 after it had crossed interstate I-70.

But during the 1970s, in the Belmont County area and other Ohio counties, there appears to have been continued struggle between local residents and coal mining companies. Among those residents, for example, was Mary Workman of Steubenville, Ohio (shown below) who would not sell her land to Hanna Coal Company even though the company owned much of the land around her and many of the local roads were closed. In the early 1970s, she filed a damage suit against the Hanna Coal Company for ruining her water (still searching for the outcome of that case).

Photo date, October 1973. Mary Workman of Steubenville, Ohio holds a jar of undrinkable water that comes from her well. At the time, she had filed a damage suit against the Hanna Coal Co.; she had to transport water from a well many miles away. She also resisted selling her land to the coal company, even though much of the land around her was sold and many of the roads closed. Photo, Erik Calonius, U.S. EPA Documerica Project.

By August 1977, the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, providing hope in the nation’s coalfields for improved regulation and better reclamation outcomes. Among those invited to the Rose Garden signing ceremony was Barnesville’s Richard Garrett and Case Western Reserve University’s Ted Voneida. Yet even with the 1977 federal law, which did help raise mining safety and reclamation standards across the country, the record now 40 years later remains mixed, with the law’s Abandoned Lands Reclamation Fund a frequent target of the industry, and in 2017, slammed by an Inspector General’s report for diversions of reclamation monies in some states for non-reclamation purposes.

The Sand Hill strip mine in Vinton County, Ohio, May 2008, as photographed by Ohio’s Matt Eich for his book “Carry Me Ohio,” and also published in The Atlantic magazine, December 2016.

In southeastern Ohio, meanwhile, strip mining, and the region’s reliance on a single industry, has not made for a viable economy. As Allen J. Dieterich-Ward noted of the region, writing in his 2006 dissertation, Mines, Mills and Malls: Regional Development in the Steel Valley:

…By the late 1970s, the rise in mining employment coupled with the failure significantly to diversify employment or to develop the region’s infrastructure meant that the area’s economic fortunes increasingly rested on a single industry. The continued use of surface mining had also depopulated large swaths of the area, leaving behind thousands of acres unsuitable for either industrial or recreational development. The collapse in the market for the area’s high sulfur coal during the 1980s prompted a steep drop in mine employment. Combined with losses in the heavy industrial employers along the Ohio River, the mine closures created a mass exodus from the region and the collapse of the local economy.

Columbus Dispatch newspaper map of the Egypt Valley Wildlife Area in S.E. Ohio.

Back in Barnesville, meanwhile, in the mid-1990s, a group of residents began to mobilize around their earlier Greenbelt plan – the plan agreed upon in 1972 but never afforded legal standing. When another mining company later acquired mineral rights in the Barnesville area, a group of residents, including some of those who had protested the original I-70 crossing, petitioned the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources to deny the company permits, sparking a series of legal battles that continued through the late 1990s.

Elsewhere in the region, some of the land where Hanna’s monster shovels roamed, ironically, has been converted into parks and wildlife areas. In Harrison County, the surrounding hillsides of what is now the Sally Buffalo Park were strip mined for coal in the 1950s. Hanna had also built a dam there in 1953 to “reclaim” some of the mined land, and the area was first used as a recreation area for company employees. The restored area became a public park in 1965.

The 18,000-acre Egypt Valley Wildlife Area was created by the state of Ohio in 1994-95. It includes land in the northwest corner of Belmont County where The GEM of Egypt worked for a number of years. Approximately 80 percent of the acreage in the Egypt Valley Wildlife Area has been strip mined. The last active mine there was completed in 1998. The converted wildlife area, however, as of 2015, has been targeted for coal re-mining. Oxford Mining Co. a subsidiary of Westmoreland Coal Co, won a 2015 case before the Ohio Supreme Court allowing it to strip mine there. Given this decision (which involved a privately-held in-holding), other Ohio parks, forests, and wildlife areas may also be vulnerable to strip mining.

2009 map of abandoned coal mines and unfunded cleanup sites in SE Ohio. Source: Columbus Dispatch.

Abandoned Mines

Part of coal’s legacy in Southeast Ohio continues to be the abandoned mines that have been left behind. As of 2009, the state estimated that more than 600,000 acres of coal had been mined underground in Ohio and more than 720,000 acres had been strip mined. The Columbus Dispatch map at left shows those areas of known mine sites – underground and stripped – that have been abandoned, as well as unfunded cleanup sites.

In 2012, a Columbus Dispatch story on coal and polluted streams in the state, noted: “Coal’s legacy on Ohio’s waters, particularly in the southeastern part of the state, is visible in creek after yellow creek. In some instances, coal companies intentionally pumped water out of coal mines into nearby streams. In others, abandoned coal mines that fill with rainwater continuously leach water into nearby watersheds.” Some 1,300 miles of streams or creeks in Ohio have been polluted by water from coal mines.

Scientists and citizen organizations in Ohio have initiated some remediation efforts in a few watersheds that have been heavily mined. One of these has been a partnership working to restore the Raccoon Creek watershed in southeastern Ohio. This watershed with multiple streams drains 683 square miles of land in six counties: Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Jackson, Meigs, and Vinton. Coal extraction over nearly 100 years in the area has badly damaged the watershed. On a map of the watershed below, strip-mined areas are indicated in dark blue, while deep-mined areas are shown in red.

In the early 1950s, Ohio’s Division of Wildlife performed the first study of the Raccoon Creek basin and found little aquatic life due to abandoned coal mines and acid-producing wastes. Some 350 million tons of coal were mined in this watershed between 1820 and 1993, affecting nearly 40,000 acres.

Blue (stripped), red (deep-mined), 6-county Raccoon Ck. watershed.

Given poor mining regulation and the lack of reclamation that prevailed until the mid-1970s, vast amounts of waste and spoil were generated, and thousands of tons of toxic coal refuse were spread throughout the watershed. Erosion and acid mine drainage were rampant. Stream water quality, however, has improved as the result of reclamation in the watershed from the 1980’s. And substantial improvement has occurred since the 1950s.

As of 2005, however, Ohio scientists believed that it would still take a decade for recent remediation efforts in the watershed to have any pronounced changes on the water quality and biology of its streams. A number are still in poor or fair condition. But in a few streams, there have been improvements in water chemistry and aquatic habitat. Findings of aquatic insects and fish in Little Raccoon Creek, for example, while not in great numbers, show a diversity that some scientists find promising for the future.

Big Shovel Epitaphs

As for the monster machines that caused all the damage and commotion back in the 1960s and 1970s, all three of them had long mining careers. The Tiger, from 1944, worked up through the 1970s; The Mountaineer, began working in 1956, stopped digging in 1979 and was scrapped in 1988; and The GEM of Egypt of 1967, dug its last shovelful in 1988. The Silver Spade, a sister shovel to The GEM, and also used by Hanna, continued mining though January 2006, in part because The GEM was used for parts to keep The Spade running. More history and background on the big machines, and Ohio’s surface mining history, is available at the Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park in Cadiz, Ohio.

For additional stories at this website on the history of coal and coal mining, see for example, the following: “Ford Helps Strippers…With 2 Vetoes,” (which covers the mid-1970s Congressional battles with the White House and coal industry over strip mine legislation – including a “protest convoy” of more than 400 coal trucks that came to Washington, and two vetoes by President Gerald Ford); “Paradise: 1971″ (about a John Prine song, strip mining in Muhlenberg County, KY, and the issue of “small town removal” by coal mining); “Mountain Warrior” (profile of Kentucky author and coal-field activist, Harry Caudill, noted for his famous book, Night Comes to The Cumberlands and life-long critique of Appalachian strip mining); “Sixteen Tons, 1950s” (the famous Tennessee Ernie Ford song and some coal mining history); and, “G.E.’s Hot Coal Ad, 2005” (a General Electric TV ad that casts coal mining in an unrealistic light).

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 31 May 2017
Last Update: 17 November 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Giant Shovel on I-70: Ohio Strip Mine Fight, 1973,”
PopHistoryDig.com, May 31, 2017.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

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Books on Coal & Strip Mining at Amazon.com…

Chad Montrie’s history of strip mining fight in Appalachia (2003), UNC press, 272 pp. Click for Amazon.

K. Ross Toole ‘s “The Rape of the Great Plains” (1976). Little, Brown & Co., 271 pp. Click for Amazon.

Harry M. Caudill’s classic 1960s book, “Night Comes to the Cumberlands,” 2001 edition. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Top of “The GEM of Egypt” shovel stripping hillsides above Hendrysburg, Ohio, early 1970s. Matt Castello/Facebook.

"GEM of Egypt" shovel stripping hillsides near Morristown, Ohio, north of I-70, 1973-74. EPA Documerica.

"GEM of Egypt" at work uncovering coal seams in Ohio farm country, circa 1960s-1970s.

1960s: Aerial view of shovel at work in Ohio and rows of tree/shrub plantings on unleveled spoil piles, lower left.

Helicopter view: Flying along miles of highwalls in Perry County, OH. From 1969 film, “The Ravaged Earth.”

Screen shot from “Ravaged Earth” film showing Peabody Coal Co. billboard in Ohio at “reclaimed” site (next photo).

Eroded spoil piles & mined hillsides on Peabody Coal Co. strip-mined land adjacent to “Green Earth” sign.

“The Silver Spade” strip mining shovel crossing a local road in Ohio, circa 1960s-1970s.

"The Silver Spade" -- sister to "The GEM of Egypt," -- was employed by Hanna Coal Co. in Ohio for many years.

1969's “Ravaged Earth” film showing strip mined lands & environmental dmage in Perry County, Ohio.

EPA Documerica photo showing some reclamation near New Athens, Ohio, 1973-74, but with remaining highwalls.

December 1973: Stop sign in southeastern Ohio adorned with a protest message. Erik Calonius, EPA Documerica.

“Special Issue on the 20th Anniversary of the Federal Coal Law,” Citizens Coal Council, Aug 3, 1997. Click for PDF.

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For an excellent retrospective on the 1970s-1990s history of the strip mining fight, citizen activists involved in that fight, and history on the strip mine law, The Surface Mining Control & Reclamation Act of 1977, see, “Special Issue on the 20th Anniversary of the Federal Coal Law,” Citizens Coal Council Reporter, August 3. 1997.

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Interior Committee, House, U. S. Congress. “Regulation of Strip Mining,” Hearings, 92nd Cong., 1st Session, H.R. 60 and Related Bills. Washington, D.C., U.S. Gov’t Printing Office, 1972. 890 pp. Hearings held Sept. 20 – Nov. 30, 1971.

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“Mountaineer Goes for A Cruise,” [Thursday, January 4, 1973, The Mountaineer and The Tiger crossed I-70 near Hendrysburg, Ohio. The following pictures are from the January 5 Times-Leader (Martins Ferry and Bellaire, Ohio) and were taken by Boyd Nelson.]

Ben A. Franklin, “Giant Mine Shovels Finally Cross Road; A Vast Operation,” New York Times, January 5, 1973, p. 61.

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Chan Cochran, “Hanna Coal Company’s Two Huge Strip Mining Shovels Make it Across I-70 Early and Without Incident,” Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, OH), Friday, January 5, 1973, p. 1-A.

“Giant Shovels Cross Highway As Protestors Merely Look On,” The Journal News (Hamilton, Ohio) January 5, 1973, p. 5.

“Hanna Coal Company Moves Across I-70; Ohio Residents Fight Strip Miners,” The Daily Iowan (Iowa City, Iowa), Thursday, January 18, 1973 (Ken Light and Mountain Life & Work contributors).

“Tim Twichell’s Mountaineer Pics,” StripMine .org.

Erik Calonius, Photo Albums (freelance photographer hired for EPA’s “Documerica” Project, 1971-1977 ) Included at this URL are some extensive photos, now in the National Archives, of strip mining and strip mine damage in Southeastern Ohio, circa 1973-74.

“Strip Mining,” CQ Researcher (Congressional Quarterly), November 14, 1973

“Hanna Coal’s Past Recalled in Calendars,” The Times Leader (Martins Ferry, OH), December 17, 2012.

“Coal Mining and Landscape Change: The Case of Harrison County,” OSU.edu.

“Council Pledges Support to Greenbelt Advocates,” Barnesville Enterprise, October 21, 1997.

“Council Approves Greenbelt Resolution,” Barnesville Enterprise, October 22, 1997.

“Warren Trustees Pass Greenbelt Resolution,” Barnesville Enterprise, October 29, 1997.

Ohio Chapter, Sierra Club, “Ohio Tour Shows Effects of Coal Mining,” Sierra Club Scrapbook, December 3, 2008.

Laura Arenschield, “Old Coal Mines Still Taint Ohio Waterways,” The Columbus Dispatch, (Columbus, OH), August 14, 2015.

Allen Dieterich-Ward, Beyond Rust: Metropolitan Pittsburgh and the Fate of Industrial America, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, November 2015, 347pp.

Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park, Cadiz, Ohio.

______________________________________________________

Books on Coal & Strip Mining at Amazon.com…

2009 book, “...Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal.” KY University Press, 320 pp. Click for Amazon.

Michael Shnayerson’s 2008 book, “Coal River,” citizens battle Massey Energy over mountain mining. Click for Amazon.

Penny Loeb’s 2007 book, “Moving Mountains,” one woman’s battle w/ Big Coal, KY Univ. Press, 328 pp. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Early Rock `n Roll
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Fats-Domino-Please-Dont-Leave-Me.mp3 6550597 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FATS-DOMINO-AINT-THAT-A-SHAME.mp3 2655273 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Fats-Domino-Blueberry-Hill.mp3 5650974 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Fats-Domino-Blue-Monday.mp3 5633226 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Fats-Domino-Lady-Madonna-1968.mp3 3681064 audio/mpeg, https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Fats-Domino-Walking-To-New-Orleans-1.mp3 2613716 audio/mpeg

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Fats Domino”
1950s-2000s

March 20, 2017 J.D.

Fats Domino photo from a 1950s record sleeve for “There Goes My Heart Again” and “Can’t Go On Without You.” Click for digital.

Fats Domino, a rhythm and blues piano player from New Orleans, was one of the early creators of rock ‘n roll music, although his considerable contributions to that genre are not always given the full recognition they deserve.

In 1949, Domino recorded a song titled “The Fat Man” on Imperial Records that became a No. 1 hit on the R&B chart in 1950. That recording is regarded as one of the earliest rock `n roll songs, featuring a rolling piano along with Domino’s vocals. “The Fat Man” would sell one million copies by 1953.

But there’s a lot more to Fats Domino than his first hit record. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, between 1950 and 1963, Domino made Billboard’s pop chart 63 times and the R&B chart 59 times. In fact, notes the Hall, “Domino scored more hit records than Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly put together”(emphasis added).

January 1950 ‘Billboard’ magazine ad for Fats Domino’s first record, boasting “10,000...sold in New Orleans within 10 days”; would become a million-seller hit. Click for digital.

Antoine Domino, Jr. was born in New Orleans in February 1928, the last of eight Domino children. As a young boy, he began playing on an old upright piano at home, taking lessons from relatives. By the fourth grade he quit school in order to make piano playing his full time activity. His journey from a poor childhood in the semi-rural wards of New Orleans to becoming a top national rock ‘n’ roll star was not without its trials and difficulties.

As an ice delivery man in New Orleans for a time, with bars and nightclubs among his customers, Domino would sometimes slip away to play on pianos he found at those stops. He also worked for a time in a bed spring factory, playing honky tonks at night.

But it was at the Hideaway Club in New Orleans where house band leader Bill Diamond gave him the nickname “Fats,” as Domino reminded him of another famous piano player, Fats Waller. Domino, meanwhile, persisted with his piano playing and soon had the help of some street-wise business musicians.

Dave Bartholomew, a New Orleans trumpeter, songwriter, and pioneering R&B producer, would become a producer for, and partner to, Fats Domino. Click for 'Very Best of...'.

1956: Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew at work in recording studio, a team that proved effective in turning out early R&B and rock ’n roll tunes. Click for '...Songbook'.

A key partner to Fats Domino was Dave Bartholomew, a New Orleans trumpeter, songwriter, and pioneering R&B producer. Bartholomew’s collaborations with, and guidance for the young Domino, would have the most profound impact on his career.

Bartholomew was also an arranger and bandleader, and he and Fats co-wrote and produced most of Domino’s hits. It was Bartholomew who brought Lew Chudd of Imperial Records to the Hideaway Club to hear Domino play his boogie woogie piano, and some of his specialty songs such as “Swanee River Boogie” and “Junker’s Blues.” Chudd liked what he heard and signed Domino on the spot.

Two weeks later, Domino made his first recording, “The Fat Man,” noted earlier, which rose to No. 1 on the R&B charts in February 1950. For the next five years, Domino, and mostly Bartholomew’s band, recorded a steady stream of R&B hits for Imperial Records.

Among these were: “Every Night About This Time,” a Top Ten, October 1950 R&B hit; “Goin’ Home,” his first No. 1 R&B hit in 1952, (which Fats recorded with his own band); and three more Top Ten R&B hits in 1953, including: “Going To the River”, “Rosemary”, and “Please Don’t Leave Me.”

Music Player
“Please Don’t Leave Me” – Fats Domino

Some of Domino’s early hits, such as “Please Don’t Leave Me,” and others of that vintage, were not meant to be lyrical wonders, but rather, more rhythmic, featuring his signature boogie woogie piano style and “the big beat,” as it was called. And as such these songs became very popular dance tunes, and eventually would bring a wide teen following.

Throughout the process, Fats and Dave Bartholomew were innovating as they went. In fact, American rock critic, Robert Christgau, writing for The Village Voice some years later, would credit Fats and Bartholomew as having “defined a pop-friendly second-line beat that nobody knew was there.”

In Domino’s rising career, he would join some traveling musical reviews that performed beyond Louisiana. On August 1, 1954, for example, he joined Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed’s “Moondog Jubilee Of Stars Under the Stars,” held at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, then still home of baseball’s Brooklyn Dodgers. On the bill at the Freed concert, in addition to Domino, were the Clovers, the Orioles, Little Walter, Muddy Waters, Count Basie’s Orchestra, and Buddy Johnson’s Orchestra. A large, racially mixed crowd came out for this concert, like others Alan Freed had organized, giving broader exposure to artists like Domino, who by this time was becoming more widely known. In fact, five of his records released before 1955 had already sold over a million copies and would become certified gold records. But Fats’ first national breakthrough came in the summer of 1955.

Pat Boone on a record jacket for his 1955 cover hit of the Fats Domino song, “Ain’t That a Shame.” Click for digital.

Single cover art for Fats Domino’s version of his 1955 hit song, “Ain’t That A Shame.” Click for digital version.

First Pop Hit

Domino’s first pop hit and first “crossover” success — as R&B songs moving to the mainstream white pop charts were termed in those days – came in July 1955. The song’s title was “Ain’t That A Shame.” It was a Top Ten pop hit; the first hard-rocking black record to cross over. However, its rise on the pop charts for Domino came in a round about way. Fats had recorded “Ain’t That A Shame” at an earlier 1955 studio session in Los Angeles.

Music Player
“Ain’t That A Shame” – Fats Domino

However, within a week of Domino’s initial recording, a white movie star named Pat Boone also recorded a version of the same song. Boone, then something of heart throb among teen girls because of his movies, was not then a successful singer, although he had cut one recording that did poorly a year earlier. Still, Boone’s managers thought he might have some success in that arena given his film exposure.

In any case, Boone’s version of the Domino song (click for YouTube) charted in July, and soon became a No. 1 hit – his first. Boone’s version of “Ain’t That A Shame” stayed in the Top 40 for 20 weeks. And according to one source, that set the stage for the early part of Boone’s singing career, which then focused on covering R&B songs for the white American market.

Yet the Boone version of “Ain’t That A Shame” – arriving on the pop charts first – apparently didn’t hurt Domino’s version, which hit the pop charts shortly after Boone’s did, in mid-July 1955, and rose to No 10. Domino’s version — which also hit No.1 on the R&B chart — stayed in the Top 40 for 13 weeks. However, between the two versions, since Domino and Bartholomew were the authors of the song and collected publisher’s fees, the two had a pretty good payday thanks in part to Boone’s successful No. 1 version, as well as their own. Domino, all in good fun, reportedly complimented Boone on his cover of the song. And on one later occasion, at a concert where Domino invited Boone on stage, Domino showed off a big gold ring he was wearing, making the comment: “Pat Boone bought me this ring.”

Fats Domino’s first album, here in its re-issued title & cover art of 1956, captured a number of his early R&B hits. Click for album.

While the Domino version was recorded first, it was standard practice in the music industry at that time – a practice dating to the early 20th century – that cover versions were available to all comers. If a song showed promise, multiple studios and labels would release their own competing versions using whatever artist they could find, and recording it in whatever style they thought might sell. In Boone’s case, he had a “built in” audience of adoring teen girls who could care less how he did the song, or whether it was any good. And for many listeners, in fact, the Domino version is the better of the two. “Ain’t That a Shame” – also noted as the first song that Beatles’ legend John Lennon learned to play – would go on to sell a million copies.

In 1955, Domino also had three other No. 1 R&B hits – “All By Myself,” “Poor Me,” and “I’m In Love Again.” His debut album, Carry On Rockin, was released on the Imperial Records label in November 1955 and subsequently reissued as Rock and Rollin’ With Fats Domino in 1956. The reissued album, combining a number of his hits along with others not then released, rose to No. 17 on the pop albums chart. But Fats was headed for additional fame in 1956 as his music spread around the country, and as he appeared as a performer. His music was also being called “rock `n roll” by then.

“Everybody started calling my music rock and roll,” Domino would later say, remarking on his early success in the 1950s. “But it wasn’t anything but the same rhythm and blues [R&B] I’d been playin’ down in New Orleans.”

Fats had a likeable demeanor about him when he performed. Basically a shy man, and not inclined toward the showmanship-type style of Jerry Lee Lewis or an Elvis Presley, Fats always gave a friendly smile to his audience and viewers as he performed. His upbeat tunes and boogie-woogie rockers, however, could sometimes bring out the energy and exuberance of young dancers and audiences – and not always in a good way.

Raucous Crowds

July 1956: Some rioting broke out at a Fats Domino show in San Jose, California at the Palomar Gardens Ballroom.

During 1956, Domino continued to score Top 10 hits, such as,”I’m in Love Again,” which was No. 7 on the nation’s charts that July. And with his continued success, Fats was touring more as well. And at his performances, he was attracting large crowds, and more white kids were coming to his shows as well.

On Saturday, July 7th, 1956 Fats was scheduled to perform at the Palomar Gardens Ballroom in San Diego, California. Management there expected that the Palomar Gardens crowd for Domino would be one of its largest ever. Some 3,500 tickets were sold for that concert, and lines of people wrapped around six blocks. But that performance, it turned out, was also one of the earliest “rock and roll riots” in America. Some beer bottles were thrown and windows were broken; clothes were ripped and fist fights erupted; and some people were taken to the hospital. San Diego wasn’t alone, however. On September 18th, 1956, rock music shows were banned at the U.S. Naval Station in Newport, Rhode Island after a fight broke out during a Fats Domino concert.

1950s newspaper account interviewing Fats Domino about “riots” at his performances.

Later that year, on November 2, 1956, a riot broke out at Domino’s show in Fayetteville, North Carolina. On that occasion, police resorted to using tear gas to break up the unruly crowd. Domino, in fact, had to exit through a window to avoid the melee; he and two members of his band were slightly injured.

All told that year, there were at least four major “riots” at Domino’s shows. The raucous behavior at these concerts set off a wave of reaction from concerned parents, politicians, psychiatrists, and journalists, all now raising questions about the dangers of this explosive music called “rock and roll.”

Some wanted to blame the music, but when Domino was asked that question he would always reply that the music wasn’t the cause of the wild behavior, especially among the younger kids who were dancing. Asked by a reporter on camera whether rock ‘n roll could be blamed for rioting, Domino answered, “Well, as far as I know, music makes people happy.” As the reporter fired back with another question, this time about the rioting at the Rhode Island naval base, Domino smiled and said, “Well you know when the Navy and the Marines get together…”

The problems that occurred were usually due to alcohol-fueled incidents, and not the music. And in some locations, there were also racial tensions.

“He [Domino] had four major riots at his shows partly because of integration,” says Domino biographer, Rick Coleman, who also noted that alcohol was a factor at these shows. “So they were mixing alcohol, plus dancing, plus the races together for the first time in a lot of these places.” But Coleman finds a positive note at Fats Domino’s and others road shows during this era. “There was this historic moment in American history,” says Coleman. “That things were kinda coming together and people don’t really credit rock ‘n’ roll for integrating America, but it really did.” However, although music may have been a helpful contributor and door opener, full integration and full equality would still be years away.

Film & TV

Fats Goes National

Fats Domino, on a record cover for “Blueberry Hill,” a 1956 song for which he became most famous. Click for digital.

By the end of 1956, Fats Domino was making appearances on major network television shows, among them: The Steve Allen Show, The Perry Como Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show. During this time, he also turned out one of his biggest hits, “Blueberry Hill.”

Music Player
“Blueberry Hill” – Fats Domino

“Blueberry Hill” was originally written in 1940, and had early versions recorded by big band leader Glenn Miller, cowboy singer Gene Autry, and jazz legend Louis Armstrong, among others. But in October 1956, “Blueberry Hill” became a giant Fats Domino hit. It rose to No. 2 on the pop charts and No. 1 on the R&B charts, where it held for 11 weeks.

On November 18th, 1956, Domino appeared on the nationally-televised Ed Sullivan Show singing “Blueberry Hill” by himself at the piano, while the rest of his band was hidden. The Fats Domino version of “Blueberry Hill” – which became his signature song – would sell more than five million copies worldwide in 1956–57 and would remain Domino’s biggest hit. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at No. 82 on its list of of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”

Domino biographer Rick Coleman, cites Gerald Early, author of One Nation Under a Groove, who offered one take on the significance of Domino’s “Blueberry Hill”: “What made Motown possible was not that Elvis Presley covered R&B but that Fats Domino, in the end a more significant artist, not only crossed over with R&B hits in 1955, but with a Country and Western tune, ‘Blueberry Hill.’”

Promotional poster for “The Girl Can’t Help It” (1956), starring Jayne Mansfield and others, but also featuring Fats Domino & other music groups. Click for DVD.

Domino’s draw as a recording artist soon got the attention of Hollywood and he would appear in two rock `n roll films. The first was The Girl Can’t Help It, a rock music comedy starring Jayne Mansfield, which was released in December 1956, and included a number of rock ’n roll acts, but also featured Domino performing his big hit, “Blue Monday.”

Music Player
“Blue Monday” – Fats Domino

“Blue Monday” is a song originally written by Dave Bartholomew, and first recorded by Smiley Lewis in 1954. Domino and Bartholomew share the songwriting credit for the 1956 version sampled above, which became a No. 1 R&B hit for 8 weeks and also a No. 5 hit on the pop charts. The saxophone solo is by Herb Hardesty.

During the mid- and late-1950s, a spate of rock ’n roll comedy-drama type films like The Girl Can’t Help It, flourished briefly, helping to bring exposure to various rock ’n roll performers, including Fats Domino, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, and others. Domino also appeared in a second rock music film, Shake, Rattle, and Rock!, released in April 1957. It starred a young Mike Connors (later of Manix TV detective fame) and featured, among other artists, Domino on piano. Fats played three songs in the film – “I’m in Love Again,” “Honey Chile” and “Ain’t That a Shame.” (Among other rock ’n roll entrepreneurs of that day venturing into rock music films was Cleveland radio disc jockey Alan Freed, who figures prominently in the early history of bridging R&B music to more mainstream audiences, and helping, in fact, to name the music “rock ’n roll.” Between 1956 and 1959 Freed was involved with several of these films, first with performers such as Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and others, and later with Frankie Lymon, and before they became stars, actresses Valerie Harper and Tuesday Weld).

Poster for April 1956 rhythm & blues show at Wash., DC National Guard Armory, with Fats Domino among featured headliners. Click for similar poster.

Fats Domino continued to turn out more hit singles during the 1956-1959 period, including: “When My Dreamboat Comes Home” (No.14), “I’m Walkin'” (No. 4), “Valley of Tears” (No. 8), “It’s You I Love” (No. 6), “Whole Lotta Loving” ( No. 6), “I Want to Walk You Home” (No. 8), and “Be My Guest” (No. 8). He was also performing on various music tours – often as a headliner – as shown on the poster at right advertising an April 8th, 1956 show at the National Guard Armory in Washington, DC.

“As Big as Elvis”

In 1956-57, Fats Domino, in terms of record sales, was neck-and-neck with Elvis Presley. With a string of hits, including “Blue Monday” and “I’m Walkin,” Domino was at the peak of his popularity, selling “a million records a month,” by one count.

The February 1957 issue of Ebony magazine had a feature story on Domino with a cover tagline: “Fats Domino: King of Rock ’n’ Roll. ” Inside the magazine, the story ran for five pages, hitting all the highlights of his stardom and popularity, noting he was then receiving up to $2,500 a night to perform, had fifty suits and 100 pairs of shoes, along with a $1,500 diamond horseshoe stick pin. Ebony also noted that Fats had a 1956 gross income of over $500,000. The magazine piece also included photos of Fats on the road; one with crowds jostling to beat the fire marshal’s audience limit; and another showing whites and blacks mixing at his performances.

Poster for Fats Domino performance and dance, likely late 1950s, featuring “I’m Walkin” and “Blue Monday”. Click for poster.

On the Road

During 1957, Fats Domino was in great demand, and he and his band hit the road for non-stop touring, doing shows all across the country.

In fact, during 1957, the Domino band traveled 13,000 miles across the U.S. performing more than 350 shows, selling out nightclubs and concert halls.

Yet, despite being one of the most popular rock ‘n’ roll bands in the country, with a sizable number of white fans, Domino and his band encountered racial segregation in many locations. As they toured, they were denied access to lodging, food and services, and were forced to use “colored only” facilities. Sometimes they would travel 100 miles or more out of their way to find a rooming house.

In the late 1950s, among TV venues where Fats appeared was Dick Clark’s American Bandstand show. On December 18, 1957, Domino’s hit recording of “The Big Beat” was featured on Clark’s American Bandstand show. Then on March 29, 1958, on The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show, Fats and band performed a medley of his songs that included: “I’m In Love Again,” “Blueberry Hill,” “Ain’t That A Shame,” and “I’m Walkin.” Clark had introduced Fats that evening by noting at that point that Fats (then slated to perform at the Apollo that week in New York) had sold some 25 million recordings –“a pretty fantastic thing in the short length of time the man has been in the business,” said Clark at the time. A YouTube video of Clark’s introduction and Domino’s medley (in a rough black-and-white kinescope video of that day) shows the performance as well as the Bandstand-era crowd of white teens clapping and singing along with Domino’s performance.

“Walking To…”

A 2007 Capitol Records album of Fats Domino Greatest Hits, featuring “Walking to New Orleans”. Click for digital.

In 1960, Fats had another big hit – “Walking to New Orleans.” This song was written by Bobby Charles (Robert Charles Guidry), a Louisiana singer- songwriter who was star struck by a Fats Domino performance when he was 15, and would later co-write songs with Rick Danko of the Band and Willie Nelson.

Music Player
Fats Domino – “Walking to New Orleans”

The idea for the song came to Charles from a conversation he had with Fats when Fats had come to Lafayette, Louisiana, saying that if he were to visit Fats in New Orleans he’d have to walk there since he didn’t have a car. The idea of walking to New Orleans stayed with Charles for a time and he would soon dash off a version of the song for Domino in 15-minutes. The final song was later arranged by Dave Bartholomew and Fats in the studio, and it also incorporated strings, then an unusual addition to a rock song. It went on to be one of Domino’s biggest hits, released on Imperial Records in June 1960 and hitting No.6 on the pop charts and No.2 on the R&B chart.

Fats continued his touring through the early 1960s, appearing sometimes at college and university venues, as in the February 1962 appearance shown below at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

February 1962: Fats Domino at the piano performing before a crowd of mostly white students at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

But by the early 1960s, things started to cool off for Fats Domino. After a decade of hits and popular acclaim, other musical genres and artists began to move into the spotlight. Fats also had a change of record company at that time, and the listening tastes of the trend-setting young record buyers was changing as well. But Fats continued to record. In the 1962-1964 period, for example, he released a variety of songs, among them: ‘Jambalaya’, ‘You Win Again’ and ‘Your Cheating Heart’ – the latter tune his take on a Hank Williams song. He also did covers of other material, including,‘I Hear You Knocking’, ‘You Always Hurt The One You Love,’ and ‘Goin’ Home.’ And he also had some of his own new releases – ‘My Real Name’, ‘Dance With Mr Domino’ and ‘Did You Ever See A Dream Walking.’ Fats’ albums, meanwhile, continued to be strong sellers.

Cover art for the record jacket of Fats Domino’s 1963 single, “Red Sails in The Sunset.” Click for digital.

By the end of 1963, a new generation of rockers was taking center stage, and Fats was scoring big hits less frequently. Though his days of Top 10 hits were behind him, Domino continued to record. By April 1963, Fats had left the Imperial Record label, the label he had stayed with from the beginning, for nearly 14 years. He then signed with ABC-Paramount.

One single he released with ABC was “Red Sails in the Sunset,” an old song, first published in 1935. The music for the original version was written by Hugh Williams (Wilhelm Grosz) with lyrics by songwriter Jimmy Kennedy. Initially, the song was inspired by the “red sails” of Kitty of Coleraine, a yacht Kennedy often saw off the coast of Portstewart, Ireland, where he wrote the song. Early versions of this song included one by Guy Lombardo in 1935, and another by Nat King Cole in 1951. But Fats Domino’s 1963 cover of “Red Sails in The Sunset,” became a No. 35 hit in October 1963. It would be his last Top 40 Billboard hit, but not the end of his career by any means.

Beatles’ Visit

When the Beatles came to New Orleans in September 1964 on their U.S. concert tour they wanted to visit with Fats Domino. The Beatles, shown below with Fats, were quite taken with his music, which had been an influence in their formative years. Domino’s 1956 song, “I’m In Love Again,” was the first “rock ‘n roll” song that George Harrison heard. “Ain’t That A Shame” was the first song that John Lennon learned to play.

1964: Fats Domino with the Beatles – from left, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Fats Domino and John Lennon – having a little jam session...

In 1967, Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was able to bring Fats and his band to England for the first time. In one review of the performance there, The Record Mirror raved that Fats “completely and utterly enraptured a thrilled audience with his warm, happy brand of New Orleans rock, blues or whatever you care to call it. His voice was superb, his piano playing exciting, and his nine-piece band inspired.”

Fats Domino in a German advertisement featuring “Lady Madonna” and 1968 album, “Fats Is Back.” Click for CD.

Domino, in fact, would record a few Beatles’ songs as covers, including “Lady Madonna,” which managed to chart on Billboard at No. 100 in August 1968. Beatle Paul McCartney, reportedly, had written the original song, in part, with Domino’s style in mind. Domino’s cover of the song was included on what was dubbed his “comeback” album of 1968: Fats Is Back.

Music Player
Fats Domino – “Lady Madonna”

Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine, reviewed Domino’s album, calling it “unequivocally a fine record in all respects.” And specifically of the “Lady Madonna” track, Wenner noted the Domino version was “surely as good a cover of a Beatles’ song as ever has been done…”.

In the 1970s-1980s, Domino traveled the world, often making yearly tours in Europe, where he became something of an icon. A 1979 album, Sleeping on the Job, became a minor European hit. In 1980 Fats appeared in Clint Eastwood’s hit movie, Any Which Way You Can, performing “Whiskey Heaven” in a cowboy hat, a song which became a small country hit. By the 1980s, however, Domino became less and less inclined to leave his beloved New Orleans, as the demands of touring becoming less appealing, with Fats not always able to find the food and lifestyle he liked on the road. Still, for the next 20 years, Fats toured internationally off and on, performing his hits at sold-out shows around the world in his trademarked boogie woogie style. And until his final public performance in 2006, his old friends and musical colleagues, among them, Dave Bartholomew, Herb Hardesty, and Lee Allen, were often in the band.

Rolling Stone ranked Fats Domino 25th on list of “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.” Click for copy.

Kudos for Fats

By the mid-1980s, various music awards and honors would begin rolling in for Fats Domino. In 1986, he was one of the first ten inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joining Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ray Charles and the Everly Brothers. At the induction ceremony, Billy Joel lauded Fats for proving “the piano was a rock and roll instrument.”

The following year, Domino received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. But Fats was still taking his music on the road occasionally, even in the 1990s when he toured Europe a couple of times, though exhaustion cut one of those trips short.

More awards, meanwhile, came Domino’s way in his later years. In March 1995, he received the Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s Ray Charles Lifetime Achievement Award in Los Angeles.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Domino a National Medal of Arts. But Domino by this time is such a New Orleans homebody that he sent daughter Antoinette to receive the award. In 2004, Fats Domino is ranked No.25 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.” In August 2005, during Hurricane Katrina, Fats Domino was rescued from his heavily flooded home in New Orleans 9th ward – where some thought he had perished during the storm.

In 2007, the double CD album, Goin’ Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino, was released, featuring covers of Domino songs by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, Elton John, Robert Plant, Norah Jones, Allen Toussaint, Buddy Guy, Doctor John, Robbie Robertson, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, among others. On May 19, 2007, at age 79, Fats Domino performed publicly for the last time at Tipitina’s in New Orleans. A year earlier, Fats had released the album, Alive and Kickin, to benefit Tipitina’s Foundation, which supports indigent local musicians. That album includes unreleased Fats Domino recordings from the 1990s.

On Domino’s 88th birthday in February 2016, PBS’ American Masters series aired the TV documentary, “Fats Domino and the Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” On August 21, 2016, at a ceremony held in Detroit, Michigan, Domino was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, along with Dionne Warwick, Cathy Hughes, Smokey Robinson, Prince and The Supremes.

In February 2016, in honor of his 88th birthday, the Public Broadcasting System’s (PBS) American Masters TV series, aired a one-hour documentary on Fats Domino, covering much of his life & career during the 1950s-1960s. Click for DVD.

Music critics the world over have praised Domino’s historic contributions to rock ’n roll and R&B music. By the end of his career, Domino was credited with selling more records than any other 1950s rock ‘n roll artists except Elvis Presley. And in one interesting bow to Domino’s significance occurring in July 1969, Domino was one of 2,200 people who attended Presley’s first concert at the Las Vegas Hilton. At a press conference following that show, a journalist referred to Presley as “The King.” However, Presley gestured toward Domino, who was in the room. “No,” Presley said, “[there’s] the real king of rock and roll.”

For additional stories at this website on music history, song profiles, and artist biographies, see the “Annals of Music” page. See also the topics page, “Pop Music, 1950s: Artists, Songs, Bios,” for additional stories from the 1950s era. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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this Website

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____________________________________

Date Posted: 20 March 2017
Last Update: 6 January 2021
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Fats Domino: 1950s-2000s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, March 20, 2017.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Three great piano artists: Ray Charles, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis around June 1986 when they recorded the TV concert, “Cinemax Sessions: Fats Domino and Friends.”

Nov 2007: Fats Domino and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the Pink Elephant club in New York where Fats was honored and awarded the key to the city.

“Fats Domino,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 274-275.

PBS / American Masters Series, Fats Domino and The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, February 2016, Directed by Joe Lauro.

Rick Coleman, “Fats Domino: Timeline of His Life, Hits and Career Highlights,” PBS.org/ American Masters, January 26, 2016.

“Fats Domino Biography,” Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.

“Fats Domino,” Wikipedia.org.

“King of Rock and Roll: Fats Domino Hailed as New Idol of Teenagers,” Ebony, February 1957, Vol. 12 Issue 4, p. 26.

Robert Christgau, “Consumer Guide” (1990), Village Voice, December 25, 1990.

Rick Coleman, “Seven Decades of Fats Domino,” OffBeat.com, (New Orleans, LA) February 1, 1998.

Rick Coleman, Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Da Capo Press, April 2006, 416pp.

Larry Engelmann, “Ain’t That a Shame: Thirty Years Ago, America Experienced Its First Rock ‘n’ Roll Riot,” Los Angles Times, July 6, 1986.

“Pat Boone,” Wikipedia.org.

Patrick Doyle, “Inside Rock Legend Fats Domino’s World: Crawfish, Cards, Boogie-Woogie; On His 88th Birthday, the Rock & Roll Architect’s Musical Influence Is Honored in a New Documentary,” Rolling Stone.com, February 26, 2016.

“July 7: Rock and Roll History in San Jose,” LouieLouie.net.

“Walking to New Orleans,” Wikipedia.org.

David Kunian, “What Fats Domino Means to New Orleans,” Off Beat Magazine (New Orleans, LA), April 20, 2015.

“Red Sails in the Sunset (song),” Wikipedia.org.

Gwen Thompkins, Host,“Fats Domino: The Founding Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Music Inside Out, (hour long radio program), WWNO Radio, 89.9 FM, New Orleans.

“Shake, Rattle & Rock! (1956 film),” Wikipedia.org.

Nate Chinennov, “Finding Thrills With the King of ‘Blueberry Hill’,” New York Times, November 10, 2007.

“The Big Beat: The Story of Fats Domino and His Band,” Historic Films Stock Footage Archive
YouTube.com, Dec 2, 2013.

______________________________

Teaser Tag: Topics Page

1931-1940, 1941-1950, 1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 2001-Today

“Democrats’ History”
1930s-2010s

July 26, 2016 J.D.

Road to the White House

“JFK’s 1960 Campaign”

Primaries & Fall Election

The historic campaign,
with city-by-city itinerary
— and lots of photos.

1960 Campaign History

“Mailer on Kennedy”

Taschen Book: 2014

“Superman” in the 1960
presidential campaign,
by Mailer & Taschen.

Democrats & Culture

“FDR & Vanity Fair”

1930s

Magazine cover art &
stories feature FDR
& New Deal programs.

Democrat Campaigns

“1968 Presidential Race”

Celebrity Democrats

Paul Newman & friends
jump into the political
fray of 1968.

Music for Democrats

“I Won’t Back Down”

1989-2008

Tom Petty’s “fighter’s
song” is a favorite
among Democrats

Bradley-for-President

Bill Bradley

1960s-2009

He rose to the U.S. Senate
& Presidential politics from
his basketball values.

RFK History

“1968 Presidential Race”

Democrats

Story includes RFK
bid for nomination &
June 1968 assassination.

RFK History

“RFK in Brooklyn”

1966-1972

Robert F. Kennedy gave
hope to urban poor of
Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Video Clip

“Daisy Girl Ad”

1964

LBJ’s TV ad of 1964
campaign began use of
negative campaign ads.

Daisy Girl Story

“LBJ’s Atomic Ad”

1964

‘Daisy Girl’ TV ad story,
its controversy, and
Goldwater’s reaction.

Brown-for-President

“Linda & Jerry”

Celebrity Politics

The lives of Jerry Brown
and Linda Ronstadt
during 1971-1983.

Obama Celebrities

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2008-2012

Bruce Springsteen & other
celebrities helped President Obama win re-election.

Campaign Ad History

“Endorsing Jimmy Carter”

Mary Tyler Moore: 1980

TV star gives a strong
womens’ pitch for
re-electing Jimmy Carter.

First Lady Democrat

“Jackie & The Twist”

1960-1963

Jackie Kennedy helped
bring the new dance to
White House & nation.

Democrats at Work

“The Kefauver Hearings”

1950-1951

Televised Senate hearings
brought Mafia figures
into American homes.

Musician & Democrat

“Orleans-to-Congress”

1972-2011

John Hall, of rock
group Orleans, served
2 terms in Congress.

Commemorating JFK

“JFK’s Texas Statue”

Ft. Worth: 2012

A Texas tribute site
honors a memorable visit
on a fateful day.

Commemorating RFK

“RFK in Brooklyn”

1966-1972

A Robert F. Kennedy
memorial & 1960s history
on Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Celebrity Politics

“The J ack Pack”

Pt.1: 1958-60

Frank Sinatra’s “Rat Pack”
cavort with & campaign for
JFK in his White House bid.

Celebrity Politics

“The Jack Pack”

Pt. 2: 1961-64

Good times JFK Inaugural
is followed by some falling
out and tragic endings.

Books By Democrats

“Profiles in Courage”

1954-2008

The best-selling book that
helped give Jack Kennedy
national notice.

Road to the White House

“JFK’s Early Campaign”

1957

After a brush with 1956
V.P. slot, JFK sets sights
on 1960 presidential run.

Road to the White House

“JFK’s Early Campaign”

1958

As JFK wins big in U.S.
Senate re-election, he also
campaigns nationally.

Road to the White House

“JFK’s Early Campaign”

1959

In the 3rd year of his
“unofficial campaign,”
JFK is front-runner.

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____________________________________

Date Posted: 26 July 2016
Last Update: 27 July 2016
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Democrats’ History: 1930s-2010s”
(topics page), PopHistoryDig.com, July 26, 2016.

____________________________________

Teaser Tag: Topics Page

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-Today

“Republican History”
1950s-2010s

July 21, 2016 J.D.

Politics & Hollywood

“1968 Presidential Race”

Republicans

Film star John Wayne &
others in Hollywood
turned out for Republicans.

Politics & Music

“I Won’t Back Down”

1989-2008

George W. Bush was among
those ‘backing down’ from
using a Tom Petty tune.

Art, Satire, Politics

“Enemy of the President”

1970s

Cartoonist Paul Conrad
draws the ire
of Richard Nixon.

Campaign Music

“I’m A Dole Man”

1996

A 1960s’ soul song
becomes Bob Dole
campaign music.

