Title: George S. Kaufman Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1912-1958

Creator:

• Kaufman, George S. (George Simon), 1889-1961

Call Number: U.S. Mss 12AN; Micro 1198

Quantity: 0.8 c.f. (2 archives boxes) and 4 reels of microfilm (35mm)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society Archives / Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Contact Information

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and director, consisting primarily of correspondence, scripts, and microfilmed biographical scrapbooks. The correspondence contains originals or copies of letters from Fred Allen, Winthrop Ames, George Arliss, Eleanor Belmont, Walter Damrosch, Joseph E. Davies, Robert H. Davis, Theodore Dreiser, James A. Farley, Arthur Hopkins, Otto Kahn, Groucho and Harpo Marx, Adolph Menjou, William Saroyan, Alfred E. Smith, Henry L. Stimson, John Steinbeck, Booth Tarkington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William Allen White, Alexander Woollcott, and others. There are scripts (some annotated) for seventeen produced and unproduced plays and motion pictures including The Butter and Egg Man (1925), The Late George Apley (1944), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939) and several other works on which Kaufman collaborated with Marc Connelly, Ruth Goodman Goetz, Laueen MacGrath, Morrie Ryskind, Howard Teichmann and others. The remainder of the collection consists of notes pertaining to Of Thee I Sing (1931); scrapbooks (available only on microfilm) concerning Dulcy (1921), The Man Who Came to Dinner, and The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947); and other miscellany. The entire collection is also available on microfilm.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0012an

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George S. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 16, 1889. During his lifetime he achieved fame in the theater as a playwright and director. He did not first seek his career on the stage, however; after graduation from high school he studied law for a short while, then became a journalist, writing for New York and Washington newspapers. He served as drama critic for the New York Times and was credited with “bringing the Sunday theatrical page up to its present standard of liveliness, variety, and readability....”

Meanwhile, Kaufman also tried his hand at writing for the theater as well as about it. His unproduced farce, Going Up, brought him to the attention of producer George C. Tyler. In 1918 Tyler commissioned the new playwright to work on a play, and the result was Some One in the House, a collaboration with Larry Evans and Walter Percival. Though the play was not a success, the association with Tyler was a fruitful one, and in 1921 Kaufman was commissioned to collaborate with Marc Connelly on Dulcy. The play, which starred Lynn Fontanne, ran for 246 performances.

Kaufman worked well with collaborators, perhaps because he had a sharp wit and could develop characters skillfully, though he was less adept at creating plots. Of all his plays only The Cocoanuts (1925), The Butter and Egg Man (1925) and Hollywood Pinafore (1945) were solo efforts. Among his collaborators were leading playwrights of the American theater--Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber, Moss Hart, Morrie Ryskind, Howard Teichmann, and others--and together they brought many successful plays to the stage. More than fifteen of Kaufman's plays passed the 200-performance mark. Talented as a director as well as a writer, Kaufman staged many of his own plays and such memorable theatrical events as The Front Page (1928), Of Mice and Men (1937) and Guys and Dolls (1950).

A list of Kaufman's work is a chronicle of almost four decades of American theater history: Dulcy (1921), To the Ladies (1922), Merton of the Movies (1922), Beggar on Horseback (1924), The Cocoanuts (1925), The Butter and Egg Man (1925), The Royal Family (1927), Animal Crackers (1928), The Channel Road (1929), Once in a Lifetime (1930), Of Thee I Sing (1931), The Band Wagon (1931), Dinner at Eight (1932), The Dark Tower (1933), Let 'Em Eat Cake (1933), Merrily We Roll Along (1934), First Lady (1935), Stage Door (1936), You Can't Take It with You (1936), I'd Rather Be Right (1937), The Fabulous Invalid (1938), The American Way (1939), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), George Washington Slept Here (1940), The Land Is Bright (1941), The Late George Apley (1944), Hollywood Pinafore (1945), The Solid Gold Cadillac (1953) and Silk Stockings (1955). Of Thee I Sing and You Can't Take It with You both received the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

In the midst of his prolific theatrical activity, Kaufman also found time to work in Hollywood. He received credit for nineteen screenplays, many of them adaptations of his own work.

The playwright died in 1961.

These Kaufman Papers are a small collection consisting of correspondence, scripts, and biographical clippings. This paucity of material is apparently due to Kaufman's purposeful destruction of his correspondence. In recent years Kaufman biographer Scott Meredith unearthed some correspondence and other material concerning the playwright's life and career which he donated to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Researchers are urged to consult this collection, as well as the Kaufman material in the papers of Howard Teichmann.

The collection is organized as BIOGRAPHICAL SCRAPBOOKS, CORRESPONDENCE, PLAYS, SCREENPLAYS, and TELEVISION SCRIPTS AND OTHER WRITINGS. The collection is also available on microfilm.

