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His friends were often disgusted by Woollcott's grossness, sickened by his gush, ashamed when, for example, he hurled himself on his knees before Novelist Somerset Maugham in a crowded elevator, crying "Maitre!" But many of them loved and respected the man inside the Fabbulous Monster. They knew that Woollcott was boundlessly kind and generous without ever admitting it, that out of his swollen income he gave away huge sums—to friends, charities, young men trying to get a start in life. But sometimes the very combination of Christian and Monster seemed intolerable. "Your brother has a heart of gold," said Novelist James M. Cain to Will Woollcott, "and how I hate the son-of-a-bitch."
Since the day Woollcott scrawled I AM SICK at a radio forum, and was carried out to die of a cerebral hemorrhage, his friends and enemies have tried to explain what manner of man he was. Some may agree with Critic Edmund Wilson's verdict: "In the days of totalitarian states and commercial standardization, he did not hesitate to assert himself as a single, unique human being." Others may ponder Woollcott's raging scream, made when a tactless lecture-chairman referred to his youthful success in female roles: "Look at me, boys and girls; half god, half woman!"