Damon Runyon

by Jimmy Breslin

Immortalizes Damon Runyon in a biography of the Roaring Twenties journalist who covered the Mexican Revolution, World War I, the Lindbergh kidnapping, sports and theater

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Journalism, Biography Memoir

410 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Jimmy Breslin was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American columnist and author. He wrote numerous novels, and pieces of his have appeared regularly in various newspapers in his hometown of New York City. He was a regular columnist for the newspaper Newsday until his retirement on November 2, 2004.

Among his notable columns, perhaps the best known was published the day after John F. Kennedy's funeral, focusing on the man who had dug the president's grave. The column is indicative of Breslin's style, which often highlights how major events or the actions of those considered "newsworthy" affect the "common man."

Reviews

[Tom Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alfred Damon Runyon was born October 8, 1880 in Manhattan, Kansas. He grew up in Kansas and Pueblo, Colorado and followed his father into the newspaper business.
He joined the army during the Spanish-American War and spent time in the Philippines and following his stint in the army Runyon came back to the newspaper business in Colorado.
It was 1910 when he moved east to New York. It took almost a year to settle into a regular full time job. He was hired by the Hearst organization to work as a sports reporter on their morning paper The New York American.
Runyon was a prolific writer – wrote about all the big time sports celebrities and events as well as major court cases such as the Lindberg kidnapping case and trial.
He wrote regular columns for the Hearst newspapers while at the same time turning out great numbers of short stories. Damon Runyon’s short stories reflected Broadway people he hung out with at Lindy’s Delicatessen and those were mixed with characters that met outside Lindy’s, and followed a floating crap game.
Many of his sports stories dealt with rich horse owners such as Jock Whitney while on his Broadway beat it was gangsters, touts and gamblers.
Some of the movies adapted from Runyon stories during his lifetime were Lady for a Day, Little Miss Marker, Shirley Temple, and The Big Street with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.
The best known adaptation of his work was a play, which was later made into a Movie, Guys and Dolls, opened on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre November 24, 1950.
The play was directed by George S. Kaufman and was peopled with Runyon’s off beat characters Nathan Detroit, Sky Masterson, Sara Brown, Miss Adelaide, Nicely-Nicely, Harry the Horse, Big Julie and others.
The trouble with Breslin’s story was that the huge number of minor characters introduced seemed to dominate the narrative while Damon Runyon as a real person was never fleshed out and came off as little more than a sketch.
The reader never gets the chance to meet the real Damon Runyon and that’s a shame.
Now if you read the book to research background for Guys and Dolls characters it might be worth your time. Otherwise google Damon Runyon and you'll find plenty of content.

[Bruce Mcfarland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read all of Damon Runyon's books. After all, my father named me(my middle name) after him. I am so impressed by his personality. From Colorado and a drunk, to New York and a celebrity. He loved to slum with the criminals, and somehow managed to extricate himself from their culpability. His gambling, and devotion to a soiled woman were incredible. His lack of interest in his family, especially his children, was so sad. But, unfortunately, Jimmy Breslin can not unlock the secret of his feelings towards his kids. I don't see how anyone who did not know him personally could. That is what makes Jimmy so talented, how close he did get to understanding a man from his writings, and from accounts about him and his life. It would seem to be, that Damon possesses a gift for one of the most exciting characteristics of all men. Telling a story in a way that excites and is unique, but keeping the parts that are dull or self-incriminating out of the light of day. Just the point that is made over and over, that he created a truly New York image of people of the day, using their language and speaking in slang is 'more than a little' iconic.

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining story of the life of the columnist/short story writer. Must be taken with several grains of salt. But I stuck with this because I liked the fact that a newspaperman was writing about a newspaperman.

Breslin seemed to skim much of Runyon's life and devote a large amount of space to the mugs he hung around with and wrote about in his short stories. Runyon doesn't come across as a very nice person but he didn't really have nice role models to follow. His mother died when he was young and his father was a newspaperman who didn't really seem to care much about him. His sisters had been shifted off to a female relative who had no desire to also take the boy. As a teenager, his father got him his first job on a newspaper and, I think, he was left pretty much to his own devices from then on. They shared a room in a boarding house and pretty much slept in shifts. The deepest impression seemed to be when he saw a black man lynched in Pueblo and had to report on it. He sat watching him swing with a whore. He was probably 16 at the time.

War in the Philippines saw him mostly cleaning up since he was too undersized to be much good at fighting. He did some war correspondence work, sending back little items. Back in Pueblo and Denver he met Gene Fowler and Jack Dempsey, both of whom he would know later in life in New York.

