Best known as the writer and narrator of the holiday film classic A Christmas Story, Jean Shepherd was a celebrated American author, humorist, radio, TV, and film personality, originally from Hammond, Indiana.
For almost three decades, Shepherd served as a radio personality, first in Cincinnati from 1950 to 1954, and then on WOR in New York from 1956 to 1977. His other radio enterprise was live broadcasts on Saturday nights from The Limelight, a nightclub in Greenwich Village. Shepherd began his entertainment career in Chicago as a performer at the Goodman Theatre. He did nightclub acts on Rush Street, appeared on Broadway in Leonard Sillman's revue, New Faces (1962) and in Voice of the Turtle, and played a dance instructor in the film The Light Fantastic (1963). He was also a sportscaster and did baseball broadcasts for the Toledo Mudhens and Armed Forces Radio.
In the seventies, Shepherd appeared on television in a series of humorous narratives for PBS called "Jean Shepherd's America," later continued on the PBS New Jersey Network as "Shepherd's Pie." This led to a series of teleplays for PBS/WGBH's American Playhouse: "The Phantom of the Open Hearth," "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters," "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" and "The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski."
In 1983, director Bob Clark adapted Shepherd's short story collection In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash into the film A Christmas Story, with Shepherd himself writing the script. While the film initially didn't grab audiences, its reputation grew steadily over time, and, strangely for the medium of film, only grew in popularity year-on-year, eventually cementing a reputation as a classic and prompting TNT and TBS to run a 24 hour A Christmas Story Marathon every year since 1997.
After becoming a holiday film staple, A Christmas Story was expanded into stage adaptations, including the Tony Award-nominated A Christmas Story: The Musical, featuring a score by Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony-winning duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
Shepherd’s books include The America of George Ade; In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash; Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters; The Ferrari in the Bedroom; and A Fistful of Fig Newtons.
Photo Credit: Rochester Institute of Technology - News & Events 1973 from the RIT Digital Archive, Public Domain
