George S. Kaufman

George Simon Kaufman (November 16, 1889 – June 2, 1961) was an American playwright, theater director, producer, humorist, and drama critic born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Joseph S. Kaufman, a hatband manufacturer, and Nettie Meyers. He had two sisters, Ruth and Helen. His family was Jewish. After graduating from high school in 1907, Kaufman studied law for three months before abandoning it, subsequently working in silk sales and wholesale ribbon before turning to writing.

His entry into journalism came through contributing humorous material to the column Franklin P. Adams wrote for the New York Mail. Adams helped Kaufman secure his first newspaper position, a humor column at The Washington Times, in 1912. By 1915 Kaufman was working as a drama reporter at The New York Tribune under Heywood Broun, and in 1917 he joined The New York Times as drama editor, a post he held until 1930.

Kaufman made his Broadway debut on September 4, 1918, at the Knickerbocker Theatre with the melodrama Someone in the House, which he coauthored with Walter C. Percival based on a magazine story by Larry Evans. The play ran for 32 performances during that year's influenza epidemic. From 1921 through 1958, every Broadway season included at least one production written or directed by Kaufman. He wrote only one play entirely on his own, The Butter and Egg Man, in 1925. His collaborators over the decades included Marc Connelly, with whom he wrote Merton of the Movies, Dulcy, and Beggar on Horseback; Ring Lardner, with whom he wrote June Moon; and Edna Ferber, with whom he wrote The Royal Family, Dinner at Eight, and Stage Door. With John P. Marquand he adapted Marquand's novel The Late George Apley for the stage, and with Howard Teichmann he wrote The Solid Gold Cadillac. His partnership with Moss Hart produced Once in a Lifetime, in which Kaufman also performed, Merrily We Roll Along, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and You Can't Take It with You.

Among his Broadway credits are The Deep Tangled Wildwood, The Dark, Dinner at Eight, Hollywood Pinafore, and The Fabulous Invalid. Despite his stated aversion to music in the theater, Kaufman collaborated extensively in musical theater. He co-wrote The Cocoanuts with Irving Berlin and Animal Crackers with Morrie Ryskind, Bert Kalmar, and Harry Ruby, both crafted for the Marx Brothers. Groucho and Harpo Marx expressed admiration for Kaufman's ability to write material suited to Groucho's improvisational style, and Dick Cavett, introducing Groucho at Carnegie Hall in 1972, noted that Groucho considered Kaufman to be "his god." During the development of The Cocoanuts in Atlantic City, Irving Berlin sought to include the song "Always" in the production, but Kaufman declined to rework the libretto to accommodate it; the song was cut from the show and later became a major hit recorded by many performers.

Kaufman's interest in political satire led to his collaboration on Of Thee I Sing, written with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin, which won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the first musical to receive that honor. He also worked on the sequel Let 'Em Eat Cake and on Strike Up the Band, with contributions from Ryskind, George Gershwin, and Ira Gershwin. With Moss Hart, Kaufman wrote the book for I'd Rather Be Right, a musical starring George M. Cohan as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. In 1945 he adapted H.M.S. Pinafore into Hollywood Pinafore, which he also directed. He contributed to major New York revues as well, including The Band Wagon with Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, and his sketch "The Still Alarm," from The Little Show, became widely anthologized.

As a director, Kaufman helmed the original or revival productions of numerous plays and musicals, among them The Front Page by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht in 1928, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck in 1937, My Sister Eileen by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov in 1940, and the Frank Loesser musical Guys and Dolls. His direction of Guys and Dolls earned him the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical in 1951. His second Pulitzer Prize for Drama came in 1937 for You Can't Take It with You, written with Moss Hart. Revivals of his work appeared on Broadway in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, and 2010s, following his death on June 2, 1961.