Gene Fowler (born Eugene Devlan) (March 8, 1890 – July 2, 1960) was an American journalist, author and dramatist.He was born in Denver, Colorado. When his mother remarried, young Gene took his stepfather's name to become Gene Fowler. Fowler's career had a false start in taxidermy, which he later claimed gave him a permanent distaste for red meat. After a year at the University of Colorado, he took a job with The Denver Post. His assignments included an interview with frontiersman and Wild West Show promoter Buffalo Bill Cody. He established his trademark impertinence by questioning Cody about his many love affairs.Subsequently, Fowler worked for the New York Daily Mirror, and then became newspaper syndication manager for King Features. His later work included over a dozen screenplays, mostly written in the 1930s, and a number of books including biographies and memoirs.During his years in Hollywood, Fowler became close to such celebrities as John Barrymore and W.C. Fields. Fields, whose animus toward children is legendary, claimed that Gene Fowler's sons were the only children he could stand.In 1916, Fowler married Agnes Hubbard who bore three children, the eldest of whom was Gene Fowler Jr. (1917–1998), a prominent Hollywood film editor (whose work included It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Hang 'Em High) and a sometime director (1959's I Was a Teenage Werewolf as well as numerous television programs).Gene Fowler died in Los Angeles, California.
While working as a young journalist in Denver, Fowler interviewed William F. Cody, the famous frontiersman-turned-showman known as "Buffalo Bill Cody", offending the old man by asking impertinent questions about his numerous love affairs. Fowler later covered Cody's funeral.
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Fowler was good friends with Lionel Barrymore and John Barrymore as well as W.C. Fields. They often drank and played cards together. Fields, who was famous for hating children, liked Fowler's two sons and sometimes took them fishing, actually refraining from using them as bait.
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Eugene Devlan and his mother were abandoned by his father. When his mother remarried a man named Fowler, Eugene was adopted as his son.
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