Robert E. Sherwood
Robert E. Sherwood | |
---|---|
Pulitzer Prize for Biography (1948) | |
Spouse | Mary Brandon (m.1922–div.1934) Madeline Hurlock (m.1935) |
Robert Emmet Sherwood (April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter.
He is the author of Waterloo Bridge, Idiot's Delight, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Rebecca, There Shall Be No Night, The Best Years of Our Lives and The Bishop's Wife.
He received
Early life and family
Born in 1896 in
He fought with the
Writing career
Sherwood was one of the original members of the Algonquin Round Table. He was close friends with Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, who were on the staff of Vanity Fair with Sherwood when the Round Table began meeting in 1919. Author Edna Ferber was also a good friend. Sherwood stood 6 feet 8 inches (2.03 m) tall. Dorothy Parker, who was 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m), once commented that when she, Sherwood, and Robert Benchley (6 feet (1.8 m)) walked down the street together, they resembled "a walking pipe organ." When asked at a party how long he had known Sherwood, Benchley stood on a chair, raised his hand to the ceiling, and said "I knew Bob Sherwood back when he was only this tall."[4]
In 1949, comedian Groucho Marx also commented about Sherwood's height during a filmed radio broadcast of the quiz show You Bet Your Life. Groucho, who hosted the popular series, interviewed in one episode American football player Howard Scala, a member of the NFL's Green Bay Packers. Impressed by Scala's own considerable height, Marx shared the following anecdote with the show's audience:
Reminds me of Bob Sherwood, the playwright, he's an old friend of mine; and he's six-foot-five and very thin. I said to him one day 'Bob, what do you say to people when they ask you how the weather is up there?' He said 'I spit in their eye and tell ‘em it's raining.'[5][6]
Sherwood's first Broadway play,
Sherwood was actively engaged with the advocacy for writers' rights within the theatre world. From 1937 to 1939, Sherwood served as the seventh president of the Dramatists Guild of America.
Sherwood's Broadway success soon attracted the attention of Hollywood; he began writing for movies in 1926. While some of his work went uncredited, his films included many adaptations of his plays. He also collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock and Joan Harrison in writing the screenplay for Rebecca (1940).
With Europe in the midst of World War II, Sherwood set aside his anti-war stance to support the fight against the
During this period Sherwood also served as a speechwriter for President
After serving as director of the Overseas Branch of the
Death and legacy
Sherwood died of a heart attack in New York City in 1955. A production of Small War on Murray Hill, his final work, debuted on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on January 3, 1957.[15]
Sherwood was portrayed by actor Nick Cassavetes in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, a 1994 movie about the Algonquin Round Table.[16]
Plays
- The Road to Rome (1927)
- The Love Nest (1927)
- The Queen's Husband (1928), adapted into the 1931 film The Royal Bed
- Waterloo Bridge (1930), adapted into two American films and two Brazilian soap-operas
- This Is New York (1930), adapted into the 1932 film Two Kinds of Women
- Reunion in Vienna (1931), adapted into a 1933 film
- Acropolis (1933)
- Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart
- Tovarich (1935), from a French comedy by Jacques Deval, adapted into a 1937 film and a 1963 musical with Vivien Leigh and Jean Pierre Aumont
- Idiot's Delight (1936), Pulitzer Prize for Drama, adapted into a 1939 film
- Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1938), Pulitzer Prize for Drama, adapted into a 1940 film
- There Shall Be No Night (1940), Pulitzer Prize for Drama
- The Rugged Path (1945), starring Spencer Tracy
- Miss Liberty (1949), book for Irving Berlin musical
- Small War on Murray Hill (1957), produced posthumously
Nonfiction
- Sherwood, Robert E. (1948). Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (First ed.). New York: Harper. OCLC 908375. 1949 Pulitzer Prize (Biography)
- Sherwood, Robert E. (1923). The Best Moving Pictures of 1922-1923, Also Who's Who in the Movies and the Yearbook of the American Screen (First ed.). Boston: Small, Maynard & Company.
References
- ^ "Robert E. Sherwood Biography - eNotes.com". eNotes. Retrieved 12 January 2019.
- ISBN 9783110955743. Retrieved 2015-05-15.
- ^ "Robert E. Sherwood - Writer - Films as Writer:, Publications". www.filmreference.com.
- ISBN 0762770104.
- Alphabet, Inc., Mountain View, California. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
- ^ Groucho Marx in his anecdote understated Sherwood's true height, which more reliable sources cite was between six feet seven inches and six feet eight inches.
- ^ Meserve, Walter J. (1970). Robert E. Sherwood: Reluctant Moralist. New York: Pegasus. p. 14.
- ^ "The Paley Center for Media". paleycenter.org. Retrieved 2015-05-15.
- ^ "Calls Lindbergh 'a Nazi'". The New York Times. Retrieved Jan 10, 2020.
- ^ "ROOSEVELT AND HOPKINS AN INTIMATE HISTORY". THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY. Jan 10, 1948. Retrieved Jan 10, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
- ISBN 978-1-55849-619-4
- ^ Gould, Jack (May 12, 1940). The Broadway Stage Has Its First War Play. The New York Times. Quoting Robert Emmet Sherwood, "this country is already, in effect, an arsenal for the democratic Allies."
- ^ "OWI Dispute Ended With Davis Ousting 3 Sherwood Aides". The New York Times. February 8, 1944.
- ^ Alonso (2007), p.143.
- ^ Small War on Murray Hill by Robert E. Sherwood, Playbill, January 3–12, 1957, cast and production details; Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, New York. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
- ^ "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)", overview with synopsis as well as cast and crew listings, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Turner Broadcasting System, a subsidiary of Time Warner, Inc., New York, New York. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
External links
- Robert E. Sherwood papers, 1917-1968. Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Works by Robert Emmet Sherwood at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by Robert E. Sherwood at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Robert E. Sherwood at the Internet Broadway Database
- Robert E. Sherwood at IMDb