Horace Brisbin Liveright (10 December 1883 – 24 September 1933) was an American
publisherPublishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
and
stage producerA theatrical producer is the person ultimately responsible for overseeing all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The independent producer will usually be the originator and finder of the script and starts the whole process...
. With Albert Boni, he founded the
Modern LibraryThe Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...
and Boni & Liveright publishers. He published books from numerous influential American and British authors. Turning to theatre, he produced the successful 1927 Broadway play
DraculaDracula is a 1924 stage play adapted by Hamilton Deane from the novel of the same name by Bram Stoker, and substantially revised by John L. Balderston in 1927...
, with
Béla LugosiBéla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
and
Edward Van SloanEdward Van Sloan was an American film character actor best remembered for his roles in Universal Studios horror films.-Career:...
in the roles they would make famous in the 1931 film by the same name.
Life and career
Liveright was born into a Jewish family in 1884. He initially followed the career of a bond salesman. He married Lucille, the daughter of the owner of
International PaperInternational Paper Company is an American pulp and paper company, the largest such company in the world. It has approximately 59,500 employees, and it is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.-History:...
, in April 1911, and used his father-in-law's financial backing to embark on a publishing career.
The Liverights had two children, Herman and Lucy. Lucille divorced Liveright on grounds of misconduct in 1928, alleging "misconduct with an actress in an inn near Croton-on-Hudson."
He married the actress Elise Bartlett in December 1931; she filed for divorce four months later.
Publishing career
In 1917 Liveright founded the
Modern LibraryThe Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...
and Boni & Liveright
publishersPublishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
in New York with business partner Albert Boni. Modern Library was formed as a reprinting line, publishing inexpensive books from European modernists, while Boni & Liveright published the work of contemporary Americans. Liveright published work by
T. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
(
The Waste LandThe Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
),
Charles FortCharles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
(
The Book of the DamnedThe Book of the Damned was the first published nonfiction work of the author Charles Fort . Dealing with various types of anomalous phenomena including UFOs, strange falls of both organic and inorganic materials from the sky, odd weather patterns, the possible existence of creatures generally held...
),
Theodore DreiserTheodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
(
An American Tragedy-Plot summary:The ambitious but immature Clyde Griffiths, raised by poor and devoutly religious parents who force him to participate in their street missionary work, is anxious to achieve better things. His troubles begin when he takes a job as a bellboy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are...
), and
Bertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
(
Marriage and Morals). The company also published the first books by
Ernest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
,
William FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
,
Hart Crane-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
,
Dorothy ParkerDorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, and
S. J. PerelmanSidney Joseph Perelman, almost always known as S. J. Perelman , was an American humorist, author, and screenwriter. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for The New Yorker...
.
Liveright believed that books could be marketed similarly to other media and was among the first to aggressively sell novels. Liveright was also a vocal campaigner against the strict literary
censorshipthumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
of the period.
Despite their successes, Liveright and Boni's relationship broke down and the pair chose to part ways. It is reported that they
flipped a coinCoin flipping or coin tossing or heads or tails is the practice of throwing a coin in the air to choose between two alternatives, sometimes to resolve a dispute between two parties...
to decide who would buy the other out, and Liveright gained control. In 1923, Liveright's alcoholism started to take its toll. Throwing frequent, lavish parties, he would over-indulge many nights per week.
Stage production
Liveright started his stage production career in 1924. His initial choices of plays were not successful, and he had to use an increasing amount of money from his publishing company. His faltering financial status meant that he had to sell the Modern Library to then-vice-president
Bennett CerfBennett Alfred Cerf was a publisher and co-founder of Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?.-Biography:Bennett Cerf...
in 1925. Liveright started to put money from the publishing company into Broadway productions but soon found that the erratic success of the Boni & Liveright publishers was not a secure income; the Modern Library had been the backbone of his finances. In 1928 he lost control of Boni & Liveright and was pushed out entirely by 1930.
Liveright achieved success in theatre. His production of
DraculaDracula is a 1924 stage play adapted by Hamilton Deane from the novel of the same name by Bram Stoker, and substantially revised by John L. Balderston in 1927...
debuted on 5 October 1927, three years after the first authorized adaptation by
Hamilton DeaneHamilton Deane was an Irish actor, playwright and director. He played a key role in popularising Bram Stoker's Dracula as a stage play and, later, a film.-Life:Deane was born in Clontarf, a suburb of Dublin...
. Liveright had employed
John L. BalderstonJohn L. Balderston was an American playwright and screenwriter best known for his horror and fantasy scripts....
to revise the script for an American audience and brought in
Béla LugosiBéla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
(his first major English-speaking role) and
Edward Van SloanEdward Van Sloan was an American film character actor best remembered for his roles in Universal Studios horror films.-Career:...
to play the parts of Dracula and Van Helsing, respectively. The actors reprised these roles in
Tod BrowningTod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
's
1931 filmDracula is a 1931 vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L...
by the same name. Despite an income of over $2 million from the play, Liveright failed to fulfill his business responsibilities, never paying $678.01 in royalties to
Florence BalcombeFlorence Balcombe was the wife of Bram Stoker, whom she married in Dublin in 1878. She was the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, and wife Phillippa Anne Marshall, and was a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde...
, the widow of the original author
Bram StokerAbraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
.
Death
Liveright died of pneumonia on September 24, 1933, aged forty-nine. Years of alcoholism and his business failures likely contributed to his death. Six people were said to attend his funeral.
Portrayal and biography
- Ben Hecht wrote and directed the film The Scoundrel
The Scoundrel is a drama film directed by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and starring Noël Coward, Julie Haydon, Stanley Ridges, and Lionel Stander. It was Coward's film debut, aside from a bit role in a silent film...
(1935-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...
), inspired by Liveright and his friend Tommy Smith. An Academy Award winner, it marked the on-screen debut for Noël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, who played the central character.
- Tom Dardis wrote a biography of Liveright, called Firebrand: The Life of Horace Liveright (1995) (ISBN 0679406751).