{{short description|American novelist (1902–1959)}}
'''Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer''' (March 1, 1902 – August 23, 1959) was an American actor, writer, and one of the founding members of the Fortean Society.
==Early life== Born in Freeport, Illinois, Thayer quit school at age 15 and worked as an actor, reporter, and used-book clerk in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. When he was 16, he toured as the teenaged hero in the Civil War drama ''The Coward''. Thayer first contacted American author Charles Fort in 1924.
==Career== In 1926, Thayer moved to New York City to act. Although he continued to harbor ambitions as a movie actor,<ref>Anger, Kenneth, ''Hollywood Babylon II,'' Plume, NY, 1984, p. 94. Cartoon and caption with Lionel Atwill.</ref> his only known filmacting credit was in an early full-color feature ''The Devil on Horseback'' (1936).
Thayer wrote the 1930 bestseller novel ''Thirteen Men''.<ref name="archive/bwb_T2-DTV-201">{{cite book |last1=Thayer |first1=Tiffany |author1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=Thirteen Men |date=1946 |publisher=Triangle Books |url=https://archive.org/details/bwb_T2-DTV-201 |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="newspapers/179916656">{{cite news |title=Tiffany Thayer Obit 1959 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-tiffany-thayer-obit-1959/179916656/ |access-date=21 October 2025 |work=Tampa Bay Times |date=24 August 1959 |via=newspapers.com |pages=1}}</ref><ref name="cuttingedgebooks/thirteen-men">{{cite web |title=Thirteen Men |url=https://cuttingedgebooks.com/book/thirteen-men/ |website=Cutting Edge Books |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="thepassingtramp/13-men-1930">{{cite web |last1=Evans |first1=Curtis |title=Thirteen Men (1930), by Tiffany Thayer |url=https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2013/05/murder-spree-thirteen-men-1930-by.html |website=The Passing Tramp |access-date=21 October 2025 |date=24 May 2013}}</ref>
Claude H. Kendall (1890-1937) published four Tiffany Thayer novels, ''Thirteen Men'' (1930), ''Call Her Savage'' (1931), ''Thirteen Women'' (1932), and ''An American Girl'' (1933).<ref name="thepassingtramp/controversies-kendall">{{cite web |last1=Evans |first1=Curtis |title=The Controversies of Claude Kendall, Publisher |url=https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-controversies-of-claude-kendall.html |website=The Passing Tramp |access-date=21 October 2025 |date=15 May 2013}}</ref> Between 1934 and 1936, Claude H. Kendall (1890-1937) went into partnership with William Willoughby Sharp (1900-1955), a former stockbroker, as the publisher, ''Claude Kendall and Willoughby Sharp''. In 1936, Sharp left the firm, and it went bankrupt. On Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1937, Kendall was found beaten to death in his $7-a-week (about $125 in 2019<ref name="crimereads/playboy+publisher">{{cite web |last1=Evans |first1=Curtis |title=The Playboy and the Publisher: A Murder Story |url=https://crimereads.com/the-playboy-and-the-publisher-a-murder-story/ |website=CrimeReads |date=14 November 2019}}</ref>) room on the eighth floor of the Madison Hotel, 21 East 27th Street, Manhattan.<ref name="thepassingtramp/murder-kendall">{{cite web |last1=Evans |first1=Curtis |title=Murder of the Publisher: Who Killed Claude Kendall? |url=https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2013/05/murder-of-publisher-who-killed-claude.html |website=The Passing Tramp |access-date=22 October 2025 |date=12 May 2013}}</ref><ref name="neglectedbooks/2027">{{cite web |title=Classic Covers from Claude Kendall Books |url=https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=2027 |website=Neglected Books Page |access-date=22 October 2025 |date=14 July 2013}}</ref><ref name="courtlistener/5511529">{{cite web |title=American Offset Corp. v. Claude Kendall & Willoughby Sharp, Inc. |url=https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5511529/american-offset-corp-v-claude-kendall-willoughby-sharp-inc/ |website=courtlistener.com |publisher=Free Law Project |access-date=22 October 2025}}</ref> ''Claude Kendall and Willoughby Sharp'' also published Wilson Collison,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://uedata.amazon.com/Dark-Dame-Wilson-Collison/dp/B000LIUVBO| first=Wilson| last=Collison |author-link=Wilson Collison|title=Dark Dame|publisher=Claude Kendall & Willoughby Sharp Inc.|location=New York City| year=1935|asin=B000LIUVBO}}</ref> and Daniel Frohman.<ref name="archive/danielfrohmanpre0000unse">{{cite book |last1=Frohman |first1=Daniel |author1-link=Daniel Frohman |title=Daniel Frohman Presents |date=1935 |publisher=Claude Kendall and Willoughby Sharp |url=https://archive.org/details/danielfrohmanpre0000unse}}</ref>
