George S. Kaufman

1889–1961 · American playwright, theatre director and drama critic

George S. Kaufman was an American playwright, director and drama critic who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice — for Of Thee I Sing in 1932 and You Can’t Take It with You in 1937 — and wrote several of the Marx Brothers’ stage vehicles. He is the name in the first printing of this joke, in October 1931. Whether he made it up or was handed it by Groucho Marx is the part nobody has settled.

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“Origin of a Theatrical Review: I Saw It Under Adverse Conditions. The Curtain Was Up”

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