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Oscar-winning screenwriter S. J. Perelman was a renowned American humorist, celebrated for his mastery of short fiction filled with wordplay and satire, influencing numerous American humorists, including Woody Allen. Born Simeon Joseph Perleman (known as Sidney or Sydney to family and friends) on February 1, 1904, in Brooklyn, New York, he was raised in Providence, Rhode Island, where he attended Brown University.
Beginning in the 1920s, Perelman worked as a cartoonist and humorist. His circle of friends included Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker, prominent members of the famed Algonquin Round Table. Although Perelman was never a member himself, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who illustrated some of Perelman's books, created a cartoon in the year of Perelman’s death titled "Algonquin Round Table with S. J. Perelman Sitting in Booth Nearby."
He built his reputation by writing short stories, satires, and humorous pieces for The New Yorker and other leading magazines. He referred to his short humor pieces as feuilletons (French for "little leaves"), a nod to a genre of French literature. Perelman frequently penned parodies of popular culture, including the hard-boiled style of Raymond Chandler, as well as tales of his misadventures on his farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Starting in the 1940s, he began publishing collections of his feuilletons in book form.
Perelman made his Broadway debut by writing the book for the Bobby Clark revue Walk a Little Faster, which ran for over three months during the 1932-33 season. The following season, his play All Good Americans, co-written with his wife Laura (sister of novelist Nathanael West), was unsuccessful, lasting only 40 performances. Seven years later, their play The Night Before Christmas ran for just 22 performances. In 1943, Perelman achieved success with the musical One Touch of Venus, for which he co-wrote the book with his friend Ogden Nash. With music by Kurt Weill and direction by Elia Kazan, the production ran for 567 performances. His final Broadway effort, the 1963 comedy The Beauty Part, lasted only 85 performances, returning to his earlier struggles.
Perelman found greater success in film. His first two screenplays were for Marx Brothers classics Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932). He worked intermittently as a screenwriter during the Hollywood studio system era, as did his brother-in-law Nathanael West. Perelman won an Oscar for his last screenplay, the blockbuster Around the World in 80 Days (1956), produced by Michael Todd and awarded the Academy Award for Best Picture that year.
In 1978, S. J. Perelman received a special National Book Award. He passed away in New York City on October 17, 1979, at the age of 75.
