29-606: Jean Kerr (born Bridget Jean Collins ; July 10, 1922 – January 5, 2003) was an American author and playwright who authored the 1957 bestseller Please Don't Eat the Daisies and the plays King of Hearts in 1954 and Mary, Mary in 1961. Kerr was born on July 10, 1922, in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrant parents Tom and Kitty Collins, and grew up on Electric Street in Scranton. She attended Marywood Seminary ,
58-544: A 1965-1967 television series starring Patricia Crowley and Mark Miller . Kerr followed up this book with two later best-selling collections, The Snake Has All the Lines and Penny Candy . The introduction serves as yet another humorous essay, as Kerr describes how she came to be a writer. Kerr begins the book with her take on parenting four small boys. The trials and tribulations of an author who hopes her letters are being collected for future publication. Kerr's take on
87-589: A 24-bell carillon that played the duet from Carmen at noon. How to survive getting a play produced. Musings from the self-proclaimed most experienced audience member in America. A parody of Stephen Vincent Benét 's " John Brown's Body ", which mixes in Mike Hammer and gangsters. A take-off of Francoise Sagan 's A Certain Smile . Kerr muses on the state of school productions of holiday shows through
116-571: A Camera in the New York Herald Tribune , December 31, 1951. Many of the shows he critiqued were those of Stephen Sondheim . About Sondheim's Company , Kerr wrote that it was too cold, cynical and distant for his taste, though he "admitted to admiring large parts of the show." About Sondheim's Follies , he wrote " 'Follies' is intermissionless and exhausting, an extravaganza that becomes tedious for two simple reasons: Its extravagances have nothing to do with its pebble of
145-535: A Featured Role (Pat Stanley) and Best Actor in a Featured Role ( Russell Nype ). The Kerrs also collaborated on the Tony Award -winning King of Hearts (1954), which ran for 279 performances; he directed the play that she co-wrote with Eleanor Brooke. King of Hearts was adapted for the screen in 1956 under the title That Certain Feeling . The film starred Bob Hope . Jean Kerr wrote Jenny Kissed Me , which
174-735: A house in New Rochelle, New York , and later settled in Larchmont, New York in 1955. Their house in Larchmont was frequently characterized in her writings, and it featured a two-story fireplace, turrets, a medieval courtyard, and a 32 bell carillon which played the duet from the opera Carmen at noon everyday. The house was previously owned by Charles King , who test drove Henry Ford 's first car. She died of pneumonia in White Plains, New York in 2003. Please Don%27t Eat
203-565: A lot of people laugh and to make a lot of money. Kerr in Theatre Arts Magazine The Kerrs worked together on several projects, including a 1946 adaptation of the novel, The Song of Bernadette . They contributed lyrics and sketches to the musical Touch and Go , and co-authored Goldilocks (1958), a Broadway musical comedy about the early days of silent film that ran from October 11, 1958, to February 28, 1959, and won two Tony Awards , for Best Actress in
232-512: A plot from Molière 's The School for Wives , posing the question who, of all of the authors who had revised the tale of Sweeney Todd over the years, had put the plot into the story. Nevertheless, in 1977, he wrote of Sondheim "I needn't tell you that Stephen Sondheim is, both musically and lyrically, the most sophisticated composer now working for the Broadway theater." In reviewing Leonard Bernstein 's West Side Story he focused on
261-424: A plot; and the plot, which could be wrapped up in approximately two songs, dawdles through 22 before it declares itself done... Mr. Sondheim may be too much a man of the seventies, too present-tense sophisticated... The effort to bind it up inhibits the crackling, open-ended, restlessly varied surges of sound he devised with such distinction for Company ." He praised A Little Night Music , writing that "The score
290-405: Is a gift, the ladies are delightful, and producer Harold Prince has staged the moody meetings with easy skill." He expressed mixed sentiments about Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street , praising the music but deeming it too lilting for the show's grisly subject; his conclusion- "What is this musical about?" He wrote a follow-up article on his observation that the musical contained
319-470: The Daisies Please Don't Eat the Daisies (New York: Doubleday , 1957) is a best-selling collection of humorous essays by American humorist and playwright Jean Kerr about suburban living and raising four boys. The essays do not have a plot or through-storyline, but the book sold so well it was adapted into a 1960 film starring Doris Day and David Niven . The film was later adapted into
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#1732793751504348-689: The Gods , that "anyone who reads it [ Please Don't Eat the Daisies ], will consider it the most reasonable thing in the world that she prefers to do her writing seated in an automobile and parked two blocks away from her Larchmont, New York, home". American cartoonist Dick Hodgins Jr. drew a caricature of Kerr in 1963, which was featured in several newspapers at the time. Kerr was married to New York drama critic Walter Kerr ; they were married on August 16, 1943. The marriage lasted until his death in 1996. The couple had six children; Christopher, twins Colin and John, Gilbert, Gregory, and Kitty. The Kerrs bought
377-530: The Imperial is finally heavy with its own inventiveness, weighted down with the variety and fulsomeness of a genuinely creative appetite. It's as though Mr. Loesser had written two complete musicals—the operetta and the haymaker—on the same simple play and then crammed them both into a single structure." Kerr was also notable for his lack of enthusiasm for the plays of Samuel Beckett . For instance, of Beckett's Waiting For Godot he wrote "The play, asking for
406-428: The best of all possible productions... The show is now a carousel and we are on it quite safely... The design of the unending chase is so firm, the performers are so secure in their climbing and tumbling...that we are able to join the journey and still see it with the detachment that Voltaire prescribes." Of Frank Loesser 's "musical with a lot of music" [sic. opera], The Most Happy Fella he wrote: "the evening at
