One of My Favorite Photographs

I would like to share with you one of my favorite photographs. It is a favorite because it shows two of my heroes, Col. Jack Dunn (my grandfather), and George S. Kaufman.  My apologies to the late Joan Blondell who was  probably the most well known of the three at the time, But there it is.

Jack Dunn, Joan Blondell, George S. Kaufman

During world war II my grandfather was in charge of recruiting in Baltimore for the WACs the Woman’s Army Corps. Part of that was doing a radio show called “This Woman’s Army” I am not sure how but my grandfather was able to get all of the big stars of the day to come on the show.  I had heard the stories, but I was young at the time, so they were just old stories, finding the the photographs years later helped bring them to life.

The name George S. Kaufman may not be a well known name today, unless you are an English major like I was, to me he is a rock star. A member of the famed Alqounquin round table, he would trade quips and barbs with the likes of Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley,  Alexander Woolcot, and Harold Ross (the founder of the New Yorker). These were New York intellectuals, and if I could go back in time to one place, I would choose to have lunch at the round table.

So why was Kaufmann so special?  Kaufman at one time was both a successful playwright and the New York Times theatre critic, at the same time. He wrote the classic, “Dinner at Eight”,” The Man who came to dinner” and “Stage Door”, writing with greats such as Moss Hart, Edna Ferber and others. … He gave up his job at the times during the depression, with so many people out of work, he didn’t think ti was fair for one man to have two jobs. He also wrote the stage play (and the move) “The Cocoanuts”,  It was responsible for breaking out the career of the Marx Brothers. He also wrote their movie “A Night at the Opera”. An astonishing fact (Thank you wikipedia) That between the years of 1921 to 1958 there was a Kaufman written or directed play on Broadway.

Kaufman was Jewish and during the war he received letters from many fellow jews asking for help to get out of Germany. Some would claim to be relatives, he knew they were not, he sent money anyway.  He was a decent man, and a comic genius, I can only imagine how much fun they must have had on the show. My grandfather loved telling jokes, and making people laugh, which he did. My grandfather never told me a dirty joke, but he told them to others, and they would get back to me. I used to think of my grandfather as the old man in the movie “Big Fish”. There were always these stories that seemed outrageous, but I know some of these things happened, I have photographic evidence.