The Early Years of the Titanic Baby

As I started this interview, I found myself being interviewed and answering Studs’ questions for five minutes before I realized what was happening. I knew that he was an experienced interviewer, but he is also an artful dodger as I tried to reassert control. I learned from my initial salvo and regrouped. After being beaten out of the blocks, I was ready for the interview. I used a gift of a box of cigars to disarm Studs. It wasn’t fair, but it worked. From then on, I was in control of the interview.

Al> This is a big time interview. So, let’s start. I’d like to begin with your birth back near the beginning of the last century; you were born on the May 16, 1912.

Studs> I was born about three weeks after the Titanic sank. I like to say that the Titanic went down, and I came up. So, I’m a Titanic baby.

Studs> That’s right. They were from Bialostyk. It was a town on the border of Russia and Poland—a very cosmopolitan town, by the way. They came here very early 1903. Mother was quite the seamstress—quite nimble with the fingers. My father was just a gentle, sweet, great tailor. However, he had a bad ticker. You don’t mind this rambling; I ramble a great deal.

Al> Studs, this is interesting and an honor for me. I’ll stay with you; don’t worry.

Studs> I’ll come back to the question of how I came to Chicago, but this is free association—let’s say this is Joycian. So, what was I talking about?

Studs> Coming to Chicago: so, my father’s sister married a well-off guy. He lent us the dough. Most of my young life was in a rooming house. I was a sickly little boy—very sickly. I had asthma and also had mastoiditis. Back in those days, lots of little girls and boys had mastoiditis—those were the pre-penicillin days. We would be holding our ears all the time because of the mast. I see kids, everybody walking around like this all the time these days holding their hands over their ears. I say, “My God another epidemic of mastoiditis.” I then realize that they are using a cell phone! For a while, I thought it was mastoiditis all over again.

Studs> Why? Because my father was ill and couldn’t work, they let us go to a rooming house, which my mother ran for a time. Later on, he wanted to be on his own, so we had a little hotel we ran. He died a few years afterwards. We came to Chicago in 1920. I was a sickly kid and I lost my asthma because of that south wind wafting in from the South Side stockyards. That’s how I lost the asthma. From then on, I was a different child, and Chicago has been my home from then on. It’s been my home for 81 years.

Studs> I did. First, I went to a junior college for a couple of years and then I wanted to be a lawyer. I dreamed of Clarence Darrow and I woke up to Antonin Scalia. I dreamed about Clarence Darrow as a kid; I heard about Darrow attorney for those without a voice.

Al> Clarence Darrow is my great hero also. Did you ever see Henry Fonda in “Darrow” on stage?

Studs> Henry Fonda did it? So did Melvin Douglass. “Inherit the Wind” was

based on the Scopes trial—you know the Monkey Trial. Darrow was my man as a kid. So I went to law school; I went to the University of Chicago. In those days, it is a seven-year course in six. Your first year in law school counts as your last year in the baccalaureate. Two more years, it’s called the JD. Robert Maynard Hutchins was the chancellor then. He was magnificent. He always said at all the convocation speeches all had the same theme: the young must challenge, must question authority. No matter who that authority is, no matter what that authority—you must always challenge it, must question. Question is the word. And that is the thing we are lacking sometimes with today’s students.

Studs> I interviewed him several times. Of course, that Canadian, he wrote that great book, “And a River Runs Through It.” It became that marvelous movie.

Al> My editor for years, Wendy Olmsted, teaches at the University of Chicago. After I saw the movie, I asked her whether she knew Norman McClain. He left Montana to take a teaching position at the University of Chicago at the end of the movie. Interestingly, Norman McClain had been a professor of hers. I told her that I hoped that he had rubbed off on her and she on me. Time will tell.

Studs> Norm McClain, I had him on as a guest twice before he died. His son, John, works for the “Tribune.” But Norm McClain was wonderful. He was writing about his older brothers in A River Runs Through It. Then the last one was about fighting the forest fires. In fact, I got a call from the Redford studios. There was an indication that I might narrate, but it didn’t work out. He narrated it himself.

Studs> Yeah, Studs Lonigan. My real name is Louis . It is a standing joke of mine, but it is a true story. People always ask me how I got the name, Studs. I like saying, “I wish it were what you think it was. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.” What happened was that I was in a labor theater play, during the depression. All my life was a creation of accidents, I finished law school, flunked the first bar. I passed the second exam but never practiced. Then the depression came along, and I got a civil service job for a short time. During one of the WPA projects, I met this guy…. Oh, I should point out I loved the theater and good movies as a kid because our hotel was near the Loop. What were we talking about now?

Studs> Right. So, I was in a play. I met a guy who was directing a play

by Clifford Odette, “Waiting For Lefty.” It was one of those plays during the depression—a play of social significance is what they would call it. I became an actor by accident. Then I became a gangster in radio soap operas. You know Chicago is the home of radio soap operas, more than New York and Hollywood put together. The soap operas were all the same. “A Woman in White” was about a nurse. “Guiding Light” was about a minister. Back to my acting career: these plays that I was in always had three gangsters: the bright gangster, the middle gangster, and the dumb gangster. I was always the dumb gangster, because my voice had a gravelly quality. The two other guys in the cast were also named Louie. At the time, I was reading Studs Lonigan. It was 1935-36. I finished law school in ‘34 very unhappy about that. I was reading the Studs Lonigan trilogy written by James T. Farrell whom I later on interviewed. He was a tragic figure living in the past in his own mind. I loved that trilogy, so they called me Studs and the name stuck.

My name got me into trouble—aside from my usual gag: “I wish it were what you think it was….” What happened was that I was in Atlanta for a book signing. A librarian wrote me a letter telling me about what happened to her. I remember her name, Sylvia Cooper. She said that a librarian’s life is not the most exciting in the world, but it did have its penchant moments. It involved my book, “Working” that had just come out. One of her employees was a volunteer spy for Jerry Falwell. This person watched all the books that were in the library for four-letter words and alike. One day the spy said, “Miss Cooper, I understand you ordered a pornographic book.” She replied that she didn’t. The spy said, “I believe that it’s called Working Studs by Terkel.” (Ha-ha) And that was when I knew that I had a bestseller. In any event, that is how I got the name.

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