John Armstrong Chaloner

John "Archie" Armstrong Chaloner (né Chanler; October 10, 1862 – June 1, 1935) was an American writer and activist, known for his catch phrase "Who's looney now?".

Early life Chaloner was born John Armstrong Chanler on October 10, 1862, to Margaret Astor Ward Chanler and John Winthrop Chanler. Chaloner was related to the elite Astor, Livingston, and Stuyvesant families. He and his siblings became orphans after the death of their mother in December 1875 and their father in October 1877, both to pneumonia. The children were raised at their parents' estate in Rokeby, New York. John Winthrop Chanler's will provided $20,000 a year for each child for life (equivalent to $470,563 in 2018 dollars), enough to live comfortably by the standards of the time.

Chaloner had ten brothers and sisters, of whom he was the oldest, including the politician Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler and the artist Robert Winthrop Chanler. His sister Margaret Livingston Chanler served as a nurse with the American Red Cross during the Spanish–American War. Chaloner's brother Winthrop Astor Chanler served in the Rough Riders in Cuba and was wounded at the Battle of Tayacoba. His brother William Astor Chanler was a noted soldier and explorer and was elected to the US Congress in 1898. His sister Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler married author John Jay Chapman.

Chaloner received some schooling in England and later returned to the United States, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees at Columbia University. Chaloner went on to study at the Collège de France and the Ecole des Sciences Politiques.

In 1892 he was accepted as a compatriot of the New York Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

On June 1, 1908, he registered to have his last name legally changed from "Chanler" to Chaloner, which he believed to have been the surname's original spelling.

Chaloner helped found Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, Chaloner would later write about Gillard's death in Robbery Under Law; Or, The Battle of the Millionaires: A Play in Three Acts.

Personal life

On June 14, 1888, he married the author Amélie Louise Rives. The marriage was considered scandalous by Chaloner's family, who disapproved of her due to erotic passages in her book The Quick or the Dead? A Study—especially as one of the characters greatly resembled Chaloner. Rives remarried only months later to Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy and Chaloner further scandalized his family by purchasing Merry Mills, the estate near the Troubetzkoys' home in Albemarle County, Virginia. Chaloner became close friends with the Troubetzkoys and also continued to pay Rives a yearly sum of money—events that caused his brother Robert Winthrop Chanler to call him a "looney".

In 1939, it was sold, reduced in size to 1000 seats and renamed The Town Theatre, 851 Ninth Avenue and 55th Street, New York City. It closed July 17, 1950.

In 1950, CBS leased it, took out all the seating and it became CBS Studio 58.

In 1961, CBS donated the building to Educational Television for the Metropolitan Area, becoming WNET Channel 13's Studio 55. home to the show Critique.

It was the second home to Sesame Street and hosted The Dick Cavett Show. Lastly, it was home to the cooking show, Emeril Live.

It was razed in November 2002, and replaced by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Joan Weill Center for Dance.

Works Four Years Behind the Bars of "Bloomingdale," or, The Bankruptcy of Law in New York (1906) The Lunacy Law of the World: Being That of Each of the Forty-Eight States and Territories of the United States, with an Examination Thereof and Leading Cases Thereon; Together with That of the Six Great Powers of Europe—Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia (1906) Scorpio: (Sonnets) (1907) The X-Faculty, or, the Pythagorean Triangle of Psychology (1911) Hell: Per a Spirit-Message Therefrom (Alleged): a Study in Graphic-Automatism (1912) Petition for the Impeachment for Malfeasance in Office of George C. Holt, Judge of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York (New York City) (1912) The Swan-Song of "Who's Looney Now?" (1914) "Saul"; A Tragedy in Three Acts (1915)