Background
Winchell was born on April 5, 1871 in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, son of William Brown and Virginia (Thrall) Smith. His father, a nephew of John Brown, 1800-1859, owned a flour, grain, and feed store.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
https://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Play-Three-Acts/dp/1313403806?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1313403806
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.
https://www.amazon.com/Turn-right-comedy-prologue-three/dp/B003U6YBRE?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B003U6YBRE
Winchell was born on April 5, 1871 in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, son of William Brown and Virginia (Thrall) Smith. His father, a nephew of John Brown, 1800-1859, owned a flour, grain, and feed store.
Educated in the Hartford public schools, young Winchell rejected college and enrolled in the school of acting at the Lyceum Theatre (later the American Academy of Dramatic Arts) in New York City. He finished of his course in 1892.
After studies Smith found sporadic employment for a decade as actor and stage manager, without attracting much attention, though he acted with William Gillette in Secret Service. It was not until 1904, when with Arnold Daly he produced in New York a series of plays by George Bernard Shaw, that he became prominent. The first, Candida, was produced with $1, 000 lent by William Gillette and, with those that followed, started the Shaw vogue in America.
Two years later, in collaboration with Byron Ongley, Smith tried his own hand at playwriting with a dramatization of George Barr McCutcheon's Brewster's Millions, which he also directed and which was a popular success. Thereafter he gave up acting entirely, and became a dramatist and director. His other original plays were The Fortune Hunter and The Only Son; all the rest were done in collaboration.
With Victor Mapes he wrote My Little Friend, The New Henrietta, and The Boomerang; with Paul Armstrong, Via Wireless; with John E. Hazzard, Turn to the Right; with Tom Cushing, Thank You; with Augustin McHugh, Officer 666; and with Frank Bacon, the actor, Lightnin', which was one of the greatest popular successes ever produced in America. He also acted as "play doctor" for numerous other scripts and almost always directed any play he worked on, as well as plays by other authors, notably Frank Craven's The First Year, which ran for over 700 performances on Broadway. Though he rose to fame as a producer of Shaw, Smith never in his own playwriting betrayed any Shavian influence. One of his quaintest character creations was "George Spelvin. "
After his successes began to mount he purchased an estate in Farmington, Connecticut, close to the town of his birth, and gave much time to its extensive development. His fortune was now ample, and he was with increasing difficulty tempted from his country acres to Broadway; the last play he staged was The Vinegar Tree in 1930.
He died leaving an estate estimated at a million and a half, a share of which was willed as a trust fund for the care of needy actors and dramatists.
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Though so successful a man of the theatre, he never lost a boyish bright simplicity and a certain Yankee tang. His smooth, alert face, behind eyeglasses, was that of a keen and kindly observer, without an actor's wrinkle or a worried managerial scowl. He was soft and pleasant spoken, with a dry but kindly wit, and he was universally liked both by his colleagues in the theatre and his neighbors in the country. The writing of popular plays was easy for him, his worldly affairs were uniformly successful, and he lived pleasantly by giving pleasure.
Smith married Grace Spencer of Troy, New York, on December 20, 1895. They had no children.