Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber (August 15 1885 - April 16 1968), Jewish-American , author, and playwrite.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Edna Ferber was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan (in 1885, not 1887, as sometimes stated), to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Jacob Charles and Julia (Neumann) Ferber. She would become a leading female American author who wrote a number of successful books, as well as plays.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After living in Chicago, Illinois and Ottumwa, Iowa, at age 12, Ferber and her family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school and briefly attended Lawrence University. She took jobs at the Appleton Daily Crescent and the Milwaukee Journal before publishing her first novel. She covered the 1920 Republican and Democratic national conventions for the United Press Association.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Her novels generally featured a strong female as the protagonist, although she fleshed out multiple characters in each book. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination ethnically or for other reasons; this enabled her to show that people are people, and that often the non-pretty have the best character.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Due to her imagination in scene, characterization, and plot, several movies have been made based on her works: Show Boat (a musical featuring Paul Robeson's marvelous rendition of "Old Man River"), Giant (starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean), Saratoga Trunk, Cimarron (which won an Oscar), and the 1960 remake.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In 1925, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her book So Big, which was made into an early talkie movie in 1932, starring Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent. It was the only movie Stanwyck and Davis ever appeared in together, and Stanwyck played Davis' mother-in-law, although only a year older in real life, which allegedly displeased her, as did the attitude of the hoydenish Davis.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of wits who met for lunch every day at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Edna Ferber died on April 16 1968, at her home in New York City, of cancer, at the age of 82. The New York Times said, "she was among the best-read novelists in the nation, and critics of the 1920s and 1930s did not hesitate to call her the greatest American woman novelist of her day."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

August 15: August 15 is the 227th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (228th in leap years), with 138 days remaining....

1885: 1885 is a common year starting on Thursday....

1968: 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar)....

Edna Ferber related Images and Photos (experimental)

Dame Edna Everage	Edna Turnblad - Hairspray Cutout	Incredibles Edna Paper Giclee Print	Edna Best and Ronald Colman: The Late George Apley 1947
The Last Gentleman Edna May Oliver George Arliss 1934	Little Miss Broadway Edna May Oliver Shirley Temple Jimmy Durante 1938