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Robert E. Sherwood

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Robert E. Sherwood
Sherwood in 1928
Sherwood in 1928
BornRobert Emmet Sherwood
(1896-04-04)April 4, 1896
New Rochelle, New York,U.S.
DiedNovember 14, 1955(1955-11-14)(aged 59)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation
  • Author
  • playwright
  • screenwriter
  • historian
EducationHarvard University(BA)
Notable worksWaterloo Bridge
Idiot's Delight
Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Rebecca
There Shall Be No Night
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Bishop's Wife
Notable awardsPulitzer Prize for Drama(1936, 1939, 1941)
Academy Award for Best Screenplay(1947)
Pulitzer Prize for Biography(1948)
SpouseMary Brandon (m.1922–div.1934)
Madeline Hurlock(m.1935)
Cover of Sherwood's playThere Shall Be No Night

Robert Emmet Sherwood(April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter.

He is the author ofWaterloo Bridge,Idiot's Delight,Abe Lincoln in Illinois,There Shall Be No Night,andThe Best Years of Our Lives.He was a screenwriter on the adapted filmsRebeccaandThe Bishop's Wife.

He receivedPulitzer Prize for Drama(1936, 1939, 1941),anAcademy Award for Best Screenplay(1947) and aPulitzer Prize for Biography(1948).

Early life and family[edit]

Born in 1896 inNew Rochelle, New York,Robert was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the formerRosina Emmet,a highly accomplished illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood.[1]His paternal grandmother,Mary Elizabeth Wilson Sherwood,was an author and social leader. He was a great-great-grandson of the formerNew York State Attorney GeneralThomas Addis Emmetand a great-grandnephew of the Irish nationalistRobert Emmet,who was executed for high treason after leading theIrish rebellion of 1803,one of a series of attempts to dislodgeBritish rule in Ireland,in 1803. His relatives also included three other notable American portrait artists: his aunts,Lydia Field EmmetandJane Emmet de Glehn,and his first cousin, once removed,Ellen Emmet Rand. Sherwood was educated atFay School,[2]Milton Academyand thenHarvard University.

He fought with theRoyal Highlanders of Canada, CEFin Europe during World War I and was wounded. After his return to the United States, he began working as a movie critic for magazines, includingLifeandVanity Fair.[3]Sherwood's career as a critic in the 1920s is discussed in the 2009 documentaryFor the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism.In this filmTimecriticRichard Schickeldiscusses, among other topics, how Sherwood was the first New York critic invited to Hollywood by cross-country train to meet the stars and directors.

Writing career[edit]

Sherwood was one of the original members of theAlgonquin Round Table.He was close friends withDorothy ParkerandRobert Benchley,who were on the staff ofVanity Fairwith Sherwood when the Round Table began meeting in 1919. AuthorEdna Ferberwas also a good friend. Sherwood stood 6 feet 8 inches (2.03 m) tall. Dorothy Parker, who was 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m), once commented that when she, Sherwood, and Robert Benchley (6 feet (1.8 m)) walked down the street together, they resembled "a walking pipe organ." When asked at a party how long he had known Sherwood, Benchley stood on a chair, raised his hand to the ceiling, and said "I knew Bob Sherwood back when he was only this tall."[4]

In 1949, comedianGroucho Marxalso commented about Sherwood's height during a filmed radio broadcast of the quiz showYou Bet Your Life.Groucho, who hosted the popular series, interviewed in one episode American football player Howard Scala, a member of the NFL'sGreen Bay Packers.Impressed by Scala's own considerable height, Marx shared the following anecdote with the show's audience:

Reminds me of Bob Sherwood, the playwright, he's an old friend of mine; and he's six-foot-five and very thin. I said to him one day 'Bob, what do you say to people when they ask you how the weather is up there?' He said 'I spit in their eye and tell ‘em it's raining.'[5][6]

Sherwood's first Broadway play,The Road to Rome(1927), a comedy concerningHannibal'sbotched invasion of Rome, introduced one of his favoritethemes:the futility of war. Many of his later dramatic works employed variations of this theme, includingIdiot's Delight(1936), which won Sherwood the first of fourPulitzer Prizes.According to legend, he once admitted to the gossip columnistLucius Beebe:“The trouble with me is that I start with a big message and end up with nothing but good entertainment.”[7]

Sherwood was actively engaged with the advocacy for writers' rights within the theatre world. From 1937 to 1939, Sherwood served as the seventh president of theDramatists Guild of America.

Sherwood's Broadway success soon attracted the attention of Hollywood; he began writing for movies in 1926. While some of his work went uncredited, his films included many adaptations of his plays. He also collaborated withAlfred HitchcockandJoan Harrisonin writing the screenplay forRebecca(1940).

