A Rough Post-’Graduate’ Course

--The author of “The Graduate,” the basis of a hit movie, has less than a storybook existence these days. Charles Webb, 49, is living out of a van with an income of a few thousand dollars a year. “It’s hard to make anybody believe the author of ‘The Graduate’ needs money,” said Webb, who explains that his abhorrence of materialism led him to give away two houses. Now hard times have driven Webb and his ex-wife, an artist who calls herself Fred, out of the Ventura County, Calif., campground where they lived for the last decade to Williamstown, Mass. Webb said he went east in hopes of finding a publisher for his writings on prejudice. Webb said he applied for welfare in Massachusetts but was rejected because he has no permanent address. In the 1960s, Webb said, he gave a Hollywood house to a real estate agent and gave another home to the Massachusetts Audubon Society in 1970 because he felt the need for “getting free of things.” Webb said he received $20,000 for the film rights to “The Graduate,” which made a star of Dustin Hoffman when it was released in 1967. The novel is still in print and earns Webb a few thousand dollars in royalties annually. “The Graduate” was followed by four other novels, including “The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker,” which also was made into a movie. His last work, “Booze,” was published in 1978.

--Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid got the royal treatment when a 21-gun salute marked her 75th anniversary. Mayor Egon Weigekamp placed a wreath of flowers around the neck of the bronze statue, created in honor of writer Hans Christian Andersen. Children of 40 nationalities from the Copenhagen International Junior School waved flags. Older visitors were offered free beer by the brewery that financed the statue in 1913. The mermaid sits on a rock outcropping in Copenhagen harbor. It is based on Andersen’s tale of the daughter of the sea king who fell in love with a prince and was doomed to wait 300 years before she could turn human.

--Real Danish royalty was in the news under less happy circumstances. Crown Prince Frederik was slightly injured in a car accident in France. Frederik, 20, was treated for slight injuries to his head and shoulder and was released from the hospital, said Dina Luttichau, the family’s private secretary. His brother Joachim, 19, who was driving, was not hurt. Their Peugeot 205 swerved to avoid another car and overturned twice on the road from the town of Luzech to nearby Cahors in south-central France, she said. A friend in the car was treated for rib injuries.