Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater [Hardcover]

Jared Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2006

• 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.

Editorial Reviews

From 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Brown reveals nothing particularly shocking in his new biography of playwright and director Hart. Others before have dealt, however gingerly, with Hart's possible bisexuality and the constant confusion over whether he was Jewish. (He was.) Instead, Brown offers a thick, well-researched, no-nonsense traditional biography that examines its subject's life in great detail without getting lost in a forest of facts. Brown, for example, analyzes Hart's autobiography, Act One (1959), revealing that Hart wasn't immune to the temptation to rewrite his life to make a better story, or to protect close family members. Brown makes a convincing case that the person who wrote Hart threatening letters and set mysterious backstage fires early in Hart's career may have been his mentally unstable mother, not the equally unstable, theater-loving aunt Act One fingers. Not that Brown's book is packed with gossip. It is much more devoted to charting Hart's artistic development and professional accomplishments. Hart fans, in particular, will appreciate the wealth of new information about this theatrical giant that Brown has unearthed. Jack Helbig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Back Stage Books (July 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823078906
• ISBN-13: 978-0823078905
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,158,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Theatre

More About the Author

The inseparable cocktail couple, Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller, are the directors of Mixellany Limited (www.mixellany.com), publishers of books on drink. During the course of their 19-year collaboration, Miller and Brown have written more than 30 books including Shaken Not Stirred: A Celebration of the Martini, Champagne Cocktails, Cuba: Legend of Rum, and Soul of Brasil. Their latest, Spirituous Journey: A History of Drink charts in two volumes a history of spirits and mixed drinks from 7000 BC to mid-20th century. (The first volume won a coveted Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best Drink History in the UK in 2009 and the second received the same honour in 2010.) In October 2010, the couple also received the Best Drinks Writing Award at the 2010 CLASS Magazine Awards. And in 2011, the couple were honoured with the coveted IWSC Communicators of the Award from the International Wine & Spirits Competition.

Their publishing company is responsible for the Mixologist series of cocktail journals and the republishing such classics as the Café Royal Cocktail Book. They write for World's Best Bars and are "cocktail gurus" on the new Drinkology website. They are also regular contributors to Imbibe and CLASS magazines in the UK and Mixology magazine in Germany. They have written extensively for other publications including Wine Spectator, Cigar Aficionado, Gotham and Hamptons magazines, Los Angeles Confidential, Boston Common, Capitol File, and Food Arts in the United States as well as THEME in the UK.

These two former bartenders also practice what they preach. Brown is master distiller for the multi-award winning Sipsmith Gin, the first newly-licensed London distillery to open in nearly 200 years. They have amassed a collection of international awards for their work as distillery consultants creating new spirits, including a coveted 2002 international "Best Spirit" in the white spirits category from the Beverage Testing Institute for Heavy Water Vodka. They have worked as tasters for a number of products including the new Beefeater 24 ultra-premium gin. They recently completed a three-year project in the south of France, restoring Exposition Universelle des Vins et Spiritueux, a museum of wines and spirits founded in 1958, and cataloguing the 8000+ bottles, 1200 menus, and other antiquities in the collection.

They live in the Cotswolds with their cat, Kitten.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bach's is better, November 1, 2006

By 

Joseph Goodrich (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater (Hardcover)

The reader interested in Moss Hart and the golden age of Broadway will be much better served by going directly to Steven Bach's biography. Brown's workmanlike tome is short on style, short on feeling for the era (something Bach provides in spades), and the material from Hart's diaries doesn't amount to much. Compare Bach's thrilling re-telling of the birth of MY FAIR LADY with Brown's tepid version, to name one instance, and you'll see why Bach's is by far the better book. DAZZLER is indeed dazzling; Brown's PRINCE does nothing to de-throne Bach's definitive bio and lacks---dare I say---Hart.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jared Brown on Moss Hart, August 25, 2006

By 

G. Mooney (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater (Hardcover)

Having recently discovered Jared Brown I have become a fan of his writing. "Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater" was a welcome addition to his list of biographies. Deeply researched and well written, it was a joy to read and a font of information. Hart was an extremely interesting man, and his relationship with his wife, Kitty Carlisle, was heartwarming; in fact Carlisle is every bit as interesting as Hart. Brown gives insight into the art of play writing, the emense amount of work involved and the talent of Hart and his early partner, George Kaufman. From writing Hart went to directing and was even more successful. A gem of a book.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poised between Fear and Success, August 21, 2006

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater (Hardcover)

MOSS HART A PRINCE OF THE THEATER is a major achievement. At first I wondered why even Moss Hart fans need another biography of the fellow so soon after Steven Bach's well-reviewed DAZZLER from a few years back. For indeed Moss Hart is rather a forgotten figure nowadays, even though the august Library of America published a collection not too long ago of Kaufman & Hart's biggest hits. Even his critically acclaimed musicals, JUBILEE and LADY IN THE DARK are today honored more in the breach than the observance, and his memoir ACT ONE is fading fast from cultural memory. That's not to say that, at any moment, he may return to our zeitgeist, and it's great having his widow still around and performing at age 90 something. Still I hesitated before taking Jared Brown's book off the shelf. LOL, Back Stage Books issued the review copies of this title with the publication date of "July 2007" printed on the back cover, so I didn't think there was any big hurry, that's for sure. They must have been thinking of 2006, it's just that there's not much urgency to the topic nowadays.

However once begun I warmed up plenty to Jared Brown, and yes, I can say that this book improves on DAZZLER. Brown attacks Bach for spreading the rumor that it was Moss Hart's aunt Kate who set those mysterious fires that plagued the backstage of Cole Porter's JUBILEE, and Brown put forth the theory that it must have been Hart's own mom, who was something of a mess mentally. She seems to have been a victim of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, which happens when people don't have enough drama in their lives they have to invent some. Hart's youth was marked by dark episodes in which a skull and crossbones would appear carved into his bedstead or the door to the family apartment, and threatening messages would cause the frightened family to flee to a "safe house." This happened over and over again for years, and now it seems obvious that the mother was doing it all the time. Sad.

Because of this unstable childhood, Hart grew into a man subject to crippling fits of depression. Even when everything was going right for him, gloom sometimes would descend on him like a trap over a rat. No one could touch him, not even Kitty Carlisle. She said it was like they were in two different countries, hers a bright sunlit land, his a room in hell.

Brown provides some new details regarding Hart's last play, THE NATURE OF THE BEAST, which aired on TV. How I wish this would be released on DVD! Nor had I any idea of how badly Danny Kaye behaved in Odense at the childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen. All of the Danish material is new and perfectly fascinating: the film was criticized for its German flavor--even the name "Hans" is pronounced the way Germans do, not the way Danes do. Brown has been to the manuscripts and outlines for us the different stages of each of Hart's major works. Did you know that THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, which already has caricatures of Harpo Marx, Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, had a surrealist painter (Miguel Santos) modelled on Salvador Dali at one time?