Bennett Cerf was born in 1898 in Manhattan and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in journalism. In 1925 he acquired the Modern Library with Donald Klopfer, providing the foundation for their next publishing venture, Random House. A major figure of American publishing for more than four decades, Bennett Cerf died in 1971.
Christopher Cerf is an author, editor, and Emmy- and Grammy-winning songwriter and television producer. A longtime contributor to Sesame Street, and cofounder and creative producer of the PBS literacy-education series Between the Lines, Christopher Cerf is a former contributing editor of National Lampoon and a former senior editor at Random House.