Alexander Woollcott

If you check, you'll find that somewhere, someplace, there is an extant performance of the play The Man Who Came to Dinner. Written by George Kaufman and Moss Hart (the husband of Kitty Carlisle of the original To Tell the Truth show), the play is about Sheriden Whiteside, a complete אַסכאָול, who while visiting a well-to-do family injures his hip. Forced to remain with the family while he recuperates, Sheriden's boorish, arrogant personality causes complete havoc to the household.

The play was first performed in New York City in 1939 where the title role was played by the veteran character actor Monty Woolley, who also starred in the 1942 motion picture. The play and movie were both a financial and critical success, and there have been radio and television adaptations over the years. Today the play remains popular for theater groups from high school to professionals.

But when the play went out on its first West Coast tour, Monty did not assume the lead. Instead the role went to a drama critic and book reviewer, Alexander Woollcott.

You might wonder why Alec - whose acting experience was limited to a few skits when in college and whose voice sometimes squeaked as if he had taken a gulp of helium - thought he could take on a role in a professional theater production. Well, it's certainly true that Alec was a man of incredible (some one say insufferable) ego. And the fact that he had been hosting a radio program for several years no doubt added to his confidence that he could handle the lines in a play.

The truth was that George and Moss had specifically written the play with Alec in mind. The two men were among the most successful playwrights of the time, and when Alec once bumped into Moss, he had suggested they write a play in which he could star.

George and Moss weren't quite sure what kind of play to write until Alec paid a visit to Moss's Bucks County home - unannounced so the story goes. While he was there he had treated everyone so abominably that Moss later expressed his exasperation to George. One of them - the accounts differ who it was - commented how terrible it would have been if Alec had broken his leg and been forced to stay for the summer. They had their play.

Of course, everyone knew who the play was about. Alexander Woollcott was one of the most famous men in America, renown for his cantankerous behavior as much as his often savage drama criticism and book reviews. Today it seems strange that a critic would become a celebrity. But this was a day without television, video games, or the Internet, and among the most popular entertainments were reading short stories and novels and attending plays. Not only did authors become celebrities, but their critics reached stardom as well (Brooks Atkinson, Wolcott Gibbs, and Kelcey Allen come to mind). And Alec was the most famous.

At this point, the reader should realize that there are no recent biographies of Alec. So a lot of the information - above and below - is garnered from multiple sources, some necessarily anecdotal and of uncertain provenance. But by careful sifting of the various accounts and weighing the evidence, we can be confident that the stories are true - at least (as Mark Twain said) mainly.

Alexander Humphreys Woollcott was born on January 19, 1887 in Phalanx, New Jersey. The family home had somewhere between 70 and 90 rooms depending on who's telling the story (85 is the most common number). The size of the house and its rather rundown nature was a direct result of it serving as a Utopian commune which like all Utopian communes had a fairly short existence. But it suited the Woollcott family, and when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up Alec replied, "I want to be a fabulous monster."

The family later moved to Philadelphia where Alec graduated from Central High School. Always an East Coast boy, he attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York (not New York's Colgate College in Hamilton). He graduated in 1909, and from then on Alec lived and worked almost entirely out of New York City.

In high school and college, Alec had been an excellent student and his teachers had encouraged his writing and literary interests. But his condescending and arrogant manner had put a lot of the other students off. We suspect - as is true of others with condescending and arrogant manners - that Alec was trying to compensate for his own massive insecurities - insecurities which from his behavior we can guess certainly did not decrease as he aged.

During his college years Alec had worked on the student newspaper. It was while in college and at age 20 that he contracted the mumps, a once common disease but now fairly rare due to vaccination programs. It is likely that the disease left Alec with a condition known to cause much discomfiture to its male victims.

After graduation Alec landed a job as a reporter for the New York Times. But we read - at least according to one story - that his expanding girth inhibited him from pounding the pavement in an effective manner. So after five years and in desperation to find something that Alec could do, the editors sent him to review a play. They soon saw that Alec had found his métier.