Many of his novels contained elements of science fiction or fantasy, including ''Dr. Arnoldi'' about a world where no-one can die.<ref>William Tenn, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080204074814/http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/1998/cur9808.htm Dr. Arnoldi by Tiffany Thayer, 1934] at SF Site</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|entry-url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/thayer_tiffany|entry=Thayer, Tiffany |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|editor1=John Clute |editor2=Peter Nicholls|date=1993|accessdate=Aug 23, 2019}}</ref><ref name="k&h">''Twentieth century authors, a biographical dictionary of modern literature'', edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft; (Third Edition). New York, The H.W. Wilson Company, 1950 (p.1393-94)</ref>
In a profile for ''Twentieth Century Authors'', Thayer was described as "an atheist, an anarchist – in philosophy a Pyrrhonean – and regrets the legitimacy of his birth."<ref name="k&h" /> He listed his hobbies as painting, fencing, and book collecting.<ref name="k&h" />
==Fortean Society==
By 1931 Thayer had co-founded the Fortean Society in New York City to promote Fort's ideas. Primarily based in New York City, the Society was headed by first president Theodore Dreiser, an old friend of Fort who had helped to get his work published. Early members of the original Society in New York City included Booth Tarkington, Ben Hecht, Alexander Woollcott, and H. L. Mencken. The first 6 issues of ''Doubt'', the Fortean Society's newsletter, were each edited by a different member, starting with Dreiser. Thayer thereafter took over editorship of subsequent issues. Thayer began to assert extreme control over the society, largely filling the newsletter with articles written by himself, and excommunicating the entire San Francisco chapter, reportedly their largest and most active, after disagreements over the society's direction, and forbidding them to use the name Fortean.
During World War II, Thayer used every issue of ''Doubt'' to espouse his politics. He celebrated the escape of Gerhart Eisler, and named Garry Davis an Honorary Fellow of the Society for renouncing his American citizenship. Thayer frequently expressed opposition to Civil Defense, going to such lengths as encouraging readers to turn on their lights in defiance of air raid sirens. In contrast to the spirit of Charles Fort, he dismissed not only flying saucers as nonsense but also the atomic bomb as a hoax by the US government.<ref name="Science Fiction 1952">see "Personalities in Science Fiction: Charles Fort: His Objects Fade in the West", by Robert Barbour Johnson (If, July 1952).</ref>
The ''Fortean Society Magazine'' (also called ''Doubt'') was published regularly until Thayer's death in Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1959, aged 57, when the society and magazine came to an end. The magazine and society are not connected to the present-day magazine ''Fortean Times''.
Writers Paul and Ron Willis, publishers of ''Anubis'', acquired most of the original Fortean Society material and revived the Society as the International Fortean Organization (INFO) in the early 1960s. INFO went on to incorporate in 1965, publish a widely respected magazine, ''The INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown'', for more than 35 years and created the world's first, and most prestigious, conference dedicated to the work and spirit of Charles Fort, the annual '''FortFest''' which continues to this day.
