Robert L. May

Biography

Robert L. May (July 27, 1905 – August 11, 1976) was an American advertising copywriter. He is best known for creating the fictional character Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Early in 1939, May's boss at Montgomery Ward asked him to write a "cheery children's book" for Christmas shoppers, suggesting it should be an animal story. Prior to that time, Montgomery Ward had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas, but it was decided that creating a book of its own would save money and be a nice good-will gesture. In writing the Christmas giveaway, May decided to make a reindeer the central character of the book because it was a Christmas animal. Working at home and in his spare time at the office, May wrote the book in about 50 hours. He finished the poem in late August 1939. This softcover Rudolph poem booklet was first distributed by Montgomery Ward during the 1939 holiday season. Shoppers loved it and 2.4 million copies were distributed. Wartime restrictions on paper use prevented a re-issue until 1946. In that year, Montgomery Ward gave away another 3.6 million softcover copies to its shoppers. In 1946, May received an offer from RCA Victor, which wanted to do a spoken-word record of the poem. He could not give his approval, however, because Montgomery Ward held the rights to his poem. At the encouragement of Wilbur H. Norton, a company vice-president, Ward's president, Sewell Avery, gave May the copyright to the poem, free and clear. The transfer did not take effect until January 1, 1947. May had difficulty finding a publisher for what was now his Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer poem book. "Nobody wanted him, not with 6 million copies already distributed. Finally I found a publisher...," Harry Elbaum, head of Maxton Publishers. Maxton published the first commercial edition of Rudolph just in time for the 1947 Christmas season. He printed 100,000 copies of the now hardcover book, which sold for 50 cents, and was a great success. The same was true of RCA Victor's 45-rpm spoken-word version of the poem, narrated by Paul Wing with music by George Kleinsinger. A number of other Rudolph products were also put on the market that year. In 1948, May persuaded his brother-in-law Johnny Marks to write the words and music for a musical adaptation of Rudolph. It was recorded in 1949 by Gene Autry. The song became a phenomenal success, in time recorded by many famous artists. It became the second-most popular Christmas tune of all time, surpassed only by "White Christmas". Rudolph soon became part of the American culture. At the end of 1950, the Chicago Tribune wrote: "There is no question but that Rudolph has become a legend—the first new and accepted Christmas legend since Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' and Clement Moore's 'A Visit from St. Nicholas.'" During the 1950s, more than one hundred different Rudolph products were licensed and produced. In 1951, as managing Rudolph increasingly became a full-time job, May created his own company, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Enterprises, and resigned from Ward's. But by 1958, Rudolph sales had declined considerably. The result was that less than seven years after he had quit the company, May returned to Ward's as a copyeditor. He remained at Ward's until he retired in 1970. [biography, excerpted, from Wikipedia]