Biography+Project-+LA

Dr. Seuss By: Maxwell Milliman

Imagine living in a place filled with hairy people, of a cat wearing a stovepipe hat, and a green Santa Claus. Imagine a world of absurd mouse-looking things with enormous, human eyes and birds that talk. Think of a place where elephants lay eggs and where a people are divided by those who bear stars on their chests and those who don't. If you could visit such a place, it would be in the mind of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. He provided the world with much renowned children's literature which is and was loved by every one of all ages. Ted was a pioneer of __. Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, Theodor’s parents were German immigrant, Christian Seuss Kalbach, later changed to Henrietta Seuss Geisel, and Theodor Geisel. He was born in Springfield Massachusetts where his parents had started a brewery business. Even from the start, Ted liked to exaggerate everything. He enjoyed humor that involved absurd and elevated events or things. As did Hannibal did for Mark Twain, Springfield provided a vivid assortment of impressions the affected his writing in later years. (His second sister, Henrietta, was born in 1906, died of pneumonia eighteen months later. Ted wasn’t even four.) Even from the start, Ted liked to exaggerate everything. He enjoyed humor that involved absurd and elevated events or things. When Ted was old enough to visit the zoo, he always brought a sketch pad to draw animals but they turned out with exaggerated noses or an extra leg or two. Ted wrote his first literary piece at the age of 11. It was a poem about the previously sunk Titanic, “Dragged by two teams of sweating stallions/ Down Main Street the cardboard iceberg lurched. /And on the top of the deck of the sinking Titanic/ A brave string of quartette precariously was perched…… But life in the beginning for Ted was not all picture perfect. He was exposed to teasing when the Germans torpedoed a British ship, killing the 1198 on board including 128 Americans. This incident led to the start of World War 1. In September of 1921, Theodor enrolled at Dartmouth College. He took many art courses at Dartmouth. In one class, his teacher scolded him for drawing a vase of daisies with his work board upside down (typical Ted). Whilst at Dartmouth, he received a “B” average “without trying”. He especially didn’t put effort into writing, which is ironic because he became one of the greatest writers of his time. He did encounter a L.A. teacher of his who did make him consider writing as a career named Edwin A. “Red” Smith. Spurred by Smiths enthusiasm toward literature, he found his writing soul mate, Hiaire Belloc who’s rhythmic verses put Ted in “a trance”. After his encounter with Smith, his grades started to improve and he worked harder to achieve. On June 23, 1925, Theodor Geisel graduated from Dartmouth with a 2.454 grade average, 133rd in his class of 387. In 1925, Ted went to England to attend Oxford College. He later dropped out, proceeding to roam Europe with his new found love, Helen Marion Palmer. They later got engaged when their jointly paid for motorcycle was driven into a ditch and Helen and Ted got tangled up with one another. Ted was considering being a professor but Helen suggested he become a writer and illustrator. If it wasn’t for Helen, Ted could be a dry cleaner for all we know. His first real job came when he became a cartoonist for the newspaper call the //Post // in July of 1927. When visiting Southern California in 1928 for there wedding anniversary, Ted and Helen fell in love with a small town named La Jolla. They later moved there 1950 and started to write books including //And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street // published by a house that he set up called beginner books. Ted and Helen took part on extravagant travels and in February of 1927, left for Rome and took a couple months off to go sightseeing. In 1928, they traveled to Greece were Helen and Ted can be seen posing in front of the majestic Parthenon for a guide’s snapshot. After these European travels, the Geisel’s returned home to the Chelsea lot. Just as Ted got a steady job with the //Post //, the stock market crashed. Millions lost their jobs and millions more became bankrupt. Theodor, being a cartoonist, remained “in demand” with other entertainers. As if the stock market crash didn’t seem enough, Ted and Helen took another fatal blow when Henrietta Geisel, Ted’s mom, died at the age of fifty-two. Theodor was 27. Fourteen years later, Teds sister Mamie died on September 14, 1945 at the age of 43. She drank heavily after mother’s death. She died of a coronary thrombosis. Ted was so shaken by these deaths that Helen wondered when Ted was going to make people laugh again. 