Maxwell Anderson | |
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| Born | James Maxwell Anderson (1888-12-15)December 15, 1888 Atlantic, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | February 28, 1959(1959-02-28) (aged 70) Stamford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Pen name | John Nairne Michaelson |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Education | University of North Dakota (BA) Stanford University (MA) |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1933) |
| Spouse | |
| Partner | Gertrude Higger (1933–1953) |
| Children | 6, includingQuentin including 2 adopted children of his second marriage. |
| Relatives | Maxwell L. Anderson (grandson) |
James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist.
Anderson faced many challenges in his career, frequently losing jobs for expressing his opinions or supporting controversial figures. Despite this, he found success as a dramatist and wrote a number of hit plays, includingWhat Price Glory,Both Your Houses, andThe Bad Seed. Many of his works were adapted for the screen, and he wrote screenplays for other authors' works as well. Anderson was married three times and had a tumultuous personal life, dying in 1959 after suffering a stroke. His papers and personal effects can be found in various institutions, with the largest collection housed at theHarry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Anderson was born on December 15, 1888, in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela ('Premely') Stephenson, both of Scotch-Irish descent.[1] His family initially lived on his maternal grandmother Sheperd's farm in Atlantic, then moved to Andover, Ohio, where his father became arailroad fireman while studying to become a minister. They moved often, to follow their father's ministerial posts, and Maxwell was frequently sick, missing a great deal of school. He used his time sick in bed to read voraciously, and both his parents and Aunt Emma were storytellers, which contributed to Anderson's love of literature.
During a visit to his grandmother's house in Atlantic, at age 11, he met the first love of his life, Hallie Loomis, a slightly older girl from a wealthier family. His autobiographical taleMorning, Winter and Night told of rape, incest and sadomasochism on the farm.[2] It was published under the pseudonym John Nairne Michealson to prevent offending family. The Andersons lived in Andover, Ohio; Richmond Center, Ohio; Townville, Pennsylvania; Edinboro, Pennsylvania; McKeesport, Pennsylvania; New Brighton, Pennsylvania; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Jamestown, North Dakota. Anderson attended Jamestown High School, graduating in 1908.
As an undergraduate, Anderson waited tables and worked at the nightcopy desk of theGrand Forks Herald, and he was active in the school's literary and dramatic societies. He obtained a BA in English Literature from the University of North Dakota in 1911. Anderson became the principal of a high school in Minnewaukan, North Dakota, also teaching English there, but was fired in 1913 for makingpacifist statements to his students. He then entered Stanford University, obtaining an Master's degree in English Literature in 1914. He became a high school English teacher in San Francisco. After three years, Anderson became chairman of the English department at Whittier College in 1917. He was fired after a year for public statements supporting Arthur Camp, a jailed student seeking status as aconscientious objector.
Anderson moved to Palo Alto to write for theSan Francisco Evening Bulletin, but he was fired for writing an editorial stating that it would be impossible for Germany to pay its war debt. He then moved to San Francisco to write for theSan Francisco Chronicle, but he was fired after contracting theSpanish flu and missing work.Alvin S. Johnson hired Anderson to move to New York City and write about politics forThe New Republic in 1918, but he was fired after an argument with Editor-in-ChiefHerbert David Croly.
Anderson found work atThe New York Globe and theNew York World. In 1921 he foundedThe Measure: A Journal of Poetry, a magazine devoted to verse. Anderson wroteWhite Desert, his first play, in 1923; it ran only 12 performances, but it was well reviewed byLaurence Stallings of theNew York World, who collaborated with him on his next playWhat Price Glory?, which was successfully produced in 1924 in New York City. Afterward, Anderson resigned from theWorld, launching his career as a dramatist.[3]
His plays are in widely varying styles, and Anderson was one of the few modern playwrights to make extensive use ofblank verse. Some of these were adapted as films, and Anderson wrote the screenplays of other authors' plays and novels –All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) andDeath Takes a Holiday (1934) – in addition to books of poetry and essays. His first Broadway hit was the 1924 World War I comedy-drama,What Price Glory, written withLaurence Stallings. The play made use of profanity, which caused censors to protest. However, the chief censor (Rear AdmiralCharles Peshall Plunkett) was discredited because he was found to have written far more obscene letters to General Chamberlaine.[4]
The only one of his plays that he adapted to the screen wasJoan of Lorraine, which became the filmJoan of Arc (1948), starringIngrid Bergman, with a screenplay by Anderson andAndrew Solt. When Bergman and her director changed much of his dialogue to make Joan "a plaster saint", he called her a "big, dumb, goddamn Swede!" Anderson was awarded thePulitzer Prize in 1933 for his political dramaBoth Your Houses, and twice received theNew York Drama Critics Circle Award, forWinterset, andHigh Tor.
Anderson enjoyed great commercial success with a series of plays set during the reign of theTudor family, who ruled England, Wales and Ireland from 1485 until 1603. One play in particular –Anne of the Thousand Days – the story ofHenry VIII's marriage toAnne Boleyn – was a hit on the stage in 1948, but did not reach movie screens for 21 years. It opened on Broadway starringRex Harrison andJoyce Redman, and it became a1969 movie withRichard Burton andGeneviève Bujold.
