Arthur Shulman, 1927–2018

The Man Who Gave Girls Navels

Jim Shulman
Sep 5, 2018 · 6 min read

My father was many things: a loving son, a soldier in World War Two, a comedy writer, a very successful executive, a communications director, great friend and raconteur, devoted husband and father, among other stellar achievements. He also gave girls navels, but more on that later.

On NBC TV, at the TV Guide Awards. Part of a Bob Hope Special of April 14, 1963 (available on YouTube)

Art was born at home (as was the custom) in 1927, the second of two children (he’s survived by his sister Florence, who recently turned 95.) His parents had immigrated to America around 1921, and in a few years worked their way up from the Lower East Side to prosperity in the Bronx. Unfortunately, that security disappeared in 1930, when his father developed tuberculosis, a then-incurable disease.

The family moved to Liberty, NY, which was a center for tubercular patients. Treatment in that time was plenty of fresh air, often outside in freezing weather. Patients either survived, or they didn’t (but the air had little to do with recovery.) The patients were quarantined in a primitive sanitarium: my father remembered tapping a quarter against the window glass of his father’s room, and his father smiling from the other side. Before FDR’s relief programs my grandmother depended on her scare resources (and limited English) to survive. She raised chickens, and my five year old father delivered cans of kerosene to the neighbors (during the energy crisis of the 1970s he refused to have a kerosene heater in the house — he associated it with poverty.) Fortunately his father recovered, and started a successful bakery supplies business.

His parents bought a four-unit apartment house, and as they prospered moved to progressively larger apartments in the building. From age 14 he waited tables in the Catskill hotels — there were more than 200 Kosher hotels during the Borsht Belt’s glory days — and he worked there on and off through college (and a little beyond.) He had dozens of stories about those hotels, mostly shared with me over a scotch and cigar. Likely he was one of the last people who saw the notorious banned comedian Belle Barth live (check out her sixty year old routines on YouTube, which are still NSFW.) Many years ago he pointed out a crumbling building on Rt. 52 and told me that was the Belle Barth Memorial Bar. In its heyday people were lined up down the block to see her act.

In 1945 he was drafted into the Army, though the war ended during his basic training. In a very real sense, I’m here because Truman dropped the bomb: had the US invaded Japan, my father would probably have been one of the one million anticipated casualties. He was shipped off to Osaka and worked in one of the few remaining office buildings (almost everything else was flattened) where he typed discharge papers, played poker, and otherwise counted the days to his release. In 1947 he was honorably discharged and went directly to Syracuse University on the GI Bill. He wanted to become a writer and started submitting humor pieces to various magazines (a few of which were published).

After he graduated in 1950, he looked for work — though then as now there wasn’t an overwhelming desire for humanities majors. He ran a movie theater for about two weeks, wrote for the Corset and Underwear Review (I’m not kidding!), and knocked about in a variety of other forgettable jobs. In early 1953 he applied for two editorial jobs: one with an ad agency (where the owner made a not so subtle pass) and the other for a just-launched magazine, TV Guide. He skipped the former and took the latter — two days later he was in Rochester, NY as the regional edition editor.

Art saw that the money was in management, so he asked to become the manager of the Kansas City office. After he arrived in Kansas City he befriended on older fellow who shared his bus route, as well as his interest in American history: Harry Truman. In that era when ex-Presidents still took the bus, Art and Truman would talk while they waited for the ride.

Success in Kansas City lead to management positions in Chicago and later New York. In New York he met my mother, Joan Plaut, at a New Year’s Day party in 1958. He immediately knew she was THE ONE, though it took a week of daily proposals to convince her. They were married on January 31, 1958, and the marriage lasted 59 years. I came along the following year, and my sister in 1962.

While TV Guide is remembered as a wildly successful business, it wasn’t an immediate hit on Madison Avenue. For years the magazine had trouble selling prime positions, such as the back cover, even though circulation was seven or eight million copies a week. My father was transferred to company headquarters in Radnor with the mission to improve the magazine’s stature. He did, though a variety of then-innovative promotions: he bought out a performance of “An Evening With Nichols and May”, invited major executives in advertising to attend dinner at Sardi’s, followed by the show. He also produced the TV Guide Awards, which ran for several years. (Check YouTube for the Bob Hope Special of April 14, 1963 — the second half is the TV Guide awards, where you’ll see him handing out silver bowls to winners.) He produced a few TV industry conferences at Asilomar (including one where Paul Goodman gave a memorably acerbic presentation — back when TV executives still had a scintilla of social conscience.)

When he wasn’t creating successful promotions for TV Guide, he was writing extensively for now-forgotten show business personalities such as Edie Adams, George Gobel, and Garry Moore. With his co-author Roger Youman he wrote the first picture history of television, “How Sweet It Was.” Published in 1966, it’s still read today (you can find a 2015, yes 2015, review of the book on the web.) The pictures came from the networks: TV networks would send out 8x10” glossies promoting their shows of the season. The pictures invariably wound up in filing cabinets at newspapers and magazines and were unceremoniously trashed after a few years. My father was a step ahead of the dumpster and managed to save thousands of images (many of which were the only known copies, such as the first iteration of Howdy Doody.) He and Roger sold the collection sometime around 1990, and I hope that it found an appreciative archivist.

In the early 1980s he switched jobs and became the communications director for B’Nai B’rith International. While he met some wonderful people at the organization, there were no shortage of less-than-wonderful folks there, fools he suffered until his retirement in 1994. The organization was undergoing a transformation at the time, from a robust membership group with active chapters around the United States, to a much smaller entity. It was a very frustrating transition.

My parents retired to Sarasota and spent more than sixteen years there. They loved the town, the activities, and the people — and made wonderful lasting friendships. Unfortunately, age caught up with them — in my mother’s case several bouts with cancer and spinal surgeries, and in my father’s case dementia. By 2011 it was obvious they had to move to a care facility, and I fortunately convinced them to return to the Philadelphia area, where we found an ideal place about twenty minutes from my house. For two years they were able to live in an independent apartment, and after that in skilled nursing (for my mother) and personal care for Art. My mother succumbed to a variety of illnesses in April of last year, and my father’s decline became precipitous about three months ago. Both were beloved by many residents and the staff. I was very, very lucky to have them both in my life, close by, for their last years.

But what’s the story about the teenage girls? In 1973 my father was dispatched to troubleshoot Seventeen magazine, which hadn’t weathered the post-1968 economic downturn so well. It also hadn’t caught up with America’s seismic cultural changes — as Joan put it, Art dragged the magazine kicking and screaming into the 1970s. Seventeen was so demure that, at the behest of its first publisher, it airbrushed out models’ navels. Art decided America was indeed ready for the teenage navel.

So when you see a magazine for teen girls and contemplate a few navels, think of my father. He’d get a kick out of that.

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