author
Channing Pollock
1880–1946
A sharp-eyed man of the theater, he moved easily between journalism, criticism, playwriting, and early screenwriting. His career captured the bustle of American stage life in the early 20th century, with work that ranged from Broadway plays to memoir.
2 Audiobooks
The Footlights, Fore and Aft
by Channing Pollock
The Fool: A Play in Four Acts
by Channing Pollock
About the author
Born in Washington, D.C., in 1880, Channing Pollock built a varied career as a playwright, journalist, lecturer, and critic. He worked in newspaper drama coverage and theatrical publicity before becoming known for writing plays and film scenarios, giving him an unusually broad view of the entertainment world from both backstage and center stage.
Pollock's work included stage plays, screenwriting, and the memoir The Footlights, Fore and Aft, which drew on his life in the theater. He is also remembered as a figure in Broadway history partly because his career intersected with some of the era's sharpest critics, including Dorothy Parker, whose famous line about one of his later plays kept his name in theater lore.
He died in 1946 in Shoreham, New York. Today, he remains an interesting example of an early 20th-century literary all-rounder: a writer who did not stay in one lane, but followed the changing world of popular entertainment wherever it led.