Smith, Winchell

Smith, Winchell (1872–1933), playwright and director. The brilliant theatrical jack‐of‐all‐trades was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and, as an usher at the Herald Square Theatre, was encouraged by Richard Mansfield to become an actor. After making his debut in 1896 as the telegraph operator Lt. Foray in Secret Service, he continued to act for a decade. In 1903 he was Arnold Daly's silent partner in the first American production of Candida. However, Smith was best known as a playwright, al‐most always in collaboration with others, and as a director. His only important solo venture was The Fortune Hunter (1909), but his team ventures included Brewster's Millions (1906), Polly of the Circus (1907), The Boomerang (1915), Turn to the Right (1916), and Lightnin' (1918). Besides directing many of his own plays, he staged such works as The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1925), The Wisdom Tooth (1926), and The Vinegar Tree (1930). Although Smith continued to direct until shortly before his death, he had long since abandoned playwriting, recognizing, “The theater's gone on ahead of me. . . . I'm out of date.” Ward Morehouse called him “a shrewd showman . . . with an extraordinary sense of the theater, an actor‐director‐playwright who became the most astute play‐fixer of the stage for the period of two decades.”