The Late George Aptly

GEORGE S. KAUFMAN: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT by HOWARD TEICHMANN 371 pages. Atheneum. $10.

The large-caliber wisecrack, like the horse pistol, is part of America's past. As the Norman Mailer-Germaine Greer exchange indicated recently, the snub-nosed innuendo aimed below the belt is today's favored weapon. When quips were quips even a President of the United States could get them off. Remember the British diplomat who told Lincoln that "English gentlemen never black their own boots"? Lincoln looked up from buffing his own and replied, "Whose boots do you black?"

The humor of George S. Kaufman was very much in that laconic, debunking vein. In fact, Kaufman, a lanky ribbon salesman from Pittsburgh who became the most successful Broadway playwright of his time, attended costume balls as the 16th President. In later years, possibly touchy about being mistaken for Raymond Massey, he remarked that the actor would not be satisfied until he was assassinated.

One simply could not make a joke like that today and expect a laugh. Humor, like so much else, has been overwhelmed by events. A witticism has its moments; a context, a gesture, a silence present themselves and move on. So it is not too disappointing to find that many of Kaufman's best lines have gone flat, despite Howard Teichmann's efforts to freshen them. In 1952 Teichmann collaborated with Kaufman in the writing of one of Kaufman's last plays, The Solid Gold Cadillac. He was late in a line of distinguished collaborators who included Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber and Moss Hart. Teichmann approaches his subject with enormous respect. He usually addressed Kaufman as "Mr. Kaufman." For Kaufman was the professional professional, and a sleepless craftsman who believed that plays were not written but rewritten.

How do his plays hold up? It is difficult to tell from reading them. The right actors, stage business and timing are essential to their success. In Kaufman's offstage humor there is the persistent delight of his famous pun, "One man's Mede is another man's Persian." But there is also an unleavened cruelty. After one of Dorothy Parker's unsuccessful suicide attempts, he remarked, "Dorothy, you've got to be careful. Next time you might hurt yourself."

The fear of death and disease often underlay the Kaufman style. Son of an overprotective mother whose first boy died in infancy, Kaufman grew up to be a devout hypochondriac. He ate oatmeal nearly every day of his life; he hated casual human contact and touching doorknobs. One of his many mistresses recalls that when she once innocently tasted his soup in a restaurant, Kaufman promptly ordered another bowl. When she asked him how he could kiss her, Kaufman replied, "Well, Miss S., your tasting my soup was one kind of risk. My kissing you was another. Let's concentrate on the second."

By that time, Kaufman was a rich, famous author-collaborator of more than two dozen comedies and musicals, including You Can't Take It With You, Of Thee I Sing and Silk Stockings. His career as a critic, playwright and director spanned nearly 40 years, and his influence was enormous. Brooks Atkinson credited Kaufman with making the wisecrack part of our language. Groucho Marx claimed that "Kaufman gave me the walk and the talk."

According to many women, he was hardly an amateur in the bedroom. His most famous affair was with Mary Astor. In 1934 it broke as a national scan dal when portions of the actress's private journal found their way into the newspapers. Like a schoolgirl she gushed about "many exquisite moments . . . 20--count them, diary, 20 ... I don't see how he does it ... He is perfect." Newspapers labeled Kaufman Public Lover No. 1. Kaufman found himself fleeing from reporters and subpoenas like someone in a Marx Brothers farce.

The real humiliation fell on Kaufman's wife Bea. Herself a sharp wit, she remained Kaufman's best friend in a sisterly marriage until her death at 50 in 1945. "Young actresses," she told the press, "are an occupational hazard for any man working in the theater."

The public got its only closeup of Kaufman in the late '40s and early '50s when he was a TV panelist on This Is Show Business. With his eyes peering disapprovingly over the rim of his glasses, he played his own favorite character, the Old Curmudgeon. His last days before his death in 1961 at the age of 71 were pathetic. Arteriosclerosis reduced the blood supply to his brain. The once controlled wit turned into uncontrolled morbid hallucinations. Yet flashes of "Mr. Kaufman" remained. Bedridden and unable to turn off a radio that was blaring tunes by request, he reached for his bedside phone, dialed the disk jockey and asked for five minutes of silence. " .R.Z.Sheppard

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