Robert Benchley

Robert Benchley - Of All Things

Robert Charles Benchley was born on September 15th, 1889 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Benchley wrote over 600 essays and is a humorist best known for his work for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. These essays, which ranged from topical to the absurdist, influenced many modern humorists. His humor was obvious from the time he attended Harvard University and was a writer for Harvard Lampoon. Benchley seemed to have an effortless way of creating humour and was equally famous for his work writing and appearing in short films, feature films and radio work. He was also a founder of the famous Algonquin Round Table at the New York hotel. This group, including Benchley, Dorothy Parker and George S Kaufman expanded to over a dozen regular members who met for lunch on an almost daily basis between 1919 and 1929. They dubbed themselves "The Vicious Circle". The group first gathered in the Algonquin's Pergola Room (later called the Oak Room) at a long rectangular table. As the gatherings increased in number, the Algonquin manager Frank Case moved them to the Rose Room and a round table. Daily association with each other, both at the luncheons and outside of them, inspired members of the Circle to collaborate creatively. The entire group worked together successfully only once, however, to create a revue called No Sirree! which helped launch a Hollywood career for Benchley. His legacy in Hollywood includes his short film How to Sleep which was a popular success and won Best Short Subject at the 1935 Academy Awards. He also acted with many memorable appearances in feature films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Nice Girl? (1941). In Hollywood he worked for many of the major studios and as an actor was often called upon to create humorous points where either a plot could be explained or something that required explaining could be used as a clotheshorse for jokes. In essence a screen image was established as a comic lecturer who tried but failed to clarify any given topic. Whilst Benchley was highly paid and sought after it seemed to leave him less and less time to write the things he cared about. Benchley's drinking, already a problem, had worsened over the years, until he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. (Ironically, when younger, he had been a devoted teetotaler.) Robert Charles Benchley died in a New York hospital on November 21st, 1945. His funeral was a private family affair, and his body was cremated and interred in a family plot on the island of Nantucket.