==Critical reception== Thayer wrote genre romances that were disliked by contemporary literary critics.<ref name="neglectedbooks/821"/> Dorothy Parker, in a March 11, 1933 ''New Yorker'' review of ''An American Girl'', said<ref name="newyorker/Parker-Thayer"/> "He is beyond question a writer of power; and his power lies in his ability to make sex so thoroughly, graphically, and aggressively unattractive that one is fairly shaken to ponder how little one has been missing."<ref name="neglectedbooks/821"/> F. Scott Fitzgerald said "curious children nosed at the slime of Mr. Tiffany Thayer in the drug-store libraries."<ref name="neglectedbooks/821"/> Kunitz and Haycraft cited an anonymous reviewer who described Thayer's work as "obviously meretricious, but disclosing a narrative gift which might be used to better purpose". William Tenn, recalling ''Dr. Arnoldi'' more than sixty years after he had read it, characterized it as "absolutely fascinating---and disgusting. . . . If you ever find a copy, give it to some sf fan you dislike. Your reward will be the baffled misery in his eyes after he's read it."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080204074814/http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/1998/cur9808.htm ''Curiosities''], ''F&SF'', August 1998</ref>
==Works== {{incomplete list|date=October 2025}}
* ''Eyewitness!'', 1930 <ref name="cuttingedgebooks/eyewitness">{{cite web |title=Eyewitness! |url=https://cuttingedgebooks.com/book/eyewitness/ |website=Cutting Edge Books |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref> * ''Thirteen Men'', 1930 New York: ''Claude Kendall''<ref name="archive/bwb_T2-DTV-201">{{cite book |last1=Thayer |first1=Tiffany |author1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=Thirteen Men |date=1946 |publisher=Triangle Books |url=https://archive.org/details/bwb_T2-DTV-201 |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="newspapers/179916656">{{cite news |title=Tiffany Thayer Obit 1959 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-tiffany-thayer-obit-1959/179916656/ |access-date=21 October 2025 |work=Tampa Bay Times |date=24 August 1959 |via=newspapers.com |pages=1}}</ref><ref name="cuttingedgebooks/thirteen-men">{{cite web |title=Thirteen Men |url=https://cuttingedgebooks.com/book/thirteen-men/ |website=Cutting Edge Books |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="thepassingtramp/13-men-1930">{{cite web |last1=Evans |first1=Curtis |title=Thirteen Men (1930), by Tiffany Thayer |url=https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2013/05/murder-spree-thirteen-men-1930-by.html |website=The Passing Tramp |access-date=21 October 2025 |date=24 May 2013}}</ref> * ''The Greek''. New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1931<ref name="archive/greek0000tiff">{{cite book |last1=Thayer |first1=Tiffany |author1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=The Greek |date=1931 |publisher=Albert & Charles Boni |url=https://archive.org/details/greek0000tiff}}</ref><ref name="time/1931/Thayer/GREEK">{{cite news |title=Books: Bally hooey |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,742767,00.html |access-date=22 October 2025 |work=Time.com |date=21 December 1931 |quote=THE GREEK—Tiffany Thayer—Boni ($2.50).}}</ref> * ''Call Her Savage'' (1931) New York: ''Claude Kendall'',<ref name="nytimes/1933/03/13/book-notes"/> adapted for ''Call Her Savage'' (1932) * ''Five Million in Cash'', 1932 * ''Thirteen Women''. New York: ''Claude Kendall'', 1932<ref name="archive/ThirteenWomen">{{cite book |last1=Thayer |first1=Tiffany |author1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=Thirteen Women |date=1942 |publisher=Triangle Books |url=https://archive.org/details/ThirteenWomen/ |access-date=21 October 2025 |quote=c1932}}</ref><ref name="neglectedbooks/821">{{cite web |title=Thirteen Women, by Tiffany Thayer |url=https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=821 |website=Neglected Books Page |access-date=21 October 2025 |date=20 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="prettysinister/13-women">{{cite web |last1=Norris |first1=J. F. |title=Thirteen Women - Tiffany Thayer |url=https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2013/05/ffb-thirteen-women-tiffany-thayer.html |website=Pretty Sinister Books |date=24 May 2013}}</ref> *''Three-sheet'', 1932<ref name="cuttingedgebooks/three-sheet">{{cite web |title=Three Sheet |url=https://cuttingedgebooks.com/book/three-sheet/ |website=Cutting Edge Books |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref> * ''An American Girl'' (1933) New York: ''Claude Kendall''.