Paul Osborn

Paul Osborn (September 4, 1901 – May 12, 1988) was an American playwright and screenwriter. Osborn's notable original plays are The Vinegar Tree, Oliver Oliver, and Morning's at Seven and among his several successful adaptations, On Borrowed Time has proved particularly popular. Counted among his best-known screenplays would be the adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden and Wild River for his friend Elia Kazan, South Pacific and Sayonara directed by Joshua Logan, as well as Madame Curie, The Yearling, and Portrait of Jennie.[1]

Career

Born in Evansville, Indiana, he grew up in Michigan where his father was a Baptist minister. He went on to graduate from the University of Michigan. At the university he formed a lasting friendship with Poet-in-Residence Robert Frost and earned a B.A. in English and an M.A. in psychology. Following a brief stint as a student of George Pierce Baker, the noted teacher of dramatic form and founder of the Yale School of Drama at Yale University, he made his debut on Broadway in 1928 with the play Hotbed. His next play A Ledge was produced the following season.

In 1930 Osborn found singular success on Broadway with a comedy titled The Vinegar Tree that starred Mary Boland. He contributed the comedy Oliver Oliver to the 1934 Broadway season, and in 1984 that play won critical acclaim at the Long Wharf Theater and the Philadelphia Drama Guild with Boyd Gaines in the title role. On the opening night in New Haven, the audience gave Oliver Oliver a standing ovation; and Osborn, who suffered macular degeneration, quipped, "I thought they were standing to get their coats." [2]

Although often noted for his adaptations, Osborn's 1939 comedy, Morning's at Seven, became one of Osborn's most enduring original works. It was revived on Broadway in 1980, directed by Vivian Matalon, with an outstanding cast (Teresa Wright, Maureen O'Sullivan, Nancy Marchand and Elizabeth Wilson). It was hailed by Harold Clurman "as one of the best American comedies" [3] Morning's at Seven has been presented several times on television, including a version directed by Matalon, but was never filmed for the big screen.

Osborn's dramatization of On Borrowed Time has had three productions on Broadway, Joshua Logan directed the premiere in 1938 with Dudley Digges, Frank Conroy and Dorothy Stickney leading the cast. The 1953 revival featured Victor Moore, Leo G Carroll and Beulah Bondi; and in 1991 George C. Scott directed himself, Nathan Lane and Teresa Wright in the play. The 1939 MGM movie of On Borrowed Time stars Lionel Barrymore, Cedric Hardwicke and Bobs Watson and Beulah Bondi. Osborn's rich contribution to the American theater includes the adaptations A Bell for Adano; Point of No Return; The World of Susie Wong; The Innocent Voyage; and an original verse play, based on Greek myths, Maiden Voyage.

Tomorrow's Monday, a somewhat autobiographical play, was written in 1935-36. It was first produced at the Brattleboro Theatre in Vermont, in the summer of 1936 and had its New York premiere fifty years later at the Circle Repertory Company in the fall of 1985. According to Kent Paul who directed that production, Al Hirschfeld, the New York Times theater artist, remarked to his friend Osborn, "I like Tomorrow's Monday even more than Morning's at Seven."

Robert Frost remained a lifelong friend, fascinated by the theater and attending Osborn's first nights, and wanted to write a play with the younger man. [4]

Elia Kazan, in his autobiography A Life, credits Osborn with guiding him to the section of the novel East of Eden to film -- as well as discovering James Dean for the movie. [5] In his documentary A Letter to Elia, Martin Scorsese argues that the little known Wild River, which stars Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick and Jo Van Fleet, is among Kazan's finest achievements. (When Osborn was dying in Mt. Sinai Hospital, Kazan would go every day to sit with the writer who could no longer communicate.) [6] Rodgers & Hammerstein and the director Joshua Logan first asked Osborn to write the book for South Pacific when it was done for the stage (Logan himself finally did it), and achieved their objective when Osborn agreed to make the screenplay. [7]

Paul Osborn and his wife Millicent, a fiction writer, lived in New York. Before their marriage in 1939 (Osborn's second), Millicent Green had had a successful career as an actress on Broadway, in Machinal with Clark Gable and in Street Scene, a performance that is captured in a Hirschfeld drawing included in his book with Brooks Atkinson, The Lively Years 1920 - 1973 (Morning's at Seven is one of the plays cited and discussed.). Problems with his eyesight left Osborn virtually blind his latter years when he dictated a lengthy memoir that he never finished "because I can't read it". The memoir remains unpublished. [8]

Osborn received a Tony award for Best Broadway Revival in 1980 for Morning's at Seven. He had received Academy Award nominations for the screenplays to Sayonara and East of Eden, and Writers Guild of America nominations for South Pacific, Sayonara and East of Eden. In 1982, two years after the Tony for Morning's at Seven, Osborn won the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America.

References

  1. ↑ "Paul Osborn 1901–1988". Indiana Writing Project. Ball State University, Indiana, USA. Retrieved October 4, 2011. External link in |work= (help)
  2. ↑ Recollection of Kent Paul, Director of Tomorrow's Monday and The Vinegar Tree (Off Broadway) June 10, 2017
  3. ↑ Harold Clurman Review The Nation May 3, 1980 page 541
  4. ↑ Kent Paul June 10, 2017
  5. ↑ Elia Kazan A Life pages 546 and 543
  6. ↑ Kent Paul June 10, 2017
  7. ↑ Inscription to Paul Osborn by Oscar Hammerstein II in published South Pacific screenplay
  8. ↑ Osborn, Paul. Unfinished Memoir. soon to be available at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection; New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center


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