Avery Hopwood


James Avery Hopwood was an American playwright of the Jazz Age. He had four plays running simultaneously on Broadway in 1920, namely The Gold Diggers, The Bat, Spanish Love, and Ladies' Night (In a Turkish Bath). His most famous work popularized the use of the term "gold digger".

Early life

Hopwood was born to James and Jule Pendergast Hopwood on May 28, 1882, in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Cleveland's West High School in 1900. In 1901, he began attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. However, his family encountered financial difficulties, so for his second year he transferred to Adelbert College, located in Cleveland, where he could live at home. He returned to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1903, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1905.

Career

Hopwood started out as a journalist for the Cleveland Leader as its New York correspondent. Within a year he had his first play, Clothes, produced on Broadway, with the aid of playwright Channing Pollock. Hopwood eventually became known as "The Playboy Playwright" and specialized in comedies and farces, some of them with material considered risqué at the time. One play, The Demi-Virgin in 1921, prompted a court case because of its suggestive subject matter, including a risque game of cards, "Stripping Cupid". The case was dismissed.
His many plays included Nobody's Widow, starring Blanche Bates; Fair and Warmer, starring Madge Kennedy ; The Gold Diggers, starring Ina Claire in New York and Tallulah Bankhead in London; ; Ladies' Night, 1920, starring Charlie Ruggles ; the famous mystery play The Bat, 1920 ; Getting Gertie's Garter, 1921, starring Hazel Dawn ; The Demi-Virgin, 1921, also starring Dawn; The Alarm Clock, 1923, translated from the French; The Best People, 1924 ; the song-farce Naughty Cinderella, 1925, starring Irène Bordoni and The Garden of Eden in 1927, with Tallulah Bankhead in London and Miriam Hopkins in New York;.

Personal life

In 1906, Hopwood was introduced to writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten. The two became close friends and were sometimes sexual partners. In the 1920s Hopwood had a tumultuous and abusive romantic relationship with fellow Cleveland-born playwright John Floyd. Although Hopwood announced to the press in 1924 that he was engaged to vaudeville dancer and choreographer Rosa Rolanda, Van Vechten confirmed in later years that it was a publicity stunt. Rolanda would later marry caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias.
On the evening of July 1, 1928, at Juan-les-Pins on the French Riviera, Hopwood suffered a fatal heart attack while swimming. His body was returned to the US and he was buried in Riverside Cemetery, Cleveland.
His mother, Jule Hopwood, inherited a large trust from him, but he had not made arrangements for the disposition of other items, including literary rights. While she was working through the legal issues with his estate, Jule Hopwood fell ill and died on March 1, 1929. She was buried next to her son.

Legacy

Hopwood's plays were very successful commercially, but they did not have the lasting literary significance he hoped to achieve.

Hopwood Award

The terms of Hopwood's will left a substantial portion of his estate to his alma mater, the University of Michigan, for the establishment of the Avery Hopwood and Jule Hopwood Creative Writing Awards. The bequest stipulated: "It is especially desired that students competing for prizes shall be allowed the widest possible latitude, and that the new, the unusual, and the radical shall be especially encouraged." Famous Hopwood award winners include Robert Hayden, Marge Piercy, Arthur Miller, Betty Smith, Lawrence Kasdan, John Ciardi, Mary Gaitskill, Edmund White, Nancy Willard, Frank O'Hara, and Steve Hamilton.

''The Great Bordello''

Throughout his life, Hopwood worked on a novel that he hoped would "expose" the strictures the commercial theater machine imposed on playwrights, but the manuscript was never published. Jack Sharrar recovered the manuscript for this novel in 1982 during his research for Avery Hopwood, His Life and Plays. The novel was published in July 2011 by Mondial Books as The Great Bordello, a Story of the Theatre, edited and with an Afterword by Sharrar.

Works

Clothes with Channing PollockThis Woman and This Man Seven Days with Mary Roberts RinehartJudy Forgot Nobody's Widow Somewhere Else Fair and Warmer Remains popular in Germany and Scandinavia Sadie Love Our Little Wife Double Exposure Tumble In The Gold Diggers The Girl in the Limousine with Wilson CollisonLadies' Night with Charlton AndrewsSpanish Love with Mary Roberts RinehartThe Bat with Mary Roberts RinehartGetting Gertie's Garter with Wilson CollisonThe Demi-Virgin Why Men Leave Home Little Miss Bluebeard The Alarm Clock The Best People with David GrayThe Harem with Ernest VajdaNaughty Cinderella
  • ''The Garden of Eden''

Filmography

Clothes Judy Forgot Our Little Wife Sadie Love Fair and Warmer Guilty of Love Clothes The Little Clown The Gold Diggers Why Men Leave Home The Girl in the Limousine Miss Bluebeard The Best People The Bat Good and Naughty Nobody's Widow Getting Gertie's Garter The Garden of Eden Ladies' Night in a Turkish Bath Gold Diggers of Broadway Her Wedding Night

Works cited

*