Moss Hart

Birthday: 24 October 1904, New York City, New York, USA

Tony Award-winning American playwright/lyricist Moss Hart was born Oct. 24, 1904, in New York City to a poor Jewish family and raised in what he described as a "drab tenement" on 107th St. in the Bronx. He was educated in the city public school system. He showed a knack for writing at an early age--he wrote his first play at age 12--and would stage his plays at the local YMHA (Young Mens Hebrew Association). It wasn't long before he joined the Thalian Players, a little-theatre group, which won a citywide little-theatre competition sponsored by the Belasco theater organization. He worked for a clothing retailer, and he would write and direct the annual company shows. He began directing little-theater groups in the New York/New Jersey area, and found work as the social director at various summer camps in rural Pennsylvania and Vermont, writing and staging plays for the camps' clients.His first "professional" play, "The Hold-Up Man", premiered in Chicago in the late 1920s, but was a failure. However, his play "Once in a Lifetime" (1930) was a major hit--it was made into a film, Once in a Lifetime (1932)--and was the start of a productive, and profitable, collaboration with writer George S. Kaufman (the royalties he received from the play made him a wealthy man at 26). Kaufman and Hart had a string of successful plays, ranging from wild farces to dark, serious dramas. In 1937 the team received a Pulitzer Prize for their comedy "You Can't Take It With You", which was made into a hugely successful film (You Can't Take It with You (1938)) the next year. Hart also worked by himself on occasion, and collaborated with Kurt Weill on "Lady in the Dark" (1941), which they wrote specifically for Gertrude Lawrence.In addition to his work as a playwright on Broadway, he also directed several stage productions ("Camelot", "My Fair Lady", for which he won a Tony Award)) and wrote the screenplay for A Star Is Born (1954). His autobiography, "Act One", was made into a film (Act One (1963). He was married to actress Kitty Carlisle from 1946 to his death from a heart attack in Palm Springs, CA, in 1961. Hide

[on writing the screenplay for A Star Is Born (1954)] It was a difficult story to do because the ori Show more [on writing the screenplay for A Star Is Born (1954)] It was a difficult story to do because the original was so famous, and when you tamper with the original you're inviting all sorts of unfavorable criticism. It had to be changed because I had to say new things about Hollywood--which is quite a feat in itself, as the subject had been worn pretty thin. Add to that the necessity of making this a musical drama, and you'll understand the immediate problems. Hide

[on Beverly Hills] The most beautiful slave quarters in the world. [on Beverly Hills] The most beautiful slave quarters in the world.

[on what later became "Lady in the Dark"] Kurt Weill and I sat at a table in a little midtown [Manha Show more [on what later became "Lady in the Dark"] Kurt Weill and I sat at a table in a little midtown [Manhattan] restaurant and told each other vehemently why we should not write a musical comedy. We were both completely uninterested in doing a show for the sake of doing a show, in Broadway parlance, and the tight little formula of the musical comedy stage held no interest for either of us . . . We discovered the kind of show we both definitely DID want to do, a show in which the music carried forward the essential story and was not imposed upon the architecture of the play. Hide

[on Julie Andrews] She has that wonderful British strength that makes you wonder why they lost India Show more [on Julie Andrews] She has that wonderful British strength that makes you wonder why they lost India. Hide

So far as I know, anything worth hearing is not usually uttered at seven o'clock in the morning; and Show more So far as I know, anything worth hearing is not usually uttered at seven o'clock in the morning; and if it is, it will generally be repeated at a more reasonable hour for a larger and more wakeful audience. Hide

Moss Hart's FILMOGRAPHY

as Creator (3)

A Star Is Born

Gentleman's Agreement

Hans Christian Andersen