Alfred Bennett Cerf

Background

Bennett Alfred Cerf was born on May 25, 1898 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the only child of Gustave Cerf, a lithographer and elocution teacher, and Frederika Wise. When Cerf was fifteen, his mother died, leaving him $125, 000 that had been placed in trust for Cerf by his maternal grandfather. His uncle Herbert Wise moved into the Cerf home; Cerf would later call him "the greatest influence on my young life. "

Education

Cerf attended Public School 10, where one of his friends was the future playwright Howard Dietz. After attending Townsend Harris High School and Packard Commercial School (while working part-time for an accountant), Cerf entered Columbia University's School of Journalism (then an undergraduate program), in 1915. In his freshman year, he wrote a column, "The Stroller, " for the Daily Spectator, the student newspaper. In his sophomore year, he was editor in chief of The Jester, the student humor magazine, to which he added a book-review column.

Career

During World War I, Cerf served in the army at Camp Lee, returning to Columbia after the war. At Columbia, Cerf's Pi Lambda Phi fraternity brothers included Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Cerf acknowledged the influence of professors Raymond Weaver and Benjamin Kendrick, and a number of years later published a mystery by another professor, Harrison Steeves, titled Good Night, Sheriff (1941). Cerf received a B. A. from Columbia College (1919) and a B. Litt. from the School of Journalism (1920). Cerf then joined the Wall Street brokerage firm of Sartorius, Smith and Lowei and at the same time was hired by Merryle Stanley Rukeyser to write a column called "Advice to Investors" for the New York Tribune. But Cerf was soon fired for telling a reader she would be insane to invest in a bankrupt company (which threatened to sue the newspaper). He continued to work at the brokerage house but did not always find the work interesting. In 1923, Richard L. Simon, a Columbia classmate of Cerf's who was leaving Boni and Liveright to start his own publishing company with Max Schuster, recommended that Cerf replace him. Agreeing to Horace Liveright's request for a loan of $25, 000, Cerf entered publishing as a vice-president. Two years later, Cerf and his closest friend, Donald S. Klopfer, bought the Modern Library from Liveright for $165, 000 (in addition to the $50, 000 Cerf had already loaned Boni and Liveright). The Modern Library, with 109 titles in 1925, published inexpensive editions of classics, including American authors (which Everyman's Library, on which it was modeled, did not have). Cerf and Klopfer, equal partners, expanded the Modern Library from their office at 73 West Forty-fifth Street, with Cerf handling editorial matters and Klopfer dealing with business and production issues. They complemented each other in many ways, including personality. Cerf was exuberant; Klopfer, calm and sympathetic. Cerf recalled that when employees had personal problems, they went to Klopfer. The partners shared one secretary, first Pauline Kreiswirth and then Mary Barber. Modern Library Books, redesigned by Elmer Adler (who replaced the imitation-leather binding), Lucien Bernhardt (who drew a new colophon), and Rockwell Kent (who did the endpapers), sold for ninety-five cents. The college market was especially lucrative because there were no paperbacks at that time. Cerf was also interested in fine press books, and in 1927 he became the American agent for Francis Meynell's Nonesuch Press, based in England. The partners also wanted to publish their own books. While talking to Klopfer and Kent, Cerf said, "I've got the name for our publishing house. We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random. Let's call it Random House. " Rockwell Kent drew the colophon. In 1928, a magnificent edition of Voltaire's Candide was the first book published by Random House. The stock market crash of 1929 destroyed the market for luxury editions, so Random House concentrated on trade publishing. The inexpensive Modern Library books helped the firm, now at 20 East Fifth-seventh Street, get through the Great Depression profitably. In 1933, Eugene O'Neill--who had known Cerf when Liveright had been his publisher--and Robinson Jeffers came to Random House. Cerf remembered, "One of the conditions made by Eugene O'Neill was that I give a job to his old friend Saxe Commins. " Richard Simon recalled, "Cerf considers O'Neill's insistence on the job for Commins as the luckiest break in the life of Random House. " Commins's editorial judgment and fierce dedication to his authors played a large part in the success of Random House. In 1933, a censorship case gave Random House enormous publicity and greatly enhanced its prestige in the literary world. James Joyce's Ulysses had not been permitted into the United States on the ground that it was obscene. Cerf asked Morris Ernst to handle the case, offering him a royalty on Ulysses if he won. Federal Judge John M. Woolsey, who had been a founder of the Columbia Law Review and an editor of Revue de droit maritime compare, ruled that Ulysses was not obscene in a decision of December 6, 1933, that was also a favorable book review: "Ulysses is an amazing tour de force when one considers the success which has been in the main achieved with such a difficult objective as Joyce set for himself. " Cerf published Judge Woolsey's decision as an introduction to Ulysses (1934). Also included in the book was a letter of April 2, 1932, from James Joyce to Cerf: "I wish you all possible success in your courageous venture both as regards the legislation of Ulysses as well as its publication. " Random House also published Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, W. H. Auden, and Stephen Spender. Cerf called publishing plays his "secret love, " even though they rarely made any money. The exception was Eugene O'Neill, whose plays became best-sellers. Cerf also published plays by his friends George Kaufman and Moss Hart. In 1936, Haas and Smith merged with Random House. Harrison Smith was soon bought out; and Cerf, Klopfer, and Robert Haas each owned one-third of the company (until 1956, when Haas sold his stock to his partners). With Haas came William Faulkner, Robert Graves, Edgar Snow, Isak Dinesen, and Andre Malraux. Smith and Haas had also published Jean de Brunhoff's Babar the Elephant, which Haas's wife, Merele Haas, had translated from the French. Haas's secretary, Louise Bonino, was an excellent editor of juvenile books who later headed that department at Random House. Cerf was proud of publishing The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1938), but