Arthur Sheekman
| Arthur Sheekman | |
|---|---|
Sheekman in Hollywood
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| Born |
February 5, 1901 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. |
| Died | January 12, 1978 (aged 76) Santa Monica, California, U.S.A. |
| Cause of death | Cardiac standstill |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Spouse(s) |
Gloria Stuart (m.1934-1978; his death) |
| Children | Sylvia Vaughn Thompson |
Arthur Sheekman (February 5, 1901 – January 12, 1978) was an American theater and movie critic, columnist, playwright and editor—but best known for his writing for the screen. His specialty was light comedy. Groucho Marx called him "The Fastest Wit in the West."
Arthur Sheekman was born February 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, Nettie Green Sheekman and Charles Grover Sheekman were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Sheekman was the middle child of three, coming between Edith (who became a teacher) and Harvey (an engineer). In Sheekman's early years, the family lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, where their father owned a bar. As Charlie Sheekman wasn't much of a provider, the children had to scramble to help support their family. At twelve, Sheekman got his first job, working after school and on weekends at the St. Paul Public Library stacking books. He worked at the library until he got a job as a cub reporter on the St. Paul Daily News—a letter of recommendation from Librarian William Dawson Johnston to the Daily News City Editor gave him the entrée. Sheekman rose to become the paper's theater and movie critic, writing his column, "The Voice Off-Stage". Wanting to go to college, Sheekman enrolled at the University of Minnesota but found he could not manage both his job and his course work and had to withdraw.
In 1926, while perhaps apocryphal, the story goes that Sheekman was filling a colleague's place on a journalists' junket to the Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia. On a sight-seeing tour with fellow newspapermen, the guide was pointing out a replica of the Liberty Bell...a replica of Betsy Ross's flag...a replica of the elm tree where William Penn stood...a replica of—when Sheekman interrupted, "Say, could you show us a replica of a men's room?" When the editor of the Chicago Journal stopped laughing, he offered Sheekman three times the salary he was getting at the Daily News. That was how Sheekman got back to his native Chicago.
On the Chicago Journal, Sheekman continued writing about the movies and Hollywood in his column, "Short Shot and Close-Up". Then he was awarded the noteworthy space, "A Little About Everything," a column previously occupied by humorists Bert Leston Taylor, Finley Peter Dunne and Franklin P. Adams. In a Journal handout promoting the column, Florenz Ziegfeld is quoted as wiring from New York, "Please send me back numbers of Chicago Daily Journal containing Arthur Sheekman's column, which I find vastly entertaining." "A leading merchant of Chicago...remarked, "I like his column because he is a cynic without scorn, and a wit without malice." Finally, Sheekman moved to Chicago's Daily Times where his column "Ahead of the Times" was a "A Daily Potpourri of Wit and Verse.".
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