LIVRE SIGNÉ remise WILLARD MOTLEY DÉFENSEUR AFRO-AMÉRICAIN CHICAGO FONDATEUR DE LA MAISON COQUE

Novelist Willard Motley was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 14, 1909 to parents Florence “Flossie” Motley, his mother, and a man referred to by the family only as “Bryant,” who was his biological father. Bryant was a 36-year-old Pullman porter living in the Motley family home at the time. His mother was the daughter of Archibald, a Pullman porter and Mary “Mae” Frederica Huff Motley, a public school teacher, both of whom hastily married his 14 year old mother to Bryant during her pregnancy so that Willard Motley's birth would not be illegitimate. After the birth, the marriage was annulled.

Willard Motley was told growing up that his grandparents, Archibald Sr. and Mary, were his parents, and his mother, Florence, was his sister. Willard Motley and his uncle, Archibald Motley Jr., who would later become a prominent artist, were raised as brothers. Bryant impregnated Flossie again, resulting in the birth of his sister, Rita Motley who was also raised as a child of Mary and Archibald Motley, Sr.

Motley's first job came at the age of 13 when he wrote a weekly column under the pseudonym “Bud Billiken” in the children's section of the Chicago Defender, one of the nation's largest black newspapers. Over time his articles became one of the more popular features of the newspaper. Motley meanwhile attended Englewood High School, graduating in 1929. He considered attending the University of Wisconsin but was unable to do so due to financial limitations. Instead he returned to his family home and went to New York in 1930 and to the western United States in 1936 to inspire his writings. He also worked at different jobs throughout the years, including jobs at a brewery, a neighborhood store, and a dress factory.

In 1939, at the age of 30, Motley left the family home permanently and moved to the Maxwell Street Neighborhood, a notorious Chicago slum known earlier as the site of Jane Addams' Hull House and later as the center of blues music in the city. While there, Motley began to conduct research on social conditions in the neighborhood and created Hull House Magazine to publish fiction about the area. Much of his research took him to the Cook County Jail, where he interviewed inmates about their lives. He wrote a narrative about the trial of Bernard “Knifey” Sawicki, which brought renewed attention to his ability as a writer.

Motley's most famous work, the novel, Knock on Any Door, appeared in 1947. The novel described the life of Nick Romano, an Italian American altar boy who was lured into crime because of his poverty and eventually becomes a hardened criminal due to the penal system. Knock on Any Door received glowing reviews in 1947 and made the New York Times Best Seller list after selling 47,000 copies in its first three weeks in print. In 1949 it was adapted into a movie of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart.

Later Motley novels included We Fished All Night (1951) and Let No Man Write My Epitaph, a 1958 novel which became a Columbia Pictures film in 1960. His final novel, Let Noon Be Fair, appeared in 1966 after his death. Willard Motley, who moved to Mexico City in 1952, died there on March 4, 1965.

Art galleries are traditionally quiet places filled with whispered words of criticism or praise or bewilderment. But Tuesday afternoon it seemed particularly noisy in the Sidney R. Yates Gallery on the fourth floor of the Chicago Cultural Center, where a handful of people wandered through a spectacular exhibition titled "Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist."

The noise was not unpleasant; rather, it enhanced the viewing experience. People talked louder than usual: "This one is really amazing." "So colorful and vibrant." On the east side of the gallery, where large windows displayed a fighting-toward-spring Grant Park, was a video monitor looping a 5-minute, 55-second film by Charles Stone III of images by the artist and words from experts and critics. In the hallway leading to the gallery there was music: "Hot Stuff" from 1928 by Fess Williams and his Joy Boys, and "Jai Deux Amours," a 1930 recording by Josephine Baker.

The music, all 10 tunes of it, was jazz, and as my colleague Howard Reich rightly observed in print a couple of weeks ago, "Though not all of Motleys paintings concern music … its the jazz life that animates his world and this exhibition."

Hes right. Motleys jazz club paintings — Reich writes that they allow you to "experience something that no photograph can convey with comparable intensity: the energy, movement, music and noise of Chicago jazz as it came of age" — are the stars of this show. But there is much more. There are portraits of Motleys mother, Mary, and grandmother, Emma, and a 1933 self-portrait with a nude model. There are paintings from the time Motley spent in Paris.