435-436: The country – these are gifted and good. Each short piece, from the introduction to the index, is loaded with laugh-out-loud-remarks, situations and ideas. In 1960, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released a film adapted from the book, directed by Charles Walters with a screenplay by Isobel Lennart . It starred Doris Day , David Niven , Janis Paige , Spring Byington , Richard Haydn , Patsy Kelly , and Jack Weston . A storyline
464-464: The dancing: "the most savage, restless, electrifying dance patterns we've been exposed to in a dozen seasons... The dancing is it. Don't look for laughter or—for that matter—tears." In his review of the original 1956 Broadway production of Candide , he wrote that it was a "really spectacular disaster". However, in reviewing the 1973 revival of Candide he wrote that it was a "most satisfying resurrection. [...] 'Candide' may at last have stumbled into
493-431: The kids, carpenters, decorators, and the new neighbors by herself. The film was in turn adapted as a television series that ran from 1965 to 1967 (58 half-hour episodes) starring Patricia Crowley and Mark Miller as Joan Nash, a newspaper columnist, and John Nash, a college professor, raising their four sons in fictional Ridgemont, New York . Walter Kerr Walter Francis Kerr (July 8, 1913 – October 9, 1996)
522-463: The next seventeen years. During this time, Kerr lived in New Rochelle, New York in the same house Norman Rockwell had lived in. He married fellow writer Jean Kerr (née Collins) on August 9, 1943. Together, they wrote the musical Goldilocks (1958), which won two Tony Awards . They also collaborated on Touch and Go (1949) and King of Hearts (1954). They had six children. Kerr died from congestive heart failure on October 9, 1996. He
551-697: The number one spot on The New York Times bestseller list in February, 1958. Kerr's "wryly observant style" reminded Washington Post critic Richard L. Coe of James Thurber , E. B. White , and Cornelia Otis Skinner . Kirkus Reviews noted Funny and refreshing, her maternal moments will find a sympathetic hysteria among others bedeviled by strident striplings and a perfect antidote toward accepted currently child raising programs: her take-offs, of Sagan, in Don Brown's Body, and her incisive words on writers (like E. B. White – leve majesti indeed) who move to
580-403: The popular trend of writers moving to the country to reconnect with nature. Kerr gives her own helpful hints on how to redecorate on a budget. The author's experiences with dogs, large and small, through the years. One of the principal sources for the later film, this essay tells how Kerr and her husband acquired their house in Larchmont , New York, complete with gargoyles, secret panels, and
609-449: The topic of her humorous short story "When I was Queen of the May." She received a bachelor's degree from Marywood College in Scranton and attended The Catholic University of America , where she received her master's degree in 1945. A nun at Marywood persuaded her to drop her first name, because "only Irish washerwomen are named Biddie". I have two trifling ambitions in the theater: to make
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#1732793751504638-437: The years. Another essay on the joys of parenting. Again, Kerr muses on coping with children. One of many essays Kerr wrote on the subject of diets and dieting. Kerr's take on hospital stays, doctors, nurses, and the need to insist on patients' rights. In yet another satirical jab, Kerr included an index in the book, but with only the page numbers from the original magazines in which the pieces appeared. The book achieved
667-621: Was a regular film critic for the St. George High School newspaper while a student there, and was also a critic for the Evanston News Index . He was the editor of the high school newspaper and yearbook. He taught speech and drama at The Catholic University of America . After writing criticism for Commonweal he became a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune in 1951. When that paper folded, he then began writing theater reviews for The New York Times in 1966, writing for
696-517: Was an American writer and Broadway theatre critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals as well as the author of several books, generally on the subject of theater and cinema. Kerr was born in Evanston, Illinois , and earned both a B.A. and M.A. from Northwestern University ., after graduation from St. George High School, also in Evanston. He
725-414: Was created for the film, involving Day as Kate Robinson Mackay, a housewife married to Lawrence "Larry" Mackay (Niven), a newly hired New York City drama critic. In his first assignment, Larry must review a new show produced by his best friend, and he is forced to pan it. Meanwhile, a search for a new home for the family — who ultimately settle in the fictional rural town of Hooton — leaves Kate dealing with
754-463: Was made into a feature film in 1960 . NBC also produced a 58-episode situation comedy starring Pat Crowley from 1965 to 1967, based on the book She then wrote The Snake Has All the Lines in 1960. Kerr's play Finishing Touches ran from February to July 1973. Her other works include the plays Poor Richard (1964) and Lunch Hour (1980). She also wrote the books Penny Candy (1970) and How I Got to Be Perfect (1978). Her last play, Lunch Hour ,
783-455: Was portrayed pseudonymously by David Niven in the 1960 film Please Don't Eat the Daisies , based on Jean Kerr's best-selling collection of humorous essays. Kerr was one of the harshest New York theatre critics of his era, giving the fewest favorable reviews. He was well known for panning musicals that were musically ambitious. Notoriously he is credited with one of the world's shortest reviews, "Me no Leica " for John Van Druten 's I Am
812-474: Was produced in December 1948. She wrote the hit comedy Mary, Mary , which ran on Broadway from 1961 through 1964, for more than 1500 performances, and was brought to the screen under the same title in a 1963 film , starring Debbie Reynolds and Barry Nelson , which was a big hit. She wrote sketches for John Murray Anderson 's Almanac . Her book Please Don't Eat the Daisies was a big success, and it
841-485: Was staged in 1980, and featured Sam Waterson and Gilda Radner . Kerr was skeptical of casting Radner in the play, but Mike Nichols persuaded her to watch Gilda Live , and Kerr was won over by her performance in the film, and she was offered the part. Kerr was known to author her manuscripts and articles in longhand, and more than often, they were written in the family car, and her husband then typed them. American author Ernest K. Gann wrote in his book Twilight for
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