A Rascal They Called Alfalfa

Do dreams come true? Do they materialize overnight like a lucky silver dollar from the Tooth Fairy? And if they do come to fruition quickly, when does elation turn to indignation. And why?

The country was mired in the throes of the Great Depression, and thousands of parents headed to Hollywood thinking their kid was one-in-a-million. Thinking a better life would be possible if they could just get their son or daughter to join a gang. Not just any gang-the Our Gang, the most-famous child film series of the day, perhaps of all time. While thousands tried out, few were Gang material. Carl Switzer was.

Like his contemporaries, Spanky, Buckwheat, Porky, Butch, The Woim, Waldo, and others, his on-screen nickname, Alfalfa, has become part of pop-culture lexicon for nearly a century. As has his famous cowlick and on-screen courtship of his gal pal, Darla.

After the Gang, his career was over. He disappeared. At least that's what many would have you believe. The truth is he had a more-successful film and TV career than most of the other kids in the series even before Our Gang's rebirth as The Little Rascals in the 1950s. He even had a role in one of the most popular films of all time, It's a Wonderful Life.

But it wasn't always a wonderful life for the kid from Paris.

For the first time, Carl Switzer's true story comes to life through extensive research and interviews conducted with people who knew him personally. With never-before-revealed information about his life and his untimely demise, this is the biography of Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer that generations of Little Rascals fans have been waiting for. This is the tale of the rascal you knew and the character you never knew.

James Tehrani is an award-winning writer and editor based in the Chicago area. He has won more than a dozen awards for his work, including several Headline Writer of the Year awards. This is Tehrani's first book.