Elizabeth the Queen opened in 1930 withLynn Fontanne as Elizabeth andAlfred Lunt as Lord Essex. It was adapted to the screen asThe Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), starringBette Davis andErrol Flynn. Directed byJohn Ford,Mary of Scotland (1936) was an adaptation of his play of the same name involving Elizabeth I, starringKatharine Hepburn asMary, Queen of Scots,Fredric March as theEarl of Bothwell, andFlorence Eldridge as Elizabeth. The original play had been a hit on Broadway withHelen Hayes in the title role.
His playThe Wingless Victory was written in verse and premiered in 1936 with Broadway actressKatharine Cornell in the lead role. It received mixed reviews.[5]
Two of Anderson's other historical plays,Valley Forge, aboutGeorge Washington's winter there with theContinental Army, andBarefoot in Athens, concerning thetrial of Socrates, were adapted for television.Valley Forge was adapted for television on three occasions – in 1950, 1951 and 1975. Anderson wrote book and lyrics for two successful musicals with composerKurt Weill.Knickerbocker Holiday, about the early Dutch settlers of New York, featuredWalter Huston asPeter Stuyvesant. The show's standout number "September Song" became a popular standard. So did the title song of Anderson and Weill'sLost in the Stars, a story of South Africa based on theAlan Paton novelCry, The Beloved Country. In 1950, Anderson and Weill began collaboration on a musical adaptation ofMark Twain'sHuckleberry Finn, but Weill died when only a few songs had been completed for it.
Saturday's Children, Anderson's long-running 1927 comedy-drama about married life, in whichHumphrey Bogart made an early appearance, was filmed three times – in 1929 as apart-talkie, in 1935 (in almost unrecognizable form) as aB-filmMaybe It's Love, and again in1940 under its original title, starringJohn Garfield in one of his few romantic comedies. The play was adapted for television in three condensed versions in 1950, 1952 and 1962.[6]
His last successful Broadway stage play was 1954'sThe Bad Seed, Anderson's adaption of theWilliam March novel. He was hired byAlfred Hitchcock to write the screenplay for Hitchcock'sThe Wrong Man (1957). Hitchcock also contracted with Anderson to write the screenplay for what becameVertigo (1958), but Hitchcock rejected his screenplayDarkling, I Listen.[7]
Anderson married Margaret Haskett, a classmate, on August 1, 1911, inBottineau, North Dakota. They had three sons,Quentin, Alan, and Terence.
In 1929, Anderson wroteGypsy, what would prove to be a prophetic play about a vain, neurotic liar who cheats on her husband then kills herself by inhaling gas after he catches her.[8] It is around this same time,c. 1930, that Anderson began a relationship with a married actress, Gertrude Higger (married name, Mab Maynard, stage name Mab Anthony). The affair led Anderson to split with Haskett, who later died in 1931 following a car accident and stroke.
Mab divorced her husband, singer Charles V. Maynard, and moved in with Anderson. She was a significant help with clerical duties, but had expensive tastes and spent Anderson's money freely. Their daughter Hesper was born August 1934. Anderson left Maynard[9] following the discovery of her affair with Max's friend, TV producer Jerry Stagg. The combination of losing Anderson, their massive tax debt, and the loss of her home proved too much for Mab, who on March 21, 1953, after several attempts, killed herself by breathing car exhaust. Hesper wrote a book,South Mountain Road: A Daughter's Journey of Discovery describing how following her mother's suicide, she unearthed the fact that her parents never married.
Anderson then married Gilda Hazard on June 6, 1954.[10] This marriage was a happy one, lasting until Anderson's 1959 death.
Anderson was an atheist.[11]
Anderson died in Stamford, Connecticut, on February 28, 1959, two days after suffering a stroke, aged 70. He was cremated. Half of his ashes were scattered by the sea near his home in Stamford. The other half was buried in Anderson Cemetery near his birthplace in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. The inscription on his tombstone reads:
Children of dust astray among the stars
Children of earth adrift upon the night
What is there in our darkness or our light
To linger in prose or claim a singing breath
Save the curt history of life isled in death[citation needed]
Honorary awards include the gold medal in Drama from theNational Institute of Arts and Letters in 1954, an honorary doctor of literature degree from Columbia University in 1946, and an honorary doctor of humanities degree from the University of North Dakota in 1958.[citation needed]
The largest collection of Maxwell Anderson's papers – over sixty boxes – is housed at theHarry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin and includes published and unpublished manuscript materials for plays, poems, and essays, as well as over 2,000 letters, diaries, financial papers, nearly 1,500 family photographs, and personal memorabilia are preserved along with 160 books from the playwright's library.[12] The archive was placed at the Ransom Center in 1961 by Anderson's widow, Mrs. Gilda Hazard Anderson. Smaller collections of Anderson's papers can be found at institutions around the world, including theChester Fritz Library, theNew York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[citation needed]
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