Bernard Shir-Cliff
Encyclopedia
Bernard W. Shir-Cliff, an editor for Ballantine Books
, Contemporary Books, Warner Books
and other publishers, also translated books and later became a well-known literary agent. As a senior editor at Warner Books, he was responsible for the huge publishing success of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, which she writes about in her autobiography, All in a Lifetime (2001).
's The Mad Reader and other early Mad
paperbacks. He made four contributions to Mad and also contributed to other magazines edited by Kurtzman, such as "The Karate Lesson" in Kurtzman's Help!
(October 1964). He satirized Sports Illustrated
in the second issue of Kurtzman's Trump
.
In 1956 he edited the humor anthology, The Wild Reader (Ballantine), featuring essays, poems and satirical pieces by Robert Benchley
, Art Buchwald
, Tom Lehrer
, John Lardner, Shepherd Mead, Ogden Nash
, S.J. Perelman, Frank Sullivan, James Thurber
and others. The 154-page paperback was illustrated with cartoons by Kelly Freas
who also did the front cover.
The screenplay of Roger Vadim
's Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1959) was translated by Shir-Cliff for publication by Ballantine in 1962. He also was the co-translator with Oscar De Liso of the screenplay for Federico Fellini
's La Dolce Vita
(Ballantine, 1961).
, Shir-Cliff asked to see a written proposal. Thompson's response included comments on the early draft of Hell's Angels, as seen in this excerpt from a 1968 letter to Shir-Cliff, providing some insight into the author/editor relationship:
In the early 1980s, when he was editor-in-chief of Warner Books, Shir-Cliff commented on the publishing recession and lower reprint prices:
Until his recent retirement, Shir-Cliff was an agent handling such books as John R. Dann's Song of the Earth (2006).
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
, Contemporary Books, Warner Books
Hachette Book Group USA
Hachette Book Group is a publishing company owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the second largest publisher in the world. Hachette Livre is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Group. HBG was formed when Hachette Livre purchased the Time Warner Book Group from...
and other publishers, also translated books and later became a well-known literary agent. As a senior editor at Warner Books, he was responsible for the huge publishing success of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, which she writes about in her autobiography, All in a Lifetime (2001).
Harvey Kurtzman and Mad
As the editor at Ballantine in the 1950s and 1960s, he handled the Zacherley anthologies, the paperback of Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels, Harvey KurtzmanHarvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
's The Mad Reader and other early Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
paperbacks. He made four contributions to Mad and also contributed to other magazines edited by Kurtzman, such as "The Karate Lesson" in Kurtzman's Help!
Help! (magazine)
Help! was an American magazine published by James Warren. It wasHarvey Kurtzman's longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad and EC Publications, and during its five years of operation it was always chronically underfunded, yet innovative...
(October 1964). He satirized Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
in the second issue of Kurtzman's Trump
Trump (magazine)
Trump was a glossy magazine of satire and humor, mostly in the forms of comic-strip features and short stories. It was edited by Harvey Kurtzman and published by Hugh Hefner, with only two issues produced in 1957...
.
In 1956 he edited the humor anthology, The Wild Reader (Ballantine), featuring essays, poems and satirical pieces by Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor...
, Art Buchwald
Art Buchwald
Arthur Buchwald was an American humorist best known for his long-running column in The Washington Post, which in turn was carried as a syndicated column in many other newspapers. His column focused on political satire and commentary...
, Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, mathematician and polymath. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater...
, John Lardner, Shepherd Mead, Ogden Nash
Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...
, S.J. Perelman, Frank Sullivan, James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
and others. The 154-page paperback was illustrated with cartoons by Kelly Freas
Frank Kelly Freas
Frank Kelly Freas , called the "Dean of Science Fiction Artists", was a science fiction and fantasy artist with a career spanning more than 50 years.-Early life, education, and personal life:...
who also did the front cover.
The screenplay of Roger Vadim
Roger Vadim
Roger Vadim was a French screenwriter, director, and producer as well as a journalist, author and actor, who launched Brigitte Bardot's career in the film And God Created Woman.-Early life:...
's Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1959) was translated by Shir-Cliff for publication by Ballantine in 1962. He also was the co-translator with Oscar De Liso of the screenplay for Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
's La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...
(Ballantine, 1961).
Hunter Thompson
After Hunter Thompson pitched his idea for a fictional attack on President JohnsonLyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
, Shir-Cliff asked to see a written proposal. Thompson's response included comments on the early draft of Hell's Angels, as seen in this excerpt from a 1968 letter to Shir-Cliff, providing some insight into the author/editor relationship:
- January 12, 1968
- Woody Creek, CO
- Bernard...
