Alexander Woollcott

Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic for ''The New York Times'' and ''The New York Herald'', critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio personality.

Woollcott was the inspiration for two fictional characters. The first was Sheridan Whiteside, the caustic and malingering house-guest in the comedic play ''The Man Who Came to Dinner'' (1939) by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, later made into a film in 1942. The second was the snobbish and vitriolic columnist Waldo Lydecker in the novel ''Laura'', later made into a film in 1944 in which Lydecker was played by Clifton Webb.

Woollcott was convinced he was the inspiration for his friend Rex Stout's brilliant but eccentric and very portly detective Nero Wolfe, which Stout denied. Provided by Wikipedia