Gene Fowler, Prince of the Purple
IN MY twenties, I conceived an enthusiasm for Jimmy Durante. He seemed to me the epitome of a kind of entertainer I aspired to be: not the handsomest, not the funniest, not the most talented in any particular way, but still, he knew some jokes, could do a little soft-shoe, play some piano, sing in his way, whatever it took to get applause or a laugh from a room full of strangers. And, it appeared, he had managed the near-impossible task of making it through a fifty-year career in show business without making any enemies. One can only dream of such an achievement.
No doubt I was projecting onto Durante more than was sustainable by either man or icon. Nevertheless, as a musician who for the first time was touring full-time, I felt I was beginning to lose touch with friends, with the idea of home, and with common standards of behavior, so I looked to the pre-rock-and-roll era of vaudeville-trained entertainers as a model for sustaining that kind of life. I began collecting, from used bookstores in whatever town I happened to be in, biographies and memoirs of old showbiz figures: Eddie Cantor, W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn, John Barrymore. Inevitably, I came across, and was charmed and a little seduced by, the books of Gene Fowler.
Fowler was a newspaper reporter in Denver and New York in the obituary, and left “a legend of ribald escapades that matched anything he wrote.” He was most commonly described by his contemporaries with some combination of the epithets “legendary” and “colorful.” He is most commonly described these days not at all.
