Not Samuel Goldwyn — the thin evidence points to Jack L. WarnerJack L. Warner1892–1978 · Canadian-born American studio chief, president of Warner Bros.
Quote Investigator ↗ finds the earliest evidence in 1961, in the journalist Bill Davidson’s Hollywood memoir The Real and the Unreal: “one of the Warner brothers” called all his writers, William Faulkner included, “schmucks with typewriters.” Faulkner worked for Jack Warner, so that is who Davidson meant. Two things keep it from being firm. Davidson published a second version months later saying “schleps”, which QI says “reduces the credibility of the ascription”; and the brand-name form on this page — “Underwoods” — does not appear in print until 1976. The Goldwyn credit is later still, and QI calls it inadequately supported.
“Writers Are Just Schmucks with Underwoods” not Samuel Goldwyn. Quote Investigator's earliest evidence is Bill Davidson's The Real and the Unreal (Harper & Brothers, 1961), p. 242, which gives “schmucks with typewriters” and ascribes it to “one of the Warner brothers” — Jack L. Warner, Faulkner's employer. The “Underwoods” wording first appears in the Los Angeles Times of 25 July 1976. The Goldwyn credit dates from 1986 and QI calls it inadequately supported. Traced by Quotle.info, quotle.info/who-said/writers-are-just-schmucks-with-underwoods/
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Samuel Goldwyn. Use the credit shown above instead.
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Provenance
Where the line actually comes from
Earliest evidence
Bill Davidson, The Real and the Unreal (Harper & Brothers, 1961), p. 242
Wording in that source
“schmucks with typewriters” — not “Underwoods”
“Underwoods” first in print
Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times, 25 July 1976, p. B1
First credited to Goldwyn
Bernard McTigue, American Book Collector 7, no. 4 (April 1986), p. 55
One of the Warner brothers, for example, used to call all writers—even William Faulkner, who was once under his command—“schmucks with typewriters” (schmuck is a derisive Yiddish expression for a bumpkin, an idiot). He used to make all his writers punch a time clock as they entered and left the studio…
Bill Davidson, The Real and the Unreal, 1961, p. 242
That is the whole of the earliest evidence, and it names nobody directly. In October of the same year Davidson reworked the passage for Show magazine and printed the same anecdote with “schleps with typewriters” instead. QI ↗ notes the inconsistency and suggests the taboo weight of the Yiddish word may explain the swap — but either way one journalist giving two wordings is not a firm ascription. The passage is quoted from QI’s transcription; the 1961 book is lending-restricted on the Internet Archive and we could not read it ourselves.
1961 — the first evidence, in Bill Davidson’s The Real and the Unreal ↗, chapter 14, p. 242. The remark is “schmucks with typewriters” and the speaker is “one of the Warner brothers”, identifiable as Jack L. Warner ↗ because Faulkner was under contract to him. Quote Investigator ↗ treats this as the strongest link.
1961, again — Davidson repeats the anecdote in Show: The Magazine of the Arts that October with “schleps with typewriters”. QI ↗: “It is unclear why Bill Davidson presented two different quotations, and the inconsistency reduces the credibility of the ascription.”
25 July 1976 — the Underwood ↗ brand enters the saying. Robert Kirsch, reviewing a book in the Los Angeles Times, writes that “Jack Warner was reputed to have snarled that writers were just ‘schmucks with Underwoods’”. It is repeated as Warner’s in his Washington Post obituary in 1978 and by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times in 1982, all per QI ↗.
1986 onward — the credit starts drifting to other moguls. American Book Collector gives it to Sam Goldwyn in April 1986; The Partisan Review gives it to “Lewis B. Mayer” in 1987; Ben Stein gives it to Harry Cohn in 2011. QI’s verdict ↗ on all three: “inadequately supported.”
We assert no rights status. This is a reported insult, not a passage from an authored work, and the wording on this page cannot be tied to a specific publication before 1931. The earliest printings we can name — a 1961 book and a 1976 newspaper column — are both after the United States public-domain threshold and are themselves in copyright as texts. Quote it as reportage.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Four moguls have been credited with this
It is a line about contempt for writers, so it has been attached in turn to almost every mogul famous for showing it. Only one of the four has a contemporary source behind him, and even that source contradicts itself.
