Speaker 1: In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines,
Speaker 1: lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. The smallest
Speaker 1: one was Madeline. The opening lines to Madeline are among
Speaker 1: the most memorable in children's literature, and the mischievous but
Speaker 1: endearing Madeline, with her blue dress and her yellow hat,
Speaker 1: remains one of the most beloved characters ever. But long
Speaker 1: before Madeleine came to live in that old house in
Speaker 1: Paris that was covered with vines and in the minds
Speaker 1: of millions of children across the world, she was born
Speaker 1: on an isolated island off the coast of France, and
Speaker 1: her birth starts with a bizarre mishap that sent her
Speaker 1: eccentric creator, like his most famous character, to a French
Speaker 1: hospital in need of urgent care. Welcome to Flashback. I'm
Speaker 1: Sean Braswell. Some of the great classics of children's literature
Speaker 1: not only contain wonderful stories, they have wonderful stories behind them.
Speaker 1: This past season, we heard about the origins of the
Speaker 1: Little House books by Laura Ingles Wilder and how they
Speaker 1: got their start in the Great Depression. In this special
Speaker 1: bonus episode of Flashback, we look at the back story
Speaker 1: behind another classic, Madeline, and we learned how sometimes inspiration
Speaker 1: and literary immortality is just one freak accident away. Like Madeline,
Speaker 1: the young Ludwig Bemwlman's was a boarding school misfit who
Speaker 1: inhabited a richly textured but rather parentless world. After his
Speaker 1: Belgian father left his German mother when Ludwig was just
Speaker 1: five years old, the boy was sent to live with
Speaker 1: a wealthy uncle who owned a chain of luxury hotels
Speaker 1: in Austria. Young Ludwig was kicked out of several boarding
Speaker 1: schools and fired from a stray of hotel related jobs.
Speaker 1: He was, as one biographer put it, unruly impertinent, never serious,
Speaker 1: and always late. So in nineteen fourteen, at the age
Speaker 1: of sixteen, his uncle shipped him off to America. Bembleman
Speaker 1: started as a bus boy at the hotel as Star
Speaker 1: in New York. He served as a lieutenant for his
Speaker 1: adopted country in the First World War, then embarked on
Speaker 1: an eclectic career in New York in Paris as a restaurateur,
Speaker 1: a writer, and a self taught artist. He designed cover
Speaker 1: jackets for The New Yorker and wrote articles for Vogue
Speaker 1: in Town and Country. But like Madeline, what the adventuresome
Speaker 1: Bembleman's excelled at most, was getting into some rather unexpected binds. Once,
Speaker 1: during the nineteen thirties, Bemleman's and his wife stopped at
Speaker 1: a beer garden near the German Austrian border that had
Speaker 1: a view of Adolf Hitler's mountaintop retreat. The eagles nest
Speaker 1: above alive broadcast from the Nazi Lee or himself then
Speaker 1: happened to come on the radio the end. Fellow diners
Speaker 1: grew silent and turned deferentially towards the mountain out the window. Then,
Speaker 1: to the great horror of everyone in the beer garden,
Speaker 1: Bemleman's placed a cigar StEB on his upper lip, performed
Speaker 1: a mock Nazi salute, and did his best impression of
Speaker 1: the fures halting speech pattern. The ir reverend artist was
Speaker 1: hauled off to jail and charged as subversive. His release
Speaker 1: was secured only after an American vice consul agreed to
Speaker 1: shepherd him Miss Clavell style back to safety in New York.
Speaker 1: But the incident that would transform Bellman's from a free
Speaker 1: spirited artist into an immortally beloved author would take place
Speaker 1: where else. In France. Billman's was on holiday on il You,
Speaker 1: a small island off the coast of western France. He
Speaker 1: was merely riding a bicycle down the wrong side of
Speaker 1: the road, his hands in his pockets and a sack
Speaker 1: of six lobsters over his shoulder. When he managed to
Speaker 1: accomplish the near impossible, he was hit by the only
Speaker 1: vehicle on the island, a baker's delivery truck. At a
Speaker 1: local hospital, Bembleman's was placed in a narrow bed, and
Speaker 1: the scenes he witnessed around him in the upcoming days
Speaker 1: would go from odd to iconic. Madeleine woke up two
Speaker 1: hours later in a room with flowers. Madeleine soon ate
Speaker 1: and drank on her bed, there was a crank and
Speaker 1: a crack on the ceiling had the habit of looking
Speaker 1: like a rabbit. Madeleine's experience came directly from Bemmleman's own,
Speaker 1: as he later recalled of his own hospital visit. In
Speaker 1: the room next to mine was a little girl who
Speaker 1: had had her appendix out. In the ceiling over my
Speaker 1: bed was a crack that had the habit of sometime
Speaker 1: is looking like a rabbit. After he had recovered from
Speaker 1: his injuries and was back in Manhattan, Bmwin sketched out
Speaker 1: the story of the first Madeline book on the backs
Speaker 1: of menus at Pete's Tavern on East eighteenth Street. The
Speaker 1: beautifully illustrated tale, set in Paris and just over four
Speaker 1: hundred words, was named a Caldecott Honor Book in nineteen
Speaker 1: and his six Madeline books would go on to sell
Speaker 1: thirteen million copies worldwide. Bimbleman's would not reap many financial
Speaker 1: rewards from his creation during his lifetime, and despite consorting
Speaker 1: with the likes of Greta Garbo and Aristotle Onassis, he
Speaker 1: struggled to keep what money he had. He often roamed
Speaker 1: from place to place, exchanging his art for hospitality. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, he died from pancreatic cancer. The words
Speaker 1: he chose for his gravestone pretty much sum up his
Speaker 1: care free approach to life. Tell them it was wonderful,
Speaker 1: And she turned out the light and closed the door,
Speaker 1: and that's all there is. There isn't anymore. Flashback is
Speaker 1: written and hosted by me Sean Braswell, senior writer and
Speaker 1: executive producer at Ozzie. It was edited by May mcgoran
Speaker 1: and produced by Tracy Moran. Chris Hoff engineered our show.
Speaker 1: Make sure to subscribe to Flashback on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.