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34-620: Taylor was born of Irish heritage as Loretta Helen Cooney in New York City on April 1, 1883, to James and Elizabeth (née Dorsey) Cooney. She had a younger sister, Elizabeth. She married her first husband, Charles Alonzo Taylor (born South Hadley, Massachusetts – died Glendale, California), on May 1, 1901, at age 18. He was almost two decades her senior. They had two children, Dwight Oliver Taylor and Marguerite Courtney, but divorced c.  1910 . On December 22, 1912, she married British-born playwright J. Hartley Manners , who wrote

68-603: A Tree : "I soon landed a job at the old Metro studio on Romaine Street—the assignment: to direct Laurette Taylor in Peg O' My Heart . Although I had never seen Miss Taylor, her name carried with it a certain magic to my young ears." The play was considerably expanded for the film version, and the final production was an immediate success with audiences. Taylor made Happiness , and then One Night in Rome . She never appeared in another film, but David O. Selznick did invite her to film

102-530: A coronary thrombosis on December 7, 1946, at age 63. Her ashes were interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Writing after Taylor's death, Tennessee Williams paid tribute to "the great warmth of her heart", stating "There was a radiance about her art which I can compare only to the greatest lines of poetry, and which gave me the same shock of revelation as if the air about us had been momentarily broken through by light from some clear space beyond us." In 1960,

136-421: A daughter, Laurel. His first wife was Marigold Lockhart Taylor (née Langworthy; born July 22, 1901 – died 1951?), whom he married on May 25, 1929, and by whom he had three children (Andrew, Audrey, and Jeffrey). Happiness (1924 film) Happiness is a 1924 American silent comedy film directed by King Vidor and starring stage actress Laurette Taylor in one of her rare film appearances. The film

170-409: A family whose theatrical excesses drive their unsuspecting visitors to distraction, was a major hit from the moment of its debut on August 6, 1925. It also caused a serious and permanent rift in the friendship of Taylor and Coward. She suffered from severe alcoholism for many years, a condition which sharply limited her appearances from the late 1920s throughout her career. In 1938, she headed the cast in

204-607: A foreign national. A widow, Taylor reclaimed her United States citizenship (cert #3234876) by naturalization on September 11, 1930. Her petition notes her "not having acquired any other nationality by affirmative act". Taylor made her Broadway debut in The Great John Ganton in 1908 and appeared in other stage productions such as The Ringmaster , Alias Jimmy Valentine , Seven Sisters , Lola Lola , and The Bird of Paradise . Taylor also appeared in other productions, including One Night in Rome , The Wooing of Eve , and

238-425: A highly individual technique of acting that was spontaneous and eloquent; it consisted of variations in tempo, tentative movements that were not quite completed, quizzical glances, absorption in what other actors were saying, and, of course, a warm, expressive voice that always seemed to be addressed directly to the individual theatergoer. 'Luminous' was the word most frequently used about her performances . The effect

272-474: A journalist for The New Yorker magazine, serving as one of the first editors for their "Talk of the Town". He began screenwriting for Hollywood films in 1930 and for television in 1953. His first produced play was Don't Tell George (1928). Other plays included such as Lipstick and Gay Divorce . Taylor's first screenplay was Jailbreak . First National Pictures bought the project in 1929 while it

306-645: A new Broadway dramatic-play run record of 607 performances. The play earned her and her husband about US$ 10,000 a week, made Taylor "the most generally worshiped [theatrical] star of her time", and cemented her reputation as a skilled actress. After it closed on Broadway, Taylor starred in the London production until German zeppelin bombing closed it in 1915. In 1917, she appeared in Out There (another vehicle written for her by Manners), playing "an obscure Cockney waif" who, "by patriotism and idealism", manages to become

340-624: A revival of Outward Bound and did not appear again until her re-emergence in Williams's The Glass Menagerie in 1944; her performance received nearly unanimous rapturous reviews, and she won her the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Actress of the season. Taylor planned to make her film debut in Peg o' My Heart , but the film version of the hit play was coveted by nearly every screen actress, including Mary Pickford , who made an offer considerably in excess of

374-416: A section on her 1938 screen test. Taylor wrote an essay on acting titled "The Quality Most Needed", which was included in some of the early editions of the text Actors on Acting . In it, Taylor muses on the importance of imagination over physical beauty for the actress wishing to truly create art. She sharply criticizes performances where you can "see the acting" and warns against paying too much attention to

