Users of the Royal HH typewriter included: William Buckley, Charles Bukowski, George Burns, Herb Caen, Truman Capote, Bruce Catton, Patty Chayefsky, Don DeLillo, Alice Denham, James T. Farrell, Paul Fussell, Hugh Hefner, Elia Kazan, Sterling North, Robert B. Parker, Sylvia Plath, Mario Puzo, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, and William Zinsser.

including photos via https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

Users of the Royal FP included: Herb Caen, Peter De Vries, Stephen King, Melissa Ludtke, Frank O'Hara, and Morley Safer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03vxbqj

Peter Doherty: “I have 40 typewriters and I’m not ashamed of it”

Writing The Long Goodbye by [[Mark Coggins]]

Raymond Chandler's Typewriter - Mark Coggins by [[Mark Coggins]]

Looks like Peter Elbow used an early IBM Selectric I

reply to u/HenRoRo61

Earlier today, in a now-deleted post, someone had posted a question about identifying one of Helen Keller's typewriters based on this video in her archive.

Having done some initial digging, I thought I'd share some of the details I've found for those who may find it interesting.

According to researcher Richard Polt, Helen Keller was known to use both a Hammond and an L.C. Smith no. 5.

As for the Remington Noiseless, it definitely appears to be a mid-century Noiseless Standard with a tabulator. To know the year, you'd need either the specific serial number (to cross check https://typewriterdatabase.com/remington.42.typewriter-serial-number-database) or you'd need many more examples than the Typewriter Database currently has listed under the generic Remington Noiseless.

If you're careful at looking at the design choices and changes in some of the Remington Portables from that time period which would have likely tracked the design changes of their desktop standards, you might be able to extrapolate a closer dating based on the styling, but this will still only give you a dating within a year or so.

The tabulator was at the top of the keyboard by 1937, so you can probably presume it was a model from that point or thereafter until 1954. Most American typewriter manufacturers didn't make machines from '41-45 due to WWII, so you can discard those dates. Remington had moved into thicker/taller plastic keys by the early 1950s, so I would guess her machine was more likely from the late 1940s.

Looking more closely at the Remington Noiseless 10, I'd suggest that this is the most likely set of candidates, particularly in the timeframe of 1946-1947. Hers obviously had the openings in the rear and had the metal covers on the sides (as opposed to glass found on some models). Comparing hers in the film to some of these individual galleries may help to narrow things down with respect to dating.

Perhaps others with more Remington Standard experience, may be able to narrow things down here.

The appraisal of her Remington Noiseless in 1957 was $135.00.

One might find some close noiseless models in the $20-40 range + shipping (these are about 30 pounds and will cost about $35 for shipping) via ShopGoodwill.com. Here are some recent sales for comparison. Based on the video you'll want the bigger, heavier ones (25+ pounds) rather than the smaller portables with cases (usually under 20 pounds). Generally machines purchased this way are reasonably functional, but usually need some cleaning and work to be restored to full functionality.

Unless you're sure they're being sold by repair shops and have been cleaned and are fully functional, don't overspend on potential exemplars on sites like Etsy or eBay which are likely to be only marginally better (aka dusted off) than ShopGoodwill machines, but at 5-10x the price.

Hellen Keller's brailler: https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK08-B049-183&e=-------en-20--1--txt--typewriter------3-7-6-5-3--------------0-1

She apparently owned a \~1938 or 1939 Corona Silent as well: https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK08-B045-184.1.1&srpos=19&e=-------en-20--1--txt--typewriter------3-7-6-5-3--------------0-1

One might have some luck trying to find a Corona Silent typewriter from that era, but the unique color is going to put a machine like it into the $100-200 range (at a minimum and potentially going up from there depending on the condition) unless you get lucky at a garage sale somewhere.

David McCullough on His Typewriter by [[C-SPAN]]

Man shed for writing with a single room of 8' x 12' with 800 books, Royal KMM typewriter, and 2 filing cabinets. He's written every book he's ever done on his Royal KMM.

