{
  "title": "ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT [GHOST STORIES]",
  "category": "[RADIO APPEARANCES]",
  "article": "Actress Helen Gahagan (memorable as She in the 1935 movie version of the Haggard novel) called\nAlexander Woollcott “the best ghost story teller in the world…he can make your hair stand on\nend.” As radio’s Town Crier Woollcott re-channeled a number of his favorite yarns of vanishing\nladies, phantom hitchhikers and hideous premonitions into a kind of mass-media folklore.\n[John Mason Brown, “Introduction,” The Portable Woollcott] “At CBS in New York City they\nstill show you with proper pride the sizable hand-bell which announced the Town Crier on the air.\nThis bell is all the introduction Alexander Woollcott needed or now needs. …Woollcott was a\nstoryteller who could himself ring the bell again and again.”\n“ ‘He talks brilliantly, doesn’t he?’ said Mrs. [Otis] Skinner… ‘No wonder he writes so well, he’s\nsuch a good listener.’\n“He listened out of hunger not politeness. Once his curiosity was aroused, no fictional sleuth in\npursuing his quarry could be as undeviating as Woollcott in tracking down a story. He tapped\nother minds to fill his own. What he had heard he did not forget. He had the memory of a\npachyderm, and a pianola’s loyalty to the same tunes.\n“He seldom told one story at a time. His anecdotes came not singly but in dynasties. He\napproached his main story through a labyrinth of lesser ones.\n“In spite of its many attempts, the radio has produced no one who could touch Woollcott; no\none who had his sense of melodrama and suspense; no one who could bite the language with his\nprecision; no one who could tell a story with his skill.”\n[Radio] “Billed as The Early Bookworm, Woollcott was first heard on CBS radio in October\n1929, reviewing books in various timeslots until 1933. His CBS show The Town Crier, which\nbegan July 21, 1933, opened with the ringing of a bell and the cry, \"Hear ye, hear ye!\", followed by\nWoollcott's literary observations punctuated with acidic anecdotes. Sponsored by Cream of Wheat\n(1934-35) and Grainger Tobacco (1937-38), it continued until January 6, 1938. He had no\nreservations about using this forum to promote his own books, and the continual mentions of his\nWhile Rome Burns (1934) made it a bestseller.\n“From 1929 to 1934 Woollcott wrote a column called \"Shouts and Murmurs\" for The New\nYorker.”\n[Hilda Cole, 1935] “Each week, through the Sunday quiet of the Columbia Broadcasting System\nquarters, Alexander Woollcott walks eventfully into his studio…a lordly, owlish man, with a cane,\nand piercing blue eyes behind spectacles.\n“There, without a trace of nervousness, haste, or misgivings, he relaxes before a table\nmicrophone, as much at ease as thought it were his own desk in his comfortable, book-lined\napartment overlooking the East River… [N]obody on the Town Crier’s ‘street corner’ has the\nslightest idea what the thoroughly unpredictable Alexander Woollcott will say next.”\n[Woollcott, on his entry into broadcasting] “Before I knew quite what I was doing, I was\nmouthing some words before a strange-looking contraption and wondering why the dickens I was\nso nervous. Later I learned that the strange-looking contraption was just a microphone and that\nmy normally high-pitched voice had all the deep basso qualities of an old-time Shakespearean\ntrouper reciting ‘Hamlet’ for a square meal.”\n[Woollcott, “Shouts and Murmurs,” The New Yorker, August 17, 1929] “…I still feel a deep\nanimosity toward a radio…the sound of one whining insistently in every home I visit…”\n[“Dialist,” New York Evening Post, November 23, 1933] “These fifteen-minute meanderings\nthat Alexander Woollcott does twice a week should irritate us. The Woollcott voice is so richly\nredolent of self-satisfaction. It is so frequently apparent from his tone of voice that even as he\nspeaks, he is telling himself silently, ‘There is a phrase nicely turned, a word selected with perfect\nprecision.’ Curiously, however, Mr. Woollcott’s phrases are so nicely turned and his words so\nprecisely chosen, that we find ourself readily sympathetic with Mr. Woollcott in his satisfaction.\nWe enjoy his niceties of speech as least as much as he does.\n“Last night he told a magnificently gruesome story. We had heard the tale before, but by some\nstrange feat of memory in reverse, we had forgotten it. No few radio thrillers, in our times, have\ncome to our ears; but we recommend to kilocycle dramatists that they listen to Alexander\nWoollcott regularly hereafter for the evenings when he chooses to make our hair stand on end.\nWithout benefit of spectacular sound effects, without any simulated toughness of voice, Mr.