Algonquin Round Table History,News Heywood Broun on Actors and Vaudeville

Heywood Broun on Actors and Vaudeville

Heywood Broun

Heywood Broun

Heywood Broun


On this day in 1938 Heywood Broun died. Here is a sample of one of his columns. From “It Seems To Me.” He loved vaudeville and the stage.

On Actors

Nothing in the world dies quite as completely as an actor and the greater the actor the more terrifying becomes the sudden transition from radiance to darkness. One day he is there with all his moods and complexities and curious glints of this and that, and the next day there is nothing left but a few wigs and costumes; perhaps a volume of memoirs, and a scrapbook of clippings in which we learn that the dead player was “majestic in presence” that “the poise of his head was stag-like” that he had “a great voice which boomed like a bell,” that he was “regal, subtle, pathetic,” and that “every one who was ever associated with him loved and respected him.”

Ask some veteran theatergoer “What was Booth like as Hamlet?” and he will say “Oh, he was wonderful.” Perhaps the face of the old theatergoer will grow animated and Booth may live again for a moment in his mind, but we who have never seen Booth will never know anything about him. Nobody can recreate and explain the art of a dead actor to the next generation. Even men who do tricks and true magic with words are not adept enough to set down any lasting portrait of an actor on the wing.

Related Post

Brock Pemberton

Brock Pemberton, From Kansas to the Great White WayBrock Pemberton, From Kansas to the Great White Way

Brock and Margaret Pemberton

Brock and Margaret Pemberton


Today is the anniversary of the birth of one of the most overlooked members of the Algonquin Round Table, namely, Brock Pemberton. His brother, Murdock Pemberton, gets barely more attention than his far more successful sibling. Let’s take a short dive into his life. All of the material is from The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide.

It sounds like the story in a Broadway musical: hick conquers metropolis. However, this story was Brock Pemberton’s, and it really did happen that way. He went from Kansas newspaperman to powerful Broadway producer, and was the father of the annual Tony Awards.

Ralph Brock Pemberton was born December 14, 1885, in Leavenworth, Kansas. He grew up about 100 miles southwest, in Emporia, where his father worked as a salesman. He and his younger brother, Murdock, went to Emporia High School. Brock graduated in 1902 and attended the local College of Emporia for three years, before transferring to the University of Kansas. He got his A.B. degree in 1908 and returned home. Pemberton had known the legendary editor William Allen White of the Emporia Gazette since he was a boy, and White hired him as a reporter. Pemberton was a dynamo on the tiny staff.

Pemberton thrived on the Emporia newspaper under White’s tutelage. White had earned a national reputation for his provocative editorials, and made frequent trips to the East Coast. In the age-old way of newspaper employment, he spoke to a New York City editor on Pemberton’s behalf. With that, the 24 year-old booked a one-way ticket for Manhattan in 1910. Arriving on Park Row after a 1,300-mile train trek, he learned that the position was not going to materialize. But as luck would have it, someone gave him a note to hand to Franklin P. Adams, who was at the New York Evening Mail at the time. Just as F.P.A. would later stick his neck out for Robert Benchley and George S. Kaufman, he went to bat for Pemberton. He landed a job as a reporter.

After a few months Pemberton was transferred from the city desk to the drama department at the Mail. On his first assignment, he was sent to attend a musical called “Everywoman” at the Herald Square Theatre. Pemberton innocently reviewed the show as if he was an audience member in Emporia, with hilarious results. The staff found his hayseed review backslapping funny, and the edition became a collector’s item, to Pemberton’s embarrassment. He had to learn to be more hard-edged.

In 1911 he moved to the New York World drama desk, where he got to know the bustling theater business intimately. A few years later he was offered the position of assistant drama editor at the New York Times, working under Alexander Woollcott, who was the paper’s chief drama critic. His contacts grew. Pemberton had spent six years in New York journalism when producer Arthur Hopkins offered him a job in 1917. Hopkins was one of the most successful producers in the city, and Pemberton was put to work in every capacity, from set construction to directing. It was his new career.
Pemberton stayed in the Hopkins organization for just three years, but he learned the skills a producer would need. When Hopkins passed on producing a three-act comedy called “Enter Madame” in 1920, Pemberton asked if he could produce it. He took the biggest gamble of his life, and it paid off. The show ran for two years at the Garrick; he also directed the show. He was a newly minted Broadway producer at age 35. Soon after, Pemberton tapped Zona Gale to adapt her bestseller “Miss Lulu Bett” into a play, and he opened it two days after Christmas 1920. It was a smash success at the Belmont, and won the Pulitzer Prize as the year’s best drama the following year.

On Dec. 30, 1915, Pemberton married Margaret McCoy in East Orange, New Jersey. He was 30 and she was 36. She sometimes would work as a costumer on her husband’s shows.

In 1919, when the Round Table began, he was living at 123 East 53rd Street, between Park and Lexington avenues. The building has since been demolished. In 1918 he lived at 123 E. 53rd Street. He lived at 115 East 53rd Street in 1920, 1927, and 1931. In 1948 he was living at 455 E. 51st Street.

In 1925, the offices of Pemberton Productions, Inc. and Brock Pemberton, Inc. were at 224 West 47th Street. That building was demolished and is today the Hotel Edison, which opened in 1931.

