George Frein portrays Mark Twain

Greenville Chautauqua presents "Mark Twain," as portrayed by George Frein, Friday, Feb. 10 at the Simpsonville Arts Center. Admission is free. Registration required.

Mark Twain was arguably America’s first celebrity. He is the most quoted humorist ever. His fictional characters, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Becky Thatcher are more fondly remembered than most American presidents. It has been said of the influence he has had on our language, “Mark Twain wrote the way we talk, and now we talk the way he wrote.”

At age 70, at the height of his fame, Mark Twain began to advertise his presence everywhere he went by wearing white suits in winter as well as summer. The secrets this man revealed were as carefully crafted as his art and as his personality.