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Show Don Marquis Succumbs; Won Fame as Humorist DON MARQI1S Created The Old Soak NEW TORK. Dec MB Don Marquis, playwright, poet and former for-mer newspaperman, died at his home In suburban Forest Hills today to-day after an illness of several years. He was 6. Marquis' health had been failing rapidly and for some months he had been cared for by his sister and a male nurse. Only short T'e -g" suffered a aevara stroke of paralysis and his doctor then said death might occur at any time. Friends from the literary and theatrical worlds were organising a benefit to aid him financially when death intervened. Oeated Arehy Creator of the beloved "Old Soak," "Archy the Cockroach," "Mehltabel the Alley Cat" and a host of other characters whose antics stirred nationwide na-tionwide laughter, Don Marquis belonged be-longed to the pioneer era of newspaper news-paper columnists, made famous by Franklin P. Adams (F. P. A.), O. O. Mclntyre, Walt Mason and Bert Leston Tayler of the Chicago Tribune's Trib-une's "Line-o'-Type or Two Baptized Robert Perry Marquis, he was born on July 29, 1878, at Walnut, Bureau county, Illinois. At 18 he began to contribute bits of gusty verse to the Walnut "Mail and Express," which lampooned po-lltlcal po-lltlcal officeholders and slli led the community to Hearty laughter. Then the rollickingly disturbing young man named Marquis was tempted to leave town for a Job in the census bureau at Washington. Washing-ton. Marquis Jumped at It He shook the dust of Walnut from his fame-bound fame-bound heels and eiever went back. Newspapers Beckoned In Washington, a born newspaperman, newspaper-man, he soon drifted Into a Job as a reporter for the Washington Times thence to Atlanta, Ga., where he was sent by his paper and where he met Joel Chandler Harris, who was editing the Uncle Remus magazine. Marquis became Chandler's assistant editor, but New York soon called him and he joined the New York Sun at about the same time Irvin S. Cobb started a similar rise to fame as a "Sun-man." "Sun-man." In short order Marquis had made himself a columnist, under the heading head-ing "The Sun Dial," and New York began to chuckle at the vagrant wit of this young mldlander. He stayed with the Sun for nearly 11 years. His first play, and his greatest hit, was "The Old Soak" tear-soaked tear-soaked comedy based on characters he had made popular In his column in the Sun. The role was recently played by Wallace Beery In a talking talk-ing movie version of the play, which first appeared In 1921. In recent years he contributed to the editorial pages of newspapers and to magazines He suffered a stroke In 193 and was partly paralyzed para-lyzed for a while. To the end his sens of humor never failed. |