Bennett Cerf
Overview
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
s, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?
What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....
.
Bennett Cerf was born in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and raised in a Jewish family of Alsatia
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
n and German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
descent. His father, Gustave Cerf, was a lithographer; and his mother, Frederika Wise, was an heiress to a tobacco-distribution fortune.
Cerf attended Townsend Harris High School, the same public school as composer Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
, publisher Richard Simon
Richard L. Simon
Richard Leo Simon was an American businessman, Columbia University graduate, and co-founder of the publishing house Simon & Schuster. Born in New York City, his brother was music critic and author George T...
, and playwright Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Dietz was born in New York City and studied journalism at Columbia University...
; and he spent his teenage years at 790 Riverside Drive, an apartment building in Washington Heights
Washington Heights, Manhattan
Washington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the...
that was home to two other friends who became prominent as adults, Howard Dietz and the Hearst newspapers financial editor Merryle Rukeyser
Merryle Rukeyser
Merryle Stanley Rukeyser , was an American journalist and educator in finance and economics.He graduated from Columbia University's Pulitzer school in 1915, and four years later received a masters degree in economics also from Columbia. He became a financial journalist first for the New York...
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