This account is almost certainly bogus, or at least a gross oversimplification. The truth is that early on Alec had proven himself an aggressive and able reporter, and the editors remarked that one of his early stories was about the best journalism you could have. And photographs before 1920 show Alec was stout, yes, but not prohibitively so. And he did go on to serve in the US Army in World War I. There he was a founding member and a primary reporter for the Stars and Stripes.

After the war, Alec returned briefly to the Times. Soon, however, he switched to writing for The New Yorker, a newly launched magazine whose editor, Harold Ross, had known Alec in the Army.

Alec soon ranked with the top echelon of Broadway's critics. Despite a reputation for writing acerbic and cutting reviews, he was by no means the dour literary curmudgeon of which no performer could please. In 1924, he went to review the musical I'll Say She Is. This was a comedy that featured four brothers named Leonard, Arthur, Julius, and Herbert. We know them better as, of course, as Chico, Harpo, Groucho, and Zeppo (Gummo - that is, Milton - did not appear). Alec expected to hate the play. But he loved it.

From some tellings you would think Alec's praise single-handedly revived the Marx brothers' flailing careers and catapulted them to superstardom. Actually, I'll Say She Is received rave reviews from most New York papers and the Marx Brothers - whatever their problems on the now fading vaudeville circuit - had enough clout to force the producers to discontinue their planned touring schedule and take the show directly to Broadway.

Still, the effect of Alec's praise was not insignificant and he particularly noted the comedic talents of one of the brothers. So he called him up.

Over the phone Alec asked Harpo what he thought of the review he had written. Although Harpo hadn't read it and the name Alexander Woollcott meant nothing to him, he said it was the worst thing he had ever read. Alec roared with laughter which made a good impression on Harpo. Harpo invited Alec to stop by after the night's performance.

Alec showed up at Harpo's dressing room. Alec was dressed in the typical critic's garb: top hat, polished shoes, and opera cape. Harpo quickly saw that Alec was the type of man who couldn't help needling people even if he liked them. There was much repartee back and forth, and as he stood up to leave, Alec said, "See here, Marx, Kindly confine your baboonery to the stage. Off it, you are a most unfunny fellow." Harpo and Alec became lifelong friends.

The story that the case of mumps had rendered Alec incapable of - ah - rising to the occasion naturally led to rumors that his preferences did not meet American Family Values. Edna Ferber (author of Show Boat - the novel - as well as Cimarron and So Big) couldn't resist a jibe. Referring to her upcoming vacation she said "I don't expect to talk to a man or woman - just Alec Woollcott." Edna, by the way, was also one of Alec's friends.

Today, of course, Alec's rumored inclination would be no big deal. But in those days it could ruin any career. On the other hand people who knew Alec well doubted the story. Instead, they saw that he enjoyed women's company and paid them considerable attention.

Another of Alec's lady friends was Dorothy Parker, also well-known for her acerbicisms. She and Alec were founding members of what was called the Algonquin Round Table. This was a group of writers, critics, and other celebrities who met for lunch at (what else?) a round table at New York's Algonquin Hotel.

Although the Algonquin Round Table has achieved near mythic status in literary history, the first meeting was a set-up for Alec. Some of his friends invited him to lunch and were intending to "roast" him as part payback for his barbs, obnoxious comments, and otherwise boorish behavior. But Alec reveled in the attention, and the roast turned into good-natured bantering. Everyone had such a good time they decided to make the lunch a daily event.

The membership of the Algonquin Round Table was indefinite, fluid, and rather ill-defined. One of the members was Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Marc Connelly, who lived long enough to record his opinions of his fellow Algonquins. Of course, Marc mentioned Alec (rude but witty and his jokes were funny), Dorothy (an excellent poet), Edna Ferber (industrious), Heywood Broun (generous, humane, and looking like an unmade bed), Harold Ross (the brainy editor of The New Yorker who sported a massive thatch of hair and claimed he was just a country boy), Neysa McMein (a widely successful illustrator whose work was almost always on the cover of some magazine or other), Harpo Marx (silent as a Marx Brother; a good talker at the table), and George Kaufman (the wittiest of the group). Other members were Robert Benchley, one of the most popular humorists of the time, and playwright Charles MacArthur who was the husband of actress Helen Hayes and father of Hawaii Five-O's James MacArthur.

