Avery Hopwood
Encyclopedia
Biography
He was born in Cleveland, OhioCleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
(1905),
Hopwood started out as a journalist for a Cleveland newspaper as its New York correspondent, but within a year had a play, Clothes (1906), produced on Broadway. He 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", where a bevy of showgirls teased the audience in their lingerie. The case was dismissed.
His many plays included Nobody's Widow (1910), starring Blanche Bates; Fair and Warmer (1915), starring Madge Kennedy (filmed in 1919); The Gold Diggers (1919), starring Ina Claire (filmed in 1923 as The Gold Diggers
The Gold Diggers (1923 film)
The Gold Diggers is a Warner Bros. silent film directed by Harry Beaumont with screenplay by Grant Carpenter based on the play of the same name by Avery Hopwood which ran for 282 performances on Broadway in 1919 and 1920. Both the play and the film were produced by David Belasco...
, in 1928 as Gold Diggers of Broadway and also as Gold Diggers of 1933
Gold Diggers of 1933
Gold Diggers of 1933 is a pre-code Warner Bros. musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy with songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin , staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley...
); Ladies Night (in a Turkish Bath) (with Charlton Andrews), 1920, starring Charlie Ruggles (filmed in 1928); the famous mystery play The Bat (with Mary Roberts Rinehart
Mary Roberts Rinehart
Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it", although she did not actually use the phrase. She is considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing...
), 1920 (filmed in 1926
The Bat (1926 film)
The Bat is a silent film based on the 1920 hit Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, directed by Roland West and starring Jack Pickford and Louise Fazenda...
, 1930
The Bat Whispers
The Bat Whispers is a mystery film directed by Roland West, produced by Joseph M. Schenck, and released by United Artists.-Plot:A mysterious criminal by the name of "The Bat" eludes police and then finally announces his retirement to the country, while a wealthy Cornelia Van Gorder takes up...
and 1959
The Bat (1959 film)
The Bat is a mystery film directed by Crane Wilbur, and starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead. Its tagline was "When it flies, someone dies!" The film was based on the 1920 Broadway play by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart, which was previously filmed as The Bat and as The Bat...
); Getting Gertie's Garter (with Wilson Collison), 1921, starring Hazel Dawn (filmed in 1927 and 1945); The Demi-Virgin, 1921, also starring Hazel Dawn; The Alarm Clock, 1923; The Best People (with David Gray), 1924 (filmed in 1925 and as Fast and Loose
Fast and Loose (film)
Fast and Loose is a 1930 romantic comedy film directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and starring Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard and Frank Morgan. The film was written by Doris Anderson, Jack Kirkland and Preston Sturges, based on the 1924 play The Best People by David Gray and Avery Hopwood...
in 1930), the song-farce Naughty Cinderella, 1925, starring Irene Bordoni
Irène Bordoni
Irène Bordoni was a French singer and a Broadway and film actress.-Early years:Born in Ajaccio, France, from an Italian family, she had been a child actor, performing in Paris on stage and in silent films for a few years, having signed with theatrical agent André Charlot...
and The Garden of Eden in 1927 (filmed in 1928 as The Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden (1928 film)
The Garden of Eden is a 1928 silent movie starring Corinne Griffith. It was adapated from Avery Hopwood's short-lived stage production.-Cast:*Corinne Griffith - Toni LeBrun*Louise Dresser - Rosa*Lowell Sherman - Henri D'Avril...
). A clever, adroit, masterful craftsman who wrote to the tastes of his public, Hopwood was inexhaustible in his work ethic. Although the press reported that he was engaged to vaudeville dancer and choreographer Rose Rolanda in 1924, Hopwood's close friend Carl Van Vechten confirmed in later years that it was all a publicity stunt. Rolanda would later marry caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias.
Sadly, personal troubles related to his homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and his inability to break from the formula writing that made him a success led to his early death at age 46. While swimming at Juan-les-Pins
Juan-les-Pins
Juan-les-PinsCountry:Region:Department: Alpes-MaritimesArrondissement: GrasseCanton: Vallauris-Antibes-OuestMunicipality: AntibesPopulation:?Coordinates:Time zone:CET, UTC+1Elevation:10 amslPostal code:06600...
on the French Riviera, July 1, 1928, he suffered a heart attack and died. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio, next to his mother.
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 [his mother] Hopwood Creative Writing Awards
Hopwood Award
The Hopwood Awards are a major scholarship program at the University of Michigan, founded by Avery Hopwood.Under the terms of the will of Avery Hopwood, a prominent American dramatist and member of the Class of 1905 of The University of Michigan, one-fifth of Mr. Hopwood's estate was given to the...
