David Freedman was born in Boto?ani, Romania, as the first child, and only son of Sara and Israel Freedman. Israel, a political refugee, immigrated with his young family to the United States in 1900, where four years later, David’s sister Sophie became the first Freedman born in the U.S.A

Education

David matriculated to the City College of New York, graduating in 1918. David was he the first in his family to complete a formal education beyond high school, and stood out from his peer by winning medals in History and Oratory, and a highly coveted Phi Beta Kappa key.

Family

In September 1918, David married Beatrice (née Rebecca Goodman), a fellow New Yorker, who was born in the city on September 27, 1899 (her parents had fled from Kishinev, Russia - today Chi?in?u, Moldova). Within five years, three sons joined them: Benedict (1919), Noel (1922 - now known as David Noel Freedman), and Toby (1924). A decade later their only daughter, who is now known as Laurie Hayden, arrived.

Playwright

From 1924 on, David was a self-employed writer. He created sketch for musicals and had shows on Broadway almost every year from 1926 through 1937. His first play, Mendel, Inc., debuted in 1929. When radio replaced vaudeville, David...who already enjoyed a reputation as a popular, versatile writer...pre-empted the territory. He was prolific, creating as many as six entertainment programs a week for several years. In time, Freedman’s skills were sought for the next new entertainment medium...this time, the big screen.

Stage and screen

David was also a biographer and wrote about industry insiders. His first biography, the Eddie Cantor memoir My Life Is in Your Hands (1928, "as told to" Freedman by Cantor), became a bestseller and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Freedman and Cantor collaborated on a biography of showman Florenz Ziegfeld; Ziegfeld: the Great Glorifier (1934) was used for the film Ziegfeld Follies (1945). Similarly, Phantom Fame (1931) became the basis for the movie The Half-Naked Truth (1932).

In the mid-1930s Freedman contributed scripts for short comedies produced by Educational Pictures in New York. The best known is probably Blue Blazes (1936), starring Buster Keaton as an inept fireman.

Legacy

According to his son, David Noel Freedman, it is unlikely that contemporary audiences would appreciate most of David Freedman's work (though his jokes about the stock market still ring true), because most of his jokes played on the peculiarities and sensitivities of his era. David’s stories, however, have a timeless quality. As the years passed, his family honored his memory with the posthumous publication of The Intellectual Lover (1940), a collection of David’s beautifully written short stories that were originally published individually between 1922 and 1928. In 2007, Kessinger Publishing, LLC published a paperback edition of this title.

Of the countless pieces Freedman wrote between 1920 and 1936, Mendel, Inc. (1929) is the only fully realized play. A product of the beginning of his extraordinary and tragically brief career, it reveals wisdom beyond its author’s years. It embodies and expresses the mature thoughts of a deep-thinking humorist/playwright. On June 2, 2004, this classic comedy about an immigrant Jewish family living in the uncertain times of 1929 of the Lower East Side was read to a packed house at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach, California.

Mendel, Inc. was also used as the basis for the 1932 Warner Brothers film The Heart of New York. a vehicle for Jewish-dialect comedians Smith and Dale, with comedian George Sidney as the pivotal character, Mendel Marantz.

Death

David suffered a massive heart attack on the evening of Monday, 7 December 1936; (cf. NY Times article & obituary). By the morning of the 8th, he was dead, leaving Beatrice, his partner of 18 years, and their four children, who ranged in age from just under 17 to just under 2 years. Freedman also left behind countless fans, most of whom did not know his name. Time will soon tell if Freedman’s passing was too untimely for his work to be properly remembered.

Portrayal

A fictionalized version of David Freedman appears as "Harry Goldhandler" in the novel Inside, Outside by Herman Wouk.

Books

• The Intellectual Lover and Other Stories (1940 and 1986)
• Ziegfeld: the Great Glorifier (1934)
• Your Next President! (1932)
• Phantom Fame: The Anatomy of Ballyhoo (1931)
• Yoo-Hoo Prosperity! The Eddie Cantor Five-year Plan (1931)
• Between the Acts (1930)
• Caught Short! a Saga of Wailing Wall Street (1929)
• My Life Is in Your Hands (1928 and 2000)
• Mendel Marantz (1925 and 1986)

Shows

• Betsy
• Crazy Quilt
• Forward March
• 40
• Mendel, Inc.
• The Show is On
• Sweet and Low
• White Horse Inn
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1934
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1936

Films

• Ziegfeld Follies
• The Half Naked Truth
• The Heart of New York
• Palmy Days

Sources

Auerbach, Arnold, “Funny Men Don't Laugh” Doubleday, NY, 1965 (this book is a memoir, largely covering Auerbach's period of apprenticeship with Freedman; however the name "Lou Jacobs" is substituted in place of "David Freedman")

Bercovici, Konrad, introduction to 'The Intellectual Lover and Other Stories' by David Freedman.

Morris Buckley, Patricia, “Long-lost Play Resurrected for Jewish Arts Festival" for the North County Times, May 26, 2004.

New York Times, archives (various articles, 1900—1940).

The Internet Movie Database entry for David Freedman

Additional sources include the credits listed in the items in the Select Anthology and confirmation of the contents of this article by the following people:

Pulitzer Prize Winner Herman Wouk (December, 2004, Palm Springs, CA),UCSD Professor David Noel Freedman (December, 2004, La Jolla, CA and other members of the Freedman Family in 2005), and members of the Cantor family (2006).