Benjamin Dreyer

@bcdreyer.bsky.social

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abstruse in the sense of recondite

author of the New York Times/IndieBound bestseller Dreyer's English and Stet! (the game!) • America's Copy Editor® • retired Random House copy chief • he/him/his

benjamindreyer.com

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today's random theater photos: Marie Antoinette, starring Grace George, 1921

Happy Jimmy Cagney's birthday!

I’m…confused.

JF, and I can’t stress this enough, C.

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

I think that we can safely assume that Guy Woodhouse replaced Richard Mulligan in Nobody Loves an Albatross at some point during its 212-performance run.

Reply to

Paul Duane

This is, I think, the first image of The Seventh Victim I ever saw, long before I saw the film (maybe in Carlos Clarens's book?), and even as a v. young person I was taken with the respectable middle classness of the image (juxtaposed with the words "Satan worshipers," that is). It's heady stuff.

[pulling this thread together] He's basically the real-life Addison DeWitt, if that piques your interest.

If you’re at all interested in American theater, I can’t recommend too highly George Jean Nathan’s Theatre Book of the Year series, which are often easily found at used book stores and online. 1/

Here's George himself (l.), photographed by Irving Penn with his longtime pal H. L. Mencken.

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

And his rule of thumb was that a musical was good if it had Bobby Clark in it, and probably not good if it included ballet dancers. 4/2

I am mortally offended that the Bluesky gif library doesn't include Barbara disdainfully sucking on her tooth in Lady of Burlesque. To say nothing of her expert cartwheel.

Barbara Stanwyck! Ginger Rogers! Oh, the birthday energy!

The Hovick girls were in my dreams last night, but I can't quite recall the circumstances.

today's random theater photos: Ingrid Bergman, Sam Wanamaker, and Joseph Wiseman in Maxwell Anderson's Joan of Lorraine (1946)

Barbara Stanwyck! Ginger Rogers! Oh, the birthday energy!

Shhhhhh.

woulda been funnier if he'd come out like this

he looks embalmed

and in conclusion

In the immortal words of Sheridan Whiteside: I may vomit.

Or to translate this into a language some of you will better understand...

Look, when it comes to hillbillies from Ohio, I'll take...

Reply to

Farran Smith Nehme

Well, sure, I guess....

"What am I? Chopped liver?"

The only Vance I support. IYKYK

Had I been this book's copy editor, I would certainly, unless I'd amputated all my own fingers first, simply queried this anecdote in the margin: #YHGtBFKMwTS

let's be what now

MAGOA?

what

what now

Dude wears more eyeliner than Myrna Loy in The Mask of Fu Manchu.

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

In case anyone ever asks you how many degrees of separation there are between you and Adelaide Hall.