August 15, 1885
On this day, confirmed city girl, Edna Ferber, was born to a family of shopkeepers in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She would write a pair of best-selling Western epics and inspire their award-winning movies. (Right, Ferber, early 1900s)
The closest the author came to the frontier was Ottumwa, Iowa, and Appleton, Wisconsin, her Jewish Ferber family moving often to escape anti-Semitism. Ferber’s “ 1929 novel “Cimarron” and the 1952 “Giant,” successfully captured America in transition. Based on real world politics, “Cimarron” chronicles the fortunes of the Oklahoma land rush Cravats family following removal of thousands of Native Americans.
Published two decades later, “Giant” spans the 1920s when Texas was all about cattle to the 1940s when Texas became all about oil. Both became sprawling Hollywood productions that garnered a flurry of Academy Awards. “Cimerron” won three Oscars in 1931; Best Picture, best adapted screen play and art direction plus best actor nominations for stars Richard Dix and Irene Dunne. (Right)
A 1960 remake starring Glenn Ford and Maria Schell (right) received nominations for art direction and sound. While it attempted to correct the earlier film’s negative portrayal of Native Americans, changes to the story line were criticized.It
By the time “Cimarron” hit the Silver Screen, Ferber had already become a literary success, winning the 1925 Pulitzer Prize for her debut novel, “So Big,” the story of a teacher and a Dutch settlement in Illinois. It was just a warm-
up for her epic frontier culture clashes that followed. Even before she received her Pulitzer, “So Big” was hastily made into a movie. (Right) It was remade in 1932 and again in 1953.
Two decades later the blockbuster “Giant,” starred Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Dean died before the film was released, the tragedy adding to its mystic.
The struggle between old and new Texas puts Hudson’s Bick Benedict and his sprawling Riata cattle ranch in conflict with the rebellious wild-catter Rick Jett played by Dean. By film’s end at the close of WWII, everyone has won a little, lost some and changed a lot in the process.
Both in their heyday, Liz and Rock starred in “Giant”
The film received 15 Oscar nominations, including stars Rock Hudson and James Dean. Mercedes McCambridge won for best supporting actress. In 2005 it was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry, chosen for its cultural, historical and aesthetic significance.
James Dean in his final role as Rick Jett.
Ferber wrote more than two dozen novels including critically acclaimed “Showboat,” set on the Mississippi River during Reconstruction, and another frontier epic,“The Ice Palace,” a tale of Alaska fishermen. “Showboat” was adapted for Broadway and “The Ice Palace” for the Silver Screen.
In addition to her novels and short stories, the multifaceted author was a successful playwright, known best on Broadway for sophisticated dramas including “Stage Door” and “Dinner at Eight.”
Ferber never married, didn’t have any children and apparently never had any romantic liaisons. Once labeling herself an “old maid” she engaged in 
some historic gender battles with male members of the literary establishment. When Ferber and fellow playwright, Noël Coward, (left) both showed up wearing new fashionable double-breasted suits, Coward quipped, “Miss Ferber, you almost look like a man.” Ferber famously shot back, “So, Mr. Coward, do you.”
She died in New York of stomach cancer in 1968 at the age of 82 and was cremated. The disposition of her ashes is unknown.
The History Museum at the Castle, 330 E. College Avenue, Appleton, Wisconsin, houses a collection of memorabilia from Edna Ferber and a diverse group of Appleton area natives including magician Harry Houdini and the not-so-magical Senator Joe McCarthy.
Located in a former Masonic Temple built in 1923, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Administered by the Outagamie County Historical Society, it was once The Houdini Historic Center and still exhibits some of the magician’s performace objects. Admission is $12 for adults, , $7 for children 5 to 17 and children under 5, free. Open in summer 10 to 5 daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Winter hours are 11 to 4, Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Federal holidays. For more information, go to myhistorymuseum.org or call (920) 735-9370.
© Text Only – 2019 – Headin’ West LLC – All photos – public domain or fair use.
*Head On West strives for historic accuracy and uses a number of sources considered reliable. When research differs on significant facts, the various points of view will be cited.