Algonquin Round Table History,News Marking the 75th Anniversary of the Death of Robert Benchley

Marking the 75th Anniversary of the Death of Robert Benchley

Robert Benchley

Robert Benchley

Robert Benchley

Seventy-five years ago today, hard-working Robert Charles Benchley died in his hospital room. He was just 56 years old. Benchley, once the country’s premier humorist, had stayed active until the end. In 1933, he began his first radio show, broadcast on CBS. He also appeared in 46 movie shorts between 1928 and 1945. Columnist Sidney Carroll wrote in 1942, “The movies get a comedian and the literary muse seems destined to lose her most prodigal son for good. Literature lost out because so many people in Hollywood think Robert Benchley looks much funnier than he writes. And they keep him busy looking at the cameras instead of writing for them.” At the time, Benchley was on the Paramount lot making two forgettable films: Out of the Frying Pan and Take a Letter, Darling.

Throughout World War II Benchley kept up an extremely busy pace in Hollywood. He lived in a bungalow in the Garden of Allah and worked steadily in movies and radio. In his early fifties Benchley eventually suffered from health problems exaggerated by his heavy drinking. He was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and high blood pressure. In late 1945 he returned to New York for a break, but his health slid downhill. He collapsed in his room at the Royalton Hotel on West Forty-fourth Street. He died in the Harkness Pavilion at the Columbia University Medical center on Fort Washington Avenue, on November 21, 1945.

Following a private service his body was cremated and the ashes were given to his family. At the cemetery in Nantucket, however, the family discovered that the urn was empty. When the correct cremains were located, his ashes were interred properly. His headstone, chosen by his son, Nat, was carved with his New Yorker byline, an em dash before his name. His beloved wife, Gertrude, is buried next to him. She died in 1980.

Today, what is the legacy of Robert C. Benchley, 75 years after his death? Many of his humor columns were collected in best selling books. They are all long out of print. No major publisher is publishing his work; his words live on in digital archives maintained by his two most famous magazine affiliations, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. His words do reach new audiences decades after his death; earlier this month the humorist and television writer Merrill Markoe told New York magazine that Benchley was a major influence on her style.

If anyone new to Benchley–born in the last 25 years–they would probably first discover him on TCM. His movies appear often. You can press a button and stream him right now on Disney+ and watch The Reluctant Dragon. The Robert Benchley Society, founded by David and Mary Trumbull in 2003, is the only organization keeping his spirit alive. Like some of his peers from the Algonquin Round Table–Marc Connelly, Deems Taylor, Alexander Woollcott–Benchley is teetering on being lost to history, remembered only by those hardcore old comedy fans that keep talking about him in the way we reminisce about things we’ll never see, such as Vaudeville and the Ziegfeld Follies.

Benchley was a teetotaller until he fell in with the Vicious Circle in the Speakeasy Era in his thirties. Twenty years later, drink did him in. Is it appropriate to raise a glass to him? Since we cannot sit at his table at “21” today, I think it’s more than appropriate, the milestone of today demands it.

For more about Robert Benchley, read The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (Lyons Press), out now in paperback.

Related Post

Kevin Wilkes and Peter Cruz.

Last Day for the Doormen of the Algonquin HotelLast Day for the Doormen of the Algonquin Hotel

Kevin Wilkes and Peter Cruz.

Visitors to the Algonquin Hotel will no longer see two of the legendary personalities greeting all visitors to the front door. On February 2, veteran doormen Peter Cruz and Kevin Wilkes retired on the same day together. At the Algonquin, Kevin had 32 years of service and Peter 46 years. The day before, the staff held a grand surprise retirement party for the pair in the Oak Room.

I caught up with them at their usual spot in the lobby, greeting guests, grabbing luggage, holding the doors open, and smiling and saying hello to all.

Peter started in the “back of the house” in the kitchen not long after his student days at LaGuardia High School for Music and Art. He was born on the Bowery to parents who had immigrated from Puerto Rico. Kevin is also a native New Yorker and an alum of Thomas Jefferson High in New Lots, Brooklyn.

The interview is edited and condensed for clarity.

Question: When did you guys start?

Kevin: 1992.

Question: What were you doing before you came here?

Kevin: Same thing, I actually worked over at the Drake Hotel.

Question: And how’d you get the job here?

