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    A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
    A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
    A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
    Audiobook11 hours

    A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley

    Written by Neal Thompson

    Narrated by Marc Cashman

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    A Curious Man is the marvelously compelling biography of Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley, the enigmatic cartoonist turned globetrotting millionaire who won international fame by celebrating the world's strangest oddities, and whose outrageous showmanship taught us to believe in the unbelievable.

    As portrayed by acclaimed biographer Neal Thompson, Ripley’s life is the stuff of a classic American fairy tale. Buck-toothed and cursed by shyness, Ripley turned his sense of being an outsider into an appreciation for the strangeness of the world. After selling his first cartoon to Time magazine at age eighteen, more cartooning triumphs followed, but it was his “Believe It or Not” conceit and the wildly popular radio shows it birthed that would make him one of the most successful entertainment figures of his time and spur him to search the globe’s farthest corners for bizarre facts, exotic human curiosities, and shocking phenomena.

    Ripley delighted in making outrageous declarations that somehow always turned out to be true—such as that Charles Lindbergh was only the sixty-seventh man to fly across the Atlantic or that “The Star Spangled Banner” was not the national anthem. Assisted by an exotic harem of female admirers and by ex-banker Norbert Pearlroth, a devoted researcher who spoke eleven languages, Ripley simultaneously embodied the spirit of Peter Pan, the fearlessness of Marco Polo and the marketing savvy of P. T. Barnum.

    In a very real sense, Ripley sought to remake the world’s aesthetic. He demanded respect for those who were labeled “eccentrics” or “freaks”—whether it be E. L. Blystone, who wrote 1,615 alphabet letters on a grain of rice, or the man who could swallow his own nose.

    By the 1930s Ripley possessed a vast fortune, a private yacht, and a twenty-eight room mansion stocked with such “oddities” as shrunken heads and medieval torture devices, and his pioneering firsts in print, radio, and television were tapping into something deep in the American consciousness—a taste for the titillating and exotic, and a fascination with the fastest, biggest, dumbest and most weird. Today, that legacy continues and can be seen in reality TV, YouTube, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Jackass, MythBusters and a host of other pop-culture phenomena.

    In the end Robert L. Ripley changed everything. The supreme irony of his life, which was dedicated to exalting the strange and unusual, is that he may have been the most amazing oddity of all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
    Release dateMay 7, 2013
    ISBN9780385366366
    Author

    Neal Thompson

    Neal Thompson is the author of four critically acclaimed books, including A Curious Man: The Strange & Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley and Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR. Thompson’s writing has appeared in Esquire, Outside, Men’s Health, and other publications. He lives in Seattle with his family.

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    Reviews for A Curious Man

    3.5/5

    90 ratings19 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Although I've decided I don't very much like the man Robert Ripley became, I must give this four stars for an excellent and engaging biography. Ripley seems to me to have been a very selfish man---the epitome of a man ruined by fame and fortune. The last 30-40 pages bummed me out as he declined and died as most men like him do---unhappy and alone.

      There is a Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in Newport, Oregon that I've visited a couple times. It's spooky---but not scary. I never really understood why I felt so weirded out there, but after reading this, I sorta get it. There were so many interesting parts to his life and story that I can't do them all justice in a short review. As a blogger, I thought it was fun how the author compared Ripley's travel narratives to blogging. I'd always wondered about shrunken heads and how that was even possible---now I'm thinking these heads were without skulls. I did feel like too much was made of his buckteeth; calling them a handicap, even, at one point. Surely someone with a real handicap might beg to differ---or maybe this straight-toothed girl just can't sympathize.

      Definitely a good read---but don't expect to think highly of Ripley when you're through.
    • 5/5
      Fascinating account of Ripley's life
    • 3/5
      nonfic/bio (man from Santa Rosa CA becomes wildly successful) an interesting life, for sure, though he was definitely a man with many flaws.
    • 2/5
      This book raised some questions about what we should expect from biographers. Are they merely relating details of the life of a person, or should they provide more of a commentary on that life as well? Is what we might consider to be ‘neutral’ reporting actually just reinforcing the status quo? By not dwelling on the more questionable parts of a subject’s personality, is the biographer acting in an appropriate manner, or are they implicitly giving their approval by not spending more time examining those characteristics?

