The Man Who Came to Dinner, Program Notes
Harpo Marx said his best friend, Alexander Woollcott, looked like something that got loose from the Macy's Parade. Noel Coward called him a “caged cobra”. The real-life model for The Man Who Came to Dinner, Alexander Woollcott (1887-1943), was a critic who invited and delivered mockery. Nicknamed Aleck, his caustic wit as one of The New York Times most prolific drama and book reviewers attracted and repelled America between the World Wars. He was charming, demanding, charitable, and wholly insufferable. "He has seven or eight hundred intimate friends," Dorothy Parker said of him, "with all of whom he converses only in terms of atrocious insult." From 1929 to 1934 Woollcott wrote the “Shouts and Murmurs” column for The New Yorker. Moving to radio, his CBS show, The Town Crier, began a 5 year run on July 21, 1933. The nation listened to Woollcott's literary observations and acid anecdotes, sponsored by Cream of Wheat.
One of the most-quoted men of his generation, he famously described Los Angeles as "Seven suburbs in search of a city"; and once published a one-word theatrical review: "Ouch." He helped found the famed Algonquin Round Table, and yearned to be as creative as the people who sat at it with him. He co-wrote two Broadway shows with George S. Kaufman and tried his hand at acting on stage and film. In 1939 Moss Hart and Kaufman, at Woollcott's insistence, wrote The Man Who Came to Dinner for and about him. Monty Woolley played Sheridan Whiteside on Broadway and in the 1941 film version, but Woollcott played him on tour to some success.
In poor health, Woollcott semi-retired to an island on Lake Bomoseen in Vermont. There on January 23, 1943, he collapsed of a heart attack during an on-air panel discussion on the CBS radio program The People's Platform. He died a few hours later, aged 56.
He was buried at his alma mater, Hamilton College, after some confusion. The ashes were mistakenly sent to Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. When the error was discovered and the ashes were forwarded to Hamilton College, they arrived with 67¢ postage due.
Like the hero of The Man Who Came to Dinner, Kaufman and Hart’s comedies display a unique combination of bite and heart, innocence and ruthlessness. That tension takes them out of the realm of escapist entertainment. Truth is separated from cant, and served up as sustenance for persevering in the world around us.
“Woollccott considered Woollcott the hub the world revolved around. If he wasn’t the center of attention he was miserable, and…somebody caught hell. He was a diabolical master of the insult…Some of his victims became his undying enemies. Others, like me, became undying friends.” -Harpo Marx