Kevin: Where I worked it was slow over there and I went over to the union to try to get something, like a temporary (position), and they told me about this hotel. The personnel manager that worked at the Drake Hotel was at the Algonquin. They said, “I think you might know him. Go over.” Because it was only supposed to be a temp job because one of the guys had hurt his back or something. So, he was out for six months. It was like, “Well Kevin, this might just be a six-month thing.” And then once I came in, they were like, “Listen, he’s not coming back. You’re going to be here.” And I have been here ever since then. It was supposed to start as a temp job.

Question: What was this place like in the early nineties? What was the neighborhood like?

Kevin: I mean, it was the same. I mean the clubs. I think we were the only real hotel on the block other than the Iroquois. But our hotel stood out because of the history and everything, so that really made it nice.

Question: What about you? When did you start?

Peter: I started in 1978. I came here to work the back of the house, the stewarding position, and I was there for many years and within that I became store room person. I became the executive steward after a while and I always inquired about working at the front of the house. Finally, I was able to get a position there through the help of my coworkers. I’ve been here ever since.

Question: What year did you become a doorman? Is that the title?

Peter: Front service captain? Yeah, he was the bell captain, I was bell captain. And I’ve been here ever since and it’s been wonderful.

Question: When you started, how many bell staff were there?

Kevin: We had a full crew there. I believe it was…

Peter: Four or five.

Kevin: No, it was five. It was five.

Peter: Both staff…

Kevin: And three door members.

Peter: So, eight of us all together total in our section here.

Question: What do you like about the job?

Peter: For myself, the history, the people, the history back then. The cabaret. It was started when I started here. I saw Steve Ross stroll in one day and it’s been magical ever since.

Question: What keeps you here, Kevin?

Kevin: When I worked with the Drake, because it was a bigger hotel, they used to always tell me, “You don’t have time to talk to the guests. You got to keep it moving, you got to keep it moving.” And when I started here, it was like, “Wow, I get to socialize, I get to know the guests personally.” And that’s what I really liked about the hotel because you actually had a relationship with the guests and their experience in staying here. Also, they shared their history that they were telling me about at the hotel in those early years. So, it was really nice. I really enjoyed it.

Question: Who has been your favorite guest?

Kevin: It’s been so many. I think Maya Angelou took the words out of my mouth. To me, coming from the south, it was dealing with a respectful elder, like a great aunt or something like that. And she would just ask you how your family was. And I mean, I have her book that I’m taking home. I forgot I had it and she actually
autographed it. I took it home yesterday. It was like I was looking through the locker and cleaning it out. I was, wow, I forgot about this. I looked through it. Wow. She actually autographed it.

Question: That’s so cool.

Kevin: Really was. And also meeting the cabaret performers, they were all like family. They were the same performers. I remember, I think it was my second year and I got to meet Andrea Marcovicci as I was coming out the elevator. At that time, we were doing the New York Celebration here in the lobby and she called me over during her performance. The lobby was packed. And she says, “Come here.” She started serenading me. It was just like, “wow.” I couldn’t believe it.

Question: I believe it. She sang to my parents in the elevator.

Kevin: That’s Andrea for you. She’s so nice.

Peter: Harry Connick, Jr. He got his start here. Young guy. So nice, so friendly. From New Orleans… he played the Oak Room. Before he would go on, he would hang out with all of us staff in the kitchen. We loved him. He was so good with us, the kitchen, the dishwashers.

Question: Who’s somebody that you met that you didn’t think they were going to be so nice and was really great to you?

Kevin: There was one gentleman, his name was Mr. Kaufman. He actually owned, I think it was an Army and Navy store or something. I never forgot him. One time he called down and he said that he needed assistance with the luggage. So, in knowing him, I knew what he had. I kind of just went up by myself. It was a suitcase and a garment bag. And at that time our luggage carts were like shopping carts without the basket. And when I went up to get him, he actually screamed at me. He says, “Where’s the cart?” I said, “What cart? I can carry it down.” He says, “No, I want a cart.” So, I head back down, get the cart, and go up to him. But I thought it was hilarious. The two pieces of luggage.

Question: What’s it like here in the summer? What’s the difference between summer and winter working here?

Peter: Well, supposedly it’s supposed to be slow here in the summer, but for the past few years that has never been the case. It’s pretty good. There’s always a busy time in the city. People come to stay and for a lot of them it’s their first time. We end up getting a lot of repeat guests out of that because of the way we carry ourselves, the way the front desk carries themselves. And even after Cabaret was gone, they loved the atmosphere. Sure, sure. Yeah, definitely. And the location. That was something.

Kevin: That’s like a lot of groups. We had the Baker Street Irregulars year after year after year. I mean, how many years you think we had?

