Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist, newspaper columnist and actor. From his beginnings at The Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, through his many years writing essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and his acclaimed short films, Benchley's style of humor brought him respect and success during his life, from his peers at the Algonquin Round Table in New York City to contemporaries in the burgeoning film industry.
Benchley is remembered best for his contributions to the magazine The New Yorker; his essays for that publication, whether topical or absurdist, influenced many modern humorists. He also made a name for himself in Hollywood, when his short movie How to Sleep was a popular success and won Best Short Subject at the 1935 Academy Awards. He also made many memorable appearances acting in movies such as Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent and Nice Girl?. Also, Benchley appeared as himself in Walt Disney's behind the scenes movie, The Reluctant Dragon. His legacy includes written work and numerous short movie appearances.
Life and career
Early life
Robert Benchley was born on September 15, 1889, in Worcester, Massachusetts, the second son of Charles Henry Benchley and Maria Jane. They were of Welsh and Northern Irish ancestry, respectively, both from colonial stock. His brother Edmund was thirteen years older. Benchley was later known for writing elaborately fanciful autobiographical statements about himself.His father served with the Union army for two years during the Civil War and had a four-year hitch in the Navy before settling again in Worcester, marrying and working as a town clerk. Benchley's grandfather Henry Wetherby Benchley, a member of the Massachusetts Senate and Lieutenant Governor during the mid-1850s, went to Houston, Texas and became an activist for the Underground Railroad for which he was arrested and jailed.
Brother Edmund's death
Robert's older brother Edmund was a 4th year cadet at West Point in 1898 when his class was graduated early to support preparations for the Spanish–American War; he was killed July 1 at the Battle of San Juan Hill.When news reached the family, Maria's stunned reaction was to cry out, "Why couldn't it have been Robert?!"; accounts conflict as to whether Robert heard this.
Edmund's fiancée Lillian Duryea, a wealthy heiress, doted on Robert for many years, and Edmund's death may have encouraged the pacifist sympathies present in Robert's writing. Additionally, because the news about Edmund had arrived during a July 4th celebration, Robert for the rest of his life associated fireworks with Edmund's death.
Meeting his wife
Robert Benchley met Gertrude Darling in high school in Worcester. They became engaged during his senior year at Harvard University, and they married in June 1914. Their first child, Nathaniel Benchley, was born a year later. A second son, Robert Benchley Jr., was born in 1919.Education
Robert grew up and attended South High School in Worcester and was involved in academic and traveling theatrical productions during high school. Thanks to financial aid from his late brother's fiancée, Lillian Duryea, he could attend Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire for his final year of high school. Benchley reveled in the atmosphere at the academy, and he remained active in creative extracurricular activities, thereby damaging his academic credentials toward the end of his term.Benchley enrolled at Harvard University in 1908, again with Duryea's financial help. He joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity in his first year, and continued to partake in the camaraderie that he had enjoyed at Phillips Exeter while still doing well in school. He did especially well in his English and government classes. His humor and style began to reveal themselves during this time: Benchley was often called upon to entertain his fraternity brothers, and his impressions of classmates and professors became very popular. His performances gave him some local fame, and most entertainment programs on campus and many off-campus meetings recruited Benchley's talents.
During his first two years at Harvard, Benchley worked with the publications Harvard Advocate and the Harvard Lampoon. He was elected to the Lampoons board of directors in his third year. The election of Benchley was unusual, as he was the publication's art editor and the board positions typically fell to the foremost writers on the staff. The Lampoon position opened a number of other doors for Benchley, and he was quickly nominated to the Signet Society meeting club as well as becoming the only undergraduate member of the Boston Papyrus Club at the time.
Along with his duties at the Lampoon, Benchley acted in a number of theatrical productions, including Hasty Pudding productions of The Crystal Gazer and Below Zero. He also had the position of κροκόδιλος for the Pudding in 1912. Benchley kept these achievements in mind as he began to contemplate a career for himself after college. Charles Townsend Copeland, an English professor, recommended that Benchley become a writer, and Benchley and future Benchley illustrator Gluyas Williams from the Lampoon considered doing freelance work writing and illustrating theatrical reviews. Another English professor recommended that Benchley speak with the Curtis Publishing Company; but Benchley was initially against the idea, and ultimately accepted a job at a civil service office in Philadelphia. Owing to an academic failure during his senior year due to an illness, Benchley would not receive his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard until the completion of his credits in 1913. His shortcoming was the submission of a "scholarly paper" – which Benchley eventually rectified by a treatise on the U.S. – Canadian Fisheries Dispute, written from the point of view of a cod. He took a position with Curtis soon after he received his diploma.
