Lucky Guy (play)
| Lucky Guy | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Nora Ephron |
| Date premiered | April 1, 2013 |
| Place premiered | Broadhurst Theatre, 235 West 44th Street, New York, New York, USA |
| Subject | Mike McAlary journalist career |
Lucky Guy is a play by Nora Ephron that premiered in 2013, the year after her death. It was Ephron's final work and marked Tom Hanks's Broadway debut, in which he earned a Theatre World Award. It depicts the story of journalist Mike McAlary beginning in 1985 and ending with his death at the age of 41 in 1998. The plot covers the high points and tribulations of McAlary's career as he traverses the clubby atmosphere of the New York City tabloid industry in what some regard as its heyday. The play includes his near fatal automobile accident and devotes a large portion to his recovery.
Originally conceived as a television film in 1999, the play spent years under revision before finally opening on Broadway in 2013. Regarded as an elegy, the story harkens back to the days of tabloid journalism prior to the 24-hour news reporting cycle. The production received six nominations for Tony Awards, winning two, including Courtney B. Vance for Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. The play received considerable critical comment, partly because it was Ephron's last play and partly because of Hanks's debut. Critical reaction was generally warm to mixed, and the limited Broadway run was profitable.
Ephron first conceived of this story in 1999 as an HBO movie. Ephron focused the story on the career of New York City tabloid columnist Mike McAlary from his early beginnings to his rise to stardom, when he received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for exposing police brutality against a Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima in Brooklyn's 70th precinct, and his death, eight months later, of cancer. Ephron, who had been a New York Post reporter, had previously written about her own career in journalism in the novel I Remember Nothing. She once wrote, "I can’t remember which came first—wanting to be a journalist or wanting to date a journalist"; she had a thing for journalists like McAlary. Since McAlary lost his battle with cancer, Ephron had spent her six years battling cancer by directing a film and writing two as well as writing two plays; Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune speculates that Ephron chose this subject because she shared a bond with a journalist who "also did some of his best writing while battling cancer".
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