In the early 1930s, before Dannay and Lee's identity as the authors had been made public, "Ellery Queen" and "Barnaby Ross" staged a series of public debates in which one cousin impersonated Queen and the other impersonated Ross, both of them wearing masks to preserve their anonymity. According to H.R.F. Keating, "People said Ross must be the wit and critic Alexander Woollcott and Queen S.S. Van Dine..., creator of the super-snob detective Philo Vance, on whom 'Ellery Queen' was indeed modeled."