I've been wondering this for a long time...

Where did the phrase, "Doing/Spinning a Brodie" come from? There was a guy in my high school that used to spin out in the school parking lot regularly and his last name was Brodie. We all called that doing a Brodie and I used to think it was a bit strange that most of North America knew him that well, but I was just a kid at the time...

Anyone know?

 

Hmmnn....could be he is famous and doesn't know it

We used the term as well in HS (mid-late 70's).

Time to do some Googling and see what turns up!

 

Here's what the "Word Detective" say's:

Dear Word Detective: Twice in one day, I encountered the expression, "He took a Brodie." It apparently means a suicide by jumping, and the character who used it in the Robert B. Parker novel said he heard it in a George Raft movie. Hours later, a cop on the 75th episode of Law & Order that I've seen this week used the same expression to describe a jumper from the Brooklyn Bridge. I must know whence this comes! I don't think I've seen any George Raft movies, and I don't think Blockbuster has any, and besides, all I do is watch Law & Order! -- Carol Hartig.

Never seen a George Raft movie? That's not right.

Steve Brodie was a New York City bookmaker, when, on July 23, 1886, he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River, supposedly to win a bet. Brodie miraculously survived the 135-foot fall, was picked from the water by a passing barge, and became an overnight celebrity. But Brodie's feat was immediately denounced as a hoax in certain quarters, the accusation being that he had arranged for a dummy to be dropped from the bridge while he waited in the water below to be "rescued." Skepticism about Brodie's leap was understandable, since a man named Robert Odlum had been killed just months earlier attempting the same stunt.

Whatever the truth, Brodie definitely had a knack for self-promotion. He soon opened a bar on the Bowery, complete with a "museum" annex devoted to his feat, and starred in several vaudeville musicals. By 1899, "to take a Brodie" had entered the public lexicon meaning "to fall, leap or dive, especially in a dramatic fashion." A few years later "brodie" took on the meaning of "to take a fall" (i.e., throw the fight) in boxing, and is still heard in the sense of "an utter failure" or "flop." Evidently "brodie" has also been slang since the 1950s for "spinning out" in a car.

I dunno, beilieve it or not

 

A Brodie **** (aka suicide ****) was one of the names for a **** that was clamped on steering wheels back in the 1950's. You'd grab the **** and spin the wheel, the car would then do a Brodie.

If tightened too tight, you can kiss the wheel good bye, as the metal piece the **** attached to ate into the plastic wheels. Those danged Brodie ***** ruined more steering wheels, just ask someone trying to patch their old one or find a replacement....especially tough if the wheel is the translucent type.

George Raft (born Ranft) was with Paramount first, then Warner Bros in the 1930's, early 1940's and Fox in the late '40's. He typified the gangster, and was a boyhood chum of both Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. His most famous role was in Scarface (WB 1932) starring Paul Muni.

Raft hated the pics Warners cast him in and asked Jack Warner what it would take to get him out of his contract. Warner said $10,000.00. Raft wrote Jack Warner a check on the spot, and to hear Warner tell it...he ran to the bank as fast as he could to cash it. Later in life Raft said: "I made 5 million bucks making pictures, three million I spent on broads and clothes, the rest I just blew!"

 

So it looks like we have our answer. It started with an alleged bridge jumping stunt to suicide ***** on steering wheels in the fifties to spinning donuts in my high school parking lot in the early 1970s. And we had a little George Raft and Steve Brodie (I remembered his first name finally) thrown in just to make it interesting by coincidence. Thanks guys!
Craig