Written and Compiled by Victor A. Berch as a Contribution to the
73rd Mailing (October 2005) of the Pulp-Era Amateur Press Society (PEAPS).
All material including compilations are copyrighted by Victor A. Berch.
"Creative Minds Are Seldom Tidy"--Anon.
Some years ago I became fascinated with the biography of Emile C. Tepperman, an author whom I had read as a youngster. He was identified as one of the authors behind the pseudonym Curtis Steele and I had read many of his stories in the pulp magazine Operator #5.
When I started the research, little had been known about Tepperman. I was fortunate enough to be able to add some new biographical details about him, but not enough to verify the where and when of his death. So, he still remained somewhat of a mystery, but I did publish the results of my research in one of the now defunct issues of ECHOES, a fan magazine run by Tom and Virginia Johnson.
I thought I would share that article for the sake of the newer fans who may not have had the opportunity to read the article and, perhaps, stir up some interest in further research into Tepperman. I should add that in the meantime I have been able to add some new details on Tepperman, which will be disclosed herein.
THE TEPPERMAN QUEST
I first became acquainted with Emile C. Tepperman quite unknowingly. As an avid reader in my youth, my favorite reading matter consisted of Doc Savage, Operator #5, The Shadow, Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories, G-Men Detective, as well as a few other pulp magazines that happened to catch my fancy.
During the Depression years of the mid-1930s, I used to work every day after school and a Saturday or two for the grand sum of $5.00 per week. Half of that automatically went to my mother, and after my own expenses and incidentals, I managed to squirrel away 25¢ each week. When my savings reached the dollar mark, I would go and search out my favorite reading material, both new and second-hand pulp magazines
It was just a couple of months after I had turned twelve that I wandered down to the local magazine store on my periodic buying trip. There on the stands was that month's issue of Operator #5. The lead story that caught my eye and imagination was "America's Plague Battalion" by Curtis Steele. Little did I know or dream then that Curtis Steele was the house name for the few writers responsible for the authorship of the Operator #5 stories, amongst them Emile C. Tepperman. By the time I had reached eighteen, I had amassed quite a pulp collection. Then along came World War II. I had offered to serve in the Merchant Marine, and before leaving home, my mother insisted that my room be cleaned out, for pulps were stacked everywhere. A book-dealer was called in and away went my collection.
I spent four years in the Merchant Marine, then three years in the U.S. Army before returning home to settle down. By this time, Operator #5 and Curtis Steele were lost somewhere in the dim memories of my mind.
Some thirty-two years later, I chanced upon the quest for Emile C. Tepperman, alias Curtis Steele, in an issue of Bob Weinberg's Pulp series. As well as bringing back a flood of memories from my youth, the enigma of Tepperman's disappearance intrigued me. Surely no one could vanish just like that without some trace. "Heck!" I thought, "I'll take a stab at the problem and see what I can come up with."
First, I had to gather together what information was known; which proved to be very little at the time. According to various reports, Tepperman was thought to be a pseudonym, a ghost and, perhaps, even a woman. However, some former pulp editors came forth to dispel those myths, maintaining that Tepperman was indeed a real person. To further bolster this belief, Tepperman's signature was located on a payment check from Popular Publications.
The facts that I managed to collect were that Tepperman had begun writing for the pulp magazines sometime in the early 1930s; his last known address in 1943 was 4708 39th Avenue, Sunnyside, Long Island City, Queens, New York; and he had scripted some of the Gangbusters radio scripts.
Because of my profession, a librarian, I felt it necessary to corroborate what facts I could. To verify that Tepperman had written some of the Gangbusters scripts, I checked for his name in Frank Buxton and Bill Owen's The Big Broadcast, 1920-1950 (New York, 1972). Oddly enough, Tepperman was not listed as one of the script writers for this Phillips H. Lord series, but the index revealed that Tepperman had been a script writer for another of Phillips H. Lord's series, Counterspy.
Hoping to uncover which scripts Tepperman may have written for Counterspy, I mailed off a query to the American Broadcasting Company's library in New York City. Hopefully, by ascertaining the titles of the scripts and when they were broadcast, these would be able to provide me with some dates to work with.
Unfortunately the reply I received was of little assistance, as I learned that ABC had no idea which Counterspy scripts had been authored by Emile C. Tepperman, since an outside agency had supplied the scripts. And so, this lead went up in smoke.
I can't recall now exactly when another lead presented itself to me. But it was while I was conducting some research that involved the use of the Catalog of Copyright Entries. It seems that many researchers, even librarians, are unaware of the potentialities of the Catalog of Copyright Entries as an aid to literary research.
