Charles MacArthur, newspaperman turned playwright and screenwriter, “created laughter and diversion as other men create steel industries and department stores,” in the words of his frequent collaborator, Ben Hecht. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on November 5, 1895, MacArthur was the son of an itinerant minister and his wife, the Reverend William T. and Georgiana MacArthur. Desiring Charles to become a minister, the Reverend MacArthur sent him to the Wilson Memorial Academy in Nyack, New York, a school for missionaries.
Upon leaving the Academy, however, MacArthur turned to the field of journalism. After a summer working for his brother on a newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois, he became a reporter for the City Press, a Chicago news service. He subsequently was a reporter for the Chicago Herald-Examiner and the Tribune. It has been stated that he was the highest-paid reporter in Chicago at the time, except possibly Ben Hecht.
During Pershing's expedition to Mexico, MacArthur joined the First Illinois Cavalry. He was with the Rainbow Division in World War I. In 1922, he moved to New York to work for the American. Living for a time with Robert Benchley, he became a member of the Algonquin Round Table group. In 1926, his play Lulu Belle, written with Edward Sheldon, was produced by David Belasco. Opening night was, to MacArthur, “like pulling out the stitches after an operation for kidney trouble, and I must say it was comparatively painless.” The success of the play established him as a recognized playwright.
Two years later Salvation, written by MacArthur and Sidney Howard, opened in New York. Later that year, on August 14, 1928, The Front Page, a drama concerning a newspaper reporter written by the ex-reporters MacArthur and Hecht, became the first in a series of popular collaborative ventures between the two men. Other stage plays they wrote were Jumbo (1935), Ladies and Gentlemen (1939), Swan Song (1946), and Twentieth Century (1932 and 1950).
In 1931, MacArthur wrote the screenplay for The Sin of Madelon Claudet. Considered a mistake by studio executives, the film was befriended by Irving Thalberg and became a hit, winning an Academy Award for its star, Helen Hayes. The film was chosen as one of the ten best pictures in the annual Film Daily poll. MacArthur wrote a number of other Hollywood pictures: Rasputin and the Empress (1932) starred John, Ethel, and Lionel Barrymore; The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947) was directed by George S. Kaufman and starred William Powell and Ella Raines.
MacArthur and Hecht collaborated on films, as writers and as producers and directors. Barbary Coast (1935), for which they wrote the screenplay, was a United Artists release produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by Howard Hawks. Wuthering Heights (1939) was another Goldwyn production written by them, directed by William Wyler. In 1934, they teamed to produce and direct films at the Astoria film studios on Long Island. With a cast relatively unknown to the screen--Broadway actor Claude Rains and dancer Margo--they made Crime Without Passion (1934). Their film The Scoundrel (1935) featured Noel Coward and Julie Hayden. Once in a Blue Moon (1936) was filmed with Nikita Balieff, Jimmy Savo, and Cicilia Loftus.
During World War II MacArthur was assistant to the chief of the Chemical Warfare Service in Washington. In 1948 he became editor-in-chief of Theatre Arts magazine when it was purchased by Alexander Ince. One of MacArthur's innovations was the inclusion of the text of a current Broadway hit in each issue. When Ince sold the magazine, MacArthur's brother became the publisher. MacArthur resigned from the editorship shortly thereafter.
MacArthur married Helen Hayes in 1928, three days after the opening of The Front Page. In addition to their joint work on The Sin of Madelon Claudet, they were involved together in the Broadway play Ladies and Gentlemen (1939). Otherwise, they maintained separate careers. Their daughter, Mary MacArthur, died of infantile paralysis in 1949. Their son, James MacArthur, became an actor.
MacArthur's offstage personality was as dynamic as his plays. During their first meeting he gave Miss Hayes a bag of peanuts and told her, “I wish they were emeralds!” “From his youthful days to his last ones, Charlie was a man of adventure,” stated Hecht in his eulogy. “He loved life and he threw his wit at people and events like a man scattering inexhaustible treasure.” Alexander Woollcott remarked that “everybody who knows him always lights up and starts talking about him as if he was a marvelous circus that had once passed his way.”
