Corey Ford


Corey Ford was an American humorist, writer, outdoorsman, and screenwriter. He was friendly with several members of the Algonquin Round Table in New York City and occasionally lunched there.

Early years

Ford was a member of the Class of 1923 at Columbia College of Columbia University, where he edited the humor magazine Jester of Columbia, and wrote the Varsity Show Half Moon Inn and Columbia's primary fight song, "Roar, Lion, Roar". He also joined, and was expelled from, the Philolexian Society.

Career

Failing to graduate, he embarked on a career as a freelance writer and humorist. In the 1930s he was noted for satirical sketches of books and authors penned under the name "John Riddell". Theodore Dreiser was shown adopting the guise of a common workman building his newest and biggest novel from bricks and mortar. He reviewed Dead Lovers are Faithful Lovers as "Dead Novelists are Good Novelists."
Ford's series of "Impossible Interviews" for Vanity Fair magazine featured ill-assorted celebrities, among them Stalin vs. John D. Rockefeller, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes vs. Al Capone, Sigmund Freud vs. Jean Harlow, Sally Rand vs. Martha Graham, Gertrude Stein vs. Gracie Allen, Adolf Hitler vs. Huey Long.
Ford published 30 books and more than 500 magazine articles, many of them marked with a gregarious sense of humor, a love of dogs, and "underdogs." He told many stories of the literary scene in the twenties, of headhunters in Dutch Borneo, and of U.S. airmen in combat during World War II. He loved conversation and comradeship and was a great listener as well.
Ford created the name Eustace Tilley for the dandyish, top-hatted symbol of The New Yorker magazine. According to Ford's memoir, The Time of Laughter, the last name came from a maiden aunt and he chose the first name "for euphony".
Ford wrote a monthly column, "The Lower Forty Hunting, Shooting and Inside Straight Club", for Field & Stream for almost 20 years in the 1950s and 1960s. The column told about a fictional group of New England sportsmen, detailing the club members' adventures in and around the town of Hardscrabble, Vermont. The primary characters in the column were Colonel Cobb, Judge Parker, Cousin Sid, Uncle Perk, Doc Hall, and Mister McNabb. The columns have been anthologized into several books such as Minutes of the Lower Forty, Uncle Perk's Jug, and The Corey Ford Sporting Treasury.

Personal life

Ford lived in Hanover, New Hampshire in the 1950s and 1960s and sponsored the Dartmouth Boxing Club. Members of the club trained in Ford's basement where he built a gym with a boxing ring, light and heavy bags, and boxing gloves. He also built a basement locker room for club members. A Dartmouth art professor, a friend of Ford's, would recruit artist models from members of the Dartmouth Boxing Club.

Books

The Last Time I Saw Them, 1946Horse of Another Color, 1946A Man Of His Own, 1949How To Guess Your Age, 1950The Office Party, 1951Every Dog Should Have A Man, 1952Never Say Diet, 1954Has Anybody Seen Me Lately?, 1958You Can Always Tell A Fisherman, 1958The Day Nothing Happened, 1959Guide To Thimking, 1961What Every Bachelor Knows, 1961Minutes of the Lower Forty, 1962And How Do We Feel This Morning?, 1964Uncle Perk's Jug, 1964A Peculiar Service, 1965Where The Sea Breaks Its Back, 1966The Time of Laughter, 1967Donovan of OSS, 1970

Essays, reporting and other short pieces

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Filmography

The Sophomore aka Compromised in the UKThe Sport Parade The Half-Naked Truth Her Bodyguard Topper Takes a Trip Start Cheering Remember? Winter Carnival Zenobia aka Elephants Never Forget in the UK, and It's Spring Again in the US