Eccentricities in Various Authors

 Some authors had unique taste in things that one might never guess would fit their persona. Or were in unique situations that are mostly unknown.

.Isaac Asimov’s favorite show of all time was “Laverne and Shirley” as mentioned in his two volume autobiography ”In Memory Yet Green.”  When Jack London was a war correspondent for the Russo-Japanese war he wrote a fan letter to a newspaper about what a fan he was of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.”  

Edgar Allan Poe considered himself athletic in his younger years. There was a sport of jumping as far as possible from standing still and he often competed against friends and cousins.

Lovecraft used to go to the Howard Johnson’s and would often eat all thirty one flavors of ice cream. 

Arturo Toscanini, considered one of the greatest conductors in history used to watch wrestling matches on television in the 1950’s.  

Ed Wood wrote a script for “The Beverly Hillbillies” which was rejected with a single line ”Not interested.” 

George Gershwin used to do magazine advertisements for Feenamint Laxative gum.  

Jack Kerouac had a fondness for watching ”The Beverly Hillbillies.”.

Father of  psychology William James gave only one student in his entire tenure as a Harvard professor permission to be exempt from a final exam, and her name was Gertrude Stein. 

Aldous Huxley, known for great scripts like ”Pride and Prejudice” and ”Jane Eyre” was asked to write a script for the “Mr. Magoo” television show.  All the while he was writing it, the producers didn’t have the heart to tell Huxley (who was basically blind) that the premise of Mr. Magoo was that the cartoon character was blind. The script was never used. 

In 1952 Phil K. Dick was approached to write radio scripts for the ”Captain Video” radio show.