The Konrad Bercovici Story
“Journalist, film writer, author--the romanticism of his career was reflected in his work,” headlined the New York Times, on the death of one of their own. “Konrad Bercovici was a writer of great gusto. A world traveler who enriched his writing talent in the tradition of the determined journeyman of life ... And yet the romanticism of his writing seldom surpassed the romanticism of his real life adventures.”
Konrad Bercovici (1881-1961) was born on a boat on the Bosphorus near the Romanian port town of Braila. He spent much of his early years in Gypsy camps and caravans, playing violin in their bands and traveling with them across most of Europe. Originally intending to be a musician, he made his way to Paris to study with Schweitzer’s teacher Widor, becoming sufficiently proficient to give a recital at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. While in Paris, he became associated with the Montparnasse literary group led by Anatole France and developed friendships with fellow countryman Brancusi and Modigliani, whose sketch of Bercovici is at MoMA. He also fell in love and eloped with artist Naomi LiBrescu, who would become the mother of his four children and creative soul mate for more than 60 years.
Emigrating to New York’s lower East Side in 1904, he supported his young family as a manual laborer, charity investigator and piano player at a nickelodeon. His expertise in music eventually led to a job as music critic, then sports writer for the New York Sun. He also began writing colorful stories for the Sunday edition about the vibrant ethnic neighborhoods of his new home and the Gypsy camps of his old one. His first book, Crimes of Charity, was published in 1917. Based on his first-hand experiences as a charity investigator, the foreword by John Reed praised its “style of bald narration that carried absolute conviction of human character, simple words packed with atmosphere.” Work for The Nation and the New York Times followed, then a job as a reporter for The World, considered the country’s best newspaper at the time. Continuing to write stories for magazines, as well as newspapers, Bercovici’s name was soon simultaneously on multiple covers of such popular publications as The Dial, Harper’s, Century, Ladies Home Journal, Liberty, Atlantic Monthly, Collier’s, McCalls and the Woman’s Home Companion.
This combination of romantic storyteller and hardnosed journalist caught the eye of legendary publisher Horace Liveright, who subsequently published many of Konrad Bercovici’s early books. After starting the enormously popular Modern Library series to bring great literature to the masses ... the paperbacks of their day ... Liveright had founded a publishing house with the foresight to discover and help launch the careers of, in addition to Bercovici, such authors as Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugene O’Neill, William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson and, after Bercovici introduced them, Ernest Hemingway.
Konrad Bercovici went on to publish more than forty critically acclaimed books for other top publishers, including best-selling novels, biographies and still-quoted historical and sociological works on everything from The Crusades to The Story of the Gypsies. The New York Times wrote in its review of the latter, “Konrad Bercovici is to be taken as authority on a subject so elusive that he stands practically alone, a monopolist of learning ... (he) has written a book for future reference as well as immediate pleasure.“
During the golden age of the genre, Konrad Bercovici also continued to write and publish more than 500 short stories, including more multi-starred selections in O’Brien’s famed Best Short Stories of the World collection than any other author ever received. One of them, “The Death of Murdo,” was culled from more than 10,000 to a final list for 2001’s Updike-edited Best American Short Stories of the Century, until the Romania-based story was eliminated in a space-saving cut of those not taking place in America.
As a playwright and, when Hollywood came calling, a screenwriter, Bercovici also worked with Cecil B. DeMille, Edwin Carewe and Victor Fleming, as well as penning the original script for The Great Dictator for Charlie Chaplin. The subject of a celebrated plagiarism suit against Chaplin, it was covered extensively by media around the world, including the front page of the New York Times.
In an early book dedication to him, Bercovici had written:
“Dear Charlie, The last part of this book was written in your studio. A good many things in it I told you while we were trying to reveal ourselves to each other, tearing the masks away which we present to those to whom we refuse ourselves. In wishing Murdo godspeed, I cannot help thinking of you as one of the fraternity that serenades at empty windows. Love from your Konrad.”
His daughter, artist Mirel Bercovici, had typed the original treatment for the film. Family friend Melvyn Douglas had witnessed Bercovici acting out the story for Chaplin at his Pebble Beach home. The betrayal of such a close relationship came as a shock to the entire family. But with a world once more on the brink of war, there were other things to think about. From The Great Dictator to uncovering corruption in Romania that led to a savage beating by the Iron Guard, Bercovici had never turned his back on journalism or politics. And with what some called good news sense--and others, Gypsy intuition--he always seemed to be there when stories were breaking. Lindbergh’s landing in Paris. Revolution in Austria. The king’s abdication during the Spanish Civil War. Even a chance encounter with Pretty Boy Floyd on a deserted train platform in the dead of night. And now, as the Herald Tribune observed, Bercovici “was one of the first writers to spot the trend of Hitler and Nazism and the peril to democracy and Western civilization.”
After interviewing Goebbels and Goehring and witnessing the horror of Hitler’s public spectacles at the Sportspalast, Bercovici could not go back and write the romantic stories his publisher and public were asking for. Instead, he continued to write about the rise of fascism, including an account of the growing Nazi bund movement in America, Undercover, published under a pseudonym to protect his sources ... and his life. And, when World War II broke out, he joined the war department, lecturing hundreds of thousands of soldiers across the country about the threat both here and abroad. Later, he became a leader of the free Palestine movement, co-founding The Answer magazine and serving on its editorial board alongside Albert Einstein. Settling his suit with Chaplin in order to have the financial means to buy ammunition and medicine, he joined the Irgun in Israel, fighting alongside Moishe Dayan and Menachim Begin, who became his lifelong friends.
In subsequent years, Bercovici continued to publish such well-received works as Rimbaud biography Savage Prodigal and Book-of-the-Month Club Selection The Exodus. As he moved into his seventies, many of his earlier books continued to be translated and widely published around the world and his stories appeared in numerous anthologies and “best of” collections. He had a syndicated newspaper column and sat on the board of Prevent World War III magazine, spoke at numerous public events and appeared on television panels alongside such authors as Norman Mailer. A member of the famed Algonquin Round Table since the days of Heywood Broun, Dorothy Parker and Franklin P. Adams, he lunched there daily. And, prolific as always, he continued to write. And write. And write.
As news spread around the world of his death in 1961, huge crowds gathered and the streets around the funeral home had to be closed to traffic. Melvyn Douglas, Helen Gahagan Douglas, Al Hirschfeld, Mischa Elman, all the remaining members of the Algonquin Round Table ... the famous came, but so did the readers, for whom his stories had continued to resonate.
In their obituary, the Herald Tribune called Konrad Bercovici, “Nomad, blacksmith, teacher, charmer, musician, sailor, newspaperman and author.” With his recently discovered, previously unpublished work, Konrad Bercovici’s legacy now enters a new era, as all those aspects of his life and work resonate with a new reader.