Beekman, Scott M. (Scott Beekman)

PERSONAL:

Education: Ohio University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Ohio University, Bentley Annex, 4th Fl., Athens, OH 45701.

CAREER:

Ohio University, Athens, visiting professor.

WRITINGS:

William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 2005.

Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America, Praeger (Westport, CT), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

History professor Scott M. Beekman's first book is William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult. It is the first biography of the man dubbed the "Star-Spangled Fascist"—a Hollywood writer and religious leader who founded the paramilitary Silver Legion organization in the Depression-era 1930s. Pelley was a charismatic, pro-Nazi, anti-Communist, anti-Semitic leader, and Beekman ties Pelley's legacy to latter-day occult groups who have borrowed his style, especially its elements of patriotism and spiritual channeling, and who look to Pelley as a role model. The book includes interviews with Pelley's daughter and son-in-law and offers insight into his numerous influences, from Theosophism to mysticism to millenarian Christianity.

Beekman's second book, Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America, takes a sociological look at the popular—though somewhat maligned— sport and determines that its history and scandals are not so different from other contemporary sports. He concentrates on separating fact from fiction, while giving time to the antics of the sport's larger-than-life personalities. Though acknowledging wrestling's international appeal and origins, Beekman focuses on its growth in the United States and how it became the realm of "sportsmanship, ego, celebrity, greed, and rivalry," according to David Pitt in a Booklist review, that provides wrestling fans with "much-needed vindication."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2006, David Pitt, review of Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America, p. 43.

Reference & Research Book News, February, 2006, review of William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult; November, 2006, review of Ringside.