Jack Kerouac

He sporadically worked for movie studios summarizing scripts and writing synopses in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The jobs were infrequent; the longest stint was his initial assignment, which lasted six weeks in 1947.

Although he served in the Merchant Marine during World War II, like many French Canadians Kerouac felt that the U.S. should not be at war with Germany. Vichy France was an ally of Nazi Germany, and many French Candians in Quebec were pro-Germany (one of the reasons Laurence Olivier played a French Canadian trapper named Johnny who tells the Nazi officer he is a "Canadian" in Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's 49th Parallel (1941) was that it was a propaganda film to promote pro-British feeling in Canada, and specifically Quebec). When Canada resorted to conscription to swell the ranks of its army, there were draft riots throughout Quebec, so intense was the feeling against the United Kingdom, which of course had subjugated New France less than 200 years before (anti-war sentiment was so great that Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King declared that only volunteers would be shipped off to Europe). Both Kerouac's father Leo and his mother Gabrielle were anti-Semites and pro-German; in fact, when Jack had a nervous breakdown and was put in the psycho ward after undergoing Navy training, Leo said that he was proud of his son, that he wouldn't fight a war concocted by Communists and Jews. Kerouac still had these attitudes until the end of his life, and his last editor, Ellis Amburn (writing in his biography "Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac"), found his attitude troublesome when they were working on Kerouac's last novel published in his lifetime, "Vanity of Dulouz". In the book, the Kerouac character laments the death of "Aryans" as his ship is torpedoing a submarine.

He came up with the title of his close friend William S. Burroughs's book "Naked Lunch", though he later claimed to have no memory of having done so. Kerouac was visiting Burroughs in Tangier in the mid-'50s and was drafted by Burroughs into retyping his manuscript. One story has it that the far-sighted Kerouac looked at the title of the manuscript, originally entitled "Naked Lust", and read it as "Naked Lunch." Burroughs allegedly liked the mistake so much he kept it. Ironically, food was one of the reasons that Burroughs' friendship with Kerouac began to sour. Both were dreadfully poor, but Kerouac -- who was staying rent-free with Burroughs -- would not give any money for food and ate all there was in the house, leaving none for his host. In 1957 a disgusted Burroughs eventually broke off his friendship with Kerouac, whom he now considered a selfish weakling, tied to his mother's apron strings. After the break they met only once more, in New York City in 1968 at a bar, before Kerouac went on William F. Buckley's TV talk show Firing Line (1966) (Kerouac had been an acquaintance of Buckley at the Horace Mann School). An alcoholic, Kerouac was already drunk and got drunker, and Burroughs told him not to go on the show. He did, and made a fool of himself.

In 1958, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer paid Kerouac $15,000 (approximately $100,000 in 2006 terms) for the rights to his book The Subterraneans (1960). Kerouac used the money to buy a house in Long Island, the first he had ever owned.

He was the author of "The Dharma Bums", expanded from his notes about a camping trip with writer and teacher Gary Snyder, when The Viking Press demanded a quick follow-up to "On the Road". (Snyder, who is called "Japhy Ryder" in the book, spent 13 years in Japan studying Zen Buddhism. He won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry his collection "Turtle Island".).

He is one of several famous and tragic figures from history to be featured on the sleeve artwork of the album "Clutching at Straws" by rock band Marillion (released in 1987). He is also referred to in the lyrics of the track "Torch Song" from the album: "Read some Kerouac and it put me on the tracks to burn a little brighter now".

Recorded three albums of poetry and short stories: one with accompaniment by Steve Allen and a small combo, one with accompaniment by saxophonists Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, and one with no accompaniment. Each became extremely rare, until they were reissued as a box set by Rhino Records in the early 1990s.

Kerouac researched his family history, turning up both a family crest and the motto "Love, Work and Suffer". According to Barry Miles' 1999 biography "King of the Beats", Kerouac claimed that his family was of aristocratic lineage, who emigrated from Ireland to Cornwall in England and then to Brittany. Miles says the name "Kerouac", in Breton dialect, likely means "Beloved father", which is highly ironic as Miles claims that Kerouac suffered from an Oedipal complex in which he replaced his father as his mother's faux-"husband".

He was offered $110,000 for the screen rights to "On the Road" (approximately $750,000 in 2006 terms). On the advice of his agent Sterling Lord, he turned the offer down, holding out for a hope-for $150,000 deal with Paramount that would have involved Marlon Brando starring as Dean Moriarity. The deal fell through and the book was never sold in his life time, leaving Kerouac with bitter feelings towards his agent.