Pemberton carved out a 30-year career in the theater business. He took on risky shows and had many hits, and several flops. He brought out the first plays by Maxwell Anderson and Sidney Howard. Among the many actors whose careers he launched onstage were Walter Huston, Miriam Hopkins, Claudette Colbert and Frederic March. In 1928 he lost $40,000 on a show, but bounced back the next year with the light comedy “Strictly Dishonorable” that began a long association with the actress-director Antoinette Perry. The pair had a string of hits together; some said they also had a long-running romantic relationship. The pair was among those that helped form the American Theatre Wing in 1939; the group put on the Stage Door Canteen shows for troops during the war. After Perry’s death in 1946, Pemberton pushed for the creation of the American Theatre Wing’s Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre — the Tony Awards.

Former location of the Blue Bar and Oak Room.

Algonquin Hotel Gut Renovation Moves Bar, Reconfigures LobbyAlgonquin Hotel Gut Renovation Moves Bar, Reconfigures Lobby

Former location of the Blue Bar and Oak Room.

Former location of the Blue Bar and Oak Room.


In the most extensive renovation in many decades, the Algonquin Hotel is underway with a major overhaul that has removed the bar, restaurant, front desk, and ceiling. The Round Table is gone, and so is the perch that Hamlet had in the window on Forty-fourth Street.

East side of hotel, where front desk was located.

East side of hotel, where front desk was located.


The hotel, opened in 1902, has removed the Blue Bar completely. Visible from the sidewalk, the ceilings are open and the floors are down to bare concrete. On the east side of the building, the front desk and the areas around it are wide open. The Round Table Room, at the back of the property, is under wraps. Little is visible from the street of the details.

It is currently not open to the public; the owners are using the pandemic to overhaul the property. In April the Algonquin was housing healthcare professionals.

The Algonquin was last renovated in 2012, in an overhaul that saw the Blue Bar expanded and the Oak Room reduced in size. That work maintained the distinctive qualities that dated to the 1998 renovation overseen by Alexandra Champalimaud. That had followed the $20 million mechanical renovation in 1991 ($38 million today) by the Aoki Corporation; that was when the tiny Blue Bar moved across the lobby.

Front entrance, closed to public.

Front entrance, closed to public.

While the Algonquin Hotel has city landmark status, it only applies to the exterior, not to the interior.

I have reached out to Marriott to inquire about a visit and look at the plans. An update could be coming soon.

These photos were taken on August 21, 2020. For the history of the Algonquin Hotel, buy the book.

West side of Blue Bar and Oak Room.

West side of Blue Bar and Oak Room.

Marie Carroll, Robert Williams, Harry Bradley, Alfred White, John Cope and Howard Lang in scene from Abie's Irish Rose. Credit: Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library.

Centennial of Abie’s Irish RoseCentennial of Abie’s Irish Rose

Marie Carroll, Robert Williams, Harry Bradley, Alfred White, John Cope and Howard Lang in scene from Abie's Irish Rose. Credit: Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library.

Marie Carroll, Robert Williams, Harry Bradley, Alfred White, John Cope and Howard Lang in scene from Abie’s Irish Rose. Credit: Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library.


Today the New York Times published a very thorough and detailed account of the centennial of Abie’s Irish Rose, a hit show 100 years ago that the Algonquin Round Table by turns roasted and scorned. The article quotes Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott, with a passing reference to another Vicious Circle member, Harpo Marx.

Opening a few days after St. Patrick’s Day 1922, Abie’s Irish Rose was the miracle show of the decade. Despite withering reviews and serving as the butt of jokes all over town, it ran for 2,327 performances—five years and five months. Anne Nichols wrote the unpretentious comedy allegedly based on a real-life story of a mixed-marriage she heard about. In her story, young Abraham Levy brings home from the war his blushing bride, Rosemary Murphy, a girl he met in France while she was entertaining the doughboys. But knowing how his family would take the news, he introduced her to his parents as Rosie Murpheyski. In the next act the Murphy clan comes over for a visit, and hilarity ensues.

The show appealed to audiences everywhere; at one time six road companies were touring the United States and others were in England and Australia. The playwright raked in more than $6 million and eventually had to cut down on the road companies because the income taxes were crushing her. All the major critics blasted the show, with the exception of Alexander Woollcott. One standout, and long-suffering, reviewer was Robert Benchley. He had to compose a few lines each week for a capsule review in Life. Among his finest gems were, “People laugh at this every night, which explains why democracy can never be a success,” and “Where do the people come from who keep this one going? You don’t see them on the streets in the daytime.”

Dorothy Parker, who is not included in the article, was working for Ainslee’s at the time. She lumped it in with another play of a similar type. In September 1922, she wrote, “And then there came, in quick succession, The Rotters and Abie’s Irish Rose. Despite its having one night’s start on its opponent, The Rotters was defeated by Abie’s Irish Rose for the distinction of being the season’s worst play.”

As the Times points out, no modern theater company is currently interested in a revival of Abie’s Irish Rose. Which may be a good thing.

The Dorothy Parker reviews from the era are collected in Dorothy Parker Complete Broadway, 1918-1923.