The CORRESPONDENCE is entirely incoming and quite fragmentary, although there are letters from many prominent individuals including Walter Damrosch, Adolph Menjou, Oswald Garrison Villard, Joseph E. Davies, John Steinbeck, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, William Saroyan, Booth Tarkington, and Alexander Woollcott. Of these, only the correspondence with Woollcott concerning his appearance as himself in The Man Who Came to Dinner is of biographical interest. The correspondence consists only as photostatic copies, and the location of the originals is unknown, although other evidence in the collection suggests they may have been sold at the time of Kaufman's death.

The SCRIPTS are arranged chronologically by genre, as PLAYS, SCREEN PLAYS, and TELEVISION SCRIPTS AND OTHER WRITINGS, with works for the stage being the most numerous. A large number of the scripts are for unproduced works. Most of the titles are represented by unannotated typescripts and only the drafts of In the Money, on which he worked with Howard Teichmann, and an untitled play contain materials suggesting Kaufman's playwriting processing.

The remainder of the collection consists of BIOGRAPHICAL SCRAPBOOKS containing clippings and photographs. After filming, the original prints from The Senator Was Indiscreet album were removed to the WCFTR Stills File. The original scrapbooks were disposed of because of their poor physical condition.

Acquisition Information

Loaned by Mrs. Irving Schneider, October 18, 1961.

Processing Information

Prepared for microfilming by Carolyn J. Mattern, 1990.

	Series: Biographical Scrapbooks
Reel-Segment   1-1	1912-1921
Reel-Segment   1-2	1918-1932
Reel-Segment   2-1	1938-1939
Reel-frame   3-1 Box-folder   1-1	Series: Correspondence, 1923-1943	⇧
	Series: Plays	⇧
	Dulcy, 1921
Reel-Segment   2-2	Clipping scrapbook
	To the Ladies, 1922
Reel-Segment   2-3	Clipping scrapbook
	Beggar on Horseback, 1924
Reel-Segment   2-4	Clipping scrapbook
Reel-frame   3-159 Box-folder   1-2	The Deep-Tangled Wildwood, 1923
	Mimeo script (anno.) by GK and Marc Connelly
	Blue print of stage set
	The Butter and Egg Man, 1925
Reel-frame   3-292 Box-folder   1-3	Le Gentleman de L'Ohio (French translation), ca. 1927
	Bring on the Girls, 1934
Reel-frame   3-312 Box-folder   1-4	Typescript by GK and Morrie Ryskind
	Fabulous Invalid, 1938
Reel-frame   3-445 Box-folder   1-5	Playbill
	The Man Who Came to Dinner, 1939
Reel-frame   3-454 Box-folder   1-6	Dutch translation (bound)
Reel-frame   3-577 Box-folder   1-7	Trial memorandum, n.d.
Reel-frame   3-610 Box-folder   1-8	Notes, clippings, and anecdote, 1939, n.d.
Reel-Segment   2-5	Clipping scrapbook, 1939
	George Washington Slept Here, 1940
Reel-frame   3-622 Box-folder   1-9	Article, 1951
	The Land Is Bright, 1941
Reel-frame   3-625 Box-folder   1-10	Playbill
	Dream on, Soldier, 1943
Reel-frame   3-634 Box-folder   1-11	Published script
	The Late George Apley, 1944
Reel-frame   3-637 Box-folder   1-12	Typescript by GK and John P. Marquand
	Hollywood Pinafore, 1945
Reel-frame   3-751 Box-folder   1-13	Typescript by GK
Reel-frame   3-839 Box-folder   1-14	Exile, 1954
	Typescript (annotated)
	Typescript
	The Lipstick War, 1956
Reel-frame   4-1 Box-folder   2-1	Typescript by GK and Alan Campbell
	The Same as Before Only Worse, 1958
Reel-frame   4-102 Box-folder   2-2	Typescript by GK and Ruth Goetz
	Big Casino Is Little Casino, n.d.
Reel-frame   4-209 Box-folder   2-3	Typescript by GK
Reel-frame   4-225 Box-folder   2-4	Untitled play, Drafts, n.d.
	Series: Screenplays	⇧
	Sleeper Jump, 1942
Reel-frame   4-324 Box-folder   2-5	Typescript by GK and Herman J. Mankiewicz
	The Senator Was Indiscreet, 1947
Reel-Segment   2-6	Microfilm copy of photograph album
	And Baby Makes Two, 1952
Reel-frame   4-471 Box-folder   2-6	Typescript by GK and Leueen MacGrath
	Story of a Woman, 1954
Reel-frame   4-574 Box-folder   2-7	Typescript (anno.) by GK and Leueen MacGrath
	In the Money, 1954
Reel-frame   4-717 Box-folder   2-8 8 9	Miscellaneous draft acts and a motion picture outline by GK and Howard Teichmann
	Series: Television Scripts and Other Writings	⇧
	The Hat, 1953
Reel-frame   4-1110 Box-folder   2-10	Typescript by GK and Leueen MacGrath
	Amicable Parting, 1957
Reel-frame   4-1193 Box-folder   2-11	Typescript by GK and Leueen MacGrath
Reel-frame   4-1215 Box-folder   2-12	Miscellaneous speeches, notes, n.d.
Reel-frame   4-1248 Box-folder   2-12	“Life's Calendars,” by GK and Marc Connelly, n.d.