Despite the rumors, Alec's relationships with some of the Algonquin women were close to being romantic. He was clearly interested in Neysa, much to the chagrin of Neysa's husband, Jack Baragwanath. For his part Jack found that when he and Alec were alone, Alec was kind and easy going, But when they were in a group Alec reverted to his overbearing obnoxious self.

The repartee at the Round Table produced memorable quotes - or at least there are quotes that were reported to be from the Round Table repartee. Unfortunately many of the bon mots you see posted are of questionable authenticity. And even if Alec did really say what you read he said, it's far less certain he originated what he said.

For instance, one of the most quipped of Alec's quotes is "Everything I like is either illegal, immoral, or fattening". The usual citation is a Readers' Digest article in 1933. However, research has shown that although the original documented source was indeed Alec, the quote was from a radio broadcast where Alec was quoting someone else.

Another famous non-quote of Alec's is "I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini." This line shows up in different forms attributed to different people. The most common "true" source is from the 1942 motion picture The Major and the Minor. In once scene, Ginger Rogers plays a masseuse, and at one point Algonquin member Robert Benchely says "Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?" But there was even an earlier movie from 1937, Every Day's a Holiday, where one character tells another, "You ought to get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini."

The Algonquin Round Table came to an end not long after the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Although the demise has been blamed on the downturn of the members' fortunes, virtually all of them weathered the crash well enough. Instead it was less their finances that dissolved the group, than the changes in society and modes of entertainment.

The Roaring Twenties was a decade of technological revolution that arguably had greater impact on society than the computer and information age did sixty years later. When the Round Table started up after World War I, entertainment was almost exclusively from the written and literary word - short stories, novels, and plays. But by the end of the decade, wireless technology had transformed communication and entertainment. Instead of having to go out to see comedies, dramas, and variety shows, you could tune into your favorite station and listen to the radio adaptations for free. Motion pictures were also replacing the live theater, and the celluloid blockbusters and extravaganzas offered a viewing experiences that the tacky paper-mâché and plywood scene designs of stage performances just could not do.

By necessity, then, the Algonquin members began to adapt to the new era, and as a man who craved adulation, it was inevitable that Alec would move into the electronic medium. Exactly when his radio program, The Town Crier, began isn't clear - 1929, 1930, and 1933 are all given. The program lasted until at least 1938, but dates as late as 1942 are cited.

In any case, The Town Crier was one of the more popular shows on the air, and as in his columns, Alec gave reviews, opinions, and commentary. But now he was heard by millions of people who never cracked an issue of The New Yorker.

Unfortunately, making a living being a professional boor has its drawbacks. Alec found this out after he began his broadcasts.

In 1935, Alec received a letter from two elderly sisters, Minnie and Susan Staples. They wrote that they lived in Troy, New York, and gushed how much they loved his show. They were very poor, struggling to make ends meet, and the show was a high point of their week. Naturally Alec was touched, particularly when they asked him to read the 23rd Psalm for them over the air, which he did.

Later Alec received a letter from Susan that Minnie had died shortly after he read the Psalm. But he could be assured that his sister had departed the world with a peace of mind brought on by Alec's words.

Then the notes stopped. Alec tried to find more about the sisters, even going so far as to having church and birth records searched. But he found nothing.

Finally on one of the shows he said that if Susan was listening to contact him again. Eventually he received a note with an Albany postmark.

But not from Susan; it was from a nurse named O'Brien. Sadly she informed Alec that Susan had also died. But the nurse confirmed how much comfort the two women had found in Alec broadcasts and in the sound of his voice.

Alec became almost obsessed in finding more about the ladies. But a check of hospitals and death records found no mention of either woman in Troy or Albany. Worse, he found no hint of a nurse named O'Brien.

Alec soon realized he had been the victim of a cruel hoax. Based on the evidence of the postmarks, he angrily accused one of his old Hamilton friends and classmates (and later professor of history at Columbia University). Alec's (one-time) friend denied the charge, and today what one historian has called The Great Radio Hoax of 1935 remains unsolved.

