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Famous Like Me > Writer > S > Thorne Smith

Profile of Thorne Smith on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Thorne Smith  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 27th March 1892
   
Place of Birth: Annapolis, Maryland, USA
   
Profession: Writer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Thorne Smith (1892–1934) was an American writer of fantasy fiction.

Books:

  • Biltmore Oswald (1918)
  • Topper (1926). (Copyright renewed, 1953) This and its 1932 sequel, Topper Takes a Trip were probably Smith's most famous work, about a respectable banker called Cosmo Topper and his misadventures with a couple of ghosts, Marion and George Kerby. It was made into a film for MGM by Hal Roach in 1937; the cast included Cary Grant as George Kerby. The books were adapted into an American television series beginning in 1953, with Leo G. Carroll as Cosmo Topper, Robert Sterling and Anne Jeffreys as the ghosts. Seventy-eight episodes were made: the pilot episode and a few of the early episodes were written by Stephen Sondheim.
  • Dream's End (1927) (Copyright renewed 1955)
  • The Stray Lamb (1929)
  • Did She Fall? (1930)
  • The Night Life of the Gods (1931). Quirky inventor Hunter Hawk strikes gold when he invents a device that will enable him to turn living matter into stone and to reverse the process at will. After a chaotic field test he meets stunning 900 year old Megaera who teaches him to turn stone into flesh. The two and a bunch of friends set their sights on New York City to bring the Greek gods of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to life...
  • Turnabout (1931) A Classic in all senses of the word. Thorne Smith pits two thoroughly modern married people in a classic battle of the sexes. After listening to the nearly endless bickering and childish jealousy of a young man and wife (Tim and Sally Willows) An ancient Egyptian Idol decides to play a fairly low trick on the two by causing them to switch bodies. After the wife forcefully impregnates her husband, things take a decided turn for the worse as they separately try to deal with the object of the former wife's affections--- a deplorably predictable square jawed philanderer by the name of Carl Bently. The scene in which Tim, trapped in his wife's body exacts an icy revenge on the unfortunate interloper is one of the unforgettable moments of Thorne Smith's peculiar humor. Both a film (1940) and a short lived television pilot in 1979 were made based on this wonderful book. (see the link at http://www.tv.com/turnabout/show/7603/summary.html&full_summary=1)
  • The Bishop's Jaegers (1932). Depressed and indifferent heir of a vast coffee import fortune, Peter Van Dyke finds his life and high society engagement turn upside down when his secretary, Josephine Duval determines that she will get rescue him from his horrible fate by ruining him morally. After an amusing scandal involving a nude Peter Van Dyke, Miss Duval and an ill starred burglar in a coat closet, he finds himself cast adrift in a fog with a motley crew that includes a Bishop Waller of the Episcopal Church and a former nude model named Aspirin Liz. The enterprising party lands unceremoniously on the shores of one of New York's sauciest nudist colonies, and thus is the liberation of the coffee importer set in motion. One of Smith's only comic novels in which no element of the supernatural is featured.
  • Rain in the Doorway (1933)
  • Skin and Bones (1933)
  • The Glorious Pool (1934) Perhaps the best example of Thorne Smiths acutely sharp social humor played out against a backdrop of the Volstead Ammendment (Prohibition). Two unrepentant old reprobates are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the seduction which made the stylish old man named Rex Pebble into an adulterer and his companion, Spray Summers into his hard boiled mistress. While their exasperating and highly alcoholic Japanese houseboy, Nokashima, plays ju jitsu with the English language, the two slip into a swimming pool whose waters have been changed into a fountain of youth. Abandoning their clothes and modesty with their advanced years, the newfound youthfulness of their bodies puts into motion an evening of hijinks that only a seasoned and well practiced old couple of sinners could manage to imagine.
  • The Passionate Witch (1941) (published posthumously), later released as a movie with the title, I Married A Witch, one of the inspirations along with Bell, Book and Candle for the long-running TV series Bewitched.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Thorne Smith