Edith Oliver

Edith Oliver (August 9, 1913—February 23, 1998) was an American theater and film critic who contributed to The New Yorker magazine from 1947 to 1993. Before that, she wrote several radio quiz shows, including Take It or Leave It: the $64 Question, which she also produced. She is best known for her coverage of, and support for, Off-Broadway theater. In 1996 she was presented with the Lucille Lortel award for “Lifetime Dedication to Off-Broadway” by the Off-Broadway League.

Oliver was a staunch supporter of emerging playwrights. She spent 20 summers (1975–1995) advising playwrights on their works-in-process in her role as a dramaturge at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. The Conference’s founder, George White, described her this way, "She was packaged like the quintessential elderly lady that a Boy Scout would help across the street, except that she drank martinis, smoked cigarettes and could, on occasion, have a mouth like a sailor. She could be tough and would brook no banality, but she truly loved playwrights and loved the theater."

Edith Oliver (née Goldsmith) was born in New York City in 1913, to Sam Goldsmith (a wool broker) and his wife Maude Goldsmith. She described her family (which included a younger brother, Robert) as “stage struck.” She attended Smith College but did not graduate. She studied acting privately with the famous English actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell and worked as an apprentice at the Stockbridge Playhouse in Stockbridge, MA. She was a fan of the novelist, poet and playwright Oliver Goldsmith, and began using the name Edith Oliver, first as a nom de plume at Smith and then as a stage name in her early 20s. She went by Oliver for the rest of her life.

An aspiring stage actress, she landed small parts in radio plays that included Gangbusters, Crime Doctor and the Philip Morris Playhouse. In 1937 she began writing questions for the radio quiz show “True or False?”. In 1940 she began writing for “Take It or Leave It: The $64 Question,” for CBS radio and then NBC. She later became the producer of the program.

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