Dr. Seuss Biography

Recently was the 100th birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, and if anything, his legacy has grown. J. K. Rowling, the creator of the Harry Potter series, has sold more children's books than anyone else in history -- except Dr. Seuss. His works have been translated, turned into movies and cartoons and parodied by some of the brightest minds in the literary world. (Salman Rushdie's "How the Grinch Stole America" is a prime example.) Dr. Seuss created the words "nerd" and "grinch" (there was an obscure 17th century usage for grinch, but Seuss made it mainstream), taught millions and millions of children to read, and almost single-handedly kept the tradition of poetry alive in this country. But what we tend to forget is that Dr. Seuss's books were often opinionated, outspoken and even controversial.

"If we met him today," says Harold Nel, an animation historian, "and I should say that he didn't like public appearances, tours or book signings, we would probably find him to be fairly outspoken, irascible and really funny. He was someone who had little patience for hypocrisy or people who stand on ceremony. I think you see that in his books. His characters don't play by the rules."

Neither did Theodor Geisel. Nel tells the story of the time Geisel was attending an event at a department store but grew tired of the chitchat and disappeared. Eventually a search party discovered him down in the women's shoe department marking down the prices. He was just as inclined to upset the natural order when writing as Dr. Seuss. Even today parents sometimes talk about how the anarchistic "Cat in the Hat" makes them vaguely uneasy. And as Geisel said himself, the overreaching "Yertle the Turtle" was meant to refer to Adolf Hitler.

"People have this vision of children's literature as sweet and full of bunnies," says Nel. "But some critcs claim that 'Yertle the Turtle' is the most famous anti-fascism poem ever written."

At times kindly old Dr. Seuss so upset his targets that they struck back in anger. The Seuss book "The Lorax," a cautionary tale about conservation and greed, seems harmless enough. But the book so outraged the lumber industry that the Wood Flooring Manufacturing Association wrote and released "The Truax." A book written specifically to counter the book 'The Lorax.' In the book, Truax is the reasonable, friendly logger, while the Guardbark, the protector of the trees, is a shrill, ranting environmentalist who stomps his foot and won't listen to reason. Naturally, because Truax is clearly in the right, that is, in the view of the Wood Flooring Manufacturing Association, Guardbark is eventually convinced that the good-natured logger has a point and there is nothing to worry about. Not only does this tale have its own web site, it also comes with a lesson plan for teachers who feel inclined to change supposed false impressions that one might have about the logging industry. The result from this unexpected reation, predictably, was free publicity for the Dr. Seuss's publication of "The Lorax".

"How far will we go?" he asks. "How much will we pay? To keep a few minnows from dying away?"

Dr. Seuss was even sometimes used to bolster arguments he didn't support. When a right-to-life group tried to appropriate the phrase "a person's a person no matter how small," from "Horton Hears a Who," Theodor Geisel threatened a lawsuit to stop its use.

Of course, what many wish is that a lawsuit could have stopped the making of the recent film "The Cat in the Hat." Some feel that it strays too far from the original text and aesthetic. In contrast,when Geisel worked on an adaptation of one of his story's, it had a much better chance for success. He and animator Chuck Jones did the classic "Grinch" for TV that still holds up well and also combined for an animated "Cat in the Hat."

"When he was involved in a project, he was a perfectionist," Nel says. "I think other people's adaptations have suffered from his lack of involvement."

The relationship between Jones, creator of the Road Runner cartoons, and Geisel was a quirk of history. In the service during the Second World War, they ended up working on an Army cartoon called Pvt. Snafu. At the time, Nel says, it made good sense to show a cartoon to the GIs because many of them were poorly educated or could not read at all. Pvt. Snafu, who got everything wrong, was a good way of showing the recruits how to be good soldiers. They just had to do the opposite of Pvt. Snafu. Geisel and Jones included plenty of humor, which made the Snafu reels extremely popular.

Oddly enough, the film group also included director Frank Capra. Geisel and Capra also made propaganda films. But even then he couldn't avoid putting his stamp on the product. Geisel's film "Your Job in Japan" was supposed to inspire the fighters. But some of those who saw it thought that it was too sympathetic to the Japanese and that it shouldn't be shown.

What's most impressive is the body of work Theodor Geisel compiled. Early in his career he did political cartoons, animated shorts and propaganda movies. And that's not to mention his ad campaigns. His catchphrase for an insect spray, "Quick, Henry, the Flit," is still heard as a punch line for Americans of a certain age.

"You came away thinking, 'When did this man sleep?' " Nel says.

And that was just the start of it. Geisel didn't become Dr. Seuss until after a minor scandal in 1925, his senior year at Dartmouth. He and some friends were caught drinking in his dorm room, and because it was during Prohibition, there had to be a penalty. He was banned from working for the student publication, the Jack-O-Lantern. To get around the ban he filed using his middle name, Seuss, or sometimes "T. Seuss." He stuck with the name when he began writing and illustrating children's books. His tongue-in-cheek claim was that he was saving his real name for the Great American Novel he intended to write.

Geisel was a talented artist, although he did all he could to undermine his reputation. He famously remarked that "I try to draw a kangaroo and it comes out a Grinch." But he could paint and draw seriously and did for his own amusement.

Also in 1939, he indulged his racy side, writing a book called "The Seven Lady Godivas." The gimmick was that the text was accompanied by seven drawings of nude women by Geisel. He said he did his best to portray the "most erotic ladies I could."

Unfortunately, Nel says, "they are the least erotic naked ladies you have ever seen in your life. It was a disaster."

Geisel was unruffled. "I must have gotten the knees wrong," he speculated.

Parents who read their children to sleep with Dr. Seuss might be surprised to learn that he never lost his interest in risque material. He was famous for putting a phony page in his manuscripts to make sure his editors were paying attention. In his book of the alphabet he inserted a page for the letter X of a large-breasted woman and the text: "Big X, little X, XXX, some day, kiddies, you will learn about sex."

Although his fame and fortune grew impressively, Geisel led an unaffected life. He endowed a chair at Dartmouth, started the Dr. Seuss Foundation and traveled. In 1984 he won the Pulitzer Prize. One of his few concessions to his legacy was that his license plate was "GRINCH," a character he always claimed he modeled on himself. In all he wrote more than 60 works, beginning with "And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street" in 1937. Seussologists like to remind us that book was rejected by more than 40 publishers.

For the most part he turned down offers to speak (perhaps worried he'd have to face another plate of green eggs), but when he did, his remarks were always in verse. Nel speculates that he felt more comfortable that way because that's how most in the audience knew him.

He did, however, take the time to pass on the secret to writing children's books before he died.

"I don't write for children," he said. "I write for people."