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Alexander Woollcott: His Life and His World
...
- GenresBiography
388 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1945
About the author
Samuel Hopkins Adams
158 books8 followersFrom the book jacket of "Sunrise to Sunset", (c) 1950
At seventy-nine Samuel Hopkins Adams attributes his longevity, vigor and vim to neither smoking nor drinking, except when he feels like it. This is typical of the intelligent attitude toward the vagaries of life that has maintained him through the years in which he has authored more than forty books, written countless magazine articles and, as a crusading reporter, almost single-handedly accounted for the passage of the Federal Food and Drug laws which pave protected millions of his fellow citizens.
Mr. Adams' amazing knowledge of the history of upper New York State is the result of his lifelong interest in the region in which he was born. His home is Wide Waters, on the shore of Owasco, "loveliest of the Finger Lakes." From Wide Waters he still makes forways into the surrounding countryside, attending antique-auction sales "for the purpose of sneering at the prevalent junk," which he says he wouldn't put in his open hearth Franklin stove for fear of insulting it.
A graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, class of 1891, Mr. Adams introduced football to the campus, played tackle on its first team, and won the Intercollegiate Tennis Championship. For these contributions to scholarship, his college conferred on him the degree of L.H.D. in 1926.
Adams also wrote under the pseudonym Warner Fabian.
At seventy-nine Samuel Hopkins Adams attributes his longevity, vigor and vim to neither smoking nor drinking, except when he feels like it. This is typical of the intelligent attitude toward the vagaries of life that has maintained him through the years in which he has authored more than forty books, written countless magazine articles and, as a crusading reporter, almost single-handedly accounted for the passage of the Federal Food and Drug laws which pave protected millions of his fellow citizens.
Mr. Adams' amazing knowledge of the history of upper New York State is the result of his lifelong interest in the region in which he was born. His home is Wide Waters, on the shore of Owasco, "loveliest of the Finger Lakes." From Wide Waters he still makes forways into the surrounding countryside, attending antique-auction sales "for the purpose of sneering at the prevalent junk," which he says he wouldn't put in his open hearth Franklin stove for fear of insulting it.
A graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, class of 1891, Mr. Adams introduced football to the campus, played tackle on its first team, and won the Intercollegiate Tennis Championship. For these contributions to scholarship, his college conferred on him the degree of L.H.D. in 1926.
Adams also wrote under the pseudonym Warner Fabian.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 17, 2013
An interesting read. This is a biography of Alexander Woollcott by an acquaintance--who helped him get his start in journalism--but not a fan. Adams often resorts to the least charitable interpretations (though he does absolve him of being homosexual (!))), but it is clear there is also great fondness, if only because he undertook this biography. The book is almost novelistic at times--which raises questions about the research, especially since there are no citations and conversations are recorded as though exact--and insightful, if also a bit repetitive.
Woollcott was born in 1887 to a family that lived in a Fourier-inflected commune. His parents moved the family to Kansas and then Germantown, PA, and Woollcott eventually matriculated at Hamilton College in New York, a poor school but one he had a fondness for. (He visited China in 1931 on the strength of an alumnus connection; he had his ashes interred here.) The commune eschewed formal education, but Woollcott was well learned in several languages there. Hopkins thinks that the environment effected him in other ways: “The principles, practices, and social status of the Phalanx powerfully affected Alexander Woollcott’s character, particularly upon the emotional side. He breathed in nonconformity with the soft air of his first habitat. Throughout his life he was a hot and often unreasoning partisan of the underdog, a passionate supporter of minority rights, a devoted crusader for free speech and independent thought." (p. 26; also 96).
His time in school was difficult. Woollcott was very feminine, but also more than willing to brave schoolyard fights. He loved being in plays, including acting female parts. There was some suggestion of his being homosexual, but that was put to rest when he had an affair with a married woman (and was beaten for it). This part o the biography made me think of Carl Sandburg saying that Abraham Lincoln had a touch of the lavender about him. Throughout his life he would fall "in love" with women, but rarely had sustained relationships, and never married or had children. One wonders what a modern day biographer would make of this sexual confusion.
