Profile of George S. Kaufman on Famous Like Me

George Simon Kaufman (November 16, 1889 - June 2, 1961) was a playwright, director, producer, humorist, and drama critic noted for his many collaborations with other writers and his contributions to 20th century American comedy.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a Jewish family, Kaufman wrote very few plays alone. His most successful solo script was The Butter and Egg Man, 1925. As a collaborator, Kaufman was prolific: 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.

His most successful collaborations were with Moss Hart, with whom he wrote several plays, including Once in a Lifetime, You Can't Take It With You, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1936, and The Man Who Came to Dinner, whose lead character was based on critic and wit Alexander Woollcott. These three plays so solidified Kaufman's reputation as the writer of wise-cracking, carefully structured, commercial comedy, that the diversity and scope of his long career is often overlooked.

Despite his claims that he knew nothing of music, and, in fact, hated it in the theatre, Kaufman collaborated on many musicals. His most successful include The Cocoanuts, written with Irving Berlin for the Marx Brothers, Animal Crackers, also written for the Marx Brothers, with Morrie Ryskind, Bert Kalmar, and Harry Ruby, Of Thee I Sing (Pulitzer Prize 1931), and Let 'Em Eat Cake which had incarnations with Ryskind, Ira Gershwin, and George Gershwin. Although Kaufman skewered the film industry in his plays and prose pieces, he did occasional work for Hollywood, most significantly as a writer of A Night at the Opera for the Marx Brothers.

Kaufman was also a noted director, staging the original productions of The Front Page by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and the Frank Loesser musical Guys and Dolls for which he won the 1951 Best Director Tony Award. Kaufman produced many of his own plays as well as those of other writers.

Kaufman was a key member of the celebrated Algonquin Round Table, a circle of witty writers and show business people. From the 1920's through the 1950's Kaufman was as well known for his personality as he was for his writing. The Moss Hart autobiography Act One portrayed Kaufman as a morose and intimidating figure utterly uncomfortable with any expressions of affection between human beings -- in life or on the page. Despite the fact that Kaufman lived in the public eye alongside celebrities and journalists, he was a tireless worker, dedicated to the writing and rehearsal processes. He was particularly revered within the business as a "play doctor." Late in his life he managed to trade upon his long-developed personna by appearing as a television wag.

Of one unsuccessful comedy he wrote, "There was laughter at the back of the theatre, leading to the belief that someone was telling jokes back there." Even though he was a sometime satirist, he remarked that "Satire is what closes on Saturday night." Much of Kaufman's fame occurred due to his mastery of sharp lines such as these, generally referred to in the press as "wise cracks." However, Kaufman was more than a writer of gags. He created scripts that revealed a mastery of dramatic structure; his characters were likable and theatrically credible.

Kaufman was a pivotal figure in the development of theatrical writing in the 20th century, working with collaborators who were rooted in vaudeville, in musical comedy, in film, in journalism, in prose fiction, in television, in revue, and in the commercial Broadway theatre. Despite his many collaborators, Kaufman's opus has a characteristic voice and tone. His character-driven style of comic dialogue has had lasting influences on theatrical writing in many genres.

He died in New York City in 1961 at the age of seventy-one.

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