Allen Ginsberg became well-known during the 1950s for his writings, in particular a poem called "Howl", whose title came from Kerouac's of it. Ginsberg mentioned his friends in some of his works, including Kerouac, and wanted the people who liked him to give them and their writings a chance. Finally Viking Press agreed to publish "On the Road", after many changes to the manuscript. The novel became a bestseller, and Kerouac was a celebrity after years of little success. Magazines began to request articles and essays from him. He appeared on many television programs, including "The Steve Allen Show". Steve Allen liked him, and they recorded an album together, with Kerouac reading aloud and Allen playing piano. He recorded another album later, with jazz musicians Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.
Kerouac wrote and published more novels, including "The Dharma Bums", "Doctor Sax", "Maggie Cassidy", "Visions of Gerard" (a of his older brother, who died in childhood), "Big Sur" (about the stresses brought on by fame, and how the people he knew saw him differently), "Desolation Angels", and "Book of Dreams" (a ). He studied Buddhism, and this also influenced his writing. He wrote "Some of the Dharma" as an introduction to Buddhism, though he remained a Catholic.
As Kerouac, Ginsberg, and their friends became famous, a trend among the group of writers and artists was noticed, and was written about in the mainstream media. Kerouac was asked to describe his generation. He explained that the pressures of 20th century living had 'beaten' normal ways of thinking and working out of them, and they preferred the beat of bebop and jazz to most other music, "so I guess you could say we're a "beat generation"."
"Beat Generation" became the name for the new sense of style coming from artists and writers in New York and San Francisco. Kerouac's circle of friends and acquaintances (and their imitators) were called the Beats, with Kerouac himself called "King of the Beats" by the media. (The term was later parodied as "", implying such people were Communists, and would hurt the country.) Kerouac narrated a movie, called "Pull My Daisy", about the Beat phenomenon.
An ongoing problem Kerouac had with fame was that people thought he did all the things he wrote about. Much of what he described (like Neal Cassady's lawless nature, , and drug use) was only what he saw in other people. Not everyone who read Kerouac's stories understood this. Some people wanted to blame him for doing bad things, or getting others to do them. Other people wanted to do those kinds of things with Kerouac. Shy by nature, Kerouac pulled away. He became almost a in the house he bought for his mother. He also began to abuse alcohol.
During the 1960s, American society went through many changes, in part because of the influence of the Beats. Many young people read "On the Road", and saw things they related to, and it made them want to experience more in their own lives. Other writers liked the looseness of Kerouac's style, and it made them think more about their own writing, how to study life, and how to better express themselves. Many musicians were affected by Kerouac's books, including Bob Dylan, Donovan, and The Doors.
Kerouac was more disappointed than happy to be famous. Even though he liked some of what he inspired, he felt that the public largely got the wrong message from his books. He saw many people take what the Beats wrote as a kind of permission to get into trouble, or abandon (give up) people and things they cared about. He felt for the , but disagreed with them on the Vietnam War, the role of government, and . He also lost some of his old friends, when their views differed.
Kerouac still abused alcohol and other drugs, and it harmed his health. He became bloated and irritable, and looked drunk on his last television appearance, on William F. Buckley's "Firing Line" in 1968. He married for the third time, to Stella Sampas, the sister of a boyhood friend. Stella looked after Kerouac and his mother, kept the public and others away, and tried to get him to stop drinking alcohol.
His daughter Jan-Michelle also began to write during her teen years. He gave her his , and told her "You can use my (last) name." She wrote under the name Jan Kerouac, and published novels and stories herself, from the 1970s to the 1990s. Kerouac's mother became sick, and he sometimes worked at her bedside on stories. She helped him work out the ending of "Pic", his novel about a young African-American.
Kerouac wrote and reworked new material until the last day of his life. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida during emergency surgery, to try to repair a caused by cirrhosis, due to his alcohol abuse. He was buried in his hometown, and was hardly remembered there at first. Even though he was world famous, Kerouac earned very little money as a writer. He died with only a few hundred dollars in the bank. It was years before his grave received a headstone.
Neal Cassady died more than a year before, of exposure, alongside a railroad track in Mexico. He set out to become a writer or musician, but he never got far with either. He only published one book, "The First Third", which was about his youth. Cassady earned most of his money from labor, and was often out of work and owed money. He spent a long time in jail after he was arrested for selling marijuana. Sometimes the fact that Cassady was well-known through Kerouac kept him from having the life he wanted. Cassady had a family with Carolyn, but she had to both work, and raise the children when her husband was away. Carolyn later wrote a memoir.
Kerouac's works, especially "On the Road", are now more popular than ever. Generations have discovered his works, as a means of learning about life and attitudes in America during his lifetime, as a way to measure their own sense of experience, or as examples of and in .
Less than half of Kerouac's writings were published during his lifetime, but nearly all are now available. The ones published later drew hundreds of times more money than his most famous works, when they first appeared. His hometown Lowell remembers Kerouac today with a , and cultural events every year. His grave now has a headstone, which reads "He honored life". A street in Lowell was renamed "Jack Kerouac Alley" in his memory.
"The Subterraneans" was made into a movie by MGM in 1960, but the was almost completely different from the book. "On the Road" was considered many times to be made into a movie, once with actor Marlon Brando as Dean Moriarty and another time with Sean Penn, but this never got farther than . The movie rights were resold in the 1990s, for more than ten times Kerouac's lifetime earnings, and a movie of "On the Road" appeared in 2012, starring Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund as Kerouac and Cassidy, with Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst as LuAnne Henderson and Carolyn Cassady.
A movie, "Heart Beat", was made in 1980, about the relationship between Carolyn Robinson, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac. It starred Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte, and John Heard.
Kerouac appears as "Hank" in William S. Burroughs's novel "Naked Lunch", and was played by Nicholas Campbell in the 1991 movie version.
He was also the subject of a song by 10,000 Maniacs, "Hey Jack Kerouac".
He and Neal Cassady are the subject of a song by Tom Waits, "Jack & Neal/California Here I Come". Waits also covered a song written by Kerouac, titled "On the Road", on his' album "Orphans".
Himno Istmeño
Himno Istmeño is the anthem of Panama. It was written by Santos Jorge. It is known as the Isthmus Anthem.
Jack Neo
Jack Neo (born Neo Chee Keong on 24 January 1956) is a Singaporean movie director at MediaCorp, a Singapore media company. He directed "I Not Stupid", "Money No Enough", "Ah Boys to Men" and "Ah Boys to Men 2", all of which were very popular. Neo was once a comedian.