Henry Beard
Encyclopedia
Henry N. Beard is an American humorist, one of the founders of the magazine National Lampoon and the author of several best-selling books.
, was born into a well-to-do family and grew up at the Westbury Hotel on East 69th Street in Manhattan
. His relationship with his parents was cool, to judge by his quip "I never saw my mother up close."
He attended the Taft School, where he was a leader at the humor magazine, and he decided to become a humorous writer after reading Catch-22
.
He then went to Harvard University
(from which he graduated in 1967) and joined its humor magazine, the Harvard Lampoon
, which circulated nationally. Much of the credit for the Lampoon's success during the mid 1960s is given to Beard and Douglas Kenney
, who was in the class a year after Beard's. In 1968, Beard and Kenney wrote the successful parody Bored of the Rings
.
In 1969, Beard, Kenney and Rob Hoffman became the founding editors of the National Lampoon, which reached a monthly circulation of over 830,000 in 1974 (and the October issue of that year topped a million sales). One of Beard's short stories published there, "The Last Recall", was included in the 1973 Best Detective Stories of the Year. During the early 1970s, Beard was also in the Army Reserve
, which he hated.
In 1975 the three founders cashed in on a buy-out agreement for National Lampoon; Beard got US$2.8 million and left the magazine. After an "unhappy" attempt at screenwriting, he turned to writing humorous books. Those that have reached the New York Times Best Seller list
are Sailing: A Sailor's Dictionary (1981, with Roy McKie
), Miss Piggy's Guide to Life (1981), Leslie Nielsen's Stupid Little Golf Book (1995, with Leslie Nielsen
), French for Cats (1992, with John Boswell
), and O.J.'s Legal Pad (1995, with John Boswell and Ron Barrett
). Other notable books include Latin for All Occasions
(1990), The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook (1992, with Christopher Cerf
), and What's Worrying Gus? (1995, with John Boswell).
According to Josh Karp, Beard is remembered from his Harvard years as patrician, a pipe smoker, not over-concerned with the appearance or cleanliness of his clothes, misanthropic but not malicious, capable of understanding and organizing any subject, a gifted student who occasionally wrote parodic papers. He was prematurely mature and the Harvard Lampoons arbiter. As a comic writer he excelled at parody, and his hero was S. J. Perelman
. All these characteristics meant that he was an excellent partner with Kenney, who was flamboyant, fond of poses, and given to seeing humor where others recoiled.
Many of these characteristics, not just the clothes, continued into Beard's National Lampoon years. The comedy writer Chris Miller
remembers that Beard "knew everything" and that he said on leaving the Lampoon that he was sick of being the father to all the writers. (Beard would have been about 30.) The comic writer and actor Tony Hendra
says that at the beginning of Beard's tenure, he was painfully shy but the magazine's authority over what material was used. In the next few years, he went through "the greening of Beard", growing his hair, switching from cheap beer to expensive whiskey, and in 1974, forming a relationship with the writer Gwyneth Cravens
.
In 1991, an article in a reliable publication said that Beard and Cravens divided their time between Manhattan and a renovated boat shed in East Hampton
and referred to them as partners. A 2006 interview in a different publication said that Beard and Cravens had married. Also in 2006, Karp wrote that "reportedly" the couple had added California to their list of addresses and that Beard played golf almost daily but never kept score.
Biography
Beard, a great-grandson of Vice President John C. BreckinridgeJohn C. Breckinridge
John Cabell Breckinridge was an American lawyer and politician. He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from Kentucky and was the 14th Vice President of the United States , to date the youngest vice president in U.S...
, was born into a well-to-do family and grew up at the Westbury Hotel on East 69th Street in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. His relationship with his parents was cool, to judge by his quip "I never saw my mother up close."
He attended the Taft School, where he was a leader at the humor magazine, and he decided to become a humorous writer after reading Catch-22
Catch-22
Catch-22 is a satirical, historical novel by the American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953, and the novel was first published in 1961. It is set during World War II in 1943 and is frequently cited as one of the great literary works of the twentieth century...
.
He then went to Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
(from which he graduated in 1967) and joined its humor magazine, the Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
, which circulated nationally. Much of the credit for the Lampoon's success during the mid 1960s is given to Beard and Douglas Kenney
Douglas Kenney
Douglas C. Kenney was an American writer and actor who co-founded National Lampoon magazine in 1970. Kenney edited the magazine and wrote much of its early material.-Childhood:...
, who was in the class a year after Beard's. In 1968, Beard and Kenney wrote the successful parody Bored of the Rings
Bored of the Rings
Bored of the Rings is the title of a paperback parody of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. This short novel was written by Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, who later founded National Lampoon...
.
In 1969, Beard, Kenney and Rob Hoffman became the founding editors of the National Lampoon, which reached a monthly circulation of over 830,000 in 1974 (and the October issue of that year topped a million sales). One of Beard's short stories published there, "The Last Recall", was included in the 1973 Best Detective Stories of the Year. During the early 1970s, Beard was also in the Army Reserve
United States Army Reserve
The United States Army Reserve is the federal reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the reserve components of the United States Army....
