George Jean Nathan

George Jean Nathan (February 14, 1882 – April 8, 1958) was an American drama critic and editor. He worked closely with H.L. Mencken, bringing the literary magazine The Smart Set to prominence as an editor, and co-founding and editing The American Mercury and The American Spectator.

Early life

Nathan was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He graduated from Cornell University in 1904, where he was a member of the Quill and Dagger society and an editor of the Cornell Daily Sun.

Relationships and marriage

Though he published a paean to bachelorhood (The Bachelor Life, 1941), Nathan had a reputation as a ladies' man and was not averse to dating women working in the theater. The character of Addison De Witt, the waspish theater critic who squires a starlet (played by a then-unknown Marilyn Monroe) in the film All About Eve, was based on Nathan. He had a romantic relstionship with actress Lillian Gish, beginning in the late 1920s and lasing almost a decade. Gish repeatedly refused his proposals of marriage.