As stated above, many of the best Woollcott stories are anecdotal. But some tales can be documented by people who were there. Random House publisher and What's My Line panelist Bennett Cerf left some first hand stories about Alec and put them in a collection of essays that were published shortly after Alec died. Bennett had known Alec well and had put him on the Random Houses board of book reviewers. But difficulties with Alec also led Bennett to remove Alec from the board. He did so with regret since a good review from Alec could rocket a book to be a best seller.

Naturally Bennett circulated with New York's literary crowd. One night he was attending a party with a young lady. Bennett doesn't tell us who she was but from some rather cryptic and perhaps deliberately obscure comments, she may have been his future wife, Phyllis. Anyway, Bennett and the lady walked up to a table where Alec was playing cribbage with the writer Alice Duer Miller.

On being introduced, Alec remained seated. "I know your aunt and uncle, of course," said Alec. "Your aunt is a splendid woman. Your uncle is a (!)."

"My definition of that word, Mr. Woollcott," the lady replied, "is a man who uses it to a woman he is meeting for the first time." Alec roared with laughter.

In 1933 Bennett was host for the expatriate author Gertrude Stein. Gertrude, in Woollcott's presence, disputed some of his opinions. Alec - obviously joking - said "I will forgive you this once. You have not been here long enough yet to know that nobody disputes me." Gertrude just laughed and said "Woollcott, you are a colossal fool."

Alec certainly knew that critics quickly fade from memory. On the other hand, authors can achieve immortality. Naturally Alec decided to try for immortality.

Alec's books were compilations of stories and anecdotes, usually reprints of his columns. His most famous book - and the best selling - was While Rome Burns which he dedicated to Beatrice Kaufman, George's wife. Once listed among the most important books of the 20th century, the book is now almost entirely forgotten.

If you expect to find a rabid critic cranking out spittle-flinging diatribes against his literary antagonists, you'll be disappointed. Instead Alec gives us at times gentle musings about people and current events, either with public stories about the death of the mother of the Marx brothers or with personal stories of when he took his god-daughter to a play. But unless the reader is well-versed in early 20th century literary and entertainment history, it's easy to get lost among the events now forgotten and the names no longer remembered. For the curious, there are many used copies available at modest prices (essentially shipping costs) and you can also read the book on the Internet's Open Library (registration is required but it is free).

An even earlier collection of Alec's reviews is "Shouts and Murmurs: Echoes of a Thousand and One First Nights" (available on the Internet Archive). Here too the writings seem moderate in tone and the reader will be surprised at the number of favorable reviews (Alec even speaks with great praise about amateur theater companies). However, sometimes we think the book could have used a bit more editing.

In 1934, Alec joined the Baker Street Irregulars, the premiere club for Sherlock Holmes fans. He attended the dinner that year, a fest that has justly gone down in Sherlockian history. There are two accounts of the dinner. One is by Alec and the other is by journalist and Sherlock Holmes expert, Vincent Starrett.

Naturally Vincent and Alec contradicted each other. Alec said he attended at Vincent's invitation, and Vincent said he was invited by Alec. But whoever invited who(m), Vincent went to Alec's apartment where to his surprise there was a party in full swing. Thinking Alec had forgotten the dinner, he was relieved to see Alec put on a deerstalkers hat and take a magnifying glass in hand. Alec then gave Vincent the same Sherlockian garb, and the two men went out to the street.

Standing at the curb were two Victorian Hansom cabs. Vincent was about to get into the first but Alec stopped him.

"Always take the second cab," he said.

You can read Alec's article in his later book, Long, Long Ago (Viking Press, 1943, and also on the Open Library, as is Vincent's book). Vincent denied Alec's story that he read a paper that provided evidence that Holmes went to Cambridge (actually Alec had just written that Vincent simply argued the case). Also denied was the account by Henry Morton Robinson that Vincent entered on all fours as the Hound of the Baskervilles.

In the 1930's Alec became something of a globe hopper, and like many artsy people of the 1920's and 30's, Alec had a leftist bent to his politics. So it was inevitable that Alec would visit Russia at a time before anyone ever heard of the Iron Curtain or the Cold War. The essays covering his impressions and which appear in While Rome Burns are some of Alec's best.