5 years earlier, Theodor Seuss Geisel finally knew what he wanted to do in life, write and illustrate children’s books. Starting in 1951, Ted and some Hollywood producers tried to put Dr. Seuss books on television. They tried to put the book //The 5,000 fingers of Dr. T. // It was a fertile attempt at a screen write for Ted and was, in Ted’s eyes, and utter failure. In 1954, after a vacation to Japan, Helen found out that she had been diagnosed with Guillian-Barre syndrome. Helen never fully recovered from the Guillian-Barre syndrome, she did learn to cope with it and on her sixty-ninth birthday, the Geisel’s took a trip to the Colorado Rockies. He always found the vast mountains a “serene” place. Finally, on Monday, October 23, 1967, Helen Geisel died. She committed suicide because of the stress of being Ted’s main editor, representative, and house keeper. Audrey Stone, a long-time friend of the Geisel’s, saw how broken Ted was and decided to divorce her husband to marry Ted and to keep him going. Ted experienced another loss when his father died on December 9, 1968 shortly after a visit from Ted and Audrey in August. One morning in 1975, Ted noticed that everything looked “squiggly” on his drawing pad and Audrey feared he had glaucoma. He knew he was developing cataracts but glaucoma was much worse. He had to have surgery to get it removed. In March of 1977, Teds long time friend and agent died of cardiac arrest. His name was Phyllis Jackson. Later that year, he was found to have yet another cancerous growth, this one on the roof of his mouth. Because he was getting up there in age, he decided he was just going to remove it and not completely get rid of it which would require exposure to radiation. At 10:00 P.M. on September 24, 1991, Theodor Seuss Geisel died in sleep at the age of 87. Theodor made many significant contributions to the world in literature. His first book, //And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street//, was an instant success even though all other houses besides Random House rejected him. Another successful book of Teds was Horton Lays an Egg. He got the idea from once leaving his window open and a gust of wind took a drawing of an elephant out onto a branch just outside his widow and decided that the elephant was sitting on the egg given to him by a bird. //McElligot’s Pool// was published in 1947 and became a Junior Literary Guild selection. Ted came out with another hit in 1950, //If I Ran the Zoo//. The book was inspired by his father’s role in the Springfield zoo. Theodor got the idea of the //Cat in the Hat// in a scarred brass cage of an ancient elevator at Houghton Mifflin publishing house in Boston. //Cat in the Hat// became a best seller after being released in 1957. One huge accomplishment in Ted’s life was starting Beginner Books House with Phyllis and Helen. //The Grinch// appeared in the fall of 1957 and the first printing was in excess of fifty thousand due to record sales of the //Cat.// Unlike the disastrous televised version of the //5,000 Fingers,// //The Grinch// and //Horton Hears a Who// were huge successes. Another attainment of Teds was //The Lorax.// It appeared in book stores in 1971 and was addressing environmental issues that were 10 years ahead of their time. //The Butter Battle Book// was published on Teds eightieth birthday, March 2, 1984. He wrote his nephew saying that he was working 8-10 hours a day on //The Butter Battle//, “the best book I have ever written.” His final book, //Oh, the Places You’ll go!// Appeared in the early 1990, just about a year before he died. Ted, during the era of prohibition, and some friends got in trouble for drinking bootlegged gin in April of 1925. Also, when he was an advertiser for Standard Oil, Ted started a bogus navy to help promote Standard Oil. During WW2, Helen supported herself and Ted by writing her own children’s books for Disney and Golden books. Once, Helen told her niece Barbara that “We only travel on ships named for Democrats.” The name Dr. Seuss actually came from his moms last and his middle name, Seuss, and Dr. came from the doctorates degree that he never got at Dartmouth. Theodor wanted to stay out of making his creatures into toys because he believed that it might cheapen the Dr. Seuss image but he was later persuaded to sign with Revell Corporation to mass produce Seussian animals. Bennett Cerf, a long-time friend and fellow writer, once bet him 50 dollars that he couldn’t write a Beginner Books using only 50 words. Ted won and the book was called //Green Eggs and Ham//. Another interesting fact is that whenever Ted signed his books Theo. LeSieg, it meant that the book was not illustrated by him. Ted was also heavy smoker and his second wife, Audrey, tried to get him to stop relying on the nicotine. One time, an eight-year old named Gregg Lewis sent him a copy of his published review of //You’re Only Old Once// and Ted replied, “Of all the reviews my books have received……your review in //Kidsday// was the one my cat and I liked best.”