Background
Horace Brisbin Liveright was born on December 10, 1886 in Osceola Mills, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Henry and Henrietta (Fleisher) Liveright. When he was thirteen the family moved to Philadelphia.
Horace Brisbin Liveright was born on December 10, 1886 in Osceola Mills, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Henry and Henrietta (Fleisher) Liveright. When he was thirteen the family moved to Philadelphia.
Horace attended grammar school and entered high school in Philadelphia. Before completing one year in the latter, however, he left, because, he said, he "knew more than the teacher. "
Liveright went to work for a brokerage house. When he was seventeen he wrote the book and lyrics of a comic opera, John Smith, which he took to New York and arranged with E. E. Rice to produce. The show was placed in rehearsal but before the opening night Rice went into bankruptcy and the venture was abandoned. As a bond salesman for Sutro Brothers and as manager of the bond department of Day, Adams & Company he was successful, but the business was not to his liking and in 1911 he went into the manufacturing and sale of paper products.
In 1917 he became associated with Albert Boni and they started to publish The Modern Library, a series of standard books of convenient size. The following year the two men established the publishing firm of Boni & Liveright with Liveright as president. Boni retired from the firm in 1918, leaving Liveright in charge of the business.
In 1924 he entered the field of theatrical production with The Firebrand, followed in 1925 by Hamlet in modern dress, a venture which caused much comment. In 1926 he produced An American Tragedy, a play made from Theodore Dreiser's novel of that name, and in 1927, Dracula and The Dagger and the Rose. Liveright had many tilts with the censor. The books he published and the plays he produced were constantly under fire from the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and he fought bitterly all attacks. He was opposed to censorship of books and plays by city or state and not only did he defend his own but in one instance bought the rights of a play from the original producer after the police had raided the show. He was successful in his fight against Justice John Ford's "Clean Books Bill" before the New York General Assembly in 1924.
When he retired from the publishing business in 1930 he went to Hollywood as a novel and play adviser for Paramount Studios. Liveright was a member of the executive committee of forty-eight of the Jewish religion. In 1926 he was made an officer of the French Academy. He died of pneumonia, leaving an estate, it is said, of about $500.
Liveright was a tall, lean, gray-haired man, with an aquiline nose. He was a familiar figure at literary salons, where he had enemies as well as friends. He frankly confessed that he loved a fight, particularly when it was for something in which he strongly believed. He was full of vigor and had unfailing confidence in himself. One writer described him as having in him "much of the gambler, much of the showman, a great deal of the playboy". He was somewhat of a charlatan, but underneath all his pretense his friends saw "a rather helpless person, craving affection and admiration, with a rare love of life, and a reckless generosity they could not resist".
Liveright was twice married: first, in 1911, to Lucile Elsas of New York City, by whom he had two children--Herman and Lucy. The parents were divorced in 1928, and in 1931 het married Elise Bartlett Porter, an actress, the divorced wife of Joseph Schildkraut. This second union was ended by divorce in 1932.