George Jean Nathan

George Jean Nathan (February 14, 1882 – April 8, 1958) was an American drama critic and magazine editor. He worked closely as an editor with H. L. Mencken bringing the literary magazine The Smart Set to prominence and while co-founding and editing The American Mercury and The American Spectator.

Early life and education

Nathan was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on February 14, 1882, the son of Ella (Nirdlinger) and Charles Naret Nathan.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was graduated from Cornell University in 1904. There, he was a member of the Quill and Dagger society and an editor of The Cornell Daily Sun.

Relationships and marriage

Nathan had a reputation as a "ladies' man" and the character of Addison De Witt, the waspish theater critic who squires a starlet (played by a then-unknown Marilyn Monroe) in the 1950 film All About Eve was based on Nathan.<ref>Template:Citation</ref><ref>Benjamin Ivry "The Jewish Backstory behind 'All about Eve'", in: The Forward, July 15, 2020</ref>

Beginning in the late 1920s, Nathan had a romantic relationship with actress Lillian Gish that lasted almost a decade. Gish repeatedly refused his proposals of marriage.<ref>Albin Krebs, "Lillian Gish, 99, a Movie Star Since Movies Began, is Dead", The New York Times, March 1, 1993.</ref>

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Hawthorne, New York burial site of both Julie Haden and George Jean Nathan

At age 73 in 1955, Nathan married Julie Haydon (1910–1994). She was a stage and film actress who debuted on Broadway in 1935.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A collection of Nathan-Haydon papers was donated by his wife to the La Crosse Public Library archives in La Crosse, Wisconsin, her residence at the time of her death.

Death

Nathan died in Manhattan in 1958, aged 76. He and his wife are buried together in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.

Legacy

He wrote the plays The Artist (1912) and Heliogabalus (1920) with Mencken; he was sole author of The Eternal Mystery (1913) and The Avon Flows (1937). The Eternal Mystery premiered in 1913 at the Princess Theatre in Manhattan.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Owen Hatteras referred to the play as a failure when he quipped that Nathan had "...forbidden the production of the play henceforth in any American city save Chicago, in which city anyone who chooses may perform it without payment of royalties."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The Avon Flows is a conflation of three Shakespeare plays (Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, and Othello).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Walter Winchell opened one of his 1937 columns with a reference to Nathan as "a tough critic."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> An honor in dramatic criticism, the George Jean Nathan Award, is named after him. Nathan was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Nathan's quips have been quoted for generations after his death. One example, cited in 2025, is: Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.<ref>Garg, Anu, A word a Day, February 14, 2025</ref>

Papers

Separate from the collection of papers with his wife, Nathan bequeathed a collection of his letters and papers to Cornell University. Among the papers at Cornell are several letters he received from Eugene O'Neill.<ref>James Milton Highsmith: The Cornell Letters, #4600-1407. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.</ref>

Non-fiction Works

• Europe After 8:15 with H. L. Mencken and W. H. Wright (1914)<ref name=":0" />
• Another Book on the Theatre (1915)<ref name=":0" />
• Mr. George Jean Nathan Presents (1917)<ref name=":0" />
• Bottoms Up, an Application of Slapstick to Satire (1917)<ref name=":0" />
• The Popular Theater (1918)<ref name=":0" />
• A Book Without a Title (1918)<ref name=":0" />
• Comedian's All (1919)<ref name=":0" />
• Heliogabalus, a Buffoonery in Three Acts With H. L. Mencken (1920)<ref name=":0" />
• The American Credo; a Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind With H. L. Mencken (1921)<ref name=":0" />
• The Theatre, The Drama, The Girls (1921)<ref name=":0" />
• The Critic and The Drama (1922)<ref name=":0" />
• The World in Falseface (1923)<ref name=":0" />
• Materia Critic (1924)<ref name=":0" />
• The Autobiography of an Attitude (1925)<ref name=":0" />
• The House of Satan (1926)<ref name=":0" />
• The New American Credo (1927)<ref name=":0" />
• Land of the Pilgrim Pride (1927)<ref name=":0" />
• Art of the Night (1928)<ref name=":0" />
• Monks are Monks; a Diagnostic Scherzo (1929)<ref name=":0" />
• Testament of a Critic (1931)<ref name=":0" />
• Friends of Mine (1931)<ref name=":0" />
• Intimate Notebooks (1932)<ref name=":0" />
• Since Ibsen; a Statistical Historical Outline of the Popular Theatre Since 1900 (1933)<ref name=":0" />
• Passing Judgements (1935)<ref name=":0" />
• The Morning After the Night Before<ref name=":0" />
• The Theatre of The Moment; a Journalistic Commentary (1936)<ref name=":0" />
• Encyclopedia of the Theatre (1940)<ref name=":0" />
• The Bachelor Life (1941)<ref name=":0" />
• The Entertainment of a Nation; or, Three-Sheets in the Wind (1942, several editions)<ref name=":0" />
• Beware of Parents; a Bachelor's Book for Children (1943)<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

Secondary Sources

• Isaac Goldberg: George Jean Nathan: A Critical Study (Girard, Kansas, Haldeman-Julius Company [c.1925])
• Seymour Rudin: George Jean Nathan: A Study of His Criticism ([Ithaca, N.Y.] 1953)
• Thomas F. Connolly: George Jean Nathan and the Making of Modern American Drama Criticism (Madison: Faileigh Dickinson University Press, c.2000)

External links

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• "George Jean Nathan Award" at Cornell University
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