Who is Norman Corwin & Why Should You Care?

Here's a question for you, funny people. What do Rod Serling, J. Michael Straczynski, and Ray Bradbury have in common? 

It's a bit of trick question because the three have much in common. All three successfully wrote for the medium of TV (for two of them, it was—and, in Straczynski's case, is—their primary medium). People associate all three in the popular consciousness with the genre of Science Fiction, and rightly so. But what you may not know, dear readers, is that all three have a third thing in common, or more specifically, a person.

That person is Norman Corwin.

Norman Corwin

For many of you reading this, the name Norman Corwin won't be a familiar one, for the height of his career came long before any of us were born.

Corwin was one of the great writers and producers during, what’s now called, the Golden Age of Radio. He wrote and produced programs for the then fledgling medium that were unlike anything else on the airwaves. He filled his broadcasts with sophisticated language and high caliber writing. Corwin brought poetry to the masses, literally and figuratively. He wrote dramas performed by actors like Orson Welles and Jimmy Stewart, who clamored to work with him because of the quality of his work, and he did it all on public airwaves, accessible to anyone who had a conventional set at the time.

The most important of these programs, which showcased Corwin's work at its best, was a broadcast he produced titled "On a Note of a Triumph". In the waning days of WWII on the European front, Corwin's bosses at CBS, where he was working, asked him to plan a broadcast to go out when the surrender came. He did so, drawing inspiration from the rhapsodic free verse of Walt Whitman, and, unsure of where he'd be when the news broke, he had two teams on standby, one in New York and one in Los Angeles. Finally, it did, and the broadcast came out from LA. It was a unifying program, brimming with hope and possibility at the future prospects of America.

Unfortunately, it was the peak from which Corwin fell.

After the end of the war, the Second Red Scare, better known by the names "The Blacklist" and "McCarthyism", occurred. Corwin was never officially blacklisted by the House on Un-American Activities Comittee; his fate was much crueler. He was instead Greylisted, fingered as being a little too sympathetic towards the persecuted individuals, and thereafter, his career in broadcasting ended.

However, people often bounce when they hit rock-bottom, and Corwin did. After his greylisting, he started teaching in the Communications Department at the University of Southern California. It was in that capacity as a teacher that Corwin's influence would continue to permeate. 

Two of the previously mentioned writers—Serling and Straczynski—came directly under his tutelage, and their wonderful programs continue to find new fans to this day. 

Bradbury, as well, while never a student of Corwin's (Bradbury never attended college), did partly credit him with the eventual publication of The Martian Chronicles. As Ray recounted it, he and Corwin had become friends, and one day, Corwin turned to him and said, "Ray, you gotta go to New York and you gotta have the editors see you and know you exist." Corwin then offered to chaperone Ray around the Big Apple to see publishing house editors, eventually introducing him to Walter Bradbury (no relation) from Doubleday, who realized Ray had written a book without knowing it. By weaving together his various pulp magazine Mars stories, he could assemble a book called The Martian Chronicles. Yet, without Corwin, Ray may never have made that journey.

Unfortunately, Corwin isn't as well remembered as he probably should be these days, simply because we live in an audio-visual age, not just an audio one. But, if this post has made you at all interested in his work, then perhaps, dear readers, you'll seek out his work and realize for yourself how great this unsung master of the written and spoken work is. 

If you'd like more information about Corwin, consider watching the documentary A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin. It's short, but powerful, and will allow you to experience the power of Norman's work firsthand, with valuable commentary from brilliant minds.