Robert Benchley summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Robert Benchley.

Robert Benchley, (born Sept. 15, 1889, Worcester, Mass., U.S.—died Nov. 21, 1945, New York, N.Y., U.S.), U.S. drama critic, actor, and humorist. Benchley graduated from Harvard University and joined the staff of Life magazine in 1920. A regular member of the Algonquin Round Table, he was drama critic for The New Yorker 1929–40, for which he also wrote “The Wayward Press” column under the pseudonym Guy Fawkes. He had bit parts in many feature films, but he is best known for more than 40 short subjects, including How to Sleep (1934, Academy Award). His writing was warmly humorous, his satire sharp but not cruel.

essay Summary

Essay, an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view. Some early treatises—such as those of Cicero on the

acting Summary

Acting, the performing art in which movement, gesture, and intonation are used to realize a fictional character for the stage, for motion pictures, or for television. (Read Lee Strasberg’s 1959 Britannica essay on acting.) Acting is generally agreed to be a matter less of mimicry, exhibitionism, or

film Summary

Film, series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid succession onto a screen by means of light. Because of the optical phenomenon known as persistence of vision, this gives the illusion of actual, smooth, and continuous movement. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film