Beau James;: The life & times of Jimmy Walker

by Gene Fowler

Book by Fowler, Gene

Genres: New York

399 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Gene Fowler (born Eugene Devlan) was an American journalist, author, and dramatist, known for his racy, readable content and for the speed of his writing. After a year at the University of Colorado, he took a job with The Denver Post. His assignments included an interview with the frontiersman and Wild West Show promoter Buffalo Bill Cody. He established his trademark impertinence by questioning Cody about his many love affairs.

Fowler left Denver for Chicago, then moved to New York where Fowler worked for the New York Daily Mirror, New York Evening Journal and as managing editor of the New York American and The Morning Telegraph. His work included more than a dozen screenplays, mostly written in the 1930s.

Reviews

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Gene Fowler was a newspaperman, he was also a friend of Walker's. The former mayor of New York died in 1946 and this book was written in 1949 - that's a little close for any degree of objectivity. But he did have access to Walker's personal papers. At that point he was still able to talk to people, including Allie Walker.

This covers his childhood, early political career, his adventures as mayor of New York City, his downfall and his comeback. He had an eye for the ladies and one in particular caught his eye. Unfortunately, he was already married.

At this time, New York was pretty much run by Tammany Hall. Actually the Democratic Party, which comes to mean the same as New York. Of course, the Republicans wanted to bring down the Machine. I'm pretty sure that all major cities (and probably a lot of smaller ones as well), including my own Chicago, were run by Machines. And Republicans were always running investigations trying to bring them down. Sometimes they were even successful, as they were with Jimmy Walker.

Judge Seabury was able to bring down a number of the Tammany Hall faithful and brought a lot of pressure to bear on Governor Franklin Roosevelt regarding Walker. It didn't help that this was at the time that he was getting ready to run for President. For whatever reason, Seabury had his own visions of grandeur, believing he was destined for higher office. But Walker was a great wit at the time and had superb oratorical skills. He had Roosevelt in a corner and he was trying to figure out how he could get Jimmy out of office but not to actually find him guilty of anything. Walker solved the problem for him and resigned, fully intending to run for mayor again.

Much of the rest of his life was sad, at least until he came back to New York.

For a good part of his life, Walker was working to make his father proud of him. Even after "the Boss" was dead. He didn't live to see his son become mayor but was able to see him as a leader of the state senate, sometimes majority leader and sometimes minority leader - always by 1 vote.

I lived in the Albany area for a time and did find that portion interesting. I really enjoyed the book and gave up wishing for objectivity. It was full of stories about Walker. I had seen the movie so I knew much of the story. Although the movie stops when he has to go into exile with his lady fair. For a time he seemed to be "a man without a country" but settling in England.

Eventually they came back to America, once they stopped trying to get him for back taxes. There was no case.

But who knew that they would go all the way to my home of Evanston to visit the "cradle" and adopt a couple of children. https://www.cradle.org/. I didn't even know if they were still in business.

Overall, an enjoyable read.

[Vy · Rating 5 out of 5]

While events of this book should be taken with a grain of salt, Fowler does a great job at bringing Walker to life. With many moments that shape what Walker would become in the public eye.

The most important thing to remember is that James J Walker was not a normal politician in any way or form. He was an eccentric man who lived a wild life. But what Fowler does do a fantastic job at capturing is the depth of emotionality. An insight under the wisecracking exterior. And like many comedians, he had sorrow within him.

This book is an exceedingly fun read. And a lovely insight into New York at the time. Because of Walkers ties with Broadway you get a fairly decent cross section of names that still are significant today (Rosevelt and La Guardia on the political side, and people like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin on the musical side)

You do not need to know anything about Jazz Age politics to understand what is going on. A lot of the more complex political portions are explained as concisely as I would think possible. And in fact, can be quite a page turner if you don’t know how the politics play out.

This book is about a man who was a politician, but also the rest of him as well. A man who was on the pursuit of happiness for himself as well as others around him, with plenty of consequences along the way.

Walker is far from without faults. His decisions (and hesitation to make them as well) did shape American politics and also lay the basis for a model corrupt politician. Though it is easy to become at least a little sympathetic to his plights.

The meandering nature of this book I think is great for telling Walkers life, and while it hangs on moments a little too long at times and other times skips over them all too quickly, it does have an enjoyable pace.

So read ‘Beau James: the life and times of Jimmy Walker’ and learn more about a man than you ever would in history class, then go watch the 1957 film ‘Beau James’ where Bob Hope brings him to life, then go listen to the 1969 original Broadway cast recording ‘Jimmy: The Life and Good Times of Jimmy Walker’ where Frank Gorshin gives a stellar vocal performance as Walker.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even setting aside the idea that Fowler liked Walker too much to tell the full story of his mayoralty, this isn't as good a book as "The Great Mouthpiece," his biography of criminal defense lawyer William Fallon - a colorfully corrupt New Yorker of roughly the same era. It's probably because Walker, for all his strengths as a politician, wasn't as interesting a character as Fallon. Maybe you had to be there, as Fowler was, to feel that he was a mythic figure bestriding the Jazz Age, and that City Hall from 1926 to 1932 had an aura a bit like the Kennedy White House later on.

There are enough good stories here, including the sad account of Walker's final years, to make it well worth reading. But I got the impression that Fowler was padding things out, with one or two detours into his own adventures as a newspaper editor and PR man in the '20s, and a bizarre extended quote suggesting that he refused to let any research go unused. ("'He wanted no frills,' the now-retired barber recalls. 'I just put on the lather and shaved him, not close, but medium. When this was done, I'd give him a hot towel or two, some witch hazel, and it was over. He could stand the hottest towels. While out of town he shaved himself. This was unsatisfactory to both of us. He would return to me with cuts and scars on his cheeks and jaw. [Continues with a description of Walker's haircuts.]'"

Not Fowler's best work - that would be his memoirs "Timberline" and "A Solo in Tom-Toms," and "Minutes of the Last Meeting," about his circle of friends in Hollywood - but absolutely gripping compared to his John Barrymore bio, which defeated my effort to read it all the way through.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biography of the rogue and scoundrel and song-and-dance man bon vivant 1920s New York City mayor Jimmy Walker was published on January 1st, 1949, and is a rip-roaring read riddled with equal smears and shmears of schmaltz, blarney, apocrypha, and unadulterated (but winking) bullshit. Gene Fowler sits next to you at Tex Guinan's saloon and whispers the story of Jimmy Walker's life into your ear, in prose that is conversational and filled with tapestries of stories from a long gone time in urban politics. Beau James was crooked, but so is every good smile.

[Rebecca Bratspies · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is clearly written by a close friend of Walker's, so the scandal and corruption of his term as Mayor barely makes it onto the page. But, this book is nonetheless a fascinating tale about a remarkable character. I like these highly personal, not-pretending-to-be-objective kinds of stories. Just wish there had been more about Walker's friendship with Major Deegan.

[William Coates · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 100th mayor of New York City comes off as a likable, witty fellow who took the job of mayoralty seriously for the first few months until he succumbed to the cultural temptations of the Roarin' Twenties. When the city sobered up in 1931, Walker was one of the first figures from that time of wonderful nonsense to be sacrificed. Accused of corruption during his administration, Walker resigned before Governor Roosevelt could remove him, probably for non-malfeasance.

Although he's one of my favorite writers, I was disappointed by Gene Fowler's biography. Fowler tended to befriend his subjects before writing their biographies. The danger of such friendships is that one can become too enamored with one's subject. Here, Fowler had fallen head over heels with the man who, to many, represented New York City at the height of the prohibition era. The result is a sentimental work that is too mushy to enjoy.