I had been checking through the Catalog for the year 1966 in an attempt to verify the exact publication dates of a few books I had recently acquired for my collection. After that was accomplished, I began to browse through the Catalog, as is usually my habit with a catalog of this nature, in order to ascertain what other types of information could be gleaned from it for any future research.
While thumbing through the Renewal Registration section of the catalog, the name of Emile C. Tepperman literally leaped off the page to catch my immediate attention. All sorts of thoughts whizzed through my mind. My hopes were lifted up once again by the thought that Tepperman might be alive as late as 1966 or that I might learn of his whereabouts at that time.
I carefully copied the pertinent data which stated that a renewal for copyright registration had been filed on July 25, 1966 under Tepperman's name for the story "The Man Who Couldn't Lose," which had appeared in Detective Tales Magazine, September 1939. The copyright renewal belonged to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Perhaps MGM had purchased the story as a possible plot for a movie.
At any rate, I wrote to the Copyright Office for a photocopy of this renewal form supplying the necessary data from the Catalog. The usual procedure followed. A wait of a couple of weeks; then a form letter advising me of the amount of money to forward to the Copyright Office for the photocopy; another wait of a couple of weeks. By this time, my anxieties were getting the better of me and when the letter containing the copyright renewal form finally arrived, I practically shredded the envelope open in order to get at its contents. My heart sunk. For much to my chagrin, the only address listed on the photocopy form was that of MGM's New York address for 1966.
Undaunted by this turn of events, I immediately sent off a letter to MGM in New York and asked for any details concerning the renewal of this copyright. My letter was forwarded to MGM's main office in California. A week or so later came this return answer ". . .The name of the property that Emile C. Tepperman wrote was 'The Man Who Couldn't Lose'. We renewed the copyright in the name of the author, Emile C. Tepperman, July 25, 1966 and the entry number is R-390157. We never have been able to discover definitely if the author was alive or dead at the time of this renewal . . ." And so this lead went down the drain. But Tepperman remained with me as a haunting spectre.
It is possible that a year passed before my next encounter with the Tepperman quest took place. Once again, I was engaged in another bit of research which involved the verification of radio program titles from the 1940s and once again the Catalog of Copyright Entries was to play a significant role in my search for Tepperman.
By this time, it became second nature for me to check through any name index I might be using to see if Tepperman's name was included. One can well imagine the orgasmic satisfaction I experienced as Tepperman's name came into focus. For as I flipped through the pages of the Catalog of Copyright Entries for 1946 and 1947, I knew that I had hit a veritable treasure trove of hitherto unknown information. I had managed to locate nineteen scripts which Tepperman had authored for the famed Inner Sanctum radio program. The scripts had been aired during the time period of August 28, 1945 through May 26, 1947.
A notation that Tepperman resided in Long Island City was included along with the titles of the scripts, the dates of airing and the dates of copyright, all of which I shall list in an appendix. Whatever it had been that had prompted Tepperman to copyright these works, when practically all that he wrote was under copyright to others, was going to serve me in good stead in my search.
Quite aware that a Long Island City address had been furnished for Tepperman, I wanted to verify a more substantial address than that given in the Copyright Office catalog. Was Tepperman still residing at 4708 39th Avenue, or had he moved to another address? I selected the title of the latest dated script, which was May 26, 1947, and sent off for a copy of the Copyright Office registration form. After the usual procedure of wait-pay-wait, I received verification that, indeed, Tepperman still resided at 4708 39th Avenue, Long Island City. In this manner, I had pushed up the date of Tepperman's residency at this address from 1943 to 1947.
It then occurred to me that, perhaps, the producer of Inner Sanctum, if he was still alive, must surely have known Tepperman. A little investigation revealed that the producer was Himan Brown. On a hunch, I decided to look in a current Manhattan telephone book and promptly located the address of Mr. Brown. Thereupon, I composed a short letter explaining my quest and asked Mr. Brown if he did remember Tepperman and might he know of his eventual fate. Mr. Brown was kind enough to take the time from his busy schedule to reply,
"Emile Tepperman died in the late forties -- He did write many Inner Sanctum mysteries and always found him to be a skillful and inventive writer -- we worked well together and he contributed to the success of my series. I have no record of his last address. I do know he was married because l met and spoke to his wife often. It's almost 35 years ago and I hardly think he left much, if any, estate or heirs. -- I had no relationship to his pulp writing. But I seriously doubt if he did any writing for Phillips Lord. At least he never mentioned it to me. I knew Lord and doubt if Emile was the kind of writer he cottoned to.
"Emile was a quiet man -- most reliable -- and his death was a serious loss to my kind of shows. I have only good memories of our years together. I hope I have been of some help. Sincerely, Himan Brown."
So, Tepperman had died in the late 1940s!