, which he hated.
In 1975 the three founders cashed in on a buy-out agreement for National Lampoon; Beard got US$2.8 million and left the magazine. After an "unhappy" attempt at screenwriting, he turned to writing humorous books. Those that have reached the New York Times Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
are Sailing: A Sailor's Dictionary (1981, with Roy McKie
Roy McKie
Roy McKie was an illustrator of children's books, most notably under the Dr. Seuss imprint. He illustrated many books penned by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Theo...
), Miss Piggy's Guide to Life (1981), Leslie Nielsen's Stupid Little Golf Book (1995, with Leslie Nielsen
Leslie Nielsen
Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters...
), French for Cats (1992, with John Boswell
John Boswell (publishing-business figure)
John Boswell is a book packager, literary agent, and author in New York City.He was the subject of a New York Times article on book packaging, which described it as coming up with the idea for a book, writing a proposal, and finding a writer....
), and O.J.'s Legal Pad (1995, with John Boswell and Ron Barrett
Ron Barrett
Ron Barrett is a cartoonist and artist best known for illustrating Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He is a graduate of the High School of Industrial Art, now the High School of Art and Design, in New York City. While still in high school he was an apprentice in the studio of Lucian Bernhard, the...
). Other notable books include Latin for All Occasions
Latin for All Occasions
Latin for All Occasions is a 1990 book by Henry Beard, and Latin for Even More Occasions is a 1991 sequel. Both contain translations of modern English phrases into mostly literal Latin equivalents.Beard is known as a humorist but studied Latin for eight years at Harvard...
(1990), The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook (1992, with Christopher Cerf
Christopher Cerf
Christopher Cerf is a U.S. author, composer-lyricist, voice actor, and record and television producer. He is known for his musical contributions to Sesame Street, for co-creating and co-producing the award-winning PBS literacy education television program Between the Lions, and for his humorous...
), and What's Worrying Gus? (1995, with John Boswell).
Personal life
The New York Times has described Beard as "enigmatic". Among the enigmas, apparently, is his birthdate. Not even the year of his birth appears in the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data of his books or in various Web and print sources. However, Josh Karp's biography of Doug Kenney says that Beard was "a nearly thirty-year-old man" when he left the National Lampoon on March 18, 1975 and an article published on November 29, 1987, gives his age as 42. The birth year given above, 1945, is based on these two statements.According to Josh Karp, Beard is remembered from his Harvard years as patrician, a pipe smoker, not over-concerned with the appearance or cleanliness of his clothes, misanthropic but not malicious, capable of understanding and organizing any subject, a gifted student who occasionally wrote parodic papers. He was prematurely mature and the Harvard Lampoons arbiter. As a comic writer he excelled at parody, and his hero was S. J. Perelman
S. J. Perelman
Sidney Joseph Perelman, almost always known as S. J. Perelman , was an American humorist, author, and screenwriter. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for The New Yorker...
. All these characteristics meant that he was an excellent partner with Kenney, who was flamboyant, fond of poses, and given to seeing humor where others recoiled.
Many of these characteristics, not just the clothes, continued into Beard's National Lampoon years. The comedy writer Chris Miller
Chris Miller (writer)
John Christian "Chris" Miller was born in Brooklyn in 1942 and grew up in Roslyn, NY on Long Island. Miller is an American author and screenwriter, most notable for his work on National Lampoon magazine and the movie Animal House...
remembers that Beard "knew everything" and that he said on leaving the Lampoon that he was sick of being the father to all the writers. (Beard would have been about 30.) The comic writer and actor Tony Hendra
Tony Hendra
Tony Hendra is an English satirist and writer who has worked mostly in the United States. Educated at St Albans School and Cambridge University, he was a member of the Cambridge University Footlights revue in 1962, alongside John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor.-Career:In 1964 Hendra...
says that at the beginning of Beard's tenure, he was painfully shy but the magazine's authority over what material was used. In the next few years, he went through "the greening of Beard", growing his hair, switching from cheap beer to expensive whiskey, and in 1974, forming a relationship with the writer Gwyneth Cravens
Gwyneth Cravens
Gwyneth Cravens is an American novelist and journalist. To date, she has published five novels. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, where she also worked as a fiction editor, and in Harper’s Magazine, where she was an associate editor...
.
In 1991, an article in a reliable publication said that Beard and Cravens divided their time between Manhattan and a renovated boat shed in East Hampton
East Hampton (town), New York
The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York...
and referred to them as partners. A 2006 interview in a different publication said that Beard and Cravens had married. Also in 2006, Karp wrote that "reportedly" the couple had added California to their list of addresses and that Beard played golf almost daily but never kept score.
