Don Marquis

Today, Dec. 5, 2025, is a day of celebration for members of the Don Marquis Double Scotch and Prohibition Society!

Don Marquis was born July 29, 1878, in Walnut, Illinois, a small, dusty town 40 miles from the Mississippi River.

CNN says its June 7 broadcast of George Clooney’s play “Good Night, and Good Luck” will be a first for television: Never before has a play been broadcast on TV while being performed live on stage.

One of the most endearing portraits of Don Marquis was drawn by the brilliant 1920s book and magazine illustrator Ralph Barton.

At long last, your editor has fixed a number of bugs that have bugged him, and most likely you, too (and we’re not talking about Archy).

Here is brief clip showing actors Alan Reed (left) and Eddie Bracken reading lines from the 1971 animated movie “Shinbone Alley” — with a glance at Carol Channing, too.

Don Marquis ranked in the top tier of Broadway celebrities in early 1922, even though his own comic masterpiece, “The Old Soak,” was still months away from its Broadway premiere (on Aug. 22, 1922).

We know Don Marquis today as a humorist (a satirist, really), but perhaps he should be remembered as something more—a humanist?

WIT AND WHIMSY: Follow this link for a wonderful birthday tribute to Don Marquis by Bill Knight, a syndicated columnist appearing in the Pekin Daily Times in north-central Illinois.

Poring over reels of microfilm at the New York Pubic Library occasionally reveals unexpected treasure.