Music & Republican Wrath

“White Rabbit”

Grace Slick: 1960s

Jefferson Airplane song
drew political fire from
Nixon-Agnew-Linkletter.

Bush-Koizumi Visit

“They Go To Graceland”

White House outing

Geo. Bush & prime minister
Junichiro Koizumi visit
Elvis home, July 2006.

McCain/Palin Ticket

“Barracuda Politics”

2008

Sarah Palin campaign music
at Republican convention
riles rock group, Heart.

Celebrity & Politics

“Reagan & Springsteen”

1984

How Bruce Springsteen’s
music became part of a
Ronald Reagan speech.

Republican Crisis

“Nixon’s Checkers Speech”

September 1952

Endangered VP candidate,
Richard Nixon, discovers
the “magic” of television.

Post Watergate

“The Frost-Nixon Biz”

1977-2009

The multi-media cottage
industry that followed
the Frost/Nixon interviews.

Politics & Protest

“Four Dead in O-hi-o”

1970

Kent State tragedy
comes with Nixon’s
Cambodia incursion.

Shifting Loyalties

“The Jack Pack”

Pt. 2: 1961-1990s

After years as Democrat
Frank Sinatra backed
Reagan for President.

Ray Charles Story

“Ray Sings America”

1972-2011

Ray Charles & “America
the Beautiful” history and
Ronald Reagan support.

Ray Charles Video

“Ray At 1984 RNC”

Singing ‘America’

Bringing down the house
at 1984 Republican National
Convention w/ “America.”

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____________________________________

Date Posted: 21 July 2016
Last Update: 21 July 2016
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Republican History: Topics Page, 1950s-2010s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 21, 2016.

____________________________________

Teaser Tag: Politics & Music

1981-1990

“Ray At 1984 RNC”
Singing ‘America’

July 18, 2016 J.D.

Note: The MSNBC television clip above, of Ray Charles performing “America The Beautiful,” was apparently used for news coverage of Ray Charles’ passing at age 73 in 2004 (complete with news ticker from that era). While the clip doesn’t capture Ray’s entire performance – which was the closing act of the 1984 Republican National Convention (RNC) nominating the Ronald Reagan/George Bush ticket that year – it does convey the rousing spirit and patriotic fervor that Charles summoned from the convention hall audience with his unique and moving rendition. In the video news clip, meanwhile, there are cutaways to the Reagans and the Bushes during the performance, as well as members of the convention audience reacting to, and in some cases, singing along with, Ray during the song. In any case, Ray’s performance of “America The Beautiful” offered such a rousing and soulful interpretation and delivery, that by song’s end, most delegates throughout the entire hall were up on their feet, singing and swaying. In fact, many who attended that convention often point to the Ray Charles performance as one of the high points.

Story: “Ray Sings America”

See also at this website, a longer story about Ray Charles and “America the Beautiful” that covers the song’s history, Ray’s release of the song and how he rearranged the order of the lyrics for a somewhat different emphasis, and Ray’s attendance at the 1984 Republican National Convention, including photos with the Reagans. Other stories on politics at this website can be found at “Politics & Culture” page, and for music, the “Annals of Music” page. Thanks for visiting – Jack Doyle

Video Source

The source for this video is found on YouTube.

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

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____________________________________

Date Posted: 18 July 2016
Last Update: 31 March 2020
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Ray At 1984 RNC – Singing ‘America’,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 18, 2016.

____________________________________

Teaser Tag: Beatles Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/In-My-Life-2.mp3 5888129 audio/mpeg

1961-1970

“In My Life”
Lennon: 1965

July 16, 2016 J.D.

Artistic word cloud illustration for Beatles 1965 song, “In My Life.” Source: Robert Hogan and No. 9 Images Photography.

“In My Life” is a song by the Beatles, written by John Lennon, released on their 1965 album, Rubber Soul.

The song is ranked 23rd on Rolling Stone‘s December 2004 list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” On a separate Rolling Stone listing of the Beatles’ 100 Greatest Songs, “In My Life” is ranked No. 5. The British music magazine Mojo named it the best song of all time in 2000.

Over the last 50 years “In My Life” has become a fan favorite, heard frequently at funerals, weddings, anniversaries and other occasions. More on the song’s legacy a bit later. First, some background on Lennon and the song’s creation.

John’s Song

In March 1964, Lennon had published an 80-page book titled, In His Own Write. It was comprised of short stories, poems, and line drawings, along with some surreal and nonsensical content. Parts of the book drew on his own life and childhood. A British journalist, Kenneth Alsop, noted that the book revealed more about him than his songs did, and that he should write more songs about his life.

John Lennon on the cover of his 1964 book, 'In His Own Write'. Click for book.

Lennon, whether acting on Alsop’s comment or his own initiative, would later take stock of his growing-up years, returning to Liverpool for a retracing of his boyhood haunts. He traveled by bus from his old home through Liverpool, taking notes of all the places of his youth. From this, a working title for a song became, “Places I Remember.”

Yet, it turned out that Lennon’s field trip into his youth produced, by his accounting, a boring compilation of place names, which after the fact seemed to him a ridiculous exercise. Still, he had worked up various drafts incorporating some of his listings. But it wasn’t clicking as a song.

So then, he set it aside, and gradually, the basis for a song began to come to him and take form. Lennon would later say. “…I struggled for days and hours, trying to write clever lyrics. Then I gave up, and ‘In My Life’ came to me – letting it go is the whole game.”

Lennon, working with McCartney and George Martin on the song, settled on some more general phrasing for the lyrics rather specific place names which he had tried to use in earlier drafts.

McCartney also helped with the music (although there are varying accounts from McCartney and Lennon over who did what on the song), and George Martin would added some instrumentation in the middle.

“In My Life”
The Beatles / John Lennon
1965

There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I’ve loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more

[ harpsichord-sounding interlude ]

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more
In my life– I love you more

Studio Work

During work on the song in the studio, Lennon asked Martin for a piano solo – “something Baroque-sounding,” according to one source. What Martin came up with is one of the signature parts of the song, as he recorded a Bach-like piano piece, but had the taping machine run at half speed, so when it was played back, it was faster, sounding like a harpsichord.

Music Player
“In My Life” – 1965

“In My Life” was recorded at EMI’s Abbey Road studio in London during sessions on October 18th and October 22nd, 1965. It was first heard by the public in early December 1965 on the Rubber Soul album – as the 4th track on side two of both the Parlophone (U.K.) and Columbia (U.S.) recordings. On both albums, the song follows “I’m Looking Through You,” which some believe helped the emotional nature of “In My Life” to stand out. The song, however, was never released as a single.

In the song’s lyrics, the narrator begins by marking all the places he’ll remember throughout his life; some good, some not so good; some etched deeply, others more fleeting – but all of which have their memorable moments. Lovers and friends are part of this tableau as well – some living, some departed – all loved as part of the narrator’s life. But in the song’s second part, the verse is offered to one present friend/lover, who is singled out as standing above the rest, if only for the moment, when love is new, and memories of the past take something of a lesser hold, but do not recede. In fact, the narrator states he will never lose affection for the people and places that have gone before, and will think of them often. But in the present moment, he appears focused on one friend/lover. Thus, the narrator’s lyrics capture the repeating pattern of life; with friends, family, lovers and their places as a cumulative process; accretive to life experience and emotional memory – elements that give this song its universal appeal.

Bernadette McNulty, an editor at London’s Telegraph newspaper, listed “In My Life” as one of her favorite Beatles tunes in 2012, citing it as “a strangely simple, beautiful song that manages to touch on charged emotions like grief, loss, nostalgia and remembrance but without shedding a tear of sentimentality….” And in Lennon’s case, there were real people and real places that had fueled the poetry – places such as Penny Lane, a street in Liverpool; Menlove Avenue, where Lennon had grown up as a boy with his Aunt Mimi; and “the Clock Tower in the Circle of the Abbey,” which he wrote about in earlier drafts – and real people, including his first wife, Cynthia Powell; good friend and biographer Peter Shoton; and departed friend and former Beatles’ bassist, Stu Sutcliffe, who died of a brain tumor in April of 1962.

1965 photo of John Lennon by Brian Duffy.

A 2nd photo of Lennon by Duffy – both photos capture something of Lennon’s early Beatles innocence.

A Maturation

Lennon would later say of the song: “’In My Life’ was, I think, my first real, major piece of work. Up until then it had all been glib and throw-away. I had one mind that wrote books and another that churned out things about ‘I love you’ and ‘you love me,’ because that’s how Paul and I did it…It was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously, about my life…a remembrance of friends and lovers of the past.”

Bruce Eder of AllMusic.com, reviewing the song, noted that “In My Life” was also “a creative watershed in the Beatles’ songwriting and recording history,” calling it “unique in its musical and lyrical sensibilities,” expanding the horizons of both. Eder adds:

…The song altered the public sensibility not only of what constituted acceptable songwriting in which a rock & roll composer could engage, but also the range of emotions that rock & roll musicians were allowed to express. … “In My Life’s” lyrics were steeped in a mix of innocent nostalgia and an acknowledgment of distance from those emotions. Essentially, it was a song about maturation and accepting the passage of time, and the loss that comes with it, all attributes that were unusual, if not extraordinary, in mid- 1960’s rock & roll… [E]ven the confession of feelings of nostalgia was totally unexpected in the repertory of a rock & roll band in this period….

Eder also explains that the song “helped start John Lennon down a creative road that led to songs such as ‘Julia’ and much of the content of his best post-Beatles recordings….”

Graphic showing Beatles sheet music cover for “In My Life” overlaid on a Rolling Stone “Greatest Songs” logo.

Song’s Legacy

However, what is most notable about “In My Life,” in addition to its role in the evolution of the Beatles’ and Lennon’s music, is the song’s usage and popularity since 1965.

Among Beatles fans, and even non-fans, “In My Life” has become a favored piece of music. It is heard frequently at weddings, anniversaries, funerals and other occasions, whether family celebrations or more somber public occasions where nostalgia and reflection are called for. Some who have grown up with the song, have requested in advance that it be played at their funerals as a remembrance and farewell song.

According to SongFacts.com, “In My Life” was played at Kurt Cobain’s funeral in 1994. Cobain was the frontman for the rock group Nirvana. The Beatles were an early and important music influence on him. Cobain had cited Lennon as his “idol” in journals he kept during his time with Nirvana. At the 2010 Oscars ceremony, James Taylor performed “In My Life”during the “In Memoriam” segment, honoring film stars and entertainers who died the previous year. And among everyday people, too, the song has resonance in a variety of ways. “Charles” of Bronxville, New York, for example, adding a comment at SongFacts.com, noted:

…When my daughter was born, she was delivered by C-Section. I was in the delivery room and got to hold her. Once she was bundled up, the Dr. said I should take her out to the waiting area while they closed the incision. I took her out and held her. I sat there with tears rolling down my face and sang this song to her. I thought it should be the first. I still do.

2010: ‘Rolling Stone’ featuring ‘The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs’. Click for special edition.

“Mister P” of Magnolia, Texas, also writing on SongFacts.com, noted: “As fine a song as ever penned. It took several decades of maturing for its lyrics to finally hit me. I don’t know how such a young man could create such mature lyrics.” Lennon was 25 years old when he wrote “In My Life.”

And for some, after Lennon’s death at age 40 in New York by deranged gunman Mark David Chapman, “In My Life” took on more meaning. Michael Lewis, co-author of 100 Best Beatles Songs: A Passionate Fans Guide, noted of the song: “I’m always a sucker for a melancholy tune, an ode to loves lost, the time that is fleeing and our lost youth. But John’s passing made this song even sadder for me. Fortunately, the song ultimately puts forth a message of hope – love lives on – and that’s all that really matters…”

“In My Life” has been covered by several artists, including Judy Collins, Bette Milder, Johnny Cash, José Feliciano, and others. It has also been used in some film and TV soundtracks, including: the 1987 film Five Corners with Jodie Foster and Tim Robbins (the Beatles version); the 1991 movie For the Boys (Bette Midler cover); the 2005 film Little Manhattan (Matt Scannell cover); various episodes of the 1988-1993 TV series, The Wonder Years (Judy Collins cover); the theme song for the 1999-2002 TV series, Providence (Chantal Kreviazuk cover).

For another John Lennon story at this website, from later in his life, see “Watching the Wheels.” Additional Beatles stories can be found at the “Beatles History” page. See also the “Annals of Music” page for other music stories. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 16 July 2016
Last Update: 10 December 2018
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “In My Life: Lennon, 1965,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 15, 2016.

____________________________________

Beatles Music at Amazon.com…

The Beatles: 1967-1970, “The Blue Album,” 28 songs. Remastered. Click for Amazon.

“The Beatles 1,” Remastered (2000), 27 songs. Click for Amazon.

The Beatles, “Abbey Road” album, Remastered (2009). 17 songs. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Side 2 of the Beatle's "Rubber Soul" album showing 'In My Life' as the fourth track. Click for digital single.

“In My Life,” BeatlesBible.com.

“In My Life,” Wikipedia.org.

“In My Life: No. 5 – The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs,” Special Collectors Edition, Rolling Stone, 2010, pp.20-22.

“In My Life, by The Beatles,” SongFact.com.

“My Favourite Pictures of John W. Lennon,” All You Need is The Beatles, website.

Dave Rybaczewski. “In My Life” (John Lennon – Paul McCartney), Beatles Music History, website.

Bruce Eder, Song Review, “In My Life,” AllMusic.com.

Sam Jeffries / Sonicnetcom, “Beatles’ ‘In My Life’ Named Greatest Song Ever Written; Poll of Top Songwriters Ranks Rolling Stones’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ at #2,” MTV.com, July 13, 2000.

“Famous Beatles Fans Choose the Band’s Best Song; From a Day in the Life to You Won’t See Me, Musicians, Artists, Critics and Writers Pick Their Favourite Ever Beatles Track,” The Telegraph, October 4, 2012.

Other Beatles Stories at this Website

Jack Doyle, “Beatles’ D.C. Gig, March 1964” (history of Beatles’ first U.S. concert appearances), PopHistoryDig.com, July 9, 2008.

Jack Doyle, “Nike & The Beatles, 1988-89” (pop music & advertising history), PopHistoryDig.com, November 11, 2008.

Jack Doyle, “Michael & McCartney, 1980s-2009” (Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney history), Pop HistoryDig.com, July 7, 2009.

Jack Doyle, “Dear Prudence, 1967-1968“(Beatles & pop music history), PopHistoryDig.com, July 27, 2009.

Jack Doyle, “Beatles in America, 1963-64” (early Beatles in America, first tours, etc.), Pop HistoryDig.com, September 20, 2009.

_____________________________

Books at Amazon.com…

“All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release,” every album, every song, 1963-1970. Click for Amazon.

Glenn C. Altschuler’s “All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America,” Oxford University Press, 240 pp. Click for Amazon.

“The Rolling Stones All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track” (2022 expanded ed.). 340 songs, 760pp. Click for Amazon.

Teaser Tag: Sci-Fi Film History
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Soylent-Green-_Symphony-Suite_-1973.mp3 4521550 audio/mpeg

1961-1970, 1971-1980

“Soylent Green”
1973

July 16, 2016 J.D.

In April 1973, a film named Soylent Green was released in America starring actors Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotten and Leigh Taylor-Young. In the film, it is the year 2022, and the world has gone to hell. After years of runaway population growth, the planet is a mess, pollution is rampant, and resource scarcity is a way of life. New York city, the place where this story unfolds, houses some forty million people. The city is shrouded in a dense yellow haze of pollution as an ongoing heat wave torments its occupants. Poverty abounds and every available space is crammed with desperate residents. Corporations run all the services, such as they are.

Opening screen shot from the 1973 film “Soylent Green,” depicting a polluted and overheated New York City.

The teeming masses survive by way of generic food products produced by the Soylent Corporation. The highly processed wafers, distributed on specified week days, are known by names such as “Soylent Yellow” and “Soylent Red.” But in the year 2022, a new Soylent product is introduced – “Soylent Green” – made from ocean plankton. Real food – such as vegetables and meat – have long vanished, save for a few last remnants, now black-market fare and eaten only by the ultra-rich. Running water too, is virtually unknown, as residents stand in long lines for their water ration.

"Tuesday is Soylent Green Day," the day small food wafers made from ocean plankton are distributed to the masses.

Angry masses often turn violent during Soylent food days.

One of the film’s opening screenshots set the stage on the crowded, run-down nature of a dystopic New York City.

Charlton Heston as detective Robert Thorn, and Edward G. Robinson as Solomon “Sol” Roth, live together in their cramped apartment in the 1973 film, “Soylent Green.”

Sol and Thorn in conversation while Sol pedals a bike to charge up their generator for electricity.

Thorn jumping over local “residents” who now sleep and live in the stairwell outside Thorn & Sol’s apartment.

Thorn on the scene of the suspected murder of William Simonson, who later turns out to be part of Soylent Corp. Tab Fielding, the bodyguard, played by Chuck Connors, looks on.

“Apartment woman” Shirl – also called “furniture,” since such ladies came with the property, rented out to tenants. She is questioned by Thorn in his murder investigation.

Shirl at first becomes a casual acquaintance for Thorn, but their relationship takes a more serious turn during the story.

At police headquarters, Thorn visits with chief detective Hatcher (Brock Peters) to go over the Simonson case.

Thorn’s investigation takes him to Fielding’s apartment where he finds Fielding’s companion, Martha Philips.

On his way out, Thorn pockets Martha's spoon.

Sol brings out the linen & silverware for the ‘special meal’ he has made of the rare food items Thorn pilfered.

Sol wishing ‘bon apetit’ to Thorn as he offers his beef stew for their special meal.

Sol tasting & identifying the red substance Thorn pilfered from Fielding’s lady – rare & expensive strawberry jam.

Thorn visits with Father Paul in attempt to learn what Simonson might have told him.

Thorn on riot control duty, where a sniper tries to kill him.

Sol at "Supreme Exchange," where fellow "books" concur with Sol's worst-case discovery.

Riots over these conditions are frequent and the massed crowds are confronted crudely by riot control police and bulldozer-like equipment called “scoops” which do just that, scooping up and dumping the unruly mobs into trucks to cart them off. This world is also highly bifurcated, with the very rich in walled-off and security-protected buildings, while the masses live in the proletarian district separated from the rich. Most people eke out meager existences, living in the streets, sleeping in churches, cars and building hallways and staircases.

Thorn & Sol

In this dystopic setting, a story unfolds around the lives of Robert Thorn, played by Charlton Heston and his elderly roommate, Solomon “Sol” Roth, played by Edward G. Robinson. Thorn is a detective and Sol is a crime research assistant and one of the few people who can still read. Sol is also old enough to remember how things once were, and how beautiful the planet was.

As it is, living in their resource-scarce and broken-down world, either Sol or Thorn must pedal a stationary bike rigged to a generator to make electricity for their apartment. Outside their door, in the hallway and stairwell, dozens of squatters live and sleep there since they have nowhere else to go.

Thorn and Sol get along with each other fine. Thorn is street-savvy detective not above pilfering a few things from a crime scene now and then to make his and Sol’s life bearable. Sol is frequently reminding Thorn of how good and beautiful the world was “before things went bad.”

Sol is a “Book”

Their apartment is full of books Sol has collected, since books are no longer made. Sol in fact, is called a “book” – a “police book” to be exact.

Electronic databases have long vanished in this world, so folks like Sol who can read and research at “old world” book exchanges, are sometimes employed to help run down what information they can. Sol helps Thorn with his criminal investigations.

“Roth is the film’s heart and soul,” wrote one reviewer in 2011 of Soylent Green, commenting on Edward G. Robinson’s character. “His nostalgic yearnings for the pre-eco-meltdown world still act as a mindful warning to this day…”

Sol has a high regard for the old world and its beauty, if not for its people. “People were always rotten,” he says to Thorn at one point, “but the world was beautiful” – suggesting nature’s recuperative and even “safety-valve” aspects, now gone.

Thorn is an interesting, mixed character, as played by Heston, a swaggering, tough, and street-wise detective, but still retaining his humanity

Murder Investigation

Thorn becomes involved in a murder investigation of a wealthy businessman named William R. Simonson, played by Joseph Cotton. At first the murder appears to be a burglary gone wrong. But as the investigation proceeds it becomes clear Mr. Simonson was deliberately murdered.

Simonson’s “tough guy” bodyguard, Tab Fielding, played by Chuck Connors, seems to be hiding something. At the murder scene – an exclusive residence for the ultra rich – Thorn goes over the site thoroughly, and questions Fieldling about what he knows.

In an earlier set-up scene for viewers, the murderer, named Gilbert, has met with an unnamed person in one of the thousands of abandoned cars that litter the city. He has been hired to kill Simonson – a corporate VIP who has become a security risk of some unstated kind.

Gilbert fulfils his murder contract, gaining entry to Simonson’s normally-secure upper class, luxury apartment, killing him with a meat hook.

“Furniture Girl”

At his apartment, Simonson had a live-in lover, a female attendant who comes with the apartment – referred to as “furniture” or “apartment women” – rented out to rich tenants. Simonson’s female companion is named Shirl, played by Leigh Taylor-Young.

In his investigation, Thorn questions Shirl about Simonson and the apartment, but she knows nothing about the murder or any motive. She does say that Simonson was a kindly man, who did seem bothered about something in recent days.

Simonson, it is later learned, was a member of the board of directors of the Soylent Corporation, and was also involved in politics, associated with the current governor, named Santini.

Luxury Goods

While Thorn is in Simonson’s apartment, with all of its luxuries, he washes his face with running water, something he’s barely experienced before. He also helps himself to some of the apartment’s luxury food items — alcohol, soap, a few books, and other incidentals. He also becomes intimate with the apartment girl, Shirl.

Thorn returns home with his bundle of pilfered food and other supplies from Simonson’s apartment and presents them to Sol. In addition to items such as pencils and real sheets of paper, it is the even rarer food items that get Sol’s undivided attention – an onion, an apple, and a side of beef – the latter of which is now worth a small fortune.

Upon seeing the real food Thorn has brought home, Sol nearly comes to tears remembering the old days. There is also some whiskey.

Oceanographic Survey

In addition, Thorn gives Roth the Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report: 2015 to 2019,, a two-volume work which he liberated from Simonson’s apartment. Thorn wants Sol to delve into these reports to learn all he can about them and whether they have anything to do with the murdered Simonson. Then Thorn is off to police headquarters

In a meeting with his supervisor, chief detective Hatcher, played by Brock Peters, Thorn acknowledges he’s having difficulty closing out one of his cases. Hatcher suggests that Sol might be the problem, and maybe he should replace Sol with a new “book,” citing Sol’s age.

Thorn disagrees, and turns to the current murder case. Thorn believes Simonson was assassinated, as nothing was stolen from the apartment and the alarm system was conveniently out of order. Thorn believes Tab Fielding, Simonson’s assistant, is somehow involved.

He later follows Fielding and gains access to his apartment building, but finds that Fielding’s live-in companion, Martha Philips, is the only one at home. After admiring the spacious apartment and wondering how Fielding affords it, Thorn leaves, but on his way out he pilfers a spoon covered with a red substance that Phillips was eating during Thorn’s visit.

“Gourmet” Meal

At home, Thorn discovers that Sol has whipped up a “gourmet” meal from the stolen food items Thorn had brought home earlier. Meager as it is, the “real food” luncheon is something of revelation to Thorn.

Sol treats the occasion with high honor, bringing out real silverware and spreading a linen tablecloth. The main course is a beef stew, served with wine, and a couple of apples. Thorn has never had most of this real food.

Over dinner, Sol reveals from his research of Simonson that he worked for a large legal firm related to the Santini family – that of Governor Santini. Simonson later became director of a freeze-drying food company that was eventually bought by the Soylent Corporation, with Simonson thereafter becoming a member of the Soylent Corporation’s board of directors.

Strawberry Spoon

At the end of the meal, Thorn produces the spoon that he took from Fielding’s apartment with a bit of the mysterious red substance still on it. He offers it to Sol for a taste. Sol exclaims that it’s strawberry jam, a rare delicacy in their world, then selling for upwards of $150 a jar.

Thorn later returns to Simonson’s apartment to visit with Shirl again. She wants to leave Simonson’s apartment and live with Thorn. But that night they stay in the apartment, turn up the air conditioning – “like it was winter again” – avail themselves to the running water and showers, and generally indulge in the luxury apartment’s amenities.

Shirl, meanwhile, has mentioned to Thorn that she and Simonson went to a local church where Simonson had prayed with, and possibly confessed to, a black priest there named Father Paul. Thorn later visits with Father Paul, who is reluctant to divulge any confidential religious conversations he may have had with Simonson.

The powers that be, meanwhile – including Governor Santini – become upset after learning that Thorn now knows about and has talked with the priest. Hatcher, being pressured by higher ups, later tells Thorn that he’s been taken off the Simonson case and assigned to riot control. But Thorn continues his investigation anyway. Tab Fielding, in the employ of the powers that be, later kills Father Paul in his confessional.

Out on the street, during a riot outbreak where Thorn’s unit is involved, the hitman who murdered Simonson tries to kill Thorn, but instead, the would-be assassin is killed by a falling object during the riot. Thorn was grazed in the leg by the hit man’s bullet, but is o.k..

In the next days, Thorn’s investigation continues, as Sol’s research, begins turning up some odd details.

“Oceans Are Dead”

To his great horror, Sol has discovered, after reading the Soylent Corp documents, that “the oceans are dead” – and worse.

Sol then takes Soylent’s oceanographic reports to a like-minded group of researchers at the “Supreme Exchange,” a library and gathering place for fellow “books.”

The “books” and Sol finally realize that the reports indicate a “horrible” truth. They agree that the oceans are no longer capable of producing the plankton from which Soylent Green is reputedly made, and they conclude it is being made instead from – horror of horrors – human remains.

The appalling nature of what Sol has uncovered in Simonson’s Soylent documents and other sources leaves him shaken and depressed.

Alone in his apartment, contemplating what he has learned, he writes a short note for Thorn and leaves it at their apartment – “I’m going home” it says. This is a Soylent Green world euphemism for cashing oneself in — i.e., government-assisted euthanasia.

Sol has decided to turn himself in for “processing” at one of the government “death centers,” though they are not called that in the film.

“Going Home”

Given that starvation and misery of every imaginable kind are a way of life in this world, the state makes it easy, and even inviting, for those who have simply had it with their grim existence, to avail themselves to the state-assisted euthanasia “going home” services – or what some might call “death centers.”

Scene from “Soylent Green” showing a lone person in the middle of the grimy city, heading toward one of the “going home” centers, where state-assisted suicide is offered as an inviting alternative to the misery of living.

Sol with intake attendant at the “going home” center.

The euthanasia facilities are located throughout the city. The clean, well air-conditioned centers offer a stark a contrast to the noisy, dirty, hot, crowded world outside. The idea is to make such places as welcoming and attractive as possible to lure people in. Sol understands all of this, of course, but after what he’s learned, he’s decided that “going home” on his own terms is the better alternative.

The film shows Sol on a lonely walk down an abandoned street in the middle of the night on his way to the huge and well-lit death center.

Thorn meanwhile, has returned to their apartment only to finds Sol’s note that he is “going home.” Knowing exactly what that means, Thorn races from the apartment in an attempt to reach the “clinic” to prevent Sol from going through with the procedure.

Death chamber attendants welcome Sol to his bier.

Sol being given “going home” beverage at the death center.

Thorn struggles with attendant (left, over shoulder) to stop process, but is unable, though he forces attendant to open a window to view and talk with Sol as he dies.

Sol on his bier at the death center, viewing “forbidden” scenes of nature during his “going home” send off.

Sol, however, was already well into the process by then.

Upon arriving at the center, he was greeted by a courteous and welcoming attendant – played by Dick Van Patten (above photo) – who guides him through the process..

Sol then makes his way to a preparation room. While there, his clothing is taken and he is places on a bier.

At this point he is also given the sedating drink that is a lethal death potion. It will work slowly on him while he is wheeled into a huge cathedral like room.

Thorn, meanwhile, in a frantic search for his friend, has arrived at the center in an attempt to save Sol. However, he arrives too late, as the process has already begun.

Outside the room where Sol has already been admitted for his final passage, Thorn has accosted a guard trying to force him to stop the process. But the process can’t be stopped once it’s begun.

However, Thorn prevails upon the attendant to allow him to view Sol on his bier in the amphitheater- like chamber, and he also talks with Sol over a speaker system as the process goes forward.

Death Scene

The film sequence at the “going home” center, featuring Sol’s final moments, is regarded as one of the all-time classic death scenes in modern film history. The lighting and colors used, the music, the camera shots of Sol’s face, and the poignancy of what he and Thorn see there, make it a top-rated movie scene.

As Sol lies atop his bier he is surrounded by giant, building-size movie screens. The euthanasia death chamber was conceived as a sort of super-IMAX movie theater where previously “forbidden” images of forests, rushing rivers, and majestic mountains flash before the eyes of the departing in their final moments before death.

As Sol Roth is dying, he watches the giant screens as a sequence of film clips show the earth as it was long ago, when there was lush plant life, endless fields of flowers, multitudes of birds and mammals, no pollution, and no global warming.

Evocative Music

Gigantic film screen dwarfs Sol on his death bier (at center) as filmed images of the old “beautiful world” are shown accompanied by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Grieg..

During the “going home” sequence, a lush panorama of scenes of natural beauty is shown accompanied by a suite of evocative classical scores that help provide a particularly moving part of the film. The musical selections used during the scene, conducted by Gerald Friedd, include a medley of classical masterpieces – “Pathétique” from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6; “Pastoral” from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6; and “Morning Mood” and “Åse’s Death” from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite.

Thorn, looking in on Sol, is enraptured by the scenes of the old beautiful world he has never known.

Music Player
Classical Medley
Tchaikovsky, Beethoven & Grieg

During his final moments, Sol urges Thorn to follow the disposition of his body after it leaves the death center.

Thorn, meanwhile, as he views the prohibited material through a portal from outside the chamber, is overwhelmed by what is being shown on the giant screen, having never seen how beautiful the world was.

“I tried to tell you,” Sol says to Thorn, about the world’s beauty. Thorn acknowledges the beauty, he too is seeing on the screen, “I know, I know you did.” He and Sol exchange their love for one another as Sol continues to view the panorama as he slowly slips away.

In real life, Edward G Robinson died just 12 days after the filming of Soylent Green in January 1973. When the film aired some years later on the TCM channel, it was revealed in background that Robinson had only told Heston, a personal friend, that his doctors had given him just weeks to live. Robinson told Heston this news shortly before the filming of Sol’s death scene, which reportedly affected Heston’s on-screen performance during that scene.

As Thorn follows Sol’s body from inside the death center he discovers that the bodies are trucked away.

Jumping onto the roof of one of the trucks, Thorn is following the bodies and he soon arrives at a factory-like setting.

Inside the factory, Thorn discovers that the bodies are eventually dropped into a vat of dark liquid.

As Thorn travels through the factory, he learns how the remains are turned into Soylent Green wafers, but he is soon running for his life, pursued by guards and others.

Thorn on stretcher after gun battle, pleads with Hatcher to spread the truth about Soylent Green .

Thorn’s final words, near death, “Soylent Green is people!”

Follow The Bodies

During Sol’s final moments in the film, he tells Thorn the secret of Soylent Green, and begs him to follow the fate of his body once it leaves the death center. Sol also asks Thorn to report what he finds to the “Supreme Exchange.” As he nods off on his bier, Sol’s final words are mixed and incomplete:

…Horrible. Simonson. Soylent. Listen to me, Thorn. Thorn, listen….You’ve got to prove it, Thorn. Go to the Exchange. Please, Thorn. You’ve got to prove it. Thorn. The Exchange.

Although Thorn is shaken and torn by the death of Sol, he heeds Sol’s request to follow the movement of Sol’s body. Thorn sneaks into the basement there, where he sees corpses being loaded onto waste disposal trucks. He then jumps onto the roof of one as it departs from the center.

After a time he arrives at a factory where the sheet-wrapped bodies are placed on conveyor belts. There, they wend their way through a labyrinth of pipes and factory apparatus, at one point dropping, one by one, into a liquid vat, as if being buried at sea. But these bodies are not being buried.

As Thorn makes his way through the factory, he is confronted by security guards, and a battle ensues. After a tussle sending Thorn onto a conveyor belt below – a belt that is full of Soylent Green wafers – Thorn escapes from the factory, killing one of the guards.

Thorn by this time has figured out what’s going on at the factory, but now he’s on the run for he knows the dreadful secret of the Soylent Corporation, and why all the high-powered killing has been going on.

In an alleyway, he phones Shirl and tells her that he loves her but that she should stay in her apartment arrangement with the new incoming tenant, and “just live,” as he is not sure he will survive, given what he now knows.

Gun Battle & Fight

Tab Fielding and accomplices are now after Thorn, and Thorn calls Hatcher for help. In a gun battle, Thorn is shot by Fielding, but not killed, continuing a struggle with Fielding that spills over into a local church filled with the sick and dispossessed. In a gritty battle with Fielding, Thorn manages to kill him with a knife.

Hatcher then arrives to help Thorn, who is bloodied from the fight and near death. Thorn is then put on a stretcher.

“You Gotta’ Tell ‘Em”

But as Hatcher approaches him, Thorn pulls him close and tries to tell Hatcher what he’s discovered and that Hatcher needs to spread the word:

…I’ve got proof Hatcher… I’ve seen it happening. You gotta tell them, Hatcher…. The ocean is dying, plankton is dying. There is no plankton. Soylent Green is made out of people….They’re making our food out of people… Next thing you know, they’ll be breeding us like cattle for food. You better tell them …Listen to me Hatcher, you gotta tell them! We got to stop them somehow… Soylent Green is people…”

That line became one of the classic surviving moments from the film, as more than 30 years later, in 2005, it was voted at No. 77 on AFI’s list of famous movie lines, “100 Years, 100 Quotes.” And in the final scene, as Thorn is carried out on the stretcher amid the destitute crowd of souls huddled in the church, he repeats his cry, raising his bloodied arm and calling out, “Soylent Green is people!” Yet as the film ends, there is no assurance that Thorn’s words are believed or heeded by Hatcher or anyone else, likely dismissed as the paranoid ravings of just another lunatic.

Harrison’s Book

Soylent Green was based on Harry Harrison’s novel, Make Room! Make Room! first published in 1966. Harrison offered a dark and gloomy tale of a future New York City – set in August 1999, then 33 years away – where unchecked global population growth is savaging overcrowded cites, also plagued by resource shortages and crumbling infrastructure.

Harrison’s story, with its food riots, water shortages, pollution, and rampant crime, is set in a New York city with 35 million people. The plot features and follows several individual characters, recounting their lives as they struggle to survive.

1966: Cover of hardback edition of Harry Harrison’s “Make Room! Make Room!,” published by Doubleday.

1967: Cover of paperback edition of Harry Harrison’s “Make Room! Make Room!” Click for Berkley edition.

The book was one of the first to feature overpopulation as a pressing issue. The cover of the Doubleday hardback edition (first cover at left) was pretty tame, adding a subtitle, “A Realistic Novel of Life in 1999.” A 1967 paperback edition had a little more of a science fiction look to it, with a top-of-the-cover tagline that read: “An SF novel about New York City, Year:1999 – Population 35,000,00.” Remember that these taglines were written more than 50 years ago!

Heston Backs Film

Once the film came out, "Make Room! Make Room!" was issued in a 'Soylent Green' version with Heston and Leigh Taylor-Young on the cover.

The main push for a film version of the book appears to have originated with Charlton Heston who had read Harrison’s book in 1968. Heston began testing the waters in Hollywood to see if any of the studios would be interested in the book as a film project. These early attempts by Heston initially struck out. As of April 1970 there were no takers. But Heston didn’t give up on the idea.

In August 1971 Heston had a discussion with Walter Mirisch of MGM for several possible movies, including one on Make Room! Make Room! Those discussions continued through to May 1972, with Walter Seltzer – with whom Heston had worked on several earlier films. One worrisome cost factor centered on the huge numbers of expensive extras that would be needed to do the urban population and crowd scenes. Still, by then a script had been produced.

MGM meanwhile, proposed to change the title for the film from Make Room! Make Room! to Soylent Green, a change Heston supported. The title change was prompted in part by possible confusion with a TV sit com of that day, Make Room for Daddy. Richard Fleischer agreed to direct the film in late June 1972, and casting went forward as well, with Heston pushing for Edward G. Robinson in one of the key roles. Soylent Green began shooting on September 5th, 1972.

At the movie’s release in 1973, the reviews were tepid at best, with Time magazine calling it “intermittently interesting” and New York Times critic A.H. Weiler saying the film’s 21st-century verion of New York City was “occasionally… frightening,” but not always “convincingly real.” Still, in 1973, the film won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film.

Cover of a VHS edition of the 1973 film, "Soylent Green".

Charlton Heston, meanwhile, perhaps better known in his science fiction roles for the Planet of the Apes films, noted in one 1985 British TV interview that those films were basically “just a fantasy.” Soylent Green, on the other hand, focused on a major problem. “I think the population problem is the greatest problem the world faces,” Heston said at the time. “If we do not solve population, never mind any of the rest – never mind civil rights; never mind nuclear power; never mind the environment – it’s all finished. And, of course, that’s what Soylent Green was about. I’m very glad we made that, and very glad it was a success.”

Soylent Green by today’s movie-making standards may not offer the most sophisticated treatment of the dystopic themes it raises, or their possible root causes. Still, it has its prescient moments, touching on present-day concerns such as global warming, polluted and dying oceans, overcrowded cities, the widening rich-poor chasm, the remoteness and unaccountability of ever-enlarging food corporations, and the emergence of a politically-corrupt corporate state.

See also at this website, “Max Headroom, 1984-1988″ (a story about a briefly popular sci-fi TV show where a wise-cracking computer-generated being brings a measure of levity to an otherwise dystopic world where the media is a particularly sinister force). Other stories of possible interest can be found at the “Environmental History” page and the “Business & Society” page. Film and publishing-related stories can be found, respectively, at the “Film & Hollywood” page or the “Print & Publishing” page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 16 July 2016
Last Update: 16 July 2022
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopHistoryDig

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Soylent Green: 1973,”
PopHistoryDig.com, July 16th, 2016.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Unhappy detective Robert Thorn at police headquarters where a “Re-Elect Governor Santini” poster is visible.

Thorn savoring the crunch and sweetness of a ripe apple for the first time in his life, a rare “real food” item.

Damning report: “Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015 To 2019, Volume 1.”

Thorn happens upon a mother who has died on church steps with her child tied to her arm, hoping the child will be cared for. Thorn brings the child inside to care givers.

Unhappy Sol, once he has learned about the dying oceans and what the Soylent Corp. is really up to.

“Soylent Green, Film Summary,” American Film Institute, AFI.com.

Jeff Stafford, Film Review, “Soylent Green (1973),” Turner Classic Movies.

“Soylent Green (1973): Synopsis,” IMDB.com.

“Soylent Green,” Wikipedia.org.

A.H. Weiler, “Soylent Green (1973),” New York Times, April 20, 1973.

Harry Harrison “A Cannibalized Novel Becomes Soylent Green,” in Danny Peary (ed.) Omni’s Screen Flights/Screen Fantasies, New York: Doubleday, 1984.

Leigh Taylor Young, “LTY in 1970’s Soylent Green,” LeighTaylorYoung.com.

Boris Lugosi, “Review of Soylent Green,” Girls, Guns and Ghouls, January 9, 2007.

Charlton Heston Fan, “Soylent Green ‘Symphony Suite’ 1973,” YouTube.com, Uploaded. May 15, 2010.

**“Life vs. ‘Expediency’: Thoughts on Soylent Green,” Notes Toward an International Libertarian Eco-Socialism, July 13, 2010.

Neil Mitchell, “Review of Soylent Green,” Electric Sheep Magazine (U.K.), October, 12, 2011.

“Screen Captures, Soylent Green,” Pyxurz.Blogspot.com, October 2011.

Robin, “Environmental Nostalgia in Soylent Green,” Eco-Cinema and Film Genre, Monday, December 12, 2011.

Christopher Priest, “Harry Harrison Obituary; Popular Author of Science Fiction with a Serious Purpose and a Subversive Wit,” The Guardian (London), August 15, 2012.

James Meikle, “Death of Harry Harrison, Science Fiction Author, Aged 87 Writer of Comic and Dystopian Novels Who Inspired the Film Soylent Green,” The Guardian (London), August 15, 2012.

“Charlton Heston and Soylent Green,” HarryHarrison.com, 2012.

“Make Room! Make Room!,” Wikipedia.org.

B. Shapiro-Hafid, “Make Room! Make Room! And The Politics of Contraception,” A Study of The Hollow Earth, July 24, 2013.

“Luxury Foods, Lunch Scene, Soylent Green,” YouTube.com.

“Soylent Green – Death Center Scene”(3:31), YouTube.com.

“Thorn in Soylent Green Factory,” YouTube .com.

“Soylent Green is People!,” YouTube.com.

David Munk, “Standing Ovation: Edward G. Robinson in ‘Soylent Green’,” Backstage, April 7, 2014.

John Kenneth Muir, “Cult-Movie Review: Soylent Green (1973),” Reflections on Film and Television, June 6, 2014.

Cassidy Ward, “Is Eating People a Solution to World Hunger? The Science Behind ‘Soylent Green’. It’s People! (But It’s Also a Bad Idea),” SyFy.com, February 16, 2022.
________________________________

Teaser Tag: Baseball Heros

1961-1970

“Mickey Mantle Day”
September 18th, 1965

June 20, 2016 J.D.

It was mid-September 1965. America was in an unsettled time, as the Vietnam War and civil rights unrest were part of an unhappy national scene. Yet life went on. “Help,” by the Beatles, was the No. 1 hit on the Billboard pop music chart; The Sound of Music was leading the film box office; and James Michener’s The Source was atop the New York Times fiction bestsellers list. In August, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, but several days later the Watts Riots began in Los Angeles, underscoring the nation’s racial strife. However, on September 18th at New York’s Yankee Stadium, much of the outside world was suspended, if only briefly, as more than 50,000 baseball fans cheered their hero, Mickey Mantle, the famed slugger of the New York Yankees. It was “Mickey Mantle Day.”

Sept 18th, 1965: Former Yankee, Joe DiMaggio, presents Mickey Mantle to some 50,000 fans at Yankee Stadium on “Mickey Mantle Day” in New York. Mantle would also play his 2,000th game that day. AP photo.

Mantle, 33, was then in his 15th year with the Yankees. In June that year, Yankee management feared Mantle might be nearing the end of his playing days so they decided to give him a special day at the stadium. Only four other Yankees had been so honored – Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra. Mantle, who had played his entire career with the Yankees, had been a key player since his arrival as an 19-year old rookie in 1951. He had won three American League MVP Awards, a Triple Crown in 1956, and had made 14 All-Star appearances. He also figured prominently in the team’s World Series appearances. A fan favorite, Mantle was adored in New York and generally loved throughout the baseball world.

Portion of the cover of special program booklet issued by the New York Yankees for “Mickey Mantle Day.”

In New York, Mayor Robert Wagner had proclaimed “Mickey Mantle Day” that Friday. Mantle had been a guest of Wagner’s at City Hall that day along with general manager Ralph Houk. “Mickey Mantle is a man of whom all New Yorkers are entitled to be proud.,” said the Mayor. “He is a glowing example of courage and ability, a splendid sportsman and a credit to his country.”

At Yankee Stadium on September 18th, the ceremony honoring Mantle began at 1:00 pm, about an hour before a scheduled game with the Detroit Tigers. Famed announcer, Red Barber was master of ceremonies. Along with Mantle on the field that day, were his wife, Merlyn, and his eldest son, Mickey,.Jr, with three other sons watching from home. Among attending VIPs that day was U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY).

The Yankee organization had issued a special program for the day, with a centerfold of pages and photo collage devoted to Mantle and his career. And as was then the custom with such “special days” honoring national athletes, a cascade of gifts from fans, businesses, and organization were bestowed on Mantle and his family – though at the time Mantle was the highest paid player in Major League baseball.

Joe DiMaggio presented Mantle to some 50,000 fans at Yankee Stadium that day.“I am proud and honored to introduce the man who succeeded me in centerfield here in 1951,” said DiMagio. “He lived up to all expectations and there is no doubt in my mind that he will one day be in the Hall of Fame.”

Mantle then moved to the microphone to make his remarks, paying homage to DiMaggio, saying, “I think just to have the greatest baseball player I ever saw introduce me is tribute enough for me in one day.” Acknowledging that he was nervous, he generally thanked those who helped him through his career, saying he hoped he’d lived up to their expectations. “To have any kind of success in life I think you have someone behind you to push you ahead and to share it with you…. And I certainly have that,” he said, acknowledging his wife Merlyn, his four boys, and his mother, in attendance that day with Merlyn and young Mickey.

Mickey Mantle making remarks at “Mickey Mantle Day,” Sept 18th, 1965.

Mantle also noted that all donations that day would be turned over to the Hodgkin’s Disease Fund at St. Benton’s Hospital. That fund was founded in memory of Mantle’s father who died of Hodgkin’s disease in May of 1952 at the age of 40. “I wish he could have been here today,” said Mantle. “I know he would be just as proud and happy at what you all have done here as we are.”

Then he closed his remarks, noting: “There’s been a lot written in the last few years about the pain that I’ve played with. But I want you to know that when one of you fans, whether it’s in New York or anywhere in the country, say ‘Hi Mick! How you feeling?’ or ‘How’s your legs?,’ it certainly makes it all worth it. All the people in New York, since I’ve been here, have been tremendous with me. Mr. Topping, all of my teammates, the press and the radio and the TV, have just been wonderful. I just wish I had 15 more years with you….”