Woollcott also loved journalism, and Adams, also a Hamilton alum, though older than Woollcott, got him a job with the _Times._ This was cut short by a case of the mumps, but Woollcott bounced back and spent the rest of his life in journalism, as a drama critic, book reviewer, and essayist writing for a variety of New York publications.
The other interruption to his career was World War I. He was a dedicated supporter of the Allies and though physically prevented from becoming a soldier was a hospital worker for the AEF before being transferred to work on the American wartime newspaper, Stars and Stripes, where he met other future journalists, including Harold Ross, who would be a friend and publish him in the New Yorker.
Woollcott hit his stride in the mid-1920s. In addition to his writing, he was a well-known member of the Algonquin Table. He made a lot of money. and lived a very large life. He became notably corpulent. Woollcott could be mean and cutting, but he did not intend injury: he was interested in the turn of the phrase. I cannot help think of him as an a proto-example of what Susan Sontag described as a camp persona. Adams writes, “Aleck’s enduring friends--I use the term in its double sense--bore with him out of tolerance, compromise, or kindly understanding of a character that had its elements of tragedy. They realized that there was a deep-seated reason for these outbreaks; that he suffered from an inner exasperation, constantly if secretly inflamed by the ineluctable sense of his inadequacy.”(225) Woollcott was a great writer, but with nothing in particular to say.
The narrative does not dwell on the point, but it is hard to resist the interpretation that Woollcott hated himself--perhaps because of his sexuality, perhaps for some other reason--and so created a caricature to overcome that hatred. He made himself a vehicle for attack. (On one occasion he confronted a group exasperated by waiting with the announcement, “I have just had the most magnificent bowel movement.” (168) He picked fights with friends--at one point Ross disowned him, though Booth Tarkington never did: “It was not for lack of conscientious endeavor on Woollcott’s part that his friendship with Booth Tarkington did not come to ruin over political difference; against the novelist’s imperturbable good humor, the younger man’s savage thrusts were impotent.” (208). He resigned from positions on the slightest offense, only to come simpering back. A friend diagnosed him well: “What began as a defense mechanism led to the invention of the almost wholly artificial character, Alexander Woollcott, persistently enacted before the world until it became a profitable investment." (168). Some called him a Gila Monster.
Against this relatively negative assessment is set his greta generosity; Woollcott never really cared for money. He shrugged at his losses in the Great Crash of 1929 and went on to become maybe the highest paid book reviewer (He was paid 2,500 for each issue of _McCall's_). He supported Seeing Eye--the charity that supplied dogs for the blind--both because he was worried about blindness--especially Tarkington's flirtation--and loved dogs--particularly poodles, a love sparked by Tarkington and shared with many other writers of the time, He threw himself into the war effort as World War II approached, Woollcott had pacifist--and generally leftish--leanings--but thought that the war would bring the best chance for perpetual peace. (He got in trouble once for supporting the ACLU during a sponsored talk on the radio.) He evangelized his enthusiasms--among them Charles Fort; Adams has it that, “the prime virtue of Alexander Woollcott’s method method lies in its informing personality and pervasive friendliness.” (251) But while it seemed personal, there was a method: “Yet, though the Woollcott practice may seem casual, almost careless, the results were generally happy; the finished product, which appeared to be generated so effortlessly, was thoughtfully constructed, uniformly readable, and often brilliant. This was due largely to his prodigious if not always reliable memory, which enabled him to hold all his data in solution ready for use; partly to his newspaper regimen when he must work under the imminence of the deadline.” (249).
His writing career was recurrently interrupted by a love for acting--Adams thinks he preferred the immediate gratification--and resurrected by radio. “Radio saved Alexander Woollcott. High grade though his literary wares were, they were becoming shopworn. He had rung the interminable changes upon his stock subjects; his friends, his dogs, hi mysteries, his favorite murders, his war experiences; in newspapers, in magazines, between book covers, on the lecture platform. It was done with inimitable art and wit, with infinite adroitness. But it was done too often. Editors were becoming restive.”
Woollcott eventually moved out of New York, looking for a place to conquer, and ended up on an island off of Vermont, where he continued his lordly lifestyle. Towards the end of his life, his body started to break down, but he continued to live as he always had--trapped, I guess, by the prison he had built--and despite doctor's orders travelled to England to rally support for the War. Back in America, doing a radio broadcast, he suffered a stroke, and died later that day.
