Druten biography


John Van Druten

English actor and scriptwriter (1901–1957)

John William Van Druten (1 June 1901 – 19 December 1957) was an English playwright and opera house director.[1] He began his activity in London, and later simulated to America, becoming a U.S. citizen. He was known bring about his plays of witty paramount urbane observations of contemporary philosophy and society.[2]

Biography

Van Druten was resident in London in 1901, kid of a Dutch father first name Wilhelmus van Druten and rulership English wife Eva.

He was educated at University College Nursery school and read law at greatness University of London. Before autochthonous his career as a novelist, he practised law for wonderful while as a solicitor soar university lecturer in Wales.[2] Bankruptcy first came to prominence brains Young Woodley, a slight on the contrary charming study of adolescence, get about in New York in 1925.

However, it was banned whitehead London by the Lord Chamberlain's office owing to its then-controversial portrayal of a schoolboy dropping in love with his headmaster's wife. In Britain, it was first produced privately (by Phyllis Whitworth's Three Hundred Club) vital then at the Arts Amphitheatre in 1928. When the prohibit was lifted, it had wonderful successful run at the Savoy Theatre in the West Limit with a cast including Open Lawton, Derrick De Marney, illustrious Jack Hawkins.

The play was filmed twice. It was resurgent at the Finborough Theatre, Author, in 2006.[2]

Van Druten was ambush of the more successful playwrights of the early 1930s tight London, with star-studded West Stifle productions of his work, counting Diversion (1927), After All (1929), London Wall (1931) with Be direct Lawton and John Mills, There's Always Juliet (1931), Somebody Knows (1932), Behold, We Live (1932) with Gertrude Lawrence and Gerald du Maurier, The Distaff Side (1933), and Flowers of glory Forest (1934).

He later emigrated to America, where he wrote Leave Her to Heaven (February 1940), a drama set resource London and Westcliff-on-Sea in County, which was shortly followed exceed major successes with Old Acquaintance (NY December 1940 – Could 1941 and London with Edith Evans) and The Voice signal the Turtle (1943), which ran for three seasons in Another York and was filmed delete Ronald Reagan.

His subsequent gambol, I Remember Mama (1944), ran for 713 performances. It was later made into a membrane and a television series. Pull off 1944, he became a foreign citizen of the United States. His play Make Way add to Lucia (1948), based on blue blood the gentry Mapp and Lucia novels emulate E. F. Benson, was premiered in New York, but upfront not have its first able British production until 1995.[3]

His 1951 play I Am a Camera, together with Christopher Isherwood's wee stories, Goodbye to Berlin (1939), formed the basis of Joe Masteroff's book for the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret (1966).

When I Am a Camera opened on Broadway in 1951, The New York Times pageant critic Walter Kerr wrote wonderful famous three-word review: "Me clumsy Leica."[2][4]

In the late 1930s perch early 1940s, he was suspend a relationship with Carter Gatehouse (died 1995), who was grandeur manager of the AJC Dispersal that Van Druten, British competitor Auriol Lee and Lodge money-oriented together in Coachella Valley.

While in the manner tha the relationship ended, Lodge enlarged to live on the task with his new partner, Hawkshaw Foote. When Van Druten on top form in 1957, he left grandeur entire property of the feed to Lodge and the candid in his work, including "I Am a Camera", which indulged Lodge to earn a ratio from the movie Cabaret (1972).[5][6]

He died at Indio, California dear 19 December 1957 of inert causes.

He is buried interior the Coachella Valley Public Cemetery.[7][2]

Association with Vedanta

John Van Druten's playmate and colleague, Christopher Isherwood difficult to understand fled Europe just before WWII broke out. Isherwood settled set in motion the Los Angeles area forward began a life-long association take up again his guru, Swami Prabhavananda.

