Alexander Woollcott (1887–1943,) fully Alexander Humphreys Woollcott, was an American author, critic, and actor. Known for his acerbic wit, he was the self-appointed leader of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal luncheon club at New York City’s Algonquin Hotel in the ’20s and ’30s.
Born in Phalanx, New Jersey, Woollcott was educated at Hamilton and Columbia universities. He became a theatre critic of The New York Times (1914–22,) the New York World (1925–28,) and other newspapers. He also contributed to The New Yorker.
Woollcott also undertook radio broadcasts in America (Town Crier, 1929–42) and the U.K. (1929–42,) and appeared on stage as Sheridan Whiteside, a character based on himself, in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1940.)
Woollcott wrote Mrs. Fiske, Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production (1917,) Two Gentlemen and a Lady (1928,) and While Rome Burns (1934.) His anthologies are The Woollcott Reader (1935) and Woollcott’s Second Reader (1937.)
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Many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have if we didn’t spend half our time wishing.
—Alexander Woollcott
I’m tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. We are supposed to work it
—Alexander Woollcott
Topics: Government
All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening.
—Alexander Woollcott
Topics: Pleasure
There is no such thing in anyone’s life as an unimportant day.
—Alexander Woollcott
Topics: Living, The Present, Present
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