George S. Kaufman Biography Quotes 9 Report mistakes

Early Life and First Steps in Writing
George Simon Kaufman was born in 1889 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and came of age at a moment when American newspapers and Broadway theaters were growing in power and reach. He began as a journalist, and the rhythms of the newsroom shaped his compressed, incisive prose. Moving to New York, he became a drama critic for the New York Times, where his clear-eyed wit earned respect from actors and producers even as his reviews could be cutting. The critic's desk sharpened his sense of what worked on a stage. That knowledge, combined with an ear for American idioms and civic pomposity, soon drew him into playwriting, where he proved unusually adept at collaboration.

Broadway Breakthroughs and Early Collaborations
Kaufman's early Broadway successes were built with collaborators who became lifelong friends. With Marc Connelly he wrote Dulcy (1921), Merton of the Movies (1922), and Beggar on Horseback (1924), comedies that mixed satire with a brisk theatricality. Working solo he wrote The Butter and Egg Man (1925), a backstage comedy whose title entered the language as shorthand for a naive investor. He showed a particular knack for shaping material for brilliant performers; his book for the Marx Brothers vehicle The Cocoanuts (1925) set the tone for their chaotic stage anarchy, and Animal Crackers (1928), written with Morrie Ryskind, refined it for a new audience.

Satire, Politics, and the American Stage
A defining thread in Kaufman's career was political and social satire. With Morrie Ryskind and the Gershwin brothers he co-wrote Of Thee I Sing (1931), a gleeful send-up of American electoral politics that became the first musical to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The same team returned with Let 'Em Eat Cake (1933), continuing the tale in sharper, darker tones. His partnership with Edna Ferber produced a series of comedies of manners that scrutinized theatrical and social pretensions: The Royal Family (1927), inspired by the celebrated Barrymore clan; Dinner at Eight (1932), a mosaic of desperate aspiration during the early years of the Depression; and Stage Door (1936), a portrait of young actresses chasing success.

Moss Hart and the Craft of Collaboration
Kaufman's most famous creative partnership was with Moss Hart. They pioneered a rigorous method of tryouts, relentless rewriting, and structural clarity that defined Broadway craftsmanship in the 1930s. Once in a Lifetime (1930) lampooned Hollywood's early talkies. You Can't Take It with You (1936), a genial but pointed comedy about an eccentric household and the pressures of business, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and has remained a repertory staple. The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), whose acerbic central figure was modeled in part on their friend Alexander Woollcott, blended celebrity satire with tight farce. George Washington Slept Here (1940) extended their comic reach into domestic misadventure. Hart and Kaufman complemented each other: Hart's exuberant storytelling and Kaufman's exacting taste for structure and rhythm produced work that felt both spontaneous and precise.

Hollywood, the Marx Brothers, and Screen Work
As Broadway material moved to film, Kaufman's skills were in demand. He contributed to screen projects for the Marx Brothers, bringing order to on-screen chaos without dulling its energy. His knack for plot scaffolding made him valuable in Hollywood writers' rooms where many hands shaped a script. Even then, he remained primarily a man of the stage, preferring the live exchange between performers and an audience to studio systems.

Direction, Discipline, and the Postwar Stage
Kaufman's influence extended beyond writing to direction. He was renowned for precise rehearsal habits and a cool, analytical presence in the theater. In the postwar years he directed Guys and Dolls, guiding Frank Loesser's score and a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows to a landmark Broadway success and earning a Tony Award for his direction. He helped younger writers and performers understand that comedy required orchestration: entrances, pauses, and exits mattered as much as lines. His sets and staging favored clarity, letting the text and actors carry the wit.

The Algonquin Circle and Literary Company
Kaufman moved within the celebrated Algonquin Round Table, a gathering of New York writers and wits that included Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Marc Connelly, and Alexander Woollcott. The group's public repartee tended to overshadow the labor behind the jokes, but Kaufman's presence there underscored his reputation for dry precision. He valued brevity and detested sloppy sentiment, a temperament that served him equally as critic, playwright, and director. Colleagues like Edna Ferber and Ring Lardner found in him a partner who could pare a scene to its essentials without draining it of feeling.

Methods, Themes, and Reputation
Kaufman wrote plays as systems of cause and effect, carefully arranged so that each laugh also deepened the characters' predicament. He favored satire of pretension and power, whether on Wall Street, in Washington, or in the theater itself. He distrusted easy cynicism, preferring irony that kept faith with human fallibility. Famous for astringent quips, he also understood the buoyancy of ensemble comedy. His best work balanced acid and warmth, letting audiences recognize themselves in the absurdities of family, business, and public life.

Personal Life
Kaufman's circle included not only collaborators but intimate companions who shared his devotion to words and performance. He married Beatrice Kaufman, a writer and editor who moved easily among New York's literary set, and later married the actress and writer Leueen MacGrath. He had a daughter, Anne, and maintained friendships with artists he had shepherded through rehearsals and tryouts. He guarded his privacy, letting the work rather than his personal affairs speak for him.

Legacy
George S. Kaufman died in 1961, having helped define American stage comedy across four decades. His plays with Moss Hart continue to be revived; his collaborations with Edna Ferber remain touchstones for elegant, character-driven satire; and the shows he helped shape for the Marx Brothers still model the art of orchestrated anarchy. Writers and directors who never met him work in a theater he helped build, one that prizes structure and speed, verbal clarity and ensemble timing. He left behind not a single signature style but a standard of craftsmanship: an insistence that comedy be made with the same seriousness and discipline as any other art. In that sense, his influence persists every time an audience laughs at a line that lands exactly where it should.

Our collection contains 9 quotes who is written by George, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Puns & Wordplay - Doctor.

Other people realated to George: Christopher Morley (Author), Franklin P. Adams (Journalist), Edna Ferber (Novelist), Harpo Marx (Comedian), Ira Gershwin (Musician), Mary Astor (Actress), Robert E. Sherwood (Playwright), Franklin Pierce Adams (Writer)