Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater

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Overview

• The author is the first person outside the family to have access to Hart’s diary

• Dozens of never-before-published photos—many from his family

• Written with the consent and cooperation of Hart’s widow, Kitty Carlisle Hart, and his children

• Frank, thoroughly researched, insightful look at the Golden Age of Broadway

• Features interviews with dozens of Hart’s colleagues, including Gregory Peck, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, and many more

He’s a legend of The Great White Way whose very name is synonymous with ...

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More About This Book

Overview

• The author is the first person outside the family to have access to Hart’s diary

• Dozens of never-before-published photos—many from his family

• Written with the consent and cooperation of Hart’s widow, Kitty Carlisle Hart, and his children

• Frank, thoroughly researched, insightful look at the Golden Age of Broadway

• Features interviews with dozens of Hart’s colleagues, including Gregory Peck, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, and many more

He’s a legend of The Great White Way whose very name is synonymous with the Golden Age of Broadway Moss Hart. In Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater, acclaimed biographer Jared Brown examines this Pulitzer Prize–winning legend with a meticulously researched, sensitive look at the life and work of a major American artist. Brown examines Hart’s early days writing with George S. Kaufman, his collaborations with Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, and Ira Gershwin, his career as a movie director, and his final act as director of the stage smashes My Fair Lady and Camelot. More than just an assessment of Hart’s career, this is a personal portrait as well, with frank discussions of Hart’s rumored bisexuality, his battles with anxiety and depression, and his marriage. This long-awaited biography, written with the full cooperation of Hart’s family and friends, is truly the definitive picture of a theatrical giant.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Biographer Brown (Alan J. Pakula; Zero Mostel), who has also scripted 15 plays and directed over 90 stage productions, regards Hart's Act One (1959) as "the finest theatrical memoir ever written." Even so, he examines some "peculiar inconsistencies," spotlighting Hart's insecurities as well as his creative breakthroughs. Born in 1904, Hart hoped to escape "the dark brown sameness" of the Bronx, and the stage "became Moss's refuge, his escape from unpopularity and from poverty, his ticket to romance." He gained self-confidence in the borscht belt as his reputation for polished productions spread throughout the Catskills, catapulting him into the glitter of the Great White Way, where he collaborated with George S. Kaufman, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, and had such theatrical triumphs as You Can't Take It with You and My Fair Lady. With exhaustive research (indicated by 40 pages of bibliographic notes) and access to Hart's diary and letters, plus interviews with family and friends, the book is bursting with backstage anecdotes. Theater buffs will applaud this penetrating portrait of the stylish, incandescent Broadway legend. 47 b&w photos not seen by PW. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Brown (Alan J. Pakula: His Films and His Life) has written an engaging and witty biography of an engaging and witty star playwright, director, and screenwriter Moss Hart (1904-61). Although this book comes close on the heels of another Hart biography, Steven Bach's Dazzler, the former has the added benefit of Kitty Carlisle Hart's permission to quote from her husband's unpublished diary and other documents. Moreover, reading Brown's work makes one pine for Broadway "back then" (i.e., during the mid-20th century), but it also reminds us of just how consuming a passion the theater can be and how rare a thing is talent. Hart's collaborations with George S. Kaufman are detailed, as are his directorial Broadway triumphs with Camelot and My Fair Lady. And then there's the story about that around-the-world cruise with Cole Porter it just doesn't get any better than that. An essential purchase for academic libraries serving theater programs, this book would also make a great gift for theater lovers. (Index and photos not seen.) Larry Schwartz, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Moorhead Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Pedestrian biography utterly lacking the wit and charm that made the writer/director one of mid-20th-century Broadway's most beloved figures. The only justification for this lackluster effort by Brown (Alan J. Pakula, 2005, etc.) is the cooperation of his subject's widow, Kitty Carlisle, which was not extended to Steven Bach, author of the far superior Dazzler (2001). Carlisle permitted Brown to read and quote from her husband's diary, which vividly reveals the simmering anger and bouts of depression that dogged Moss Hart (1904-61), from the smashing success of his first collaboration with George S. Kaufman, Once in a Lifetime, through the grueling rehearsals of Camelot that hastened his fatal heart attack. But Hart kept the diary for a single year, 1954, and this material comes too late to redeem a text marred by dull prose, shallow judgments and hands-off treatment of Hart's bisexuality-a topic that Bach also tiptoed around but nonetheless made a palpable element of this talented, tormented man's complex personality. Brown very occasionally refers to "rumors" about Hart's sexuality, but never explores any conflicts that might have compromised his genuine love for his wife and two children. As for Hart's career, Brown adds nothing new to the familiar story: an impoverished childhood in New York City; apprenticeship in the amateur theaters of the Catskills vacation camps; the hugely popular shows with Kaufman, including The Man Who Came to Dinner; more ambitious, less successful solo efforts that ultimately led to his work as a Broadway director taking center stage, most notably with My Fair Lady and Camelot, turned into a hit after a disastrous opening by Hart's savvy cuts and reshaping.The sole area in which Brown improves on Bach's harder-edged approach is in evoking the warm affection Hart prompted; the description of the outpouring of grief that followed his premature death is sad and moving. Anyone seeking real insight into Hart's life and work would be better advised to pick up Dazzler or his delightful 1959 memoir, Act One.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780823078905
  • Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 5/28/2006
  • Pages: 400
  • Product dimensions: 6.10 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.40 (d)

Meet the Author

Jared Brown, the author of Alan J. Pakula: His Films and His Life, Zero Mostel, and The Fabulous Lunts, has directed more than seventy productions. The former chair of Illinois Wesleyan’s School of Theatre Arts, he received the DuPont Award for Teaching Excellence in 1997. He lives in Bloomington, Illinois.
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