George Simon Kaufman Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
George Simon Kaufman (November 16, 1889 – June 2, 1961) was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers. One play and one musical that he wrote won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: You Can't Take It With You (1937, with Moss Hart), and Of Thee I Sing (1932, with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin). He also won the Tony Award as a Director, for the musical Guys and Dolls.
Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony Award for Best Director, Drama League Award for Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival
Movies
A Night at the Opera, You Can't Take It with You, Animal Crackers, The Cocoanuts, The Solid Gold Cadillac, George Washington Slept Here, Stage Door, Dinner at Eight, The Royal Family of Broadway, The Late George Apley, The Senator Was Indiscreet, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Once in a Lifetime, Make ...
I'd bet on George [Gershwin] any time in a hundred yard dash to the piano.
2
[to George Gershwin] If you play that score one more time before we open, people will think you're doing a revival.
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Satire is what closes Saturday night.
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[advice to a writer who had a spelling problem] I'm not very good at it myself, but the first rule about spelling is that there is only one 'z' in 'is'.
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[on writing for the Marx Brothers who were given to ad-libbing their dialogue] I may be wrong. But I think I just heard one of the original lines.
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(Upon seeing so many billboard ads with an alluring Jane Russell in The Outlaw (1943)) They ought to call it "A Sale of Two Titties".
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I like terra firma -- the more firma, the less terra.
8
When a community theater group was caught performing one of Kaufman's plays without permission or payment of royalties, Kaufman threatened to send them to jail for theft. The theater director thought they didn't need to pay royalties because, as he put it, "It's just a small, insignificant, little theater in a small, insignificant, little town." Kaufman's reply: "Then we'll send you all to a small, insignificant, little jail."
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Fact
1
Edna Ferber and his play, "Stage Door," at the Griffin Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for the 2011 Non-Equity Joseph Jefferson Award for Production of a Play.
2
Won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the musical "Of Thee I Sing" collaborating with Morrie Ryskind, Ira Gershwin and George Gershwin. He won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play "You Can't Take it with You" collaborating with Moss Hart.
3
He was only the second playwright to win two Pulitzer Prizes, the first being Eugene O'Neill.
4
Had a torrid affair with Mary Astor, which was revealed in court during Astor's 1936 divorce trial when she was fighting her husband for custody of their daughter. Her personal diary, which detailed the physical pleasures Kaufman had given her during their affair, was introduced by her husband's lawyers to besmirch her reputation. The resulting scandal only seemed to make her more popular with the public, and likely led to her being cast in her most famous role as the vamp in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Being publicly known as a stud did nothing to hurt Kaufman's reputation, either.
5
1951: Won Broadway's Tony Award as Best Director for "Guys and Dolls.".
2000: His play, "Merrily We Roll Along", became a Stephen Sondheim musical and was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best New Musical in 2001.
$10 Million
