Alexander Woollcott

Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 - January 23, 1943) was a critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine, and a member of the Algonquin Round Table. He was the inspiration for Sheridan Whiteside, the main character in the play The Man Who Came to Dinner by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. His review of the Marx Brothers' Broadway debut, I'll Say She Is, helped launch the team's movie career. For many years he wrote a column called "Shouts and Murmurs" for The New Yorker, as well as being its drama critic. He was, however, frequently criticized for his ornate, florid style of writing and, in contrast to his contemporaries James Thurber and S.J. Perelman, he is little read today.

Related Topics:
January 19 - 1887 - January 23 - 1943 - The New Yorker - Algonquin Round Table - The Man Who Came to Dinner - George S. Kaufman - Moss Hart - Marx Brothers - Broadway - I'll Say She Is - Movie - James Thurber - S.J. Perelman

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Wolcott Gibbs, who often edited Woollcott's work at The New Yorker, was quoted in Thurber's book The Years with Ross as saying: "'Shouts and Murmurs' was about the strangest copy I ever edited. You could take every other sentence out without changing the sense a particle. Whole department, in fact, often had no more substance than a Talk anecdote. I guess he was one of the most dreadful writers who ever existed."

Related Topics:
Wolcott Gibbs - Talk [of the Town

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He was also known for his occasionally savage wit. He once said about another contemporary wit and piano player: "There is absolutely nothing wrong with Oscar Levant that a miracle can't fix."

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Woollcott graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and is fondly remembered there. In his early twenties he contracted the mumps, which left him mostly, if not completely, impotent. He never married or had children, although he had a large number of female friends.

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Woollcott called for normalization of U.S.-Soviet relations. He was a friend of reporter Walter Duranty and Soviet foreign minister Maxim Litvinov, and traveled to the U.S.S.R. in the 1930s.

Related Topics:
U.S. - Soviet - Relations - Walter Duranty - Maxim Litvinov - 1930s

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Towards the end of Woollcott's life he semi-retired to an island he had purchased on Lake Bomoseen in Vermont. He died in New York while participating in a 1943 radio program on the war in Europe, one of the few people in broadcast history to die while "on the air".

Related Topics:
Lake Bomoseen - Vermont - New York - The war in Europe

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