Thurber

Thurber. . James Thurber’s wit and pithy prose spanned a breath of genres and made him one of the foremost American humorists of the 20th century... , James Thurber was born in Columbus on Dember 8, 1894, to Charles, a docile civil clerk, and Mame, his eccentric mother, both of whom would influence many of his stories. While playing “William Tell” as a child, he was blinded in one eye by one of his two brothers. The injury caused him to slowly lose vision in the other eye; though he wrote and drew until the day he died. , While Thurber attended The Ohio State University from 1913-1917, his family rented the house at 77 Jefferson Avenue, which became Thurber House in 1984. , After time abroad in France, Thurber returned to Columbus and worked as a reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. He married Althea Adams and they moved back to France for another year before going to New York City. , There he worked at the New York Evening Post and then The New Yorker, sharing an office with his friend E.B. White. Their first collaboration was the book Is Sex Necessary?, featuring a number of Thurber cartoons. After publication, Thurber’s cartoons were featured regularly in The New Yorker and made the cover art six, times. Thurber left the magazine in 1935, but continued to submit, cartoons and stories. , Thurber’s daughter Rosemary was born in 1931. After divorcing in 1935, Thurber married Helen Wismer who would be his editor, business manager, and caretaker until his death. , Thurber had a great love of dogs, and showed his poodles. Thurber included dogs in many of his drawings, saying that the dogs represent balance, serenity, and soundness in a crazy world. , In 1940 Thurber and fellow Phi Kappa Psi brother, Elliot Nugent, wrote the Broadway hit, The Male Animal, which was such a success that it was turned into a movie in 1942. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was also made into a movie, but Thurber was heard to comment, “Who wrote that?” , Thurber was an honorary member of the Algonquin Roundtable, the center of wit in New York City. He wrote nearly 40 books, and won a Tony Award for the Broadway play, A Thurber Carnival. An Emmy winning TV series, My World and Welcome To It, was based on his book. , In 1968, the City of Columbus completed an urban renewal project named Thurber Village, in memory of the humorist, near the Short North Arts District. Included in Thurber Village is the Westminster Thurber Community, a retirement community run on Neil Avenue.