Why the man who wrote The Graduate ended up in a flat above a pet shop
His most famous novel inspired Dustin Hoffman’s iconic film, yet US author Charles Webb rejected success, gave away three homes and lived a reclusive life in an English seaside town…
STROLLING along the front of an unprepossessing British seaside town, Charles Webb enjoyed his anonymity, content to go unrecognised as one of the world’s most influential authors. Wearing cheap, ill-fitting clothes, he was happy to pass the time of day with strangers but betrayed no great desire to forge friendships.
By rights the author of The Graduate, who died earlier this month shortly after his 81st birthday, should have been living in luxury, slowly burning his way through millions of pounds in royalties.
After all, the film adaptation of his 1963 novella used 80 per cent of his dialogue and launched the career of Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, whose fumbling affair with Anne Bancroft’s Mrs Robinson captured the imagination of a generation.
Instead, it was uncertain last night whether the acclaimed San Francisco-born author, and undeniable eccentric, who moved to Britain in 1999 with his wife, left even enough to cover funeral expenses.
His last-known address was said to be a barely-furnished one-bedroom flat above a pet shop in the East Sussex port town of Newhaven. It is unclear if locals knew their quiet neighbour was a leading light of American literature and much of his later life remains a mystery.
His arrival in the UK coincided with a high-profile West End production of The Graduate starring Kathleen Turner and, subsequently, Jerry Hall as Mrs Robinson. Interviewed at the time, the ponytailed Webb declared he “couldn’t care less” that the latter was making more money in a single week than he had earned from his story in his entire lifetime.
QUITE simply, the life of book launches, red carpets and literary lunches was not one Webb valued or sought despite his undoubted talent. Having written The Graduate aged 24 in 1963, he sold the film rights for £16,000 as a one-off, aware but apparently unconcerned that he might be waving goodbye to a fortune.
Such was the success of Mike Nichols’ 1967 film its author could almost certainly have lived comfortably for the rest of his life. Yet even the little Webb made from the deal was handed over to the Anti-Defamation League, which works to protect the interests of Jewish people in America.
Few can forget the suggestive advertising for the film with Hoffman wide-eyed as Mrs Robinson – actress Linda Gray’s leg was used for the iconic poster – draws a silk stocking over her shapely leg.
But like Benjamin, Charles Webb rejected the easy life of privilege.
The film was an instant global hit, taking at least £80million at the box office as millions of cinemagoers identified with the central character of the naive college graduate as he is seduced by the more worldly Mrs Robinson, the bored housewife friend of his parents. The story’s emotional twist comes when Benjamin falls for his lover’s daughter Elaine (played by Katharine Ross), despite being warned to leave her alone by the now jealous Mrs Robinson.
The ending is embedded in cinematic history: Benjamin saves Elaine quite literally as she is about to marry a conventional bore while Mrs Robinson rages at the altar. The pair escape to begin their new life, having first barred the doors to the church to thwart pursuit as Benjamin drags Elaine onto a passing bus in her wedding dress. An affair with an older woman notwithstanding, the original story, as we shall see, contained some startling similarities with Webb’s real life. But for the past 21 years, the author had been a virtual recluse on the south coast of England, renting barely furnished flats with his heiress wife Eve, who changed her name to Fred.
While living in a one-bedroom flat just off the seafront at Hove, near Brighton, in 2005, photographer Andrew Hasson met Webb at a local Starbucks to take his picture.
“He looked nothing like one of the most famous authors in the world,” recalled Andrew last night. “He was tidy and clean but his clothes were quite loose, not at all expensive. He was very charming and polite, but very shy. It was not what I expected at all. A year later, I went to his flat. It was spotless