Rough and Rowdy Ways: The Life and Hard Times of Edward Anderson 0890963525, 9780890963524

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The Life and Hard Times of Edward Anderson BY PATRICK BENNETT

Times were tough

in the thirties,

and tough

guys chronicled the era in newspapers, short

and

stories,

novels, in prose that

hard-boiled, bleak.

One

was

terse,

such writer was a

Texan named Edward Anderson. Rough and Rowdy Ways is the story of Edward Anderson, primarily in what were, ironically, his golden years — the Great Depression. The laconic loner hopped freights, wrote two proletarian novels of the social underclass, looked for inspiration in a shot

and mixed with Hollywood celebrities while employed as a screenwriter for Paraglass,

mount

A

Pictures

and Warner Brothers.

former journalist, Patrick Bennett has

used the

skills

of an investigative reporter

Anderson from almost complete obscurity. Before Anderson even began his brief literary career, he had worked on more than two dozen newspapers in Texas and the Southwest. Leaving the news desk of the Houston Post in 1930, twenty- five-year-old Anderson worked his way to Europe on a freighter and returned a year later to write fiction for pulp magazines, working out of to pluck

He

his parents’ garage in Abilene, Texas.

then took off for a year of hoboing from coast to coast, riding the rails

kitchens.

Upon

write his

first

1935

won

the

and eating

in

soup

returning, he was ready to

Hungry Men, which

novel.

Doubleday-6’^o)7

in

magazine

award and was a Literary Guild selection. Anderson had married Anne Bates in 1934,

and with a wedding gift of one hundred dollars, they went to New Orleans and did research for crime magazine stories. With the Doubleday-tS’/o;^; prize

to

money, they returned

Texas and interviewed Anderson’s cousin,

a convicted bank robber, at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

The

resulting novel.

Anderson

Thieves Like Us, established

as a

Hemingway was twice made

novelist in a class with Ernest

and John Steinbeck, and it into a movie, the remake directed by Robert

Altman.

Number

(Continued on back flap)

Four;

Tarleton State University

Southwestern Studies

in the

Humanities

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

1

Rough and Rowdy Ways

Number Four TARLETON STATE UNIVERSITY SOUTHWESTERN STUDIES IN THE HUMANITIES William

T. Pilkington, Series Editor

*'1 k

'

\

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ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS The Life and Hard Times of Edward Anderson

BY PATRICK BENNETT

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY PRESS COLLEGE STATION

©

Copyright

1988 by Patrick Bennett

Manufactured

United States of America

in the

All rights reserved First Edition

“My Rough and Rowdy Inc.

by Southern Music Publishing Co., Words by Elsie MacWilliams, music by Jimmie Rodgers Ways,” copyright

Frontispiece: Pencil portrait

of

1931

Edward by Karl Sherman

book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48-1984. Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

The paper used

in this

Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data

Bennett, Patrick, 1931-

Rough and rowdy ways

:

the

life

and hard times of Edward Anderson

by Patrick Bennett. p.

cm.— (Tarleton

Bibliography:

State University southwestern studies in the humanities

p.

Includes index.

ISBN

0-89096-352-5

:

Anderson, Edward, 1905-1969. century— Biography. I. Title. I.

PS3501.N218Z587

2.

Authors, American — 20th

1988

8i3'.52-dci9 [B]

88-1151

CIP

;

no. 4)

For Patrick C. and David,

and the children of Edward: I hope you will try hard understand your parents, as hard as I have tried

to

to

understand

my

own.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2016

https://archive.org/details/roughrowdywaysthOObenn

But somehow I

My The

can’t forget

good old rambling days; railroad trains are calling

me always;

I may be rough, I may be wild, I may be tough and counted

But I

My

can’t give

vile.

up

good old rough and rowdy ways.

— old Jimmie

Rodgers song

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Illustrations

Pencil portrait of E.

Edward by Karl Sherman

H. Anderson

Edward as a teenager John H. Knox Polly

Anne

Bates

Newlyweds Edward and Anne Caricature of Edward by Karl Sherman Anne, Helen, and Edward in Kerrville Sarah Ellen Sexton Anderson Edward and Anne in Southern California Edward, with tennis racket, in Hollywood Edward meets J. Edgar Hoover Edward^and Helen in Los Angeles Edward in his office at Warners James, a boxer, and Edward Dick Edward and Helen Helen and Anthony Gavio’s wedding Lupe and Edward Edward at work on a Texas newspaper

frontispiece

page 6 6 15

45 56 61

76 97 iii

113

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125 127

130 132

159 162

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