      Robert Ripley is the subject of this biography. You’re likely familiar with the “Believe It Or Not!” brand; there was a TV show about it in the 80s, and there are Ripley’s museums in San Francisco and NYC. Mr. Ripley started as a cartoonist in the early 1900s, eventually travelling the world to visit over 200 countries, collecting information about parts of the world that were extremely foreign to people in the U.S., especially before the frequent use of photography or radio programming. This straightforward biography follows Mr. Ripley from his birth in Santa Rosa, California through to his death in New York nearly 60 years later.

      The author, Mr. Thompson, is a fine writer. I hesitated a bit in the beginning, distracted by other books I received as gifts for Christmas. However, I sped through the second half of the book today, finishing it up as the Texans got destroyed by Kansas City in the playoffs. It’s written well, and I think maybe five or ten years ago I would have strongly recommended it for anyone interested in learning more about this particular figure in U.S. history.

      But these days, I have more questions. For example, Mr. Ripley clearly had some misogynistic tendencies, and while Mr. Thompson does mention this (which a lesser author might gloss over even further), he doesn’t examine it in a thoughtful way. The larger issue, however, that I just don’t think received enough attention in this biography, is the ethics of the entire basis for the Believe It Or Not concept: how “weird” the world is outside of the U.S. I get the sense from this biography that Mr. Ripley felt that he respected other cultures, but I’m not entirely sure that he did. He was certainly well-traveled, and developed strong affinities for certain cultures (especially China), but his cartoons at times dipped into racist territory, and his collections of curios and oddities really just seems like a whole lot of ‘othering’ of non-U.S. cultures.

      And this is where those questions I posed at the start of this review come up. What duty – if any – does the biographer have to the audience to delve deeper into the subject’s actions? Is a biographer merely a stenographer, pulling together clippings and filling in the blanks, or is he or she an investigative reporter, looking deeper into the subject and placing at least some level of judgment on the actions the subject has taken throughout his or her life? I think it’s more of the latter, or at least that’s my feeling after reading this book. Mr. Thompson spends really no ink exploring whether it was ethical or appropriate for a white man to travel to Africa and bring back and display (out of context) parts of the cultures on that continent. I don’t think it’s necessarily cut and dried; Mr. Ripley’s work did expose many in the U.S. to parts of the world they knew nothing about. But I don’t think the default should be that whatever Mr. Ripley did was value-neutral, which is what this book presents.
    • 4/5
      For cartoonists, as with those in so many other fields, it takes more than talent to be successful. It also takes a big idea. For Charles Schulz, that idea took the form of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. For Jim Davis, it was a cat who prefers lasagna to mice. And for Robert Ripley, who began his career in San Francisco as a sports cartoonist, the big idea was a cartoon showing some of the strange-but-true oddities to be found in the world.

      Within a very few years, the success of Ripley's "Believe It or Not!" turned this shy, buck-toothed young man into a wealthy, world-famous celebrity who lived a playboy lifestyle while Hugh Hefner was still a toddler. Besides his newspaper cartoon, Ripley also starred in radio and television programs, wrote books and sanctioned exhibits of the strange people and objects he had discovered. Neal Thompson tells all about this amazing life in "A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert 'Believe It or Not!' " (2013). Ripley, it turns out, was the kind of man who might have appeared in one of his own cartoons.

      Among the oddities one learns about his life: Ripley traveled often to faraway places, but he was afraid of flying. As a young man, he was a handball champion. He also tried out for a major league baseball team. He played a key role in the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem. Barry Goldwater, who later ran for president, as a young man took Ripley down into the Grand Canyon for a radio broadcast. And a dog belonging to the aforementioned Charles Schulz, then 14 years old, once appeared in one of Ripley's cartoons. The dog ate pins, tacks, screws and razor blades.

      One of the curious things about his life that Ripley kept secret was that while he was making as much as $350,000 a year during the Depression for drawing his cartoons, he paid a man named Norbert Pearlroth just $75 a week to dig out most of the oddities that appeared in those cartoons. Pearlroth didn't seem to mind, for he loved spending long hours in the library looking through books.

