---
author: Eric Wagoner
date: '2000-05-08T01:42:02'
draft: false
title: Alexander Woollcott -- A Few
---

**Alexander Woollcott -- A Few Links**  
  
The big play I'm directing this summer is Kaufman & Hart's wonderful comedy _The Man who Came to Dinner_. The main character, Sheridan Whiteside, is very closely based on Kaufman & Hart's friend Alexander Woollcott. Woollcott was famous for his writing, radio appearances, and wit during the 1920s, 30s, and early 40s. He was a main member of the Algonquin Round Table. Here's [a nice article about his intensely emotional relationship with Harpo Marx. [Here's a caricature](http://portraits.npg.si.edu/img1/img1a/lwool.jpg) of him that he took to using on his personal letterhead. [Here's but a few](http://www.quotegeek.com/Literature/Woollcott_Alexander/) of his many quotations. How about [some photos of and from](http://www.bway.net/~kfitz/dot26.htm) his famous New York apartment, _Wit's End_? An unflattering review of the collection of short films (and their subjects) [_Robert Benchley and the Knights of the Algonquin_](http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/25/algonquin.html). And some corollaries: [Dorthy Parker in the Twenties](http://www.la.psu.edu/~jselzer/burke/parker~1.htm) and [Harpo Marx and Some Brothers](http://www.muohio.edu/~edpcwis/lee_harpomarx.html). Harpo is also lampooned in _The Man who Came to Dinner_ as the illiterate skirt-chasing jokester Banjo.