Irvin S. Cobb relaxing with his trademark cigarI would like to take some time to remember a great American author and humorist who also happens to be a native of my hometown. Today is the 132nd birthday of Kentucky writer and author Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb. In case you are not from the American South or are not versed well in classic American literature, then you may have never heard of Irvin Cobb (unless you grew up in western Kentucky as I did). Cobb was an author, humorist, and newspaper columnist who was born in Paducah, Kentucky and lived most of his life in New York. Today, it seems that most people are not familiar with Irvin Cobb; and while his literary works are written in a style from another time, his writings (sadly) are largely forgotten by today's mainstream reader.
During his lifetime, Cobb wrote over 60 books and 300 short stories. Cobb's writings are steeped in the tradition of local color and his writing style is paralleled with that of another famous American humorist, Mark Twain. Aside from his writing, part of Cobb's iconic image was that he always had a cigar in his mouth (as you will see from the picture posted above). To learn more about Cobb and his place in popular American culture, download this nifty PDF article from the Federation of Historic Bottle Collectors.
To celebrate Cobb's birthday, I would like to present 10 facts that you may (or may not) know about this great American humorist. If you are a lover of good literature or cigars, take a moment today to pay tribute to one of America's great treasures!
Ten Facts You May Not Know About
Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
(June 23, 1876 – March 11, 1944)
Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
(June 23, 1876 – March 11, 1944)
Fact One: Cobb was born and lived his early life in Paducah, Kentucky. Paducah is home to another famous man, Alban W. Barkley, who was Vice President under Harry S. Truman.
Fact Two: Cobb was the second of four children and the town of Paducah was a central place where the events and people of his childhood became the basis for much of his later written works.
Fact Three: Cobb's grandfather was Dr. Reuben Saunders who is credited with discovering the hypodermic use of morphine-atropine halted cholera in 1873. Like Cobb, Saunders is buried in Paducah.
Fact Four: Cobb started his writing career as a journalist with the Paducah Daily News (now The Paducah Sun) at age seventeen, becoming the nation's youngest managing news editor at nineteen. He later worked at the Louisville Evening Post for a year and a half.
Fact Five: Cobb was hired by the New York Evening Sun in 1904 who sent him to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference. His dispatches from the negotiations, focusing on the personalities involved (including President Theodore Roosevelt) were published across the country. This reporting earned Cobb a job offer from Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that made him the highest-paid staff reporter in the United States.
Fact Six: Several of Cobb's stories were made into silent films, and he wrote titles for a couple more, including the Jackie Coogan vehicle Peck's Bad Boy (1921). When sound in movies came in, a few more of his stories were adapted into films, including The Woman Accused (1933), starring a young Cary Grant.
Fact Seven: Cobb hosted the seventh annual Academy Award celebration (1935) at the Biltmore Bowl of the Biltmore Hotel in Hollywood. The movie It Happened One Night starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert won several of the top awards at the celebration.
Fact Eight: Cobb has been described as "having a round shape, bushy eyebrows, full lips, and a triple chin. He always had a cigar in his mouth."
Fact Nine: When Cobb died in New York City in 1944, his body was sent to Paducah for cremation and his ashes placed under a dogwood tree. The granite boulder marking his remains is inscribed "Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb 1876-1944 Back Home."
Fact Ten: Cobb's granddaughter is Patricia "Buff Cobb" Chapman who was a famous television personality of the early 1950s as well as being the second wife to the famous CBS TV journalist Mike Wallace.
Finally, as a bonus to this special tribute to Cobb, let me provide you with a few of his greatest lines:
Quotes by Irvin S. Cobb
"Middle age: when you begin to exchange your emotions for symptoms"
"A good storyteller is a person with a good memory and hopes other people haven't"
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial"
"You couldn't tell if she was dressed for an opera or an operation"
"A funeral eulogy is a belated plea for the defense delivered after the evidence is all in"
"Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn"
"An epitaph is a belated advertisement for a line of goods that has been discontinued"
