Founded in 1961 by Bennett Cerf, Gordon Carroll, and Albert Dorne, it became the subject of a scandal after a 1970 exposé by Jessica Mitford, who noted the school's questionable academic and business practices.
The ubiquitous advertising copy for the school, which was often found in the back of magazines, listed the following writers (who were also stockholders) as the school's "Guiding Faculty": Faith Baldwin, John Caples, Bruce Catton, Bennett Cerf, Mignon G. Eberhart, Paul Engle, Bergen Evans, Clifton Fadiman, Rudolf Flesch, Phyllis McGinley, J. D. Ratcliff, Rod Serling, Max Shulman, Red Smith and Mark Wiseman.
The advertisements implied that the celebrity faculty would evaluate the student's tests, a statement that Bennett Cerf, a leader of the group, admitted was false.
The comments they provided on students' papers were described as "formulaic, often identical, responses"[1] and as "good as you'd get from a mediocre professor in a so-so creative writing program.
"[3] Mitford's article on the school, "Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers", was originally commissioned by McCall's, but it declined to print it for fear of offending Bennett Cerf.
"[1] Mitford was invited onto numerous television programs, her article was read into the legislative record in Utah and attorneys general in several states initiated lawsuits against the school.
"[1] According to Bill Vogelsang, the nephew of Mignon Eberhart, Cerf had warned her, and presumably other members of the Guided Faculty, to sell their stock in the school, which she allegedly refused to do.
Written by Michael O'Donoghue, it was titled "How to Write Good", with a real quote at the beginning from Eliot Foster, Director of Admissions, Famous Writers School.