Clarence Budington Kelland


Clarence Budington "Bud" Kelland was an American writer. He once described himself as "the best second-rate writer in America".
Although largely forgotten now, Kelland had a long career as a writer of fiction and short stories, stretching from 1913 to 1960. He was published in many magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post and The American Magazine. A prolific writer, his output included sixty novels and some two hundred short stories. His best known juvenile works were the Mark Tidd series and the Catty Atkins series, while his best known adult work was the Scattergood Baines series. Other notable adult books by Kelland include Conflict, Rhoda Fair, Hard Money, Arizona, and Dangerous Angel. Kelland was the "literary idol" of the teenaged John O'Hara. He was referred to in a 1995 installment of Harlan Ellison's television commentary, Harlan Ellison's Watching for the program Sci-Fi Buzz, wherein Ellison laments what he perceives as a prevailing cultural illiteracy
Kelland's work resulted in some thirty Hollywood movies, including Speak Easily starring Buster Keaton. Opera Hat, a serial from The American Magazine, was the basis for the film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town starring Gary Cooper. Opera Hat later was turned into the short-lived television series Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and the movie Mr. Deeds. One of Kelland's best-known characters was featured in the Scattergood Baines series of six films from 1941 to 1943, starring Guy Kibbee.

Biography

Kelland was born in Portland, Michigan, and attended public schools in Detroit. After completing two years of high school, he took a job in a chair factory, studying law at night. He earned a law degree from Detroit College of Law in 1902, but practiced law for less than a year. From 1903 to 1907, he worked at the Detroit News as a reporter, political editor, and Sunday editor.
Kelland married Betty Caroline Smith in 1907, and at the urging of his father-in-law, left the newspaper business and moved to Vermont for a short period to run a clothespin mill with his brother. By 1907, he had returned to Detroit to work for The American Boy magazine, beginning as a proofreader, and moving up to become editor. Circulation grew from 90,000 at the beginning of his tenure, to 360,000 in 1915 when he left the magazine. From 1913 to 1915, he also lectured on juvenile literature and writing at the University of Michigan. Kelland had two sons with Betty, Thomas Smith Kelland, and Horace Kendall Kelland. Tom Kelland also wrote for a living, working a newspaper reporter in New York.
Kelland made the news during the Great Depression when he refused to pay a $3,313 bill from dressmaker Hattie Carnegie, Inc., for purchases by his wife from February 27, 1931, to February 27, 1932, stating he was not liable for payment because the purchases were not "necessaries". His wife supported him, stating that she, not he, should have received the bill. Kelland lost the action, and had to pay the full amount. In that same year, Kelland was director of the Bank of North Hempstead in Port Washington, New York. The bank failed, tying up most of his securities.
Kelland bought a house in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1937, and became active in national politics at about the same time. He was politically active as a Republican, serving as the Republican National Committeeman from Arizona from 1940 to 1956. Before 1941, he was a non-interventionist, opposing U.S. involvement in what became the Second World War. Earlier, in the 1920s, he had favored complete exclusion of the Japanese from the U.S., saying, "I have believed for many years that the Japanese menace is a real one." His passionate dislike for the New Deal seemed to have spurred his entry into national politics. Time magazine referred to him as "pugnacious", "vitriolic", "peppery", and "gaunt-faced"—a description at odds with the whimsical character of Kelland's fictional characters. He was as harsh on his fellow Republicans as he was on Democrats, blaming Eisenhower for "wrecking" the party. He was particularly critical of Eisenhower's appointment of Earl Warren to the Supreme Court.
From the mid-'20s forward, Kelland served as the toastmaster at the weekly luncheons of New York's Dutch Treat Club. In 1940, when he was president of the club, Kelland said "the fifth column in this country is headed by that fellow in the White House", i.e., President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Author Hendrik Willem Van Loon resigned from the Club to protest this "disparaging" remark.
Later in life, Kelland became vice president and director of Phoenix Newspaper Group, which published the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette. He died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on February 18, 1964.
His character Scattergood Baines was the protagonist in a series of six movies, all starring Guy Kibbee as Baines, beginning with Scattergood Baines and ending with Cinderella Swings It.

Mark Tidd juvenile series