Unlike Will Rogers - who visited the country when the leadership was still being sorted out after Lenin's death - Alec was there when Stalin had assumed command. The first thing he noted was you couldn't go anywhere without seeing pictures of Uncle Joe. He joked about going to Red Square and shouting "Hurrah for Good Old Trotsky!" He told his readers if they never heard from him again they could assume he had carried out the experiment.

Alec pointed out that there were usually two types of visitors to Russia: those who wanted Communism to fail and those who wanted it to succeed. Alec had been warned that to boost the numbers of the latter group, the Soviets would only put their best face forward and only let him go where they wanted him to go.

The rascals! Alec said. Not like us! Why, in America we make sure our visitors see not only our modern, bustling cities and beautiful countrysides, but we also take them to tour the southern prison camps and the homes of the poor coal miners.

Well, don't we?

As a theater critic, Alec was interested in seeing how Moscow presented famous plays. Would they alter plots to fit their own Communistic World View?

Well, sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. For instance, if a play like Uncle Tom's Cabin (yes, it had been made into a popular play) could be used to show the United States in a bad light, then it would be presented as is.

But Alec also found even some modern American plays were performed pretty much straight. He attended a production of Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings, a play about an interracial marriage (and still sometimes performed). Of course, it was Russians in suitable makeup who took the necessary roles, and the performance featured songs sung in English. Alec assured his readers who had never heard ballads and spirituals sung with Russian accents that they had "not suffered an intolerable aesthetic privation."

On the other hand not all plays were left intact. Alec was able to catch the now famous (some say infamous) Moscow version of Hamlet directed by Nikolai Akimov. Nikolai made a number of changes suited to please the proletarian palette. Since everyone was royalty or lackeys to royalty, the main characters were pictured in an unsympathetic light. There was not only the debauchery of the King and Queen found in Shakespeare's original but the Russian rewrite had Ophelia portrayed as a - ah - "working woman" who drowns - not in madness - but in her cups. Hamlet himself was played as a tubby bourgeoisie and the role was filled not by a dramatic actor but by a well-known Russian comedian.

Even in the music halls - those largely defunct lower echelon theaters - the Soviets had put in their anti-capitalistic and anti-religious message. But Alec found that at least one form of entertainment remained untouched. That was the circus. That this now virtually forgotten genre of entertainment didn't adapt to the Soviet worldview seems odd since antics of clowns have been used for political effect well before our politicians themselves became clowns.

As far as what the Russian society was like, Alec found no share-and-share alike lifestyle had emerged. You could find some people living six to a one-room apartment while others lived singly in fancy dachas and were attended by servants. Of course, the United States was also heavy with slum tenements as well, quite a contrast to the opulent mansions and spacious apartments of Alec and his friends.

Perhaps because Alec didn't give idolatrous praise to the new country, the Russian press was lukewarm toward his visit. Now approaching 250 pounds Alec appeared almost as the stereotypical bloated capitalist. His comments were largely ignored.

On the other hand, Alec loved Japan and not just because of its rich theatrical history. Although Commodore Perry had landed in Japan eighty years before, it was not an easy country to reach. The quickest route was to start at Seattle and then sail for twelve days to Yokohama.

Alec did find some of the customs baffling. When at an inn, the pretty geisha came up with a bottle of sake and removed the stopper. Alec smiled and nodded his head. The young woman then lowered her eyes, replace the stopper, and went away. This was repeated several times, and Alec left without ever having his thirst quenched.

When he complained to his guide, he learned that smiling and nodding was a sign of polite refusal. To get another cup, he should have held it out.

Now they told him.

All in all, though, Alex found the country and its people delightful. He pooh-poohed any suggestion from "wiseacres" (Alec's word) that such a peaceful people were fomenting war. He concluded by saying "I can only hope that if ever there is such a war and we win it, we shall remember that we won it because we were larger, richer,and more numerous, and therefore not feel too proud about it."