the five-volume set had disappointing sales. Cerf recalled, "a lot of booksellers hated Roosevelt, too, and wouldn't order any copies. " The president, Cerf noted, "was a rich man, but he took his full royalty. But I don't regret our loss on our venture one bit. I had a couple of weekends at Hyde Park with F. D. R. and one at the White House. " The following year, senior editor Harry Maule came to Random House, bringing with him Sinclair Lewis, Vincent Sheean, Mignon Eberhart, and William McFee. In 1940, Cerf edited the Allied Relief Ball souvenir program, which included articles by Thomas Mann, Klaus Mann, and Somerset Maugham, poems by W. H. Auden and Duff Cooper, and a drawing by Jean Cocteau. Cerf's partner Donald Klopfer joined the U. S. Air Force in 1942, and Cerf had to take on more publishing assignments. During World War II, Random House published war books by Quentin Reynolds, William L. Shirer, Robert Considine, and John Gunther. In 1943, Ray Freiman became production manager and art director, raising the already high standards. During the war, Random House was building a brilliant staff of editors. Cerf himself edited The Pocketbook of War Humor (1943) and the extremely successful Try and Stop Me: A Collection of Anecdotes and Stories, Mostly Humorous (1944). Although his books of jokes and anecdotes sold millions of copies, he gave a modest explanation of his success: "I've always said I've learned how to exploit a very small talent to the ultimate degree, and mine is very small compared to the people that I really admire. " At the request of Norman Cousins, Cerf wrote a column on publishing, "Trade Winds, " for the Saturday Review of Literature (1942 - 1957). King Features had bought the serialization rights to Try and Stop Me, which several hundred newspapers were carrying, and Cerf was asked to do a daily humor column that had the same name. In 1950, he started writing "The Cerf Board" for This Week, a Sunday supplement that went to newspapers having a combined circulation of over ten million. But it was Cerf's role as a panelist from 1951 to 1967 on the CBS television program "What's My Line? , " hosted by John Daly and including Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Fred Allen, that made him most famous. Cerf enjoyed appearing on television every week and being recognized wherever he went in the country. Many of his closest friends were in show business, including Kitty Carlisle Hart and Claudette Colbert. Cerf received humor awards from the Harvard Lampoon and the Yale Record. Phyllis Cerf made a large contribution to Random House. She thought they should publish better children's books, and her husband agreed with her after he started reading to their two young sons. As a result Random House began Landmark Books, an extremely successful series on American history for older children written by first-rate authors. Dorothy Canfield Fisher wrote Paul Revere and the Minute Men (1950), for example. Phyllis Cerf asked Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and his wife, Helen, to join her in starting a company that would publish books for children just beginning to read. They became the editors and publishers of Beginner Books, with Random House as the distributor. The new firm became so profitable that Random House bought it. Phyllis Cerf also started two other series: Take-Along Books and Step-Up Books. Her work was not limited to children's books. Cerf said, "I began to rely more and more on what she would say about manuscripts. " Random House bought the mansion at 457 Madison Avenue--built by Henry Villard and designed by Stanford White--in 1946 and remained there until 1969. In 1947, Random House published the American College Dictionary. Cerf published a book he knew would infuriate his friends--Whittaker Chambers's Witness (1952), an account of the Alger Hiss controversy--that had been brought to him by a new editor. "If it hadn't been for David McDowell, " Cerf later remarked, "I would have refused to see Chambers, which would have been entirely wrong of me. " In the 1950's, Random House published John O'Hara, Karl Shapiro, Ralph Ellison, Truman Capote, Irwin Shaw, James Michener, and Ayn Rand. Cerf recalled the pleasure of working with Robert Penn Warren: "He knows how good he is as a writer, but he is reticent about it. " The last time Cerf saw William Faulkner, "he talked to me about Albert Erskine, who became his editor after Saxe Commins died. Faulkner said, 'You know, I think Albert is the best book editor I know. ' " Robert Loomis and Jason Epstein also edited at Random House. Thirty percent of Random House stock was sold to the public on October 2, 1959. In 1960, Random House acquired Alfred A. Knopf, the publisher Cerf said he most admired. Alfred and Blanche Knopf joined the board of directors of Random House, and the Knopf imprint retained its autonomy. In 1961, Random House bought Pantheon Books, whose authors included Boris Pasternak, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Genter Grass, and Jan Myrdal. Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago became a film, which led to an enormous increase in book sales. Random House authors in the 1960's included William Styron and Philip Roth, as well as Shelby Foote, who wrote a brilliant and "monumental history of the Civil War. " Cerf never tried to hide his love of publicity or how much he enjoyed his life. He had come to publishing from Wall Street, and almost everything he did made business sense. Hiram Haydn, an editor in chief, noted in his Words and Faces (1974), "The vast spiral staircase between the first and second floors of Random House must have persuaded as many courted authors to join the firm's list as the partners or any editor. " Cerf sold Random House to RCA, and his own account of the negotiations in December 1965 makes it clear that he struck the other participants as frivolous, an impression he did nothing to discourage. He was negotiating with David Sarnoff, the head of RCA, who had offered three-fifths of a share of RCA for each share of Random House; Cerf wanted sixty-two hundredths. The difference amounted to about $1 million dollars and would bring the price of Random House to $40 million. Sarnoff suggested continuing the negotiations the next day. Cerf amazed Sarnoff (and the bankers of Lehman Brothers and Lazard Freres) by announcing that he and his wife intended to keep their plans for a vacation with Frank Sinatra. Cerf's experience in a brokerage house as a young man enabled him to size up everyone correctly when he sold his life's work. He received exactly what he wanted for his publishing house, which included total editorial independence.

Achievements

• Cerf was known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?

Works

More photos

• book

  • Shake Well Before Using: A New Collection of Impressions and Anecdotes, Mostly Humorous

    (A book of this grade is generally well kept and is in goo...)

  • Out on a Limerick: A Collection of over 300 of the World's Best Printable Limericks

    (A Collection of over 300 of the World's Best Printable Li...)

  • Bennett Cerf's the Sound of Laughter

    (Book is used and has been withdrawn from service from a L...)

  • Famous Ghost Stories

    (361 pages, 16 stories)

  • 16 Famous British Plays

    (Cerf, Bennett Alfred)

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "He gave full measure to his profession. Everyone connected with the world of books is in his debt. "

Connections

Cerf married Phyllis Fraser, Ginger Rogers's cousin, who had been a child actress and was now editing two daytime radio serials, in a ceremony performed by New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia on September 17, 1940. They had two sons. (Cerf's first marriage, to Sylvia Sidney on October 2, 1935, had ended in divorce. )

Father:

Gustave Cerf

He was a lithographer and elocution teacher

Mother:

Frederika Wise

Spouse:

Sylvia Sidney

Spouse:

Phyllis Fraser

Friend:

Donald S. Klopfer

Uncle:

Herbert Wise

References

• Bennett Cerf: Publishing at Random