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408-507: A sound test for a role in his 1938 film The Young in Heart , which Taylor did, but she declined the part and actress Minnie Dupree was cast. (The test exists and has been shown on TV from time to time). In preparing interviews for what became Broadway: The Golden Age , Rick McKay asked each person who had influenced him or her the most", and Laurette Taylor's name often was mentioned. McKay devoted an entire section to Taylor, and it includes

442-491: A uniformed Red Cross nurse. "She relieved the suffering of wounded English soldiers by attending to them professionally and by charming them in person". A line from the play—"If I go, will you go?"—became the headline of a highly effective armed forces recruiting poster. In 1918, Taylor starred in Happiness , another successful Manners vehicle, and she reprised the role in the 1924 movie of the same name. According to Atkinson,

476-470: Is based on the 1914 Broadway play of the same name written by Taylor's husband J. Hartley Manners . As described in a film magazine review, Jenny Wray, the sole support of her mother, obtains work in a modiste's shop. She is called on to deliver several gowns to Mrs. Chrystal Pole. Mrs. Pole, who is bored with life, becomes interested in Jenny's philosophy of happiness, and induces her to make her home at

510-454: Is credited as having been suggested by Marguerite Courtney's Laurette , and its score was by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz . It ran for 82 performances, receiving mediocre reviews. The one-act play Opening Night appeared briefly off-Broadway in October 1963. Peggy Wood portrayed Fanny Ellis, a once-famous star who is preparing for a performance in her dressing room. Many thought Fanny

544-402: Is included in the documentary. The test, for a role in the film The Young in Heart , reportedly did not meet the approval of studio executives. According to her daughter, Marguerite Courtney, Laurette destroyed all press books, letters, programs, photograph albums, and other memorabilia associated with her life with J. Hartley Manners upon his death in 1928. In 1995 and 2009, the family placed

578-698: The Writers Guild of America, West . On December 31, 1986, one day before his 84th birthday, Dwight Taylor died of a heart attack at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California where he had resided since 1981, thus achieving a rare feat of being born on New Year's Day and dying on New Year's Eve. He had been widowed three months earlier by his second wife, former Hollywood costume designer Natalie Visart (born Natalie Visart Schenkelberg; 1910–1986), with whom he had

612-534: The Pole mansion. However, Jenny soon tires of it and returns to Brooklyn . She continues to cultivate the friendship of Mrs. Pole, who aids her in her efforts to have her own modiste's shop. Fermoy MacDonough, an electrician, falls in love with Jenny and they marry. In several years Jenny has a shop of her own and continues to spread happiness. Happiness marked the second and final cinematic collaboration between Vidor and well-known stage actress Laurette Taylor. Based on

646-407: The dual role of Duchess Mareno and Madame Enigme. Taylor seems to have enjoyed making One Night in Rome as she kept a personal print of the movie to show guests at her home, running it over and over again. Taylor's friend Noël Coward spent a weekend at her home. He was inspired by this visit to write, in just three days, his comedy of manners Hay Fever (1925). The play, a comedic dissection of

680-422: The highest amount ever paid for the picture rights to a play or story. The rights to the film were coveted because of the production's established popularity. Almost any actress in the famous role was assured of a resounding success; however, Taylor clung to the movie rights if she decided to appear in a film. It took years for the play to be filmed and released. King Vidor remembered in his autobiography A Tree Is

714-611: The jazz generation." It opened in 1922 and unsurprisingly failed. It was the last time Taylor appeared in a play by her husband. Few of Taylor's performances in movies survive. In 1924, Taylor starred in a film version of Happiness , directed by King Vidor , which told of the adventures of a young shopgirl who learns that riches do not necessarily lead to happiness. The cast included Hedda Hopper and Pat O'Malley . The same year, Taylor starred in One Night in Rome , another screen version of Manners's dramatic play, in which she played

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748-438: The kind of simple, formulaic plays which had delighted pre-World War I middle-class audiences, and her popularity waned. New York Times theatre critic John Corbin wrote that she "had probably the greatest talent, the highest spirit of our times", but that her dated material held her back. Attempting to change her course, Manners then wrote The National Anthem for her, a play with "high motives" which "rebuked and renounced

782-432: The one-act play of the same name by Taylor's husband J. Hartley Manners the film adaption was a box office success, due in part to Vidor's personal interest in the theme and Taylor's, restrained performance Taylor would make one more movie with M-G-M studios in 1924, One Night in Rome , directed by Clarence Badger . Manners' vehicle for Laurette Taylor is largely a facsimile of his 1912 play Peg o' My Heart , with