Rough Year

However, in 1965, Mickey Mantle was having a rough time of it, especially earlier in the season. He was not at his best. In fact, in June that year, he was hurting with injuries and slumping, batting only .240. Not happy with his performance, Mantle at the time thought about quitting. But he persevered, nonetheless, and made a bit of comeback, though still underperforming his then lifetime .308 average. He had also been moved from his traditional centerfield position to the somewhat less demanding left field.

In mid-August that year, Yankee manager Johnny Keane remarked on Mantle’s season: “Mickey has played at half-mast most of the season. But now, I’m seeing him at his best. He may not admit it, but he has cut down on his swing and still hits some real good shots. And when he does, the whole team brightens up. He’s the leader, no doubt about it, and he always wants to play.”

Two years earlier, in 1963, Mantle broke a bone in his left foot in a game against Baltimore, and played only 65 games that year. But in 1964, he came roaring back, playing in 143 games with 34 home runs and 111 runs batted in, compiling a .303 average. In the 1964 World Series, although the Yankees lost to the St, Louis Cardinals, Mantle hit for a .333 average with three home runs, eight RBIs, and eight runs scored. Mantle’s three home runs in that Series, however, raised his World Series total to a record-setting 18, surpassing Babe Ruth’s mark of 15.

In addition to the World Series home run record held by Mantle, his other World Series records include: most RBIs (40), most extra-base hits (26), most runs scored (42), most walks (43), and most total bases (123).

1965: Mickey Mantle on the cover of Sports Illustrated, with story speculating about the demise of the Yankees.

Still, in 1965 there were questions about Mantle and the Yankees.

A Sports Illustrated magazine piece that ran a few months prior to Mickey Mantle Day, on June 21, 1965, had featured Mantle on its cover with the tagline, “New York Yankees, End of An Era.” The story focused on the possible end of the Yankee dynasty that had dominated the game, owed in part to the ebbing careers of “big men” players like Mantle. But in the piece, author Jack Mann noted how an injured Mantle amazed his competitors with his continued play:

…Mantle, the one-man orthopedic ward, is even more a symbol of the Yankees in crisis than he was in their predominance. He plays on, on agonized legs that would keep a clerk in bed, and the opposition wonders how. “He’s hurting worse than ever,” says [former Yankee] John Blanchard…, “but he won’t admit it.”

“I don’t see how the heck he can keep going,” says Baltimore’s Norm Siebern, another ex-Yankee. ‘It has to be his last year,’ an American League manager concluded after watching the 33-year-old Mantle for the first time this season. ‘He can’t go on that way.’

But he did go on – for another three seasons in fact. His production was down in those years, cut in half from what he did in his prime. Still, he hit .288 in 1966 and played in more than 140 games in each of 1967 and 1968. And over those three years he continued to hit home runs – 23 in 1966, 22 in 1967 and 18 in 1968, with more than 50 RBIs in each of those years. He finished with a lifetime batting average just under .300, at .298 over 18 years. In that span he played in more than 2,400 games with a career total 536 home runs and 1,509 RBIs.

“A Macho Thing”
Home Runs: 1964

David Halberstam, the famous American journalist, in his book, October 1964, chronicles the respective 1964 World Series-bound seasons of the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals. In the excerpt below, he recounts one of Mickey Mantle’s home runs, and a bit of baseball’s home run lore, beginning with an August 1964 game at Yankee Stadium with the Chicago White Sox:

David Halberstam’s 1994 book on the 1964 Yankees and Cardinals.

“…In the fourth inning Mantle came up with the right handed Ray Herbert pitching for Chicago, and hit a tremendous drive to center field. The wind was blowing out slightly, and at first Mantle did not think he had quite gotten all of it. A look of disgust came over his face… [and he came] very close to throwing his bat down… Gene Stephens, the center fielder, thought at first that he could make a play on the ball, and then as he went back he saw the ball carry over the monuments, over the 461 [foot] sign, and over the screen, which was thirty feet high there. It landed fifteen rows back, and since each row was judged to be two feet, the ball was officially judged to be 502 feet [from home plate]. It may have been the longest ball Mantle ever hit to center field in the Stadium…

…Mantle was relaxed after the game, almost boyishly happy.”I’m glad I didn’t bang my bat down,” he told the assembled reporters. He loved the tape -measure home runs – they were his secret delight in the game. The reporters who covered him were aware of this, and knew how relaxed and affable he would be in the locker room after he hit one…

…Again and again when Mantle was younger, [former Yankee manager, Casey] Stengel had tried to get him to cut down on this swing, telling him that he was so strong, the home runs were going to come anyway, and they did not need to be such mammoth shots; if he cut back on his swing, his batting average would go up dramatically. That made no impression on Mantle, for he loved the tape-measure drives; he loved just knowing that every time he came to bat he might hit a record drive; he loved the roar of the crowd when he connected, and was equally aware of the gasp of the crowd when he swung and missed completely, a gasp that reflected a certain amount of awe…

Mickey Mantle holding a home run ball he hit some years earlier at Yankee Stadium in a July 1957 game that traveled an estimated 465 feet.

The home runs separated him from the other great power hitters of that era, as his pure statistics did not. The inner world of baseball was very macho; the clearest measure of macho for a pitcher was the speed of his fastball, and for a hitter, it was the length of his home runs. The players themselves were excited by the power hitters’ extraordinary drives, and they cataloged them – who had hit the longest drive in a particular ballpark – and spoke of them reverentially…”
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Note: Mantle in the August 1964 Chicago game mentioned above had two home runs, one from each side of the plate, the 10th time in his career he had accomplished that switch-hitting feat.

Back at “Mickey Mantle Day” in September 1965… As the scheduled game got underway that day, the pitcher for Detroit Tigers was a young right hander named Joe Sparma. When Mantle came up to bat in the bottom of the first inning, with two outs, he received a thunderous ovation from the crowd that day at Yankee Stadium. But then, Tiger pitcher Joe Sparma undertook something of a classy gesture to honor his Yankee opponent. He stepped off the mound, walked to home plate, and shook Mantle’s hand in admiration, saying to him: “You know, I’ve never had a chance to meet you in person, and I’ve always admired you.” Sparma then walked back to the mound and Mantle hit a long drive to left field for an out. Sparma had Mantle’s number that day, striking him out in the third inning and forcing a ground out in the 6th. Reportedly, Mantle, after his strike out, grumbled to the catcher as to why the Tigers couldn’t have been more considerate on his special day. Mantle walked his 4th time up that day, after Denny McLain came in to relieve Sparma. Tigers won, 4-3.

1964: Switch-hitting Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees showcasing his powerful swing from the left side.

Mickey Mantle announced his retirement from the New York Yankees on March 1st, 1969. He was 38 years old. His jersey and No. 7 numeral were retired at a ceremony on the second Mickey Mantle Day on June 8th, 1969. Mantle would return to the ballpark on various special occasions and “Old Timers” games in the 1970s and 1980s. After a battle with liver cancer, Mickey Mantle died on August 13th, 1995. He was 63 years old.

Jane Leavy’s 2010 book on Mickey Mantle, 'The Last Boy'.

The one footnote about Mickey Mantle, however – and some will say there is more than one – is that he might have had an even greater baseball career were it not for his injuries, but also, were it not for his carousing and use of alcohol, especially while he played. This behavior, some say, was due in part to Mantle’s fear he would die at a young age, as his father had, at age 40, from Hodgkin’s Disease.

Mantle did acknowledge his abusive behavior in his final, dying days, when modern medicine could no longer do anything for him, saying at a public press conference that he should have “taken better care of myself,” aiming his remarks at the young and advising them, “don’t be like me.” Still, for many, despite Mantle’s failings and the mythology surrounding his career, good and bad, he remains a much loved baseball superstar, perhaps captured best in the title of Jane Leavy’s 2010 book on him, The Last Boy.

Additional Mickey Mantle stories at this website can be found at the “Baseball Stories” topics page. See also “The M&M Boys,” on the Mantle-Roger Maris home run race of 1961, and the “Annals of Sport” page for other stories. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. — Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 20 June 2016
Last Update: 19 September 2019
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Mickey Mantle Day: Sept 18th, 1965,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 20, 2016.

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Baseball Books & Film at Amazon.com…

“Baseball: A Film By Ken Burns,” – the definitive history; fully restored in high definition, 2021, blue-ray or DVD. Click for Amazon.

Ben Lindbergh & Travis Sawchik’s best-selling 2020 book, “The MVP Machine,” building baseball talent. Basic Books, 416 pp. Click for book.

Joe Posnanski’s 2020 best seller, “The Baseball 100,” the 100 greatest players, with foreword by George Will. Simon & Schuster. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

1965: Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees signing autographs for young fans in Houston, Texas.

Mickey Mantle being interviewed by then sportscaster Frank Gifford. Click for “Celebrity Gifford” story.

“Mickey Mantle Day,” MickeyMantle.com.

“Mickey Mantle Speech, Mickey Mantle Day,” The Mick.com.

Associated Press, (New York) “Mantle’s Pay For 1965 Put at $107,000,” The Morning Record (Mariden, CT), February 5, 1965, p.4.

Frank Eck, AP Newsfeatures, Sports Editors, “Mantle Turns to Football to Aid His Career” (and MM Day), The Free Lance-Star (Frederickburg, VA), September 9, 1965, p. 19.

UPI, (New York), “Wagner Proclaims Today A Special Day For Mantle,” Lodi News-Sentinel, September 16, 1965.

Arthur Daley, “Sports of The Times: A Day for Mickey,” New York Times, September 17, 1965.

Arthur Daley, “Sports of the Times: The Nervous Hero,” New York Times, September 18, 1965.

Jack Mann,” Decline and Fall of a Dynasty; A 44-Year Saga of Power and Glory Is Ending for the New York Yankees…,” Sports Illustrated, June 21, 1965.

Milton Richman, UPI, “Mickey Mantle Day Was A Huge Success,” The Times-News (Hendersonville, NC), September 20, 1965, p. 3.

“Mickey Mantle & Joe Dimaggio at Yankee Stadium – 1965” (Mickey Mantle Day, September 1965)YouTube.com, Time, 1:53.

Loudon Wainwright / The View From Here, “A Vulgar Tribute to Greatness,” Life, October 1, 1965, p. 25.

“Mickey Mantle Stats,” Baseball-Almanac .com.

James Lincoln Ray, “Mickey Mantle,” Society for American Baseball Research.

“The Last Boy,” JaneLeavy.com.

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Mickey Mantle Books at Amazon.com…

R. Roberts & J. Smith, “A Season in The Sun: The Rise of Mickey Mantle,” 2018, Basic Books, 304 pp. Click for Amazon.

Tony Castro’s 2019 book, “Mantle: The Best There Ever Was,” Rowman & Littlefield, 280 pp.Click for copy.

Jane Leavy’s best-selling, “The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood,” 2010, Harper, 480pp. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Music, Culture, Politics

1951-1960, 1961-1970

“Jackie & The Twist”
First Lady History

June 20, 2016 J.D.

The year 1960 marked the election of the nation’s youngest president, John F. Kennedy, at age 43. It was also the year when a national dance craze of that era, known as “The Twist,” first came on the scene. And as it happened, “Mrs. JFK” – first lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy – would become curious about The Twist, would learn how to do the new dance and its variations, would teach other family members the dance steps, and would incorporate The Twist into the White House party scene. In her role as First Lady, as national hostess and cultural leader, Jackie Kennedy was quite on top of the arts and music scene of her day, and The Twist, it seems, would not be left out. But before exploring Jackie’s role in the new dance, a little background on how the song and dance came about.

1962: Jackie Kennedy dancing the Twist with her designer, Oleg Cassini, in the London home of her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, left. Cassini was also involved with a New York nightclub where the the Twist was popular. Photo, Benno Graziani.

The Twist

In 1958, Hank Ballard, an African American rhythm and blues (R&B) artist, wrote a song named “The Twist.” Ballard was the lead singer with “Hank Ballard and the Midnighters,” an early 1950s group that had become known in R&B circles for several bawdy songs that had done quite well on the R & B music charts. But Ballard’s “The Twist,” first recorded in early 1958 by Vee-Jay records in a Florida studio, wasn’t released then, as Ballard and group were in the midst of a label change. King Records then became the group’s label, issuing “The Twist” in 1959 on the “B side” of another of their recordings – “Teardrops On Your Letter.” B-side recordings were less likely to be played by radio DJ’s. And sure enough, after its release, “Teardrops” rose to No. 4 on the R&B chart while “The Twist” rose to No. 16, R&B.

1950s: Hank Ballard & The Midnighters, the R&B group that first recorded “The Twist.” Click for “Very Best of” CD album.

1959: King 45rpm for Hank Ballard & The Midnighters’ “The Twist.” Click for vinyl.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dick Clark, host of the then popular American Bandstand TV dance show, had heard that “The Twist” was getting some attention in Baltimore. Black teenagers there had heard the new song at a Hank Ballard & Midnighters performance, and a new dance was evolving with it, also starting to appear on a Baltimore TV dance show, The Buddy Dean Show. Bernie Binnick, a Dick Clark business associate in Swann Records, along with Freddy Cannon, a Swann recording artist, saw the Baltimore kids dancing the new Twist. Binnick picked up Ballard’s 45 rpm record and later played it for Clark back in Philadelphia, who reportedly, at first, found it too bawdy and too risky for his show. Clark at the time was facing “payola” inquiries, so he was being extra careful. Ballard and his group had incorporated some pretty risque dance moves as they performed their version of The Twist on stage, and Clark was aware that a couple of their earlier songs had been banned in a few places due to their lyrics.

Parkway record sleeve for Chubby Checker’s 1960-61 hit, “The Twist.” Click for vinyl.

Still, by the spring of 1960, Clark was looking for a cleaned-up version of the Twist and a new recording artist that he might be able promote on Bandstand. However, Swann Records’ owner Bernie Binnick, wasn’t interested in recording the song. But another Philadelphia label that Clark became involved with, Cameo-Parkway, was.

At the time, one of Cameo-Parkway’s new artists was Ernest Evans, who had been working as a chicken plucker in a dead-end job before he was discovered. Evans soon became “Chubby Checker”– a name suggested by Dick Clark’s wife – and was the designated candidate to record a new version of “The Twist.” Checker had already recorded a few songs for Cameo-Parkway, but was selected for the Twist primarily because his voice sounded much like Ballard’s.

Dance steps for the new version of the Twist were also revised, with less pelvic action than what Ballard and company had done on stage, or what the Baltimore kids were doing in their dancing. A simplified, open style of dancing with the couple standing apart was devised, swinging their arms from side-to-side across their torso, with legs and lower body moving opposite the swinging arms – ergo, “the twist.”

1960. Dick Clark of American Bandstand receiving instruc-tions from Chubby Checker on how to do The Twist.

Chubby Checker introduced the new dance on American Bandstand’s Saturday night show in early August 1960, just days after the song appeared for the first time on the Billboard music chart. Hank Ballard and Midnighters’s version of “The Twist” had been reissued by then as well, and actually beat the Chubby Checker version to the Billboard chart in late July 1960, but was soon eclipsed by the Checker version given its backing by American Bandstand. The Checker version hit No. 1 on Billboard September 19, 1960 – a time when Democratic Presidential candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy, was in a heated campaign race with Republican and then vice president, Richard M. Nixon.

In late September 1960, Chubby Checker appeared on the regular American Bandstand weekday show with Dick Clark, who then described the new dance as “a pretty frightening thing… sweeping the country.”

As John A. Jackson would later write in his book on Dick Clark: “It suddenly became socially acceptable for dancers to move their hips in public,” also quoting one Bandstand dancer from that era saying the twist “changed the way that we danced from that point on.”

The Twist would also prove to have staying power, and for a few years would touch off something of a mini “Twist economic boom” with more songs, merchandise, promoters, and artists jumping on the Twist bandwagon. Older adults would catch Twist fever as well, following the teenagers a year or so later. As a result, The Twist would become the only song to reach the No. 1 spot on the Billboard pop chart in successive years — 1961 and 1962. Chubby Checker, meanwhile, would enjoy a long career of Twist-related personal appearances, films, and other business opportunities.

Chubby Checker doing “The Twist.”

Twisting Venues

First lady Jacqueline Kennedy, a stylish, upper-class young woman known for her interests in fashion, the arts, and culture, became involved with the new Twist dance, and appears to have played a role in bringing it to the White House. It may well surprise some who associate Jackie Kennedy with the “high arts” of symphony, ballet, and classical art and architecture to learn that she involved herself with the more “proletarian arts” of the street, such as the Twist. Yet Jackie Kennedy, considered a bit snobbish in some arenas, and not always enamored with the grittier side of politics for example, appears to have had quite an eclectic outlook when it came to art, in whatever form.

In the first year of the Kennedy Administration, in March 1961, a New York dance band conducted by Lester Lanin played a version of the Twist in the East Room of the White House. Also that evening, it was later reported, that Andrew Burden, age 26, who had a reputation for doing “the best Twist in New York society,” gave a demonstration of the new dance at White House reception as JFK looked on. The press reported the president was merely an amused spectator. At least publicly, the Twist at the time was regarded in some quarters as not quite acceptable for a White House social function – not quite “presidential.” In fact, outgoing president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who left office in early 1961, called the Twist, “vulgar.” Yet, the Kennedy White House would be more accepting – after all, this was a president who had championed national vigor and new frontiers, setting some expectation for change.

The Peppermint Lounge. In New York, meanwhile, various celebrities and other glitterati by this time had been doing the Twist at a place called The Peppermint Lounge, a small discotheque at 128 West 45th Street in Manhattan. Among the notables seen “twisting away” there in 1961 were Truman Capote, Noël Coward, Audrey Hepburn, Norman Mailer, Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and others.

The twist dancing there was setting the pace, not only for the new dance, but also in a way, for national social mores as well. For with the Twist, couples danced apart; ladies no longer needed to follow the man’s lead. So, a bit of a social revolution was occurring, and as some saw it, the beginnings of the 1960s sexual revolution as well. And the Peppermint Lounge was where it was all happening. It became the place to be; the trendsetting place for the “in crowd.” Reportedly, Jackie Kennedy, with her sister, Princess Lee Radziwil, also made a trip to the Peppermint Lounge.

1961: The Peppermint Lounge discotheque at 128 West 45th St., New York, where “The Twist” dance was all the rage, and where Joey Dee & The Starliters had the No. 1 hit, “The Peppermint Twist.” (Alamy, stock photo). Click for Joey Dee at Amazon.

The house band at the Peppermint Lounge, Joey Dee and the Starliters, would later have a national hit with their song, “The Peppermint Twist,” which became No. 1 for three weeks in January 1962. The group would have a few albums riding on the coattails of twist mania, and would also appear in an least one film, Hey, Let’s Twist. A Joey Dee paperback on the Twist also appeared, among others.

AP news story, December 23, 1961.

In addition to the Peppermint Lounge, the First Lady’s designer, Oleg Cassini, was part owner in another New York club where The Twist was also in fashion on the dance floor. Cassini was reported to have helped bring the dance to Washington, “demonstrating it at Kennedy after-parties” and later introducing some French variations. And by all accounts, the First Lady herself was something of a dancer. According to historian Carl Anthony, Jackie was a whiz at the Twist and she also liked to samba, cha-cha, and dance the bosa nova.

On November 11th, 1961, there was a White House dinner dance in honor of Jackie’s sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, who had married Polish émigré nobleman, Prince Stanislas (“Stash”) Radziwill. Fiat auto executive, Gianni Agnelli and his wife, Marella, were also honorees at this affair. It was a dinner dance for about 80, with Lester Lanin’s band providing the music and Oleg Cassini introducing the Twist. The champagne flowed until 4 a.m., according to one account. But Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, still protecting the White House from disapproving social critics, denied the Twist had been part of the evening’s festivities.

At a Thanksgiving Day gathering of Kennedy family members at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts in November 1961, Jackie, according to Rose Kennedy, gave a demonstration of the dance to interested family members as Joan Kennedy played piano. Back in Washington, a month later, Jackie Kennedy appears to have played a role in granting permission to redecorate meeting rooms in the Pan American Union building into a “look-alike” Peppermint Lounge for a late December 1961 party. The Council of the Organization of American States had been meeting in those rooms earlier that day. Among some of the VIP onlookers attending that function and watching those on the dance floor, were Jackie’s mother, Mrs. Hugh D. Auchincloss; Time-Life publisher Henry Luce and his wife Clare Boothe Luce; and U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright.

Ft. Lauderdale. There had also been a few news reports of the First Lady doing The Twist at local nightspots in Fort Lauderdale, Florida during a late December 1961 visit to the area. As would become custom in those years, the Kennedy family during the December-January holiday, would stay in Palm Beach, not far away.

Regarding the Jackie sightings, however, Kennedy press secretary, Pierre Salinger, firmly denied reports of the First Lady twisting at local nightclubs, and assured inquiring press such sightings were surely the result of mistaken identity.

Still, at least one wire story appeared in some newspapers with witnesses claiming they saw Jackie at one club, The Golden Falcon Lounge. At the time, JFK’s father had taken ill, and the President was reportedly “furious” over the fact that the wire story had run.

White House Parties. By early 1962, it was being reported that the First Lady had begun holding occasional “Twist parties” at the White House, and that Jackie, in particular, was reportedly “a wicked Twister,” according to one friend who saw the 31-year old First Lady doing her version of the dance at an East Room event.

Betty Beale, a society reporter then with The Washington Star newspaper, filed an account of a February 1962 White House party where the First Lady and Secretary of Defense, Robert MacNamara did a bit of twisting.

February 1962: One of the newspaper stories reporting on Jackie Kennedy and ‘The Twist’ at the White House.

1960: JFK & Jackie Kennedy. Photo, Frank Fallaci.

Beale’s report, in part, ran as follows:

“…The Twist has truly arrived! From here on it has no place to go.”

…The lady who did it with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the White House dinner dance last week [Feb 1962] was none other than Jacqueline Kennedy. And according to the other guests, ‘She does it beautifully!” and ‘He [McNamara] was terrific.’

Anyone who still had any misgivings about the current dance craze simply hasn’t seen it done the way Mrs. Kennedy, who looked lovely in a long white satin sheath, and Secretary McNamara, frequently called ‘the brain’ of the cabinet, performed it. It was rhythmic, fun and peppy, and more restrained than the good old Charleston which doesn’t seem to shock anyone.

The third White House dinner dance, this one for the Stephen Smiths (brother-in-law and sister of the President), wowed the 100 guests until morning. Jacqueline Kennedy, who danced almost every dance, withdrew and retired at 3 a.m. But the President, who had disappeared from time to time for consultations in his private apartments upstairs with some of his own officials present, kept it going to 5 a.m. when he went to say goodnight to his last guests…

As usual, Lester Lanin and his orchestra played in their red coats. Lester, who is humble and thrilled to be the one invited to play each time, gives a better picture of the atmosphere at these black tie presidential parties. Here he describes it in his own words:

‘They are as cheerful and as gay and as dignified a party as you will find from coast to coast. Everybody is having fun but everyone is dignified. The White House waiters all say they have never seen such beautiful parties there.’

‘Everybody is on his good behavior, but he (the president) makes you relax…. He doesn’t dance often and he doesn’t hold them close. He talks when he dances, and he only dances a couple of minutes, then he takes another partner later’…

There were also smaller parties occasionally held in the private quarters of the White House — all dignified gatherings, of course. But at least at one of the larger parties, Phil Graham, editor of The Washington Post, split his pants during some vigorous twisting.

Summer 1962: Jackie Kennedy with her sister, Lee Radziwill, on the Amalfi Coast of Italy during vacation, where reportedly, at Italian nightspots, she danced the Twist and learned the Watusi. Photo, Benno Graziani.

Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Jackie Kennedy was also reported to have partaken in the Twist, and its dance variations, while vacationing along Italy’s Amalfi Coast during the summer of 1962. By that time, however, the original version of the Twist was morphing into new dance variations, such as the Watusi. Still, Jackie reportedly learned some new variations of the Twist during her visits to Italian nightspots. Mother-in-law Rose Kennedy would later report in her diary that when Jackie arrived at the family’s Cape Cod compound following her vacation in Italy, she taught various family members all the specifics of the new dances.

“Bradlee Remembers”
White House Parties

Ben Bradlee, former Newsweek and Washington Post editor, was a friend and neighbor to the Kennedys both before and during their White House years. What follows are a couple of excerpts from Bradlee’s books on the White House parties.

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Ben Bradlee book, 1995. Click for copy.

…[T]he Kennedys were changing the face and the character of Washington. Nothing symbolized this change more than the parties, for the Kennedys were party people. He loved the gaiety and spirit and ceremony of a collection of friends, especially beautiful women in beautiful dresses. They liked to mix jet setters with politicians, reporters with the people they reported on, intellectuals with entertainers, friends with acquaintances. Jackie was the producer of these parties. Jack was the consumer. They gave five or six dances during their time in the White House, and that’s where it all came together.

The crowd was always young. The women were always stylish. And you had to pinch yourself to realize that you were in the Green Room of the White House, and that the chap who just stumbled on the dance floor was no stag-line bum, but the Vice President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Sometimes, the very best friends were asked not to come until after dinner…

— Ben Bradlee, The Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures, 1995.

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…In all the time that we knew him, we saw Kennedy really tight only once [i.e., high on alcohol – “one of the very rare occasions we’ed seen him in that condition”]. The occasion was a small dinner in the family dining room upstairs [at the White House], with only the president, Lee Radziwill, Bill Walton, and ourselves [Ben and Tony Bradlee] present. Jackie was out of town. The “twist” had just hit Washington, or it least it had finally hit Washington, and after dinner Lee Radziwill put Chubby Checker’s records on and gave all the men lessons. The champagne was flowing like the Potomac [River] in flood and the president himself was opening bottle after bottle in a manner that sent the foam flying over the furniture, shouting “Look at Bill go” to Walton, or “Look at Benjy go” to me, as we practiced with the “princess.”…

— Ben Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy, 2014.

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Ben Bradlee book, 2014. Click for copy.

February 14, 1962. At cocktails in the White House with the President, where: “…there was much upbeat reminiscing… – Phil Graham’s ‘twist,’ which had produced a six-inch rip in the seat of his pants as he took his first lesson in the new dance craze from Tony [Bradlee]… the very proper ‘twists’ performed by Jackie with ‘the Guv’ (Averell Harriman) and Bob McNamara…”

— Ben Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy, 2014.

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…We were invited to a birthday party cruise down the Potomac on the Sequoia [presidential yacht] in May 1963…

…Kennedy had not learned that the Twist was passé, and kept calling for more Chubby Checker every time the three piece combo played anything else for long…

— Ben Bradlee, The Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures, 1995.

JFK’s younger brother, and U.S. Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy, and wife Ethel, were also known for throwing memorable parties at their Hickory Hill home in McLean, Virginia, where on one occasion, Ethel Kennedy reportedly recruited singer/actor Harry Belafonte to teach attending party guests how to do The Twist. And at least one composer, Sonny Thompson, wrote a ditty titled, “Do The Presidential Twist,” which was something of a variation on the Chubby Checker song, with apropos political lyrics and JFK insertions throughout, along with a chorus of, “Come on Baby, lets do the President Twist.”

Paperback book, ‘The Twist,’ part of general merchandising craze. Click for copy.

But during the 1961-62 period, it appears, the imprimatur of Jackie Kennedy’s approval of the new Twist dance contributed to its rise and wider cultural acceptance. Indeed, some say it was more than that. As James Wolcott wrote in October 2007 for VanityFair.com:

“First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was more than an interested bystander. It was she who stamped the presidential seal on the Twist and turned the White House and Hickory Hill… into the Peppermint Lounges of the Potomac. Under her aegis, Washington, D.C., joined New York and Los Angeles to form the power triad of the Twist…”.

Yet, it is also true that the Twist craze had enough commercial impetus behind it – plus the full and free acceptance (and spending) of the burgeoning Baby Boomer youth culture – that it needed little help from the White House.

In the mainstream music world, for example, there were a whole raft of new “twist” songs that came out, many of which were duds, but a few of which became hits. Chubby Checker, for one, had a good run with “The Twist,” which hit No. 1 in 1960 and again in 1962, and also with a succession of other twist songs, including – “Let’s Twist Again” (No. 8, 1961), “Slow Twistin” (No. 3, 1962), “Twist It Up” (No. 25, 1963). Checker also appeared in two films: Twist Around the Clock and Don’t Knock the Twist.

Among other twist-related songs that made it into the Top 40 during the 1962-64 period were: “Peppermint Twist – Part 1” by Joey Dee & the Starliters (No. 1, 1962); “Dear Lady Twist” by Gary “U.S.” Bonds (No. 9, 1962); “Twistin’ U.S.A.” by Danny & the Juniors (No. 20, 1961)”Twistin’ Postman” by the Marvelettes (No. 34, 1962); “Twistin’ the Night Away” by Sam Cooke (No. 9, 1962); “Twist and Shout” by the Isley Brothers (No. 17, 1962); “Bristol Twistin` Annie” by the Dovells (No. 27, 1962); “Twist and Shout” by the Beatles (No. 2, 1964).

1962: The ‘Twisting Nixonettes’, in action at a Pomona County Fairgrounds rally for California gubernatorial candidate Richard M. Nixon, may have signaled the end of the twist as cutting edge.

Other artists, such as Bill Haley, a singer who had fallen out of popular favor in the U.S., scored big with the Twist in Mexico and Latin America, with songs such as “The Spanish Twist” and “Florida Twist,” and touring in the region as well. Even Frank Sinatra tried one – “Everybody’s Twistin'” – a song he would later regret recording.

But the kiss of death for the Twist in cutting-edge culture, some believe, was it’s assimilation by the older generation. By the time it reached the White House, according to this view, it was already passé. If not then, it was when the dance entered the realm of political campaigning that its final end became clear.

None other than Richard Nixon, campaigning for governor of California in 1962, was seen at a Pomona County Fair Grounds rally that fall with a group of young women dancers who were called the “Twisting Nixonettes.”

Jim Dawson's 1995 book, "The Twist," also available in 2013 Kindle edition. Click for copy.

During and following the Twist craze of the early 1960s, there came a succession of other dance songs – the Pony, the Fly, the Swim, the Hitchhike, the Huckebuck, the Loco-Motion, the Mashed Potatoes, the Hully Gully, and others. Yet none of these ever rose to the same level of fame and fortune as The Twist. The nation, it seems, then emerging from a more conservative time, was especially receptive to new forms of expression, and the Twist – in dance, song and rhythm, along with sense of the freedom it exhibited – simply fit the zeitgeist of the moment.

But the Twist has also secured its place in history. On March 21, 2013, the U.S. Library of Congress included Chubby Checker’s version of “The Twist,” along with 24 other songs and recordings, for preservation in the National Recording Registry — recordings selected for their cultural, artistic and historic importance to the nation’s aural legacy.

Other pages of possible interest at this website may include: “Noteworthy Women,” with 40 additional story choices on historic women, and “Kennedy History,” featuring mostly JFK-related stories. See also the “Annals of Music” page for additional song profiles, artist biographies, and other music-related history. The “Politics & Culture” page offers additional stories in that arena. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 20 June 2016
Last Update: 1 May 2019
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Jackie & The Twist: First Lady History,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 20, 2016.

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Jackie Kennedy Books at Amazon.com…

Barbara Leaming’s 2014 book, “Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: The Untold Story,” Thomas Dunne Bks, 368 pp. Click for Amazon.

J. Randy Taraborrelli’s 2023 book, “Jackie: Public, Private, Secret,” St. Martin's Press, 528 pp. Click for Amazon.

“Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy” (book & CDs), 2011, M. Beschloss (ed), Caroline Kennedy (foreword). Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Sept 1961: Jackie Kennedy, of course, was involved with a lot more than the Twist, as featured here in a Life magazine cover story on her plans for a major restoration of the White House, the results of which were the subject of a nationally-broadcast TV special with her in the starring role. Click for copy.

The Twist had insinuated itself into the popular media of the day, including ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show,’ a top sit-com of the early 1960s. Click for Mary Tyler Moore story.

Chubby Checker on the cover of later album, “Let’s Twist Again”. Click Chubby Checker page at Amazon.

Cover of London sheet music for ‘The Twist,’ noting recordings by Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker. Click for Ballard CD.

Concert poster for Chubby Checker and other artists performing at San Francisco’s Cow Palace, January 1962.

Sarah Bradford, America’s Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Penguin, 2001. Click for copy.

Jacqueline Kennedy and Michael Beschloss, Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, Hachette Books, 2011. Click for copy.

“Chubby Checker,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, New York: Rolling Stone Press, 3rd Edition, 2001, p. 168.

Jim Dawson, The Twist: The Story of the Song and Dance That Changed the World, Faber & Faber, 1995. Click for copy.

John A. Jackson, American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Empire, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Click for copy.

“The Twist (song),” Wikipedia.org.

“Hank Ballard,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, New York: Rolling Stone Press, 3rd Edition, 2001, pp. 43-44.

“Hank Ballard,” Wikipedia.org.

Tom Moon, “Singin` and Swingin` With Hank Ballard and the Midnighters,” 1,000 Record-ings to Hear Before You Die, New York: Workman Publishing, pp 42–43.

Marylin Bender, “Cassini Faces New Frontier in Fashion With Few Regrets for Past Designs; Designer Chosen by First Lady Also a Showman,” New York Times, March 15, 1961

Daz and Richard Harkness, “A New First Lady, a New Mood; Mrs. Kennedy Is Bringing Changes to Her New Home — Just like Many of Her Predecessors,” New York Times, April 23, 1961.

Jonathan Takiff, “1960: Year of the Novelty Record,” Philly.com, July 9, 2010.

Dorothy McCardle, “Peppermint Peps Up Party,” Washington Post, Times Herald, Dec. 23, 1961.

“Peppermint Lounge,” Wikipedia.org.

2012 book on the famous Peppermint Lounge, Peppermint Twist: The Mob, the Music, and the Most Famous Dance Club of the ’60s, Thomas Dunne Books, 304pp. Click for Amazon.

Associated Press (Fort Lauderdale, Fla), “Dance Report On First Lady Is Said False,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, December 23, 1961, p. 1.

“White House Denies Jackie Danced Twist,” Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1961, p. A-1.

“Story First Lady Did Twist Badly Twisted,” Washington Post, Times Herald, December 24, 1961, p. A-4.

Associated Press (New York), “Oleg Cassini Steals Show In The Twist,” The Fort Scott Tribune, January 10, 1962.

“Kennedys Give a Party; Entertain 100 at Dinner-Dance in the White House,” New York Times, February 10, 1962.

Winzola McLendon, “Cream of Capital Society Takes a Whirl at the Twist,” Washington Post, Times Herald, February 12, 1962, p. F-1.

Drew Pearson, “They Twisted at the White House,” Washington Post, Times Herald, February 17, 1962, p. B-13.

Marie Smith, “Kennedy Kavort May Angle Out Twist; State Dinner,” Washington Post, Times Herald, February 18, 1962, p. F-1.

David Lawrence, “Jackie’s Twisting With Mac Puts White House ‘on Move’,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 22, 1962, p. 5.

David Lawrence, “Twist Arrives At The White House,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 22, 1962, p. 6.

“Italians Awaiting Mrs. Kennedy; Big Reception Is Set at Ravello Today for First Lady,” New York Times, August 8, 1962.

Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy, W. W. Norton & Company, 1984.

Ben Bradlee, A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures, Simon & Schuster, 1995

Dave Haslam, “What the Twist Did for the Peppermint Lounge,” London Review of Books, Vol. 22 No. 1, January 6, 2000, pp. 27-30.

Melanie Eversley, Cox News Service, “Can Bush Boogie? New President May Not Waltz Through His Inaugural Balls,” Lakeland Ledger, January 19, 2001.

Carl Sferrazza Anthony, The Kennedy White House: Family Life and Pictures, 1961-1963,
Simon and Schuster, 2002.

Sally Bedell Smith, “Private Camelot,” VanityFair.com, May 8, 2004.

Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House, Random House, 2004.

James Wolcott, “A Twist in Time,” VanityFair.com, October 31, 2007.

“When First Ladies Dance: Before Michelle Obama’s “Dougie” Was Jackie Kennedy’s Twist, Betty Ford’s Bump, Eleanor Roosevelt’s Glide and…,” CarlAnthonyOnLine.com, May 6, 2011.

John Johnson Jr, Op-Ed, “The Twist: The Swivel That Shook the World. In the Dance Craze Were the Seeds of Everything That Became the ’60s,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2013.

“Schulenberg’s Page: New York, Part X” (Peppermint Lounge), NewYorkSocialDiary .com, May 21, 2015.

Wayne Robins, A Brief History of Rock, Off the Record, Routledge, March 2016.

Sam Kashner, “The Complicated Sisterhood of Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill,” Vanity Fair.com, April 26, 2016 8:00 pm

“Politics; Nixon, Brown Launch Campaigns…1962″ (includes“Twisting Nixonettes,” in part), BritishPathe.com.

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Teaser Tag: Oil Industry History

2001-Today

“Texas City Disaster”
BP Refinery: March 2005

April 28, 2016 J.D.

On March 23rd, 2005 in Texas City, Texas, a horrendous explosion and fire at the British Petroleum (BP) oil refinery killed 15 workers and injured another 180. At the time, it was one of the worst industrial accidents to have occurred in the U.S. since the late 1980s. Pat Nickerson, a veteran of the Texas City BP refinery for 28 years, was on site the day of the explosion driving his truck inside the refinery to an office trailer. “I looked down the road. It looked like fumes, like on a real hot day, you see these heat waves coming up,” he explained, describing the scene during a 60 Minutes TV interview, “and then I saw an ignition and a blast. Then my windshield shattered. The roof of the vehicle I was driving caved in on me.”

Firefighting water canons are trained on the damaged BP oil refinery in Texas City, TX in the aftermath of March 23rd, 2005 explosion & fire. Fifteen workers were killed and another 180 injured in the disaster. Photo, Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle.

After the blast, Nickerson was still alive and he began digging through the wreckage looking for survivors. “Out of the corner of my eye, there was somebody on the ground,” he later recalled in his 60 Minutes interview. “A guy named Ryan Rodriguez, and he was just kind of staring at me. He couldn’t move because his face was so, you know, deformed and everything from the blast. And some, you know, bones and stuff that were… protruding from his chin.” Rodriguez died in the ambulance.

The refinery that day was re-starting a unit that had been down for repairs. It was a tower processing unit being filled with gasoline. Due to malfunctioning equipment and sensors, the tower overflowed with excess gas. The gas then went into a back-up unit, which also overflowed. That caused a geyser of gasoline to shoot into the air. Workers in the refinery reported seeing the cloud of the vaporizing fuel shoot from the tall stack. It then rolled down to ground level, enlarging into a massive vapor cloud as it moved, still being fed by the malfunctioning equipment.

March 23rd, 2005. BP’s Texas City, TX oil refinery as it burned following the explosion there that killed 15 workers and injured 180 in one of the worst industrial accidents in U.S. history. Photo, Galveston County Daily News, Dwight Andrews.

Some refinery workers that day would later recall hearing frantic voices calling over a hand-held radio: “Stop all hot work! Stop all hot work!” They were trying to prevent the ignition of the escaped and creeping vapor cloud. If it found any open flame – furnace burner, welding work, or even a simple spark – it would explode violently. And in that section of the refinery, there was a lot of equipment running. But the vapor cloud soon found an ignition source – believed to have been a pick-up truck whose owner was trying to move it out of the area. But the flood of hydrocarbons prevented him from starting it. Still, he continued to crank the truck’s engine, not knowing what was happening, as co-workers frantically tried to stop him. But it was too late. A spark from the engine ignited the giant gas cloud that had been forming, touching off the horrific explosions and firestorm that followed.

Map showing location of BP's Texas City, Texas refinery.

According to the experts, once a cloud of highly flammable material is ignited, two events or two waves of violent action occur; first, an initial flash takes all of the available oxygen out of the air, creating a giant vacuum; then, as the suction brings in fresh oxygen, the combustibles explode. At the BP refinery, a huge fire ball was created that consumed and pulverized the immediate area, setting off a series of five more explosions in the surrounding areas killing nearby workers. As the U.S. Chemical Safety Board would later note in its report:

“…Once ignited, the flame rapidly spread through the flammable vapor cloud, compressing the gas ahead of it to create a blast pressure wave. Furthermore, the flame accelerated each time a combination of congestion/confinement and flammable mix allowed, greatly intensifying the blast pressure in certain areas. These intense pressure regions, or sub explosions, produced heavy structural damage locally and left a pattern of structural deformation away from the blast center in all directions.”

Eva Rowe, 20 years old, was driving to Texas City on the day of the explosion to visit her parents, both of whom worked at the refinery. “I was at a gas station about 45 minutes away,” she would later recall during a 60 Minutes TV interview. “Some man inside said that the BP refinery had exploded. I called my mom. And my mom didn’t answer, and that’s not like my mom. She always answered.” Rowe later learned that both of her parents were among the 15 people killed that day.

March 23, 2005: BP’s Texas City, Texas oil refinery continues to burn in some areas following the explosion there, as water is trained on remaining fires and hot spots. Note emergency response workers, yellow hats, lower right.

At the scene of the explosion that day, fire trucks, emergency vehicles, helicopters all descended on the site. Amid ongoing fires, blown-apart structures, and twisted steel, the search for the dead and injured at the devastated scene began. As recounted by the Houston Chronicle, David Leining, a BP employee, was inside the temporary double-wide office trailer when he heard a weird banging noise. He went to the door to look outside, and just as he did he was pushed to the ground by the force of the blast. The vapor cloud had seeped beneath the double wide office trailer. After the explosion, Leining was flat on his back beneath a pile of rubble. An unconscious co-worker was also in that same pile above him. Leining recalled that he was able to move his left hand and reach his communicator to send out a distress signal. Another worker, Ralph Dean, thrown off the seat of his forklift by the blast, but still alive, was one of the first workers in the explosion to begin digging out co-workers. He used the fork lift to dig through the rubble at the trailer site to locate Leining, but his feet were pinned by the wreckage. Dean continued using his forklift to pry away wreckage on the pile, and to haul off other dangerous debris, pushing burning vehicles, whose gas tanks were exploding, away from the remains of the trailer area.

Aerial view of blast & fire damage at BP’s Texas City, Texas refinery sometime after the March 2005 explosion and fires, showing severely damaged structure in the upper left and burnt-out hulks of several vehicles at center of photo.

As he worked clearing debris, Ralph Dean found the body of his father-in-law only a few feet from Leining. Dean later discovered his wife, Alisa, pinned under a metal bookshelf and barely alive. Also killed in the trailer that day were Morris King, who died only a few feet away from where Leining was pinned. Another colleague, Larry Thomas, who had been leaning against the trailer wall, was also killed. Leining ended up with multiple fractures in his ankles, knee problems, and permanent hearing damage. Linda Rowe, who also worked at the refinery, had come to the trailer office that day to deliver a pair of forgotten glasses to her husband, James. Both she and James were killed in the explosion.

Ground-level view of the debris field and twisted and charred piping in the aftermath of the March 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City, Texas oil refinery.

BP had become the owner of the Texas City oil refinery, in the late 1990s when it acquired the facility from the Amoco Oil Company. The refinery, located on the outskirts of Galveston, about 35 miles southeast of Houston, extends for nearly two square miles. At the time of the explosion it was the third largest oil refinery in the U.S. When the blast occurred that day, the surrounding community was rocked; 43,000 people were told to “shelter in place,” emergency parlance for “stay in doors and pray that nothing worse happens.” Homes were damaged as far away as three-quarters of a mile from the refinery. Financial losses would later be totaled at more than $1.5 billion.

Prior to BP’s ownership, the refinery had suffered some years of neglect under Amoco. But the situation did not appear to improve much after BP became the owner in the late 1990s. Three months before the explosion, in January 2005, one report on the refinery by consulting firm Telos had examined conditions at the plant and found numerous safety issues, including “broken alarms, thinned pipe, chunks of concrete falling, bolts dropping 60 feet, and staff being overcome with fumes.” The report’s co-author reportedly stated later, “we have never seen a site where the notion ‘I could die today’ was so real.”

TV’s “60 Minutes” did an investigation of the Texas City disaster, aired on October 29th,2006.

Prior to the March 2005 explosion, there had already been a couple of earlier incidents at the Texas City complex that caught the attention of federal regulators. In March 2004 there was a blast and fire at the refinery which forced the evacuation of the plant for several hours, but no one was injured. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined the refinery $63,000 for that incident, finding what it called “serious safety violations,” including problems with the emergency shutdown system and employee training. OSHA had also fined BP in September 2003 for previous safety violations after two employees were burned to death by superheated water trying to remove a valve from a high-pressure hot water line. Following the March 2005 explosion, several government and BP investigations of the accident were begun, but they would take months to complete.

Among the federal agencies investigating was the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which sent a team to the site early on. While the CSB’s final investigative report would not come until late 2006, the agency took other actions aimed at BP. On August 17, 2005, the CSB recommended that BP commission an independent panel to investigate the safety culture and management systems throughout its entire BP North America operation. This BP agreed to do, and a panel led by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III was convened, but would not report until January 2007 (this “Baker report” is covered later below).

Meanwhile, the CBS-TV newsmagazine, 60 Minutes, spent three months investigating the explosion at Texas City. On its Sunday night edition of October 29th, 2006, the newsmagazine aired its findings with correspondent Ed Bradley’s interviews of company and government officials, workers and family survivors, including Pat Nickerson and Eva Rowe quoted earlier above. “What we found,” explained CBS of the show in an introductory summary, “was a failure by BP to protect the health and safety of its own workers, even though the company made a profit of $19 billion last year.”

