Rod McKuen Biography

Fast Facts

• Was elected as the president of the American Guild of Variety Artists
• During the Korean War, he worked as a newspaper columnist and propaganda script writer
• Read his poetry in San Francisco during the Beat era and sang folk songs at the Purple Onion club
• Supported himself as a ranch hand, a surveyor, a railroad worker, a lumberjack, a rodeo cowboy, a stuntman and a radio disc jockey after running away from home
• Quote: "It doesn't matter who you love, or how you love, but that you love․"
• Quote: "Time may make us rugged, ragged round the edges, but know and understand that love is still the safest place to land․"
• A prolific songwriter, he recorded albums of soft pop music and wrote material for such greats as Frank Sinatra
• Though sometimes described as kitschy, his poetry earned a substantial following among young people in the 1960s, and he released such collections as "Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows," "Listen to the Warm" and "Lonesome Cities․"
• An avid music and record collector, he amassed one of the world's largest private record collections
• Started a collection of old and antique martini shakers and glasses