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The Dramatic Story that Capitvated a Generation
With this new edition, the classic best-selling autobiography by the late playwright Moss Hart returns to print in the thirtieth anniversary of its original publication. Issued in tandem with Kitty, the revealing autobiography of his wife, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Act One, is a landmark memoir that influenced a generation of theatergoers, dramatists, and general book readers everywhere. The book eloquently chronicles Moss Hart's impoverished childhood in the Bronx and Brooklyn and his long, determined struggle to his first theatrical Broadway success, Once in a Lifetime. One of the most celebrated American theater books of the twentieth century and a glorious memorial to a bygone age, Act One if filled with all the wonder, drama, and heartbreak that surrounded Broadway in the 1920s and the years before World War II.
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright. Raised in poverty in the Bronx, Hart’s interest in theatre was instigated by his aunt. His first Broadway hit, Once in a Lifetime, was written with George Kaufman, and began a partnership that produced plays such as You Can't Take It With You and The Man Who Came to Dinner. Hart won two Tony Awards (Best Musical and Best Director) for My Fair Lady, and earned an Oscar nomination for writing the screenplay for Gentlemen’s Agreement. In 1959, Hart published his autobiography Act One, in which he created an entire alternate ending for his aunt’s life. Hart died in 1961 at the age of 57.
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