The book is eloquent, though dwells too much on Woollcott's negatives. This may be because of the times--it was an attempted correction of the legend, Today, oddly, Woollcott is known as one of the original collectors of urban legends, but this book dismisses this work as an anomalous love of 'mysteries."
In the end, my conclusion would be, insightful but, at least from today's perspective, limited.
Woollcott was born in 1887 to a family that lived in a Fourier-inflected commune. His parents moved the family to Kansas and then Germantown, PA, and Woollcott eventually matriculated at Hamilton College in New York, a poor school but one he had a fondness for. (He visited China in 1931 on the strength of an alumnus connection; he had his ashes interred here.) The commune eschewed formal education, but Woollcott was well learned in several languages there. Hopkins thinks that the environment effected him in other ways: “The principles, practices, and social status of the Phalanx powerfully affected Alexander Woollcott’s character, particularly upon the emotional side. He breathed in nonconformity with the soft air of his first habitat. Throughout his life he was a hot and often unreasoning partisan of the underdog, a passionate supporter of minority rights, a devoted crusader for free speech and independent thought." (p. 26; also 96).
His time in school was difficult. Woollcott was very feminine, but also more than willing to brave schoolyard fights. He loved being in plays, including acting female parts. There was some suggestion of his being homosexual, but that was put to rest when he had an affair with a married woman (and was beaten for it). This part o the biography made me think of Carl Sandburg saying that Abraham Lincoln had a touch of the lavender about him. Throughout his life he would fall "in love" with women, but rarely had sustained relationships, and never married or had children. One wonders what a modern day biographer would make of this sexual confusion.
Woollcott also loved journalism, and Adams, also a Hamilton alum, though older than Woollcott, got him a job with the _Times._ This was cut short by a case of the mumps, but Woollcott bounced back and spent the rest of his life in journalism, as a drama critic, book reviewer, and essayist writing for a variety of New York publications.
The other interruption to his career was World War I. He was a dedicated supporter of the Allies and though physically prevented from becoming a soldier was a hospital worker for the AEF before being transferred to work on the American wartime newspaper, Stars and Stripes, where he met other future journalists, including Harold Ross, who would be a friend and publish him in the New Yorker.
Woollcott hit his stride in the mid-1920s. In addition to his writing, he was a well-known member of the Algonquin Table. He made a lot of money. and lived a very large life. He became notably corpulent. Woollcott could be mean and cutting, but he did not intend injury: he was interested in the turn of the phrase. I cannot help think of him as an a proto-example of what Susan Sontag described as a camp persona. Adams writes, “Aleck’s enduring friends--I use the term in its double sense--bore with him out of tolerance, compromise, or kindly understanding of a character that had its elements of tragedy. They realized that there was a deep-seated reason for these outbreaks; that he suffered from an inner exasperation, constantly if secretly inflamed by the ineluctable sense of his inadequacy.”(225) Woollcott was a great writer, but with nothing in particular to say.
The narrative does not dwell on the point, but it is hard to resist the interpretation that Woollcott hated himself--perhaps because of his sexuality, perhaps for some other reason--and so created a caricature to overcome that hatred. He made himself a vehicle for attack. (On one occasion he confronted a group exasperated by waiting with the announcement, “I have just had the most magnificent bowel movement.” (168) He picked fights with friends--at one point Ross disowned him, though Booth Tarkington never did: “It was not for lack of conscientious endeavor on Woollcott’s part that his friendship with Booth Tarkington did not come to ruin over political difference; against the novelist’s imperturbable good humor, the younger man’s savage thrusts were impotent.” (208). He resigned from positions on the slightest offense, only to come simpering back. A friend diagnosed him well: “What began as a defense mechanism led to the invention of the almost wholly artificial character, Alexander Woollcott, persistently enacted before the world until it became a profitable investment." (168). Some called him a Gila Monster.
