Smart Aleck: The Wit, World, and Life of Alexander Woollcott

Smart Aleck: The Wit, World, and Life of Alexander Woollcott by Teichman, Howard. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780688030346.

From the jacketflap: To those who knew Alexander Woollcett, he was literally larger than life. Harpo Marx once described him as something that got loose from the Macys Thanksgiving Parade. And Irma Selz, who sketched him, said he gave the impression of a great stuffed owl. But it was not just his formidable appearance that made Aleck a distinctive figure. For Woollcoot was a true American original. One fo the most charismatic personalities of his or any other time, Alexander Woollcott helped set the literary and theatrical standards of the nation from the 1920s through the early 1940s. A man of arsenic wit and impeccable taste, he served as a drama critic for The New York Times, founded the Algonquin Round Table, became radios first superstar as the Town Crier, and was immortalized as Sheridan Whiteside in the now classic comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman.