[Ads-l] Antedating of "Biopic"

[Shapiro, Fred]

biopic (OED 1947)

1946 Variety 21 Aug. 2/5 (ProQuest)

Preem of "The Jolson Story," his Columbia biopic will be at Radio City Music Hall.

Fred Shapiro


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Ben Yagoda <byagoda at UDEL.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2025 10:02 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Pronunciation and antedating of "biopic"

I’ve written a Substack piece about the currently fairly widespread pronunciation of “biopic,” the movie genre, to rhyme with “myopic.” I looked into the history of the word as well. The OED’s first citation is a July 1947 Variety article, but, writing in Mental Floss about this topic earlier this year, Ellen Gutoskey quoted an Associated Press article from the previous month, June 1947: 'In the smarty-pants talk of the trade press a saloon is a “cocktailery,” a studio chief is a “topper,” and a crew of “windjammers” or ‘musikers’ comprise an “ork” (orchestra). Press agents are “flacks,” dancehalls (palaces of Terpsichore) are “terpalaces,” pictures are “pix,” and a biographical film is a “biopic.”’ (I verified it on newspapers.com <https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewspapers.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C65ef32dc31254967e22408de16f3cc08%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638973433572523490%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=m5AqISIOCJ1FHuYBU%2FJbVwzU8w3uiCqAs45E60tti6k%3D&reserved=0>.<http://newspapers.com/>)

The quote doesn’t name Variety but suggests to me that the term was already in use there. If anyone has access to the publication’s digital archives, I would be interested to know whether there are any earlier “biopic”s.

Here’s a link to my piece (which has a link to the Mental Floss piece): https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.substack.com%2Fpub%2Fbenyagoda%2Fp%2Fhow-do-you-pronounce-biopic%3Fr%3D3s77z%26utm_campaign%3Dpost%26utm_medium%3Dweb%26showWelcomeOnShare%3Dtrue&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C65ef32dc31254967e22408de16f3cc08%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638973433572585217%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=bL%2FCYNeMPRQqSA7flur7JCFiGIT5ZnhSgr3l9RtTAbc%3D&reserved=0<https://open.substack.com/pub/benyagoda/p/how-do-you-pronounce-biopic?r=3s77z&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true>

 Ben
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