"It's got 750,000 miles on it."

https://intelligentcollector.com/william-goldmans-write-stuff/

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=typewriter&sp=1&st=gallery

https://new.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1gpu1z2/in_case_anyone_is_curious_how_churchill_acquired/

In the video for Walk on Water (2017), a song about art, aging, self-doubt, insecurity, criticism, and creativity, Eminem and his various clones use SMC Classic 12 typewriters to type random words in a nod to Émile Borel's 1913 analogy of dactylographic monkeys with respect to statistical mechanics.

The video closes with Eminem showing typed evidence of his creative genius: "So me and you are not alike / Bitch, I wrote 'Stan'".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryr75N0nki0

Notice the overlap of the dactylographic monkey idea and the creation of combinatorial creativity in Eminem's zettelkasten practice. The fact that he's brilliant enough to have created Stan (2000) is evidence that he's not just a random monkey, but that there is some directed thought and creativity which he has tacitly created during his career. https://boffosocko.com/2021/08/10/55794555/

Oliver Sacks Archive Heads to the New York Public Library by [[Jennifer Schuessler]]

The voluminous papers of the celebrated neurologist include letters, notebooks, drafts and other traces of a man who couldn’t stop writing.

You have to love the boos, notebooks, papers, fountain pen, typewriter, computer, printer, and even writing software all pictured in this... Add the glasses and it just reeks of someone who reads and writes.

Since you're asking in r/typewriters, here's a list of what some well known playwrights, screenwriters, and directors used and would likely have recommended for writing tools without harsh screens. Personally I'm in Tom Hank's camp and would recommend a Smith-Corona Clipper.

• Edward Albee: Remington 17 or KMC
• Ray Bradbury: Underwood (no. 5?), 1947 Royal KMM #3756210, IBM Selectric, IBM Wheelwriter, Silver-Seiko ultraportable (likely branded as Royal)
• Bertolt Brecht: Erika
• Mikhail Bulgakov: Olympia 8 (photo from Bulgakov museum)
• Paddy Chayefsky (playwright, May 1954): Underwood Standard Model 6, ca. 1946; Royal HH; Olympia SG3
• William Goldman: Olympia SM9
• Matt Groening: Hermes Rocket
• Alfred Hitchcock: '30s black Underwood Champion portable
• Sidney Howard (screenwriter, Gone With the Wind): Remington Noiseless Portable #N49669
• John Hughes (director): Olympia SM3
• Buster Keaton: Blickensderfer no. 5
• Stanley Kubrick: Adler Tippa S
• Ring Lardner: L. C. Smith
• Ernest Lehman: Royal Electress
• David Mamet: Smith-Corona portable, Olympia SM4, Olympia SM9, IBM Selectric
• Arthur Miller bought a used Smith-Corona portable in the late '30s (for one anonymous contest, he submitted a play that he said was "by Corona."). Later he used a '50s Smith-Corona Silent Super and a Royal KMG (1955 photo, another photo). He wrote his later plays on an IBM desktop computer. (Arthur Miller: His Life and Work, by Martin Gottfried, p. 26, 112, and 381.)
• F. W. Murnau: Remington portable no. 2 (1931 photo)
• Clifford Odets (1962): Royal Quiet DeLuxe, ca. 1957
• Rod Serling: Royal KMG (photo 1, photo 2)
• Neil Simon: Olympia SM9
• Steven Spielberg: Smith-Corona Coronamatic 2200 (photo 1, photo 2)
• James Thurber: Underwood no. 5
• John Waters: ca. 1950 Underwood (1961 photo), IBM A or B
• Orson Welles: 1926 woodgrain Underwood portable #4B73700 (Welles typing on it), ’30s Underwood Noiseless Portable, Smith-Corona (?)
• Tennessee Williams: Remington portable no. 2, 1936 Corona Junior #1F9874J (formerly in Steve Soboroff's collection), mid-1940s Corona Sterling, Royal KMM, Hermes Baby (gift from Margo Jones, 1947, according to John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, Bloomsbury, 2014), Olivetti Studio 44 (picture 1, picture 2, picture 3, picture 4 1955), Remington portable #5 flat top, Remington Standard M, Olympia SM8. (This man loved to have himself photographed with his writing machines!)

