Gene Fowler’s Lost Poem

I don’t know that anyone really thinks about him any more, but Gene Fowler was a journalist and Hollywood writer in the 1930’s and 40’s who was famous for his wit. The other day I was trying to remember a poem he wrote about himself becoming rich. I couldn’t find a copy of it online, so I took it upon myself to transcribe it.

It’s found in H. Allen Smith’s book Lost in the Horse Latitudes. I present it here with Smith’s introduction.

The poem that follows is about Gene Fowler and was written by Gene Fowler and it treats of the attitude of Mr. Fowler’s friends on learning that he had hit the Hollywood jackpot. It was written some years ago just after Mr. Fowler had gone to work for Darryl Zanuck. Mr. Zanuck got it in the mail one day just as it is here:

HOLLYWOOD HORST WESSEL

The boys are not speaking to Fowler
Since he’s been the wine of the rich;
The boys are not speaking to Fowler–
That plutocrat son of a bitch.

For decades he stood with the bourgeois,
And starved as he fumbled his pen.
He lived on the cheapest of liquor
And, aye, was the humblest of men.

And even though women forswore him
And laughed when he fell into pails,
He went over big on the Bow’ry,
The toast of the vagabond males.

The wrinkles were deep in his belly,
The meat on his thigh bones was lean.
Malaria spotted his features;
The stones that he slept on were mean.

Then Midas sneaked up to the gutter
Where old Peasant Folwer lay flat,
And the King of Gelt tickled the victim,
Who rose with a sold-gold pratt.

Gone! Gone was the fervor for justice,
And fled was the soul of this man;
This once fearless child of the shanty
Was cursed with an 18-K can.

He hankered for costlier raiment
And butlers who’d served the elite.
He tore down the old family privy
And purchased a Haviland seat.

Ah, God, how this parvenu strutted,
And smoked only dollar cigars.
His jock straps were lined with chinchilla,
His drawers were the envy of stars.

Ah, where was the once-valiant spokesman
Who gave not a care nor a damn?
Alas, when they scaled his gray matter
It weighed hardly one epigram.

The boys are not nodding to Fowler
Since he rose from the alms-asking ditch;
The boys do not cotton to Fowler–
That sybarite son of a bitch!

Being both an admirer and friend of Mr. Fowler, Mr. Zanuck was indignant. He telephoned Mr. Fowler at once. He said that some dirty bum, jealous of Mr. Fowler’s popularity and success, had written a nasty poem about him. He read it to Mr. Fowler over the phone.
“Good, isn’t it?” commented Mr. Fowler.
“Good, hell!” replied Mr. Zanuck. “I think it’s almost libelous.”
“I still think it’s good,” said Mr. Fowler. “I wrote it myself. I wrote it as spokesman for the general public.”