- Here's a Lyndon Johnson idea. I was talking to Peter CollierPeter Collier (political author)Peter Collier is a writer, and publisher. He was the founding publisher of Encounter Books in California and held that position from 1998 until he resigned in 2005, when it moved from San Francisco to New York City, and Collier was replaced as publisher by Roger Kimball. He remains a consultant...
at RampartsRamparts (magazine)Ramparts was an American political and literary magazine, published from 1962 through 1975.-History:Founded by Edward M. Keating as a Catholic literary quarterly, the magazine became closely associated with the New Left after executive editor Warren Hinckle hired Robert Scheer as managing editor...
tonight, trying to buck him in on a Super Bowl bet... and somewhere along the line I mentioned our Johnson project. He suggested a serious, non-fantasy preview of the Demo convention, based on his "certain knowledge" that all manner of hell is going to break loose in terms of critical protests, demonstrations. Ramparts has numerous connections with SDS and other radical types, and Collier says they're going to freak out the convention. At first I said no, but then I added the fantasy element and saw a possibility... which is fading almost as fast as I can type. Maybe a good pamphlet, but probably not a book... unless you can figure out a new twist.
- What I came up with, and this was just a few minutes ago, was a very straight-faced — and very night-marish — handbook for convention delegates. Like when the 10,000 rats are going to be released on the convention floor, and which organization is planning to kidnap an entire state delegation in order to degrade and humiliate them for the purpose of making an underground film...
- Yes indeed, I'm beginning to hear the music. Did you ever see the Walter JenkinsWalter JenkinsWalter Wilson Jenkins was an American political figure and longtime top aide to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. Jenkins' career ended after a sex scandal was reported weeks before the 1964 presidential election, when Jenkins was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct with another man in a...
, Dean RuskDean RuskDavid Dean Rusk was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Rusk is the second-longest serving U.S...
, drugs and leather cults section that I had, at one point, in the H.A. manuscript? I don't think I ever sent it in. Some of the best parts of the H.A. book never made it past the first-draft because they wandered too far afield. (The Case of the Naked Colonel... did you ever see that? A fantastic story, and absolutely true... a Pentagon colonel found naked in his car, passed out on the steering wheel with a pistol in each hand... no explanation.) ...
- Well, I guess you have the drift by now. Sort of a Report from Iron MountainThe Report From Iron MountainThe Report from Iron Mountain is a book published in 1967 by Dial Press which puts itself forth as the report of a government panel. The book includes the claim it was authored by a Special Study Group of fifteen men whose identities were to remain secret and that it was not intended to be made...
, as rewritten by Paul KrassnerPaul KrassnerPaul Krassner is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958...
. I see it as a ding-dong seller, given adequate promotion, at least until the convention. But I'm not sure what kind of staying power it would have unless we could come up with a longevity gimmick. The key, I think, would be pre-convention publicity — the existence of this frightful report by the well-respected, hard-digging author of Hell's Angels, a known confidant of all undergrounds, a man with his ear to the sewer at all times. But if we couldn't promote it fast and fat enough to sell 100,000 copies, I'm not sure I could work up the superhead of steam that I'd need to get the thing done. The idea of writing against a fiendish deadline, with $10,000 at stake, gets me high and wild just thinking about it. I hear gongs and drums and whistles all around me... not even the Green Bay Packers roll that high. The Super Bowl stake is only $7,500 per man.
- What do you think? Any ideas for keeping the book alive beyond the convention? Needless to say, most of the fantasy content would be based on fact...and for that I'll need the 1964 Theodore WhiteTheodore H. WhiteTheodore Harold White was an American political journalist, historian, and novelist, known for his wartime reporting from China and accounts of the 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1980 presidential elections.-Life and career:...
book, Nixon's Crises bullshit, and the Iron Mountain thing that I asked for quite a while ago. The more I think about this, the more I think in terms of fictitious interviews and bogus secret meetings with the principals. What about lawsuits there? If it rings any bells at all, let's ponder it on the phone...or if this idea kicks off any others in your head, let's talk about those too. Send word, make contact, etc....
- Ciao,
- Hunter
In the early 1980s, when he was editor-in-chief of Warner Books, Shir-Cliff commented on the publishing recession and lower reprint prices:
- You don't see the five to six million copies sold–it's more like three million for a big book. In five years, the book may reach six million, but you don't acquire it with that long-range figure in mind. Another reason is that some massmarket paperbacks have reached $4.95, and that may be the limit. The recession has affected paperback purchases. Where a reader might have bought two books, now he'll buy one–the tried-and-true author.
Until his recent retirement, Shir-Cliff was an agent handling such books as John R. Dann's Song of the Earth (2006).