Clifton Fadiman

Born in Brooklyn,{{cite web

| url = http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078748/

| title = Clifton Fadiman papers, 1966–1970

| publisher = Columbia University

| access-date = October 13, 2012

| archive-date = June 26, 2010

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100626125211/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078748/

| url-status = dead

}} New York, Fadiman was a nephew of the émigré Ukrainian psychologist Boris Sidis and a first cousin of the child prodigy William James Sidis.[http://www.quantonics.com/The_Prodigy_Review.html "My perspective of Amy Wallace's The Prodigy (1986)"]. Doug Renselle. September 1–16, 1998. Fadiman grew up in Brooklyn. His mother worked as a nurse; his father, Isadore, immigrated from Russian empire in 1892 and worked as a druggist.One of "Kip's" older brothers, Edwin, taught him how to read. Edwin later married Celeste Frankel and became the brother-in-law to Margaret Lefranc (Frankel), who was a future recipient of the Governor's Award for Painting.

{{cite web

| last = Cross

| first = Timothy P.

| title = Clifton Fadiman '25: An Erudite Guide to the Wisdom of Others

| publisher = Columbia University

| date = September 1999

| access-date = October 13, 2012

| url = http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/sep99/40a.html}}

Fadiman attended Columbia College at Columbia University. One of his teachers was lifelong friend Mark Van Doren; his undergraduate contemporaries included Jacques Barzun, Mortimer Adler, Lionel Trilling, Herbert Solow, Arthur F. Burns, Frank S. Hogan, Louis Zukofsky, and Whittaker Chambers. Although he entered with the Class of 1924, his graduation was delayed until 1925 because of financial constraints. Chambers clearly includes Fadiman in a group of ernste Menschen ["serious people"], whose ability to attend Columbia he attributes to "a struggle with a warping poverty impossible for those who have not glimpsed it to imagine it."

{{Cite book

| last = Chambers

| first = Whittaker

| editor = Duncan Norton-Taylor

| editor-link = Duncan Norton-Taylor

| title = Cold Friday

| publisher = Random House

| year = 1964

| location = New York

| pages = 125

| isbn =978-0-394-41969-5| lccn = 64020025

}} He graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Fadiman had ambitions to become a scholar, but at graduation, the chairman of the English Department told him, "We have room for only one Jew, and we have chosen Mr. Trilling."Carolyn Heilbrun. When Men were the Only Models we Had. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, p. 29.

After graduation from Columbia, Fadiman taught English at the Ethical Culture High School (now known as the "Fieldston School") in the Bronx from 1925 to 1927.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Fadiman worked for Simon & Schuster, ending as its chief editor. At his interview with Max Schuster (a fellow alumnus of Columbia), Fadiman pulled out a folder with a hundred ideas for books. Among Fadiman's original one hundred was to turn Robert Ripley's newspaper cartoon, Believe it or Not! into book form. The series has gone on to sell over 30 million copies.{{Cite book|title=The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors and Authors|last=Silverman|first=Al|publisher=Truman Talley|year=2008|isbn=9780312350031}} While at Simon & Schuster, he started the translation career of Whittaker Chambers by having him translate Bambi from German:

My college friend, Clifton Fadiman, was then [circa 1927–1928] a reader at Simon and Schuster, the New York book publishers. He offered to let me try my hand at translating a little German book. It was about a deer named Bambi and was written by an Austrian, of whom I had never heard, named Felix Salten ... Bambi was an instant success, and I suddenly found myself an established translator.

{{Cite book

| last = Chambers

| first = Whittaker

| title = Witness

| url = https://archive.org/details/witnesscham00cham

| url-access = registration

| publisher = Random House

| year = 1952

| location = New York

| pages = [https://archive.org/details/witnesscham00cham/page/56 56], 239

| isbn =978-0-89526-789-4| lccn = 52005149}}

While still at the New Yorker, Fadiman became well known on radio, where he hosted a well known and popular quiz show, Information, Please! from May 1938 to June 1948. A regular trio of pundits, Franklin P. Adams, John Kieran and Oscar Levant, plus one guest expert, conducted each session with erudite charm and good-natured wordplay under Fadiman's nimble control. (Guest John Gunther's mention of the then-current Iranian potentate prompted Fadiman to ask, "Are you shah of that?", to which Gunther quipped, "Why, sultanly!") Fadiman also made frequent appearances on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts from 1949 to 1960. During the intermission segments he would discuss the opera being broadcast and interview famous opera singers.

File:Sam Levenson, Jack Benny, George S. Kaufman, and Clifton Fadiman, 1952.jpg, Jack Benny and George S. Kaufman (1952)]]

In 1952, Information Please! was briefly revived for CBS Television as a 13-week summer replacement for the musical variety program The Fred Waring Show. During that June–September period, devoted fans of the departed radio program could finally not only hear, but also see Fadiman, Adams, and Kieran in action.

