Ted Gottfried; prolific author of pulp fction (Man from O.R.G.Y.)
Hyfler/Rosner
Ted Gottfried, 75, Prolific Author of Nonfiction and
Salacious Stories
By STEPHEN MILLER Staff Reporter of the Sun
Ted Gottfried,who died March 7,was the author of more
than 100 books, many of them nonfiction volumes for younger
readers on topics as diverse as Holocaust denial, famed
inventors, and "Libya: Desert Land in Conflict."Yet it was
as the pseudonymous author of dozens of so-called pulps,
cheap paperbacks with racy and exploitative plots, that he
had his greatest success.
Beginning in the 1960s, and writing under the name of Ted
Mark, he churned out such turgid titles as "The Nude Wore
Black," "The Square Root of Sex," and "I Was a Teeny Bopper
for the CIA." His books often featured the then
ultra-fashionable demimonde of spies and beautiful women,
and it was with a series of books titled "The Man From
O.R.G.Y." that he made his mark on the best-seller list.
The O.R.G.Y. books were so satirical - the immediate
reference was to the series "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." - that
not even their hero, the gamely named Steve Victor, took his
missions seriously. "O.R.G.Y. is the Organization for the
Rational Guidance of Youth," Gottfried wrote by way of
introduction to "Here's Your Orgy" (1969). "It's a one-man
operation devoted to sex research with 'guidance' actually a
secondary function - which I admit, hasn't ever really been
exercised.. I see myself as carrying on the traditions of
Dr. Kinsey. The difference is that I've cut out the
paperwork and substituted a personalized methodology."
Always topical, the action in the O.R.G.Y. books traipses
lightly across the world stage, with a stop at the 1968
Democratic National Convention in Chicago and even touching
on the Tet offensive, which takes on a new shade of meaning
for "offensive": "I was personally attacked by a Cong
guerilla complete with bayonet, black pajamas, and breasts
shaped like hand grenades, only bigger and better."
In later years, when his writing had taken up more
serious topics, Gottfried would say that he felt an uneasy
combination of chagrin and pride in his pulp productions.
Having become an ardent supporter of feminist causes, he
felt he had portrayed women in too stereotypical a
light.Yet, he was gratified that the books remained popular
with pulp enthusiasts - they are a staple on eBay.
The books were part of a minor brouhaha in 1969, when it
was found that the Job Corps had been purchasing them for
use in remedial reading classes.
"The Man From O.R.G.Y.," the first of the series, was
made into a film of the same name in 1970. It opened to
distinctly muted reviews, nipping what might otherwise have
been a promising film-writing career in the bud.The New
YorkTimes film critic wrote,"A certain charming innocence
pertains to all the low-level vulgarity, as it does to the
plump, often pretty girls themselves, with their piled-up
hairdo's, their freighted eyelids, and their brave little
attempts to say their lines."
Yet the film was somehow inspirational; it "resembles not
so much a movie as a last bastion of individualist free
enterprise against the encroaching collectivism of our
society."
Ted Gottfried was born in the Bronx, the only son of
Russian immigrants who eventually settled in Far Rockaway.
His father was a World War I veteran and a tool maker whose
business suffered greatly during the Depression. Young Ted
harbored from an early age the ambition of becoming a
writer, and after just a year of college went to work as an
office boy in the publicity department at Warner Brothers.
In the 1950s, he began working as a writer for the men's
magazine Scamp. His first book, "The Midway at Midnight,"
was published under the pseudonym Leslie Behan in 1964.
Thereafter, writing on his favorite Underwood typewriter for
10-12 hours daily, he seldom produced less than four or five
books a year,and business boomed. He moved his growing
family to Cedarhurst, and was enough of a local celebrity
that Newsday ran a two-page spread on the best-selling
author who'd moved to town.
His relationship with his initial publisher, Walter
Zacharius of Lancer Press, soured, but he soon had a
multibook deal with Dell, and later, writing as Blakely
Saint James, with Playboy Paperbacks.
In the late 1970s, his output slowed somewhat as he took
over as editor of Drake Publications, and also for a time of
the skin magazine High Society. In 1980, he was among the
authors who gathered to found the National Writers Union, a
group that advocates for authors.
He continued to produce mainly pseudonymous, literate
smut until the late 1980s, when he started writing under his
own name. Writing mostly for younger readers, he penned
biographies of Georges Clemenceau and Enrico Fermi.
Issue-oriented titles followed, including "Public Safety and
the Right to Bear Arms" and "Individual Right V. Social
Needs." He was particularly proud of a series of books about
the Holocaust, with separate volumes treating child
victims,Nazi perpetrators,and those who deny it ever
happened.
When he was a young man he had driven to Mississippi to
march for civil rights. When he was older, he marched for
women's rights. Slated to be published in August is "The
Quest For Peace: A History of the Anti-War Movements in
America." A passionate liberalism continued to pour from his
pen virtually to the end of his life.
Theodore Mark Gottfried
Born October 19, 1928, in the Bronx; died March 7 in
Manhattan of complications of cancer of the neck; survived
by his wife, Harriet, five children, Julie, Daniel,
Katherine, Toby, and Valerie; two step-daughters, Melanie
and Lisa, and 12 grandchildren.