<ref name="nytimes/1933/03/13/book-notes">{{cite news |title=BOOK NOTES |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1933/03/13/archives/book-notes.html |access-date=21 October 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=March 13, 1933 |quote=Tiffany Thayer's new novel, 'An American Girl,' is published today by Claude Kendall}}</ref><ref name="newspapers/179917459">{{cite news |title=An American Girl |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/ledger-star-an-american-girl-ledger-st/179917459/ |access-date=21 October 2025 |work=Ledger-Star |agency=|via=newspapers.com |date=18 April 1933 |location=Norfolk, Virginia |page=8}}</ref><!-- 404 https://cuttingedgebooks.com/book/an-american-girl/ --><ref name="newyorker/Parker-Thayer">{{cite magazine |last1=Parker |first1=Dorothy |author1-link=Dorothy Parker |title=Not Even Funny |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1933/03/18/reading-and-writing-39 |access-date=21 October 2025 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=11 March 1933}}</ref> * ''One Woman'', 1933<ref>{{cite book |last=Thayer |first=Tiffany |author-link=Tiffany Thayer |year=1933 |title=One Woman |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Woman.html?id=zKkOAQAAMAAJ |format=Hardcover |location=New York City |publisher=William Morrow and Company}}</ref> * ''Kings and Numbers'', 1934 * ''Doctor Arnoldi'', 1934 * ''The Cluck Abroad'', 1935 * ''The Old Goat'', 1937 * ''Three Musketeers'', 1939 * ''One-man show'', 1942 * ''Three Musketeers and a Lady'', 1950 * ''Mona Lisa: The Prince of Taranto, Volume One''. New York: Dial Press, 1956<ref name="neglectedbooks/821"/><ref name="archivetiffanythayersmo00thay">{{cite book |last1=Thayer |first1=Tiffany |author1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=Mona Lisa; I. The prince of Taranto : a fiction in three volumes; Volume 1 |date=1956 |publisher=Dial Press |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/tiffanythayersmo00thay}}</ref><ref name="nytimes/1956/talk-with-tiffany">{{cite news |last1=Nichols |first1=Lewis |title=A Talk With Tiffany Thayer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/06/10/archives/a-talk-with-tiffany-thayer.html |access-date=21 October 2025 |work=nytimes.com |date=June 10, 1956}}</ref><ref name="cuttingedgebooks/mona-lisa-one">{{cite web |title=Mona Lisa: The Prince of Taranto, Volume One |url=https://cuttingedgebooks.com/book/mona-lisa-the-prince-of-taranto-volume-one/ |website=Cutting Edge Books |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref> * ''Mona Lisa: The Prince of Taranto, Volume Two''<ref name="neglectedbooks/821"/><ref name="archive/tiffanythayersmo02thay">{{cite book |last1=Thayer |first1=Tiffany |author1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=Mona Lisa; I. The prince of Taranto : a fiction in three volumes; Volume 2 |date=1956 |publisher=Dial Press |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/tiffanythayersmo02thay}}</ref><ref name="cuttingedgebooks/mona-lisa-two">{{cite web |title=Mona Lisa: The Prince of Taranto, Volume Two |url=https://cuttingedgebooks.com/book/mona-lisa-the-prince-of-taranto-volume-two/ |website=Cutting Edge Books |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref> * ''Mona Lisa: The Prince of Taranto, Volume Three ''<ref name="neglectedbooks/821"/><ref name="archive/monalisa00thay">{{cite book |last1=Thayer |first1=Tiffany |author1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=Mona Lisa; I. The prince of Taranto : a fiction in three volumes; Volume 3 |date=1956 |publisher=Dial Press |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/monalisa00thay}}</ref><ref name="cuttingedgebooks/mona-lisa-three">{{cite web |title=Mona Lisa: The Prince of Taranto, Volume Three |url=https://cuttingedgebooks.com/book/mona-lisa-the-prince-of-taranto-volume-three/ |website=Cutting Edge Books |access-date=21 October 2025}}</ref>
