George S. Kaufman

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox writer George Simon Kaufman (November 16, 1889Template:SpndJune 2, 1961) was an American playwright, theater director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals for the Marx Brothers and others. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the musical Of Thee I Sing (with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin) in 1932, and won again in 1937 for the play You Can't Take It with You (with Moss Hart). He also won the Tony Award for Best Director in 1951 for the musical Guys and Dolls.

Early years

George S. Kaufman was born to Joseph S. Kaufman, a hatband manufacturer,<ref name="1910 United States Federal Census">1910 United States Federal Census</ref> and Nettie Meyers<ref>U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–2007</ref> in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had a younger sister, Ruth.<ref name="1910 United States Federal Census"/> His other sister was Helen, nicknamed "Helse". Kaufman's family was Jewish. He graduated from high school in 1907 and studied law for three months. He grew disenchanted and took on a series of odd jobs,<ref name=wallace>Wallace, Irving, Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky and Sylvia Wallace (2008). The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People. Feral House, Template:ISBN, p. 173.</ref> selling silk<ref name="1910 United States Federal Census"/> and working in wholesale ribbon sales.<ref name=obit/>

Career

Kaufman began contributing humorous material to the column that Franklin P. Adams wrote for the New York Mail. He became close friends with Adams, who helped him get his first newspaper job—humor columnist for The Washington Times—in 1912. By 1915 he was a drama reporter on The New York Tribune, working under Heywood Broun. In 1917 Kaufman joined The New York Times, becoming drama editor and staying with the newspaper until 1930.<ref name=obit/>

Kaufman took his editorial responsibilities seriously. According to legend, on one occasion a press agent asked: "How do I get our leading lady's name in the Times?" Kaufman: "Shoot her."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Theater

File:Kaufman-Hart-1937.jpg

George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart in 1937

Kaufman's Broadway debut was September 4, 1918, at the Knickerbocker Theatre, with the premiere of the melodrama Someone in the House.<ref>Template:Cite news (abstract) Template:Subscription required</ref><ref name=ibdb/> He coauthored the play with Walter C. Percival, based on a magazine story written by Larry Evans.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The play opened on Broadway (running for only 32 performances) during that year's serious flu epidemic, when people were being advised to avoid crowds. With "dour glee", Kaufman suggested that the best way to avoid crowds in New York City was to attend his play.<ref name="time61obit">Template:Cite news</ref>

Every Broadway season from 1921 through 1958 had a play written or directed by Kaufman. Since Kaufman's death in 1961,<ref name="time61obit"/> revivals of his work on Broadway were produced in the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 2000s, and the 2010s.<ref name=ibdb>"George S. Kaufman". Internet Broadway Database (ibdb.com). Retrieved November 13, 2010.</ref> Kaufman wrote only one play alone, The Butter and Egg Man in 1925.<ref>Londré, Felicia Hardison (2005). Words at Play:Creative Writing and Dramaturgy. SIU Press, Template:ISBN, p. 47.</ref> With Marc Connelly, he wrote Merton of the Movies, Dulcy, and Beggar on Horseback; with Ring Lardner, he wrote June Moon; with Edna Ferber, he wrote The Royal Family, Dinner at Eight, and Stage Door; with John P. Marquand, he wrote a stage adaptation of Marquand's novel The Late George Apley; and with Howard Teichmann, he wrote The Solid Gold Cadillac. According to his biography on PBS, "he wrote some of the American theater's most enduring comedies" with Moss Hart.<ref>Larkin, Colin, ed. (2004). "Stars Over Broadway: Biography, Excerpted from the Encyclopedia of Popular Music" Template:Webarchive. pbs.org. Retrieved November 13, 2010.</ref> Their work includes Once in a Lifetime (in which he also performed), Merrily We Roll Along, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and You Can't Take It with You, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937.<ref name=pulitzer>"The Pulitzer Prizes, Drama". pulitzer.org. Retrieved March 6, 2011.</ref>

For a period, Kaufman lived at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The building later was the setting for Stage Door.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It is now the Park Savoy Hotel, and for many years was considered a single room occupancy hotel.<ref>Template:Cite news (abstract) Template:Subscription required</ref>

