Jean Parker Shepherd

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Jean Parker Shepherd junior (born July 26, 1921 in Chicago , USA ; † October 16, 1999 in Sanibel Island , USA) was an American storyteller, author, presenter and disc jockey , who was known for his humorous considerations of American society 1940s and 1950s is known. Many of his short stories have autobiographical traits. Shepherd's stories were partly filmed or used for radio broadcasts.

Life

Shepherd was born in Chicago, the elder of two sons, and grew up in Hammond, Indiana . After leaving school, he worked in the Hammond steel mills. As a teenager he read and commented on local sports results on the radio. Shepherd began studying engineering at Indiana University Bloomington . During World War II , he served as a communications technician in the US Army.

Shepherd was married three times. The first marriage (divorced in 1957) with Joan Laverne Warner resulted in a son and a daughter. His relationship with the children is described as "alienated". In 1961 he married the actress Lois Nettleton , from whom he separated six years later. His third wife, Leigh Brown, was both its producer and agent. She died in 1998. Shepherd's body was cremated and the ashes scattered in the Atlantic.

Career

After the war, Shepherd worked as a presenter for various radio stations. In 1960 he became a permanent presenter of the radio station WOR (AM) in New York City . He read short stories and anecdotes from his youth as well as self-written silly songs, accompanied played records in a parodic manner with the kazoo , the nasal flute and his singing, and he also moderated live music broadcasts from The Limelight in New York. He was known for his pronounced Midwest tone, his casual language and his free moderation without script or template. With increasing popularity he received his own radio show on WOR, which he hosted from around 1955 to 1977. In addition, he was a spokesman for characters from " Sesame Street ." In 1955, on his popular nightly radio show "The Night People", he asked his listeners to ask in bookstores about the book he had invented, " I, Libertine ", for which he also wrote had invented a framework story. This led to the fact that due to the surprising demand, the non-existent book appeared on bestseller lists and was finally actually written and published.

Shepherd's stories have appeared in magazines such as Playboy , Town and Country, and The Village Voice .

The films Das Gespenst im Hochofen (1976, orig .: The Phantom Of The Open Hearth ), Merry Christmas (1983, orig .: A Christmas Story ), Beware of Neighbors (1994, orig .: It Runs in the Family , alternative title: My Summer Story ), A Christmas Story 2 (2012) and other short films less known in Europe, all of which depict absurd situations from the everyday life of American petty bourgeoisie .

Books

reception

Marshall McLuhan described Shepherd's radio show as "a new medium for a new type of novel that he writes every night." Shepherd had a large following, but received hundreds of angry letters, often several a day. He was assaulted three times. The American comedian Jerry Seinfeld , according to his own account, was shaped by Shepherd's method of "taking something small and making it big." Seinfeld's third son is named Shepherd.

"Jean Shepherd, with stories real and made up, with opinions that were cutting and singular, and with talent that transcended the medium that spawned him, was simply singular.
Jean Shpeherd was simply one of a kind, with true and fictional stories, with biting and unique opinions, and with a talent that went well beyond the medium that produced him. "

"He would talk about whatever came to mind, and those tales often celebrated the hopelessness and haplessness of the human race and the total absurdity of life on Earth.
He talked about everything that came to his mind, and often these stories celebrated the hopelessness and unhappiness of the human race and the total absurdity of earthly life. "

Donald Fagen stated in 2008 that he was a regular listener to Shepherd's nightly radio broadcasts in his youth.

Honors

In 2005, Shepherd was posthumously inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame . A sports and cultural center bears his name in his hometown of Hammond.

Trivia

Various characters appear constantly in Shepherd's stories, especially Charlie Parker, who is allegedly Shepherd himself, "the old man" (Charlie's or Shepherd's father), the presumably real friends Flick and Schwartz. The fictional city "Hohman" (cf. Shepherd's hometown Hammond) is usually mentioned as the location of the action.

literature

  • Eugene B. Bergmann, "Excelsior, You Fathead!" (Biography), Hal Leonard Corporation, 2004, ISBN 9781476848815

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Name Authority File , Library of Congress , accessed March 20, 2016
  2. ↑ a b c d e Bill Kelley: Jean Shepard`s Great Escape. Sun Sentinel, April 7, 1985, accessed March 21, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Anthony Ramirez: Jean Shepherd, a Raconteur And a Wit of Radio, Is Dead. The New York Times , October 18, 1999, accessed March 21, 2016 .
  4. ^ Shepherd's profile on Find A Grave
  5. ↑ http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Jean_Shepherd
  6. ↑ a b Jean Shepherd; Radio humorist, author. In: Los Angeles Times . November 17, 1999, accessed December 1, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Jonah Weiner: Jerry Seinfeld Intends to Die Standing Up. In: The New York Times . December 20, 2012, accessed November 30, 2017 .
  8. ↑ John Smyntek: Details bog down bio of author Shepherd. In: Chicago Tribune . May 25, 2005, accessed December 1, 2017
  9. ↑ Donald Fagan: The Man Who Told A Christmas Story. In: Slate . December 2008, accessed November 30, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Shepherd's page in the Radio Hall Of Fame
  11. ^ Jean Shepherd Community Center on the Hammond home page
  12. ↑ Shepherd's biography on IMDb
  13. ↑ Chris Heller: The Largely Forgotten, Cynical Genius Behind A Christmas Story. The Atlantic , December 24, 2013, accessed March 21, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Shepherd, Jean Parker
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shepherd, Jean Parker junior (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American storyteller, author, presenter and disc jockey
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , USA
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1999
Place of death Sanibel Island , USA