AS AN AUTHOR Harvey Kurtzman is known in the trade as the wino’s Boswell, the Pegler of the penniless, and the beatnik’s Hemingway. Harvey is on intimate terms with the great, the near great, and the not-so-great. He is the man of whom Bing Crosby once said, “Who’s he?”
I understand it is proper in writing the foreword for a book to delve into the author or editor’s background and past. I’ve done this and find that Kurtzman has come by most of his traits honestly. For example, I learned his antecedents have appeared before most of the Royal Courts of Europe. Unfortunately, most of them were convicted and hanged, but it doesn’t seem likely Kurtzman will suffer the same fate. He is more apt to be struck down in his prime by a flying brassiere. Kurtzman, the boy, was said to have been extremely good to his mother … he never went home! Many of Kurtzman’s relatives have been of a literary bent. One uncle, old Bat Guano Kurtzman, received accolades for his learned treatises. entitled “The Life & Times of Sal Mineo” and “An Anthology of Men’s Room Poetry.” Another unele, “Big Daddy” Kurtz- man received international plaudits for his incisive pamphlet, “Lincoln, the Man- Lincoln, the Car.”
The young Kurtzman’s education was not neglected. He was a diligent scholar and received straight “A’s” in recess and eraser cleaning. So well did he learn that he is the only man I know who can say “gimmee twenty” in eight different languages. One of his classmates recalls Kurtzman was voted the man most likely to lose his hair. It looked for a while that Kurtzman would finish school but then he started asking the teachers questions such as, “Is it true Decca Records just recorded an album entitled, ‘Princess Margaret Sings Yom Kippur Tunes’?” and, “Is it true Shirley Temple was named after a synagogue?” After being asked politely to leave school (politely means being chased by the entire board of education bearing flaming torches) Kurtzman entered the business world. His first productive endeavor was as an inventor.
He tried to peddle globes of the world made out of nine-pound matzoh balls. While still a youth and enjoying a peach like complexion (yellow and fuzzy) Harvey developed the ego necessary to take part in the literary world. His first official act as an author was to cut his name out of the phone book and paste it in his scrap book.
During his formative years as an author, romance found young Kurtzman. His lovely wife recalls that when he was courting her he was always a gentleman. When he took her to the pool hall he always let her shoot first. And he was always quick with a compliment. When he would call on her, he would always say something nice like, “Gee, your face is clearing up.”
As he gained stature in the world of letters Kurtzman discovered patronage was one sure way of climbing the ladder of success and gifted his various bosses with such heart-warming gifts as a bronze statue of Calvin J. Smoot, the inventor of the Ferris Wheel and a complete list of the elephant rental agencies in Bombay, India. It isn’t hard to see why a young man with this warmth and charm would soon reach the top of the heap.
Another facet in the many-sided career of Harvey Kurtz-man, the man, is his interest in civic affairs. Recently when the New York fire department was plagued with hundreds of false alarms, our Harvey was quick with the solution … he suggested the fire dept. get an unlisted phone number.
Actually I am supposed to be introducing a book rather than an editor so I would like to pass on this helpful hint. Wear gloves to the bookstore and if you’re not satisfied with Kurtzman’s folly, put it back on the shelf, whistle a few bars of “Lucky Lindy” and leave quietly.