The Egg and I

"The Egg and I", first published in 1945, is a humorous memoir by American author Betty MacDonald about her adventures and travails as a young wife on a chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. It was a blockbuster success as a novel, and was adapted into a movie and short-lived TV series, starring Patricia Kirkland, with Nancy Carroll as her mother (Carroll was Kirkland's real mother). The movie, starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert, was the inspiration for a series of ten "Ma and Pa Kettle" movies starring Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride. The series was television's first comedy serial, which aired on CBS from September 3, 1951 to August 1, 1952. The length of each episode was 15 minutes.

The book is based on the author's experiences in trying to operate a small chicken farm with her first husband Robert Heskett from 1927 to 1931 near Chimacum, Washington. On visits with her family in Seattle, she told stories of their tribulations, which greatly amused them. In the 1940s, MacDonald's sisters strongly encouraged her to write a book about these experiences and, following their advice, she wrote "The Egg and I" as her first book.First published by the J. B. Lippincott Company on October 3, 1945, "The Egg and I" received laudatory reviews and soon appeared on the best-seller list. In April 1946 Universal-International announced the purchase of the film rights for "The Egg and I" for a downpayment of $100,000 plus a percentage of profits. Contracts were signed with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray for the lead roles with production scheduled for the fall of 1946. On September 12, 1946, the specially-bound one-millionth copy of the book was presented to MacDonald by Washington Governor Monrad Wallgren at a luncheon in Seattle.

The movie "The Egg and I", directed by Chester Erskine and produced by Fred Finklehoffe, began showing in theaters on April 24, 1947. The first offshoot film, "Ma and Pa Kettle", appeared in theaters in August 1949.

Following the success of the book and film, lawsuits were filed by members of the Chimacum community. They claimed that characters in "The Egg and I" had been based on them, and that they had been identified in their community as the real-life versions of those characters, subjecting them to ridicule and humiliation. The family of Albert and Susanna Bishop claimed they had been negatively portrayed as the Kettles. Their oldest son Edward and his wife Ilah Bishop filed the first lawsuit, which was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

The second lawsuit was filed against MacDonald, publisher J. B. Lippincott Company, and The Bon Marché (a Seattle department store which had promoted and distributed the book) for total damages of $975,000, as sought by nine other members of the Bishop family ($100,000 each) and Raymond H. Johnson ($75,000), who claimed he had been portrayed as the Indian "Crowbar." The case was heard before a jury in Judge William J. Willkins' courtroom in King County Superior Court beginning February 6, 1951. MacDonald testified that the characters in her book were composite sketches of various people she had met. The defense produced evidence that the Bishop family had actually been trying to profit from the fame the book and movie had brought them, including testimony that son Walter Bishop had had his father Albert appear onstage at his Belfair, Washington, dance hall with chickens under his arm, introducing him as "Pa Kettle." On February 10, 1951, the jury decided in favor of the defendants.

The road leading west from Beaver Valley Road (State Route 19) to the site of MacDonald's farm is now named Egg and I Road. In popular culture, "The Egg and I" is also the name of a song performed by The Seatbelts for the anime Cowboy Bebop and a dark-humor blog-comic by [http://eggandi.blogspot.com Jack Butler] .

References

*Mildred Andrews and Paula Beck. [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=156 "MacDonald, Betty (1908–1958)"] . "HistoryLink.org: The Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History". Essay No. 156, 28 March 2006.
* [http://www.historylink.org/Slide_show/index.cfm?file_id=7035 "Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard: A Slide Show Tour of their King County Homes"] . "HistoryLink.org: The Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History". Slide Show No. 7035.
*"'EGG AND I' BOUGHT FOR COLBERT FILM; International Pays $100,000 Down to Betty MacDonald — Three Openings Today of Local Origin". "The New York Times", April 19, 1946, p. 26. (Accessed 20 March 2007, via ProQuest, "New York Times (1857-Current File)", Document ID 84635734).
*"'Egg and I' Author Wins Suit", "The New York Times", February 22, 1951, p. 40. (Accessed 20 March 2007, via ProQuest, "New York Times (1857-Current File)", Document ID 87109916).