Bennett Cerf

Lore & Background

Bennett Cerf was a tall, distinguished man with a genial and urbane demeanor, often seen in a suit and photographed in black and white. He was born in Manhattan to a Jewish family of Alsatian and German descent, and his mother’s family had a tobacco-distribution fortune. After her death when he was sixteen, his uncle became a strong literary influence. Cerf attended Townsend Harris Hall Prep School in Hamilton Heights and later earned a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College and a Litt.B. from its School of Journalism. He began his career as a reporter and later worked on Wall Street before becoming a vice president at Boni & Liveright. In 1925, with Donald Klopfer, he bought the rights to the Modern Library series, and in 1927 they began publishing general trade books “at random,” naming their company Random House. Cerf’s talent for building relationships brought contracts with major writers including William Faulkner, Eugene O’Neill, and Theodor Geisel. He famously won a landmark court case against censorship to publish James Joyce’s *Ulysses* in the United States. Cerf also compiled books of jokes and puns, lectured across the country, and appeared weekly for sixteen years on the panel game show *What’s My Line?* He served on the Peabody Awards board and published a weekly column.

Reader's Guide

Bennett Cerf’s behavior and public persona were defined by a sharp wit and a genial, self-deprecating humor that he cultivated across multiple media. He was a prolific compiler of jokes, puns, and anecdotes, publishing several collections such as *Try and Stop Me* and *Shake Well Before Using*, and a later compilation known as "The Cream of the Master’s Crop." His weekly column, "The Cerf Board," appeared in the Sunday supplement *This Week*. Cerf regularly lectured across the United States, and for sixteen years he was a weekly panelist on the television game show *What's My Line?*, a role that made him a familiar face to millions. His television presence was even parodied on *Sesame Street* with a puppet character named "Bennett Snerf." Ecologically, Cerf operated at the center of mid-century American literary and popular culture. As co-founder of Random House, his talent for building relationships secured contracts with major authors including William Faulkner, Eugene O’Neill, Truman Capote, and Theodor Seuss Geisel. He also published Ayn Rand’s *Atlas Shrugged* despite disagreeing with her philosophy, though their friendship ended when he declined to publish her later book *The Virtue of Selfishness*. His most significant legal and cultural act was winning the 1933 case *United States v. One Book Called Ulysses*, which overturned the ban on James Joyce’s novel and allowed its first unabridged publication in the United States. Cerf’s career thus bridged high literary modernism, commercial publishing, and mass entertainment, making him a key figure in the democratization of serious literature and the rise of the celebrity intellectual.

Did You Know?

• Bennett Cerf and his wife Phyllis were guests at Judith Green's Mount Kisco estate.
• The Greens' estate had seven ponds, a pool, and a tennis court.
• Other guests at the Greens' parties included Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, and Mike Wallace.