Robert E. Sherwood  Robert Emmet Sherwood (April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter. Born in 1896 in New Rochelle, New York, Robert was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a highly accomplished illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood. His paternal grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Wilson Sherwood, the author and social leader. He was a great-great-grandson of the former New York State Attorney General Thomas Addis Emmet and a great-grandnephew of the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet, who was executed for high treason after leading the Irish rebellion of 1803, one of a series of attempts to dislodge British rule in Ireland, in 1803. His relatives also included three other notable American portrait artists: his aunts, Lydia Field Emmet and Jane Emmet de Glehn, and his first cousin, once removed, Ellen Emmet Rand. Sherwood was educated at Fay School, Milton Academy and then Harvard University. He fought with the Royal Highlanders of Canada, CEF in Europe during World War I and was wounded. After his return to the United States, he began working as a movie critic for magazines, including "Life" and "Vanity Fair". Sherwood's career as a critic in the 1920s is discussed in the 2009 documentary "". In this film "Time" critic Richard Schickel discusses, among other topics, how Sherwood was the first New York critic invited to Hollywood by cross-country train to meet the stars and directors. Sherwood was one of the original members of the Algonquin Round Table. He was close friends with Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, who were on the staff of "Vanity Fair" with Sherwood when the Round Table began meeting in 1919. Author Edna Ferber was also a good friend. Sherwood stood tall. Dorothy Parker, who was , once commented that when she, Sherwood, and Robert Benchley () walked down the street together, they resembled "a walking pipe organ." When asked at a party how long he had known Sherwood, Benchley stood on a chair, raised his hand to the ceiling, and said "I knew Bob Sherwood back when he was only this tall." In 1949, comedian Groucho Marx also commented about Sherwood's height during a filmed radio broadcast of the quiz show "You Bet Your Life".