Musical theater

Despite his claim that he knew nothing about music and hated it in the theater, Kaufman collaborated on many musical theater projects. His most successful of such efforts include two Broadway shows crafted for the Marx Brothers, The Cocoanuts, written with Irving Berlin, and Animal Crackers, written with Morrie Ryskind, Bert Kalmar, and Harry Ruby. According to Charlotte Chandler, "By the time Animal Crackers opened ... the Marx Brothers were becoming famous enough to interest Hollywood. Paramount signed them to a contract".<ref>Chandler, Charlotte (2007). Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends, Simon and Schuster, Template:ISBN.</ref> Kaufman was one of the writers who excelled in writing intelligent nonsense for Groucho Marx, a process that was collaborative, given Groucho's skills at expanding upon the scripted material. Though the Marx Brothers were notoriously critical of their writers, Groucho and Harpo Marx expressed admiration and gratitude towards Kaufman. Dick Cavett, introducing Groucho onstage at Carnegie Hall in 1972, told the audience that Groucho considered Kaufman to be "his god".

While The Cocoanuts was being developed in Atlantic City, Irving Berlin was hugely enthusiastic about including the song "Always", which he had written as a wedding present for his bride.Template:Efn Kaufman was less enthusiastic, and refused to rework the libretto to include this number. The song ultimately became a huge hit for Berlin, recorded by many popular performers. According to Laurence Bergreen, "Kaufman's lack of enthusiasm caused Irving to lose confidence in the song, and 'Always' was deleted from the score of The Cocoanuts – though not from its creator's memory. ... Kaufman, a confirmed misogynist, had had no use for the song in The Cocoanuts, but his disapproval did not deter Berlin from saving it for a more important occasion."<ref>Bergreen, Laurence (1996). As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, Da Capo Press, Template:ISBN, pp. 249, 264.</ref> The Cocoanuts would remain Irving Berlin's only Broadway musical – until his last one, Mr. President – that did not include at least one eventual hit song.

Kaufman recalled the matter differently. In an article in Stage magazine, he recalled that Berlin woke him up at 5 am one morning to play a new song he had just written. "Even my deficient musical sense recognized that here was a song that was going to be popular. I listened to it two or three times, then took a stab at it myself, and as dawn came up over the Atlantic, Irving and I were happily singing 'Always' together—its first performance on any stage. I went back to bed a happy man, and stayed happy until rehearsals started, when it turned out that 'Always' had not been written for our show at all, but purely for Irving's music-publishing house. In its place in The Cocoanuts was a song called 'A Little Bungalow,' which we never could reprise in Act Two because the actors couldn't remember it that long."<ref>"Music to My Ears", Stage, August 1938. Reprinted in By George: A Kaufman Collection, 1979.</ref>

Humor derived from political situations was of particular interest to Kaufman. He collaborated on the hit musical Of Thee I Sing, which won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize, the first musical so honored,<ref name=pulitzer/> and its sequel Let 'Em Eat Cake, as well as one troubled, but eventually successful, satire that had several incarnations, Strike Up the Band. Working with Kaufman on these ventures were Ryskind, George Gershwin, and Ira Gershwin. Also, Kaufman, with Moss Hart, wrote the book to I'd Rather Be Right, a musical starring George M. Cohan as Franklin Delano Roosevelt (the U.S. president at the time), with songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. He also co-wrote the 1935 comedy-drama First Lady. In 1945, Kaufman adapted H.M.S. Pinafore into Hollywood Pinafore.

Kaufman also contributed to major New York revues, including The Band Wagon (which shared songs, but not plot with the 1953 film version) with Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz. His often-anthologized sketch "The Still Alarm" from the revue The Little Show lasted long after the show closed. Another well-known sketch of his is "If Men Played Cards as Women Do". Also, musicals have been based on Kaufman properties, such as the 1981 musical version of Merrily We Roll Along, adapted by George Furth and Stephen Sondheim.<ref>Rich, Frank (November 17, 1981). "Stage: A New Sondheim, Merrily We Roll Along". The New York Times.</ref> The musical Sherry! (1967) was based on his play The Man Who Came to Dinner.<ref>"Sherry!". Internet Broadway Database (ibdb.com). Retrieved November 13, 2010.</ref>

