Billy Lee Brammer
Billy Lee Brammer was a notable political satirist and journalist born in Dallas, Texas. He graduated with a journalism degree from North Texas State College in 1952 and began his career as a sports reporter before making his mark as a staff writer for various publications, including the Texas Observer, where he became involved in promoting political dissent. Brammer served as a press aide to then-Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson during a pivotal time in his career and penned his acclaimed novel, *The Gay Place*, which features a character resembling Johnson. Despite its critical success, the book did not achieve commercial popularity. Throughout the tumultuous 1960s, he was part of a collective of Texas writers known as the Mad Dogs, who voiced opposition to the Vietnam War and explored the cultural shifts in Texas. However, as his personal life spiraled into struggles with drug abuse and financial instability, Brammer's writing career faltered. He briefly held a faculty position at Southern Methodist University before returning to Austin, where he passed away in 1978. Brammer's legacy is marked by his sharp political commentary and his tumultuous life journey, reflective of the era's social changes.
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Subject Terms
Billy Lee Brammer
Writer
- Born: April 21, 1929
- Birthplace: Dallas, Texas
- Died: February 11, 1978
- Place of death: Austin, Texas
Biography
Billy Lee Brammer was born in Dallas, Texas. He is best known as a brilliant political satirist and commentator. Brammer received a journalism degree from North Texas State College, now the University of North Texas, in 1952. He began his journalism career as a sports reporter for the Denton, Texas Record Chronicle and later was a staff writer for the Corpus Christi Caller Times and the Austin American Statesman. Brammer won a press award for excellence in writing in 1952 and the Texas Associate Press Managing Editors Contest for a feature sports story in 1954.
By 1955, he was working for theTexas Observer, a liberal magazine that promoted political dissent. Around this time, Brammer became acquainted with then-Texas senator Lyndon Baines Johnson. Between 1955 and 1959, Brammer was a press aide for Johnson, when Johnson was the Senate majority leader. Brammer wrote his only novel, The Gay Place, during this period. The book features a ruthless and politically savvy main character, Governor Arthur Fenstermaker, who superficially resembled Johnson. Although the book received critical acclaim, winning the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award in 1960, it did not sell well. Brammer worked as a correspondent for Time magazine in 1960, covering the Democratic national convention. Although he continued to write and was commissioned to produce a biography on Johnson, Brammer never completed a second book.
During the political turmoil of the 1960’s, Brammer belonged to a group of Texas writers that included Bud Shrake, Larry King, Gary Cartwright, Dan Jenkins, and Peter Gent. Calling themselves the Mad Dogs, they distanced themselves from the political conservatism prominent in Texas at the time. These writers criticized the Vietnam War, observed the effects of the assasination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the Civil Rights movement on the nation, and commented on the changes in Texas life and culture. The Mad Dogs were also known for their excessive lifestyle, and Brammer drifted into drug abuse. Unable to write, Brammer supported himself by working as a short-order cook, waiter, and house painter in Austin, Texas. He was offered a faculty position at the School of Journalism at Southern Methodist University in 1970. Unfortunately, he was unable to hold his faculty position for long, and he returned to Austin, where he died of cardiac arrest in 1978.
Brammer married his first wife, Nadine Eckhardt, while they were students at North Texas State College. They had three children and were divorced in the 1950’s. He married Dorothy Vance in the mid-1950’s while he was in Washington, D.C., and they divorced in 1969.