Most of the time you know what I’m listening to by what I post. Well now you will know what I’m reading about. Today we are taking a different path. We have music, movies, and plays, but about the creators themselves. I first learned about them from the most unlikely member, Harpo Marx. We are still in pop culture, just in a different location and time.
I have been fascinated by the Algonquin Round Table for years. Writers, editors, artists, humorists, actors, critics, and reporters gathered for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel in New York. They traded jokes, discussed their work, insulted one another, and helped shape American popular culture during the 1920s.
They were not a rock band, but they behaved like one. Every member brought a different talent. They collaborated, competed, argued, became famous, and eventually drifted apart. The talent was enormous. So were some of the egos. That is why I think of them as the original supergroup.
The Round Table began in June 1919 with a practical joke. Theater publicist John Peter Toohey and press agent Murdock Pemberton organized a welcome-home luncheon for drama critic Alexander Woollcott, who had returned from working with Stars and Stripes during World War I. The real purpose was to roast him.
Woollcott apparently enjoyed it. The guests had such a good time that they returned for lunch the following day. One lunch led to another, and before long the gathering became a regular event at the Algonquin.
The group became known as the Round Table, although its members sometimes called themselves the Vicious Circle. That name may have been more accurate. It was not a place for anyone with thin skin. Groucho Marx was the king of insults, but even he never felt completely comfortable among them. He reportedly said, “The price of admission is a serpent’s tongue and a half-concealed stiletto.”
That tells you almost everything you need to know coming from one of the leading insult artists.
Edna Ferber called them “The Poison Squad.” She remembered them as merciless when they disliked something, but equally willing to praise work they admired. Their standards were high. They expected talent from one another, and they were not shy about saying when someone had fallen short. Just like a band, they pushed each other to greater heights at times.
For all the insults, this was more than a collection of clever people trying to outdo one another. They supported each other’s work and frequently collaborated. George S. Kaufman wrote Dulcy with Marc Connelly and The Royal Family with Edna Ferber. Harold Ross and Jane Grant founded The New Yorker, which soon published work by Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and other people connected with the group.
In that way, the Round Table worked much like a creative network. A joke told over lunch might appear in a newspaper column the following day. A conversation could lead to a play, a magazine article, or a job. They entertained each other, but they also helped one another build careers.
By the middle of the 1920s, the private lunch had become a public attraction. People came to the Algonquin hoping to see them. Newspapers repeated their jokes, and readers waited to hear what Dorothy Parker, Woollcott, Benchley, or Franklin P. Adams would say next.
That attention changed the gathering. What had begun naturally was now expected to produce entertainment. They were no longer simply eating lunch with friends. They were performing for the room. That is another reason they remind me of a rock band. Once an audience expects you to be clever every day, the fun can become work.
Politics also began to enter their lives more seriously. Dorothy Parker protested the convictions of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti and was arrested during a demonstration in 1927. The case did not single-handedly end the Round Table, but it represented a change in Parker. Humor was no longer enough for everything she saw happening around her. She later wrote that ridicule could serve as a shield, but not as a weapon.
The Round Table never held an official final meeting. It simply faded during the late 1920s. Members became busy with plays, books, magazines, radio, and movies. Some went to Hollywood. Friendships changed, arguments lingered, and the country entered the Great Depression. Like many groups, they did not necessarily decide to break up. One day they simply stopped meeting as they once had.
Years later, several of them gathered again following a memorial service for Alexander Woollcott, who died in 1943. They returned to the Algonquin for a drink, but the old magic was gone. People once famous for never being at a loss for words reportedly sat together in an uncomfortable silence.
Harpo Marx later called it their last and strangest gathering.
For roughly a decade, however, that table held an astonishing amount of talent. They wrote plays, founded magazines, made movies, published books, created artwork, and produced jokes that are still repeated today. Some were regular members. Others drifted in and out. Together, they captured something about New York during the 1920s that has never been completely recreated.
I would not have wanted to sit at that table. I would have been afraid to open my trap. But I would have loved to sit close enough to listen.
If you want to read about the individual members, I have them listed here with a short bio.
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Very interesting read, Max. I’ll check out the video later today.
I think you will like it Nancy. That is the one place besides Cooperstown I want to go when I make it there.
One of those things I knew that had existed but little beyond that. I would like to carve out some time to listen to that YouTube clip. But today I am carving a turkey, after I cook it of course.
Getting a head start in the holiday are you? Happy Thanksgiving!
Yes today is turkey day. It’s always nice to be able to relax and eat leftovers on Monday. Of course now that we’re retired we hardly need that excuse!
That sounds more fun!
Interesting. I’ve heard the term but didn’t know about the who’s or what’s. You make a good point comparing them to a group.
They were world famous and often traveled together or partly together. In that place full of pseudo intellectuals AND intellectuals… there was Harpo who didn’t go past the second grade….he listened and learned…
When you get an assortment of talented, bright and creative people together in one room, usually good things happen and everyone’s game is elevated.
