• Stern@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    Anyone else breathing a sigh of relief that the childrens author with a overactive libido wasn’t diddling kids?

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2 months

        If I recall, Dahl was some sort of secret agent for Britain during WW2. So not all that surprising that he’d be a p.o.s.

        It would be like a CIA agent writing children’s books.

          • backalleycoyote@lemmy.todayEnglish
            2 months

            Christopher Lee was some sort of agent as well. However, joining the Sith, becoming an vampire, and cutting down the forests of Isengard are kinda dick moves.

              • backalleycoyote@lemmy.todayEnglish
                2 months

                He’s a vampire wizard, of course he was that old.

                But jokes aside, yes. Old enough he witnessed the last public execution by guillotine in France, met Tolkien personally, and while his tales may have grown a bit, he’s one of the inspirations for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. He famously told Peter Jackson people don’t scream when they get stabbed in the back, they just go “uh”. Also performed heavy metal. He’s genuinely pretty badass.

                • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                  2 months

                  That’s so cool, I never knew that much about him but that really explains his demeanor and facial expressions. No wonder they look so genuine.

        • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2 months

          Roald Dahl was an RAF pilot during the early days of World War II. He got injured and was discharged because of it. I’ve read his autobiography when I was a child, which was quite interesting. Shame that he was anti-semite.

      • Stern@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 months

        Imagine growing up and one day mom pulls you aside and tells you why you own a autographed copy of “Where the Sidewalk Ends” 💀

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2 months

          As someone who grew up to be a slut I probably would’ve high fived my mom in that scenario, but I understand I’m weird there

    • StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      Yeah, the sentence definitely could have used a second draft. OP should write for Hollywod with the range of emotions I just went through.

      All in under a minute too.

  • Maki@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2 months

    If they were of legal age and it was consensual then good for him, I guess? Who cares this much about someone else’s love life? Honestly…

  • nymnympseudonym@piefed.socialEnglish
    2 months

    Personal life

    From around 1967 to 1975, Silverstein lived on a houseboat in Sausalito, California. He also owned homes on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; Greenwich Village, New York; and Key West, Florida.[34] He never married, and according to the 2007 biography A Boy Named Shel, had sex with “hundreds, perhaps thousands of women”.[2] He was also a frequent presence at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion and Playboy Clubs.

    Silverstein met a woman from Sausalito named Susan Taylor Hastings at the Playboy Mansion,[35] and they had a daughter named Shoshanna Jordan Hastings (b. June 30, 1970).[36] Susan died on June 29, 1975, one day before Shoshanna’s fifth birthday,[36] and Shoshanna went to live with her uncle and aunt in Baltimore, Maryland.[35] Shoshanna died of a cerebral aneurysm on April 24, 1982, at age 11.[37] Silverstein’s 1981 book A Light in the Attic is dedicated to her.[35] Silverstein later met Key West native Sarah Spencer, who drove a tourist train and inspired Silverstein’s song “The Great Conch Train Robbery”.[38][39][40] They had a son named Matthew De Ver (b. November 10, 1984),[41] who later became a New York City–based songwriter and producer.[42]

  • foodandart@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2 months

    That fits for the time. The Playboy mansion was swinging in the 60’s and 70’s…

  • Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    My low stakes conspiracy is that Shel Silverstein is actually Grigori Rasputin. I have nothing to support this and I will not be accepting criticism.

      • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 months

        I was going to say, and Jason Mantzoukas kind of gives me similar IDK i am going to pursue my art across whatever genre it goes FU i am having fun DEAL WITH IT vibes but he was born 25 years too early. also he is a tv/film guy, not a music/poetry guy so the analogy breaks down but if i am ever at an event with him again i am going to have to tell him the thought occurred to me because i think he would like it.

  • Tanis Nikana@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    He’s allowed to?

    Playboy Mansion is a seedy shithole coming apart at the seams though. It’s the sort of place you’d put a party together and fight the animate mold growing on the walls. But when you find the treasure chest, it’ll just be full of dirty dildoes. Not worth the dungeon crawl to get there.

  • krashmo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    I am admittedly not familiar with most of his work directly, but I had no idea that Shel Silverstein was a man

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      ngl dude has always given me serial killer vibes on the jacket photos. still own a lot of his books.

      • garbagebagel@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 months

        They really went and decided to publish some, if not, the best children’s poetry of a generation and then picked the absolute scariest fucking headshots they could of him.

    • Widdershins@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      In the days before the internet got big and comprehensive I assumed he was some kind of turtle or tortoise