Peter: More than a decade.

Kevin: But it was nice working with groups like that and also seeing elder groups coming in that would tell you that how many years they came, like Mrs. White with her group, she would bring busloads in.

Peter: And what’s the name of the guy who comes all the time? The theater groups.

Kevin: Oh, George Harter.

Peter: George Harter. He used to come here and he still does. He still does. And he brings people here. He knows they are going to be taken care of. Proximity to Broadway. It’s one of our famous connections.

Kevin: I actually have got to send him a message though. Yeah. Just to let ’em know.

Peter: Yeah, absolutely.

Question: What’s the number one question people ask you every day?

Peter: They want to ask about the Round Table. What was that? Who was in there? What stories do you know about what went on with them? How eccentric was some of them, and so forth.

Question: How has it been working with the cat?

Peter: It’s been okay.

Kevin: It’s been okay. I mean, we work with more cats around. This is my fourth cat and this one is the friendliest out of all of ’em. The first cat, mixed reviews about it. Because that cat just always wandered outside. That cat would wander up to Sixth Avenue and sit on the corner and come back. Wow.

Peter: The first Matilda, right? Yeah. Yeah. She was a diva. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I was here when we had Hamlet before that Matilda, I’ve been through five cats and that cat, there was actually a book written about him and with drawings by Hilary Knight. I have that book at home. It wasn’t autographed or anything, but it’s been written and I’m glad I have it.

Question: What’s something that kept you coming into work?

Peter: Something? My comrades. The camaraderie that we have here made for a good day every day. The front desk manager, it didn’t matter, the wait staff, but mostly our core group made for great days. It was always a pleasure to come to work, even if people called out, whatever. We found ways to make it work to the satisfaction of the management staff so they knew they could rely on upon us. And you don’t see that. I don’t think you could see that going forward as much as the times we had. Those were really good, great times. What more can I say about that? But it’s been incredible.

Question: What’s a tip you would give to someone reading this about New York City that nobody else knows?

Peter: Well. I say read your book. Read your book. Because that was a mountain of information. There are things in there that I never knew, and you’re quite the researcher and I’m glad I met you.

Question: Oh, thank you.

Peter: It’s been incredible, an incredible relationship. And even though I’m away, I look forward to always looking on the hotel and hopefully if you are around, stay in touch.

Question: What are you going to do in your retirement?

Peter: Well, my plan is to move to Puerto Rico. I have a home over there that was my parent’s. Now I inherited it and I’m going to make a life out of here. They say if you can make it here in New York, you can make it anywhere.

Question: So, from 44th Street to…

Peter: …Isabela, Puerto Rico.

Question: What’s a tip that you always give to people that are asking you about something?

Peter: Send them to the Blue Bar, which is really nice. We always try to promote the restaurant and the bar.

Question: I want to ask you, what’s the hotel like today from when you started your first day?

Peter: I would have to say, well, when I started here, all of these rooms down here were always full. The lobby, what was known as the Rose Room, the Chinese Room, and the Oak Room were always full. I know, because I was the dishwasher and we got all three outlets just dump everything on us every day.

It never stopped from the moment you started to closing time, normally at 12 Midnight, set up a buffet. It was just amazing and busy. This is when Ben and Mary Bodne had the place and they kept it up until they sold it. Then I think slowly, they started cutting back and they took the Blue Bar that was here and they put it over there, which was a good idea. But now the new owners, they have the Blue Bar here now, which is nice, but it’s different. It’s just way different. Their hours of operation are different. They’ve cut back everywhere. I guess it was needed. It’s just a different role now. But that’s fine. So that said, I think it’s a good time for me to fold it in and just say goodbye and wish everyone well and that includes you.

Question: Thank you so much, Peter and Kevin. We will all miss you.

Peter: Thank you.

Kevin: Thank you.

Read more about the history of the Algonquin Hotel in the only book about it, The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (Lyons Press).

Marxfest

Marx Brothers Festival Returns in May 2024Marx Brothers Festival Returns in May 2024

It is exciting to announce that the Marx Brothers Festival is returning in May 2024 exactly ten years after the first successful Marxfest in New York. This week, the Marxfest committee announced the festival dates (May 17-19 and May 24-26), and revealed the names of just three of the many great events being planned:

ROBERT KLEIN REMEMBERS: The comedy legend on the Marx Brothers and their influence, in conversation with Jason Zinoman of The New York Times.

UNHEARD MARX BROTHERS: Audio Rarities with collector extraordinaire John Tefteller.