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The whole lineSamuel Goldwyn Misattributed
First credited to Goldwyn in Bernard McTigue’s “Cat Chat” column in American Book Collector, April 1986 — twenty-five years after the earliest evidence, and with nothing behind it. QI ↗: the later attributions to Goldwyn, Mayer and Cohn “were inadequately supported.”
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The likeliest speakerJack L. Warner Earliest in print, 1961
Bill Davidson’s The Real and the Unreal ↗ puts “schmucks with typewriters” in the mouth of “one of the Warner brothers” who employed Faulkner. That is Jack Warner ↗. It is indirect, it does not name him, and it does not say “Underwoods” — but it is the only strand with a source.
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The whole lineLouis B. Mayer Misattributed
The Partisan Review gave it in 1987 to “Lewis B. Mayer”, almost certainly a garbling of Louis B. Mayer. QI ↗ finds no support for it.
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The whole lineHarry Cohn Misattributed
Ben Stein attributed it to the Columbia Pictures chief in 2011. QI ↗ finds no support for that either.
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The wording itself“Underwoods” rather than “typewriters” Wording drift
The brand name is not in the 1961 evidence. It first appears in the Los Angeles Times of 25 July 1976 ↗, fifteen years later, in a sentence that already treats the remark as legend (“was reputed to have snarled”).
✓If you must attach a name to it, attach Jack L. Warner’s ↗ — and say “reportedly”. Quote Investigator’s chronology ↗ shows the Goldwyn credit arriving in 1986, twenty-five years after the first evidence and with nothing new behind it.
Context
Why the studios needed a phrase for this
The insult exists because the arrangement it describes was real. Studios hired the best writers in America, paid them extraordinarily well, and then treated them as interchangeable staff — Davidson’s 1961 passage goes straight from the epithet to the detail that mattered: “He used to make all his writers punch a time clock as they entered and left the studio.” Faulkner punched that clock. So, at various points, did Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman and Raymond Chandler.
The brand name is what made the phrase travel. Underwood ↗ built the first widely successful modern typewriter and had made five million machines by 1939; naming it turned a generic sneer into a picture of a room. That is probably also why the wording drifted toward it — and why the version with the brand in it, which nobody has ever tied to a named speaker at the time, is the one everybody now quotes.
The earliest evidence says “typewriters”. The famous version says “Underwoods”, and arrives fifteen years later.
The riposte, and where the line went next
Writers took the phrase over almost immediately. Page Stegner used it on himself in The Atlantic Monthly in 1977 (“I’m going back to being a schmuck with an Underwood”); William Goldman used it in the 1998 edition of The Princess Bride; Larry Gelbart answered it in the New York Times in 1997 with “You remember Shakespeare. He was that schmuck with a quill.” A 2007 letter to Time closed the circle: “It might also be fair to say that Mr. Warner was just a schmuck with a Rolodex.” All of these are documented in QI’s chronology ↗.
The Yiddish word itself moved around. Davidson printed “schmucks” in his book and “schleps” in his magazine article the same year; and the 1992 book Fatal Subtraction reports the news anchor Peter Jennings saying “schnooks” on air, congratulating Art Buchwald after his win over Paramount — QI gives no date for that broadcast. QI ↗ notes that “schmuck” is the form that recurs, and records a reader’s observation that its vulgar etymology may be why a magazine of the early 1960s would have softened it.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1892–1978 · Canadian-born American studio chief, president of Warner Bros.
Jack Leonard Warner, born Jacob Warner in London, Ontario, ran Warner Bros. in Burbank for a career spanning more than fifty-five years — longer than any of the other founding Hollywood moguls. He is the brother in the phrase “one of the Warner brothers”, and the one William Faulkner was under contract to during his screenwriting years, which is what makes him the identifiable subject of the 1961 anecdote. He was known for blunt and off-colour remarks; his 1978 Washington Post obituary printed this one as though it were settled fact. It is not quite that, but it is the only version of the story with a contemporary source behind it.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented instance
Bill Davidson, The Real and the Unreal (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), 242 (as “schmucks with typewriters”, ascribed to “one of the Warner brothers”). The “Underwoods” wording is first documented in Robert Kirsch, “Hollywood ‘Hacks’ Reconsidered,” Los Angeles Times, 25 July 1976, B1. Both cited in “Quote Origin: Writers Are Just Schmucks with Underwoods,” Quote Investigator, 2 April 2014.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Writers Are Just Schmucks with Underwoods’?” Last verified 8 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/writers-are-just-schmucks-with-underwoods/