Finally, Dawidziak and Kent friend will publish book on BJ reporter of early 1900s

It took 17 years but PD and former BJ television critic Mark Dawidziak and Kent bookseller Paul J. Bauer plan to publish a book about a long-ago BJ reporter in 2011: "Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler." It will be printed by Kent State University Press, which just issued two

more books by Tully, "Beggars of Life" and "The Bruiser." Mark and Paul, authors themselves, provide the introductions. Last year Kent Press reprinted Tully's "Circus Parade" and "Shanty Irish" (foreword by John Sayles).

Tully was fired twice by the Beacon Journal (he also worked for Akron Press), became a boxer and Charlie Chaplin's ghost writer and biographer. Tully was the highest paid and most hated Hollywood reporter/author in the 1920s. But was praised by Upton Sinclair and H.L. Mencken.

Tully was born in a log cabin near St. Marys, Ohio, in 1886, son of natives of Ireland. He spent time in St. Joseph Orphan Asylum in Cincinnati before he left at the age of 11. He died in 1947.

His first verses -- "On Keats' Grave" -- appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1911 while he lived in Kent. His first magazine piece was "A Declaration" in Smart Set.

His "Beggars of Life," based on his hobo experiences, was published in 1924, became a Maxwell Anderson play as "Outside Looking In" and a movie with the "Beggars" title starring Wallace Beery and directed by "Wild Bill" Wellman, whose 1927 work, "Wings," won the first Oscar ever. The Anderson play starred Charles Bickford as Oklahoma Red and Jimmy Cagney as Tully.

Books by Jim Tully: "Emmett Lawler," "Beggars of Life," "Jarnegan," "Circus Parade," "Twenty Below: Being a Drama of the Road," "Shanty Irish," "Shadows of Men," "Blood on the Moon," "A Man of the New School," "Laughter in Hell" (Pat O'Brien starred in the 1933 movie), "Ladies in the Parlor" (dedicated to Walter Winchell), "The Bruiser" (dedicated to friend Jack Dempsey), "Biddy Brogan’s Boy," "A Dozen and One" and "Road Show" (paperback reprint of "Circus Parade"). Beery and Tully were in "Way for a Sailor," a 1930 film.

Tully's philosophy: “What the hell — the grave ends everything.”

For photos of Tully, his book covers and Beery, click on the headline.

If you Google author Jim Tully,  there's a plethora of information.