If you need some other recommendations from novelists and others, you could try: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

If you like Scrivener, but want to get away from screens, you can look back to Frank Daniels' method with index cards which he taught to thousands of screenwriters including David Lynch. Variations can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrvawtrRxsw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwKjuBvNi40. Vladimir Nabokov used a very similar method for his novels which is fairly well documented: https://www.openculture.com/2014/02/the-notecards-on-which-vladimir-nabokov-wrote-lolita.html

Warren Zevon at a JP-1 style typewriter in 1977 photo by Joel Bernstein

via https://www.1stdibs.com/art/photography/black-white-photography/joel-bernstein-warren-zevon-1977/id-a_5543612/

via https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/murder-by-the-book

Gratitude to the machine: Clarice Lispector on typewriters by [[Richard Polt]]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1988/09/11/playing-with-ire/

Nabokov began teaching at Cornell in 1948 and must have been relatively financially well-off enough to afford the roughly $95 ($1,248 in 2024 dollars) for a brand new Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

The typewriter is pictured at the top of the article in a photo from a 1958 photo shoot. Presumably he bought it contemporaneously, though may have gotten it used after its release in 1949. The model changed in mid-1950.

I tested more than 300 typewriter models & here're the TOP 10. by [[Mr & Mrs Vintage Typewriters]]

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/nabokov.jpeg via https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

This photo, similar to others in the Carl Mydans series for LIFE Magazine is surely from his September 1958 photo series, though I couldn't find an original from the LIFE archive.

Nabokov, reading off of index cards in his zettelkasten, dictates to his wife Vera who is typing on what appears to be a 1949 or 1950 Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

Notice metal strip on the back of the typewriter with small rectangular blocks. This is the Royal's tabulator set up which distinguishes the Quiet De Luxe model from the Arrow model.

The body styling of this typewriter changed in 1950 from Dreyfuss' original 1948 design. Because it's light gray it has to be from '49 or '50 as the '48 original was a black body with dark gray highlights and didn't have chrome across the front as this one does in an alternate angle.

https://images.google.com/hosted/life/2bff56953d14c9d9.html

Nabokov, reflected in a mirror off camera, dictating his writing from index cards to his wife Vera who is typing on what appears to be a 1949 or 1950 Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

Notice the chrome on the front of the machine which is sitting in its bottom case shell.

https://images.google.com/hosted/life/c835f121c2b6ce79.html

Nabokov dictating his writing from index cards to his wife Vera who is typing on what appears to be a 1949 or 1950 Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

https://images.google.com/hosted/life/8d0b2f02ac27973e.html

Nabokov dictating his writing from index cards to his wife Vera who is typing on what appears to be a 1949 or 1950 Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

Carl Sundberg’s European-made Remington Portable Typewriters by [[Robert Messenger]]

Woody Allen Has Used the Same Typewriter for 50 Years! by [[Roger Friedman]] in Showbiz411

Referenced documentary is from PBS: American Masters Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011)

Woody Allen & his Typewriter

He wrote everything with his Olympia SM3 typewriter. He lost the hood "30 years ago".

He literally cuts and staples pieces of typescripts together.

https://typosphere.blogspot.com/2016/10/lady-gaga-is-interviewed-with-her.html

digging the words into the page sounds adjacent to Seamus Heaney's "Digging" which analogizes writing to digging: https://hypothes.is/a/J-z8OgfQEe-0adtJyXyb3g

There's something here which suggests pens, typewriters, keyboards, etc. as direct extended mind objects as tools for thought. A sense of rumination and expulsion simultaneously.

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

Anne Sexton used a Royal Quiet De Luxe (beige)

Solan, Matthew. “Tracking Down Typewriters: Those Trusty Tools of Days Gone By.” Poets & Writers Magazine, August 19, 2009. p 31-33.