Arts News
Moss Hart Postage Stamp
By Luna Lovegood
Oct 1, 2004, 3:46 GMT

Moss Hart Postage Stamp

Washington, D.C: A witty and charming personality who embodied the glamour of Broadway, award-winning dramatist and director Moss Hart will be honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a new commemorative postage stamp to be issued Oct. 25. The first-day-of-issue ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. at the Rosenthal Pavilion of the Kimmel Center, New York University, 60 Washington Square South, New York, NY, and occurs just one day after the 100th anniversary of Hart's birth. The ceremony is free and open to the public.

"The Postal Service is proud to honor Moss Hart, one of the legends of the golden age of Broadway," said John Walsh, presidentially appointed member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, who will dedicate the stamp. "As a screenwriter and director, Hart captured America's optimistic spirit to the delight of audiences then and now."

Expected to join Walsh for the stamp dedication ceremony are Hart family members including Hart's wife, actress and singer Kitty Carlisle, and his son, Christopher Hart. Dr. John Sexton, President, New York University, will also participate, while Hart's daughter, Dr. Catherine Hart, will attend as an honored guest.

A gifted playwright, Hart wrote a series of sparkling comedies in the 1930s with the noted playwright and director George S. Kaufman. Also a brilliant director, Hart staged one of the most dazzling musicals of his era, My Fair Lady.

Moss Hart

Moss Hart was born October 24, 1904, in New York City. He grew up in poverty with a burning ambition to make his mark in the theater. When he was in eighth grade -- just before his fifteenth birthday -- he had to quit school and work full-time to help support his family. After being employed for several years in the garment industry, Hart found a foothold in the theater by landing a job as an office boy for a producer. Later he worked as an actor, a social director at summer camps and a director of amateur theatrical groups -- all the time writing plays and hoping for his big break. As he wrote in his autobiography, Act One, "My feet were embedded in the Upper Bronx, but my eyes were set firmly toward Broadway."

In 1930, Hart finally reached the street of his dreams with the comedy Once in a Lifetime, which he wrote with Kaufman. A satire on Hollywood, Once in a Lifetime earned rave reviews and ran for 305 performances. From 1930 through 1940, Hart and Kaufman collaborated on eight plays. Their comedies cheered audiences during the dark years of the Great Depression. Two of their finest works are frequently performed today: The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939) and You Can't Take It with You (1936), which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1937.

Hart also collaborated on musicals with top songwriters of his era. He wrote the books for Irving Berlin's Face the Music (1932) and As Thousands Cheer (1933), and Cole Porter's Jubilee (1935). With Kaufman, he authored the libretto for I'd Rather Be Right (1937), a political satire with songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (no relation to Moss). He wrote and directed Lady in the Dark (1941), the first musical play about psychoanalysis. With music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, Lady in the Dark featured dynamic performances by the legendary Gertrude Lawrence and newcomer Danny Kaye.

While known primarily for his collaborations, Hart also won fame as a solo playwright. Of the plays he wrote without a co-author, the witty backstage comedy Light Up the Sky (1948) is considered his best. Often revived, it remains a favorite with contemporary audiences.

Hart's accomplishments as a director equaled his achievements as a playwright. He was praised for his direction of the hit comedies Junior Miss (1941) and Anniversary Waltz (1954), both by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields, Dear Ruth by Norman Krasna (1944), and his own Light Up the Sky.

Hart's Most Famous Show, My Fair Lady

Yet his greatest directorial triumphs were on the musical stage. He won a Tony Award for his direction of My Fair Lady (1956), Lerner and Loewe's adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. My Fair Lady became one of the longest-running Broadway musicals in history, and Julie Andrews gave Hart the credit for her enchanting performance as Eliza Doolittle. Hart not only directed Lerner and Loewe's Camelot (1960), based on T.H. White's The Once and Future King, but ensured its success by insisting on crucial cuts in the show after it opened to mixed reviews.

Although Hart's first love was Broadway, he also made his mark in Hollywood. As a screenwriter he was nominated for Academy Awards for Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) and Gentleman's Agreement (1947), a pioneering film about anti-Semitism that won an Oscar for Best Picture. Hart also wrote notable screenplays for Hans Christian Andersen (1952), starring Danny Kaye with songs by Frank Loesser, and A Star Is Born (1954), which marked one of Judy Garland's greatest screen triumphs.

During the last years of his life, Hart wrote his autobiography, Act One. A best-seller when it was published in 1959, Act One is now considered a classic memoir of the theater. The book chronicles Hart's impoverished childhood and his struggle to become a playwright. It is dedicated to his wife, the actress Kitty Carlisle, who urged him to record his memories of a golden age in the American theater. Act One expresses Hart's lifelong devotion to the stage; it has aptly been called a love letter to Broadway.

Act One concludes in 1930 with the success of Once in a Lifetime. On Dec. 20, 1961, Hart suffered a fatal heart attack in Palm Springs, CA, where he and his family had recently moved from New York City. He died just a few months after delivering the eulogy at the funeral of his friend and theatrical mentor, George S. Kaufman.

The stamp art shows a painting by Tim O'Brien, based on a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt showing Hart in Times Square.