      Ripley drank too much, and although an athlete as a young man, he turned fat and flabby in middle age. He died at 59.

      Thompson's fine biography turns this "curious man" into someone who was flesh and blood, and even believable.
    • 3/5
      LeRoy Ripley is the embodiment of the American dream: a poor, bucktoothed, stuttering kid who cartooned his way to fame and fortune, was surrounded by beautiful women and traveled the globe. Thompson shows that behind the public persona Ripley lived a very lonely life, cut himself off from the support of family and friends, and was an alcoholic. This Ripley seemed to never achieve emotional maturity or find happiness no matter how much he achieved - in fact it’s amazing how much he accomplished, being perpetually drunk or hung over.

      Although it was interesting, I thought this book overly long and found myself skimming the last couple of hundred pages. Also, I had an ARC and was disappointed that there were no pictures.
    • 4/5
      As a kid, I was a huge fan of Ripley's Believe It or Not. I had several books, and I even had the brochure from the San Francisco museum tacked up on my bedroom wall. However, by the time I encountered Ripley's, it was already just a brand name. It didn't really occur to me that it started with a single person.

      I really enjoyed this biography, but I would not be surprised if it didn't really click with a lot of people. Ripley was, in many ways, a fairly ordinary man who happened to make it big. I was carried along largely by my existing interests in cartooning, odd trivia, and the first few decades of the 20th century. The writing style was fitting too, with occasional "Believe It" sections of assorted facts that, while fascinating, didn't otherwise fit in the narrative. Now I want to go back and look at more of the old cartoons.
    • 4/5
      Ripley was an odd child, buck-toothed and painfully shy he found solace in drawing. He was told that he talent would never allow him to amount to anything, but living in an age when newspapers used cartoonists instead of photographers, he managed to parley his talent into a career. Establishing himself among the best cartoonists of his time, he was able indulge in his passion for travel, which led to the concept of “Believe It Or Not!” Being an outsider himself helped him appreciate some of the oddities in human nature. Having overcome objections to follow his dreams he also had an appreciation for people who succeeded in unusual endeavours. Newspaper syndication, a popular radio show and books made Ripley a rich man. His personal life was filled with a mansion, many friends and many, many ladies.

      Mr. Thompson gives readers of this book a well-researched and thorough biography of this fascinating man. Ripley truly is an example of someone who knew what he wanted and went ahead to achieve it. Mr. Thompson writes in an entertaining manner and supplies the reader with appropriate snippets from Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not” findings. A very enjoyable and entertaining read that allowed me to learn not only about Mr. Ripley but also about the newspapers, travel and society in the early 20th century. Definitely a book worth picking up.
    • 4/5
      A fascinating, engaging biography of the man behind the wildly successful "Believe It or Not" franchise who was apparently quite the "oddity" himself in so many ways.
    • 4/5
      Often people are known to face adversity and rise above it. In some cases the person spends the rest of his life continuing the fight for success. In some cases the adversity becomes a focus and the person either sympathizes with others in similar situations or exploits them. Robert Ripley was a combination.
      Despite his gawky, buck-toothed appearance and a difficult childhood, Robert Ripley attracted a following based on his cartoonist abilities which he used to draw some of his teachers among other subjects. He sold his first cartoon when he was eighteen years old. That artistic ability plus his personality, including his faults, eventually attracted beautiful women (his first wife was a Follies dancer), worldwide fans. He earned one of the highest incomes in the United States. In 1940, his annual income from his newspaper articles and radio performances was more than $500,000. In addition, he delivered thirty lectures at $1,000 each.
      He traveled the world looking for oddities and eccentricities. He didn’t necessarily consider his subjects to be freaks (“Missionaries are the curse of Africa, the same as they are the curse of the Islands of the South Seas. The black man in Africa in his savage state is a gentleman....Only when he starts to become civilized does he lose his character and become diseased, immoral, unhealthy, and criminal.”) but found them fascinating and realized there was an audience for that type of story. He had a collaborator, Norbert Pearlroth who spoke ten languages and handled much of the traveling arrangements and hunting for stories. His work was never publically acknowledged by Ripley.
      Ripley liked like living well and his evenings were always spent with people he liked, good food, and lots of alcohol. He married several times and remained in touch with ex-lovers, wives, and friends throughout life.
      A CURIOUS MAN tells the lifelong story of Ripley, who was curious in both his personal actions and his hunt for stories. It is detailed and leaves readers feeling they know the man and his motivations.
    • 3/5
      A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It or Not!” Ripley by Neal Thompson