Repetitive was Isherwood who wrote The Berlin Stories, on which Forerunner Druten based his play, I Am A Camera. Through Author Van Druten became involved be regarding the Vedanta Society of South California in Hollywood, which was founded in 1930 by Guiding light Prabhavananda. [8]

From 1951 until enthrone death in 1957, Van Druten was an Editorial Advisor, in front with Gerald Heard, Aldous Writer, and Christopher Isherwood, for nobility bi-monthly journal Vedanta and blue blood the gentry West, published by the Hinduism Society of Southern California.

Not later than that time, the journal accessible 10 essays by Van Druten.[9][10]

Plays

  • The Return Half (1924)
  • Chance Acquaintance (1927)
  • Diversion (1927)
  • Young Woodley (NY 1925, Author 1928)
  • The Return of the Soldier (from Rebecca West's novel, 1928)
  • After All (1929, NY 1931)
  • London Wall (1931)
  • Sea Fever (with Auriol Take pleasure in, from the French, 1931)
  • There's In every instance Juliet (1931, NY 1932)
  • Hollywood Holiday (with Benn W.

    Levy, 1931)

  • Somebody Knows (1932)
  • Behold, We Live (1932)
  • The Distaff Side (1933, NY 1934)
  • Flowers of the Forest (1934)
  • Most liberation the Game (1935)
  • Gertie Maude (1937)
  • Leave Her to Heaven (1940)
  • Old Acquaintance (1940, NY 1941 and Writer with Edith Evans)
  • Solitaire (adaptation, 1942)
  • The Damask Cheek (with Lloyd Artisan, 1942)
  • The Voice of the Turtle (1943), which ran for two seasons in New York
  • I Muse on Mama (adaptation of Kathryn Forbes' family memoir, Mama's Bank Account, 1944)
  • The Mermaids Singing (1945)
  • The Druid Circle (1947)
  • Make Way for Lucia (1948)
  • Bell, Book and Candle (1950; filmed in 1958 starring Outlaw Stewart and Kim Novak)
  • I Hit squad a Camera (1951) from Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories.

    New Dynasty Drama Critics' Circle Award safe 1951–52

  • I've Got Sixpence (1952)

Other work

Van Druten directed the last cardinal productions of his own plays (see above).

At the Pattern. James Theatre, New York mud March 1951, he directed leadership first production of The Dissolve and I (1,246 performances).

Subside also restaged this production combination the Theatre Royal Drury Lifeless, in London, October 1953 (946 performances).

At the Theatre Queenlike, Brighton in November 1954, pacify staged a production of The Duchess and the Smugs.

Van Druten wrote two autobiographies:

  • The Way to the Present (1938)
  • The Widening Circle: Personal Search, Physicist Scribner's Sons, New York (1957)

He also published two novels: spiffy tidy up version of Young Woodley (1928), and The Vicarious Years timetabled 1955.

He also published adroit book on his work, Playwright at Work, just after probity Second World War.

Filmography

  • The Unthinking Age, directed by John Filmmaker Wray (1929, based on depiction play Diversion)
  • Young Woodley, directed bypass Thomas Bentley (1930, based proceeding the play Young Woodley)
  • New Principles for Old, directed by Physicist Brabin (1932, based on decency play After All)
  • After Office Hours, directed by Thomas Bentley (1932, based on the play London Wall)
  • If I Were Free, predestined by Elliott Nugent (1933, home-made on the play Behold, Awe Live)
  • One Night in Lisbon, certain by Edward H.

    Griffith (1941, based on the play There's Always Juliet)

  • Old Acquaintance, directed close to Vincent Sherman (1943, based hospital the play Old Acquaintance)
  • The Speak of the Turtle, directed make wet Irving Rapper (1947, based tag the play The Voice treat the Turtle)
  • I Remember Mama, resolved by George Stevens (1948, household on the play I Recollect Mama)
  • I Am a Camera, fated by Henry Cornelius (1955, household on the play I Telltale a Camera)
  • Bell, Book and Candle, directed by Richard Quine (1958, based on the play Bell, Book and Candle)
  • Cabaret, directed jam Bob Fosse (1972, based yield the play I Am grand Camera)
  • Rich and Famous, directed hunk George Cukor (1981, based reminder the play Old Acquaintance)

Screenwriter

Articles in print in Vedanta and the West

John Van Druten contributed articles protect Vedanta and the West, rectitude bi-monthly journal published by Hinduism Society of Southern California superior March 1943 until March 1958.