His longest-lasting TV program was This Is Show Business, which ran on CBS from July 15, 1949, to March 9, 1954. Called This Is Broadway during the first four months of its run, the show mixed song, dance, and other musical entertainment, with information. Host Fadiman, celebrity guest panelists, and regular raconteurs/intellectuals Kaufman, Abe Burrows, and Sam Levenson commented on the musical performers and chatted with them. In late September 1951, This Is Show Business became the first regular CBS Television series to be broadcast live from coast-to-coast. The continuing need in 1950s TV for summer series to replace live variety shows likewise brought this show back in 1956 for a 12-week period (June 26 – September 11). Fadiman and Burrows returned along with new panelists Walter Slezak and actress Jacqueline Susann, the future author of Valley of the Dolls. Susann's husband, TV executive Irving Mansfield, produced the 1956 revival for NBC television.

Fadiman was also the last master of ceremonies to host the ABC-TV game show The Name's the Same. After the departure of original host Robert Q. Lewis, who had presided for three years, producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman hired different hosts for the final 39-episode cycle: Dennis James for 18 weeks, then Bob and Ray for 10 weeks, and then Fadiman for the remaining 11 weeks. The series, broadcast live, featured namesakes of celebrities and other "famous names". On August 16, 1955, when a woman contestant was discovered to be "Hope Diamond", Fadiman personally orchestrated an astounding surprise: he arranged for the real {{convert|45|carat|g}} Hope Diamond to be displayed to the amazed panelists and the national television audience. A low point for Fadiman was on the same episode, when he insulted Chico Marx and asked "Are you working, or are you still living on Groucho's money?", leaving Chico humiliated.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUMRk2RI8-g]

Fadiman filled in for What's My Line? host John Charles Daly for two weeks in 1958 when Daly was on assignment in Tokyo.

File:Clifton-Fadiman.jpg

Fadiman's witticisms and sayings were frequently printed in newspapers and magazines. "When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before, you see more in you than there was before", was one of the better known. Of Stendhal, Fadiman wrote, "He has no grace, little charm, less humor ... [and] is not really a good storyteller".

With the advent of TV, Fadiman gained in popularity, quickly establishing himself as an all-purpose, highly knowledgeable guest and host. At ease in front of the TV camera and experienced from his years in radio, he frequently appeared on talk shows and hosted a number of upscale quiz programs.

Fadiman became a prime example of the "witty intellectual" type popular on television in the 1950s. John Charles Daly, Bennett Cerf, George S. Kaufman, Alexander King, and a number of other television celebrities personified, along with Fadiman, the highly educated, elegant, patrician raconteurs and pundits regarded by TV executives of that era as appealing to the upper-class owners of expensive early TV sets.

Fadiman received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.

[http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters.html "Distinguished Contribution to American Letters"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-12. (With acceptance speech by Fadiman and introduction by Al Silverman.)

He received the Clarence Day Award from the American Library Association in 1969.“ALA Award Winners--1969.” ALA Bulletin 63, no. 8 (1969): 1169–76.

Fadiman's first marriage was in 1927 to Pauline Elizabeth Rush, with whom he had a son, Jonathan Rush. They divorced in 1949. His second marriage was in 1950 to Annalee Jacoby, aka Annalee Fadiman, an author, screenwriter for MGM and World War II foreign correspondent for Time and Life. As a widow, she later used the name Annalee Jacoby Fadiman.

{{cite news

| title = Clifton Fadiman to Wed; Gets License With Mrs. Jacoby, Widow of War Correspondent

| newspaper = New York Times

| date = February 8, 1950

| access-date = October 13, 2012

| url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40E16F83C5A1A7B93CAA91789D85F448585F9}} She co-wrote Thunder Out of China with Theodore H. White (1946). Clifton and Annalee had a son, Kim Fadiman, and a daughter, writer Anne Fadiman. On February 5, 2002, Annalee committed suicide in Captiva, Florida, aged 85, after a long battle with breast cancer and Parkinson's disease.{{cite magazine| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1001850,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070312044858/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1001850,00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=March 12, 2007 | magazine=Time | title=Milestones | date=February 18, 2002}} Fadiman lost his eyesight when he was in his early 90s but continued to review manuscripts for the Book of the Month Club by listening to tapes of books recorded by his son Kim, after which Fadiman would dictate his impressions to his secretary.

