Title: Ken W. Purdy Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1931-1988 (bulk 1931-1972)

Creator:

• Purdy, Ken W., 1913-1972

Call Number: Mss 751; Micro 1144; Audio 1200A; PH 3798; PH 3798 (3)

Quantity: 4.8 c.f. (15 archives boxes), 1 reel of microfilm (35 mm), 21 tape recordings, and 62 photographs

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers, mainly 1931-1972, of Ken W. Purdy, a journalist noted for his writing and editorial work on several men's magazines and his expertise on classic cars. Included are biographical and bibliographical materials; correspondence; final copies of numerous articles, stories, books, and scripts (including screenplays for Le Mans); recordings of research interviews with Ian Fleming, Dan Gurney, William Harrah, Stirling Moss, and others; legal and financial records; scrapbooks and clippings; photographs documenting various professional activities; and miscellany. Professional correspondence and memoranda document exchanges with Arthur H. Motley, Hugh Hefner, other associates at True, Argosy, and Playboy; with Brandt & Brandt, Littauer & Wilkinson, and other literary agents; and with numerous racing figures.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00751

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Ken W. Purdy, a noted journalist and editor of men's magazines and a renowned expert on classic automobiles and sports cars, was born in Chicago in 1913 and raised in New York. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the early 1930s on a scholarship received because his father, William T. Purdy, had composed the score for “On, Wisconsin.” At Wisconsin, Purdy majored in English literature and worked briefly for the Daily Cardinal, the school newspaper.

Purdy left school during his junior year and in 1934 became a reporter for the Athol Daily News in Massachusetts. For the next several decades his career was to be marked by the constant shifting from one publication to another that was typical of magazine journalists during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1935 Purdy became editor of the Oshkosh Free Press, and by 1936 he was associate editor of the Madison Clarion Record. In 1936 he also began an association with a number of radio publications: the Radio Guide in Chicago in 1936, Click (Philadelphia) in 1938, and back to Chicago in the following year as managing editor of Radio Digest.

In 1939 Purdy became associate editor and a contributor to Look. Two years later he became editor-in-chief of Victory, a nine-language publication of the Office of War Information published in association with Crowell-Collier. In 1946 he was appointed editor of Parade magazine. By the time he left three years later, Parade's circulation had grown markedly. In 1949 Purdy became editor of True magazine, the first and foremost publication in the men's magazine genre. Purdy was instructed to improve the quality of the magazine, which had recently emerged as a slick monthly, and accordingly Purdy downplayed fiction in favor of action and adventure non-fiction. Purdy attracted quality writers to the magazine, and by the time he departed in 1954 he could point to True's publication of two of journalism's most celebrated stories: an in-depth report on the 1950 flying saucer hoax and the exposé of the World War II Holohan murder. Despite his success at True, Purdy resigned in 1954 to become editor of Argosy, its major competitor. Less than a year later he resigned from that position.

In 1956 Purdy began a long term relationship with Playboy magazine as writer and contributing editor. Over the next seventeen years, he wrote over seventy pieces for Playboy (and anonymously rewrote others) while still continuing to freelance for other publications. Purdy's writing for Playboy continued in the action/adventure vein, with his best known stories concerning the automobile business.

In his writing career Purdy was the author of some 350 non-fiction pieces, a figure which does not include his newspaper articles and book reviews, and he won a number of awards for his writings. Many of his essays have been reprinted, perhaps most notably his 1953 story on his son Geoffrey who had polio. Some critics consider Purdy's fiction, which included eight books, to be his best work. His Kings of the Road was one of the largest-selling automobile books of its era. Other books covered automobile history, classic car museums, and young people and driving. He also co-authored All But My Life, the autobiography of Stirling Moss.

During the 1960s Purdy was involved in the motion picture industry. In 1965-1966 he developed an unproduced screenplay based on Robert Daley's The Cruel Sport. In addition, he was involved with rewrites on Le Mans (1971) and a documentary on matador Arruza.

Ken Purdy committed suicide in 1972.

The Ken Purdy Papers document the full range of his professional interests, spanning five decades in journalism, publishing, and writing. The papers primarily focus on events from the late 1940s through the early 1970s, with considerably less emphasis on the earlier part of his life. There is also very little information on his personal life. The collection consists of biographical material; correspondence; contracts and financial records; photographs; sound recordings; scrapbooks; a virtually complete set of his published writings, both fiction and non-fiction; and a smaller file of his unpublished writings and film work.

BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL consists of general background information, including press releases and promotional material on various projects, biographical material, obituaries and tributes, information on the Purdy Memorial Scholarship at the University of Wisconsin, and bibliographies. The bibliographies include a list of published and unpublished pieces which he prepared himself, often listing information on the price paid for the piece, and notes and bibliographies prepared by an intended biographer. These bibliographies have been exhaustively checked against the collection by the archival processor and a revised bibliography prepared which contains a comprehensive list of published and unpublished fiction and non-fiction, book reviews, and scripts. Also included is a 1974 catalog of the Purdy estate sale in 1974, several recorded interviews with Purdy, and a selection of photographs generally documenting his career activities.

CORRESPONDENCE, which is primarily professional in focus, is divided into three categories: incoming letters, outgoing letters, and office memoranda. Outgoing correspondence contains extensive coverage of the period from the 1950s through the 1970s. Prominent correspondents here include a number of racing and automotive figures and Arthur H. Motley, Hugh Hefner, and other editors, publishers, and journalists with whom he was associated. The incoming correspondence is more extensive and documents all phases of his professional career. In addition to a general chronological file, there is a file of incoming letters filed alphabetically by subject which deals with his relations with Brandt & Brandt, Littauer & Wilkinson, Playboy, and other publishers and agents, as well as with other special topics. The Playboy correspondence, like the majority of the editorial correspondence, consists of letters from top executives commenting upon Purdy's manuscripts. Also of special note among the subject correspondence are the letters concerning two articles about his son's battle against polio, letters of condolence written to Mrs. Purdy after his death, and an extensive file of letters from Stirling Moss.

The third category of correspondence consists of inter-office memoranda pertaining to his work at Victory, True, and Argosy. These generally consist of expenditure reports, circulation information, and marketing strategies. The Victory file contains some information on the magazine's proposed peacetime successor. Also of note is a memo in the True file on the Alger Hiss case.

BOOKS AND WRITINGS is comprised of printed copies of virtually everything authored by Purdy, together with representation of much of his unpublished and unproduced work. The writings have been grouped by genre and include books, fiction and non-fiction articles (these are further divided into published and unpublished files), newspaper articles, book reviews, film and television scripts, miscellaneous writings, and information on aborted projects. Pertaining to his magazine work is a volume of Radio Digest and a microfilmed dummy and clippings pertaining to Victory. A complete file of Victory in all of the languages in which it was published was transferred to the Government Documents Section of the Historical Society Library.

Purdy's film and television work includes both original scripts by him and others and rewrite jobs he performed. Although only Le Mans and Arruza were completed and released and therefore are the most extensively documented, the collection also includes synopses, outlines, treatments, and screenplays in various stages on several uncompleted projects. The aborted projects files consist of research, notes, and original writings on a project in which Purdy was to collaborate with Artie Shaw, a Bugatti book outline, and a project on world gold reserves.

On tape are several recorded INTERVIEWS made by Purdy with racing figures such as Dan Gurney and Stirling Moss and a conversation with Ian Fleming. (Because this interview was altered by Playboy Purdy asked that his name be removed from the piece). Also on tape are recorded notes, readings of several Purdy stories, Purdy broadcasting from a racetrack, and other MISCELLANY.

LEGAL AND FINANCIAL RECORDS consists of contracts relating to publication and film projects and a small file of automobile and payment receipts and wage and royalty statements.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Lucille Purdy, Westport, Connecticut, March 12, 1985. Accession Number: M84-368, M86-213

Processing Information

Processed by Henry Mattoon (archives intern), 1987-1988.

