"The Merchant of Venus: The Life of Walter Thornton" Wins NYC BIG BOOK AWARD® – The Untold Story Behind the Most Iconic Photograph of the 1929 Stock Market Crash – Now a Cultural Phenomenon: Fact or Fiction?

admin 0 Comments November 11, 2024

DALLAS, Nov. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The NYC Big Book Award has honored The Merchant of Venus: The Life of Walter Thornton as a winner in the Biography-Historical category. This prestigious competition is judged by experts across the book industry, including publishers, writers, editors, designers, booksellers, librarians, and professional copywriters, who select winners based on overall excellence. The book has been published by Tile House Publishing.

The Merchant of Venus unveils the remarkable life of a man whose iconic image—selling his Chrysler Roadster for pennies during the 1929 Stock Market Crash—has become a universal symbol of financial ruin. But is the story behind this famous photograph fact or fiction? Motivated to uncover the truth, two daughters investigate their father’s life before they were born, revealing the real events behind the legend.

Over the past 30 years, Walter Thornton’s image has become a symbol of the 1929 Stock Market Crash, widely used in Hollywood films like Seabiscuit (2003) and network documentaries such as The Stock Market Crash of 1929 (1990, PBS) and New York: A Documentary (1993, PBS). It has appeared on the covers of at least fourteen books, including John Kenneth Galbraith’s definitive 1955 overview (Penguin Classics, UK, 2021), and has been featured on countless websites, including PBS.org and History.com, as well as in grade school textbooks.

Thornton lived in New York before moving to Mexico, where he married Candelaria and had six children. Despite a vibrant life, his mysterious past remained hidden for decades. In 2004, while watching Seabiscuit, his daughters discovered his image in the iconic 1929 photograph linked to the Stock Market Crash.

Intrigued by this revelation, the Thornton sisters returned to their childhood home in Mexico, uncovering insights that reshaped American history. With historians’ help, they pieced together Walter Thornton’s legacy as a pioneer in beauty, modeling, and advertising from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Walter Thornton earned the affectionate title “Merchant of Venus” from legendary gossip columnist Walter Winchell, recognizing his groundbreaking establishment of the first agency for photographic advertising models. His agency became a powerhouse, discovering and representing future icons of the Golden Age of Cinema, such as Lauren Bacall, Susan Hayward, Joseph Cotten, and Grace Kelly. Before founding the agency, Thornton was already a celebrated male model during the Jazz Age, posing for artistic legends like Norman Rockwell and J.C. Leyendecker, solidifying his place in history.

In addition to his achievements, Thornton created the WWII ‘Pin-Up Girl,’ a symbol of creativity and patriotism that uplifted soldiers’ spirits. However, his reputation faced challenges in 1954, prompting his daughters to uncover connections to HUAC and McCarthy-era persecution.

As the Thornton sisters explored their father’s legacy, they unraveled the cryptic hints he had woven into their childhood, shedding light on his past. Thornton’s narrative resurfaces with renewed vigor when the iconic 1929 photo becomes a cultural phenomenon.

Thornton turned down a movie deal in 1956.

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