Fadiman died at the age of 95 of pancreatic cancer on June 20, 1999, in Sanibel, Florida; he lived on nearby Captiva Island. In the year of his death, a fourth edition of Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan was published as The New Lifetime Reading Plan.{{cite magazine |url=https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/summer/feature/clifton-fadiman-didn%E2%80%99t-mind-being-called-schoolmasterish |last=Heitman |first=Danny |title=Clifton Fadiman Didn't Mind Being Called Schoolmasterish |magazine=Humanities |date=Summer 2017 |volume=38 |issue=3 |publisher=National Endowment for the Humanities |access-date=16 March 2022}} In its obituary, The New York Times called Fadiman an "essayist, critic, editor and indefatigable anthologist whose encyclopedic knowledge made him a mainstay of Information Please and other popular radio programs in the late 1930s, 40s and 50s" and noted that he "also helped establish the Book-of-the-Month Club and served on its editorial board for more than 50 years."

{{cite news

| last = Severo

| first = Richard

| title = Clifton Fadiman, a Wordsmith Known for His Encyclopedic Knowledge, Is Dead at 95

| newspaper = New York Times

| date = June 21, 1999

| access-date = October 13, 2012

| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/21/arts/clifton-fadiman-a-wordsmith-known-for-his-encyclopedic-knowledge-is-dead-at-95.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm}}

The catalog of the Library of Congress has more than 90 works associated with Fadiman's name.

{{cite web

| title = Online Catalog

| publisher = Library of Congress

| url = http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?PostSearchSortBy1=PUB_DATE&HID=11879315&HID=9527191&HID=8323782&HID=13551281&HID=1651810&HID=12336411&HID=12012618&HID=4364095&HID=12482238&HID=14256590&HID=10463977&HID=499613&HID=1039133&HID=3068925&HID=4205844&HID=10318806&HID=11864497&HID=9380407&HID=5676416&HID=2034482&HID=12654905&HID=4752092&HID=2123931&HID=4259636&HID=2070210&HID=3873095&HID=4363028&HID=8097250&HID=6249165&HID=4078518&HID=275357&HID=7151479&HID=8417328&HID=8417579&HID=12046374&HID=2679183&HID=7892533&HID=14198754&HID=6552666&HID=7456367&HID=10279132&HID=7195314&HID=5808473&HID=8320064&HID=789148&HID=7034314&HID=4087840&HID=4646690&HID=9843544&HID=1693597&HID=1696318&HID=7027658&HID=8444580&HID=9260243&HID=8607333&HID=9718026&HID=2678319&HID=3584363&HID=1007299&HID=1775631&HID=10312351&HID=578932&HID=1179178&HID=6987810&HID=2693919&HID=7852985&HID=6717206&HID=5654273&HID=10305303&HID=9732902&HID=4455610&HID=8418447&HID=2350128&HID=9389613&HID=5791570&HID=346344&HID=9233134&HID=10429801&HID=7884248&HID=5996758&HID=6662090&HID=1218497&HID=3020627&HID=9961280&HID=13930172&HID=10429800&HID=4063064&HID=7800591&HID=274567&HID=5630540&HID=12453762&HID=5577949&HID=7802231&HID=9715941&HID=5577950&Search_Arg=fadiman%2C+clifton&Search_Code=NAME%40&ti=1%2C0&CNT=100&PID=n7gPDWqyp19RpINmPvvw06RGJF&SEQ=20121013110716&REC=0&RD=0&RC=0&MAILADDY=&EMAILADDRESS=None&LIMITBUTTON=0

| access-date = October 13, 2012}}

• [http://lccn.loc.gov/27024004 Bloody poet; a novel about Nero], by Desider Kostolanyi, with a prefatory letter by Thomas Mann (1927)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/37027408 Ecce homo]: and The Birth of Tragedy / by Friedrich Nietzsche (1927)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/27022491 Man who conquered death], by Franz Werfel (1927)

• [http://lccn.loc.gov/unk82046907 I Believe; the Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time] (1939)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/42020827 Books Are Weapons in the War of Ideas] (1942)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/55005284 Party of One] (1955)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/57009282 Any Number Can Play] (1957)
• Fantasia Mathematica (1958, ed.)
• Lifetime Reading Plan (1960)
• The Mathematical Magpie (1962, ed.)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/62009053 Enter, Conversing] (1962)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/63011142 Party of Twenty; Informal Essays from Holiday Magazine], Edited and with an introd. by Clifton Fadiman (1963)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/74014907 The Joys of Wine] with Sam Aaron (1975)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/79052662 Empty Pages]: A Search for Writing Competence in School and Society by Clifton Fadiman and James Howard; editor, Suzanne Lipset; cover design, William Nagel Graphic Design (1979?)

