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New Moss Hart Biography to be Published in July
By: BWW News Desk Apr. 20, 2006
In July, Back Stage Books will publish Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theatre by Jared Brown.
The book was written with the full support and cooperation of Hart's family and friends, and features dozens of never-before-published photographs. The author had access to documents previously unavailable to biographers (such as Hart's diary), and conducted lengthy interviews with Hart's wife and children, as well as with some of the most prominent performers he worked with, such as Julie Andrews, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert and Robert Goulet.
Born into extreme poverty, Moss Hart became one of the most successful playwrights and directors of the 1930s through the early 1960s. He is perhaps best known for his many collaborations with George S. Kaufman, three of which are today regarded as comic masterpieces: Once In a Lifetime, You Can't Take It With You, and The Man Who Came to Dinner. Hart also collaborated with Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and wrote several plays on his own. He directed several plays and musicals, his crowning achievements being the original Broadway productions of My Fair Lady and Camelot. He also wrote screenplays for many classic films, including Gentleman's Agreement, which won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Picture and the Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born."More than just an assessment of his
career, this is a personal portrait as well. Despite his enormous
success in both theatre and film, Hart spent all of his adult life in
psychoanalysis, attempting to come to grips with crushing depression. He was rumored to
be bisexual, and Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theatre examines the
evidence for that claim. When he married, well into his forties, he
and his wife, the actress-singer Kitty Carlisle were said by Hart's
friend and collaborator, Alan Jay Lerner, to be 'not only an ideal
couple, [but] the ideal couple,'" state notes on the book.
Brown is the author of several
biographies, including Alan J. Pakula: His Films and His Life, Zero Mostel, and The Fabulous Lunts. He has directed approximately 100
productions, ranging from Shakespeare to Moliere to Chekhov to modern
American musicals.
The book is 400 pages, hardcover and features 30 black and white photographs.
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