#Carl "Eric" Erickson

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An Instant Star

George Cukor’s 1932 pre-Code film A Bill of Divorcement would make Katharine Hepburn an instant star in her screen debut… Oct. 8, 1932 cover by Rea Irvin. … but New Yorker critic John Mosher seems to have missed the boat in spotting this new talent, who would go on to be — at least according to the American Film Institute, “the greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema.” In A Bill of…

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Not Even Funny

There were a number of people Dorothy Parker couldn’t abide. That included gifted writers who not only eschewed serious literature, but who instead chose to crank out a lot of mass-market trash. March 18, 1933 cover by William Steig. Parker was well acquainted with Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer (1902–1959), and for a time she even associated with the Fortean Society, which Thayer founded in 1931.…

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The Coming War

While many Americans partied through the Roaring Twenties, there were a few voices out there, barely audible, that warned of economic collapse and another world war.

Oct. 3, 1931 cover by Helen Hokinson.

The humorist and New Yorker contributor Frank Sullivanwas among the few who took notice of the dire predictions (of war, anyway) and turned it into a funny take on how a European war might…

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Front Page News

It’s hard to beat Chicago as a source for hardboiled storytelling, and two of its best newspaper reporters, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, would draw on their rough and tumble newsroom experiences to create one of Broadway’s most-beloved plays.

March 28, 1931 cover by Ruth Cairns.

Although they were Chicago boys, the New Yorker crowd viewed Hecht and MacArthur as adopted (or perhaps naturalized

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Ten Cents In Stamps

Ten Cents In Stamps

Like E.B. White, James Thurber and Dorothy Parker who came before him, S. J. Perelman was one of those New Yorker writers whose name would become synonymous with the magazine. 

Jan. 24, 1931 cover by William Crawford Galbraith.

Perelman’s first New Yorkerarticle, “Ten Cents in Stamps,” appeared in the Jan. 24, 1931 issue, his subject a collection of self-help and “how to” books he introduced with…

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Animal Crackers

Above image: Groucho Marx, Margaret Dumont, and Lillian Roth in the Marx Brothers second film, Animal Crackers, 1930

The Marx Brothers were famous for a string of hit films in the 1930s, but some of the comedy on which those films were based went all the way back to the days of vaudeville and 1920s Broadway.

Sept. 6, 1930 cover by Peter Arno.

Animal Crackerswas their second film (the first was…