Mary Chase (playwright)
| Mary Coyle Chase | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Mary Agnes McDonough Coyle 25 February 1906 Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
| Died | 20 October 1981 (aged 75) Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
| Spouse | Robert L. Chase |
| Information | |
| Notable work(s) | Harvey |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1945) |
Mary Coyle Chase (born Mary Agnes McDonough Coyle; 25 February 1906 – 20 October 1981) was an American journalist, playwright and children's novelist, known primarily for writing the Broadway play Harvey, later adapted for film starring James Stewart.
She wrote fourteen plays, two children's novels, and one screenplay, and worked seven years at the Rocky Mountain News as a journalist. Three of her plays were made into Hollywood films: Sorority House (1939), Harvey (1950), and Bernardine (1957).
Born Mary Agnes McDonough Coyle in Denver, Colorado in 1906, Chase remained in Denver her entire life. She grew up Irish Catholic and poor in the working class Baker neighborhood of Denver, not far from the railroad tracks.
She was greatly influenced by the Irish myths related to her by her mother, Mary Coyle, and her four uncles, Timothy, James, John, and Peter. Charlie Coyle, her older brother, had a strong impact on her sense of comedy, as she imitated his natural gifts at mimicry, one-liners, and comic routines. He went on to become a circus clown.
In 1921, she graduated from West High School in Denver and spent two years studying at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Denver without getting a degree.
In 1924, she began her career as a journalist on the Denver Times and Rocky Mountain News, leaving the News (which the Denver Times was folded into in 1926) in 1931 to write plays, do freelance reporting work, and raise a family. At the News, she started writing on the society pages, but soon became a feature writer, reporting the news from a sob sister, emotional angle, becoming part of the news itself as a comic figure, "our Lil' Mary", or writing funny, flapper era pieces as part of a series of "Charlie & Mary" stories (Charlie Wunder drew the cartoons and Mary wrote the text).
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