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S.F. GATHERING CELEBRATES SAROYAN'S CENTENNIAL
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
Sept 4 2008
CA
(09-03) 18:16 PDT -- The admirers of William Saroyan, a writer who
was bigger than life, are throwing a birthday party in San Francisco
tonight to celebrate the centennial of his birth.
Saroyan was born and died in Fresno, the place closest to his heart. He
also lived in Paris, New York and Malibu, but did some of his best
work in San Francisco.
He wrote short stories and plays, dashing them off effortlessly as
if he were blowing bubbles. Saroyan also learned to draw and to paint.
His paintings were a lesser known part of his creative drive. Tonight's
sold-out party will showcase 125 Saroyan paintings and drawings never
seen in public before.
Though his roots were in Fresno, his talents boiled up like a cauldron
in San Francisco, especially in the grim years of the Depression.
Saroyan's first published success, a short story called "The Daring
Young Man on the Flying Trapeze," was written in a flat at 348 Carl
St. overlooking Golden Gate Park, where he lived with his mother,
brother and sister.
His masterpiece, "The Time of Your Life," is a play set in a San
Francisco waterfront saloon.
Saroyan rode the N-Judah streetcar downtown to the public library
to read books he couldn't afford to buy. He was a starving author;
the family was barely able to pay the gas bill or the rent. He got
a 15-cent haircut at the barber college next to the old Skid Road
at Third and Howard streets, and he wrote about it; he thought about
life in the San Joaquin Valley, and he wrote about it while shivering
in the Sunset District fog.
Later, when he was starting to make good money, he bought his family
a house on 15th Avenue with a view of the ocean.
"The Daring Young Man" got him noticed by the New York literary
critics, particularly Bennett Cerf, and after he sold his first story
- for $15 - his career took off like a rocket; he was like a meteor
flashing across the literary sky.
His first big story was published in 1934, and only five years later,
three of his plays were on Broadway at the same time.
"The Time of Your Life" won the Pulitzer Prize, but he turned it down,
he said, on the grounds that commerce has nothing to do with art. He
won an Academy Award in 1943 for the original story of "The Human
Comedy." When his career and his luck turned downward, Saroyan sold
the Oscar, and it ended up in the window of a Mission Street pawn shop.
When the going was good, he had the time of his life in San Francisco,
roaring around the best bars and restaurants, prowling the Tenderloin
trying to pick up dialogue.
He was a friend of Herb Caen, the columnist, and Barnaby Conrad, the
bullfighter. He was "a charmingly noisy part" of the San Francisco
of the time, Caen wrote, "laughing at the human comedy he created."
"He was very much a San Franciscan," said Haig Mardikian, executive
director of the William Saroyan Foundation. "I am of Frisco," Saroyan
said once, "... the foghorns, the ocean, the hills, the sand dunes,
the melancholy of the place. I love this city and its ugliness is
lovely to me."
Another time he said: "San Francisco itself is an art, above all
literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel."
Caen thought that view of San Francisco was part of a kind of puppy
love for the city; San Francisco changed, and so did Saroyan. Always
brash and loud, Saroyan had family troubles, drinking problems and
a disastrous penchant for gambling.
"He gambled away a fortune," said Robert Setrakian, director emeritus
of the William Saroyan Foundation. "He must have lost a million
dollars on the horses and other gambling. And then, $1 million is
like $20 million today."
Saroyan knew he would lose, but that, Setrakian thinks, was part of
his plan. "He wanted to be hungry," he said. "He couldn't stand being
rich and famous. He thought an artist had to have hunger."
Another side to Saroyan was his painting. "The guy was just amazing,"
Setrakian said. Saroyan actually began doing abstract art before he
began to write. "I made drawings before I learned how to write," he
said. "The impulse to do so seems basic - it is both the invention
and the use of language."
Setrakian says Saroyan's painting was eclipsed by his writing. He says
Saroyan had a creative outburst of art in his San Francisco days in
the '30s, and then again later in life, when his written works went
out of fashion.
Major exhibitions of Saroyan paintings and drawings have been mounted
at the Fresno Art Museum, and more than 30 other museums have displayed
Saroyan's works. Saroyan painted as much as he wrote - he produced
60 books, and left behind 7,000 paintings and drawings when he died
in 1981.
By then, he was out of style. On his deathbed, he called the Associated
Press in Fresno, to make sure they would give him a proper obituary. "I
know everyone has got to die," he told the reporter, "but I thought
an exception would be made in my case."
He was born Aug. 31, 1908, 100 years ago Sunday. But the celebration
has been going on all year, especially in Fresno, where there have
been concerts and conferences, readings of Saroyan's work. The Fresno
Bee ran the complete text of a Saroyan novella. There was even a bike
tour of the great man's old Fresno haunts. Saroyan loved bicycles.
Stanford University will present the William Saroyan International
Prize for Writing, one in fiction, one in nonfiction, on Friday. Each
comes with a check for $12,500, not bad for writing in these times.
There will be an international conference in October in Yerevan,
the capital of Armenia. In all of his long life, Saroyan never forgot
his family roots in Armenia.
"In my own personal feeling," said John Kallenberg, a retired librarian
who is president of the William Saroyan Society, "Saroyan has a voice
for all time."
The times of his life William Saroyan was a Pulitzer Prize-winning
author who took the literary world by storm in the 1930s. He wrote
60 books and created thousands of paintings and drawings. His first
published work, in 1934, was a short story, "The Daring Young Man on
the Flying Trapeze." His masterpiece is the play "Time of Your Life,"
and he also is well known for the novel "The Human Comedy."
He was born and died in Fresno, but he lived and worked in San
Francisco and loved the city. He drank and gambled away a fortune. When
he died in 1981, his work was out of fashion, but in recent years
there has been a revival of interest.