\nWoollcott unfolds his story, adding immeasurably to its fantastic violence by the mincing\nprimness of his delivery.”\n[New York Evening Post, December 11, 1933] “Alexander Woollcott is promising one of his\nbloodcurdling stories. He is our favorite radio bloodcurdler.”\n[“The Vanishing Lady,” The New Yorker, July 6, 1929] “Story of the English lady who\ndisappeared from the Paris hotel during the World Exposition. It was discovered that she had\ndied of Black Plague and the hotel management and the police had kept her death a secret so that\nthe visitors to the city would not leave. Continued in issue of July 13.”\n[“The Triple Warning,” The New Yorker, September 19, 1931] “Tells of girl in Louisiana who had\nthe same dream three successive times. She dreamt that an elaborate hearse drawn by four black\nhorses drew up to her door, and the driver got out and said, ‘Are you ready?’ She remembered his\nface long after because it was so hideous. The following winter she was up north shopping in a\ndepartment store. She was being sucked into the elevator with the crowd when she heard the\nelevator man say, ‘Are you ready?’, and she backed away quickly when she saw his face. It was the\nsame as the man in the dream. She backed out, and the door shut in front of her. On that trip the\nelevator fell and all the passengers were killed.”\n[Walter Winchell, October 7, 1931] “Can’t get that weird Woollcott story out of my mind…The\none he penned in that mag a coupla issues ago…One night, it seems, a young girl living in a\ncountry house down Louisiana way was startled out of her slumbers by the sound of carriage\nwheels beneath her window…She looked out and saw a hearse drawn by four horses…The driver\nwith a prominent scar and other spooky features removed his high hat…He walked under her\nwindow and said: ‘Are you ready?’…The girl became hysterical on her bed and later she looked out\nthe window to make sure she was dreaming…For three nights the same horrible dream visited\nher…The following year she was in one of the New York department stores…She tried to enter an\nelevator which already was crowded with shoppers…The elevator man looked at her—he had the\nsame scar, prominent beak and other ghostly features of that hearse-driver in her dreams!...He\nsaid to her: ‘Are you ready?’…She backed away in terror and the door closed…She watched the\nelevator indicator record the car’s descent. A few moments later she learned that on that trip the\nelevator fell and all its occupants were killed!...What a facefuzz lifter that is!”\n[“Moonlight Sonata,” TNY, October 3, 1931] “Tells of a doctor who went down to visit his friend,\nCazalet, who lived in a collapsing manor-house in Kent. He could afford only a doddering couple,\nand a single gardener, John Scripture, assisted by a lunatic father. When he arrived, he found his\nfriend away, so dined alone and went to bed. He awoke to see someone sitting in a patch of\nmoonlight, embroidering. The doctor thought it a queer gesture for a ghost, but got out of the\nroom. He met his returning host, and together they went to raid the icebox. They fell over the\nheadless body of the cook. Cazalet knew it was the work of the old lunatic. He was in the doctor’s\nroom, the cook’s head between his knees, plucking out the gray hairs one by one.”\n[“Postscript,” TNY, October 17, 1931] “Ghost story told at length a few weeks ago, he confesses\nis really a moving piece of folk-lore which has been going from mouth to mouth for a good many\nyears. Tells of the various letters received from all parts of the country telling him of its true\norigin. But it is true that the tale is one that knows no creed or frontier. Mentions some of the\nnames and source of people who claim it as their own. One person took it very literally, and wrote\nin the paper.”\n[“Thankfully Received,” TNY, November 14, 1931] “Tells the ghost story of the man who was\nmotoring home late one night over a deserted highway, slowed down for a dangerous intersection,\nand a girl dressed in evening apparel signaled him to stop, and asked him to take her back to the\ncity. He picked her up, and they drove to the city without further conversation after she gave him\nher address. Swinging into the street she mentioned, he turned to speak to her, and found that she\nwas no longer in the car. He hadn’t stopped, so knew she hadn’t had a chance to get out. He pulled\nup at the given number, and an old man invited him in. He told the young man it must be his\ndaughter. She had been killed a year ago at that place; it had happened almost every month.”\n[“Weird Story Becomes Even Weirder,” Louis Sobol, April 2, 1954] “The other bedtime I picked\nup an old book by Alexander Woollcott—‘Long, Long Ago’ is the title—and read again his weird\nlittle story of the bride who dreamed repeatedly about a certain house and then one day,\nhoneymooning in France, came across the very house of dreams and when she approached it,\neveryone fled in wild terror. Then comes the creepy punch line.