Biography
Born in New Rochelle, New York, he was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a well-known illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood. He was a great-great-grandson of the former New York State Attorney General Thomas Addis Emmet and a great-grandnephew of the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet who was executed for high treason in an abortive rebellion attempt against the British. His aunts included the notable American portrait artists Lydia Field Emmet, Jane Emmet de Glehn and his first cousin, once removed, was artist Ellen Emmet Rand.
Sherwood was educated at Milton Academy and then Harvard University. He fought with the Canadian Black Watch in Europe during World War I and was wounded. After his return to the U.S., he began working as a movie critic for such magazines as Life and Vanity Fair. The career of Robert E. Sherwood as a critic in the 1920s is discussed in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism by Time critic Richard Schickel who also tells how Sherwood was the first New York critic invited to Hollywood by cross-country train to meet the stars and directors.
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