WEBVTT - Bonus Episode 5: The Freak Bicycle Accident Behind a Children’s Classic 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:11.440 In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:17.599 lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. The smallest 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:23.600 one was Madeline. The opening lines to Madeline are among 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.080 the most memorable in children's literature, and the mischievous but 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:30.200 endearing Madeline, with her blue dress and her yellow hat, 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.880 remains one of the most beloved characters ever. But long 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.360 before Madeleine came to live in that old house in 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.200 Paris that was covered with vines and in the minds 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.280 of millions of children across the world, she was born 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.920 on an isolated island off the coast of France, and 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.879 her birth starts with a bizarre mishap that sent her 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.720 eccentric creator, like his most famous character, to a French 0:00:52.760 --> 0:01:00.320 hospital in need of urgent care. Welcome to Flashback. I'm 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:04.080 Sean Braswell. Some of the great classics of children's literature 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:09.440 not only contain wonderful stories, they have wonderful stories behind them. 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.080 This past season, we heard about the origins of the 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.000 Little House books by Laura Ingles Wilder and how they 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.000 got their start in the Great Depression. In this special 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.919 bonus episode of Flashback, we look at the back story 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:25.080 behind another classic, Madeline, and we learned how sometimes inspiration 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:38.280 and literary immortality is just one freak accident away. Like Madeline, 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.680 the young Ludwig Bemwlman's was a boarding school misfit who 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:46.200 inhabited a richly textured but rather parentless world. After his 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.040 Belgian father left his German mother when Ludwig was just 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.440 five years old, the boy was sent to live with 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.440 a wealthy uncle who owned a chain of luxury hotels 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.280 in Austria. Young Ludwig was kicked out of several boarding 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.520 schools and fired from a stray of hotel related jobs. 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.560 He was, as one biographer put it, unruly impertinent, never serious, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.119 and always late. So in nineteen fourteen, at the age 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:19.760 of sixteen, his uncle shipped him off to America. Bembleman 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.360 started as a bus boy at the hotel as Star 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:24.880 in New York. He served as a lieutenant for his 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.040 adopted country in the First World War, then embarked on 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.280 an eclectic career in New York in Paris as a restaurateur, 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.800 a writer, and a self taught artist. He designed cover 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.000 jackets for The New Yorker and wrote articles for Vogue 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.639 in Town and Country. But like Madeline, what the adventuresome 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:47.640 Bembleman's excelled at most, was getting into some rather unexpected binds. Once, 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.640 during the nineteen thirties, Bemleman's and his wife stopped at 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.520 a beer garden near the German Austrian border that had 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.000 a view of Adolf Hitler's mountaintop retreat. The eagles nest 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.040 above alive broadcast from the Nazi Lee or himself then 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:16.720 happened to come on the radio the end. Fellow diners 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:21.120 grew silent and turned deferentially towards the mountain out the window. Then, 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.320 to the great horror of everyone in the beer garden, 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.840 Bemleman's placed a cigar StEB on his upper lip, performed 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.760 a mock Nazi salute, and did his best impression of 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.000 the fures halting speech pattern. The ir reverend artist was 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.800 hauled off to jail and charged as subversive. His release 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.880 was secured only after an American vice consul agreed to 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.240 shepherd him Miss Clavell style back to safety in New York. 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.040 But the incident that would transform Bellman's from a free 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.200 spirited artist into an immortally beloved author would take place 0:03:51.400 --> 0:04:00.080 where else. In France. Billman's was on holiday on il You, 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.400 a small island off the coast of western France. He 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:05.880 was merely riding a bicycle down the wrong side of 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.440 the road, his hands in his pockets and a sack 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.480 of six lobsters over his shoulder. When he managed to 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:16.560 accomplish the near impossible, he was hit by the only 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.359 vehicle on the island, a baker's delivery truck. At a 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.800 local hospital, Bembleman's was placed in a narrow bed, and 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.440 the scenes he witnessed around him in the upcoming days 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:31.159 would go from odd to iconic. Madeleine woke up two 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:36.080 hours later in a room with flowers. Madeleine soon ate 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.159 and drank on her bed, there was a crank and 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.279 a crack on the ceiling had the habit of looking 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:49.040 like a rabbit. Madeleine's experience came directly from Bemmleman's own, 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.240 as he later recalled of his own hospital visit. In 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.400 the room next to mine was a little girl who 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.120 had had her appendix out. In the ceiling over my 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.880 bed was a crack that had the habit of sometime 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:12.120 is looking like a rabbit. After he had recovered from 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.320 his injuries and was back in Manhattan, Bmwin sketched out 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.800 the story of the first Madeline book on the backs 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.200 of menus at Pete's Tavern on East eighteenth Street. The 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.600 beautifully illustrated tale, set in Paris and just over four 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.840 hundred words, was named a Caldecott Honor Book in nineteen 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.080 and his six Madeline books would go on to sell 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:38.520 thirteen million copies worldwide. Bimbleman's would not reap many financial 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.400 rewards from his creation during his lifetime, and despite consorting 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.479 with the likes of Greta Garbo and Aristotle Onassis, he 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.640 struggled to keep what money he had. He often roamed 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.680 from place to place, exchanging his art for hospitality. In 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.479 nineteen sixty two, he died from pancreatic cancer. The words 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.880 he chose for his gravestone pretty much sum up his 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.720 care free approach to life. Tell them it was wonderful, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.040 And she turned out the light and closed the door, 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:18.360 and that's all there is. There isn't anymore. Flashback is 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.240 written and hosted by me Sean Braswell, senior writer and 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.520 executive producer at Ozzie. It was edited by May mcgoran 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.960 and produced by Tracy Moran. Chris Hoff engineered our show. 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.880 Make sure to subscribe to Flashback on the I Heart 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.920 Radio app, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.