Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Granville Ernest TOOGOOD
Deceased Name: GRANVILLE E. TOOGOOD, 82, AUTHOR AND ADVERTISING AGENCY EXECUTIVE
By Burr Van Atta Inquirer Staff Writer
Granville E. Toogood, 82, an advertising agency executive whose words were among the highest priced in the nation, died Sunday at a nursing home in Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County. He lived in Chestnut Hill and in Northeast Harbor, Maine.
A former vice president of N.W. Ayer & Son Inc. and the J. Walter Thompson Co., Mr. Toogood wrote Huntsman in the Sky , an account of life on the Main Line in the days of emerging social responsibility (1930), the days after Black October and the Stock Market crash.
According to author James A. Michener of Bucks County, the book inspired him to try his hand at writing. The book by the former reporter for the Public Ledger, whose background gave him an understanding of the effects of wealth and power, goaded Michener, then a schoolteacher, into rethinking his role in the world and then into action. The book, Michener said, became a model and a challenge. " Its value to me lay in the fact that it came along at precisely the time I needed it," Michener wrote in a column in The Inquirer. " The fact that Mr. Toogood was from Haverford and could get a novel published by a professional firm impressed me, since I was from Swarthmore and only a little younger than Mr. Toogood. Furthermore, the book was so well composed that it made me reconsider whether I could write professionally, and for the moment I concluded that I couldn't." If he had not read Huntsman when he did, Michener wrote, " I might never have developed into a writer."
Appearing in a nationally televised interview with Mr. Toogood, Michener was able to directly praise his mentor, a shy, retiring man. " He may have written only one book, but it was a heller," Michener said.
" And for a Swarthmore man to say that about a Haverford College man is about as high as praise can go." Reviewers of the day agreed with Michener, who predicted greatness for Toogood. And each did his best to profile the new writer.
One reviewer, MacKnight Black, had an advantage. He knew the author in the days before he met success. Black described him as a man caught in a whirlwind of activity, sandwiching his time between work, writing and social duty: " You can see him any Saturday night during the season in his accustomed seat at the Philadelphia Orchestra. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the winter you can find him in squash courts of the Merion Cricket Club. On summer weekends you can look for him on the golf course. " He plays bridge frequently and well. He drives an automobile like a man possessed and heavily insured. " In some way or other, he manages to keep in touch with his friends, of whom he has a large and complete set . . . he is one of the wittiest and most entertaining persons in Philadelphia.
" Granville Toogood hates publicity, refuses to be exhibited as an author, insists on leading his own life in his own way."
His ad agency work may well outlast his work as an author, even though Huntsman was translated into 17 languages. His slogans include such immortal lines as " Diamonds are forever."
After he retired from Ayer in 1964, he took a post as director of public affairs for the Franklin Institute. He suffered a stroke a decade ago, and his activities had been limited since.
Surviving are his wife, Anna Coxe Newbold Ingersoll Toogood; two children,
Granville N. Toogood and Anna Coxe Harvey, and three grandchildren.
Memorial services are to be scheduled next week in Northeast Harbor.
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