rudolph the red nosed reindeer thea feldman

When May died in 1976 at the age of 71, TIME’s obituary noted that he had received royalties on more than 100 Red-Nosed products, as well as the song, since Ward let him have the copyright in 1947.

(The idea almost got shelved, May would note, after focus group participants said they thought a red nose had “connotations of alcoholism.”)Īnd, just as Rudolph helps families have a happy Christmas in May’s story, Rudolph the brand helped the May family get through a tough time.

(That list is now held at May’s alma mater Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., with the rest of his papers.) In a 1963 interview, he said he thought Rollo sounded “too happy for a reindeer with an unhappy problem” and Reginald “seemed too sophisticated,” but Rudolph “rolled off the tongue nicely.” As for the idea of a glowing nose apt for navigating, that light-bulb moment came from looking out his office window in the middle of one of Chicago’s infamous winter days, seeing the fog from Lake Michigan and thinking of Santa trying to do his work on such a night. He brainstormed a list of names that began with the letter “R” for “alliterative purposes,” such as Rollo, Rodney, Roland, Roderick and Reggy. Though Santa’s reindeer already had names - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, thanks to the 1820s poem “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” - May came up with a ninth for the list.

He figured the story should be about a reindeer because images of Santa’s reindeer already everywhere during the Christmas season, and his toddler daughter was obsessed with the deer at Lincoln Park Zoo. “My wife was suffering from a long illness and I didn’t feel very festive,” he recalled. In a 1975 article for the Gettysburg Times, he described going to work on a windy, icy-cold January day and feeling “relieved” that holiday street decorations by Montgomery Ward had been taken down. He was writing the descriptions of a weeping, “lonesome” reindeer as his wife was dying. He was also feeling “glum” in 1939 for a more serious reason. Instead of writing the great American novel, as I’d once hoped, I was describing men’s white shirts. “Here I was, heavily in debt at 35, still grinding out catalogue copy. “‘And how are you starting the new year?’ I glumly asked myself,'” he later recalled, describing his mindset in early 1939 when he first received the assignment. May was feeling downtrodden about his present life, too.

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer thea feldman