Damon Runyon: Quotes, Biography, Media, Literary Style, Legacy, Further Reading, and a List of Books by Author Damon Runyon

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"I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against." -- Damon Runyon

Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 — December 10, 1946) was a newspaperman and writer.

He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted. He spun humorous tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit," "Benny Southstreet," "Big Jule," "Harry the Horse," "Good Time Charley," "Dave the Dude," or "The Seldom Seen Kid." Runyon wrote these stories in a distinctive vernacular style: a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions. A passage from "Tobias the Terrible", collected in More than Somewhat (1937) illustrates Runyon's memorable prose:

If I have all the tears that are shed on Broadway by guys in love, I will have enough salt water to start an opposition ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific, with enough left over to run the Great Salt Lake out of business. But I wish to say I never shed any of these tears personally, because I am never in love, and furthermore, barring a bad break, I never expect to be in love, for the way I look at it love is strictly the old phedinkus, and I tell the little guy as much.

The musical Guys and Dolls was based on two Runyon stories, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure". The musical also takes characters and story elements from a few other Runyon stories, most notably "Pick The Winner." The film Little Miss Marker (and its remake, Sorrowful Jones) grew from his short story of the same name.

Runyon was also a newspaperman. He wrote the lead article for UP on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Presidential inauguration in 1933.

Quotes more less

Biography more less

Media more less

Bibliography

The Tents of Trouble (Poems; 1911)
Rhymes of the Firing Line (1912)
Guys and Dolls (1932)
Damon Runyon's Blue Plate Special (1934)
Money From Home (1935)
More Than Somewhat (1937)
Furthermore (1938)
Take It Easy (1938)
My Wife Ethel (1939)
My Old Man (1939)
The Best of Runyon (1940)
A Slight Case of Murder (with Howard Lindsay, 1940)
Damon Runyon Favorites (1942)
Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker (with W. Kiernan, 1942)
Runyon à la Carte (1944)

The Damon Runyon Omnibus (1944)
Short Takes (1946)
In Our Town (1946)
The Three Wise Guys and Other Stories (1946)
Trials and Other Tribulations (1947)
Poems for Men (1947)
Runyon First and Last (1949)
Runyon on Broadway (1950)
More Guys and Dolls (1950)
The Turps (1951)
Damon Runyon from First to Last (1954)
A Treasury of Damon Runyon (1958)
The Bloodhounds of Broadway and Other Stories (1985)
Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs: Damon Runyon on Baseball (2005; Jim Reisler, editor)
A Dangerous Guy Indeed (Unknown)

Films

Numerous Damon Runyon stories were adapted for the stage and the screen. Some of the best of these include:

Lady for a Day (1933)—Adapted by Robert Riskin, who suggested the name change from Runyon's title "Madame La Gimp," the film garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Frank Capra), Best Actress (May Robson), and Best Adaptation for the Screen (Riskin). It was remade as Pocketful of Miracles in 1961, with Bette Davis in the Apple Annie role; Frank Sinatra recorded the upbeat title song (his rendition is not used in the film). The film received Oscar nominations for composers Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen and for co-star Peter Falk (Best Supporting Actor). In 1989, Jackie Chan adapted the story yet again for the Hong Kong action film Miracles, adding several of his trademark stunt sequences.
Little Miss Marker (1934)—The film that made Shirley Temple a star, launched her career as perhaps America's most beloved child film star, and pushed her past Greta Garbo as the nation's biggest film draw of the year. Subsequent remakes include Sorrowful Jones (1949; Bob Hope, Lucille Ball), 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962); Tony Curtis), and Little Miss Marker (1980; Walter Matthau, Julie Andrews, Bob Newhart, Tony Curtis).
The Lemon Drop Kid (1934); also filmed in 1951 starring Bob Hope and future I Love Lucy co-star William Frawley as a racetrack tout.
A Slight Case of Murder (1938)— with Edward G. Robinson, remade in 1953 as Stop, You're Killing Me with Broderick Crawford and Claire Trevor.
The Big Street (1942)— adapted from Runyon's story, "Little Pinks;" Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball
Butch Minds the Baby (1942)— Broderick Crawford, Shemp Howard
It Ain't Hay (1943)—adapted from "Princess O'Hara"; Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Patsy O'Connor

Money from Home (1953)—Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis
Guys and Dolls (1955)—Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra

Radio

Broadcast from January to December 1949, with reruns well into the early 1950s, The Damon Runyon Theatre dramatized 52 of Runyon's short stories for radio. Produced by Mayfair Productions for syndication to local radio stations, John Brown played "Broadway," who served as host and narrator.

Episodes can be heard at Archive.org's Old Time Radio Database here.

Television

Damon Runyon Theatre aired on CBS-TV from 1955-56.

Literary Style more less

Runyon almost totally avoids the past tense (it is thought to be used once, in the short story "The Lily of St Pierre", and once in "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" ), and makes little use of the future tense, using the present for both. He also avoided the conditional, using instead the future indicative in situations that would normally require conditional. An example: "Now most any doll on Broadway will be very glad indeed to have Handsome Jack Madigan give her a tumble ..." (Guys and Dolls, "Social error"). There is an homage to Runyon that makes use of this peculiarity ("Chronic Offender" by Spider Robinson) which involves a time machine.

He uses many slang terms (which go unexplained in his stories), such as:

pineapple = pineapple grenade
roscoe/john roscoe/the old equalizer/that thing = gun
shiv = knife
noggin = head
snoot = nose

There are many recurring composite phrases such as:

ever-loving wife (occasionally "ever-loving doll")
more than somewhat (or "no little, and quite some"); this phrase was so typical that is was used as the title of one of his short story collections
loathe and despise
one and all

Runyon's stories also employ occasional rhyming slang, similar to the cockney variety but native to New York (e.g.: "Miss Missouri Martin makes the following crack one night to her: ‘Well, I do not see any Simple Simon on your lean and linger.’ This is Miss Missouri Martin’s way of saying she sees no diamond on Miss Billy Perry’s finger.” (from "Romance in the Roaring Forties").

The comic effect of his style results partly from the juxtaposition of broad slang with mock-pomposity. Women, when not "dolls", "Judies", "pancakes", "tomatoes", "broads" or what have you, may be "characters of a female nature", for example. He typically avoided contractions like "don't" in the example above, which also contributes significantly to the humorously pompous effect. In one sequence, a gangster tells another character to do as he's told, or else "find another world in which to live."

Runyon's short stories are told in the first person by a protagonist who is never named, and whose role is unclear; he knows many gangsters and does not appear to have a job, but he does not admit to any criminal involvement, and seems to be largely a bystander.