Lesley Stahl introduced the “60 Minutes” Texas City story.

Ed Bradley, CBS correspondent for the Texas City story.

Carolyn Merritt, head of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, offered key findings of BP failures at the Texas City refinery during ‘60 Minutes’ broadcast, Oct 29th, 2006.

As the program aired, Lesley Stahl introduced the segment, but Ed Bradley would be on camera for the interviews he conducted (Bradley, in fact was ill with leukemia at the time but was intent on completing his investigation). “60 Minutes” spent the last three months investigating the explosion at Texas City,” explained Stahl in her introduction. “Ed Bradley found evidence that BP ignored warning after warning that something terrible could happen there.”

During the 60 Minutes piece, Bradley interviewed Carolyn Merritt, the head of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, appointed by President George Bush. The 60 Minutes segment ran a few days before the CSB would hold a press conference on what they were finding in their investigation. So when Bradley interviewed Merritt, the CSB was well along in its investigation, and Merritt shared some of what they were finding – which was quite damning of BP. One of the issues was BP budget cuts, and if these had put the Texas City plant and its workers at risk – a question covered in one exchange during the broadcast:

Bradley: …[W]hen BP acquired the Texas City refinery from Amoco eight years ago, the plant already was in a state of disrepair. Instead of spending money to update the plant, BP executives in London told their refinery managers to cut their budgets.

Merritt: Twenty-five percent of their fixed costs were cut. And when you cut that much out of a budget in a facility, you lose people, you lose equipment, you lose maintenance, you lose trainers. Our investigation has shown that this was a drastic mistake.

Bradley: So, as the Texas refinery got older, and needed more maintenance, more attention to safety, BP cut the budget in those areas?

Merritt: Yes.

Bradley: Is there a direct relationship between the budget cut and the disaster at Texas City?

Merritt: We believe there is.

Cover of U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s final report on the BP Texas City, TX refinery explosion, March 2007. Click for copy.

One of the best examples, Merritt explained in follow up, was on the very unit that caused the explosion. In the ten years leading up to the disaster, there had been eight major gasoline vapor releases on that same unit – any one of which could have been catastrophic. “Most refineries install safety devices, called flares, to burn off excess gasoline to avoid disasters,” said Merritt. “BP chose not to.” Nor did BP repair key instrument-reading devices for detecting and warning of safe levels of operation that would have signaled trouble at the plant, as Merritt also revealed.

“There were three pieces of key instrumentation that were actually supposed to be repaired that were not repaired and the management knew this,” Merritt said. But BP management authorized the operation on the very units with the faulty instrumentation, knowing the three pieces of equipment were not working properly.

A few days following the 60 Minutes broadcast, at an October 31st, 2006 press conference on the CSB investigation, Merritt singled out the history of unwise management decisions at the refinery: “Cost-cutting and failure to invest in the 1990s by Amoco and then BP left the Texas City refinery vulnerable to a catastrophe. BP targeted budget cuts of 25 percent in 1999 and another 25 percent in 2005, even though much of the refinery’s infrastructure and process equipment were in disrepair.” Operator training and staffing had also been downsized at the refinery. “What BP experienced,”“Cost-cutting and failure to invest in the 1990s by Amoco and then BP left the Texas City refinery vulnerable to a catastro-phe…”
– U.S. Chemical Safety Board Merritt said, continuing her statement, “was the perfect storm where aging infrastructure, overzealous cost cutting, inadequate design, and risk blindness occurred. The result was the worst workplace catastrophe in more than a decade.” When the final CSB report was issues on March 2007 it also noted:

“The Texas City disaster was caused by organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation. Warning signs of a possible disaster were present for several years, but company officials did not intervene effectively to prevent it. The extent of the serious safety culture deficiencies was further revealed when the refinery experienced two additional serious incidents just a few months after the March 2005 disaster. In one, a pipe failure caused a reported $30 million in damage; the other resulted in a $2 million property loss. In each incident, community shelter-in-place orders were issued.”

Former U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker, delivering his panel’s findings on BP’s U.S. operations, Houston, Texas, 2007.

Cover of the Baker Report: “The Report of The BP U.S. Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel,” January 2007.

The Baker Report

As recommended by the CSB, a special panel was commissioned by BP and headed up by former Secretary of State James Baker to conduct a third-party review of BP corporate practices leading up to the Texas City explosion, including a review the company’s practices at five other U.S. BP refineries. The “Baker Report,” as it was called, released in January 2007, did not find much to commend in BP’s operations. Among other things, Baker’s group found that inspections on volatile process units at BP refineries often were long overdue. In other cases, near catastrophes went uninvestigated, and known equipment problems such as thinning pipes and vessels went unrepaired for up to ten years.

In a follow-up video news conference to the Baker Report with BP’s then CEO, John Browne, the CEO stated: “If I had to say one thing which I hope you will all hear today it is this: BP gets it. And I get it too…,” suggesting that the company would change its ways. But apparently, BP didn’t “get it,” as in the years following the Texas City disaster, the company continued to have spills, leaks and other incidents at its U.S. operations and those abroad, making BP one of the classic corporate recidivists (see sidebar below).

In fact, several years after the 2005 disaster, in September 2009, BP was fined $87.4 million by OSHA for unaddressed worker safety violations at the very same Texas City oil refinery where the explosion had occurred.

The fine was for failing to implement workplace safety improvements under a settlement made with OSHA following the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion. In a six-month investigation, OSHA found 270 uncorrected workplace safety violations and 439 new workplace safety violations at the refinery. OSHA noted that four more workers had died at the Texas City refinery since the 2005 explosion.

Jordan Barab, then acting assistant secretary of labor for OSHA, said the agency had found “some serious systemic safety problems within the corporation” and at the Texas refinery. “The fact that there are so many still outstanding life-threatening problems at this plant,” said Barab, “indicates that they still have a systemic safety problem in this refinery.” And as would be revealed by subsequent events in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, BP apparently had yet to address its systemic problems found elsewhere in the corporation.

“BP’s Other Messes”
2006-2010

Texas City wasn’t the only place where BP had problems, and in subsequent years other incidents would occur – in pipelines, with other refining operations, controlling emissions, and with offshore operations. Here are a few of those reported in the 2006-2010 period:

Associated Press map shows the general location of a BP oil pipeline that leaked on Alaska’s North Slope in 2006.

March 2006. A corroded pipeline at BP’s Prudhoe Bay operation in Alaska leaked 267,000 gallons of crude oil. Five months after the incident, BP conceded that the leak was part of a widespread corrosion problem in its system that would force it to replace 16 miles of a 22-mile pipeline from Prudhoe Bay. In 2007, BP pled guilty to the negligent discharge of oil under the federal Clean Water Act and was fined $20 million for the spill and admitted it “failed to take necessary actions to prevent the March 2006 pipeline spill.”

April 2006. BP was fined $2.4 million by OSHA for worker safety violations at the company’s Oregon, Ohio oil refinery – workplace safety violations, in fact, that were similar to those that contributed to the Texas City explosion. “It is extremely disappointing that BP Products failed to learn from the lessons of Texas City to assure their workers’ safety and health,” said Edwin Foulke, Jr., OSHA assistant secretary at the time of the fine, also citing BP as among those companies “who, despite our enforcement and outreach efforts, ignore their obligations under the law and continually place their employees at risk.”

June 2007. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality fined BP $869,150 for leaking underground gasoline storage tanks. The Michigan DEQ reported it was then monitoring over 200 former gasoline stations where BP had reported releases from underground tank systems.

The now-famous photo of BP’s burning Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers and gushed oil from a sea-bed well for nearly 3 months.

October 2007. BP paid a $6,350 fine for failing to perform adequate corrosion protection inspections for gasoline storage tanks at former gas station sites in Washington, D.C.

February 2009. BP agreed to pay nearly $180 million in fines to correct eight year-old air pollution violations at its Texas City oil refinery. BP agreed to pay the fine for failing to bring the refinery into compliance with air pollution rules under a 2001 consent decree to correct Clean Air Act violations.

March 2010. OSHA cited the BP-Husky oil refinery near Toledo, Ohio for workplace safety violations and proposed fines of more than $3 million. BP then operated and jointly owned the refinery with Canadian-based Husky Energy.

April 2010. BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded on April 20th after a blowout, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others, as the rig sank two days later. A massive oil spill followed – the largest in U.S. history – threatening the entire Gulf Coast region, its wildlife, marshes and natural resources, and damaging its fishing and tourist-based economies. Millions of people throughout the region were directly and indirectly affected, from lost jobs to shuttered businesses and reduced local revenue. In November 2012, BP and the U.S. Department of Justice settled federal criminal charges with BP pleading guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter, two misdemeanors, and a felony count of lying to Congress. As of February 2013, criminal and civil settlements and payments to a trust fund had cost the company $42.2 billion. In September 2014, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that BP was primarily responsible for the oil spill because of its gross negligence and reckless conduct. In July 2015, BP agreed to pay $18.7 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history. (See “Deepwater Horizon: Film & Spill: 2010-2016,” for separate story).

Eva Rowe on the October 2006 “60 Minutes” broadcast.

Eva Rowe’s Fight

Eva Rowe, the 20 year-old who lost both her parents in the Texas City explosion, cited at the top of this story, decided to take BP to court rather than accept a company settlement over the death of her parents.

The day of the explosion, Eva had gone through a harrowing experience, traveling that day from Hornbeck, Louisiana to what she thought was going to be a pleasant visit with her parents. But her life would never be the same again. After her frantic efforts trying to locate her parents following the explosion – calling the plant, hospitals, relatives, and visiting a neighboring worker – she was told unofficially at 4 am that her parents were presumed to be among those killed. Early the next day, televised BP information advised those with missing loved ones to go the Charles T. Doyle Convention Center in Texas City. There, next of kin were escorted to the coroner’ s office to view the deceased. But Eva Rowe was too upset to view her parents’ remains and instead began filling out paper work on her parents’ physical descriptions and medical records. By the end of the day, her parents had been identified through dental records and DNA. “That was the end of my life as I knew it,” Rowe would later say, describing her emptiness and hurt on losing her mother and her father.

Eva Rowe, holding a portrait photograph of her parents, James (44) and Linda (43) Rowe, killed in the BP explosion.

Eva’s parents, James and Linda Rowe, had come to work at the Texas City refinery with BP contractor J.E. Merit Constructors. James was 44, and Linda 43. They had married when they were young and settled near James’s family, in Hornbeck, Louisiana, a tiny town with 500 or so residents not far from the Texas border. They lived in a trailer home on a dirt road on the outskirts of town. They had two children, Jeremy, the eldest, and Eva, the younger second child. Work was hard to find in Hornbeck, so James, and later Linda, came to work at Merit.

Eva too, had once worked briefly for a few months with her dad at another oil refinery in Corpus Christi, where he was a civil superintendent at the plant, overseeing general construction activities. He found Eva a job as a pipe fitter’s helper, but only for a brief time. Still, that experience was enough to have given Eva some idea of what a refinery environment was like. Eva had not had work after high school, and was living with her boyfriend back in Hornbeck. But she was still close to her mother, whom she would call her best friend. It was in October 2004 that Eva’s mother decided to join her husband, then working with Merit at the Texas City BP refinery. Linda soon had a job there working in the toolroom. And it was in the temporary office trailer at the Texas City refinery that was blown apart March 23rd, 2005 where both Linda and James Rowe were killed.

BP’s then CEO, Lord John Browne, visited Texas City the day after the explosion, stating the company would be assisting the injured and those who lost loved ones.

Back in Hornbeck, Eva arranged the double funeral for her parents, and there was also the matter of her parents’ modest estate, over which there came to be some differences and infighting. When Eva tried to become the sole administrator some family and local residents turned against her, telling “wild child” tales about her – as Eva had been no saint during her teen years. Lawyers were besieging her as well, knowing that potentially big settlements from BP were possible for those who lost loved ones. BP by this time had made public statements that it would be making restitution to those families. The head of the company from London, England, Lord John Browne, had come to Texas City the day after the explosion and held a news conference at city hall. “We have a very simple rule at BP that we are responsible for what happens inside the boundaries of our plant.” he said. “This is no exception. We will be doing everything we can to assist the families.” Later, Ross Pillari, president and CEO of BP America, was also reassuring, promising swift financial support and compensation to the families of those who died. “Our goal is to provide fair compensation without the need for lawsuits or lengthy court proceedings,” he said. BP in fact had set aside some $1.6 billion to settle lawsuits with victims and survivors.

Brent Coon, attorney, Beaumont, TX.

Eva Rowe, still in a grieving state, losing weight, and having some sleepless nights, was hearing stories from survivors of the blast about lack of maintenance at the BP plant and malfunctioning alarms. Later, at the suggestion of a union worker, she hired a lawyer named Brent Coon from Beaumont, Texas. Coon also represented the Texas chapter of United Steelworkers of America whose members worked throughout the Texas oil industry. Coon became a personal adviser and helper to Eva. He not only became her lawyer, filing a $1.2 billion lawsuit against BP on her behalf, he would also help stabilize his client in her grief during a very troubling period of her life. He helped guide her through the family estate process back in Louisiana, and advised her to relocate to Beaumont, Texas, where he helped her find a new home, also offering members of his firm to assist her. But for Coon, he believed Eva Rowe was the right person to do battle with BP in court.

As Mimi Swartz, writing in Texas Monthly would observe: “Of all the death cases [in the BP Texas City disaster], Coon felt that Eva’s was the most compelling, because she had ‘driven into the chaos’ and because she had lost both parents. He also felt strongly that winning money would not be enough—for Eva, for him, or for that matter, for the United Steelworkers. … Coon understood the value of a public spectacle. He wanted to make an example of BP, and to do so would require a motivated plaintiff.”

By late June 2005, within a few months of the explosion, a number of families who had lost loved ones in the Texas City explosion settled with BP, some for amounts in the millions. “It’s the right price,” attorney Robert Kwok said at the time, then representing a spouse of one of the workers who had been killed. “They are basically erring on the side of generous,” he said of BP.“…They [BP] are offering money that is very hard for claimants and their lawyers to walk away from.”– Robert Kwok, Attorney “They are offering money that is very hard for claimants and their lawyers to walk away from.” Some of the settlements were reportedly “on the high end of tens of millions of dollars apiece.” Attorney Richard Mithoff, then representing several families of workers killed in the BP explosion said, “I think there is a clear recognition on the part of BP that they would be held accountable in a court of law.” And he also expressed some surprise at how quickly BP had settled the cases. “I’ve been involved in a lot of early negotiations but none have settled this early,” he said. Eva Rowe’s brother, Jeremy, would also settle with BP. But if every plaintiff settled and no court action occurred, many internal BP documents on the refinery’s operation and BP decision making would never see the light of day. Such documents would remain under court seal, as confidentiality of company information is customarily the practice in settlement agreements – a quid pro quo some might say. Eva Rowe would determine that she did not want that to occur in her case.

March 2006: Eva Rowe placing wreath at make-shift memorial outside BP’s Texas City plant on the one year anniversary of explosion that killed her parents. AP photo/ Melissa Phillip.

However, some suggested that her attorney, Brent Coon, was the driving force behind Eva’s stance and had undo influence on her. Still, when it came to exposing BP’s documents and decision making, they both wanted maximum disclosure. Eva appeared to be very much her own person on that count.

“I might be from the woods, but I’m street-smart,” she would later tell the Texas Monthly’s Mimi Swartz. “They tried to treat me like I was stupid. I wanted the public to know. They couldn’t pay me enough to be quiet.”

It took Eva a full year to view the autopsy photos of her parents given to her earlier by the county coroner. She had been unable to look at them before, with Coon’s office holding them for her. But when she finally did view them she saw “the charred remains of her decapitated mother” (struck by a falling object during the explosion and fire), and “what she believed were streams of tears on her father’s blood-stained face,” according to Texas Monthly. The photos motivated her more than ever to stand her ground with BP.

Brent Coon with his client, Eva Rowe, prepping with some model refinery apparatus.

Brent Coon and his associates, meanwhile, were pouring through BP’s performance history. Time and time again, they found that BP had opted for revenue and profit rather than plant fixes and upgrades. In 2002, rising gas prices brought a windfall to BP and other oil companies, but BP plant managers were told to “bank the savings.” Again in 2004, there was a $2 billion profit at BP Texas City, but little investment in safety. In fact, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, from 1995 to 2005, BP led the refinery industry in deaths with 22 fatalities. BP was also the nation’s leader in refinery accidents, with 3,563 mishaps occurring between 1990 and 2003. The more Eva learned about BP’s record, the more determined she became about taking them to trial. A September 2006 court date was set. But it was the waiting, the drawn-out interim battles, and Eva’s personal demons, that would wear on her during the legal process.

BP’s legal team, meanwhile, played hard ball during negotiations and depositions, using tactics aimed at intimidating Rowe and any others who might challenge the company in court. In Rowe’s case, she was assured that even if she won in court, there could be large financial consequences. She was told by BP that she would be responsible for their court costs if the jury award was less than the settlement offer.…Eva would see strangers parked in a car near her home. During the day, she was constantly followed… A bodyguard was hired to be with Eva at all times… During her deposition, BP’s attorneys got personal, asking her about drinking and marijuana and cocaine use and an altercation at a gas station that ended with her being led away in handcuffs by the police. Eva pled youthful indiscretion and teenage experimentation. Still, BP’s attorneys had unnerved her, making her feel like she was the one at fault, not BP. However, BP’s lawyers made it clear that should Eva’s case go to trial, the jury would be “entitled to know who Eva Rowe is.” Beyond the deposition and courtroom tactics, there were other more troubling concerns. According to Coon, Eva would see strangers parked in a car near her home. During the day, she was constantly followed as she tried to live and rebuild her life. At the suggestion of Coon, a bodyguard was hired to be with her at all times. BP’s attorney’s, in one statement to the court, claimed the company “did not have people on surveillance.” Still, Rowe was so afraid for her safety on one occasion she called the police.

Brent Coon & Associates dug deep into the BP record preparing their case.

As part of their legal strategy, Brent Coon and associates sought to depose the company’s top man, CEO, Lord John Browne, arguing that he was likely uniquely inovled in BP budgeting and decision making on which plant investments were made or not made. The court initially gave the go ahead for the Browne deposition. BP appealed, and other oil companies, including ExxonMobil, filed an amicus brief in support of their effort, calling the deposition of Browne a form of harassment. But the Texas Court of Appeals ruled against BP and the stage was set for Browne to be deposed. Eva Rowe wanted the coroner’s photographs of her parents’ bodies shown to Browne during the deposition and questioning.

The negotiations and maneuvering over Eva’s case would drag on for months. The September 2006 trial date was also postponed. Eva meanwhile, was still in a state of some personal duress and bereavement, and during this time, roughly between September 2005 and August 2006, she had a string of misadventures and personal problems – troubles with a new boyfriend (“didn’t support my cause”); an auto accident; and some drug incidents (charges later dropped). All of this suggested to Coon, worried about the emotional state of his client, that bringing the case to some final resolution sooner rather than later would be in the best interests of all concerned. Meanwhile, a new trial date had been set for November 2006. Nor had John Browne’s deposition occurred. But by late October, both sides were girding for the jury selection process, as their legal teams had encamped to respective floors of Galveston hotels expecting a long court battle.

Ed Bradley, during the “60 Minutes” Texas City broadcast.

Eva Rowe during the “60 Minutes” broadcast, Oct 29th, 2006.

Then on Sunday evening, October 29th, 2006, the 60 Minutes broadcast aired, which had included segments with federal safety officials and others, as discussed earlier above. The broadcast was a searing indictment of BP management’s role in the Texas City disaster. The show had also included on-camera segments with Eva Rowe and Brent Coon. During the end of that broadcast, Ed Bradley had questioned Eva specifically about the BP settlement process:

Bradley: A lot of people who suffered terrible losses that day have already settled with B.P. Has B.P. offered to settle with you?

Rowe: Yes.

Bradley: And they’ve offered you, I assume, a substantial amount of money?

Rowe: I want everyone to know what they did, you know. If we settle and all, everything we know has to remain confidential. I don’t want that to happen.

Bradley: So you’re willing to go to trial?

Rowe: I’m ready. I’m ready to go to trial.

That TV broadcast, beyond being a searing indictment of BP’s management failures at the Texas City refinery, was also a nightmare for the BP legal team trying to prevent Eva Rowe from going to trial. For now, with Eva on camera making her case plain to millions of viewers all across the country, BP’s course of action was made all the more difficult. But following the broadcast, BP sent out thousands of “dear neighbor” letters throughout Texas City claiming it had made substantial safety improvements at the plant, and promising to spend $1 billion more on improvements in the next five years. Coon charged that BP was trying to influence the jury pool in advance of their November trial. Still, Coon kept talking with his BP counterpart, William Noble, the company’s chief litigator on the case. About two weeks before jurors were to be selected, the two sides appeared to be making some progress in their talks. Coon kept pushing for agreement on the public release of documents. Then on the morning of November 9th, 2006, when jury selection was about to begin, BP decided to settle and meet Eva Rowe’s terms.

Headlines of BP’s legal settlement with Eva Rowe in the final lawsuit in the Texas City, TX refinery explosion. Associated Press story appearing in various newspapers, here in ‘The Lakeland Ledger,’ Lakeland, FL, November 10th, 2006.

BP agreed to release the documents Rowe and Coon wanted to be made public. In the end, nearly seven million pages of internal BP documents would be published, much of which, at least initially, was made available through a public website. And in addition to a payment to Eva, BP also paid out millions to a group of schools and universities, hospitals and charities nominated by Rowe, including: $12.5 million to the Blocker Burn Unit at Galveston’s University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB); $12.5 million for the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M; $5 million to the College of the Mainland, in Texas City, for a safety program; $1 million to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital (James and Linda Rowe’s favorite charity); and $1 million to Hornbeck High, where Eva’s mom had been a teacher’s aide. BP also created a fund for victims of the explosion and pledged to match donations up to $6 million. In the end the total BP payout in the Rowe settlement – not counting Eva’s share – would come to $44 million.

March 2007: Eva Rowe, with portrait of her deceased parents, offering testimony at Congressional hearing on the BP Texas City disaster. Brent Coon is seated behind her at right.

March 2007: Eva Rowe, at the same Congressional hearing noted above, turning emotional listening to testimony.

When reporters asked Rowe in a news conference if she could ever forgive BP for what happened to her parents, she replied: “I’ll probably never say BP is a good company. They killed my parents to save money.”

Eva Rowe thereafter became an advocate for worker safety issues, having designated a portion of the settlement money to oil refinery workplace safety research and education.

She was also called to offer testimony in Washington, D.C. in March 2007 for a Congressional hearing on the Texas City explosion. She testified at that hearing – before the House Education and Labor Committee, and was also at the witness table for questions during that hearing along with Frank Bowman, a member of the Baker Report panel; Carolyn Merritt of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board; and Red Cavaney of the American Petroleum Institute – all of whom gave testimony that day as well.

Brent Coon’s law practice – thriving in 2007 when he had some 150 lawsuits pending against BP in the Texas City litigation – went on to even greater heights as he became noted for his role in the Eva Rowe case and others. By mid-2010, following BP’s Gulf of Mexico offshore blow-out, Brent Coon & Associates picked up additional business working with those suffering losses in that disaster. His firm now has some 20 offices around the country with 60 litigators representing clients on worker safety, environmental, public health, and personal injury cases.

As for BP Texas City, the company began the process of selling that refinery in 2011, as it needed capital to cover the costs and liabilities of its Deepwater Horizon disaster mentioned in the “other messes” sidebar above. In early 2013, BP completed the sale of the refinery to Marathon Petroleum Corporation for $2.5 billion.

“The Daily Damage”
An Occasional Series

This story is one of an occasional series at this website that will feature the ongoing environmental and societal impacts of industrial spills, fires and explosions; toxic chemical releases and waste issues; air and water pollution; and other “daily damage”.

These stories will cover both recent incidents and those from history that have left a mark either nationally or locally; have generated controversy in some way; have brought about governmental inquiries or political activity; and generally have taken a toll on the environment, workers, and/or public health and safety.

My purpose for including such stories at this website is simply to drive home the continuing and chronic nature of these occurrences through history, and hopefully contribute to public education about them so that improvements in law, regulation, and business practice will be made, yielding industries that are safe and clean.
– Jack Doyle

In terms of industry-wide safety, however, the record in the industry is still pretty atrocious – this according to an excellent bit of reporting by the Houston Chronicle and Texas Tribune which looked at the industry’s record roughly between March 2005 and March 2015.

Among their findings: at least 58 workers died at U.S. refineries in the 2005-2015 period (nearly the same number as the decade before); federal officials recorded nearly 350 fires at U.S. refineries in an eight-year span – about one every week; and that federal regulators lacked hard data to accurately track deaths and monitor safety trends within the industry.

At the 10th anniversary of the BP Texas City explosion, in March 2015, Eva Rowe was still troubled. “I thought if I helped people I would get better. I haven’t gotten better,” she told the Galveston County Daily Times. Now in her early 30s, she told the Times she didn’t care about the multi-millions she had received in her settlement. “I would rather live on welfare in a trailer in the woods in Louisiana with my parents than live in a mansion,” she said.

See also at this website, for example: “Burning Philadelphia,” a story about the 1975 Gulf Oil Co. refinery fire in that city; “Burn On, Big River,” about the historic pollution of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio; and, “Santa Barbara Oil Spill” about the 1969 Union Oil offshore oil well blow-out and pollution of California’s coastline. Additional environmental stories can be found at the “Environmental History” page.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 28 April 2016
Last Update: 21 July 2019
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Texas City Disaster: BP Refinery, March 2005,”
PopHistoryDig.com, April 28, 2016.

____________________________________

Oil/Petrochem Books at Amazon.com…

Stephen McGinty’s 2008 book, “Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster,” Macmillan, Click for Amazon.

Steve Coll’s book, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power,” Penguin Books. 2013. Click for copy.

Christopher Leonard’s 2019 book, “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries...” Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Nov 9th, 2006: Eva Rowe and attorney Brent Coon talking with reporters after BP Texas City settlement.

Dec 2006: Eva Row and Brent Coon at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, TX, where the Truman G. Blocker Adult Burn Unit was one of the charities designated by Rowe in the BP settlement.

March 2007: Eva Rowe in Washington, D.C., meeting U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman, House Education & Labor Committee, where Eva delivered testimony.

April 2016: Full-page BP ad, Washington Post, “Safety Doesn’t Come in a Box,” touting BP’s commitment to safety.

2008 book: “Failure to Learn: The BP Texas City Disaster,” 200pp. Click for copy.

2017 book: “One Minute After Sunrise: The Story of the Standard Oil Refinery Fire of 1955,” 246 pp. Click for copy.

2003 book: “Still Going Wrong!: Case Histories of Process Plant Disasters and How They Could Have Been Avoided,” 230pp. Click for copy.

Daniel Yergin’s 2011 book, “The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World,” sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-wining “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power”(1991). Click for copy.

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U.S. Chemical Safety Board, BP Investigation, Animation Video, November 2005, YouTube.com, Uploaded on January 11, 2008. (Run time, 6:14).

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Anastasia Ustinova, “BP Settlement to Help Future Burn Victims; UtMB Will Use its $12.5 Million Share to Improve Treatment, Study Effects on Tissue,” Houston Chronicle, December 15, 2006.

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Brent Coon & Associates, Beaumont, Texas.

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T.J. Aulds, “Eva Rowe: ‘I Thought If I Helped People I Would Get Better. I Haven’t Gotten Better’.” The Daily News (Galveston County, TX), March 22, 2015.

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Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Tom-Petty-Rhino-Skin.mp3 3794164 audio/mpeg

1991-2000

“Rhino Skin”
Tom Petty: 1999

April 28, 2016 J.D.

This photo is actually from a Nutrient Systems Co. ad for a potassium silicate product used in hydroponics, but it also serves nicely as a visual aide for the 1999 Tom Petty & Heartbreakers’ song of that same name.

“Rhino Skin” is the name of a song on Tom Petty and Heartbreakers’ tenth studio album, Echo. The album was produced in Los Angeles, California by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell with Rick Rubin. It was released in April 1999.

“Rhino Skin” is a song about the need to have “thick skin” in navigating through a tough, judgmental, and sometimes unforgiving world. And the tough old Rhinoceros of the African steppe is exquisitely equipped with the kind of body armor — here, in an emotional/ psychological sense — that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers suggest surviving souls may need. That is, you need the emotional equivalent of rhino skin to get through the unforgiving terrain of daily living.

Petty is also referring, generally, to the same “slings-and-arrows” territory that a bard named William Shakespeare raised centuries earlier, though in a somewhat different context.

Petty and the Heartbreakers do a fine job in their musical conveyance of this need for daily fortitude and more. They offer just enough attitude, empathy, and a touch of defiance in their performance and prescription. The male choral backing running with the instrumental ending adds a moving finish as well. The full song with lyrics is offered below (best with headphones).

Tom Petty & Co. offer survival skills with “Rhino Skin.”

“Rhino Skin” is the kind of song that can get overlooked, as in this case, it wasn’t released as a single or even for separate radio play. But it’s a perfectly good and even compelling tune, worthy of wider circulation – if only for its message. It appears Petty has woven some of his own hard knocks and life lessons into the lyrics here – and between the lines as well – offering warning and counsel for others going forward.

Life’s journey can be pretty treacherous, Petty seems to suggest at the outset, stating that you need to have Rhino skin at the start. You need to don this protection even to “begin to walk though this world.”

“Rhino Skin”
Tom Petty & Heartbreakers
1999

You need rhino skin
If you’re gonna begin
To walk
Through this world

You need elephant balls
If you don’t want to crawl
On your hands
Through this world

Oh my love if I reveal
Every secret I’ve concealed
How many thoughts would you steal
How much of my pain would you feel

You need eagles wings
To get over things
That make no sense
In this world

You need rhino skin
If you’re gonna pretend
You’re not hurt by this world

If you listen long enough
You can hear my skin grow tough
Love is painful to the touch
Must be made of stronger stuff

You need rhino skin
To get to the end
Of the maze through this world

You need rhino skin
Or you’re gonna give in
To the needles and pins
The arrows of sin
The evils of men
You need rhino skin…

And after that, you need variations of thick skin and fortitudinous-persevering courage to keep going. For the most part, it’s unfriendly territory out there – whether adolescence, workplace, or love. He suggests “elephant balls” as required equipment – or as a Mexican might counsel, “large cojones.” That is, you need a certain amount of gumption and “stand-upedness,” as all kinds of stuff is gonna` come your way – good, bad, ugly, crazy, indifferent, depressing, and all the rest.

Music Player
“Rhino Skin”-1999
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Love and trust – and their fraying and betrayal – are part of the territory Petty is talking about as well. They are consistent Petty themes throughout much of his music. In “Rhino Skin,” Petty allows that there is a certain interpersonal calculation that goes on in all relationships. Secrets abound. Doubt, fear, anger and other concoctions are all there. But sometimes it’s better that the loved one not know them, and that the bearer consider not revealing them. But should you choose to reveal, that’s when some rhino skin might come in handy.

Adding to the trove of wildlife powers one may need to survive the modern world are “eagles wings” – ideal for flight, avoidance, surmounting barriers, and generally getting away from things unkind or unpleasant – especially when confronting things that make no sense, of which too often there is a fair amount.

So generally, there’s really no avoiding the need for developing this dermatological-like psychological skill set. But you have to work at growing it – i.e., the rhino skin – especially for self defense in love relationships. Petty warns: “Love is [or can be] painful to the touch” so you have to be prepared – “must be made of stronger stuff.”

At the close, Petty reiterates the need for thick skin in dealing with the nonsense and getting through life’s maze – dealing with “the arrows of sin / the evils of men” — you name it. Whatever they throw at you, “you need rhino skin.”

“Echo,” the 10th album by Tom Petty & The Heart-breakers, released April 1999, hit No. 10 on Billboard. Click for Amazon.

In some ways, the lyrics for “Rhino Skin,” and a few other tracks on Echo, are the learned conclusions of a wounded soul.

Tom Petty was going through some tough times as this song and the Echo album were being crafted. His first marriage of 20 years was then ending and headed for divorce. And earlier, his adolescence wasn’t the best of times either. So there may be some personal history seeping through this tune’s suggested toughening up.

But “Rhino Skin” also suggests a kind of re-armament; a refortification for going forward. Tom Petty doesn’t give up. Throughout his musical ouvre there is a consistent theme of getting up off the mat for another day; of not being defeated.

Yes, the slings and arrows along life’s path can be pretty hurtful and humiliating. But they are bearable and instructive, especially with a little “rhino skin” growing tough for next steps and another day.

Echo was first released in April 1999, and it rose to No. 10 on the Billboard 200 album chart. It was certified Gold (500,000 copies sold) by the RIAA in July 1999. There were no singles released from the album for retail sale, but three of the 15 songs – “Free Girl Now,” “Swingin’” and “Room At The Top” – were released for radio play, hitting numbers 5, 17 and 19 respectively on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Tracks in 1999. Elsewhere on the album, “About To Give Out” is a good old southern rocker, and “One More Day, One More Night” has a bluesy quality about it.

Tom Petty being interviewed about his album, “Echo,” and rock 'n roll music, on “The Charlie Rose Show,” April 1999.

Among the Heartbreakers assisting Petty on Echo are: Mike Campbell, lead guitars, bass, lead vocals on “I Don’t Wanna Fight”; Benmont Tench, pianos, organ, chamberlin, clavinet; Howie Epstein, bass, harmony/ background vocals; Scott Thurston, acoustic and electric guitars, background vocals; Steve Ferrone, drums; and Lenny Castro, percussion.

USA Today’s review of Echo noted: “…Tom Petty continues his unwavering sanction of rock ‘n’ roll purity and simplicity, refusing to sully his smartly crafted songs with arty window dressing, hip-hop flourishes or electronic noodling. By rejecting such trends and remaining loyal to classic guitar rock, Petty emerges as one of the few real rebels in the ’90s…” Echo was nominated for 1999 year Grammy Award for Best Rock Album, while “Room At The Top” was nominated for Best Rock Song. Santana took the 1999 album prize with Supernatural, while the Red Hot Chili Peppers won the Best Song prize with “Scar Tissue.”

See also at this website, “I Won’t Back Down,” a story about the use of Tom Petty’s music in political campaigns, and visit the “Annals of Music” page for other story choices in that category. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 28 April 2016
Last Update: 1 June 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Rhino Skin: Tom Petty, 1999,”
PopHistoryDig.com, June 25, 2014.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Tom Petty and his 2nd wife Dana York Epperson at the world premiere of the documentary film “'Runnin' Down a Dream,” Warner Bros. Studio, Burbank, CA 10-02-07.

Album Notes, Echo, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

“Echo (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album),” Wikipedia.org.

“Rebellious Ring to Petty’s ‘Echo’,” USA Today, April 13, 1999, p. D-4.

“Tom Petty,” Wikipedia.org.

Rajesh Kottamasu, “Album Review: Echo by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,” Harvard Crimson, April 23, 1999.

Greg Kot, “Echo / Tom Petty / Warner Bros.,” Rolling Stone, April 29, 1999.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine, “Album Review, Tom Petty / Echo,” AllMusic.com.

Jim Beviglia, “Songs 85-71: Tom Petty Explores Mischievous Preachers, Loose Women & Pain of Divorce as the Countdown Continues,” Houston.CultureMap.com, Au- gust 22, 2010.

Dennis Brault, “Freedom of Speech Trumps Concerns over Cyberbullying,” LaCrosse Tribune, November 14, 2012.

“Q Exclusive: Tom Petty Brings the Snarl Back on Hypnotic Eye,” CBC.ca, July 17, 2014.
_________________________________

Teaser Tag: Sculpture & American History

2001-Today

“Point of View”
George & Guyasuta

April 13, 2016 J.D.

The sculpture shown below – overlooking present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – captures an October 1770 campfire meeting between a young George Washington of colonial Virginia and a Native American leader named Guyasuta. Among other things, the two men, from vastly different cultures, were talking about the fate of the region’s land, both at Pittsburgh and what would become Western Pennsylvania and beyond. At the time, this region was the western edge of the North American colonies of Great Britain, essentially wilderness and a crossroads to an assortment of adventurers, militia men, traders, missionaries, slaves, and settlers. According to local historians, there were fewer than 200 whites living at the “forks of the Ohio River,” i.e., Pittsburgh at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. It was there that former frontier forts would be built – first, Ft. Duquesne for the French, followed by Ft. Pitt under the British. The French, British, native Americans, and American colonists would all do battle in the region. And it was in that context – during the 1750s-1770s – that Washington and Guyasuta would come to know one another.

The bronze sculpture, “Point of View,” of Seneca leader Guyasuta meeting George Washington in 1770, overlooks Pittsburgh, PA. It was installed in 2006. Sculptor, James West. (photo, Jim Judkis/Washington Post).

Born in 1724, Guyasuta or Kiasutha (one of several historical spellings), was a member of the Seneca-Mingo tribe, one of six that made up the Iroquois Nation. Originally from Western New York, Guyasuta’s branch of the Seneca had migrated down the Allegheny River some decades earlier and settled in the Western Pennsylvania area and nearby “Ohio Country.” Early maps of the region, as the one below, show this area as being essentially Indian country.

18th century map of some of the early British Colonies, showing the dark mustard-colored area (at left) with various forts in what is today Western Pennsylvania, then a frontier region populated by indigenous American Indians.

The British, French, and private interests all had designs on this region from the 1740s on. A British land company named The Ohio Company, was one of the private ventures – with George Washington’s father, Augustine, among its investors. The Ohio Co. was given 500,000 acres of British land grants in 1749 in the area between the Kanawha River and the Monongahela – 200,000 acres initially, and an additional 300,000 with the successful settlement of 100 families within seven years. Land grants, land ownership, and land speculation were foreign concepts to Native Americans, who generally regarded land as a shared commons. The British and the French both wanted the region, with “the forks” location being particularly strategic for river travel inland and beyond. The British and French, in various alliances with Native Americans, would soon go to war over the region. In any case, what would become Western Pennsylvania and part of Ohio would be in flux and conflict from the 1740s through the early 1800s. It was in this context of the region’s early contested settlement and wider Colonial wars that Guyasuta and Washington would come to know each other.

Early artist’s depiction showing Native Americans overlooking “the forks” area with fortification that would become modern-day Pittsburgh, with the Monongahela River in foreground and Allegheny River beyond (together forming at far left, but not shown, the Ohio River). This painting captures the region’s rugged wilderness character at about the 1750s.

George Washington was born into the landed gentry of Virginia in 1732. He grew up in Mount Vernon, Virginia. In 1749, at the age 17, he was appointed official surveyor for Culpeper County, Virginia, a well-paid position which enabled him to begin purchasing land in Virginia. By 1753, Washington had also been appointed to the rank of major in the Virginia militia by Virginia‘s governor. In that year, Guyasuta and Washington would meet for the first time, as Washington made his first visit to the rough frontier country of Western Pennsylvania. The French at the time – who had worked in the area for some years and built forts there – were trying to establish more permanent roots in the “Ohio Country” region, which the British then claimed for the Virginia and Pennsylvania colonies.

Statue at Waterford, PA depicting George Washington delivering letter to the French at Fort Le Boeuf.

A portion of the John Buxton painting, “Washington's Crossing,” depicting Washington & his guide, Christopher Gist, on the icy Allegheny River, 1753. Click for related book.

George Washington’s 1750s best-seller – his journal on his trip to meet the French at Fort Le Boeuf. Click for book.

George Washington, then 21, was given orders by lieutenant governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, to undertake a diplomatic expedition to the region with a message for the French commandant of Fort Le Boeuf, a French outpost south of Lake Erie (now Waterford). Washington’s mission was to convince the French to abandon the string of forts they had constructed between Erie and Pittsburgh.

On his journey, Washington arrived at Logstown, a native American trading village. There, he was introduced to various local leaders and Indian chiefs, including Guyasuta. The Seneca chief, who would later use “Tall Hunter” as the name to describe the six-foot Washington, was recruited to help guide Washington and his party to Fort Le Boeuf.

Guyasuta appears to have helped guide Washington along the Allegheny River portion of his journey. Other Iroquois were also assisting, according to some accounts, but it is not clear if Guyasuta stayed with the party for the entire trip.

However, Washington’s mission to persuade the French to leave the region failed, and within a year, the French and Indian War had begun – so named as the Indians sided with the French against the British and the colonists.

On making the return trip from Fort Le Boeuf, Washington and his guide, Christopher Gist, nearly died that winter when their raft broke apart attempting to cross the icy Allegheny River – this according to excerpts from Washington’s own journal.

In fact, Washington’s journal was such good frontier reading for the times that Virginia’s Governor Dinwiddie had it published both in Williamsburg, Virginia and in London, England. Washington’s published account was widely read, and his engaging tales of travel, diplomacy and adventure helped advance his career as an up-and-coming political leader. The book also elevated Washington as one of the country’s first frontier heroes. One of those who read and commented on Washington’s published account was none other than Britain’s King George II.

Washington’s journal also turned out to be of strategic importance to the British, as it included a map that illustrated the extent of the French threat and holdings in the Ohio Valley. It also contained one of the first references to the construction of a French fort at the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, the site of present-day Pittsburgh. And as the French and Indian War commenced, Washington would also become involved in the military action, participating in an ambush of a French detachment in 1754.

Guyasuta With French

Guyasuta sided with the French in the war, and he and Washington would soon fight on opposite sides. In 1755, the British sent the Braddock Expedition with colonial troops under the command of Gen. Edward Braddock into the region. Major George Washington was part of that expedition. They were heading to do battle with the French and Indian forces at Fort Duquesne, located at the forks of the Ohio.

En route, the colonial and British troops under Braddock were surprised and soundly defeated by French and Indian forces from Ft. Duquesne who had learned they were coming. Guyasuta was among those who participated in this Battle of the Monongahela, which occurred near the present-day borough of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Washington and Guyasuta, however, did not engage in direct combat with one another. Washington, however, did exhibit some leadership in the fight, as British soldiers had panicked and retreated, but Washington reportedly rode back and forth across the battlefield, rallying British and Virginian forces into an organized retreat. In the process, Washington had two horses shot from beneath him while his coat was pierced with four bullets.

In Robert Griffing’s “Triumphant Return To Fort Duquesne,” Native American allies of the French are shown on their way back to the fort (barely visible at “forks” in the far distance) after defeating British General Edward Braddock in July 1755 at the Battle of the Monongahela, near present day Braddock, PA. Click for related book.

During the summer of 1758, a British detachment led by Major James Grant again advanced on Fort Duquesne ahead of a larger expedition, but this group too, was met by the French and Indians outside the fort in battle on what is now Grant Street. Guyasuta is believed to have fought in this battle, which ended in the defeat of Grant.

Close up of another Guyasuta statue, this one on Main St. in the Allegheny River town of Sharpsburg, PA, commemorating the Seneca chief’s history in that area.

Later in the French and Indian War, the French decided to abandon Ft. Duquesne, apparently without a fight, which according to some accounts, angered Guyasuta, though he remained there to help burn the fort so the British could not use it. He then retreated down the Ohio River several hours before the British reached Fort Duquesne’s charred ruins. This was on or about November 24, 1758.

The Forbes Expedition, under General John Forbes, captured the former Ft. Duquesne site for the British in the next day or so. As for Guyasuta, some accounts indicate that he then remained inactive for the remainder of the French and Indian War.

In October 1758, the Treaty of Easton was made with the British, in which the Indians ended their alliance with the French. In return, there was an understanding that the British would leave the area after their war with the French. Hostilities between the French and English declined significantly after 1760, followed by a final formal surrender of the French in 1763.

The British, however, had built their own new fort, Fort Pitt, in 1758 near the burnt ruins of Fort Duquesne. Guyasuta, for his part, was living peacefully in the area. But in the course of his travels, as he made occasional trading trips to Fort Pitt, he became familiar with the relative strength of the fortifications there. The British, meanwhile, had not lived up to their agreement to leave the area with the end of the French and Indian War.

In this painting, artist Robert Griffing depicts Indians over looking Fort Pitt (and what would become the city of Pittsburgh) from the northwest side of the Allegheny River, in the direction of Mt. Washington in the distance with the Monongahela River below. The British, rather than withdraw from the region after they had defeated the French – as they had promised – instead constructed Fort Pitt and turned the land around it into settlements. Click for Robert Griffing art book.

Although professing his basic good will toward those at Fort Pitt, Guyasuta was furious that British settlers were entering “Ohio Country” in great numbers, an abrogation of the earlier treaty as he saw it. So he reportedly became pleased when the Ottawa chieftain, Pontiac, began advocating an intertribal alliance against the British “intruders.” In implementing this plan, Pontiac was assisted by Guyasuta, who became a major player in Pontiac’s Rebellion or Pontiac’s War of 1763. Some historians, in fact, have referred to “Pontiac’s War” as the “Pontiac-Guyasuta War,” suggesting that Guyasuta was a major player. By July 1763, one of the targets in the uprising was Fort Pitt.

“The Conspiracy” by Robert Griffing, depicting part of the American Indian force that would become loosely allied in Pontiac’s Rebellion – these being Ojibwas at Fort Michilimackinac on Michigan’s lower peninsula. Click for related book.

Upon learning that a British relief column under Col. Henry Bouquet, was coming to Fort Pitt, marching west from Fort Bedford, Guyasuta led a large force to ambush them en route. Following two days of hard fighting in early August 1763, Bouquet’s troops beat back Guyasuta and his forces in the Battle of Bushy Run. Bouquet’s victory eventually forced Pontiac’s warriors to abandon their siege of Fort Pitt. With the ending of hostilities in Pontiac’s War in 1764, followed by two years of peace negotiations, Guyasuta lived quietly at various locales in Ohio. He also periodically occupied a small dwelling on the Allegheny River above Pittsburgh in the vicinity of present-day Fox Chapel.