816-579: The play Peg o' My Heart , a successful play and an enduring personal triumph for Taylor, who toured in it extensively throughout the U.S. The play's success inspired a 1922 film version starring Taylor and directed by King Vidor . A six-reel print of the film survives in the Motion Picture Division of the Library of Congress . Taylor remained married to Manners until his death in 1928. By law, Taylor lost her U.S. citizenship by marrying

850-489: The play Laurette , starring Judy Holliday and directed by José Quintero , closed out of town in Philadelphia owing to Holliday's battle with breast cancer. For years, film director George Cukor tried unsuccessfully to launch a film version of Taylor's life. In 1963, a musical adaptation of Laurette opened on Broadway. The musical, titled Jennie , starred Mary Martin in the title role. Its book by Arnold Schulman

884-467: The play version was "a sentimental comedy about a Brooklyn errand girl who taught a rich customer the secret of happiness." Soon after, Taylor toured the nation with a revival of Peg o' My Heart , which reopened on Broadway at the Cort Theater on February 14, 1921, and ran for another 692 performances. However, by the 1920s, public taste had become more sophisticated. Taylor always starred in

918-617: The remainder of her papers at the Harry Ransom Center . The archive includes correspondence, personal and theater photographs, photograph albums, sound recordings, press reviews, articles, and legal documents, as well as writings by others. Elsewhere in the Ransom Center's holdings is Taylor's screen test for David O. Selznick and extensive collections relating to Tennessee Williams. Dwight Taylor (writer) Dwight Oliver Taylor (January 1, 1903 – December 31, 1986)

952-602: The setting moved from rural British Isles to the urban New York City. The film version introduces a new facet to Manners' "creaky" scenario. Vidor's identification with the Populist movement and its pro-agrarian and pro- nativist ideals is enlarged in Happiness to include a broader spectrum of the working class , including poor and urban immigrants. The entrepreneurial Jenny (Taylor) struggles in this Brooklyn lower-class milieu to ultimately achieve social and financial security. Vidor makes explicit his political philosophy when

986-592: The special production Laurette Taylor in Scenes From Shakespeare . In the last production, she performed scenes from Romeo and Juliet , The Merchant of Venice , and The Taming of the Shrew . According to New York Times theatre critic Brooks Atkinson , it was The Girl in Waiting (1910) that "made her a star." Of her acting, he wrote, By the time she was in her late teens, she had created

1020-419: The traditions of acting, saying it "cramps creative instinct". To Taylor, the imaginative actress will leave you with a feeling that you can imagine her character's conduct "[i]n any position, aside from the situations involved in the actions of the play". Taylor applauded the imaginative actress who "builds a picture, using all her heart and soul and brain", not for the audience but for herself. Taylor died from

1054-550: Was actually Taylor. Wood appeared with Ruth Gates. The play ran for 47 performances. In the 2004 documentary Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There , numerous Broadway veterans cited Taylor's performance in Glass Menagerie and Outward Bound as the most memorable stage performances they had seen. A rare sound film clip of Taylor in a screen test made for David O. Selznick 's studio

Laurette Taylor - Misplaced Pages Continue

1088-495: Was an American author, playwright, and film/television screenwriter. Dwight Taylor was the son of actress Laurette Taylor and her husband, Charles A. Taylor . Dwight Taylor attended Lawrenceville School in Lawrence Township, New Jersey where he began drawing and painting and wrote a book of poetry. After refusing an opportunity to work as a cub reporter for The New York World , he began his career as

1122-456: Was so seemingly spontaneous that, early in her career, some doubted she was deliberately acting, as "she employed none of the ritualistic mannerisms or extravagances of the conventional acting of her day." In 1945, Taylor was voted the best actress in a poll by Variety . Her biggest hit was Peg o' My Heart , a simple Cinderella-formula vehicle written for her by her husband Manners, it ran on Broadway from December 20, 1912, to May 1914, setting

1156-445: Was still in manuscript form and had Alfred A. Cohn and Henry McCarty adapt it to become the 1930 film Numbered Men starring Conrad Nagel and Bernice Claire . Gay Divorce was adapted into a Broadway musical by Cole Porter. In 1934, RKO Studios , which renamed it The Gay Divorcee to appease the censors, filmed it with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers . He was a founding member, and had served one term as president, of

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