Avery Hopwood

James Avery Hopwood (May 28, 1882 – July 1, 1928) was an American playwright, called the most successful playwright of the Jazz Age, having four plays running simultaneously on Broadway in 1920.

Hopwood was born to James and Jule Hopwood on May 28, 1882, in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Cleveland's West High School in 1900. In 1901, he began attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. However, his family experienced financial difficulties, so for his sophomore year he transferred to Adelbert College. He returned to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1903, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1905.

Hopwood started out as a journalist for a Cleveland newspaper as its New York correspondent, but within a year had a play, Clothes (1906), produced on Broadway. He became known as "The Playboy Playwright" and specialized in comedies and farces, some of them with material considered risqué at the time. One play, The Demi-Virgin in 1921, prompted a court case because of its suggestive subject matter, including a risque game of cards, "Stripping Cupid", where a bevy of showgirls teased the audience in their lingerie. The case was dismissed.

His many plays included Nobody's Widow (1910), starring Blanche Bates; Fair and Warmer (1915), starring Madge Kennedy (filmed in 1919); The Gold Diggers (1919), starring Ina Claire (filmed in 1923 as The Gold Diggers, in 1928 as Gold Diggers of Broadway and also as Gold Diggers of 1933); Ladies' Night, 1920, starring Charlie Ruggles (filmed in 1928); the famous mystery play The Bat (with Mary Roberts Rinehart), 1920 (filmed in 1926 as The Bat, in 1930 as The Bat Whispers, and in 1959 as The Bat); Getting Gertie's Garter (with Wilson Collison), 1921, starring Hazel Dawn (filmed in 1927 and 1945); The Demi-Virgin, 1921, also starring Dawn; The Alarm Clock, 1923; The Best People (with David Gray), 1924 (filmed in 1925 and as Fast and Loose in 1930), the song-farce Naughty Cinderella, 1925, starring Irene Bordoni and The Garden of Eden in 1927 (filmed in 1928 as The Garden of Eden).

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