Word: one
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...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...
Working with Kaufman means working with a perfectionist. Hart called their first job together "The Days of the Terror." The daily schedule was from 10 a. m. "until exhausted," which meant until starved as well, since Kaufman cares nothing for food. They would spend two hours shaping one short sentence, a whole day discussing an exit. Kaufman's working habits are notorious. "In the throes of composition," Collaborator Alexander Woollcott once said, "he seems to crawl up the walls of the apartment in the manner of the late Count Dracula...
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...
...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...
...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...