He also went to Mexico to visit his nephew Willard, and near four paintings from those journeys in the 1950s is an enlarged typed page detailing the pairs adventures that includes this about a trip to San Miguel Allende: "We came in late, about 1 oclock, no bars open, no whorehouses in that town where we could have a drink. Stay at a very interesting hotel."

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Reading that and seeing these paintings of Mexico, I was startled by another noise.

It was a sound some 50 years old: the buzz of the doorbell in the second floor of an apartment in Old Town, followed by the sight of Willard Motley at the apartment door, wearing on his face a bright smile and carrying in his hands two rolls of bright silver pesos.

He had come to see my parents, who were his friends. The pesos were a gift for my young brother and me, and he brought them to us the two or three times he visited.

As terrific and enlightening as it is to have Archibald Motley evoked in such a vivid exhibition (running through August), it must be remembered that his nephew is no less important.

Willard Motley was famous and successful for a time but is now mostly forgotten. If he is remembered at all, it is for a few words out of the millions he wrote: "Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse."

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Those words came from Nick Romano, the protagonist of Motleys 1947 novel, "Knock on Any Door," and were further immortalized a couple of years later by John Derek in the film of the same name. Romano is a former altar boy sent to reform school for some petty crimes. He comes out hardened and spirals downward, eventually winding up on trial for killing a cop.

Horace Clayton reviewed the book for the Tribune, writing, "Chicago has produced many great writers …. But of all of them, (Theodore) Dreiser not excepted … only Motley has dealt in such detail with the nuances of feeling — the delicate balance between love and hate, cruelty and kindness — which exists in the human personality."

In 1947, Motley was on top of the world. But it had not been an easy climb. He was born out of wedlock and grew up believing that his grandparents were his parents, his mother having moved to New York after his birth. The family lived in what was then the virtually all-white Englewood neighborhood. His "older brother," Archibald, was actually his uncle. Nearly 20 years older than Willard, Archibald convinced him of the power of creativity, and when Willard was 13 he sent a short story to the Chicago Defender newspaper. The editors were so impressed that they offered him a weekly column, and thus did he become the first of many to write under the byline of Bud Billiken, a mythical figure created by the paper to tell childrens stories and a character celebrated for decades in the eponymous South Side parade that takes place every August and is the oldest and largest African-American parade in the country.

Willard couldnt find a job after graduating from Englewood High School and so wandered the Depression-ravaged country before returning here in 1939.

He lived in down-and-out conditions in the Maxwell Street area, published some short fiction in the Hull House Magazine and wrote for the Works Project Administrations Federal Writers Project.

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Then he wrote "Knock on Any Door" and followed that hit with 1951s "We Fished All Night," about the impact of World War II on three young Chicago men. It was panned by the critics and ignored by the public. But in 1958 came "Let No Man Write My Epitaph," a best-seller that picked up the lives of some minor characters in "Knock on Any Door" and became a 1960 movie starring Burl Ives, James Darren and Ella Fitzgerald.

He wound up being hounded by the IRS and spent his last years in near-poverty, some of those living in Mexico, where he adopted a son and wrote his final novel, "Let Noon Be Fair." It was published a year after his death in 1965.

His uncle Archibald outlived him by more than 15 years, painted more paintings and now has this fine and exciting show. There is a lengthy and detailed biography of the painter in the entrance to the gallery. And while those old jazz songs play, you can learn about him and see photos of him and read some of the things he said over the decades in interviews, such as, "Give the artist of the Race a chance to express himself in his own individual way … and we shall have a great variety of art, a great art."

There is also on the walls a photo of Willard Motley, seen in profile with Archibald at a 1947 book party for "Knock on Any Door." There are no quotes from the author on the walls, but you might hear the echo of something he once said, in response to critics who grumbled about this black man writing about white characters: "My race is the human race."

Willard Motley was an African-American writer who grew up in one of the only African-American families residing in Chicagos Englewood neighborhood.

The Chicago Defender published Motleys fiction when he was only 13 years old. He was then writing a weekly column called "Bud Says" under the pseudonym "Bud Billikin" (which then give the name to an annual Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic).

