S. J. Perelman
Overview
Sidney Joseph Perelman, almost always known as S. J. Perelman (February 1, 1904 – October 17, 1979), was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 humorist, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

. He also wrote for several other magazines, as well as books, scripts, and screenplays.
In cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, Perelman is noted for co-writing scripts for the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...

 films Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers
Horse Feathers
Horse Feathers is a Marx Brothers film comedy. It stars the four Marx Brothers and Thelma Todd. It was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, and Will B. Johnstone. Kalmar and Ruby also wrote some of the original music for the film...

(1932), and for the Academy Award
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...

-winning screenplay Around the World in Eighty Days (1956).

With Ogden Nash
Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...

 he wrote the book for the musical One Touch of Venus
One Touch of Venus
One Touch of Venus is a musical with music written by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ogden Nash, and book by S. J. Perelman and Nash, based on the novella The Tinted Venus by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, and very loosely spoofing the Pygmalion myth. The show satirizes contemporary American suburban values,...

(music by Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

, lyrics by Nash), which opened on Broadway in 1943 and ran for more than 500 performances.
Quotations

I have Bright's disease and he has mine.

A patient confronts his doctor, in a cartoon printed in Judge magazine (November 16, 1929)

"Great-grandfather died under strange circumstances. He opened a vein in his bath.""I never knew baths had veins," protested Gabrilowitsch.""I never knew his great-grandfather had a ba—" began Falcovsky derisively.

"The Idol's Eye", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 32.

"Oh, son, I wish you hadn’t become a scenario writer!" she sniffled."Aw, now, Moms," I comforted her, "it’s no worse than playing the piano in a call house."

"Strictly from Hunger", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 45

The worst disgrace that can befall a producer is an unkind notice from a New York reviewer. When this happens, the producer becomes a pariah in Hollywood. He is shunned by his friends, thrown into bankruptcy, and like a Japanese electing hara-kiri, he commits suttee.

"Strictly from Hunger", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 47

Only the scenario writers are exempt. These are tied between the tails of two spirited Caucasian ponies, which are then driven off in opposite directions. This custom is called "a conference".

"Strictly from Hunger", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) pp. 47-48

I guess I’m just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation’s laws.

"Captain Future, Block That Kick!", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 71

In pulp fiction it is a rigid convention that the hero’s shoulders and the heroine’s balcon constantly threaten to burst their bonds, a possibility which keeps the audience in a state of tense expectancy. Unfortunately for the fans, however, recent tests reveal that the wisp of chiffon which stands between the publisher and the postal laws has the tensile strength of drop-forged steel.

"Captain Future, Block That Kick!", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 72

Before they made S J Perelman they broke the mold.

The Best of S. J. Perelman, Introduction

[The waiters'] eyes sparkled and their pencils flew as she proceeded to eviscerate my wallet – paté, Whitstable oysters, a sole, and a favorite salad of the Nizam of Hyderabad made of shredded five-pound notes.

The Rising Gorge (1961) p. 13

 
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