What Sammy Glick taught me
Most people can identify a book they read at an early age that they’ve never forgotten. One that widened their horizons, tantalized them with a story that was both strange and exotic, and delivered messages about life still relevant years later.
I was reminded of the book that had this effect on me when I read the obituary today of Budd Schulburg, the film writer, journalist and novelist who has died at the age of 95.
Schullberg’s first novel, What Makes Sammy Run? was the first adult book I ever read. I was 12 years old. I remember lying about on sunny summer afternoons devouring it, page after page. The summer of 19??
I have no idea how I came about reading it. But it so enthralled me that it gave me a lifelong curiosity about the driven, ego-inflicted, voracious personalities that we all encounter. And I think having read it, I gained some sense of how to deal with people like Sammy.
Sammy types usually hang out in corporate circles, hungrily swanning around looking for victims they can step on as they pursue their climb to the top. We all know heels of this type.
In the novel, Sammy Glick has burned his way through the newspaper business in New York and has landed in Los Angeles where he soon wrecks enough lives to become a Hollywood mogul.
Glick’s story is told through a narrator, Al Manheim, who is almost as unethical as his protagonist. Both are highly unsympathetic characters, a trait that’s supposed to be a turn-off for readers. In this case, their common evil makes them all the most fascinating.
I checked out the reviews on Amazon to see what present-day readers think of this book. Most of the reviews were negative. Badly written, dated, weak plot.
Others were enthusiastic. “Terrifying and wonderful” … “very well written” … “writing such as this is a pleasure to find.”
Schulberg was one of the great figures of 20th century letters. He also left tragedy in his tracks. Having been a Communist in the 1930s, he ‘fessed up the House Unamerican Activities Committee and named other Hollywood writers who had dabbled in the Communist party. So was born the Hollywood Blacklist.
Schulberg went on to write On the Waterfront (he won one of eight Oscars awarded the film) and two more novels, The Harder They Fall and The Disenchanted. Shortly before his death, he was working with Spike Jones on a screenplay about the 1930s fights between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling.
What an inexhaustible well of talent!