	Series: Biographical Material
Mss 751 Box   1 Folder   1-2	Biographical material and publicity, 1936-1988
PH 3798, PH 3798 (3)	Photographs
Audio 1200A	Recorded interviews about Purdy
1200A/1	Interview on radio station WIIC, undated
1200A/4-5	Interview by Steve Hollis of WJRZ, December 8, 1963, concerning hypnosis, cars, and Stirling Moss
1200A/3	Interview regarding All But My Life, circa 1963
Mss 751	Series: Correspondence	⇧
	Outgoing correspondence
Box   1 Folder   3-9	1939-1971
Box   2 Folder   1	1972
	Incoming correspondence
	General correspondence
Box   2 Folder   2-7	1931-1962
Box   3 Folder   1-5	1963-1973, undated
	Subject correspondence
	Agent/publisher correspondence
Box   4 Folder   1	Atlantic Monthly, 1951-1970, undated
Box   4 Folder   2	Automobile Quarterly, 1961-1971
Box   4 Folder   3-4	Brandt & Brandt, 1955-1958
Box   4 Folder   5	Harrah's, 1961-1972
Box   5 Folder   1	John Day Co., 1965-1967
Box   5 Folder   2	Littauer and Wilkinson, 1957-1967
Box   5 Folder   4	Little, Brown, and Co., 1950-1972
Box   5 Folder   5	Scott Meredith, 1963-1982, undated
Box   5 Folder   6	Stirling Lord Agency, 1962-1967
Box   5 Folder   7	Moss, Stirling, 1954-1972, undated
	Playboy and HMH Publishing Co.
Box   5 Folder   8	1956-1959
Box   6 Folder   1-4	1960-1972
Box   6 Folder   5	Polio articles correspondence, 1953
Box   6 Folder   6	Purdy scholarship, 1972-1973
Box   6 Folder   7	Suicide condolence letters, 1972
	Office memoranda
Box   7 Folder   1-2	Office of War Information and Victory, 1941-1946, undated
Box   7 Folder   3	True, 1949-1954
Box   7 Folder   4	Argosy, 1954-1955
	Series: Books and Writings	⇧
	Books
	Volumes
Box   7 Folder   5	All But My Life, 1963
Box   7 Folder   6	Bright Wheels Rolling, 1954
Box   7 Folder   7	Collection of Odd and Intriguing Facts about Mercedes-Benz, 1961
Box   8 Folder   1	Ken Purdy's Book of Automobiles, 1972
Box   8 Folder   2	Kings of the Road, 1954, 1957; undated
Box   14 Folder   1	New Matadors, 1965
Box   8 Folder   3	Porsche, Story of, 1964
Box   8 Folder   4	Wonderful World of the Automobile, 1961
Box   8 Folder   5	Reviews of Purdy books, 1952-1972
	Articles
	Non-fiction
	Published
Box   8 Folder   6-7	A-G
Box   9 Folder   1-5	H-Z
Box   9 Folder   6-9	Unpublished
	Fiction
Box   10 Folder   1-2	Published
Box   10 Folder   3-5	Unpublished
Box   10 Folder   6	Foreign versions and translations
	Newspaper work
Box   10 Folder   7	Athol Daily News, 1934-1935, undated
Box   10 Folder   8	Radio Guide, 1936-1939
Box   10 Folder   9	Parade, 1960-1962, undated
Box   11 Folder   1	Book reviews, 1935-1969
Box   11 Folder   2	Miscellaneous writings and speeches, 1936-1972, undated
	Video work
	Films
	Produced
	Azzura, Avco Embassy, 1972
Box   11 Folder   3	Script, voice over narrations, by Purdy, 1967, undated
	Le Mans (also known as The 24 Hours of Le Mans), Solar/National Gen., 1971
Box   11 Folder   4	Synopses 1-4, undated
Box   11 Folder   5	Synopsis revision, June 19, 1970
Box   11 Folder   6	Synopsis and revised synopsis with revised notes, July 18, 1970
Box   11 Folder   7	Treatment by Purdy, June 8, 1970
Box   11 Folder   8	Treatment (incomplete) by Purdy, July 10, 1970
Box   11 Folder   9	Treatment by Purdy, with revisions of July 24, 1970
Box   11 Folder   10	Treatment (alternate) by Purdy, July 20, 1970
Micro 1144 Reel   1 Frame   104	Continuity stepsheet, May 18, 1970
Mss 751 Box   11 Folder   11	Continuity by Harry Kleiner and Purdy, June 18, 1970
Box   11 Folder   12	Shooting scripts (John Franco and Joan Arnold) 1970
Micro 1144 Reel   1 Frame   203	Shooting script (Kleiner), June 5, 1970
Mss 751 Box   11 Folder   13	Shooting script, June 29, 1970
Box   11 Folder   14	Shooting script, by Purdy, July 4, 1970
Box   11 Folder   15	Shooting script with revisions, September 10-November 17, 1970
