Wilson Mizner

Wilson Mizner (May 19, 1876 – April 3, 1933) was an American playwright, raconteur, and entrepreneur. His best-known plays are The Deep Purple, produced in 1910, and The Greyhound, produced in 1911. He was manager and co-owner of the restaurant The Brown Derby in Los Angeles, California, and was part of the failed project of his older brother Addison to create a new resort in Boca Raton, Florida. He and Addison are the protagonists of Stephen Sondheim's musical Road Show (alternately known as Wise Guys, Gold!, and Bounce).

Biography Wilson ("Bill") Mizner was born in Benicia, California, one of eight children, including brothers William, Edgar, Murray, Addison, Henry, and Lansing and sister Mary. Portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds was their great-great-uncle. Their father, Lansing Bond Mizner, was named Benjamin Harrison's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Central American states, and the family relocated to Guatemala for a year, the brothers allegedly spending their free time robbing churches, as they later claimed (both brothers recounted unverifiable details about their foreign experiences).

In 1897, Addison and Wilson, with brothers William and Edgar, traveled north to the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada, where he allegedly bilked miners rather than looking for gold. He claimed later that he operated badger games, managed fighters, robbed a restaurant to get chocolate for his girlfriend "Nellie the Pig" Lamore (saying "Your chocolates or your life!"),

He followed gold seekers to Nome, Alaska when the Nome Gold Rush started in 1899. As he told it (there is no confirmation), he was known as the "Prince of Nome", established McQuestion, a saloon/casino, and was appointed deputy sheriff, where his "primary duty" was "to warn Eskimos that they'd have to smell better".

After leaving Alaska, he claimed to have managed a banana plantation in Honduras for a few months, but returned to San Francisco to resume his career as a professional gambler. brought between $2 million and $7.5 million to the marriage and a $4 million mansion on Fifth Avenue, as well as several artistic masterpieces by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and others, that Wilson duplicated, selling the copies as originals. The marriage did not last long, as the publicity generated "numerous" letters from California and Alaska warning the new Mrs. Mizner about her husband's past criminal activities;

He then made his living by gambling on luxury liner boats between New York and London, until the companies prohibited it. posting signs that read "Carry out your own dead" and "No opium smoking in the elevators". Wilson was secretary and treasurer of the Mizner Development Corporation created in 1925, in effect working for his brother. Several of the brothers' friends from New York, including Marie Dressler and Ben Hecht, helped him in his later escapades.

Wilson Mizner is noted for several bons mots such as, "Be nice to people on the way up because you'll meet the same people on the way down", "Never give a sucker an even break" (also attributed to W. C. Fields), and "When you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research". When President Calvin Coolidge died in 1933, Mizner's comment was "How do they know?" (Coolidge was known as taciturn.) Mizner has suffered the same fate as Dorothy Parker; both are remembered today mainly for their witty repartee rather than for specific literary works.

Irving Berlin (a friend of Addison) wrote a song about Wilson: "Black Sheep Has Come Back to the Fold". whom Loos described as "America's most fascinating outlaw".

Biographer Alva Johnston wrote: [Wilson] Mizner had a vast firsthand criminal erudition, which he commercialized as a dramatist on Broadway and a screenwriter in Hollywood. At various times during his life, he had been a miner, confidence man, ballad singer, medical lecturer, man of letters, general utility man in a segregated district, cardsharp, hotel man, songwriter, dealer in imitation masterpieces of art, prizefighters, prizefight manager, Florida promoter, and roulette-wheel fixer. He was an idol of low society and a pet of high. He knew women, as his brother Addison said, from the best homes and houses.

That Wilson Mizner was a ballad singer, medical lecturer, "general utility man in a segregated district", songwriter, and roulette-wheel fixer are all undocumented except in his own unreliable words.

Warner Bros. Around 1931, Warner Bros. chief producer Darryl Zanuck hired Mizner to work as a screenplay writer for the studio's First National movies. While at the studio, Mizner had hardly any respect for authority and found it difficult to work with studio boss Jack Warner. Year Film Activity (if not main writer) 1914 The Greyhound from his play 1915 The Deep Purple (lost) from his play 1917 The Law of Compensation story 1920 Outlaws of the Deep (short) scenario 1920 The Five Dollar Plate (short) scenario 1920 The Deep Purple (survival unknown) from his play 1929 The Cock-Eyed World story 1932 The Dark Horse 1932 Winner Take All adaptation 1932 One Way Passage 1932 Lawyer Man uncredited 1932 20,000 Years in Sing Sing 1932 Frisco Jenny 1933 Hard to Handle 1933 Strictly Personal story 1933 The Mind Reader story 1933 The Little Giant original screenplay 1933 Heroes for Sale 1934 Merry Wives of Reno uncredited 1957 "One Way Passage" (episode of Lux Video Theatre) original screenplay