The Theatre: Past Master

(4 of 5)

Kaufman traveled to the Times, where for the next 13 years—years that made him wealthy and famous—he remained, at a very unimportant salary, as dramatic editor. To a worrisome man who never felt secure, the job was a backlog; to an easily bored one, it was an excuse for leaving dull dinner-parties early. As dramatic editor, Kaufman left his mark. Before his time, Manhattan's dramatic pages were stodgy affairs, choked with publicity handouts. Kaufman tabooed these "dog stories," brought a light touch—which has become standard—to the writing of copy. When an underling became ponderous by introducing into his stories fancy footnotes requiring asterisks, daggers and signs of the zodiac, Kaufman cured him by throwing in a footnote of his own, reading: "Does not carry dining car."

Thanatopsis. When Kaufman & Connelly hit the limelight with Dulcy in 1921, it was as more than rising young playwrights. They were part of a group which, by virtue of talent, wit and hobnobbing together, was coming to dominate the sophisticated Manhattan scene. Their lunch club, the Algonquin Hotel, had waked up one morning to find itself famous, and celebrity-chasers flocked there, as to a play, to observe Kaufman. Connelly, Broun, Woollcott, Benchley, Dorothy Parker, F.P.A. & Co. at lunch, and to hear their laughter, though not what gave rise to it. The male members enhanced their glamor by forming the Thanatopsis Literary and Inside Straight Club, whose legendary sessions, devoted to poker and wisecracks, F.P.A. reported in his column.

The Algonquin's Round Table perished years ago, but it bequeathed Kaufman, Benchley and Dorothy Parker as the town's great wits. Kaufman has proved almost as much of a spout offstage as on. His puns are endless: "One man's Mede is another man's Persian" or (of a college girl who eloped) "She put the heart before the course." So are his retorts discourteous. When Adolph Zukor, then president of Paramount, offered Kaufman $30,000 for movie rights on a play, Kaufman, who thought the rights worth much more, replied: "I guess not. But I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll give you $40,000 for Paramount." So are his crazy cracks. A high-pressure salesman trying to sell Kaufman some goldmine stock spieled dramatically: "You can shovel the gold right off the ground into wheelbarrows." "What!" exclaimed Kaufman. "You have to stoop for it?"

Twists. Like most wits, Kaufman cracks his jokes with a dead pan, goes through life with a mournful one. Rangy and restless, hard to know, harder to understand, always blunt, often brusque, occasionally brutal, he is completely free from affectations but bulging with quirks. He is frightened of growing old, or being considered rich, or losing his hair. He forms friendships slowly, feels he has few friends. He talks to himself, makes strange faces, nods his head —a woman who sat opposite his desk at the Times for a long time wondered why he was always graciously bowing to her.