My next move was to contact the Vital Records Service of New York City and ask for the correct procedure to obtain a copy of the death certificate for Tepperman. I was advised of the fees involved, but was admonished to the fact that only a direct member of the family could obtain a copy of the death certificate. What to do? I had to use some ingenuity to get at the record.
It then occurred to me that feasibly I could be related to Tepperman through his wife. And I just might want to establish whether I was entitled to any of the literary rights left by Tepperman. On that basis, I enclosed the necessary fees and information and asked the Vital Records Office to do a search for the years 1947 through 1950.
A week and a half dragged by before I had a response. Once again Tepperman had managed to elude me. No record of Tepperman's death during the time period I had specified. The Vitals Records Service had even been kind enough to do an all-boroughs search, which also revealed no records. This meant one of two things to me. Either Tepperman did not die in New York City, or that Himan Brown could have been mistaken about the time that Tepperman passed away. But no matter, I was still up a blind alley.
By now I had become immune, perhaps even oblivious, to disappointment. After about a week, I began to plot what strategy I would follow next. So, for a few days my thoughts led to various ways to get at the information that tauntingly kept eluding me. Many thoughts did cross my mind and I carefully weighed the merits of each before deciding that my next encounter with Tepperman would involve his local Election Board. For, without doubt, Tepperman must have voted.
Once again, my usual explanatory letter went out with the necessary fees, for I had previously telephoned for that information. In my letter, I wanted to learn of all the names registered to vote at the 4708 39th Avenue address for the years 1947 through 1950. What I had hoped to determine from this information was whether Tepperman lived in a single-family home at 4708 39th Avenue or not. My rationale was that should it prove to be a single-family home, the chances of Tepperman being the proprietor were very great. In which case, it would mean that upon his death, he would have had some property that would have to be dealt with by Probate Court. If not, well . . .
At any rate, the documents I did receive from the Election Board were voter registration records dated October 13, 1949. Again, I had pushed up the date of Tepperman's residency at this address to late 1949. But the documents also contained some other very interesting information. Tepperman was not the proprietor of this property, but a tenant. He had resided at that address for 12 years. At the time, he was 50 years old and had resided in New York State for 50 years.
I interpreted this to mean that Tepperman had been born in 1899, somewhere in New York State. Not necessarily New York City, but highly possible. He had resided at 4708 39th Avenue as a tenant since 1937. Another document revealed that he and his wife, Gladys, were registered as Democrats.
Once again, I sifted through the documents to decide what steps I would take next. I now had the name of the proprietor and the names of two other tenants to boot. The latter two bore the same name, but different from the proprietor; yet, I believe they were all related in some way.
On a whim, I thought I would check the names out in an up-to-date Queens telephone book. Sure enough, one of the names was still listed as an occupant of 4708 39th Avenue. So, the house was still standing! Urban renewal had not affected that section of Queens. And tenants that had lived in the house at the same time as Tepperman were still there. I was ecstatic.
I next prepared a letter to this present-day occupant explaining my quest for information on Tepperman. I made certain to enclose a SASE. A week transpired. Two weeks went by and still nothing. On the third week, I decided to take the bull by the horns and telephone. A man's voice at the other end confirmed that my letter had arrived, but that he had no intention of answering my letter. I was somewhat stunned at this remark, to say the least.
I asked whether he had known Tepperman. Yes, he had known Tepperman, but only as a tenant and that his family had every right to evict the Teppermans. He did not want to talk about it further. In the background, I could hear this man's wife screaming at him to hang up on me. What could possibly have happened between that man's family and the Teppermans to be so traumatic? I had only wanted to know where the Teppermans went after leaving the 39th Avenue address.
This strange turn of events raised many questions in my mind, none of which I could answer with any certainty.
The only thing I am certain of now is that my determination to unlock the secret of Tepperman is stronger than ever. Hopefully there will be another phase to end the quest for Emile Tepperman, a leading contributor in many ways to the American popular culture scene.
Part Two, "The Tepperman Quest: 20 Years Later," continues Victor's hunt for the elusive fictioneer. Click here to continue reading.
Copyright Victor Berch.
Links:
Elsewhere on The Pulp Rack, you'll find Al Tonik's "Emile Tepperman: A Bibliography." Click here to read it.
Apparently there are no collected works of Emile Tepperman, but his work pops up all over the catalogs of the part of the small press dedicated to pulp fiction. See issues of John Gunnison's High Adventure reprint magazine at the Adventure House web site by clicking here.
Don Hutchison's collection of pulp stories, It's Raining More Corpses In Chinatown, includes a Tepperman story. Click here to learn more at Amazon.com.
Posted by ds at May 16, 2007 06:05 PM
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