I think ‘Midnight in Paris’ (a rare Woody Allen movie I like) is semi-accurate in setting and Paris, 1920’s was like that with everyone from Hemingway to Dali to TS Eliot hanging around the same cafes and Gertrude Stein’s place. Great petri dish of talented elements sure to morph into something bigger, better
Yes…in Paris they had their own “roundtable” at the time. It was vicious sitting at that table but they did push each other to do better things. The put down lines that came out of that…are something else lol…
85 theatres in Time Square alone…..wow! Great write up and video. Loved the one-liners throughout.
I remember the first time I went to NYC in the spring of 2001, my sister who lived in Conn. at the time thought I’d want to see the usual tourist traps…..nope, that home of the round table was number 1 on my list, CBGBs hadn’t closed it’s doors yet, and places I only knew from the village voice and Andy Warhol’s history……an amazing place and amazing time
I want to go there so bad Warren. Just to be there where all these historic people were. So cool you got to see it and CBGB’s!
Thank you, Max, for honoring one of the great American traditions. I am a HUGE fan of many of the people in that group. One of my favorite lines, My world and welcome to it, comes from James Thurber. I never associated the Marx Brothers with the Algonquin, and it staggers my imagination, even from this distance of a century, to put Harpo and Groucho together with Dorothy Parker and James Thurber. WOW!!!
For those who don’t know the individuals, you have some great reading to enjoy. Trust me, the wit of these folks with a familiar environment of the Fab Four, the Stones, Little Feat, Creedence, and all the others we know and love is paradise.
And Max’s desire to go there if he ever got to the Big Apple is as fitting an honor as any shrine might deserve.
Groucho not as much…but Harpo was a bonifide memember of it. The guy had a second grade education but most importantly, he listened…and learned a lot.
Arthur, have you ever read F.P. Adams “The Conning Tower” articles he would published? He would wite about the things said at the roundtable in his newspaper article the next day. I want to get a book of them.
My favorite was Neysa McMein…the illustrator…she was so talented…she drew the covers to so many magazines including the Saturday Evening Post.
Sorry to go on and on…but like you…I love this stuff.
Don’t be sorry. Please go on and on. God knows I do. 🙂
Neysa McMein
Nes name to me. Google here I come.
She was the whole package…smart, beautiful, and a great artist.
Interesting post, Max. And I guess you also just answered a question I was asking myself before.
There’s a performance venue in Manasquan, New Jersey, called The Algonquin Arts Theatre (or simply The Algonquin). I’ve seen my music buddy Mike Caputo’s band Good Stuff perform there twice and previously wondered about the origins of the place’s name. Based on your post, I guess it’s safe to assume it’s a nod to the Algonquin Round Table!
When I get to New York…this is one of the places I want to go dude.
That would be my guess man… and of course the hotel they met in…everything is still there….that and the baseball hall of fame are the two things I want to see.
Interesting reading you’re doing. I guess I’ve heard the phrase about this round table, but didn’t know what it referred to. Will have to check out the video at some point.
M.Y….if I ever make it to New York…I want to go to this hotel…it is very interesting and the one liners are dark classics lol.
Well, I can’t tell you anything, because I’ve never been there. I live in the relative sticks in upstate NY. Hope you get there some day.
Sorry Max, late to the party/table again! Somehow I missed this one. From what I’ve read and heard their’s was a real free-wheeling battle of wits. Those sparkling ripostes with nary a pause must have been giddying to hear- or worse, be on the end of.
I don’t know how many times in a bantering conversation I’ve been left struck dumb and feeling dumber, only to come up a with decent rejoinder, but frustratingly way… too… late… A master of the l’esprit de l’escalier, dammit!
When Groucho Marx feels uncomfortable there…that is really telling. It’s fun reading some of the quotes from this…one would print some in their column the next day.
Thats me…I’m always too late in the reply.
You know, you and the folks at Weave a Web have created something very similar in terms of fascinating jokes and puns based on Bruce’s imaginative (?) tales. You should be proud of your participation, which is always top notch.
Such a fascinating and wonderful read! It’s always so cool discovering the historical ripples left behind by these legendary groups—like finding out about theater names or dreaming of visiting the hotel yourself, just like Warren got to experience.
Thank you so much for reading. Yea I would love to visit this place…just to soak up the history.
☺️☺️☺️
So interesting! Thank you for teaching me something new today!
I read Harpo’s autobiography and was surprised to learn how varied and freewheeling the Round Table was.
It really was…I never knew they traveled together…and what a life that Harpo lived. A professional listener has advantages.
This is crazy. They were ahead of their time really. They were doing a podcast format back in the ’20s lol
Fascinating, Max. I’m shocked nobody’s tried to make a movie of it yet. Do you know if there are any books out there on it/them?
Oh yes…there are books and some tv movies I believe. There is one called “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle” in 1994 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKRUUoiKwBI … but the bio to watch is The Algonquin Round Table: The Ten-Year Lunch (1987) you can see both on youtube.
THANKS for the info on where to watch/learn more. Hubs of creativity are vital to keep the muse happy.
Yes it does help! The Round Table is like a Rabbit hole…so many people that it’s easy to get lost in. McMein, Parker, and especially Harpo…