Box   12 Folder   1	Production miscellany, 1966-1970
	Unproduced
	Day of the Champion, Brookdale Films, 1965-1966
Box   12 Folder   2	Treatment by James Clavell, February 28, 1966
Box   12 Folder   3	Treatment by Purdy, April 9, 1966
Box   14 Folder   2	Screenplay, circa March 1966, with cast and car lists, outline, and call sheets
Box   12 Folder   4	Screenplay by Purdy, May 10, 1966
Box   12 Folder   5	Shooting scripts by Edward Anhalt, December 14, 1966, with revisions of , January 10, 1966
Box   12 Folder   6	Shooting script by Purdy, June 1, 1966 with revisions of , June 14, 1966
	Dr. Orient
Box   14 Folder   3	Scene breakdown, undated
	Treatments
Box   14 Folder   3	Versions 1-3, undated
Micro 1144 Reel   1 Frame   1	Version 4, November 20, 1964?
Mss 751 Box   12 Folder   7	I Hear You, Marty, Draft screenplay, undated
Box   12 Folder   8	Moss, Stirling, Treatment, 1963
	Richard-Shahib
Box   12 Folder   9	Treatment by James Clavell and John Sturgess, circa 1965
Box   12 Folder   10	Shooting script by James Clavell, August 3, 1965
	The Road/Portago
Box   12 Folder   11	Outlines by Michael Campus, 1970, undated
Box   12 Folder   11	Outline by Purdy, 1967
Box   12 Folder   11	Treatment by Purdy, October 18, 1961
Micro 1144 Reel   1 Frame   260	Screenplay by Purdy, circa February 1970
Mss 751	Miscellaneous television scripts, treatments, outlines
Box   12 Folder   12	1953-1961
Box   13 Folder   1	1967-1970, undated
	Edited magazines
Box   13 Folder   2	Radio Digest, Volume 1, #1-4, 1939
Micro 1144	Victory
Reel   1 Frame   424	Dummy, undated Note: Filmed without a counter.
Reel   1 Frame   426	Scrapbook, 1943-1944
Mss 751 Box   15 Folder   1	Loose clippings, 1943-1946
	Aborted projects
Box   15 Folder   2	“Gold,” 1961-1967, undated
Box   15 Folder   3	Artie Shaw and The Big Heist, 1966-1967
Box   15 Folder   4	Miscellaneous projects and outlines, 1954-1959, undated
Audio 1200A	Series: Interviews	⇧
1200A/8-9	Bondurant, Bob, undated
1200A/10	Campus, Michael, undated
1200A/14 (continued)	Dean, Jimmy, undated
1200A/3 (continued)	Dillingham/Brown, circa 1963
1200A/21	Fleming, Ian, 1964
1200A/11	Gregory, Maston, undated
1200A/10 (continued)	Gurney, Dan, undated
1200A/12-13	Gurney, Dan, undated
1200A/14-16	Harrah, Bill, undated
1200A/17-19	Moss, Stirling, undated
1200A/7	Unidentified racing driver, undated
Mss 751	Series: Legal and Financial Records	⇧
Box   15 Folder   5-6	Contracts, 1944-1981
Box   15 Folder   7	Financial records, 1943-1971
	Series: Miscellaneous	⇧
1200A/4 (continued)	Recorded notes: Acupuncture
	Story reading
1200A/2	“Change of Plan,” read as part of the BBC's Storyteller, undated
1200A/20	Purdy reading his short story, “It was the year of our Lord and grace 1972 . . .”
1200A/6	Purdy broadcasting from a racetrack in a Bugatti, 1964
Micro 1144 Reel   1 Frame   490	Stern True Magazine presentation, 1951

These audio tapes have been described in the contents list. Titles and dates of materials may differ and have not been verified.

Audio Call Number	Title/Description
1200A/1	Ken Purdy “On Automobiles”
1200A/2	“Change of Plan” read as part of the BBC's Storyteller
1200A/3	“Dillingham/Brown” interview, 1963
1200A/4	Interview by Steve Hollis of WJRZ concerning hypnosis, 1963 December 8
1200A/5	“Speed” interview by Steve Hollis of WJRZ concerning cars, 1963 December 8
1200A/6	News broadcast, 1962 July/ Purdy broadcasting from a racetrack in a Bugatti, 1964
1200A/7	Unidentified racing driver
1200A/8-9	Bob Bondurant on driving
1200A/10	Michael Campus and Dan Gurney
1200A/11	Michael Gregory, early 1960s
1200A/12-13	Dan Gurney
1200A/14-16	Bill Harrah of Harrah's, Reno, Nevada
1200A/17-20	Stirling Moss interview
1200A/20	Purdy reading his short story, “It was the year of our Lord and grace 1972 . . .”
1200A/21	Ian Fleming for Playboy