• [http://lccn.loc.gov/59006147 The Voyage of Ulysses] (1959)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/60010565 The Adventures of Hercules] (1960)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/61015124 Fireside Reader; an Assortment of Stories, Nonfiction, and Verses Chosen Especially for Reading Aloud] (1961)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/61007052 The Story of Young King Arthur] (1961)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/64011760 Wally the Wordworm] (1964)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/67026003 A Visit from St. Nicholas]: Facsimiles of the earliest printed newspaper and pamphlet versions and a holograph manuscript with a commentary by Clifton Fadiman (1967)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/84014343 The World Treasury of Children's Literature], selected and with commentary by Clifton Fadiman; with additional illustrations by Leslie Morril, in three volumes (1984)

• [http://lccn.loc.gov/35011910 Voice of the City and Other Stories] by O. Henry; a selection, with an introduction by Clifton Fadiman, with illustrations by George Grosz (1935)
• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton; with water-colour drawings by Henry Varnum Poor and an introduction by Clifton Fadiman (1939, {{LCCN|39004553}})
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/41051921 Reading I've Liked; a Personal Selection Drawn from Two Decades of Reading and Reviewing], presented with an informal prologue and various commentaries by Clifton Fadiman (1941)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/43011333 The Three Readers; an Omnibus of Novels, Stories, Essays & Poems Selected With Comments by the Editorial Committee of the Readers Club] (1943)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/42036201 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy], translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude with a foreword by Clifton Fadiman Simon and Schuster (1942)
• Short Stories of Henry James, selected and edited, with an introduction by Clifton Fadiman (1945, {{LCCN|45009328}})
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/72013283 Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce], with an introduction by Clifton Fadiman (1946)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/49050081 Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club], Including Three Little-Remembered Chapters from Master Humphrey's Clock in Which Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller & Other Pickwickians Reappear, Edited, with an introd. by Clifton Fadiman. Illustrated by Frederick E. Banber (1949)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/55008019 The American Treasury, 1455–1955] (1955, ed.)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/62019244 Dionysus; a Case of Vintage Tales About Wine. Collected & Edited With an Introduction by Clifton Fadiman] (1962)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/63002357 Five American Adventures] (1963)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/65011119 Fifty Years; Being a Retrospective Collection of Novels, Novellas, Tales, Drama, Poetry, and Reportage and Essays] (1965)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/73029443 Ecocide—and Thoughts Toward Survival] with Jean White (1971)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/75315867 The People and Places Book] (1974)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/85045408 The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes], Clifton Fadiman, general editor (1985?)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/85027292 The World of the Short Story: A 20th Century Collection] selected and edited by Clifton Fadiman (1986)
• Great Books of the Western World, Mortimer J. Adler, editor in chief; Clifton Fadiman, Philip W. Goetz, associate editors (1990)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/89078165 Living Philosophies: The Reflections of Some Eminent Men and Women of Our Time], edited by Clifton Fadiman (1990)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/89037290 The World Treasury of Modern Religious Thought], edited by Jaroslav Pelikan; with a foreword by Clifton Fadiman, general editor (1990)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/90045693 The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics], edited by Timothy Ferris; with a foreword by Clifton Fadiman, general editor (1991)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/92054069 Treasury of the Encyclopædia Britannica] (1992, ed.)
• Foreword in Famous Last Words
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/97010879 World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time], Katharine Washburn and John S. Major, editors; Clifton Fadiman, general editor (1998)

The Library of Congress has many recordings of Fadiman, which include:

• [http://lccn.loc.gov/r63000750 Prose and Poetry of England]; Louis Untermeyer, editorial consultant; Clifton Fadiman, narrator (1964)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/92764956 The Snob and Name-Dropping] (197?)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/73762765 They Don't Flush Toilets in Oedipus Rex] (1973)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/75750416 Center Conversations: Clifton Fadiman Talks With Harvey Wheeler] at Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (1975)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/79740690 Battle of the Sexes] (1975?)
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/79740702 The Legacy of Inventions] (1975?)

{{Reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last1=Fadiman |first1=Anne |author-link1=Anne Fadiman |title=The Wine Lover's Daughter: A Memoir |date=2017 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fJCvDgAAQBAJ|isbn=9780374711764 }}

{{wikiquote}}

• {{IMDb name|id=0264935|name=Clifton Fadiman}}
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/mm81020156 Library of Congress] – Papers of Fadiman, Clifton, 1904–1999
• [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078748/ Columbia University] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100626125211/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078748/ |date=June 26, 2010 }} – Clifton Fadiman papers, 1966–1970
• [http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtfad3.html Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20061213143403/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/sep99/40a.html Clifton Fadiman obituary]

{{s-start}}

{{succession box | title=Host of The Name's the Same| before=Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding | after=series cancelled | years=June 28 - October 7, 1955}}

{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fadiman, Clifton}}

Category:1904 births

Category:1999 deaths

Category:American book editors

Category:American literary critics

Category:American humorists

Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent

Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni

Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Florida

Category:Radio personalities from Brooklyn

Category:Television personalities from Brooklyn

Category:American game show hosts

Category:Jewish American journalists

Category:American magazine editors

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:Mathematics popularizers

Category:Journalists from New York City

Category:20th-century American Jews