We don't know how much later events changed Alex's thinking. But he certainly had no ambiguities regarding National Socialism and its white supremacist philosophy. Alec had always denounced anyone who tried to make compromise or make a "soft" peace with the German government once it began its takeover of Europe. On January 23, 1943, he was on a radio panel show and they were discussing the rise of the Nazis (Hitler had been in power for ten years). During the show Alec suddenly felt ill and after making one additional comment, he remained silent for the rest of the program. He died a few hours later.

Even after reading this brief summary of Alex's life, the reader may still puzzle over Alex's fame. Sure he was a critic, but there were plenty of other critics as well. He was a non-professional actor, but then there are non-professional actors who have performed successfully (Putter Smith, the bassist on the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost that Loving Feeling" played the part of the villainous "Mr. Kidd" in Diamonds are Forever). So just what did Alec do that merited nearly continuous publicity - including an article in Life Magazine about how he lived on an island in Vermont and loved to play croquet?

Alec became famous as a "personality" and the harbinger of the insult comic. People read his reviews less to find out what he said but how he said it. Ultimately what Alec wrote was to bring attention less to the play or book than to himself. Or as Harpo Marx put it, "Woollcott considered that Woollcott was the hub the world revolved around. If he wasn't the center of attraction he was miserable, and when he was miserable, somebody caught hell. He was a diabolical master of the insult. He could slay a victim with one stab of a phrase or a word. Some of his victims became his undying enemies. Others, like me, became undying friends."

References

Alexander Woollcott: His Life and His World, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Reynal and Hitchcock, 1945.

The Man who Came to Dinner: A Comedy in Three Acts, Moss Hart and George Kaufman, Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1968.

"Story of the Week: 'The Man Who Came to Dinner With George Kaufman Directing, Morton Eustis (1905-1944), Library of America, 2012.

"Alexander Woollcott", Spartacus Educational.

"The Man Who Came to Dinner With George Kaufman Directing", Morton Eustis The American Stage: Writing on Theater from Washington Irving to Tony Kushner (Library of America, No. 203), Library of America, 2010

The Man Who Came to Dinner, Internet Broadway Data Base.

Try and Stop Me, Bennett Cerf, Simon and Schuster, 1944

"The Alexander Woollcott Collection", Old Time Radio

"Hamilton To Memorialize Famous Alumnus", Mike Debraggio, Hamilton University, March 30, 2000.

"Harpo Speaks!", Harpo Marx with Rowland Barber, Bernard Geis Associates, 1961.

"The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of The Algonquin Round Table", American Masters, Heywood Hale Broun (Presenter), Public Broadcasting System, November 8, 1988.

"The Vicious Circle: Who's Who of the Algonquin Round Table", John Calhoun, Biography, June 2, 2014.

"New York in the Twenties", The Twentieth Century, Walter Cronkite (Host), Broadcast: April 2, 1961.

"What it was really like at the Algonquin Round Table", Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2014.

"The Great Radio Hoax of 1935", David Pietrusza,davidpietrusza.com

"Life Goes Calling on Alexander Woollcott", Life Magazine, pp. 86-87, October 30, 1939.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Vincent Starrett, MacMillan, Revised Edition, 1960, (Reissue: 1975).

"Vincent Starrett and the 1934 Baker Street Irregulars Dinner", Ray Betzner, vincentstarrett.com, January 3, 2015.

While Rome Burns, Alexander Woollcott, Viking, 1934.

Long, Long Ago, Alexander Woollcott, Viking, 1943.

"Nancy Woollcott Smith, 95, Lived Full Life", (Martha's) Vineyard Gazette, August 5, 2010.

"The Major and the Minor", John Greco, Twenty-Four Frames, 2011.

"Into a Dry Martini", Diane Giddis, The New York Times, July 14, 1994.

"It Seems As If Anything I Like Is Either Illegal, Immoral, or Fattening", Quote Investigator

"All The Things I Really Like To Do Are Either Immoral, Illegal, or Fattening", Barry Popik, The Big Apple Etymological Dictionary, February 18, 2009.

They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions, Paul F. Boller Jr., John George, Oxford University Press, 1990.

Open Library, openlibrary.org.

Internet Archive, archive.org.