\n“Re-reading this tale, I recalled a session with a famed songwriter of the late 30s and early 40s—\nBilly Hill, a giant of a man with a fleshy face and tiny eyes, among whose tune-hits had been ‘The\nLast Round-Up.’ We were seated in the Stork club and Billy mumbled out the story which ran\nsomething like this—after an introduction similar to the Woollcott account.\n“The girl stopped the car, climbed over the fence, ran across the green field—and there it was—\njust as in her dream—the purple house. Three times she knocked—knock, knock, knock. (I’m\ntrying to tell it as Billy told it in a slow, hesitant voice.) The door opened and she knew who would\nbe standing there—and he was. The tall old man with the long white beard. And as in her dream,\nshe asked ‘Where am I?’ This time it did not end as in the dream, for the old man with the long\nwhite beard was still there and he said, ‘You are nowhere.’ The girl pleaded ‘Please—please tell\nme. Who are you? What is this purple house? Why am I here?’ and the old man said: ‘No one is\nhere. This is a haunted house. For fifteen years, it has been haunted.’ And the girl whispered:\n‘Haunted? By whom?’ The old man said: ‘By you!’\n“That was the story told by Billy Hill—and I printed it some years before Woollcott’s book came\nout with the version I read it over again the other night.\n“At any rate, after I had printed this little ghost story, my mail was deluged with protests and\njeers by readers insisting that Hill’s tale was an old chestnut. They called my attention to a book\nby Andre Maurois where it had appeared with slight variations—also, some wrote they had read it\nin a book by Edwin C. Hill. Others said it was a familiar legend in France and in Germany. A bit\nannoyed, I went on a search for Songwriter Hill and finally located him one night at 21.\n“ ‘Why,’ I stormed, ‘did you hand me such an old yarn?’ and he stared at me out of his small,\nglazed eyes and  said simply ‘I haven’t seen you in a year.’ Puzzled, I reminded him, we had been\ntogether only a week or so before. He repeated dully: ‘You’re mistaken. What is this story you’re\ntalking about?’\n“So I told him and he said: ‘O, sure I know that one—but I’ve never told it to a living soul.’ I said:\n‘You’re out of your mind—you told it to me last week.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve never told\nit. How could I? I was the man with the long white beard. I married the girl.’\n“I figured the songwriter had been pulling my leg—but good—and I walked away. Two days\nlater, I learned Hill had collapsed and was in the hospital—suffering a nervous breakdown. Weeks\nlater when he was discharged, I met him and again asked him about the story. He looked at me as\nif I were batty. ‘How,’ he protested ‘could I ever have told you any such fantastic story—especially\nabout me being the man with the long white beard. It’s crazy—the whole thing is crazy.’\n“Three weeks later, Songwriter Billy Hill was found dead in a hotel room in Boston.”\n[Herbert Jacobs, “He Craves to Read World’s Most Horrifying Story!” The Capital Times,\nMarch 3, 1950] “ ‘Dear Sir: Some years ago I heard Alexander Woollcott on his radio program tell\nabout the most horrifying story he had ever read. He said it had such an adverse effect upon him\nthat he devoutly wished he had not done so. He gave the name of the story, hoping at the same\ntime that listeners would not read it for they would be sorry they did. I have never read the story\nand have since forgotten its name. Do you remember what it is?—at the risk of making me and a\nlot of other people miserable?’\n“I never heard the late Alexander Woollcott broadcast, so I asked August Derleth, Sauk City\nauthor and mystery story expert, about the horror story. He replies:\n“ ‘Alexander Woollcott was accustomed to dealing in superlatives. He used to like fantasy and\nhorror, and himself contributed to a good substantial portion of the legend of horror tales.\n“In his broadcast, which was certainly not the only one of its kind, he might have been referring\nto a number of tales—‘Thurnley Abbey,’ by Perceval Landon; ‘The Rats in the Walls,’ by H. P.\nLovecraft—or even, and most likely, to a traditional tale which he himself wrote up, ‘The\nVanishing Lady,’ which was most currently reprinted in ‘Strange and Fantastic Stories,’ edited by\nJoseph Margolies, but was originally published in Woollcott’s ‘While Rome Burns.’\n“This is the curious and frightening story of a woman’s disappearance from a Paris hotel, and\nwas the essence of Marie Belloc-Lowndes’ novel ‘The End of Her Honeymoon’ (1913) and also in\nlater novel by Lawrence Rising entitled ‘She Who Was Helena Cass.’ He presented ‘The Vanishing\nLady,’ as he did his ‘Full Fathom Five,’ another horror short, as based on fact and simply recast or\nretold these stories; and he was probably right, since Woollcott was not very original, and\nwhenever he did a puff job like this it was to praise some book with which something he did or\none of his friends was connected.’\n“I’ve read ‘The Vanishing Lady,’ but without getting any creeps.”\n[Paul Harrison, “In New York,” Dunkirk Evening Observer, October 30, 1934] “Alexander\nWoollcott, doter on misty folklore, once told about the ancient house at No 59 Washington\nSquare. Back in 1907, Will Irwin rented an entire floor and from the time he began writing there\nhe was obsessed with the feeling that somebody, or something, continually was watching him.\nAnd then at 3 o’clock each morning, he’d awaken with an awful sensation of some clammy and\nimminent horror. Didn’t see anything, but finally had to move to a hotel to save his nerves.\n“Irwin loaned the apartment to James Hopper, another writer, and Hopper had identical\nexperiences. So did Samuel Hopkins Adams, who tried to sleep there two or three nights. Later,\ntwo Boston women were given the key for the duration of their New York visit. But they fled the\nhouse with the first visitation of the inexplicable terror.\n“Not until several years afterward did the persons concerned in the mystery learn an additional\nfact about the old house. Once, when Washington Square was a Potter’s Field and when a gallows\nstood where the memorial arch stands now, No. 59 was the city morgue.”\n[Jack Stinnett, “New Yorker At Large,” Galveston Daily News, August 8, 1937] “And it was\nAlexander Woollcott who retailed the yarn about the two women who stayed overnight in a\ndeserted house on Cape Cod. One of them saw a ghostly gentleman standing before the fireplace\nduring the moonlight hours of night and rose with the dawn to find bits of wet seaweed left by the\nintruder. A New York scientist founds these bits to be fresh seaweed of a variety known only to the\nAfrican coast. Investigation disclosed that a son of the last tenants of the house had been\ndrowned…off the coast of Africa.”\n[Uniontown Morning Herald, February 8, 1936] “Thanks to the reviving influences of\nAlexander Woollcott and the movies, ghosts seem likely to come back into popular favor.”\n[Kokomo Tribune, March 18, 1937] “Any Alexander Woollcott fan will tell you that the story of\nthe mysterious hitch-hiking ‘ghost of state road 31,’ who got into the papers this week, is old stuff.\nThe Town Crier has, upon several different occasions, told the tale over the air and has remarked\nthe curious habit it has of turning up in various parts of the country. As your correspondent\nrecalls Woollcott’s version, the ‘ghost’s’ name was Idea, the same name given the girl in Tuesday’s\nU.P. dispatch from Indianapolis. Our private guess, without imputation, is that Charles Sullivan,\nthe young cigar salesman who reported the experience with ‘Ida’ near Columbus, Ind., is a good\nWoollcott listener. And that the Indiana bureau of the U.P. is a good gullible bunch of boys.",
  "origination": "",
  "duration": "",
  "personnel": "",
  "extant_recordings": "",
  "chronology": "THE KELLOGG RADIO TOWN CRIER (WOR, NEW YORK)\n[Wednesday—7:30-8:00 PM]\nOctober 30, 1929\n[“…Huddle close around your radio tonight while Alexander Woollcott,\nthe Kellogg Radio Town Crier, on the eve of Hallowe’en, makes your hair\nstand on end with true tales of ghosts…”]\nTHE TOWN CRIER (WABC, NEW YORK)\n[Wednesday—9:15-9:30 PM]\nNovember 22, 1933\n[“…he told a magnificently gruesome story…”]\n[Monday—9:15-9:30 PM]\nDecember 11, 1933\n[“…Alexander Woollcott is promising one of his bloodcurdling stories…”]",
  "sources": "COLE, HILDA. “\nJACOBS, HERBERT. “He Craves to Read World’s Most Horrifying Story!” The Capital Times (March 3,\n1950).\nWoollcott, Alexander. “Full Fathom Five.” (The New Yorker, June 22, 1929).\nWOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “The Vanishing Lady.” (The New Yorker, July 6 and 13, 1929).\nWOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “The Triple Warning.” (The New Yorker, September 19, 1931).\nWOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “Moonlight Sonata.” (The New Yorker, October 3, 1931).\nWOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “Postscript.” (The New Yorker, October 17, 1931).\nWOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “Thankfully Received.” (The New Yorker, November 14, 1931).\nZIEMER, GREGOR. “Friendly Voices in the Dark.” The Rotarian (January 1956).\nPERIODICALS: The New York Evening Post.",
  "gallery": "Alexander Woollcott",
  "images": []
}