      When I received this readers’ copy, I thought this would be a great read. I remember reading Ripley cartoons and information blurbs when I was younger and found the information hard to believe but realized that the information was accurate if somewhat distorted on occasion. The life and times of Ripley should have made an interesting read. Instead, it was a story about a less than honest and egomaniacal journalist looking to make a name for him any way he could.

      Ripley’s early life left some lasting impressions on the young lad. He eventually matured into a handsome fellow who seemed to have a great deal of success with the women of the day. He stylized himself an adventurer so long as there were creature comforts available, namely alcohol and women.

      Thompson develops his story around how the “Believe It or Not!” cartoons became so successful. Initially, the cartoons featured amazing athletes and athletic feats. However, trying to create a new cartoon about the same topic time-after-time must be very challenging. It was not until Ripley journeyed on an around-the-world voyage that his cartoons started to feature some really odd and amazing things. Pearlroth, the real brain behind the Ripley cartoons, received no credit from Ripley after years of digging up strange and obscure factoids that they could use in the cartoons. The strange, the odd, the bizarre, and the grotesque became an American obsession and led Ripley to his niche.

      The showmanship of Ripley’s oddities and grotesqueries as he called them quickly began and bought Ripley more fame and fortune. In 1929, Simon & Schuster published a 188 page Ripley book to astounding success. The rest as they say is history.

      I felt let down by the time I got half way through the book but I pushed on hoping that the story got better. Thompson has a great writing style but I just found the topic boring by this time.

      I am going to look for other Thompson books and compare them to this one. I hope I do not have the same concerns after reading them.

      Overall, if you are a true Ripley fan then I suspect you will like this book. If you have a passing interest in Ripley then you might enjoy this story.


      Happy Reading, 
    • 5/5
      A Curious Man was a very intriguing story of Robert Ripley, it tells of his many travels and his life I found it very interesting.
    • 3/5
      Strange and brilliant doesn't even begin to cover it. Robert Ripley was the true "believe it or not." Since I was a child I had always been enamored with the believe it or not franchise. I had some of the books and even visited one of the odditoriums when I was a kid. Not until I picked up this book though, did I know a thing about the founder of this bizarre empire. Neal Thompson lovingly puts together Ripley's life starting from a young boy up until his premature death at 59. Ripley started off a shy, gawky, artist and quickly turned into one of the most influential and wealthy men of his era. His rise to fame began small and then skyrocketed. He exposed the oddest people, facts, and feats and people loved him for it. His cartoons, radio and tv shows, books, and side shows became the most unusual and beloved in America. Unfortunately, it started to go to his head and although he was generous and fun, he could have a temper. He kept a fast paced schedule and worked non-stop and it eventually took a toll on his health. Author Neal Thompson does a great job chronicling the rise and fall of Ripley as well as outlining the lasting impact of his empire.

      For fans of the odd and biographies.

      I received this book for free from Blogging for Books in return for my honest, unbiased opinion.
    • 5/5
      Interesting & Informative

      The title and cover attracted my attention to this book. I learned quite a lot. I have been to the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum in Gatlinburg on several occasions; however, I knew very little about the man himself. He was a scoundrel in some ways, but had redeeming qualities, too, as is often the case when reading in depth about a well-known person. I had few preconceived notions going into it.

      Impact of World Events

      It is interesting to see how what was going on in the world shaped him and how he lived and also how the way he lived shaped what was going on during this time in history. I definitely recommend this book. It is both enjoyable and educational. There are elements that I dislike, things that make me sad, as well as aspects that I find inspiring. – I rented the digital book for free from my local library; however, for those who have smartphones, there is a free app that allows you to scan a code in certain portions of the paper copy. It links to additional information, such as videos.

      An Interesting Thought

      Believe it or not, but if Ripley had not quit his job as a paperboy, we might very well not know anything of him today. Read the book to find out the specifics. I do not wish to damage the journey of discovery, so I shall leave it at that. Interesting and enjoyable, educational and inspiring…read it and decide for yourself.
    • 4/5
      Thompson’s biographical novel successfully unravels the mystique surrounding a man the world mainly sees as offering up only a buffet of oddities. Yes, the author’s style is straight-forward and unadorned, so those who lean more towards fan of history are more apt to enjoy the authorial flair (or lack thereof). Thompson goes in mainly chronological order from LeRoy’s young life, interspersing “Believe It!” factoids throughout the chapters in a celebratory nod to the “strange and brilliant” Ripley.

      Some may question Thompson’s method of delving into the less savory aspects of Ripley’s life, such as his hasty and ill-advised first marriage, his regular romantic dalliances, and his rather rampant alcoholism. These foibles (or major flaws, as the crow flies) are what make Ripley ours, part of our American seam, instead of an unreachable cartoonist (the most popular man in America at one time) to whom no one can relate.

      All in all, A Curious Man is worthy of reading to find out the man behind the oddities that so fascinated and continue to fascinate our general public. A rather extensive index is included (brilliant move on Thompson’s part).
    • 5/5
      A very interesting story about the life and times of the man who created "Ripley's Believe it or Not".
    • 4/5
      Ripley was a curious man. This biography describes his life from beginning to end. He strikes me as having been confused about what his beliefs were except for being tickled by the extraordinary.
    • 4/5
      You may have suspected that Robert Ripley was an odd fellow. If so, you were right. It makes for a fascinating read, this life of the man who brought us all the odd facts about the world, all the fascinating facts about the world, this man who was an odd and fascinating subject himself.
    • 4/5
      I freely admit that when I requested A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley by Neal Thompson from Vine, I had no idea what an interesting read it would be. I, like so many others have been aware of the Believe or Not phrase for much of my life. In fact, it has been some time since I've heard it, or given any thought to the man who created it. What I think of first when thinking of Ripley are the museums and the magazine like television show that aired so long ago. I never gave any thought to the man behind it, just to the curiosities displayed.

      As it turns out LeRoy Robert Ripley, who changed his name in order to please an employer early in his career, had a very difficult start. His family was poor and worked hard to keep body and soul together. Both is mother and father doing the best they could to keep their children clothed and fed. Ripley was an unusual looking individual as well, as it turns out. This of course led to him being teased mercilessly as a child and youth. Having an unfortunate stutter did not help matters. His talent, his passion and his escape was art. Despite the help of a sympathetic teacher, who allowed him to do do drawings instead of papers and read aloud reports, Ripley left high school without finishing. He went in search of work, or more precisely adventure that would put some money in his pocket.

      He tried to follow his dream with mixed success. Even though his passion was his art, he was untrained. This resulted in him being able to secure only low paying positions and in fact having his employers lose interest after a short time. Finally, at one point in his early years he did seek out some art training which allowed him to improve and to do what he set out to do, draw cartoons more successfully.

      He made his way to New York and there began his climb to not only success but celebrity, as he became more and more successful in his carrer, if not his personal life.
      The first cartoon to carry the Beieve It Or Not title appeared in 1919. This became his trademark phrase.After finding that he had become a successful cartoonist, and then something of a story teller, he was offered the chance to travel around the world and report back on what he saw. He found that his talent went beyond presenting the ludicrous, but describing the beautiful and the tragic and particularly the gruesome and the freakish.

      It is a little known fact that through many years he had a silent partner by the name of Norbert Pearlroth. Pearlroth was a good looking and inteligent man from the Austrian section of Galicia. He sported a nearly photographic memory and once invested in an encyclopedia called the Library of Entertainment and Knowledge. From these books and Pearlroth's memory came many of the unusual facts and stories used in Ripley's cartoons, and later his books.

      This was a quick and interesting read, which gave a good long look at the man behind the mysterious and bizarre, and all things entertaining that we are told To Believe It or Not!