Motley lived near Maxwell Street Market, where he became associated with Hull House, In 1940 he wrote for the Works Progress Administration Federal Writers Project.

In 1947 his first novel, Knock on Any Door, was critically acclaimed. In this novel, the main character, Nick, haunts West Madison Street and, to make money, allows himself to be picked up by gay men, described as “phonies.”

His second novel, We Fished All Night, did not receive the same success. Motley moved to Mexico to start over.

His third novel, Let No Man Write My Epitaph continued the story of Knock on Any Door.

On March 4, 1965, Motley died in Mexico City.

Willard Francis Motley (July 14, 1909 – March 4, 1965) was an African-American author. Motley published a column in the Chicago Defender under the pen-name Bud Billiken. Motley also worked as a freelance writer, and later founded and published the Hull House Magazine and worked in the Federal Writers Project. Motleys first and best known novel was Knock on Any Door, which was made into a movie by the same name (1947).

Contents

1Early life and career

2Criticism

3Death and legacy

4Bibliography

4.1Novels

4.2Nonfiction

4.3Letters

5References

6External links

Early life and career

Motley was born and grew up in the Englewood neighborhood, South Side, Chicago, in one of the few African-American families residing there. His father was a Pullman porter. Motley graduated from Lewis-Champlain grammar school, and Englewood High School.[3] He is related to the noted artist Archibald Motley. The two were raised as brothers, although Archibald was in fact Willards uncle. He was hired by Robert S. Abbott to write a childrens column called "Bud Says" under the pseudonym "Bud Billiken", for the Chicago Defender.[4]

He traveled to New York, California and the western states, earning a living through various menial jobs, as well as by writing for the radio and newspapers. Returning to Chicago in 1939, he lived near the Maxwell Street Market, which was to figure prominently in his later writing. He became associated with Hull House, and helped found the Hull House Magazine, in which some of his fiction appeared. In 1940 he wrote for the Works Progress Administration Federal Writers Project along with Richard Wright and Nelson Algren.[4] In 1947 his first novel, Knock on Any Door, appeared to critical acclaim. A work of gritty naturalism, it concerns the life of Nick Romano, an Italian-American altar boy who turns to crime because of poverty and the difficulties of the immigrant experience, who says the famous phrase "Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse!"[5][6][7] It was an immediate hit, selling 47,000 copies during its first three weeks in print. In 1949 it was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart. In response to critics who charged Motley with avoiding issues of race by writing about white characters, Motley said, "My race is the human race." His second novel, We Fished All Night,[8] was not hailed as a success, and after it appeared Motley moved to Mexico to start over. His third novel, Let No Man Write My Epitaph, picks up the story of Knock on Any Door. Columbia Pictures made it into a movie in 1960. Ella Fitzgeralds music for the film was released on the album Ella Fitzgerald Sings Songs from "Let No Man Write My Epitaph".

Criticism

According to the citation statement for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame awards, "Motley was criticized in his life for being a black man writing about white characters, a middle-class man writing about the lower class, and a closeted homosexual writing about heterosexual urges. But those more kindly disposed to his work, and there were plenty, admired his grit and heart....Chicago was more complicated than just its racial or sexual tensions, and as a writer his exploration was expansive...." [9] Motley was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.

Death and legacy

On March 4, 1965, Motley died in Mexico City, Mexico at age 55. One final novel, Let Noon Be Fair, was published the following year. Since 1929, Chicago has held an annual Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, (which served as his pen name during his early career at the Chicago Defender) on the second Saturday of August.[10] The parade travels through the citys Bronzeville, Grand Boulevard and Washington Park neighborhoods on the south side. The bulk of Motleys archive is held in Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.[11]

Bibliography

Novels

Knock on Any Door, D. Appleton-Century Company, 1947; Northern Illinois University Press, 1989, ISBN 9780875805436

We Fished All Night, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951

Let No Man Write My Epitaph, Random House, 1958

Let Noon Be Fair, 1966; Pan Books, 1969 – published posthumously.

LIVRE SIGNÉ remise WILLARD MOTLEY DÉFENSEUR AFRO-AMÉRICAIN CHICAGO FONDATEUR DE LA MAISON COQUE