Gluyas Williams's drawings illustrated—and highlighted—many
of Robert Benchley's books of short stories.
espite
his alleged confusion, Robert Benchley (1889-1945):
wrote and acted in the first all-talking film ("The
Treasurer's Report," Fox-Movietone, 1928)
in
17 years, wrote and starred in 48 short films, winning the
1935 Academy Award for M-G-M's "How To Sleep"
wrote
and acted in 38 feature films and wrote partial scripts
or dialogue for dozens of others
starred
on his own radio show for three years (1938-1940) with Artie
Shaw as his bandleader
was
a frequent guest artist on other radio shows, such as "Amos
'n' Andy" and The Fred Allen Show and recorded a classic
version (Thurber's avowed favorite) of James Thurber's "The
Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
in
the late 1930s was writing three syndicated magazine columns
simultaneously, while making films
published
73 "Wayward Press" (criticism) columns for The
New Yorker under the pseudonym "Guy Fawkes," 1927-1939
from
1920-1929 was the weekly drama critic for Life magazine
was
the regular drama critic for The New Yorker from 1929-1940
published
12 books of short stories in 21 years (three more were published
posthumously)
published
more than 600 stories in various magazines (and had several
hundred others which were not published until long after
his death).
And
this from a man who claimed to be professionally lazy!
“We
must be careful of what we eat. We must eat a balanced diet.
By a balanced diet I mean no bread, no butter, no potatoes,
no meat, no vegetables, no solid food—just a handful
of old lettuce now and then or a few dried beans is all
we’d better try to take care of.”
Review of biography (starring Jennifer Jason Leigh)
of the disastrous love life of writer Dorothy Parker,
surrounded by wise-cracking literary friends at the
Algonquin Round Table in the 1920's.
espite
his alleged confusion, Robert Benchley (1889-1945):
