Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman (May 15, 1904 – June 20, 1999) was an American intellectual, author, editor, and radio and television personality. He began his work in radio, and switched to television later in his career.
Background
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Fadiman was a nephew of the emigree Ukrainian psychologist Boris Sidis and a first cousin of the child prodigy William James Sidis.
Fadiman grew up in Brooklyn. His mother worked as a nurse; his father, Isadore, immigrated from Russian empire in 1892 and worked as a druggist.
He attended Columbia College at Columbia University. One of his teachers was lifelong friend Mark Van Doren; his undergraduate contemporaries included Jacques Barzun, Mortimer Adler, Lionel Trilling, Herbert Solow, Arthur F. Burns, Frank S. Hogan, Louis Zukofsky and Whittaker Chambers. Though he entered with the Class of 1924, his graduation was delayed until 1925 because of financial constraints. Chambers clearly includes Fadiman in a group of ernste Menschen ["serious people"], whose ability to attend Columbia he attributes to "a struggle with a warping poverty impossible for those who have not glimpsed it to imagine it." He graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Fadiman had ambitions to become a scholar, but at graduation, the chairman of the English Department told him, "We have room for only one Jew, and we have chosen Mr. Trilling."
Career
After graduation from Columbia, Fadiman taught English at the Ethical Culture High School (now known as the "Fieldston School") in the Bronx from 1925 to 1927.
Literature
Fadiman worked ten years for Simon & Schuster, ending as its chief editor. At his interview with Max Schuster (a fellow alumnus of Columbia), Fadiman pulled out a folder with a hundred ideas for books. Among Fadiman's original one hundred was to turn Robert Ripley's newspaper cartoon, Believe it or Not! into book form. The series has gone on to sell over 30 million copies.
While at Simon & Schuster, he started the translation career of Whittaker Chambers by having him translate Bambi from German:My college friend, Clifton Fadiman, was then [circa 1927–1928] a reader at Simon and Schuster, the New York book publishers. He offered to let me try my hand at translating a little German book. It was about a deer named Bambi and was written by an Austrian, of whom I had never heard, named Felix Salten ... Bambi was an instant success, and I suddenly found myself an established translator. In 1932, Fadiman wrote "How I Came to Communism: Symposium" for the New Masses (shortly after Chambers left the magazine to begin his underground career), in which he wrote: "History–mainly in the form of the crisis–became my teacher while I was still young enough to learn."
Fadiman then took charge of The New Yorker's book review section, 1933–1943.
He became emcee for the National Book Award ceremonies in 1938 and 1939, at least, and again when those literary awards by the American book industry were re-inaugurated in 1950. (The awards were inaugurated May 1936, conferred annually through 1942 [publication years 1935 to 1941], and re-inaugurated March 1950 [publication year 1949].)
Fadiman became a judge for the Book of the Month Club in 1944.
In the 1970s he was also senior editor of Cricket magazine, where he wrote the book review column for children, "Cricket's Bookshelf".
Radio
While still at the New Yorker, Fadiman became well known on radio, where he hosted its most popular quiz show, Information, Please! from May 1938 to June 1948. A regular trio of pundits, Franklin P. Adams, John Kieran and Oscar Levant, plus one guest expert, conducted each session with erudite charm and good-natured wordplay under Fadiman's nimble control. (Guest John Gunther's mention of the then-current Iranian potentate prompted Fadiman to ask, "Are you shah of that?", to which Gunther quipped, "Why, sultanly!") Fadiman also made frequent appearances on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts from 1949 to 1960. During the intermission segments he would discuss the opera being broadcast and interview famous opera singers.
Television
In 1952, Information Please! was briefly revived for CBS Television as a 13-week summer replacement for the musical variety program The Fred Waring Show. During that June–September period, devoted fans of the departed radio program could finally not only hear, but also see Fadiman, Adams, and Kieran in action.