Then - An Oral Memoir of a Writer's Life

Hosts: David Adler

Guests: Warren Adler

This interview was recorded 10 days before the passing of 91 years old Novelist Warren Adler. He comes to terms with terminal health issues and is faced with making hard choices to preserve his dignity and autonomy. In this tough episode, his son David Adler conducts the last interview with his dad. Throughout their discussion, they touch on a number of topics, from what it means to live and die, to historical remembrances, to lifelong passions and small pleasures, both recent and from the past. He even talks about the novel that he is writing in his head even as he is on the last few days of life. This is the last episode of this series. Warren Adler passed away on April 15, 2019.

In this episode of Then, the Oral Memoirs of Novelist Warren Adler, David Adler, his son, interviews Warren on his memories and recovery from a recent minor stroke and the challenges of dealing with a spouse with Alzheimer’s. During their discussion, Warren also confesses that a negative review he wrote about Random Hearts, a novel and a subsequent movie that starred actor Harrison Ford, was a mistake.

Warren also gives audiences a taste of Los Angeles culture by recounting events attended at the famous Chasen’s restaurant, including stories that involved his childhood hero James Stewart, as well as the time Warren insulted an entire dinner party with a toast by saying no one reads in Los Angeles. The episode ends with a discussion on the power of fiction as the true mirror on learning about how we are living and understanding the world.

In this episode, novelist Warren Adler tells the secrets of how his novel the, War of the Roses went from a dinner party conversation to a global phenomenon. He gives insights into how a novelist who thinks of himself as an artist can turn works of the mind into movies, tv shows, plays and musicals. He tells equally intriguing stories of several of his other works made it into the popular culture including Harrison Ford's Random Hearts movie and Linda Lavin's PBS Mini Series The Sunset Gang. In this memoir podcast in a conversation with his son David Adler, Warren reveals his process and how he writes a minimum of five page a day but then rewrite everything. He also talks about how the outside life of a novelist is influenced by his family as they created Washington Dosier, a society magazine for the nation's Capital and how it opened up an entire new world as he accompanied his wife to events in Washington and talked to the spouses the powerful in Washington D.C.

Author Warren Adler talk with his son David about how his writing career didn’t start until he was over 50. This is the perfect episode for the aspiring writer who needs to balance making a living and living out their passion. Adler discusses how he got his first novel published and how he kept going despite hundreds of rejection letters. He tries without success to explain what it means to want to be a writer. He can’t explain it and compares it to the mysteries of love.

Along with passion for writing, Adler owes a good part of his success to luck. If the philosopher, John David Garcia, never came to Adler’s ad agency to promote his own book, then he would still make a living in advertising.

The shift from an advertising executive to a full time novelist was his dream and Adler talks about that transition.

In this episode, Warren Adler talks to his son David and talks about life in Washington D.C. during the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. To raise his family, Adler put his novel writing career on hold and earned his living selling his talent for writing. He got his foot in the door as the PR chief for the Jewish War Veterans of America and then later as an entrepreneur of one of Washington’s premier Advertising and PR agencies, Warren Adler LTD.

From his shock at seeing the realities of segregation to protesting against the American Nazi Party at the base of the Washington Monument, Adler’s riveting cautionary tale.

Instead of writing novels, he was creating stories in the form of marketing campaigns to sell real estate communities in Washington, Virginia, and Maryland. He even named iconic Washington buildings including the “Watergate” that became the symbol of corruption in Washington and The Foxhall on Massachusetts Avenue.

Adler jumped into Washington life by attending the inaugurals of Dwight Eisenhower and describes what the custom of the procession were attendees at the balls grabbed arms and promenaded in front of the presented themselves to the President. He also spoke of how he and his wife sat in the box near the family at the Kennedy inaugural and witnessed the pride of President Kennedy’s father Joe watching his entire clan marking the highlight of his life.

As an ad agency entrepreneur, Adler explains how he launched the Georgetown Inn Hotel.  He explained the strategy of creating the highest level of luxury to accommodate the elite community who were planning on protesting development in their neighborhood. The ultra opening included all of Washington society and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

From the Georgetown Inn success, Adler meets Lyndon Johnson’s Fixer Bobby Baker who was entering the hospitality business who was launching the Carousel Motel in Ocean City Maryland and hired Adler to orchestrated the opening event which included a caravan of Washington celebrities and Vice President Johnson. The event worked so well it also turned Baker into a suspicious celebrity, leading to his downfall and prison.

Drafted during the Korean War into a regimental combat team, his writing experience gets him miraculously transferred to the Pentagon as Washington Correspondent for Armed Forces Press Service where his byline goes all over the world and he meets General George Marshall and many other top military figures as he reports on the Korean War. He has the run of the Pentagon and shares office space with a full chicken colonel in the Marines. He is married after basic training and his wife Sunny gives up a year of college to join him in Washington.. She works in the mall of the Pentagon for a Washington Department store which has an outlet there.

In this episode, novelist Warren Adler brings us into the world of being a copy boy for the iconic New York Daily News in its heyday offering a stirring narrative of the great era of competitive and frenetic newspapering . He offers a colorful description as one of the very few Jews in a sea of hard drinking Irishmen and how he joined them in the alcoholic haze and the rich and bawdy joys and intensity of that indelible experience. He also describes the intense love affair that caused him to leave the News and move on. He becomes editor of the largest weekly on Long Island and describes his time there and the beginnings of his courtship with his wife, my mother.

Novelist Warren Adler discovers his passion for writing as he supports himself and navigates the larger world of girls, college, job hunting and journalism. He is inspired by his college english literature professor who was his major influence to convincing him to pursue his dream of being a writer. Teenagers like him were in demand in the odd job market and he tells of his many jobs. But after graduation from college the soldiers were coming and the job market tightened but he got lucky and scored a job as copy boy at the New York Daily News an adventure with enormous impact on his life.

Novelist Warren Adler was too young to serve in World War II but brings insights into what it was like to go through his adolescent years under the cloud of war. Imagine, too, what it was like sitting around with the family listening to the radio at night before and after school homework was completed and starting to discover the opposite sex. He also explores the great influence of being a Boy Scout and how his ability to write stories was discovered even way back "then."

With memories going back to age 3, novelist Warren Adler brings us back to his shared house in Brownsville New York home that was shared by his entire extended family. He takes on a trip to the butcher shop with his grandmother who only spoke Yiddish and describes his larger than life Grandfather who was the patriarch of the family. The stories bring listeners into the early 1930's as if they too are walking down the street and experiencing the sights and smells of the time.