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George Howells Broadhurst (June 3, 1866 – January 31, 1952) was an
G. Broadhurst, 85, Playwright, Dead, Author of 'Wrong Mr. Wright,' 'A Fool and His Money' and Many Other Hit Shows
''
The A to Z of American Theater: Modernism
p. 77 (2008) His work was once described as one "who had a knack for the sort of melodrama that poses as a serious study of morals."Bordman, Gerald and Thomas S. Hischak
The Concise Oxford Companion to American Theatre, 3rd ed.
p. 94 (2004)
George Howells Broadhurst (June 3, 1866 – January 31, 1952) was an Anglo-American
Anglo-Americans are people who are English-speaking inhabitants of Anglo-America. It typically refers to the nations and ethnic groups in the Americas that speak English as a native language, making up the majority of people in the world who spe ...
theatre owner/manager, director, producer and playwright. His plays were most popular from the late 1890s into the 1920s.
Biography
Broadhurst was born inWalsall
Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east of Wolverhampton and from Lichfield.
Walsall is th ...
, England, in 1866. In 1882 he emigrated to the United States where, while working for the Chicago Board of Trade, he began writing plays, the first of which, ''The Speculator'', was based on his work there. He later moved into production and direction.
He also managed theatres in Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
, Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, and San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, and in 1917 in partnership with the Shubert brothers
The Shubert family was responsible for the establishment of the Broadway district, in New York City, as the hub of the theater industry in the United States. They dominated the legitimate theater and vaudeville in the first half of the 20th cen ...
he built and opened the famous Broadhurst Theatre
The Broadhurst Theatre is a Broadway theater at 235 West 44th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1917, the theater was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and was built for the Shubert brothers. The Bro ...
in New York. He staged a number of plays in his eponymous
An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Usage of the word
The term ''epon ...
theatre until 1924, and continued to co-own the theatre with the Shuberts until his death in 1952. He was survived by his wife, director and playwright Lillian Trimble Bradley.
Broadhurst and his wife lived in Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Co ...
for the last ten years of his life, and he is buried there.(1 February 1952)G. Broadhurst, 85, Playwright, Dead, Author of 'Wrong Mr. Wright,' 'A Fool and His Money' and Many Other Hit Shows
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', p. 21, col. 1.
Works
Broadhurst wrote almost 30 plays, including the farces '' What Happened to Jones'' (1897), ''The Wrong Mr. Wright'' (1897), and ''Why Smith Left Home'' (1899) (all of which did better in London than in New York), and plays ''The Man of the Hour'' (1906), ''Bought and Paid For'' (1911), ''The Law of the Land'' (1914), and ''The Crimson Alibi'' (1919).Fisher, James and Felicia Hardison LondreThe A to Z of American Theater: Modernism
p. 77 (2008) His work was once described as one "who had a knack for the sort of melodrama that poses as a serious study of morals."Bordman, Gerald and Thomas S. Hischak
The Concise Oxford Companion to American Theatre, 3rd ed.
p. 94 (2004)
References
External links
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Broadhurst, George Howells American theatre managers and producers American dramatists and playwrights English emigrants to the United States People from Walsall 1866 births 1952 deaths