King George

George S. Kaufman was born 130 years ago today.  He was probably the most popular playwright in America in between the wars.  Certainly the most popular comic playwright.

He was odd in that, though a great wit on his own, he needed collaborators.  The only notable play he wrote alone is The Butter And Egg Man.  And it's pretty good, so it makes you wonder.

His earliest successful collaboration was with Marc Connelly, with whom he wrote Dulcy, Merton Of The Movies and Beggar On Horseback. Another highly successful collaboration was with novelist Edna Ferber, and it included such hits as The Royal Family, Dinner At Eight and Stage Door.

But his most successful collaboration has to be with Moss Hart, with whom he wrote Once In A Lifetime, You Can't Take It With You (for which they won the Pulitzer) and The Man Who Came To Dinner.

He's also known as the man who wrote for the Marx Brothers.  The team had developed their characters in Vaudeville and on Broadway, but Kaufman wrote (with Morrie Ryskind) the books for two of their Broadway shows, The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers--the shows that became their first two movies.  He also wrote (again with Ryskind) the screenplay to A Night At The Opera, one of the team's best films.  Kaufman probably did more to sharpen and define their characters than anyone other than the brothers themselves.

In general he had success in musicals and revues, even though he wasn't particularly fond of music.  He wrote shows with, among other, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers and George Gershwin (with the last he did Of Thee I Sing, which won a Pulitzer). He also often directed shows (and even acted--he played a major role in his first hit with Hart, Once In A Lifetime).

He was a reliable hitmaker in the 1920s and 1930s, but for some reason in the next two decades he never had quite the same success as a playwright.  He had the odd hit, such as The Solid Gold Cadillac (1953) written with Howard Teichmann, but most of his new shows flopped.  However, he still found success as a director, most notably his Tony-winning work on the original production of Guys And Dolls (1950).

He died in 1961.  His work continued to be revived on Broadway (mostly the stuff with Hart, though occasionally the stuff with Ferber), but his name isn't as well remembered as Broadway's top dramatists during his lifetime, such as O'Neill, Miller and Williams.

Perhaps, before too long, he'll be forgotten.  But at least he had his moment to shine.  And if you can't see his plays, you can still read them.