Eventually found his way to New York and to Hearst. He stayed there for forever, or at least the rest of his career. Married a girl from Denver and there were two children. But, again, he wasn't much of a father. They weren't allowed to make any noise until he had arisen, past noon. Of course, this may be typical of people in the newspaper game, especially in this era.

He was sent to Mexico to cover Pancho Villa's revolt and attack on Texans. Went to France to cover some portion of the Great War. But mainly he was a sports writer. And apparently a sports promoter on the side. When he was in Mexico, he saw a little girl and he sponsored her at a Catholic school. She eventually grew up and came to New York to meet him.

I was surprised to learn that he covered the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial. While the jury is out he is sitting in the court room writing away for 11 hours, handing pages off to the copy boy (who only wants to get to the crap game in the Western Union room) who hands them off to Western Union where his reportage is sent by Morse Code (the most advanced means of transporting his words at the time) to the office where it is transposed. When the jury finally comes back he sends in his lead. And, who knew that Walter Winchell was such a dope (at least as portrayed by Breslin)?

Just about everyone he knows is a drunk - his father, his wife, his girlfriend, his daughter. But he doesn't drink. Smokes like a fiend. Finds out he doesn't know how to type without a cigarette in his hand. Throws his timing at the typewriter off.

Very entertaining story. Wonder how much of it is true? Probably more than I would think. Breslin was an entertaining writer and I doubt that he ever let the truth get in the way of a good story.

His mis-referencing a couple of movies cost 1/2-1 star.

[Dewey Wigod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jimmy Breslin takes us through the life and times of Damon Runyon in a manner that makes us feel as though we are living those times, surrounded by the cast of upbeat, downbeat, offbeat and deadbeat characters that would later be defined as "Runyonesque." The yellowing newspapers of the early 20th century come alive, and we are transported, Narnia-like, into their world where we see both the height and the underbelly of society from the perspective of one of life's greatest observers. From his upbringing out West to his New York sportswriter beginnings to his rise to the pinnacle of Broadway and Hollywood to his ignominious fade-out, we come to experience life as he did and to understand his own particular sympathies and antipathies. And when it's all over, we "Guys and Dolls" have to go back to living life as it is, not the way it was supposed to be. What a ride!

[Jim Cheng · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me forever to start this book (written in 1991, signed for me by the author). And almost as long to finish it. Not because I didn't like it (hard to finish at a couple pages a day pace). It did, however, take a little time to get into it. It starts with a kind of off-putting framing device (to be fair, it does set up the author's connection to Runyon) and spends too much time on his boyhood. The bio comes alive about 100 pages in, as Runyon establishes himself as the toast of New York's ink-stained wretches. Breslin hits his stride, describing the Broadway scene of the 1930s (the street, not just the Great White Way), its characters and how they populated Runyon's short stories, and especially Runyon himself, who had the ear of the powerful and clout in Hollywood, but who preferred the company of the underworld swells.

[Tad Richards · Rating 1 out of 5]

I remember really liking Breslin's work as a reporter, and his book on the early Mets. I don't know...maybe his style is just terribly dated now. But I find this book unreadable. He's so smug, so snide -- and to no particular purpose. I really need to find out about Damon Runyon and Runyon's New York, but I don't know if I can finish this book. It's torture to read.

[Jim Vuksic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jimmy Breslin's biographical critique of Damon Runyon provides an interesting and entertaining insight into the man who wrote such unforgettable fiction about the Broadway of the Roaring Twenties and the characters who spent far too much of their time frequenting its speakeasies and restaurants; particularly "Mindy's". Is there anyone who has not at least heard of "Guys and Dolls"?

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant biography of the legendary Damon Runyon, written in Breslin's own unique style, which, I suspect, is intended as a tribute to Runyon.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

“(Runyon) found (Broadway) was crowded with people like Pussy McGuire, who stole cats and sold them to old ladies, and Unser Fritz, a degenerate horseplayer who wore shoes with no soles and touted millionaires. Now he took a deep breath. Even the cement smelled of larceny. He heard the sound of a subway train rumbling to a stop at the station beneath the sidewalk. It sounded like somebody blowing a safe.”

[Harold Citron · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting bio about the famed journalist and essayist from another storied name in the business (Jimmy Breslin). It provides not only a review of the life of the man, but the times and characters that would later become icons of stage and screen.

[Ronn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very enjoyable biography of one of the great American writers, wits, and raconteurs of the 20th century, written by possibly the only American writer who could truly do him justice. Highly recommended to anyone who remembers who Damon Runyon was.

[Olga Vannucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

He writes of bad guys and of sport,
'Cause honest people are a bore.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anecdotes from the 1920's and '30's, help paint a portrait of the man himself. The man who in part shaped our perception of those same years.

[Brenda Leavy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. Mobsters and Dames. The good old days!