“Point of View” sculpture with fuller profile of Guyasuta and only a partial view of Geo. Washington.

Washington’s Visit

In 1770, George Washington undertook his fifth trip to the western Pennsylvania. This time he came not only as a soldier but also as a farmer and investor. He then owned real estate in the area, including some land near Canonsburg and what is now Perryopolis.

On this trip, Washington stopped in Connellsville, visited Fort Pitt, dropped in on a friend at the town of Pine Creek (Etna today), and took a canoe ride down the Ohio.

On the river portion of the trip, Washington and his associates, Dr. James Craik and William Crawford, were looking for land and possible sites for what were called “bounty lands” – land grants awarded to soldiers and colonists who fought in the earlier wars.

It was on this trip down the Ohio River in October 1770, that Washington and Guyasuta would meet face to face for a second time – some 17 years after they had first met on Washington’s trek to the French Ft. Le Boeuf.

Both men by then had been seasoned by many battles and life on the frontier. And the country they both knew was changing around them. Washington was then 38 years old, Guyasuta, 45. Guyasuta was at his hunting camp when Washington met him, and according to reports, Guyasuta “held a perfect recollection” of Washington from their earlier meeting, despite the years that had passed. Guyasuta extended a hunter’s hospitality, giving Washington and his associates a quarter of a buffalo, just killed (and yes, there were bison in Pennsylvania at that time). He invited them to camp together for the night. And so, it was here that Washington and Guyasuta held long talks around the council-fire that night – the meeting upon which the “Point of View” sculpture is based.

1770: Washington and Guyasuta discussed land settlement restrictions, which were then being violated by settlers.

Washington by this time was also involved in land speculation which he would continue for much of his life. His will, in fact, indicated that he held something over 52,000 acres in the colonies of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York. He also owned land in Kentucky and the Ohio Valley.

During their campfire discussions of that October 1770 meeting, land and its occupants were among the chief topics of conversation between Washington and Guyasuta. Both held differing views on settlement in the area, but reportedly, they parted on friendly terms. No one knows what was said, but tension surely arose over the apparent intentions of white settlers to violate the Proclamation of 1763, which was supposed to restrict white settlement west of the Alleghenies. Washington was in the area to survey in anticipation of such expansion and Guyasuta wanted the proclamation honored.

And again, in 1768, the treaty of Ft. Stanwix was supposed to have insured that all land west of the Ohio River was to remain native forever. But almost immediately, according to one account, Pennsylvania and Virginia vied for control of the new lands, sending settlers to stake claims in the Ohio country. The military, fur trading companies, and even some missionaries were all involved, ignoring the treaties. Some settlers instigated attacks on the Indians in hopes of precipitating another war that would help push the frontier further west. Following Pontiac’s War, many tribes were already disillusioned and had split into factions. Some resisted and raided white settlements, others wanted peace, and still others moved west. Additional pressure came from dislocated eastern tribes who had come to the region. “The Ohio country,” according to one historical account, “had become a bubbling cauldron of self-interest and greed.” By 1774, more surveying teams were in the region, followed by more settlement parties. It is no wonder that Guyasuta became dispirited about the fate of his homeland. (history continues below box & marker plaque).

The Sculpture
Idea & Dedication
2004-2006

The “Point of View” sculpture of the 1770 meeting between George Washington and Indian leader Guyasuta on Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington, was installed in October 2006. It is the work of Pittsburgh-born Jim West, developer and sculptor. The idea for the project came about following a 2004 meeting between West and Lynne Squilla, then board president of the Mount Washington Community Development Corporation (MWCDC). At the time, Lynne Squilla was also researching the French and Indian War for a WQED/PBS documentary called “The War That Made America.”

Sculptor James West at positioning of his works, 2006.

Both Squilla and West were inspired by thinking about the meetings between Guyasuta and Washington, and the history of the two men in the region, as they both had an important impact on Pittsburgh and the surrounding area.

While Washington and Guyasuta did not meet on Mt. Washington per se, their sculpture would overlook the region where they had left their mark.

Squilla and West went to the city with their idea, and then-mayor Tom Murphy embraced it. The city donated a small amount of land to the MWCDC for a “parklet” at the site and the Department of Public Works committed stones and Belgian block it had in stock for the pedestal. The Heinz History Center contributed details to the story.

Sculpture featured on cover of “Western Pennsylvania History,” Summer 2007.

The statue and parklet were the first new landmark visitor attractions on the Grand View Scenic Byway, which is one of only a few such roadways in urban settings. On October 17th,2006, city councilman Dan Deasy offered a resolution commending artist Jim West, his historic consultants, and the board and staff of MWCDC for creating the public art work, “bringing to light the history and significance behind it and providing a worthy new landmark attraction for the city of Pittsburgh.” With Pittsburgh then approaching its 250th birthday in 2008, Lynne Squilla noted the sculpture was particularly appropriate and timely, since it portrayed “one of the first conversations about the region.” The sculpture was formally dedicated at a ceremony on October 25th 2006 that included Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Seneca leader, Warren Skye (HoinJaGwaGohn), MWCDC officials, members of the Seneca Nation, and others. “Let us hope this sculpture will encourage us to always examine our history – and to practice tolerance and diplomacy among all kinds of people with differing points of view,” said the mayor at the dedication.

Explanatory marker at the Guyasuta-George Washington sculpture on Mt. Washington, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This marker uses 'Points of View' to describe the Washington-Guyasuta meeting, although the sculpture was earlier named 'Point of View'.

1775-1799

Later History

In April 1775, as the American Revolutionary War began between the colonists and the British, Guyasuta was initially neutral. As a highly regarded leader in the Iroquois Confederation in the Ohio Valley, he met with envoys from both sides. At one point he was offered a military position with the Colonial army. But Guyasuta ultimately chose to ally with the British and against the colonists. During the next several years, he reportedly led raids from Ohio, as well as New York, into western Pennsylvania. In August 1779, the Fort Pitt commandant, Col. Daniel Brodhead, led an expedition up the Allegheny to destroy an enemy force. He encountered Guyasuta’s war parties in the process. Some reports indicate Guyasuta’s participation in raids as late as July 1782.

George Washington, meanwhile, was made commander of the Continental Army in June 1775, and for the next several years, would have his hands full trying to keep his army together while fighting the British throughout the colonies. The Colonists formally made their Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in July 1776. By 1777, the French had allied with the American colonists and Washington’s Continental Army. Washington’s troop of 11,000 soldiers, which had been engaged in a number of battles, went into winter quarters at Valley Forge north of Philadelphia in December 1777. The British, meanwhile, were sometimes aided in battle against the colonists and the Continental Army by American Indian allies, whose raiding parties took a toll on American settlements.

Reproduction of 1907 painting by John Ward Dunsmore, “Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge,” depicting the winter encampment of Washington's troops in 1777 ( Brown & Bigelow, St. Paul and Toronto). Click for related book.

The Sullivan Expedition. In the summer of 1779, after suffering nearly two years from Iroquois raids on the Colonies’ northern frontier, George Washington and Congress decided to strike back. The Iroquois had used their New York villages as a base to attack American settlements across New England. In June 1779, for example, the warriors had joined the British to kill over 200 frontiersmen while laying waste to the Wyoming Valley in northern Pennsylvania. Washington then ordered what at the time would be he largest-ever campaign against the Indians in North America, an action that authorized the “total destruction and devastation” of the Iroquois settlements across upstate New York. The Sullivan Expedition then defeated the loyalist Iroquois army, burned 40 Iroquois villages to ashes, and left homeless many of the Indians, hundreds of whom died of exposure during the following winter. Indeed, some years later, [in 1790], the Seneca chief Cornplanter, nephew of Guyasuta, would tell President George Washington: “When your army entered the country of the Six Nations [i.e. New York state], we called you Town Destroyer.”

Engraving from “A Popular History of the United States” by William Cullen Bryant (1892) depicting a scene of the torching of an Indian village during the Sullivan Expeditions of 1779 aimed at vanquishing the Iroquois. Click for related book.

As the Revolutionary War continued, Washington’s army persevered in the fight. The surrender of the British at Yorktown October 19, 1781– with the help of the French – marked the end of major fighting in continental North America, though some smaller skirmishes would continue for some time. By September 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. Washington disbanded his army not long thereafter, and would resign as commander-in-chief on December 23rd, 1783.

Cover of Brady J. Crytzer’s book, “Guyasuta and the Fall of Indian America,” 2013. Click for book.

At the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War, Guyasuta chose to reside near Pittsburgh, although most of his closest relatives had emigrated to western Ohio. With dismay, he watched as his native country changed before his eyes. After the signing of the second Fort Stanwix treaty of October 1784 in New York, large swaths of former Iroquois/Seneca hunting grounds west of the mountains and north of the Allegheny River were opened to white settlement. Financial inducements and public policies, including the Depreciation Lands Act of 1783, a Settlers Land Act of 1792, and other measures, would help expedite settlement. It would soon no longer be the same country that a young Guyasuta had roamed and once called home.

George Washington, meanwhile, would be elected first president of the United States in 1789 and elected again for a second term in 1792. After retiring from the presidency in March 1797, Washington returned to Mount Vernon, tending to various projects on his estate. But one day in mid-December 1799, after inspecting his plantation on horseback in snow and freezing rain, Washington delayed changing out of his wet clothes and became ill. He died two days later at home on December 14th, 1799. He was 67 years old.

Guyasuta, meanwhile, spent his final days in a log cabin on land in the vicinity of Sharpsburg – the gift of a former ally, General James O’Hara, a British officer. O’Hara owned land at Sharpsburg. One story has it that O’Hara once saved the life of Guyasuta, treating him after he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. Guyasuta is believed to have been around 70 years old at his death in 1794. According to one account, after not being seen for several days, O’Hara found him dead on his cabin floor. By then, alcohol had the better of him, having been despondent over the fate of the Indian lands. There are conflicting accounts as to where he is buried. One report contends he was buried on land granted to his nephew, Cornplanter. Another has it that O’Hara buried the old chief in the Indian mound on the estate, a grave site said to have been visible for much of the 19th Century. Later, the Pennsylvania Railroad created a track line near Guyasuta’s burial site and by 1900, created Guyasuta Station near Sharpsburg as a belated tribute to the Seneca warrior.

Close up of the “Point of View” sculpture on Mt. Washington, Pittsburgh, PA, looking out at the regional viewshed in a north-northeast direction along the Allegheny River. Photo, James West, website, http://studiowildwest.com

The “Point of View” sculpture in any case, now overlooking the Pittsburgh metropolitan region, is a fitting tribute to Guyasuta’s concerns for his homeland and the fate of the country. It is also a good reminder of the clash of cultures and perspectives that occurred in America at its founding and settlement – and in some ways offers a parable of bucolic loss, at least from the Native American perspective. And as its namesake suggests, the sculpture also highlights the differing views on the use and ownership of land and resources at that time and how a new country would be developed — for good and for ill.From their campfire along the Ohio River of 1770, Washington and Guyasuta would surely be astonish- ed at the Pittsburgh region today. For in a relatively short span of time, the Pittsburgh region – as it is viewed today from the Mt. Washington vantage point, stretching out across the “forks of the Ohio” and beyond – went from untamed wilderness to paved-over metropolis. It is now a region where today millions of people move around at all hours of the day and night in personal transportation vehicles traveling at speeds of 60 and 70 miles per hour, a truly unfathomable and unimaginable notion at the 1770 campfire of George Washington and Guyasuta. Indeed, what will the Pittsburgh region look like 250 years from now?

Additional Pittsburgh-related stories at this website include, for example: “The Mazeroski Moment” (1960 World Series), “$2.8 Million Baseball Card” (Honus Wagner), and “Disaster at Pittsburgh”(1988 oil tank collapse and river pollution). For other story choices please visit the Home Page or the Archive. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

Please Support
this Website

Donate Now

Thank You

____________________________________

Date Posted: 13 April 2016
Last Update: 3 April 2020
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Point of View – George & Guyasuta,”
PopHistoryDig.com, April 13, 2016.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

DVD cover for the four-part documentary series, “The War That Made America: The Story of the French and Indian War” (2006 PBS home video). Click for DVD.

“The Art of Robert Griffing” (2003, Paramount Press) includes 75 color photographs of his paintings, a biographical section, and text about his focus on Native Americans' woodland culture. Click for book.

“George Washington: Surveyor and Map- maker,” U.S. Library of Congress.

C. Hale Sipe, The Indian Chiefs of Pennsylvania, Ziegler Printing Co., Inc.,: Butler, Pennsylvania, 1927.

Miles Richards, “Exploring History: The Mighty Guyasuta,” TribLive.com, June 25, 2014.

Joel Achenbach, “The Smartest Route to Pittsburgh: The One with No Shortcuts,” Washington Post, July 16, 2015.

Al Lowe, “Washington Will Meet Guyasuta Once Again on Mt. Washington,” South Pittsburgh Reporter, October 17, 2006.

“George Washington,” Wikipedia.org.

Diana Nelson Jones, “In Sculpture, Seneca Leader Guyasuta Reunited with George Washington; The Site of a New Sculpture Affords a View of the Place Where the Historical Figures Met Near the Confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 20, 2006.

Brady J. Crytzer, Major Washington’s Pittsburgh and the Mission to Fort Le Boeuf, The History Press, April 2011, 128 pp.

Brady J. Crytzer, Guyasuta and the Fall of Indian America, Westholme Publishing, June 2013, 352 pp.

“Guyasuta,” Wikipedia.org.

“Mt. Washington Has A New Point of View,” View Point (Mt. Washington newspaper), November 2006.

Edward A. Galloway, “Guyasuta: Warrior, Estate, and Home to Boy Scouts,” Western Pennsylvania History, Winter 2011-12, Volume 94, Number 4, pp. 18-31.

Rick Sebak, “George Washington’s 7 Trips to Pittsburgh Were Certainly Eventful; A Look Back at Our Nation’s First President’s Many Visits…,” Pittsburgh Magazine, January 29, 2014.

William M. Darlington, Christopher Gist’s Journals with Historical, Geographical and Ethnological Notes and Biographies of His Contemporaries, [Part 7] Pittsburgh, J. R. Weldin & Co., 1893, pp. 202-240.

“James A. West, Sculptor,” Website.

“Mount Washington (Pittsburgh),” Wikipedia .org.

History of the Borough of Sharpsburg.

Kristin Hopper, “President George Washing- ton,” WordPress.com, 2010.

Larry Pearce, “Meet Native American Guyasuta,” March 6, 2008.

Johannah Cornblatt, “‘Town Destroyer’ Versus the Iroquois Indians; Forty Indian Villages—and a Powerful Indigenous Nation—were Razed on the Orders of George Washington,” U.S. News & World Report, June 27, 2008

Barbara Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution, Syracuse University Press, December 1975, 4th edition, 359 pp.

“Siege of Fort Pitt,” Wikipedia.org.

Paula W. Wallace, Indians in Pennsylvania (1st edition, 1961 ), Diane Publishing Inc., 2007, 200 pp.

“Capture of Fort Duquesne,” ExploringOff TheBeatenPath.com(excellent source).

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Teaser Tag: Politics, Baseball, Celebrity

1951-1960, 1961-1970

“Jack & Stan”
Kennedy/Musial: 1959-64

March 25, 2016 J.D.

Presidents and presidential candidates often seek out popular film stars, notable musicians, sports figures and other celebrities to help them advance their policies and/or win their election campaigns. Such was the case with Jack Kennedy in his 1960 bid for the Whites House. Kennedy, of course, had the benefit of a wealthy father who was well connected in Hollywood and elsewhere. And JFK, on his own count, had high-powered support from notable friends like Frank Sinatra and his infamous “Rat Pack.” But Kennedy also sought out VIPs from other fields – one of whom was the famous St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball star, Stan Musial.

After he became president, JFK and St. Louis slugger Stan Musial, visit briefly before the July 1962 All-Star Game in Washington, where Kennedy threw out the ceremonial game ball. Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick is at center. Musial in the All Star game would have a base hit that led to a run. That year he would compile a .330 average. Click for his Amazon page.

In September 1959, Kennedy was campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the early days of his run for the White House. The Wisconsin Democratic primary – an important stepping stone to the nomination – was still months away, and the Democratic National Convention would not convene in Los Angeles until the summer of 1960. Still, Kennedy had already been working hard for the nomination, and was always looking for ways to improve his chances. That day in Milwaukee, Kennedy spotted Stan Musial standing in front of a hotel waiting for the team bus to take him to a game later that day with the Milwaukee Braves.

U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, 1959.

Kennedy approached Musial, no doubt, with hand outstretched in friendly greeting. And as Musial would later recall, it went something like this: “You’re Stan Musial and I’m glad to meet you,” said the candidate. “I’m Jack Kennedy.” Musial knew who he was. But then came Kennedy’s quip: “You’re too old to play ball and I’m too young to be president, but maybe we’ll fool ‘em’.” Kennedy was 42 at the time, and Musial 38 – and neither lacked for skills in their respective professions. But Kennedy was then playing on some of the popular “ageist” banter then circulating about each of them to strike some common ground. His purpose, in any case, was to recruit Musial to help with some campaigning – which Musial eventually agreed to do.

Stan Musial was then in the later years of his baseball career, but showing no signs of failing ability. Having grown up and played his high school ball in Donora, Pennsylvania, Stan Musial — named Stanislaw Franciszek at birth by his immigrant Polish father — began his major league career with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1941. And with the exception of two seasons for WW II military service, he continued with the Cardinals for 22 seasons, retiring in 1963. Musial is widely regarded as being one of the greatest and most consistent hitters in baseball history. He would win the National League batting title seven times, was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player three times, and led his team to three World Series championships. Musial also shares – with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays – the major league record for the most All-Star Games played at 24. So when Jack Kennedy met him in 1959, “Stan The Man” as he was nicknamed, was already a baseball immortal, destined for the Hall of Fame and more.

Baseball star, Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Politically, Stan Musial had supported Republican president Dwight Eisenhower in previous elections, but he liked Kennedy personally. Musial was also Catholic like Kennedy, and Kennedy’s religion happened to be a major issue in the campaign.

On the campaign trail in October 1960, Musial joined a group of other notables who worked for Kennedy in nine Midwest and Western states; tough conservative states where Kennedy needed help. Joining Musial on the campaign trail in that fall tour were other VIPs: author James A. Michener; future Supreme Court judge Byron (Whizzer) White; historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.; actress Angie Dickinson; actor Jeff Chandler, and JFK in-laws – Ethel Kennedy, wife of brother Robert Kennedy; and Joan Kennedy, wife of brother Ted Kennedy.

During what Michener would describe “as grueling a tour as could have been devised,” Musial was a leading attraction. “I was constantly astonished at how the men in the cities we stopped at would crowd the airports to see Stan Musial,” Michener would later write. “He seemed about 15 years younger than he was, and men who were [then] quite old remembered him as a beginner in the big leagues.” Angie Dickinson would echo Michener’s observations about the rigors of the tour, where some in the crowds “booed us and threw things at us.” But of Musial, Dickinson recalled him as being upbeat and full of good humor. And he apparently did quite well with some of the crowds, telling baseball tales and even getting Republicans to cheer him.

“Kennedy-for-President” campaign button.

In late October 1960, Musial was also named as among the co-chairs of the “National Sportsmen for Kennedy Committee,” along with other sports greats such as Johnny Unitas, Willie Mays, Leo Durocher, Bob Cousy, Joe DiMaggio, and Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb. The full roster of this committee included a couple hundred or more sportsmen from all fields.

At election’s end, Musial would often joke that his campaigning “lost all nine states for the President,” or that he cost Kennedy votes in those states. Yet in reality, he may have actually helped provide JFK at least some of the margin he needed to win the two key states of Illinois and Michigan. But the Kennedy-Johnson ticket did lose seven of the nine states that Musial and the VIPs had stumped in – Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Utah. Still, Kennedy won the election overall, with a razor-thin victory over Republican Richard Nixon (more detail on the 1960 election campaign can be found at “JFK’s 1960 Campaign.”)

1962

All Star Game

Musial and JFK met again at the 1962 All-Star game in Washington, D.C., where Kennedy would throw out the game ball. At that time, JFK was 45 and Musial was 41. He was appearing in his 22nd All-Star Game. Before the game, JFK summoned Musial to come over and visit him in the box seat section of the ball park where he and his party were gathered. There, Musial reprised the line Kennedy had used with him back in 1959: “They say you’re too young to be president and I’m too old to be playing baseball, but here we are,” said Musial, suggesting they had indeed surprised their respective critics – JFK was a young, successful president and Stan Musial was an old successful All Star!

July 11th, 1962 sports page headlines from the Spartanburg, South Carolina “Herald-Journal” newspaper on the outcome of the Major League Baseball All-Star game played in Washington, D.C., where President John F. Kennedy and St Louis Cardinal stand out, Stan Musial, became part of the story.

In the game, Musial delivered a line-drive single to right field as a pinch-hitter in the sixth inning. Maury Wills came in as a pinch runner for Musial, then stole second base. Wills then scored from second after Dick Groat hit a single. The National League All-Stars won, 3-1. But in some of the newspaper coverage the next day, both Kennedy and Musial garnered a share of the headlines. “JFK Part of Record Crowd As Musial Emerges A Hero,” read one, while another, picking up on Musial’s comments, noted: “JFK, Musial Both Doing All Right.”

St. Louis Cardinal baseball great, Stan Musial, connecting with one in the prime of his career.

On July 12th, 1962, following the All Star game, Musial and his family – wife Lillian and daughter Janet – were given a VIP tour of the White House, also meeting with President Kennedy. Musial and JFK traded some baseball talk that day, as Kennedy asked Musial about his home run total and whether he might surpass Ty Cobb for the all-time hits record. (Ty Cobb held the record then with 4,191 hits. Musial was closing in on him, but would not surpass him, ending his career in 1963 with 3,630 hits, which is still 4th highest all time. Pete Rose now holds the top spot at 4,256 hits. Musial would finish his career with 475 home runs, at the time, No. 2 in the National League, behind Mel Ott with 511. Today, Musial is ranked at No. 30 among all-time home run leaders).

July 12th, 1962: President Kennedy greets St. Louis Cardinal baseball slugger, San Musial and family – wife Lillian and daughter Janet – in the Oval Office during their VIP visit at the White House following the All-Star game.

At the White House, Musial, wife and daughter, and JFK posed for some photos, and the president presented Musial with a PT 109 tie pin (PT 109 was the famous Navy patrol boat under Kennedy’s command in WWII) and also an autographed picture. During the visit, Musial was congratulated by White House staffers for his single in the All-Star Game, but he noted, “I got a bigger kick out of the handshake with the President before the game.” Musial also noted that the President told the people in his party what a good job of campaigning Musial had done for him.

17 April 1964: Ted Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Stan Musial on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park ceremonies, opening day. Photo, Boston Globe.

17 April 1964: Robert F. Kennedy throws out the game ball at baseball’s opening day at Fenway Park with Ted Kennedy, Stan Musial and others looking on.

Stan Musial would compile an outstanding .330 batting average in 1962. President Kennedy, meanwhile, had his hands full will all manner of tough decisions that only presidents deal with. Yet Kennedy would apparently place telephone calls to Musial on occasion. According to reports from Musial’s grandson, Brian Schwarze, a long-time secretary of Musial’s named Patty Anthony, “almost fell out of her desk a couple of times” when Kennedy called looking to talk with Musial. And on that bleak day in November 1963 when JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, Stan Musial pulled his daughters out of school and they spent the rest of the day praying at the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End area of St. Louis.

Five months after the JFK tragedy, Stan Musial would appear on the baseball diamond at Boston’s Fenway Park with JFK’s brothers, Bobby and Ted in pre-game ceremonies on opening day, April 17th, 1964. It was the first baseball season following the president’s death. Also attending that day were JFK sisters, Jean Smith and Patricia Lawford and other VIPs. Robert Kennedy, who was then U.S. Attorney General, threw out the game ball that day in his brother’s memory. Stan Musial was officially representing President Lyndon Johnson and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. Proceeds from the game went to the JFK Library Fund to honor the fallen president. And on that day as well, newly-minted JFK half dollars were given out to the first 6,000 ticket buyers.

Stan Musial would serve on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports from 1964 to 1967. In 2011 he was honored by President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, who called him “an icon untarnished, a beloved pillar of the community, a gentleman you’d want your kids to emulate.” Stan Musial died in January 2013 of natural causes; he was 92 years old. An inscription on his statue outside of Busch Stadium in St. Louis portraying him in his fabled batting stance states: “Here stands baseball’s perfect warrior. Here stands baseball’s perfect knight.” Musial had a stellar reputation on and off the field, regarded as a model human being and sports icon.

Additional stories at this website on baseball can be found at the “Baseball Stories” topics page, and on the Kennedys, at the “Kennedy History” topics page. For politics-related history, see the “Politics & Culture” page. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 25 March 2016
Last Update: 25 March 2016
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Jack & Stan, Kennedy/Musial: 1959-64,”
PopHistoryDig.com, March 25, 2016.

Twitter: JackDoyle/PopHistoryDig
BlueSky: jackdoyle.bsky.social

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Books at Amazon.com…

Wayne Stewart, “Stan the Man: The Life and Times of Stan Musial,” 2014, Special Edition, Triumph Books, 272 pp. Click for Amazon.

Kenneth P. O'Donnell & David F. Powers, “‘Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye’,: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” 2018 paperback, 502pp.

George Vecsey, “Stan Musial: An American Life,” 2012, Random House Publishing Group, 432 pp. Click for Amazon.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

John Falter’s “Stan The Man,” Saturday Evening Post, May 1st, 1954. Click for story on Falter’s art.

Sept 5, 1949: Time cover illustration of Stan Musial by artist Ernest Hamlin Baker, with cover caption, “Thirty Days Hath September,”referring to the show-down pennant race at the time between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Musial being a key player in that race.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, JFKlibrary.org, Boston, MA.

Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers with Joe McCarthy, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1970.

George Vecsey, Stan Musial: An American Life, ESPN, 1st Edition, May 2011, 416 pp.

“Stan Musial,” Wikipedia.org.

“Musial Shared Special Bond with JFK,” RetroSimba.com, November 19, 2010.

Michael Quinlin, “Honey Fitz & Sweet Caroline: A Century of Fenway,” Irish America.com, June / July 2012.

David Cohen, “Stan Musial on The Campaign Trail,” Politico.com, January 19, 2013.

George Vecsey, “The Star Who Stood Out by Not Standing Out,” New York Times, January 20, 2013.

Pat McGonigle, “JFK and Stan the Man,” KSDK.com (NewsChannel/St. Louis/Gannet), November 22, 2013.

Michael Beschloss, History Source, “Base- ball’s Role in J.F.K.’s Life,” New York Times, May 23, 2014.

“Statement by Senator John F. Kennedy on National Sportsmen for Kennedy Com-mittee,” October 21, 1960, The American Presidency Project.

“Anniversaries: Junior Griffey/ Stan the Man/ JFK,” GeorgeVecsey.com, November 21, 2012.

John Kelly, “Author Seeks Help in Finding 2 Boys Who Were JFK’s Guests at 1962 All-Star Game,” Washington Post, August 1, 2011.

Topics Page, “Baseball Stories, 1900s-2000s,” PopHistoryDig.com, March 22, 2012 (includes thumbnail sketches & links to 14 baseball-related stories at this website).

Jack Doyle, “JFK’s 1960 Campaign, Primaries & Fall Election,” PopHistoryDig.com, July 20, 2014 (story includes introduction, summary & listing of city-by-city campaign itinerary with extensive photos of JFK’s 1960 presidential campaign).

Topics Page, “Kennedy History – 12 Stories: 1954-2013,” PopHistoryDig.com, November 10, 2013 (includes thumbnail sketches & links to 12 Kennedy-related stories at this website).

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JFK and Stan Musial greeting one another at the 1962 All-Star game, played at Washington, D.C.’s new Washington Stadium. Among those in the President’s party that day were: Speaker of the House, John McCormack, Kennedy aide, Dave Powers, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Lawrence O’Brien, Commissioner of Baseball, Ford Frick, and in the foreground, center, two young guests of the President from the Washington Boys Club. Click for framed, Musial-autographed, 16x20 commemorative photo.

July 1962: After the president’s party shed their jackets and settled in for the All-Star game seated behind a dugout, JFK and his aide, Dave Powers, rise from their seats tracking a foul ball hit in their direction.

Teaser Tag: Annals of Music
enclosure: https://pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Rock-Around-the-Clock-Bill-Haley.mp3 5370960 audio/mpeg

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 1981-1990

“Rock Around The Clock”
Bill Haley: 1951-1981

March 17, 2016 J.D.

1950s: Bill Haley & some of his band performing.

One of the first major rock ‘n roll songs of the 1950s – and still ranked among the world’s all-time Top Ten best-selling singles – is “Rock Around The Clock.” The song was made popular by the American group, Bill Haley and His Comets, initially a Country & Western band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that morphed into a rock `n roll leader after discovering new potential in rhythm & blues music.

“Rock Around the Clock” was also known by its somewhat longer title, “We’re Gonna‘ Rock Around The Clock.” It became one of the first American rock `n roll recordings to find major success and hit the top of the music charts, not only in America, but also around the world. In fact, the reception overseas at the time was quite strong and surprising. By today’s standards, of course, the song may seem unexceptional. Yet in its day it was a significant departure from the mostly staid fare of 1950s music, offering a sharp break with the status quo and setting popular music on a new course.

Although there were other songs at the time that were also part of the new, rising musical genre being called “rock `n roll” – including some by Fats Domino dating to 1950, Haley’s own “Crazy Man, Crazy” of 1953, and Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll” of 1954 – it would be Haley’s recording of “Rock Around the Clock” in 1954 that would become the break out tune for rock `n roll. In fact, “Rock Around The Clock” is widely considered the one song, more than any other, that brought rock `n roll into mainstream culture around the world. In its day, the song also became an anthem for mid-1950s youth. Yet when “Rock Around The Clock” was first released in May of 1954, it had modest success at best, and seemed headed for the rock `n roll dustbins.

Then, about a year later, in May of 1955, the song went to the top of the music charts after it was used as the opening music for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie, Blackboard Jungle, a story about a high school teacher’s confrontation with juvenile delinquents.

1955: Ad promoting “Blackboard Jungle.” Click for film.

It was the first time rock ’n roll music would be used in film, presaging a lucrative business relationship between rock ‘n roll and film that would grow to great levels in the decades that followed. But in the mid-1950s this was totally new territory – and the kids ate it up.

In fact, in some theaters where the film was shown, both in the U.S. and in Europe, there would be riots and near riots, as the kids would resort to dancing in the aisles when the song came on, while others resorted to more serious mischief coming out of theaters at some locations.

Rock musician and social critic Frank Zappa was among young teens who saw Blackboard Jungle in the spring of 1955 and was energized by the sound of “Rock Around the Clock,” as he would explain some years later: “I didn’t care if Bill Haley was white or sincere. He was playing the teenage National Anthem and it was loud. I was jumping up and down…. [Although the film] had the old people winning in the end, it represented an endorsement. ‘They have made a movie about us, therefore we exist’.”

And journalist Michael Hall, later writing a piece on Bill-Haley, describes his experience as a teenager hearing the same song nearly 20 years later in another film:

“…I’ve been a fan of [Haley] ever since I saw American Graffiti, in 1973, when I was fifteen. ‘Rock Around the Clock,’ the first song in the movie’s first scene, jumped out of the theater speakers: an exuberant 128 seconds of driving guitar and sax riffs, an amazing guitar solo, and Haley’s breathless vocal. It made me feel good; it made me want to move. And if it did that to me [in 1973], imagine what it did to teens in 1955. Kids—to say nothing of grown-ups—had never heard anything like it before….”

May 1954: Decca record label 45rpm version of “Rock Around the Clock,” by Bill Haley and His Comets. Click for digital.

In 1955, “Rock Around The Clock” held the No. 1 spot on the music charts for about two months, and would repeat that showing in other countries. Bill Haley and His Comets had started something of a revolution; they had made the rock `n roll sound popular, and in the process became one of the first recording artists to advance rock `n roll music as both pop culture phenomenon and profitable enterprise.

Music Player
“Rock Around The Clock”

Still today, in the annals of music history, “Rock Around The Clock” has held it own. The song is ranked at No. 158 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” And in 2004, the American Film Institute ranked the song at No. 50 on its “100 Years…100 Songs” list of top tunes in American cinema. Turner Classic Movies also lists the Bill Haley/Blackboard Jungle soundtrack on its Top 15 Most Influential Movie Soundtracks of all time.

Bill Haley, in particular, was a bit of an inventor and synthesizer, taking from the music around him and creating something new. His early 1950s hits would prove to be something of a transition period from one musical era to the next. Michael Hall, writing a Texas Monthly piece on Bill Haley in 2011, noted: “…There’s a before ‘Rock Around the Clock’ and an after ‘Rock Around the Clock.’ The before is Glenn Miller, Perry Como, and Bing Crosby. The after is Elvis, the Beatles, and Lady Gaga.” Haley’s story provides some interesting rock `n roll history; it’s a story about changing music and changing culture – and also a story about how one person’s life unfurled in both good and troubling ways with the ebb and flow of rock `n roll popularity.

Bill Haley shown on album cover in his earlier country & western days as a young cowboy singer, late 1940s. Click for CD.

Country-to-R&B

William John Clifton “Bill” Haley, Jr. was born in Highland Park, Michigan on July 6, 1925. When he was four years old, during an operation on his ear, the vision in his left eye would become impaired when an optic nerve was accidentally severed. After that, Haley’s left eye was never quite right, looking off in an odd direction, contributing to a self-conscious shyness. Yet, one thing Bill Haley did have was a good ear for music. His father, from Firebrick, Kentucky, played banjo. His mother, an English emigree from Lancashire, had been classically trained and taught piano. The family later moved to the crossroads town of Booth’s Corner, Pennsylvania in the late 1940s, not far from Philadelphia. It was there that teenager Bill Haley began learning to play the guitar. He had idolized the singing cowboys of that era and dreamed of becoming a country and western singer. For a time, after he quit school, he tried his hand with a series of country and western bands. Then he came back to the Philadelphia area and did a stint as a radio disc jockey in Chester, Pennsylvania where he played a mix of tunes, including rhythm and blues (R & B) recordings, in those days sometimes called “race records.” Then he went back on the road with more country and western groups – among them, The Four Aces of Western Swing and Bill Haley and The Saddlemen. Haley and his bandmates also cut some country and western records.

But in 1951, Haley, prodded by the owner of Essex Records, began experimenting with a new sound. They cut a version of a song called “Rocket 88,” an R&B song written by black artist, Jackie Brenston ( and according to one account, although credited to “Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats” on Chess Records, was actually performed by Ike Turner and Knights, later of Ike & Tina Turner fame). Haley’s version of “Rocket 88” in any case, on Essex Records, sold 10,000 copies, a modest result but enough to convince Haley that this new “high energy” sound – basically, black R& B music – would appeal to teenagers. ( In Cleveland, Ohio, meanwhile, a radio DJ named Alan Freed had come to the same conclusion about black R&B music, and by 1951 his on-air selections of these songs were becoming popular on his “Moondog Rock `n Roll Party” radio show).

Chess record label crediting “Rocket 88" to Jackie Brenston, though some say Ike Turner performed it.

Bill Haley & Comets version of “Rocket 88" recorded on the Essex recording label, June 1951.

Haley, by recording “Rocket 88,” was contributing to the founding rock `n roll, even if he didn’t know it at the time. This was the era before Dwight D. Eisenhower was even running for President. Elvis Presley was a 15 year-old tenth grader and the Beatles and Rolling Stones were still in grammar school. By 1952, Haley dropped the country and western style and re-named his group Bill Haley & His Comets. Their sound was unique at the time, coming out of a rockabilly mold, framed by slap-back bass, electric guitar, and pedal steel guitar. They also picked up on youth culture of their day by playing at high school dances for a time, with Haley especially attentive to the slang and talk of the kids.

Film poster for “Blackboard Jungle,” the 1955 film starring Glenn Ford that featured “Rock Around The Clock” song. Click for DVD.

In 1952, Haley & The Comets also cut a recording of another R&B tune, “Rock the Joint,” which sold 75,000 copies, a song picked up by Cleveland DJ, Alan Freed. Then Haley wrote “Crazy Man Crazy,” a 1953 song that became the first rock ’n roll record to appear on the Billboard pop chart. Of his developing song-writing and composing method, Haley would later say: “I thought, if I were to take a Dixieland melody and leave out the emphasis on the first and third beat, but emphasize the second and fourth, and add a beat to which the listeners can clap or even dance, that would serve [ the listener’s interest ]… The rest was easy – I took catchy phrases like `Crazy Man, Crazy’ and made songs out of them with the method I just explained.”

Next up for Haley, in the spring of 1954, was the first recording of “Rock Around the Clock,” now on the Decca record label. Then came “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” another successful black R&B tune by Big Joe Turner, an artist Haley admired. “Shake, Rattle and Roll” became a Top Ten hit for Haley, both in the U.S. and the U.K., selling a million copies by July 1954. But “Rock Around the Clock,” in its first release made earlier that year, had not done well.

In fact, “Rock Around The Clock” didn’t break big until the spring of 1955 after it was used in the soundtrack for the movie, Blackboard Jungle. The song, in somewhat altered version, is used four times in the film: during the film’s opening credits with a lengthy drum introduction, in the first scene, as an instrumental version in the middle of the film, and at the close of the movie. Given the wild reception the song received from the kids who saw the film, it wasn’t long before Haley and the Comets realized they had a giant hit on their hands, as Marshall Lytle, the original bass player for The Comets, recalled in one later interview:

“We were travelling on the New York Thruway from Buffalo to Boston to do a television show. I turned the radio on and ‘Rock Around The Clock’ was playing, [The car] was a new Cadillac that Bill had just bought. It had one of those Selectrix dials where you just push the bar and it goes to the next station. I pushed the bar and it was playing again on another radio station. I pushed the bar again and it was playing again. At one given moment, it was playing five times on the dial. Within five minutes, I must’ve heard it a dozen times. I said: ‘This is a monster hit.’ When you hear a song that many times on that many different radio stations, you know damn well that it was a monster hit.”

In March 1955 alone, “Rock Around The Clock” sold one million copies. Blackboard Jungle, meanwhile, continued to receive wide coverage in the press that summer, boosting Haley’s stock to the point that even Haley – then 30 years old – was thought of as a young rebel. “Rock Around The Clock” was steadily marching to the top of the Billboard chart; it would soon hit No. 1. Haley’s music was now getting much broader notice.

Oct 1955: Rock icons, Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, around the time of their first meeting.

On May 31, 1955, in one of the earliest nationally-televised performances by a rock `n roll band, Bill Haley and the Comets performed “Rock Around the Clock” on the Texaco Star Theater hosted by Milton Berle. Haley and his band, said Berle at their performance, were “a group of entertainers who are going right to the top.” Blackboard Jungle by this time was continuing to play in theaters all around the country, though its “young hoodlum” content led to bans in few communities, including Atlanta. “Rock Around The Clock” hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart July 9th, 1955 — and it held that spot for 8 weeks, remaining on the charts for nearly six months. Bill Haley and band, meanwhile, continued to receive national attention. They became the first rock `n roll act to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show(CBS-TV) — on Sunday, August 7, 1955, two months after appearing on the Milton Berle show.

Haley and the Comets were also appearing all over the country through 1955, sharing the bill sometimes with well known and up-and-coming artists. During a Midwest tour with Hank Snowden (poster below), Elvis Presley and Bill Haley first met at a Brooklyn High School show in Cleveland, Ohio. It was late October 1955. Presley was just starting out, doing regional shows mostly in the south. He had cut and released a few songs by this time with Sun Studios of Memphis, Tennessee, including “I Forgot To Remember To Forget” of August 1955 (w/“Mystery Train” on its B side), which would make him a nationally-known country music star after it hit No. 1 on the Country & Western chart in February 1956. Presley then was still about a year away from his rising rock `n roll stardom. But on the Snowden two-week tour in the fall of 1955, Elvis rode with Haley in his car between shows, and the two rock `n rollers got to know each other, sharing views on their music and hopes for the future.

Portion of 1955 poster w/Elvis as minor act; click for similar.

1955 poster for Bill Haley & Comets in Oklahoma City.

During 1955 and early 1956, Haley and the Comets were also busy turning out new top 40 hits. Among those released in the U.S., for example, were: “Dim, Dim The Lights” in January (No.10); “Birth Of The Boogie” in April (No.17); “Mambo Rock,” also in April (No.17); re-release of “Rock Around the Clock” in June (No.1); “Two Hound Dogs” in September (No.15); “Burn That Candle” in November (No.9); “Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie” in November (No.23); and Top Ten hit, “See You Later, Alligator” in February 1956 (No.6). And by this time as well, the first in a series of the rock `n roll films would appear, titled Rock Around the Clock, starring Haley and his band.

Poster for 1956 film “Rock Around The Clock,” starring Bill Haley, His Comets & others. Click for Prime Video.

Poster for follow-up film, Dec 1956, “Don’t Knock The Rock,” also featuring Haley & others. Click for film set.

At The Movies

Rock Around the Clock, produced by Columbia Pictures, was released in March 1956. It was followed by another not long thereafter, Don’t Knock the Rock, released in December that year, again starring Haley. These films were the first of what would later be called “the rock exploitation genre.” They all had a relatively simple formula: round up as many pop music stars as you could afford, and use a story line that showcased the music. In Rock Around the Clock, Haley’s hit song of that name is used at least three times, along with songs from a dozen or more other artists. Rock Around the Clock cost an estimated $200,000 to produce, but it grossed $1 million in the U.S. alone. It also had a good run in Europe. The sequel, Don’t Knock the Rock, which also featured Bill Haley as well as radio DJ Alan Freed (who appeared in several of these period “rock films” beyond those with Haley), was rushed into production for a December 1956 release primarily to capitalize on the first film and Haley’s music. Six Haley songs are performed in the film, including “Don’t Knock The Rock.” This film, however, which also hit the global market, did not do as well as the first. Still, other rock films followed without Haley featuring other stars. Among those titles, for example, were: Rock, Rock, Rock; Mister Rock and Roll; and Shake, Rattle and Rock. (See the Alan Freed story for more detail on these.)

One news account in the October 14th, 1956 edition of the St. Petersburg Times, reporting on some of the raucous behavior that followed the first film, Rock Around The Clock, also noted the film’s success and financial returns – for Haley’s songs as well – as film and music made their way around the world:

…Youth riots have sprouted from showings of [the film] Rock Around the Clock throughout America, in England, Nor-way, Australia and other such lands…
…A Columbia Pictures spokesman said the 76-minute film, featuring Bill Haley and other rock exponents, is doing ‘fantastic business.’ Made for less than $200,000 the film reportedly may gross up in the ranks of historic money makers.
Decca Records has pressed and sold more than two million copies of the song [‘Rock Around the Clock’] which was used both in the film, Blackboard Jungle, and as the tune for the later movie [i.e.,Rock Around the Clock]. Other records, like ‘See You Later Alligator,’ have sold almost as well.
By the beginning of this year [1956], a Decca official in overseas sales reported, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ seemed to be ‘the biggest Decca record since the ‘Third Man Theme’.’ Highest sales overseas were in England, Germany, and Australia, followed by Norway, Sweden, Brazil and Japan.

September 1956: Theater crowd scene in Amsterdam at the screening of the film, “Rock Around The Clock,” featuring pioneering rock ‘n roll act, Bill Haley and His Comets and their hit song “Rock Around The Clock.”

In the U.S., during 1956, Haley and his band signed on with a touring show under the banner, “The Biggest Rock & Roll Show of 1956” (tour dates listed below). Haley and band were one of about a dozen other acts, including: the Platters, the Drifters, Bo Diddley, Big Joe Turner, LaVern Baker, and Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. Haley and the Comets, however, were the only white act on a bill, but were the headliners, followed in billing by the Platters, Lavern Baker, Clyde McPhatter and Big Joe Turner. Haley and his band typically finished the second half of the show.

_____________________________________________________

“Biggest Rock ’n Roll Show of 1956″

Starring Bill Haley, Lavern Baker, The Platters, et. al,

Cover of tour booklet for “Biggest Rock n Roll Show of ‘56" with Bill Haley, Lavern Baker, The Platters, & others.

April 28, 1956: Sample poster from the touring “Biggest Rock `n Roll Show of 1956”. Click for poster selection.

