Captain Billy Goes West

In 1919 Captain Wilford Hamilton Fawcett came back from the war. He was broke. In Minneapolis, where he had once been a police reporter for the Tribune, Captain Billy opened a tavern for ex-soldiers and sailors, called it the Army & Navy Club. When a squad of prohibition-enforcement officers raided the club, put a padlock on the door, Captain Billy went to work in a roadhouse.

A hearty man, full of rough good humor, Captain Billy was a veteran of two wars, knew a lot of bawdy jokes and enjoyed telling them. To amuse his customers he started writing them down on a mimeographed sheet, named it Captain Billy's Whiz Bang. Salesmen, bellhops, race-track followers, schoolboys began to buy it, a printer agreed to bring it out as a monthly magazine, and Whiz Bang suddenly shot off like the shell it was named for.

In four years Whiz Bang soared to a circulation of 425,000, brought Captain Billy close to $500,000 a year. Then its trajectory turned earthward again: by 1930 it was down to 150,000, in 1932 it folded. Meanwhile, with his profits Captain Billy started True Confessions, Screen Play, Modern Mechanix, Smokehouse Monthly, For Men, Amateur Golfer & Sportsman, various others. But Whiz Bang was his darling. Wherever he went while Whiz Bang lasted Captain Billy picked up ribald jokes, sent them back with his monthly editorial, Drippings from the Fawcett.

Captain Billy moved his office to Manhattan, then to Greenwich, Conn., built a $250,000 hunting lodge in Minnesota, traveled, shot big game in Africa, hunted in Canada, Asia, Alaska, captained an Olympic shooting team, flew his own plane, was thrice married, twice divorced, sired four sons and a daughter. Still in the money but no longer an active publisher, he was vacationing in Hollywood last week when he suffered a heart attack, and Death, as it must to every man, came to Captain Billy.

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