What was your early life like and where did you grow up?
I grew up in Kansas City, Mo. and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I had asthma and nearly died from an attack. A doctor suggested I take up trumpet playing for my breath, so, at about age 12, I bought a Big Bore Benge and began practicing. I fell in love with the trumpet, began practicing 4 hours a day, and when I got into high school, was first trumpet in the school orchestra. I began entering contests in movie theaters. They’d have contests after the film for singers, other instrumentalists, etc,, and I began winning contests. In my junior year at high school, I was chosen to be first trumpet in the all Kansas City Orchestra. When I went to Northwestern, I continued studying with Frank Anglund, a professional teacher and trumpet player in Chicago, and was offered a professional job with a band ... but I chose to stay in school studying music and drama.
Do you remember the first book you ever read?
I think it was “Charley And The Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl, then “Moby Dick.”
Who all are a part of your family? How critical are they of your writing?
My wife is Jane Manning, a Broadway and TV actress in New York. Jane encouraged me first to write lyrics and my first book, “Doris,” which antedated “Tootsie” by 20 years. “Doris” was first written as a book, then as a screenplay. The screenplay was a sensation in New York with agents and lawyers. A Hollywood producer in the 60s, Joe Manduke, flew out from Hollywood to my apartment in New York on 57th street, offered to produce the film ... “Let’s co-produce it, Cy, I’ll put in $700,000 and you put in $700,000 ... you can star in it!” I agreed but couldn’t come up with the money. I could have if I’d gotten a letter from Joe with his letterhead, but I was writing a musical at the time and failed to persist. Big mistake!
When was the first time you performed on Bdwy?
1959! I’d joined the road company of “Pajama Game” where I was dancing in a group at the Empire Room of the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago. “Pajama Game” was on a national tour. When it arrived in Chicago, they needed a lead guy to replace a dancer and perform the sensational “Steam Heat” number. They came to see me while I was performing at the Palmer House, I auditioned for the part, they, hired me. Bob Fosse wasn’t happy with my hiring, he wanted to hire a New York dancer, but when he came to see my debut in the number when I opened in Chicago, he liked what I did and let me stay in the show.
I was with the show on the road for a year, then when we closed and I ended up in New York, that week, the show was booked at City Center. I performed the “Steam Heat” number, the first time on a NY stage!
Take us back to when you were writing your first book. What inspired the story and how did you go about picking a suitable title and book cover?
In the early 60s, I’d just had an Off-Bdwy musical produced. My agent asked me to come up with 6 book ideas. He liked an idea called “Doris” best. Doris was a story of a magazine reporter who gets an assignment to report on a radical women’s lib meeting in a hotel on 8th Avenue ... but they wouldn’t let a man in. So, my guy dresses as a woman and gains entrance. During the women’s lib meeting, a husband of one of the libbers who’s a fireman, rents a room next to the women’s lib meeting, sets up some fire hoses, and during the middle of the meeting, breaks in, sprays the libbers with water, and creates havoc. Cops come and arrest including everybody, including my reporter dressed up as a female libber. “Doris” deals with his experience masquerading as “Doris.” I wrote it in a few months, passed it around to some publishers, (John Ferrar of Ferrar, Straus, and Cudahey, a top publisher in NY who was very interested in the book) then suggested I write it as a screenplay, which I did, he loved it, submitted it to some money people, some theatrical lawyers, who loved it, sent it to some producers in Hollywood who also loved it, then Joe Manduke came to see me, and you know the rest.
Why do you write suspense? What does the term "suspense" mean to you?
I didn’t know how to write a play, which I wanted to do, so I read a book called “The Art Of Dramatic Writing” by Lajos Egri, a sensational book. Egri introduced me to the basics of writing, character development, conflict, etc, and to me, suspense was the most intriguing genre. I also loved comedy. My humorous short story, The Schitzel Connection,” won best short story contest in the writer’s group of Oklahoma City.
What is an important misconception so many people have about the suspense genre that you would like straightened out?
I don’t know of any.
Where did you get your inspiration for the story “Deathload"?
About 10 years ago I was driving to California from New York City on Highway 10 that has a separated highway going east and west. I thought, “What a great idea it would be to have two killer trucks barrel-assing down the highway armed with lethal weapons headed for the White House! I came up with the motive, it wrote itself.
How do you choose which stories to tell? How would you describe your writing process?
I try to abide by John Gardner’s “The Art Of Fiction,” in which he discusses “The Moral Fiction of Humanity” His basic point is that the writer has a moral duty to uplift humanity with his/her writing. I try to consider that edict in my work, don’t always achieve the ideal, but feel it’s a goal worth of pursuing.
On a normal day, how many hours do you typically spend writing? What are you doing during all your other hours?
I’d like to write for 8 hours a day but the inexorable exigencies of mortal life prevent me from fulfilling this desire. Early mornings are my most fruitful hours for creativity, but I often have to work late at night. I spend other hours on metaphysics and working out with some reading.
What do you do to entertain yourself?
Metaphysics. I’ve made a decision to begin studying mathematics.
Is it important that an author has other friends that are writers as well? Do you have any?
A few.
What kind of cultural value do you think reading and writing have/brings?
They have infinite value for growth, widening perspective, growing awareness of different life-styles, learning of the life attitudes of others.
How many plot ideas are just waiting to be written? Can you tell us about one?
No limits! I’d like to see something written about Ed Leedskainin and his Coral Castle Museum. Born in Riga Latvia in 1887, Ed came to America and built the Coral Castle by mentally lifting and placing several ton blocks of coral mentally. The museum is 10 miles north of Miami, Florida. How he did it is still mystery that no one can emulate.
What do you think of AllAuthor? Has this website been helpful to you?
Yes, Mady, you’ve been very helpful in assisting me in my promotions; I appreciate your work and your positive attitude. Thank you! (The photo of “Crusade” is from a musical I took 20 years to write, book, songs, piano copies, and orchestrations.)