Against this relatively negative assessment is set his greta generosity; Woollcott never really cared for money. He shrugged at his losses in the Great Crash of 1929 and went on to become maybe the highest paid book reviewer (He was paid 2,500 for each issue of _McCall's_). He supported Seeing Eye--the charity that supplied dogs for the blind--both because he was worried about blindness--especially Tarkington's flirtation--and loved dogs--particularly poodles, a love sparked by Tarkington and shared with many other writers of the time, He threw himself into the war effort as World War II approached, Woollcott had pacifist--and generally leftish--leanings--but thought that the war would bring the best chance for perpetual peace. (He got in trouble once for supporting the ACLU during a sponsored talk on the radio.) He evangelized his enthusiasms--among them Charles Fort; Adams has it that, “the prime virtue of Alexander Woollcott’s method method lies in its informing personality and pervasive friendliness.” (251) But while it seemed personal, there was a method: “Yet, though the Woollcott practice may seem casual, almost careless, the results were generally happy; the finished product, which appeared to be generated so effortlessly, was thoughtfully constructed, uniformly readable, and often brilliant. This was due largely to his prodigious if not always reliable memory, which enabled him to hold all his data in solution ready for use; partly to his newspaper regimen when he must work under the imminence of the deadline.” (249).
His writing career was recurrently interrupted by a love for acting--Adams thinks he preferred the immediate gratification--and resurrected by radio. “Radio saved Alexander Woollcott. High grade though his literary wares were, they were becoming shopworn. He had rung the interminable changes upon his stock subjects; his friends, his dogs, hi mysteries, his favorite murders, his war experiences; in newspapers, in magazines, between book covers, on the lecture platform. It was done with inimitable art and wit, with infinite adroitness. But it was done too often. Editors were becoming restive.”
Woollcott eventually moved out of New York, looking for a place to conquer, and ended up on an island off of Vermont, where he continued his lordly lifestyle. Towards the end of his life, his body started to break down, but he continued to live as he always had--trapped, I guess, by the prison he had built--and despite doctor's orders travelled to England to rally support for the War. Back in America, doing a radio broadcast, he suffered a stroke, and died later that day.
The book is eloquent, though dwells too much on Woollcott's negatives. This may be because of the times--it was an attempted correction of the legend, Today, oddly, Woollcott is known as one of the original collectors of urban legends, but this book dismisses this work as an anomalous love of 'mysteries."
In the end, my conclusion would be, insightful but, at least from today's perspective, limited.
September 10, 2017
I think Samuel Hopkins Adams may be half as eloquent as Aleck Woollcott, which is saying plenty. This seems as balanced and trustworthy a biography as anyone can reasonably expect.
September 23, 2021
Woollcott was a witty man and enthusiast of books, theater, and the arts more generally. Today he is remembered primarily as a member of the Algonquin Round Table, that group of wits that met daily at the Algonquin in the 1920s and showed off for each other, with an eye towards seeing his or her name in print the next day.
He was born into a family connected to the Phalanx, a utopian community, which helped to ground him, as did his education at Hamilton College, a place he remembered fondly, and where his ashes were interred.
Adams was an alumnus of Hamilton, helped Woollcott get his first newspaper job, and stayed acquainted with him (although not always close) until Woollcott's death in early 1943. Woollcott was a good writer, a talented radio broadcaster, especially with Town Crier work, and a wannabe actor, although his best remembered role is playing a version of himself in Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner. He could be generous, obnoxious, full of the milk of human kindness one day and insulting the next.
Alexander Woollcott was a complex human being, but Adams may have been too close to his subject to write his biography as fully as he might, since his attitudes toward Woollcott were colored by their interactions.
He was born into a family connected to the Phalanx, a utopian community, which helped to ground him, as did his education at Hamilton College, a place he remembered fondly, and where his ashes were interred.
Adams was an alumnus of Hamilton, helped Woollcott get his first newspaper job, and stayed acquainted with him (although not always close) until Woollcott's death in early 1943. Woollcott was a good writer, a talented radio broadcaster, especially with Town Crier work, and a wannabe actor, although his best remembered role is playing a version of himself in Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner. He could be generous, obnoxious, full of the milk of human kindness one day and insulting the next.
Alexander Woollcott was a complex human being, but Adams may have been too close to his subject to write his biography as fully as he might, since his attitudes toward Woollcott were colored by their interactions.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews