The Early Works of the SJG

Like skeptics Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud and Charlie Chaplin, 87-year-old social scientist S. Calum Gilfillan believes that William Shakespeare was not the real author of the famous works which bear his name.  Gilfillan became a doubting Thomas in 1920, when an English schoolmaster, J. Thomas Looney, published Shakespeare Identified, "the greatest detective story of all time."  According to Gilfillan, Looney concluded that the only person who could have written the plays was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. --  UCLA Daily Bruin, 1976

And now, some 35 years later after I exposed this wacky theory to my fellow students, and tried to disprove it by interviewing David Rhodes, my English professor (smart move on my part), they've gone and made a hot, bodice-ripping movie called "Anonymous," based on my brilliant early reportage.  It opens today.  Call me deluded, but I fully expect a fat check in the mail, plus a hearty acknowledgement in the credits:  "Had the Short Jewish Gal not written about the Earl of Oxford back in the pre-Internet days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the filmmakers would've been forced to make up stuff."  You're welcome.  Now, pay up.  Oh, and as for Willy the Shake, and where this former English major stands on the controversy, let's just say, I've been to Stratford, capiche?  I've seen the thatched roof.  I've seen the folios.  I've lived in the promised land of Shakespeare, okay?  Shakespeare is Shakespeare.  The real deal.  How do I know this?  I just do.  I don't care what the others say.  I love him.  I love him for his plays.  I love him for his sonnets.  I love him for the man he was and the man he wanted to be. He compleats me.  (Shout out to ye olde English majors everywhere.)