S. J. Perelman
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | Date: 2008
S. J. Perelman (Sidney Joseph Perelman) , 1904-79, American comic writer, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. He entered the magazine world as a cartoonist for a New York weekly, soon turning from drawing to writing. Perelman became known for the parodic articles filled with outrageous puns and lively wordplay that he contributed to The New Yorker magazine from 1931 on. He also wrote for Broadway, notably the musical One Touch of Venus (1943) and the comedy The Beauty Part (1962). He penned screenplays for such movies as the Marx Brothers ' Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932) and the comic epic Around the World in Eighty Days (1956, Academy Award). Perelman's sometimes archly satirical, sometimes uproariously screwball humor is suggested in the titles of some of his best-known books— Strictly from Hunger (1937), Westward Ha! (1948), The Ill-Tempered Clavichord (1952), The Road to Miltown; or, Under the Spreading Atrophy (1957), The Rising Gorge (1961), and Baby It's Cold Inside (1970).
Bibliography: See Don't Tread on Me: The Selected Letters of S. J. Perelman (1987) ed. by P. Crowther; Conversations with S. J. Perelman (1995) ed. by T. Teicholz; S. J. Perelman: A Life (1987) by D. Hermann; S. J. Perelman: An Annotated Bibliography (1985) and S. J. Perelman: A Critical Study (1987) by S. Gale.
Author not available, PERELMAN, S. J..,
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2008
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press
Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from HighBeam Research
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Perelman's pithy pearls and pathos // The great humorist recalled in biography and memoir
Chicago Sun-Times; 8/3/1986; Stephen Becker; 1079 words
; S. J. PerelmanA Life. By Dorothy Herrmann. Putnam's. $18.95. And Did You Once See Sidney Plain?A Random Memoir of S. J. Perelman. By Max Wilk. Norton. $8.95. S.J. Perelman was happiest writing short, lunatic, exquisitely tooled comic essays. They were satires and parodies, travel pieces, bravura
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S.J. PERELMAN HIS WIT AND WISDOM ARE RECALLED IN A CELEBRATION AT BROWN UNIVERSITY
The Boston Globe; 2/2/1988; Charles E. Claffey, Globe Staff; 1538 words
; PROVIDENCE - For six months after watching Erich von Stroheim in the film "Foolish Wives," S. J. Perelman once wrote, he exhibited "a maddening tendency to click my heels and murmur 'Bitte?' along with a twitch as though a monocle were screwed into my eye. The mannerisms finally abated, but not
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How Government's S&L Inaction Gave Ronald Perelman a $1.2 Billion Profit
The Washington Post; 9/29/1992; ALLAN SLOAN; 1357 words
; If you're looking for an example of how the rich get richer, take a look at billionaire Ronald Perelman's venture into the savings and loan business. Perelman, who announced last week that he has agreed to sell most of his S&L operations to BankAmerica Corp., the company that owns Bank of America,
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Making Big Money on Thrifts: Perelman Gets Into the Act Again
The Washington Post; 9/27/1994; Allan Sloan; 848 words
; When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives," he hadn't run into Ronald Perelman. Perelman, the billionaire who controls among other things, Revlon cosmetics, Marvel comics and a flock of TV stations, is trying to prove Fitzgerald wrong by performing a second act in
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Marvel Comics Deal Shows Why Perelman Is the Incredible Hulk of Investing
The Washington Post; 6/4/1991; ALLAN SLOAN; 815 words
; The way to make real money in the comic book business isn't by buying and selling classics like Superman No. 1 or the Incredible Hulk Nos. 1-6. The way to do it is by owning the comic book company. Take, for instance, the case of Ronald Perelman, the New York zillionaire who is in the process of
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'Sand and Fog' lets director Perelman stretch
Chicago Sun-Times; 1/16/2004; PHIL VILLARREAL; 544 words
; ... most pleasant things happened throughout shooting. With two incredible talents, I was constantly surprised," Perelman said, referring to Kingsley and Connelly. "Sometimes pleasantly; sometimes, in moments, unpleasantly." Scripps Howard News Service
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The Plutocratic Party; To Ron Perelman, Politics Aren't Important. Just Good Business.
The Washington Post; 2/6/1998; Michael Powell; 2781 words
; Ronald O. Perelman, the richest man in New York City -- and therefore one of the richest men on Earth -- doesn't ask a lot of questions when the Washington money guys call. Republican, Democrat, their pitches sound alike: Won't Perelman contribute to the Republican National Committee, the
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The Ego Has Landed: Vadim Perelman, debut director of 'House of Sand and Fog' with Ben Kingsley, burns bridges as fast as he can build them.
Newsweek; 12/22/2003; Smith, Sean; 663 words
; Byline: Sean Smith Although you've never heard of Vadim Perelman, the first-time director of House of Sand and Fog already has a reputation in Hollywood. A bad one. As assured as his debut is--a dark drama that will likely earn an Oscar nomination for Sir Ben Kingsley--the 40-year-old Ukrainian
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'88 Purchase Of Ailing S&L Profitable; 170 Percent Return Seen for Perelman
The Washington Post; 12/15/1989; Greg Steinmetz; 393 words
; When government officials sold dozens of failed savings and loans in the waning days of 1988, some thrift experts criticized the deals as too generous for the buyers and too rough on taxpayers. Now the numbers on one of the largest deals are in, and the critics are saying they were right. Ronald O.
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FOR GILLETTE, LIFE NOT SAME AFTER ARRIVAL OF PERELMAN
The Boston Globe; 6/19/1987; Alex Beam, Globe Staff; 999 words
; ... new products have been put on hold. A three-year long effort to launch a line of low cost "generic" toiletries using the Good News name has been put on the back burner. Unfortunately for Gillette, the housecleaning appears to have made the company an even ...
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Related entries from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses
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S. J. Perelman
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S. J. Perelman S. J. Perelman (1904-1979) was probably the funniest ... cultural parodist without equal. S. J. Perelman was once described in these graphic ... an introduction to The Best of S. J. Perelman and is signed, quite suspiciously ...
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S(idney) J(oseph) Perelman
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(born Feb. 1, 1904, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—died Oct. 17, 1979, New York, N.Y.) U.S. humorist. Perelman attended Brown University and soon began writing screenplays for early Marx Brothers films such as Monkey Business ... One Touch of Venus (1943). His later screenplays include Around the World in 80 Days ...
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Marx Brothers, The
International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
... Joseph Panello) 1941 The Big Store (Reisner) (Groucho as Wolf J. Flywheel, Harpo as Wacky, and Chico as Ravelli) 1946 A ... himself) 1951 Double Dynamite (Cummings) (Groucho as Emil J. Kech) 1952 A Girl in Every Port (Erskine) (Groucho as Benny ... New York, 1967. The Groucho Marx Scrapbook , with Richard J ... .
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Ogden Nash
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
... regularly in The New Yorker magazine. Nash also wrote plays, e.g., One Touch of Venus (1943) in collaboration with Kurt Weill and S. J. Perelman , and children's books. His collections include Hard Lines (1931), I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938), Selected Verse (1946), Versus (1949 ...
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Mike Todd
Encyclopedia of World Biography
... Boys, and Up in Central Park. Widening the Screen Todd's ability to raise money for entertainment projects was ... slippery as a silverfish, and yet undeniably magnetic," wrote S.J. Perelman in the New Yorker in 1972. Biographer Alexander Walker ... Spyros Skouras to buy manufacturing rights to ...
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