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
Sept 4 2008
CA
(09-03) 18:16 PDT -- The admirers of William Saroyan, a writer who
was bigger than life, are throwing a birthday party in San Francisco
tonight to celebrate the centennial of his birth.
Saroyan was born and died in Fresno, the place closest to his heart. He
also lived in Paris, New York and Malibu, but did some of his best
work in San Francisco.
He wrote short stories and plays, dashing them off effortlessly as
if he were blowing bubbles. Saroyan also learned to draw and to paint.
His paintings were a lesser known part of his creative drive. Tonight's
sold-out party will showcase 125 Saroyan paintings and drawings never
seen in public before.
Though his roots were in Fresno, his talents boiled up like a cauldron
in San Francisco, especially in the grim years of the Depression.
Saroyan's first published success, a short story called "The Daring
Young Man on the Flying Trapeze," was written in a flat at 348 Carl
St. overlooking Golden Gate Park, where he lived with his mother,
brother and sister.
His masterpiece, "The Time of Your Life," is a play set in a San
Francisco waterfront saloon.
Saroyan rode the N-Judah streetcar downtown to the public library
to read books he couldn't afford to buy. He was a starving author;
the family was barely able to pay the gas bill or the rent. He got
a 15-cent haircut at the barber college next to the old Skid Road
at Third and Howard streets, and he wrote about it; he thought about
life in the San Joaquin Valley, and he wrote about it while shivering
in the Sunset District fog.
Later, when he was starting to make good money, he bought his family
a house on 15th Avenue with a view of the ocean.
"The Daring Young Man" got him noticed by the New York literary
critics, particularly Bennett Cerf, and after he sold his first story
- for $15 - his career took off like a rocket; he was like a meteor
flashing across the literary sky.
His first big story was published in 1934, and only five years later,
three of his plays were on Broadway at the same time.
"The Time of Your Life" won the Pulitzer Prize, but he turned it down,
he said, on the grounds that commerce has nothing to do with art. He
won an Academy Award in 1943 for the original story of "The Human
Comedy." When his career and his luck turned downward, Saroyan sold
the Oscar, and it ended up in the window of a Mission Street pawn shop.
When the going was good, he had the time of his life in San Francisco,
roaring around the best bars and restaurants, prowling the Tenderloin
trying to pick up dialogue.
He was a friend of Herb Caen, the columnist, and Barnaby Conrad, the
bullfighter. He was "a charmingly noisy part" of the San Francisco
of the time, Caen wrote, "laughing at the human comedy he created."
"He was very much a San Franciscan," said Haig Mardikian, executive
director of the William Saroyan Foundation. "I am of Frisco," Saroyan
said once, "... the foghorns, the ocean, the hills, the sand dunes,
the melancholy of the place. I love this city and its ugliness is
lovely to me."
Another time he said: "San Francisco itself is an art, above all
literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel."
Caen thought that view of San Francisco was part of a kind of puppy
love for the city; San Francisco changed, and so did Saroyan. Always
brash and loud, Saroyan had family troubles, drinking problems and
a disastrous penchant for gambling.
"He gambled away a fortune," said Robert Setrakian, director emeritus
of the William Saroyan Foundation. "He must have lost a million
dollars on the horses and other gambling. And then, $1 million is
like $20 million today."
Saroyan knew he would lose, but that, Setrakian thinks, was part of
his plan. "He wanted to be hungry," he said. "He couldn't stand being
rich and famous. He thought an artist had to have hunger."
Another side to Saroyan was his painting. "The guy was just amazing,"
Setrakian said. Saroyan actually began doing abstract art before he
began to write. "I made drawings before I learned how to write," he
said. "The impulse to do so seems basic - it is both the invention
and the use of language."
Setrakian says Saroyan's painting was eclipsed by his writing. He says
Saroyan had a creative outburst of art in his San Francisco days in
the '30s, and then again later in life, when his written works went
out of fashion.
Major exhibitions of Saroyan paintings and drawings have been mounted
at the Fresno Art Museum, and more than 30 other museums have displayed
Saroyan's works. Saroyan painted as much as he wrote - he produced
60 books, and left behind 7,000 paintings and drawings when he died
in 1981.
By then, he was out of style. On his deathbed, he called the Associated
Press in Fresno, to make sure they would give him a proper obituary. "I
know everyone has got to die," he told the reporter, "but I thought
an exception would be made in my case."
He was born Aug. 31, 1908, 100 years ago Sunday. But the celebration
has been going on all year, especially in Fresno, where there have
been concerts and conferences, readings of Saroyan's work. The Fresno
Bee ran the complete text of a Saroyan novella. There was even a bike
tour of the great man's old Fresno haunts. Saroyan loved bicycles.
Stanford University will present the William Saroyan International
Prize for Writing, one in fiction, one in nonfiction, on Friday. Each
comes with a check for $12,500, not bad for writing in these times.
There will be an international conference in October in Yerevan,
the capital of Armenia. In all of his long life, Saroyan never forgot
his family roots in Armenia.
"In my own personal feeling," said John Kallenberg, a retired librarian
who is president of the William Saroyan Society, "Saroyan has a voice
for all time."
The times of his life William Saroyan was a Pulitzer Prize-winning
author who took the literary world by storm in the 1930s. He wrote
60 books and created thousands of paintings and drawings. His first
published work, in 1934, was a short story, "The Daring Young Man on
the Flying Trapeze." His masterpiece is the play "Time of Your Life,"
and he also is well known for the novel "The Human Comedy."
He was born and died in Fresno, but he lived and worked in San
Francisco and loved the city. He drank and gambled away a fortune. When
he died in 1981, his work was out of fashion, but in recent years
there has been a revival of interest.