. 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
Robert Hayden
Robert Hayden was an American poet, essayist, educator. He was appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1976.-Biography:...
, Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.-Biography:...
, Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
, Betty Smith
Betty Smith
Betty Smith, née Elisabeth Wehner , was an American author.-Biography:Born on December 15, 1896 in Brooklyn, New York to German immigrants, she grew up poor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and attended Girl's High School. These experiences served as the framework to her first novel, A Tree Grows in...
, Lawrence Kasdan
Lawrence Kasdan
Lawrence Edward "Larry" Kasdan is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Kasdan was born in Miami, Florida, the son of Sylvia Sarah , an employment counselor, and Clarence Norman Kasdan, who managed retail electronics stores.His Brother is the writer/producer Mark...
, John Ciardi
John Ciardi
John Anthony Ciardi was an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and...
, Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories , and The O. Henry Prize Stories .-Life:Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky...
, Nancy Willard
Nancy Willard
Nancy Willard is an award-winning children's author, poet, and novelist. In 1982, she received the Newbery Medal for A Visit to William Blake's Inn...
, Frank O’Hara, and Steve Hamilton
Steve Hamilton (author)
Steve Hamilton is an American writer of detective fiction. He was born January 10, 1961 and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He graduated in 1983 from the University of Michigan where he won the Hopwood Award for fiction. -Works:...
.
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. This manuscript, which Jack Sharrar recovered in 1982 during his research for Avery Hopwood, His Life and Plays, was published July, 2011.
Edited, with an Afterword, by Sharrar, Avery Hopwood's The Great Bordello, a Story of the Theatre, is a roman à clef that tells the story of Edwin Endsleigh—Hopwood’s fictional counterpart—who graduates from the University of Michigan and heads for Broadway to earn his fortune and the security to pursue his one true dream of writing the great American novel. Shaping Edwin’s ambitious journey in the world of the theater is his love of three women: the beautiful, strong-minded Julia Scarlet, whom he first meets in Ann Arbor; the emotionally fragile and haunting Jessamy Lee, and the very private and mysterious leading lady Adelina Kane, idol of the American stage. In the company of Edwin and his loves are a dramatic array of thinly veiled representations of theatrical personages of the time, amongst them Daniel Mendoza, an exacting and powerful impresario, who controls the lives of his leading ladies; the goatish, démodé manager, Matthew Lewis, who promotes Julia Scarlet as “the American Sarah Bernhardt”; the worldly-wise veteran of the stage, Ottilie Potter, who has gotten where she is because, “Men had what I wanted, and I had what they wanted”; and the huge, manlike Helen Sampson, chief among theatrical agents. Above all, The Great Bordello provides a deeper understanding of the human desire to accomplish something of enduring value amidst commercial success and ruthless realities of life.
Further reading
- Avery Hopwood: His Life and Plays, by Jack F. Sharrar (McFarland,1989; University of Michigan PressUniversity of Michigan PressThe University of Michigan Press is part of the University of Michigan Library and serves as a primary publishing unit of the University of Michigan, with special responsibility for the creation and promotion of scholarly, educational, and regional books and other materials in digital and print...
, 1998) - Broadway, by Brooks Atkinson. NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974.
- Fair and Warmer, adapted by Jack Sharrar from Avery Hopwood's comedy. NY: Playscripts, Inc.
- The Great Bordello, a Story of the Theatre, by Avery Hopwood. Edited, with an Afterword by Jack F. Sharrar. NY: Mondial, 2011.
- Matinee Tomorrow, by Ward Morehouse. NY: McGraw-HillMcGraw-HillThe McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...
Book Company, 1948. - Posing a Threat: Flappers, Chorus Girls, and Other Brazen Performers of the American 1920s, by Angela Latham. Hanover and London: Wesleyan University PressWesleyan University PressWesleyan University Press is a university press that is part of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The Press is currently directed by Suzanna Tamminen, a published poet and essayist...
, 2000. - The Splendid Drunken Twenties: Carl Van Vechten Selections from the Daybooks, 1922-1930. Edited by Bruce Kellner. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois PressUniversity of Illinois PressThe University of Illinois Press , is a major American university press and part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic projects...
, 2003. - "Covarrubias" by Adriana Williams, Austin University of Texas PressUniversity of Texas PressThe University of Texas Press is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texana, anthropology, U.S...
, 1994.