Directing and producing

File:The-Front-Page-1928-5.jpg

The Front Page (1928)

File:Ford-Crawford-Of-Mice-and-Men-1938-cropped.jpg

Of Mice and Men (1937), with Wallace Ford and Broderick Crawford

Kaufman directed the original or revival stage productions of many plays and musicals, including The Front Page by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht (1928), Of Thee I Sing (1931 and 1952), Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (1937), My Sister Eileen by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov (1940), Hollywood Pinafore (1945), The Next Half Hour (1945), Park Avenue (1946, also co-wrote the book), Town House (1948), Bravo! (1948, also co-wrote the script), Metropole (1949), the Frank Loesser musical Guys and Dolls, for which he won the 1951 Best Director Tony Award, The Enchanted (1950), The Small Hours (1951, also co-wrote the script), Fancy Meeting You Again (1952, also co-wrote the script), The Solid Gold Cadillac (1953, also co-wrote the script), and Romanoff and Juliet by Peter Ustinov (1957).<ref name=ibdb/>

Kaufman produced many of his own plays, as well as those of other writers. For a short time, from circa 1940 to 1946, Kaufman, with Moss Hart and Max Gordon, owned and operated the Lyceum Theatre.<ref>Bloom, Ken (2007). "Lyceum Theatre". The Routledge Guide To Broadway, CRC Press, Template:ISBN, p. 158.</ref>

Film and television

Many of Kaufman's plays were adapted into Hollywood and British films. Among the more well-received were Dinner At Eight, Stage Door (almost completely rewritten by others for the film version) and You Can't Take It with You (changed significantly by others for the film version), which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1938, and The Dark Tower. He also occasionally wrote directly for the movies, most significantly the screenplay for A Night at the Opera for the Marx Brothers. His only credit as a film director was The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947) starring William Powell.

From 1949 until midway through the 1952–1953 season, he appeared as a panelist on the CBS television series This Is Show Business.<ref>McNeil, Alex. Total Television: Revised Edition. Penguin Books (1996), pp. 830–1. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>"Radio: The Troubled Air". Time, January 12, 1953.</ref> Kaufman made a remark about the excessive airing of "Silent Night" during the Christmas season, "Let's make this one program", he said, "on which no one sings 'Silent Night'." The resulting public outcry prompted his dismissal by CBS.<ref name = "TTV">McNeil, Alex. Total Television: Revised Edition. Penguin Books (1996), p. 832. Template:ISBN</ref> In response, Fred Allen said, "There were only two wits on television: Groucho Marx and George S. Kaufman. Without Kaufman, television has reverted to being half-witted."<ref>Kaufman, GS. By George: A Kaufman Collection. St. Martins Press (1979), pp. ix–x. Template:ISBN</ref> It would be more than a year before Kaufman appeared on TV again.<ref name = "TTV"/>

Bridge

Kaufman was a prominent player of bridge, probably both auction bridge and contract bridge. The New Yorker published many of his humorous items about the card game; at least some have been reprinted more than once, including:

"Kibitzers' Revolt" Template:When and the suggestion that bridge clubs should post notice whether the North–South or the East–West pairs are holding good cards.<ref name=ACBLbeat>"ACBL Bridge Beat #121: George Kaufman". Not Just the ACBL Story – but History. November 5, 2012. American Contract Bridge League (75th Anniversary contributions by anonymous members?). Retrieved June 13, 2014.</ref>
Kaufman was notoriously impatient with poor players. One such partner asked permission to use the men's room, according to legend, and Kaufman replied: "Gladly. For the first time today I'll know what you have in your hand."<ref name=ACBLbeat/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
On sitting South: (1) "No matter who writes the books or articles, South holds the most terrific cards I ever saw. There is a lucky fellow if ever I saw one."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (2) Oswald Jacoby reported a deal that Kaufman played marvelously in 1952, after which he cracked, "I'd rather sit South than be the President."<ref name=ACBLbeat/>
On Template:Gcb, "I'd like a review of the bidding with all the original inflections."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

His first wife Beatrice Bakrow Kaufman was also an avid bridge player, and an occasional poker player with Algonquin men, who wrote at least one New Yorker article on bridge herself, in 1928.<ref name=beatrice>Galchinsky, Michael (March 1, 2009). "Beatrice Kaufman 1895–1945". Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive (jwa.org). Retrieved June 13, 2014.</ref>