April 1956

Apr 20: Hersheypark Arena, Hershey,PA
Apr 21: Warner Theatre, Atlantic City, NJ
Apr 22: Mosque, Richmond, VA
Apr 23: Municipal Aud., Norfolk,VA
Apr 24: Catholic Youth Cntr, Scranton, PA
Apr 25: Arena, Philadelphia, PA
Apr 26: Westchester Co.,White Plains, NY
Apr 27: Mosque Theater, Newark, NJ
Apr 28: War Mem. Aud., Syracuse, NY
Apr 29: The Forum, Montreal, Canada
Apr 30: Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto

May 1956

May 1: Aud. Theatre, Rochester, NY
May 2: Memorial Aud, Buffalo, NY
May 3: Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh, PA
May 4: Vet. Mem Aud., Columbus, OH
May 5: Memorial Aud., Canton, OH
May 6: Olympia Arena, Detroit, MI
May 7: Univ. Fieldhouse, Dayton, OH
May 8: Arena, Cleveland, OH
May 9: Gardens, Cincinnati, OH
May 10: Indiana Theater, Indianapolis, IN
May 11: Int’l Amphitheatre, Chicago, IL
May 12: Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, MO
May 13: Music Hall, Kansas City, MO
May 14: Civic Auditorium, Omaha, NE
May 15: Coliseum, Denver, CO
May 16: Sportatorium, Dallas, TX
May 17: Mun. Aud., San Antonio, TX
May 18: Civic Auditorium, Houston, TX
May 19: Loyola Univ., Baton Rouge, LA
May 20: Mun. Aud., Birmingham, AL
May 21: Chattanooga, TN
May 22: Greensville, SC
May 23: Memorial Aud., Raleigh, NC
May 24: Ponce De Leon Stad., Atlanta
May 25: Baseball Park, Jacksonville, FL
May 26: Ft. Hesterly Armory, Tampa, FL
May 27: Dinner Key Aud., Miami Beach
May 28: Sports Arena, Savannah, GA
May 29: Charlotte, NC
May 30: Mem. Coliseum, Winston-Salem
May 31: Township Aud., Columbia, SC

June 1956

June 1: The Mosque, Richmond, VA
June 2: Mun. Aud., Norfolk, VA
June 3: Nat’l Guard Armory, Wash., DC
June 4: Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh, PA
June 5: Mun. Aud., Charleston, WVA
___________________

Sources: “The Biggest Rock`n Roll Show
of 1956,” A Rock `n Roll Historian (web-
site), February 1, 2016, and Otto Fuchs,
Bill Haley: Father of Rock ‘n Roll, Wagner,
2014.

_____________________________________________________

At the opening of the 1956 tour, a reporter/photographer team from Look magazine attended the Hershey, Pennsylvania show and a few of the other early shows, taking photos and doing interviews. Look later published a story on the tour with a photo of Haley and band performing before the large crowd at Hershey (below). At the time, Haley was reportedly paid $1,430 each night he performed during the tour, sometimes performing two shows a night. The venues were typically municipal auditoriums and other arena-type settings with as many as 16,000 fans attending per show, though typically in the 5,000-to-10,000 range.

April 1956, Hersheypark Arena, Hershey, Pennsylvania. Look magazine photographer, traveling with the 1956 rock `n roll tour for their first few shows, captured this view of Bill Haley (left) and his bandmates performing. The Comets could become quite active on stage, jumping around and playing their instruments in crazy ways.

At some locations on the 1956 tour, thousands were turned away as the venues were often modest in size. And sometimes the going got rough at the shows, as rowdy fans would assault performers. Haley was accosted and punched by fans on a few occasions during the tour – at the Catholic Youth Center, Scranton, PA and the Westchester County Center, White Plains, NY, to name two. At the Auditorium Theater in Rochester, NY Haley was nearly pulled off the stage during his performance.

Bill Haley, Top 40
Chart Peak (any U.S. chart*)
1953-1974

“Crazy Man, Crazy”
June 1953 / #11
“Fractured”
August 1953 / #24
“Live It Up”
October 1953 / #25
“Shake, Rattle & Roll”
April 1954 / #7
“Rock Around the Clock”
May 1954 / #23 (1st release)
“Dim, Dim The Lights”
January 1955 / #10
“Birth Of The Boogie”
April 1955 / #17
“Mambo Rock”
April 1955 / #17
“Rock Around the Clock”
June 1955 / #1 (2nd release)
“Two Hound Dogs”
September 1955 / #15
“Burn That Candle”
November 1955 / #9
“Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie”
November 1955 / #23
“See You Later, Alligator”
February 1956 / #6
“The Saints Rock ‘n’ Roll”
April 1956 / #18
“R-O-C-K”
April 1956 / #29
“Hot Dog Buddy Buddy”
June 1956 / #36
“Rip It Up”
August 1956 / #25
“Razzle-Dazzle”
September 1956 / #15
“Rudy’s Rock”
November 1956 / #34
“Skinny Minnie”
May 1958 / #22
“Joey’s Song”
November 1959 / #35
“Rock Around the Clock”
May 1974 / #39
___________________
*Highest chart position on
any U.S. music chart.

The touring schedule could be an unyielding grind for the performers, traveling nightly sometimes for hours and hundreds of miles after their last show in order to make it to the next scheduled city. On May 18, 1956, after playing two shows at the Civic Auditorium, Houston, TX, the tour group hit the road at 1 a.m. and traveled 400 miles to their next scheduled show the following day in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at Loyola University. They arrived at 9:30 a.m., had some time to sleep, then performed later that evening. At the end of that show, they set out again at 1 a.m., on to the next city. That was a typical cycle of travel-rest-perform-travel, sometimes repeated day after day. In Louisiana, prior to the Baton Rouge show, Bill Haley met Fats Domino for the first time – Domino was then a rising R&B artist who had also cut some early rock `n roll songs. His “Ain’t It a Shame?” of 1955 had hit No. 10 on the Billboard chart in August that year and was also a No. 1 hit on the R&B chart.

Back on tour, meanwhile, at some locations, and also on the road at rest stops, the tour group dealt with segregation and racial tensions. At their scheduled performance for the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama, they faced pickets outside the auditorium as the White Citizen’s Council (Ku Klux Klan) had also urged whites to stay away from the show, which by Haley’s estimate, cut attendance by half when they did perform. In one case on the tour, the black artists refused to perform and the show was cancelled.

There was also a packaged tour for the second half of 1956 – this one, a 40-date tour under the name, “The Biggest In Person Show of 1956.” In addition to Haley, other acts on that tour included: The Platters, Clyde McPhatter, Frankie Lymon & Teenagers, The Clovers, Ella Johnson, Chuck Berry, Shirley & Lee, Shirley Gunter, The Flairs, Buddy Johnson Orchestra, and the Vic Lewis Orchestra. Although Haley and the Comets were once again the headlining act, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers was the ascending group at the time, so Haley and band were not in the limelight as much. Still, Haley was considered enough of a rousing presence that he and his band were banned from performing at several locations. For the October 22nd, 1956 show, for example, at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh, PA, Haley and the Comets were banned from performing by police order.

Earlier that summer, after a riot at a rock `n roll show in Asbury Park, New Jersey sent 25 teens to the hospital, the mayor there placed a rock-`n-roll ban on all city dance halls. Around the same time, Jersey City, NJ canceled a planned outdoor rock ‘n roll show with Haley and others planned for some 24,000 fans at Roosevelt Stadium. As rock `n roll shows met with some civic disapproval, one of Haley’s recordings offered a line of mild protest, noting: “Teenager’s mother, are you so right? Did you forget so soon? How much you like to do the Charleston.” Yet, for the most part, the rock `n roll shows that did go on, went off without major problems. However, Haley did have some of his songs banned, for no other reason than being identified as part of a raucous “rock `n roll.” In Shenandoah, Iowa, KMA radio station, in their “Crusade for Better Disks,” banned his “Dim, Dim the Lights,” for one. And in St. Paul, Minnesota, other Haley songs were banned as well.

Still, during 1955 and 1956, Haley and his band had at least 12 U.S. Top 40 records. But as it turned out, this would be the peak for Bill Haley in the U.S., as then, a new rocker named Elvis Presley, who had opened a time or two for Haley back in 1954, was now on the rise in the American rock `n roll scene. Elvis had nine No. 1 hits by the end of 1957. In addition to Presley, other new performers, including Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, were also rising on the record charts. And Haley, by virtue of his starring roles in the various rock `n roll films then circulating, was revealed to his largely teen audience as something of an older figure, then in his early 30s, and not offering the kind of stage presence and sexuality that Elvis Presley and other younger performers were delivering. Yet, during his peak years, Haley’s performances, and that of the Comets – and their rollicking stage act – had plenty of energy, and their music conveyed that to their audiences and eager teen dancers, as seen in the film clip below. (Haley & Comets shown here in a scene from the 1956 film Don’t Knock the Rock, performing their hit song, “Rip it Up,” which would become a Top 40 hit — #25 Billboard, #4 U.K.– in August 1956. Haley adapted this song from the original R&B version by Little Richard, which earlier that year had been a No. 1 hit on the R&B chart).

Although the new rising group of younger rock stars would soon eclipse Bill Haley in the rock `n roll firmament, fortunately, as it turned out for Haley, there was a great big world out there that had yet to see rock `n roll close-up in performance. Most other countries at the time did not have comparable rock `n roll acts like Bill Haley & His Comets. Consequently, they would become, in effect, the first global rock `n roll touring act – and for a time, very big international rock `n roll stars.

Australian Tour

Cover of tour booklet for January 1957 rock ’n roll tour of Australia by Bill Haley and others acts.

Bill Haley and the Comets first traveled to Australia in January 1957, where their show dates were all sold out in advance, with thousands more fans turned away. Other acts on the tour included LaVern Baker, Joe Turner, and Freddie Bell & the Bellboys.

Among the various Australian cities where Haley and the tour performed – with multiple show dates over serval days at some locations – were: Newcastle Stadium, Newcastle, New South Wales; Brisbane Stadium, Brisbane, Queensland; The Tivoli Theater in Adelaide; West Melbourne Stadium, Melbourne; and the Sydney Stadium in Sydney. Before it was all over, Haley, Comets and tour had played before some 330,000 Australians. And Haley and the Comets were well received along the way, greeted at some locations with signs that read, “The King Is Here!” The tour was the very first rock `n roll tour in Australia, and it proved to be an huge success, paving the way for many others to follow.

However, near the end of the tour, Chicago businessman and tour promoter Lee Gordon had a problem. The next scheduled act he had booked in Australia following Haley was supposed to be Frank Sinatra, who had unexpectedly cancelled. Gordon then offered $100,000 to Haley if he would extend his tour, which Haley declined, then anxious to return home and rest before their next tour – this one to Great Britain.

Brits Wild for Haley

On February 5th,1957, when Bill Haley and the Comets arrived in England, the screaming and excited crowds that greeted them would remind some of the wild commotion that would greet the Beatles’s arrival in the U.S. seven years later. Haley arrived in England via the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner, as he was not a fan of air travel, so he an his considerable entourage made the five-day voyage by sea, first arriving in France, then finally docking at Southampton.“I’ve still got the ticket stub in my wallet from when I went to see Bill Haley and the Comets play in Manchester in February 1957 —my first-ever con-cert…”
– Graham Nash Haley would note in his diary: “Docked at Cherbourg, France at 7 am. Picked up newspaper reporters and photographers and publicity women and sailed for England. Docked at Southampton, England at 2 pm and all hell broker loose. 5,000 people almost killed us.” From Southampton it was on to London’s Waterloo Station by train, where they were again greeted by a throng of thousands of fans and press. Britain’s baby boomers were about to have their first chance to see a real, live rock-and-roll show. Haley was bringing rock ‘n’ roll to Europe for the first time. And attending Haley’s British performance, were some of Britain’s own future rock `n roll stars. “The birth of rock `n roll ”– in the view of Pete Townshend of the Who – was “seeing Bill Haley and The Comets” when they came to England. And he wasn’t the only up-and-coming British rocker then impressed. “I’ve still got the ticket stub in my wallet from when I went to see Bill Haley and the Comets play in Manchester in February 1957—my first-ever concert,” said singer songwriter Graham Nash, famous for his singing with the Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Feb 1957: U.K. fans mob Bill Haley and 2nd wife (bottom center) on train to Waterloo Station.

Cover of souvenir booklet for Bill Haley’s first tour of England, February 1957. Click for 16pp booklet.

Paul McCartney, too, came to see Bill Haley: “The first time I really ever felt a tingle up my spine was when I saw Bill Haley and The Comets on the telly…Then I went to see them live. The ticket was 24 shillings, and I was the only one of my mates who could go as no one else had been able to save up that amount. But I was single-minded about it….I knew there was something going on here.” Another British rocker influenced by Haley was David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, who has stated: “It’s very hard to tell what made me first decide to play the guitar. ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley came out when I was ten, and that probably had something to do with it.”

But in February 1957, Haley and the Comets were riding high. “We are receiving ovations and publicity like royalty here,” Haley would note in his diary of the February 7th, 1957 London show date. And on February 9th, he wrote: “…Shows all sold out. Best publicity we ever had.” Haley would subsequently tour England eight more times between 1964 and 1979 – but perhaps no more memorably than that first 1957 visit. And his songs would do especially well in Great Britain. “Rock Around the Clock” had charted there before it did in the U.S., in January 1955. In December of that year, it charted again when Blackboard Jungle hit British movie houses. In fact, “Rock Around the Clock” would reenter the U.K. pop charts seven times between then and 1974.

1956: Bill Haley and His Comets receive top billing at the London Pavilion for the film, “Rock Around The Clock,” which produced enthusiastic teen audiences throughout England and beyond – and some rioting as well.

U.K. Tours
Bill Haley & Comets
1957-1979

1957: Feb / March
1964: Sept / Oct
1968: April / June
1969: July / Aug
1972: August
1974: Feb / May
1976: December
1979: March
1979: November

British Charts. In 1956, the year before their first visit to England, Haley & The Comets practically dominated the British charts, with as many as five songs appearing in the Top 20. In January, “Rock Around the Clock” was No. 1 on the New Musical Express (NME) Best-Selling Chart. “Rock A Beatin‘ Boogie” was also on that chart that January, followed by “See You Later Alligator” in March, and “Saints Rock `n Roll” in May. The film, Rock Around The Clock came out in England in August 1956, which helped put more Haley tunes on the Hit Parade – “Rocking Through the Rye” and “Razzle Dazzle” – giving them the distinction of landing five separate hits that fall in the British Top 20Twenty. In November, “Rip it Up” and “Rudy’s Rock” hit the charts. In England at that time, Haley and the Comets were guaranteed advance sales of 100,000 copies on every recording released there.

Sullivan Show & Bandstand. Back in the States later that year, Haley and band made their second appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, April 28, 1957 performing the songs “Rudy’s Rock” and “Forty Cups of Coffee.” They also appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand ( ABC-TV) in 1957, once on the prime time show, October 28th, 1957, and once on the regular daytime show, November 27th, 1957. There were also two later appearances on Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beechnut Show, a primetime show – on March 22, 1958, during the first season, and February 20th, 1960, performing three songs: “Rock Around the Clock,” “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” and “Tamiami.” Haley had also appeared on Bandstand before Dick Clark was the DJ – in 1953, when it was known as just “Bandstand” and the DJ was Bob Horn.

November 1958: Some of the fans at Strasbourg, France who came out to rave and dance to the rock `n roll music of Bill Haley and His Comets during their European tour.

Bill Haley and Elvis Presley meeting backstage in Stuttgart, Germany in Oct 1958. Presley was stationed in Germany.

More Touring

Bill Haley and band continued touring in both the U.S. and abroad during 1957 and 1958, also cutting new recordings. In the spring of 1958, April and May, they toured the South American countries of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay with dates in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro. The South American tour took place at a time when Haley’s last hit on the U.S. charts, “Skinny Minnie.” Facing some financial difficulty due in part to poor management, lavish spending, and not getting the hits they had earlier, Haley and The Comets undertook a tour in late 1958 of mainland Europe that was designed in part to help make a financial recovery.

In early October 1958 they began in Italy, playing a few dates there until the Pope died, causing the rest of their Italian dates to be cancelled. Then in Spain, after one performance before 3,000, where some of the crowd got out of hand, their music was outlawed and concerts cancelled. In France some shows were curtailed. In Germany they were well received, but had trouble in two cities, Berlin and Essen, where riots broke out. In Stuttgart, Germany, Haley and Elvis Presley had some impromptu meetings. Presley, who had been drafted into the U.S. Army, was then stationed in Germany, and he visited with Haley backstage at one show date.

During the early 1960s, in the fall of 1962, Haley and the Comets also had a successful stint at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, where they played around the time the Beatles were there as the house band in their early years. According to one of the Comets, Al Rappa, they had met the Beatles in Germany and were friendly with the group.

Mexico & The Twist

1960s: Bill Haley and Comets featured on a Dimsa album cover for one of their Mexican “twist” recordings. Click for CD set.

In 1961, Bill Haley was looking for a new venue. His second marriage was ending and the IRS was after him. So about that time he decided to move to Mexico City. A small record company there named Orfeón signed him up to a nonexclusive deal, allowing him to continue recording with other U.S. labels. In Mexico, under the Spanish name, “Bill Haley y sus Cometas” as they were known throughout Latin America, Haley and his band released several singles and albums and became popular there. Haley, who was fluent in Spanish, recorded a number of songs in the language on the Orfeón label and their subsidiary label, Dimsa. Over a five year period with Orfeón he and the Comets would record more than 100 titles. In particular, Haley extended the U.S. twist dance craze to Mexico, scoring there with two unexpected hits – “Twist Español” and “Florida Twist,” the latter of which for a time became the biggest-selling single in Mexican history. Haley and the Comets became something like the “Chubby Checker of Latin America.” They hosted a television series, Orfeón a Go-Go, and made instrumental recordings using Mexican trumpet musicians. They also made three movies in Mexico, recorded in Spanish. In 1966, Haley also reportedly used his influence with Orfeón to help his idol, Big Joe Turner, then in a recording slump, to have a recording session there using Comet musicians as session players. It was also in Mexico, when Haley and The Comets were playing Mexican clubs, that Haley would meet his third wife-to-be, Martha Velasco, a Mexican singer and dancer who he married in 1963.

1969: Poster for one of Richard Nader’s “Rock & Roll Revival” shows at Madison Square Garden with Bill Haley & His Comets. Click for related 16pp booklet.

Rock Revivals

In the late 1960s, Haley had a bit of comeback and touring success with a series of rock `n roll revival shows, including dates in the U.S. and Europe. Haley and band played The Royal Albert Hall in London in May 1968. Also that year in Sweden, Haley was contacted by Sonet Records and signed a contract with them, later releasing a number of albums and singles on the Sonet label – songs that never charted in the U.S., though some were hits in other countries. Sonet recorded a new version of “Rock Around the Clock” in 1968, which again hit the European charts.

Back in the States, rock promoter Richard Nader had booked Haley for a series of 1950’s rock `n roll revival shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. At one of these, on October 18th, 1969, when Bill Haley stepped on stage at the Garden’s Felt Forum, he received an eight-and-a-half minute standing ovation even before he played a single song. A live album, Bill Haley’s Scrapbook, was recorded a few weeks later at New York’s Bitter End club. Haley would appear in at least three of the Nader revival shows into the early 1970s.

By the early 1970s, however, Haley was losing interest in performing. His Mexican wife, Martha Velasco, had given birth to their second child, Pedro, in 1971 (all told, Haley had 10 children in 3 marriages). He and family moved to Vera Cruz, where he bought a boat and an old hotel, and teamed up with some locals there to learn fishing by hand. Still, there was some recording now and then, and other events in U.S. culture also pulled him back into the music scene.

Graffiti & Happy Days

Also helping revive interest in 1950s rock `n roll music – and Bill Haley’s songs in particular – was the 1973 film American Graffiti and the 1974 TV show, Happy Days. American Graffiti was the first film by a new director named George Lucas, who would later go on to Star Wars fame and much more. American Grafitti, released in August 1973, introduced a bevy of future film and TV stars, including: Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Suzanne Somers and Harrison Ford. It focused on the post-WWII teenage culture of baby boomers – cars, girls and rock `n roll culture of the 1950s essentially – and generated the third highest Hollywood film box office that year. It was also one of the first films to use original rock `n roll music throughout the movie’s soundtrack – with Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock” as the first song on the soundtrack album.

Soundtrack from the 1973 film, “American Graffiti”.

Promo for 1970s TV show, “Happy Days.” Click for series.

In the year following the film, a new television series, Happy Days, also using a story line from the 1950s-1960s, and starring Ron Howard, Henry Winkler and others, used “Rock Around the Clock” as the opening theme song for the 1974-75 season, helping to boost the Haley song once again. “Rock Around The Clock” was subsequently re-issued on MCA records and peaked at No. 39 on the Billboard singles chart in March 1974. The revived interest in Haley’s music helped give Haley a few more years of touring and playing rock `n roll revival shows. During a 1974 tour of the U.K., Haley was presented with an award in London by singer Olivia Newton John from MCA Records for “Rock Around the Clock’s” distinguished performance on the British charts, having re-entered those charts seven times between 1954 and 1974.

Texas & Final Days

In 1976, Bill Haley & family moved to Harlingen, TX, on the “toe” of Texas, just north of the Mexican border with access to the Gulf of Mexico.

In February 1976, Haley’s long-time friend and Comet musician, Rudy Pompilli, died of cancer, and that appeared to take something out of Haley. He became less and less inclined to perform. He, Martha, and family, meanwhile, moved just north of the Mexican border, settling in Harlingen, Texas, where they bought a big old house with yard, swimming pool, and pool house.

There, the family settled into a more or less normal family life, with Haley declining further press and turning his attention to family and his children’s activities, ball games, and occasional get-togethers with neighbors. During this time, Haley also bought as an investment a trailer park in the area – the Val Verde Trailer Park — once a luxury country club and enclave for America celebrities, with cottages, pool, and other facilities, still used as a winter retreat for Texans when Haley bought it. He became the on-site manager there, hoping to make it pay off.

But Haley by this time had drifted into heavy drinking and erratic behavior. He would sometimes go off on long drives in his Lincoln Continental automobile, returning home drunk or not coming back for days. Between 1976 and 1981 he was arrested four times for DWI and drunkenness.

Nov 1979: Bill Haley greeting Queen Elizabeth II in London after his role in the Royal Variety Performance.

For a time in 1978, some months after Elvis Presley died in August 1977, Bill Haley began thinking about a possible comeback. As recounted in Michael Hall’s 2011 Texas Monthly piece, “Falling Comet,” Haley in 1979, along with his wife Martha, drove to the famous Muscle Shoals recording studio in Alabama. With Martha to help keep him sober and focused, Haley recorded his last album: Everyone Can Rock and Roll, a mix of classic rock and country released on the Sonet label. Then Haley, through Sonet’s London office, requested that a couple of European tours be set up. About a week before each tour, according to Hall, Haley “retreated to the pool house with his guitar to practice.” On one of his U.K. tours, in November 1979, he played in the Royal Variety Performance in front of Queen Elizabeth. As Michael Hall notes of that visit: “…Haley wore a gold tux, and his curl was longer and thicker than ever. He looked thicker too. But ‘Rock Around the Clock’ sounded like it used to, and afterward, Haley shook hands with the queen, who smiled and made small talk with him. It was one of the highlights of his life.” Haley then returned to Texas. There, he began working on his autobiography and a screenplay for a movie to be called The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll.

Then in May 1980, Haley set off to tour once again, this time to South Africa for three weeks of shows. But there, according to his wife Martha who traveled with him, he had some bizarre moments on stage, telling stories to his audience rather than singing. Back in Texas, in the fall of 1980, family members noticed more odd behavior, including his son Jack, who had come for a brief visit that proved troubling. Old friends and former business associates were getting rambling, late night phone calls as well. At this point, he appears to have begun living in the pool house, while the family stayed in the main house. In the fall of 1980, Haley was picked up by the police and detained, then bailed out by Martha, who had him see a psychiatrist, who gave him some medication. Some believe Haley may have had an underlying anxiety disorder, leading to a chemical imbalance in the brain, with Haley then self-medicating with alcohol. In any case, there were more episodes of Haley’s odd behavior, some paranoia, and becoming almost a Jekyll-and-Hyde type character. There had also been news reports of Haley having a brain tumor, but these appear to have been fabrications, or false stories used to keep him from further touring.

Sad Ending

February 10th 1981: AP story appearing in some American newspapers, here from the front page of ‘The Spokesman-Review,’ Spokane, WA.

One evening in February 1981, Haley’s youngest daughter, Martha Maria, living in the main house in Texas, had brought her father some food in his pool house. She has recalled being very sad at the experience, as he gave her “the biggest hug” that evening. Crying as she relayed the story of seeing her father, she described the scene: “I wanted to get out of there. It was so painful to see him in that condition. He was lonely and wanted to feel loved.” Bill Haley died the next day. He was 55 years old. News reports listed “natural causes” in Haley’s death, likely a heart attack. He was found fully clothed on his bed in the pool house after the mailman came by.

In the end, Bill Haley at the time of his death was an unheralded music pioneer overlooked and neglected for his contributions to the rise of rock `n roll. And Bill Haley clearly felt that neglect while he was alive – especially in his later years. He had been overshadowed by Elvis, and he felt that keenly too. In some ways, no doubt, the lack of recognition contributed to his sad ending, breaking his spirit. True, Haley had his demons and insecurities, not least was his life-long impaired vision in one eye. Others suggest that he may not have had the personality for the life he chose and was just not a good fit for the high-exposure world of pop music celebrity. His bandmates and others noticed that he wasn’t always comfortable in the role of rock star, sometimes retreating to his room when on the road. He wasn’t always the “party animal” type, and had acknowledged on several occasions a preference for family and spending time at home. Still, he met his celebrity obligations in good form; he performed thousands of times and engaged with the press and public the best he could. In the end, Bill Haley was a musician, with an irresistible itch to scratch – to record, to write, to create something new. Which he did in some profusion.

Album cover, “The Best of Bill Haley & His Comets,” in the 20 Century Masters series, MCA Records, 1999. Click for CD.

Yet Haley himself may share at least some of the blame for the American anonymity and neglect he would later suffer – not updating and modernizing his act, for one. And much of his troubles in the 1960s and 1970s – a time when he survived as a popular act in the Latin America and Europe – might have been solved by better financial management, as millions of dollars were apparently spent as fast as they were made, leaving Haley on the lamb from the IRS for six-figure sums. Had Haley updated his image and act and installed better financial management, the American rock `n roll fates may have been kinder to him.

Still, as it turned out, he was mostly forgotten and overlooked – at least at the time of his death and for some years thereafter. In 1986, when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named 16 individuals to be inducted into its first class of honorees, Bill Haley was not among them. In that first year of inductions, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, the Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly were among those included, but not Bill Haley. However, he was posthumously inducted in 1987.

Cover of “Bill Haley: Father of Rock `n Roll,” the mammoth book on Haley by fan Otto Fuchs.

Bill Haley and His Comets had 37 hit records. Overall, Haley & Co. figure into more than 400 titles that were recorded and released over a period of forty years. Haley also recorded over a hundred titles on at least four different Latin American labels. At the time of his death, Bill Haley had sold an estimated 60 million records – half of which, by some counts, were “Rock Around The Clock.”

Since Bill Haley’s death in 1981 there have been several books written about him, including one co-authored by his first son John “Jack” W. Haley and John von Hoelle, titled, Sound and Glory, published in 1990. To mark the 30th anniversary of Haley’s death in 2011, a mammoth tribute volume by Otto Fuchs, an Austrian Bill Haley fan, was published. First issued as an earlier German-language edition, Fuchs’ Bill Haley: Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll, runs 900 pages or more, depending on edition. The most recent edition has been revised and updated, incorporating a number of many interviews, some with former Comet band members. There is also Jim Dawson’s book, Rock Around the Clock, published in July 2005 at the 50th anniversary of Haley’s song, ‘Rock Around the Clock.’ Haley’s music, meanwhile, has been issued in new compilations, including obscure session cuts and others that only die-hard fans may appreciate. In 1999, Bear Family Records released two boxed sets covering his career from 1954 through 1969, and Roller Coaster Records issued Haley’s Essex recordings from 1951-54 material in 1995.

Cover of 6-CD set of Bill Haley’s music issued by Bear Family Records in 1999, also showing street scene and club banner from the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany when Haley & The Comets appeared there in 1962. Click for CD set.

Haley’s Legacy

In his performing years, Bill Haley was often humble about his contribution to the emergence of rock `n roll, and was quick to offer perspective about the times and his music. “People associate the beginning of rock ‘n roll with 1954,” Haley once said. “Actually, it had been gathering momentum and when we made ‘Rock Around the Clock’ it just exploded. . . . That’s when the mob scene started — thousands of kids at the stage door . . . It wasn’t because we were so great. The hysteria wasn’t for us. It was for the music. This was a new music for kids who hadn’t had any of their own…” True enough – to a point.

Yet musicians like Haley clearly helped craft a new sound. Some regard Haley as among the key musical alchemists of that era who blended bits and pieces of other musical genres to come up with something new. Though in Haley’s case, he did make some singular contributions, as Bob Stanley observed in The Guardian of London in May 2014:

“…No one had blended country and R&B on a single before the Comets’ ‘Rock the Joint’ in 1952. No one had scored an American Top 20 hit with anything that could really qualify as rock`n roll before their single ‘Crazy Man Crazy’ in 1953. And ‘Rock Around the Clock’s’ international success in 1955 …opened the door for modern pop.”

Cover of Jim Dawson's 2005 book, ‘Rock Around the Clock: The Record That Started the Rock Revolution,” published at the 50th anniversary of ‘Rock Around the Clock’ hitting No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Click for book.

And while Haley did use the music of R&B artists to advance his own sound and style, as did others of that day, unlike some of those artists who “diluted every rhythm..,” Haley was different, according to Tom Moon writing in 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die:

“…Haley and his hard-charging crew understood the music well enough to execute it respectfully, right down to the careening solos and whomping stop-time breaks. Some credit for this goes to producer [Milt] Gabler, who… communicated to the Comets the fine points of the danceable backbeat. They obviously learned quickly, burning this high-spirited jump blues – recorded before Elvis Presley ever registered a chart hit – into the very source code of rock and roll.”

Along with the early bluesmen like Robert Johnson and anonymous R&B artists who were laying the groundwork for rock `n roll in the 1940s and earlier, as well as those who took it forward the 1950s – including Big Joe Turner, Ike Turner, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others – Bill Haley is rightfully there beside them in that pantheon of rock `n roll founders, where he should have been all along.

Additional stories at this website on the history of popular music, its artists, and the music industry can be found at the “Annals of Music” category page. Postings for stories at the PopHistoryDig can also be found at Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. –Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 17 March 2016
Last Update: 9 November 2022
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Rock Around The Clock – Bill Haley:
1951-1981,” PopHistoryDig.com, March 17, 2016.

____________________________________

Sources, Links & Additional Information

1955: Bill Haley / Decca: “Shake, Rattle & Roll” album. Click for Bear Family 5-CD box set using similar cover.

Oct 1958: Bill Haley & Comets being welcomed to Berlin, Germany by a throng of happy fans. AP photo.

U.K./MCA record sleeve for Bill Haley’s “Rip it Up!”

Bill Haley and Big Joe Turner in performance together during a 1966 episode of the Mexican TV show, “Orfeón a Go-Go.”

Record jacket cover for Bill Haley’s “See You Later Alligator” & 3 others on the CID label, France, 1957.

This poster – “What This Country Needs Is... Bill Haley & The Comets” – appeared in the UK music press in Feb 1974 as Haley & the Comets were on tour there. The politicians shown at the top of the bill were: Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal), Harold Wilson (Labour) and Edward Heath (Conservative).

Roller Coaster’s “Rock The Joint” collection includes the original Bill Haley / Essex recordings, 1951-1954.

“Bill Haley,” in Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (eds), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Rolling Stone Press, New York, 3rd Edition, 2001, p. 403.

Hank Bordowitz, Turning Points in Rock and Roll, Citadel Press,2004.

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Bosley Crowther, “The Screen; ‘Blackboard Jungle’; Delinquency Shown in Powerful Film”
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United Press, “‘Blackboard Jungle’ Banned,” New York Times, April 13, 1955.

Mae Tinee, “Shocking Tale in ‘Blackboard Jungle’ Movie,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 4, 1955, pt. 3, p. 4-F.

“‘Blackboard Jungle’ Heads Week’s Movie Offerings,” The Victoria Advocate (Victoria, TX), May 8, 1955, p. 2-A.

“Blackboard Jungle,” Wikipedia.org.

Bruce Eder, Rovi, “Bill Haley, Biography,” Billboard.com.

“Bill Haley, Timeline,” Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“Princeton Suspends 4; Action Is Aftermath to Rioting Earlier in Week,” New York Times, May 21, 1955.

“Segregationists Would Ban All Rock, Roll Hits,” Billboard, April 7, 1956

“White Council vs. Rock and Roll,” Time, April 18,1956.

“Rock and Roll Fever,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 13, 1956.

“New Jersey Bans Bill Haley,” Time, July 23, 1956.

Thomas P. Ronan, “British Rattled by Rock ‘N’ Roll; Youths Go Wild in Theaters, Jive and Sing in the Streets and Attack Policemen…No Stir in New York; Berlin Having Its Troubles,” New York Times, September 12, 1956.

“Don’t Knock the Rock,” Wikipedia.org.

Joseph R. Marshall, “Rock Around The World,” St. Petersburg Times, October 14, 1956, p. 10-E.

“The Biggest Rock n Roll Show of 1956,” A Rock`n Roll Historian, February 1, 2016.

Chris Gardner’s Bill Haley Gallery, 1955-1958.

This Day in History: February 5, 1957, “The American Invasion Begins, As Bill Haley and The Comets Storm Britain,” History.com, Accessed, March 1, 2016.

“Roll, Britannia!,” Time, Monday, February 25, 1957.

“Bill Haley & His Coments,” European Tour Booklet, Presented by Lew & Leslie Grade, By Arrangement With The Rank Organization, February 1957.

Otto Fuchs, Bill Haley: Father of Rock `n Roll, Wagner, 2014.

“Bill Haley: The Father of Rock & Roll,” RockaBillyHall.com (webpage on Otto Fuchs book).

“Rock Around the Clock,” Wikipedia.org.

Michael Lydon, “Wild Bill Haley,” Rolling Stone, November 1967.

“Oldies and Revival Shows Fill A Void for ‘Rough, Direct Music,” Billboard, July 22, 1972, p. 52.

“Richard Nader’s Rock & Roll Revival Celebrates 5th Year,” Billboard, October 19, 1974.

Martin Hawkins, “Bill Haley: The Guardian Of Rock ‘N’ Roll,” Melody Maker, April 1979.

Martin Weil, “Bill Haley Dies, Classic Was ‘Rock Around Clock’,” Washington Post, February 10, 1981.

Robert Palmer, “Bill Haley, 55, Dies; Singer-Band Leader,” New York Times, February 10, 1981.

Associated Press, “Bill Haley, ‘Father’ Of Rock, Found Dead,” The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington), February 10, 1981, p. 1.

John Swenson, Bill Haley, London: W.H. Allen, 1982, 174pp.

“Entertainment by the Numbers: 10 Greatest Jukebox Hits of All Time,” Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1990.

John W. Haley (Haley’s eldest son), with John W. von Hoëlle, Sound and Glory, Wilming-ton, DE: Dyne-American, 1990.

Robert Hilburn, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Films Set Market on Fire,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1991.

Linda Martin, Kerry Segrave, Anti-Rock: The Opposition to Rock ‘n’ Roll, Da Capo Press, 1993, 374pp.

Jim Dawson, Rock Around the Clock: The Record That Started the Rock Revolution!, San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2005.

Steven R Rosen, “Book Review of Jim Dawson’s Rock Around the Clock: The Record That Started the Rock Revolution,” Denver Post, June 2005.

Michael Hall, “Falling Comet,” Texas Month-ly, June 2011.

“Bill Haley and His Comets ‘Rock Around the Clock’ in Strasbourg, France, 1958,” Stars and Stripes, April 22, 2014.

Margaret Moser, “When the Clock Strikes 12: Bill Haley, the Father of Rock & Roll?,” Austin Chronicle, May 16, 2014.

Bob Stanley, “Bill Haley: Rock Around the Clock – The World’s First Rock Anthem,” The Guardian.com, May 22, 2014.

“Songwriter Struck Gold as the Clock Struck Twelve O’ Rock” (obituary for James Meyer, co-author, “Rock Around The Clock”), The Times (undated).

Alex Frazer-Harrison, “Reviews and News About Bill Haley and The Comets,” Rocka-BillyHall.com.

Todd Leopold, “The 50-Year-Old Song That Started it All; ‘Rock Around the Clock’ Made Bill Haley the First Rock Star,” CNN.com, July 8, 2005.

Martin Chilton, “Rock Around the Clock: How Bill Haley’s Song Became a Hit,” The Telegraph (London), February 9, 2016.

“Bill Haley, 1925-1981,” BillHaley.co.UK.

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Teaser Tag: Environmental History

1961-1970

“Santa Barbara Oil Spill”
1969: California

February 22, 2016 J.D.

Feb. 6, 1969: Front-page headlines from the Los Angeles Times on about the 10th day of the Santa Barbara oil spill.

On January 28th, 1969, an oil well blow-out at Union Oil’s offshore platform in the Santa Barbara Channel six miles off the California coast, began one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history.

At one point, shortly after the blow out, a capping action at the well head on the platform appeared to have staunched the worst of the problem. However, complications down the well shaft due to insufficient well casings led to further problems: oil and gas escaped through the sides of the well bore and at several locations on the seabed floor below the rig. Nearby, on the water’s surface, oil and gas “boil ups” as they were called, could be seen, signaling the bigger problems below.

The worst of the spill would continue for 11 days, with lesser leaks continuing for months thereafter. Sea birds, seals, dolphins, kelp beds, and miles of beaches were coated with black crude. In the end, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil were spilled and some 30-to-35 miles of California coastline tarred.

As the crude escaped during the blowout and from sub-surface releases it was spread over hundreds of square miles of open water by winds and swells. After a few days at sea, incoming tides brought the thick tar to beaches and towns along Santa Barbara County’s spectacular coastline, including: Goleta, home of University of California at Santa Barbara; the harbor at Santa Barbara; the coastline at Carpinteria; Rincon Point, the famous surfing beach; and Ventura. The farthest effects of the spill extended to Pismo Beach north of Santa Barbara, and south to the Silver Strand Beach at San Diego. Some beaches were spared the worst, as offshore kelp forests kept much of the crude from coming ashore. But a considerable length of California coastline, as well as coves and offshore islands, were hit by the spill. Frenchy’s Cove on Anacapa Island was hit, as well as beaches on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel Islands.

Map showing the extent of the Santa Barbara Oil spill’s surface oil and initial coastal impact as of February 5th, 1969, and later, the spill’s longer reach north to near San Luis Obispo, and as far south as San Diego.

As of this writing, the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill ranks as the third worst U.S. spill, with only the 2010 BP/ Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico blowout, and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill off Alaska, ahead of it, ranking respectively as the nation’s No.1 and No. 2 spills. But for California’s offshore waters, the 1969 Santa Barbara spill remains the largest oil spill to date. (Recently, another oil spill near Santa Barbara occurred in May 2015 at Refugio State Beach, this one from a corroded pipeline, releasing 3,400 barrels of crude oil into the area, with impacts on several marine protection areas).

Dec 1968: President-elect Richard Nixon meeting with Walter Hickel, Nixon’s choice for Secretary of the Interior.

The 1969 Santa Barbara spill, however, because of where it occurred and when it occurred, became an especially important and galvanizing event in environmental political history.

At the time of the spill, Republican Richard M. Nixon had just taken office as President of the United States following a tumultuous year and a fractious national election. Nixon, however, was not a politician predisposed to environmental protection – especially if costs to business were involved. But he knew how to deftly exploit what was served up to him. And in this case, the events of the day, plus the prospect of Democratic presidential rivals in the Congress seizing the environmental moment, made him an unlikely “environmental president” of sorts, signing laws and creating agencies that would be among the federal government’s first meaningful actions on environmental protection. More on these later. Still, no incident would figure more prominently in whipping up the media and popular environmental sentiment than would the Santa Barbara oil spill. And it would be these tides of popular sentiment and political pressure that would sweep Nixon and others along, moving them to action.

Spill Events

2006. Platform A, shown some years later in the Santa Barbara Channel. Note small boat of fisherman at right.

On the morning of January 28, 1969, drilling of the A-21 well on the Union Oil platform had reached nearly 3,500 feet at about its final depth. This had been achieved in about 14 days. But suddenly, as the drill bit was being pulled out of the well shaft, the blow-out occurred with an enormous burst of oil, gas, and drilling mud spewed into the air, splattering workers and equipment all around.

Although some of the men tried to screw down a blowout-preventer, the pressure of more than 1,000 pounds per square inch was too overwhelming. Most of the workers were then evacuated from the platform due to the danger of explosion from the blow out’s natural gas.

A few workers remaining behind tried to close the well from the top by forcing the a very long piece of drill pipe back down into the well shaft and crushing it closed at the top with what are called “blind rams,” enormous steel blocks slammed together at the top of the well to stop any further blow out – at least at the platform level. This occurred at about thirteen minutes from the time of the initial blowout.

After the well was plugged on the rig, the high-pressure oil and gas then began escaping below the water, through the sides of the well bore, forcing ruptures in the sea floor 200 feet below, seen here as surface bubbling. During the spill, a slick of some 800 square miles would form on the water.

But that’s about when workers on the rig and in nearby boats began to notice bubbling on the ocean surface near the rig. Plugging the well at its top on the platform, had failed to stop the blowout, which was now forced down the well shaft and beyond. Oil and gas were being forced out the sides of the well shaft below the sea bed, and the pressure was also tearing through the ocean floor in several places. These “boil ups,” as the escaping oil and gas was described at the surface, would occur in several places during the next 24 hours. Investigators would later determine there were five separate rips on the ocean floor through which oil and gas escaped during the Santa Barbara spill.

The first report on the spill from Union Oil came into the U.S. Coast Guard about two and a half hours after the blowout, with the Union Oil official saying that no oil was escaping and also at that time declining an offer of help. But on the next morning, via reconnaissance by a Coast Guard helicopter, a huge slick was revealed, extending several miles from the rig, with an estimated 75 square miles of ocean then covered by the oil. After early local news reports of the spill surfaced, Union Oil was besieged with calls. Company officials confirmed the spill, but vice president John Fraser assured reporters and local officials that the spill was small, with a diameter of 1,000 to 3,000 feet, and would be quickly controlled. He also estimated the spill rate was then 5,000 gallons per day, which later reports estimated was actually more like 210,000 gallons per day in the first days of the spill.

Jan-Feb 1969: Union Oil offshore platform in the Santa Barbara Channel off California shows oil & gas eruptions, or “boil ups” during blow out, polluting ocean and Channel, and later, California harbors and beaches.

At this point, the growing slick was still offshore, and local weather and winds would prevail to keep the oil at sea for several days. Back on the Union Oil’s Platform A, work continued on the rig to further plug the well and the sea floor fissures that had developed with the blow out. More drilling muds were used in hopes of dealing with both problems. Additional sea floor eruptions had also occurred in the vicinity of the Union Oil rig. Famous oil disaster man, Red Adair, had been brought in to help with the blow out. A drilling barge from Los Angeles had also arrived to start boring a “relief hole” to a point near the bottom of the well shaft, such channel to be used to apply drilling muds to the well and sea-bed eruptions. The Santa Barbara community meanwhile, having been quite involved in the earlier debates on oil leasing in the Santa Barbara Channel, and fearful about the impact of increased oil drilling there, was taking something of a “we-told-you-so” posture, and angered to the core.

Santa Barbara

In 1969, Santa Barbara, with a population of about 70,000, was a town filled with artists, university students, surfers, and attentive citizens. It was also a tourist destination, and was known in part for its Spanish heritage and Mission-style architecture. With a Mediterranean climate and the backdrop of the Santa Ynez Mountains, it was sometimes called the “American Riviera” – an idyllic coastal enclave. However, Santa Barbara was no stranger to oil development. Oil drilling had occurred in neighboring Summerland dating to the 1890s, on land, and also from about 1902, extending just offshore from land-based piers. Most of this activity, however, had ceased by the 1940s.

Santa Barbara, California, set between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Ynez Mountains, is truly one of the most beautiful areas of the United States.

Following WWII, new oil exploration occurred in the Santa Barbara Channel, with oil companies using explosives in seismic exploration, angering local fisherman. The first offshore rigs appeared in the Channel in 1958. However, ten years later, in 1968, a major expansion occurred. The administration of Lyndon Johnson, then seeking a way to finance a costly Vietnam War without raising taxes, invited oil companies to bid for leases on more than 450,000 acres of oil and gas tracts in the Santa Barbara Channel. The industry paid $624 million for 70 leases. Many in the community had objected to the government’s auction of oil-drilling rights off Santa Barbara, fearing the worst. They predicted oil spills and warned that drilling in the area would mar the beauty of their coastal community and threaten its economy. At the time, as today, both federal and state governments had jurisdiction in offshore waters – states extending to three miles out, and federal jurisdiction beyond that. In 1969, the Union Oil platform was on a federal lease administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior. And within a few days of the blow out, Richard Nixon’s new Secretary of the Interior, Walter J. Hickel, would make a visit to Santa Barbara.

Hickel’s Visit

Feb 4th, 1969: Fresno Bee front page – “5 Firms Halt Sea Drilling After Request By Hickel” – also has photo of Hickel holding in-flight press conference w/ reporters.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Walter J. Hickel had only been in office a few days when the Union Oil blowout occurred. He had received a telegram from the Coast Guard on January 29th notifying him of the blow out in the Santa Barbara Channel. Hickel decided to visit the site a few days later, and on February 3rd, he had an airborne tour of the spill area and drilling rig in the Channel. “The pollution is much more severe than I anticipated,” Hickel said after surveying the scene from the Coast Guard plane. After seeing the spill, Hickel had made comments to the effect that he felt “stricter regulations” were needed for offshore operations under Federal leases. “It’s as much the fault of the Federal Government as anything else,” he had said of the leakage in the Santa Barbara Channel, also noting that federal regulations hadn’t been overhauled in 15 years. At a noontime press conference the day of his site visit, Hickel gave the impression, according to reporters with him at that time, that he was thinking about some kind of moratorium that might be put in place until more stringent federal rules could be adopted. It was also reported that he had asked oil companies in the area to voluntarily suspend their operations.“It has become increasing-ly clear that there is a lack of sufficient knowledge of this particular geological area.”
– Walter J. Hickel, Feb 1969 Union Oil’s platform by then was shut down by the company, save for actions taken to control the spill.

