Avery Hopwood

Avery Hopwood

James Avery Hopwood (May 28, 1882 – July 1, 1928), was an American playwright, called the most successful playwright of the Jazz Age, having four plays running simultaneously on Broadway in 1920.

Early life

Hopwood was born to James and Jule Hopwood on May 28, 1882, in Cleveland, Ohio.[1] He graduated from Cleveland's West High School in 1900.[2] In 1901, he began attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. However, his family experienced financial difficulties, so for his sophomore year he transferred to Adelbert College. He returned to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1903, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1905.[3]

Career

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"[4] 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, in 1928 as Gold Diggers of Broadway and also as Gold Diggers of 1933); Ladies' Night, 1920, starring Charlie Ruggles (filmed in 1928); the famous mystery play The Bat (with Mary Roberts Rinehart), 1920 (filmed in 1926 The Bat, 1930 The Bat Whispers, and 1959 The Bat); Getting Gertie's Garter (with Wilson Collison), 1921, starring Hazel Dawn (filmed in 1927 and 1945); The Demi-Virgin, 1921, also starring Dawn; The Alarm Clock, 1923; The Best People (with David Gray), 1924 (filmed in 1925 and as Fast and Loose in 1930), the song-farce Naughty Cinderella, 1925, starring Irene Bordoni and The Garden of Eden in 1927 (filmed in 1928 as The Garden of Eden).

Hopwood was asked to write the third act of Mary Roberts Rinehart's play; The Bat.[5] Hopwood collaborated with Rinehart to then work on the last act of the play in Sewickley and sometimes in New York.[5]

Interestingly, the early sound film, The Bat Whispers, played an influence on Bob Kane's Batman because the inspiration for Batman's costume came from the "mysterious Bat" character portrayed in the movie from 1930.[6]

Personal life

Avery Hopwood with dancer Rosa Rolanda, 1924.

In 1906, Hopwood was introduced to writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten. The two became close friends and were sometimes sexual partners.[7] In the 1920s Hopwood had a tumultuous and abusive romantic relationship with fellow Cleveland-born playwright John Floyd.[8] 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.

While swimming at Juan-les-Pins 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, Jule.[9]

Hopwood Awards

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.

Works

WPA poster for Hopwood's 1922 play Why Men Leave Home
WPA poster for Hopwood's 1923 play The Alarm Clock

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 as The Great Bordello.

References

  1. ↑ Sharrar 1998, pp. 8-9
  2. ↑ Sharrar 1998, p. 1
  3. ↑ Sharrar 1998, pp. 12-17
  4. ↑ Jim Beaver Biography for Avery Hopwood at Internet Movie Database
  5. 1 2 Cohn, Jan (1980). Improbable Fiction: The Life of Mary Roberts Rinehart. University of Pittsburgh press. p. 138.
  6. ↑ Kane, Bob. Batman and Me. Forestville, CA: Eclipse Books. p. 38.
  7. ↑ White 2014, pp. 71-73
  8. ↑ Sharrar 2005, p. 201
  9. ↑ Vigil, Vicki Blum (2007). Cemeteries of Northeast Ohio: Stones, Symbols & Stories. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59851-025-6

Works cited

Further reading

External links

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