TypeTown #23: "I'm only really alive when I'm writing."
🐈 Tennessee Williams, Stan Freberg, Elizabeth II, Kevin Hart, and more...
Ah, there you are.
Lovely to see you again.
We start this week with one of the greatest playwrights of the last century.
Nearly 40 years after his death, Tennessee Williams remains a cultural giant.
“If the writing is honest, it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.”
Over the years, his desk was home to Remingtons, Smith-Coronas, Royals, Olivettis and Olympias — and the output was remarkable.
“I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.”
Born in Mississippi and raised in a largely dysfunctional family, his literary talent started to emerge in his late teens.
During his early 20s, when an indisputable work ethic began to take hold, his mom regularly drifted to sleep with the sound of his “typewriter clicking away at night in the silent house” — only to find him collapsed at the machine the next morning, having exhausted himself from his efforts.
“When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.”
His diligence eventually paid off. The Glass Menagerie marked his mainstream breakthrough in 1944. Four years later, A Streetcar Named Desire received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
When Cat on a Hot Tin Roof achieved the same status in 1955, making Williams a double Pulitzer Prize winner in just seven years, his place in 20th-century history was guaranteed.
Yet perhaps somewhat reassuringly for us mere mortals, he was still familiar with the delights of Imposter Syndrome.
“Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense.”
Today, Williams is spoken of in the same terms as Arthur Miller (featured in TypeTown #10) and Eugene O’Neill.
“Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.”
Through his work, he lives on.
WATCH» Tennessee Williams—Rare 1974 TV Interview - The Dick Cavett Show
READ» Tennessee Williams - BIOGRAPHY
READ» Tennessee Williams - Historic Missourians
Stan the man
Until a few days ago, Stan Freberg was not a name with which TypeTown was familiar. But find an image like this and you’ve got to run with it.
A quick trip down an internet rabbit-hole reveals a US actor, author, comedian and musician who even found time to start an LA-based advertising agency.
He combined humour with biting satire in his comedy records. He worked as voice artist, including in the 1955 Walt Disney film Lady and the Tramp. And he received more than 20 Clio Awards for his TV and radio ads.
But all along, he remained a dedicated typewriter enthusiast.
“One of the things wrong with writing on a computer is that there’s no satisfying ‘clackety-clack’ of the keys.”
His Olivetti Lettera 32 sold at auction in 2019. Another of his machines, an old Royal, was listed in 2014.
READ» Comedy Legend Stan Freberg Dies at 88 - TIME
READ» The Typewriter Report (Part Two) - Stan Freberg Here
READ» Stan Freberg obituary - The Guardian
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A lifelong impact
TypeTown is ill-equipped to compete with the tributes already paid to Queen Elizabeth II. Instead, we publish this 1963 image, showing her broadcasting from the headquarters of the Royal Flying Doctor Service during a tour of Australia. A truly remarkable woman.
Worth pausing the platen
📬 Austin Butler’s ‘Elvis’ acting lessons began when Tom Hanks delivered a typewriter to his door - USA Today
📬 Mumbai: Dadar banker sketches 500 Ganeshas on typewriter - The Times of India
📬 Just his type: Napa Valley man preserves typewriter history - Napa Valley Register
📬 Clickety-clack clack! - The Times of India
And finally… typewriters in the wild
In The Upside with Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston, where two of Sam Messer’s pieces (see TypeTown issue 4) hang on the wall…
In Spanish drama Valeria, which focuses on a struggling author trying to hit the big time (she’d do better if she ditched the Mac and picked up the Hermes instead)…
And in this 2012 documentary from Barnicle Brothers…
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Until next time
PS: New here?
TypeTown is a fortnightly celebration of the typewriter’s place in modern (and not so modern) culture.
A great quote from the article about Tom Hanks: "Asked about the typewriter gift to Butler, Hanks is succinct: 'I just felt that every artist needs a word hammer..'"