Personal life

File:Portrait of Beatrice Kaufman LCCN2004663117.jpg

Beatrice Kaufman in 1934

In the 1920s, Kaufman was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a circle of writers and show business people. From the 1920s through the 1950s, Kaufman was as well known for his personality as he was for his writing.Template:Citation needed In the Moss Hart autobiography Act One, Hart portrayed Kaufman as a morose and intimidating figure, uncomfortable with any expressions of affection between human beings—in life or on the page. Hart writes that Max Siegel said: "Maybe I should have warned you. Mr Kaufman hates any kind of sentimentality—can't stand it!"<ref>Hart, Moss (1989). Act one: an autobiography. Macmillan, Template:ISBN, p. 274.</ref> This perspective, along with a number of taciturn observations made by Kaufman himself, led to a simplistic but commonly held belief that Hart was the emotional soul of the creative team while Kaufman was a misanthropic writer of punchlines. Kaufman preferred never to leave Manhattan. He once said: "I never want to go any place where I can't get back to Broadway and 44th by midnight."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Called "Public Lover Number One", he dated several prominent actresses on Broadway.<ref name=wallace174>Wallace 2008, p. 174.</ref> Kaufman found himself in the center of a scandal in 1936 when, in the midst of a child custody suit, the former husband of actress Mary Astor threatened to publish one of Astor's diaries purportedly containing extremely explicit details of an affair between Kaufman and the actress.<ref name=wallace174/> The diary was eventually destroyed by the court, unread, in 1952, but details of the supposed contents were published in Confidential magazine, Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger (both always have been considered unreliable sources)<ref>Los Angeles Times piece about unreliability of Confidential magazine</ref><ref>RS explains unreliability of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon</ref> and in various other questionable publications. Some of the sexually explicit portions of Mary Astor's writing about Kaufman were reprinted in New York magazine in 2012 and Vanity Fair magazine in 2016.<ref name=NYmag>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Kaufman had an affair with actress Natalie Schafer during the 1940s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Kaufman joined the theater club, The Lambs, in 1944.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Kaufman was married to his first wife Beatrice from 1917 until her death in 1945.<ref name=beatrice/><ref> Template:Cite news</ref> They had one daughter, Anne Kaufman (Booth).<ref name=beatrice/> Four years later, he married actress Leueen MacGrath on May 26, 1949,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> with whom he collaborated on a number of plays before their divorce in August 1957. Kaufman died in New York City on June 2, 1961, at the age of 71.<ref name=obit>Template:Cite news</ref> His granddaughter, Beatrice Colen, was an actress who had recurring appearances on both Happy Days and Wonder Woman.<ref>Beatrice Colen profile. Wonderland: The Ultimate Lynda Carter Site; retrieved June 13, 2014.</ref>

In 1979, Donald Oliver compiled and edited a collection of Kaufman's humorous pieces, with a foreword by Dick Cavett.<ref>Kaufman, George S. (Donald Oliver, compiler/editor) (1979). By George: A Kaufman Collection. New York: St. Martin's Press, Template:ISBN.</ref>

Portrayals

Kaufman was portrayed by the actor David Thornton in the 1994 film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle<ref>"Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle". Internet Movie Database (imdb.com).</ref> and by Jason Robards in the 1963 film Act One. In the 2014 Broadway adaptation of the latter by James Lapine, he was played by Tony Shalhoub.

The title character of the 1991 Coen brothers film Barton Fink, who is a playwright, bears a strong physical resemblance to Kaufman.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Kaufman is portrayed in the film Mank by actor Adam Shapiro.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Awards

Awarding institution	Award title	Year	Production	Results	Notes
Pulitzer Prize	Pulitzer Prize for Drama	1932	Of Thee I Sing	Template:Won	Won award in collaboration of Morris Ryskind, Ira Gershwin
Pulitzer Prize	Pulitzer Prize for Drama	1937	You Can't Take It With You	Template:Won	Award won in collaboration with Moss Hart
Tony Awards	Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical	1951	Guys and Dolls	Template:Won