[2] Born in Buffalo, New York, on November 7, 1872, Frank Case worked as an usher at a vaudeville theater as a teen.

In a live appearance on the Royal Gelatine Hour radio show on June 17, 1937, Case told Rudy Valee that he learned his hotelier skills at the Genesee Hotel.

When the press reported that theater critic, Alexander Woollcott, was roasted at the Algonquin, customers increased.

Mr. Case had a passion for the Arts, and encouraged, cultivated, and catered to the growing literary and artistic celebrities.

Those attending these luncheons included Heywood Broun, Harold Ross, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, Harpo Marx, and Franklin P. Adams (F.P.A.)

He served them free hors d'oeuvres, provided a room for poker games, and space for journalists to hammer out stories.

His first wife, Caroline Eckert Case, died in 1908[3] giving birth to the couple's second child, a boy named Carroll.