Jack
Douglas
Jack Douglas (July 17, 1908 - January 31, 1989) was an American
comedy writer who wrote for radio, television and a series of humor
books, beginning with the bestselling My Brother Was an Only Child
(1959).
On radio, he was a writer for Red Skelton, Bob Hope
and the situation comedy, Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou (1938-46), in
which Riggs switched back and forth from his natural baritone to the
voice of a seven-year-old girl.
Continuing to write for
Skelton and Hope as he moved into television, Douglas also wrote for
Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Woody Allen, The Adventures of Ozzie and
Harriet, The Jack Paar Show, The George Gobel Show and Laugh-In. The
producer of Laugh-In, George Schlatter, said, "He saw the world from
a different angle than the rest of us. He was not only funny, he was
nice."
He was best known for his appearances as a frequent
guest on Jack Paar's shows of the late 1950s and early 1960s. On one
such appearance, when Douglas was well established as a Paar guest,
he was chastised by Paar for holding a stack of file cards with his
jokes while talking with Paar. When Paar returned to television in
1973 and was confronted by unexpected low ratings, he had engaged
Douglas to contribute monologue material by mail. One week there was
no mail from Douglas, but his next package contained a note: "Sorry
I didn't send anything last week. I forgot you were on."
Douglas and his third wife Reiko, a Japanese-born singer and
comedienne, were also regular guests on shows hosted by Merv
Griffin, Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson. The couple had two sons,
Bobby and Timothy. Douglas' first marriage produced a son
(Johnny) and a daughter (Marlene), and his second marriage to
singer Marion Hutton produced a son, Peter.
By 1959,
Douglas' appearances with Paar gave him a huge audience for his
humorous memoirs, published by Dutton and Putnam with many mass
market paperback editions by Pocket Books and others.
My
Brother Was an Only Child, adapted from a book he privately
printed in 1947 and sent to 400 of his friends, stayed on the
bestseller lists for months in 1959. Some of his books,
including Shut Up and Eat Your Snowshoes (1970), were set in
Northern Ontario, where Jack and Reiko Douglas lived for several
years. The town of Chinookville in the Northern Ontario books is
based on the Ontario city of Sudbury. The book The Neighbors Are
Scaring My Wolf (1968) was based on his experiences living in
New Canaan, Connecticut.
Douglas won an Emmy in 1954 for
best-written comedy material. He died of complications from
pneumonia in 1989, at age 80.
Father of photojournalist
Peter Hemming, www.peterhemming.com
Books by Jack Douglas
No Navel to Guide Him (1947)
My Brother Was an Only Child
(1959)
Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver (1960)
A Funny Thing
Happened to Me on My Way to the Grave (1962)
The Adventures
of Huckleberry Hashimoto (1964)
The Neighbors Are Scaring My
Wolf (1968)
Shut Up and Eat Your Snowshoes (1970)
What Do
You Hear from Walden Pond? (1971)
The Jewish/Japanese Sex and
Cookbook, and How to Raise Wolves (1972)
Benedict Arnold
Slept Here (1975)
Going Nuts in Brazil (1977)
Rubber Duck
(1979)
Any contributions to this item will be
gratefully accepted
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