Jean Shepherd author, humorist, late-night radio personality, broadcast 1948 to 1955 on various stations in Cincinnati and Philadephia and from 1955 to 1977 on clear channel WOR-AM in New York City.
Jean Shepherd is perhaps best remembered by today's audiences for his contribution to the now classic Christmas movie canon as it's author, producer, and narrator -- the 1983 film A Christmas Story.
Others may know him as a gifted humorist/satirist for his many columns, essays, and short stories that appeared over the years in issues of Mad, The Village Voice, Car and Driver, National Lampoon, Grump, The Realist, TV-Guide, Playboy, and Field and Stream.
Many of Shepherd's essays and short stories -inspired by his experiences growing up in the depression-era industrialized Midwest -- Hammond, Indidana -- have been compiled into four books, which have recently come back into print. Their titles (in order of my own preference) are: Wanda Hickeys Night of Golden Memories, A Fistful of Fig Newtons, In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash and A Ferrari In the Bedroom.
However for countless others, who were fortunate to have grown up on the east coast from the 1950's through the 1970's, Jean Shepherd will forever be remembered as the first grand voice of late-night radio.
Broadcast nightly from 1955 to 1977 on the clear-channel WOR in New York City, Shepherd played a unique roll in radio as the pioneer, bridging the gap between old-time radio theater and the syndicated talk-programs of the modern era.
Jean Shepherd was born in 1921 in the town of Hammond, Indiana -a southeastern, industrial suburb of Greater Chicago. He was raised in a house on Cleveland Street, attended Harding Elementary, and had two friends named Flick and Schartz all names and figures that would later appear in his fictionalized tales of Ralph Parker from Hohman, Indiana. After graduating from Hammond High in 1939, Shepherd served in the signal corps during WWII, an experience from which several of his later stories would also be drawn. After the war he attended the University of Indiana in Bloomington, then in 1948 found gainful employment as a disc jockey in Cincinnati. On the air, rather than playing records, he would often break into a story or some other prolonged monologue for the listeners (which would often land him in trouble with station managers.) For several years Shepherd worked on various stations in Cincinnati and Philadelphia, before moving to New York in 1955 to begin his late night radio programs for WOR.
Initially, his program was on the air five nights a week from 1:00 to 4:30am -- a la "Coast to Coast that does it now. He then was moved early evening and produced a nightly 45-minute programs earlier in the evening. He soon attracted a legion of faithful listeners who referred to themselves as Shepherd's Night-People. The programs were highly varied in content -though usually ran along themes based on the season or perhaps some recent trip or occurrence in Shepherd's life.
Sometimes there were quite serious moments in the program, when Jean might read poetry to listeners, while at other time he might break into song while playing a kazoo or nose whistle.
Often there were elaborate pranks he would incite his listeners to perform. In 1956 he encouraged fans to go to bookstores across the city ask for the nonexistent book Libertine, which would ultimately make the New York Times bestseller list before it was ever written (by Shepherd and friend Ted Sturgeon. Every night at some point in the program Shepherd would give a prolonged and improvised rendition of one of his many short stories.
When he wasn't writing or performing on the radio, Shepherd was performing in hundreds of live shows at colleges and theaters across the country. He would record 6 albums, and appear on such television programs as Steve Allen,The Tonight Show,Merv Griffin and create three local shows of his own: Rear Bumpers, Jean Shepherd's America, and Shepherd's Pie. The various short stories he had written would be combined into two commercially released films -as well as four others produced for PBS.
Jean Shepherd passed away on October 16, 1999, leaving behind the rich legacy of his stories and his massive influence on modern radio. A fan and former Night-Person Jim Clavin, upon recalling the countless nights he spent as a child in the secret company of Shepherd's voice, would write in tribute...
His wit and Humor which has entertained so many of us for so many years will play forever, on those little transistor radios hidden beneath all our pillows.
A Mr. Jones purchaed the house in Cleveland, Ohio that was used in the movie The Christmas Story for $150,000. Yes, it was filmed in there in spite of the real story setting in Hammond, Indiana. November 2006 it was opened as a museum and will now be the Mecca for all the fans of that wonderful story. This year, 2008, a family leased the home for Christmas Week for $5,000 and are living in it -- reliving Raphie and Randy Parker's experiences
I have streaming audio of Jean Shepherd reading his original Christmas Story on his daily program on WOR-AM New York, back in 1974. Some of you will enjoy listening to the original story DUAL IN THE SNOW OR RED RYDER NAILS THE CLEVELAND STREET KID Intersting that Shepherd changes the context making Ralphie to a New Yorker for his Night-People. In the movie, "The Christmas Story, Jean Sheperd plays a cameo role. He is the man in the black coat and hat at the stairs to Santa Claus who tell Ralphie "The end of the line is over there. You hear Jean Shepherd's voice in the movie as the narrator of the story.
