Nathan, George Jean

(1882-1958)

   Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the son of wealthy parents, he graduated from Cornell University in 1904, then spent a year studying at the University of Bologna. As a reporter for the New York Herald, he published his first theatre reviews in 1906. After stints reviewing for Outing and The Bohemian, Nathan became drama critic of The Smart Set in 1909, working closely with H. L. Mencken. They coedited the publication for a decade, from 1914-1924, and cofounded The American Mercury, for which Nathan wrote dramatic criticism until 1932. Nathan and Mencken also wrote two unsuccessful plays, The Artist (1912) and Heliogabulus (1920), but more importantly Nathan championed modernist theatre in his writings, emphasizing the significance of the plays of Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, and August Strindberg. He assailed the quality of American theatre prior to the emergence of Eugene O'Neill, whose plays Nathan actively promoted.

   In 1932, Nathan founded The American Spectator with the aid of O'Neill and others, and he edited it until 1935, after which he wrote criticism for an array of publications, including Puck, Judge, Vanity Fair, The Saturday Review of Literature, Newsweek, THEATRE ARTS, and Esquire. Nathan's many books, some of which collected his criticisms, include Mr. George Jean Nathan Presents (1917), The Popular Theatre (1918), Comedians All (1919), The Theatre, The Drama, The Girls (1921), The Critic and the Drama (1922), The Testament of the Critic (1931), Since Ibsen (1933), The Theatre of the Moment (1936), and Encyclopedia of the Theatre (1940). Beginning in 1943, he published an annual, The Theatre Book of the Year, which ended with his death. Nathan married actress Julie Haydon* in 1955 and endowed an annual George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. After World War II, his influence declined.