THE THRILL OF I’LL SAY SHE IS: The ultimate centennial experience.

MarxfestThere will be two weekends of Marx entertainment, May 17-19 in Manhattan and May 24-26 in Coney Island. The full calendar of events and ticket sales have not been announced yet. Currently a crowdfunding campaign is underway, and this supports the festival operations and expenses.

Noah Diamond of the committee wrote, “Donate to our crowdfunding campaign. Of course, this is another dreamy, fan-driven project with limitless reserves of nerve, moxie, pluck, vim, and vigor, but other resources are in shorter supply. We’re reliant on donations from fellow Marx Brothers fanatics to help defray expenses like space rentals, printing, equipment, and administration. You will not be surprised to hear that there are fabulous donor rewards described on our crowdfunding page — or that through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law!”

Noah sent us a fantastic tie of the Marx Brothers to the Algonquin Round Table. Harpo Marx was a member, and he was close friends with Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott. Noah dug up the 1924 Robert Benchley review from Life, following the Broadway debut of the Marx Brothers:

We are happy to announce that the laughing apparatus of this department, long suspected of being out-of-date and useless, is in perfect running order, and can be heard any evening at the Casino Theatre during those magnificent moments when the Marx Brothers are participating in “I’ll Say She Is.” Not since sin laid it’s heavy hand on our spirit have we laughed so loud and so offensively. And as we picked ourself out of the aisle following each convulsion, there rang through our soul the joyful paean: “Grandpa can laugh again! Grandpa can laugh again!”

“I’ll Say She Is” is probably one of the worst revues ever staged, from the point of view of artistic merit and general deportment. And yet when the Marx Brothers appear, it becomes one of the best. Certainly we have never enjoyed one so thoroughly since the lamented Cohan Revues, and we will go before any court and swear that two of the four Marxes are two of the funniest men in the world.

We may be doing them a disservice by boiling over about them like this, but we can’t help it if we feel it, can we? Certainly the nifties of Mr. Julius Marx will bear the most captious examination, and even if one in ten is found to be phony, the other nine are worth the slight wince involved at the bad one. It is certainly worth hearing him, as Napoleon, refer ti the “Marseillaise” as the “mayonnaise,” if the next second, he will tell Josephine that she is as true as a three dollar cornet. The cornet line is one of the more rational of the assortment. Many of them are quite mad, and consequently much funnier to hear but impossible to retell.

There is no winching possible at the pantomime of Mr., Arthur Marx. It is 110 proof artistry. To watch him during the deluge of knives and forks from his coat-sleeve, or in the poker game (where he wets one thumb and picks the card off with the other), or—oh, well, at any moment during the show is to feel a glow at being alive in the same generation. We hate to be like this, for it is inevitable that we are prejudicing readers against the Marx boys by our enthusiasm, but there must be thousands of you who have seen them in vaudeville (where almost everything that is funny on our legitimate stage seems originate) and who know that we are right.

Do not miss this absolutely fun program of events around New York, all times to the centennial of “I’ll Say She Is.”

Heywood Broun

Heywood Broun on Being Fired in the Spring, Summer, and Winter (Summer is Best)Heywood Broun on Being Fired in the Spring, Summer, and Winter (Summer is Best)

Heywood Broun

Heywood Broun

This is one of the very last columns that Heywood Broun ever published. Broun ran his own bi-weekly newspaper, Nutmeg (later called Broun’s Nutmeg) in Stamford, Connecticut, where he resided. It was in operation in the late 1930s, and was concurrent as he wrote a syndicated column “It Seems to Me” for Scripps-Howard and organized the Newspaper Guild. After his contract was allowed to lapse in late 1939, he moved to the New York Post. He only had one column appear in the paper, as he succumbed to pneumonia on December 18 at age 51. This column was written ten days before his death.

Old Newspaperman
By Heywood Broun
December 9, 1939

It happens suddenly. On a Tuesday, perhaps, you’re sitting around kidding back and forth in the City Room and maybe growing reminiscent about some story you covered quite a long time back. Yes, that’s the way it was. It gave an opening to a young squirt reporter and he said, “Uncle Heywood, how did you like Jenny Lind’s first concert?”

Now naturally I never saw Jenny Lind but I did ride in horse-driven buses on Fifth Avenue and I saw Admiral Dewey come parading across Washington Square and we all hollered because he had won the Battle of Manila and made America a world power.

