Category Archives: Call Me Daddy: Essays
By The Skin Of His Teeth…
Take a look at this smiling mug. It’s June 17, 1929, the height of the Roaring ’20s, right before it all went crash. Here’s Daddy Browning, looking far younger than his 55 years of age. Whence the gray that tousled his head when just a few years earlier he walked 15-year old Peaches Heenan down […]
The Way of All Flesh
There he is that “gallus old codger” (thank you, Damon Runyon), front and center at his daughter’s wedding, circa 1934. Shortly before his death, Edward West “Daddy” Browning made a fool of himself one last time as he escorted Dorothy “Sunshine” Browning out of the church doors with her new husband Clarence Hood, a laundry […]
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Peaches Makes the Rounds
“Peaches’ Act Postponed” blares the large-type headline in a New York daily from late march, 1928. Not long separated from her Daddy Browning in one of the most spectacular and widely-publicized marital spats of the Roaring Twenties, 17-year old Peaches was “at it” again with another man much older than she. Nary a penny came […]
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That Gallus Old Codger
Here he is, “that gallus old codger,” as Damon Runyon would write some ten months later: 52-year old Daddy Browning at the time of his engagement to 15-year old Frances “Peaches” Heenan. Look at the evil mug on the chap ! And what are those bandages and scars on Peaches’ face, neck and arms? It’s March […]
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More on Peaches and Daddy
Peaches Browning may have failed in her bid for wealth when her suit for divorce, a property settlement, and alimony against Daddy Browning failed in March, 1926, but all was not lost. Her fame was nationwide now, and her teenage dreams of a stage career on solid ground. Caroline Heenan, Peaches’ mother, who had encouraged […]
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The Locus Delicti and other gems…
Those who’ve read this amazing story will recall that Daddy rented a house for Peaches Heenan and her mother Caroline to inhabit in Cold Spring, NY in early April 1926 so that he and his child bride could qualify for a marriage license in Putnam County, just out of reach of the child welfare authorities […]
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