H. Paul Jeffers

"A Whiff of Flower Power"

The following is from the Winter 1968 Temple University Alumni Review....

Above the name H. Paul Jeffers on the door of a 15th floor, east-side Manhattan apartment is a small business card that reads: Marigold Productions, Inc. There isn't a blooming marigold in sight, but to Jeffers, a 1956 graduate of the University (BS in Communications), the little golden flower represents the sweet smell of success. The marigold you see, is the state flower of Illinois, and Illinois is the home state of U.S. Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, the man who made the recording of "Gallant Men" which has sold nearly one million copies. Sweet marigolds. Sweet royalties. Royalties that help pay the rent on Jeffers' 15th floor apartment. Is that clear? No? Well, it was Jeffers who thought up the idea of having Sen. Dirksen narrate a record dealing with famous men in American history. And it was Jeffers who, in collaboration with a colleague at ABC News, produced the record that eventually was released by Capitol.

Appropriately enough, the gallant men idea first came to Jeffers in Boston. He was there in 1961 as an instructor at Boston university and a moonlighter at a small radio station. Unlike his gallant men heroes, however, Jeffers was timid. He assumed Sen. Dirksen was unapproachable; hence the idea languished. By 1966 Jeffers had grown bolder. In between a trip to Thailand as an instructor at a newly-built, government-owned university in Northern Thailand; a visit to Saigon, and a job offer from ABC News that took Jeffers to New York City. At ABC, Jeffers casually mentioned his idea to fellow newsman Ron Cochran, who happened to know Dirksen personally. Cochran arranged a visit with the veteran Republican in Washington. Jeffers caught the next train to D.C. He came back with a verbal contract with Dirksen.

Subsequently, Jeffers and Cochran arranged to have a private, professional recording firm make a master tape of Dirksen's narration, complete with a full orchestral background. Jeffers wrote the script, Dirksen read it, in his incomparable, old-fashioned oratorical style, the voice mellow, rich and basso, and the records - a 45 rpm cut and the complete LP album - were released in November 1966. The 45 single caused weeping among mothers, sweethearts, and wives of U.S. servicemen in Vietnam, and they had to have a copy. The album made a suitable patriotic Christmas gift. Disc-jockeys were hip to the high-camp appeal of a U.S. Senator as a recording star, and the "Gallant Men" records were off and running.

Senator Everett Dirksen & H. Paul Jeffers
(Photo taken during a recording session)

Forced to leave ABC News because burgeoning writing and record producing projects consume his time, Jeffers currently is working on a children's book entitled, "Gallant Women," for which Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Me.) Will write an introduction. Already published is a children's book, "Gallant Men," based upon the record script. It also was written by Jeffers and features introductions by Sen. Dirksen. Two more LP albums have been cut by Dirksen, produced by Jeffers ("Man is Not Alone," and "At Christmas Time.") Sales of the former have been unspectacular, while the latter was released late in November, 1967.

In addition, Jeffers has contracted with Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) For a children's book on the workings of the U.S. Senate. He does his research from his own set of reference books or at one of New York's excellent public libraries. Jeffers also is keeping a watchful eye on the mail, since he has two novels out making the rounds of publishers.

"I know I've improved as a writer," Jeffers tells his friends, "I don't get rejection slips anymore. Now I get nice letters from publishers explaining why they aren't going to publish my book." The writing is done in the study of his handsome bachelor's apartment, from which, on a clear day, one can see blocks of black rooftops, acres of TV antennas, and a neat pattern of streets perpetually glutted with snails-pace trucks, buses, and speeding taxis. To a non-New Yorker, it is a dismal, depressing scene. To Jeffers, it is invisible. He is too busy working to look out the window.

Besides, he knows that the 15th floors of an east-side apartment is along way from the top. And, at 31 he isn't ready to concede that the top is unattainable. He has come a long way from Phoenixville, where his late father was superintendent of a steel company, the same company he worked for all his life. In this sense, Jeffers represents the new American, the educated elite who upward mobility is limited only by individual motivation and intellectual acumen.

This article and photos from the collection of Gerry Wilkinson

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