But later that day, at the Santa Barbara Biltmore hotel, Hickel met with executives of six oil companies and a spokesman for California Gov. Ronald Reagan. Several of the companies also had operations in the area. But Hickel left for Washington that day without issuing a formal order to shut down of operations in the Channel, leaving open voluntary actions by the companies. Hickel at the time was uncertain of his legal authority to order a shut down and would seek further guidance from the Justice Department when he returned to Washington. Still, with his visit, Hickel appeared troubled by the oil and gas escaping from the sea bed eruptions he saw earlier that day. “It has become increasingly clear,” he said, at one point, “that there is a lack of sufficient knowledge of this particular geological area.” But Hickel would return to Washington to consider what to do next. It was February 4th, 1969, and the vast slick of oil floating out on the sea – now some 800 square miles in dimension – had not yet hit the Santa Barbara coastline. But the weather had changed and a storm was brewing. Very soon, the full impact of the spill would become shockingly apparent on the beaches of Santa Barbara.

Rough, generalized sketch of subsurface geology beneath Union Oil’s drilling platform illustrating how underground pressure forced into bore hole without casing allowed for escaping oil and gas, sea-bed ruptures, and “boil ups” of pollution on the water’s surface. Source: Dick Smith photo collection, UCSB, 1969-1971.

Oil Comes Ashore

With a storm of February 4th, the oil spill that had been offshore, began moving toward the coastline. Oil containment booms had been placed in some locations to protect harbors and beaches. Yet behind these booms, oil from the spill was up to 8 inches deep. With the storm’s arrival, the booms failed. By the next morning at Santa Barbara, the stink of crude oil was thick in the air and the sight of blackened beaches with dead and dying birds was part of the scene. Oil had accumulated on shore in some places to a depth of six inches. Some reports described oiled seagulls, flopping helplessly in the muck. Others noted hearing a muffled surf sound, unlike the normal crashing of regular surf, as a thick-as-molasses oil tide washed in. Santa Barbara harbor was several inches deep in crude oil, as most of its 800 moored boats became blackened by the incoming tide. Some residents were evacuated due to the risk of explosion from hydrocarbon vapors. Oil workers and clean-up crews in two-man skiffs with waste barrels between them, were soon at work trying to skim and soak up the spill using hay and pitchforks.

Feb 1969: Clean-up crews working in Santa Barbara Harbor trying to soak up thick deposits of oil with straw thrown on the pollution after oil arrived there and 35 miles of coastline from the blow-out at Union Oil’s offshore rig. Bob Duncan photo.

Skimmers worked at sea trying to scoop oil from the water’s surface; Union Oil activated a skimming boat with a V-shaped collector at one point, dumping the collected oil into barges. In the air, planes dumped chemical dispersants and detergent on the oil-covered ocean in an attempt to break up larger slicks. On the beaches and in the harbors, straw was spread on oily patches in an attempt to soak up the pollution. Bulldozers were also at work on the beaches pushing polluted sand and oil-soaked straw into haul-away piles. Over the course of the clean up, more than 5,200 large dumptruck loads of oil wastes, oiled beach sand, and other oiled debris were hauled to landfill sites. Oiled rocks in some locations were steamed cleaned, with the unhappy effect of “cooking” limpets, mussels and other marine life that attach to coastal rocks.

February 1969: Cleanup scene in Santa Barbara, California following oiled beaches there from Union Oil blowout. Note black oil stain on jetty rocks at the top right portion of this photo. Bob Duncan, photo, via Flickr.com.

In Washington on February 5th, 1969, the U.S. Senate Public Works Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, under the direction of Senator Edmund S. Muskie (D Maine), then working on water pollution legislation, held one day of hearings on the Santa Barbara oil spill. Among those testifying was George Clyde, a member of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and Fred Hartley, president of Union Oil. “I am always tremendously impressed at the publicity that the death of birds receives vs. the loss of people in our country in this day and age,” Hartley said during the hearing, noting there had been no loss of human life from the Santa Barbara blowout. “Relative to the number of deaths that have occurred in this fair city [Washington DC] due to crime … it does seem that we should give this thing a little perspective.” Hartley also rejected calls to halt offshore drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel, suggesting such strategy extreme and not necessary. Secretary Hickel by this time had been assured by U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell that he did have authority to order a shut down of oil operations in the Santa Barbara Channel. Late on February 6th, President Richard Nixon announced a complete cessation of drilling in the federal waters of the Santa Barbara Channel, excepting the relief well then being drilled.

1969: Oil-stained coastal rocks in the Santa Barbara area following the January 1969 blow out at Union Oil’s offshore oil rig vividly show resulting oil pollution left behind once the tide has receded. Marvin Moore photo.

The cleanup of beaches and coastline that began in February 1969 became an ongoing project, running for months. As some areas were cleaned, huge waves of newly spilled oil would foul them again. And despite attempts by Union Oil workers to cap and cement the cracks on the ocean floor, leaks would continue from these fissures at varying rates at least into 1970. At one point, Union Oil, joined by Mobil, Texaco and Gulf – companies which also had wells on platform A – embarked on a $50,000 public relations effort, funding TV advertising by the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce aimed at showing the public that the town, its beaches, and its resort facilities were as attractive as ever. Still, there was no denying that the spill had been an environmental and ecological travesty.

This Associated Press photo of two oil-coated grebes (poor photocopy used here) ran with wire stories on the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that appeared across the country.

Birds & Wildlife

During the spill, the toll taken on birds and other wildlife was considerable. Animals that depended on the sea were hard hit. Incoming tides brought the corpses of dead seals and birds. Oil had clogged the blowholes of some dolphins, which caused their lungs to hemorrhage. Other animals that ingested the oil were poisoned. Wildlife rescuers at one point counted some 3,600 dead ocean-feeding seabirds. A number of poisoned seals (or sea lions) and some dolphins were also removed from the shoreline. The spill also killed innumerable fish and intertidal invertebrates, ruined kelp forests and also displaced many populations of endangered birds. Lobster and crab fishermen retrieving their pots from the channel found their catch alive, but completely covered with oil.

John McKinney, who would later become a Californian nature writer, was a teenager in 1969 when the spill occurred, and had gone to the site to help rescue oiled birds. “Right here and everywhere else on the coast it was black tar,” McKinney said in an interview some years later, then gesturing to a swath of beach that was then impacted. “It was thick, black tar covering everything.” McKinney was a 16-year-old high school student and boy scout living in Los Angeles then. When he heard the first reports of the spill, he jumped into his 1963 Dodge Dart and headed north to Santa Barbara. Thousands of others would also volunteer to help clean up the spill. “It was my job to wander through the muck on these beaches and pull screaming birds from the tar,” he explained in his interview. “I pulled out some birds alive, but many more were dead. Muirs, grebes, gulls, pelicans – all dead or dying.” An estimated 10,000 ?? birds were killed by the toxic mess, along with unknown and uncounted numbers of seals, sea lions, otters and dolphins.

May 1969: Sea lion pup stained by the oil spill on San Miguel Island, off Santa Barbara. Photo, Harry Benson, Life magazine.

The imagery of dead and dying birds sent out to the nation via newspaper, magazine and television coverage of the Santa Barbara spill became a major factor arousing environmental concern across the nation. Of the imagery captured and reported by the media during the Santa Barbara ordeal, Kathryn Morse, in an academic article for the Journal of American History, would summarize as follows:

…The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Time ran photographs of the rig, the slick, the makeshift oil booms, the beaches, and volunteers and workers bathing oily grebes (diving birds that spend almost all of their time in water). Newsweek included a dying cormorant (a coastal seabird), along with workers raking up oil-absorbent straw. Life published images of two grebes, one dead, one being bathed. Reports and images emphasized a sense of tragic, heartbreaking helplessness. Volunteers watched, the Los Angeles Times reported, as cormorants “tried vainly to clean one another off with their beaks,” and then died from ingested oil. Fleeing well-intentioned rescuers, birds headed into the surf. “Falling into the black liquid,” the report read, “they lay in the ooze, crying weakly.” In June Life covered the spill’s effects with photographs from San Miguel Island off the coast. Pictures included an oil-drenched seal pup stranded in slippery rocks. The island, the reporter wrote, provided “the black vision of the dead world which may come.”

27 Feb 1969: As oil pollution from the Union Oil blow out continued by way of the sea-floor releases, the Los Angeles Times reported on “more oil ashore.”

Some later reports were made that large sea mammals were mostly unaffected by the spill. These reports were flatly contradicted by a story in Life magazine, published on June 9, 1969. Reporters and photographers from the magazine, along with a few others visited uninhabited San Miguel Island, the westernmost of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, in late May 1969. San Miguel is famous for its colonies of elephant seals and sea lions. The Life magazine team and their party counted over one hundred dead animals in the stretch of beach they visited that day, which was still black with oil, four months after the blow out.

On the issue of oil spills generally, there had been earlier media coverage of the 1967 Torrey Canyon oil tanker spill in the Atlantic Ocean off France and England. The Torrey Canyon was a super tanker type vessel that ran aground between France and England, fouling miles of shoreline in both countries as the ship broke apart. In the wake of that spill, the Johnson Administration had asked for a review of U.S. spill contingency preparedness, leading to a joint report from the U.S. departments of Interior and Transportation, which concluded: “This country is not fully prepared to deal effectively with spills of oil or other hazardous materials – large or small – and much less with a Torrey Canyon type disaster.” And that conclusion became apparent on the coastline of California.

Protest & Politics

On February 7th, 1969, U.S. Senator Ed Muskie (D-ME), author of a then pending water pollution bill in Congress, was scheduled to make an aerial inspection of the slick. A large group of local citizens had gathered at the local airport with protest signs to greet Muskie and seek his help on arrival. It so happened that day that Union Oil’s Fred Hartley had also arrived at the airport, where he was met by the gathered citizens and a local news reporter and camera crew trying to interview him on his company’s oil spill.

Feb 7th, 1969: Union Oil president Fred Hartley, foreground, backs away from a TV reporter after having words with him in Santa Barbara, CA. Hartley, on arrival at the airport, unexpectedly ran into crowd of hostile pickets angry about the oil spill. Pickets were then waiting for Sen. Edmund Muskie. Harold Filan / AP photo.

Well before the 1969 spill, Santa Barbara residents had been active in raising objections to continued leasing in the Santa Barbara Channel. And as oil began washing up on their once-pristine beaches and killing wildlife, they became outraged. But their anger was well-organized and sophisticated. Santa Barbara was not your average American community. Of its then 70,000 residents, a disproportionate number were upper class and upper middle class – later described by one writer, Harvey Molotch of the University of California, as “worldly, rich, well-educated persons—individuals with resources, spare time, and contacts with national and international elites…”

1969: A portion of a Santa Barbara crowd rallying to protest offshore oil during the time of the Union Oil blowout and resulting coastline and harbor damage. Bob Duncan photo, via Flickr.com.

Faced with an assault on their lovely seaside town and way of life, these Santa Barbarans set out to make things right. And in short order they became active and political. They held protests, signed petitions, and demanded a ban on offshore drilling. They rallied supporters by staging plays and singing protest songs. Some mailed vials of oil to lawmakers. They formed new environmental groups – one named “Get Oil Out!” or “GOO” for short, and another under the banner of Santa Barbara Citizens for Environmental Defense. Their local newspaper, the Santa Barbara News-Press, with reporters such as Robert Sollen, became an incessant and prominent voice in the Santa Barbara fight to rid their community of oil. During the spill, hundreds of letters-to-the-editor appeared, offering reaction, opinion and recommendations. In Congress, legislation to ban drilling was introduced by their U.S. politicians, Senator Alan Cranston, Democrat, and Rep. Charles Teague, Republican. Lawsuits were also filed the city and County of Santa Barbara against the oil companies and the federal government seeking $1 billion in damages.

But beyond this Santa Barbara fight, there was a much bigger audience and a much bigger national issue. And just down the road from the fouled beaches and struggling wildlife was the Los Angeles news community, which gave the disaster an instant national conduit – soon appearing on nightly news TV broadcasts in every American living room. The Santa Barbara oil spill was soon fueling a growing national environmental sentiment that was already on the rise. In 1962, for example, Rachel Carson’s book on the dangers of chemical pesticides, Silent Spring, also became a primer on ecology. By the mid-1960s, a number of major cities had increasing auto-induced urban smog and air pollution problems, while others were battling a highway building frenzy that cleared away housing, parks and urban landmarks at will. Severe water pollution of lakes, rivers and harbors was also found all across the country. In fact, six months after the Santa Barbara spill, in June 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire, due in large part to oil and chemical pollution. Events beyond the U.S. – such as the 1967 Torrey Canyon oil spill off France and England previously mentioned – also figured into a new environmental calculus.

1969, The Sacramento Bee: During the Santa Barbara oil spill, editorial cartoons such as this one by Newton Pratt, citing a need for offshore oil drilling regulations, would appear in various newspapers across the nation.

But the Santa Barbara spill provided an important spark. U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, after seeing the spill, suggested the idea of a national “teach-in” on environmental issues. That idea would morph into the first Earth Day of April 1970 when millions of people demonstrated across the U.S. for action on the environment. Back in Santa Barbara at the spill, meanwhile, it was offshore drilling policy that began to get some attention.

Offshore Regs

In the immediate aftermath of the spill, the Nixon Administration and Interior Secretary Hickel did take some steps to address shortcomings in offshore oil policy. On February 6th, the Administration pledged to develop stringent new regulations for offshore oil drilling and also announced a moratorium on new Federal oil leases in California’s Santa Barbara channel. An order by Hickel on February 7th, shut down all oil operations on federally-owned leases in the Channel.

On February 11, 1969, Nixon requested that his science advisor, Dr. Lee DuBridge, appoint a panel to study the Union Oil blow-out and the spill. Then on February 17th, in something of surprise move, Secretary Hickel made oil companies on Federally leased offshore lands liable for all pollution cleanup costs and damages resulting from drilling operations. Hickel’s action amended existing regulations. In late February 1969, Hickel reiterated that stand when he testified on water pollution control legislation then pending in Congress, also urging the Senate subcommittee to remove the limit then in the bill on oil spill liability.

A few weeks later, on March 10, 1969, former Secretary of the Interior under Lyndon Johnson, Stewart L. Udall, also testified before Ed Muskie’s U.S. Senate subcommittee then considering water pollution legislation. Udall stated that he bore responsibility for authorizing drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel, having made the decision under pressure from the Bureau of the Budget to obtain more tax revenues from oil companies. Udall called the decision a “sort of conservation Bay of Pigs,” drawing a parallel to the U.S. fiasco of 1961 when an American-backed invasion force seeking to overthrow Cuba’s Fidel Castro was humiliated in battle and mostly captured at the Bay of Pigs invasion site in southern Cuba. As for Santa Barbara lease, Udall said, the possibility of a blowout occurring there was never raised as a major issue. “As I look back,” he told the committee, also offering his support for tighter offshore regulation, “we were overconfident concerning the risk involved.”

By late March 1969, as Hickel and Interior continued working on updating offshore oil regulations, President Nixon decided to visit Santa Barbara.

March 21, 1969: President Richard Nixon (hands in pocket, center) walks on Santa Barbara beach with reporters.

Headlines from the “Santa Barbara Press-News” on Nixon’s visit and that he would consider a permanent ban on drilling.

March 21, 1969: President Richard Nixon greeting oil spill workers cleaning up the beaches in Santa Barbara.

Nixon Visit

On March 21st, nearly two months after the blow out, President Richard Nixon came to Santa Barbara as cleanup efforts were underway. He arrived at the Point Mugu Naval Air Station earlier that day, then took a helicopter tour of the Santa Barbara Channel and the spill area. The helicopter transporting Nixon dipped close to the water so the President could see patches of spilled oil still on the water. They also flew near oil-stained Anacopa and Santa Cruz islands, as well as Union Oil’s Platform platform six miles offshore where residual bubbling was still visible

After the helicopter tour, he visited a mostly cleaned-up beach in Santa Barbara along with an entourage of reporters. “This problem is bigger than just Santa Barbara, “ he said. “We need more effective control to protect out beauty and natural resources. I don’t think we’ve paid enough attention to this” Nixon also noted he had visited “these beautiful beaches” as a boy, adding “I feel we must preserve these beaches… preserving beaches is more important than economic considerations.”

Nixon shook hands with some of the cleanup crew working there. As he did, some protest chanting could be heard from a small crowd about 100 yards away, saying, “Get oil out! Get oil out!…” Nixon said that he would consider a halt to all offshore drilling, and told assembled reporters that the Department of the Interior had expanded the former buffer zone in the Santa Barbara Channel by an additional 34,000 acres. The previous buffer zone there would be converted into a permanent ecological preserve.

As Nixon and his entourage moved toward the parking lot, he said, “I think the Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people. We’re going to do better job in the future than we have in the past.”

On the day Nixon visited Santa Barbara, March 21, Hickel, in Washington, issued more stringent regulations for oil drilling and production off the coast of California. The new regulations included: use of more casing, additional safety testing, weekly training drills by oil platform crews, safety and antipollution devices required on all platforms, and scheduled and unscheduled inspections by the Geological Survey. “The program we are developing in response to the Santa Barbara tragedy,” Hickel said as he announced the new regs, “will serve as a model for our future actions along the nation’s entire coastline.”

A few days later, on March 26 Secretary Hickel announced that some offshore oil drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel would be resumed within days if the new standards set by the Department on March 21 were met. Hickel said the Department was studying each oil lease on a “lease-by-lease basis.” On April 1st, Hickel completed a preliminary assessment of the leases affected by the moratorium and allowed drilling to resume under stricter oversight on five of the seventy-two leases. Local residents were not happy.

1969: Sample of the protest art appearing in Santa Barbara, California at the time of the spill.

Petition to Nixon

In an effort to ban all drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel the local group, Get Oil Out!, had sponsored a petition which had amassed some 110,000 signatures by May 1969. The petition was sent to Nixon shortly thereafter, its message to the president, stated in part as follows:

. . . With the seabed filled with fissures in this area, similar disastrous oil operation accidents may be expected. And with one of the largest faults centered in the channel waters, one sizeable earthquake could mean possible disaster for the entire channel area . .
Therefore, we the undersigned do call upon the state of California and the Federal Government to promote conservation by:
1. Taking immediate action to have present offshore oil operations cease and desist at once.
2. Issuing no further leases in the Santa Barbara Channel.
3. Having all oil platforms and rigs removed from this area at the earliest possible date.

Although the Nixon Administration and Hickel were making changes in offshore regulations and limiting some future production there, they did not, in the immediate months following the spill, limit leasing and production that had already begun or was in the process of being approved. In addition, a scientific panel Nixon had appointed to come up with recommendations, had more bad news for those in Santa Barbara who wanted an end to drilling.

DuBridge Report

In early February 1969, following the Union Oil blowout, Richard Nixon had appointed his science adviser, Dr. Lee DuBridge, to form an investigating committee to determine the proper course of action with regard to leasing and drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel. Nixon later amended this directive to also address what steps should be taken specifically regarding Union Oil’s operation there, as there had been some talk of abandoning that lease and removing the rig. The DuBridge Committee announced its recommendations on June 2, 1969 with a surprising declaration: The DuBridge Panel rec- ommended more drilling, not less. In order to control the oil pollution from the sea-bed fissures, more wells were recom- mended to drain the reservoir and relieve the pressure. more drilling should occur, not less. In order to control the oil seepage that was occurring from the Channel floor in the vicinity of the Union Oil operation – that is, to relieve the pressure in those underground reservoirs, according to the panel – more drilling was needed. Withdrawing the oil from structures under the platform “is a necessary part of any plan to stop the oil seep,” said the panel in its statement. “The situation which makes leaks possible,” DuBridge said, “is the fact there is oil down there. The only way to prevent future leaks is to get the oil out.”

Santa Barbara activists, meanwhile, were furious. They pointed to the fact that the panel only held two-days of hearings, with testimony from only government or oil industry representatives. The panel’s recommendations were issued on less than two pages. When citizens asked for the details, the Department of the Interior refused to make available the panel’s background data or Channel geological information used. Since it was based on industry data, it was proprietary and would not be released. On June 9, 1969, Interior authorized Union Oil to drill nine wells from Platforms A and B. These nine wells were drilled, completed, and, with one exception, were put into production during June and July 1969. Then came the Sun Oil project.

Sun Oil Platform

After a series of unsuccessful court battles in the summer 1969 to prevent further oil development in the Santa Barbara Channel, the Department of the Interior approved a plan by the Sun Oil Company to construct a new platform in the Channel – Platform Hillhouse – to be located about one mile east of Union’s Platform A. The go-ahead for that plan was given on August 15, 1969. Local activists, however, had vowed to stop the installation. Later that fall, as the drilling platform was being imported from its Oakland, California shipyard, and floated down the coast toward the Channel, the activists were nearby in their boats, reportedly harassing the convoy. At the platform site in the Santa Barbara Channel, protesters with Get Oil Out! (GOO) staged a “fish-in” in late November 1969 an attempt to stop the incoming rig. In fact, they refused to move until the Supreme Court responded to their appeal, which they soon lost. Then the crane lifting the rig from the barge began to have difficulty transferring Platform Hillhouse into position. In fact, it flopped over in the water, legs-up, not far from where the GOO protesters had set up their protest boats. Eventually, after some difficulty, Sun Oil’s Hillhouse Platform was installed correctly.

1969-1970: This photo of a boat being piloted by the Santa Barbara environmental group, Get Oil Out!, was taken by Los Angeles Times photographer Frank Q. Brown and was published on the front page of the January 29 1970 Los Angeles Times. The group at the time, on the first anniversary of the spill, was dropping a buoy in the Santa Barbara Channel to mark the area where the spill first occurred. Get Oil Out! had also sponsored an August 1969 fleet of protest boats to stage a “fish-in” in a failed attempt to block the installation of a Sun Oil drilling platform.

On Jan. 20, 1970, Hickel rejected a request made by Get Oil Out! to suspend oil drilling in the channel to see if it would stop the seepage. The Department of the Interior, in refusing, again pointed to the recommendations of the DuBridge Panel, that pumping the underwater field dry was the only way to guarantee that leaks would not recur. Santa Barbara activists, however, persisted in their effort to challenge oil development in their community.

On January 28, 1970, on the first anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil spill, a sizable group of protesters, numbered at about 500 began moving toward the Santa Barbara municipal pier, also used to service offshore oil operations. City police, reinforced by sheriff’s deputies and highway patrolmen, initially delayed the demonstrators from moving onto the pier. There were a few brief scuffles but no arrests or injuries. And later, about 150 of the demonstrators were allowed to march onto the pier by the wharf operator. There, they started what they claimed would be an all-night sit-in. But after about 17 hours, the demonstrators dispersed after being threatened with tear gas and arrest by the police.

January 29th, 1970: Police move in behind protesters blocking the entrance to the Santa Barbara municipal pier on the first anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil spill. This photo was published in the January 30th, 1970, Los Angeles Times. Photo, Bruce Cox / Los Angeles Times.

National Politics

Although the activists in Santa Barbara may not have been successful in halting oil development in the Santa Barbara Channel in the immediate aftermath of the Union Oil blowout in 1969-1970, the larger environmental movement and policy changes touched off by the Santa Barbara spill left an enduring legacy. The Santa Barbara spill – with its photographic and televised imagery – gave visceral force to the larger “environmental crisis” then apparent across much of the nation. A receptive audience, already aware of Rachel’s Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 and the Torrey Canyon tanker disaster of 1967, and further angered by the Cuyahoga River fire of June 1969, was ready for action. By the time of the first Earth Day of April 22, 1970, with thousands of demonstrations and millions of participants, a nationwide groundswell on behalf of environmental protection was clear. Congress and the White House – soon engaging in a bit of competitive politics on the issue – moved quickly to adopt new laws. In fact, looking back on that time, it was truly astonishing how much environmental protection law came on line in just a few short years, especially between 1969 and 1972.

Senator Ed Muskie (D-ME).

Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA).

By mid-year 1969, Congress and the Nixon White House were pushing and/or debating a number of new environmental measures. In Congress, bills on air and water pollution, land use, wilderness protection, national environmental policy and more were introduced by Republican and Democrat alike – some of the latter potential rivals to Nixon for the presidency in 1972. In fact, a noted leader on pollution legislation at the time, Senator Ed Muskie, the Democrat’s VP candidate in 1968, was a favorite for the party’s presidential nomination in 1972. Muskie already had major bills pending in the Senate on air and water pollution. Other members, including Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA), also a potential Democratic presidential candidate, would emerge as a leader on environmental legislation. In February 1969, Jackson introduced S.1075, the measure that would become the National Environmental Policy Act.

Richard Nixon, a president more interested in foreign policy than domestic matters, and not generally inclined to environmental protection, nonetheless became the president of record who signed a number of environmental laws in the early 1970s. He was also eyeing his potential Democratic rivals for president in 1972, which spurred Nixon’s “interest” in the environment.

January 22nd, 1970: President Richard Nixon’s “State of the Union” speech, stressing “battle to save the environment,” garners front-page headline in the New York Times.

First among the environmental laws that Nixon signed, however, was the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a key U.S. law that established national policy for promoting and protecting the environment. Passed by Congress in December 1969, NEPA was signed by Nixon on January 1, 1970.

That law put in place an important environmental review process for assessing the potential environmental impacts of all major federal actions and public works projects — reviews that required a detailed “environmental impact statement” (EIS) on the project with public hearings and comment period. NEPA also established the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

Meanwhile, Nixon, swept along by the rising environmental tide, would also use his State of the Union address of late January 1970 to demonstrate his proposed commitments for environmental protection. In reporting on Nixon’s address, the New York Times gave it the headline, “ Nixon, Stressing Quality of Life, Asks in State of Union Message For Battle to Save Environment.” The following month, Nixon would also send a special message to the Congress outlining his environment programs, in which he would say, in part: “Our current environmental situation calls for fundamentally new philosophies of land, air, and water use, for stricter regulation, for expanded government action, for greater citizen involvement, and for new programs.”

Official logo, U.S. EPA.

On December 2, 1970, Nixon signed an executive order creating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – a new independent federal agency with wide ranging jurisdiction over environmental media. The EPA executive order was ratified by Congressional hearings. Nixon appointed 38-year-old William Ruckelshaus, a former Justice Department Assistant Attorney General, as its first Administrator. Also in December 1970, Nixon signed the landmark 1970 Clean Air Act that had been pushed through Congress by Senator Muskie – a measure that Nixon had threatened to veto because of its tough automobile emissions standards and deadlines. Nixon did sign the measure, but Senator Muskie was not invited to the signing ceremony.

In February 1971, in submitting his “Special Message to the Congress Proposing the 1971 Environmental Program” – one of a series of environmental messages he sent to Congress during the years of his presidency – Nixon invoked a famous literary work at one point saying: “In his tragedy, ‘Murder in the Cathedral,’ T. S. Eliot wrote, ‘Clear the air! Clean the sky! Wash the wind!’ I have proposed to the Congress a sweeping and comprehensive program to do just that, and more–to end the plunder of America’s natural heritage… With your support, and with the help of the Congress, we can reclaim and preserve the natural beauty of America unto all the generations that come after us.”

“Wally Hickel”
Helped Make Change

October 1969: U.S. Interior Secretary, Walter Hickel, shown at press conference as filmed by KPIX-TV Eyewitness News, San Francisco, CA.

One of the Nixon Administration’s more interesting players during the time of the Santa Barbara oil spill, and the government’s point man in dealing with that crisis, was Walter J. “Wally” Hickel. Hickel had been governor of Alaska before becoming Nixon’s Secretary of the Interior, and was then a supporter of the Trans Alaskan Pipeline proposal. But Hickel would prove something of a surprise on the environment.

The eldest of nine children, Wally Hickel had grown up in Kansas, where he became a scrappy boxer, winning some championship bouts. Later, as a construction worker who became a successful businessman and politician, he would rise to play a role influencing the Republican Party to support Alaskan statehood in 1958. As that state’s second governor, he presided over the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay, yet was a moderate on its development. When it came to dealing with the Santa Barbara oil spill, after being in office as Secretary of the Interior for only a few days, he surprised his critics by moving quickly to tighten offshore oil regulations. He placed unlimited liability on an offshore operators to clean up any oil spill and bear the full cost, whether the operator’s fault or not. He also authorized Interior officials to shut down any operation polluting or threatening to pollute the ocean from a federal lease—with a verbal order, if necessary. But with the Santa Barbara blowout, Hickel apparently faced some White House pressures to “downplay” the spill, as he would later explain in a May 2008 interview with Timothy Naftali at the Nixon Library in California:

Timothy Naftali:…What do you remember of the oil spill off of Santa Barbara?

Walter Hickel: Well, we had to get the government involved in that. …I didn’t realize how massive an oil spill that was until I went out there and took a look. My God, that was a disaster. But they were trying to cover it up, cover it up, cover it up. I said, “Face it, we’re going to clean this thing up.” And it was a battle, even with the White House.

Timothy Naftali: With the White House? Tell us about that.

Walter Hickel: Well, they didn’t want to…make it look like too big an event, you know, and I said, “Just tell the truth about that. That’s the biggest disaster I’ve ever seen happen by the private sector.” And that oil was just …all over that place. … Oh boy, that was a disaster…

Yet there really could be no downplaying of that spill, as the media – and Nixon’s competitors in Congress – were all over it. So, as Hickel stated, they had to face up to it, which they did. Still, that the White House intention was there initially to try to minimize the spill is consistent with other Nixon Administration behavior.

In addition to the Santa Barbara spill, Hickel would also face two other offshore disasters – blowouts and infernos in the Gulf of Mexico – one at a Shell rig and another at a Chevron rig. But in these cases, too, Hickel did not go easy on the oil companies. In the Chevron case, he pushed the Justice Department to file a lawsuit charging 900 violations of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953. Hickel was active in other environmental areas as well, filing lawsuits against 10 companies accused of discharging mercury into interstate waters. He was also involved in helping stop a giant jetport slated for the Florida Everglades.

1969: U.S. Interior Secretary, Walter Hickel, as filmed by KPIX-TV Eyewitness News, San Francisco, at press conference, October 1962. Click for 2 minute clip.

But in late 1970, Hickel became persona non grata at the Nixon White House after he made a public statement criticizing the president. In 1970, following the shooting of college students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard, Hickel wrote a letter critical of Nixon’s Vietnam War policy, urging him to give more respect to the views of young people critical of the war.

“I believe this administration finds itself today embracing a philosophy which appears to lack appropriate concern for the attitude of a great mass of Americans – our young people,” Hickel wrote, in part.

That letter garnered worldwide media attention, and on November 25, 1970, Hickel was fired. He would again become Governor of Alaska in 1990-94 and would figure in other oil and political controversies in that state. Walter J. Hickel died of natural causes in May 2010. He was 90 years old.

By late October 1972 additional environmental laws were adopted, among them: the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972; the Marine Mammal Protection Act; the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (amending the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act); the “Ocean Dumping Act,” formally titled the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act, for regulating ocean dumping and creating marine sanctuaries; and the Coastal Zone Management Act, for land use planning and resource protection within the coastal zone.

Lee Dye's 1971 book, "Blowout at Platform A: The Crisis That Awakened a Nation" (Doubleday). Click for copy.

So it was that the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill – one of several motivating currents in play at the time – did help ignite an important period of environmental law-making in Washington, with more laws to come in subsequent years. As for the Santa Barbara spill itself, there would be years of continuing review and accounting to determine its full impact.

Among books that appeared in the years immediately following the spill were these two (covers shown here at right and below): Lee Dye’s Blowout At Platform A: The Crisis That Awakened a Nation (Doubleday, 1971); and Robert Easton’s Black Tide: The Santa Barbara Oil Spill and Its Consequences (Delacorte, 1972).

Spill Post-Mortem

Investigations of the Santa Barbara blowout would later reveal that the spill was preventable. Union Oil had obtained approval of the U.S. Geological Survey to use a shorter length of casing pipe. Though federal standards at the time required well bores to be outfitted with well casing – a steel lining that helps prevent blowouts to at least 300 feet below the ocean floor – Union Oil was given a waiver that allowed it to install casing that was 61 feet shorter. As the drilling proceeded into a highly pressurized zone of oil and gas, it caused an explosion so powerful that it cracked the ocean floor in five places and prompted the mass spill. Drilling muds used reportedly fell below safety margins as well. But in the wake of the spill, offshore drilling regs were tightened for all federal offshore oil and gas leasing.

By the late summer 1969, the Department of Interior issued completely new regulations for all Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing and operations – the first update since the program’s start fifteen years earlier. The regulations tightened safety rules and other precautions to prevent future blowouts and oil pollution from offshore rigs; gave the U.S. Geological Survey greater access to drilling logs and other information; and generally required a much greater consideration of environmental effects than previously. These were the first rules under which the Department could prohibit leasing in areas of the continental shelf where environmental risks were too high. Although a small amount of drilling continued off the coast of California, the Santa Barbara accident furthered an existing trend of almost exclusive reliance on the Gulf of Mexico for U.S. offshore oil production.

Robert Easton's 1972 book, “Black Tide: The Santa Barbara Oil Spill and Its Consequences,” (Delacorte). Click for copy.

Total cleanup time for most of the beaches hit by the initial spill was about 45 days, although globs of tar continued to wash ashore due to the high rate from the sea-bed fissures, and bigger patches came ashore during subsequent spills. Most beaches were open to the public by June 1, although some of the rocky areas on the shore were not cleaned until around August 15. Still, oil continued to pool and wash up on shore. On August 26th, 1969, the harbor was so full of oil that once again it had to be closed, with cleanup crews spreading straw from boats to bunch the oil up again, just as they had six months earlier. And in December 1969, another spill occurred at the Union Oil lease – this one from a underwater pipeline serving Platform A. A 50-square-mile slick formed before the break in the pipeline was detected. The pipeline was equipped with automatic pressure-reduction devices and shut-off systems supposed to guard against such failures. But none of those safeguards functioned at time. The second spill was most conspicuous at Carpinteria State Beach and Hobson County Park. Generally out in the Channel and ocean, oil from the main spill would persist into 1970, with large areas of crude still being observed at that time.

Economic losses resulting from the spill were difficult to estimate, but some figures did become available. In 1969, the tourist industry suffered considerably, but did recover in subsequent years. A class-action lawsuit awarded nearly $6.5 million to owners of beachfront homes, apartments, hotels, and motels. Commercial and recreational boat owners and nautical suppliers were awarded $1.3 million for property damage and loss of revenue. Commercial fishers lost access to some fisheries temporarily. Union Oil also settled a lawsuit filed by the State of California, County of Santa Barbara, and the towns of Santa Barbara and Carpinteria in the amount of $9.5 million for loss of property.

Change Came…

Still, in the years following the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969, as state and federal authorities put into practice environmental protection policies, a new kind of “environmental due process” began to take hold. Major projects and decision making by government and business that could affect the environment were now dealt with differently. Impacts and possible alternatives were weighed and considered before approvals could be given – with decisions made after public hearings and comment. The Santa Barbara Channel wasn’t the immediate beneficiary of these fundamental changes in environmental consideration. Indeed, more drilling rigs went in. In the years following the Santa Barbara oil spill, as the new laws kicked in, an “environmental due proc- ess” began to take hold… In Santa Barbara and elsewhere, it took time for the machinery of “environmental due process” to begin working. But gradually it did take hold – and it was a major change in thinking and foresight. New leases and/or drilling rig proposals had to be evaluated for their total environmental impact and some could be prohibited. Highway builders could no longer level urban communities for a freeway; untreated sewage or chemicals could not longer be discharged into rivers and streams; automakers had to equip cars with catalytic converters to clean up smog-causing exhausts; more wilderness areas, marine mammals, and wildlife were given protection. The environment was accorded new “standing,” both in the legal and lay sense of that term; it was no longer a “free” medium for polluters or exploiters; it was given a higher value and put on a more even footing with purely economic decisions and/or government dictums. In a few places, environmental values and environmental protection would work their way into the earliest R&D stages of product development – but certainly not everywhere.

Teresa Spezio’s 2018 book, “Slick Policy: Environmental and Science Policy in the Aftermath of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill,” University of Pittsburgh Press, 248pp. Click for copy.

…More Needed

Environmental protection needed then, and still needs today, to be at the earliest stages of resource development, product invention, and capital goods planning. Yet sadly, to this day, there are too many products, projects, and technologies that do not have – or have never had – before-the-fact environmental protection and/or life-cycle analysis built into them. The pollution legacies of the chemical, auto, and oil industries, to name but three – and the spills, fires, emissions, toxic wastes, and other public dangers that flow from them daily – provide ample testament that environmental protection has not been deeply internalized into much of today’s economic activity. The policy advances, true, have made major differences in some cases. Yet regulators tend to play catch-up and much environmental law seems palliative rather than curative. On balance, the damage continues. All the more reason why the fights that began in 1969 and 1970 at Santa Barbara and elsewhere that helped spawn a popular rise in environmental awareness and activism need to continue today with even greater resolve.

See also at this website, for example: “Deepwater Horizon, Film & Spill,” a story about the making of the 2016 Hollywood film on the BP offshore oil rig disaster, plus a recap of the politics, media and corporate maneuvering during the real BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; and, “Environmental History,” a topics page with links to additional stories covering environmental issues.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 22 February 2016
Last Update: 21 April 2021
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Santa Barbara Oil Spill: California, 1969,”
PopHistoryDig.com, February 22, 2016.

____________________________________

Environmental History at Amazon.com…

Phil Shabecoff’s environmental history, “A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement,” updated, 2013. Click for copy.

Robert Bilott, “Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont.” Click for copy.

Eric Rutkow’s book, “American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation,” 2013 paperback, Scriber’s, 416 pp. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

1969: Close up of Union Oil rig and the roiling surface waters from escaping oil & gas on the sea-bed below.

Feb 11th, 1969: Part of the daily coverage the Los Angeles Times newspaper ran during the Santa Barbara oil spill.

1969: Aerial photo of Union Oil rig after the blowout. Eventually, an 800-square-mile slick formed.

Feb 6th, 1969: The Telegram-Tribune of San Luis Obispo reporting on the "miles of black ooze" that hit the beaches.

1969: Associated Press photo of workers raking up straw used to absorb some of the crude oil that came ashore from the Union Oil blowout.

1969: Life magazine photo of workers steam-cleaning oil stained rocks at Carpinteria, CA.

1969: Volunteers working to save oiled sea bird following Santa Barbara spill. Telegram-Tribune, San Luis Obispo.

1969: Life magazine photo of oil-splotched sea lion and cub on San Miguel Island off coast. Photo, Harry Benson.

Feb 7, 1969: Sample of newspaper headlines used across the country during the Santa Barbara oil spill-- this one from the La Crosse Tribune in Wisconsin.

July 1969: Study of the Santa Barbara oil spill commissioned by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration. Click for PDF file.

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1969: Early attempts to corral the Santa Barbara oil spill using boats and oil booms.

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1969: Bulldozers formed piles of oil-soaked sand and cleanup wastes on the beaches in Santa Barbara that were hauled away to landfills by large trucks.

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Christine Mai-Duc, “The 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill That Changed Oil and Gas Exploration Forever,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2015.

Francie Diep, “What Can the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill Teach Us About Animal Life? History — and Science—have a Lot to Teach Us Here in Santa Barbara, California,” Pacific Standard, May 26, 2015.

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Staff Working Paper No. 11, “A Brief History of Offshore Oil Drilling” (draft), National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, no date, 18pp.

________________________________________________________

Environmental History at Amazon.com…

Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” 2015 paperback edition. Click for copy.

PBS 2016 documentary film, “Rachel Carson,” American Experience series, 2 hrs. Click for DVD or Prime Video.

Jack Doyle’s 2004 book, “Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical & The Toxic Century,” 300pp. Click for copy.

Teaser Tag: Football History

1941-1950, 1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Dutchman’s Big Day”
NFL Passing Record

January 30, 2016 J.D.

Norm Van Brocklin played nine seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, 1949-1957, as quarterback and punter.

On September 28th, 1951, Norm Van Brocklin, quarterback of the Los Angeles Rams professional football team, did what no other quarterback had done before or since: completing passes to his receivers for a game high total of 554 yards. More on this notable feat, and the game that day a bit later. First, some background on Van Brocklin, also known as “the Dutchman”.

Born in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, Norman Van Brocklin was one of nine children. His father was a watchmaker. The family later moved to northern California, where young Norm became a three-sport standout at Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California. He was the high school’s quarterback during his sophomore (5-3 record) and junior (4-2-2 record) years, but joined the U.S. Navy in his senior year during WWII, serving from 1943 through 1945.

After the war, Van Brocklin, attended the University of Oregon where he became the school’s first All-American quarterback. He led Oregon to the Pacific Coast Conference title in 1948 and a Cotton Bowl appearance. In 1949, he graduated from the University of Oregon in three years, where he still had a year’s eligibility remaining, but decided to enter the pro football draft.

Rams Tandem QBs

Van Brocklin was selected 37th overall in the fourth round of the 1949 NFL draft by the Los Angeles Rams. He signed with the Rams in July that year, a team that already had a star quarterback in Bob Waterfield, who rose from UCLA fame and was also married to film star, Jane Russell. However, in 1950, the Rams new coach, Joe Stydahar, began platooning his two quarterbacks, Waterfield and Van Brocklin, each averaging about two quarters’ worth of playing time per game. The Rams that year also had talented receivers, including Mexican-American Tom Fears at split end, and flanker back Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch. The team that year – playing a 12-game schedule – proved to be an offensive powerhouse, setting a scoring record of 466 points for the year, or 38.8 points per game average, which still stands today as the NFL record for seasonal points-per-game. Van Brocklin and Waterfield finished 1st and 2nd respectively in 1950 passer rating, and Fears led the league and set a new NFL record with 84 receptions. The Rams won their division but lost the 1950 title game to the Cleveland Browns, 30-28.

Headlines from a later 1952 newspaper story featuring the Los Angles Rams “tandem QB” team of Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin, in this case, prior to a game with the Green Bay Packers.

Entering the 1951 season, Van Brocklin and Waterfield were again slated to split quarterbacking duties. However, by the time of opening day, September 28, 1951, Waterfield was injured, so Van Brocklin had the helm all to himself – and he would proceed to make the most of it. The opponents that day in 1951 were the New York Yanks, a new team that had its origins as the Boston Yanks, then as the New York Bulldogs, and finally, the New York Yanks in 1950. That year they moved to Yankee Stadium as their home field. However, this team would fold after two seasons. Still, in 1950 they had posted a winning record of 7 and 5. Then came their first game of the 1951 season in September with the Rams in Los Angeles. There, the Yanks would suffer a terrible trouncing, the first of 10 losses that year.

Van Brocklin Solo

Sept 1951: New York Times headlines report on Norm Van Brocklin’s passing feat.

Van Brocklin played the entire game that day and completed 27 of 41 pass attempts, setting the NFL single game passing record at 554 yards. He broke Johnny Lujack’s previous single-game record of 468 yards, which had been set two years earlier.

Van Brocklin threw five touchdown passes – four to “Crazy Legs” Hirch, and one to Verda Thomas “Vitamin T” Smith. He nearly had six TD passes, completing a late fourth-quarter toss to Tommy Kalmanir, who was stopped just short of the goal line. Van Brocklin also scored one touchdown himself in a one-yard plunge, capping a 97-yard drive.

The final score was 54-14, with the Yanks’ scores coming on a 79-yard punt return by Buddy Young and a 30-yard run by Art Tait after he intercepted a Van Brocklin pitchout. In the game the Rams also set league records for total yards at 735 and first downs at 34.

The Rams that year again won their division with their high-powered offense. And this time, the Rams won the title rematch against the Cleveland Browns, 24-17, with Waterfield and Van Brocklin splitting the QB duties, though Van Brocklin threw the game-winning 73-yard touchdown pass to Tom Fears.

Norm Van Brocklin in action with the Rams, 1951.

The Rams’ teams of 1950 and 1951 were all-star performers and they set several long-standing records. The 38.8 points-a-game average by the 1950 team is an NFL record that has stood for 64 years.

Hirsch also set an NFL record in 1950 with 1,495 receiving yards and tied the record for touchdown receptions with 17. Tom Fears set a record in 1950 too, with 18 catches in one game, a record that stood for a half-century.

But Van Brocklin’s single-game 554 passing yards of September 1951, as of this writing, still stands today and remains unbroken – which is quite surprising given the amount of passing in the today’s modern game. Plus the fact that NFL teams now play a 16- game schedule, compared to 12 games-per-season in the 1950s.

Van Brocklin also won the NFL passing title in both 1950 and 1952, even though he was playing only half of the time.

Following the 1952 season Waterfield retired leaving Van Brocklin alone to continue quarterbacking the Rams. He would win a third passing championship with the Rams in 1954 and would also lead them to another title game in 1955, though losing that game to the Browns, 38-14, with Van Brocklin having a sub-par performance, throwing six interceptions.

Joins The Eagles

Dec 1960: Norm Van Brocklin on the cover of Sports Illustrated, ahead of championship game vs. Green Bay.

After a few more seasons with the Rams, Van Brocklin announced his retirement in early January 1958, with plans to enter private business in Portland, Oregon. Less than five months later, however, he changed his mind and was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles for two players and a first round draft pick.