Selected Bibliography
- Bored of the RingsBored of the RingsBored of the Rings is the title of a paperback parody of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. This short novel was written by Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, who later founded National Lampoon...
(with Doug Kenney) (1969) - Sailing: A Sailor's Dictionary (with Roy McKieRoy McKieRoy McKie was an illustrator of children's books, most notably under the Dr. Seuss imprint. He illustrated many books penned by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Theo...
) (1981) - Miss Piggy's Guide to Life (1983)
- Cooking: A Cook's Dictionary (with Roy McKieRoy McKieRoy McKie was an illustrator of children's books, most notably under the Dr. Seuss imprint. He illustrated many books penned by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Theo...
) (1985) - The Pentagon Catalog: Ordinary Products at Extraordinary Prices (with Christopher CerfChristopher CerfChristopher Cerf is a U.S. author, composer-lyricist, voice actor, and record and television producer. He is known for his musical contributions to Sesame Street, for co-creating and co-producing the award-winning PBS literacy education television program Between the Lions, and for his humorous...
) (1986) - Golfing: A Duffer's Dictionary (with Roy McKieRoy McKieRoy McKie was an illustrator of children's books, most notably under the Dr. Seuss imprint. He illustrated many books penned by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Theo...
) (1987) - Latin for All OccasionsLatin for All OccasionsLatin for All Occasions is a 1990 book by Henry Beard, and Latin for Even More Occasions is a 1991 sequel. Both contain translations of modern English phrases into mostly literal Latin equivalents.Beard is known as a humorist but studied Latin for eight years at Harvard...
(1990) - Latin for Even More Occasions (1992)
- Advanced French for Exceptional Cats (1992)
- French for Cats: All The French Your Cat Will Ever Need (1993)
- The Way Things Really Work: (And How They Actually Happen) (with Ron BarrettRon BarrettRon Barrett is a cartoonist and artist best known for illustrating Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He is a graduate of the High School of Industrial Art, now the High School of Art and Design, in New York City. While still in high school he was an apprentice in the studio of Lucian Bernhard, the...
) (1993) - Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse (1994)
- The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook (with Christopher CerfChristopher CerfChristopher Cerf is a U.S. author, composer-lyricist, voice actor, and record and television producer. He is known for his musical contributions to Sesame Street, for co-creating and co-producing the award-winning PBS literacy education television program Between the Lions, and for his humorous...
) (1994) - Sex and Dating: The Official Politically Correct Guide (with Christopher CerfChristopher CerfChristopher Cerf is a U.S. author, composer-lyricist, voice actor, and record and television producer. He is known for his musical contributions to Sesame Street, for co-creating and co-producing the award-winning PBS literacy education television program Between the Lions, and for his humorous...
) (1994) - The Official Sexually Correct Dictionary and Handbook (with Christopher CerfChristopher CerfChristopher Cerf is a U.S. author, composer-lyricist, voice actor, and record and television producer. He is known for his musical contributions to Sesame Street, for co-creating and co-producing the award-winning PBS literacy education television program Between the Lions, and for his humorous...
) (1995) - O.J.'S Legal Pad (with John Boswell and Ron BarrettRon BarrettRon Barrett is a cartoonist and artist best known for illustrating Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He is a graduate of the High School of Industrial Art, now the High School of Art and Design, in New York City. While still in high school he was an apprentice in the studio of Lucian Bernhard, the...
) (1995) - What's Worrying Gus?: The True Story of a Big City Bear (with John Boswell) (1995)
- Leslie Nielson's Stupid Little Golf Book (with Leslie Nielson) (1995)
- The Unshredded Files of Hillary and Bill Clinton (with John Boswell) (1997)
- Bad Golf My WayBad Golf My WayBad Golf My Way is a short movie by actor Leslie Nielsen. It is the sequel to his first golf video Bad Golf Made Easier....
(with Leslie Nielson) (1997) - Zen for Cats (1997)
- The Official Exceptions to the Rules of Golf (1997)
- Mulligan's Laws (1998)
- Bill Gates' Private Super Secret Private Laptop (with John Boswell) (1998)
- Computing: A Hacker's Dictionary (with Roy McKieRoy McKieRoy McKie was an illustrator of children's books, most notably under the Dr. Seuss imprint. He illustrated many books penned by Theodor Seuss Geisel under the pen name Theo...
) (1999) - Rationalizations to Live By (with John Boswell) (2000)
- Where's Saddam? (with John Boswell) (2003)
- X-Treme Latin: Unleash Your Inner Gladiator (2004)
- The Dick Cheney Code (2004)
- French Cats Don't Get Fat: The Secrets of La Cuisine Feline (2005)
- A Cat's Night Before Christmas (with John Boswell) (2005)
- A Dog's Night Before Christmas (with John Boswell) (2005)
- Murphy's Laws of Golf (2007)
- The Official Rules of Bad Golf (2007)
- Golf: An Unofficial and Unauthorized History of the World's Most Preposterous Sport (2009)