With Europe in the midst of World War II, Sherwood set aside his anti-war stance to support the fight against theThird Reich.There Shall Be No Night,his 1940 play about the Soviet Union's invasion of Finland, was produced by the Playwright's Company that he co-founded, and it starredAlfred Lunt,Lynn Fontanne,andMontgomery Clift.Katharine Cornellproduced and starred in a 1957 TV adaptation on TV.[8]Sherwood publicly ridiculed isolationistCharles Lindberghas a "Naziwith a Nazi's Olympian contempt for all democratic processes ".[9]

During this period Sherwood also served as a speechwriter for PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt.He recounted the experience in his bookRoosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History,[10]which won the 1949Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiographyand a 1949Bancroft Prize.[11]Sherwood is credited with originating the phrase that eventually evolved to "arsenal of democracy", a frequent catchphrase in Roosevelt's wartime speeches. Sherwood was quoted on May 12, 1940, byThe New York Times,"This country is already, in effect, an arsenal for the democratic Allies."[12]

After serving as director of the Overseas Branch of theOffice of War Informationfrom 1943 until the conclusion of the war,[13]he returned to dramatic writing with the movieThe Best Years of Our Lives,directed byWilliam Wyler.The 1946 film, which explores changes in the lives of three soldiers after they return home from war, earned Sherwood anAcademy Awardfor Best Screenplay.[14]

Death and legacy[edit]

Sherwood died of a heart attack in New York City in 1955. A production ofSmall War on Murray Hill,his final work, debuted on Broadway at theEthel Barrymore Theatreon January 3, 1957.[15]

Sherwood was portrayed by actorNick CassavetesinMrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle,a 1994 movie about the Algonquin Round Table.[16]

Plays[edit]

Nonfiction[edit]

  • Sherwood, Robert E. (1948).Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History(First ed.). New York: Harper.OCLC908375.1949 Pulitzer Prize (Biography)
  • Sherwood, Robert E. (1923).The Best Moving Pictures of 1922-1923, Also Who's Who in the Movies and the Yearbook of the American Screen(First ed.). Boston: Small, Maynard & Company.

References[edit]

  1. ^"Robert E. Sherwood Biography - eNotes".eNotes.Retrieved12 January2019.
  2. ^Fischer, H.D. (2002).Complete Biographical Encyclopedia of Pulitzer Prize Winners 1917 - 2000: Journalists, writers and composers on their way to the coveted awards.De Gruyter. p. 221.ISBN9783110955743.Retrieved2015-05-15.
  3. ^"Robert E. Sherwood - Writer - Films as Writer:, Publications".filmreference.
  4. ^Wallace, D.Capital of the World: A Portrait of New York City in the Roaring Twenties.Lyons Press (2011), p. 175.ISBN0762770104.
  5. ^"You Bet Your Life #49-13 Unaired test film (Secret word 'Name', never aired on TV)",episode ofYou Bet Your Lifeoriginally broadcast on CBS Radio on December 28, 1949. Full episode available for viewing onYouTube,a subsidiary ofAlphabet, Inc.,Mountain View, California. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  6. ^Groucho Marx in his anecdote understated Sherwood's true height, which more reliable sources cite was between six feet seven inches and six feet eight inches.
  7. ^Meserve, Walter J. (1970).Robert E. Sherwood: Reluctant Moralist.New York: Pegasus. p.14.
  8. ^"The Paley Center for Media".paleycenter.org.Retrieved2015-05-15.
  9. ^"Calls Lindbergh 'a Nazi'".The New York Times.RetrievedJan 10,2020.
  10. ^"ROOSEVELT AND HOPKINS AN INTIMATE HISTORY".THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY. Jan 10, 1948.RetrievedJan 10,2020– via Internet Archive.
  11. ^Alonso, HH.Robert E. Sherwood: The Playwright in Peace and War.Univ. of Mass. Press (2007), pp. 88-91.ISBN978-1-55849-619-4
  12. ^Gould, Jack (May 12, 1940). The Broadway Stage Has Its First War Play.The New York Times.Quoting Robert Emmet Sherwood, "this country is already, in effect, an arsenal for the democratic Allies."
  13. ^"OWI Dispute Ended With Davis Ousting 3 Sherwood Aides".The New York Times.February 8, 1944.
  14. ^Alonso (2007), p.143.
  15. ^Small War on Murray Hillby Robert E. Sherwood,Playbill,January 3–12, 1957, cast and production details; Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, New York. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  16. ^"Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)",overview with synopsis as well as cast and crew listings,Turner Classic Movies(TCM), Turner Broadcasting System, a subsidiary of Time Warner, Inc., New York, New York. Retrieved August 18, 2017.

External links[edit]

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