==As editor== {{incomplete list|date=October 2025}} * Thayer, Tiffany, ed. Fort, Charles (1941). The Books of Charles Fort. Henry Holt and Company.<ref name="archive/booksofcharlesfo0000tiff">{{cite book |editor1-last=Thayer |editor1-first=Tiffany |editor1-link=Tiffany Thayer |last1=Fort |first1=Charles |author1-link=Charles Fort |title=The Books of Charles Fort |date=1941 |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |url=https://archive.org/details/booksofcharlesfo0000tiff |language=english}}</ref> * Thayer, Tiffany, ed. (1946). ''33 Sardonics I Can't Forget''. New York: Philosophical Library.<ref name="archive/in.ernet.dli.2015.91480">{{cite book |editor1-last=Thayer |editor1-first=Tiffany |editor1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=33 Sardonics I Can't Forget |date=1946 |publisher=Philosophical Library |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.91480}}</ref> * Thayer, Tiffany, ed. ''Adults' companion'' (1948). New York: Lady Ann Press.<ref name="archive/adultscompanion00thay">{{cite book |editor1-last=Thayer |editor1-first=Tiffany |editor1-link=Tiffany Thayer |title=Adults' companion |date=1948 |publisher=Lady Ann Press |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/adultscompanion00thay}}</ref><ref name="nytimes/1948/07/04/read-write">{{cite news |title=People Who Read and Write |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1948/07/04/archives/people-who-read-and-write.html |access-date=21 October 2025 |work=nytimes.com |date=July 4, 1948 |location=New York}}</ref><ref name="nytimes/1948/07/09/books-authors">{{cite news |title=Books -- Authors |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1948/07/09/archives/books-authors.html |access-date=21 October 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=July 9, 1948}}</ref>
==Adaptations== Thayer's ''Call Her Savage'' (1931),<ref name="nytimes/1933/03/13/book-notes"/> was adapted for the film ''Call Her Savage'' (1932), starring Clara Bow and Gilbert Roland and released by Fox Film Corporation. Thayer's ''Thirteen Women'' (1932), was adapted for the film ''Thirteen Women'' (1932), starring Irene Dunne and Myrna Loy and released by RKO Radio Pictures.
== Personal life == Thayer was married at least three times: beginning around 1931, to Tanagra (1898–1975), a well-known dancer, and later, on 22 January 1945,<ref name="joshuablubuhs/dunkelberger">{{cite web |title=Walter Dunkelberger as a Fortean |url=http://www.joshuablubuhs.com/blog/walter-dunkelberger-as-a-fortean |website=From an Oblique Angle |access-date=21 October 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120070052/http://www.joshuablubuhs.com/blog/walter-dunkelberger-as-a-fortean |archive-date=20 January 2021 |language=en |date=September 15, 2014}}</ref> to Katherine McMahon (1914–1999) until his death.<ref name="newspapers/179916656"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Sources== *Skinner, Doug (Summer 2005) [http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/200_thayer1.shtml "Doubting Tiffany"], ''Fortean Times''
==External links== *[http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/fbifiles/paranormal/tiffanyellsworththayer.pdf Tiffany Thayer] (Declassified FBI File), ''The Black Vault''
'''Fortean Society''' *[http://www.forteans.com International Fortean Organization] *[http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/120/tiffany_thayer.html Tiffany Thayer] - Fortean Times
'''Metadata''' * [https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/1608955.Tiffany_Thayer Tiffany Thayer] - Goodreads *{{IMDb name|0857230}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thayer, Tiffany}} Category:1902 births Category:1959 deaths Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American atheists Category:American male novelists Category:American science fiction writers Category:American male stage actors Category:People from Freeport, Illinois Category:Novelists from New York City Category:Novelists from Illinois Category:20th-century American male actors Category:Male actors from New York City Category:Male actors from Illinois Category:20th-century American male writers