Fri 29 Jun 2007
An update on Charles Webb ‘61, author of The Graduate. (Hat tip Newmark’s Door.)
It has taken Charles Webb 40 years to write a sequel to ‘The Graduate’. He made no money from the film, has sunk into the deepest poverty and now lives in a hotel in Eastbourne. ‘I wouldn’t have had it any other way,’ he tells John Preston
Sometime in the mid-1970s, several years after he wrote The Graduate and gave away all his possessions, Charles Webb was working as a clerk in a branch of Kmart.
One day he noticed that there was a new product on the shelves, designed to help children become potty-trained.
It was called The Graduate.
‘I think that’s when I realised this thing was never going to waft away into the distance.
“Although the film wasn’t my hit, my whole life has been measured by it.
“I’ve no idea how life would have turned out had it not been for this phenomenon, but everything would have been very different. That’s for sure.’
Read the whole thing.
2007-06-29 09:09:31
As I recall, long ago there appeared in public print further poignant details of Webb’s relationship with Fred. I probably can’t do them justice in any attempt at a recap, and Webb may just as soon see them remain lost. Nonetheless some of you sentimental googlers might be able to find them. David, in my opinion Webb is a person from whom a speech and a trailing Q & A period about meeting the vicissitudes of life Williams students (and many others) might very well benefit.
2007-06-29 14:56:41
The article which seems to be the root of his currency in the news:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=N45HTG34NMGULQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/arts/2007/05/27/svgraduate127.xml
2007-06-29 16:25:50
A Williams role model?
Never saw the graduate. Do not intend to view it in the future.
I found this gentleman’s biographical sketch and read about him, his wife and children. He should not be paid a farthing. Not a single pence. He should be thrown out of his lodgings for back rent. Every fool should be parted with his possessions. This man has forsaken his soul.
Raised his children in a nudist colony?
Where his children eat a copy of the graduate with cranberries?
Where his wife is FRED?
And on and on and on.
Boring.
Not worth the effort to even spend a minute with someone like him. He should work as an undertaker’s assistant.
2007-06-29 23:34:55
Odd that my memory, as it did after Katie Craig’s passing, finds so many similar examples in the history of Williams.
‘But for the grace of G-d,’ pass we all…