In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover the surprising way that Rube Goldberg made money early in his cartooning career
Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and sixty-second installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. Click here for the first legend in this installment. Click here for the second legend in this installment.
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COMIC LEGEND:
Rube Goldberg owned a brothel in his early days as a cartoonist
STATUS:
True
One of the most famous cartoonists in American history is Reuben "Rube" Goldberg, whose name is so famous that it is both the award for the Cartoonist of the year from the National Cartoonists Society (a group he co-founded and was the original president of) but also, more generally, his famous inventions that became popular in his comic strips have led to the general description of inventions like his being called "Rube Goldberg devices."
Not only that, but Goldberg was also a screenwriter, writing the hit comedy film (featuring the Three Stooges before they became the Three Stooges) Soup to Nuts, and in the late 1930s, even became a political cartoonist, ultimately winning the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for his cartoon titled "Peace Today"...
By the time he passed away in 1970, he was one of the most successful and famous cartoonists around, but that wasn't necessarily always going to be the case.
WHAT WAS RUBE GOLDBERG'S EARLY CAREER LIKE?
Goldberg grew up in San Francisco, where his father was a police and fire commissioner and a powerful and wealthy man in the town. He did not wish to see Goldberg pursue a career in cartooning, so he convinced his son to pursue engineering instead, and Goldberg graduated from Berkley with a degree in engineering. He went to work as an engineer for the city, but less than a year in, he quit to pursue his true passion, cartooning. He got a job at the San Francisco Chronicle working as a sports cartoonist (and janitor). He then moved to New York City in 1907 to pursue the burgeoning cartooning scene out there.
His first success in comics came in 1908 with the strip, Foolish Questions. It was during this strip that he began to introduce his famous inventions. By 1915, he was one of the most successful cartoonists around, making $25,000 a year. However, naturally, that success was not assured when he moved out there, so going back to his time in San Francisco, his father set him up with a piece of property to give him financial security.
WHAT DID RUBE GOLDBERG OWN DURING HIS EARLY YEARS AS A CARTOONIST?
In 1906, with money from his father, Goldberg purchased a plot of land where he hired an architect and contractor to design and build a two-story brownstone building on 751 Commercial Street in San Francisco, right in the middle of Chinatown. The building remains there to this day...
Again, Goldberg then moved to New York, and collected rent on this building for years until he was a star cartoonist, at which point he sold the building in 1916.
The building was right in the middle of San Francisco's infamous Red-Light District and was, in fact, a successful brothel. Goldberg always denied having any knowledge of what went on at the building and, again, the guy was in New York, so there certainly is some plausible deniability there, but, at the same time, it was right in the middle of an area filled with brothels, so, well, it'd be a bit unlikely that he had NO idea. No one is suggesting he had any direct involvement in the running of the brothel or anything like that, but at the same time, he almost assuredly knew it was being used as a brothel, which is likely why he divested himself of the property as soon as he became successful in New York. Even if he had no idea, it's still funny that such a famous figure owned a brothel, even if by mistake!
In TwoMorrows' Alter Ego #51, the comic book artist Lew Sayre Schwartz was interviewed by Jon B. Cooke, and Schwartz told a secondhand story he had learned from the famous cartoonist, Milton Caniff:
Did I ever tell you about the day that I took some of my work to Rube Goldberg? That S.O.B. Goldberg looked at my work and said, 'You've got a lot of talent, kid. But change your name.' [Goldberg was so worried about antisemitism around World War II that he had his own sons change their last names, so it sounds right that he would tell Schwartz the same thing - BC]
Caniff told this story on my back porch for the documentary I did. Rube's father was a very rich man. When Rube came to... work for the old Chronicle or whatever, his father was convinced cartoonists couldn't earn a living, so he bought Rube a business, and a couple of weeks later sent Rube a ket and a note which had the address and said, 'Look, if the thing at the Chronicle doesn't work out, I'd like you to take this key, go down to this address, and introduce yourself, because you own this business.' So on a Saturday, he gets into a taxi cab, goes downtown into a nice section, beautiful brownstone building, goes up to the steps, rings the bell, the door opens, and there's a lady in a kimono there. His father bought him a whorehouse! [laughter] This American icon! Now, Milton told that story. I have it on tape.
Caniff obviously got most of the facts of the story wrong, but it's still amusing to know that it was a "thing" among Goldberg's cartoonist friends.
CHECK OUT A MOVIE LEGENDS REVEALED!
In the latest Movie Legends Revealed - Did Spock and Saavik almost have a child in Star Trek IV?
MORE LEGENDS STUFF!
OK, that's it for this installment!
Thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo, which I don't even actually anymore, but I used it for years and you still see it when you see my old columns, so it's fair enough to still thank him, I think.
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com. And my Twitter feed is http://twitter.com/brian_cronin, so you can ask me legends there, as well! Also, if you have a correction or a comment, feel free to also e-mail me. CBR sometimes e-mails me with e-mails they get about CBLR and that's fair enough, but the quickest way to get a correction through is to just e-mail me directly, honest. I don't mind corrections. Always best to get things accurate!
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