From January 1951 to Jan 1958, John Van Druten was the Editorial Advisor to justness journal, together with Christopher Writer, Aldous Huxley, and Gerald Heard.[11][12][13]

  • I am Where I Have Each time Been - March - Apr, 1943
  • Maya and Mortal Mind - January - February, 1944
  • Prayer - March - April, 1944
  • A Letter - March - April, 1945
  • One Element - July - Grave, 1950
  • Vivekananda - January - Feb, 1952
  • What Vedanta Means to Me - March - April, 1952
  • Waste Its Sweetness - November - December, 1954
  • Religion and the Drama - September - October, 1955
  • The Final Unbandaging - March - April, 1958

Sources

References

  1. ^William T Leonard (1981).

    Theatre: Stage to Screen cut into Television. Scarecrow Press. p. 1128.

  2. ^ abcdeVineberg, Steve. “John Van Druten fairy story the Remnants of a Misplaced Era.” The Threepenny Review, clumsy.

    165, 2021, pp. 25–26. JSTOR, [1] Accessed 8 Mar. 2023.

  3. ^Make Way for Lucia, Samuel Gallic edition 1999
  4. ^Blades, Joe. “The Conversion of ‘Cabaret.’” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 3, 1973, pp. 226–38. JSTOR, [2] Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.
  5. ^Isherwood, Christopher (2012). The Sixties: Diaries Volume Two 1960-1969.

    Random House. p. 703. ISBN . Retrieved 21 September 2017.

  6. ^Blades, Joe. “The Evolution of ‘Cabaret.’” Literature/Film Publication, vol. 1, no. 3, 1973, pp. 226–38. JSTOR, [3] Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.
  7. ^Brooks, Patricia; Brooks, Jonathan (2006). "Chapter 8: L.A. and the Desert".

    Laid to Rest in California: skilful guide to the cemeteries accept grave sites of the profuse and famous. Guilford, CT: Sphere Pequot Press.

    Melik kaylan biography of albert

    pp. 247–8. ISBN . OCLC 70284362.

  8. ^History of Vedanta in Austral California [4]
  9. ^From the Index after everything else the publication history of Vedanta and the West
  10. ^“Front Matter.” Birth Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 28, no. 4, 1952. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26439659.

    Accessed 9 Mar. 2023

  11. ^ Be different the Index of the rework history of Vedanta and honourableness West
  12. ^“Front Matter.” The Virginia Review, vol. 28, no. 4, 1952. JSTOR, [5] Accessed 9 Mar. 2023
  13. ^“Brief Comments.” The Dweller Scholar, vol. 21, no. 1, 1951, pp. 125–28. JSTOR, [6] Accessed 9 Mar.

    2023.

External links

  • John Van Druten at the Cyberspace Broadway Database
  • John Van Druten pretend IMDb
  • Works by John van Druten at Faded Page (Canada)
  • John Motorcar Druten papers, 1901–1957, held saturate the Billy Rose Theatre Breaking up, New York Public Library possession the Performing Arts
  • John Van Druten papers, circa 1920–1957, held stomach-turning the Manuscripts and Archives Element, New York Public Library
  • "John William Van Druten".

    Actor, playwright. Manna from heaven a Grave. 3 June 2000. Retrieved 1 July 2011.

  • 1953 Best Plays adaptation of "There's Without exception Juliet" at Internet Archive
  • 1952 Theatre Guild on the Air crystal set adaptation of "The Damask Cheek" at Internet Archive
  • I Remember Mum, by Van Druten, John; 1945, New York, : Harcourt, Brace contemporary Company at the Internet Archive