Voting Station

Heywood Broun

Please vote to return to collections.

Commentator

The Resume

    (December 7, 1888-December 18, 1939)
    Born in Brooklyn, New York
    Sportswriter, drama critic and columnist
    Wrote for the New York Tribune (1912-21), New York World (1921-28), The New York Telegram (1928-31), The New York World-Telegram (1931-39), The Nation (1927-37) and The New Republic (1937-39)
    Founding member and first president of the American Newspaper Guild (1933-39)
    Posthumous recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame (1970)

Why he might be annoying:

    He dropped out of Harvard,
    He was a sloppy dresser whose disheveled appearance was compared to ‘an unmade bed.’
    He ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Socialist (1930).
    He was a hypochondriac who sometimes visited three specialists in a single day.

Why he might not be annoying:

    A series of World War I articles complaining that soldiers at the front lacked boots, warm clothing and decent food resulted in reform of the Army’s supply chain.
    After he denounced the KKK as cowardly and anti-American, they burned a cross on the lawn of his home in Connecticut (1924).
    His column was so popular that when he went from the World to the Telegram, the Telegram’s circulation increased by 50,000 readers.
    He was unsuccessfully sued by actor Geoffrey Steyne after he described a performance by Steyne as ‘the worst to be seen in contemporary theater.’
    His next review of a play featuring Steyne declared, ‘Mr. Steyne’s performance was not up to his usual standard.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 18 Votes: 11.11% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 16 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 80 Votes: 66.25% Annoying