Jean Shepherd

Raised in Hammond, Indiana, Jean Shepherd went on to work in the steel mills and was a veteran of the Army Signal Corps before entering the arts. In the 1950s, he began a long career as a radio personality telling stories of his youth, commenting on current topics and performing silly songs. While at WOR-AM in New York, he also broadcast live night club acts from the Limelight in Greenwich Village. He wrote for Playboy and other magazines. His articles were published in a series of books including "The America of George Ade", "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash", "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories, and Other Disasters", "A Fistful of Fig Newtons" and "The Ferrari in the Bedroom".

Steve Allen, who listened to Shepherd on WOR, suggested him as his replacement on The Tonight Show (1953) (first of "Tonight Show" series) in the late 1950s. NBC went with Jack Paar instead, deciding that Shepherd was too caustic and unconventional to host a network show.

Columnist for the "Villiage Voice" weekly newspaper in New York City, called "The Night People Column", in 1956 and '57.

Shepherd helped John Cassavetes raise money to film Shadows (1958) by having John on his show as one of his rare guests in February 1957. Shep was so committed to the project that he loaned his assistant Ellen Paulos to Cassavetes to help with the film. The thankful Cassavetes expressed his thanks in the opening credits of the movie. A title reads: "Presented by Jean Shepherd's Night People." (The Night People were members of what the New York Times in the late 1950s called the "cult" of Shepherd listeners.) Shepherd also appears in a crowd sequence in the film, smoking a cigarette.

Was named "Jazz Personality of the Year" for 1959 by "Metronome" Magazine.

Five time winner of "Playboy" Magazine Best Writing Award for Humor/Satire. Shepherd was a mainstay of the magazine in the 1960s and early '70s. He conducted the magazine's interview with The Beatles that appeared in the February 1965 issue.

Twenty-five of his stories were published in "Playboy Magazine" from June 1964 through August 1981. After the publication in May 1973 of his short-story "Lost At C", only one more Shepherd story appeared in "Playboy", "A Fistful of Fig Newtons" in August 1981. Shepherd won four "Playboy" Writing Awards for Humor/Satire, for "Leopold Doppler and the Orpheum Gravy Boat Riot" (October 1965), "The Return of the Smiling Wimpy Doll" (December 1967), and "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories" (June 1969), all cited as First Place winners in their respective years (1965, '67 and '69), while "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" (July 1968) won a Second Place award in 1968.

He was the inspiration for Jason Robards' character in A Thousand Clowns (1965).

He provided all the voices for the Song of the Cloud Forest (1969) skit, "Cowboy X" (circa 1972).

During the 1970s, he did two series of humorous programs as well as several American Playhouse (1980) episodes for PBS.

Peter Finch's famous rant in Network (1976) was inspired by Shepherd's radio diatribes.

He had his own show at WOR-AM in New York for twenty-two years (ending in 1977).

In 2002, his home-town of Hammond, Indiana named the new Community Center in Dowling Park the "Jean Shepherd Community Center". On April 7, 1981, he had received the city's second annual Hammond Achievement Award, which was given in the name of the citizenry.

In 1983, he wrote his first feature film, A Christmas Story (1983), putting together many tales of his semi-autobiographical character "Ralphie".

Along with Leigh Brown and Bob Clark, he won a 1984 Genie Award for Best Screenplay for A Christmas Story (1983).

Mr. Shepherd was a life long Chicago White Sox fan. He is the on screen host and narrator for the made for video film, THE CHICAGO WHITE SOX: A VISUAL HISTORY (1987).

Awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Indiana University in 1995.

Posthumously inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame on November 13, 2000. Shep's longtime friend Irwin Zwilling accepted the award on his behalf.

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 566-568. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

"Jean Shepherd's Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" received a nomination as Best Movie or Miniseries at the 10th annual ACE Awards.

Early in his tenure at WOR, he and his listeners decided to play a prank on the New York Times best-seller list; he suggested that they go to bookstores around the city and start asking for a book that didn't even exist; the listeners suggested the title (I, Libertine!), an author name (Frederick Ewing), and even gave this fictitious author a fairly detailed biography (former British civil servant, lived in South Africa, spoke on the BBC about 18th-century erotica, was married to Marjorie "a horsewoman from the North Country"). As his radio listeners included airline pilots who traveled overseas and press agents who fed information to leading gossip columnists in the city, The phony book and its phony author were soon a hot topic in transatlantic publishing circles, appearing on best-seller lists, getting mentioned in Earl Wilson's syndicated gossip column, and even getting Banned in Boston. Finally, one of his listeners, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal persuaded him that it was time to let the rest of the world in on the joke - by then, the book was such a big deal that Ballantine Publishing asked Shepherd to actually write a book called I, Libertine!, and with the help of science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, he did. Needless to say, the Times didn't take kindly to having been fooled, and when they reviewed the book, they implied that Shepherd had misled his fans into asking for the book, when in fact the listeners were part of the hoax from the very beginning.