Aaron Hoffman

Biography

Aaron Hoffman drew his first breath on Halloween 1880 amid the river–hum and ragtime of St. Louis, Missouri, and spent the next forty-three years turning street-corner chatter into stage gold. By 1917 he had already placed two sparkling comedies—The Gilded Youth and Beloved Rogues—before spellbound audiences, and a decade later he capped his career with the breezy marital romp Give and Take. Offstage he shared his life with a woman named Minnie, surname unstated, like a cliffhanger never resolved. The final curtain fell on 27 May 1924, when Hoffman died in Manhattan, the city that had applauded him loudest.