later invited to be newspaper critic. Benchley initially wrote the column under the pseudonym Guy Fawkes (the lead conspirator in the English Gunpowder Plot), and the column was well received. Benchley tackled issues ranging from careless reporting to European fascism, and the publication flourished. He was invited to be theatre critic for The New Yorker in 1929, leaving Life, and contributions from Woollcott and Parker became regular features in the magazine. The New Yorker published an average of forty-eight Benchley columns per year during the early 1930s. With the emergence of The New Yorker, Benchley was able to stay away from Hollywood work for a number of years. In 1931, he was persuaded to do voice work for RKO Radio Pictures for a film that would eventually be titled Sky Devils, and he acted in his first feature film, The Sport Parade (1932) with Joel McCrea. The work on The Sport Parade caused Benchley to miss the fall theatre openings, which embarrassed him (even if the relative success of The Sport Parade was often credited to Benchley's role), but the lure of filmmaking did not disappear, since RKO offered him a writing and acting contract for the following year for more money than he was making writing for The New Yorker. Benchley on film and "How to Sleep" Benchley re-entered Hollywood at the height of the Great Depression and the large-scale introduction of the talkie films he had begun working with years before. His arrival put him on the scene of a number of productions almost instantly. While Benchley was more interested in writing than acting, one of his more important roles as an actor was as a salesman in Rafter Romance, and his work attracted the interest of MGM, who offered Benchley a considerable sum to star in a series of short subjects. Benchley, who had also been offered a syndicated column by Hearst, was able to film the shorts in New York and keep up with his new column. Before heading back to New York, Benchley took a role in the feature film Dancing Lady (1933), which also featured Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, Nelson Eddy, and the Three Stooges. In 1933, Benchley returned to Hollywood, completing the short films Your Technocracy and Mine for Universal Pictures, How to Break 90 at Croquet for RKO, and the lavish feature-length production China Seas for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, starring Clark Gable,