Everybody got to calling me Uncle Heywood and at the drop of a hat I could be induced to talk about Matty and the old, old Giants. And when the mood gripped me I would even go back to the days of Dan McGann. You can always spot an old newspaperman by his tendency to talk and write of things in the past. Every one of us will insist that they don’t grow fighters like Fitzsimmons any more.

There isn’t any set time for becoming an old newspaperman but around fifty is the dangerous age and at fifty-one the line is definitely marked as the groove on the floor of the Alamo.

I’ve been fired in the Spring, the Summer and early Winter. I like it best in the Summer. Three times in thirty-one years isn’t so much to be fired. The first firing is often worse than the last. It’s very discouraging to get canned when you’re young. That’s the way it was with me. I was twenty-one and working on the Morning Telegraph. My stall in the old Eighth Avenue car barn was right next to Bide Dudley. He was getting $35 a week and my salary was $28. I wanted $30 but when I asked for it they fired me.

The next job was a long time coming. Fortunately I was a man of character and living at home and so I didn’t go into insurance or business but just borrowed money from my father and sat around for six months doing nothing. Eventually Burdick gave me a job on the Tribune.

He was a shy city editor and when he mentioned the salary he didn’t want to pronounce the fatal words. He gazed away off at a distant window and wrote on a piece of scratch paper $25. Newspaper work is like that. You can go perfectly straight down once you are over the top of the mountain but detours are necessary as you come up from the valley.

As a matter fact it was a mountain which made me. Burdick gave me the Tribune job on the strength of a recommendation from Fred Pitney, his star reporter. Pitney remembered that when I covered the E. H. Harriman death watch for the Evening Sun, I had crawled up through the woods at Arden and come right to the door of the big house. Getting there didn’t get me anything but a boot from the butler. Still after a year and a half Pitney remembered me as an energetic young man. I’ve seen that hill since and now I couldn’t walk it let alone make the grade on my belly.

Pretty nearly ten years went by before I got fired again. The World did it. I had gone onto the paper on my own volition and through the seductive influence of Mr. Swope.

The Sacco-Vanzetti case has something to do with it but only indirectly. First of all I went on a one-man strike because they said I wasn’t to write about the case anymore. They didn’t disagree with my opinions but they objected to violence of language. “Is Harvard to be known hereafter as Hangman’s House?” Was the sentence which made the trouble.

At the end of six or seven months the good shoemaker and the poor fish peddler were dead and things were patched up for me to go back to the paper. Getting fired was something of a surprise. Being bereft of topics I dashed off a little masterpiece for The Nation saying that I thought the editorial policy of The Morning World was a shade on the timid side. I believe I said, “The World on numerous occasions has been able to take two, three, or even four different stands with precisely the same material in hand. So constant were the shifts during the Sacco-Vanzetti case that the paper seemed like an old car going up a hill.”

Naturally I didn’t expect the editors to like it but after all The Nation isn’t so big and umbrage wasn’t in the scope of my vision. Blithely on the way home I bought a morning paper but I only looked at the sport page. Arriving home I was asked as I came in the door whether or not I had read The World. “Sure,” I replied, “Yankees win, Giants win, Dodgers lose.” Those were the old, old Giants.

“But have you seen your own page?” my wife persisted.

“I’m saving that up for later,” I told her.

“You needn’t,” she said, “you’re fired.”

And so I was. There in my old spot was a box explaining that Mr. Broun had been dropped on account of disloyalty. I did object to the word a little because the casual reader would hardly know whether I had robbed the till or sat on the editor’s hat.

Still it was Summer and I was full of energy and I went around opening my shirt to show my scars and having a fine time in general. And presently I got a job with Scripps-Howard which lasted eleven years. This ran out in the Winter.

Since Nutmeg is a publication which belongs to what the Parisians wittily call “Le Presse Confidentiale,” or French to that effect, I think I may reveal that the farewell conference with Roy W. Howard passed off in entire peace and amity.

He said, “I’ve talked it over with my associates and we’ve decided not to make you an offer. It would be just too much grief. The price of newsprint is going up and we think the place to cut expenses is among the high price specialists in order to protect the run of the mine reporter.”

“Roy,” I said (all Scripps Howard executives are known by the first name even to the humblest employee), “I can’t possibly make any squawk about that because I’ve made that same speech myself at dozens of Guild meetings.”

And so we shook hands and had a drink and everything was very pleasant. But I still think it is better to be fired in the Summer.

For more about Heywood Broun and his newspaper career, be sure to get a copy of The Algonquin Round Table New York, A Historical Guide (Globe Pequot Press).