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I ran into
Mark Twain
at his boyhood home in
Hannibal, Missouri,
in 1902, when he paid his last visit there. It had been almost 50 years since he lived in that house--as you would know, if you had read
Mark Twain A to Z
. ... Okay, okay, I admit that this picture has been retouched. However, it's not the complete a fake that you
might suspect. The original photograph is an authentic shot of Mark Twain taken in 1902. The image of me was taken in 1992, when I stood on the exact same spot
on which I appear in this picture; that 1992 photo appears below on this page. (Incidentally, I'm is 6-3 and Mark Twain was about 5-8; I'm not sure our proportions match exactly in this picture.
By the way, note the specter of a young girl entering the scene in the lower
right corner. Her blur provides a
clue as to how long Mark Twain had to hold his pose while his picture was being taken. Film and camera lens were a lot slower in those days, and people had to hold their poses for a long time--it's the main reason we so seldom see 19th century pictures of people smiling. In fact, I'm not sure if a single photo exists that shows Mark Twain clearly smiling.)
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One of the great thrills of my life was attending the banquet held at Delmonico’s New York restaurant in December,
1905, when
Harper's Magazine
honored Mark Twain on the occasion of his 70th birthday (he was born on Nov. 30, 1835).
My wife, Kathy (left), was especially excited, too, because the banquet gave her an excuse to wear a gown that had been
handed down by her grandmother. (If you’re familiar with people involved in Mark Twain studies,
you might recognize some other faces at this table.)
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Ever the buttinski, I crashed the wedding party of Mark Twain's daughter, Clara Clemens, at his Redding, Conn., home in October, 1909. I was a little embarrassed to be caught in this formal portrait of the wedding party because of my casual dress, but nobody paid me much attention while Mark Twain was wearing the scarlet robe he received when Oxford University conferred an honorary degree on him two years earlier. The wedding party,
left to right:
me, Mark Twain, Jervis Langdon, Jean Clemens,
Ossip Gabrilowitsch (the groom), Clara, Joseph Twichell (who offiated at the wedding ceremony).
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This picture’s out of chronological sequence; I placed it here because Mark Twain himself is not in the picture. One day, during the 1880's, I dropped by his house in Hartford, Conn., and found him sitting with his family on the porch. I happened to have one of those new-fangled Kodaks with me, so I snapped a picture of them together (you may have seen it; it’s certainly been reprinted a lot). Then Mark took the camera and snapped this picture of me with his family. That’s his wife, Olivia (Livy) sitting at the left, and his daughters, Clara (standing), Jean (sitting at left), and Susy (right). It's a shame no one else was around to take a picture of all six of us together; I would have liked to see if I could get him to smile at the moment the picture was taken. (He always laughed when I did my imitation of Hal Holbrook.)
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I told you that the picture of me with Mark Twain in 1902 wasn’t a complete fake, and here’s the proof: When I returned to Hannibal in 1992, Mark Twain also happened to be
there, so we got a big laugh by recreating the pose we had struck 90 years earlier. (He got an even bigger laugh when he asked if I ever wore anything other than that striped sweatshirt.)
Incidentally, notice how different from the 1902 picture the house looks in this picture. When this picture was taken in 1992, the house had been recently restored to the condition it was in when Mark Twain lived in it during the 1840s and early 1850s. For more information on Hannibal and the house, try the Hannibal link at the bottom of this page. (If you are wondering why my left leg looks so long, it's because I was photographed standing behind a hitching post.)
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In early 1999 actor
Bill Erwin
(center) and I did Mark Twain readings for teenagers at the Thousand Oaks, Calif., library. (Use the link at the bottom of this page to visit Bill's own website; I guarantee you'll find interesting stuff there.) Afterward, someone sent me this astonishing picture, evidently taken with some kind of
spectral camera. (Bill and I are still trying to decide if the Great Man is expressing his approval or
disapproval of our performance.)
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Go to Bill Erwin's website
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A portal to Hannibal, Missouri
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