Early professional career
Benchley did copy work for the Curtis Company during the summer following graduation, while doing other odd service jobs, such as translating French catalogs for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In September, he was hired by Curtis as a full-time staff member, preparing copy for its new house publication, Obiter Dicta. The first issue was criticized by management, who felt it was "too technical, too scattering, and wholly lacking in punch." Things did not improve for Benchley and Obiter Dicta, and a failed practical joke at a company banquet further strained the relationship between Benchley and his superiors. He continued his attempts to develop his own voice within the publication, but Benchley and Curtis were not a good match, and he eventually quit, as Curtis was considering eliminating Benchley's role and he had been offered a job in Boston with a better salaryBenchley had a number of similar jobs during the following years. His re-entry into public speaking followed the annual Harvard–Yale football game in 1914, where he presented a practical joke involving "Professor Soong" giving a question-and-answer session on football in Chinese. In what the local press dubbed "the Chinese professor caper," Soong was played by a Chinese-American who had lived in the United States for more than thirty years, and pretended to answer questions in Chinese while Benchley "translated". While his fame increased, Benchley continued with freelance work, which included his first paid piece for Vanity Fair in 1914, titled "Hints on Writing a Book," a parody of the non-fiction pieces then popular. While Benchley's pieces were bought by Vanity Fair from time to time, his work was sporadic, and he accepted a job with the New York Tribune.
Benchley started at the Tribune as a reporter. He was a very poor one, unable to get statements from people quoted in other papers, and eventually had greater success covering lectures around the city. He was promised a job with the Tribunes Sunday magazine when it launched, and he was transferred to the magazine's staff soon after he was hired, eventually becoming chief writer. He wrote two articles a week: the first a review of non-literary books, the other a feature-style article about whatever he wanted. The liberty gave his work new life, and the success of his pieces in the magazine convinced his editors to give him a signed byline column in the Tribune proper.
Benchley filled in for P. G. Wodehouse at Vanity Fair at the beginning of 1916, reviewing theatre in New York. This inspired staff at the Tribune magazine to creativity for articles, but the situation at the magazine deteriorated as the pacifist Benchley became unhappy with the Tribunes rhetoric concerning World War I, and the Tribune editors were unhappy with the evolving style and irreverence of the magazine. In 1917, the Tribune terminated the magazine, and Benchley was out of work again. When a rumored vacancy for an editorial job at Vanity Fair failed to happen, Benchley decided he would continue freelancing, having made a name for himself at the magazine.
This freelancing attempt did not start out well, with Benchley selling just one piece to Vanity Fair and accumulating countless rejections in two months. When a position as press agent for Broadway producer William A. Brady was offered, Benchley accepted it, against the advice of many of his peers. This experience was a poor one, as Brady was extremely difficult to work for. Benchley resigned to become a publicity director for the federal government's Aircraft Board at the beginning of 1918. His experience there was not much better, and when an opportunity was offered to return to the Tribune with new editorial management, Benchley accepted it.
At the Tribune, Benchley, along with new editor Ernest Gruening, was in charge of a twelve-page pictorial supplement titled the Tribune Graphic. The two were given a good deal of freedom, but Benchley's coverage of the war and emphasis on African-American regiments as well as provocative pictorials about lynching in the southern United States earned him and Gruening scrutiny from management. Amid accusations that both were pro-German, Benchley tendered his resignation in a terse letter, citing the lack of "rational proof that Dr. Gruening was guilty of...charges made against him..." and management's attempts to "smirch the character and the newspaper career of the first man in three years who has been able to make the Tribune look like a newspaper".
Benchley was forced to take a publicity job with the Liberty Loan program, and he continued to freelance until Collier's magazine offered him an associate editor job. Benchley mentioned this offer to Vanity Fair to see if they would match it, as he felt Vanity Fair was the better magazine, and Vanity Fair offered him the job of managing editor. He accepted and began work there in 1919.
An influence upon Benchley's early professional career was the admiration and friendship of the Canadian economist, academic, and humorist Dr. Stephen Leacock. Leacock closely followed the increasing body of Benchley's published humor and wit, and began correspondence between them. He admitted to occasional borrowing of a Benchley topic for his own writings. Eventually, he began lobbying gently for Benchley to compile his columns into book form, and, in 1921, was delighted when the result of his nagging - Of All Things - was published. The British edition of the book included a Leacock introduction, and Benchley, for his part – in a tribute to Leacock – later said he read everything Leacock ever wrote.