It was later disclosed that Van Brocklin did not want to play another season for the Rams under head coach Sid Gillman’s offense, though he did not have personality issues with Gillman. Van Brocklin was very much his own man at the QB spot, and he was not happy with head-coach play-calling during a game or plays sent in from the sidelines.

In Philadelphia, Van Brocklin found the independence he wanted, and his fortunes rose. Under famed head coach Buck Shaw, Van Brocklin in 1958 was given total control of the Philadelphia offense and he steadily improved the Eagles’ attack. Early in the 1959 season, Sports Illustrated wrote: “Norm Van Brocklin is still the most accomplished passer in pro football. He throws long, short, hard or soft with equal facility. He could use more protection, but he unloads so quickly that he can get by with what he has….”

In his third and final season with the Eagles in 1960, the team had the best regular season record in the league at 10-2, and hosted the Green Bay Packers in the NFL Championship Game at Philadelphia’s Franklin Field.

This was an Eagles team also famous for its fearsome two-way man, center/linebacker Chuck Bednarik, and other players, including, running backs Clarence Peaks, Billy Ray Barnes and Ted Dean, receivers Tommy MacDonald and Pete Retzlaff, linebacker Maxie Baughan, and defensive back, Tom Brookshier.

Eagles coach Buck Shaw with Norm Van Brocklin & Chuck Bednarik after winning 1960 Championship.

The Packers, meanwhile, had their own considerable stable of stellar performers such as: running backs Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor, quarterback Bart Starr, wide receiver Max McGee, linebacker Ray Nitschke, and legendary coach, Vince Lombardi.

Prior to the game, Sports Illustrated, in a December 19th, 1960 article titled “Dutch is The Difference,” cited Van Brocklin as one of the two or three best quarterbacks in all football, “who studies and probes defenses with great patience” and when he finds the flaw he is looking for “he attacks it with vigor, intelligence and, usually, wonderful success.” The magazine predicted that with Van Brocklin, the Eagles might just win their first football championship in 11 years. But at kick-off time, the odds-makers had the Eagles as 2-point underdogs.

At Franklin Field on the day after Christmas, Van Brocklin did throw to Tommy MacDonald for one score, but the championship game proved to be primarily a defensive battle. In the fourth quarter, with the Packers ahead 13-10, Van Brocklin took the Eagles on a 39-yard scoring drive following a 58-yard kick-off return by Ted Dean to put the Eagles up, 17-13, which proved to be the winning margin. Thus, the “Dutchman” added another distinction to his career – becoming the only QB to defeat a Vince Lombardi-coached Green Bay team in championship play. Van Brocklin also won MVP honors in that game.

Coach Norm Van Brocklin of the Minnesota Vikings conferring with his quarterback, Fran Tarkenton, 1961, L.A. Coliseum.

1970: Norm Van Brocklin, during his time as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons football team. Click for book about him during his Univ of Oregon days & more, written by his daughter.

Coach Van Brocklin

After his championship season with the Eagles, Norm Van Brocklin retired from active play and became the first head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, then an expansion team. There, between 1961 and 1966, he coached players such a quarterback Fran Tarkenton and wide receiver Paul Flatley, bringing the Vikings to a 2nd place finish in 1964 at 8-5-1. Overall, Van Brocklin compiled a 29-51-4 mark with Minnesota through 1967, when he resigned.

A year later, he became head coach of the Atlanta Falcons in midseason, a team that had won only three games in more than two seasons. Van Brocklin posted a 37-49-3 record with the Falcons, leading them to their first winning seasons, 7-6-1 in 1971, and 9-5 in 1973. In 1974, with the team 2-6, he was let go. Van Brocklin by this time had settled into a local area about 35 miles east of Atlanta, owning a pecan farm there, where he began to spend more time. He was also a sports analyst for a time on Ted Turner’s WTBS “SuperStation” in Atlanta. His last football job was as an assistant coach at Georgia Tech under Pepper Rodgers in 1979, working with running backs. That year, he also underwent brain surgery twice to correct an oxygen shortage and remove a blood clot.

Norm Van Brocklin died of a heart attack in May of 1983. He was 57 years old. ”He was a fierce competitor, a no-nonsense guy on the field,” said Marion Campbell, who had played with Van Brocklin. Tommy McDonald, his favorite receiver on the Philadelphia Eagles team, said of Van Brocklin: ”His play calling was absolutely fantastic..” Norm Van Brocklin was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971. He played 12 seasons, had 23,611 yards passing, 1,553 completions and 173 touchdown passes. He was also named to the Pro Bowl nine times.

1971: Norm Van Brocklin with his hall of Fame bust at induction ceremonies at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Record Still Stands

Norm Van Brocklin’s 554 yards passing performance from September 1951 still stands today as the NFL single-game passing record.

In pro football history, quarterbacks achieving 500 yards or more passing in a single game is quite rare, occurring only 27 times during the last 73 years.

In addition to Van Brocklin, eighteen other quarterbacks have thrown one game each of 500 yards or more, including: Y.A. Tittle (1962), Vince Ferragamo (1982), Phil Simms (1985), Dan Marino (1988), Warren Moon (1990), Boomer Esiason (1996), Elvis Grbac (2000), Matthew Stafford (2012), Eli Manning (2012), Matt Schaub (2012), Tony Romo (2013), Philip Rivers (2015), Derek Carr and Matt Ryan (2016), Jared Goff (2019), Dak Prescott (2020), Joe Burrow (2021), and Kirk Cousins (2024).

Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints has done so twice (2006 and 2015), as has Tom Brady, once in 2011, and most recently in February 2018 in Super Bowl LII, throwing for 505 yards in a losing effort against the Philadelphia Eagles. But with that performance, Brady set the Super Bowl passing record (Brady is also the only QB to throw for more than 450 yards in back-to-back Super Bowls-2017 and 2018). Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the only quarterback who has thrown for more than 500 yards four times (2009, 2014, 2017 and January 2021 [playoff game]).

Michael MacCambridge’s book, “America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation,” 2005 paperback, Anchor Books, illustrated, 608 pp. Click for copy.

No quarterback has yet eclipsed Van Brocklin’s 554 yards (Warren Moon and Matt Schaub have come closest, each with 527-yard performances, followed most recently by Joe Burrow at 525 yards). However, given the nature of the modern passing game, it is no doubt just a matter of time before the 554-yard record is surpassed. In fact, 17 of the 500-yard performances have occurred since 2010.

Additional football-related stories at this website include:

“Big Game, New Era,” (the famous Colts-Giants NFL Championship game of December 1958, which was also a pro football turning point, as the nationally-televised “greatest game” sent pro football into the realm of national obsession and big-time big business);

“I Guarantee It” (a profile of Joe Namath, his famous prediction for Super Bowl III, his bio & pro career, and his off-the-filed activities);

“Bednarik-Gifford Lore” (the respective playing careers of Chuck Bednarik and Frank Gifford, and one famous on–the-field meeting between the two );

“Slingin` Sammy” (career of quarterback Sammy Baugh and Washington Redskins history, 1930s-1950s); and

“Celebrity Gifford” (a detailed look at the advertising, sports broadcasting, and TV/film/radio career of Frank Gifford ). See also the “Annals of Sport” category page for other sports stories.

Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research, writing, and continued publication of this website. Thank you – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 30 January 2016
Last Update: 7 December 2024
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Dutchman’s Big Day: NFL Passing
Record,” PopHistoryDig.com, January 30, 2016.

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Football Books at Amazon.com…

Michael MacCambridge’s 2005 book, “The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation.” Click for copy.

NFL History, Rob Fleder, et al., “NFL 100: A Century of Pro Football,” with Peyton Manning intro. Click for copy.

Ray Walker’s book, “The Ultimate Pittsburgh Steelers Trivia Book,” 2020 edition. Click for copy.

Sources, Links & Additional Information

Best Passing Yardage
Top Ten: 1950s

1- Johnny Unitas, 1959 Baltimore Colts
2899 yds, 193-367, 52.6%, 32 TD, 14 INT

2- Bill Wade, 1958 Los Angeles Rams
2875 yards, 181-341, 53.1%, 18 TD, 22 INT

3- Otto Graham, 1952 Cleveland Browns
2816 yards, 181-364, 49.7%, 20 TD, 24 INT

4- Otto Graham, 1953 Cleveland Browns
2722 yards, 167-258, 64.7%, 11 TD, 9 INT

5- Norm Van Brocklin, 1954 L. A. Rams
2637 yards, 139-260, 53.5%, 13 TD, 21 INT

6- Norm Van Brocklin, 1959 Phila. Eagles
2617 yards, 191-340, 56.2%, 16 TD, 14 INT

7- Johnny Unitas, 1957 Baltimore Colts
2550 yards, 172-301, 57.1%, 24 TD, 17 INT

8- Bobby Layne, 1958 Dt. Lions/Pt. Steelers
2510 yards, 145-294, 49.3%, 14 TD, 12 INT

9- Bobby Thomason, 1953 Phila. Eagles
2462 yards, 162-304, 53.3%, 21 TD, 20 INT

10-Norm Van Brocklin, 1958 Phila. Eagles
2409 yards, 198-374, 52.9%, 15 TD, 20 INT

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Source: “List of the Day: Best Passing Yardage Seasons, 1950s NFL,” Today in Pro Football History, March 30, 2010

Note: In the 1950s, the best quarterbacks threw for 2,500-2,800 yards for an entire season. Now, NFL quarterbacks throw for 4,000 -5,000 yards a season. Teams also play 16 games a season as opposed to 12 in the 1950s, and there’s a lot more passing in today’s offensive strategies.

“Rams Easily Beat Yanks by 54 to 14; Van Brocklin Passes for 554 Yards, New League Record–Tosses for Five Touchdowns,” New York Times, September 29, 1951, p. 12.

Tex Maule, “The Eagles Have Gone Dutch; Norman Van Brocklin, A Quarterback With a Mind of His Own and The Best Arm in the League, May Bring Philadelphia Back into the NFL Championship Picture,” Sports Illustrated, October 13, 1958.

“Dutch Is the Difference,” Sports Illustrated, December 19, 1960.

“Norm Van Brocklin,” Wikipedia.org.

“Norm Van Brocklin: NFL’s Outspoken Coach; Wherever the Young Chief of the Minnesota Vikings Goes, The Fur Flies,” Saturday Evening Post, 1962.

“Norm Van Brocklin,” Pro Football Hall of Fame (inducted 1971).

AP, “Norm Van Brocklin Is Dead at 57; Star Quarterback in Hall of Fame,” New York Times, May 3, 1983.

Ron Fimrite, “Mr. Hollywood and The Dutchman: Two Legends, Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin, Shared a Job at Quarterback for the Great Postwar Ram Teams,” Sports Illustrated, October 6, 1995.

Fred Bowen, “Best Single-game Passer in NFL? It’s No One You’ve Seen Play; L.A. Rams’ Norm Van Brocklin Still Owns the Record – From 1951,” WashingtonPost.com, October 21, 2015.

“List of 500-Yard Passing Games in The National Football League,” Wikipedia.org.

“List of the Day: Best Passing Yardage Seasons, 1950s NFL,” Today in Pro Football History, March 30, 2010.

Josh Katzowitz | NFL Writer, “Remember When: Van Brocklin’s 554-Yard Day Has Lasted 6 Decades,” CBSsports.com, September 6, 2013.

Chase Stuart, “Norm Van Brocklin and Otto Graham: Who Was Better?, FootballPerspective .com, February 22, 2015.

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Teaser Tag: TV, Culture, Business

1951-1960, 1961-1970, 1971-1980, 2001-Today

“Mary Tyler Moore”
1950s-2010s

January 30, 2016 J.D.

Statue of the fictional Mary Richards, the liberated TV producer of the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970s) depicted tossing her tam into the air, a symbol of independence. Minneapolis, MN, 2002.

In September 1970, CBS began running The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a 30-minute sitcom that aired in prime time on Saturday nights. The show featured actress Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards, an independent, professional woman in her early 30s working at a struggling Minneapolis, Minnesota TV station. The show soon had a following of millions and became, in many ways, a statement of the times; a weekly story about women coming into their own, asserting their place in the male-dominated work world. The show ran for seven years, won a host of awards, and stirred the pot on women’s rights and other issues.

The statue at right, first installed on the streets of Minneapolis in May 2002, shows Mary Richards tossing her “tam” hat into the air. The scene – known as the “tam toss” and run in the opening credits of every episode – had become iconic; a symbol of Mary Richards’ independence. It was burnished in the minds of millions of fans and viewers who watched the show, both in the 1970s and later years in syndication. More on the show and the Minneapolis statue a bit later. First, a bit of biography on the lady at the center of this TV history, and also some focus on MTM Enterprises, a TV production company created in part by Moore and her then husband, Grant Tinker.

Brooklyn Girl

Mary Tyler Moore was born in Brooklyn, New York but her family moved to Los Angeles, California when she was a young girl of eight years old or so. She had attended Catholic school in Brooklyn and continued with Catholic schools through high school in California. While in high school she had aspired to be a dancer and began her career as a dancing elf in Hotpoint appliance TV commercials broadcast on the 1950s’ Ozzie and Harriet TV show.

Moore then did some anonymous modeling for record album covers. Trying her hand at TV acting, she was turned down for the role of the older daughter in The Danny Thomas Show.

Through the 1950s, she landed parts in a number of TV shows: Richard Diamond, Private Detective; Johnny Staccato a NBC detective series; two episodes of Overland Trail, an NBC western; and the first episode of NBC’s The Tab Hunter Show, a sitcom about a bachelor cartoonist. By 1961, she also had parts in other TV shows, among them: Bourbon Street Beat, 77 Sunset Strip, Surfside Six, Wanted: Dead or Alive, and Hawaiian Eye.

Mary Tyler Moore became popular as “Laura Petrie” in the 1960s’ “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Click for DVD.

Her big break-out role, however, came in 1961 – as Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show, playing the energetic and comic wife of Rob Petri, played by Dick Van Dyke. The show’s sketches were built around the work and home life of Rob Petrie, a TV comedy writer. The show aired on CBS from October 1961 until June 1966. Mary Tyler Moore was 23 when the show began.

Although some 60 actresses auditioned for the part, Moore got the role after an interview with Carl Reiner, the creator of the show, who also became her mentor. With no experience in comedy, she nonetheless learned quickly, and soon proved to have a natural ability for comedic timing and related acting skills.

Dick Van Dyke, 11 years her senior when she began on the show, thought at first she would be too young. But later, he became one of her biggest fans.

The role of Laura Petri made her extremely popular and she became internationally famous. She would win Emmy awards for her acting on the Dick Van Dyke Show in 1964 and 1966, and a Golden Globe award in 1965.

Moore had been married when she was 18, giving birth in that marriage to her son, Richie, but was divorced in 1961. Not long after, she met Grant Tinker, then an executive with Benton & Bowles, the ad agency that represented The Dick Van Dyke Show‘s sponsor. In 1962, she and Tinker married.

May 1964: Mary Tyler Moore of the Dick Van Dyke Show on TV Guide cover.

After her successful run with The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore would co-star in a series of films, then under contract with Universal Pictures. Among these were: 1967’s Thoroughly Modern Millie with Julie Andrews; two films in 1968, What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? with George Peppard, and Don’t Just Stand There! with Robert Wagner; and two in 1969, a TV movie, Run a Crooked Mile, which cast Moore in a dramatic role, and a Hollywood film with Elvis Presley, Change of Habit, which had disappointing reviews and a poor box office.

Moore by then was also trying to return to television, doing an April 1969 TV special with Dick Van Dyke that helped convince CBS brass to consider her for a new TV role. That’s when she and husband Grant Tinker pitched a new TV sitcom to CBS with Moore in the lead role. The show was offered as a half-hour newsroom sitcom featuring Ed Asner as Moore’s gruff boss, Lou Grant, with assorted other characters. That show became The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Moore and Tinker by then had formed MTM Enterprises, an independent TV production company, initially to produce The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but would become a TV powerhouse in its own right (see sidebar later below). Tinker, who was then programming VP at Twentieth Century Fox’s television division, quit his job to launch and head up MTM Enterprises.

In The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the main character, Mary Richards, is a single, 30-something career woman who has come to Minneapolis after breaking up with a man she had been dating for several years.

Mary is competent and ambitious in her profession and is looking for new friends. She moves into one of the upstairs apartment units in an older Minneapolis home and begins work as an assistant news producer at local TV station, WJM.

One title banner for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

The original cast of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” 1970. Top: Valerie Harper (Rhoda), Ed Asner (Lou Grant), Cloris Leachman (Phyllis). Bottom: Gavin MacLeod (Murray), Mary Tyler Moore (Mary), Ted Knight (Ted Baxter).

Mary works for chief news producer Lou Grant, an irascible kind of guy, seemingly harsh and gruff but actually a Mr. Softie, and a kind and gentle soul at heart.

Also among the newsroom characters in the show is Ted Baxter, projecting a self-importance and media aura about his role that is so far off the mark that he becomes a key comedic focus of the show, known for his on- and off-air gaffes.

In addition to Mary’s life at the office, the show also included sketches and story lines revolving around her home life and two other single woman and friends at her apartment. Among the latter, are Rhoda Morgenstern, upstairs neighbor played by Valerie Harper, and the downstairs landlady and friend, Phyllis Lindstrom, played by Cloris Leachman.

Among other subsequent characters who would appear in the show as it evolved were the station’s “Happy Homemaker Show” host, Sue Ann Nivens, played by Betty White, and Gordy, Gordon Howard, the weatherman, played by African American actor, John Amos. Gordy would appear roughly a dozen times over the course of the show’s first three seasons, and he eventually lands a job in New York City as a talk show host.

But it was Mary Richards who was the central character of the show, having a wide-ranging appeal to both sexes. In a 1974 interview with People magazine, Valery Harper, who played Rhoda, described Mary as follows:

“I want to tell you about my friend Mary Richards. She’s bouncy, she’s pretty, she weighs 11 pounds, and is a totally adorable human being. Despite that, I find it impossible to dislike her. Mary’s wholesome, but she’s not too wholesome. I mean, for example, she likes a great big glass of cold milk…to wash down her birth control pill. She’s the kind of person who gives WASPs a good name….”

Mary Richards character at her desk at TV station WJM on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Ms. Richards here appears to be searching for an answer to a question from her boss, Lou Grant.

Mary Richards in the newsroom with Ted Baxter on the phone and weatherman Gordy Howard in the background.

Newswriter Murray Slaughter listening to comment by Happy Homemaker show host, Sue Ann Nivens.

Ted Baxter boasting to Mary about his Emmy awards.

Mary Richards, who in later seasons of the show becomes a producer, in conversation with Lou Grant.

The sketches on the show included various newsroom stories and the chronicles of Mary and her friends meeting men, or other escapades. Mary was interested in finding a man and raising a family, but not desperately so. In the show, she was cast as warm, loving, and vulnerable, and as one reviewer put it – but never specifically stated in the show as such – “a person who could spend the night with a man she was not madly in love with.”

The focus, however, wasn’t only on Mary, as viewers would get to know all the characters, as their situations developed throughout the series. Observes Geoff Hammill at the Museum of Broadcast Communications about the Lou Grant character:

“…Never static, each character changed in ways previously unseen in the [sitcom] genre. One of the best examples occurred when Lou divorced his wife of many years. His adjustment to the transition from married to divorced middle-aged man provided rich comic moments but also allowed viewers see new depths in the character, to see behind the gruff facade into Lou’s vulnerability, to grow closer to him. This type of evolution occurred with all the cast members, providing writers with constantly shifting perspective on the characters. From those perspectives new story lines could be developed and these fresh approaches helped renew a genre grown weary with repetition and familiar techniques. ..”

Initially, however, some of the early reviews of The Mary Tyler Moore Show were not good. Several well-known publications panned the pilot when it aired. A reviewer for Time magazine wrote that Mary’s “bosses, a drunken clown of a news director and a narcissistic nincompoop of an anchorman, do an injustice to even the worst of local TV news.” The New York Times called the show “preposterous,” while TV Guide said Rhoda, played by Valerie Harper (who would later be spun off in her own working woman show), was a “man-crazy klutz.” Despite the poor start, the show soon found its footing. In fact, a very loyal viewing audience followed that would keep the show in the top tier of the Neilsen ratings for the next six years.

By 1972, one reviewer from Time magazine wrote of the show:

“Someone should write an ode to Mary Tyler Moore, whose show seems to get better with every passing week. Now in its third year, the series has taken the brass of the usual situation comedy formula and transmuted it into something resembling gold.

…[T]he series has taken on a new and more interesting dimension. Still pretty, single and thirtyish, Mary is no longer the Doris Day-Julie Andrews brand of antiseptic woman. This year’s Mary is even a little naughty. On one recent show she kissed a boy friend rather soulfully while in the newsroom. On another she spent the night at some fellow’s pad, to the vocal dismay of her mother. Judging from this season’s shows, the new chemistry may provide just the pick-me-up a weary viewer needs.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a hit for most of its seven-year run, rated in the top 20 for six straight seasons. In its 7th year, however, the show slipped to No. 39.

The final episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show aired in September 1977 to the dismay of its viewers. In the farewell episode, new management had taken over the station in the face of falling ratings, and everybody was fired, except anchorman Ted Baxter, the likely cause of the poor ratings. At the show’s end, there were tearful farewells with Mary the last one out, closing the door after a final look back.

For 25 years, the show held the record for most Emmys won.

Yet, for millions of fans, there was a second life to come for The Mary Tyler Moore Show – in syndication and reruns. In the New York region, for example, the show began a seven-year run in various time slots from 1977 through 1984 on the Nickelodeon channel. The reruns acquired a devoted nightly following of 75,000 viewers on New York’s WNBC-TV during those years. In that market, Mary Tyler Moore Show episodes aired at least 4,450 times during the 1977-1984 period. In 1992, Nick at Nite began evening broadcasts of the series and it became the network’s top-rated series. By 1993 The Mary Tyler Moore Show was still airing three times daily on the Nickelodeon cable network. In November 1995, one Chicago Tribune TV critic was recommending reruns of The Mary Tyler More Show on Nickelodeon over a then new Mary Tyler Moore sitcom, New York News, which the critic called a “less good” TV show. In fact, after setting the sit-com gold standard with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore herself would have some difficulty in hitting that mark again with subsequent TV shows.

Impact & Legacy

Mary Richards and her friends and colleagues at WJM, came along at just the right time. The women’s movement by then was on the rise. A landmark book, The Feminine Mystique of 1963 by Betty Freidan, had already urged women to envision work outside the home. By 1972, the birth control pill had become available to all women, regardless of martial status. Also by then, the first issues of Ms. Magazine published by Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes were on newsstands. And throughout the 1970s, women were on the march to add the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution, passed by both houses of Congress in 1972, only to fall short of the 38 states needed for ratification during a decade-long fight.

Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore), Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman), and Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper), at Mary’s apartment in a scene from the 1970s TV sitcom, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

But prior to the fall of 1970, there was no woman quite like Mary Richards on television — no single, 30-year old woman who had just broken off a live-in relationship with her boyfriend, then heading off on her own to a new town and new job. At the time, it was new territory, and at least half of the viewing audience was paying attention. Oprah Winfrey, for one, became a big fan, citing Moore’s portrayal of a woman in the workplace as inspirational. Winfrey, in fact, began her own on-air career at a local news station in Nashville during the initial run of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

March 1977: TV Guide cover bidding farewell to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Click for copy.

While Moore herself was not a feminist in the Gloria Steinem mold, she and the show did advance the cause of women’s rights, and other social issues. The show itself, as an employer, made inroads on the number of women in production. By 1973, 25 out of 75 writers on the show were women, which was revolutionary at the time.

In the show’s storyline, meanwhile, when Mary discovers she was making less than the man who had the job before her, she argues for equal pay and eventually ends up with a raise, though the amount doesn’t totally make up the difference. And other issues also received an airing in the show’s comedic plots.

In the third season, pre-marital sex and homosexuality were among those included. In the fourth season, marital infidelity and divorce were explored. In the fifth season, Mary was jailed for contempt of court when she refused to reveal a news source. In the final seasons, other issues, including juvenile delinquency, intimate marital problems, infertility, and adoption were raised. Mary also becomes addicted to sleeping pills at one point, with her battle to break the addiction becoming part of the storyline.

During the heyday of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary and others from the show frequently appeared on the covers of popular mainstream magazines, including Time, People, TV Guide, Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, McCall’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and others. Time’s October 28th, 1974 edition featured Moore and Valerie Harper on the cover with the tagline, “TV’s Funny Girls,” offering a glowing review of both actors, and coming at a time when a separate Rhoda show had already spun off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, with both shows then doing quite well, with nearly 30 million viewers between them.

TV Guide, December 8-14, 1973.	Time, October 28, 1974.
People, February 1976.	Esquire, February 1977.

“One of these leading ladies is sweet, the other spicy,” offered Time in its October 1974 cover story describing Mary and Rhoda. “One is conservative, the other radlib. One is tranquil, the other seems to have been born with sand under her skin. Doublehanded, they are bringing a new sophistication back to television entertainment.” Such prominent magazine and print coverage helped keep The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its characters at the center of that day’s popular culture. And even as the show moved toward signing off in 1977, there was more good press. Esquire magazine gave Mary and the show a February 1977 feature story with Mary on the cover holding a Valentine heart with the tagline: “Farewell To the Funniest Show on Television: Robert Redford, Barbara Walters, Roger Staubach, And Other Send Valentines to Mary Tyler Moore.”

The Mary Tyler Moore Show also had an influence on television programming that followed, spinning off several new shows built around its characters – namely, Rhoda, as already mentioned, but also Phyllis and Lou Grant. It also influenced the content and structure of other TV programs. Tina Fey, creator and lead actress of the 2006 sitcom, 30 Rock, explained that Moore’s show helped inspire 30 Rock‘s emphasis on office relationships. “Our goal is to try to be like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where it’s not about doing the news,” said Fey. Entertainment Weekly has also noted similarities between 30 Rock characters and those of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The show also collected numerous honors and kudos during its run and for years after. Even through the 1990s, the show continued to collect praiseworthy notice. In 1997, TV Guide selected a Mary Tyler Moore Show episode as the best TV episode ever, and in 1999, Entertainment Weekly picked Mary’s hat toss in the opening credits as television’s second greatest moment. More recently, in the 2002-2013 period, The Mary Tyler Moore Show has been rated variously as among the best TV shows ever by TV Guide, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Time magazine and the Writers Guild of America.

“MTM: The Business”
1970s-1980s

The MTM “roaring kitten” logo that ran at the end of shows.

In 1969-1970, Mary Tyler More and Grant Tinker formed the independent television production company MTM Enterprises, which was initially created to produce The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The name for the production company was taken from Mary Tyler Moore’s initials. In addition to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, MTM would proceed to produce a number of popular American sitcoms and dramatic television series through the 1970s and 1980s. The MTM logo – a meowing “Mimsie the Cat” in a take off of the MGM Lion – would appear at the end of the credits roll for each new show created. Among MTM shows produced in the mid-1970s and early 1980s were three shows spun off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, each of which aired on CBS – Rhoda (1974–78) and Phyllis (1975–77), two sitcoms, and Lou Grant (1977–82), a one-hour drama. Some of these shows were also Top 20 performers during their runs.

Feb 1975: TV Guide features Rhoda, Bob Newhart & Mary Tyler Moore – with shows developed by “The MTM Comedy Machine.” Click for copy.

In addition, MTM also turned out a number of other shows, including: The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978); The Texas Wheelers (1974); The Betty White Show (1977-1978); WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-1982); Hill Street Blues (1981-1987); Remington Steele (1982- 1987); St. Elsewhere (1982-1988); and Bay Cities Blues (Oct-Nov. 1983).

A TV Guide cover story of February 1975, featuring Rhoda, Bob Newhart, and Mary Tyler Moore, was titled, “Greasing The Wheels of The MTM Comedy Machine,” and by this time, the company was well on its way to respectability.

By the mid 1970s, MTM Enterprises had become a major force in the industry, was grossing more than $20 million a year, with Mary and husband Grant Tinker holding most of the stock. People magazine of September 30th, 1974 featured Mary on the cover with the tagline, “TV’s Newest Tycoon.” The MTM payroll by then included nearly 500 people, and in that year the company had at least eight TV shows then in preparation or on the air – more primetime series in fact than any of the “majors,” except for Universal. And there was more to come.

Under Grant Tinker’s leadership, the company became known for developing some of television’s best shows, using a cadre of the industry’s brightest writers and producers. Tinker’s philosophy was essentially to hire talented people and give them the room and discretion to operate as they saw fit, while he kept studio brass from meddling with content and program development.

May 1973: Mary Tyler Moore at the 25th Annual Emmy Awards in Hollywood with husband Grant Tinker.

In its heyday, MTM had a good reputation; described by some who worked there as “a Camelot for writers” and an “all-pro” operation. Pat Williams, who did the music score for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and orchestral work for other MTM productions, would say of the MTM record: “It was a phenomenon. That whole period of time where Mary’s show went into The Bob Newhart Show and so forth, the way Grant Tinker ran that place was with such class.” Adds Geoff Hammill of the American Museum of Television: “MTM Productions developed a reputation, begun in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, for creating what became known as ‘quality television,’ television readily identifiable by its textured, humane and contemporary themes and characters.” As a result, TV historians credit Tinker and MTM with stoking a “golden age” of television, delivering high-quality content in dozens of TV shows well into the 1980s – some stretching beyond the direct hand of MTM, crafted by writers who had worked there, influenced by the MTM method and style.

Along the way, MTM won more Emmy awards for its own shows than any other independent company — 80 in all, including 28 for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 21 for Hill Street Blues, and 16 for Lou Grant. In 1981, MTM productions accounted for two of the three winning scripts and four of the nine finalists for the Humanities Prizes, awarded yearly to the primetime television programs judged to “most fully communicate human values.”

September 30, 1974 People magazine with cover story: “Mary Tyler Moore: TV’s Newest Tycoon.” Click for copy.

Tinker headed up MTM until leaving the company in 1981, when he became chairman and chief executive of NBC. With Tinker’s departure from MTM, however, the fortunes of that studio turned down somewhat, not scoring the hits it had previously. Even before he left, there were troubles with new shows for Mary Tyler Moore – Mary, a variety show in 1978, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour in 1979, and the situation comedy, Mary in 1985, all of which fared less well than previous MTM products.

Still, revenues for MTM were $137.2 million in 1986 and $163.1 million in 1987, with after-tax profits for those years, respectively at, $30.6 million and $26.1 million. By then the company also owned some 17 production studios.

By August, 1987, MTM had announced plans to issue a public stock offering, with a proposed sale of about 4 million of its 18 million shares, roughly 22 percent. At the time, this offering valued the company at about $450 million (i.e., in the range of $25-to-$28 a share). However, following the stock market crash of October 1987, MTM withdrew its offering. But in 1988, MTM was sold to a small British television production firm called Television South (TVS) for about $325 million. Four years later, in late 1992, Television South was in turn acquired by Pat Robertson’s International Family Entertainment (IFE). And five years after that, in 1997, Robertson’s IFE, along with MTM, was sold to Fox Family Worldwide. MTM then ceased operation, with its library and assets folded into 20th Century Fox Television. So today, all of MTM’s shows are owned by 21st Century Fox under 20th Century Fox Television – a Rupert Murdoch company.

In 1988, at the first sale of MTM to TVS, Mary Tyler Moore, as one of company’s partners, gained an estimated $113 million in cash and stock. By 1993, Moore then in her third marriage to Dr. Robert Levine, was dividing her time between two homes: a 14-room duplex apartment in Manhattan overlooking Central Park and a 29-acre Tudor-style estate in upstate New York.

People magazine of October 30th 1995, touting exclusive excerpt from Mary Tyler Moore’s book, “After All.”

Mary Tyler Moore had a happy on-screen life for much of her career. Off screen, however, she had her share of personal trials and tragedies, much of which was revealed in her 1995 book, After All. In that book, she wrote about here life’s difficulties – two failed marriages, alcoholism, diabetes, adultery, her son’s accidental death, an attempted euthanasia of her brother, her sister’s drug overdose, and being stalked by an obsessed fan who was arrested in 1980.

Her marriage to Grant Tinker, her second, had begun to go bad in the mid -1970s, this while she was still doing The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And her son from her first marriage, Richie, then still in high school, was having drug problems. By the mid-1970s as well, she was also drifting into alcoholism, a problem for which she would later seek treatment at the Betty Ford Center in 1984.

“I took to making margaritas in the blender,” she would write in her book. “My recipe was a quarter of a blender of bottled mix, one quarter of ice, one half of tequila and shake it up, baby! It had the consistency of a milk shake and the effect of morphine.” Of her new found single life upon separating from Grant Tinker, she would write: “I had never experienced any of the situations around which The Mary Tyler Moore Show had been based—an independent woman carving out a career, finding her way in a strange city, making new friends, doing exactly what I wanted – alone! So what if I was now 43 years old. I rented a house on East 64th Street, where I could experiment with my impression of that hard-to-beat gal Mary Richards.” But a crushing blow came in October 1980 with the death of her son, Richie, shot accidentally when a “hair trigger” shotgun he was holding went off.

Moore has been diabetic for some 30 years – first diagnosed during The Mary Tyler Moore Show – and she became chairwoman of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, devoting a share of her time to fund-raising and education. In 2005, in her capacity with the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, she went to Capitol Hill to testify in support of expanding federal policy and increased funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Politics. Politically, during the 1960s and 1970s, Moore had been something of moderate liberal. In 1980, she endorsed President Jimmy Carter for re-election in a TV campaign ad (see video at left). And in 1988, she contributed more than $10,000 to Democratic candidates. By the 2000s, however, she had become more conservative. In a March 2009 Parade magazine article, Moore called herself a “libertarian centrist.” By then she was also lamenting the state of television, finding few shows of personal interest. “I do watch a lot of Fox News,” she told Parade. “I like Charles Krauthammer and Bill O’Reilly… If McCain [U.S. Senator John McCain, Republican Presidential candidate in 2008] had asked me to campaign for him, I would have.” On the 2013 PBS TV series, Pioneers of Television, Moore said that she was “recruited” to join the feminist movement of the 1970s by Gloria Steinem, but did not agree with all of Steinem’s views. Moore believed women have an important role in raising children and that she did not believe in Steinem’s view that “women owe it to themselves to have a career.”

"After All," paperback. Click for copy.

Civil War. Moore has also been active in Civil War preservation, influenced by her father’s interest in Civil War history. In 1995, she donated funds to acquire an historic building in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, to be used as a center for Civil War studies at Shepherd University. The Conrad Shindler House, which is named in honor of her great-great-great-grandfather, who owned the structure in the 1800s, is now the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War in affiliation with Shepherd University. The house was used as a Confederate headquarters during 1861–62 by General “Stonewall Jackson. Moore’s great-grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Tilghman Moore, was a commander in the Virginia infantry and offered Jackson the use of the home. Moore has also worked on behalf of animal rights issues, helping to raise awareness about the treatment of animals in agriculture and factory farms. She has also advocated the adoption of animals from shelters as opposed to killing them, and has worked with fellow actress Bernadette Peters to have New York City adopt a no-kill policy for its shelter animals.

Book Tour. In 1996, when Moore was doing a book tour for the paperback version of After All, she made a stop in Minneapolis, where The Mary Tyler Moore Show had been set. At a book signing at the Mall of America, an adoring crowd of about 5,000 people came out to see her, with cheers and calls of “we love you Mary”. State Rep. Bill Luther came to the book-signing to read Gov. Arne Carlson’s proclamation that the appointed day that Saturday was to be “Mary Tyler Moore Day” because of the positive recognition Moore brought to the state. A letter from then First Lady, Hillary Clinton, was also read at the book signing, which stated in part that Mary was a “pioneer for women in television. Her role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show was one of the first in which we recognized the positive influence a woman can have on her profession.”

TV Land Statue
2002: Mary Richards

Mary Richards statue at the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, MN, early 2000s, commemorating The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The statue of Mary Richards in Minneapolis came about as part of a series of statues honoring fictional TV stars, sponsored by the cable channel, TV Land, owned by media giant, Viacom, currently the world’s sixth largest broadcasting and cable company.

The first TV Land statue honoring a fictional TV star was that for Jackie Gleason’s bus driver character, Ralph Kramden, of the popular 1950s’ Honeymooners TV show (which TV Land was then running in syndication). The Kramden statue was placed outside New York City’s Port Authority Bus Station in midtown Manhattan in August 2000. The second statue in the series was the Mary Richards character from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The eight-foot Mary Richards statue was created by Milwaukee, Wisconsin sculptor Gwendolyn Gillen. Built and installed for a cost of $150,000. The statue was initially located in downtown Minneapolis in front of then Dayton’s department store (now Macy’s), near the corner of 7th Street and Nicollet Mall. It depicts the iconic moment in the show’s opening credits where Moore tosses her Tam o’ Shanter into the air.

But in early 2001, as the proposal for the Richards statue was presented to the community, it met with some disapproval. In late March 2001, Marisa Helms of Minnesota Public Radio did a story on the forthcoming statue and she found that not everyone in Minneapolis was excited about having a bronzed Mary Richards installed in their fair city. “Why is TV Land putting up this statue?,” asked Tim Connolly of Minneapolis-Issues.

TV Land promotional advertising for the May 2002 unveiling of the Mary Richards statue.

“Is it marketing?,” he asked. “If it’s marketing and the mayor is buying into it, then we are complicit in marketing the TV Land network.” Clay Steinman, a communication studies professor at Macalester College in St. Paul took another tack as the city was weighing the pros and cons of the statue: “It’s like honoring a unicorn,” Steinman said, alluding to the fictional nature of the character being represented. “It’s honoring something that doesn’t exist.” Yet for millions who watched the show religiously over its seven year run, Mary Richards was the next best thing to being real. So despite the difference of opinion in the city, the statue went forward.

On a Wednesday morning of May 8th, 2002 at 7:00 a.m., the official installation of the Mary Richards statue took place. Some advanced advertising of the ceremony had occurred in the local media and from TV Land promotional material. A crowd of about 3,000 came out on a chilly, 43 degree morning. On hand for the ceremony were: Larry W. Jones, the General Manager of the TV Land cable channel; Minneapolis mayor, Raymond Thomas “R.T.” Rybak; Lisa Goodman, a member of the Minneapolis city council; and Mary Tyler Moore.

At the May 2002 unveiling in Minneapolis, Mary Tyler Moore tosses her tam near the statue featuring the famous TV show opening. (Pioneer Press /Joe Rossi)

During the ceremony, councilwoman Lisa Goodman unveiled the eight-foot bronze statue as composer Sonny Curtis performed a special rendition of the series theme song, “Love is All Around.” A metal placard at the base of the statue reads: “Mary Tyler Moore – Who Can Turn The World On With A Smile? Presented by the people of TV Land.” Thereafter, the statue occupied its position at the Nicollet Mall for many years. At on point, there was a proposal to temporarily move the statue inside the IDS Center’s Crystal Court, a familiar location to fans of the 1970s sitcom. That move, however, never occurred.

In 2015, the Richards sculpture was removed, along with other public art along the mall, during the street’s $50 million renovation project. Moore’s statue now stands at the city’s visitor center pending the completion of mall renovations.

Steve Cramer, president of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said residents notice and miss the statue when it’s not in its usual spot at the Nicollet Mall. “It’s not a unilateral decision that can be made here,” he said of re-installing the TV Land statue. “We love it, the city loves it. It’s a popular destination, so we want it back.”

TV Land’s vice president of corporate communications, Jennifer Zaldivar-Clark, has stated that she expected the figure to be returned to its Nicollet Mall location once the project is completed in the summer of 2017.

Later Career

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour of 1979 featured Mary as a TV star putting on a variety show and ran briefly on CBS.

Following the success of her sitcoms in the 1960s and 1970s, Mary Tyler Moore tried to score again with new TV shows. And while she kept at it over the next two decades making several new shows, she could not again duplicate the TV magic that had worked so well for her in The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In 1978 there was Mary, a variety show which ran briefly on CBS and included supporting roles by then unknown actors David Letterman and Michael Keaton. In 1979, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour featured Mary portraying a TV star putting on a variety show which also ran briefly for a few months on CBS. Through the 1980s and 1990s there were a number of other TV shows and films, including the sitcom Mary (a second use of this title) in 1985-86, in which she played a 40-ish divorcée newspaper reporter working at a second rate tabloid, The Chicago Eagle. It ran for 13 episodes but was criticized as being a clone of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Some years later, in the fall of 1995, another CBS newsroom type show was tried – New York News, about a fictional tabloid newspaper in New York City with Moore playing a “dragon lady” style editor-in-chief riding herd on her news staff. That show was cancelled after low ratings.

November 13th,1980: Rolling Stone cover with tagline: “America’s Sweetheart Plays Rough in Ordinary People.”

Outside of the TV arena, there were a number of projects for Moore on Broadway and in feature films – including several stage plays through her own production company. In 1980 on Broadway, she won a Tony Award for her performance as a paralyzed sculptor in Whose Life Is It Anyway? That same year she received a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for Ordinary People, the Robert Redford-directed film in which she played the wife of Donald Sutherland and mother of two sons, the much-loved number one son killed in boating accident, and the surviving and less-loved troubled son, played by Timothy Hutton. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director. For Moore, it marked a notable statement of her dramatic acting abilities. Rolling Stone magazine put her on the cover of it November 13th, 1980 issue with the tagline, “Mary Tyler Moore: America’s Sweetheart Plays Rough in Ordinary People.” In 1985, as a producer through her stage company, Moore won a Tony Award for Best Reproduction of a Play for Joe Egg, about a British couple struggling to save their marriage while raising their only child, a small girl with cerebral palsy.

Back in the TV arena, in Finnegan Begin Again of 1985, she played a middle-aged widow who finds love. In the 1988 TV miniseries, Lincoln, she played Mary Todd Lincoln, the president’s troubled wife. In 1993 she won a Emmy for her role as best supporting actress in the TV film, Stolen Babies, a 1940s story about a Tennessee welfare worker played by Lea Thompson who learns that Moore’s character, Georgia Tann, a much respected head of a local adoption agency, is actually running a black-market baby ring.

2003: Mary Tyler Moore in TV film as elderly recluse who helps raise an abandoned baby.

Still, try as she might, the Mary Richards legacy never really faded for Moore. In 2000, she and Valerie Harper reprised their sit-com characters – though now in older life circumstances set in New York city – in a two-hour ABC-TV movie, Mary and Rhoda. But Moore also continued to take on other dramatic roles, as in the 2003 TV film, Blessings, in which she played an 82 year-old reclusive heiress who, with Liam Waitem playing her live-in handyman, care for an abandoned baby.

Mary Tyler Moore Show retrospectives and reunions also figured into Moore’s later TV career. In February 1991, CBS aired Mary Tyler Moore: The 20th Anniversary Show, which was a huge Nielsen ratings winner, receiving a 17.4 rating (16.2 million households). Another reunion show followed in 2002. Then in May 2008, the surviving cast members of The Mary Tyler Moore Show reunited on The Oprah Winfrey Show to reminisce about the series. Winfrey, a longtime admirer of Moore and the show, had her staff recreate the sets of the WJM-TV newsroom and Mary’s apartment for the reunion. In April 2009 Moore published her second memoir, Growing Up Again, which focused her living with type 1 diabetes. In May 2011, she underwent elective surgery to remove a benign brain tumor.

On the occasion of her 2012 SAG Lifetime Achievement Award, TV Guide took a look back at her career.

In January 2012, Mary Tyler Moore was honored with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Lifetime Achievement Award. The week of the award, TV Guide.com featured her in a full page spread, with Mary commenting on some of her favorite TV Guide covers, of which there were 27 during her career. The SAG award provided an opportunity to sum up her career achievements: an Oscar nomination for Ordinary People; a Tony for Whose Life is It Anyway?; six Emmys for her TV work on the The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show; three Golden Globes; induction into the Television Hall of Fame; and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In September 2013, the women of The Mary Tyler Moore Show – Cloris Leachman, Valerie Harper, Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White, and Georgia Engel – were reunited on the TV Land sitcom, Hot In Cleveland. It was the first time in more than 30 years they had all been together. And in October 2015, PBS aired Mary Tyler Moore: A Celebration, featuring a retrospective of Moore’s career with laudatory comment throughout by a number of her former colleagues. Carl Reiner said she was “the Grace Kelly of comedians.” Others during the show described her as the “whole package” – the girl next store, a looker, a dancer, and a natural on stage. Dick Van Dyke noted she simply “got it” when it came to the providing the needed line or reaction in a comedic moment. And legend Lucille Ball, who once quietly watched Moore perform from a nearby soundstage, later told her, “you know, you’re really very good.” Still, some reviewers of the Moore PBS special found it a bit too hagiographic, looking for a fuller treatment of her life and career. No doubt, such works will come. Yet without question, Mary Tyler Moore helped change the direction of American television for the better, leaving a lasting impression on millions of television viewers.

See also at this website, “Noteworthy Ladies,” a topics page that includes links to 40 stories on other famous and notable women, including others who have worked in television such as, Lucille Ball, Dinah Shore, and Barbra Streisand. See also the “TV & Culture” page for additional stories in that category. Thanks for visiting – and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Thank you. – Jack Doyle

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Date Posted: 30 January 2016
Last Update: 4 January 2025
Comments to: jackdoyle47@gmail.com

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Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Mary Tyler Moore: 1950s-2010s,”
PopHistoryDig.com, January 30, 2016.

____________________________________

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Josef Adalian, “John Amos on Mary Tyler Moore, Racism on Set, and Playing the First Black Family Man,” Vulture.com, October 13, 2015.

Susan McLeland, “Grant Tinker, U.S. Producer/Media Executive,” Museum.TV.

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