The Theatre: Past Master

(3 of 5)

He loves directing, though he belittles it as "a lot of over-rated goings-on." His ability to keep things moving and get every last chuckle out of a funny line is based on pounding away tirelessly at details, and on an infallible ear for the rhythm of conversation. He will rehearse a play for 15 minutes without looking at the stage, only listening to the dialogue. Suddenly he will call a halt, take out one word which interrupts the flow. No actor has ever managed to ad-lib even a syllable into his lines without Kaufman's spotting it.

Take. As a playwright, Kaufman has been the biggest money-maker in the contemporary U. S. theatre. His share in his movie sales alone comes close to $400,000. His biggest hit, You Can't Take It With You, grossed around $2,000,000 in Manhattan and on tour, showed almost $1,000,000 clear profit. Since Kaufman has a cut in his shows as well as royalties from them, he has made a small fortune on hit after hit. There have been lean seasons, even bad ones. But in a big year he makes easily $250,000.

Broadway is a gold mine for Kaufman, but he never rests on his ores. He is just as apt to start thinking up a new play when he has a smash hit as when he has a flop. A friend has said that if Kaufman isn't a millionaire, he'll do until one comes along; but Kaufman may not be altogether fooling when he insists that constant work is something of a financial necessity. A generous man, he has never worshipped at the shrine of Compound Interest. "All I know," he once said, "is that I have earned a great deal of money and I haven't got any of it. If I don't get a hit each year I am in a damned bad way."

Travels. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh of a middle-class Jewish family who "managed to get in on every business as it was finishing, and made a total of $4 among them." After leaving high school, George started studying law because it seemed a good way to put off working for several years. But after three months he quit, because he couldn't make heads or tails of it all.

Then the family moved to Paterson, N. J. Having no idea where Paterson was, Kaufman was delighted to find it within commuting distance of New York. He was soon commuting regularly—to work in a hatband factory. He also began contributing to F.P.A.'s column in the old Evening Mail. Eventually F.P.A. invited him to lunch, disillusioned him as to what writers looked like, but found a job for him on the Washington Times. When he lost that, Adams got him another on the New York Tribune. Later he became a dramatic reporter on the Tribune, when Heywood Broun was dramatic critic. Broun—who wanted to work at something else—in "a burst of bad judgment" lent his job to Kaufman. After reading Kaufman's reviews, Broun took the job back.